On the day of the summer sun celebration, Equestria is transported into our dimension, and a few scientists at NASA are trying to figure out what's going on. After pony kind and human kind meet for the first time, a series of mistakes, misjudgments, and misconceptions lead the two planets into a deadly, bloody war. What side will each pony take? Peace or war? Could the war be stopped before one or both worlds are destroyed? Will there be a victor? Who will win?
I've lost all inspiration for this story, my sincere apologies to anyone who enjoyed it. If I ever get re-inspired, I might keep working on it. I think it was because I was overwhelmed with too many expectations from too many people with too many different ideas. So, I know now that I should FINISH a story before I post it to the web.
You should name the first chapter "Worlds Collide". "Planets Collide" implies a short story. You know, planets crashing in to each other.
"Devon Linux" Sorry, you can not have some one named after an operating system kernel. That's like having a character named "Bob Oldsmobile" or "Jill Windows".
"It appeared twice the distance of the moon approximately 15 minutes ago." Twice the distance of the moon? Do you mean double the distance from the moon to the earth?
" When the ISS gets into view of the new planet, we'll be able to know more." Why are they using the ISS as opposed to the Hubble or any of the other optical space telescopes? What about ground telescopes? We have lots of those.
"No one wants to send a message out of fear..." I find this hard to believe. It's not like you can hide from them. Might as well knock and say hello.
"January Li" What happened to February?
"...even ran a recent mission to the moon." Did she direct it? Do you mean she was on a mission?
"What are you doing?"
"Doing."
Doing what?
I don't know.
"...we'll be invaded by the time we're ready to say 'hi.'" I like it when people who should know better jump to conclusions.
"Lyra standing next to the woman who was about to go down in history as the first to contact an alien civilization..." Has Lyra been talking to the author? I'd imagine every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a transmitter would be blasting their greetings.
"And my name is Lyra Parker, I am also, clearly, a human..." In case you didn't notice the similarity between us.
"'I've never seen magic like this before! Except...' Rarity trails off.
'There's no way it can be Discord!' Dash swoops down and shouts." I must have missed the part where Discord summoned a planet.
"'I... can't quite tell,' The violet tinted pony says under the strain of trying. 'Is there anyway to enhance it?'" Quick, grab the rabbit ears.
"'My name is General Washburn.' The solider speaks up. 'I've been dispatched by the president to take control of this situation.'" Umm... Ya... That's not going to happen. The president is not going to change the leadership of NASA in the middle of a crisis. What is the General supposed to accomplish that couldn't already be accomplished?
I've got a bad feeling about this!
"However, Kip didn't always take orders from January well since she had no real military experience." Military experience does not dictate one's ability to follow orders.
Just a note, all the shuttles have been retired and will not fly again. The astronauts would probably use Soyuz, the Dragon, or some other spacecraft.
"January had pretty much blown a cap when Kip didn't listen to her about the use of one of the computers and accidentally broke it." A NASA trained astronaut didn't know how to use the equipment he was trained to use?
"She yelled that she was really the only person who knew what the hell was going on..." I hope that you can develop this in to a character flaw for Li. Her overconfidence in herself would be a great source of conflict.
"Meanwhile, McAllister and Lyra got along pretty well since they were both air-force pilots." They get along because their Air Force pilots? Not because of shared interests or similar temperaments, only because they are Air Force pilots?
"Lyra hangs on to the edges of the window, the shadows fleeting as the do a subtle barrel roll." Is this English? I'm not sure.
"A moon identical to Earth's shown in the early dawn sky." They didn't see Equestria's Moon before they left earth?
"Lyra and Kip hold sub-machine guns in case the inhabitants turn out to be hostile..." I'll tell you why they don't have weapons. The higher ups are not going to jeopardize peace with an alien species just for the lives of four astronauts.
“Take us too your leader,” Too should be to.
"Her name is Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria." This Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria; is she the same Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria who was mentioned by name in the first chapter?
"The sun-flanked pony..." The sun was at her side?
"Are we at peace? Tell us of your kind's wars! Should we be weary or welcoming?” Please tell us if we should kill you now.
“Yay! I'm so glad we can all be friends! Do you guys like to smile? I can make sure you all smile!” Oh Pinkie, you and your utterly predictable behavior.
"However, few notice the chaotic creature lurking like a shadow behind a pillar." Wait, they didn't put him back?! OK, we're done talking. Go terrorize some ponies while we all sit around and drool.
Why did Luna let him out again? You know, the embodiment of chaos. The creature that took the most powerful magic know to ponydom to seal away. Who caused untold strife and misery for all of Equestria. Why was the first thing she did when confronted with the inexplicable was release the one who was least likely to give an answer? With out consulting anypony. WTF?!
254139 WOOOOOOWWWWWW you are pickier than a speech judge!!! How on Earth do you go through life without getting punched? At the very least you could respect my artistic choices!
254139 dude chillout atleast he didn't try making the two worlds fuse together into one or turn people into ponies or have a godmod marysue.
for the "...first woman to make contact..."
1.we're dealing with a planet of ponies with 18th century tech. it won't matter if unseen nameless character's not even part of the story are blasting away on ham radios.
2.it's the thoughts of the character who isn't thinking about others with ham radios
i have no problem with someone named after an operating system. the names of many devices come from people. and if there was a real person named linux only a tech geek would actually notice
and don't even think about saying anything about earth born telescopes. we already tried it with mars and we thought there were canals and faces till we sent actual probes. as for space born telescopes you have to consider their orbital paths, current position, calibration, and their purpose. the hubble is probably on the other side of earth and probably not designed nor calibrated to look at things that close. and the many satellites that actually are calibrated and could do the job of looking at the pony planet much better than the hubble must remain pointing at earth at set locations at all times.
254198
stfu and stop bitching. this is a work of fiction. do you even have anything to say about grammar or spelling?
well duh
we all know that the AMERICAN shuttle program is canceled. other countries can loan their shuttles.
("The sun-flanked pony..." The sun was at her side?) well yes it is a cutiemark of a sun on her flank. it's not like the cutiemark was on her head or back or on a flag coming out her ass.
("Lyra and Kip hold sub-machine guns in case the inhabitants turn out to be hostile..." I'll tell you why they don't have weapons. The higher ups are not going to jeopardize peace with an alien species just for the lives of four astronauts.) do you even watch scifi? guns are standard issue when dealing with alien contact
("Lyra hangs on to the edges of the window, the shadows fleeting as the do a subtle barrel roll." Is this English? I'm not sure.
“Take us too your leader,” Too should be to.)ah there's your grammar concerns.
("A moon identical to Earth's shown in the early dawn sky." They didn't see Equestria's Moon before they left earth?) i assume no. now stfu
(“Yay! I'm so glad we can all be friends! Do you guys like to smile? I can make sure you all smile!” Oh Pinkie, you and your utterly predictable behavior.) it's pinkie pie
. how else were you expecting her to act
. the latest episode of mlp was all about how much she enjoys trying to make others smile 
254159
("'My name is General Washburn.' The solider speaks up. 'I've been dispatched by the president to take control of this situation.'" Umm... Ya... That's not going to happen. The president is not going to change the leadership of NASA in the middle of a crisis. What is the General supposed to accomplish that couldn't already be accomplished?) would you rather have the MIB bust in with some standard emergency protocol? NASA is technically a civilian outcropping of the airforce.
254611
"WOOOOOOWWWWWW you are pickier than a speech judge!!!" Thank you.
"How on Earth do you go through life without getting punched?" I dodge.
"At the very least you could respect my artistic choices!" I can respect your choices and still think they are wrong.
Don't take this as a personal attack on you. It is not. I wrote these comments to entertain myself, and to maybe help you. Of course they can only help if you what them to.
I should note that I am tracking this story. I wouldn't bother to do that if I didn't think it was worth reading.
254850
" dude chillout atleast he didn't try making the two worlds fuse together into one or turn people into ponies or have a godmod marysue." This sentence sounds angry to me, maybe you're the one who needs to relax? The trouble with text is it's hard to judge emotion through it. You may have been perfectly calm when writing that statement, but that calmness doesn't come through.
"for the '...first woman to make contact...'
1.we're dealing with a planet of ponies with 18th century tech. it won't matter if unseen nameless character's not even part of the story are blasting away on ham radios.
2.it's the thoughts of the character who isn't thinking about others with ham radios"
Let's read over that sentence again. "Lyra standing next to the woman who was about to go down in history as the first to contact an alien civilization..."
"...who was about to..." This right here implies that the following actions are certain to have the following consequences. This is a statement of fact. Where would Lyra get this foreknowledge? From the author herself. It is very blatant foreshadowing. The worst sin of this sentence is it is unnecessary. The reader has already concluded that those two women would be the first to contact the Equestrians because otherwise it wouldn't be written about. This is called conservation of detail. If something is written about, it is probably important to the story. The sentence does nothing to add to the story. It just states the obvious.
As to your first point, the Equestrians were able to receive a digital video broadcast which is far more complex than a simple short wave signal. On top of that, the signals that matter wouldn't be the ham radio operators, it would be the large earth to orbit transmitters and radio telescopes run by large organizations.
As for your second point, I think you are saying Lyra wasn't thinking about the ham operators. While that may be true, I'll refer you to my first point where I said that the sentence was unnecessary and took me out of the flow of the story.
"and don't even think about saying anything about earth born telescopes. we already tried it with mars and we thought there were canals and faces till we sent actual probes." There's one major problem with this statement. You are comparing 19th century optics viewing an object a thousand times more distant than our moon, to 21st century optics viewing an object twice as distant as our moon.
"as for space born telescopes you have to consider their orbital paths, current position, calibration, and their purpose." Space telescopes will be in a low earth orbit or a polar orbit. All this means is they are traveling quickly. Hubble on the other side of the planet? Wait an hour and it won't be. Besides it's not the only telescope in orbit. Something will be in a position to view the new planet. It doesn't matter what the telescopes original mission was. If you need information now, you'll take what ever you can get. The ISS is not going to provide any information because it has no telescope. At best you have cameras used to monitor the exterior of the station. That's it.
254995
"stfu and stop bitching." Ah, the classic response to criticism. Do you fancy yourself a shining knight coming to defend the maiden's honor?
" this is a work of fiction." If it is a work of fiction does that make it above criticism?
"do you even have anything to say about grammar or spelling?" First you tell me to "stfu and stop bitching" and now you want to know if I have any gripes about grammar. Make up your mind.
"well duh$smiley we all know that the AMERICAN shuttle program is canceled. other countries can loan their shuttles." There are no other shuttles. The only flying spacecraft are capsules like Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Soyuz, and the Dragon spacecraft.
"("The sun-flanked pony..." The sun was at her side?) well yes it is a cutiemark of a sun on her flank. it's not like the cutiemark was on her head or back or on a flag coming out her ass.$smiley" The way that sentence is written suggests that the sun is to the side of her. It's awkward. Here are examples of flanked used in a sentence:
The man was flanked by his friends.
The army flanked the enemy.
I would suggest rewriting it.
"do you even watch scifi? guns are standard issue when dealing with alien contact"
That may be true but it doesn't make it smart. These are supposed to be smart people.
"("A moon identical to Earth's shown in the early dawn sky." They didn't see Equestria's Moon before they left earth?) i assume no. now stfu" Everyone who can would be studying Equestria and her moon. The mission to her is going to take time to prepare. In that time some one would notice that her moon looks like ours and that would be quickly broadcast around the world. This is obvious, I am not going to be the last one to notice this.
"now stfu" What do you expect to happen when you say this? Are you trying to end the debate? Is it supposed to prove a point? Are you trying to make me go away? If so, that's a dumb way to do it.
"(“Yay! I'm so glad we can all be friends! Do you guys like to smile? I can make sure you all smile!” Oh Pinkie, you and your utterly predictable behavior.) it's pinkie pie$smiley. how else were you expecting her to act$smiley. the latest episode of mlp was all about how much she enjoys trying to make others smile $smiley"
"how else were you expecting her to act $smiley." I would expect her to introduce herself and begin discovering everything she could about the humans while trying to relate to them like she did in the episode you mentioned. Not “Yay! I'm so glad we can all be friends! Do you guys like to smile? I can make sure you all smile!” No introduction, one vapid question about smiling, and a what could be construed as a threat.
Something better would have been "Hi I'm Pinkie Pie! What's your names?" They introduce themselves. "I'm so glad to meet you. Hey! Do you guys like sweets? I'm a baker, and I love making sweets. You should all come to my bakery. We can get to know each other over lunch!"
A little bland for her, but you get the idea.
255342
"would you rather have the MIB bust in with some standard emergency protocol?" It may surprise you to know that such protocols exist. For example Seti's First Contact Protocol. I'm sure that NASA has one of its own.
"NASA is technically a civilian outcropping of the airforce." It's history doesn't matter in this case. You're taking the known quantity of NASA's current leadership and replacing it with the unknown quantity of new leadership. That is bad, especially when there is no clear advantage in doing so.
256152 Yeah, ummm... you really must not have much of a life to spend THIS MUCH time on some little story I've been throwing together in my spare time to relieve stress and boredom on the days I've been sick! I wasn't exactly doing ANY research into this story, just kinda doing it. There were maybe 1 or 2 things you've said over all that I've found useful in anyway, the rest I found annoying because you really just seem to be reading WAAAAYYYYY too much into this and even misconceiving many of the simplified ideas I've put in this story.
And as for the whole shuttle argument.... I DIDN'T EVEN SAY IF IT WAS A SHUTTLE OR NOT!!! Of course, I was thinking that they would have to take one of the old shuttles out of retirement or build a new one. And if you're going to say "How would they be able to build a shuttle fast enough??" Well, in WW2 they were able to build entire battle ships in a matter of days. When the entire people of a country want something done, it gets done.
256540
"you really must not have much of a life to spend THIS MUCH time on some little story... " No need to be insulting. You're writing fan fiction for a show targeted at little girls. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
"There were maybe 1 or 2 things you've said over all that I've found useful in anyway..."
I am glad that you found something useful.
"And as for the whole shuttle argument.... I DIDN'T EVEN SAY IF IT WAS A SHUTTLE OR NOT!!!"
"Planet Equestria looms in the window as the shuttle draws near."
"Of course, I was thinking that they would have to take one of the old shuttles out of retirement or build a new one." They don't have to do that though. They could buy a ride on the Soyuz from the Russians (which is what we do currently) or use the Dragon spacecraft (which is finishing it's human flight certification).
"Well, in WW2 they were able to build entire battle ships in a matter of days. When the entire people of a country want something done, it gets done. " They were called "Liberty Ships". They were cargo ships. At the end of the war it took 42 days to build one.
"I wasn't exactly doing ANY research into this story, just kinda doing it."
I figure that if I'm going to put something on the Internet for everyone to read, I should put as much effort into it as I can.
256700 Why the fuck am I even wasting my time with you! You probably get beat up all the time
257034 The answer to this is magic! lol
257033 i agree with your statement. this guy acts like a know it all. i like how he admits to entertaining himself with these comments thus proving himself a troll. i personally only comment on stories that i like. i had a similar idea to this story recently but was more over the top and involved superheroes.
257033 i agree with your statement. this guy acts like a know it all. i like how he admits to entertaining himself with these comments thus proving himself a troll. i personally only comment on stories that i like. i had a similar idea to this story recently but was more over the top and involved superheroes.
256152
this is a work of fiction. your concern for certain technical details are a bit too high for the average reader to care.
MIB. a term to describe the common cliche about any agency, usually military, that takes charge of any operation involving weird shit because most people DON'T know how the government actually works and in tern how they would respond in such a situation. not to mention with the shit number of conspiracy theories and actual information that's classified forces people to stop giving a damn about actual policies. scifi/fantasy authors aren't going to go out of their way to look this kind of stuff up just to write a fanfic. especially one about magical ponies. my point is most of your "complaints" are about very common scifi cliches that alot of us are use to and don't care about and ignore and find annoying when someone complains about them.
shuttles. i consider any spacecraft that transport people a shuttle. and i was picturing the space capsules used in the apollo missions since i say apollo 17 recently. and you read that right. apollo 17. fun horror movie about spiders on the moon.
satellites. i was not comparing obsolete satellites with modern satellites. i was comparing telescopes pointing outward and designed for deep space observation to military spy satellites pointing inward and designed to look at tiny details on earth. the latter being more suitable for looking at equestria if turned around.
signals. who said anything about digital. no one is going to use digital signals to communicate with aliens. if you receive a digital signal you have to decode it with a proper receiver or hacking equipment. if you don't all you get is this weird grating noise mixed with static. the equipment actually used would be analog but just louder to save the aliens the trouble of decrypting it. as for the receiving end involving magical ponies with 18th century tech. the operative word is MAGIC. as for foreshadowing i don't care about what's foreshadowing or not. just being able to identify or use foreshadowing is a talent. another thing that is hand waved. i'm more interested in consistency.
257033
You said so yourself, my comments have helped.
257034
"Still, I can suspend reality here in the name of ponies."
The better the story, the easier it is to suspend belief.
257190
"this guy acts like a know it all." Another possibility, I simply know more than you about the areas I have talked about. Is it surprising that I would talk about what I know?
"i like how he admits to entertaining himself with these comments thus proving himself a troll." Could it be that commenting is part of my enjoyment of a story?
"i personally only comment on stories that i like." Why do you think I'm here? With more effort and a few more drafts, Vero could have a very interesting story. As a rule of thumb, it should be four to five drafts a chapter before the chapter can be considered complete.
257287
"this is a work of fiction." If only there was a word for "the practice of judging the merits and faults of something or someone in an intelligible (or articulate) way." Oh wait! There is. It's called criticism.
"your concern for certain technical details are a bit too high for the average reader to care." You may have a point. It depends on who is the average reader for this kind of fiction. It maybe me. Now that's a scary thought.
"MIB. a term to describe the common cliche about any agency, usually military, that takes charge of any operation involving weird shit because most people DON'T know how the government actually works and in tern how they would respond in such a situation." The government is not a black box where money goes in and legislation comes out. Its inner workings maybe convoluted, but they are understandable.
"not to mention with the shit number of conspiracy theories and actual information that's classified forces people to stop giving a damn about actual policies." That is obviously false. Of course there are people who care about governmental policies. All the political pundits would be out of a job otherwise.
"scifi/fantasy authors aren't going to go out of their way to look this kind of stuff up just to write a fanfic." Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, David Weber, Eric Flint, and David Drake are examples of authors who do exactly that. Except their fanfics are published, so most won't count them. A fanfic is work of literature. Just because it's a story set in an existing universe it should be held to lower standards? As I said before, if I'm going to stick something thing on the Internet for everyone to see; I am going to put as much effort in to it as I can.
"my point is most of your "complaints" are about very common scifi cliches that alot of us are use to and don't care about and ignore and find annoying when someone complains about them." The better the story, the easier it is to suspend belief.
"i was not comparing obsolete satellites with modern satellites. i was comparing telescopes pointing outward and designed for deep space observation to military spy satellites pointing inward and designed to look at tiny details on earth. the latter being more suitable for looking at equestria if turned around." You have it backwards. A spy satellite and an optical space telescope operate in the same way. They both magnify images. The only difference is magnifying power. An optical space telescope is at least a million times more powerful than a spy satellite. We don't need to build spy satellites as powerful as telescopes because what they are watch is way closer.
"who said anything about digital. no one is going to use digital signals to communicate with aliens. if you receive a digital signal you have to decode it with a proper receiver or hacking equipment. if you don't all you get is this weird grating noise mixed with static. the equipment actually used would be analog but just louder to save the aliens the trouble of decrypting it. as for the receiving end involving magical ponies with 18th century tech. the operative word is MAGIC." Did you notice how I never had an issue with Twilight receiving the signal? Holy shit Batman, I can suspend belief!
"as for foreshadowing i don't care about what's foreshadowing or not. just being able to identify or use foreshadowing is a talent." Using foreshadow effectively requires talent. Using it at all just demonstrates a basic understanding of story writing.
257299 most of your concerns though make you sound like a troll and not an actual critic.
first step is to give the author a benefit of a doubt of what he/she actually knows and is using. after all this is about magical ponies and the author isn't going for belivability.
next is to know and identify the difference between what actually needs to be elaborated on or fixed, and what readers in general don't really give a damn about. like the brasshead taking over nasa part. there's still alot for me to point out to you on that one but i'll keep it to what actually matters and that is the drama purposes of the MIB. very popular to use some variant of this. another over used one but accepted are guns. there is a difference between being approached by someone carrying a gun but wanting to talk things out versus being approached by someone shooting at you without saying anything first. and what tech is being used is the most handwaved since for most people science=magic due to being scientifically illiterate.
and of course there's grammar and spelling. instead of just saying senseless troll comments, try posting an actual fix instead.
Dude, every verb is written is second-person, even though it's a third-person story. It's seriously bugging me.
Other than that, this is amazing.
A very well written story. However, sorry to say it's not for me.
You still get a thumb up though.
256700 A while ago, you put " No need to be insulting. You're writing fan fiction for a show targeted at little girls. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones." Yet you have written a fanfic, which is considerably longer, and you also have an account? Yet that statement seems to be insulting anyone who writes these fanfics, also "sun-flanked" well the body part the cutie mark goes on is called a flank, anyone who knows the show would know that and would not think about the literal word "Flanked".
326797
"Yet you have written a fanfic, which is considerably longer, and you also have an account?" Yes, I write fan fiction for a show targeted at little girls.
"Yet that statement seems to be insulting anyone who writes these fanfics..." That's self-deprecating humor for you.
"'sun-flanked' well the body part the cutie mark goes on is called a flank, anyone who knows the show would know that and would not think about the literal word 'Flanked'." I am well versed with the show and I thought of it, so that statement is false. It's not that I do not know that the side of a horse is called a flank, it's that the way the sentence was worded was awkward. Which is exactly what I said before. "The way that sentence is written suggests that the sun is to the side of her. It's awkward."
None of these comments make any sense to me anymore....
256152 i agree the fic needs work and people ganging up doesn't make the single person wrong.