• Member Since 23rd Oct, 2012
  • offline last seen Oct 24th, 2012

SynXyn


T

The year was 2052. Earth has been plunged into World War III and has been going on for nearly 30 years, with both sides at a stalemate. Neither could get a single advantage at the other, not even the nuclear bombs made a dent to each of the sides, as the population of the world has reached over 35 billion.
The US has already created a powerful new weapon, that no army could go up against. An Android. Once a young 16 year old boy, he has become the strongest ally they could possess.

However, a certain spirit of chaos has other plans for him, and what better way to get revenge on the ponies of Equestria. Still locked within his stone prison, he uses the last bit of his power to transport the human weapon to cause havoc into the kingdom of Equestria, but will this plan work?

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 13 )

There are some issues with this story. Your structure is good, I haven't seen much in the way of spelling errors but then I'm tired so that might be the cause for that. A few descriptions that don't quite work like sending a cone-shaped filled with death. Either get rid of "shaped" as it really doesn't fit there or drop the hyphen and the "d" at the end. But the biggest problem is your OC or as I like to call him: And a Wild Gary Stu Appears! But more on him later.

First off, 35 billion people? The way the world population is increasing it should only be around 10-11 billion by 2052 due to the declining birth rate all over the planet. And even if people were suddenly to kick the baby making into high gear, at best you'd get another billion out of that. If there's 35 billion people on a planet that can barely support 9, you got some 'splainin to do.

Secondly, android? Uhmmm, if he started off as a human and still posseses a human brain he's a cyborg. If his brain and body have been replaced, then he's no longer human in any sense and is now an android in which case it's he's like the story of Achilles' ship, or was it Jason's ship? I don't remember but the idea goes that every single part of the ship had at one point been replaced so that literally there was nothing left of the original ship so technically could it still be called the same thing? For him to truly be an android yet still be considered "Riley" there would need to be something original left of him.

Already we have super strength, ability to fly, destructive beams and no emotions. Yeah, he's a Gary Stu.

Flying at Mach 5? Can he breathe at that speed? Does he need to breathe? How about friction burns travelling at 1.7 Km/s? To put this into perspective, the SR-71 "Blackbird" spyplane cruises at Mach 3.3 and it's built to withstand the 600 degree temperatures generated over it's skin from the air friction alone. Gary Stu flying at Mach 5.0 would have to have some pretty heavy duty heat shields not to mention clothes made out of some kind of super stuff that wouldn't burn at those speeds.

Kicking the tank and only causing him to do a perfect backflip while making the tank fly away? I think Newton would want to speak to you about that one.

And of course Discord steps in, somehow affects reality through his stone prison and brings this Gary Stu android / cyborg (androborg? cybroid?) to Equestria. If he's that powerful and can still do stuff while turned to stone, why hasn't he done so already?

I—what—no, I—what. What. WUT.

This... this is awful. And not in the "oh man, the grammar really needs to be fixed" kind of way. In the "somebody call hospice, because we can't save this one" kind of way.

Ye gods, TVTropes doesn't even have enough pages to categorize the ways this is wrong. Biology, chemistry, technology, physics—is there a branch of the sciences that you haven't bent over and had your way with against its will?

Still everything pales against the sheer horror that is your main character. I don't even remember a time I wanted to shoot myself in the face more.
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1500305

Biology, chemistry, technology, physics—is there a branch of the sciences that you haven't bent over and had your way with against its will?

I would assume botany is pretty safe at the moment, unless we find out he's powered by a fusion generator that runs on canola oil or something.

1500812 You have just given me a new idea.

I'm putting your name next to mine, whether it's on a patent form or a lawsuit.

Arrgh! I knows not what Evil Homer and OtterMatt be speaking of with their science. It be more than The Crimson Brony care to learn.

Neigh, I must voice me displeasure at the very obvious Gary Stu that infest this story like a pack o' rats in yer hold. It be too much.

1500978
I expect at least a 10% finders fee if you make this a reality.

Allow me to start a review. I am going to review this, if you don't want to learn how to get better, don't read this. If you do want to, like the intelligent and sane person you hopefully are, then read on.

So, allow me to start with the title. The period at the end is slightly unneeded, and every single word needs to be capitalized. It also isn't much of an interesting title, but I doubt you're aiming for every single person on this website to read this story, so you don't need to worry much about it. There is also no cover image to complain about, so this is a neutral situation for the cover image.

Second, the description. As Evil Homer said before me, there is a lot of inaccuracy in it: There cannot be so many people on this planet when this story happens, he's a cyborg and not an android, and it seems awfully strange for some random 16-year-old kid to become a cyborg for a military. Thankfully, unlike some descriptions, it's filled with good grammar and spelling, and it features double-spaced paragraphs. This is very good, so I can go into this story without the fear of an unreadable wall-of-text.

Now, to enter the story. First off, the name of the chapter is pretty good. Nothing to complain about here. However, the problem with what you're doing with your character, which is an infamous Gary Stu. He seems to have no problems and no downsides to his character. He has incredible abilities any non-Stu character wouldn't nearly have. The fic might be saved if his insane abilities were to be taken away and he were to become just a troubled 16-year-old soldier, though we've seen a lot war fics on this website and not many people would adore it. However, you won't be piled with hate.

Conclusion and final tips:

You have pretty damn good grammar, but your character is missing any downsides. Fix that, and I think I myself would actually enjoying the fic, along with a few others.

TL;DR tips to fix:

-Fix Gary Stu

That's basically it. Surprised to see so much hate on this fic just because of it, though Gary Stus are very big and annoying problems found everywhere.

So, see you later. I hope you use these tips to your advantage, as they can get you likes, favorites, and watches! If not, well, you're not going to have much of a good time.

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Let's Review: More ways than one! Pt 1:Robots and ponies and misused science, oh my!

(Disclaimer: I'm quite tired, so apologies if rambles a bit and isn't up to my usual standards of wit and incisiveness)

Capitalise your story and chapter titles, so they look less derpy. I must say, this description fills me with anticipatory excitement... oh wait, what's the opposite of excitement? Dread? Yes, this fills me with dread. A sixteen year old becoming an 'android'? Science fail count: 1. Androids are synthetic lifeforms, not augmented ones. The word you are looking for is 'cyborg'. Oh, and he's a one man army. I wonder if this 'android' will use his synthetic nature as a cheap excuse for the author to never show his feelings? You know, 'the flesh is weak' and all that? Chances of Gary Stu... 60%. Let's dig in.

Chapter One: Painted Purple.
Oh dear gods, my eyes sting from looking at this purple. How overwrought are these sentences? Very, dear readers. It's like the hypothetical lovechild of HP Lovecraft and JK Rowling decided to make a fanfic, I swear. And not in a good way, either. You use too many adjectives in the first sentence alone followed by a weird sweat metaphor, and the sentence flow feels like a halfbrick to the head, seriously. The whole thing with the tanks firing at the guy... it feels really uninteresting, because it's not at all dramatic. You switch within the same paragraph from horrible purple prose, to incredibly boring beige prose.

'The other tanks soon saw this and turned their turrets towards him and fired.'

I mean look at that. It reads like something out of the scribblings of a disturbed five year old, and it doesn't feel dramatic. It's probably a good thing you didn't bother to build any dramatic tension with the previous paragraph, because this would shut it down hard. Tenses shift between sentences, from past to present and back to past in one particularly egregious case. Don't do that, it looks stupid and confuses the reader.

Then we suddenly jump cut to the Pentagon, to introduce our protagonist. Pentagon officials are shocked by the presence of a civilian? No, that's horseshit, sorry. He's their cyborg superweapon, that's about as military as they get. Next, his description... Let's see how many Gary Stu traits we can spot:
Unusual hair colour? White.
Unusual eye colour? Glowing golden yellow (ick :pinkiesick:)
Unusually handsome or ugly for the setting? 'flawless face seemed to be made out of smooth stone' ... so yes. Seriously, fuck that noise. That description is so purple it makes me feel ill.
Generic badass clothes? 'midnight black polo shirt with a gray design on the right side of it that resembled flames' :unsuresweetie:
Speshul Powaz (tm)? Oh hell yes. He's a fucking combat cyborg.

Hmmm, not looking so hot there bub. He's like they took Edward Cullen and made him a cyborg, with all the gushing, nausea inducing descriptions that entails. Now, in Twilight it was horrible, but at least understandable, since that story is told from the viewpoint of a teenage girl addicted to Edward, who is apparently a humanoid lump of crack cocaine. Here... less so. Are the Pentagon officials teenage girls, squeeing over their metal Adonis? Because these descriptions scream 'fourteen year old girl'. He even has fucking hypnotic laser beam eyes, so much so that the viewers have to tear themselves away to gaze upon the rest of his perfection. The Stu-ometer is going off the charts here folks. At least this isn't tagged 'Romance', so I don't have to put up actual fawning from the narrator.

Descriptions of his powers... blah blah... violations of physics and common sense are handwaved. His skin can withstand tank shells, while still appearing human? That's fucking stupid, sorry. I'd like to see this chump put up against an A-10 Warthog, that's for sure. They tampered with his brain to instil obedience... so he has an actual brain? That clinches it, he's a fucking cyborg, not an android. The prose is still incredibly dispassionate, and as we read about these people apparently in trouble in the Sahara, I find myself wondering why I should continue reading. None of the characters introduced seem at all compelling. One is a stiff lump of Speshul Powaz who happens to resemble Edward Cullen, one is a douchebag who considers meddling in others' brains acceptable, and the rest are pretty much there to be shocked and awed by the stiff lump's Speshulness.

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So Stiff Lump flies off to god knows where, and the commanders are shocked by this, after clearly seeing a demonstration of his flight capability and such. That is incredibly dumb, and it feels like the author is artificially lowering their intelligence to make his creation seem more awesome. He talks to himself, too. Why does he say 'target acquired' to nobody in particular? Because reasons. A generic fight scene ensues, which plays out like just about every 'super vs mundane' fight ever written. He bends the tank barrel just by landing on it? Sorry, you at physics. Unless his hyperspace arsenal has actual mass, he's unlikely to have enough weight to bend that just by landing on it. Or, of course, this is a toy tank with one guy inside, and it's made out of aluminium foil. The fight is told without passion or any sense of drama, and thus feels like a complete waste of time. At no point does this feel like anything more than the author masturbating over Stiff Lump's power. Seriously, edit this scene out, it actively detracts from the story's quality.

Nothing extra to introduce the main character, so he remains a stiff lump, and then suddenly Discord shows up, teleporting the unfortunate lump to Equestria by means of Deus ex Portal. Never seen that one before :ajbemused:. If this review seems a bit less 'fire and brimstone' than my usual, it's because this story is lifeless. It's the diffusion of my enjoyment into its cold, unfeeling grip. Nothing feels dramatic, the main character is literally a lifeless machine, the plot is a tired cliche... and I just don't care. Nothing here grabs me. It's not often I read a fic and say 'damn, I wish I'd spent those ten minutes doing the washing up.' but that sentiment fits this story perfectly. I honestly wish I hadn't bothered reading it. What reason do I have to continue? So I can see Stiff Lump attempt to interact with technicolour OOC ponies? No! Why the fuck would I be interested in that?! He's shown no reason for me to be interested in him so far. He's a flying, cliche spouting hammer. As in, an inanimate hammer. That is roughly the level of personality he shows here. Do you enjoy reading about hammers? No? Me neither, jerk.

Tips to improve:

1. Burn the omniscient third person. Seriously, you suck at it. Keep it third person, but tell it from the viewpoint of someone, maybe this Riley lump, so we can actually get some idea of what the characters think about. Basically, all we have of the main character is a physical description, and some demonstrations of his Speshul Powaz. That's really fucking boring. I want to know how he thinks, or what he feels about his creator casually mentioning his enslavement.

2. Leading on from the above... give your protagonist an actual character. Work out what makes him tick, and give him a personality, even if it is a stoic one. Give him life, because he's as I said, he's a hammer.

3. Clean up your prose. It's so beige it's fucking painful to read. And by that I mean describe things, rather than telling us stuff in a dispassionate manner. Set the scene, and make it come alive, because right now I can barely picture what's going on. Everything seems to occur in a vacuum, like the fight, and it all feels horribly generic, like something out of a bad computer game.

4. If you can't manage #2 to any decent extent, at least tone down Stiff Lump's specialness. Give him a reasonable eye colour, rather than this glowing golden crap. Give him some easily defined weaknesses, since he's a prototype, and thus would be unlikely to function entirely as intended. Psychological instability due to poor attempts at obedience conditioning, for instance. Make him a character, rather than a Gary Stu, seriously. A Gary Stu is a poorly executed high-power character, pretty much. They seem overly powerful for the setting, and often warp the plot to make themselves seem more important than they should be. They screw up characterisation, and often lack any appreciable flaws, or in this case, any character at all. Give him some flaws, and maybe tone down his power a bit, so he's less conspicuously annoying.

On a final note, I honestly don't see where this is going. He's going to arrive in Equestria, and then what? He's a faceless, uninteresting lump, and will just be a the same lump with a different background. He has all these powers, for no apparent reason. He's not going to face any meaningful physical conflict, because his Speshul Powaz (tm) will cause him to curbstomp opposition short of the princesses. He's not going to face any meaningful emotional conflict, because he has no emotions, and thus is a boring lump. This fic is a waste of time, and I feel dumber for having read it. That is all.

~Lord Sunder, TWE's Lurking Madman

1500305

...is there a branch of the sciences that you haven't bent over and had your way with against its will?

And now I have orange soda all over my computer. Thanks.

1500812

I would assume botany is pretty safe at the moment, unless we find out he's powered by a fusion generator that runs on canola oil or something.

And now I have twice as much orange soda on my computer as before. Double thanks.

1505693
We aim to please here at OtterCo.
"Destroying people's laptops, one spittake at a time."

1506737 1505704 :rainbowlaugh: Comedy at its finest!! :rainbowlaugh:

If I may ask, what are the living conditions of humans? Do they live underground as well as above ground or in the air? I know that upon reaching 9 billion, earth's population will plummet because of overpopulation and suffer a huge population decline from insufficient food supply and living space. While humans may not go extinct, unlike some animals in a somewhat similar situation, because of our ingenuity, 35 billion humans still have to somewhere and the story didn't highlight those areas and it has left me with a lot of questions.

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