The creations of a Spirit of Chaos are, by their very nature, rarely stable. When he creates a persistent portal between universes in the Everfree Forest, however, his goal is a slightly longer-term chaos.
This story follows the events that precipitate from the exploration of that portal, the battles fought in the universe beyond, and a certain purple unicorn's inquiries into what Friendship is for ponies with no magic.
This is a story of conflict, between Equestria and its strange alternate, between ponies of two very different worlds.
This is the story of Discord's Gate.
Rated T for exploding cockatrices and other things dieing, along with some well-intentioned extremists and critical communication failures.
A crossover of sorts with the Hell's Gate series by David Weber
AU tag added due to Hell's Gate bleeding over into Equestria in addition to vice-versa.
Character tags will be edited as subsequent chapters are written.
Image credit to this person, who is really awesome and also has a tumblr
Do note that I own neither My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, nor the Hell's Gate series. Said properties belong to Hasbro and Dan Weber through Baen Books, respectively. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and this is a most sincere flattery of them both with no compensation towards myself involved beyond the writing experience and fuzzy-wuzzys I'm gaining from posting it here.
In short, this is a fan-fiction work, a parody or whatever-label-is-necessary-to-keep-my-sorry-jacksey-from-getting-sued.
This is the second fic I've seen on this site that is a crossover with David Weber's works, and like that other story it has led me to one of his novels that I haven't read yet, but that I just happened to have as an ebook on my phone. (Ponies In Space being the other story)
I can feel it calling me to pull a Twilight, and try and read it all in one sitting, but I have work in the morning and need to sleep!
As for this story, I'll try and check it out tomorrow.
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I highly recommend it (Hell's gate, obviously. Recommending my own fic would be kinda silly
) Definitely worth pulling a Twilight over, although with a warning: Mr. Weber never finished the series, it cuts off rather abruptly, so don't go in expecting a completed experience. 
Thanks for bringing Ponies in Space to my attention though, I needed a new fic to pull a Twilight over...
Yeah, I remember Hells Gate. It was great, except it was so long. Seriously, with the dictionary thing in the back it was 1220 pages. It took me three years reading off and on to finish it.
And now I here there's a sequel out for it. God help the reader if its as long or longer
Uromanethea, eh? Nice. And the portal hounds are good.
I think I said the rest when I pre-read the fic.
...someone blundered, by the looks of it.
And now, a slightly silly reaction to that chapter.
"Dear Princess Celestia: ask me first, damnit!
Yours, Twilight Sparkle. Please find enclosed the badges of two security services agents. The agents themselves are currently learning how to speak Zebraican if they know what's good for them"
From Author Support, you wanted critique. I apologize if any is harsh, internet is hard to regulate tone. Read it all in Fluttershy's voice for softer effect.
1: Your opening blurb in story description is WAY too long. I'm likely amongst the most verbose on this site, and even I say "too long".
2: Your long speeches have no interrupts. Not a single "he expanded", "the stallion stood stalwart as he gave his report", "Twilight reacted to this", at all until the end. This can make them seem like bland info-dumps, instead of the dangerous reports they are.
3: You sometimes close paragraphs with quotation marks, sometimes not.
4: For someone loving of long paragraph-texts, you of all writers should never begin a spoken word in the middle of a paragraph. Adding a space before "Well Spike, let's recap/" is good.
5: Also, I don't know if it is a reference, but I am fairly certain Twilight doesn't speak like the age group that would read Twilight. "Mmkay" is for twelve year olds and tween ditz girls in love with Justin Bieber, not highly educated OCD folks.
6: Her list includes "metallic disks", but then switches to "coins" within a few seconds of reading. If this was for a report for Princess Celestia, a mare Twilight will destroy Ponyville over to not being 5 minutes late, she wouldn't use inconsistent language.
However, you wanted critique on the crossover, which as of yet has not happened.
Discord's part was good though. I quite liked that.
Chapter two! And I'm a Fimfic gold member, you gotta respect! ;p
"An unnatural", you forgot the "n" in the italic opening bit.
A checklist-checking checklist isn't waffling. I bet you're American, because I know in the States "to waffle" is to be uncertain in a derogatory sense, but that is not the definition. Waffling is to disagree then agree then disagree once more: High, low, high, low, like the ridges of a waffle. Twilight was of solid mind. I appreciate the effort to use different words, but "worry" is fine to use there. "Paranoia" would work too.
And TWO ponies were injured? I didn't quite grasp that in chapter 1. Perhaps because of the info-dump style, but that would just cement it needs some sort of flowery verbosity, the pontification would be necessary, to help flow of the tale.
Still nothing in the crossover, so no commentary there.
If Rainbow was having a little fun with them, she probably wouldn't be bemused. Amused, certainly possible. But she was not dazed nor puzzled. Likewise, Rainbow is not a changeling, and insectoid descriptors are normally more apt for them than ponies. Rarity's wings were possibly iridescent, Rainbow's hair is polychromatic.
You spelled wistful wrong, adding an unnecessary "h".
Your use of the crossover elements here is fairly standard. Names are changed but are fairly self-descriptive, as I'm sure they were in the source material. I am not yet confused.
I will be disappointed if this Teep/teek stuff is not canonical in the source material (since you could easily have made their species all unicorns since they're ponified anyways), or adequately explained in the next chapter.
Good explanation chapter, but could really do with some reactions mid-speeches, much like chapter 1's criticisms. It did allay some of the concerns I had, though I did need to look up the telekinesis thing as a confirmation through the wiki. I suppose you were trying to create equivalency to the books where a teep/teek would be weird, but at the same time, that is standard in their culture, not a rare gift, I can somewhat see the choice in plain Pony, but the difference between a mortal elf and a human is pointed ears, the difference between a race of unicorns and EPs is stylistic and I am unsure what to think on that choice.
Also, that info-dumping was bad when it was one pony speaking. When its two, and you don't indicate the speaking, it makes me want to thumb-down the fic despite its otherwise reasonable premise and execution.
But this was a very good chapter outside those concerns.
This chapter makes clear that dialogues are your weakness, as this mostly dialogue-free chapter read much smoother than the others.
Other than that, you touch into the mythos, but I am uncertain why Celestia cannot draw power from the sun. If the sun IS a sunbird, it makes sense, it would resist its power being sapped, but that would mean the sun itself landed on the planet, incinerating all life, which I find unlikely, along with hundreds of Suns being in existence in any given plane. The sun being led by sunbirds makes more sense, and while it may spark territoriality from them, I don't see what is stopping Celestia from sapping solar power (even if she isn't leading the object), except to introduce, for lack of a better word, artificial difficulty. If the sun IS a sunbird, make that more clear. Good for the most part though.
The ESIS (fine, "cia") thing seems unnecessary tension, unless this unnamed paranoid mind-control-fearing-commander makes further appearances.
I personally dislike double-spaces after periods. You probably noticed that my writing flows just fine with one, it breaks up the phrases and flow with two when someone who reads quickly tries to read the fic. It wasn't bad in the other chapters, I just don't know what went wrong, but suddenly I'm tripping on double-spaces. Look at the line that begins "phase. Going out to" and see how absurdly huge that gap is? Spaces in words are like spaces in sidewalks: You need them to keep structural integrity, but if you make them too wide it makes it hard to walk along the sidewalk. "ding. There" at the end also seems unnecessarily huge due to formatting.
Yes, double-spacing after a full-stop is technically just as correct as single-spacing according to proper vernacular, but according to proper vernacular you cannot end a sentence on a preposition, a concept up with which I will not put.
Again, the telekinesis comes up. In the books, did the humans ever use their arms, or were their hands and arms so atrophied that an anti-psycher field would have them floored on the ground? If the humans did use tools manually, why aren't the ponies? If they didn't use tools manually, why are they shaped as though they should be?
Final review! "divisions out of mothball" seems like it is missing a word, unless it's a turn of phrase I'm merely unfamiliar with.
Oh yes, something I forgot last chapter in my rant about double-spaces: Why did the bodyguard suddenly gain a nickname? He had been referred to before, by equivalent officers on off-hours. You'd think they'd use the shorter, easier to say name.
This was a very "nothing happened" chapter, and if you re-write, I'd advise including it in a different chapter and just go for a 4k work chapter. You could probably do that in general, actually.
But in terms of references to the crossover fiction being lost or confusing, only omni-use of telekinesis was offputting, and only because even without knowing the source material, I can't fathom they actually had no one ever use their hands to do anything and would question "how do you use tools" if another human showed up not able to be telekinetic. Other than that, you're in the green for folks who don't know about the setting.
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Hmm, first real difficulties here. The idea behind the solar incident is that:
A) Paranatural effects don't go through the portals. Hence why Celestia's link to Equestria's sun gets cut off.
B) The Sunbirds are not the Sun, they follow along with/drive the motion of the orb.
C) Celestia attempting to establish her link is what draws one of the Sunbirds down. Whether the princess could actually wrest control of or pull energy from Eranax's sun with the native Sunbirds about is not determined, as they sense her and interrupt before she's finished, breaking her concentration.
I'll see what I can do about clarifying this.
As for the CIA, the remaining chapters are building up to the resolution of the Eponan survey team in Eranax, once that situation is settled you'll likely see Tinfoil Hat again...
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Let me start off by thanking you profusely for your time and effort. As you can see I've not got a very extensive readership, so I need as much help as I can get. Every extra pair of eyes helps.
I'll be going through the chapters today and tomorrow to see what I can do about the issues you've highlighted. I am uncertain on how to revise the descriptions though, cutting things down into tiny chunks that still get the message across isn't one of my strengths.
With regards to consolidating chapters, I had considered it. In fact, the Discord bit and Chapter 1 used to be separate FiMFiction pages. I may enforce a similar merger at a later date.
Yes, I am from the States, where "Waffling" has taken on a meaning similar to talking for talking's sake without saying anything. I've changed that sentence to something more appropriate.
And now, for my humble defense of the remaining three points I have issue with, to be read very quietly in Fluttershy's voice for the appropriate tone.
#1: Where I'm from, the double spaces are actually mandated, a single space after a period is considered incorrect formatting. I can honestly say I've never encountered any other opinion. Most intriguing.
While I'm not comfortable going to single spaces for the whole document, I'll be going through this portion to ensure the spacing is ONLY two spaces, as I did notice the period after "ding" has four spaces after it. I suspect your senses were tripped by this chapter in particular because of a couple of triple or quadruple spaces.
#2 "Out of Mothball" is a naval term for reactivating an old ship, referring to aromatic spheres that are used to preserve old fabrics from the exploits of fiber-eating insects. I'll consider switching it out for a different turn of phrase.
#3 As for the telekinesis, in the books the Sharonans, the Eponan's equivalent, use firearms and other tech relatively equivalent to late 1800s Earth. Their paranormal abilities are limited to certain "Talents" similar to the Whispering, Sweeping or Tapping disciplines of the Eponans.
I confess the main reason I gave the Eponans universal tk was so that firearms would make sense. The central conflict of Hell's Gate is magic vs. science, so I felt making them a race of unicorns would hurt the crossover.
Now, firearms have been done in other pony fics without incident, but I didn't feel any of the ways that worked made much sense for the Eponans, or in general really.
Shooting with the gun gripped in the mouth seemed counterintuitive and doing so with anything more powerful than a derringer liable to result in lost teeth. Rifles with this setup would make even less sense. Plus, a revolver going off that near the face is not a good idea, hot gasses to the eye would likely result in a few inaccuracies.
A harness of some sort would work for rifles, but sidearms of any sort would be inconvenient, and reloading would be even worse.
Using hooves would likely work if the trigger and any priming mechanism were enlarged to accommodate, but then to fire the pony must assume an upright "human" stance, cutting their mobility drastically. Granted human soldiers must take a similar position and mobility to shoot rifles with any kind of accuracy, but there's no way a pony could ever "shoot from the hip", or manipulate a sidearm that looks anything like a pistol with their hooves. Moreover the lack of fingers gripping anything would, in my opinion, make the firearms prone to flying everywhere from the recoil. Lastly and most pedantically, I think ponies look ridiculous standing on their hind hooves. Sorry Lyra.
This left telekinesis. I tried to get it to make sense, a psionic tk as opposed to Unicorn magic. As I tried to outline with Dark Cell's bit, it's kinda limited in what it can do without intensive specialist training. All the tk effectively does is give the Eponans an extra set of limbs with which they can move things like a Griffon or Dragon might with their claws.
The "how do you use tools" bit just seemed a natural extension of Shale's encounter with, to put it into human terms, a race where 60% of the population has no arms.
An equivalent to "How do you use tools" is actually a thing in the books, although it is more along the lines of the magic-using faction questioning how the psi/tech-using faction got by without magic. As Equestria has several examples of societies getting by without unicorn magic, the sentiment didn't seem to flow in this version.
In any case, you have my thanks. If you ever find yourself in need some proofreading or critiquing, and desperate enough to seek someone of my caliber, do not hesitate to ask.
Twilight's going to go berserk when she learns that the Eponan's actually killed her brother.
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Riddle me this: What's pink and purple and has a slightly more nuptial claim on the stallion in question?