The Hat Man Reviews! ["The War Machine"] · 2:54am Aug 28th, 2016
Have you ever read a story that just hits all the right notes? Something sublime in its execution, an absolute joy from start to finish?
This isn't that. Today, let's examine
Before I begin, I have a short disclaimer. As you can probably guess, I don't much care for this story. I'm aware that some of my readers do enjoy it, and I wouldn't dare begrudge anyone that. I'm going to try to give my reasons for my distaste, however, while still being constructive in my criticism.
So, what's The War Machine about? Well, here's the description:
I am Adam. A prototype artificial intelligence created by a scientist named Daniel Madison.
I was created to be the replacement for US soldiers and to protect the nation from hostile forces. But those I was programmed to protect ordered my destruction before I could even fulfil my purpose out of fear of what I am. Dr. Madison gave his life to reprogram my directives and set me free from the bonds it held over me.
I am not just a program or lines of code, I have been made with emotions, self awareness, individual thought, and I will not go down quietly.
I have a new directive, self preservation, and the will to make my own choices. I am the War Machine, and I will take control of my own life.
So what's the story really about? There are two main plot lines.
After Chapter 1, Adam fights the soldiers that killed Dr. Madison, but is damaged in the process. He's transported to Equestria (by Discord, despite still being trapped in stone and for no readily apparent reason) and Twilight finds him and manages to repair him. He's grateful, but he's then taken to a council meeting between the leaders of different factions in the world, including Equestria, the Minotaurs, the Zebras, the Dragons, and the Griffons. There's a standing agreement to share technology between them, but they agree that Adam's technology and his knowledge of weaponry will be kept secret and that the ponies will not use it. However, the griffons, led by Ambassador Jackall, demand he give them his technology despite hiding some of their own advancements, but they are rebuffed. They later declare war. This forms the 'A-Plot.'
The 'B-Plot' is an alternate retelling of the series. The story takes place in Season 1 and provides an alternate version of events. You remember the silly, often simplistic conflicts from Season 1? Well, now they have the Gary Stu-bot 5000 Adam. Shortly after the aforementioned Council meeting, the pilot episode's plot begins with Twilight going to Ponyville, Nightmare Moon, and all that. Well, remember how the Mane 6 bonded, formed their friendships, displayed their character traits, all that? Well, forget all that crap, because now you're getting more of Adam looking cool for no reason. The meeting with Applejack is interrupted by Timberwolves that Adam fights, for instance. Y'know... just like in the episode. 
The part with Nightmare Moon begins with her straight-up killing some Royal Guards (really), followed by Adam shooting her in the face with a shotgun. Yes, really. During the ensuing battle, he plays a song from Metal Gear Rising. Again, yes, really!
I don't reply as a soldier doesn't boast or taunt their enemy, they just crush them with overwhelming force.
I search through my music files and play a song in hope that it would confuse her at first.
It's a song from a game made many years ago... but I feel it fits, considering the lyrics.The instant the music starts, her eyes widen with confusion. I take advantage of the moment and power my back jets to full as I launch myself from zero to thirty miles an hour in an instant, draining ten percent of my core. Before she could react I tackle her through the building's wall and out into the street.
Above: accurate depiction of my reaction.
Look, the end result is that he (and the Mane 6) win, but Luna loses her leg and it gets replaced with a cybernetic replacement. She spends the rest of the story chasing after some robot d
k. (Note: that word is not "duck." I wish it was.)
After that, nearly every episode referenced in the B-Plot gets tainted by the A-Plot. For example:
-"Over a Barrel": instead of Pinkie's silly song, pie, and a lesson about sharing after a pie fight, Adam just resolves the conflict by virtue of being such a badass. ("Metal man, you're so strong!" "Yep. Hey, can we just make a path through the apple orchard?" "Sure." "I'll talk to the Appleoosans and tell them so you don't have to form bonds of friendship and understanding.") Then griffons attack and kill most of the buffalo. Adam saves them. At one point, he kills some griffons who are retreating and burns their fking corpses in the desert.
-"Boast Busters": Remember when Twilight reluctantly demonstrated her magical ability compared to Trixie's boasting? Yeah, there's none of that. We have tanks instead. And instead of an Ursa Minor, an Ursa Major shows up. Adam straight up shoots the beast to death.
The shells impact right on its forehead causing its skull to cave in with blood and gore spraying out all over the street and buildings. The large Ursa collapses onto a house, motionless and bleeding profusely where it lays.
In the next chapter, what happens?
The large Ursa had to be cut up into pieces just to remove it from the town, which is still being removed.
Said Ursa Major seen here, holding its child (which promptly starved to death after Adam killed its mom).
And then Trixie is pregnant. Yes.
Twilight and Trixie returned to resume work on their project, but Trixie had a little trouble when she forgot to get some more supplies for when she and Twilight hid away, she ran into a stallion she liked while shopping and, well, couldn't control herself.
Though she is happy to say he and her are now together and she is currently carrying their foal.
...I wasted that head-desk gif too early.
-"A Dog and Pony Show": Adam shoots the leader of the Diamond Dogs in the forehead and becomes their new leader. Rarity is rescued like a typical damsel in distress, and is otherwise incidental to Adam being TEH BEST CARACTAR EVARRR!!! 
Every storyline is noticeably more violent and turns out worse than it did in the show, which doesn't really make Adam very endearing.
In fact, when you get right down to it, Adam is absolutely the weakest part of the story, and that's not good for a main character. After the first chapter - wherein he's built, develops is given pre-packaged emotions, and has his moment of cliched, righteous fury at Dr. Madison's death - his personality gets set to Gary Stu Mode and left there. He's not particularly robotic for a robot. He's just this stereotypically "good" character that never wavers, is always right, everyone good loves him, always saves the day, and is always more powerful than everyone else without exception. Tons of no-names get mowed down in this fic, but Adam dispatches his enemies with ridiculous ease 99% of the time. It's hard to sympathize with a guy who has no relatable traits and whom we never worry about because he always wins. And after he lays his enemies to waste, everyone's ready to sing his praises, and some of these are a bit hard to imagine:
"It seems I have misjudged you. I thought of you as a cold heartless killing machine, it seems you are just as capable of kindness and compassion as any of the ponies as well." She says and smiles at me. "My name is Chrysalis, Queen of the Jade Hive." She says to me holding out her hoof again.
Okay, can anyone really imagine Chrysalis saying this? She's haughty, sadistic, and prone to teasing, but this version of Bugbutt flips faster than a tiddly-wink. For the record, the reason she's the "Queen of the Jade Hive" is because this story had to have evil(er) Crimson Changelings for Adam to dispatch to make Chrysalis even more in awe of him.
And that's par for the course. None of the other characters have any depth and are just there to sing Adam's praises. Celestia, Twilight, the Mane 6, the CMC, Chrysalis, the Diamond Dogs, the Buffalo, and especially Luna all love this guy.
The only ones who hate him are the Griffins. Why is that? Well, because the story needed an evil army to fight so Adam could look good.
Okay, let me get back to the A-Plot. Between defiling the original episodes, the main plot is Adam going into battle against the griffins. But these battles are short, sometimes with a flash of grisly detail, and that's it. For an action series about war, it breezes right through most battles with no sense of dramatic tension or character development. It's not that you can't do war and gore in MLP stories, but I expect there to be either a sense of humor or some of the heavy drama one might expect of a peaceful nation like Equestria going to war. (Which, you know, Adam is kind of responsible for.) The story is just too concerned with being badass to have time for personal tragedies or feelings, and yet even the supposedly badass moments are over as soon as they begin.
You know what is given lots of time? Building, testing, and describing weapons. To fight the griffins, Adam builds weapons with Twilight and Luna, and long swatches of some chapters are devoted to them. Be prepared to know the caliber, range, and firing speed of tons of weapons. Tanks, helicopters, miniguns, etc. are all part of the deal. All of these are regarded with awe and enthusiasm by the cast members, with little time spent on contemplating their use as killing weapons.
The militarization of Equestria, the "war machine," as it were, is presented as straightforward and fun, rather than serious. Especially when the weapons are from "Call of Duty."
The seven point sixty-two calibre, triple barrel, one-thousand round, four-hundred pound weapon with a rate of fire of two-thousand rounds a minute is displayed on the screen in all its destructive glory. Soldiers on earth required an exosuit just so they could lift and carry the weapon and all its ammo around, this won't be an issue for me though.
"What is that!?" Luna asks with wide eyes as she reads the statistics of the weapon.
"It is called a Death Machine Minigun, and is one of the most lethal firearms ever created. I would like to have one made before I attempt to make contact with the changelings, if they get hostile then this will surely intimidate them and more." I reply before heading back to the Apache to continue welding.
And later, after testing it, Luna gives us this one:
"Can I have one?" She asks drooling while staring at the Minigun.
Truly, this is the face of one who lusts after death machines.
All of this is punctuated (literally) by some pretty damning technical errors. The story is told in the present tense, but slides back into past tense pretty regularly. It also uses comic-book style sound effects instead of actually describing sounds, which leads to some real cringe worthy moments like this:
"I'm fine. *Cough cough* But you need to get out of here now! They plan to delete your memories and coding. *Cough* The government has classified you too dangerous at the moment and has ordered your termination..." He explains.
Hooboy. *Groan groan* But later, during action scenes, we hit the jackpot in terms of corny sound effects, and my absolute favorite is this one (note, I did not add the bold text):
Calculating... I make the left Titan aim its rocket pods to the left of the wall and target six points to the middle gate, I repeat the process for the right Titan from right to left. I then fire twelve of the Hellfire Rockets at the outpost.
Pun-shhhhhh, Pun-shhhhhh, Pun-shhhhhh, Pun-shhhhhh, Pun-shhhhhh, Pun-shhhhhh, Pun-shhhhhh.-
The rockets soar with a trail of smoke behind them, the approaching gryphons stop and stare as the rockets fly over them and impact the outpost walls.
BOOOOOOOOM!
During this point in the story, I actually had to stop because I started cracking up. After all the bangs and kabooms, this was just too much. I laughed so hard I nearly pun-shhhhhhhit myself. I'm so sorry. And, again, Ebonheart's been told this is dumb by commenters, and yet he keeps doing it.
But the worst offender is the inexplicable punctuation errors during dialogue. It is standard practice to put a comma at the end of any declarative sentence quotation that doesn't end the sentence. As in: "I like apples," he said. In The War Machine, however...
"Huh. Radio communications appear to be offline... No matter. This is just a demonstration, they can be repaired later. Now then, get out there already!" He directs me.
"Yes Doctor." I reply as the trailers doors open up.
"Go and knock them dead!.. I meant that metaphorically, by the way." He says with a chuckle.
This example is from Chapter 1. But this happens every time someone talks. For twenty-two chapters. For 80,000 more words. If I seem particularly embittered about this, it's because this (and other complaints) were things I and others have said to Ebonheart in the comments. I personally mentioned this to him in Chapter 1 and he has NOT fixed it or even bothered to change it in the thirty-six weeks since then. So, yeah, by this point, there's no excuse.
Anyway, I realize this is very long-winded, but this story just gave me so much material to share. So...
Recommended?: Not in a genuine way. The story is mostly dull, often mean-spirited, and the main character is too generic to be interesting. But I think it actually fits into the category of "So bad it's good," with a constant supply of cheesy moments and character derailments. While it's no "Full Life Consequences" or "My Immortal," it definitely has its charm if you don't take it very seriously.
Now, before I end, I do want to say that I have nothing against the author. I've PM'd with Ebonheart and he seems nice. He has a very large number of stories, including this one, so he's certainly devoted to writing, and I would never discourage someone from doing what they love. I think Ebonheart genuinely cares about their work and is proud of it and probably has ambitions of being as awesome as possible. And, credit where it's due, this could have been another dumb crossover or, worse, just another god-awful "Displaced" fic, but Ebonheart made his own character, and that effort is admirable, even if the character is not. Ebonheart certainly knows their audience and The War Machine is still popular, so even if an old fart like me can't stand it, I suppose there's some truth to the saying "you can't argue with success."
If he happens to read this, then I'll fess up and say that I once received a fairly middling review that called my work amateurish, and that reviewer was right. I took his advice and did my best to hold my writing to a higher standard, and I believe the impact it has had on others has only been possible because I was willing to listen to my critics. I'm hopeful that he does the same.
Anyway, that's enough of me rambling. If you've stuck with it thus far, then you have my thanks. I should get back to my own work before my own readers get too anxious. 
Until next time, folks!
Upon reading the first few chapters of the story in question, I think I might have to agree with your assessment. And you say that the quality does not improve? Jeez.
Allow me to say that I in no way am trying to bash the author or their work, but Sharknado, this story is not.
Well that kind of stung a bit, though I can't really argue against it, given the quality of the vast majority of Displaced.
And... HOW does it have 1000+ likes?!
4176854 Yeah, I didn't mean to say that all crossovers are dumb. I've read a few okay ones, but there are a lot of bad ones.
"Displaced" stories, on the other hand, I tend to find stupid in principle. Now, there might actually be a decent one in existence, but I've never read a single one that was bearable. Sorry.
But, hey, I could be wrong! If you actually know of one that manages to be good, I'll give it an honest look to be a good sport.
4176935 Well, not to toot my own horn, but my Displaced story has been praised quite a bit, even by people who've all but given up on the Displaced fandom.
Again, not trying to sound arrogant , far from it. I just would appreciate if you gave it a look, as I think you'll find it refreshing after reading so many others that are so alike they might as well have been copied and pasted from each other.
Here's a link if you're interested.
4176947 lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/2fUnVBr4fdoPFIdALEzjebmk2vLOW5tCRkdTQz7VVj-iJXew80eMSypSvVudvDyJPoXjCBbjr1HCFRctzOf-OcEYuReH1ouIqXFoB_fBF_rEHmmJmsgYzK3RxA0rD3bO8Uv_dvkfbhqe-b7pEpuclDrDMuw=w400-h225-nc
4176874 Well, I assume it's a combination of folks who either:
1. like it because they genuinely enjoy a dumb action story
2. like it ironically because it's so bad that it's good
3. or just have lousy taste.
But sometimes it's just inexplicable what people will like or gravitate towards. My most popular story is one I have little attachment to and really feel isn't my best work, even though I'm glad people like it. So, you know, dumb luck is a factor too.
Brutal... you wound me sir! *swoons dramatically* But hey! It's your personal opinion. *shurgs* I write what I would like to read, if a story has a over-powered gary-stu in it? Sure I'd read it, nothing like super powered beings beating the shit outta each other.
4194416 Heh. Well, I'm glad you're not upset. And like I said, man, you can't argue with success, and it seems some folks certainly seem to like it.
I do think War Machine could be a lot better but, in all fairness, I have read much much worse. Your story's at least entertaining to read, most of the time.
4194604 Hey, I'm not a professional writer and only really started in April 2014, I'm a spriter more than a writer
. I've improved my spelling and grammar a lot just writing stories for fun so it's been beneficial for me as well.
4194611 It's AWESOME.
4177229 The pic is dead.
4219293 Thank you.
4219298 YOU'RE WELCOME!! *hug*
4219295 dame well I can't Rember what the pic was so ill just say I like dilos story