Review: To the Stars Prologue and Part 1

Okay, this is going to take a little bit of explanation.

As you might recall I recently did a review of the first chapters of Kamen Rider Alchemy, an original fanfic based on the Tokusatsu franchise Kamen Rider. This is another such review, though instead of focusing on Kamen Rider, I will be focusing on something a bit more understandable to people in America... sort of.

Super Sentai is another long running Tokusatsu Franchise, having run for well over 40 years at this point. The franchise has kind of had some problems lately in terms of quality, but we're not here to talk about the issues with Super Sentai. But why does this carry over to America? Sentai is the series that Power Rangers uses for its combat footage. In fact, the current series, Beast Morphers, is adapted from Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, which isn't very good. Not the Power Rangers show mind you, that is great, but Go-Busters is rather boring, not helped by the fact that its written by Yasuko Kobayashi, and I can name one show by her that I've seen that I enjoyed, but we'll get to that show another day.

Today, we'll be talking about an adaptation fic instead of an original story, this one is a fic by my really good friend the Bricklayer. He's often done adaptation fics with Tokusatsu, using monster and suit designs, and this is where we get into our story today. To The Stars is based on Uchu Sentai Kyuranger... and oh boy this is gonna take some explanation.

Kyuranger is more or less the Sentai version of Star Wars... yeah, I'm not kidding about that. There are parallels between Kyuranger and Star Wars, even right down to the design of the villain when he's using a hologram which looks similar to the Emperor. The main characters are basically the rebellion, fighting against the Space Shogunate Jark Matter. Unfortunately, this also gives us the most annoying Sentai Red, Lucky.

But thankfully, as an adaptation the characters are original or characters from MLP itself. So, shall we begin?

Prologue: The End, and the Beginning.

5 Billion Years, that’s how long Equestria was expected to last before the sun finally went, but our calculations were wrong. The end of all things came much sooner than expected, our Sun, Celestia’s sun was far older than any of us thought. We’d been preparing for the end of the world for the last few decades now, ushering our ponies into great underground bunkers in hopes they’d survive the coming cataclysm and escape the heat as me, and the rest of the planet broiled. If we could have, we would have run to the bunkers as well. But when the end came, it fell to us, the four great Alicorns to hold back the sun for as long as we could. -From the Journal of Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship.

Not Flurry Heart though, she's not one of the Great Alicorns.

Yeah, this is where we get the basic idea of the story. The sun that Equestria is around is dying and the survivors are in underground bunkers. And yeah, this is kind of an interesting concept for a post-apocalyptic world, though as we'll see its not exactly a post-apocalyptic story, this is just set up for the world that we will be seeing and backstory for the main characters.

The sun, it had filled the sky like an angry inferno until it had consumed nearly the entirety of space. Only small streaks of angry crimson remained along the horizon, the last vestiges against the oncoming inferno. The once grandiose yellow orb pressed down as a blazing ball of death upon the very word it had cared for and brought life warmth for a millennium. Smoke rose from the blackened wasteland, whipped up into churning maelstroms by the howling winds.

Oh crap, the sun really has exploded! Linkara tried to warn us, but did we listen? Nooooo.

Okay, I'm admittedly not an expert on the nature of stars and how they work. Somehow I feel like the sun acting like this would imply that it's expanded out. Which would probably mean that Equestria is screwed in more ways than one. The fact that there are survivors at all should be considered a miracle.

So, yeah the whole world is on fire, save for the Crystal Empire where Luna is standing on the tower, keeping the flames away from the city. And here's where we get our first Transformation:

But she’d be damned if she wouldn’t try, Luna thought to herself as she raised a gauntlet set upon her wrist, and pressed a purple Orb made of some otherworldly crystal down on it. “Say the Change!”, the gauntlet had shouted, and Luna responded.

“Constellation: Draco!” she said in reply, and a purple light covered her body leaving her in a form-fitting bodysuit, with chest armor, and a blazing star set on it.

Yeah, Kyurangers has a space theme. Kamen Rider actually did this in an earlier series called Kamen Rider Fourze. Its rather interesting really, I like space themed stories as you might guess, yeah I'm kind of a nerd.

Anyway, she's doing what she can in order to protect the tower, but even she admits that there's not a whole lot she can do right now. The tower is the last holdout of Ponykind against the apocalypse, which Twilight muses on. And, uh, oh boy... yeah, I'm gonna have to talk about this line:

It was a relief, amazingly, to be with who she most cared about in the final days of Equestria. Her sister in Cadence, her aunt in Luna and her lover in Princess Celestia.

Yeah, I am honestly not a fan of TwiLestia as a ship, I'm sorry Brick but I gotta bring this up. Twilight and Celestia's relationship can be described as being more pseudo-maternal, with Celestia being more like a mother figure to Twilight. I've always found this ship to be very uncomfortable, and while this is a good story, this is kind of a problem that I have with it. Still, its an enjoyable story otherwise, so I'm not going to hold it against the story.

Anyway, she laments on the fact that she had to send Spike off to the Dragon Lands, and apparently he got two lovers, Ember and Smolder. Poor Gabby got ignored again (yes, I know this was before that episode, but I can joke about it anyway). Starlight and Trixie got together as well, so yay there. And yeah, this is all how she got together with Celestia as she was feeling lonely. And, yeah that's fair, when you're an Alicorn you kind of need somepony who's immortal. Yeah, I'm not gonna get into that again, but hey it has some logic to it.

And then she notices that Luna has collapsed crying, and we get our first actual piece of dialogue:

“T-The Sun!” Luna choked out through her tears. “It… it killed her! It killed my moon!”

Okay, this once more raises the question as to how the planet is still there. Magic is powerful sure, but I don't think it can hold back the entire sun, especially when a moon would be fairly close to the planet.

Anyway, Cadance ran to hug Luna and Twilight... runs to see Celestia? Twilight, Luna is breaking down crying, maybe you should stay with her instead. Anyway, Celestia is in bad shape as they realize that there's nothing left that they can do to protect Equestria. And we get a really good line from Twilight here that sums up the problems of immortality:

“None. You know something, I’ve realized one thing,” Twilight commented, as she watched Cadance carry Luna into the room. “I’m old enough to know that a longer life isn’t always a better one. In the end, you just get tired; tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything you love turn to dust.”

“I’m just being realistic,” she clarified. “The ground beneath our hooves is spinning at… Oh, 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We can feel it. The planet, groaning out in pain and crying for mercy. We’d like to think think it’ll last forever: people and cars and concrete. But it won’t. We knew this, and yet we believed we could save ourselves. We tried tuning the mirror portal to other worlds, for our ponies to flee. And some did, but others couldn’t bear to leave their world behind and so that’s why the vaults and bunkers were built over the last few decades we had left. Underground cities, for protection from the coming fire. Our child… he’s inside one of them just outside the empire. He’ll never know us, except for our journals and memoirs that we left him. It would have been selfish to keep him with us, but…”

“Our legacy, it must continue. The ponies, they’ll need someone to guide them,” Celestia sighed sadly, wanting to embrace her child one last time. “This world… it was never meant for us to keep was it?”

“No, it was not,” Twilight admitted sadly. “So Celestia, just let go. You made a world, you and your sister for ponies to be proud of, but our age is over. Please, just let it go. The ponies, they don’t need us. When they emerge when the fire has passed and the world’s cooled down, it’ll be up to them to decide how to live. Now it’s time to let go, Luna could use her big sister right about now…”

Immortality is a heavy burden to bear, as the old saying goes heavy is the head that wears the crown. Twilight and the other Princesses know that better than anypony at this point. And... at this point they just, give up, the world finally being completely consumed by the fire.

Well, that escalated quickly.

I mean seriously, I kinda get what he wanted to do here, but this kinda seems to come out of nowhere. This is the last attempt to protect Equestria and Ponykind, but they basically just give up. Its kind of a dark way to end these characters abruptly, and oh boy... yeah. But, this isn't about the Princesses, this is about the next generation of heroes, and what happens in the wake of the burning.

Anyway, we cut to years later in the bunkers underground mentioned in the journal entry. Surprisingly, new life apparently does evolve on the surface, but the world is dying still. Its already at -100 degrees and that it will become even colder as the years pass. So the plan is hatched to use either the mirror portal or go into space in order to find a new home for Ponykind, called a New Eden. And the heroes selected would become known as Paladins.

Video belongs to whoever owns Ultima.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Basically the Paladins are the best and brightest of Equestria. Their job is to lead the survivors away from Equus and into space. They also had found the Draco Constellation Kyutama, the thing that Luna had used to transform earlier in the prologue. Its mentioned that there are 6 other Kyutamas, which had been developed by Stripped Gear, the descendant of Lyra and Bon Bon. And they also have what are called Voyagers, space ships and mechas to be used in their journey.

Now I'm imagining the USS Voyager turning into a giant robot.

Anyway, yeah, as its an adaptation of Kyuranger this is a space opera style story. Technically with an adaptation you can change things if you want. RPM is a good canon example as the show it was based on was incredibly goofy, but RPM was a much darker post-apocalyptic story. This isn't a knock against the story here, in fact I love how he handles the space opera elements and its not just a simple one to one adaptation.

Anyway, at this point we get a reference to the Cerberus Voyager and its Kyutama along with a mention of both Flashfire and Stardust. But more importantly, we learn that Stardust is Twilight and Celestia's son.

Okay... I didn't want to keep harping on this, but I gotta bring this up, even if there's no point of it as you can't go back and change it. Genetically, gender is passed down using Chromosomes from both parents, XX and XY. As a result, the offspring of two women, or mares in this case, should be female. Its not a story breaking problem, but its something that has always bugged me a bit about this story.

Anyway, we get a few more Voyagers listed and they're all based on Constellations. And yeah, this is where we get our intro to some of the main characters.

“Yee-Haw!” a voice proclaimed as a sea green ship rocketed past several of those same towers of ice, glittering and twinkling in the lights that the ship emitted.

One of which is apparently a cowboy.

Anyway, this is Flashfire who is talking with Stripped Gear who tells him not to overdo it as this is just a test flight. Stripped jokes that Flashfire will wind up marrying the ship, which I call foul on. Flashfire is clearly not a Droid from Star Wars. Anyway, some of the animals on the surface are sniffing at crystals as the Cerberus Voyager is launched. After that Flashfire is ordered back to base.

Next we move on to introducing the next main character, Coldcast who pilots the Wolf Voyager. And, uh... yeah:

Coldcast, the pilot of the Wolf Voyager found himself atop the headquarters of the Galaxy Garrison headquarters late one night.

That seems a bit redundant to me.

Anyway, Coldcast is from the Griffin Kingdoms who fancies himself as an explorer and adventurer. He's put in charge of the Wolf Voyager... apparently because Flashfire and Flurry Heart who is still alive took pity on him and he has a fascination with the stars. And here's where we get into a bit of a problem with the storyline here. This is all told to us instead of showing it naturally through the story, Here's where we get a bit of show don't tell so... yeah, not one of your better moments Brick.

Weirder yet is that this next bit would've shown that just fine:

“So, I’ll be up there soon huh?” Coldcast mused as his eyes drifted towards the Ursa Major constellation, and for a brief moment, one of his crystal blue eyes drifted towards his gauntlet or Kyuchanger as it was called. For a moment, he wondered if there was a Kyutama based on that. He knew the Ursa Minor got one, so it was possible it’s big brother had a Kyutama created to draw on that constellation’s mystical powers.

You may wonder why the constellations were thought of to begin with, to create powerful suits, mechas and abilities. It was said, and Coldcast only knew of this because of his classmate Jabari who was half zebra and half horse, that long ago they were believed to be the creations of the gods themselves and held ancient mystical powers. Jabari took this belief seriously, and wouldn’t waver on it. Personally, Coldcast dismissed this as hogwash and found it especially ridiculous coming from a stallion who was otherwise well versed in various areas of science. But then again, if the Voyagers were any indication maybe he wasn’t quite so cracked in the head after all…

Not exactly "the stars are evil and plotting against us" but hey, different universe.

“Well, the final frontier it is then I suppose…”

Video belongs to Paramount.

These Star Trek spin-offs just get weirder and weirder.

Anyway, this is where we meet Jabari, who seems to be a Zony given he's gold with black stripes and is dressed in a leather jacket and is listening to something on his headphones. Apparently these two don't exactly get along well, especially because Coldcast dismissed him as a nutcase recently. Probably related to the above quote, but I've seen weirder to be honest.

Anyway, we do learn a bit about Jabari, he's a skilled inventor and builder. And apparently he's not listening to rock and roll, clearly Batmare has succeeded in her goal of wiping it out. He's listening to transmissions from around the Solar System. Jabari questions why he's telling him this, but Coldcast points out that he's an astronomer so this kind of thing would interest him. Jabari says that they really should get along if they're going to get along.

And, well, this is where things begin to get more interesting:

“Not that, you asshole!” Jabari snapped. “Listen, the world as you know it, it’s about to change. I’ve been scanning the systems, and picking up… well, alien radio chatter. I can’t translate most of it, but I can make one or two words out. It’s on repeat. Dark Matter, Dark Matter. That’s all I can really say,”

“Okay, so you are insane. Got it,” Coldcast said, and Jabari simply pressed a button on his computer.

Out of the speakers, came a single distorted voice saying in what was quite possibly the vilest tone possible: “Dark Matter, Dark Matter.” just as Jabari had said.

Yeah... Dark Matter, that's not ominous at all.

Okay, time for a bit of nerdy science. Dark matter is a type of matter that its believed that most of the universe is made up of. It along with Dark Energy is literally what holds the universe together. If you'll recall, the name of the villains of Kyurangers is called Jark Matter, making this an interesting take on the source material. We'll get back to Dark Matter later, and we also get a mention that Jabari is apparently the counterpart to the Sentai Pink.

Or would that maybe be Sentai Lightish Red?

Video belongs to Rooster Teeth.

Anyway, Coldcast points out that maybe they should report this to Stardust and Flurry Heart. But before they can actually do something logical, there is a bright flash and an orb flying across the sky. And of course neither of them have any idea exactly what's going on here. Jabari comments that with his screeching, maybe Coldcast should've been the pilot of the Eagle Voyager, and I'd joke about priorities, but Coldcast does it for me, darn it Coldcast, snarking is my job!

“Er, are your priorities a little skewed right now?” Coldcast asked in a flat tone, eyebrow raised. “I mean, a giant hunk of space rock that’s possibly connected to alien lifeforms just fell from the sky and you’re debating switching Voyagers with me?”

Darn characters stealing my jokes.

Anyway, Jabari questions why he thinks its alien, but Coldcast points out that they had just gotten a message saying Dark Matter and then that happened, yeah, that seems a bit too much of a coincidence. There's a purple cloud rising from where it hit, and Jabari seems to be dismissive of the idea. Coldcast decides to go investigate since, well, that's really what you should do. If it may be aliens, you should really investigate it.

I'm gonna surprise you on this, Coldcast was right, it was alien.

“And I submit to your reality, even if I still reject the theory that it’s related to this Dark Matter,” Jabari replied simply, with a small sniff.

Video belongs to the Discovery Channel.

So yeah, Coldcast points out the odd logic in here that its not as likely that they're just friendly aliens coming by to say hi and improve their lives and then eat them. Just watch out for the "To Serve Ponies" book, its a Cook Book. Okay, seriously Jabari, you heard the transmission, it was creepy, and this would be way too much of a coincidence. If you're going to doubt things, please try to actually be logical about it, please?

Anyway, Jabari points out the fact that it could mean anything. Which is technically true, but yeah this is very sciencey and stuff. Flashfire arrives at this point and tells them that they're not even supposed to be flying their Voyagers yet. But they're going to see what's going on with the ship that crash landed, and naturally its not friendly.

A figure, scorpion-like in shape with a humanoid torso and completely metallic staggered out of the ship, with a rectangular head with one gleaming eye shining a searchlight in their direction. All three Voyager pilots quickly ducked behind some ice. Sadly, it seemed this robot could detect heat signatures and fired a beam of energy in their direction.

“Move! Rapide comme vous pouvez!” Flashfire barked as all three ran for it before sharing a look. “Well, it’s not friendly and it obviously wants to kill all, so I say we introduce ourselves eh?” the pony commented, and both Jabari and Coldcast smirked before all three took out Kyutamas and primed their Kyuchangers. All the while, the arms of the robot sprouted twin-pronged blades.

And this is why you listen to Coldcast. Jabari seriously, I would make a Mr. Fantastic joke, but Reed Richards has more sense than this.

And, so it begins:

“Say the Change!” the Kyuchangers all exclaimed in unison before three Kyutamas were locked in with a clicking sound and given a small twist.

“Lupus!”
“Cerberus!”
“Aquila!”

Part 1: Scorpius

The robot chuckled as soon as it saw the three ‘intruders’ enveloped in an explosion, now that they were dealt with, he could move onto other things.

However, a familiar grating tone reached his audio receptors.

“Did you think we were dead? ‘Cause if so, you need to get that optic of yours checked!” Coldcast’s voice shouted. The robotic centaur/scorpion turned to face it and saw in Coldcast and the other two’s places what could only be described as costumed heroes. The robotic warrior made a hissing noise, and his blades crackled with energy.

“Paladins…” he thought to himself as if he’d had run-ins with these particular types of heroes before.

Coldcast adjusted his gloves, and punched his fist. His costume was form fitting, and looked actually looked like it was made out of leather in some ways, and bore a fur collar. A singular blue star adorned his chest, with a bright, light blue orb at the center of it. Though the legs looked like rock walls, they were slim and smooth to the touch. The helmet resembled a wolf’s head, and bore a glittering image of the constellation Lupus as the visor.

The others were similar, except they seemed to be made out of tight spandex instead of leather. The sea-green one, he bore a Cerberus constellation as his visor and a small cape draped from his back, a unicorn’s horn sticking out of the helmet. Like Lupus Blue, he bore a star on his chest

The pink one was no different, and had the image of the Aquila constellation on his visor and also had a star on the center of the costume.

“Three Stars shining in the sky,” Flashfire shouted as he drew his sword, his Prench accent coming out. “Space Squadron, Kyurangers!”

Yeah, that is technically an accurate translation of Uchu Sentai Kyurangers. Its an interesting choice, and technically makes it different from a typical adaptation like Power Rangers. Yeah, the monster is surprised by that, saying that he wasn't expecting to run into a Star Paladin. And, I gotta wonder about that, exactly how do they know that term? The implication was that it was something created by the Ponies.

Anyway, the robot attacks because he's an evil monster. And oh look, the monster actually says "Dark Matter." And again, you really should've listened to Coldcast, Jabari. Anyway, as the fight continues the robot, Scorpius, manages to wound them. And we get this bit of dialogue:

“Ugh… Please tell me that got him,” Coldcast muttered.

“He’s an alien robot from the stars beyond made out of some sort of metal none of us have ever seen, do you really think a simple magnesium explosion would kill him?” Jabari asked flatly.

Ah Jabari, you may not listen to Coldcast, but you're snarky and I love that.

But yeah, Scorpius is still alive but is badly damaged still. And we get a bit more plot:

“I’ve run into your kind before…” the Robot stated. “They never were much of a challenge. You think you’re the only ones with Kyutamas in this or any other galaxy? Where’d you think that Draco Kyutama I tracked came from? Granted, I am impressed that you managed to reverse-engineer its technology,”

Anyway, the robot is apparently made up of the strongest metals in the galaxy so he's pretty confident that he'll survive. But that's not going to be nearly as simple. Clearly we can't ever get something as simple as just beating the robot, but that's understandable really, no fun in it being easy.

He set his Cerberus Kyutama in his blade, making it cry out: “Galaxy!” before slashing the robot right down the middle. To his surprise however, the legs fell forwards, but the top half of the robot just entered his ship. Inside, it attached itself to the cockpit, and wires sprung out from the bottom of the torso entering crucial systems and charging them up. And then, the entire ship began to shift and change, with four pronged legs popping out, a singular eye appearing from underneath metal plating, and a massive stinger tail erupting from the back of the ship, with a laser cannon at the end, glowing a ugly green color.

“Fools! You cannot stop a morph-capable robot such as myself!” The robot roared as he stared down on the tiny Kyurangers. “Now prepare for your extermination at the hands of the Dark Matter Empire!"

Well, yeah this just gets more and more fun. But if you know anything about Power Rangers you should know what's going to happen next. GIANT ROBOT FIGHT!

Suddenly, a massive blue wolf erupted from a mountain of pure ice, and raised its head to howl at where the moon once would have been centuries ago. A dark pink and black Eagle flew over it, with the three-headed Cerberus Voyager right behind. Three massive Kyutamas appeared, and each locked themselves in place on each of the Voyagers as the rangers leaped into their cockpits.

Anyway, the fight begins as you do in this kind of story. Scorpius is of course taunting them as usual, and of course we get the problem of having a robot that won't tire. They realize that they're too close to one of the underground bunkers, Vault-182. So they come up with the plan to lure him into some canyons nearby.

Video belongs to Disney.

Anyway, the fight continues as they lure Scorpius away. Scorpius goes after Coldcast in the Wolf Voyager, and Jabari attacks with a stream of pink energy. And, well this is Sentai/Power Rangers, so I have to do this.

Video belongs to Hasbro.

I seem to be using a lot of clips in this review...

Anyway, the Rangers decide to, of course, combine into one. Since, yeah, this is Power Rangers/Sentai, so this is pretty much a tradition at this point. But first they have to actually reboot the systems given that things are never easy. And the computer comes online, named Celesti-AI.

I would make a joke about Friendship is Optimal here, but I've never actually read any of those fics.

“Megazord Sequencing Ready. Combine!” the Celesti-AI stated as parts began to shift, and both the Wolf and Eagle Voyager’s Kyutamas detached to allow them to link up with the Cerberus Voyager. Mind you, it was still missing legs, but booster rockets where the empty sockets were fired up, and engaged a flight mode of sorts, with the Eagle’s wings detaching from its body and grafting themselves to the Megazord’s back. “Shooting Star Megazord! Ready for battle!” the Celesti-AI announced.

I'd make a joke about that name, but that's pretty much a Power Rangers tradition. Heck even I went with weird names in my own adaptation pic, Rails of Reality, but we're not here to talk about that.

Anyway, they hit Scorpius with the Meteor Crash finisher. Scorpius pretty much goes down, screaming about how he'll never be taken down by the likes of them. Yeah, that worked very well for him!

So they wisely start inspecting the remains of the robot. There are obvious concerns about there being defensive systems and Flashfire stabs the robot in the back again just to be safe. Jabari is obviously freaking out, though again he should've just listened to Coldcast about this in the first place. Yes, it could've been a coincidence, but you should not be dismissive of the one theory that has the most evidence supporting it.

Coldcast wonders if maybe they should just be frozen over with the rest of the world. Thankfully we're not going to have another dark and depressing scene like in the prologue. But still there's this question as to whether or not they really should go out there given there is a potential threat from the Dark Matter Empire. But Flashfire knocks some sense into him:

“Listen,” Flashfire said sternly, grabbing ahold of Coldcast by the shoulders. “We’re Kyurangers, and the Paladins of Equus, for better, or for worse. Now, I don’t know what’s out there, same as you, and Hell, I’m scared as you believe it or not. But I do know one thing, we have to get off this planet, and find a new home. I don’t like going into the unknown blind, blind about what what’s out there, but as my ancestor Princess Platinum once said when she found what was to become Equestria, and settled it: “If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here! It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross… but it's not for the timid. Nobody ever said this expedition would be safe, but we have to undergo it, or we die. But, as your commander, I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’ve always been, haven’t I petit frère?” he asked softly, pulling Coldcast into a hug.

Anyway, the sweet moment is then ruined by Jabari finding another Kyutama in the wreckage. They're reminded of what Scorpius said about how they're not the only ones who have the Kyutamas in the galaxy. There is also comments about the Kyutamas having numbers on them, of course suggesting that there are more out there. They decide that they need to talk to Stripped Gear about this given he was the one that reverse engineered it.

They get on their bikes and head back towards the headquarters. But someone is watching them from a distance:

“Oh… How does that legend go?” the figure asked himself, rubbing at his chin in thought before he snapped his fingers in remembrance. “Oh, I know! When the universe falls into evil clutches and its people shed tears, the Kyutama will choose nine saviors, the Kyurangers, who will save the universe. That’s how it goes right?” he asked to no-one in particular before chuckling as he gripped the Kyutama in his hand, using his other hand to rub the back of his head sheepishly. “Well, I must say, I never imagined I’d be chosen. I mean, I’m the worst choice to save anyone, let alone the entire universe from the clutches of Dark Matter! But all the same…”

He flicked his wrist, and a Kyuchanger of his own appeared before he locked the Libra Kyutama in it.

“Libra!” he stated, before morphing into a gold-clad figure similar in design to the previous Kyurangers with a set of scales as his visor.

Ah yes, the Sentai Gold for Kyurangers, Thanos' favorite Ranger:

Video belongs to Disney.

Anyway, they head back down underground where they meet with Stripped Gear, who is described here despite, you know, appearing in the Prologue. And again we get a bit of show don't tell by saying he has the Yellow Powerset, but that's not a big deal really.

And apparently he's a fan of the Wasteland Wailers because he's singing Fly Like You. And yeah, he's working before Jabari and Flashfire come in with the remains of Scorpius. And we also get introduced to the second AI, Twilight-AI. Basically they are Twilight and Celestia. Stripped is working on upgrading the Voyagers and Kyutamas and we get the first mention of Spada, another character in the story.

And, uh, Twilight-AI gives us this line:

“Spada’s working on it, as always,” Twilight reminded. “You’re getting forgetful again. I envy you really, having a sense of taste and the actual ability to eat. From what you say about his cooking, it’s like an orgasm in your mouth!”

Yeah, I'm not gonna touch that one, really Twilight?

Anyway, they give Stripped the Kyutama that had been recovered from Scorpius. And Stripped is understandably shocked given that his job is to make the Kyutamas. They give him a run down of what happened, and for some reason instead of discussing it more, Stripped decides to show them something he's been working on. And this is where we meet Spada:

The mostly yellow carapaced Changeling sighed to himself, always so unfocused that one. Stripped Gear, he was like a pavlova in some ways, and that meant he was notoriously hard to work with at times. He grumbled something under his breath, before sighing and following after his fellow Paladins.

If he had looked back, he would have seen the robot’s singular optic blink once more, before dimming.

He was in for a shock, pretty much dropping his tray -After recovering it, and more importantly the food with a small field of magic from his horn- when he saw what was nestled deeper inside Stripped’s lab. As ever, the lab was in a state of what could only be described as organized chaos, various half-finished devices and inventions and such scattered about. On a big bulletin board, with various drawings and photos stuck to it with thumbtacks was what seemed to be an entire collection of such things all centered around one such creature, a massive purple dragon, from the Neighasian lands in design.

“What… What have you been working on?” Jabari whispered. If there was a pony in the cities more intelligent than him, it was Stripped Gear and there was always a method to his madness. Jabari had just yet to figure it out right now.

Yeah, pretty much all species seems to have survived including Changelings. If anyone here's read my fic Kamen Rider Scarab, Spada was one of the characters that appeared in it. I really should stop bringing up my own fics, sorry.

Anyway, Stripped says that he had been drawn briefly to a canyon, but he hasn't told any pony else yet. Twilight-AI points out that it doesn't exactly sound scientific, and I could do so much to tear that line apart. Not the least of which being that technically magic is unscientific, even if they approach it scientifically. Anyway, Stripped tells them that he found an energy source in the canyon as well as some exposition, err, I mean ancient artifacts.

“Outcropping of giant ice boulders, leading into a giant cavern covered in these sheer ancient markings. Each tells a slightly different story, but they all tell of this purple dragon coming to save them in times of great crisis. And, what’s more, they all tell of clues leading to some great event, some great… disaster. Initially, I thought it was of the sun going out oh so long ago, but now after you brought in that robot and told me of you and your comrades’ story Jabari,” Stripped continued, with everyone else in the room looking at the zorse as Stripped continued. “I’m not so sure about that. What I am sure of is this, we need to have a look at those caves. So, who’s with me?”

Anyway, after that much like in Alchemy we get a cut to where the villains are. A purple furred wolf named Lupus reports that Scorpius has been destroyed and it turns out they were after the Draco Kyutama. However, Lupus has also found an energy source from the remains of an old castle. He gets ordered to send Invaders to investigate as they head to what's left of the Crystal Empire.

Well, this won't end badly at all.

Final Thoughts

Okay, I would compare this to the source material, but I gotta admit, I haven't watched a lot of Kyurangers. I watched episode one a while back, and yeah I found Lucky annoying. But really, there's no point in comparing the two, while this is an adaptation, it really stands on its own as a story much like a Power Rangers season.

The prologue and first chapter introduce us to some of our main characters (not all of them, but that's for another time). The idea of Equestria being destroyed in an apocalyptic event, my questioning of the science aside but to be fair I'm not an expert on this kind of thing. Then there's the idea of going into space itself, which we only get an idea of here, but with a title like To the Stars we all know its coming.

The main characters are likable, even if sometimes they make some kind of stupid decisions. The concept is well handled, and the source material is used well. And not to mention none of the heroes are insufferable idiots like Lucky was in Kyurangers proper. I'd like to come back at some point.

The fact that its an adaptation doesn't really take away from the story. While there are some elements that you probably should know from the source material, it really stands on its own as a story. Its not perfect, but its a good start. That being said, its got a few issues like pacing for the death of the Princesses, as I said it really kinda felt like it just came out of nowhere.

Anyway, final scores time:

Prologue: 4/5.
Chapter 1: 5/5.

Original Fic

So, what will I review next time? I'm not sure yet, but I think I'm going to either go back to Fallout: Equestria or finish those two review series that I never finished. I'll see you then.