Review of "A Thousand Year Peace" by AdmiralKew

Today, I will be reviewing “A Thousand Year Peace” by AdmiralKew. As the inspiration for Seriff Pilcrow’s Spectrum of Lightning, I am really curious to see how this turned out.  

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As usual, this review will contain spoilers. You are advised to read it first before proceeding if you do not want to be spoiled. 

Summary

A lot has changed since Twilight Sparkle's ascension. They say it's the beginning of a new era, the start of a new and modern Equestria as it rides the wave of a scientific and technological boom set in motion centuries beforehand. However, all is not quite well as unrest brews in the cities. Add to that, the difficulty of adapting to a fast-paced, modern society and the entire situation becomes a disaster waiting to happen.

Content

Two words do an excellent job at describing this story: “Not ideal.” 

To start, I believe it is apt to discuss the overall plot of the story, which was regrettably, especially difficult to piece together. For example, the story talks about how Fluttershy was first kidnapped by a group called the Warlord Ravenous, how Twilight was part of the School of Arcane Sciences, how Rainbow Dash was paralyzed by some sort of obscure magical device that negates Rainbow’s own pegasus magic, how there were reports of demonstrations led by Flim and Flam, how Pinkie was captured, how Octavia and Vinyl were in cahoots with changelings, how there would be a war between Equestria and the Griffon Empire, and the dragons, and then a civil war within Equestria. If I may be candid, it almost seems like a game of Equestria at War from the Hearts of Iron IV modification was occurring right before my eyes, particularly when war was declared. 

Allow me to qualify my point; these events can certainly be integrated into the story if you so wished. However, I question whether these events were relevant to the plot itself. 

To determine whether a plot point is relevant or not, one should consider whether the event resultant of this point influenced the characters or the sequence of events following, and, by extension, the conclusion of the story. While that might be true for the latter aspect of this argument for some of the events, I found that it was difficult to empathise with the characters, as they seemed almost indifferent to the circumstance. 

An example would be when news of Pinkie Pie’s capture came to light. Despite having a very close relationship with her, they simply shrugged it off, noting that Pinkie shouldn’t be the one to be concerned over, but her captors should be instead. Frankly, it was funny to me, but it still struck me as alarming when they practically did not bat that much of an eyelid at Pinkie Pie’s plight. Wouldn’t they be worried over Pinkie Pie? And more pertinently, even if there was a point in bringing this matter up, there were too many other arcs that cropped up through the “first prologue” of the story.

When reading through this piece, I was stunned by the copious number of events that I was brought to witness; there were simply too many to track and grasp their significance at the end of the story to pay each of them much attention. Right when the story decides to proceed with a specific arc as a point of focus, the story throws a curveball and provides another distraction that detracts from the development of the previous arc. These would have been fine should the author consider working on fleshing the arcs out and their relevance to the plot more concretely before proceeding with another arc. 

However, this would still lead, to some extent, the eventual problem of what the reader should focus on. Readers can be easily lost when reading the story because it does not affirm which events are notable and which ones are not. For example, I have a specific scene, in this case, Rainbow Dash and Twilight challenging each other to a drinking contest, somehow stuck in my head. I can likely attribute this to Rainbow’s banter, saying how Twilight’s ability to drink was essentially zero. So, any “advantage” resulting from being an alicorn was negated since the product of zero was still zero. 

I digress. This scene could be a casual way to step away from the chaos of all these plot points, but the author introduces it firmly, demarcating it with two, solid horizontal lines. To corroborate on this point, I believe the author had also transitioned away from an earlier scene to this particular scene, before jumping to yet another scene. By doing so, it signals that the scene was somehow important to the story to warrant this treatment in the prose. Hence, it can be difficult for readers to decide on which aspects of the story were salient. 

To compound matters, the author constantly jumps between scenes within chapters numerous times to ensure that each arc he has delved into was adequately developed. This constant shift between perspectives and characters is rather jarring to a casual reader. It can be a very daunting task for readers to track what was happening in the first part of the story. 

Most problematic to the story would be the collective result of all of the above pointers I have discussed so far. After reading the first few chapters in the story, I genuinely had no idea what the story was supposed to be going towards. I knew that it promised that the “thousand years of peace” would somehow be broken, but the story was taking so many directions on many axes that it became obfuscating to deduce what was the resolution of all these directions. More precisely, I fail to determine where the story was headed, knowing all these side plots. 

It therefore became difficult to be invested in the plot itself. There is little stake in wondering what would happen next in each individual arc, should there be a large number of them waiting to be developed over time. On the surface, this sounds absurd; why wouldn’t a reader be invested in finding out what would happen in such a wide diversity of matters that was supposed to link to the conflict the story promised? 

Digging deeper, however, reveals a different perspective. As the author was juggling with such a large number of scenes, it was hard for them to grapple with the development of each individual scene. It was challenging to think through, outline and write out this many scenes at the same time in a single chapter, for example. Additionally, the author has to limit the development of a scene for an arc due to the many scenes taking place within that same chapter. This resulted in rudimentarily developed scenes.

The author should consider focusing on a smaller quantity of plot points such that the author has sufficient leeway to be able to develop them sufficiently. To do so, it would be best to foreshadow how each point would be a result of the main characters’ decisions in the past, or show how the events are related to each other. This would be better should the author wish to keep the word count to this present level. 

Most regrettably, the scenes in the earlier chapters, and to a lesser extent, the last chapters of the story, seemed as though each arc and scene was independent of each other; they seemed disjointed and irrelevant to each other. This weakened the story’s immersion with the reader. 

It is also noteworthy to mention that this story is set in an alternate universe, which deserves much worldbuilding and development to prop the entire context and setting for the audience to be immersed into. Honestly, the world is interesting to me, but it’s just a shame that it was not developed as much as I would like. The university, the relationship between the princesses and the elements of harmony, the relations with the other kingdoms and principalities were at least explored to a decent extent. Unfortunately, we know little of the kingdoms themselves, or their motivations to attack Equestria. This will certainly be explored here in due course. 

Being an alternate universe, it is fair that the author would have a unique take on how the Mane Six could have been like, in terms of their characterisation. However, there was little to talk about what had happened prior, beyond Fluttershy, who had some experience during her upbringing. I wish that the author could have gone into greater detail into hammering a stronger foundation to distinguish the story’s Mane Six from what we are aware of in canon. It would help to justify the Mane Six’s otherwise quirky behaviour in the story. 

While I could somewhat justify the uncharacteristic behaviour of the personalities in the story, I struggle to defend the logic within. For example, Twilight was concerned that, due to her stature (and ivory tower), she was vulnerable to her eyes “being poked by other unicorns” and so she went to obtain a pair of glasses. I’m not an ophthalmologist, but I doubt that a pair of glasses would be adequate to protect one’s eyes from a unicorn horn. It is even more alarming to note that the glasses might shatter, prompting glass shards to rain down on…GAH!

Neither can the logic of the decisions taken by some of the characters be justified. When Fluttershy was kidnapped, she used the stare to convince the guard to crack the cell door open for her escape. But afterwards, she uses the stare to persuade the guard to kill himself, which led to her regretting her decision. This acted as the basis of one of the scenes in the story. To me, although I can excuse the fact that the stare was sufficiently persuasive enough to sway the opinions of a lowly guard, I could not accept how Fluttershy would do something like this. 

Even though we do get snippets of Fluttershy’s backstory, it was too weak a motivation to result in her acting in such a rash and cutthroat manner. If nothing else, it would seem that Fluttershy’s decision was supposed to be a convenient way to drive some conflict into the story at the start. Indeed, plot convenience was another thing; the story constantly seems to find ways to mix in new elements without much foreshadowing. While it did make the story seem punchy, as discussed earlier, the number of scenes was too overwhelming. 

Speaking about convenience, I realise that most of the world building was doled out to the reader whenever it was deemed immediately necessary. Let’s take a look. 

Twilight picked up a piece of paper giving a short biography of Warlord Ravenous.

He had been one of Emperor Strongheart's closest friends and most trusted advisors. However that didn't prevent them from having disagreements regarding foreign policy, especially regarding the Principality. Ravenous believed that Equestria was making the griffons weak and diluting their culture through trade. While he wasn't in favour of complete separation, he wanted that the trade between the nations be focused on arms and technology rather than cultural items. Strongheart believed the opposite.

Unfortunately for the Empire, Strongheart hadn't yet been able to name a worthy successor before his assassination during a diplomatic visit to Equestria. The power vacuum and the political infighting that resulted fractured the Empire, reducing it to a collection of ruinous states colloquially dubbed the Confederacies. Ravenous had broadcast a message to the Equestrian government promising revenge and vanished into thin air.

Fluttershy's encounter was the first news of him since the disappearance. It had only gotten worse from there. The Warlord, true to his title, had already conquered several of the Chancellorships that made up the area and integrated their forces into his. He had also reclaimed a significant portion of the former Empire's industrial infrastructure and was using it to build weapons and equipment for his troops.

Twilight knew enough by the end of the bio to know that a storm was brewing. He was a charismatic figure who had stirred his people into a nationalistic fervor, and he would stop at nothing to see Equestria crumble.

It would have been better if we could see how evil and tactful Warlord Ravenous was if Fluttershy had seen how cruel he was in dealing with the prisoners he had dealt with. Another way could be to show a conversation between Strongheart and Fluttershy. There, minimally, elements and nuance on how Strongheart had interacted and reacted to the memory while regaling the story could be brought out. In doing so, it is far better to justify, in this case, the strength of Ravenous Warlord’s motivation to conquer Equestria. 

Motivation. What were the antagonists’ motivations? In the above example, it has been shown that there was little nuance or reason to why Ravenous Warlord was evil; it was explicitly stated that he was evil, period. Similarly, there was little to discuss about why the Griffon Empire was looking to restore its former glory suddenly. Why now, after a thousand years of peace? Was there a change in leadership in the Griffon ranks? Some justification here would help to explain the sudden shift in their diplomatic relations, and help to inject life into this alternate universe. 

Fortunately, the fight scenes were able to redeem this story, to some extent. The punchiness of the shots, the action sequences and the emotional depth were apt; there was little fluff or filler that obstructed the flow of the fight, except when weapons and armour pieces were described in immense detail. While I’m not necessarily fussy with the manner the author had chosen to describe his calibre sizes, I still found the inclusion of them into the story needless. 

I would recommend focusing on showing the damage the weapons would bring forth or the recoil of the weapon when fired instead. It would not only be easier for readers to comprehend, but it will also enable them to visualise the power and the intensity of the fight. 

To finish, I would like to add that, even though the fight scenes were competently handled, due to the weak motivations of the antagonists, they struggled to hold much weight. A fight is portrayed best when the two opposing parties have a credible reason to attack one another due to a disparity in some regard. Therefore, as the two parties in the story are not sufficiently developed, it is difficult to understand why the two sides were fighting one another, and truly comprehend how much the fight meant to them and their ideals. 

Flow

Due to the constant jumping between scenes, it is unsurprising that the cohesiveness of the prose was affected. Some readers have pointed out that the author has a tendency to utilise shorter paragraphs in their story, and acknowledged that to be an issue, as it made the story go by very quickly. 

I respectfully disagree with this viewpoint. The pacing of the story was definitely very fast; it is too fast to be able to capture and immerse oneself into its plot. This is because of the rushed development of each of the scenes and the poor concatenation of these scenes. Building these scenes more organically, as described earlier, would be a great first step into resolving this. 

However, the fast tempo is excellent in portraying its fight scenes. The short sentences and paragraphs made reading these segments a breeze, making the experience congruent to the fluidity of a fight. 

Unfortunately, the last two chapters of the story contained a massive fight sequence. Although it was initially pithy, the entire sequence became very drawn out due to the huge length of the chapter itself. I would recommend introducing and developing sharper sequences that had increased stakes over each “phase” of the battle so that there is an incentive for the reader to continue reading. 

Language

Much of the errors were punctuational. Let’s take a look at a few examples. 

"Twilight sure must be having fun at her conference." Applejack mused. "She's not answering any of my calls."

"Twilight sure must be having fun at her conference[,]" Applejack mused. "She's not answering any of my calls."

"Same here." Said AJ.

"Same here[,]" said AJ.

"You're the one who's wasting all of the good we've done." Flim levitated his baggage, "I'm leaving you to rot."

"You're the one who's wasting all of the good we've done." Flim levitated his baggage[.] "I'm leaving you to rot."

Itwas all a con.

It was all a con.

"Fresh Cider from Sweet Apple Acres, Ponyville" The label read.

"Fresh Cider from Sweet Apple Acres, Ponyville[,]" the label read.

Stance

Unfortunately, this piece requires much work to shine. I might have been brutally honest with my criticisms of this story, but actually I feel more disappointed than anything else, since the alternate timeline proffered here was rather fascinating to look into. Perhaps, if you are revamping it one day, we can always chat about it in due course!

Content/Plot: 1/10
Flow/Communication: 1/10
Language/Readability: 5/10
Overall: 2.3/10
Verdict: Needs Work

Comments

[Mr Tech]

Much wow, info is very compact