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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Whisper and Dusty are cheating so hard.
And this little war is building to a climax. The big battle is coming.
9108472
There's no cheating in war though. Only info warfare, and 'lings gotta pull every trick to even the scales.
Btw, please tell me there's a big Sickle scene coming. Big battle climax and no Sickle feels wrong.
Dusty, you sly dog, slipping innuendoes like that.
I really love the middle section of the chapter ("Ten hours") where Whisper was describing the overall experience of being in the command center of a war. You got across the juxtaposition of being in an incredibly stressful situation while simultaneously being in the most peaceful and safe location very well. It's also endlessly entertaining to see Whisper and Dusty and their cheating hax.
As for the rest of the chapter... it was a bunch of detailed military descriptions and strategy. I appreciate how thorough and well thought out it is, but I skimmed a lot of it. Sorry.
Hey. Guess what day it is? GUESS what day it is.
...
...
Your right. Its UP-DATE DAY!!!
Big chapter to just thrust upon us. It's hard to take it all in but I did and now I just want it faster and more of it.
I wonder if the ponies have any missile launchers on them, if they can smash in those pillboxes before the fight....well, it won't solve the problem but it will probably make it a hell of a lot easier.
9108544
yeah, this was really well made chapter.
Once again a fantastic chapter; I expected nothing less.
I still really hope Bloodbeak isn't a spy, but given she hasn't tried assassinating Whisper and Dusty (who both are the only reason the attack is going so well) before Serenity could take so many losses, nor does she have any apparent method to share intel with the hive, makes it increasingly likely she's just a regular, if quirky, griffin.
9108544
I found myself absolutely enthralled with this chapter, as I love military strategy and tactics. Made it feel all the more real. There was also plenty of crucial information, even a subtle potential slip up on Whisper's and Dusty's part (them moving the wagon back the instant the enemy asked permission to fire, which could have tipped the hive off that their communications are compromised).
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
If they got Artillery that can indirect fire, THIS is the place to use it. Doubt they have much but hell just a simple mortar can make that defensive position a lot harder to protect. Mind you counter arty is a thing but just me....damn it you got me into my RTS mindset when dealing with a choke point.
Good chapter man.
You tell battle and strategy scenes amazingly bro! So damn INTENSE!!! xd
Next chapter, biggest battle of the story yet. Victory or death.
"we run the risk or fighting our own forces if they mistake"
"we run the risk of fighting our own forces if they mistake"?
I'm just waiting for Serenity to start using their radio as a decoy and screw up everything
9109667
Honestly? I don't think Serenity is that skilled. If you look at what they've done over the course of the story, when it comes to open warfare and tactics, they're top notch. But in terms of espionage and assassination? They've been pretty heavily lacking. The few times we've seen them try to use tactics like that they've either been almost childishly simple, or half-botched.
The big thing we'll have to watch out for in this next chapter is whatever "Mantis" is. Up until now, Dusty and Whisper have been able to even out their disadvantages--and even completely turn the tables--due to their overwhelming advantage in terms of intel gathering. But the fact remains that in terms of gear and training, Serenity is heavily superior. Add the defensive fortifications on top of that, plus whatever tech surprises they can pull out, and this fight could end up a bloodbath, even with all the advantages Whisper is giving the militia. Rather than Serenity figuring out and countering what Whisper is doing, I'm more worried they'll pull something that even forewarning won't be enough for the militia to handle it.
9108504
The trick with Sickle is that she wants to be right in the middle of the fighting, while Whisper is ideally far from it. So Sickle will get some fighting in, but we might not be close enough to see much of it for a bit. There should be at least one more fight where she's reasonably close, though it might be a few chapters.
As for the innuendo, that's one of the things I really like about having Sickle around. It wasn't until I had typed out that sentence that the innuendo struck me, and once I realized it, Sickle's reaction was a natural follow-up.
9108544
Heh, that's okay. This chapter and the next kind of stand out from the rest, with the major battle going on and Whisper helping to coordinate things from afar. They're a lot heavier on "event" content, while much of the rest of the story has been more heavy on the "character" content.
9109370
Thanks! It's been a very interesting challenge, trying to portray a battle like this from a character that's so removed from the combat yet so aware of all that's going on. I hope the next chapter turns out as well, because I've had a lot of fun writing it.
9109946
It's like Whisper concluded earlier: Serenity has excellent training and tactical ability, but they lack operational experience. In a straight-up fight, they're great, and they know lots of tactical tricks that can cause huge problems for a conventional force. The problem is, their opponent has a massive and unknown information advantage that negates Serenity's advantages, and they have a few blind-spots created by their lack of experience. They're too used to simulated combats where they have the information advantage, or where the fights are neatly defined engagements of limited scope, or both. Dusty and Whisper aren't letting them do that, and it's throwing them thoroughly off their game.
If there's one thing that I might have wanted to do differently, it would be to show a bit more of Serenity fighting at its prime, to better show of their abilities before Whisper uses her information gathering to negate those abilities. Discounting the mass-assassination, the only real look at that was the ground-side fight in Pale Sands. While outcome that fight was pretty heavily in Serenity's favor, despite them being outnumbered at least two-to-one (And probably more like three-to-one), it was only one event, and also alongside the surprising defeat on the Cumulonimbus (Again, due to the ponies "cheating" ).
Please, at the end of all this, let Whisper make an announcement on the Serenity command channel:
"Attention, all units. Get bent."
The reaction would be absolutely priceless.
9110707
That would certainly be a way to build tension. But even keeping it the way you have it now gives a unique perspective on Serenity and how we, as readers, see them. To me, at least, they feel almost like children. Ones who have played way too many video games and gotten their hands on some toys they really shouldn't have, but children nonetheless. It makes it easier to sympathize with Whisper every time she starts feeling down about the number of changeling dead because there's a part of me that can't help but wonder what all those changelings could have been if they hadn't grown up under the influence of a genocidal maniac.
No idea how they'll get through this one with minimal casualties. My best idea is to send in Whisper to their back lines and hope she can pull off that trick with the minigun a second time. Definitely won't work against an enemy that authored the book that has that trick.
Well that's quite a buildup!
9112201
Besides, that's not a handful of raiders but a proper army, such stunt would end in useless death
I think the metal bawkses aren't going to last, they have like 2 plasmas in the secound line while the ponies have whole batteries of heavy laser canons. Plus if changelings already lost 100+ bugpower out of something over 1000 vaulters... I mean serenity would have effective up to 800 bugs, including internal militia and support personel, meaning said ~300 deployed troops would be the only thing serving the line before Queen Cunthat gets desperate and presses the relative civilians into service.
Also- Hill 313 refrence.
9112957
9112957
that's quite a defensive line. 300 troops, not mentioning reserves, in ENTRENCHED positions... just for reference, the german garrison at omaha beach barely made up to 100...
Whoaaa!! Blood everywhere
9113701
I'm not saying it will be easy, I just don't expect the foritfications to last long. And that's more like 200 manpower [some of it outght to be military engineers rather than straight-up soldiers and Alpha is still re-grouping]. The Heavy Weapons advantage will eather supress the changeings making the ponies entry a doable one or will force the changelings to counter-charge with fliers to re-direct heavy guns and able the trenches to reliably fire on the incoming ponies.
Plus the ponies were already seen willing and agreeing on making forceful pushes. It will only make the time window smaller and might be a ruse to make the ponies overextend. Serenity was already seen beeing overconfident in their cappabilities and it might be their biggest weakness, besides Chrysalis who I imagine becomes Commander-in-Chief once situation becomes dire and she'll be completely idiotic at just zerg rushing evrything with maybe a ruse or two to be realistic.
9114328
Well now I feel dumb.
I got caught up in the moment I guess, and kind of forgot I didn't actually know jack about ballistics or forensics Thank you for clarifying though
9114999
Hey, no worries. I generally try to write in a way that doesn't need that kind of knowledge, but there's probably a few places that won't be perfectly clear without it. Don't feel dumb about asking questions if something doesn't make sense. I'm happy to explain. For that matter, as much as I try to be accurate, there's probably other places where I have made mistakes.
I'm just going to mention that this chapter has 9999 words.
9115816
I was very torn between adding in some superfluous word just to make it a nice even 10k, or leave it as-is with all identical digits.
Fortunately, this was a case where laziness actually works just fine.
Ooh, evening the theatre. That could come in handy.
Well, except for the fact their army would be out there in that murky mess, while the changelings have a dry Stable to hide in
Starlight don't give a damn! She'll scavenge everything not bolted down, and then gets to work with her bolt cutters!
Aren't you?
Hehe. All's fair in love and war.
Oh. Ew
They could really use some artillery right now...
Aw yiss. Specific advice on avoiding changeling shenanigans!
Wow, you just barely kept this under 10k words
(though the epub says 10,316 )
You walked riiiight into that, dusty.
This data trick that whispers got is pretty much the only reason they haven’t been slaughtered. I just keep imagining what orochimaru said. “A horde of savages is no match for a regimented military these fools are rushing to their deaths.” That information is the only advantage they have serenity has them outmatched literally everywhere else.
There is no such thing as cheating in war, it's just utilizing all available tools
9912672
Absolutely! And if the other side has any problem with it, well, they should have cheated harder.
Little quip, or concern? Just pondering if the first hive is the one of Chrysalis the First, or the original back before the megaspells fell or not. Maybe saying after the sundering of the original hive, it was the ideal that Queen IforgetWhisper'sQueen'sname established. (I forgot her name for reals too. )
Only a small thing in a mountain of good as I read all of it during Christmas Break.
10006562
I'm not sure which you're referring to as the "first hive" or which one you're referring to as the "original," since my initial reading of the statement would be that both refer to the same hive.
A basic recap of the history Whisper gave after being revealed, with some added details gathered from the Serenity hive: basically, the "original" pre-war hive is the one ruled over by the Queen Chrysalis we know from the show, and which Serenity refers to as Queen Chrysalis the First, to distinguish from the Queen Chrysalises that have followed. After Equestria struck back in retaliation to her hostility and Queen Chrysalis (The First) fell in battle, the survivors of her hive scattered (The sundering of the hive). In the aftermath of that, several new hives were founded, including the one Whisper refers to as "our" hive (The one Queen Ephema comes to rule over), as well as the Serenity hive (Or its predecessors).
There was only one sundering ever mentioned (Referring to the first Queen Chrysalis fell and her hive scattered), so the only "our hive" in the aftermath of that was the one Whisper came from (With Queen Ephema). It's also a bit complicated by Whisper's generally meticulous precision and attention to detail and in what she says, and it would be inaccurate to suggest that Queen Ephema established her hive (Kind of more the other way around). But that's kinda getting into history that hasn't really been covered yet. So it's kind of in that awkward place where I could have rephrased it differently to repeat and clarify that history (It's a long story, after all!), but it would be kinda uncharacteristic for Whisper to do so in her own personal narration.
This whole section is a wonderful illustration of how important intelligence is in warfare. A few well-placed words turning an ambush into a rout. And I love the level of detail you go into, juggling the large and the small.
I do not know why it suddenly hit me, maybe the talk about logistics and rations, but Whisper and the gang never got to use all of their caps that they got for all of them jobs! I had half and half expected that they would come up as a plotpoint at some point, them throwing their bags on a table, either paying for initial help or telling the merchantile leaders that Serenity have bottle pressing tech and are able to ruin the economy if they wanted to. I do not really have a grasp about how big the army is, but them offering to pay for some of the food, or promissing a bounty on kills, whatever, could have been a nice thing... yes yes I know that it is better to do stuff for the right reasons instead of money, but money makes the world go around, and are often forgotten later on when people are swimming in them.
10573627
Maybe I should have detailed their finances a little more. They were doing decently, though "swimming in cash" is maybe overly generous.
I ended up taking, um... meticulous noted on all their gear (I a lifelong GM, so I tend to relentlessly track this stuff...). At the end, they had about 5400 caps between them. It's a good amount for four/five ponies, and could maybe hire a few mercenaries (If any were around), but it's kind of a drop in the bucket for an army of several hundred. Mareford's a professional army backed by the one functioning industry in the region, so they're basically overflowing with caps. The only food and supplies to buy are the stuff the armies are already bringing with them.
And both Whisper and Dusty don't want to be offering bounties for kills. It tends to promote the wrong sort of behavior. For Whisper, she doesn't want people to equate killing changelings to making money, as if changelings were the equivalent of raiders. And Dusty doesn't want people prioritizing kills (And gathering proof) over achieving their objectives, especially in a highly mobile fight.
But most of the group's wealth lies in the equipment they've gathered, and they'll be contributing some of that very soon...
Honestly, I'm a guy who has always been interested in the military/police. So I absolutely am loving all this detail you've gone into with this war between Serenity and the army Whisper and her friends have gathered. From importance of good intelligence, to importance of good communications and all else in between. Ya rarely see this level of details given in these kinds of stories. I've already praised this level of detail before, but it really is just so dang great. It's made this definitely one of the more interesting stories to read.
11263164
A good depiction of combat was definitely one of the key components I wanted to get right for this story. Especially since it was a good way of portraying just how out of her league Whisper is!
One fun challenge for this story was working with a protagonist who, while she could fight, was really at her weakest when fighting. She isn't even that great at tactics. But I've learned just how huge a factor information can be in a conflict, and if there's anything Whisper is good at, it's information! So it was a lot of fun being able to show a protagonist who could contribute so much to a fight without actually fighting herself.
And I felt it was equally important to show just how chaotic and unclear a fight can be, especially to someone who's unfamiliar with it. Even in a firefight, information is powerful. A PipBuck's E.F.S., with its ability to show the location and affiliation of everyone nearby, would be a dream come true for a soldier, but it tends to get overlooked compared to things like the "make guns shoot more better" S.A.T.S. or the like.
So I'm always glad to hear that it worked out well. Thank you!
Dusty = Pony Macarthur :P