This thread is to discuss Duvet's Book 1 Outline and any changes which should be made.

Have at it!

OK! A few things, completely out of order..

1) The depiction of Merry Weather is quite.. one-dimensional. His motivations for being cruel, the background of his culture that makes what he is doing ok in his eyes, what motivates him and why, all are a bit light on the details. Similarly, the cavalier attitude he has towards sending Swan Song (his best pilot) off to get killed makes him stupid and evil. He bounces between evil slave owner who doesn't care about his possessions (dunno why that seems to be a popular opinion of slave owners, considering the *cost* of slaves.. but I digress) and a petty politician / bureaucrat whose idea of revenge is to bill the station for damages.

2) Blackwing - what is the point of this if Nyx can simply threaten Flurry out of it? You *probably* don't want to dive into the culture of the Pegasi and their slave-holding ways, but it's worth thinking about how their culture would transition from Harmony & MLP to it being acceptable to be slaves. You briefly touch on them being traitor family members - are they like a bunch of criminals that have been pressed into service due to their existing skills? (A common enough trope to use if you want). Also, if Nyx can threaten Merry and get it undone, my very initial thought was why doesn't Flurry use HER very intimidating presence to get his cooperation in the first place?

3) The cruiser/carrier differentiation. Why is a cruiser capable of fielding enough fighters to combat a proper carrier? Why is a carrier even thinking about getting in combat range of a cruiser? How did the Changelings from a cruiser (max crew of...???) and overwhelm the crew of the Orion (700 techs and ?? support staff?), who have Nyx on board? Does the Orion have any defences and how did they manage to infiltrate enough of the ship to gas it? Let alone stay on the offensive with enough troops to establish enough time to cocoon some of the crew and feed on them? Side note - I suddenly want Nyx to have a suit of power armor that lets her challenge small starships in combat....

4) The motivation of Flurry at the very beginning is questionable. She is determined to get the supplies for ponies that really need it.. and yet, 90% of the way through, she ditches the mission, damages her own ship, risks fire all to rush over to Harmony station and.. wait. And this all occurs just because she happens to be listening in to a communication band used by the Equestrian military for covert operations...? It's still a tough sell :). Why not complete her mission and move along with the contrabrand in her hold (more reason for friction) and get noticed taking off?

5) I'm not sure if the depiction of these ponies as never having seen other races is quite believable yet. Especially in military units & spacefaring ships there would seem to be a reasonable amount of crossover / mingling. Again probably doesn't help that the composition / background of Swan Song's aerie is mostly a blank and seems to be raw recruits thrown together and a mix of some thing that make them feel like veterans (how do they know Swan is a mother hen? takes care of her own? without prior experience?)

6) Flurry reads Orion's brief -um thought the Orion was a top secret ship :D. Flurry just sorta seems to slide past any security / political requirements without effort.

7) The reveal of the Wendigo (that's what that creature was, right?).. hmm I like the scene, but I wonder if it's too early to reveal your main enemy. I might suggest that you could really beef up the changelings as behind-the-scenes manipulators and able to morph their bodies into deadly creatures at need. Like what if they figured out how to break through the similar-mass limitation and the 'queen' can absorb life force to grow more powerful? Idea ideas..

8) What were they doing on the Orion in the first place - why invade, take over parts of the ship.. and then let themselves get defeated? Why assault a ship with an alicorn.. without anti-alicorn weaponry? Why *leave* when the going gets tough, abandoning their crewmembers on board the Orion?