Hello, friends! Hope you all had a good week. Today’s story is one that I’m personally pretty excited to review. I saw it sitting in the general folder a while ago, thought it looked interesting, gave it a read, and really, really enjoyed it!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s today’s story!

TEmpty Horizons

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Sci-Fi

Twilight wakes up, alone in the dark. And she's drowning.

• Violence
• Gore
• Alt. Universe
• OC
• Main 6
• Bat Pony
• Griffons

Goldenwing · 186k words  ·  1,374  37 · 20k views

This story seems to have spawned a pretty big following, with quite a few sidefics by fans. Also, it has a Rage Review which I’ll try my best to match the quality of, haha

Well, that’s enough prefacing. Let’s get into it!

SPOILER WARNING! If you don’t want to be spoiled, go read the story first; while I won’t be spoiling any of the later plot points, I do go into some of the ones in the beginning half a little.

The story starts, as the description implies, at the bottom of the ocean. The opening image has Twilight and her friends getting rescued from a deep slumber. Twilight, our main protagonist, wakes up in an inky darkness before coming face to face with her rescuers: a team of ponies wearing metal armour of some sort.

Before they have time to figure things out, though, they’re attacked by a swarm of creatures that are apparently mutated changelings. The story launches into a harrowing escape sequence, before the ponies squeeze into a tiny submarine and rise to the surface, where we’re finally introduced to the world of this story.

Twilight climbed out onto the open deck of the submarine, squinting against the salty gust of wind that blew into her face. She turned and turned, completely around, but all she saw was water. There was no land. No land to be seen in any direction. Just endless water.

Empty Horizons is a fic that takes place thousands of years into the future from the show, in a timeline where Twilight lost to Queen Chrysalis in A Canterlot Wedding. In this world, Equestria has sunk in a massive flood that extends hundreds of metres above the surface, and everypony that the Main 6 has ever known is long dead, including the Princesses. The team of ponies that rescued them is actually a team of salvagers, looking for treasure in the ruins of Old Equestria.

What survivors are still left from the apocalypse live on islands that float high above the water surface, eking out lives that are radically different from the ones led by the ponies of our heroines’ time. This new world is a far harsher place than the Main 6 are used to, a steampunk dystopia which no longer holds the same ideals as the Equestria of the show. In this world, there are mercenaries willing to kill innocents for money, nobles more than happy to exploit the lower classes for their wealth, and wars started over the political squabbles of those same nobles.

And it’s a world that’s crumbling — corruptive dark magic has been spreading, turning the ocean into a dangerous, hostile place filled with mutated animals that have gone feral. It’s quite literally crumbling too, as our heroines discover; the floating islands that serve as pony sanctuaries have been falling, a looming threat over this post-apocalyptic world.

The Main 6 return to this world as six powerful Gifted: the name given to ponies with cutie marks, as it seems that pony magic has been slowly draining from the pony race. Needless to say, being the heroes that they are, the Main 6 immediately start trying to fix the broken world. Twilight travels with the group of salvagers to discover the truth of what happened to the world while they were gone, while Rarity tries her best to navigate the politics of the new world to help the ponies who’ve lost their homes to the collapsing islands, and to possibly bring a better future of cooperation.

Adapting to the new world is not without its difficulties, of course. Through a number of scenes scattered throughout the story that are at once both heartbreaking and heartwarming, Goldenwing takes us through the emotions and grief of the Main 6 from waking up to find everyone they’ve ever known long dead, and shows us the strength of their bonds in their support for each other. 

Twilight couldn’t say how long they stayed that way. After an eternity, Pinkie’s voice finally fell silent, only to be replaced by Applejack’s as she recited the names of her extended family. Rarity and Rainbow Dash both spoke the names of their lost loved ones, voices breaking as they remembered the lost Cutie Mark Crusaders. Twilight spoke last, finally taking the time to acknowledge exactly whom she had lost.

“Spike, Twilight Velvet, Night Light, Shining Armor, Cadance… Princess Celestia…”

The group lapsed into a silence broken only by their quivering sobs. Finally they broke away, standing in a small, teary-eyed circle that huddled together as if they feared some torrential rain may come to sweep each other away at any moment.

And throughout the adventure, the characters really shine. I was really impressed by Goldenwing’s portrayal of the Main 6 in this story. Against the backdrop of the harsh and ruthless world, they really stand out, whether it be Rarity constantly giving her all to help total strangers, even at massive cost to herself, or Pinkie trying her hardest to cheer up everyone around her in the face of loss and grief. 

Are they out-of-character? Maybe, by the standards of the show: the show Main 6 would probably not adapt to the new world as easily as they do in the story. But that’s by no means a condemnation of their character here, as they feel true; true to the world around them, and true to the ideals that they represent in the show. I’d say that’s way more important than any arbitrary resemblance to their show selves!

Characters aside, though, I should also talk a bit about the plot. About a quarter of the way through, the story splits into two major plot lines — one with Rarity as the protagonist and one with Twilight as the protagonist, though Twilight is still the main protagonist of the story. 

Rarity’s subplot is great. I really, really enjoyed it — she and Pinkie’s characters shine in this. Their subplot is basically them sticking true to their virtues, against the expectations of the world around them. It’s brilliantly done, showing us both the dreadful ruthlessness of the new world, as well as our heroines’ power to potentially change it as the two rush to save and help as many ponies as possible, even at sometimes great cost to themselves.

In contrast, I didn’t quite enjoy Twilight’s side of the story as much. Her side of the story just feels a little… aimless, I think is good a word as any here. This was mostly a problem for me until about halfway through the story, somewhere between Chapter XIII: The Dream and Chapter XV: The Table. For context, this is around where Twilight and her friends find out that the island where Rarity and Pinkie were on, Fellis, has sunken, and also where Rainbow has an… incredibly memorable encounter with a gryphon mercenary. The story before this point just felt a little slow and kinda directionless, at least to me. I’ll get into why I think this is in the Feedback section.

Even with those issues in mind, though, the story still has a great plot. It never feels cliche, and the Main 6 really get their time to shine in the story. And seeing as this is just the first story in a series, it’s looking to be a plot on a truly epic scale. I hope I’m not disappointed — though looking at how the second story is going I don’t think I will be

Scores

Grammar and Use of Language
Almost no mistakes on the writing part; certainly not enough to be noticed when reading normally. I really have no issues with the writing here; there aren’t any immersion-breaking bits of narration, it all flows pretty smoothly.
10/10

Characters and Characterisation
As I’ve already said, the portrayal of the Main 6 here is phenomenal. The characterisation of all the side characters is also really well done, with each one feeling unique from the other and none feeling especially extraneous. From the incredibly eccentric Crazy Rich, to the strict squad leader Sea Sabre, there’s too many to properly go into detail, but they definitely all feel like actual characters with some depth to them.

The only complaint I might have with regards to this component is that Twilight’s character arc kinda doesn’t go anywhere throughout the story, which is… eh, I suppose it's a pretty important error, but I honestly didn't really mind, what with how well Goldenwing handled everything else. 
9/10

Plot and Story Structure
The story that Goldenwing’s come up with here is one that I’d expect from a good Fantasy Adventure novel — grand scale, a ton of characters, and a huge, unfamiliar world. On the plot side, though, it feels less tight than it could be, and the result is some patches of story that feel slightly less driven. On a whole, though, I’d say the same as with Twi's character arc — it's an error, but the rest of the story makes up for it. 
8/10

In summary…

This story was legitimately a joy to read. If you find yourself interested in the story from what I’ve said, this one really deserves a read. Minus a few errors, this is a more or less model story. It’s not making it into the 5-star bookshelf — but it’s going in my Favourites for sure!

Total score: 9/10

Feedback for Goldenwing

So, I mentioned some story structure issues in the review. I dunno how much of this you already know, but I’ll go into some more detail on exactly what the issue is.

I mentioned that Twilight’s side of the story feels slow to start, and directionless. It was admittedly a little difficult for me to figure out why at first, but I think I’ve just about nailed it down:

This story has no Inciting Incident.

...not quite sure what that is? Well, here’s a little background; let’s talk a bit about 3-Act structure.

For those unfamiliar, the 3-Act structure is a popular storytelling model that splits the story into three acts (as the name implies), with some key events also placed inside. Today, we’re gonna be looking at the First Act of the story.

In the model, this act takes up the first quarter of the story and it’s where all the setup happens for the rest of the story. There are a few important moments usually contained in the first act, but for our purposes today we’re just going to be looking at three key events that happen here: the Opening Image; the Inciting Incident, and the First Plot Point.

The Opening Image is, as the name implies, the first scene of a story. Usually, it’s a place to introduce the main protagonists, to showcase their character before the story changes them. In some stories (including this one!), the Opening Image is also a hook, grabbing people’s attention and get them to keep reading.

The Inciting Incident is the next event to occur, following our model. It’s also the most important event in Act 1. In his book Story, Robert McKee defines this as something that “radically upsets the balance of forces in a character’s life”. Basically, something happens to our protagonist that makes it impossible to continue living life as they have from the beginning of the story till now, kicking off the main plot of the story.

The First Plot Point lives somewhere on the boundary between Act 1 and Act 2. This is the protagonist’s first meaningful decision, and it’s also irreversible; it’s the point of no return for our protagonist, and it’s basically impossible for them to go back to their normal life after this. From here, the main plot starts ramping up in Act 2.

This is the theoretical way things work out. Now, how about an example that I stole from one of the stories in your Favourites?

TEternal

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Sad

Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle's bond is tested by miscommunication and guilt.

• Twilight
• Spike
• Celestia
• Luna
• Main 6

device heretic · 160k words  ·  3,070  65 · 42k views

Enter Eternal, a fandom classic written way back in 2011 or some time around then, and also one of my favourite fics on this site. Looking through the story, here are where I’ve found these three events.

Opening Image: Twilight sends an incredibly lengthy letter to Celestia in a distant, professional tone; a far cry from her letters as they were in the show. We get the feeling that things are not right between them.

Inciting Incident: End of Chapter III: Twilight and Celestia talk in the library, where Twilight sees Celestia lose control for the first time ever, as a result of a particularly scathing accusation.

First Plot Point: Chapter IV: Twilight escapes her self-induced nightmare, accepting Celestia’s imperfection and determined to help her mentor.

And after this, the main meat of the story begins in earnest, with the sequence in Celestia's mind. If any of you, dear readers, haven’t read Eternal before, you really should give it a read after this story: it's a fandom classic for a reason!

Anyway, speaking of which, let’s finally look at your story, Goldenwing.

Opening Image / Hook: Twilight is woken up in an unfamiliar place by a team of salvagers, far in the future.

First Plot Point: Twilight accepts Crazy’s offer, joining the salvage team to look through the ruins of Old Equestria for hints at what happened to it.

What happens between them? Ideally, there should be a call to action that sets up some sort of stakes, to send Twilight on her quest to save the world with some momentum. Instead, nothing much really happens here, just more exposition and world-building. Which is fun in its own right, but the result of the missing Inciting Incident is a first half of a story which feels lacking in drive, and an overall directionless feel to the entire thing.

Man, this one was really difficult to write. I blame how well-written this story is. I enjoyed it, but dang, it was hard to find the error here. I had like, three different ideas before I eventually settled on this one. Why write so good, Goldenwing?

Just kidding. I'll be following this series with bated breath!

7027398
This is a fair review, and well done, and motivating as good reviews are! All feedback is helpful, especially well thought-out feedback like this.

Although I agree that the first chapters (everything before the Ponyville dive) are somewhat aimless, I don't think it's a question of a lack of inciting incident. I think most readers would consider the end of the world the inciting incident, and that would probably fit with the way that Twilight obsesses over it throughout the story. The aimlessness is just due to a lack of direction; I had, after all, not planned anything and didn't really figure out where I was going until chapter three. I'm also surprised you didn't list the abrupt ending as worthy of critique.

Also, the island is Fellis. Like Ellis, but falling.

Thanks for the review!

7027789
Oh, what the-- how did I misspell that? I guess I just wasn't paying attention or something.

Hmm, I guess you could be right on the inciting incident thing, it's always hard to tell with fanfics
Still, if it is your inciting incident, it definitely could be stronger. Ideally the inciting incident should expose some inner motivation to achieve a goal. The end of the world does give Twilight some motivation to fix it, but it's not specific enough that it feels strong. A better Incident might be, say, the Main 6 seeing how much society has changed for the worse and resolving to fix it; or even finding out about the falling islands earlier so that there's a more concrete end-goal.

The abrupt ending was... well, I kinda read through to the sequel already, so it didn't really stick out to me as much