TThe Bastion Gambit

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Sci-Fi
• Thriller

An Equestrian attack submarine is ordered to hunt and kill a Changeling naval task force in the frigid north.

• Profanity
• Alt. Universe
• OC
• Changelings

Smug Anime Girl · 8.8k words  ·  44  7 · 1.3k views

What’s this? A story that I pre-read? In my review folder? Big think. Well, since I pre-read it, I must have nothing more to say about it, right? Unless…

Okay, all jokes aside, I was asked to read this story during its early phases and offered some feedback. But since it’s changed and the author put it in my folder, I’m approaching it from a reviewer standpoint rather than a pre-reader standpoint. Today’s story is about submarines and boats. Let’s hit it.

If you’re a fan of Clancy, you’re bound to pick up some references in Bastion Gambit. Now if you read my last review, you remember that I had a problem with similarities between the story and the source material. This is a good example of referencing done right: there are close lines and concepts to things like The Hunt for Red October, but as a whole it feels like I’m reading a different story. This is what I mean when I talk about referencing and copying.

But moving beyond that, the plot of Bastion Gambit is pretty simple: an Equestrian submarine is tasked with eliminating Changeling vessels. Two  important distinctions to make here is that first,this story is taking place in the established universe of Equestria at War, so the author doesn’t spend much time on worldbuilding or explanations. Which is fine, because this is also a contest piece (second distinction) with a word count cap.

So with those two distinctions out of the way, let’s unpack this. Off the bat, the story is similar to Red October, that I have to say. But it’s creative and well-written enough that it can stand on its own and should be enjoyable even if you’ve never read Red October. The author also handles the technical prose surprisingly well, making the tale very reminiscent of Clancy.

This being said, it may almost be too technical for casual readers, because there is a lot of numerical values and technical terminology tossed about the fic. Here’s an example:

"Shoot torpedo tube one, bearing 252 and set it to go active at 7.9 kiloyards. Shoot torpedo tube three, bearing 222, set active range 9.0 kiloyards." Coral ordered the torpedo room.

"Conn, sonar: new contact bearing 251, designate Sierra 6. Contact Sierra 6 is cavitating. Uh, contact Sierra 4 is cavitating." Hertz was momentarily pulled away from monitoring the enemy weapon as warnings sounded.

"Passing 200 feet." Opaline added on.

A loud ping traveled down the length of the Las Pegasus. The Jackdevil had her in its sights.

"Helm, ahead two thirds!" Sender latched onto Kitt's seat as the submarine lurched downwards, still diving. Opaline's eyes bugged out as the torpedo contact merged into the Las Pegasus before emerging from the other side.

The technical prose and jargon isn’t egregious, per say, and it does fit the theme that these ponies are professionals in the midst of battle. This being said, I think that a certain population of readers may be turned off at the technical speech, but this is just a risk the author has to take.

The plotline itself progresses quite well, and the pacing feels comfortable while remaining hectic, a necessary mood for the heat of battle. I wouldn’t really say that the story does anything unexpected, but this may because I have read Red October and drew my own conclusions before the ‘twist’ presented itself.

All in all, the plot was pretty solid and I don’t have any major criticisms for it. Well done!

Ah, characters. There are quite a few in this story, and at times it gets a little bit confusing trying to keep track of everyone. In the early iteration of this story, I made the note that Clancy gets around this by choosing which characters he names. The important ones receive names, whereas others only receive a rank or a title. Now he doesn’t do this all the time, but you still get a good feeling of who’s important and who is serving a background role.

In regards to the background characters I think there are still a few odds and ends, for example the character Plan. Plan doesn’t receive an official introduction and is just kind of name-dropped halfway throughout the story. This is again fine, because I do get the sense that he isn’t important since the author doesn’t give much description about him, but it may be a bit disorienting for some readers.

The main characters however are well-written and well-developed. I suppose if there is one thing that I want is a bit more differentiation between characters like Slay, Sender, and some of the other crew members. Perhaps the author could give one an accent, or have the veteran captain be a bit more lax in regulation, while the XO is stingy for proper form? Just a few suggestions to make each character pop out just a little bit more.

There was one recurring error that I noticed throughout the story, and it involves punctuation and dialogue. When you have a character say something and connect it with a dialogue tag, for example 

“I sure love books”

And

said Twilight Sparkle

A comma is used to connect the sentences. The author tends to use a period instead, resulting in

“I sure love books.” said Twilight Sparkle.

This is grammatically incorrect, because we now have the sentence “I sure love books” and the sentence fragment “said Twilight Sparkle.” A comma connects these two to form one complete sentence.

“I sure love books,” said Twilight Sparkle.

(The author probably knows this, but I figure this is a good chance to hash this out in case any non-native English speakers stumble upon this review).

This error occurred enough times that I have to dock some points here, and I don’t remember if I pointed this out during pre-reading. Oh well. I pointed out a few instances in my reading notes should the author wish to see them. Besides this there were no other grammatical issues I found.

I don’t know much about Equestria at War, but I still think I have enough knowledge to enjoy this story on its own. For a one-shot it functions nicely, having a complete story with memorable characters and exciting action scenes. I wish the author the best of luck in the contest!

That’s about all I’ve got for this one. Next up is going to be Pinkamena_Pie’s The Hour of Twilight, so stay tuned for that!

Deuces!

If you’re interested in naval warfare stories, Equestria at War, or are a fan of Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October, I think you’d like this story!

Pretty good job! I don’t think I have much to add other than what I’ve already said, but I hope you find this helpful in some way.

I do have my reading notes for your fic, if you would like to see them let me know.

Plot: 8
Characterization: 7
Grammar: 7

Average:  7.33