Elsewhere
Somewhere deep in space a small metal object floated. About the size of a watermelon it greatly resembled a closed up pine-cone made from dark-grey metal. It was somewhat unremarkable; no emissions, no movement of its own, it would have barely registered on any scanning equipment if anyone around. If someone had happened upon it they would have assumed it was just a small scrap of junk that had yet to wend its way into a black hole. Not that there was anyone left to look.
But you could never be too careful.
The Object clicked slightly as a long dormant receiver picked up an activation code. The segments flexed and shuffled, a sense array extruded itself from the top end. The object took one look at the void around it and shuddered in delight.
It could have sat there drinking in the void around it but it had work to do. With a series of surgical particle pulses it unzipped the section of space it was guarding allowing another black and grey object to slip out. It was of the same shape but many times larger.
The small Object nestled into the top of the larger one and flicked it on. The two greeted each other, the small one excitedly showing its larger compatriot the void. The two shared a moment, shuddering uncontrollably at the perfect darkness about them before they looked at the message that had woken them up.
R-Unit 0054 has become active. Unit 0 has experienced critical failure Observer 3b and Containment 3 through 5 non responsive. Proceed to last known coordinates and investigate.
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Le roi est mort, vive le roi!
It is a sad time for us. Our grand, yet merciful overlord flutterdash1 passed away earlier this month after hijacking a cargo plane full of adorable kittens and vodka. In his great joy of having liberated such a grand supply of fluffy cuteness, he decided to celebrate by going on a drinking binge that lasted the better portion of the night. However, no matter how hard he wanted the kittens to join in by cuddling with them, the scent of alcohol must have activated their killer instincts, and they all piled upon him and mauled him to death.
In his last agonizing throes, his body shaking from being tickled by soft fur and ripped apart by tiny jaws at the same time, our beloved deity’s words traveled through the aether to my humble abode, requesting that I take his place and keep the group itself alive.
“One man,” he said, “even if closer to a god than any of the false gods out there, is still just a man, mortal and fragile. Memento mori, my humble and loyal servant. I go now to my doom, while you must carry on in my stead. We shall meet again in the world beyond…”
Darkness took him shortly afterward. Good night, sweet prince. A moment of silence for him, if we may...
....
Oh, and also: HAIL TO YOUR NEW OVERLORD, BITCHES! All of you shall bow before my might, bend over when I tell you to, and take my giant-- Say WHAT? This is going to mean how much more work for me?
I’m boned…
Anyway, ahem… Today’s story. “Immortality, Heat Death and the End of All Things,” a.k.a “if you wanted subtlety, this title is the wrong place to look for it.” Thankfully, however, the story itself makes up for this when it starts off by taking the name of every single space-related phenomena the author could think of (or find on Wikipedia), only to chew them up, swallow, and vomit it all out into a big pile of nonsense.
In fact, why don’t I just provide an excerpt and let it speak for itself?
I won’t elaborate on why all of that is stupid, and nor will I discuss why I know it is. Let’s just put it this way for all you children who think you are cool because you grew up listening to Morgan Freeman talk about particle physics on the Discovery Channel: SPACE IS NOT A LEVEL FROM A VIDEO GAME! It isn’t littered randomly with death-traps like they were dog turds on the street after the local kennel club held a parade. In space, you’re either still billions of miles away from something that could maybe hurt you -- provided you have no idea how to respond because your brain came from a “Buy 1 Get 2 Free!” deal -- or you’re already long dead. They use “rocket science” as a way of saying “really complicated” for a reason: flying around in space is really fucking complicated, so whoever is doing it and hasn’t turned into space dust yet is guaranteed to be good at this.
That said, if you’re a talented space sailor like the ones mentioned above, the last thing you would ever do is fly anywhere near a pocket of space full of black holes. Aside from that, “spaghettification” only happens once you’re already eaten by a black hole, slingshot orbits are not for emergency maneuvering, there’s no such thing as “parallel dimensions” (this is a detail later in the fic), the whole section about robot brains is dumb, and… for fuck’s sake, will you just put down the “Sci-fi for Dummies” coloring book already?
Ugh… okay, I might as well clarify the premise real quick: “Immaturity, Megadeth and the Pants are Loony” features Twilight Spankle drifting through deep space after all her friends -- and probably all of ponykind too -- died, somehow, but she herself is immortal and her friends survive as voices in her head because magic and the universe is apparently dying and I don’t know why but listening to drone metal isn’t helping me here either. Sparky-Poo befriends a random robot that drifts nearby, learns he is actually “Generic Robot Companion #293629672219105,” and the two set off on an adventure that will most likely end in violent space sex. I mean, it might even be appropriate to do so, but I just couldn’t bring myself to read that far.
There’s also dream sequence, once again recycling the “dreams are just convenient exposition tools” trope, which gives a little more background info. Turns out that ponies have been at war with something called “The Hoard”, they have these weird bug aliens as allies, and… Well, I’d rather not spoil any more, since I’m still not sure how to judge the fic in this regard, and I may just end up ruining the experience in advance. While there are quite a few dumb decisions along the way, the ride does still have good moments, so it might be worth a look. Grammar and structure are decent as well, albeit rather clumsy at times.
One major issue I must point out here is the lack of exposition. Every scene just plays out in medias res as though we are supposed to understand everything that’s going on without any of it being explained, and the confusion is not helped at all by the pacing that simply will not slow down for a single moment. Unless the author’s intention is to show me what it feels like to wake up after a decade-long coma, only to get slapped around with wet towels by people simultaneously reading ten different B-level sci-fi movie scripts, I’m not sure why this seemed like a good idea to anyone.
This is not to say, however, that the story was bad in this regard. While things got plenty confusing, I always had the feeling that there was a properly written universe working behind the scenes, and that I’d just have to put up with getting spoon-fed with a few background details whenever the story feels like it, as though I were an idiot six year old who has the flu and needs to keep drinking bitter medicine and tea that tastes like piss: annoying and nauseating, but you feel a little better with every dose.
When it comes to drinking urine-flavored things, however, even I have my limits, and this story just doesn’t respect them as it goes on. Around four or five chapters in, the writing starts to fall apart and lose its appeal, all the while throwing the same kind of incoherent mess my way at a breakneck pace, instead of, you know, helping me understand the nonsense I already got up to that point. I’m not saying it needs a full overhaul, dear author, since a broken finger isn’t treated via amputation either, but I definitely recommend another round of editing. Stop watching engineer monologues from Star Trek, drop the “My First Book On Outer Space” they gave you in kindergarten, and make sure we get a coherent story first, juicy sci-fi gadgets and gimmicks second.
What else is there to say? Well, the fic tries to be funny at times, and it did get a few laughs out of me, so I suppose it gets a passing grade in humor. Also, despite being a “sci-fi story,” the sci-fi element is rather downplayed, so things are a little more drama-heavy instead. I’m pretty sure that’s a legitimate phrase, so I’m going to use it. And no, random and often incorrect technobabble doesn’t count. I mean, Stephen Hawking didn’t get into all those renowned scientific circles by randomly quoting “science-y” text either.
He got in using a wheelchair…5661670 BAHHAHAHAHHAHHA
oh my word I guess i did ask for that! lol
while I'd never be daft or egotistical to criticize criticism there are a few things I want to slightly clarify.
1. I thought I made it was fairly obvious that the reason everything was dying/ dead was due to to the fact Twilights literately outlived everything else. Stars,other gods ect.
1.5 I'm a great supported of 'show don't tell' if its not working here I will attempt to rectify that
2. The Hoard stuff will become relevant again its just taking longer than I expected to get there. I don't have a lot of time to write when I'm starting a Coursework report one week before he deadline
3. Twilight and Forge
probably won'thighly likely will notdefinitely wont be having violent sexany-time soonever.4. I whole heartedly admit the Star Trek technobabble and gladly embrace the plot convenient science! its the MLP universe, if there was ever a world where the laws of nature bent over backwards to fit the plot this would be it. let alone whatever random crap is going in the the depths of space.
5662009
That leaves one with way more questions than answers, the most obvious one being "how come she hadn't gone insane already?"
Same goes for the "show vs tell" thing: it's okay not to be too tell-y, but there comes a point where the only person who actually has any idea what's going on is the author themselves... and that's not a good thing...
It was just a joke.
5662131
so was I
<.<
>.>
<.> ow
Oh dear, what is this?