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Five years ago, Dr. Natalie Sydney was contacted by an enigmatic extraterrestrial. Now, it's happening again.
This story was written for Equestria Daily's More Most Dangerous Game writing contest. It fulfills the My Little Dashie-inspired prompt. It was 11th-hour-proofread and edited by Nicknack.
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Clever use of the prompt. :3
Well that was exciting! I'm finding this story thoroughly engrossing, and I hope it keeps up.
It could just be that I'm reading this on my Kindle, but the end of this chapter and the beginning of chapter one both cut off mid-sentence, with broken image links.
Okay, so the cutoff is intentional,
but the images will have to be addressed, I guess.Nevermind, it's just my Kindle. :B I sure missed a lot by not seeing them!When I first looked at this story, my reaction was oh god 20k.
Now I feel it's not long enough. D: Or maybe I just want more.
mom
OH MY GOD
This was fantastic. :D
5772946
Some of the text is in images! In retrospect I probably should've put a warning somewhere that it won't display correctly without an internet connection. Or, you know, just presented everything as pure text. I'm not sure handwriting adds all that much.
5773036
I'm glad you liked it! I figured I had a sort of motherhood motif going on, so that needed to come full circle.
5774469
It adds something, though.
This story was awesome. I tip my non-existent hat to you, good sir.
Repetition here.
This is shaping up to be a really interesting story.
than
I'm very curious as to whom Preponderance might be. I initially thought Twilight, but it doesn't fit the "second pair of eyes" description I thought I read earlier.
5774469
I'd say that in this instance, it adds a ton! With the way that last word is clearly distorted and the rest of the sentence is truncated, you just added a very unique way of adding suspense to the story.
spacing, and I'm not sure if "Zoologist" should be capitalized
at any second, I presume
Wow, what a scene. I definitely couldn't have envisioned this level of action from a story with the My Little Dashie prompt. Seriously incredible.
First off, I want to say that I really appreciate that you didn't let the contest's word limit dissuade you from making this story as long as you needed it to be.
This story was riveting. It's the only My Little Dashie prompt story that I've read so far, but I'm willing to bet that none of them put nearly as unique a spin on the prompt, or at least not with such crisp execution, as this story. The characterizations of the CMC were all reasonably well done, and though the humans had less vibrant personalities it was still easy to distinguish them as individuals. The narration was not overbearing or filled with excessive exposition, the action was surprising (but very enjoyable!) and the story found a good mix between curiosity and suspense.
I think you really nailed the perspective of an observer who could only see the events through a camera; many of the scenes in this story could fit pretty well in a movie (I particularly enjoyed the scene involving Scootaloo's veilspawn and the initial chase scene for VS-White).
I don't really have any complaints, but I did find Apple Bloom's veilspawn to be somewhat underwhelming. Yes, it did make an interesting trap, along with homemade explosives apparently, but compared to a monster that fires lasers and has a magical sleep song (nice touch with the connection of singing to Sweetie Belle,by the way) among other things it falls a tad bit short.
I know you said that you only registered to submit this story for the contest, but I do hope that you stay awhile. I'd be quite interested in anything you wrote in the future.
You took one of the fandom's thickest, sappiest pieces of glurge and made a suspenseful, thrilling sci-fi story. I am very impressed, and immensely glad that I read this. Thank you for it.
Ohoh! Nice opening! So, are we going to see Cutie Mark Crusader Interdimensional Travelers, yay?
Bravo! This was so very true to Scoots.
I loved this. One of my favourites of the contest entries I've read so far.
A very nice take on the prompt and an enjoyable use of an unseen character in Preponderance itself.
I did, however, read this on my old-model Kindle, and hence missed everything that wasn't written in normal text. Only now when I come to comment do I realise that I missed out on a lot of the experience. I thought the ending was abrupt...
Definitely some excellent action. Also, the humans we've seen are pretty uniformly friendly, capable and reasonable, which is a pleasant difference from most first contact stories.
Seconding FOME's comments above! This was a very nice SF story, and while it's recognizably based on "My Little Dashie", it's unquestionably a thing of its own. Well done!
5805085
I'm glad you liked the story! Also, I fixed the typos you pointed out; thanks for that.
Yeah, I admit I was having something of a hard time topping Sweetie Belle's. The big thing I wanted to establish as the strength of Apple Bloom's was that it could plan ahead and collaborate, though that sadly meant it mostly relied on VS-White and took a backseat to the action itself.
5806633
"Thickest, sappiest pieces of glurge"? Some fan of almost everything you are!
Seriously though, I somewhat agree. One of the things that always bothered me about My Little Dashie was how she was treated more like property than a character (I am not sure she ever even got to leave his house). If I was going to do a take on the concept, I wanted to make sure it wasn't depicting an all-encompassing owner-like relationship. That was one of the big reasons I tried not to overplay the protector elements, and even went out of my way to tell it through a character who wasn't all that motherly - in the story's own words, "scientist first, mother second".
5809878
I had no idea so many people read on mobile! I knew I usually did, but I thought I was special. Nonetheless, I'm glad you liked it.
5809929
I know what you mean. That trope is really overplayed, so I wanted to make something where neither human paranoia nor the alien technology were the antagonists.
Verrry nice
Glad to have been linked this
Really hope we get to find out what happened to Preponderance
Its an attendant with a shotgun
Fightin' till the war is won....
Reasonable authority figures, Yay!
5773026
agree. This is a beautiful world.
You write this amazing story with an actual ending, competent characters, a lack of plot induced stupidity, hints of a large universe out there to explore... And no sequel. Why do you do this to us?
6204697
I know!
5810458
It's like an author about first contact suddenly had an independent thought about the reactions. (I know, but let me have my moment.)
This was a very enjoyable read. Please continue to make most marvelous manuscripts mr or miss Myriad.
Alternative title: Reasonable and Measured Responses From Authorities: The Novel
It's interesting how you took a POV character whose only connection with the action of the story was through a phone, and yet managed to maintain a sense of urgency while keeping things believable and engaging.
My only complaint is that apparently we'll never know what happened to Dr. Sydney.
5810450
After the encounter with Scootaloo's Veilspawn, I was thinking that meeting a Veilspawn who could use magic would be really bad. I think you convinced me that the smart Veilspawn, the one who can set traps, hotwire cars and rig explosives, is the real one to be afraid of.
That said, this is one of the best stories on fimfiction that I have read. The horror and suspense elements are executed well, and you do a great job with the characterization of the CMC. All the reveals and sci-fi worldbuilding are done well without resorting to long expository passages that interrupt the pacing of the story. Great job!
5774469
I'd suggest putting the contents of the image in white-on-white text below it. That way, people who export with images will see them first and people who export into a format without colour or images will see the fallback.
Just a note: The author's note block is, by design, omitted when someone exports to HTML or plaintext, which is the most likely way it'll get fed into an eReader conversion tool.
one of the (many) things I liked was the fact you didn't make reference to "other universes"
Universe being a term which encompasses all of reality, known or unknown, seen or unseen, I find the term "alternate universe" a bit annoying. it is gratifying to not see it here.
I would rant and rave about how excellent this story is, but I find that others have already done it better than I could.
6217450
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Sadly, I don't think a sequel could really retain the same mood and sense of discovery. With the basic mechanics of interplanetary travel established by the end of the story, any continuation would at best be some sort of Space Opera, following characters as they travel to new worlds or deal with new conflicts. It could be good if done by the right person, but I don't think it's quite my groove, nor would it really benefit from being a continuation of this particular story.
6220577
I like your alternate title a lot. As for Sydney's fate, I left it ambiguous because I wanted to preserve the feeling that the "reader" was someone who found the journal left in her room (hence the title image).
6225037
Thank you! I hadn't even thought about the universe thing, but I can see why the word's misuse frustrates you.
6221097
Oh wow, that is quite some praise! The fight scene in the restaurant was probably my favorite bit to write, and I knew outdoing it would be something of a challenge. It means a lot to hear I succeeded!
6224359
My one apprehension to this is that sometimes the image part appears at the beginning of the chapter, and I think author notes always appear at the end. I might go back through and transcribe the handwritten bits later though; people can just skim over them if they read the original I guess.
6219044
Yeah. It reminds me of The Finger Trap in that respect, despite this not being a comedy.
Oooooo! Already, I can tell this is going to be amazing and is definitely worth its feature on the under-appreciated but good stories list!
...canine? Shouldn't that be, um... "equine" I believe the word is? Or do they look different, or does Dr. Natalie not recognize that they're like ponies, and what in Equestria is this Preponderance, and... I think I'll just keep reading and find out instead of sitting here typing out all of the questions that are probably going to be answered pretty soon XD
Ohh, there's the "equine" part. OK, so they are ponies and I can imagine Preponderance looks somewhat pony-like... but... different...
oh no, this is bad...
Had to come back and say that this is one of my favorite stories in this fandom—number two to be exact. I don't think I could come up with a way to do justice to just how much I love this story, and even that as an attempt to praise it falls shorter than a bottle rocket aiming for the moon.
I hope this feature helps, though (if you haven't seen it already, that is), and that it brings a smile to your face. You definitely deserve at least that reciprocation.
I feel myself being baited to read on and on, be it due to a problem at hand, a goal in mind, or even just missing pieces of information. Nice touch on giving that unknown, unseen factor to the predators, giving that suspenseful, uncomfortable fear of something dark approaching. Good stuff!
What a wonderful story. It's always fun to read a POE where the humans are sensible intelligent characters, even the several minor characters had a chance to shine.
Rather than risk the possible trauma of her surgery hardware vanishing, it seems like a better plan would be to develop a run of bits that can go through safely. Carbon composite would fit the bill, I'm guessing.
The veil spawn were a decent antagonist, but they fall into the category of silent uncommunicative monster. If Earth is going to become a safe crossroads, figuring out what creates them is going to be an important step. I'd love to see a sequel for this, especially to find out who decided on such a violent solution to keep the cultures of the multiverse isolated.
Plus, Natelie in Equestria would totally fill that craving for a biologist in Equestria that has been left open by A biologists dream
You can has review!
People not acting stupid? CMC not being annoying? Logical decisions instead of panicking? Enemies worth their salt? A rare gem indeed.
This was really, really good. A joy to read. I'm already a fan of interspecies/inter-world interaction, but your story is particularly good.
this was recommended to me by a friend, and while a good read so far, the image links are all broken and I feel like I am missing something