For the past millennium, the small and technologically-advanced Equestrian Empire has waged war against the old and corrupt Cleomanni Confederacy, employing weapons of terrifying might in their struggle. It has been three years since they lost.
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Yes Please Storm needs to meet Blackjack when she was all metal pony
I'm starting to get a case of Darkness induced Apathy Syndrome. Has there been one clear win for the hero's in this tale? I mean she escapes from jail, and gets trauma from the Black ops project and her allies leaving her hurt in the wasteland. Then it's trauma and near death from the salvage op, then more trauma and the lost of her family from the Dodge mission. Then more trauma and lost of her the fate of her soul this mission to the mountains. Really at this point I kinda think you should just place a Tragedy tag up there cause it's starting to look like there is no way for this to end in anything but a loss.
10005997
A cyberpony drink-off between those two would be something to see.
10006617
Meh, could be worse. I mean, Storm does have all of her limbs and she hasn’t died and been resurrected like three times, yet. *wink wink*
10006771
True but the problem is how much more can we as readers believe a pony can take before she either dies, or breaks so bad that she can't function.
The key to D.I.A.S is that after a certain amount of drama it no longer is believable that there is any hope in the story at all. Then it becomes nothing but waiting till rocks fall and everyone dies.
sorry for not reading it for the past 6 months I was passing through a rough patch and wasn't in the mood of reading this read story, I will get to it again tomorrow. Always a sucker for mechs
10006771
He's got a point... I'm not sure how to address it without some ass pull though. They need some better emotional support networks, they need to get some feedback that the effort they put in is actually going somewhere, hell, to be honest, they need to start piecing together a plan to establish bases outside of cleomani control and get the rest of the galaxy into the fight with those demon fucks. The issue is, the situation and mental state of these ponies isn't just justified, it's downright optimistic. Someone in that situation is liable to suck off a gun just because there isn't anyone better to point it at. The idea that this base hasn't gone ineffective from suicidal attrition speaks well of pony resilience. Despite intense cultural degradation, shock, and general hopelessness facing extinction after slavery, it seems a staggering number of them have not either killed themselves or given up and gone AWOL.
I don't know how to go about handling the intense amounts of trauma these ponies have been subjected to in a way that makes sense. By all rights, they all need serious psychiatric care and years of recovery time, without which would result in a wide swathe of xenocidal/suicidal deaths and further collapse of the whole unit.
This good
10012084
Thank you so much! Your in-depth critique means a lot to me.
I’ll be honest, when I first started laying the groundwork for this story in 2014, I was kinda angry and flustered. There was an SF/F board I frequented where the prevailing opinion had turned against grimdark (and excessive world-building, for that matter), and honestly, there were a lot of fics out there that handled the concept of it very poorly, so it wasn’t like their animus was entirely unjustified. However, I always found stories like these somehow deeply cathartic.
A lot of my favorite stories had a couple general principles. One, they were unrelentingly dark. Two, they invested as much characterization into their worlds as they did into their actual characters. I loved reading about worlds that it felt like I could get lost in, you know? Like, I could step into the pages, walk down a back alley, and disappear. The cold and foreboding German countryside of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, or the Scrapyard from Battle Angel Alita, for instance.
Another thing I had in mind was showcasing ponies as combatants. I was greatly inspired by Fallout Equestria, of course. One could call it the prototype, the ur-example, of this sort of tale; ponies with modern weapons living some hard-knock lives. Ponies look colorful and harmless. At a glance, people don’t take them seriously. In truth, they have vast and often untapped potential for badassery. Physically and magically, they are each giants. They can lift many times their own body weight and they can resist blunt impact that would kill most people. You know, like, what if ponies were toons, but everyone else was made of cardboard like in real life, with few exceptions? What if other species were afraid of them because of how powerful they are on an individual basis? That was one of the concepts I wanted to work with; ponies as intimidating deathworlders who don’t always realize their own strength.
I wanted them to be balanced, however; not overwhelmingly capable nor particularly helpless. In a lot of fics, you know, either ponies are cannon fodder or they’re invincible with nowhere in between. Rare is the author who is comfortable both with hurting ponies and with affording them much-deserved victories. Usually it’s either-or. Either they hate ponies enough to torment them all the time, or they love ponies enough to make them win all the time. I wanted to strike a balance. At the same time, however, there is a significant emotional toll to what’s happening, here. I didn’t want them to be unaffected by what they were doing. Ponies are powerful, but also sensitive. Hurting others hurts them, too. Both the Empire and the Confederacy are oppressive and tyrannical regimes that happen to have good, if emotionally-damaged, people trapped in them. I wanted there to be an element of tragedy where, like, if they could just get over the fear and hatred, they’d be so much better off. However, that’s just my own interpretation of what’s going on, here. I think it lends itself to all sorts of perspectives.
I set out on a mission, both to try and vindicate grimdark as a genre and to craft a fairly original AU MLP setting. I don’t know if I will succeed, but dammit, I’m going to try.
I’ve heard about what’s going on with the wildfires. Happy New Year from the Seattle area, and stay safe out there!
It's strange how they talk so much about pony psyche being the reason they did so poorly in the war, rather than their reliance on magic and 'exotic materials'. (Every time the changelings are mentioned, how the Equestrians may have treated them during the war, and maybe still do, makes me uneasy.)
When their enemies conquered worlds, they gained access to vast quantites of materials to be made into war machines. When the Equestrians did, they got themselves a big patch of dirt.
10019444
This is technically true, but a species’ attitude towards engineering is also included in their psyche.
Take the Covenant from Halo, for example. Everything they make is unnecessarily extravagant, and the reason why is because they’re arrogant and perfectionist.
When the tide turned against Germany in WWII, they built thousands of advanced V1 cruise missiles and V2 ballistic missiles to try and demoralize the British, but inflicted very little practical damage with them.
Likewise, Chargers were powerful, but not only did they have limited strategic usefulness, they practically bankrupted the Empire.
Exotic and expensive wunderwaffen don’t create themselves. Unhinged and desperate people build them, often to their own ruin.
I have to say, this story is pretty intense and has really sick ( in a good way) developement. The MC went through some prety hard situations and you portrayed her mental state extremely good.
On another note I noticed a Human tag, at first I thought they were the third party, not the eldritch god servants, so I wonder if they are already known species in the galactic society or will they be some kind of deus ex machina or even outside context problem for everyone involved?
10037588
The humans in this setting are neither particularly friendly nor particularly well-known in the galaxy. I can’t reveal too much just yet (other than what we already know about the Vargr and the Archons, obviously), but they’re a major threat lurking in the background, the full ramifications of which don’t become clear until later. The Confederacy and the Liberation Front will keep tragically opposing one another for the short term, until the cleomanni start pulling back when a new front in the war erupts.
9841022
I never forgot about your request. I thought it’d be cool if people got to see the Dragoons, too, which is why I commissioned 1Jaz:
images2.imgbox.com/c7/ef/tq7mLSid_o.jpeg
https://www.deviantart.com/1jaz/art/Dragoon-827238133
In case anyone didn't see the blog posts, I also finished up these:
Yes, I do tunes and stuff, too.
I did the 3D turnaround in the first, but 1Jaz did the fantastic art in the second, of course.
Next chapter's dropping in a bit. Still needs some work.
I see raritys brand lived on..
Oh fuck!! Run bitch ruuuuun!!!!
Huh about time they got off their asses and got serious
Oh now you ask if she's okay after choking her and belittling her
If the doc cracks then everyone is royally fucked
Oh god seriously? Now they are betting? That's just fucked up
I still hate it but it makes sense
I love this guy
Might be the archon masquerading her voice
She's been a hairs breath away from death for months now but somehow keeps living
Oh man... Sierra doesn't deserve to live like this
I looked into this story wondering what is was and I think I am slowly uncovering it's dark secrets. That said these past chapters are an eyesore of problems that many see no way out of. But before I get to that I just want to point out that incorporation souls the way you did makes worry less for Storm. Why? But Stemo when she dies her soul goes to the monsters that torture anyone not lucky enough to get away into endless suffering. Except according to Cic dude they can't. Storm will die like many of her companions and (the vast majority) of her memories will be wiped. Remember Equestrians found a way to rip the souls out of ponies and put them in a machine but they were not the same person afterward. The only issue with this idea is that the Star Crossed bat pony that died screamed from the afterlife. Which is strange if the mind is responsible for personality and what not. All I'm saying is I want a more in depth look at what pony souls are exactly.
Now, we know Storm has a mark of a literal devil tattooed to her abdomen. Which can be seen as a major win in my book, what they need to do is discover how the hive mind communicates and they could possibly give the big bastard an aneurism for their trouble. Remember a gestalt is not necessarily a separate entity than the units involved. Rather all the pieces for a whole that emerges from the connected parts. If one of these suckers dies and this definition holds true then the whole will experience permanent amnesia. Some of the data that unit was holding if not transferred by some means is destroyed (at least according to my understanding of gestalt). Also the fact they can't move faster than the speed of light could be telling of other weakness (despite how gargantuan the enemy is the harder they fall, literally a fly can fall of the empire state building and survive, a human no so much). If the entirety of their physiology can't do at least one supper light speed thing then they can't communicate instantaneously. But, Stemo what about talking to Storm from very far away! Simple answer if they can't do super light speed stuff. Have a unit stay near storm (at least in the same solar system). I wonder if Twilight Sparkle thought about this as well. Also, if they can communicate faster than the speed of light that could be a bad thing for them (which I think they can because the overall consciousness can talk to Storm from all of them at once if my memory is correct and she saw a whole bunch of eyes for each one). the hive mind should operate according some manner of the laws of physics (whatever they may be) and that means you should be able to send something down the line to harm the hive mind. Think of it like a computer virus, and it just wrecks their stuff. I unfortunately can see this killing Storm as well which would not necessarily be too bad. She would die and honorable death and be erased from the universe (but not forgotten).
Secretly I want them to reverse engineer the gestalt herself and then she could become the mother she always wanted by giving birth to herself (although no exactly like herself) maintain a higher control of conflict and happily frolic about helping aliens and having fun. Even if this doesn't happen the only way I won't be severely disappointed in the ending is if something of this scale happens to Storm specifically (we all know she deserves something like this for what she's been through and proper execution can make this very rewarding. No an alicorn will not be enough for me, Celestia died (quite possibly a horrible death or something to that account, you have a lot to makeup for author).
Tl;dr: I think they can use a virus similar to a computer virus to put Thuax out of commission (although this should kill Storm as well). I'm holding out hope that all trauma really pays of for her and she can have children (that being rough approximations of herself, basically become a gestalt herself, maybe cure her mental issues while your at it). Her becoming an alicorn or supper alicorn is not enough. I don't like the soul mechanic I've lost almost all interest in her possibly dyeing as her memories and thus her very self will cease to exist even though the bat pony's soul screamed from the afterlife, what Cic said seems possibly contradictory to what the stakes should be.
Everything else I like to ribbons, you are doing quite well for making this story as dark as you see fit, and quite creepy. But, shouldn't you tone down the overwhelming odds a bit? I still care for Storm, trust me, I just don't care about her parasitic soul and by the sounds of it they can't remove her soul without killing the real Storm too.
10016281
I don't know about the afterlife one but if you noticed something I didn't or are somehow more knowledgeable about what Cic. and the moster are all about feel free to correct me. My logic (undoubtably somewhat false in my mind) is listed above on why she shouldn't worry about her soul other than it being ripped out.