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Sorry for the wait on this one. There were plenty of distractions in the last month, but I'm already back to writing at a good pace. Next chapter should be up much more swiftly.
That said, a little news: I've done some minor retcons. Two of them.
The first is that, when Whisper first saw the Trotsen convoy at Mareford, I mentioned a couple of griffins among the ponies, and I realized I hadn't made any mention of them since. I went back and tweaked some lines to make it clear that there are a few (About a dozen) griffins among the Trotsen crews.
The second is one that I'm kind of sad about, but decided it had to be done. There is no longer a survivor among the ponies Serenity hit in Pale Sands. As I wrote this chapter and the beginning of the next, I realized she didn't add anything to the story, and in fact, detracted from it by the amount of time that needed to be focused on her presence. The story works better without her. Which is a little sad, because that means I don't get to show off any of the Pale Ponies stuff I had come up with, but padding the story out by an extra chapter or two, in the middle of a major and climactic series of events, just for a bit of lore that didn't matter to the plot... well, it just wasn't going to work well.
As disappointed as I am to have cut that part out, neither of the retcons really make any difference to the way the story has gone so far, so it's not like you'll have to go back and re-read to understand what's going on. In any case, sorry about that, and hopefully it won't happen again.
I sympathized a lot with Echo in this chapter, especially when Whisper insisted on staying in the sickbay until the last... possible... moment...
Haha, hoo boy, that ought to get your blood pumping in the morning. Whisper and Dusty need to trade off the Serenity radio signal so that somebody is always awake to listen in.
Good chapter, as usual.
...I don’t know what to say to that.
9064380
I, uh, don’t remember what or where Pale Sands is.
But on that topic, when this is over, you could write a bonus chapter or something featuring the Pale Ponies.
Aww... I was looking forward to the stuff on them.
:Edit:
Pale Ponies sounded interesting.
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Pale Sands (Or more formally, the Pale Sands Spell Range) was the large section of land held by the Equestrian Army for the purpose of testing megaspells and other such weapons, including the never-completed balefire bomb test on Ponytown.
Brachinus is the name of bombardier beetles, so perhaps a very effective and destructive (aerial) weapon?
9064555
Ah, ok. Yeah, I remember that. Thanks.
i kinda havent been able to read this since chapter 22... glad its going strong tho! might try and spend some time reading sometime. if i do, this will be my choice
Oh my God an update!!!
That was beautiful.
Bloodbeak is a mole, I suspect. She always seems to be there whenever something important goes down, doesn't seem very concerned about her own life, is way too happy all the time, and most importantly appears to be trying her hardest to stick to Whisper's flank at all times.
It's also likely she is written to seem like a spy so when the actual spy is revealed it comes out of nowhere. Either or.
Hot damn. Man was that INTENSE!!!
But totally AWESOME!
Very excellent writing there dude!
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Or underground.
"it would kill someone in pegasi power armor"
"it would kill someone in pegasus power armor"?
edit, having done some searching:
9064380
I'm somewhat confused about the Pale Sands survivor bit; I don't remember just what happened in that regard before the retcons, but I'm guessing from the rest of what you say that you didn't strip a chapter or two out of the story, even if I would have managed to forget that. So was a survivor found but not followed up on at the time, just taken along with the army out of the way, and it was planned that she'd be talked to later?
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Oof. Yeah, that's one of the bad writing habits I'm trying to purge. I thought I caught all the instances of it, but I guess not.
As for the ex-survivor, she had very little presence. She was mentioned as being picked up (Unconscious) at the very end of chapter 39, seen very briefly (Unconscious) in the sick bay in chapter 40, and wouldn't have been seen again until a bit over 24 hours later in chapter 43 when Whisper got to the sickbay, which is when I'd planned on her becoming active (She would have actually woken up some time before and had secured a scalpel to help make her escape from her mysterious captors). It was some very minor changes, just a few lines and background details in previous chapters.
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Why would it be underground when they called it off due to anti air?
why do i love this so much o.o?
Looks like the Cumulonimbus was more important to the changelings than it appeared. They either expected to not be attacked or to be able to fend off anything when they revealed themselves on the way to Pale Sands. And now they really wanted it back.
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Did it actually say anti-air? Ok then.
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Happy to help. :)
Ah, thanks. And yeah, pity to lose that lore... but it sounds like it would have been a pretty big digression away from the plot at a rather awkward time for one. Alas.
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Yeah, sadly, it would have required a lot of time spent on something that doesn't really contribute to the plot. The end of this chapter would have had Whisper basically talking her down and promising to explain things later, which made for a small break in the middle of this battle (Not so good for the tone and tension). Then the start of the next chapter would have a fair-sized section where Whisper explains things to her (Although probably abbreviated since the reader already know this) and she gives Whisper a bit of her backstory, which was basically a waste of time because we already know everything Whisper has to tell her, and the survivor's backstory, while neat, wouldn't contribute anything to the story. It would have literally no impact on the plot, except to give a little lore and background. Overall, her presence would have probably added a full chapter's worth of words without contributing anything to the story except some neat bits of lore. And given that most of it is in the midst of this whole march to war that's already starting to accelerate... it was just going to be way too big of a digression.
On the plus side, it changes virtually nothing about the rest of the story as planned.
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While reading that I got a mental image of some Serenity soldiers just waiting outside the infirmary door and checking their watches (because it would be rude to attack while the story was going on), so... yeah. :)
"On the plus side, it changes virtually nothing about the rest of the story as planned. "
Which is good! Ripple effects from changes can be extremely problematic sometimes.
Speaking of things that don’t necessarily change the rest of the story as planned, I’m not sure if this might be important in future chapters, so let me know if I should delete this comment. It’s not directly related to this chapter, but I don’t want to keep forgetting to ask. Anyway, I don’t think I ever saw this explicitly confirmed or denied before, but were Long Haul and Silver related to Silverline and Quicksilver?
Ways to stay up all night;
- Coffee
- energy drinks
- reading fanfic updates
- "we almost got nuked"
welp I am a bit late to the party but Braconid is a type of parasitoid wasps so seems like some thing or rather someone is not what they seem to be. and Brachinus or as they are sometimes referred to Bombardier beetle are a fitting name for a unit that is meant to drop a bomb and a big one at that so I cant wait to see where this goes
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Heh, no, it's not important to the rest of the chapter. In fact... I have to admit, for a couple chapters after Paradise Beach, I hadn't even realized I had named a few character's very similarly! I've since decided that they may have been distantly related. Distantly enough that they don't really know each other (I think those two have been through enough already )
9067586
Or even identically - Midnight (Starlight’s mom) and Midnight (Whisper’s Site Alpha sister)
9069056
That one I caught pretty early, but I was amused enough by it to keep
Enjoying this story while doing logistical runs in a training op. Set the tone nicely.
9064380
On the subject of the survivor, you could always have them be a side story or maybe a chapter near the end after all is said and done. Maybe have the hero to talk them down be one of the medics as a change of pace or you could do some passive story telling where they and their story is hinted at indirectly through things other people learned and bring up as nessicary like comments about the nuke that only they would know or by having them show up under guard to tell some important plot device that someone with their unique perspective would know with their own motives.
It could even be something like whisper or someone else relevant noticing a day to day occurance from the outside looking in. Honestly, I would love to see more little details about lives that we never will know the full story of but see fragments of them playing out without much context. Every pony there is a main character in the next great war in pony history. You're just not telling their story right now.
Blaghabawhaat? How did I miss the fact there was another chapter? Good thing the epub export grabbed it...
You're just witnessing the inevitable next step in Blackjack's fucked up life
...crap. The Serenity comm channel
Now wouldn't it be funny if she just locked onto all of them and evaporated them with a thought?
Not very exciting to read about though, I guess. But still funny nonetheless.
Indeed... any time spent up here is time they have a clear connection to the enemy transmissions.
You know, I'm kind of surprised the changelings are trying to take the ship again rather than just causing as much damage as they can and getting out. It would probably take far more effort at this point to take it over, and the increasing damage caused to the ship in the process will probably mean they wouldn't hold it for long anyway.
...what? I'm a Command & Conquer player. I'm practically the definition of 'armchair general'
"WHO IS BEHIND ALL THEES?"
It's interesting and quite novel to see a big battle in a Fallout Equestria story where the main chars aren't doing any of the shooting
What? Not "Echo, get us there"?
Finally! I was hoping she'd get offensive soon
...she says, while she could probably reconquer this whole thing on her own
Well okay. She'd probably get herself hopelessly lost in the corridors. Still
Yeeeah, they should've stuffed a few grenades down all those control panels; given them some real work
Then again I guess they had better targets to aim those grenades at.
Ah. The logical conclusion.
To be fair, given the ship's state, both sides should've known it was only a temporary advantage. As I said, it was a dumb move of Serenity to try to capture it rather than destroy it right away.
Oh... that thing had working bombs left? Pity to lose that capability.
....it's already broken
Vic? Not sure what that's supposed to mean in this context
Uh-oh. Brachinus? Sounds like at least artillery to me...
Remarks and corrections:
> but those are distinct magical phenomenon
"phenomenon" is singular. You mean either "phenomenons" or "phenomena".
> I didn’t know if it would kill someone in pegasi power armor
"[pegasus] power armor".
> “He was forward, helping with the combat wounded.
You may want to at least add a nod from Hail Burst to this paragraph. As it is, none of it actually confirms whether Soaring Heart made it.
9078039
Glad you've caught up! I'm always happy to see the notification that you've left a comment, there's always lots of good stuff in there.
I can't comment to everything, but I did want to make some note of the Serenity strategy here. It's not exactly conveyed here, but it doesn't really spoil anything to give a little glimpse into their thinking. Taking the Cumulonimbus was more like a secondary bonus objective. The main objective was to destroy the army's air power, particularly the Loyalists. If it was looking rough, the plan was to plant demolitions (They easily held engineering and could demo the spark generators), but they held the upper hand the whole way. Defenses were crumbling, Serenity held most of the ship, their casualties were light, and their enemy had no possibility of reinforcements. They were looking at the prospect of wiping out the Loyalists completely. If not for Whisper and Echo, they might have done so.
As for "vic", it's just a bit of military shorthand/slang for "vehicle". That's actually the second time it's shown up in Serenity comms, and I tried to make the context clear that they were referring to enemy motorwagons even if the exact meaning of the word wasn't quite clear.
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Almost forgot to reply to this!
Sickle's kind of a weird mix of "not giving a shit" and "giving way too much of a shit". Back when they were in Psycho's camp, she had gone in looking forward to a fight, and she was pissed when she didn't get it. If Echo had shown up right then, yeah, she would have tried something. It was right then and there, and taking away her fun was the most important thing at the moment. But six weeks later, a lot's happened, and she doesn't really care about it any more. She's had plenty of fights since then. Missing out on one fight six weeks ago barely even registers. It might as well be ancient history.
That said, she did threaten to beat whoever did that, but between never having a specific face to put to it, and all that happened between then and meeting Echo (Ponytown, Spot, Whisper's hive, the downtime and drama in Gemstone, the whole mess with Emerald and Boomer, getting captured by Serenity, and some three weeks of swamps and zebras), she didn't really remember. If someone reminded her of it... well, she'd probably say they were full of shit, unless it was Whisper who said it (Since she thinks of Whisper as the kind of pedantic remember-everything type to actually get that right). If they persisted, it probably wouldn't take much to finally remind her, and, well... yeah, she'd have to do something about it. It's a matter of pride, then. She's got her rule about always following through. She might "let her off easy" if, say, Echo apologizes for stealing her fun (Sickle let Whisper and Starlight off on a technicality when Dusty brought them to her hut, for example). If not, she'd probably just walk up and buck Echo good and hard, take whatever Echo throws back at her, and call that good enough.
9078585
You replied to that in the wrong chapter (or rather, from the index, which makes it end up in the wrong chapter)... they'll never get a notification of your reply
9078763
9078585
I'm aware of the site's quirk with handling replies from the main story page vs. from within the chapter where the post was made. Thanks for caring, though, and thanks for the response
Also, I snuck in another question about Sickle's cutie mark in Chapter 21 last night at 9077929
9079829
I keep forgetting to look at what chapter a comment is on, so I keep running into that issue...
As for Sickle's cutie mark... actually, I think I'll leave that ambiguous. Maybe she got it for one of those events, or maybe she already had it.
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Oh, there will still be some "adventures" going on, don't worry! The next couple of chapters will be largely dealing with the army's push toward Serenity and the inevitable clash, and Whisper and her friends will certainly play some major roles in that, but there's still going to be plenty of trouble for them to get up to.
Package 'Parasite Wasp'? Why do I think said changeling is going around sabotaging stuff while bored guards don' t watch? Assuming she lives which isn't clear for now...
This is excellent. I'm absolutely blown away. The pace and scope of the military campaign you are describing is fantastic. It's like nothing I've ever read from an FoE fic. I feel like I'm reading something out of Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising or the X-Wing series books. Fallout Equestria's final war sequence was quite short if I recall correctly. PH's was much more about tying up character arcs than it was a well managed pitched battle. This is fairly unique in my experince.
I've always felt combat in this fic was "realistic" but I never felt like it was as leathal or difficult as a fic like Frozen Skies (another fic that focuses on "realistic" style combat). Now, I'm on the edge of my seat. I can see the chessboard with all it's pieces moving around in place. Perhaps this is a bit much, but I can't read this without expressing some sort of praise. Writing is hard and it takes determined writers to make tiny horse crossovers worth talking about.
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I'm glad you like it! Getting the combat right was one of the things I wanted to focus on, especially since it let me highlight just how much Whisper isn't a soldier, and how much she learns along the way.
This chapter was a particularly fun challenge, for conveying a battle almost entirely through radio communications.
I do sometimes worry that I might have spent a little much time on the military side of things, but at the same time, it's a pretty big, climactic part of the struggle against Serenity. At least Whisper has plenty to do, even if she's not directly in the fighting itself! Well, usually. This was far too much "in the fighting" for Echo's tastes.
9478757
I'd say you're doing a wonderful job with the mass combats so far. The Madmax style combat was particularly effective. Like, you managed to capture frantic combat, constraints on individual awareness, and realistic actions/reactions all in a way that didn't overload OR underload the reader. Whisper bouncing around, taking dirt and cinder sprays while trying to bring her gun to bear? Confusing in the moment, but in a way that absolutely conveys the story events.
The loss of the Cumulonimbus was very different, yes, but the key is that you kept giving Whisper things to do. Even if she wasn't in the thick of it, you never let her (and readers by proxy) get bored/boring.
I'm still very disappointed that the crew hasn't yet cobbled together a Sickle launcher. For when they absolutely need something murdered at a distance.
I would normally totally be behind a few paragraphs about how dreams are weird, because they really are, but Whisper would have been alive while Luna was the dream protector. Its like one of her smallest roles/abilities and again can't remembe when that one episode with the cutiemark crusaders and the nightmare was,
Had to google those names since you simply had to make Whisper focus on them... I do not know if I am looking forward to the reveal or dread it now.
People are scared of the unknown. Ever since Whisper begun listening in on the Serenity they became 10x less scary. Before we didn't know how hive-minded they actually were, how organized. No surprise Whisper was so excited about that.
Now the question is: are the Serenity forces not strong enough for an all-in showdown or are they just playing for least losses.
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One of the most important lessons for a changeling Infiltrator: no matter how much a situation appears to be in your favor, it's always a good idea to stack the deck in your favor.
Just, uh... as long as you don't get caught doing so. Heh.
I will be honest, I was never all that much into military slang and tactical stuff. Still, you managed to keep my interest in this chapter, which is primarily military radio chatter, so good work there. While I would prefer some more involved combat, I definitely appreciate the novelty of how you portrayed the battle and completely understand that it fits Whisper's character much better to not actually get involved in direct fighting. Really well written, even if not exactly my thing.
I also understand why Echo wanted to be by Whisper's side at all times, but I feel like Whisper should have at least tried to convince her to help out with the battle. Considering what she did at the sick bay, she could have probably turned the tide all by herself