(Please note this takes place during season 2, prior to the season finale)
The year was 2134, and the planet went to hell. America and Japan were locked in a large-scale war, neither side backing down. To make matters worse, the EU fell to rising terror threats, and the same said threats killed the last reigning monarch.
That's when IT, landed. Scientists overlooked it at first, believing it to be a comet colliding with earth, but in truth, it was much more sinister.
Whatever they were, they caused an eternal winter to blow across the globe, freezing the Atlantic Ocean in a matter of months.
What remained of the worlds governments came together to find even the smallest glimmer of hope.
Enter project; Horizon, a scientific breakthrough in both cryogenic and rocket technology that would allow us to send a select few away to a new world, one where they could remake the human race from the ground up. The only downside being we could only send 12, and that they needed to be within a specific age group in order to survive the process.
So, with no other options left, we sent them off-planet. God bless their souls.
-- (* beside the chapter number means the chapter has been edited/remastered) --
--image; Something I found on the web (until I can create/have someone create one.) (-hint-hint-)
main beta reader; 0_0 (the living legend).
beta reader; NightCoreMoon (you'll see her leave heavy constructive criticism in the comment section from time to time, because she's awesome like that).
editor (famfiction); MiraculousDragonMaster (Not a clue if they have fimfiction, let alone their name on it.)
Feel free to hit me up in the comments if you notice any mistakes, get confused or are just bored. Chances are I'll respond, because I'm boss like that.
Chapters come out whenever I can get them out, so while moaning is an option, it doesn't really help much.
Features death and violence for somewhat gory fight scenes and character deaths later on (don't worry, I'm not killing the mane 6... or the CMC, as someone seemed to ask).
I'm intrigued. Do go on. Oh... more chapters already.
Now with a longer chapter, I think you need to get an editor. I found some oddly misused words.
this story is really good i like it
None taken.
Keep going!!!!
8646228
working on chapter 3 now. It's taking it's time in getting done, but I'm hoping to have it out by the end of the month, hopefully.
Its got a good plot going, but if you want this to be a great fic, you got to get it proof read and stuff.
8704588
Trust me, Your not the first one to bring that up. I'm hunting for one as we speak.
8705729
Just trying to help!
8705747
I know that much. Thanks for the heads up. At least you liked the plot. I'll let you know how my editor/beta reader hunt goes.
there's something missing here
8711525
Hmm... Guess I missed that when editing and scanning for mistakes. I'll fix that while I'm at college tomorrow. Thanks for the head-up!
8711525
correction made. Thanks for the heads-up.
8713876
you're welcome
...Here's hoping that the Windigoes have learned to freeze time as well. I'd give it 10 years before it reached that stage, though.
This should be an interesting story...
If only we knew what was going on with everyone else..
Now I'm just wondering when the next update is... And hoping it's soon.
8897805
Don't worry mate, I'm hoping to get the next chapter out some point in the next couple if weeks. Just keep your eyes on this spot!
8898076
Got it! Looking forward to Big Mac seeing the flying hunk of metal!
8898594
(Suddenly realises the missed opportunity)
Oh, son of a-!
8898632
Uh... Am I gonna regret that comment?
8899072
No. If anything, thanks for helping me see an issue I made with development of the chapter. You have my gratitude.
I also want to thank you for giving me a chuckle over this comment. It was funny at the time.
8900274
I try my best to aim for amusement, but most often it falls short and hits 'confusion', 'bewilderment', and/or 'anger'.
So how are 12 people going to save 500000 or repopulate you need several hundred for repopulating a species. Anyway I will continue on
8929056
you'll figure that out next chapter. it's half-explained.
So after the five chapters so far I have to say I like it
8992864
Nice to hear!
...
What about the prologue?
8993005
Never was a prologue reader I just like jumping in the story and figuring out from there
8993103
So you just dive in head-first without any backstory?
Wow, I respect that. Takes some guts.
Accidental changeling is best changeling
8997550
I'll give you one thing; that's the most comical way someone has told me about a a mistake in a while. Not sure how it got past editing, but I'll fix it up straight away. Cheers mate.
That was a lot of exposition. Like... a LOT. Marc didn't even feel like a character here, just a vehicle for telling the reader a list of events with a biased narrative tone (biased here meaning non-objective). I also have no idea what he looks like, and got a solid block of dialogue, which only reinforced the notion that he was merely an exposition dump.
Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring- my all time favorite movie ever- opens with Cate Blanchett talking for like twenty minutes about Celebrimbor's work forging the rings of power, Sauron's taking all the power for hisself, starting a war and killing people, the war itself, Isildur taking up Narsil, then stealing the ring, then getting killed for the ring, the ring slipping away, Gollum finding it, Bilbo stealing it, blah blah blah A LOT OF F*CKIN STUFF. And THEN you have Frodo and Gandalf talking about MORE exposition, Gandalf and Bilbo giving MORE EXPOSITION, and by the time anything even happens you've got like six movies worth of information shoved down your throats and there's still two more hours of movie left, three if you're watching the extended edition.
The problem here is that we don't know what this kid looks like, what his surroundings look like, his state of being, patterns of speech, anything other than what he tells us. And, of course, show don't tell. It is a video, after all. You shouldn't describe only the audio of a video in a text based medium. And also consider the fact that he gave a lot of extraneous and overly specific information without actually telling anything that we need to know. America and Japan are at war, apparently. But why? What started it? How long has it been going on for? I'm ignoring the information presented in the description because that information needs to be inside the work or else it's just going to feel incomplete. And yet we know exact numbers like 570,000. I didn't even need to scroll to remember that number, just to confirm that it was the number of humans left alive. He's leaving his brother behind but I don't feel his grief or sadness; the tone conveyed made it seem like he saw it as a minor inconvenience. Why did we only get his diary and not the rest of everyone else's? You told us about how the cryostasis is going to keep their food supplies safe but not about the ship itself and who pilots it and how they built it and programmed it to go to terra and what it'll look like and where it'll launch from and all sorts of information that I feel a young teenager would be totally hyped about. Otherwise it just feels like he's reading off a cue card here. Extended dialogue tags without any breaks make it feel like a college professor's droning lecture rather than a traumatized young kid with the weight of the world on his shoulders who's about to say goodbye to his family forever for a dangerous mission to completely reproduce the entirety of the human population. I didn't get loyalty from him. All I can infer from this passage is that shit went down on earth, windigos came, he's probably the main protagonist, he's probably gonna interact heavily with rainbow dash, and he's going into space.
Now, for a 1K and change chapter, it did what it needed to do. I'm intrigued and wanna know what happens next. There's nothing explicitly wrong with the text, the concepts, the writing itself. It's good. But... well, it could be great. It could be fantastic. It could be amazing. It just takes little tweaks here and there. I got heavy vibes for Lost In Space, 2012: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Dead Space, 12 Monkeys, Mass Effect Andromeda, Firefly, that one Nicholas Cage movie Knowing,, the ending to Animorphs and the author's next series Remnant, The 4400, Heroes... a bunch of things that I and many other people love. There's a lot of potential here and it's all really interesting and I really want to see how the rest of this series will pan out.
This is NOT bad, by any stretch of the imagination. But it can be heavily improved from what it is.
9031959
Most of these questions are answered next chapter, and those that aren't answered aren't important later in the story.
I understand the information will be important at this stage, and I'll add what's needed, but again, most of it is explained later.
Ah, good, we had some stuff happen this chapter! Honestly I feel this should have been the beginning but what's done is done. We've got rough character descriptors and I can tell that they're all different people by their actions and the way they speak. Only six of them though but tbh that's fine for right now. Most ensemble cast stories do that. There's a few editing mistakes here and there, and some clunky sentences, but a quick edit is a simple fix. The science is a bit... ah... well, it's a hard sell, but so was the Weyland-Yutani cryo tech. But still interesting nonetheless.
Oof, fridge stuffing right off the bat. Here's hoping they're not actually dead so far.
I'm liking the way you handled the AI. Reminds me of Red Vs Blue.
I'm American and we're insane about guns. That's the most realistic part of the whole story, lmao.
I feel like you're relying too heavily on references but we've established that Marc is a giant nerd and cemented him as the main protagonist.
Definitely believable in terms of crossing over. This gon b gud.
The fight scene was pretty well choreographed, and felt like it was ripped right out of Shadow of the Colossus.
Eh, not big on fake-outs like that but there are worse ways to cliffhanger... but I don't like the fourth wall break.
I also hope that Thisbe covers up the plot hole that Marc knows earthly animation but not MLP:FiM unless this takes place in a universe where MLP:FiM never existed in which case... in a stunning instance of fridge brilliance, I understand why earth got destroyed then.
Hmm. The fourth wall breaking is actually starting to grow on me if I see this as Marc dictating his life to a biographer. Otherwise the story is actually developing quite nicely. Although I will say I like the trope awareness but not how it's being presented. "That'll be important later" just reeks of treating the audience like idiots and brings me to watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with my 4 year old sister. But I am curious as to see how all hell breaks loose when the story's main conflict comes into play. So far the characters are pretty well presented, and Marc himself is establishing himself nicely. He's cool and has some use but he doesn't come across as OP or obnoxious. He's pretty damn lucky though, and I have a feeling that flying the spaceship will cause him a lot of grief somewhere down the road in terms of power management and a bunch of ponies from a quiet village seeing a giant metal behemoth in the sky. Celestia and Luna will have a fucking field day in court once the public realizes that aliens are real.
9036003
Finally! Someone who's seen red vs blue! Being honest, the info about AI is ripped straight from there, given it's one of my favourite series.
The fight scene was actually quite easy to figure out, and is one of my favorite memories of writing the early chapters. I wanted something similar to RWBY, but not to the point where the fights are waaay too easy.
Oh, and the fourth wall breaking settles down in the later chapters. This bit was simply because of a rush I had when I finished the chapter. Tampering with it feels wrong for that reason.
9036029
Yeah, don't worry, mark ain't OP. There may come a point where he grows stronger, or manages to figure more out about this 'new skill' he's got, but not these early chapters.
Thanks for the ship idea. I'm currently writing chapter 7, and that'd work well as a point of discussion.
This chapter near the end seemed really rushed, and kinda poorly written compared to the previous chapters which were great. What happened? Kinda ruined the story for me kinda.
9036264
If the story felt rushed, that might be an unexpected side-effect of the fight scene. And as anyone who's ever passed out knows, it happens very quickly.
Note I have not yet read the story, and don't know if this has been addressed or not, in addition, this is not a criticism, but rather an observation, so take this with a barrel of salt.
But, I'm pretty sure a population of only twelve people is going to get seriously inbred after only a few generations. The minimum is close to 4,200, I'm sure a population could make due with less, but... I am not going to want to see what happens to the great great great grandchildren of these travellers.
9064117
I'll admit , you're not the first person to bring that point up. While it is noted in the first chapter that there's a possibility of more ships being sent, you've not seen that yet, and a mere 'possibility' is nothing to be certain of. Allthough I will go as far to say more ships will come to equestia, whether that be in the story or during a follow-on.
I never really looked into how many people it'd take to repopulate a planet. But considering that, I can't I may people to space would cost.
Sorry if that felt like a rant, I just wanted to give a simple enough answer… if you can call my answer simple.
9064187
Well, no trouble, simple or no I appreciate the answer, as you can tell, I try and be as cautious as possible and often even then it elicits a negative reaction. Thank you very much for that. Anyways, a solution I've relied on before to justify a small cast in a similar situation is genetic enrichment, basically genetic modifications to the reproductive organs so that offspring will be more varied, or, as in the case of message in a bottle by StarScribe, mind upload and/or cloning. Though I'm fairly certain the story is too far along for such extensive modifications, as well as such modifications being possibly contrary and disrupting to the themes and story beats already established, and generally being detrimental to the cohesion of the story. So basically, don't compromise the story for the sake of making a little more sense, think long and hard about what developments you could introduce and if they would actually fix the problem or just cause more to appear. No worries though, just some advice from a two bit amateur author, not like I've got anything to show for all this buggered advice.
9064523
Your advice is surprisingly scientific, and I understand where you're coming from. Great concept, but I think the story is too far ahead for that kind of change.
Onge again though, thanks for the Input. I might mention hints of this later on if I get the chance. stuff I've already put down isn't as easy to change as you'd think... Or at all helpful considering I've already planned most of the story.
No, it doesn't
9105798
Care to explain what 'doesn't'? You didn't link anything, so I don't have a clue what you're talking about.
9105853
lol sorry, answering the author's note about cliffhanger's. I hate them, and they always suck to me. Only my opinion.
9105894
I'll agree with you there; cliffhangers aren't the nicest thing in reading and writing and sich. I tried my hardest not to end things on a cliffhanger, but with things getting really ling, I didn't really have any other call. Hope it ain't a detrerant from the rest if the story for you.