When war comes to Equestria, the three tribes have no choice but to face it, or die.
War corrupts even the best of people, and brings the worst demons out.
Equestria will find out, that they are made for war.
For the Demons of Equestria will rise.
In this short fic, an alternate Equestria faces war. When it hits them, they will go all out to protect the land. Will they stay themselves, or will they change entirely?
Edited by; Holtinater,Scoping and Carapace
Helped by SunlightRays
Chapters (2)
Is the memorial the one writing you submitted for the prompt?
Besides that, it was pretty well thought out, and while there were a few sections that felt rushed to me, it generally was well paced.
Good job!
10429933
Yup
Ponk!
Wow. So, this is going to be my first long-form comment. It's gonna be a bit rough around the edges, but just stick with me. Also, I'm just going to be talking about the first chapter, because it seems like the second one is the condensed version of that. Before I properly begin, know that I say everything (and I do mean everything) with love and respect. I am in no way a professional reviewer, nor am I a successful author, so all of my advice may need to be taken with a grain or two of salt.
First of all, I think that this is a major step in writing that you've made, and you should be proud of writing 5k words about ponies going to war. It is extremely difficult to do such a thing well, and what you have made should be praised for doing so.
But, doing something well does not mean that it cannot be done better. I will address what I tried and failed to get across in the editing process (that's my b). Repetition. There are multiple instances of you using the same words over and over again, most notably for me were the words "gryphon" and "enemy". References to them below:
Both words are used around 30 times throughout the story, though "enemy" was more spread throughout, while "gryphon" could be seen in large clumps. These aren't too terrible on their own, and if the true problem was just in word usage, it could be solved with a thesaurus. But, while a thesaurus is certainly a valuable resource, this repetition is actually just a symptom of a larger issue: sentence/paragraph structure.
Varying sentence and paragraph structure is not an easy thing to do, and really would be way easier to explain through practice instead of through a comment, but I will try my best. To use the latter quote as an example, most of the references to the "enemy" could be gotten rid of, with little to no loss of meaning. Like so:
This is by no means a "perfect" paragraph now, but I think it gets the point across about how the problem isn't the words themselves, but how they're presented. It's an absolute pain looking out for this type of thing, and is even more painful trying to fix it, but it's worth it to make the story more engaging.
Now! No more grammar talk. It's boring for me, and it's boring for you, and it's boring for whoever else has decided to read this comment. Let's talk more abstractly for now on, shall we? And, again, keep in mind that from here on out, things get way more subjective, so add a few more pieces of salt if you'd like.
The story. As mentioned previously, it is ridiculously difficult to make a good Equestria at War fic. There needs to be clear lines that we can follow that lead us from the relatively peaceful nation of Equestria to one that sacrifices thousands to the war effort. A great example of this is, of course, Fallout Equestria, though obviously there are a few subtle differences between it and yours, most notably in length. Despite these differences, however, I will go ahead and reference it anyways.
Throughout most of the story, readers see firsthand what this terrible place is like, and then are given little bites of lore sprinkled here and there that don't ever really give us a full picture of just how it all happened, but enough to leave a full enough picture, and leaving room to extrapolate from there.
This type of slow burn is, quite frankly, impossible to do in just 5k words. The other way to go about explaining why ponies are at war is to blatantly explain it. If you don't feel like coming up with a full history as to how this happened (trust me, I've been there) then you could get away with having a character try and explain what happened, omitting little details as you'd like. But there should be some sort of line that can be drawn from the show we know to the fic we don't. This is, understandably, a little bit more tricky than just writing about a war because you felt like it (again, I've been there), but it gives the reader much needed context that just isn't really here.
It's ok to want to leave the reader with intrigue, of course. There should always be those questions of "How did it get this bad?" But there should never be questions like "Why is any of this happening?" Confusing readers is generally a bad thing. Though, like with all general rules, there are exceptions.
And lastly, I feel like you didn't really know where to take this. The fic starts with everyone alive, then Fluttershy dies at the beginning, which is supposed to spark this greater conflict, both with the war and with the Mane6, but by the end, what really changes? Spike is able to go back down to his regular size, Midnight isn't permanent, Daybreaker wasn't much of a problem, and the rest of the Mane5 survive.
If you wanted to write about how war affects these ponies, then I would have focused less on the war and what happened in it than on how those events change the characters that survived (i.e. not Fluttershy). We see that RD goes on a rampage and becomes a drunk, but why is that important? She seems to get out fine, and you even resolve the drunkard part almost immediately after it is introduced. Twilight turns into Midnight, but apparently that isn't that much of a bad thing.
I wouldn't really be much of a reviewer if I didn't tell you how to fix what I believe to be problems, so here goes. Either focus on how the war affects Equestria, or how it affects our characters. Fluttershy dies. How does this change Equestria? It just lost a vital component to the Elements of Harmony, how does that change things? Or, how does this affect our characters? One of their friends just died. Rainbow becomes a drunk, but maybe she should have stayed that way, becoming more and more reckless, maybe never truly recovering. Rarity used to go on spa dates with Flutters, but now she doesn't have anypony to do that with. Extrapolating from there, maybe she becomes incredibly lonely, seeking comfort in unlikely places. This is war, don't be afraid to get ugly.
So, I know I just got done pointing out everything I didn’t like with this fic, but I really did have a lot of fun reading this. The world-building was pretty sweet, and the idea that Nightmare Moon, Daybreaker, and Midnight are all just kinda Dragon Ball Z power-ups is certainly a new, refreshing take on an otherwise old and overdone concept.
I don’t know how to end this review, and I don't feel like giving any sort of ranking, cuz that's all kinda bs. I like this, and it's obvious that you have a lot of potential and passion. Keep writing and improving!
Mrm