Throughout all of history people have randomly disappeared from the face of the Earth. It turns out they were being displaced into other realities. A secretive, government funded group in the US has big plans to bring them all back home.
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I've read a lot of human in Equestria and displaced fanfics and throughout them all I wondered how cool and convenient it'd be if humans swooped in and pulled them back into the reality they came from by force.
This whole fic is kinda meta since its set inside other people's fanfics.
I copied terms and the whole briefing room scene from SCP: Overlord by the way.
Chapters (1)
I'd recommend asking users of Displaced stories if they WANT to be included in this, rather than just being told their characters are done.
Its a noble goal, however only one universe of the Displaced would be saved, while the rest of multiverse cannot as it's constantly growing infinitely far beyond the reaches of humans, there's also the fact alot of those Displaced have been changed and altered into a new form and/or new powers, making it impossible for them to ever live a normal life or even gain back their original identity.
I don't mind my character being used, but two things I think you should look at are pacing, and the internal logic of your story. Characters just seem to do things with no real thought or rationale to their actions.
I understand that you're probably going for a mystery angle for the motivations of the organisation, but it would help the reader to be invested with the story if they knew what was going on in the protagonist's head.
For example, the decision to seize the displaced person by force when they know they're not a prisoner. Perhaps this is what they do with every displaced human so it's a matter of policy? Maybe they're worried about something happening that's not explained, maybe they have extremely limited time? Even if the protagonist doesn't fully know the answer to those questions they're definately going to be thinking about it.
The decision to opt for a dynamic entry by throwing a flashbang into an unoccupied room rather than remaining covert when they had the opportunity is similarly perplexing.
Edit: also, my character doesn't have a cutie mark.
10902575
Thanks for the criticism! I was planning on having the second chapter follow the protagonist as he snoops around the place trying to further understand what's going on and why. But yeah, I didn't plan on revealing everything about what's going on since a bit of mystery is not only interesting, but makes writing easier since I don't have to worry about contradicting myself.
Yeah the entry could've been done silently, but I like the SWAT type aesthetics. I could've made up some easy explanation as to why sneaking in wouldn't have worked, like magical energy surrounding buildings and the humans not knowing if that's a detection field or something.
Added a reason for quick entry and removed mentions of the cutie mark, thanks for the headsup.
10902520
Ah, I didn't know the displaced universe had it's own lore, I thought it was just a concept of people going to other realities. In my lore those worries aren't relevant, but you're right in saying they wouldn't be able to live normal lives again a lot of the time.
10901832
Yeah I should've taken the time to do that, but I didn't feel like waiting possibly weeks or more for authors to respond. If I wanted to make something on a long dead fic I wouldn't be able to ask for permission too.
10902599
Quite a bit of lore, what with the merchant / displacers / void dwellers, the multiverse, the dangerous paradoxical chaos known as the void, tokens, people summon other displaced via those tokens, how displaced came to be, etc. It's good you'll make your own lore Displaced though, since each universe follows their owns set of rules of how Displaced came to be, you'll have more room to work with.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18jibP39zHTjCEYQtYDLvJ0KiMrykrScHXYTcrb8hs3w/edit
incase you're curious.
10902599
Which is fine, but things need to happen in a story for in universe reasons or else they come across as contrived.
To elaborate on the pacing issue - is this SWAT/military team assembled from people that don't know eachother, from different military branches, sent on a mission with no preparation or training time?
The guy goes from "okay so this organisation exists and we can go to different universes" to "grab a gun and head for the teleporter" in what seems like less than an hour.
10902643
Yeah that's true, I did just rush it out as more of a concept then a story. You've given me a good idea on why these six people were all chosen to do this without even getting a chance to train with each other first. I'll edit the first chapter to have these people act more confused and irritated that they are working with each other without warning.
I actually really like this idea. you should totally keep it but I don't think that it should be mlp centered but instead just go in to various story's and ideas. maybe kind of lean towards stargate sg1. but otherwise I think this idea is great. nice job.
10902767
Ah, thankyou for the compliment it means a lot. I do agree it would be cool to have these teams sent out into fictional worlds to bring back artifacts or people but the rules state if something isn't MLP related then it will get removed. Although I could probably go with the loophole of following the filly from Greenhorne's story back at base in the same chapter to follow the rules.
If you have any suggestions for what reality would be interesting to send them into and with what objective, I'd be all ears.
10902798
It would be interesting if the purpose of reclaiming the displaced humans was so that they could use their new abilities to help humanity face some existential threat (probably interdimentional aliens)
Another option is to go the SCP route and have the purpose of reclaiming the humans be for experimentation.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2018/4/29/1719642.png
10902997
Picking up displaced humans to fight interdimensional aliens isn't a bad idea per say, but I've been reading the MLP-XCOM crossover fics recently https://www.fimfiction.net/story/100455/stardust so the idea of yet more aliens being the bad guys is uninteresting. Not to mention it'd feel a bit too much like a superhero story.
The humans being experimented on and interrogated is a decent motive as well, but there are much better targets for such like an alicorn, if we're limited to Equestria. Unless of course their mysterious teleportation only works on human minds or something.
The current idea I've got for the motive is akin to Universal paperclips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oca8BnDMin4, a concept I've been trying to get into words for a while. The AI in this case would have been made with the noble goal of simply 'helping' humanity, which would exponentially spiral out of control. https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html Which I hope would sufficiently explain the weirdness and the lack of consideration of the displaced people's feelings of whether they even wish to return or not.
Ahh yes Universal paperclips
Oh hey I just reread this and I like what you added to it.