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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Wow, what a start!
Off hand, I very much enjoy the deep set, nitty gritty, in depth descriptions of Bronco Company, the characters, and their current campaign. The writing is flawless and the fluidity that goes in it for the scene descriptions is defiantly well done. The military structure is also well done as has the feel of being something that could very well exist, giving it a very good sense of realism. Already I can tell I'm going to like our main characters. Captain Corsair (great name btw) seems like a very competent CO with a good head on her shoulders, who already seems to have reputation of leading a crack "fire breathing" outfit. Couple that with a sound XO, a wisened 1stSgt, and a well oiled, well disciplined command, then their enemies should be quaking in their horseshoes! Honestly, it gives me a lot of "Band of Brothers" vibes, with Corporal Cravat very much reminding me of Eugene Roe. And I can't wait to be introduced to the rest of the company.
The initial showing of their fight against the Diamond Dogs was also very well done, even if it was just a short intro piece. And I like how you've incorporated the bumbling of politics that interfere in the operation of the military forces. With unclear, odd orders coming from above that make no sense yet must be carried out. Captain Corsair's reaction and tirade were very enjoyable to watch. Plus, it seems that the Equestrians have a Tennyson of their own. Perhaps "Lord Ponnyson".
And now they are about to venture out into the unknown...
Oooh, I like this, when does this take place approximately? Is twilight a princess yet? Or still a protege of Celestia?
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This is approximately season 6th-ish, so Twilight is indeed a princess.
Glad you're enjoying it!
And so it begins, I like seeing the way the politicians play others, but then again: "war is a continuation of politics by any other means" - Carl Von Clausewitz, I really wanna see their plan succeed but to see them fail and Equestria pushed into war, I'm sure the technological development that's sure to come from this war will be great and terrible in equal proportions.
Wonderful chapter! All of this feels like the calm before the storm and it's wonderful! Question: Militarily, at what stage does the world of this fic is at? Early 19th century, mid 19th century, or late 19th century?
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Oh, it's very low tech. Spears and bows; so closer to 11th century, lol.
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Ahh, very early in weapons technology, but they probably still have some industrial technology considering they can build and field trains as transports, I'd imagine the coming war is going to kick technological progression into high gear
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Welcome to Equestrian technological anachronisms!
Are you ever going to give an explanation as to why this version of the royal guard didn’t just curb-stomp all of the threats and problems that came up in the show, or are you just going to give the “it’s an alternate universe, don’t think about it” hand wave? Because in canon the so-called Royal Guard can be distracted by cake and their leaders aren’t much better.
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Yeah, we're going to go ahead and say they gained a few levels of competency between seasons in this instance :P
Otherwise this would probably have been classified as a comedy...
Why doesn't the cavalry use crossbows, are they stupid?
Also, it seems that everyone in Equestria's government outside of the princesses is corrupt in some way or another, I wonder which one of the princesses is gonna be the one to enter parliament with a sword and begin swinging
I agree with Gabriel Miranda. Why doesn't the cavalry use crossbows?
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Just like in the show, ponies DO use bows. It just hasn't come up yet. So far the only fight we've seen with the ponies took place in a cave system. Not very "bow friendly" terrain...
Welp, it begins...
This story is absolutely incredible- and when I see it's 12 chapters in with less than 100 views, that's downright discouraging.
In every conceivable way, you're a far superior writer compared to me. Your mastery of prose and characterization, but most importantly of all, your ability to write compelling plotlines and keep a good grasp of pacing without sacrificing anything else... It's wonderful. This is an extraordinarily well-written story, and for it to have received so little attention... Like I said, it's discouraging. If an expert writer such as yourself is getting so little attention, it's a worrisome sign for a novice who knows they're not nearly as good.
I do have a single question, I guess, after all of that. The mercenary group had plenty of pegasi in addition to griffons and hippogriffs. Why did they send in griffons and hippogriffs for slaughtering the civilians? For fighting the Broncos, no witnesses were supposed to be left, so it makes sense. But witnesses among the Saddle Arabian citizens were supposed to be let go as part of the plan, and given they're not trained soldiers, I would have thought that limiting the attackers to pegasi could have served the plan better without being too much of a risk. Although I assume there's something obvious I'm missing, given the attention to detail you've paid throughout the story.
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Wow, that was a whole heap of praise! Thank you so much!
It's funny (not in a 'ha ha!' way) to me to hear you (or really anyone) describe me as being a "far superior writer" and all of that, since I've come across SO many stories on this site that make ME feel like a hack who has no business posting stories to this site at all '^.^
I bet you're a lot better than you think you are ;) So please do keep writing!
To answer your question: It was an issue of numbers and size-desparity. Of the races in Hawkwood's band, pegasi were both the smallest in stature when compared to horses and the least numerous in his crew; they'd never have been able to enough damage to Gallopoli on their own. And he really did need to use them most often to ambush the ponies, since an ACTUAL member of the REC would have been likely to recognize an imposter and not let their guard down.
Meanwhile, the common horse would have seen a uniform FIRST, and maybe even not have recalled much in the wake of barely escaping death beyond that the attacker at least LOOKED like they were an Equestrian.
Bitter Creek’s plan doesn't really require much of anything he's behind to stand up to scrutiny in the long term. He's counting on knee-jerk reactions to atrocities first and foremost.
That's the narrative answer anyway. The meta-answer is that I thought it wouldn't be as believable that an all-pony merc company would be willing to be part of a plan to frame their homeland for war-crimes :/ So I went with: "the survivors were traumatized enough that, by the time they reached anyhorse they could tell about the attack, they'd convinced themselves that the creatures wearing 'pony armor' had obviously all been ponies" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm banking on readers being willing to suspend at least THAT much belief for my benefit, heh :P
As to the low reader count? I think that has more to do with the tags than quality: this story isn't linked to any canon characters. It's not affiliated with the larger cross-over sub-fandoms either. This isn't going to be a story that shows up in the search results when visitors to the site are looking to find a piece about a character or setting they like. So there's really nothing to bring any reader attention to this story. Heck, I'd love to hear how YOU stumbled across it if you weren't already following my other stuff!
The truth is: REC isn't going to get a lot of views. No matter how well-written it may or may not be :P And that's okay! I put more stock in the comments people leave than the numbers at the top anyway. Like yours, for example! (Thanks AGAIN, btw!)
Your story has a show character and "Sex" in the tags; you'll get plenty of hits ;P lol! (I think there's a "changelings" character tag available too, fyi)
Thanks for the praise/reassurance for my story. I really wasn't expecting it, so thanks. (Also, thanks for reminding me about the 'changelings' tag- when I finish chapter two, I'll try to remember to add it).
Also, your explanation as to how the pegasi in the mercenary group were used does make sense. I hadn't realized that the pegasi were the least numerous of the species in Hawkwood's band. Not to mention, the fact they could better help with the ambush against the Equestrian soldiers does make sense when you explain it. The meta-answer also makes sense- although I've read enough stories including rival pony nations other than Equestria, or where pony minorities were loyal to the griffon/whatever majority, that I would have believed it. Ranging from older classics such as This Platinum Crown where an early chapter shows Blueblood with a non-Equestrian pony loyal to a griffon prince who Blueblood is visiting, to more modern Tryptych-verse stories featuring ponies from the griffon nation loyal to it. Maybe that's just me, though, and you perhaps pre-empted the skepticism of other readers who would have felt differently.
As for how I stumbled across your fic: Right after one of the updates, it was on the front page under the list for stories that had recently updated. I was browsing that list, thought it looked interesting, clicked on it to check it out, and then when I finally got around to checking back to that tab to read it, found that I loved it.
Looks like the earls plans aren't going exactly like he wanted them to go, which is nice m
Can't help but feel sad for Reconnoiter , just like for Qasam, that they are fighting a war (or are they about too), that they don't really have control over, and that they will suffer from it just because of some overambitious jerk and his cronies.
This was yet another wonderful piece of writing.
In the first part, that's the sort of scene which I would have been strongly tempted to skip or skim over, for one simple reason: info dumps to other characters in which information the reader already knows is revealed are hard to write. In this case, however, you pulled it off beautifully, with the already known exposition being perfectly broken up with new introspective ruminations related to it, in a way that all flows smoothly. Beyond the way you threaded that needle so well, the speech afterwards, discussing WHY she didn't want her troops following her, was full of dee pathos.
In the second part, that was yet another feat of delivering an info dump in an interesting way- although made much easier by the fact the reader didn't already know those details. Sure, we're getting what could have been dry military information- but it's delivered in a slow way that feels like impending doom in an increasingly tense way. It's accompanied by plenty of emotional flairs to keep it from feeling like a dry exposition dump, all without crossing the line into making professional soldiers seem too bound up in emotion. Beyond that, there is the further layer of the dramatic irony available only to the reader, in which we know the characters' sense of impending doom directly contradicts the hope the reader gets from the scene.
Basically, this chapter is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about when I previously pointed to your skills as a writer.
Okay- just got around to reading this, and it's as good as ever. I just have one question about the worldbuilding/timeline, though.
Back during the Changeling attack on Canterlot, there had been many military personnel heavily guarding the city as part of the extra security measures. Given that the 'Equestrian Cavalry' hadn't met an enemy in the field in force in over a century, I'm assuming that for whatever reason, that branch of Equestria's armed forces weren't part of the extra security, and would be curious as to the specifics of how that worked. (Or if I'm misunderstanding the nuances of the distinctions entirely, and it's an entirely different part of the phrasing I should have paid attention to which explains the lack of experience any of the soldiers have with battle even after the Changeling attack on the capitol.)
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I am making a distinction between the Guard and the Cavalry. With the former being tasked with civil defense more so than the latter.
The show was pretty vague in the changeling episode when it talked about what kind of "threat" was being made against Canterlot. For the purpose of this story, I'm choosing to interpret it as they weren't concerned about direct military action from a neighbor, and so hadn't mobilized the Cavalry to respond.
And in any case, I'm not sure I'd classify what happened in Canterlot as a "pitched battle" :P
This will not end well
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Fair enough about it not being a 'pitched battle', given it was cut short so early by Cadance/Shining's burst of magic. Also, thank you for responding so quickly with that explanation, as the Guard vs Cavalry distinction makes perfect sense.
Finally caught up, this story is really good.
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Glad you're enjoying it!
Oof. The last chapters, we got so much hope that the villains' plan was being thwarted, and it came so close to happening in this chapter... And then that hope was suddenly ripped away. That was a truly emotional moment right there, where I as a reader was almost convinced things were going to be okay before the shocking twist.
Also, I just want to mention, I've been expanding my vocabulary a bit with this fic. For example, 'cataphract' was a word I hadn't previously known.
That was an INCREDIBLE twist at the end. Who would have guessed that the villains being smart and fixing their mistakes would end up HELPING the heroes?
Beyond that, when I saw Nocturne freaking out about somebody in the group, I didn't give him enough initial credit. Because the name wasn't given, I assumed he had noticed Cravat, and was imagining he must be awesome due to coming from a noble family, and was just being an idiot again. I was completely taken off-guard when the individual he noticed was Shillelagh. Given you didn't give the name until you had Nocturne approach Maniple, I'm not sure whether you intended that bait and switch, or whether it's something that happened without being meant, but either way, it was great.
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Yeah, that scene was definitely written to be 'bait' intentionally; because the reader has been explicitly told that Cravat has a noteworthy past and so obviously we know that he's a significant threat to the conspiracy. Shillelagh's nature and skillset, meanwhile, has only been hinted at (at least, I hope there were enough hints for it not to feel like a complete ass-pull :P).
Nocturne would, of course, have reacted similarly to discovering that a noble was among Corsair's crew, since that would also represent a big problem (just a different kind).
Such a shame he got tunnel vision when he saw Shillelagh's file, huh?
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Okay- so it was intentional, in which case, my hat off to you for successfully setting up such a narratively consistent subversion of the reader's expectations.
Huh. So Nightjar's impulsiveness actually potentially HELPED his own side, this time... Depending on whether or not any onlookers overheard his incriminating statements made in public. Prior to what Nightjar did, Cravat seemed to be on course to using his noble title to accomplish something, but now it seems like that part of the good guys' plan has been disrupted- entirely because Nightjar lacked the tact or subtlety not to make a huge public scene.
In its own way, it's kind of darkly hilarious when a villain's incompetence ends up being to their own benefit, somehow.
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I think you meant to be talking about Nocturne?
Nightjar's the good batpony! Although, it has admittedly been a while since she's been referred to by her real name in the story. That mare has too many aliases! :P
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...Argh, I totally made a typo, you're completely right, and I'm facepalming right now at my mistake.
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S'alright! Glad you're finding Nocturne to be an interesting antagonist to follow! It's actually been a little fun writing such an unapologetic bastard of a character. I just love to hate him :P
Well that was a fun chapter
The stars have aligned for the hero’s, but can our noble friend pull it off…
why was twilight not asked for help?
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Because that's what we call a plot hole!
Um...
She's at the Wonderbolt Academy with Rainbow Dash on a map mission? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well it’s coming to a head
Oops- guess I missed the last chapter. I got a new job recently irl, and haven't spent as much time on fimfiction.
Anyways, your plot is at its apex, it appears, and it is VERY satisfying to see the villains' plan finally start to fall apart.