More ways than one.

by SynXyn

Within the war

The blistering heat radiated from the sun high above the sky, making each soldier sweat a river, but they had to bear it as they could hear the large tanks rolling into the Sahara sands. They all sighed as the commanding officer of the ambush signaled a man up high in the dunes, shouldering a rocket.

The man looked through the sight of his weapon and locked on to the large behemoth that rolled across the desert sand. He heard the reassuring click from his weapon and pressed the button, sending a cone-shaped filled with death straight into the side of the tank, blowing it to bits and pieces. The other tanks soon saw this and turned their turrets towards him and fired.

The man slid down the opposite side of the dune right when the shells exploded, while some whistle pass his head. The ringing in his ears wouldn't stop as each shell collided into the dune. Along with the sounds of shells, came gunfire. The firefight has already started, as they prepare to take down the useful Intel within the convoy. Outnumbered and out gunned, he didn't like those odds, and he sent what hopefully wasn't his last call for help.

The Pentagon

Military officials scrambled all over the small and tight corridor to get a glimpse of the new weapon created by their top engineers. The excitement was to be anticipated as this project required a volunteer that had to perfectly match the needed requirements, or the experiment might fail.

They watched as a group of people consisting of both commanders and scientists walked out, followed by a young boy no older than 16. They were quite shocked of why there was a civilian in the building, but they quietly watched as the group stopped and turned to the young man. A young boy that measured to be about 5'9, good physical shape, and has exceptional posture. His appearance, however, appeared to be rather strange to many as some traits are uncommon to some men.

His hair had a light white color, similar to a darkened piece of snow, while his irises glowed a golden yellow. His flawless face seemed to be made out of smooth stone that was chiseled by a master craftsman. He wore a midnight black polo shirt with a gray design on the right side of it that resembled flames. His pants matched the color of his hair.

The contrasting colors seemed to blend to the background as the only noticeable feature were his eyes, drawing their attention away from the rest of him. A snapping noise took them away from the trance of his eyes and searched for the sound, to find a scientist holding a button.

"Glad to have pay attention again. As you all should know, my name Dr. Michel Stroll and this young man's name is Riley. He was our 'volunteer' for this project and I'm proud to say that it was a success." The old man said. He had a rather gentle voice, despite his features being one of a military man's.

"He may look normal, but I can guarantee that he is anything but that. His body contains some very powerful weaponry. Granted you may not be able to see them, but I assure you all that he has them. He has a special storage unit that shrinks many items, until needed. Along with that, he is capable of surviving heavy attacks such as airstrikes, tank shells, and other means of artillery due to his skin and bones remade. He is able to fly or propel underwater through high powered gravity thrusters attached to his shoes." Dr. Michel said proudly.

He snapped his fingers and Riley floated. He showed no signs of surprise or any emotions as if he was a statue. He merely turned his head and waited for the next order

"He is quite obedient as we have tampered with his brain. We shut off certain parts of his brain such as emotions, so he will feel no remorse in killing, but it can easily be turned on in any case. Furthermore, his strength-" He was cut off by a loud alarm next to him. One of the commanders ran to it and looked at the console. He studied it for a bit before turning to the doctor.

"Doctor, now would be a good time to test your little experiment, my men in the Sahara are being pinned down by the enemy in an attempt to capture some valuable information about our enemies. How fast can you send him in?" The commander said in a commanding tone.

"Fast enough, just tell him the coordinates and course of action." Dr. Michel responded.

The commander turn to Riley. "The coordinates are 25* north and 30* east. Rescue allies and eliminate all hostiles.Understood?"

Riley nodded and in a matter of seconds, he was gone, leaving only a white contrail as he sped across the sky. The men were shocked, but Dr. Michel smiled proudly, but at the same time, a small amount of guilt washed over his face, barely noticeable by others.

Near the battle

Riley sped across the sky at Mach 5 speed, to find the battle raging on below. He dropped down and his new eyes scanned the battlefield to find the hostiles and the men he needed to save.

"Target acquired." He whispered to himself.

He sped down and right before he touched the ground, he made a sharp curve and aimed at the side of the tank. He flipped his whole body and planted both his feet at the side and pushed himself off to a perfect back flip. The majority of his momentum focused in one point sent the large armor flying across the terrain and landing upside down.

He landed perfectly on to the sands and turned to the firefight. The Axis forces switched their focus to him and sent a barrage of lethal bullets, but he pushed his shoes against the sand and sent him barreling past the rain of bullets and shells.

In one swift movement, he grabbed a soldier and flipped him over his head as another barrage of bullets came towards him. The soldier took all the bullets and was dropped. Riley dashed toward the next soldier and threw him towards the tank's barrel, hoping to stop it for a couple of moments.

The soldier hit the barrel hard and fell limp onto the sand, where Riley took the opportunity to hop onto the barrel and literally bend it by only landing on it. He punched the door of the tank and looked down. He took out a belt of grenades from the soldier he threw and pulled all the pins, before dropping it into the armor and closing the door, where he hopped off and headed for the next wave of soldier. The tank exploded behind him and flew over his head towards the unfortunate soldiers. The tank crushed the group of 5 and he went forward towards the last tank, where the hatch was opened and a panicked soldier fell off and frantically ran away, leaving his team.

Riley's hand glowed a light gray and he fired a small beam through the man's chest, where he fell and died. He picked up a grenade, unpinned it, and threw it into the hatch of the tank, before walking towards wounded soldiers in need of help, yet said soldiers could only stare in awe as one man literally beat the shit out of a whole convoy

The battle was over as fast as it was started. He checked his built in comm link and signaled the Pentagon for some reinforcements.

---

A few hours passed until the rescuers came in helicopters with all the needed equipment to let the soldiers recover. The commander and Dr. Michel came out and approached Riley to tell him a job well done. Dr. Michel turned off the emotional barriers, but he still looked the same.

It was about 8;00 at night as Riley watched the last of the Blackhawk choppers leave. He turned back to the carnage to look for some weapons to scavenge, but they were either filled with sand or destroyed by the few explosions. He sighed and walked ready to take off, but he suddenly had a feeling that someone was watching him. He looked around to see if there were other people around. Confident that there was no one, he turned and flew away.

Discord was nearly caught by the man, but he managed to cloak himself. His magic was still being suppressed by the Elements of Harmony and he could muster up only so much power before he becomes inactive again. His projected body followed the human weapon in the sky and was as good of an opportunity as any.

He snapped his fingers and the human unknowingly flew into a portal. Discord had already exhausted himself, as his spectral body faded and he returned to the slumber. He waited for the chaos that would soon ensue once the man arrives into Equestria.

Comments

[Evil Homer]

There are some issues with this story. Your structure is good, I haven't seen much in the way of spelling errors but then I'm tired so that might be the cause for that. A few descriptions that don't quite work like sending a cone-shaped filled with death. Either get rid of "shaped" as it really doesn't fit there or drop the hyphen and the "d" at the end. But the biggest problem is your OC or as I like to call him: And a Wild Gary Stu Appears! But more on him later.

First off, 35 billion people? The way the world population is increasing it should only be around 10-11 billion by 2052 due to the declining birth rate all over the planet. And even if people were suddenly to kick the baby making into high gear, at best you'd get another billion out of that. If there's 35 billion people on a planet that can barely support 9, you got some 'splainin to do.

Secondly, android? Uhmmm, if he started off as a human and still posseses a human brain he's a cyborg. If his brain and body have been replaced, then he's no longer human in any sense and is now an android in which case it's he's like the story of Achilles' ship, or was it Jason's ship? I don't remember but the idea goes that every single part of the ship had at one point been replaced so that literally there was nothing left of the original ship so technically could it still be called the same thing? For him to truly be an android yet still be considered "Riley" there would need to be something original left of him.

Already we have super strength, ability to fly, destructive beams and no emotions. Yeah, he's a Gary Stu.

Flying at Mach 5? Can he breathe at that speed? Does he need to breathe? How about friction burns travelling at 1.7 Km/s? To put this into perspective, the SR-71 "Blackbird" spyplane cruises at Mach 3.3 and it's built to withstand the 600 degree temperatures generated over it's skin from the air friction alone. Gary Stu flying at Mach 5.0 would have to have some pretty heavy duty heat shields not to mention clothes made out of some kind of super stuff that wouldn't burn at those speeds.

Kicking the tank and only causing him to do a perfect backflip while making the tank fly away? I think Newton would want to speak to you about that one.

And of course Discord steps in, somehow affects reality through his stone prison and brings this Gary Stu android / cyborg (androborg? cybroid?) to Equestria. If he's that powerful and can still do stuff while turned to stone, why hasn't he done so already?

[OtterMatt]

I—what—no, I—what. What. WUT.

This... this is awful. And not in the "oh man, the grammar really needs to be fixed" kind of way. In the "somebody call hospice, because we can't save this one" kind of way.

Ye gods, TVTropes doesn't even have enough pages to categorize the ways this is wrong. Biology, chemistry, technology, physics—is there a branch of the sciences that you haven't bent over and had your way with against its will?

Still everything pales against the sheer horror that is your main character. I don't even remember a time I wanted to shoot myself in the face more.
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[Evil Homer]

1500305

Biology, chemistry, technology, physics—is there a branch of the sciences that you haven't bent over and had your way with against its will?

I would assume botany is pretty safe at the moment, unless we find out he's powered by a fusion generator that runs on canola oil or something.

[Winter Storm]

1500812 You have just given me a new idea.

I'm putting your name next to mine, whether it's on a patent form or a lawsuit.

[The Crimson Brony]

Arrgh! I knows not what Evil Homer and OtterMatt be speaking of with their science. It be more than The Crimson Brony care to learn.

Neigh, I must voice me displeasure at the very obvious Gary Stu that infest this story like a pack o' rats in yer hold. It be too much.

[Evil Homer]

1500978
I expect at least a 10% finders fee if you make this a reality.

[Goldy]

Allow me to start a review. I am going to review this, if you don't want to learn how to get better, don't read this. If you do want to, like the intelligent and sane person you hopefully are, then read on.

So, allow me to start with the title. The period at the end is slightly unneeded, and every single word needs to be capitalized. It also isn't much of an interesting title, but I doubt you're aiming for every single person on this website to read this story, so you don't need to worry much about it. There is also no cover image to complain about, so this is a neutral situation for the cover image.

Second, the description. As Evil Homer said before me, there is a lot of inaccuracy in it: There cannot be so many people on this planet when this story happens, he's a cyborg and not an android, and it seems awfully strange for some random 16-year-old kid to become a cyborg for a military. Thankfully, unlike some descriptions, it's filled with good grammar and spelling, and it features double-spaced paragraphs. This is very good, so I can go into this story without the fear of an unreadable wall-of-text.

Now, to enter the story. First off, the name of the chapter is pretty good. Nothing to complain about here. However, the problem with what you're doing with your character, which is an infamous Gary Stu. He seems to have no problems and no downsides to his character. He has incredible abilities any non-Stu character wouldn't nearly have. The fic might be saved if his insane abilities were to be taken away and he were to become just a troubled 16-year-old soldier, though we've seen a lot war fics on this website and not many people would adore it. However, you won't be piled with hate.

Conclusion and final tips:

You have pretty damn good grammar, but your character is missing any downsides. Fix that, and I think I myself would actually enjoying the fic, along with a few others.

TL;DR tips to fix:

-Fix Gary Stu

That's basically it. Surprised to see so much hate on this fic just because of it, though Gary Stus are very big and annoying problems found everywhere.

So, see you later. I hope you use these tips to your advantage, as they can get you likes, favorites, and watches! If not, well, you're not going to have much of a good time.

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[Lord Sunder]

Let's Review: More ways than one! Pt 1:Robots and ponies and misused science, oh my!

(Disclaimer: I'm quite tired, so apologies if rambles a bit and isn't up to my usual standards of wit and incisiveness)

Capitalise your story and chapter titles, so they look less derpy. I must say, this description fills me with anticipatory excitement... oh wait, what's the opposite of excitement? Dread? Yes, this fills me with dread. A sixteen year old becoming an 'android'? Science fail count: 1. Androids are synthetic lifeforms, not augmented ones. The word you are looking for is 'cyborg'. Oh, and he's a one man army. I wonder if this 'android' will use his synthetic nature as a cheap excuse for the author to never show his feelings? You know, 'the flesh is weak' and all that? Chances of Gary Stu... 60%. Let's dig in.

Chapter One: Painted Purple.
Oh dear gods, my eyes sting from looking at this purple. How overwrought are these sentences? Very, dear readers. It's like the hypothetical lovechild of HP Lovecraft and JK Rowling decided to make a fanfic, I swear. And not in a good way, either. You use too many adjectives in the first sentence alone followed by a weird sweat metaphor, and the sentence flow feels like a halfbrick to the head, seriously. The whole thing with the tanks firing at the guy... it feels really uninteresting, because it's not at all dramatic. You switch within the same paragraph from horrible purple prose, to incredibly boring beige prose.

'The other tanks soon saw this and turned their turrets towards him and fired.'

I mean look at that. It reads like something out of the scribblings of a disturbed five year old, and it doesn't feel dramatic. It's probably a good thing you didn't bother to build any dramatic tension with the previous paragraph, because this would shut it down hard. Tenses shift between sentences, from past to present and back to past in one particularly egregious case. Don't do that, it looks stupid and confuses the reader.

Then we suddenly jump cut to the Pentagon, to introduce our protagonist. Pentagon officials are shocked by the presence of a civilian? No, that's horseshit, sorry. He's their cyborg superweapon, that's about as military as they get. Next, his description... Let's see how many Gary Stu traits we can spot:
Unusual hair colour? White.
Unusual eye colour? Glowing golden yellow (ick )
Unusually handsome or ugly for the setting? 'flawless face seemed to be made out of smooth stone' ... so yes. Seriously, fuck that noise. That description is so purple it makes me feel ill.
Generic badass clothes? 'midnight black polo shirt with a gray design on the right side of it that resembled flames'
Speshul Powaz (tm)? Oh hell yes. He's a fucking combat cyborg.

Hmmm, not looking so hot there bub. He's like they took Edward Cullen and made him a cyborg, with all the gushing, nausea inducing descriptions that entails. Now, in Twilight it was horrible, but at least understandable, since that story is told from the viewpoint of a teenage girl addicted to Edward, who is apparently a humanoid lump of crack cocaine. Here... less so. Are the Pentagon officials teenage girls, squeeing over their metal Adonis? Because these descriptions scream 'fourteen year old girl'. He even has fucking hypnotic laser beam eyes, so much so that the viewers have to tear themselves away to gaze upon the rest of his perfection. The Stu-ometer is going off the charts here folks. At least this isn't tagged 'Romance', so I don't have to put up actual fawning from the narrator.

Descriptions of his powers... blah blah... violations of physics and common sense are handwaved. His skin can withstand tank shells, while still appearing human? That's fucking stupid, sorry. I'd like to see this chump put up against an A-10 Warthog, that's for sure. They tampered with his brain to instil obedience... so he has an actual brain? That clinches it, he's a fucking cyborg, not an android. The prose is still incredibly dispassionate, and as we read about these people apparently in trouble in the Sahara, I find myself wondering why I should continue reading. None of the characters introduced seem at all compelling. One is a stiff lump of Speshul Powaz who happens to resemble Edward Cullen, one is a douchebag who considers meddling in others' brains acceptable, and the rest are pretty much there to be shocked and awed by the stiff lump's Speshulness.

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So Stiff Lump flies off to god knows where, and the commanders are shocked by this, after clearly seeing a demonstration of his flight capability and such. That is incredibly dumb, and it feels like the author is artificially lowering their intelligence to make his creation seem more awesome. He talks to himself, too. Why does he say 'target acquired' to nobody in particular? Because reasons. A generic fight scene ensues, which plays out like just about every 'super vs mundane' fight ever written. He bends the tank barrel just by landing on it? Sorry, you at physics. Unless his hyperspace arsenal has actual mass, he's unlikely to have enough weight to bend that just by landing on it. Or, of course, this is a toy tank with one guy inside, and it's made out of aluminium foil. The fight is told without passion or any sense of drama, and thus feels like a complete waste of time. At no point does this feel like anything more than the author masturbating over Stiff Lump's power. Seriously, edit this scene out, it actively detracts from the story's quality.

Nothing extra to introduce the main character, so he remains a stiff lump, and then suddenly Discord shows up, teleporting the unfortunate lump to Equestria by means of Deus ex Portal. Never seen that one before . If this review seems a bit less 'fire and brimstone' than my usual, it's because this story is lifeless. It's the diffusion of my enjoyment into its cold, unfeeling grip. Nothing feels dramatic, the main character is literally a lifeless machine, the plot is a tired cliche... and I just don't care. Nothing here grabs me. It's not often I read a fic and say 'damn, I wish I'd spent those ten minutes doing the washing up.' but that sentiment fits this story perfectly. I honestly wish I hadn't bothered reading it. What reason do I have to continue? So I can see Stiff Lump attempt to interact with technicolour OOC ponies? No! Why the fuck would I be interested in that?! He's shown no reason for me to be interested in him so far. He's a flying, cliche spouting hammer. As in, an inanimate hammer. That is roughly the level of personality he shows here. Do you enjoy reading about hammers? No? Me neither, jerk.

Tips to improve:

1. Burn the omniscient third person. Seriously, you suck at it. Keep it third person, but tell it from the viewpoint of someone, maybe this Riley lump, so we can actually get some idea of what the characters think about. Basically, all we have of the main character is a physical description, and some demonstrations of his Speshul Powaz. That's really fucking boring. I want to know how he thinks, or what he feels about his creator casually mentioning his enslavement.

2. Leading on from the above... give your protagonist an actual character. Work out what makes him tick, and give him a personality, even if it is a stoic one. Give him life, because he's as I said, he's a hammer.

3. Clean up your prose. It's so beige it's fucking painful to read. And by that I mean describe things, rather than telling us stuff in a dispassionate manner. Set the scene, and make it come alive, because right now I can barely picture what's going on. Everything seems to occur in a vacuum, like the fight, and it all feels horribly generic, like something out of a bad computer game.

4. If you can't manage #2 to any decent extent, at least tone down Stiff Lump's specialness. Give him a reasonable eye colour, rather than this glowing golden crap. Give him some easily defined weaknesses, since he's a prototype, and thus would be unlikely to function entirely as intended. Psychological instability due to poor attempts at obedience conditioning, for instance. Make him a character, rather than a Gary Stu, seriously. A Gary Stu is a poorly executed high-power character, pretty much. They seem overly powerful for the setting, and often warp the plot to make themselves seem more important than they should be. They screw up characterisation, and often lack any appreciable flaws, or in this case, any character at all. Give him some flaws, and maybe tone down his power a bit, so he's less conspicuously annoying.

On a final note, I honestly don't see where this is going. He's going to arrive in Equestria, and then what? He's a faceless, uninteresting lump, and will just be a the same lump with a different background. He has all these powers, for no apparent reason. He's not going to face any meaningful physical conflict, because his Speshul Powaz (tm) will cause him to curbstomp opposition short of the princesses. He's not going to face any meaningful emotional conflict, because he has no emotions, and thus is a boring lump. This fic is a waste of time, and I feel dumber for having read it. That is all.

~Lord Sunder, TWE's Lurking Madman

[ugugg93]

1500305

...is there a branch of the sciences that you haven't bent over and had your way with against its will?

And now I have orange soda all over my computer. Thanks.

[ugugg93]

1500812

I would assume botany is pretty safe at the moment, unless we find out he's powered by a fusion generator that runs on canola oil or something.

And now I have twice as much orange soda on my computer as before. Double thanks.

[OtterMatt]

1505693
We aim to please here at OtterCo.
"Destroying people's laptops, one spittake at a time."

[Gizmo Gear]

1506737 1505704 Comedy at its finest!!

[Goldenelemental]

If I may ask, what are the living conditions of humans? Do they live underground as well as above ground or in the air? I know that upon reaching 9 billion, earth's population will plummet because of overpopulation and suffer a huge population decline from insufficient food supply and living space. While humans may not go extinct, unlike some animals in a somewhat similar situation, because of our ingenuity, 35 billion humans still have to somewhere and the story didn't highlight those areas and it has left me with a lot of questions.