99 red balloons, seemingly insignificant, serve to ignite intense passion, and intense despair.
Chapters (1)
- Member Since 20th May, 2012
- offline last seen Dec 19th, 2023
lolcatsmanseven
I'm just your average extremely muscular fan of Friendship is Magic. I watch the show and read the fanfiction whenever I'm not lifting weights.
lolcatsmanseven
Joined 20th May, 2012 ·
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1848233 Need a mod here!
Nice story, really well written, tho the war part seems forced.
Well that was, Interesting.
It was added to the investigations folder so you know that that means
Review Time!
Plot
This entire story was basically acting out the plot of the 1984 German classic '99 luftballons' by Nena, or at least its english translation '99 red balloons' and as such it is an allegory for the military insanity that plauged the cold war. You did well in mixing in enough either straight rips from the lyrics or slightly paraphrased ones that readers familar with the song would be able to recognise them quickly while not interupting the actual flow of the story,
The reactions for the Zerba Hegemony seem insane unless you do compare them to the the pananoid militaries of the US during the 70's. The way that you described the Equestrians puts them as the USSR in my mind
Even still though, launching a full mega spell strike based on a conjecture does seem very hard to believe
The Zebras know that something is comming but don't dispatch any kind of recon to check what it is. This seems very odd, especially as you make explicit mention of having a zebra who specialises in long range detections. If the border was as contested as you mention it is, both sides would have watch posts all along it.
Going directly to the last resort as a first response seems like total overkill. Surely the Zebras would make at least one attempt at communication before launching a supposed retaliation strike.
The M.A.D. Principle at its finest. Because both sides in a conflict having the ability to obliterate the other always makes everything so much safer. The last comment also is an interesting one - that even with 99% stoppage, they have enough to destroy all of Equestrias population. During the height of the cold war, America supposedly had enough nuclear weapons to obliterate all life on the planet 5 times over, meaning that they had 4 times the weapons they could actually ever use.
It would have been nice if you gave the introduction a bit more grounding in the tensions between Equestria and Zebraca. As it stands it starts off as a story between Spike and Rarity which shifts a bit clumsily into a tale of two superpowers trying to destroy each other. Maybe begin the story as such
It is just a quick point at the start, but gives the reader a sense of the political madness of the time and makes the insane actions later a bit more understandable.
Characters
Poor Spike. He didn't just get friend zoned, he got bro zoned, a fate even worse than the friend zone. I thought that the way you treated his relationship with Rarity was quite mature. Spike thinks that it is love, while the older Rarity can see it as a heavy crush and tries to stop it before it gets too far out of hand, which unwittingly brings about the apocalypse.
I was glad to see that Rarity was level headed throughout her section, giving Spike the respect that such a moment deserved and the advice to check if he really loved her before comming back to her. He last comment about how if Spike decides that he doesn't like her at all seems off. I don't see Spike ever not liking Rarity as she is not the one that has done anything wrong.
Overall there was not much character developement aside from Rarity and Spike. the Zebra's and Shining were clearly meant to be idealised versions of the military brass from the height of the cold war, so afraid that the other side is going to strike first that they are ready to pre-empt the preemptive strike. I understand that some parts of their characters would have been limited by the content of your source material
Grammar
Overall the grammar was quite good in this story. you made sure to have each new paragraph both seperate and indented, new speakers on new lines. All place and proper names were correctly capitalisedI can't fault you for much on this section, just one or two little things like spelling.
This does not need the hyphens between each word
Spelling mistake. should be Rarity
Aside from these, I would add in some kind of horizontal marker when the perspective changes, not just a slightly larger gap - makes the change more distinct and easier to see if you are jsut skimming through the story.
Overall verdict: Not a bad story. Could use a bit more initial information regarding the military aspects of the story for those who do not know either the song or the cold war period.
Recomendation: Double check spelling, maybe add in a expended intro. Good otherwise.
~ Fimbulvinter. Section Trainee for the Impartial Investigation Ensemble.