Review and Discuss #5 – Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger, Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Sparkle’s Notes · 3:01am Jul 8th, 2015
In anthropology, there is a concept known as “First Contact” – the first contact between an isolated civilization and the world at large, or between two civilizations which have never before come in contact with one another.
In science fiction, the concept has been extended to first contact between species – typically, between humans and aliens, though occasionally otherwise.
While there are many stories about humans finding their way to Equestria, very few of them approach it from the standpoint of science fiction – of a space traveler finding their civilization, exploring it, documenting it, and making formal first contact between civilizations.
Arrow 18 is that story, applied to ponies.
Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger
by Admiral Tigerclaw
Science Fiction, Adventure, Human
66,597 wordsThe star system Omega Centauri was just another oddity on a map to scientists in the not too distant future. However when they found the star was orbiting an earth-sized, earth-like planet instead of a black hole as its motion had suggested, a mission was scrambled to investigate this most unusual of celestial behaviors.
Hamstrung by politics, and nearly crippled before it began, the 'Lone Ranger' mission was reduced to just one crew member and left to his own devices.
These are the logs of Arrow 18 and its lone commander. This information is classified TOP SECRET by the Global Space Agency.
Do NOT tell the princess.
Why I added it: It was recommended to me as the best human in Equestria story.
Review
The story begins with our protagonist, Captain Randolph “Randy” Edwards, entering orbit around planet Omega Centauri II, a very strange world that human scientists had discovered was exhibiting some very odd behavior – namely, the fact that its star appeared to be going around the planet rather than vice-versa. This was unusual enough for humanity to deploy a faster than light spaceship to go visit, because there is no way that a planetary-mass object should be forcing a star to go around it. But lo and behold, it appears to be so.
It doesn’t take long for Randy to realize something else as well as he descends into low orbit – there is intelligent life on the planet. He can see signs of civilization – what appear to be roads, villages, and even electric lights at night – and while not as densely populated as Earth, it quickly becomes clear to him that this is a pretty big deal.
Naturally, it turns out the planet he is visiting is Equestria, and over the course of the story, he gradually makes contact with the natives, with Twilight Sparkle taking a special interest in him, trying to understand his language (and spending an inordinate amount of time on his computer in the process, which is clearly the coolest thing ever) while Randy tries to figure out what is going on, and comes to realize that the residents of the planet are very unusual, the flora and fauna is eerily familiar, and, eventually, that Princess Luna and Princess Celestia – 400 kg ponies – are somehow pulling around the planet’s star and moon.
Despite being finished in 2015, this story was started in July of 2012, and consequently, it is set temporally between seasons 2 and 3 of the show, with Twilight still a unicorn and the changeling invasion fresh in the mind of ponies.
The story is told in the form of mission logs, with periodic transcripts of conversations between Randy and the residents inserted into the story – and, even more rarely, emails after the mission has returned to Earth between the scientists, military personnel, and engineers who were assigned to the mission. References are made to video files (which don’t exist), and the odd image (and even archival audiovisual files, such as some of the historical videos that Twilight accessed on the computers) are inserted into the story. Indeed, one of my favorite bits of the story is the transcript of a recording made when Rainbow Dash and Twilight accompany Randy back into orbit for a resupply run on his primary space ship, as opposed to his landing craft, which includes bits and pieces of almost everything that the story does.
This story’s greatest strength lies in what it is – namely, a first contact story between a human and Equestria, with a number of side-issues addressed that might be of interest to humans who were naïve to the idea of My Little Pony, ranging from the question of magic to the internal politics of a foreign planet. Randy encounters not only the ponies, but also the changelings, later on in the story, and very briefly addresses the fact that there are other creatures on the planet as well. The language barrier between Randy and the ponies – especially ponies other than Twilight – means that Randy is required to pick up on what is going on from his interpretation of their other behavior, and the nature of the logs allows the story to keep moving while including a lot of Randy’s own personal observations of what is going on.
That being said, the story raises a lot more questions than it answers, though I suppose such might be expected. Some of the major mysteries are solved by the end of it, but others are left open, and I was left with the feeling that there were a lot of plot threads left dangling.
The ending of the story also felt a little bit rushed – while Randy’s decision to return to Earth when he decided to do so made logical sense, given that he had basically triggered an enormous political realignment by his presence, communications, and understanding of how a few things in their world worked that even the locals didn’t understand due to humanity’s much more sophisticated technology, the story’s ending ended up feeling a bit cheesy and forced. It focused a bit too heavily on being cutesy and on the magic of friendship, and the final conversation between Luna, Celestia, Chrysalis, Cadance, Twilight, and Randy felt bizzarely comedic – while the story was funny at times, the final conversation felt very tonally inconsistent with the rest of the piece, and it detracted from my enjoyment of it, especially as it snapped back to the more serious in the penultimate chapter.
The story also does make use of a couple of contrivances. Perhaps the greatest contrivance is the fact that Randy has, for some reason, been sent alone – while the story claims it was due to political nonsense, and limited funding, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. While it is true that we sent up humans alone on missions long ago, nowadays we don’t do that for a host of reasons, and given that his ship was designed to be occupied by more than one person, it seems like the marginal cost of additional personnel would be inconsequential. That being said, it didn’t really bother me very much, as it is handwaved at the beginning and I mostly forgot about it through most of the story.
Another contrivance used at a couple points is cliffhangers at the end of chapters, which is simply not something which would naturally exist in mission logs like that. While it only happens twice, it threw me both times it happened.
The only other issue the story had that really bothered me is some rough writing – it contains a smattering of grammatical errors here and there, and while a log being recorded by a pilot might well contain such errors, it still felt kind of weird, even if it is realistic.
Still, the story gives a pretty good idea of the character of Randy, as well as the primary ponies involved in the story, most especially Twilight and Rainbow Dash, though Spike is a surprising non-entity in this story given Twilight’s heavy involvement. While the ending wasn’t everything I would have hoped, much of the rest of the story really scratched an itch I didn’t know I had for pony first-contact stories. If you are at all interested in the idea of first contact between a human explorer from the year 2257 and ponies, this is the story for you.
Recommendation: Recommended; consider it highly recommended if you like the idea of reading a sci-fi first contact story about ponies.
Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Sparkle’s Notes
by Admiral Tigerclaw
Science Fiction, Adventure, Human
14,955 words (incomplete)It occurred one peaceful night. Half of Equestria awoke to the sound like a double-shot thunderclap. A percussion heard in the skies and rattling windows from Apploosa, to Canterlot, to Ponyville. Nopony knew what it was or what it heralded for the world as it drew a line across the nation.
For Twilight Sparkle, this isolated incident might have faded from memory after a time, if not for the strange rumors of a creature sitting on the hill on the outskirts of town.
These are her thoughts given written form. These are Sparkle's Notes.
Report EVERYTHING to the Princess.
Why I added it: This is a companion piece to Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger.
Review
A still-unfinished companion piece to the Lone Ranger mission logs, this is the same story told from the point of view of Twilight Sparkle, taking the form of letters between Twilight, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and occasionally others. This explains some things that the main story doesn’t really address because Randy has no real understanding of some of what is going on, especially towards the beginning of the story. Unfortunately, while a parallel piece, it is woefully unfinished, proceeding only a short distance into the story before it petered out. Even so, what is here is good, and is an interesting companion piece to the main story; if you read the main story and enjoyed it, this is worth a read afterwards.
Admiral Tigerclaw has said he plans to finish this branch of the story, but it may take another year or two, so if you are interested, it may be best to simply mark it to be followed.
Recommendation: Highly recommended if you liked Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger.
Celestia Sleeps In by Admiral Biscuit is a really good take on first contact between humans and ponies. I'll have to check this one out to see how it measures up.
Wow, it was only 66k words? Without checking I would have guessed a fair bit more.
Anyway, definitely one of my favorites.
3218041
Well, that's going on my important list now.
3218074
Yeah, it isn't hugely long. It may feel longer than it is because it has taken so long for the whole thing to be released.
One small aside: This is one of the more popular first-contact sci-fi stories, but the subgenre got started way back in 2011, with the now relatively unknown Thessalonica Legacy. We only had one season then, and so it looks like a strange animal indeed. But it was the first of its kind, so I recommend it for historical value alone.
3218114
I've seen that name before. I had it on my RL list; I moved it up a notch as a result.
Thanks for the recommendation.
And to think, I started doing these review posts in the hopes that it would cause my read later list to get SHORTER...
Another popular First contact fic is of course Project: Sunflower, although it takes a somewhat different approach to the whole thing.
Quantum Castaways has a number of similar themes, even if it isn't quite a first contact story.
Edit: Missed that last post, sorry about adding more.
3218152
From the data I get with my output of reviews (or at least when I had a good constant output) I can promise you that your read later list will probably not double from doing reviews. I only got a 60% increase, on top of getting enough stories to replace the number I read.
3218154
Oh, no, that was mostly just a wry comment. I don't mind at all! I'd rather see good stories recommended to me than not.
Good stories are worth reading.
And I actually have read Quantum Castaways, which is, sadly, incomplete.
3218209
I started out with 1517 and 120 on my "Read It Later/Read It Later - High Priority" lists. I created a third shelf, "Important", since then, and my lists are up to 1617/275/67.
So it hasn't actually been THAT bad for me, but the lists are all going up.
3218209
The worst offender is my "You're Next" shelf, which is supposed to be the next 5 stories I read.
It is presently at 6, and was at 7 briefly yesterday before I finished this.
I actually do plan to read something off that list (either Cadance in A Minor or The First Time You See Her) next, though I may have to put that off for a day so I can read a few recently-posted writeoff stories (as I try to review all of the ones I liked in the writeoff in real reviews).
I had passed on this story in the past, but your review sold me a fair bit on this. I'll add it to the reading list for sure. :)
3218241
both excellent, though the former is pretty heavy, just a warning.
3218259
I read all of Cadance in A Minor before he finished it, then he finally finished it and I haven't gotten around to re-reading the whole thing yet so I can read the last few chapters.
The latter is a Skywriter story, and I know he writes lots of good stuff.
This was the first HiE fic I ever tried, and it remains my favorite. Though I imagine the tone shift near the end is jarring if you read it all in one go instead of incrementally.
3218318
TFTYSH is great, but only about halfway through its arc. If you're looking for a top-notch Skywriter story that's already finished, Contraptionology! is hard to go wrong with.
3218585
But the story is marked as complete...
3218041
3218100
I've lived in dread of this day. (Okay, not exactly, but that sort of saps the drama.) It would be a good story to follow up this review with, since it was inspired by Arrow 18, but I can't shake the foreboding feelings at the idea. Spoilery prediction: you'll appreciate the large amount of research that went/goes into it, but have various shades of indifference and distaste for pretty much everything else. Not recommended, except to people who like the dedicated real-world interpretation enough to look past the flaws you find.
Also, note that for semi-spoilery reasons, a proper review requires either not counting chapters 12 and 13, which ideally should be part of Onto The Pony Planet instead, or covering the sequel as well. And of course, if you do elect to cover OTPP, you'd be able to review the side stories too.
Finally, if you're feeling either dedicated or uncharacteristically lazy, there are several other unrelated stories set in the same verse, along with a few that share much of the setting but don't mesh with the Pony Planet narrative. Their combined length is significantly less than CSI's, so they'd be a reasonable followup, or work as a quick-and-dirty way to get familiar with some of the ideas in play.
(Incidentally, I'm curious to see if you notice any general differences between the chapters before and after I started prereading. There's always a slight concern that one's suggestions might be crossing from actual improvements into suppressing the author's voice.)
3218154
Ugh, you people are not good for my peace of mind. Still, despite my trepidation over throwing yet another favorite under a bus, I do need to second the review recommendation. Not as sure what the ultimate verdict will be, but I have a feeling there's going to be some interesting discussion on certain parts of the story - you'll know 'em when you see 'em.
Plus, if you feel up to it, a compare/contrast between Sunflower and Arrow 18 might be a worthwhile followup. It's fair to say there's ample material to work with.
Okay, now I'm sold on this one.
Arrow 18 and Celestia Sleeps In is the first two pony stories I read. (Followed by University Days, Anthropology, Hard Reset(and sequels), Stardust, and The Keepers Of Discord)
Which means it's been downhill ever since. :(
3218598
My shame at being wrong is matched by my joy at having two new chapters to read that I originally missed six months ago. :D
3218966
You should check out these stories, then.
( Also my stuff, because clearly I'm awesome :V )
3220410
I'm already following you and added a bunch of your stories to Read Later when I read Dying To Get There
3220435
Hehe, thanks!
Well, that was a pretty darn good read. I can't say it's the best HiE I've read (I think Pirene will hold that title forever), but a neat concept. Funny timing, what with The Last Pony on Earth just finishing up, a PoE story also written in diary format (in my opinion, that one's also worth it, but YMMV, of course). In any case, thanks for steering me to it.
3225061
Is Pirene this story? It was recommended to me by someone at some point.
3225104 Indeed. Have...you not read it? I feel very confused now....I thought it was your recommendation that brought me to that fic in the first place.
If you haven't read it, though, well, suffice it to say that there are few fics I could recommend more highly.
Also, I see Felt Heart is on your "You're Next" list. I'll be interested to see what you think of that one. I have fond memories of it, but...it's been a while.
3225153
I haven't read it, no.
And I'm interested in what I think of Felt Heart as well; it has been a while since I've read something like it.
3225104
Possibly very spoiler-y, so don't click over it unless you're really curious what I've got to say about Pirene.
It's one of the very few stories on this site which doesn't need ponies to work, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It struck me very early on in the story that the blatant MLP references could easily be changed, and it could be a published work, and I don't mean that in a bad way.
It's worth noting that Arrow 18 and Quantum Castaways were both strong influences for Celestia Sleeps In--those were two of the three that really showed me what could be done with the genre (and what so many first-contact fics lacked).