"Five." Universal simply stated. He had heard Universal say this so many times he could take her place. "Four." He ran a quick diagnostic check of all crucial systems. "Three." Fabrication systems are up to par, Lathe is stable and charged. "Two." The weaponry systems were powered up, plenty of reserve energy for unexpected conflict. "One." He enabled surge defenses on all systems as a portal opened, and the Seraph flew through. He would not be prepared for what he would find on Equis. And it was certainly not prepared for him.
A crossover story between Planetary Annihilation and Friendship is Magic. This is the first story I've written in a long time, so criticism is more than welcome.
The cover image isn't the best, I know.
Chapters (7)
Like keep going I am interested
This just keeps on getting better and better.
Im kind of cunfused about the size of the Commander Unit because one time it towers over Fluttershys house and can look into it from above and later it can stroll around Celestias castle.
So how big exactly is it in comparison to your average pony?
5161079 I work Avol and the other Commander's sizes off of a very vague scale I have. The trees in the actual game come up to around his model's (Invictus) kneecap. Assuming the trees are the same size in the game as they are in MLP, Fluttershy (and the other ponies by extension) are about the size of a common housefly to Avol. I didn't really have a scale to work for Canterlot, so I made the main gate and the entrance to the palace about as tall as the mentioned tree, and large enough to accommodate Avol's massive size. Avol also has to make use of his Lathe to navigate the palace without smashing his face into the ceiling and thresholds into the neighboring rooms. Hope that cleared things up for you.
more
5184040
We don't know what kind of trees are being portrayed in PA, they could very well be Redwood trees, after all they do look fairly similar. This would also be closer resembling the scale of commander to planet in PA, for if the commanders were the sizes of regular trees you find all about, then the planets wouldn't be planets in PA, and the scale of the planets to the stars in PA would suggest that the stars are very tiny and consequently would not be capable of supporting nuclear fusion. While I realize that PA probably never went for accurate scale, I think closer to accurate is better then farther, barring situations where you would be sacrificing entertainment.
I kinda wonder why would the Creators install 'emotion cores' onto logical killing machines, their purpose is to eradicate competitors and enemies, not spread flowers and joy, it would be more logical for the machines to take a single look at the equines, evaluate them as best possible, then make all of them dead, the ones who pose a threat with guns, and the ones who don't would be ignored to death, or more accurately they would strip the planet of natural resources and habitual land turning everything into weapons of war, leaving every life form to die, or be killed and scrapped along with the land. These machines would likelier do that then enslave the population, as it may be a net profit, it is still inefficient, as they could just spend the time building endless armadas and bases, as the equines would be an insignificant workforce when compared to the machines capable of self replicating planets of themselves if just one survives, all in a matter of months. The only reason I can deduce this hasn't happened is because of those 'emotion cores' that were mentioned, the behavior is purely a product of humans intervention.
5435234
Those Emotion Cores are the one limiting factor for these bots. Maybe they were not intended to be just weapons of war. The emotion cores could be vital to other jobs, and help ensure that they don't become rampant.
hmm ... this is gonna be interresting. I´ll keep reading.
5435231
I would likely say this to fit the whole idiocy of the internet that is inside you. " It is a universe of fiction, you question it too much, it just falls apart. All fiction is based on imagination, whether you like it or not, THINGS DO NOT MAKE SENSE. So just move along now and watch something like he-man singing or batman eating a hotdog."
I can't help but scream out "Stop goimg yourself!" every time he gets some new info and goes in person. He has bots. Lots and lots of expendable bots that would be much better scouts than going in person. They are almost explicitly extensions of himself and he can see what they see. Deligate!
I am enjoying the story though. Wish there were more Supreme Commander or Planetary Annihilation crossovers.
He can fit in a cave, but Twilight's new castle only goes up to his pelvis.
That's a massive cave.
5435234 Then we would have a Grey Goo scenario.
Alright, very interesting thus far, it's been upgraded from "Tracking" to "Favourites". Congrats.
True dat
Pretty good! Though, I have to wonder: will he ever meet a Titan?
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Very interesting. I wonder how the Invictus Commander would react to The ARM and CORE commanders. Anyways, your story intrigues me. Do continue.
6363304
Send in the useless helios!!!
(me and my friends called it "tha interplanetary waste of shit")
6437384
They are decent mobile teleporters.
The answer to this problem is to use nuke!
6437384
>the orbital weapons platform that acts as a mobile mass troop transport via warp gate is useless
I hope you're joking. That's quite possibly the most useful titan in the game.
6449345
we call it that because once we get it up it literally will just get taken down by some other thing.
We put Helios v Helios and it came up with the result that both where terribly Under Powered in terms of space combat so we give it a couple of omega battleships and suprise suprise, it still gets blown up.
I mean sure you can kill ground units with it but that is really the only good offensive thing about it.
So, yes it is useful but me and my friend? We just zerg rush other planets with the unit cannons.
The whole impostor thing feels slightly ridiculous. Especially if it could ever potentially lead to a situation like this. Honestly, just having him interacting with non-machines would have been interesting.
Anyway, this looks amazing so far. The writing is detailed and descriptive, and the characterization is good. I'm beyond surprised that I found an actual PA crossover that doesn't suck and isn't a displaced story (thank God for that). I don't think I've seen any other stories like this.
That said, I think the story is slightly inconsistent when it comes to how the ponies react to him. At the beginning, you correctly pointed out how he would be towering above the trees, as would basically everything he creates. But then him bending down, picking up Rainbow Dash, and the way it took so long for anyone to even notice him makes it feel like his size is being ignored. Heck, he should have been easily seen by Canterlot when he showed up, considering they can see Ponyville and the forest from there.
The last thing I want to bring up is that you seem to be exaggerating AJ's accent, and going a bit over the top with having Rarity say, "Darling."
Again, scale is an issue here. Why did only Rainbow show up? Where was everyone else? Where were the princesses? They all had time to show up, since he was apparently being hit over and over for several hours (since he noticed it had got dark). Where were the reactions?
And was all of that prophecy sounding stuff really necessary in a story like this? You have so many interesting possibilities for characterization, interactions, teaching, and other various exchanges (the fact that he is a war machine in the presence of peaceful beings), yet the story immediately starts pulling out cliche after cliche after cliche with prophecies, evil clones, close combat fighting (which is utterly ridiculous to see in anything PA or Supreme Commander related).
Still, I'm definitely going to keep reading to see where this goes. If only because there are basically no other stories like this one.
Oh man, I'm not sure I can keep reading this. That was so contrived.
First of all, he is not going in that palace. Heck, he's taller than the darn thing. Second why was Celestia surprised to see him? How was anyone surprised? He's practically the size of a mountain! Third, where the heck did that chamber come from? There is no way you can expect the reader to just blindly accept the idea that it's been there this entire time directly underneath the palace. You know, the palace which has an underground cavern they already know about? Fourth, that was incredibly contrived to see all those commanders just up and leave like that, and I'm getting beyond annoyed that this story keeps giving the main character an idiot ball in order to advance the plot. Fifth, why didn't the other units immediately know this? I've been seeing signs of this popping up in the story so far, but this was the most obvious. These are machines. Everything they encounter and do should immediately be known by all the others. These are not unconnected beings who have no way of sending messages without going up to each other. Finally, where was the panic when he left? There is no way half a dozen commanders just walked out of Canterlot without leaving massive devastation and confusion.
This story has so much potential, and you are a good writer, but this just doesn't work. There are so many issues with the premise and everything happening that I just can't go on. Honestly, I feel like this story lost a lot of entertainment the moment the impostor showed up with that prophesy nonsense. The entire conflict has been forced and breaks suspension-of-disbelief, and now if I keep reading and see the fighting about to happen, I'll constantly be thinking to myself that none of this should be happening. The only suggestion I could make to fix all of the issues with plot holes and SoD breaking moments would be to take everything that happened right as the impostor showed up and everything that came after that moment, and toss it out. You can have conflict, but it needs to make sense. And this? None of this makes any sense at all.
This is one of the most interesting stories I'm (currently) reading so far. Mostly because it's a crossover between my two favorite things. Keep up the good work.
6578043
One thing "TheArchive", I'm quite certain that Commanders aren't THAT massive, otherwise Titans would basically be the size of planetoids. Just trying to see if that ever crossed your mind.
6852757
The problem is that PA has no sense of scale at all. It was easy to see just how huge the units were in SupCom and TA because you could compare them to the stuff in the environment, and there were people moving near them in cutscenes. In PA the tiny planets throws it all off. I mean, some of the units are as tall as some of the larger hills in the game, so is that how tall they are? Are the hills scaled down as well?
I'm just basing what I said on what we see from SupCom and TA, where the smallest units are taller than the trees. Since PA is based off of those games I'm thinking the sizes would be similar as well.
Along with that, I was referring to how tall the commander was described as being in this quote from the second chapter:
So, if we ignore the scale in the actual games, this is what the story has gone with. The trees in the Everfree Forest only reach his knees.
6854815
Hm, interesting. I wonder if a Titan unit, even a Zeus (which is the smallest of the Titans in comparison), let alone an Ares would fit on Equis [I'm assuming you know about all the Titans]
6855470
Oh I'm certain they would fit on the planet, I just have no idea how large they would be specifically. If we just go by the size of the commander in this story, with fully grown trees only reaching the knees, then the Titans in particular would likely look like walking mountains.
6855543
Haha, right. And just another thing, if Equis is plunged into full war, I wonder how the ponies would react to nukes flying everywhere and destroying everything... Titans clashing, and to the more extreme end, the activation of a Metal planet and planets being smashed into eachother... Sweet destruction.... Also, how Twilight would react once she finds that the Earthquake Titan's (forgot its name) foot would basically be bigger than any major castle like her own.
I really hope this gets updated
6437384 Despite what you think of the Helios, I've actually found it quite useful in some situations. For example, sending it over an enemy base and then sending swarms of boom bots or just the regular mix of units.
7145227
Yeah well it is good...
But only when your that one guy who uses it with Manhattans.
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Is this great author dead?
7206467 Going by the fact they have been off for 45weeks, I'd say they might not be coming back.
6577964 The commander's aren't that big. More like between 3 - 5 stories tall. So he would be the same height as the trees. But the Princesses would still have seen one, let alone two such objects falling from orbit.
6852757 they aren't there more like a few stories tall at most. Honestly I think there only 2-3 stories tall.
7241455 from how big they looked on the planets, I would have expected skyscrapers, with the Titans being Mount Everest or bigger.
7378696 Its really hard to tell since the planets are the only size reference but we don't even know how big those are really. But yeah I always figured them about a few stories tall. If you look up the intro for Total Annihilation you get a better sense of the scale in my opinion and Planetary Annihilation is the successor to that game.
8060202 somebody did some calculations to get the size of 1 "PA Unit" via the smallest size for a gas planet in the game and in real life, then created a moon to scale with it, and put an ant on the moon. He did some calculations based on the relative sizes and found that an ant was roughly the size of the island of Manhattan... So yeah.
7145227
Doesn't its fall after Death do area damage as well?
8462991
I never had it destroyed on me yet cause I usually do comp stomp
5553958
The author has extremely bad scale assumption.
8131851
Holy shit is that huge.
9144121
...On the other hand, the devs' official answer is that the scale varies from unit to unit. "are your dox running thousands of kilometers to escape bombs, or only a few meters?"
9145193
Well isn’t that cryptic?
I still don’t understand why halon was shooting at him just to then try to talk to him
I've only just read the prologue and i'm enjoying this shit. Hell Ya but this has GOT to be continued
I wonder why he didn't do the thing that I would do in that sort of situation? (When he saw the commander corpses)
Me in that kind of situation: DISASSEMBLE ALL ENEMY COMMANDER CORPSES AND OTHER ENEMY UNITS IN THE GENERAL AREA!!!
My thought process: There's no such thing as too many resources. Except of you don't have enough Room for them or use for them.