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SilFoe — Magic Effect Pg 6
Published: 2014-03-14 20:44:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 19320; Favourites: 174; Downloads: 86
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Description
The unintended hiatus is over with. Now back to ponies in space! Or… on a planet, in this case. Either way, the action begins!
Choices are neither “good” or “bad” here. In this instance, both will cause some good and will cause something unpleasant. Will you be proactive in addressing this potential threat or will you hold your position and maintain a better defensive position?
Be sure to follow it here: magiceffectcomic.tumblr.com/
Answers are taken from both here and on tumblr for now.
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Comments: 158
Unfortunately, never. Had to cancel it for a few different reasons.
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The short version is that life attacked and will continue to attack my time for all of the foreseeable future.
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Nah, I shut it down voluntarily. Too much outside stuff going on and bills gotta be paid, etc.
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Sorry to hear that life was/is starting to get you down. I hope things get better for you soon SilFoe.
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Heh, me too! Thanks, though.
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Send some squadmates to investigate.
This is a most excellent comic series! :3
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Send some squad mates!! That's gonna be interesting
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I would say: Send one scout to check it from safe distance while the rest stay on their post.
My personal advice would be to subtly alert Twilight that something is wrong so she can stay on her guard, but I see this is not in options.
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Send squadmates to investigate. PLEASE WE NEED MORE!!!!
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Be alert but do not abandon post ponies. Protect the princess.
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Investigate as warning to being alert when there something gotten wrong.
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The best defense is a good offense; and good scouting is what wins battles. Investigate.
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Be alert. From the few horror movies I've watched, it's never a good idea to split up..that's how you get murdered
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tough decision @_@ a little split up after reading the comments... but I guess [be alert]?
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Send a couple of squadmates to investigate. If a big monster pass them, we will see twilight fight and god know if i want to see that
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Send some squadmates to investigate. Worst case, they get attacked and you have to go help them, but you started the fight away from the princess and civilians.
Best case, nothing happens and it's just an extra precaution.
Better safe than sorry and all that.
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Okay, so the question of which pony is going to die has been bugging me all day, and it’s not going to stop until I analyze the hell out of it. So here goes.
Note: I’m starting with the assumptions that somepony is going to die, and that it will happen soon; spurious assumptions, but not altogether baseless. Also, I have never played any of the Mass Effect games, and all I know about them is that the ending pissed off a lot of people, as well as some names and stuff courtesy of a really bad Exalted crossover fic. That means all my guesses are half-assed.
The characters
Twilight Sparkle: We all know who she is, and why she’s important. Her re-design is awesome, by the way.
Cpl. Strike: He is young and naïve, inexperienced, and nervous. This is the sort of guy who’s typically the protagonist, but with Twilight around, that title is pretty much taken. His plot armor is a mile thick.
Wait a second…
Re-reads one of the comics. He has a girlfriend? Whelp, Cpl. Strike just jumped three notches on the “gonna get a cap in his ass” scale. It’s probably just a one-off joke, but girlfriends are always bad news for soldiers.
There is also the issue that this type of character is occasionally killed off first in order to establish street cred as an author who’s not shy about offing anyone they feel like.
Sgt: Candy Sprinkles: Has been mostly a background pony, but a consistent and obviously important one. There’s not much to extrapolate character from, but I’d describe her as “immovable.” She is a shield standing between Twilight and anything that would harm her. She also tends to sport a “damn rookies” expression whenever Strike opens his mouth.
This type of character always dies first.
Cmdr. Speartip: Also hasn’t had much screentime, but has more dialogue than Candy Sprinkles. If I had to pick one word to describe her, it’s “competent.” She seems to be someone with an even keel—loyal, but not a zealot; professional, but not a hardass; proactive, but not single-minded. If Candy Sprinkles is a shield, she’s a perfectly balanced sword. Her priorities in combat are going to be different than Speartip’s. I absolutely adore this kind of character, they’re all too rare in fiction, and always badass. There’s a reason I already call her Commander Awesomesauce even though she hasn’t really done anything yet.
This type of character is usually 50/50 as far as chances of death goes. But when they do go, they make it count.
The situation
Normally, that would be all I have to account for. Candy Sprinkles dies first, protecting Twilight and the others, says or does something mentor-ish in the process that guides Speartip throughout the rest of the story, while Cmdr. Speartip dies mid-or-late-story, or else becomes an important NPC. But there’s the little issue of the fact that this comic has audience choices.
I think one of the biggest outcomes of this latest choice selection is actually going to be who dies first, Speartip or Candy Sprinkles.
The two choices are “Be alert but do not abandon the post.” And “Send a couple of squadmates to investigate.” They fit Candy Sprinkle’s and Speartip’s personalities too perfectly to be coincidence in my eyes.
Candy Sprinkles, as the “immovable shield” seems like the one to be alert and remain at post. Her priority is to put herself between Twilight and danger, and she can’t do that if she goes to investigate. That is why I think that choice will put her into the limelight, and straight in harm’s way. She will likely die protecting Twilight.
Speartip is more proactive though. Instead of putting herself between Twilight and danger, her priorities would be to actively hunt down that danger before it got to the princess. The investigate option would focus the story on her, with the same effect, she dies in the line of duty. I feel like her death wouldn’t have the same repercussions, though. Where Candy Sprinkles would be content with a noble sacrifice to save the Princess, Speartip would not go into the night without landing a crippling strike on the enemy.
Strike will likely figure prominently in a story sense in either choice, but not be very effective in a combat situation until later in the comic.
My guess is that if the first option is taken, Twilight will escape unharmed, but there will be significant civilian casualties. If the second is taken, Twilight will get injured, captured, or otherwise taken down a peg or three, but the enemy will be significantly incapacitated.
Last of all, while I’m throwing out wild guesses, Cadance is going to be an antagonist at some point.
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Twilight has faced monsters and demons in the past, and now she has grown in power and experience, why do you right away assume that because she is now a powerful ruler like Celestia or Luna, that right away it makes her useless and vunerable?
I get the point that powerful characters are usualy showed weaker and less competent for the sake of the conflict, but come on, do not right away assume that she will be injuried or captured by first threat that come at her, more or less that her escort will need to sacrefice themselves to save her flank.
You saw fight Twilight vs Tirek where she had power of 4 princesses, she could endure being pierced into a mountain.
Even if now she have only 1/4 of the power she had in fight against Tirek, she have far better control over it, and while she cannot survive being pierced into a mountain, I am sure she would endure being crushed under fist of 200 tons Golem or being hit by a plasma gun in the head.
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Whatever. I made that post two months ago and it's not important enough to re-visit.
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Holy crap... I love comments like these. These in-depth comments, analyzing what's going on, are super helpful and have actually made me reconsider how I'm going to present the rest of the arc. The story itself didn't change, but how I'm going to tell it just shifted a little bit for the better.
Thanks!
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Question.
Considering what we saw in fight between Twilight and Tirek where she had power of 4 princesses while rage was trying to pay up for lack of control over her powers (she shrugged being pierced into a mountain like it was not a big deal), do in your story where she have 1/4 power of what she had against Tirek, while she have far more experience and control over her magic. Do you will make her useless and vunerable like Luna or Celestia in the show (almost every single author of story or comic I saw make powerful characters useless and incompetent for the sake of the conflict), or do you will take the Twilight vs Tirek fight as well as all other challenges she faced into consideration and spare us having ponies sacrefice themselves just to save Twilight getting a brush or two?
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The Tirek battle hasn't changed how I'm approaching her. It actually kinda fed what I intend to do.
Twi is powerful and due to time and experience, has more now than she does in the show. She knows it and so does everyone else, though most probably don't know exactly how strong she is, either exaggerating it or thinking that everyone else has grossly exaggerated it and she's far weaker than she really is. She can more than hold her own in a fight. However, she's not too experienced with team-based combat. She's more used to taking on something alone or with her close friends. So she's probably going to have some adjustment issues to more rigid, disciplined combat that the military uses. Basically, she's not a war pony, but she's certainly not afraid of action and won't let ponies die when she can prevent that. The challenge for me is to give Twilight a struggle that isn't necessarily based on raw power.
To use some tropes, she's more Politically Active Princess with a streak of Badass Princess. There may be some cases where she's Afraid Of Her Own Strength like if there's a lot of innocent bystanders around but I intend to use that sparingly. I'm actively avoiding The Worf Effect and the related Informed Ability.
tl:dr I think I have some ways in mind to give Twilight a challenge without rendering her squadmates irrelevant.
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In some cases when character is very powerful, he become a badass and as side effect, can overshadow weaker character (teaming up Superman and Badman is not easy and require a lot of thinking how to make Batman look good without making Superman incompetent, or keep Superman as badass without making Batman useless, and usualy main character is show better in expense of side character).
Another case that is far to abused in MLP is to have powerful characters just for the sake of it, as result, the stronger characters on good side never contribute to solving the conflict. The more powerful, the more useless they become. Even Twilight after becoming alicorn was suddenly far more incompetent and useless than before just to show that she is not OP, while Celestia and Luna are useless in every single two parter.
I personaly respect authors that never use "The Worf Effect" and any other trope where everyones are shown useless just to make main character look better or where heroes do all the work while no one ever help them. I know that it is very hard for an author to have powerful characters being useful without hurting the conflict (especially if they are not main characters), and I know that it is so much easier to just search for excuses why they never help or have their flanks kicked so that a weaker hero would save the day. But lately almost every author of comic or story I read/saw go with easy solution, and it annoy me.
In your story, your biggest challenge is to find a way to not make Twilight less useful and more incompent for the sake of the conflict (it is much more easy to let unicorn Twilight go 150% against a powerful villain and make her struggle than having alicorn Twilight go 50% agaisnt powerful villain without any efforts). To make matters harder, Twilight have an escort, and when powerful character/leader have an escort, it can be either badass escorted by red-shirts where escort die quickly and do not do anything, or characters that are escorting the leader do all the work while the escorted badass do nothing to help. To have characters who are not red-shirts escort a powerful badass, and not make any of them incompetent for the sake of another is a true challenge, and I am looking forward to see how you will face it.
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Heh, yeah, that's what I'm worried about. I recognize the problem and hopefully the way I'm approaching it will turn out how I intend.
Twi has proven she's knows how to face apocalyptic level baddies, so I really have to let her remain competent there. The only thing I can see is to have her inexperienced in proper warfare commanding regular soldiers since this is a threat that can't be solved by throwing weaponized friendship and harmony at it.
So to counter her military inexperience, she's accompanied by Cmdr. Speartip, an experienced veteran. Speartip doesn't have Twi's raw power, but she's more experienced on the battlefield and in commanding troops. And of course, no matter how powerful Twi is, even she'd succumb to the sheer numbers that the reapers have. So having a team of competent soldiers to watch her back is invaluable. Now to make it not the Twilight Sparkle show is the hard part.
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Maybe I can help. I am always thinking about a way to balance every comic or story I read and how to keep powerful characters competent without hurting the story, especially Celestia and Luna.
If you want, I can help you find a way to solve your problem and come up with ideas how both Twilight and her escort can shine without without overshadowing one another. If you would be interested, just PM me here or PM justX (justxjustx) on skype. Trust me, when it comes to advices and ideas how to avoid "The Worf Effect" I am someone for the job.
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Yay, I helped! I'm glad you didn't change the story itself too. Even when I'm editing something for someone I don't push for that—it goes against the whole purpose of being an editor—and it would be ridiculous to change it because of some wild mass guessing.
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don't abandon post its the most obvious diversionary tactic for assassins you gotta stick together
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Send a couple of squadmates to investigate!
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