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Review: His Majesty The Fraud


Solaris: Electric Sentinel

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  • 10 months later...

Please refer to this post in the ECC if you're wondering why I posted in your review topic to bring it from the back of the library all the way to the front.Long story short, it's review time. Yay!As per usual, nitpicks first.From Prologue: History Gone Wrong

There were many years of tension until the Tahu, the leader of the Toa called a truce with Ackar. It was an uneasy truth.
'truth' to 'truce', I'm guessing.
Solaris was sided with the Toa, but both Toa and Glatorian were put under the service of the master, Ghar-Knel.
You have an extra verb in that sentence. Either/or would work, it's up to you.
No mater what happened to anyone, even Solaris.
Looks like you're missing a 't' in 'matter', mate.From Chapter 1
I, Solaris would light the fire of civil war to call attention to anyone but me so that I could take over the government.
Well, I had to consult Microsoft Word for this one, and even though it says 'me' isn't incorrect, I feel that 'myself' would sound more appropriate.
I seemed to have failed to mention he was a former Bone Hunter.
Okay, while nothing is grammatically wrong with this sentence, it's a bit choppy thrown into the story. Up until that point, you've been narrating with no regard to the reader, but this sentence just kind of randomly and indirectly addresses them, it bothered me.
"You know what, Ackar?" Tahu said. "I think it's time the Toa and Glatorian to divide loyalties. You back those hostile invaders, the Baterra--"
Okay, this can go one of two ways. "it's time the Toa and Glatorian divided loyalties." or "it's time for the Toa and Glatorian to divide loyalties."
"You call this government?" Tahu shot back. "A communism is not government. It's unfair is what it is. You got the privileged rulers, the law enforcers, and the peasants. That's it. So if you Glatorian want that kind of social structure, then count me out."
'got' to 'have'. Just, please. Or at least "You've got". It's just too informal otherwise. Same with the words 'Gimme' and "Uh, right", and a few other lines from Tahu that irked me. He's the leader of one of the greatest Toa Teams ever created. At least make him talk like one.Anyways, technical nitpicks aside. Now we get to the fun stuff.One thing that I did like and wanted to comment on was the point of view this story is told from. Or at least, Chapter One, since the two chapters were written in two different perspective. When I saw that this was a self-insert story, I braced myself for the worst. But in the story, Solaris seems to be taking on an antagonistic stance in the plot, which I don't think I've seen before. Good job on that. One thing, though, you definitely could work on is detail. Backstory. Why are things the way they are? Why is Solaris, a seemingly normal Ta-Matoran (Matoran created with Mata Nui's blessing to be good and peace loving), bent on being evil? World domination, in this case, if I'm not mistaken.Next on the agenda: Baterra. It's great that you've been using them in the story so far, they're a species (relative term) that I've been wanting to read more about. But in this case, you have a Baterra set up as the leader of society. I have a couple issues with that as a reader and as a stickler for obvious canon.
The Baterra are entirely mechanical, programmed to instinctively target and kill all beings carrying weaponry, and do not attack anyone unarmed.
And then to quote your epic.
The Baterra who was elected to the office of official leader was named Ghar-Knel. He ordered a worldwide disarm. No one was to use a weapon. But that only increased the tension between the Toa and Glatorian, and soon, a civil war broke out.This story is of the origin of the civil war.Solaris was sided with the Toa, but both Toa and Glatorian were put under the service of the master, Ghar-Knel. He was becoming a tyrant. But such thoughts were not allowed in the palace.
Now, I'm all for creative lisence. Down with the cliche's, angry mob protests, and all that jazz. But it's got to make sense. Has this Baterra, Ghar-Knel, been programmed to be an official leader? Or work his way to becoming a tyrant? Admittedly, the part about worldwide disarm did make sense. But then you went and said that civil war broke out. Were the Toa and Glatorian having sissy fights with open handed slaps to the face? Because, besides drunken bar fights, I'm not sure what else you really do without weapons on a 'civil war' scale. Were there secret pockets of resistance that had weapon caches for the war?I have to admit, I tried understanding why society launched into civil war, but I came up blank. They can't have weapons under Baterra rule. They go to war anyways? What? Don't Baterra exist to stop stuff like this? As far as I'm aware, people go to war for not having enough independence, and after having gained that independence, not having enough land, and then, not having enough not having enough resources, and then not having enough workers to use those resources to build and expand even more, so then they go out and wage a war, taking prisoners as slaves. And then the slaves start an uprising for their independence and the whole thing starts all over again.On that note.
"How about we settle it in your old barbarian fashion, huh?" I asked. "A war.""Sounds good to me at this point," Tahu hissed."Fine then," Ackar said. "Let's settle this like the primitive Toa you are.""Well Solaris will fight for me, right?" Tahu said."I'm not a Toa," I stated.Tahu grabbed a rock from Ackar's desk and empowered it. "Here you go kid. There are some Suvas in New Atero, but they won't be easy to get to."
Ummm, by this time, I think I've quoted about half your epic. Sorry 'bout that.But again. Unmerited war. I get it, Tahu is reckless and rash, he doesn't think before he acts. But that was thousands of years ago, canon-wise. Under no circumstance would he agree to start a war, even if he's not entirely serious about it and it's just his hot head talking. On that note, he wouldn't ever sacrifice a good hunk of his Toa power, make a Toa Stone, (I can't picture him stealing a stone from Ackar's desk either, however convenient it may be) give it to a Matoran he hardly knows, and tell the Matoran to go have happy play time.And are they starting their own war on top of the civil war (which is also unjustified) that is already going on? They'd just end up killed by Baterra, that's my best guess. Unless all Baterra in your story are like Ghar-Knel and love war so they can kill more.Another matter, why the heck are Ackar and Tahu, two of the strongest leaders and most powerful and influential beings on Sphereus Magna, sitting in an office building squabbling like old ladies? I hate to say that the whole "I'll have Tahu make a Toa Stone for my self-character," scene seemed like a suspiciously convenient plot device, but it kind of was in my eyes. As I mentioned before, it wasn't entirely believable either. Tahu and Ackar, their dialog didn't really match up with their personalities in canon.Now, if you're going for an alternate-universe-esque story, having canon characters, such as Tahu and Ackar, be out of character is fine. If so, one thing I really suggest, work on their substance as characters. Why is there so much initial animosity between them? What is Tahu's reasoning for declaring war on Ackar? What makes Ackar rise to meet this challenge? Does Tahu have more reason for giving a Toa Stone to this corrupt Matoran other than to show up Ackar? If so, what are those reasons? If not, why in the world is he in a position of power, with decision making skills like that?One more thing:
"You call this government?" Tahu shot back. "A communism is not government. It's unfair is what it is. You got the privileged rulers, the law enforcers, and the peasants. That's it. So if you Glatorian want that kind of social structure, then count me out."
I know I called you out on this quote before, but it needs more attention.Communism - (n) A revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production, as well as social, political, and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of the social order. (credit to Wikipedia, I don't see what schools don't like about citing it.)Okay, admittedly, I had to read through that definition a few times to understand, and I'm not sure that I completely understand even now. But one thing, I do know. The definition states that a communism is classless. And then Tahu describes the Spherus Magna government a communism, but goes right on to describe the 'Privileged Ruler' Class, the 'Law Enforcer' Class, and the 'Peasants'. I just thought I'd point that out. It sounds more like a miniature caste or feudal system. But definitely not communism.Now, your grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation, I didn't have very many problems with. And if I did, they were probably mentioned above when I was going through nitpicks. So good on that. You kept to a consistent verb tense throughout the story. While the dialog, parts of it, at least, might not look the best on a page (monitor) it reads aloud smoothly.It looks like you haven’t updated your story in almost a year. Am I correct to assume you’ve dropped this project? Because, in all honesty, I would be saddened by that. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Bara/Sphereus Magna in the Bionicle storyline, and when I read fanfics about it, I dislike it less. While it’s not the best reformed Spherus Magna story I’ve read, it has potential to become better. If you continue, I’ll probably pop back to see where you decide to take it. Plus, I’d like to see how the title ties in to the story, I found it interesting. Either way, I’m glad there’s no such thing as topic revival in the library, this review is probably one of my longest. I hope my nitpicking didn’t get under your skin too much. All in the name of improvement, right?

(disclaimer: none of this banner art is original, I just smooshed it together in gimp. Torchic, Matau)
ThosePeskyFirespitters.png.3dbdb65e6a28cbbc5957d81c09a685b6.png
Those pesky firespitters... 
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