Honestly my two biggest complaints are with the writing style, and the fact that the story suddenly turns humanity into a galactic superpower without any development of how and why other than a brief timeline. With the writing style, the characters are simply listed by their actions, and lack any sense of depth other than fitting into standard tropes, and the interaction between the characters, especially in the first contact scenes made me cringe. Even the inter council interaction was not written well, with little to no debate done, rather it was as if the author just wanted to get the scene over and done with, while I actually snorted with laughter at the Mindoir raid scene with Shepards "Nooo" moment. It's not the worst thing I've read, but it falls pretty far below library standards.

Unoriginal themes is a very valid criticism. The whole humanity is the only truly unique species has been done ad-nauseum, but could have been addressed by actually going into detail not only about why they are special, but with the how, or by introducing reasoning as to why. It's not about being wholly unique, it's about putting an interesting spin on things.

Besides, this thread is for whether it should be in the library or not, so I don't always feel the need to go into an in depth review, besides the most basic facts. If I was talking to the author via a formal review on ff.net it would be a different matter.

 

While I can't say anything to the relatively over-dramatic moment with Shepard and the council's rather quick scene, I can say that you have probably never played XCOM: EU before. Humanity after the Ethereal war had essentially gone through hell, been given access to technology about a few hundred years ahead of their time, developed their latent psionic abilities into a major feature of the species, and came together into a relatively unified group of nations all within the span of a few months to a year depending on how long you stretched out the game. The groundwork for this human empire and its advancements in comparison to the ME universe are put in place through the game and there technological/psionic growth over a period of almost 200 years is fairly believable.

The problem is that the timeline as you called it at the beginning of the story doesn't really do a good job at explaining the vast number of changes that happened to humanity that you as a player experienced through the game. If you played the game it would have made a lot more sense immediately and that is in my mind this stories big flaw, it does a fairly poor job of introducing the readers to the differences in the Universe.

As for the unoriginal themes, its fanfiction and a crossover between two fairly distinct titles with differing histories of a major race. Either the rest of the universe is buffed up to some other degree or humanity will be a major player after first contact as can be seen in this one.

My main interest though is how the reapers will be handled and change based on the introduction of the XCOM humanity to the mix. Could make things very interesting to see when they have to deal with a race that didn't evolve along their pre-planned route.

 

I think the best way to look at it, is t hat this is a certain style of fic. Some people will love it, some people will hate it. I personally haven't read many fics written in this style, so I love it. And I want more.

Also, Legacy, I believe he said earlier, that the inspiration for this was the new x-com game. Not the earlier ones. Which is pretty fair too be honest, as the majority of people reading this fic won't of played any of the earlier ones. (myself included)

 

His point about humanity post-Ethereal War is about nuXCOM, as far as I know. OldCOM Ethereal War took 3 years IIRC.

And yea, I really didn't do a very good job of introducing newbies to the XCOM universe. Mostly because I didn't want to spend 300,000 words on setup. As is, I'm at like 45-50k just setting up the plot.

It's also my first writing project of any real substance, so I fully expect it shows in places.

 

I must say, It's ironic but I actually didn't associate the DLP account with the author of the same name. Otherwise, I would have left a more extended review in my first post. I think that's a fair thing to address that I am more familiar with the originals as opposed to the new one, (which I think was also a great game), I just felt that certain technological leaps were not explained well enough. I honestly think a bit more time on the setup would help the fic immensely.

 

To be honest, I am going to have to disagree completely. I feel anymore setup would just bog the story down. As someone who is already familiar with the XCOM universe, I don't want to spend pointless time reading explanations for things I already know. This was one of the major flaws for another story in the library called In Flight (a Fate/Stay Night and Sekirei crossover). Right now, I believe the story is moving along at just the right pace.

 

Yeah IF has pacing issues.

Frankly maybe if Agayek is up to it a Codex-lite for this story just for world building? It keeps the tech dump outside the main story.