FimFiction Link - Short ID: 508944/omelet
Published: Dec '21
'Omelet' is a five thousand-word oneshot. In the harsh winter of a post-apocalypse Equestria, Starlight Glimmer meets an unlikely survivor in Canterlot. She tells him of the world before and the downfall of civilization as she knew it. Then she teaches him how to make an omelette.
Admittedly I was a bit reluctant at first to click on this story due to its title, but I don't regret giving it a go after all. I really enjoyed the way the subtle world-building slowly creeps into the reader's mind. The way the scene's description goes from an innocent winter to a looted and desolate city was very well done. All this is done with great prose that is both detailed, but also to the point. Starlight's standoff with Sun Burst was done nicely as well. It establishes without directly telling that post-collapse Equestria is a harsh world, but also that kindness does endure and Starlight ultimately intends to help, not harm. I also liked Starlight's goal of finding a mysterious ship which still has electricity. It's a believable goal, but one that also sounds almost mystical. The interactions of duo are nice as well, albeit I feel like they start trusting each other far too quickly. While Sun Burst didn't try to murder Starlight per se, but he did show a willingness to leave her to death without supplies and yet she almost immediately leaves him alone with her stuff. Even though moments before she was willing to shoot him to death.
Where the story breaks down a little for me is when Starlight starts monologuing about the old world. The previous implicit world-building worked far better, in my opinion, than stopping the narrative and spelling things out. Also while I understand that this fic was written for a sci-fi contest, I still don't really feel like the whole "supercapacitors" concept really added anything to the story. Calling them batteries or some made-up magitech term would have made just as much sense, if not more.
This is more of a neutral remark, but I feel like the fic leaves a lot unexplored. On one hand, this is nice because it allows the reader to fill in some blanks. On the other hand, stuff like the Princesses being completely absent felt like a bit too big of an omission. Surely just because ponies turned to technology, they didn't disappear? Or if they did, that could've worked as a nice tragic consequence as well. Or perhaps they are the ones that keep the Rikken supplied with electricity? I would be content with any of these or something entirely different, but the fact that the story doesn't even imply anything was a bit disappointing. Ultimately it feels like we're throw into the second part of a trilogy and that's a bit frustrating.
Overall: 7/10 The fic features a great concept and nice prose, but it does require some serious suspension of disbelief and it also leaves some important things unanswered. If you're willing to accept that, I recommend the story.
That was very cool, and it works very great as a standalone. Even though a chapter 2 (as initially planned by the author) would have been interesting, I really don't think it was necessary.
First off all, I love the prose. I can't really explain why, but I think it works great with science-fiction, especially dystopian stuff like this. You can feel the coldness.
Then, I really liked what was done with the story. Centering something as big as the end of the world on something as unsignificant as an omelet works well to show how everything is above the characters. I'm not going to comment every little detail in the fic, but there's not much I can say about it.
I find it very cool to live it as Star Burst, ignorant. We don't know how much time has passed since the collapse, we don't know who is Starlight, if any of her friends survived (or if they even exist in this AU).
It was clean and efficient.