Author of Not Alone here, I feel the need to clear some things up.
"Equestria shows up, and all of Earth immediately puts aside all of its differences and rallies under the leadership of the United Nations. There are no dissenting voices, people pushing for diplomacy, adopting a wait-and-see approach, trying to manipulate the situation for their own ends, or anything like that. No, it's just war, immediately and unanimously, with all peoples of the world supporting the decision."
It's ironic you accuse me of not doing the research. The UN Security Council declared war on Equestria. The Security Council is not the entire UN.
"Also left unstated is how, for all its military might, humanity is even supposed to be capable of cracking the Barrier - something which effortlessly defies all conventional weapons in other Conversion Bureau fics, up to and including nuclear detonations."
It's something you're supposed to stick around to find out. BONUS: This isn't other Conversion Bureau fanfics.
"They're bad if they don't like humans and good if they do"
It's almost like I think racism is bad by default or something.
"even to the point of apparently helping humanity overthrow their own country."
Let's review. Ice Breaker: Apologized to someone Evening Star: Hiding in a guy's apartment Equestrians For Humans: Spread the message that they shouldn't be trying to destroy humans.
Not seeing the overthrowing of the government here.
"astonishingly high number of ponykind supportive of humanity"
So five ponies and one zebra is "astonishingly high"?
"but when humans want to wage war on ponies and form mobs to firebomb bureaus, it's good"
Resisting the people trying to kill your species is bad now? And when did I ever say firebombing the bureaus was good? The whole reason I put that segment there was to imply that the Argentina police were dragging their feet dealing with an attack on someone perceived as an enemy.
"we're told in no uncertain terms the person they previously were is now dead... and no pony ever disputes this."
And I quote, from chapter 8: "It was probably going to be the same thing the other ponies had told him. He'd probably tell him Eddy was happier now, and that he should stop being sad, and that he was being rude to his friend."
Much better, thank you. I'll keep this in mind when I write future chapters.
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Too soon to say
After re-evaluating this fic, I have changed my opinion on it and edited the review. It has some editing problems but I clearly jumped the gun on a couple points. Although the followers of the story in the comments section tend to be MORE THAN A LITTLE rabid, the author has more appreciation for subtlety than I originally realized - something rather difficult to convey in the Anvilicious TCB genre.
I still feel like the story in general is unfairly biased toward the pro-human viewpoint, mostly by lack of dissenting voices in the narrative. Additionally, Equestria's motives are a little unclear. Although the author seems to take the view that the ponies are essentially alien invaders bent on genocide, it isn't that clear-cut in most Conversion Bureau stories. The ponies are often legitimately trying to help humans in their own way and don't understand why humans would be upset, or they have no more control over the merging of the worlds than the humans do, or any number of other explanations. It's the author's story and he can give them whatever motives he wants, but I find it a little jarring - especially since the topic is never really discussed.
Although I'm still not an enormous fan, it's a little early in the storyline to be making judgements just yet. We'll have to wait and see where things are going.