Subject: [FICREVIEW] Portal Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 18:26:32 GMT From: Doomriser Newsgroups: alt.startrek.vs.starwars FICREVIEW- Portal Name: Portal Author: Graham Kennedy Type of crossover: ST vs SW Balance between the great powers: The worst ever seen Spelling Errors: Only the godawful newspeak Pain Level: Getting anally raped by the NJ packers, over, and over, and over again...while taking a cheese grater to your genitals and then bathing them in salsa over, and over, and over... Summary: Never has the line "In space, no-one can hear you scream" been so true as in this fanfic. When you scream until your lungs can emit nothing but a high-pitched squeal, then you might be half-way through this fanfic. This fanfic is so bad that there simply is too much blame to put solely on the shoulders of the author. In fact, I believe the blame must be distributed to all parties who in fact allowed this work to be created. Therefore, I blame him, I blame his parents, I blame the inventors of the computer, and whoever first came up with the idea to carve words down on a rock. Any one of those people could have spared the world this affrontery to literature, reason, and good taste. Synopsys: Since I don't want to quote any of the actual story text (for fear of causing mass SW [and ST] fan suicides around the world), I'll just go over the introduction. "This story is for enjoyment purposes only -" Yeah, HIS enjoyment, knowing many Wars' fans aren't going to want to live to see the next morning after reading this. "I was trying to write a dramatic and tense bit of fiction, " I would have preferred reading that instead of the anti-climactic piece of trash I saw. If his definition of "tense" is the Enterprise having at least a 200% chance of saving the day, then it's purely mind-boggling to imagine what bland and hokey means to Kennedy. "not to depict what I think would actually happen if the USS Enterprise met the Star Wars Empire. In “reality” (strange word to use in this context!), I think that the events here would go MUCH more in Starfleet's favour, but pushing that argument is emphatically NOT what this story is for." I'm sorry, did he just say that things would actually be MORE in Trek's favor? I'm sorry, but this story (using the term loosely) is such an obvious and obvert piece of propaganda it's enough to let Joseph Goebbels rise from the dead and, upon reading it, cream all over the keyboard! I really should have heeded this warning and stopped right there, but I had yet to learn the true meaning of pain. "Although this story is naturally not canon, I have made every possible effort to keep it strictly in line with the known technology and events of both the Startrek and Star Wars universes. So far as I know, 'Portal' does not contain one single canon violation of either Trek or Wars - with one proviso." Yes, that his *interpretations* of canon are takes *as* canon in this work o fart. "Without giving anything away, I'm aware that a certain central character is left rather lost and cut off from home at the end of this story. I haven't decided what to do with this character yet, but I am mulling over ideas for further parts. If you'd like to read more, feel free to e-mail me and let me know. " That is, if you haven't poked your eyes out with rusty nails after reading this fanfic. (In order to prevent yourself from seeing other pieces of crap like this, if they exist) I have mixed feelings on the idea of a sequel. On the one hand, I cannot possibly imagine how Kennedy could write anything even worse than this. On the other, I'm terrified he'll prove me wrong. "So read on and enjoy. And if you don't... well hey, it's only a story. " No, it isn't. A story consists of plot and conflict, character development and the triumph of the human spirit or the tragedy of its failure. This is a record of stuff happening, and it's stuff that isn't even interesting. There is a more consistent and interesting story in the classifieds of a newspaper than in Portal. Abandon all hope, ye who enter. Writing Style: Kennedy has portrayed the Star Trek characters somewhat accurately, which just makes it more disturbing, for even if you put a Glock to the heads of Brannon and Braga, they would not, even in their Voyager-most efforts, be able to produce a turd like this. If you can actually get through this fanfic, without breaking into epilectic seizures or deciding that it would be more fun to see if your head can deflect SS-109 rounds, you'll notice that the main Wars characters, such as Darth Vader, seem to have lost 100 points of IQ in addition to developing inferiority complexes, before setting out to destroy the Federation. If any more proof is needed that Graham Kennedy is the spawn of a shit- eating maggot and Joseph Goebbels, read on. Technical accuracy: If you can swallow this fanfic believing that it is an accurate technical description of an Empire versus Federation debate, then I reccomend you swallow a thermal detonator. Kennedy could not have been more wrong if he TRIED! First of all, the force doesn't even work on Star Trek characters. If this is true, then why bother even writing such a fanfic, since it castrates Star Wars of its largest audience appeal: the magic of the Jedi. But why stop there? Why it would take an INTENSE bombardment of MANY Star Destroyers, which are reputed to have mini star-level energy in almost every reference to their power, to destroy a stationary space platform is beyond me. Finally, its nice to know that, in their 25,000 years of development, the SW galaxy has been unable to develop shields that actually stop weapons, or beam weapons capable of space combat. OF course, the Trek exploration vessels (or Enhanced Deteration Explorer, as GK likes to call it) are more than capable of taking on tens of thousands of their numbers in dedicated galaxy-dominating warships. Entertainment value: His logic that a single Federation starship can defeat legions of Imperial capital ships makes a fanfic that is about as entertaining as watching a battlemech stomp a tribe of Apache warriors. Never have I wanted to stick a pencil through my eye so much as when I read this fanfic. I write this review to warn others and prevent them from reading this steaming turd that Graham Kennedy calls a fanfic. Rating: Storyline -10/10 Writing Style -5/10 Chacterization -5/10 Technical Accuracy -20/10 Comments? Suggestions to make it more biting? Please reply! -Doomriser Although this fanfic now lies on the ash-heap of history, along with the infamous "SW Lasers can't penetrate ST shields" and "SW Hyperdrive is 1.5 lightspeed" arguments, there is no doubt that in a future war, some evil and ruthless dictator, too short on cash to pay for biological or chemical weapons, will use this fanfic as a cheap, but effective form of EMP, as it will cause anyone reading it to shut down their computers in terror. In this instance, I PLEAD to the UN and world governments to write a clause in the Geneva convention preventing the use of this fanfic to harm other human beings. It should be stored in an unmarked, chain-locked vault, in that big room at the end of Indiana Jones, and labelled as horror for all eternity. Lest we forget the sacrifices of the ASVSers. -- -Doomriser