A colt stepped forward from the group, looking up at me with eyes like mirrors to the stars beyond. I saw my image eclipsed by the enormity of his pupils, and I wondered if I had the strength to see what he—what all of them had been programmed to see.
"If it is your wish to witness... then it is your wish to know," he said. "As it is your wish to live and die... to die and live... to become whole by becoming apart."
"I was placed in this world to assist in acquiring this knowledge," I said. "I know it. I'm convinced of it now."
"Hemennujusen krellumtiel gruxan eljunbyro balakuk hajan," a filly chanted, drawing my attention. "With shattered eyes would she who is only a part of endurance's rebirth attempt this venture."
I closed my eyes to the sequencing of stars, feeling a wave of cold slice through me like a blizzard. When I looked at them again, my mind's eyes were leaking. I spoke past the pain to say, "Then allow m-me to come together again, in the only way I can afford..."
"Mensunjin resukuktiel hrassul, eljunbyro," said one of the colts as all twelve children formed a circle around the miniature pond. "You far more brave than us, eljunbyro. There must be great fear in you to make a stranger pierce this deep into the ether."
I softly said, "Love has its place in fate as well."
They had no response to this. Instead, they narrowed their eyes, staring into a fixed point above the pond. I felt the universe spinning around me. Through my peripheral vision, I caught the stars rotating at an alarming rate. The lavender glow heated up, so that an orange aura shimmered beyond the furthest reaches of the ring's curved horizon.
A chant emanated from the mouths of the twelve foals, high-pitched yet resonating like drums of dead skin: "Morru bessu varankai urohingr. Morru bessu varankai urohingr..."
I stood before them, my eyes so affixed to their ritual, that I barely noticed the otherworldly event transpiring in front of me. Without a single splash, the surface of the lake lifted up and rotated like an enormous coin. I watched as the rippling surface faced down towards a flat space of pure stone. Undulating liquid brimmed along the edge of the body, trickling upwards towards the stars in a misty haze. Between the twelve sequencers, the upside-down pond lifted a good meter and a half off the ground.
"Rise," one of them said, her voice reverberating across the liquid portal. "Take wing as they did... as they all did... in the world before worlds."
I gazed at her, at all of them. Nervously, I trotted forward, my ears flicking as I trotted through the drizzling mist. At last, I stood beneath the pond. My head tilted up, and all I saw beyond was a copper haze past the quivering veil. I reached up. I stood up my hind quarters and stretched, pushing one hoof through the pond and then the other. I was just starting to feel my way into the miasma when the basin plunged towards me... only I plunged towards it.
I was swimming, falling up, roaring through the waters like a torpedo. I felt the urge to scream, so I did. My lungs didn't drown. The currents had turned to air, rippling through my mane as I rocketed down a tunnel of nebulae, a birth canal of stars and cosmic dust. Then, within the center of a swirling haze of glittering light, I saw ruby red flame. My body roasted as I plunged through it. The urge to scream came and went, for in a blink I was on the other side. My ears rang with the clicks of sprockets and the grinding of gears. I spun around in my flight, gasping at an array of intestinal machinery. The ruby light of the flame permeated every crevice of the engine, and beyond the levers and conveyors I saw bodies moving, darting left and right on bright, lively wings. Then, there was a flash, invigorating and warm. There were crevices in the ceiling, for they were letting the light in.
They were everywhere; some of them danced around me like breathing, laughing comets. Together we plunged through the machine layer and into the fragrant air of the world. I saw plains of golden metal and platinum sediment. A heavenly paradise rolled beneath me, covered from horizon to horizon with magnificent cities of polished silver, with misty havens floating in the sky like weightless marble metropolises.
A squadron of wing ponies surged past me, their bodies clad in armor that flickered with unbridled energy. I twirled in an attempt to gaze after them. From where I floated, I saw their bodies disappearing into the purple haze of the universe beyond. Dangling in the cosmos, several enormous bodies floated: humongous strips of land, so large that they possessed gravity as much as they possessed life. I saw green continents and blue oceans brimming on either sides of the flat planes. They collectively floated towards our world, eleven in all. At first, I feared that we would crash, but then—like obedient foals—the flat worlds floated into place.
The air sang with bellicose glory, and I saw the horizons east and west of me bending. The floating cities and the glittering palaces shifted to accomodate an incalculable shift in topography. Soon, the world was no longer flat, for it had bent into a gracious curve. When I gazed towards the heavens, I realized that the other realms were doing this too.
Soon, I was bulleting towards them. My ears rang with metallic glory as I skimmed over the curved pieces joining loudly with one another. Soon, the twelve strips had become one, forming a singular ring of curved worlds, bathed in endless cosmos. Past the layer where I had started, I soared over world after world, each with a uniquely varying geography, a blissfully heterogenous biodome.
Gone were the pegasi that had made my heart sing, and in their place were creatures no less wonderous, living in tranquility and mutual piece, each occupying a different part of the ring in the pursuit of truth and serenity. I saw them in their habitats, building cities, growing farms. Some of them crawled on all fours... on all sixes and eights. Some swam in oceans, others stood bipedally and made song. A cornucopia of worlds, species, and civilizations greeted me, an entire ring spinning and brimming with twelve variations of life.
Everything was whole. Everything was as it should be.
And then... everything shattered. I felt an alarming sound in my ear, like the high-pitched squeal of terrified children. The ring reeled, and explosions went off at every continental coupling.
"What?!" I shrieked into the sudden abyss where I was being flung. "What is it, children?! What's happening?"
I heard nothing, for the shouts were muffled. The ring vanished under a great blue shadow. Water collected suddenly around my ears, and the air that I was breathing turned once more to pondwater. I gasped and gargled... then sank into the depths of that shadow, feeling her wrath and coldness enveloping me like a shroud...
Well.. Nobody guessed it would be multiple worlds joined together to make a ringworld... :p IC once more threw us a curveball.
So is Equestria nothing more than one of those strips of land?
Was pegasopolis the city of the builders?
Is the darkside of the world the waste output for the great machine?
Does anything float at the center of the ring?
I AM QUITE CONFUSED AND HAPPY TO BE SO!
I wonder when the next full moon is...
Ruh roh.
Far out, man... seriously though I'm eager to see how this ring effects the story, because I'm sure he wouldn't add it for no reason. Not only the but everything else in this (I say this hesitantly) arc plays in. it kind of makes me sad that there probably so much foreshadowing that I an missing.
IC is phenomenal in his ability to world build!
Belle's face in all of this:
Dash's face if/when belle tries to explain:
Wow. WOW. WOW. No words for this right now, none at all. I am stunned, and HOOKED.
2722374>>2722375
one word: Halo.
I really hope we don't see weak Belle confronting Nightshade. It's about time that Belle hooked up to the power of friendship and kicked some flank.
2722618 I think this is the spot we will see it - Belle spent a long time in sequencing, so even if Nightshade's been there longer in general, Belle will know a hell of a lot more. And she's probably geared up for a fight by now.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit....
2722511
Oh god, I absolutely cannot wait for that bit!!
Are you seriously, honestly, truly trying to tell us that the freaking pegasi are the makers? That the modern pegasi are nothing but the degenerated remains of an all-powerful race that fell prey to some female evil? Was that last part a memory of her who ripped the world apart, or was it Nightshade ripping apart the vision?
2722503 So much of this. I have said it before and will say it again, few things are as beautiful as the landscapes painted in this story.
2715792 Luna doesn't have that time of the month right now.
Guess what will happen when she does. Ceterum censeo Searinem delendam esse.
Now Honeytiger is sad, because Honeytiger will have to wait for the next chapter.
Jesus Christ on rubber crutches.
The imagery in this is astounding. Like Dante meets Hieronymus Bosch. You have to wonder if the other worlds will factor into the story at all. It can't be a coincidence that there are twelve projected parts of this saga and twelve segments of the Ring of Worlds. I also wonder if the alicorns know of the other eleven segments. Can't wait until Dash learns all this and talks to Luna.
And now, Belle / Nightshade showdown.
2722744
I took it to be Nightshade ripping apart the vision, but with IC, you never know.
2722599
Its more of a ringworld, really.
The Soapmakers - Clutch
2722760 By now I too get the impression that an alicorn's word (or an alicorn's knowledge, for that matter) isn't worth that much. All this happened before they stepped into the world, mind you. We don't know about the dragons, however. I would kill for a chance to talk to Axan right now.
Also, bear in mind that there are twelve relevant smybols in the story's canon. Props and co. were using these symbols, arranged into a ring, as an energy source. With all we know, it would be most plausible to assume that every symbol is linked to one particular fragment of the world.
If only this could be turned into an animated series. I might dump tears of joy if that is possible. We just have to wait, what, 70 years?
If my knowledge of the backstory is correct, the alicorns seeded Equestria with pony life, choosing to protect one side and leave the other to chaos. This, however, makes the argument for one of the recent theories that pegasi preceeded the alicorns by some time. If Belle is able to relay this information to RD, who can then talk to Luna about it, there should be a very interesting conversation to follow...
2722789
eh. Ringworld, Halo, kinda the same thing. except one is a bit larger and the other is a WMD.
Oh no you don't, Nightshade. GIVE 'ER HELL, BELLE!
2722453 You. I like you.
2723409
weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oh-stop-it-youre-making-me-blush.jpg
I softly said, "Love has its place in fate as well."
Its the shit like this that makes me love you. No homo...probably.
Spider world? Have mercy.
Great chapter, Colon. I loved the imagery going on here; it reminded me of a lot of Lovecraft's work, but more wondrous and less. . .
purplenightmarishdisturbing and dark. In fact, things seemed pretty damn harmonious, everyone working together in blissful union.2722744
Ehh, there were worlds with creatures other than pegasi on them. It could simply be that the inhabitants of the machine worlds "ran" them, whilst the creators of the world are yet to be seen. So no, Colon hasn't said anything yet about the makers but he has given us a nice insight into the previous society.
So it seems that each symbol has an associated world! Or otherwise, there are just 12 and it's just a coincidence. I believe it's wild prediction time.
Nightshade is ripping Belle's vision apart from inside the sphere. We might just learn what can happen if bodily harm occurs to a sequencer when they're still sequencing! I'll bet that it's like the matrix, where if you die inside, you die in real life. Belle starts getting tortured, helpless as the foals. She somehow gets a sort of revolution occurring inside the sequencing thingy, turning the tables on Nightshade. Belle eventually gets pulled out by Phoenix and Kera because she's taking a bit too long for their liking. Everybody escapes through the air vent again, but after they escape, Nightshade and her posse find out exactly how they've been moving around the building. A high-tension game of cat and mouse starts, but is soon ended when Floydien comes out of nowhere and saves the day! Floydien's species, and more importantly, origin are explained as Nightshade gets beaten back. Shell walks around the corner, the camera quickly zooms in on Belle's face, and we get back to the old antagonists. Pilate gets out safely with Simon and the think tank to meet with his better half, and any tears about to be shed are quickly stopped by the crazy situation everybody's caught up in. The other, RD containing half of the party joins in on the fun, RD steals the flame and gets sent into a near-coma where she sees visions, and is exposition dump'd. Nightshade freaks out Axan style, and exposition dumps as well.
I don't even.
2722375
Midnight Armory?
No?
Maybe?
Sometimes?
2723697 In the beginning of the chapter, pegasi are described to be controlling the machine. They set the pieces in motion, put the ring together. While it is currently unknown if the other races spawned from that action or participated in it separately, there is one paragraph that makes me believe it's the former option:
Not only are cloud cities mentioned there - which would figure for a pegasus culture - but also settlements linked directly to the machine. And bear in mind the armor that the pegasi wear. "Unbridled" is a pretty strong word. Also, the machine appears to be fully functional, brimming with energy and not covered in 'surface' as of then. The pegasi of that time did not only understand what lay beneath (and around!) them, but were also extremely advanced themselves - while the other races were described to be performing agriculture and likewisely common, 'primitive' pursuits of life.
So all in all, I consider it the most plausible theory that the pegasi are indeed the makers.
2723934 The foals aren't helpless. The fact that Nightshade expects them to obey because "They always do." would imply that she reigns through fear, or so I believe. They could fight back if they had the courage to.
2724266 I hope so just because of how much that would annoy Rainbow Dash.
2725030
I don't think so. While it is true that the Pegasi are in control of their ring-segment and possess great technology and power, they aren't alone in that capability. Their are eleven other ring-segments, each with many a sapient species and civilisation on them, and all are comparable to the Pegasi. This raises a few questions:
So, if the pegasi are the makers, then why are they of equal standing to the rest of the species? Surely they would populate the whole ring.
If the Pegasi did make the ring, where did the other species come from? Did they take them from some other world, some original world and seed them onto the ring-segments?
Assuming the Pegasi did make the ring, and originated from some other world, where did they get all of those resources, and how did they put it together in deep space. There are at least 12 world's worth of resources in that ring, which is phenomenal.
In light of this, I'd say that some other party - perhaps a deity or cosmic force - created the ring-world (and all the species on it), or that all the species worked together to make it. However, it is fair to say that the pegasi controlled the machine in their section.
Blagh. What.
I never understand any of your massive descriptive segments.
So, there are a massive load of worlds packed into a ring, and these somehow formed and connected when a group of pegasi showed up and started flittering around in circles.
Then the pegasi turned into spiders and shit.
Yeah, I really don't know what's going on.
There's that number again. 12. It keeps popping up everywhere
So I'm going to guess that Equestria is just one segment of the ring that the alicorns found after some cataclysmic event separated the ring into its twelve separate parts. The Equestrian segment is currently flat and has two sides to it but if joined with the other pieces would curve like the pieces did in the vision Belle had. Maybe the events that Rainbow Dash is putting into motion will rejoin all the ring pieces but doing so will have some dire consequence and Rainbow Dash will have to make a choice of whether or not to do so.
Or maybe not, Idontknow.
Questions abound!
Were the pegasi the ones who made the Ring? Or the ones who kept it running? How did a civilisation that powerful fall? Is the current strip the whole thing, or just a single segment? What will it take to reconnect everything?
And where did the races all come from before the Ring?
All this and more eventually on an exiting episode of INNAVEDR!
Or the next one.
Huh.
Well, that certainly happened. Unsure whether the Pegasi were the creators or merely one of many equally advanced races, manipulating the machine as one to create a metaphorical and physical whole.
Belle vs Nightshade. Let the debate commence!
beautiful
This makes... A surprising amount of sense to me. I feel like I've seen this kind of thing before.
So the world is flat, but the worlds are not. Huh. Who'da thunk? So is the Midnight Armoury like a dark world in this ring, or is it in the unoccupied middle of it all? Or is it on the underside of the ring world/s? (which is still kinda like the middle, I guess?) Is the pony world all one, or has Dash already traversed multiple worlds?
I'm not going to pretend to know what's going on, but I'm really intrigued. Onward!
IIIIIt's Dashie's Eleventh Marathon Evaluation Time!!!!!!!!!!!
...OH.
Um.
Wow.
So...the world that Dash is on is indeed a plane...but it is only one planet circling others in a ring formation. There are twelve in all. Whoa...another twist, Imploding. Geez...what does this mean for our heroes? From this chapter, we know that all of the worlds are made up of separate ships - all powered by a flame each. What's more, Dash's plane was founded by pegasi in the very beginning. Now, the image shattered when Nightshade came in...huh. Do we know for sure that the plane's two sides represent Harmony and Chaos? Is the Midnight Armory on the underside of Dash's plane? Or - dare I say - is it on a whole other world.
Oh.
Oh my God...
...
Here's something to describe how epic this chapter is in terms of mystery and plot:
Also, humans are now in this universe. Yeah! These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
P.S. Alright, halfway there. Livin' on a prayer. LET'S GO.
12 part ringworld. That answers a surprisingly large number of things.
Only two major questions left. Firstly, why? What was the ultimate goal of the ringworld? Was it built to house a utopia or was it built for some other reason. Secondly, is Austraeoh's journey capable of reconstructing the ring, in whole or in part, or is it simply meant to re-energize this particular section?
At current exposition rates, it could be some time until a definitive answer is found since this source has dried up.
12 symbols, 12 stories, 12 representatives, 12 worlds. 12 worlds combine to make a ring. A ring shattered, split into 12. 12 worlds, to be reunited by the spark, to become the ring once again.
-Spirit
So, if we are to examine this like Halo, the pegasi were the forerunners, Dash is the Master Chief, and this is all going to end up with her destroying the ring for some reason because the grand design was never to establish harmony, but to create a weapon of universal destruction.
Let's just go with the fact that this is all intriguing and valuable information. We'll work out the other details later. XP
wooooowwwwwww....I pictured some phenomenally beautifull scenes of multiple super sized islands of harmonious life floating together in the universe. kinda like the floating mountains of pandora but much MUCH flatter, infinitely larger, and further apart. with a beautifull spectral astronomical background...im gonna get high off of this. fuck weed
Dammit, Nightshade, you ruined the coolest nature documentary ever!
Started The Wall.
Im going to have to agree with you, your theory makes a lot of sense. The pegasi were given control of the skies (I don't remember the exact phrasing used) The pegasi appear to be the most advanced, or at least the most prepared for conflict, and were navigating the machine with ease. The only extremely unsettling thing for me is, what happened to the pegasi? They were most likely extremely common across the machine and I don't think anything else knew how to operate it, though that is an assumption as there is no solid supporting evidence for it. So are the pegasi mostly stuck on a different section of world or did they actually mostly die out?
2725030
Also, as I think I stated in the last chapter, shit just got real big, real fast.
I feel bad for putting this book off for so long (I blame D3's Season starting up when I finished Eljunbyro). It's really starting to get good, and it feels like we're really close to having everyone reunited.
And with all this talk of winged ponies, I have to wonder about Stratopolis. Maybe it's not as much of a myth as Rainbow thinks it is.
Even after reading through comments, I'm still confused
singhersong and become nothing