New Story Announcement · 10:32pm Apr 25th, 2017
For those who haven't been paying attention, here's a quick summary:
I finished writing Not The First, and want to take on another story, even as I slow-and-steady work my way through PLP. So I created a Straw Poll with all the ideas I had rattling around at the moment and put up a couple of blog posts linking to it, shaming you poor saps into making the choice for me. And you did! Good job. (Slow clap.)
Now I'm here to tell you the winner! As follows:
Atonement- The Twilight of the Wasteland tries to aid alternate timelines, and possibly find some redemption for herself in the process. Based on the Season 5 finale.
The idea for this story came about a while ago; not sure exactly when. Probably while watching CW's The Flash. It's simple enough. Multiversal theory states that the alternate timelines Glimmer created still exist. In which case, a lot of them ended in pretty shitty places. There are some fics on the site dealing with the alternate timelines, but most of them aren't about fixing the horrible situation. Most of them seem like grim-dark slice of life stories.
Atonement will be the story of the Twilight who lived in the final timeline- The Wasteland. The one that Twilight Prime pulled Glimmer into. That timeline was probably the single darkest thing to ever appear in MLP, since it was basically a world in which everything- or almost everything- was dead.
I'd real quick like to go over the other timelines, just in case some people have forgotten. It was a while ago.
The War: The Crystal Empire returned, along with King Sombra; without Twilight and Spike, Sombra retook the empire and declared war on Equestria. By the time Equestria's forces rallied, they'd lost nearly half of their territory. Thankfully, all the Element Bearers (sans Twilight) seem in a position to aid the effort, do good, etc. There's still hope.
The Invasion: Queen Chrysalis and her army were successful in their takeover of Canterlot. Having gained a foot-hold (hoof-hold?) in Equestria, the changelings then begin terrorizing everypony into submission. A resistance, led by Zecora, took shelter in the Everfree Forest. Twilight's arrival coincided with Chrysalis enacting her final plan, bringing the whole of her army down upon the rebels. It is unknown which- if any- ponies survived. The fates and locations of the Element Bearers is unknown. Their only hope is to hide, and pray they are never found.
The Nocturne: Nightmare Moon returned and enacted her revenge; she imprisoned Celestia within the moon and restored the Castle of the Two Sisters as her lair. Though the state of affairs beyond the Everfree Forest is up for debate, it appears that Equestria has either existed in a state of eternal night for years (suck it, Faust), or night and day have switched (not Nightmare's original plan, but she might've realized it was necessary). What is known is that at least two Element Bearers are in service to Nightmare, and others may be as well. They may be simply playing along, biding their time. Or they may actually be loyal to their new monarch. Hopefully the first is true.
The Ruination: Tirek was able to steal the magic of every pony in Equestria, and uses his power to constantly destroy everything he can. There's not really any hope left; either the ponies are too weak to stop him, or they're already dead. The Bearers might be able to find and restore the Elements of Harmony... but probably not.
The Maelstrom: Discord is free, and unhindered. No pony even remembers what hope is anymore.
The Corporation: Flim and Flam took over the world with the power of money. They polluted everything and chopped down all the trees. Hope is not only dead, it was bought up and the corpse sold. All by the very ponies who were supposed to hold onto it.
The Wasteland: ???
Twilight Prime said it best herself. Each future was worse than the last. But what could be worse than Flim and Flam's, "We killed hope"?
You'll have to read to find out, but I'll just say this: The Wasteland is not actually empty. Somewhere in that horrible emptiness, somepony still wanders, without hope. At least, until she stumbles across a certain map...
This story probably won't be out for another week or two. I still have to plan out some stuff.
I'd like to point out, The Nocturne is actually the absolute best of all the universes......
Shame on TwiTwi for thinking otherwise.
4510014 yeah, it kind of sucks that the show has painted nightmare moon as such an evil figure, when she's never actually done anything unreasonable. in the pilot, she didn't even try that hard to kill the ponies. she basically just tried to get them to give up before they reached the castle. in the alternate timeline, she seemed to be ruling fairly competently (if through fear) and imprisoning celestia feels like a justified (in her mind) reaction. she's not completely evil, just a little... crazy.
one reason why I love this story is because it has derpy trying to befriend nightmare moon.