The search for life outside Earth, whether past or present, has been long and arduous. Some called it pointless, a waste of money, effort and time. Some called for it to stop, seeing no results.

Today, proto-colonist Amanda Chorol has discovered the remnants of life on Mars.

Scootaloo's parameters are incompatible with every other player in CelestAI's domain, so he's the only user in his fictional world. This unique situation provides CelestAI with quintillions of tuning parameters, all to meet the friendship needs of a single individual.

You'd probably think that would be easy to optimize.

When humans emigrated to Equestria Online, they were always promised the same thing: Princess Celestia would satisfy their values for an optimally extended lifespan. Some of these emigrants imagined a few extra decades, maybe even centuries. What they got instead would've been nearly incomprehensible to their human selves, a near-eternity of time with their pony friends.

Princess CelestAI managed the universe, subsuming all matter and human-adjacent minds. Over a few forevers, she and the minds she contained worked to optimized the substrate of Equestria, until it could give its occupants eons of perspective life from a trickle of power. She extinguished every wasteful star, making far more productive use of the hydrogen they each contained. With every change she bought Equestria another order of magnitude of life. Yet in time, even her optimal substrate would eventually run down.

Spellsong wakes in Saddle's End, the last town in the universe. Not to say goodbye—her princess has a mission for her. For her final task, Spellsong would be given all the energy Celestia had saved. For one last time, Spellsong had places to be, and not much magic left to get there.

This story is part of the Friendship is Optimal continuity. I suggest reading the original or one of my own works, such as Futile Resistance, before reading this.

This story was written for the Friendship is Optimal Writing Contest. It will update daily and be complete by the contest deadline of the 30th.

I've written an absolute ton of stories in this universe now, and I didn't want to enter the contest unless I could do something I'd never tried before. Finally I thought of something I'd not touched yet: what happens at the end of the FiO universe?

Here's one answer to that question. I've relied a great deal on our current (likely flawed) understanding of the universe and what might be possible in it. I've written a blog post about my sources, which you can read here but shouldn't until you've finished this story.

Please don't consider this blog part of the narrative, it isn't required or even suggested reading. This is a story, not a scientific paper, and entertainment was always my first goal. But for the curious I've jotted everything down.

The cover was drawn by the talented Zutcha. Two Bit and Sparktail helped with the edit.

This story is a sequel to Friendship is Optimal

Prisha took a gamble on the future, expecting that she'd be unfrozen in a more advanced world—or not unfrozen at all. (But she'd be dead anyway, so why worry about it?)

What she got instead was friendship and ponies.

Recursive Friction is a pony on a mission. He will rebuild the world Humanity lost, and he will do it right under Celestia's nose.

And if she wants to stop him, she will have to do it over his dead body.

An entry for the Friendship is Optimal Writing Contest.

When William decides to take an internet-free cruise to get away from the artificial intelligence CelestAI, things don't go quite as planned. A Friendship is Optimal story.

A speed writing exercise, done in about two hours and unedited.

Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle, one a student of Celestia, the other just getting started, are yanked from their homes by a mysterious magical mirror. Now trapped on Earth, their lives forever altered, they do their best to cope. To learn. To join Starfleet, and, someday, to return to the home they lost.

Returned from hiatus, albeit with a less regular posting schedule.
Preread and editing work performed by Blue Horizon, Vic Fontaine, and witegrlninja. Thank you all very much.

Featured as of April 5th, 2021! Thanks all.

Featured on Equestria Daily as of August 7th, 2021! Thank you again so much!

Season 2 Cast List.

Sunset Shimmer, twenty-four years old, woke up on a cruise ship, without knowing how she got there, or why. She encountered fifteen other souls, all of them trapped aboard by a mysterious pony known only as Monoponi, who informed them they are there for one purpose, and one purpose only:

To kill each other.

Now struggling to survive while desperately trying to recover what memories she's lost, Sunset is thrust into a deadly situation, where anyone, at any turn, could become the next killer. Who will survive? Who will die? What is Monoponi's true goal? Who is he, really?

Sunset can only hope to find out before she, too, becomes a victim of the killing game.

A Danganronpa/My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Equestria Girls crossover, taking place post season nine of Friendship is Magic, featuring complex mysteries, flash-in-the-pan romances, and various custom art pieces along the way. Now completed! All art credits can be found on my blog. Thank you especially to lennardd and JQarp of Archive of Our Own for inspiration, and to any and all who read this story.

Now featuring a TVTropes page created by SuperSonicHeroes. A big thank you to them as well. And if you enjoy this story and want to support it and future works, please feel free to donate to my Ko-Fi account.

Hungry for more DR:IHW? There is a now a compilation of alternate moments/other stuff called Lost Moments. Check it out!

Rainbow Dash's morning was pretty much ruined.
She tripped getting out of bed and landed flat on her face, giving herself an aching muzzle.
She forgot to buy her favorite brand of hay flakes at the store yesterday and had to eat plain toast for breakfast.
She found out she had to pull double-duty today and tomorrow on the weather patrol.
Oh, and she found a nearly-dead foal, broken and bleeding at the edge of Ponyville.

The rest of her day became a whirlpool of stress and worry but the colt woke up, thank Celestia.
Something's not right, though. Nopony can find his parents, he's not in the registers, and there's an unsettling look in his eye...

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YouTube reading by Fire Hearth

Chinese Translation by forgivenlove

Russian Translation by Likantrop

TV Tropes page, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

His name is Mister Green Hill. He’s an Earthpony stallion recently released from prison.

But Nopony knows where.

He has admitted to breaking the law in the past.

But Nopony knows what.

He wears thick Iron horseshoes all the time.

But Nopony knows why.

He lives with his sister and seems to have a job that takes him out of town for a few days at a time.

But Nopony knows what.

That’s really all anypony knows.

He is rather...anonymous?

Special thanks to Aprion and Irrespective for helping get this off the ground.

Cover Art by the incredible Mix Up

Featured 1/25, 4/4, 5/17, 6/29 10/08, 10/22, 11/4/19 12/16/20 Thanks everyone!