//------------------------------// // Bonus Material: Research, References and Rambling // Story: The Death of Daring Do: The Engine of Eternity // by DuncanR //------------------------------// Dash and Do   My greatest concern for this story, by far, was that the original story (“Biased and Incomplete”) really didn’t require a sequel. I liked the ending, and knew that a continuation of any sort would ruin the bitter and poignant mood. My usual pre-reader--whom I trust explicitly to tell me the truth no matter what, and give me the advice I need instead of the advice I want--couldn’t stand the story, and had to force himself to get through the first chapter. He later pointed out that some of the most memorable and satisfying villains in season one of MLP:FIM never got concrete conclusions: Gilda and Trixie, in particular, storm off in a big huff and are never seen again. This gives us the impression that they’re still somewhere out there, even now refusing to change their ways.   Thinking back on it, I never realized how much I appreciated those endings. It’s a sad truth that sometimes, bad people will refuse to change: this is a sharp contrast from most sappy cartoons, where the bad guys always hug and cry at the end and immediately realize the error of their ways. This can be done well, of course, and I can tolerate it once in awhile, but it takes away much of the emotional sting: Villains are almost always the most interesting characters, and I like it when their defeat generates a touch of loss and regret instead of unconditional joy. King Sombra, unlike Queen Chrysalis, has no sympathetic qualities whatsoever: He’s not a villain, or even an interesting character. he’s a monster of the week and nothing more. I was initially eager to see how they’d handle the return of Discord and Trixie because those were some of my favorite villains, but their reappearances got very mixed responses from me. Trixie’s second episode is one of my least favorite of all, whereas the Return of Discord is one of my favorites.   So where does this sequel lie? Is it a dramatic and gripping look into the life of a bitter pony, forced by circumstance to rise above her inner flaws? Or is it a sappy-happy, action-oriented romp with little or no depth, designed only to strip away the flaws that made a character interesting? Will the readers who liked the poignant and somber twist of the original story appreciate all the action and adventure that was packed into this one? I still have no idea. But I do know that I wouldn’t have written this story if I hadn’t truly felt there was more to tell: this wasn’t a story about Derring-Do alone, but of her friendship with Rainbow Dash. I tried to make Derring-Do’s transformation organic and believable, and I tried to give both her and Rainbow Dash opportunities to learn and grow. Whereas the first story is all about Rainbow Dash being unwittingly thrust into Derring-Do’s academic and down-to-earth reality, this sequel is the inverse: Derring-Do must survive a routine, hum-drum day-in-the-life-of a legendary hero who routinely spends her weekends saving kingdoms and defeating nightmarish threats. Neither of them have a clue about how to act, but they survive and endure because they have each other to depend on.   Thanks for your time. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this story as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.   The Lost Tribe   Much of the Dzunturan’s culture and language was drawn from Mongolia, and their primitive appearance and nomadic behavior was strongly inspired by the Sherpa people: an ethnic group native to the mountains of Nepal, in the highest reaches of the Himalayas. Like their real-life counterparts, the Dzunturan are a hardy and rugged race whose simple lifestyle has somehow survived through the ages. It’s stated during the story that the Dzunturan are the original genetic root from which all modern pony breeds originated: earth ponies, unicorns, pegasus, and crystal ponies all evolved from their stock (except for Sea Ponies, who are older still... but that’s another story). Referring to them as primitive and oversized earth ponies is a mistake. They’re fifty-percent larger than our protagonists because they aren’t ponies at all: they’re horses.   Their primary strengths are their simplicity of life and their strength of will. Their voluntary exile from the City of Wonders is the only thing that protects them from the terrible curse that later claimed their selfish and power-hungry kin. Although they are more than capable of constructing mighty cities and inventing wondrous artifacts, they choose instead to live in primitive simplicity. They aren’t much impressed by the outside world’s obsession with material wealth and power. When Derring-Do laments that they had much to learn from them, she was right: the Dzunturan refuse to reveal themselves because they are still waiting for modern ponies to achieve a higher level of enlightenment. With the aid of the princesses, though, they’ll catch up eventually.   The Language   Whenever the Dzunturan speak in their native language, they’re actually speaking in Mongolian... though to be perfectly honest, I probably butchered the grammar and pronunciation. If you ever wonder why the Dzunturans speak only in short, succinct sentences, it’s because I didn’t want to push my luck with the translation. Their succinct and straightforward personalities was a very desirable side effect of this limitation.   The name “Dzunturan” itself was drawn from “Dzungaria”: a real-world geographical region in northwest China. The real-world name “Dzungaria” is itself a corruption of the Mongolian term "Züün Gar" or "Jüün Gar", depending on the dialect used: “Züün/Jüün” means “left”, and “Gar” means “hand. By replacing “Gar” with "Turu'un" (the Mongolian word for “Hoof”) we get "Jüün Turu'un", which translates literally as “Left Hoof.” By artificially corrupting this, we’re left with the name most commonly used to refer to the lost tribe throughout the story: “Dzunturan”. Youmgui Taivan, the Mummified filly, even hints at this directly by correcting Rainbow Dash’s pronunciation. On a few rare occasions, the fictional Dzunturan’s language is referred to in the story as “Aduu”. This is the Mongolian word for “Horse”. As far as the Dzunturan are concerned, they’re simply “talking in horse”.   I did take a lot of liberties with the observations Derring-Do makes about the language, primarily to make things more mysterious. In particular, I emphasized the notion that certain Aduu words have different meanings depending on the circumstances. Professor walski accuses Derring-Do of confusing the words for “curse” and “destiny,” claiming that Aduu uses the same word for both meanings, but she fails to realize that destiny is a kind of curse. In this case, there’s a reason the Dzunturan word is never actually stated in the story: I made it up for the sake of storytelling.   In many cases, though, I was able to find exactly the sort of vague and ominous definitions I needed to drive the story. Chief among them is the word “Yegüdel”, which Youmgui uses while threatening the protagonists. Derring-Do correctly identifies this as the word for death and destruction, but fails to realize that the definition also includes the concepts of instability, migration and change. This single word sets the tone for the entire story: Derring-Do’s curse forces her to change herself for the better, or live the rest of her life in unchanging stasis... a fate worse than death.   Of course, that’s not the only translation error Derring-Do makes... when she asks the tribe if they have her saddlebags, she’s actually asking if they have her “sack of garbage.” Sometimes there’s a reason Dzunturan give her slow, awkward looks.   Miscellaneous Character Notes   I always make an effort to come up with creative names for characters and locations in the ponyverse, but it can be hard to come up with clever puns and references at the drop of a hat. The mountain range that Derring-Do and rainbow Dash visit, for example, is referred to as the Kathiawari mountain range: a direct reference to the indian horse breed. This has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story, and I regret that I never figured out a punny name for the Himalayas (Hi-mare-layas...? Nahh. Too easy). Derring-Do also mentions that her last visit to a real archeology site was “[her] trip to the Angono Petroglyphs, in the Fillyppine Isles." It’s an actual dig site in the real world... but I came up with “Fillyppine Isles” all by myself.   Derring-Do, the original character, turns out to be nothing at all like the Daring Do of the fiction-within-a-fiction. The entire inspiration for her was derived from my frustration at the improper spelling the show used for her name: the original phrase is “Derring-Do”, with a hyphen. I finally swallowed my frustration and decided it wasn’t worth getting angry over... it’s just a story, after all. This little seed ultimately grew into the entire plot for “Biased and Incomplete”: you can be happy, or you can be right. The obvious resemblance of Daring Do’s last name to that of a certain wall-eyed mailpony was the shiny red cherry on top, and gave me a tragic twist ending that nearly didn’t make it into the story at all.   Zweibrücker’s name is much more straightforward: he’s named after a German breed of warmblood horse. I always try to give my original characters appropriate names, and often spend hours combing through lists of horse breeds and riding terms. This one fit the bill perfectly: big, imposing, and a pitch-black coat, mane and tail. His German name is an obvious allusion to the Nazi soldiers encountered during the Indiana Jones movies, and his giddy, overzealous attitude are a direct reference to Major Arnold Ernst Toht: the Gestapo inquisitor in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I knew from the beginning that he’d die after drinking the wrong elixir, but the original plot had him swallowing Alkahest: the universal solvent that destroys anything (I would have loved to mirror the horrifyingly melty death Toht suffers for peeking into the Ark) but then I realized that being transmuted into gold--the definitive element of greed--would be way more ironic, considering his financial control over Perez. It also helps that when you mention the Philosopher’s stone, most people don’t immediately think of universal solvent: they think of shiny, glittery gold. And besides: if she had tried to poison him with Alkahest... what the heck would she keep it in?   The origins of Professor Perez Walski’s name are much more subtle: It’s a play on the Przewalski’s horse, the last breed of wild horse that naturally existed on real-life earth. As the savvy reader will already have noticed, this is a very early hint about Perez’s distant blood relation to the ancient Dzunturan race. Horses have become such a domesticated species over the millennia that they no longer exist in the wild in any great number: this reflects the forlorn and lonely presence I wanted Professor Walski to bring to the story, and makes her more sympathetic as the true adversary of the story. In real life the Przewalski’s horse went extinct, but was later successfully reintroduced into the wild. Perez’s lifelong quest for renewal was not so successful. In the original story, she was supposed to be slain just offscreen by the Mummified Filly: It didn’t take long for me to realize that she was a much more interesting antagonist than Zweibrücker would ever be, and so the unnamed cult leader suffered her fate instead.   The Stone   The Philosophers stone, or Lapis Philosophorum, is the primary MacGuffin for the story. It’s appeared in works of fiction more times than I can list, but my depiction of its legendary properties was largely unexaggerated (although in real-life legends, the stone is an ingredient itself, rather than a lense or focus). It was believed to be they key to transmuting base metals into gold and silver, and later said to be a miraculous elixir of healing and immortality. It’s inextricably linked to the legends of a Universal Solvent: an acid that could dissolve anything, including gold. The problem--of course--is that once you make the universal solvent, what do you keep it in?   The Philosopher’s stone was never realized, and there were so many conflicting legends that an exact definition becomes confusing. The material used to transmute metals is “The Philosopher’s Stone,” while the universal medicine and solvent were sometimes referred to as “Azoth” and “Alkahest,” respectively. Some alchemists believed that two or more of these elements were actually the same substance, and I decided to combine all of these properties into a single item. Turning the stone into a prism that could be used repeatedly--instead of an ingredient that’s consumed as it’s used--upped the ante significantly enough that it might cause an entire civilization to collapse. Going by the original legends, the Lapis Philosophorum is actually the drop of elixir that the prism created.   The Songs   I was going to add a list of music I used to get in the proper mood while writing each chapter, but then I realized it would be one step up from rambling on about what I had for breakfast today. However, there are two real-life songs that actually get sung during the story, both by Derring-Do: I like the idea that she has a jaunty, heartfelt baritone lurking inside of her, just waiting for the opportunity to cut loose. And given that song and dance numbers are a staple element of the original cartoon show, I may as well lend them some credence here. The Blackfly Song, which Derring-Do sings after their first night camping out in the jungle, reminds me of the time I spent living way up north in the frozen Canadian wastes. People, we’re talking “mouth of the Mackenzie River” north. When americans joke that Canada is all polar bears and igloos, this is what they’re talking about. People rely on skidoos and dogsleds unironically, a liter of milk costs six dollars and has to be flown in by plane, and they only have two kinds of weather: snow and mosquitoes. I spent my childhood there and I miss it now and then, but if I never hear another faint buzzing sound as long as I live it’ll be far too soon.   The Mary Ellen Carter (or the latin “Mar-ay”, as Derring-Do sings) is a much less obscure song written and sung by the incomparable Stan Rogers, well known for his maritime folk songs. It’s a spirited and triumphant ballad about repairing and rescuing a sunken ship, and its uplifting lyrics are so inspiring that it’s been credited with saving the life of at least one shipwrecked sailor adrift at sea. It encapsulates Derring-Do’s attitude perfectly by the end of the story, and it has to be heard to be believed. It’s also a song from the Canadian Maritime reigon, and I currently live in New Brunswick where my father’s family roots originated. It feels good to come full circle.   It never made it in, but Susumu Hirasawa’s “Rotation” supplied me with all the theme and mood I could ask for when describing the fallen City of Wonders, and the glory and majesty that was and could have been. If this story really was a movie, this song would play while the credits were rolling. Followed shortly by Placebo’s Bitter End. And Derring-Do’s theme would defenitely be Gary Jule’s Mad World.   I ate at McDonalds this morning. McBistro mushroom melt. Don’t look at me like that!   A Final Note   I hate author’s notes.   I normally wouldn’t reveal all these secret plots and plans, since it takes away some of the wonder of the story and reduces my desire for a sequel, but in this case I thought the references were too vague for most readers to otherwise enjoy. (I took a perverse pride in the fact that a Google search for the phrase “Sorañxa Batgana” produced nothing but a link to chapter eleven of this very story, mere hours after it was published... though later search links do hint at the language used. It's mongolian for “Rainbow Tiny-Irritating-Insect.”). I hope you found these references somewhat interesting. For those of you who figured some of this out without having to be told, you have my permission to feel smug.   As for devaluing the story’s need for a sequel, I’d certainly love to write another Derring-Do story. I’d also like a cake. I have a whole horde of story ideas in my head these days, and quite a few first drafts that have been collecting dust for almost a year. I know I left this story wide open for a sequel, but I do that with all my stories. To me, an ending is just another beginning. I probably won’t revisit this again... the story was never about idols and mummies and temples and jungles. It was about seizing the day, surviving adversity, and rising from the ashes like a phoenix. In the end, there’s only one lesson to learn here: Either get busy living, or get busy dying.   Smugness, of course, comes at a price. Can you tell me the name of the elderly wise-witch?   Some References   Language and Translation References: http://www.freelang.net/online/mongolian.php?lg=gb http://wikitravel.org/en/Mongolian_phrasebook http://www.linguamongolia.com/index.html   Cultural and Geographic References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungaria   Biological References:         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewalski%27s_horse   Academia References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archeology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archeology#Popular_views_of_archaeology   Mythological References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azoth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkahest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy