Ah, it feels amazing to let some power out! It was just some gardening, but I think it will be enough to show them a little bit of my abilities. So I trotted happily towards the group, bouncing a little with each step. I just hope they were satisfied, even if it wasn't one of my best works.
Oh, I managed to impress them alright! They were open mouthed and looking around amazed. Cadance was applauding with a sincere smile. She is such a sweet girl!
"I hope you find this convincing enough, dears" I told them, chuckling a bit at their dumbfounded faces.
"It was truly beautiful Gaia. I've never seen anything like that before" Cadance said to me, looking around, "It's just too incredible, I almost can't believe it myself"
"You are too kind, dear. This is just some little landscaping, hardly a thing to be proud of" I told her with sincerity.
"Some landscaping? Some... landscaping!?" Twilight yelled as she approached me, her mane sticking out in some places and a crazed look in her eyes. Oh my, already made one have a mental breakdown?
"Why yes dear, this is just menial work. Pretty, but nothing marvelous" I said to her.
"You just toppled mountains with a tap of your hoof! That is not possible!" Twilight replied, screaming.
"Obviously it is" I calmly replied.
"Well... I admit that we didn't expect that, Gaia. It was an impressive show of power" Celestia said to me in a respectful tone.
"You... were not lying..." Luna said, still almost speechless.
"Why would I lie about that, dears? As I said, I'm from another planet and I'm here taking a vacation. As a warden of my planet, this is just my typical work, but I usually let things work out for themselves" I explained while nodding.
"Just... what? How can you be so... so careless!" Twilight yelled at me. She is just like young Luna, isn't she?
"What do you mean?" I asked her with a curious smile, which made her more upset.
"You just can't control a world by doing nothing! You need a plan for everything!" Twilight said, pacing in place and frowning in anger "I can't believe your world survived that long with its supposed 'warden' doing nothing!"
"Ouch, you hurt my feelings. I think I did a pretty good job, given that I had to learn myself how to do things" I told her with a sad smile.
"Twilight! That was way out of the line!" Celestia said, scolding the young alicorn.
"I'm sorry Celestia, but it's just hard to believe. I don't doubt about her power, but I doubt she is able to watch over a playground, much less over a world" She said, not giving up on her words. Oh! She is just like my son when he was her age! I know what to do!
"Well, do you really think you can do a better job than little old me?" I told her with a sweet voice.
"I am not one to brag, but I'm kinda good with organization..." Twilight replied with a small smile. Aha! Gotcha!
"Well, I think we can make a small experiment about that... You like experiments, right?" I asked her in the same sweet voice.
"What are you planning, Gaia?" Cadance asked me with curiosity.
"Something truly enlightening for young Twilight. Can we go back to the castle? I need a couple of things that I can probably find there" I asked Celestia.
"Of course. I just hope that you are not planning something dangerous" Celestia said, before teleporting all of us back to Canterlot. Magic was truly an amazing thing!
"Don't worry about that, dear. I assure you that it will be a safe teaching experience" I told her with a motherly smile.
"So, when do we start! What are the objectives of the experiment? Please, tell me!" Twilight said while jumping in place. I laughed at her eagerness.
"Calm down young Twilight. First, I need some water; iron, nickel, a crystal box and a light bulb, a potent one" I told her. Almost instantly, she disappeared in a flash and came back with all the materials. I smiled gently and sat on the ground, picking up portions of iron and nickel and squashing them between my hooves like clay. Every alicorn watched every move with curiosity.
"So... what are you going to do with this? I hardly see anything related to your work here" Luna said with her skeptic tone. By the stars, are all these ponies so impatient?
"First I need the proper quantity of each and make a sphere. Then we put some water... there we go!" I showed them the drenched ball made of metal.
"It's... nice" Cadance said. Aw, she was just polite to say that it looked pretty much like trash.
"Don't worry, I'll create the smallest materials needed for this. They are few, but important!" I told them happily.
"But... what are you doing?" Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Twilight, dear. Can you light up the bulb, please? And put it in front of the box" I told her. She did as I asked without question. Aha... It will be enough I suppose.
"Now a bit closer to the box... yes, there!" I said, guiding her.
"This looks like one of those biology experiments when you put an egg and hatch it thanks to the heat of the bulb!" Twilight said, excited "The test is to take care of an animal?" she asked me. I chuckled a bit.
"Something like that. I've done this a couple of times before, and I'm sure everyone is going to learn from this experiment" I told them with sincerity.
I picked up the wet metal sphere and smashed it between my front hooves. I poured power towards the sphere, heating it until it melted and quickly contained the metal in a sphere, making it dense enough to have a noticeable gravity field. They watched in awe as I held between my hooves the small ball of boiling metal as I walked carefully towards the box and opened it with my mouth. I touched with my snout each of the sides of the box, giving just a bit of power to it. After that, I put the ball in the box and watched as the power reacted to the ball, making it levitate in place. I blew some air onto the ball, making it spin in place and then closed it.
Now the box held a miniature planet, covered in a heavy and dense atmosphere.
"There you go! Your own planet! You have ten days until it dies of old age" I told Twilight, much to the surprise of everyone in the room.
Gee, they sure were skittish. They were surprised by everything!
"What did you just say? Is that really a planet?" Twilight asked in a whisper. Gaia nodded happily.
"Indeed, it's all yours. Oh! I almost forgot!" Gaia said while walking towards Twilight, and kissing her softly on her forehead, making the lavender alicorn a bit ill with a rush of information "This is just a bit of basic things on how to control and watch over your new charge"
"Oh my Celestia..." Twilight said in a daze, before shaking her head and looking over the planet with worry "But... What is the purpose of this?" Twilight asked.
"Whatever you want, dear. It's your planet. Burn it, flood it or just forget about it. I just want you to watch over it, and take notes about what you do and what are the consequences of your actions. Take photos of it if you want too, they will be very informative" Gaia explained Twilight, as the lavender alicorn absorbed the words.
"But there must be some kind of objective! I know about experiments made 'just for the sake of it', but even those need to have... well... some kind of explanation behind them!" Twilight asked, both confused and fascinated. Gaia hummed a bit.
"Well, in that case I'll tell you this" Gaia spoke calmly, walking around the box with the new planet "If you manage to show me a planet with at least life on land and water I'll call it a success" Gaia said with a small smile. Twilight clapped her hooves and summoned a stack of papers, quills and ink and put them near the planet.
"This is so interesting! I need to monitor everything! It's going to be the perfect planet!" She exclaimed, just to stop and looking at me with sadness. "But... the creatures on it... are going to die after the ten days?" She asked Gaia with a pout. Gaia nodded slowly.
"Indeed, but that's how life works, dear. They will die in less than a second. Each minute will be thousands of years for them, it must be this way if we want to test your abilities in a realistic amount of time. You can't spend millions of years watching over a world now, right? Gaia said while giggling before walking away from Twilight "And remember... Have fun!"
Twilight looked at the planet floating inside the box, a determined look in her eyes as she picked up paper and started to write something. Celestia and Luna followed Gaia as Cadance stayed behind with Twilight.
"I'm sure Twilight will perform beyond your expectations, Gaia" Luna said with smugness. Gaia went to a window and just watched the landscape.
"She is going to fail" Gaia said with conviction. Celestia and Luna looked at her with confusion.
"Why do you say that?" Celestia asked. Gaia just smiled motherly at her.
"Celestia, do you control every little action of your ponies? Do you control when and how they need to eat, sleep or work? Do you put a rule and manage every single thing that happens under your watch?" Gaia asked Celestia.
"Of course not! That would be... Oh... I see..." Celestia said slowly, making Gaia's smile wider with her words.
"She will try to do her best, of that I'm sure. And that's what will be her doom with this little experiment" Gaia said with a sad smile
"How can you be so sure of that? Surely a very well managed planet will be better developed, right?" Luna asked, making Gaia laugh.
"Life isn't about order, young Luna. Life it's about spontaneity and randomness! You don't get animals on land because you made it so, you have them because one unlucky fish had a bad mutation that made it better adapted to the ground, making a whole new world of food at its disposal and helping its survival. Creatures don't discover fire because they decide to, they just observe the phenomenon and one of them has the lucky spark to think 'Oh hey! Maybe we can do something similar!'" Gaia explained, clearly passionate about the issue. "You can plan on something, but you must be ready to go with the flow. Even the most basic life was a lucky spark between amino acids that gave them the ability of self-replication"
The celestial sisters looked very impressed and, as usual with Gaia, surprised by her words.
"What you talk about is chaos, Gaia. That is just not possible" Luna persisted, much to Gaia's amusement.
"No, I talk about other kind of order. One that is just too big for the normal mind to understand" Gaia simply said.
"How can you talk about order when clearly you speak of random chance?" Celestia asked with curiosity.
"Because it all follows a pattern, a universal pattern... because order and chaos are both needed in the universe. And when you have enough of both you have the true order... you have Harmony" Gaia said with a motherly smile. "Oh, and if we translate my actual age to Twilight's experiment... I managed to host a space-faring race of sapient beings by the morning of the fourth day" Gaia said with a timid smile.
And then both celestial princesses knew that this was going to be a hard test for the lavender princess.
5599339 You updated.
5599394 Eeyup, I did
5599394 Hey there! OMG! THIS UPDATED!
A beautiful premise. To control everything is to control nothing in this scenario.
5599413 Everyday it updates. I honestly thought first today was yesterday.
I want a game like this, now. SimEarth here I come!
Ah. So the closed-minded Twilight rears her head.
add an a and change me to be.
will
5599430 I was just editing that when you posted this
Thank you for spotting those
EDIT: and the next one too. Darn, they are sneaky ones. That's what happens when you type too fast
I love this story so much.
5599411
By Celestia's beard you update alot! Thank you very much for doing so! But dont burn yourself out or you wont be writing anything.
Do You give a planet to Twilight ?
it is doom !!!
5599450 Thank you for your concern, and glad that you like the story
Now, I need to say that I'm trying to be constant and write a small chapter every day, I also want to write with the ideas fresh in my mind before they fade away
5599458 It's just a small one, though
5599469 Soon, but they need to process what the heck happened first
5599339 I thought she was the personification of life?
I swear if she names the planet Earth...
I am reminded of this moment.
5599480 She is both, the life (and by asociation the biomass) of the planet and the planet itself. Try to look at it this way.
If Gaia were from a planet devoid of life she would be comatose, as there is no 'spark' in the planet to make her wake from her sleep. The same way a unborn baby can't really do anything by itself.
But as long as there is life she will be awake and ready to go. Both concepts, the one of planet and life, aren't opposites. They need each other, in this case at least.
5599481
She'll name it 'This Land' for sure.
5599444 no problem.
5599496
That scene runs through my mind the entire time I read through this story.
Twilight's going to be ecstatic by the first day, break down crying by the sixth, and go all out black magic on the ninth and tenth.
Micromanage an entire planet? Where time goes a billion times faster than normal? Oh dear. Looks like the princess of OCD has her work cut out for her.
i.imgur.com/QLngxDm.gif
Ooh, a miniature planet for Twilight. It's going to be difficult for Twilight to manage all of the life on the planet 24/7, especially when time is moving extremely fast on the little planet. Twilight's gonna have a work cut out for her.
I honestly hope she fails, if only to wipe that smug tone from Luna's voice. Luna really, really annoys me (in a good way) in this story - She talks as if she herself has any idea on how to manage a planet.
You would think that they would concede to Gaia's years (Which are billions) of experience.
All hail to my favourite author!
I have waited SOOOOO long for a story to finally let our Alicorn's understand what harmony truly is and why chaos is so important.
I think I have to create a new list for your Story Hwyther. Even if it's just my personal tastes that you managed to hit so grandiosely perfect that I am so excited about each chapter. But even so, it's a shame that Gaia isn't a canon character. She would instantly be my favourite.
Yes I think I'll do that. New list name: 'Gifts of Heaven'
(And nope I don't care at all how much I am exaggerating. I freakin' love this story! )
5599552 5599553 5599572 In perspective, is what a player does in the game, but with way more time (You can play a couple of planets in a day). The thing is that everyone who plays SimEarth kills off his first planet by trying to manage 'too much'. You tilt the planet one way because you think its better, then you raise the reproduction rate of all creatures... and then you find a planet with a temperature problem and mass extinctions everywhere.
You can have a perfectly viable planet by doing nothing 'till the civilization stage... but you only learn that by playing the game
5599593 Well they manage a big country, and they just think that managing a planet it's just the same. Luna isn't even trying to be in Gaia's position but at least Celestia is starting to understand her a bit, and has way more experience than her younger sister.
And yeah, just read a bit of the above and you will see why Twilight is going to fail
Gaia is having the biggest pissing contest with Twilight I have ever seen.
5599654
I wouldn't really call it a pissing contest, because Gaia isn't doing it to try to prove that she's better or anything like it. She's trying to teach Twilight an important lesson about the nature of Harmony and balance, one that she'll only be bale to learn by seeing it in action and likely failing.
5599632 I'm glad that you like the story so much, and I think I've never been the favourite author of someone before . I just hope to keep the quality as the story goes on, I don't want to dissapoint you or anyone after being rewarded with readers as supportive as you
5599754
Don't worry you won't.
If you manage to have me waiting literally all day for the chapter and still be ecstatic and surprised when it finally surfaces then.. just wow.
Btw. I really like your publishing schedule and your idea to write your ideas down when they're still fresh.
Your chapters may be short (or at least feel short) but in return every one of them is fantastic. You have an amazing talent with your pacing. Trust me when I say that I've read a ton of good stories here. I know good pacing when I see it. And you, my friend are playing in the champions league in that regard.
It seems like Gaia has a cheeky side, and I sense many mental breakdowns in Twilights future.
and she created some sort of micro planet with its own warped time and localised gravity? Now that is even more impressive than the desert.
Another great chapter as always! Thank you for making this interesting story that just made the past week very enjoyable. But ... as other users have stated ... you should rest some between chapters. Take a walk in the park and relax.
And now, my thoughts on this chapter.
1) It's interesting that after her first demonstration of what she TRULY IS ... they steel do not understand anything. Sure they understood her power (and I am guessing that all the other inhabitants of that specific world will take notice very soon), but ... power is not everything.
2) The greatest test in the cosmos has started for Twilight and she started it wrong. When I got to that specific part of the chapter, this video came to mind
I know that it's scary but ... it's the truth.
Let's see what happens next!
Now THIS, this is a very good story so here have a thumbs up and a fav.
Ps. I am watching you
So, does this mean that Twilight will not be in the rest of the story? I imagine that she will want to watch that planet 24/7 in order to get it "perfect". Also, is Gaia going to meet other ponies and species? I'd hate for Celestia and the others to keep her in Canterlot and Equestria if she wants to see the whole world. Although, I'd understand if the story needs for her to stay in Equestria at least. The next question I have is this: Is it possible for Gaia to teach other earth ponies to use their magic in a way similar to her own magic? It obviously would not be on the same scale of power, but could they learn the techniques?
Poor Twily' ! 8D
I love this story >3> I also love scenarios of macro-scopic evolutionary philosophy! I think that's the right word for it.
I'm still wondering when they're going to get to the part where they tell her that she might cause wars due to ignorant idiots if she just goes galavanting around other nations >3>
It would also be hilarious if some Griffon ambassador threatened them not to let her loose, and they're like "sorry, but we just can't pull that off... But, you're welcome to try to stop her!" XD
such a nice biology philosophy
5599956
That whoud be like stoping The chicxulub asteroid whit ... I don't know ... amiba perhaps ?
5600008 the 'what' asteroid?! and do you mean an 'amoeba'?
5600017 The Chicxulub Asteroid and amiba is translated to amoeba (My chrome is set in my native language and i did autocorect ... sorry)
5599654
Eh it's not so much a pissing contest as it is a lesson, that no one can plan life itself.
Although I can see Twilight attempting to make a schedule for every living thing on her mini planet... Hopefully she stops before she goes insane
Um, when she made the planet how exactly did she make it dense enough to have a noticeable gravitational field? And by noticeable, how noticeable?
Also, the experiment isn't quite fair for Twilight since the atoms are the same size for a real planet and her mini planet, and surface area makes all the difference, meaning life couldn't become more than microbial life, and since Equestria already has microbial life it might just spread to the mini planet, ruining the validity of the experiment. Did she put up a field that makes the laws of physics and the size of atoms scale to a real planet's size? I'm
I'm not judging what you did, only wondering what the full extent of what you did was. I like knowing how things are done and how they work, even in fantasy settings.
Anyways, really liked the chapter! Gia is just too cute! I love how she lectures the supposedly 'harmonious' ponies on true harmony. Can't have harmony without a little chaos!
"And Lo on the first day the sky did boom with thunder. Thunder which upon close inspection sounded remarkably like the sound of a giant quill scratching upon parchment. As so did the sound persist unto the second and third days, but upon the fourth day it was said that what looked like a giant drop of spilled ink fell from the sky, and from it was formed the beginnings of life."
The small squid puts down his book and looks up at his mother, " THIS is the bible?!?"
5599416 THIS IS WHAT MAKES THE AUTHOR AWESOME!
And now that he/she has taken my advice on using spellcheck, HE/SHE IS UNSTOPPABLE!
LET THE UPDATES COME IN!
5599793 Maybe I'm saying this a bit too much, but it's just what the player does in the game. You create a planet and can change the speed of the simulation
5599870 With all those years on their backs, the princesses are nothing but mere babies if you compare them with Gaia. They will need to work really hard to view from Gaia's perspective. Equestria never felt like a proper developed country in many fields to me, and I doubt that archaeology and paleontology are common sciences there. They lack the needed background to understand many of the things that Gaia talks about, like her age for example.
5599923 Twilight will try that for sure, but her own life will be interfering with the experiment. That's one of the many lessons she is going to learn, that you can't control everything in your life. If she can't do that, how does she expect to control an entire world? That is, if she notices that little fact. Everyone here knows how our little bookworm is
Gaia WILL be traveling, that is a fact, but she did say that she'll be staying or a bit. Some chapters need to be"quicker" since not all days are eventful as the first one... But yeah. Gaia will be traveling in the future.
She can try, but they will be just a more active version of natural earth pony abilites for the most part.
5600084 The gravity of the microplanet is just strong enough to retain an atmosphere. The small 'echantments' Gaia put on the box made the inside sterile and void, sans the planet anf it's atmosphere, and they also make the planet levitate in place to simulate the void of space.
For the sake of being more practical, I'm going to say that the atoms are somewhat compressed, but not in the same miniaturization as the planet itself. It's suspended in a 'warp bubble' of sorts, that's why the time it's different and we can say that 'physics work different'. I can say too that this can be a latent abilit of Gaia since 'in game' you can change the speed of the simulation, but it's theory. I can't say that the whole thing is based on some obscure principle or something
5600139 Thank you for your comment, I'm glad that you enoy the story and my way to publish small chapters very often
Also, I'm a guy. I even have little facial hair in my avatar... It's not a 'stache, but it's something
5599533 Na, she'll name it Bob
5600180 THANK YOU! FOR UPDATING!
Has Gaia ever mentioned her son or her 'children/people/subjects' at all thus far to the others? I think the most she has said is that she was the subject to more invasive experimentation.