Immortality. Being able to live forever. But, do people really think about what that might imply?
One day your friends will die.
One day your planet will die.
One day your star will follow.
One day the never-ending force of entropy will destroy the universe.
Twilight's lived to see this.
This is the last story.
But there might just be time for one last adventure.
Author Note. This story was started many years ago. A lot of the older chapters are pretty atrocious by my own admission. I considered going back and editing it to shit but in the end I decided to keep it as it was for archival and posterity.
Hope you enjoy, this fic has been a journey. And i wish you all many happy new beginnings in whatever you do.
Chapters (37)
This show very much promise. Keep at it!
I'll follow it, but PLEASE get yourself an editor.
Cool concept! I'm liking it quite a bit so far.
Could do with at least one read-through to pick up grammatical issues and errors (I ran into quite a number).
Is Twilight capable of death in this story?
“THIS UNITS ENGINES ARE AT 10% AND DO NOT HAVE THRUST FOR ATTEMTED MANEUVER. YOU ARE TRYING TO DEVICE THIS UNIT”
It's "deceived."
Also, reminds me of this story.
Is it possible Twi could survive the Big Bang/re-start it so she can guide a new gen of ponies?
I really like this story, but it could use some clean-up.
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Actually:
To all: I swear I will more thoroughly check my grammar next time.
Really interesting
I like a quiet Apocalypse tale every now and again.
Very interesting! Rare to see adventure stories set far out in the Heat Death.
Age of Descent, hmm, is that when protons and neutrons decayed? 41st age seems to relate to 10^41 years in the future, the upper estimate for the decay of all atoms. If so, then Twilight is in the Black Hole Era of the universe, with nothing but black holes evaporating away, waiting for 10^100 years when the last one is gone and the universe enters the Dark Era.
Really interested to see how this will progress!
So short lol
3936001 I was kinda making those age numbers up, didn't realise there was a correlation!
My thinking was it would be appropriate if there were 42 era's of the universe, H2G2 and stuff.
3936001 so you're saying the universe will last approximately one googol years?
Nice round answer, I like it.
3936297 Give or take a few factors of 10.
3936151 100 Trillion years from now, all fusable hydrogen is used up and the Stelliferous Era ends; galaxies go dark even as Dark Energy accelerates clusters away from each other; island universes of supergalaxies result. (Supergalaxy; the end result of a group of galaxies merging). The Degenerate Era begins.
Tl;dr: No more stars, Local Group merges, others too far away to see. All galaxies go dark.
After that, sometimes star remnants collide and explode or even create a red dwarf. As time passes, gravitational 'flinging' sends 90% of stars into intergalactic space and the other 10% into the central black holes.
Tl;dr: Galaxies evaporate.
Protons decay with a halflife of ~10^39 years. As such, carbon and oxygen and the like in white dwarves fades to hydrogen before vanishing alltogether. Only matter left is positrons (Anti-electrons), electrons, and the massive supermassive black holes that used to have galaxies. Dark Energy has stretched the universe so that any photon created extends to wavelength larger than the universe. The Black Hole Era begins.
Tl;dr: Atoms decay into nothingness. Dark Energy darkens light so much you couldn't see the sun if it was right infront of your face.
10^41-10^100 years, the Black holes are the only ones left, slowly seeping off energy into the cold void. Sometimes a black hole nears the end of its life, and Hawking Radiation makes it glow red, then yellow, white, before exploding in a burst of gamma... or it would if Dark Energy didn't immediately darken the light. At the end, the last black hole ends and the Dark Era begins.
Tl;dr: Black holes simmer away slowly.
Googol Years and On, the few electrons and positrons left from the decayed atoms span the cosmos. It is nearly absolute zero, and you'll find a single particle in a space the size of the observable universe. Sometimes, electrons and positrons grab each other electrically and form unstable positronium, the two spiraling together and annihilating in a burst of immediately-darkened gamma. Nothing else happens, presumably forever.
Tl;dr: Game over man! Game over!
Hmm, wonder what's up with these Nightmare zones. And I like how you elaborate how empty it is; he thinks he sees a cloud of gas but no. So far out it's so... empty. It sounds like Twilight's near the end of the Degenerate Era, where all the stars are dead, the galaxies expanded away from each other, the galaxies evaporated into intergalactic space, but matter still exists.
Really wonder what's up with these Nightmare zones.
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Maybe it's the remains of concentrations of dark energy, those supervoids in the structure of the universe. The Nightmare Zones, I mean.
3956500 I don't know, remains of dark energy implies it's going to go away, but it's the opposite. The more empty space there is the more dark energy there is, which forces things further apart, which makes more dark energy, forcing them apart faster...
Nooooo Celestia! What about Luna? NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo!
Some spelling errors, mainly confusing quiet and quite. Otherwise, an amazing, long chapter that was well worth the wait.
Crossroads eh? Hmm.
Formians? Or something similar?
4082507 ehh not really. More like benevolent Borg mixed with the Arachnids from Starship troopers.
4083118
I don't know the Arachnids.
The issue.
Many spaces, and 'our course of action'.
Ow, famous last words.
How, in the end of the universe, would a pitch black sphere be visible? Is space still reddish?
NOOOOOOO LUNA NOOOOOOOOOO!
Quite a few errors, but overall a great escalation and... WCS. Ouch.
4129114 The nightmare zone is still red, also Forge and Twilight give off some ambient light.
Its also worth noting that both of them can 'see' using other methods other than through visual light
The formatting of your paragraphs is inconsistent. Sometimes you have paragraphs with no indent on the first line and a blank line between paragraphs. Sometimes you have paragraphs with an indent on the first line and no blank space between paragraphs. You should choose one style and stick with it.
Also, you have a misspelling in the title. Immortality has only one 'L'.
Still really enjoying this! It's good to see some character development on Forge. Was a bit worried he was going to be a standard robot character with a little sass thrown in. I really quite liked the idea that certain concepts would shatter him, and so Twilight needs to protect him a bit. Makes the power dynamic between the two a little more balanced.
The backstory regarding Celestia was imaginative, but a bit out of place. I kept checking to see if the new characters and the new enemy was a crossover with some game, but it looks like it's original. A bit misplaced in the FiM universe, but whatever. I liked the clone princess.
Looking forward to the next chapter!
Been a while!
Nice to see the WCS contained again, hopefully this time for until the universe ends. Also, you spelled psychic wrong.
Damn, that was pretty awesome...
Yeah, I guess being in a void for decillions of years without oxygen would do that to you...
"Note: 74% of all encountered organics have used starting letters of designation to invent the name ‘Forge’. "
And the other 26% called him "Froggie"
4827492 "Froggie" I'm very tempted to make that headcannon :D
Lovely chapter. A few errors like 'Twilight magic' instead of 'Twilight's magic', or 'site' instead of 'sight', or 'forge' instead of 'Forge', but still amazing, and the plot thickens!
...
Hey, Forge. Psst.
Psst...
This sentence is false.
Wow, things gonna go down. I wonder what that creature is. I hope it's at least able to become friendly, because heavens know that in the soul-crushing darkness of the Degenerate Era they need all the friends they can get.
And is Forge starting to develop a tolerance for emotions?
While this story is quite interesting, you really need a proofreader or editor, because this chapter especially is rife with punctuation issues and spelling issues. With chapters this short, it should be very easy to proofread it yourself, just to get rid of the most egregious errors.
4935432 sorry I upload these things at like 2am. I do try but errors get through.
The robot knelt before the white alicorn. She levitated a sword over to the robot, and tapped him once on his left shoulder.
"I now pronounce you," Princess Trollestia said, tapping his other shoulder. "Trollrge."
Alright, now I'm really curious to see what that monster is. Also, the Crystal Heart as a power source... that like all things, powered down.
Before I say anything on the chapter, I must say that I'm am loving the cover art.
Well then, Umbra and Noctourne. Seems there are more than just the regular type of ponies; makes sense, there was a lot of time for more subspecies to evolve. Fell and Eldrtich, hmm...
5060379 good grief Europa you never miss a beat with your comments do you XD
It's like having a number one fan!
5060414 I'm a sucker for Heat Death stories.
5060417 those are a thing? I didn't think I was being totally original but still
5060442 Well most of them on this site are one-shots about an immortal character lamenting about their fate in a decrepit universe. This is the only one with a real story I've ever seen.
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Somehow, I can't help but think the Pie Family is related. Pinkie practically has Eldrtich Abomination written all over her.
And now I can think for a moment about what kind of selective pressure would make Eldritch and Fell ponies a thing. Thanks for that.
I'll admit I haven't read the story yet, but...
...But that can't be possible, since entropy should affect her as well—as she is a part of the universe's total thermodynamic system, after all. The nucleons comprising Twilight Sparkle would have fallen apart due to proton decay in decillions of years (10^33) or so. And even if protons don't decay, cold fusion occurring via quantum tunneling should make the light nuclei in ordinary matter fuse into iron-56 nuclei in quingentillions of years (10^1503)—but even before then, this quantum tunneling would cause atomic matter to completely rearrange within the time frame of unvigintillions of years (10^66), ultimately turning the matter comprising "Twilight Sparkle" into something that cannot be considered "Twilight Sparkle" any more, nor considered living for that matter. However, the protons are still expected to decay even without "radioactive" proton decay, for example via processes involving virtual black holes, or other higher-order processes, with a half-life of under a sesexagintillion years (10^213).
—But even an immortal Twilight should have died long before any of that. Conditions suitable for creation of edible food and drinkable water would have ceased to exist. "She absorbs ambient energy as sustenance instead"? Nope, eventually the energy will be so spread out by the metric expansion of space that coming across even a single photon or electron would require long periods of searching. Even dark matter and energy would eventually be so thinly spread that a being of appreciable power would be unable to sustain itself for long. By the time entropy "destroys" the universe via heat death, even immortal Twilight would be long dead, if not due to the sheer lack of energy available with which to sustain herself, then due to the physical laws that allowed her existence in the first place being altered by the process to such a degree that the state of being "Twilight Sparkle, immortal pony" would no longer be physically possible—especially so if a "Big Rip" scenario is to occur at the end of this universe.
...Aaaaaand now to actually read the story.
ghdsaugbalksgliasughlisa HELP idabvohvbsav sdjvbaskjvbksadbv jsdvkdsbv
aesuhasigialusvI CAN SEE THE NIGHTMARES afblfbalblfbblsajngvalsfblsdbv
fbvdfz fjhsa girsuavhsuvb THE NIGHT ETERNAL IS COMING
zflba;gndlbnv kasgjbaslrgb aoitrgusjg hgasghlsabv iaugbiabadsb
HOLD IT TOGETHER
Night Time eternal? Oh, I think that's well past.
5174370 Well actually, as the universe expands there's more dark energy, so it's not absurd to think that Twilight can, with her magic, feed off that. And while proton decay would happen, there's no reason to think it's happened yet.
By this time, far out into the Degenerate Era, entropy has essentially destroyed the universe. The fire's out, and who cares if some of the embers are still cooling?
5174370
Is it wrong that I actually understood most of that?
In any case, reality wise, then yes, the insane amount of years that has run by would ultimately made her existence impossible.
But in her world, she has access to an untangible force we call magic. It might exist in our universe, but we don't know about it, or it's properties.
Taking this into account, it would still be possible for her to exist if she was, by essence, a pure magical being, which a "god" essentially is.
Since magic is an untangible force that we can't study, we can't rule it out as a pure energy form.
Energy, as you might know, never ceases to exist, it only changes form from one to another. Kinetic to thermal, and so on.
Since she's(most likely) a being of raw energy, she could have the ability to reabsorb the magic, or pure energy, that she already expels.
Logically, this would make her existence, and immortality, highly probable.
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[Citation Needed]
That's not how energy works. Also, Twi is, very clearly, flesh.
5174466
However, logically, loss of energy would be inevitable with any interaction due to the laws of thermodynamics—and if "magic" is an energy, like electromagnetic or kinetic energy, it too should be spread very very thinly by this point due to the expansion of space (a very reasonable assumption), making the difficulty of transferring energy ("heat") exponentially increasing—this is the meaning of "heat death". Even if she were a being of "raw energy" (although, in essence we are also "raw energy"... all matter is just a state of energy to begin with), she would still be subject to this law.
5174429
No. Dark energy is, in the form of a cosmological constant, a constant energy density filling space homogeneously. The density of this energy is extremely low—in the solar system, it is estimated only 6 tons of dark energy would be found within the radius of Pluto's orbit, which varies between 30 to 49 AU (4.4–7.4 billion kilometers) from the Sun. This is a density of about 1.67 yoctograms per cubic meter (1.67×10^−24 g/m^3), which is an energy density of 15 nanojoules per cubic meter (1.5×10^−10 J/m^3). The current universe, with an estimated volume of about 7 billion cubic yottameters (7×10^81 m^3), would therefore contain about 11.69 decillion yottagrams (1.169×10^55 kg) of dark energy, which would be about 1.05 quinquadecillion yottajoules (1.05×10^72 J). The acceleration of the space is between 67.8—76.2 (average 72) kilometers per second per megaparsec. After about 8 trillion years (8,000,000,000,000 years)—too early for to be in the Degenerate Era (which is supposed to happen after 100 trillion years)—a galaxy that was one megaparsec away from Earth today expanding away at 72 kilometers per second will be expanding away from Earth at a rate of about 12.2777 unquinquagintacentillion yottameters per second (1.227772×10^478 km/s)—1.12 sesquadragintacentillion yottaparsecs per second (1.122888^459 Mpc/s). If dark energy had an extremely low energy density 8 trillion years before and follows the law of volumetric expansion, it would have decreased exponentially; if it does not follow the law of volumetric expansion and remained constant... it would still have an energy density far too low for Twilight to subsist off it.
5174429
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Smokey3.jpg
ROFLing very much at the intense scientific debate in the comments on how the laws of thermodynamics affect an Alicorn