Cover art by EternalCha0s
Coauthor: Darksonickiller
Editors: Leapingriver, General Soarin, BrastaAura17, Solar Flare Charger, and The Zealot
"Long ago, before ponies existed, the world was ruled by another race. This race ruled the world alone for over six thousand years. Six thousand years of war and bloodshed. This race fought against each other over almost anything. They did not know harmony, only chaos.
This race nearly destroyed the world in their conflicts, before vanishing without a trace. Nopony knows if the two-legged monsters still exist somewhere in the world, but this much is certain: they were a threat to the whole world, and if they still exist, they still are."
–Excerpt from The Age of Man, by Starswirl the Bearded, published 15 CR.
"We were alone for over six thousand years. In that time, we nearly destroyed ourselves due to our own foolishness. We fought our own kind for some of the dumbest reasons, and as a result, we almost wiped ourselves out in World War III.
But praise the Almighty that we did not. Only a few hundred million survived the war, but that war finally convinced us to stop war forever. The planet was scarred, and it needed healing. There weren't enough of us to heal the planet in a timely manner, so Man did one of the most wonderful and terrible things possible: create new life. New sapient life. Gryphons, dragons and ponies. We created them to be our friends, but they became our enemies when we tried to fight again using them as weapons. They decided to destroy us, and we had made them too strong, so we did the only thing we could: we hid underground. Here, in the caverns that house the Republic of New Terra, we seek to ready ourselves to make amends for our sins against life and God after rejoining the surface world.
But that is a long time away. Humanity has a long way to go before we breach the surface. But New Terra will rise someday. Never forget that."
–Excerpt from A History of Exile: Volume I, by Trevor Williams, published 3246 AD.
"New Terra will rise."
That phrase has been repeated on billions of lips in the secret underground caverns for years now. The time has almost arrived. Will the world be able to handle the return of the humans of old? Will the humans be destroyed for their sins against the world? Or will they be forgiven and be granted peace? Humanity can only hope and pray for the latter as the Day of Return fast approaches.
My thoughts on this fic:
First, holy fuck is the long description long.
Second: The ponies going to war agaisnt the humans because they found out that Humanity went to war in the past? Jesus these ponies are dicks and should of had been wiped off the face of the planet with tons of nuclear fire.
Third: Humanity has basically become a bunch of Ghandis and got their asses kicked. This humanity also should of had been wiped off the face of the planet.
Fourth:
Oh god not AGAIN. If this becomes another Mormon infused fic I'm going to flip tables.
Fifth: I'll admit, the idea of a fucking city coming out of the ground sounds amazing.
Sixth:
Three thousand years underground and looking at the sun would result in very extreme eye damage. You'd have to have a way of adjusting to it gradually without going out and just taking it in all at once
In summary, this story isn't terrible (In my opinion. Then again, I'm rather simple minded). Sure I can't get over the fact that humanity initially let themselves get steamrolled, but it's not terrible. I'm going to probably watch the religion piece and make sure you don't fuck that up, but other than that, nothing too infuriating about this fic. I'm no editor so I can't point out bad grammar in this, only minor grammar and spelling mistakes (which from what I can see there are none.). For the first time it isn't 100% shit.
5025421 Thanks for your review. I'd like to address some of your concerns here:
First of all, the ponies were conditioned to love peace, and they found out mankind had been through over 6000 years of wars, which didn't sit well with them, especially since the last one resulted in billions of casualties and scorched the world pretty badly.
As for the humans being pacifists, they almost drove themselves to extinction in a nuclear war. I think the shock factor of that would sap the will to fight out of any race, even us stubborn humans.
Now, as for the religion bit, i mainly did that to justify occasional references to God and other parts of religion in general among the humans, since most depictions of humans thousands of years in the future portray religion as dead, which doesn't sit well with me. Plus, they had to get their willpower and hope back from somewhere. Cold, calculating science isn't a very good source of either of those. This isn't an attempt to promote any one religion. It's only to warn people that, unlike traditional depictions of future humans, these people haven't become a race of atheists.
Finally, as for the sun not blinding him, that's because the humans didn't live in darkness. They simply lived in artificial light for 3000 years. The sun can be brighter than electric lights, so he basically had the reaction that one has when they go outside around noon after being indoors for a long time, but ramped up quite a bit because he'd never been outside before. I admit, maybe I didn't make it as intense as it should be, but he wouldn't go blind, since he's had some light for all his life. Man didn't turn into moles or anything like that.
Anyway, thanks again for the review, and I'll try to take your advice to heart.
5025656 Okay, going to respond to a response
If ponies were made to love peace, then why the fuck would they go to war with the humans in the first place? They'd find peaceful solutions to their problems, not go to war over a stained past
It doesn't matter how violent your past is. If you're against an enemy and facing extinction, screw pacifism. You fight to keep your race allive. It's basic animal instinct. Unless you're retarded, you aren't just going to sit back while your race is getting slaughtered around you
I'm going to say this. If you're going to put religion in this fic, then put it in sparsely like "Oh God was that scary" isntead of putting an entire section on how they found religioun.
The sun is FAR brighter than any artificial light. Your eyes would adjust to that artificial light, and when you go on the surface your eyes will have to adjust to the tremendously brighter sun, which will cause a shitton of damage if done in a sudden instant. I never said they lived in the dark but the fact still stands that adjustment to the sun has to be gradual after living with artificial lights so long
I'm confident I didn't miss anything, so yea. My response to a response
5025862 As for the ponies going to war with the humans, they saw the humans as a potential threat to peace. It takes the occasional war to maintain a peaceful world, so they saw humanity as a virus that had to be wiped out to make peace permanent. You don't negotiate with an infection, you purge it.
Now, the humans couldn't bring themselves to shed blood, not even to save their lives. They'd seen so much death that they didn't want to cause any more of it. So they ran and hid. The new humans are willing to fight if push comes to shove, but their ancestors were pretty much broken (read as "retarded", if you must use that term). Shadows of what man once was. Broken people don't fight back very well. They tried to defend themselves, but they failed at it.
Now, i never said you didn't have a point with the sun bit. I think I'm actually going to alter things a bit to make the transition more gradual, but only in a few words to a couple sentences at most.
5025920 For the ponies purging the virus....just think MLK. King fought with peace and protests, not by killing people. If ponies are truly pacifistic, then they'd talk it out with the humans. In fact, you explain that the humans had no will to fight because they were pacifists and they experienced too much bloodshed. It's the same with the ponies, they should have NO WILL TO FIGHT if they are pacifistic as you say they are
5025937 I never said the ponies were pacifistic. I only said they loved peace. They came to the conclusion that man couldn't be trusted to never wage war again, so they decided to engage in "maintaining the peace" by wiping out who they thought would be an eternal threat to a peaceful world. The humans claimed they didn't want to fight, and maybe that wasn't a lie. But with a history of over 6000 years of bloodshed, how could they possibly be trusted to never go to war again? What of their descendants? Would they be able to be trusted to never engage in war? The ponies didn't think so, so they decided to prevent the possibility by exterminating the humans. The ponies of that time weren't as forgiving as the ponies in the show are. Sure, they loved peace, but they saw humanity as an obstacle to that peace, and decided to remove the obstacle.
I'm not trying to justify the original ponies' actions, but I am trying to explain their reasoning. They didn't think humans could be trusted after finding out about our deceitful and bloody past, so they decided to wipe us out to end the cycle forever. They weren't justified in doing so, but they thought it was for the greater good, and that's why they attacked.
5025974 Every peace activist would tell you to...ahh fuck it. The ponies are literally evil, 'nuff said. I don't have the willpower to continue this arguement. The ponies "justification" was bullshit
5025985 Well, not exactly evil, per se. But they were douchebags for not giving the humans a chance to prove that they wouldn't fight ever again. Needless to say, the original ponies are at least mostly a thing of the past. The current ponies fear humans because of the scary stories about them, but nopony has actually met one in three thousand years, so the stories are all they have to go on. It's going to be an uphill battle for the humans to convince the world that they actually do come in peace, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to fail and get wiped out. Wait and see. Chapter 2 will bring more to light, but that's not going up until a week after this gets accepted, which won't be until after I get the cover art I commissioned added to the fic (which should be some time around Sunday).
5026016 Alright, I'll yield. I'll watch carefully for the next chapter
5026022 Thank you. I'll go over Chapter 2 with a fine-toothed comb until I post it to ensure that what I plan to reveal at that point makes sense and doesn't create too many more questions (even though I do plan on some of the answers spawning more questions. After all, both sides are a bit biased towards their own records of events, since the ponies are terrified of humans and vice-versa, so the complete truth will take some time to unearth).
The humans considered rebuilding nuclear weapons, but they couldn’t bring themselves to scorch the world again, not even if it would save their lives.
If the ponies and all other sentient life was engineered, their entire genomes would be mapped out. Fairly simple from there to design a virus that can do anything from kill to rendering them dumber unto beasts through the generations. Hell, make them all sterile and pop out of hiding after two hundred years. Everyone but the "immortals" would be dead.
On that note, I agree with the other comments on the ponies going to war making little sense.
Interesting premise, but oft done. Considering the religious undertone, I suggest being very careful after the last fic you were involved in. You saw how fast things can spiral out of control around here.
5109339 Um, those humans were pacifists. Why make a virus that would commit mass genocide when you've seen so much bloodshed that you can't handle any more?
Now, as for the ponies going to war, they were blinded with rage, foolish, and impulsive. Their whole premise was "utopia justifies the means". Yes, they were pretty much idiots. I'll delve more into that later.
5109362 The point was that there are lots of plot holes to consider. Adding a genetic mutation or reducing the overall intelligence of a species down to that of a cat or dog (generally considered to be about the same as a 3-5 year old) wouldn't be genocide.
Your story, just pointing out pitfalls that are going to get brought up.
I saw that cover art this morning. Were you the commisioner?
This story would be better if you made the humans theistic Satanists or followers of various shades of paganism. Sacrifice ponies on a marble slab to Quetzalcoatl and all that. A world where everyone is presumably some kind of Christian just sounds tacky, way too 'Murricanized and not very cool to read about. And that's if you're not making it some kind of weird bastardized ecclesiarchy as the leading exposition suggests.
5109413 This fair gentleman does have a point. If you made ponies dumb as dogs, you'd avoid genociding them and stuffs
Having Humans have a population in tens of Billions before the war is too much. Also, the population living underground as 11 billion is a large overestimate.
5025862
But saying 'oh god that was scary' is 'taking the lord's name in vain'. If they were religious, that would be being rude to their own god.
just a nit-pick.
5025421
Read 'The City of Ember'.
It's nothing new. 'Tis been done before.
So wait, in this story do you justify xenocide?
Another thing, fuck off with that ridiculously long description. Those are meant to entice readers in, not give us an exposition dump. That's what the story is for, you put that stuff in the story, not on the summary. That's just bullshit story telling. Just this:
Is enough. If you want to include the one quote before it, fine. That would be more than enough.
You need to learn to fix this problem, it's a reoccurring problem in all your fics and it's starting to rub me the wrong way since fic after fic this problem does not get better.
5109546
No.
5109546 As a Pagan, I can say that we don't exactly deal in animal sacrifice. Now druidic circles or jewish folk...
5109821 The old Mesopotamian gods dug animal sacrifice.
Good. WE DEMAND ANOTHER! When ever you feel like it of corse. I'm excited for what happens next, as long as I don't see another change of perspective from first to third, then I'm perfectly fine. And I mean that in that the story dosent really do that, it's just that fanfics are notoriously famous for doing that.
5025421
Is this another one of those 'humans are the best thing ever and ponies are assholes/trash'? Reading pending on answer.
5109856 IT's more of a "humans get annihalated by peace loving ponies for bullshit reasons, hide like pussies, then come back" type of stories.
I like this first chapter. Will keep an eye on it.
The dislikes on the honest criticism....ouch, DSK's been busy hasn't he
5109493 Yep!
Um, no. You forget it's human nature to fight thus there would be multiple factions of survivors, not just one. In doing so when the Republic's creations turned against them along with the rest of humanity there would be that one faction that is armed to the teeth, knowing that from the start that they were going to turn against us. As the saying goes, "better safe than sorry."
"Why wouldn't they stop war after destroying Earth?" Let me show you two stories that I personally enjoy that says that there would still be war. Metro 2033 and Fallout, after the world was scorched by nuclear fire both universes had survivors. Did they stop war? No, they didn't.
Even with the low population of survivors they still created factions and fought each other over land, resources, and power. So, no. WWIII would still have wars after it even if the planet was scorched.
I want to point out the sheer stupidity of the Republic, by the fucking sound of it they abandon the weapons that were built during the third war. If I were the leader of a faction I would have kept what weapons we used in the war to protect ourselves from mutants and the Republics creations, hell I would go as far as controlling ICBM silos if I had no choice. So, when the creations of the Republic turned against them we would purge the threat before they can do any harm against humanity.
Another being that there isn't another human faction?! Ever thought that the countries they went to war with would not have survivors? Russia is a hive of underground bunkers and you could use abandon nuclear silos in America as fallout shelters!
Also, humanity has only existed for 6,000 years? My God your my creationalist counter-part aren't you? I may be Christian, but to think that humanity has only been around for a few thousands years is just plain stupid. Modern science and the Bible proves that humanity has been around for at least 200,000 years! Proof?
"Remember His covenant forever, The word which He commanded to a thousand generations", (1 Chronicles 16:15)
Unless those generations are only 6 years in life-span then humanity would be 6,000 years old. Sadly it's not.
Well, that out of the way.... lets continue.
Holy crap I hope they have a lot of oranges down there, also humanity would be pale as a fucking vampire. Not only that, they haven't been exposed to the suns rays for 3,000 years. They would have to be in protective suits!
Bullshit.
This is a fucking gamble, one that doesn't have a fail safe. If you want some here:
One: Humanity created a nano-virus that caused ponies and any other species that isn't human to be reduced to the thought process of animals.
Two: Humanity is armed with a basic army or defense force.
Three: Humanity actually has nukes and resets the world.
Humanity comes first.
5110251
What did you expect?
He has to ensure his boyfriend's precious ego isn't hurt that badly by showing that at least someone disagree's with those nasty, nasty critics.
5110465 True...true
See, here's the problem. You portray humanity as a bunch of cowards, and if Humans did survive the nuclear apocalypse, we'd revert back to a more savage state; there really wouldn't be a coordinated effort to be peaceful because of the step back.
Hell, the only reason you didn't write this realistically is because if they had reverted back to a savage state, then they wouldn't be pacifists who believed in God. And of course, we couldn't have that now could we.
Humanity can never truly live in peace... it's just in human nature to fight over the pettiest as fuck things.
Also, this is bullshit. If the ponies (who are more peaceful than the humans) had this mentality, then why the fuck didn't the Humans? Hm? Creating a virus to wipe out the ponies would not be considered genocide, it would be a move to protect themselves. If they really didn't want to kill off the ponies by war, why didn't they just off them with a virus. It's a nonviolent way of killing them. And I'm sure, in those times, they would have done it. Why? Because if they discovered God while they were in the underground then that means they didn't have had any extreme morals like the Sikhs do when the decided it wasn't worth "scorching the land". They would have used any means possible to ensure their survival. Hell, this method would have been the cleanest and most efficient way of ridding themselves of the ponies since it wouldn't even damage the land.
5110448 I'm only going to respond to some parts of your comment, since I'm a busy man at the moment.
Okay, humanity was shell-shocked after the war. Like it or not, that's what I wrote, and that's my interpretation of what would happen in a near-extinction event. All the factions united under one banner, resulting in a short-lived united Earth before they were forced underground.
As for a fail-safe, the humans have two: One, they have nukes again, but they're to be a last resort, which you'd have know had you paid attention to the chapter. Two, they have a standing army. The pacifism is still there, but they're determined to live and right their ancestor's wrongs, so this time, if push comes to shove, the humans will fight with all their power. 3000 years has seen great advances in technology, and that includes weapons. Just watch. Chapter 2 is next week. the first 3 chapters have already been written and edited, and Chapter 4 will begin to be worked on today. One chapter per week. Just have patience, and the stuff I addressed in this comment WILL be addressed in the fic itself.
We're Baaaaaaaaack~!
5110389 Well he certainly did a good job and I love the text on it.
5110601
I would never unite under a banner of pacifism. Also, it doesn't matter if they are 'shell-shocked' after the war, they would still fight each other over the remaining land and resources.
Forgiveness, for what crime? The crime of being human?
5110650 She, actually, but yes. She did a great job.
5110601
Also, what does pacifism have to do with God?
God isn't pacifist. The 6th Commandment says "Thou shall not kill." yes, but the correct translation is "Thou shall not murder."
Murder means killing someone with carelessness and/or without reason. If ponykind tried to wipe humanity out it wouldn't be murder if humanity fought back in defense.
The story doesn't even begin with logical reactions. I've taken a part of the discription and modified it to make more sense:
We created them to be our friends, but they became our enemies after they found out why the planet was hurting. They decided to destroy us, we defended ourselves. The war only lasted 12 hours and it was over, our creations were wiped out.
5110750 I understand the mistranslation. I know about it. But, what you propose ruins the whole idea for the story. I understand the premise is dumb, I get that now. But, that's where the alternate universe tag fits in even more now than I previously thought. This isn't just an alternate Equestria where ponies are the successors of humanity, but also an alternate Earth where human nature is a bit different. To avoid spoilers, I'll delve more into that in later chapters. I mean, I can't do all the world building in one chapter, can I? I actually appreciate you pointing out logic flaws and asking questions, since I intend for each chapter to bring forth more answers, as well as spawn more questions in turn. Downvote this comment all you want. I'll understand, since we all have differing opinions. Who knows? I might actually throw in another faction of humans who didn't unite with the Republic down the road! After all, this is only Chapter 1. There's plenty more story that can be done, and DSK and I will take your concerns into consideration when writing future chapters.
5109561 That would be several levels beyond the minimum necessary to be considered genocide. There a lot of people who would consider it a worse crime than just killing them all.
After reading the comments, and suppressing my initial revolution at reading the description, I find the story slightly better then the description lead me to believe, but there's not much to really go on.
The intro to a story is very important, and this one is horrible. Your first chapter is basically gest a big info dump, and a simply awful introduction to your main character. Weird drone flies up to Celestia talks at her for a few minuets then flies off. And ya the language has changed. It's been three thousand years, its a miracle you can even understand them. Go back three hundred years to England I guaranty you won't understand them that easily.
Here's a tip on how to write a proper story. First you introduce and establish your main characters. Then the conflict comes into focuses. After that you start to fill in the details slowly and organically throughout the rest of the story. Having a massive info dump at the start of a story is not only boring, it prevents immersion and is jest plain boring.
Alright, so I just read the first chapter of this fic, which was the description. Then I read the actual story, finishing it off with the comments section to hopefully glean more information about this abomination of a fanfic. Brutal review is a go.
Alright so lets start with the basics first. What the hell is wrong with your description! Have you ever written a description before? You’re not suppose to insert a entire damn chapter there! 99% of it can be trashed as it holds no true meaning to the entire story as a whole. The gist of the entire thing is. Ponies think humans are bad, humans are going to return to the surface. Why you found the need to try and place a prologue in the description is beyond me. Honestly though, it’s more work than you put into the actual fic.
So let’s get on with the actual fic. The entire thing is actually mind numbing. You find out that humans had some massive war, they destroyed everything, yet still managed to not only survive, but thrive in an underground system of caves. We were pretty lonely and possibly horny, so we made a bunch of new sapient races to bang. Alright, maybe that’s a little out there, but it makes more sense that what the writer attempts to shove down our throats. His explanation? We just made them because we could.
I mean, really? Animals, I can understand. Sapient creatures? What idiots survived the apocalypse to ever think that was a good idea?! Then again, for some reason or another. The nukes that we set off were probably biological weapons. Turning the remaining humans into something that makes my skin crawl......Hippies. So with flower power, peace and love; we magicked up some dragons that were bigger than us, stronger and in every way deadlier than us.
That’s not all folks! We also made a race that can perform physics defying magic! Not to mention a few other races that are by standard stronger than us in every way possible. But being hippies, we knew don't use our brains much anymore. OH yeah! Did I forget to mention that we somehow saved every piece of technology during the apocalypse, managed to power them without the use of the sun and even make better tech? Yeah, this fic doesn't much care for logic does it?
So besides the sarcasm, we make this new races of sapient creatures with our awesome science.
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/517/111/fbd.jpg
However, despite the fact that we created them. Helped them grow for thousands of years. Practically being god to them. They ended up finding some kind of book lying around that talked about what humans did that destroyed the planet. How many of you want to bet that book was the bible? Think i’m wrong? Really think about it. How could a hoofed creature enter a password into a keyboard, navigate a desktop with the mouse. Click on the exact folder that had the information needed, open the exact file where it was written, update adobe reader because it was out of date and then finally proceed to read it!
Seriously, we either engineered these races to be high above our own IQ or they found a bible laying around and assumed it was a history book.
So despite there being all those trivial problems with the logic. The race we gave life to actually got angry at their gods for having a few fights. So, they organized themselves together to commit genocide onto their gods. Being humans, we were technologically OP. Yet, because the bombs turned us into hippies. We couldn't pull the trigger. Now I see why the world has agreed to never use chemical warfare. So we ended up hiding in our caves before the final blow was struck. Had a nice drum circle while we sang some songs.
So more years pass, we started to lose hope because our literal children tried to kill us. So what does humanity do when we almost get killed? Well we turn to god silly! We all collectively accepted in a hive mind fashion that god was punishing us for trying to be god like. You know, despite us actually surpassing him by making life itself. So some time goes by, eventually we decide we want to see the sun again. This leads to the president of the human race to send out ‘Guilty Spark’ to go talk to the princess.
Talking goes well enough. He’s going to meet her soon. First however he wants to see the sun, something he hasn't seen ever. Yet, like a human. He does get severe eye damage when those beautiful rays enter his virgin retina. Praise the sun.
So I read the comment section to try and glean any more information about this story via the author. As it turns out, the comments are more convoluted than the story. Talks of humans becoming pacifists as a whole really rubs me the wrong way. Unless we were a hive mind, that’s literally impossible. There will always be at least a single human that will thinks differently than another.
I also like how the author practically makes humanity not care about their own survival. So pacifist that we actually would rather die than live. And to that I say, fuck that shit.
Overall? This fic is boring. Contains literally no originality or logic. The overall premise would be far more enjoyable if this was more believable. I can accept the idea we somehow turned into hippies. However, I do not accept the idea that literally every single human alive is a hippie. That in and of itself actually dehumanizes our entire race in this fic.
I downvote this fic with no possible way to repent for its sins. I exile you to the farthest reaches of this website to never be seen again.
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVs6XgjCRWs]
My response to humans being warlike. We aren't gods. With our technology, we have come close, but gods don't bleed, and gods don't die.
5111226 ... go fuck yourself. do you really have the right to post to rant about posting a chapter, when you did in the comments? and really, big mac as your profile pic? ironic.
5111339 Bro. The fuck you trying to say bro? He has all the rights to comment his opinion
5111339
Coincidental, actually. I suggest you learn the difference.
5111480
You.
You deserve a fucking medal. Right there. Thank you. Knowing the difference between ironic and coincidental (and for that hands down epic review).
You have earned my respect, fellow horse word lover.
5111314
I don't get it.