The train was comfortable and the ride smooth. Once it was made known that they were on the ill-fated crashed train, their tickets were upgraded without fee to include meals and drinks, something that Rainbow and Applejack were busy taking advantage of, though under much more cheerful conditions than the last time.
Spike and Soft were seated close together, watching the world go sailing past and holding hands with a quiet contentment.
Twilight was seated with the two small ponies, Blue and Yellow, trying to explain life outside of a mine. "See how it's very bright outside?"
Yellow looked out the window, then nodded at Twilight, "They must use a very big torch."
Twilight nodded hesitantly, "Well, yes, the biggest torch there is. It's called the Sun, and it's been there since before there were any ponies to enjoy it. You couldn't see it because all the rocks were over your head."
Blue clopped her little hooves excitedly before she rushed up to a window and craned her neck around to have a look around. She squeaked and fell off the plush couch, "Found it!"
Twilight gave a patient smile, "You shouldn't look directly at the sun. It's brighter than any other torch, and you can get hurt. Up here, when the sun is above, it is 'Day', and when it goes down, it is 'Night'. Most ponies sleep at night, since it's harder to see anyway."
Yellow shook her head, "How did you find time to learn all of this? Your owners must be very lenient."
Twilight blinked, "Nopony owns me, or you."
Yellow tilted her head, "If no one owns anyone else up here, how do you get things done?"
Blue ambled back over and curled up beside Yellow, looking pleased.
Twilight nodded her head, "Instead of whips and curses, if any pony wants another pony to do something, they offer fair compensation." She pulled out a few coins with her magic. "Usually with coins like these. A pony can then, after earning these coins, use them to buy food or furniture, or even toys," She looked at Yellow as she said the last, and Yellow perked up predictably, though Blue also had a reaction.
Yellow shook her head with clear doubt, "How do I earn them? I don't want Blue to be hungry. I can mine really good."
Twilight gave a reassuring smile, "You're doing fine. What you will do, later, is find a job. You work for somepony, possibly yourself, doing what you're good at. You could mine even, but you should only do that if you actually enjoy it."
Yellow nodded quickly, "I'm very good at it. I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't mining."
Blue chimed in, "She's the best!"
Across the car, Lex settled down across from Sonata. From what little he could hear, Twilight was doing an adequate job helping the short-legged ponies adjust to their new lives, so there was no need for him to intervene. Instead, he turned his attention back to the sea pony seated opposite him, who was currently directing a smile his way. "What?" he prompted.
Sonata shook her head, "Just looking forward to having some fun. Do you want to go out to eat, or watch a show, maybe both?" A faint pause, "Why did you ask Twilight out too? I mean, I guess we're not a 'thing' officially, but it's kind of weird to do two girls so close together." She tilted her head a little, "You're so odd, but that's OK." She smiled at Lex, her expression returning to general warmth.
Lex blinked, utterly buried under the sudden outpouring of questions and information. He had barely started trying to sort through them when her last statement completely threw him for a loop.
The entire purpose of this exercise was to figure out the value systems of other ponies, so that he could then present his arguments about why he knew what was best for them - at least on a macro level - in a manner that they'd accept. From what little he'd previously determined, that seemed to largely be dependent on what they thought of him personally, something that he found maddening for how illogical it was. The virtue of an idea had nothing to do with its genesis, after all.
That he seemed to repel the other ponies around him didn't help. Hence the current line of research; to try and figure out the algorithm for making others like him. Except that with Sonata, he already seemed to have succeeded. Which, if he was interpreting her statements correctly, meant...that she...
"Sonata," he spoke up after regarding her quietly for several moments, "do you..." he paused, unable to make the words 'like me?' come out. Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, he quickly changed the question mid-way through "want something to eat?" He stood up, a little too quickly. "I'm going to go get some food, so I thought that it would be prudent to ask...since otherwise you'd have to make the trip needlessly, so I'm...just asking..." he trailed off lamely.
Sonata bobbed her head, "Yes, like, duh, that's why I'm looking forward to our date." She rose to her hooves, "We can go together." She leaned forward suddenly, aiming to steal a kiss shamelessly from the awkward stallion's cheek, "Relax. I don't bite unless you ask really nice."
Across the way, Soft whispered to Spike, "Don't look, but they're going off together I think. That's so sweet. Maybe a girlfriend will mellow him out a bit and he'll stop being a super jerk."
Spike raised a brow, barely restraining his eyes from wandering, "Why do you figure Sonata's into him? He's not really... her type?"
Soft shrugged softly, "Maybe she's eager to prove her worth to someone 'serious', like her former sisters?"
Spike blinked, "That makes an almost eerie amount of sense. Where'd you learn that from?"
Contrary to Sonata's telling him to relax, Lex suddenly found himself completely uncertain how to act around her. If he was right and she did regard him warmly - and that ki-...gesture seemed to indicate that she did, then he had absolutely no idea what he'd done to make her feel that way.
Desperately, he tried to take that line of thought and extend it to a logical conclusion. It was established that Sonata liked him. It was unconfirmed what set of variables had led her to that disposition. Ergo...almost anything could be a factor that, if altered, could subsequently change her disposition. As such, the prudent course of action to take was to minimize as many of those factors as possible; and since prior research indicated that direct interaction was the single largest, and least-understood, variable...
Then the proper course of action was to avoid her as much as possible, at least prior to the controlled circumstances of their date.
Having settled on what to do, Lex suddenly came to a complete halt halfway down the car. "Can you excuse me for a moment? I have to-, I forgot to do...something." Without waiting for an answer, he turned and almost ran in the other direction.
Sonata extended a hoof to the empty air, then frowned a little. She sat back down on her haunches with a little huff, wondering if she'd said something stupid again.
In the dining car, Applejack was demolishing a plate of hashed potatoes and apple fritters. Across from her, Rainbow was enjoying some sprouts. They both had a half-filled mug of amber drink in front of them. "Ya did real good, partner," said Applejack, "Ah thought mah goose was cooked, literal like."
Rainbow waved a hoof, "What are friends for? You shoulda seen his face when I came down on him." She slapped the table with a hoof, "Bam! No fancy magic was saving him from my hooves of fury. The big guy was a lot tougher, but Sonata did her creepy mind magic and he froze up. I almost felt bad pummeling him into the dirt."
Applejack shrugged, "Don't. Diamond Dogs, Gem Gnolls, not much different s'far as ah can see. They're both royal pains, and anyone that thinks owning another pony's an alright thing tah do deserves what they get."
Rainbow nodded in idle agreement, taking a soft drink from her mug, "So how's magic working out for you? Is it half as egghead as it looks?"
Applejack rose both her brows, "If Egghead was an actual thing, then yes, this stuff's buried in it. Ahm getting the hang of it though. It's not easy, or simple. At least Twilight's a patient teacher."
"Patient?!" exclaimed Rainbow, "You should have seen the drills she had me doing that one time I asked her for study help."
Appejack raised a hoof, "Now now, sugarcube. Don't forget she figured out how to teach you in the end. She really takes a shine to sharing knowledge, and she's a good friend."
Rainbow smirked, "A good egghead." Applejack frowned at her and Rainbow made a placating gesture, "I'm kidding. She's a good friend. I still don't need any fancy magic though. I'm too awesome as it is."
Applejack raised her mug and held it towards Dash, "To staying awesome."
"I'll drink to that!" replied Dash before their mugs were brought together and tinked. They drained them to the bottom before continuing their meal.
Sonata entered the dining car, alone. She moved up to the bar and looked to the dwarf standing behind it, "Like, hi there. Can I get two lunches?"
The dwarf shrugged, "Depends what you want. Here's the menu." He slid the parchment towards her.
Sonata accepted the menu, looking it over a moment before she spotted AJ and RD, "Hey girls! What do you think Lex likes to eat?"
Rainbow shrugged softly, "He didn't strike me as a picky eater."
Applejack joined the motion, "Don't have a clue, sugarcube. Pick something safe."
Safe... "I'll take two orders of grilled hay patties, like, with a side of sprouts and two glasses of iced tea in a carrying case. I'm bringing it back to a friend," ordered Sonata with a hopeful smile.
The dwarf seemed to have little care for Sonata's feelings at the moment, just nodding, "Right on it." Sonata was pleased when he pulled out a light saddlebag like device to put the food on. After what felt like forever, the food was complete, and Sonata moved back towards their car, hoping Lex would be happy to have the food brought to him.
A few minutes later, Lex entered the car from the opposite end, looking around warily before he moved to the bar. Sitting apart from Applejack and Rainbow Dash, he sighed as he flagged down the server. "Just get me whatever's cheapest," he muttered. Avoiding Sonata between now and their date was going to be tricky...
AJ noticed Lex settling and tilted her head with some confusion, "Hey, Lex, d'ya know Sonata was jus' here getting some vittles for ya? She went that way." Applejack pointed towards the back of the train.
"I'm aware, that's why I'm here," he nodded. A thought occurred to him then, and he added, "If you see her again, don't inform her of my location."
Applejack and Rainbow shared a perplexed look.
The more I read about this Lex the more I want to rip the horn of from the jerks head and shove it up his ass. He thinks himself so smart but he's more socially awkward than Twilight was before moving to Ponyville. And then he's decides to be an idiot about it.
5777085 I think the fandom is wrong with regards to Twilight's supposed "social awkwardness." As I see her, she was never socially awkward, but rather was introverted. There's a difference.
He's like an evil nerd.. I almost want to give him a wedgie and stuff him in his locker.
5777162 I'm willing to give you that but it doesn't change that Lex is incredibly stupid in certain ways while still thinking himself that smartest one among them. I think that might actually be part of the reason I dislike him so strongly. Idiots claiming intellect and knowledge despite all the evidence to the contrary cause so many problems around the world that reading of one of his caliber might be pissing me off.
I hope he, at the very least, actually gets chewed off for being an asshole.
5777209 To be fair, Lex isn't claiming to know everything - he's very forthright about the fact that there are many things he doesn't understand. His problem is that he's going about trying to gain knowledge of those areas in all the wrong ways. In the areas where he does claim to be the most intelligent, he's very much able to back that up.
An algorithm for social interaction? I wish. No, it's a flowchart at best, and a tangled mess of one at that. The moment you step beyond Diplomacy checks, it's a vast field of unwritten rules that change based on culture, the people you're dealing with, how long you've known them, where you are... I admit, I feel for Lex here. To an extent.
I'd hope that the likely outcome of his attempt not to contaminate the sample would teach him something, but if he's gone this long without figuring out that ponies don't work on a purely experimental basis, then this isn't going to do it either. The stallion needs to learn how to recognize, accept, and learn from all of his mistakes, including the ones caused by flawed starting axioms. That may be the hardest lesson of all for him, because it is on those axioms that his vision of utopia was built.
I wonder how he'd react to the collected friendship letters. Especially if he heard they were instrumental in defeating a god.
Today's special is broiled typo with a side of seasonal vegetables:
Any.
5777481 Mmm, this typo is delicious.
5777481 I'll admit that there's no clear definition for what constitutes a "god" per se, let alone within the context of Equestria, but insofar as d20-based systems go (since this is a Ponyfinder fic), I really don't think that any of the characters in MLP could be considered gods.
If you meant Discord, for example, then he was taken out with a single flesh to stone spell. Twice.
5777542
Luna is providing divine spells to ponies. Discord is at least on her level. In the context of this story, I'd say he's at least a demigod of some kind.
5777578 Ah, fair point. I was thinking more generally.
Hm, that dash should be a comma (e.g. "...and she did regard him warmly, and that ki-...gesture seemed to indicate...").
5777542 Gods in D+D have ridiculous cheating powers, yes.
They're more like demons or devils, or epic-level characters. Alicorn magic is shown to be about as powerful as all the other magic in Equestria put together (since Twilight with all alicorn magic ~= Tirek with all other magic) but it's still qualitatively the same for most purposes. They can be trapped, dispelled, grappled by vines so that they can't cast, etc.
You don't have to be a full god to grant divine magic, though. 3e even lets there be atheist spell casters: divine magic is generated by the divine caster -- the god is just an excuse.
So, if Celestia and Luna start granting divine magic, it's no different than a bunch of kobolds worshipping a Marilith or something.
Well, hopefully it's a bit less evil.
5777679 That's also a good point. I was ceding the issue largely because David had made his thoughts on the matter plain (either here or on his message boards, I can't immediately recall), in that Celestia and Luna "could" become deities if they wanted to make that particular jump, since they were essentially "worshipped" already. I don't agree, but I'm certainly not going to tell someone that they're writing their own story wrong.
That said, I've always been of the opinion that divine spellcasters who don't worship a deity fall under the old AD&D 2E guidelines for "worshipping a force or a philosophy" instead...which is how I looked at the "mystics" in the Age of Mortals in the Dragonlance setting, e.g. having a philosophy that they followed. That power has to come from somewhere, after all, and internally-manifested power is psionics rather than magic, so that divine magic must have some other source (e.g. low-level divine spells come from the literal power of faith alone, etc.).
I should note that the issue of "all four alicorns equals all of Equestria" doesn't take into account that Tirek also had Discord's magic. That said, I feel that there's a bit too much ambiguity to say that the two aggregates of magic were necessarily "equal" just because Twilight and Tirek fought each other to a standstill...though I can see the argument for the other side there, too.
Dear Lex, that bright light in teh sky is the sun. It is very large, but very far away. This is a fist, it is very large because it is very close. So close, that its very painful. Just a little further away, and it doesnt hurt, just a little closer, it hurts again. Away, Closer, Away, Closer. Social interactions are a lot like that. A slight change in variables can make a huge difference in results, and you have to work the variables out from experimentation. Just like everyone else.
Little Ponies need their own theme tune on appearing. Hall Of the Mountain King?
5777703 My D+D headcannon is that divine magic comes from tapping the flow of energy from the positive energy plane (where souls are canonically created, according to at least one module) to the negative energy plane.
The outer planes and all the gods and devils are, of course, completely imaginary. That's why you can only get to them through the Astral. Everything that it is possible for you to imagine exists somewhere on the Astral plane.
On the contrary, if you change something and it makes her mad, then you'll know for sure that you've found a significant variable.
Did he actually go outside the train just to avoid Sonata, or did he teleport? He's either going to hurt himself or run out of magic. I pity him if he gets caught:
"Sir, what are you doing on the roof?"
"An attractive sea pony mare likes me!"
"And...?"
This should be rich.
5778172 I personally agree with Snow in that regard, but I'll admit that the source material is silent. It's largely an issue of Occam's Razor, in that it's the conclusion that I come to when I make no assumptions. Insofar as alicorn lifespan goes, we know that two of the alicorns are immortal, and there's nothing one way or the other with regards to the other two; as such, since there's no particular reason to assume that Cadance and Twilight are different than Luna and Celestia, that seems like a reasonable conclusion to come to.
(Fun fact, the idea that Luna and Celestia were born as alicorns is also something that's completely fanon, since the show doesn't say anything to that effect that I'm aware of.)
5778210 The writers have said that Twilight will not outlive her friends. What they have not said is whether that means she will die someday, or they are all going to become alicorns too. (I would hate to see that happen, but it's quite possible)
5778210 Well, there was that whole book...
5778380
You defeat the wild typo!
You gain 50 xp!
5779062 Aw yeah, level up!
5779091
By the way, I'm at least mildly certain that, in show at least, Twilight is as much an Alicorn-goddess as Celestia, for three reasons primarily.
First: Twilight was bodily transported to another plane of existence entirely and transformed there, suggesting something deeper than just sprouting a bit more anatomy.
Second: The Tree of Harmony had her mark formed in the trunk itself, along with Celestia and Luna's, suggesting that the Element of Magic didn't actually leave its original shape, unlike the five other nondescript gemstones. From the moment she got her mark, she was tied to it. Maybe even before.
Third: Her body contained without any physical alteration or negative side effects (after she acclimitized to the use of) the power of Celestia, Luna, and Cadence all at once. She was then able to use that power effectively, if clumsily due to lack of practice. That amount of power was enough to match every single other living magical being in Equestria, ON TOP of Discord. Note that Discord was stronger than Celestia and Luna alone, necessitating them using the Elements against him.
Ergo, we can surmise that if we can cancel Discord's power against TIa and Luna's, then Twilight and Cadence's power combined were equal to that of every single other pony in Equestria, plus whatever spillover existed from Discord. Cadence, however, was able only to act in defense, and not offense, against a single pony: Sombra. Albeit that defense lasted quite awhile with little to no rest.
In closing, I feel that Twilight was ALWAYS going to be an Alicorn. She just wouldn't have been able to fulfill her destiny if she was born one.
5779091
You've reached the next tier on the encounter table!
50% - Typo Swarm
30% - Irritible Critic
15% - Creepy Stalker-Fan
5% - Angered Mod
5778246 A tweet from a single writer doesn't carry much weight; it's not like they're the last word on how things must necessarily go.
5778257 If you mean the Journal of the Two Sisters, I've made it very clear what I think of that particular secondary source.
5779744 The majority of critics seem happy to throw -1s and stomp off without giving much reason.
That bit is missing a comma before the following quote. The rest of the chapter's dialog will need to be scoured for period-comma swaps just like the previous. They're like weeds, popping up everywhere, hehe!
6464450 Fixed!
eerie
s'far as, far's, or far as
6803877 Tweaks done tweaked.
Lex, for all his being a big jerk, is friggin adorable.
7034187 I agree completely!