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Originally something of a short writing exercise. This Human In Equestria story skipped over a lot of the common events and went straight for the meat of the story--- the brony's first audience with Celestia. However, it gained a life of its own and developed-- gasp!--- a plot!
I loved every second i spent reading this fic, having a brony explain the TV show and us humans to Celestia is just awsome!
As a rabid fan of "humans in equestria" fics i must admit that in practicly all fanfics i have read my favorite part have always been when said human meets Princess Celestia, and in this fic you skipped how he ended up meeting Twillight and the gang and went straight to the meeting with the avatar of the sun, and i really liked that.
I do hope there will be more to this fic, also, i just LOVED how he told Celestia how they should act if humans ever ended up in Equestria.
Interesting take on the genre, I tried to skip over the whole (Holy Crap I'm In Equestria) part when writing my story "Coming Attractions" due to it being just a bit repetitive, and it's always better when done properly to get to the meat of the story right away!
I think this is the first Brony in Equestria story in a long time that hasn't made my spleen try to exit my body at high velocity 
.
I see this as a deconstruction more than a story. It picks a specific issue that tends to get overlooked and goes into it in detail. Very good detail I may add. I'm not sure if I'd want to see this as an actual story though. I'm not sure where you'd go with it and I have to admit I'm so incredibly skeptical of there being any more good 'brony in Equestria' stories at this point. The good ideas, for the most part, have been/are being done and the rest tend to be awful self-inserts.
You are 100% on target with this particular thing though, the explanation of "YOU ARE COLORFUL TOY PONIES WHERE I COME FROM," tends to get glossed over. You need to check your spelling and formatting in a couple of places but the grammar is fairly solid. Overall it's a good piece.
Judging by the social effects of globalization and the current trend towards the development of an empathic civilization, if the ponies delay the inevitable meeting long enough there should be no problem. Of course, we need significantly more time at our current rate of progress, but we're on our way. I dislike the solution of potentially militarizing the ponies to the same level in some way. They seem to have largely achieved the peaceful civilization we are currently still striving for, and so it would seem to be a step backward somehow. Here's hoping the solution your character comes up with is a peaceful one worthy of the civilization he intends to use it to protect.
Another great chapter, i really liked the VERY valid point you brought up in the beginning of the fic, that Celestia and Luna kept the newly arrived Human close to themselves.
It is true what you said, not many leaders would keep a brand new intelligent species out of their reach, and in 99,8% of all human in equestria fics all human meetings with celestia goes like this "i will try to find a way to send you back to your home, please unknown creature i don't know, do stay with my most priced pupil whitout any form of security whatsoever."
You are aptly named, Humanist. Unfortunately the material evidence contradicts the philosophical theory. More to the point, counting on the inherent goodness of Humankind to surface before making contact would be playing Russian Roulette with an entire planet. While there are powers and nations that would be more or less benevolent and would make important allies, the odds are far more in favor of Equestria first making contact with the equivalent of Al Qaeda, the Nazi Regime, Communist China, Or any one of a thousand tinpot banana republics led by a man with a bad hat and a funny mustache and a penchant for dropping people in woodchippers who displeased them.
Diplomacy is required for dealing with ANY of our race. And diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" while fishing about for a sufficiently large rock. Even Jesus, when sending his disciples out to preach the gospel of love and salvation to the world, warned his disciples to carry a sword, and if they did not have one to sell their robes and buy one, because it was and still is a terrible and dangerous world.
To everyone who's debating this, I hate to break it to you, but given that this is all headcanon, the author's views trump yours...since...you know...his story and all 
.
Actually the protagonist really does bring up a good point. Given that the vast, vast majority of leaders of nations both historic and modern are either a-moral or fully socio/psychopathic, if they just said "glass it," without any sort of warning there's little the ponies could do. Any meaningful speculation would be at the "prolonged conflict" stage, but that would also inevitably bring into the fact that the less insane parts of humanity probably wouldn't like killing cute, pastel ponies. Well some of them anyway. Potential civil wars! Revolution!
...I think I just unintentionally came up with an interesting story idea.
Well played though Realitycheck, since that wasn't the point of this chapter at all. The point was exploring someone honestly answering that question from a layman's perspective who wasn't familiar with the pony background. The way you wrote it is pretty much how I saw it happening and everyone's reactions are completely believable. I hope you continue this series, there are so SO many other elements in HiE fics that people don't touch and anything that gets people actually thinking about (and then hopefully writing about) these scenes/issues/ideas is good in my book. 
Edit: REEEEEEAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLYYYYYY not sure I like seeing religion brought up in context with MLP. That is a minefield to say the least. I'm not even sure I'd trust a religious scholar to do it. :|
So the Hogwarts solution. Clever.
Of course, the problem with such a solution is that it also inevitably limits the ponies' technological advancement. Humanity would not be able to use any of our more advanced technologies, but the ponies would never be able to obtain those technologies for themselves, either.
Also, well... electronics can be hardened against EMP. And besides, humans are creative, we'll find some way to work around it. Even when combined with your character's other ideas, this seems to be a temporary solution at best.
The problem with your idea is that it would make the ponies more violent, bloodthirsty and genocidal than the humans by several orders of magnitude. Not only are they clearly NOT like that (and would be horrified by the suggestion alone), but if they WERE like that it would mean that they were WORSE than humanity and that kind of defeats the whole point, I think. They would no longer be the "good guys" by comparison.
What's that quote? "He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
The "Hogwarts Solution" is probably the best solution for the given situation, though admittedly it is only a short-term solution. Hopefully said solution will last long enough for a more permanent solution to be found.
Well that WAS the point. To admit to the existence of the issue, and largely set it aside for the sake of the story--- without diminishing its importance. Ninety percent of the human race has some sort of religious beliefs, and those would affect how the human in question related to their situation. I myself am a Christian (independent Baptist), and as this is pretty much a self-insert fic, it IS a topic that would come up. And frequently. Arthur's conclusion is my own most likely one (one largely echoed by C.S. Lewis)- that whatever God's relationship is with His creation, the one for humanity and the one for a race of ponies in another entire universe is most likely to have similarities, but also be different in some fundamental fashion. (going off the fact, from Christian theology, that His covenant with the angels is fundamentally different from the covenant with Humanity while still having points in common, such as morality and ethics.)
But I digress.
Too bad the Equestrian solar system is radically different from the Human solar system. First, the Earth orbits the Sun, and the human Sun is millions of times larger than the Earth. Creatures that can push around a sun and a moon that are only a fraction of the size of their own planet might have trouble shoving around something that size.
Two-- no magic, so no moving the sun, moon or earth anyway.
There is nothing I can possibly say that won't either be offensive, easily misconstrue-able, or create a debate that will not only derail all discussion at this point but bring up points a lot of people would rather not see discussed on a MLP forum. So I will simply say you are more well read than I am used to dealing with for people of your particular faith. However I am curious if this is going to become a large part of upcoming chapters because...I'm sorry I just can't see this ending well if it is.
Yes, But they can't be made completely immune. And can they even be hardened against magic at all? It might be like trying to waterproof against fire.
The development issue has occurred to me, and will be mentioned. But then again-- magic. They can already do things with magic that we can't do with technology, so it's not hard to imagine parallel development in technology that circumvent the anti-tech obstacle. It might be an annoying impediment to certain avenues of research and development, but not much more than that.
The sheer randomness of the effects would be the biggest havoc inducer. Armies depend on uniformity to a great degree. Even if your soldiers remain functional, how do you handle it when even their clothes no longer fit? To say nothing of the psychological effect.....
Judging from your comments about the nature of our universe (that is, no magic), it seems to me that if magic did have an EMP-like effect on electronics Equestria (which seems to be saturated in the stuff) would hardly even need the spell you proposed that would create the whole Hogwarts solution. If magic does not have such an effect on its own, then such a spell would be required. Judging by the versatility of magic, it would likely not be outside the realm of possibility to create a magically-fueled perpetual EMP, given powerful and skilled casters. However, while powered by magic, said pulse would still be electro-magnetic in nature and not magical (that is, the part that actually causes the effect on the electronics in question), and so could be shielded against just like a conventional EMP.
I need more of this fic. Plain and simple. Some minor grammar and typing errors here and there but nothing that makes the story unreadable, I just can't walk away without knowing what Celestia & Luna are up to!.. Though I would hazard a guess that they've been opening portals intentionally, stealing random objects, until they decided to take Arthur here in, and pretended to know nothing until he proved his trustworthy-ness.
I tend to shun HiE fanfics, to the point of never before reading one, but this seems much more thought out than "OMG! I'm in Equestria!" that (I assume) most HiEs consist of. I especially like that the "Hogwarts solution" isn't just having an anti-tech spell (which, it's rightly pointed out, would make life impossible), but focuses in on a particular facet.
I do have to wonder, if this fic ever pits human vs. pony, if the humans won't adopt a "Napolean Solution" that involves using deliberately downgraded (but functioning) technology. Heliographs and biplanes may not exactly be state of the art, but they wouldn't run afoul of EMP either.
Keeping an eye on the young lady, are we?" He blushed a bit, then straightened up like a soldier at review and gave a single no-nonsense nod. "Her Mum asked me to take good care of her little muffin, sir," he said.
........
cuteness .... overload...... cant type ....... must warn comunity........ (HEAD IMPLODES) 
Oh god, I just thought of the worst possible situation at the museum.
"Now this i- … Um, this is what we call an... electric... chair..."
"Why do humans call it that?"
"Uh, how about we pass this. Now this is... a part of..."
"…"
"Ok, may I speak with who's in charge of the display placement?"
Ect. With the worst items from humans you can think of XD
Okay...fairly new to this site, and just about as new to the fandom as a whole (sweet irony: it was brought to my attention by a friend who utterly hates it)...and I've been following this piece from the beginning.
And, might I add, loving every minute of it.
What started off as an almost "narrative essay" sort of thing trying to capture nuances of the Earthling-meets-Sugarbowl concept not usually explored in so many other stories I've seen in my browsing, has become a simply enjoyable romp of characterization. Sometimes insightful, sometimes downright adorable, but consistently entertaining and frequently hilarious. I don't even care if this is going toward some epic plot twist war story direction or not, I am honestly simply eating up the character interactions and humor and want to see more.
After all, isn't the character depth and comedy what really draws the older (and, well, more mature) audiences to this franchise?
By all means, please keep it up!
By the way. "Happy 'You Belong In A Museum' Day"? ...really, Pinkie?
Priceless.
I very much like the way the ponies are portrayed in this fic. They are alien, to be sure, and don't understand humans, but they are willing to make every effort to try. I really like that they are willing to use both magical and mundane methods to bring the museum of oddities to life for visitors. There's a flip book of political maps, a levitated solar system, and a floating globe with day/night. It's not just piles of random junk with '????' plaques. I would thumbs-up this story again if I could.
It is quite nice to see things going smoothly for the Space Monkey, and how he's able to help the Technicolored Donkeys. 
Really, the moments of discussing on how to improve or clarify some things of the ponyverse is nice to read. Makes me feel srmt after reading them.
If i had anything to say about in the production of the MLP series i would send them a link to this fic and write "make a season three out of this".
Seriously, not only is this masterfully written, but it also take up so many things about humans that we ourselves could and should spare some time to think about.
I applaude you good sir!
Noone who knew Einstein before the Theory of Relativity would have associated him with "genius" either. He was eccentric, absentminded, generally off in a world of his own, failed his math courses, and was told to his face by his teachers that he would be nothing but a failure... in those very words.
Minor correction: Einstein did not flunk math. He excelled in math and science, though he did have difficulty in some of his other subjects. The myth that he did poorly in his math classes was quite widespread even when he was alive, something that he found rather amusing.
“I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”
-Albert Einstein
I am not completely sure where the myth came from, there seem to be several possible sources. I do know that a 1935 Ripley's Believe it or Not article falsely reported “Greatest living mathematician failed in mathematics.”, which may have been the reason said myth became so popular (though it may not be the origin of it).
http://www.character-education.info/resources/Albert_Einstein_Character.htm
He did well in subjects he liked, not so good in things he didn’t like. As a result, one schoolmaster called him dull. In fact, one exasperated teacher went so far as to tell him tell him that he’d never amount to anything, was wasting everyone's time, and should drop out of school immediately. (See Albert Einstein: A Life, by Denis Brian, 1996, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; also Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson. Page numbers refer to Isaacson.)
He finally made it to a tiny technical college and found that he did better when he studied with other students. His grades were again uneven - good at some subjects, horrible at others.(Isaacson, p. 36) He flunked a Physics class with a “1”, the worst possible grade. But he hung in there, barely passing his senior exams, one of the worst grades in his graduating class.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/06/23/1115185.htm
In 1896, which was Einstein's last year at the school in Aargau, the school's system of marking was reversed.
A grading of "6", which had previously been the lowest mark, was now the highest mark. And so, a grading of "1", which had been the highest mark, was now the lowest mark.
And so, anybody looking up Einstein's grades would see that he had scored lots of grades around "1" - which under the new marking scheme, meant a "fail".
Edit: You may be right about Einstein flunking a physics course
http://www.jimloy.com/physics/einstein.htm
He went to college in Switzerland, and did very well (A's, B's, and a few C+'s) in most subjects, especially mathematics. But, there was one interesting exception. He got an F, in "Physical Experiments for Beginners." On the report card is written the following: "March 1899: director's reprimand for nondiligence in physics practicum. Graduated."
However, the exact statement I objected to was "You know, Albert Einstein flunked math in his school years?", which he most certainly did not. Physics and Math are not the same thing.
Of course, most people don't know that the whole flunking math thing is a myth, so I suppose it is all irrelevant in the context of your story... The main character simply is one of the many people who had heard the myth and was never corrected.
heh. I was tempted to go crazy and give Snails the Tau vs. Pi controversy. Tau, being the proposed alternative for pi. the ratio of the circumference to the RADIUS 6.28.... as opposed to the diameter 3.14.... (think about it, how do YOU draw or measure a circle?) it rather eloquently tidies up several elements of mathematics. Note: Not a mathematician, here. Just know enough to be persuaded heavily in favor of the idea.
But everyone knows that Snails likes Pi, so....
At 1) ... Sometimes I think I didn't live my childhood to the fullest.
And this chapter being over 10,000 words long... 
it is very, very good!
Also, I really like this story for Trixie you made! I've seen a handful of explanations and future outcomes for Trixie, but this is really the best and most sensible, as well as logical (or at least least awkward) one I've seen yet.
I'm pointing people in the direction of your story should they ever ask my thoughts on Trixie's background!
Ahh, now that I have more than a couple quick minutes before rushing off to work, to expound upon my thoughts earlier.
Every time I see this fic has been updated I get all excited again, and this chapter was well worth the wait. I don't always agree with some of the points brought up in these chapters, though that hasn't stopped me from loving this story. But with this one? You've gone and sold me.
And let me be clear. I've never even liked Trixie, and have always been baffled at the inexplicable popularity a one-off minor antagonist character managed to achieve. You have made me a Trixie fan. You didn't just expand on her character beyond the episode she appeared in, you actually re-contextualized it from an angle I am pretty sure the original writers did not think too much about. Of course, granted, there's always the vague possibility that she wasn't actually a travelling entertainer--she didn't seem to be charging admission, and I didn't notice any sort of money collection bins or boxes on her wagon, but it seems the logical conclusion to come to. And going by that, I loved this retrospective from the other side of the stage. I am going back and re-watching that episode very soon, I think, now that I've seen this.
Hm...I wonder what Trixie would think of that song, "The Entertainer" if she heard it...
*sigh* well if you want to take it as an insult rather than as a scene question as to why he hasn't been losing weight like crazy given the low calorie nature of Equestrian diets (barring Pinkie Pie of course) and the, most likely, smaller portions, I suppose you can. I was hoping to discuss something only a few authors don't though, which is diet in a world of small herbivores.
Because Equestrian--- ahem, "vegetarian"--- diets are not low carb. Anyone who pays attention to actual dietary research knows that it's carbs, aka breads, starches, sugars, grains--- that pack on weight. And vegetable oils are a nutritional disaster. (think about this the next time you cook something in corn oil, how much actual corn would you have to eat in order to get that much oil in your diet naturally?) A diet free of meat will just make you fat and even MORE unhealthy. It's different for horses because, hey, they're HORSES. Humans have a different dietary requirement profile--- meats, vegetables, dairy, animal fats, fruits, and a FEW grains. (Our Hero is having to go to certain extremities, such as shopping around pet food dealerships, to obtain enough meat to keep balanced. And drinking milk in Equestria, for obvious reasons, kinda freaks him out.)
Why am I so fat and unhealthy IRL, then, if I know all this? You will note a distinct pattern in the above list of ideal human dietary requirements. First, they're almost the exact inverse of the "food pyramid" given out by the government--- which was made to promote not American health but American grain sales. Second, the foods we need the most of (fresh meat, veggies and fruits, real butter, real dairy, real sugars etc) are also the most expensive while fillers (grains, breads, pastas, flours, starches, vegetable oils, high fructose corn syrup) are dirt cheap. And I am not wealthy. Or even, for that matter, enjoying a middle class income. So cheap and filling it is.
Plus, I am largely (har har) sedentary due to certain physical conditions (swollen legs, joint pain, etc.). My health will improve once I get past a certain threshold, but getting there is a matter of slow and quite literally painful progress. And it's DAMNED hard to give up soda.
If you read nothing but bad propaganda by the american communist party, why YEAH!
Back up those horseapple accusations with something besides bumper sticker "whiny unemployed college student" slogans, you might get farther.
A minimum wage, part time job for someone with no experience or job skills--- back in the day that wasn't called "exploitation," that was called "opportunity."
"Exploits children?" How precisely? Their Ronald McDonald house charity, which spends billions so that families can be close to their sick hospitalized children? Maybe the educational programs they sponsor? Or the free mobile clinics for disadvantaged neighborhoods? Oh, I see, you're talking about putting a cartoon clown on a hamburger box--- truly a sinister evil.
"Destroys rainforests?" Beeeeeep, wrong answer. McDonald's gets its beef from AMERICAN farmers. And the last survey by scientists-- as opposed to weeping hollywood starlets with plastic tits--- came back that the rainforests were doing just damn fine, thank you. Try updating your rainforest resume to 2012 instead of 1960.
"Cruel to animals." Ah, yes, I remember my days as a McDonald's employee, working in the hot sun, flogging the chickens and torturing the cows with electric shocks. Those are domesticated farm animals, they get the standard trade off--- they spend their lives being fed, watered, protected from predators and disease, they procreate and then end their lifecycle swiftly and mercifully killed to be turned into food for the hungry. You want to see cruelty, watch footage of how a wild, "free" animal usually dies. Namely, screaming.
"Destroys cultures." We've already answered that one, but we'll repeat it for the spoiled child of western civ in the back. "Destroying culture" is what useless skinsacks call it when the lowly peasants are given a choice about their culture, and make the choice the self-important people don't like. They're not fed burgers at gunpoint, and they're not mewling infants that need your ever so enlightened protection.
this is what I mean by elitists. Overeducated, under-experienced tools who imagine themselves to be ever so much more enlightened to the cosmic truth than anyone else in the planet.... the poor teeming benighted masses who are just WAITING for their benevolent guidance to the Brave New World. You call it "exploitation" and "culture destruction", because you cannot possibly imagine that people willingly choose to eat at a restaurant your University professor condemned, you call it "cruelty" because you haven't a clue what nature is like past your last viewing of "Bambi" or "Brother Bear," you call it "exploitation of the workers" because you've never held a JOB or learned a WORK ETHIC, and only God knows where you get the "suppression of free speech"--- probably from the last time a McDonald's manager had to call the cops to get some disruptive PETA wanker dragged off the property.
I know I'm going to regret asking this but: have you had to deal with elitists face-to-face? I get the feeling you've had a fair amount of angry ranting shoved down your throat and now you're throwing it back up. The sheer vitriol just leaps off the page. It feels very personal.
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