It's Never Too Late For Exposition
“Okay...” Rainbow Dash paced around the edge of a cloudbed. “...let's go over this one more time.”
“Rainbow Dash...” Twilight Sparkle yawned, floating lazily upside down below the mare. “We have been over it at least ten times! Even for me, that's getting too thorough!”
“Look... I know you just hopped out of the—err—void womb...” Rainbow's brow furrowed. “But I've been flying, galloping, and buttkicking all these months with the full belief that you guys... all of you guys were dead! So if there's an actual chance of—y'know—changing that, I wanna make sure there's no mistake!”
“We're not going to know any more by just speculating on it further tonight,” Twilight said, stifling another yawn. “It's rather clear that we need to get Sinrar to show us where on the map we can find next five points!”
“I can get to the points no problem,” Rainbow said, gesturing towards the east. “I've got the Yaefaerda beacon do help me with that!”
“Yes, but you still need to know what you're dealing with... we still need to know what we're dealing with.” Twilight smiled tiredly. “You've been through enough as it is. I don't want you flying blindly into another dragon's lair, or a warzone...” She bit her lip. “Or Verlax.”
“Look... I'm not scared of Verlax!” Rainbow said, gritting her teeth. “Maybe Chrysalis couldn't outsmart her, but I don't care! I'm getting the girls back! Even if I have to headbutt my way through Verlax to do it!”
“One must not take Verlax's power for granted, Rainbow Dash,” Luna's voice said. “Celestia and I recall her being quite crafty, capable of outsmarting even the wisest elder alicorns who had once walked this plane.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep, long breath. She tilted about, muttering, “Luna... just... one m-more time, Your Highness...” She gestured with her hooves. “Let's say I visit each of the five points. Let's say the machine world does the same as the Tower did. Let's say I bring back the Element Bearers. Let's say I make it as far as the Midnight Armory with them. What then?”
“Then you'll have your work cut out for you, Rainbow,” Spike spoke up. “There are tons and tons of ancient books written about the Armory alone. I can barely read five to ten pages of the stuff without feeling worn out.”
“And while Celestia and I were involved in the construction of the facility,” Luna spoke, “We were simply two of the many alicorns who built it. It was designed in such a way that opening it and accessing its contents would require the simultaneous concentration of multiple immortals.”
Twilight spoke up. “The Midnight Armory is old, Rainbow Dash. Older than either you or I can comprehend. I... I-I don't think it was ever meant to last as long as it has.”
Rainbow Dash blinked at that, then turned to speak into the air. “And... what are the chances that a mere mortal like myself could open it?”
“That is difficult to say. From what you have relayed to us from the words of Chrysalis, Tchern and two other militant factions have been vying over control of the Armory. Is this correct?”
“Pretty much.”
“And have any of them succeeded in accessing the structure's interior?”
Rainbow slowly shook her head. “No, Your Highness. And... and from I gather, things haven't been very easy for Endrax.”
“She's been reduced to 'pieces,' from what I recall.”
“Yeah. And considering she's a Divine who purposefully went to the Dark Side to monitor the Armory...”
Twilight fidgeted from where she hovered.
Luna's voice eventually said, “You are one pony, Rainbow Dash, and a mare like no other. I have full faith that if any individual was to make it inside the Midnight Armory, you would be the one most capable.”
“Yeah, but all of the empowering of Austraeoh doesn't mean bunk when it comes to the Midnight Armory, don'tcha think? That's alicorn tech!”
“And so is Harmonic Acclimation, in a manner of speaking.”
Rainbow's muzzle scrunched. “I... don't suppose it's still possible for... y'know... either of you two to join me at the Armory... huh?”
“You mean Celestia and myself?”
Rainbow Dash was already wincing. “I... think I already knew the answer before I finished asking that,” she said with a prolonged sigh.
“Celestia simply cannot leave her post, Rainbow Dash. The chaos from the rift would consume Equestria from the inside out—and there is no telling how swiftly it would spread to the lands governed by Whitemane to the East or Sturke to the West.”
“R-right...”
“And seeing as I am tasked with controlling the Sun and Moon, it would be quite difficult to exert myself in making such a long and arduous journey without throwing the entire population of the Light Side into extreme jeopardy. And even if I were to make it to the edge of the world, crossing over would cut off my power altogether, casting the entire plane as we know it into perpetual darkness.”
“Double right...” Rainbow sighed. “It's... it's really all up to me then...”
“In terms of reaching the Armory, yes. But the Harmonic Prism is another matter.”
Rainbow Dash blinked. “How do you mean?”
“Assuming you can—indeed—coax the spirits of the Element Bearers out of their limbo, then the Harmonic Prism may be capable of reversing the effect that the spell's feedback had on them when Discord was last confronted.”
“You... you mean it can give them their bodies back?!”
“That's what I'm attempting to say.”
“But... but...” Rainbow blinked. “Th-that's awesome and all, but how?!”
“The very function of the Harmonic Prism is to focus the energy that first gave the Elements of Harmony their power to begin with. This includes reinforcing both Harmonic Acclimation and Harmonic Unification. After the research that Spike and I accomplished, I theorize that utilizing the Prism might be able to undo the effect of the feedback. That includes—yes—re-materializing the Element Bearers in their original, proper form.”
“Okay... well...” Rainbow glanced down at Twilight. “Assuming that's true and all... just...” She scratched her head. “How or... why is that part of the whole Austraeoh plan? I mean, assuming that Urohringr is more or less guiding me towards doing this... helping me stay alive and lighting my path with Yaerfaerda...” Her eyes narrowed. “...why's it gotta involve the Harmonic Prism?”
“I simply do not know, Rainbow Dash.”
It was Twilight's turn to sigh.
“However, as it is a piece of alicorn technology, the Harmonic Prism can only be used in the hooves of a pure-born Alicorn.”
“So... somepony like you or Celestia,” Rainbow said. “Whitemane wouldn't cut it.”
“No. And neither would Shining Armor's mate, Princess Cadance.”
Twilight blinked. “Wait, what?”
Rainbow opened her mouth—
Luna said: “You will—in essence—have to make a total circumnavigating trip around the plane, both the Light Side and the Dark. This will, in effect, allow you to bring the Harmonic Prism back to my sister and I so that one of us—or both of us—can harness the energy in the spirits of the Element Bearers and restore them back to the corporeal realm.”
“That... means...” Rainbow's wings went limp, and she fell until she plopped down onto the edge of a cloud. “...it's a loop.” She gulped. “The whole trip... this whole journey...” She ran a hoof across her bangs. “I can't let it end at the Midnight Armory. I... I have...” She glanced aside at Twilight.
Twilight said, “You'd have to fly back to Ponyville.”
“Friggin' A...” Rainbow Dash grimaced. “I knew that I had an impossible flight ahead of me, but... Luna Poop.” She immediately winced. “No offense, Your Highness.”
“Your degree of shock is not unfounded. There is simply no other alternative that I can come up with at the moment, not with the evidence provided and with such little time to analyze it. You can have full faith that Spike and I will scour the Canterlot Archives in search of further information to assist you. But you and Twilight will inevitably be on your own for the next moon cycle.”
“And do you honestly think, Luna, that Twilight and I will be sitting on our fuzzy butts this whole time?” She looked aside at the unicorn.
Twilight blinked, then smiled. “I think we'll be busy touring the sights around here...” Her ears twitched. “At least five of them.”
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Why are we not hearing about Cadance and Shining Armor's journey? I have this deep, deep gut feeling, and I have had it since I began reading, that they aren't just a red herring. They're going to do something big to help Rainbow Dash.
Darn straight.
Whoa, waitaminute...another alicorn in the West?
Ummm....call me crazy, but would it be possible that this would also undo ol' Dissy's condition as well? I'm probably just crazy...
Not sure if typo or Dashie.
Ehhh....no. I actually don't think this will end up happening at all. I can't see Dash having to fly all the way back around to Equestria after getting to the armory. I have no real clue what might happen instead (all current possible ideas are related to earlier-mentioned crackpot Discord theory), but I don't see this happening at all.
Wow, we're getting lots of info dumps, so the Mane 6 can come back. once RD is all the way around...
So another 12 books after she gets to the Midnight Armory?
Also incoming Verlax and the Six tribes info dump.
waitwaitwaitwait... there's also an alicorn in the west?
we NEED a story about Shining Armor, Cadence and Flash Sentry heading west!
LOL
Okay, so after RD reaches the Midnight Armory, she needs to fly back to Ponyville... Hm...
I'm saying this now. inb4 there's going to be an entrance to the machine world near the Midnight Armory that will lead her to the opposite side of the plane.
Normally I'm not one for chapters such as this, where the author has the characters sum up what we know, but for a series as long as this (or any as long as this), I'll make an exception.
There and back again, a Rainbow Dash tale
I can imagine that Twilight is going to be pestering Dash to inquire more about Shiny and Cadence's marriage.
Round trip... ouch. unless there's some ancient arcane teleporter or something in the armory... and we know IC isn't dumb, there'll be something stopping Twi from teleporting them all back, like an anti teleportation rune or something built into the armory.
-Memories given light, ease a lonely flight. Ynanhluutr.
What if... The last point causes Rainbow to become a Alicorn or something?
5880299
I'm gonna assume they'll meet up at the halfway point, or at least when Dash hits the Light side again.
So, we know now that they CAN bring the girls back..friggin' A!
Ten burpees, ):( Knock 'em out!
For a while, I was worried that Rainbow was going to have a hard time traveling with her earth bound companions.
Now I see its not going to be a problem, as i'm guessing they come back at the end of the journey.
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130618231947/mlp/images/8/84/FANMADE_Lyra_Oh_you.png
That applies to us commentators as well.
Fortunately, Rainbow Dash isn't going to do something incredibly wise. Verlax will never expect something awesomely stupid!
Wait, what? I don't recall ever hearing that name before.
And Twilight never heard that before.
5880366
Wouldn't work according to Luna's requirements. Transforming Rainbow Dash wouldn't make her "pure-born".
Wow, suddenly with a single chapter the journey doubled in distance. If Dash really does end up having to make the return trip without some form of deus ex machina saving her the trouble I hope she decides to backtrack and gets the opportunity to reunite with some of the noble jurists.
Channel the inner Props.
5880317 5880374 5880338
Sturke is the Dragon Queen of the Equinox, remember?
5880454
Nope. Completely forgot about that.
I don't think Rainbow Dash could make it all the way to the Armory and back, considering that we are already halfway through the series and it would throw off the pacing. And there would be a pretty uneventful journey back.
5880317
Meh, Going back gives me (and Swany) an excuse to ship Rainboarke again.
5880367 5880463 We can bring the girls back, and that means Dash can have a chance to introduce AJ to Roarke when she reaches Val Roa on her return trip, even if AJ doesn't have a body during their meeting and has to speak through Dash.
5880348
It all just seems too easy. Soon I'm gonna be out of a job.
Oh wait,
5880374
Sturke is one of the five divine dragons, and the one noted as being the easiest to commune with. Cadance is on an expedition to find her, assuming she's still to the west of Equestria (although that fact is a little uncertain in light of Axan's conversation in Eljunbyro 105)
5880490
Nah. She'll probably go around the other way.
5880499 That would be lame, why in the world would RD not take the rout that reunites her with Roarke and allows her to confirm that she lived through her ordeal/ will be ready to settle down after a few more cross continent flights?
5880491 You shall never be out of a job.
Well damn. In one fell swoop, the finish-line becomes the half-way mark. Unless, of course, there ends up being a short-cut back to Equestria through the machine world, but that sorta seems like a stretch now (if it wasn't before). On the bright side, that means the western half of the Light Side remains to be explored, which is kinda nifty. Though the real Sinrar might be reaching for a flash right about now.
Also, I'm always very suspicious when stories lay out a happy ending this far in advance. It's just too... easy. There's almost certainly gonna be some kind of twist, or a stick thrown into the wheels, or some kind of heroic-sacrifice BS on Dash's part, or something to divert the course from the obvious conclusion. Or maybe I'm just too cynical. It just doesn't strike me as IC's style to shine a spot-light on the end-point from this distance.
5880509
Because backtracking would make for bad story
5880576 This just makes me remember an old theory I had.
What if... the Midnight Armory is on the other side of the Chaos Rift? I mean, not just on the other side of the plane, but literally pretty much across the rift from Ponyville?
Sure, that'd mean Dashie'd have to talk a flight across half the Dark Side of the world - which would probably be a lot more painful than the half she did on the light side - but it would also save us having to read through her doing it twice. On both sides. Especially if she can, herself, go through it.
5880665
That's possible. The story could get to a point where the rift starts getting out of hand and somehow it goes through the ring segment and the armory is conveniently located under it allowing Rainbow Dash to fly through the ring and back to equestria in a very short and chaotic flight.
5880804
I think that's giving Discord too much credit. In retrospect he was always a joke, it seems more and more likely that the only reason any damage was done was by the will of Urohringr, not by any power of Discord's. The plane itself is sentient, I think- the Ring itself is what speaks to Rainbow Dash, with all the 'Foal Yesterday' stuff, and Luna just said that it was alive. Discord isn't powerful enough to do that. My theory is that the spirit of Urohringr will give Rainbow Dash an 'elevator' through the Machine World once she gets the Harmonic Prism.
Perhaps the 'Twists and Turns' have nothing to do with Discord at all. I don't think he's the final boss here.
5880853
I've been thinking much the same thing, though you phrased it in a much more orderly and succint fashion than I ever could. But the Midnight Armory isn't part of the Machine World, so she might have to do some extra work getting to that elevator, as you put it. Or, perhaps, the dying plane could actively try to destroy the Midnight Armory to make it easier for Austraeoh to enter.
So it is going to be a round trip after all.
Is anyone else extremely curious to know more about the Plains of Harmony? They get mentioned too much alongside other incredibly important things to be mere lore.
5880865
That was always the hope
5880853 5880858
What degree of awareness does Urohringr have then? If the plane is actively aiding her, why didn't it give her your theoretical elevator sooner?
Maybe Rainbow Dash 'became', in some sense, Austraeoh. She might not have been anything special in a cosmic sense until those unfortunate events in Ponyville.
I had guessed back when it was first mentioned that the Harmonic Prism could possibly restore the bearers but it's nice to hear it confirmed.
This is story is so not going to end at Book Twelve, is it?
5880874 the Alicorns got to Equestria on the Planes of Harmony.
5880940
Well, I'd love a 144-long series recounting Austraeoh's adventures across all parts of the Ring, but I don't think it'll happen.
But you're right, it really doesn't seem like you could fit all of this in 12 books.
5880317 it gets worse too. Unless the Alicorn pyramid of ponies keeps it at bay Dash wouldn't make it back to Equestria not without going all chaos spawn.
Well it wasn't what I was thinking but it 's a cycle none the less in way. However I don't know how she will do this, I'm thing what some others are thinking here; some kind of teleport or tunnel or something like that will show up to get her back.
Unless there is going to be some kind of sequel series, which I would be completely up for.
This took a bit of digging around. It was said by Chrysalis in Urohringr chapter 87.
So does this mean we'll have Rainbow Returning this way and meeting all our friends 5 books from now! Or does it mean we'll have Cadance and Shining Amore. Both are allowable, but UGH. I need my 1 year later chapter. Even if I'm going to have to wait 6 years.
I envision it going one of two ways, "Roarke, this is applejack and gold petals, uhhhh I love all of you? NO DONT KILL THEM!!" Or "Hey shining armor, you little sister is talking to me, no really she's right over there! IM NOT CRAZY, DONT PUT ME IN THE BRIG!!"
Both would be very funny in a messed up way.
So, travelling back from the armory, will she fly east again, or (gasp) fly west?
No, please, put those stones down... I didn't mean it!
Yeah, it is pretty loopy, isn't it?
Seriously, how hard is it to know the names of the Five Divines? Sturke isn't news.
After this latest info dump I went back to chapter 197 of Yaerfaerda to see if anything we've been told would help me make heads or tails of the cryptic conversation with the faux Whitemane. Now I'm starting to wonder if Luna and Spike's idea of the machine world being the intelligence that's guiding Dash is really a red herring.
This is the first sentence that struck me as odd. Either the machine uses Luna's archaic speech or there's more than one entity involved.
More evidence that RD is talking to somebody about the machine and not to the machine itself.
I wonder if this cryptic non-answer could mean that it's actually neither?
I'm now starting to think that maybe RD is being guided by the ancient Alicorns. I know Celestia and Luna have told us they've died off but if Shell has taught me anything it's that unless you see the bodies yourself you can't assume any of them have actually died.
Its starting to look like these control rooms to the Machine World, that Dhas is having to personally visit induvidually, are far out of scale to what we think. As in, not the control room of a ship, or even a car dashboard, but given the difference in size relative to the whole plane, each room is but a single activation key slot, and just like high power systems with heavy security, multiple systems have to be switched on in sequence, and certain parts, seperated, at the same time. For a given value of at the same time.
How many access points on the Dark side of the plane will need activating, and a similar number in the West, on the loop, so that when Dash returns to Ponyville, the Prism can be activated, triggering the convolution of Uringer, into Moebius?
And finally the full extent of the journey ahead reveals itself to us. Yay! You better preen those wings every day Dashie. You've got a long flight ahead of you.
I personally don't believe that Dash is going to have to fly all the way around to open up the Prism. Something special is going to happen, and it's going to be something that can happen in six books, unlike a journey all the way around the world.
We'll just have to find out. Only three years to go!
-Spirit (Yeast and Treacle)
P.S. Where's my SinrarxLuna shipping? I was looking forward to that!
heh, oh yeah, she wouldn't know about it.
5880940 Just to cement his place in
fanfictionliterature history, IC/Skirts is going to write Austraeoh 2: Round Trip Boogaloo, which will be another 4 million words, longer than any other book series, fanfic or otherwise. After grabbing theplot mcguffinPrism, I'm sorta hoping for them to meet up with Shining and Cadance coming from the other way, then have a couple of 'flashback' books where IC tells us all about the westwards journey5881584 Magic Elevator.