30 years old closet brony from the center of Europe. Just happily doing my thing in my corner of the internet.
For thousands of years, the ponies of Equestria have successfuly relied on the guidance and wisdom of the princess of the sun. Twilight herself has spent most of her childhood with her mentor with an overwhelming influence over her life.
So when she meets with a stallion that tells her he believes that Celestia actually doesn't exist, she has some "difficulties" taking him seriously.
Then things get kinda complicated...
Page generated in 0.721 seconds
Total duration
696 users online
772,905 hits today, 2,728,293 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Wait.... Matt is an idiot. He admits that science can be influenced and interrupted by magic and then denies that Celestia exist cause she breaks too many laws...
Also denying facts you can see is the opposite of science.
The writing is okay, but the conflict is.... weird
6196418 it feels like a religious screed disguised as a story.
6196466 yep
Okay... that went sort of as expected.
6196466
I'm probably the first non believer to write religious propaganda then. I knew I was writing about a very complex and sensitive subject, but I was actually more afraid of being accused of "insulting religions" than "insulting atheism". In a way, it's almost a relief.
I tried to leave the interpretations as open as possible (in other words: stay as neutral as possible), so I either did a very bad job (which wouldn't be surprising considering how bad I am at writing) or maybe you decided to interpret it in that way and ignored the other possibilities for some reason.
Now some parts were indeed meant to feel like a religious experience (mostly everytime Celestia shows up), because those parts are Twilight "living" her religion. and I tried to portray it the best I could.
6196418
Thank you ^^.
6196418
I admit it is weird to have a character contradicting himself. But actually, the conflict isn't supposed to be whether that character is right or not (and in fact, I never say if he is right or not and never give any real argument). It's supposed to be about who between Luna and Twilight is right in the way they handle that weird character, one wanting to have reason and pragmatism to prevail and the other one wanting to have freedom and principles to prevail, and both being wrong and both being right in the end, Twilight's approach leading to social unrest and Luna's approach being, in my opinion, immoral.
6196418
In the sense that he is portrayed with a way of thinking that looks illogical, yes, he is an idiot. The question being, should his "idiocy" being considered a problem and "reason" be forced onto him, or should he be let free to be an idiot...
I don't have the answer. Or actually, yes, my answer is "it depends...".
6196418
I once met someone who told me that if his girlfriend were to cheat on him, he would leave her, because trust is the basis of a good couple. But then, that he was planning to cheat on her. When he finally recognized the contradiction, he just told me he didn't care and would live with it.
In the story, Matt and the academy of science were an allegory for religion, while "Celestia's cult and magic" was the the allegory for science, but with science still being science and religion still being religion. In other words, I just had fun mixing them together to the point where neither of them are either religion nor science.
***
Don't missunderstand me: I don't expect you to change your opinion on the story. I'm merely explaining why I have a different opinion. And also defending myself from promoting belief in god, it feels too ironic for me to live with.
This story had intrigued me for a while, no offense, but because of both the description and the ratio of votes.
So I read it, and, first things first; it kept me allured enough to make me want continue reading, just to see how it would end up. It was all so nondescript and the obvious question was never really answered. For keeping me interested and for me thinking that Twilight acted in character, you get a thumb up.
But then, it got kinda complicated...
I'm not really sure where to place this, but, it makes 'sense' reading your own description:
Placing Celestia as a magical construct, or lifeform, because of how it's defined that magic interrupts "traditional sciences", asks further questions: Does Celestia stand for not only the light, but also a personification of the magic of the world? If so, does Luna exist in the "real" world? Is she bound to it, i.e., that she represents the non-magical sciences, somehow.
I dunno.
What I know is that this fic was thought-provoking and interesting. I may not agree with how quickly the ponies rallied, then "un-rallied", but that was not the point of the story.
So, thumbs up from me. While it was different, I can't see why there's so many thumbs down. It wasn't badly written. The characters stayed true to their characters and it was Alternate Universe, after all.
Maybe you did stumble upon some "do not do this here"-thing.
Meh. I don't know.
6526237
I understand your curiosity. I'm personnally not ashamed by that story.
From the comments, I get that people thought I was promoting religion over science and got upset, which I completely understand (given the polemic in the US on the subject - a polemic that doesn't exist in my country, so it's fascinating for me).
But to be honest, I also get that the whole "burning" thing was too direct and needed a subbtler alternative. I just never found one. Also, the image of Celestia appearing from behind the flames was appealing, just for the fun of it.
I'm sorry, but not really. When Celestia disappears (no need for spoilers with this story
), magic doesn't cease to exist in my mind. The terms "non-magical sciences" is kinda weird for me. In our world, all sciences are non-magical (until we can prove the existence of magic through a repeatable experience, but something tells me it is never going ot happen). In a pony world, all sciences would have to be magical (because it's part of their world and it makes no sense trying to describe their world without integrating magic).
In the story, Celestia is simply a god that brings the light, and Luna is the priest that lives in the shadow of the god. Celestia represents a core concept that is put into question due to new evidence, and Luna represents the political and pragmatic, searching either to keep peace even at the cost of a possible lie, or to keep her own power intact by keeping a possible lie alive.
It doesn't make sense to me to oppose magic and non-magic, because science doesn't care if magic exists or not. Science is a process. If magic exists, then science will integrate magic as a variable and try to explain it and how it impacts the working of the world. We only see science as "non-magical" because magic doesn't exist in our world (as far as I know, but I'm pretty sure of it), so it's normal we oppose the two concepts. That's why I found interesting to explore the concept of science and religion in Equestria, because there, magic does exist.
In the end, the point of the story is not about who is right between religion and science, but how weird those two concepts are, how little we understand them and how badly we, as simple human beings, handle seeing our core believes proven untrue. Or more precisely, how I, as a simple human being, am very bad at handling seeing my core believes threatened or proven untrue.