Twilight is Best Pony6,371 stories ·3,071 members
Humans Aren't Bastards211 stories ·4,066 members
Isaac Asimov in MLP19 stories ·36 members
Stories on Goodreads28,599 stories ·492 members
End of The World52 stories ·64 members
Short story inspired from an amazing picture by Harwick.
Long years have passed, and Twilight Sparkle has outlived most of her close friends. As Twilight's time in Equestria draws to a close, Princess Celestia teaches her student a final lesson filled with cosmic revelations. (And yes, it does actually have a happy ending.)
Page generated in 0.181 seconds
Total duration
1,129 users online
2,075,174 hits today, 2,054,621 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.®
Oh not this picture. It makes me soooo sad. Now I have to read it.
This was nice. Great job.
Aww, it was a sweet story.
wow that was pretty awesome
You made me dreaming about the perfect future. Where we can become the gods and create many wonderful things. Whole concept of this story is very original and keeps me hoping that we can overcome our chaotic nature to ascend into space.Wait a moment, I have something in my eye...
Chalk that up to another great story that was inspired by just a picture. Good job
DAWWW
Really nice story. Was pleasure to read it. Good that you made it short, imaginative and despite its sad it's happy end does not live this gasping hole in hart like some other sad stories. Although i wouldn't give it a tragedy tag. 5/5 in my book.
Beautiful, that's all that can be said.
34682
I was unsure about the tragedy tag, but figured it had enough deaths, near-deaths, reversals of fortune and catharsis to qualify. Besides, how often do we really get to use that tag?
wow just WOW that was amazing and very creative I especially loved the ending. It was brilliant.
That was really nice. I wasn't expecting it to have such a huge twist, but I loved it.
That was...different. I had a story myself going in my mind about this sort of subject, but not with this result - mine was far more mundane and clichéd. You've demonstrated creativity in dealing with a generally morbid theme, and pulled it off to great effect. Good show.
Even though right now we are living in some bad times some worse than others, stories like this give me hope that there will always be a brighter future.
best ending ever. my existential crisis and fears for the end of the universe were quelled with such a great sweet ending.
Loved it. Absolutely loved it. Words can't describe how beautiful I found this story to be.
Thank you for writing it.
Thanks for all the positive comments! I really appreciate them, because I was nervous about posting my first little story. I'll work on some others.
wow
Beautiful story, I cried at first, but I was so happy in the end :3
I liked it until the part after Twilight's death, then... WTF.
I did not expect the twist about halfway through. Regardless of the fact that it's a short story that's beautifully crafted I thoroughly enjoyed it. While the premise was simple(trying not to spoil it here) you took it and wrote a great story.
Well done sir, you just got some stars.
So- Equestria is like the Matrix... That's deep... The ending was great. I won't bother with a full length review; since it was a short story. It was great anyhow. Good job.
If you would like a full review, let me know.
Holy crap, that's awesome!
It's not what I expected, but I loved it nevertheless!
At first I was like
But then I was all
And finally I was
dude this is amazing! not only did you get to tell an interestering, albiet slightly macabre due to death story. but you also managed to pull off a happy (non-elements-of-harmony-deus-ex-machina) live forever ending. And while it kinda weirded me out to see the most important ponies in the show (well in terms of pososition of power) ready to commit suicide more or less, and moreso when they become students of their old student. Oh well, still good.
Did you get inspiration from something when writing this story? I found it simply wonderful the way you made death to be not an end. It was also wonderfully descriptive enough to let my imagination run wild.
126219
Inspiration? A lot of it came from my experience with virtual worlds like text-based MUCKs and Second Life. I'm into some SL discussion groups where we regularly talk about future technology, and I thought that sort of virtual environment would be a perfect proving ground for AIs before turning them loose in the real world.
As for terraforming planets... I once was a participant in creating a MUCK. Seen from outside it was a tiny thing, a text-based system that never had more than about 50 players logged in at one time, but to me and my friends we were building a world. We took it quite seriously, and we also had a blast, and we also went through drama that would put the whole pantheon of Greek gods to shame.
Oh, and incidentally, if you've ever felt like it was far-fetched for Nightmare Moon to go nuts and try to take over Equestria, then let me tell you: It happens. There's something about that type of situation that just seems to inspire hubristic lunacy in otherwise intelligent people. Such stories are so common in MUCK administration that it's practically a rite of passage each world has to go through at some point.
....um....
Doesn't work for me. Ponies as AIs? An afterlife loaded up into robots? The concept careens back and forth too much through old sci-fi tropes. As to the writing, you start out strong with Misty's POV then it sort of falls apart into a handful of rushed ideas.
128499
Do you think it could have been expanded and better realized? Or is the whole concept broken?
I was deliberately trying to keep this story short, because all too often my ideas spiral out of control and just keep growing and growing into something completely unmanageable.
>>RealityCheck
some of the better short fictions were written just like this one. writers such as Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert E. Howard, and many many many more would take an idea so fantastic so utterly unbelievable.. and craft a story with it.
shouldn't judge a book by it's cover until you've read it's pages and even after you've read it's pages.. give it time to roll about on your palate a while. even some of the short fictions written by the greats were glossed over in the beginning, until someone gave that one second look.
Wow, that was... wonderful! It started out very strong with its beautiful writing, and then the twist hit, and all my expectations completely flipped. I'm not sure how, but you pulled it off. Great job!
Who the hell is cutting onions again?
Wow. This was good!
I loved the ending, I actually managed not to cry. 
It was more heartwarming and awesome than sad. 
Exquisitely conceived and executed. Warm fuzzies all around.
Cool post singularity story. It's kind of weird they ended up in humanoid machine bodies at the end, but, what the hay. Nicely done.
316439
Humanoid machine bodies.... I actually thought was weird and sort of implausible too, but it had the advantage of conveying the larger concept without requiring more explanation. Sometimes you have to cut those corners in a short piece like this.
I am so glad I read this.
I love it.
Yup, I can see what you mean about the similarities between my story and this. I'd say you have the more interesting idea here! Isn't it amazing what the creative mind can do, just seeing one picture and then turning that into a story that's so wildly different--and yet not so different!--from the source material? Good work, here. :D
Interesting . . . 3/5 stars.
.... Interesting premise, wonderful ending, very, VERY emotional start that had me sobbing within moments.
That said, I don't like humans having anything to do with equestria. I just plain don't. The concept was original and the reprocussions staggering to think about... But
(and there is always a but)
It just didn't fit right to me, and while I'm glad to have read it and expanded my horizons by stepping out of my comfort zone, I would not read it again. It is for that reason I am downvoting. Not for any flaw in the writing or the story but simply because it doesn't 'feel' right to me, however I do hope many others find enjoyment from this story.
I remember seeing that pic on deviantART months ago, and it comes way too damn close to making me tear-up every time I look at it.
This story isn't gonna make me baww, is it?
Well-written, but too short. This could easily have been expanded to a multi-chapter fic of at least 10k words.
I'm a bit sketchy on what exactly happened here.
So, Equestria is actually just a computer simulation in which the humans place AI programs to test them on qualities like the Elements. Each pony in Equestria is one of those AI programs. If they pass the Elements tests, then they are given actual bodies (robot, android, etc.) when their part in the simulation ends, and they oversee another simulated world populated by more AI programs. Am I right? 
One thing I don't understand is, if Luna and Celestia aren't AI programs being tested, then what are they? Celestia mentions being "hopelessly obsolete." Were she and Luna just AI programs designed to keep the other programs in-line while the simulation was running? Were they planned to be deactivated once the simulation was over? The ending makes me think that Twilight give them mechanical bodies (similar to hers), and they went on to oversee other simulations with the rest of the Mane 6. One last thing, where are the humans in all of this? Did the humans go extinct and the progeny of their AI technology survived?
238205 "... writers such as Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert E. Howard..."
The last of whom we lost just earlier this month.
786682
For someone who is "a bit sketchy", you seem to have summed things up well. The one thing I have to correct is: the graduates from the simulation didn't become rulers of other simulated virtual worlds. They became terraformers who work with actual, physical planets, creating life and eventually civilizations on them.
I think you've got Luna and Celestia figured out. As for where are the humans in all of this? They may or may not still be around. You may feel free to speculate.
As for the length of the story, this was actually my first fanfic ever. I deliberately tried to keep it short because my stories sometimes have a way of growing and growing and rambling on and eventually abandoned with no hope of an actual ending. So, I didn't want that to happen here. I wanted to finish something.
787060
"They became terraformers who work with actual, physical planets, creating life and eventually civilizations on them."
Wait, so Equestria was on a real planet, not just a simulation? If that's the case, then how were AI programs able to exist in corporeal form as ponies, then be transferred to machines after the living body died?
"I think you've got Luna and Celestia figured out."
This kind of goes with the part above. Were Luna and Celestia actual ponies with AI programs somehow running within the bodies?
787357
Erg, no!
Equestria is the virtual world, and Celestia and Luna are AIs. When the pony AIs in Equestria die (i.e. graduate) they are transferred to robotic bodies in the real (physical) world and go to create life and civilizations on real (physical) planets.
Thus, Equestria is a training simulation. It's like pilots who train on simulators before getting into the cockpit of a real plane. The pony AIs are learning to how to work together and make a (relatively) simple virtual world function before moving on to shape real ones.
I really didn't think it was this confusing.
787589
Your explanation is what confused me. 
A'ight, we're straight. 
Aahhh, that's how I understood it after I read it.
i need more in this universe you have created. loved it.
/5 yays
I like how the slightly formulaic opening made The Twist come as a surprise to the reader the way it came as a surprise to Twilight. The reader is expecting just another "when they get old" fic, and then we get the Matrix twist instead... but even THAT is taken in a new direction.
One minor thing: I would have liked to see little Misty get a cameo in the "real world," showing that she graduated... as it was, I felt sorry for her, being an irrelevant NPC left behind, and as a bonus, it'd tie her opening POV into the thematics better (as opposed to just the genre-shift red herring that it was).
Well that's one for the favourites list.
The ending put me in mind of the narniad just a teeny tiny little bit. Not because of any particular detail, just in some sense of the tone... I can't explain it. So I don't bother.
This was wonderful.