Author of The Conversion Bureau: Last Man Standing. Hoping to write more when time presents itself.
Equestria has merged with the Earth and the Conversion movement is still in its infancy. But when a tainted batch of ponification serum is caught in the New York City Bureau, ancient powers begin to stir and awaken. A war that has been waged for untold ages is reignited and threatens to consume the whole world.
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Oh man, I remember this! ME GUSTA
Oh this brings back some memories...
Not inb4 Krass, but as usual I am completely confused but it's got ponies in it so I shall read it and like it.
I remember this, Good to remember the potential of this one. Loved it and was a shame to see it inactive for so long. Hopefully by you uploading it here, you're working on continuing the story.
Just like everyone else, I remember this! Does posting the story here indicate that you intend to finish it?
Nice to see this story posted here, hope that means you intend to continue it.
To answer many people at once: Yes, I do intend on finishing it this time around. I'm pretty much writing it over again, but this time making the characters more interesting and more developed.
Woo!
'Chaser! You're doing it man! You're making this happen!
Well, it's new to me. You've certainly done a good job of instilling me with dread. I'm looking forward to seeing just what this additive does.
And please, no one spoil it for me. Okay?
Shit is going to hit the fan!!!
what's this?
a conversion bureau story that actually looks good!?!?
lets see here, HLF already active, possibility of dragons, good pacing, possibility of dragons, no spelling errors, possibility of dragons, doesn't immediately paint humanity as pure evil monsters, dragons, chatoyance isn't fucking up the comments with her batshit logic and insanity, dragons dragons dragons.
and oh yeah. MOTHERFUCKING DRAGONS!!!
this looks like it has great potential and they're aren't that many TCB stories that do. in fact i hate most of them. I'll wait impatiently to see were you go with this.
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"(…)doesn't immediately paint humanity as pure evil monsters(…)"
Hmm. I don't know about that. We see one presumably decent guy, or at least a family-oriented man with a good taste in music, get horrifically murdered in cold blood by three terrorist. Said terrorists proceed to contaminate a medical supply to kill-or-worse thousands more with the same implement of murder as before. I'm hard pressed to think of an entry in the genre that has a nastier introduction of the human species.
Really, I don't know where this complaint is coming from. Most of the major stuff has been pretty mild in the treatment of humanity. The source was goofily heavily handed, but the original attention was on the failures of human civilisation rather than the human creature. You mentioned Chatoyance: she tends to write with the conceit that human civilisation is flawed because the human animal isn't built for the role that it finds itself in, or at least built very well.
I guess both of these particular themes are misanthropic, going just by the definition. Misanthropy: a dislike or hatred of people or mankind. Everyone is a little misanthropic at times. We all collectively disappoint one another from time to time. Perversely, I think that's one of the things pushing attempts at progress, but I digress. Maybe we've been reading different fics than each other, but as a whole, the TCB writers tend to be a bit more gentle with their treatment of the human creature than, say, Jonathan Swift. Now, you want to see some Grade-A Misanthropy, as well as the very first original TCB fic, check out the fourth book of Gulliver's Travels; you can find it free online to read in a variety of formats, and it's well worth the time. There, humans aren't even allowed the grandeur of being monsters, goodness, no: instead they are portrayed in a satirical, degraded way that really plays around with the expectations and values to European society of Swift's time — it's still shocking and brutal to this day!
Of course, if you were willing to add that another problem with the TCB fics is that they've been pedantic, then this comment will do no good by you, either. Heh heh heh.
Of course, you have established that you're here for the dragonses irregardless, so perhaps everything has been properly sorted anyway?
772953 thank you for presenting that like you have all your mental capacities up and running, and not ranting about me being "deluded to the true nature of humanity because I'm a neckbeard firstworlder munching on corn doodles" like chatoyance does whenever she sees someone actually use logic to explain why she fails.*
and yes, i really don't like the way humanity is portrayed in 90% of all TCB fics. yes, i admit it, we can be brutal, we can be cold, and cruel, and savage. but we can also be kind, and caring, and noble. the human spirit has led to wonders and marvels like the pyramids, Gandhi, the plane, Neil Armstrong, the Renaissance, martin luther king, industry, and so much more. which makes me angry and hateful when i see fic after fic of the same thing. "oh humanity is so savage, lets ignore all the good they did and judge them to be unworthy of existance so were in the moral high ground when we convert them into ponies." cut it how you want, but it is technically genocide.
but yes, i am here for the dragons, and for the possibility that this turns out to be a crossover with 'dragon wars.' i wish more people knew what that was.
*if it seems like i insulted you in this, i am sorry.
772953 773063
My intention for the prologue was not to show what humanity is like right off the bat; it's simply a plot hook to get readers interested and wanting more. Yes, there are some despicable folks in the world, but there are many more decent people to outweigh them.
And as for the dragons: there will be many. I had grand plans for this story when I first started writing it, and I still do. Unfortunately, it does not have any influence from D-War.
773176 so we wont see an ancient army of Korean dragon worshipers fighting in the middle of new york while a fuckhuge snake god makes his way across equestria?
eh, this fic will still be awesome either way.
773227
I will promise you this: my story will be even more awesome than that.
A curious development indeed. Looking forward to more
Beautiful work from the wonderful Windchaser
Ah was wondering when we'd get a dragon TCB story.
773063
I think a lot of the discussion on the matter of the human creature misses an important point. One of the most important aspects of our evolution was the socializing. Not tool use, not the bipedal thing, but the social learning. We're naturally empathic with each other, and a lot of our thoughts are how the self fits with the others in the social group. That means a lot of the behaviours that we find so shocking, like murder, rape, war, and so on, are actually malformations, instinctual misfires, and such.
Take medical sociopathy, for instance: as much as evolution could have intentions (it really doesn't), it's not intentional. It's caused by specific mutations of the genes responsible for neurological development (they found some!), brain trauma (it's happened!), and even certain types of malnutrition (!!?!). Taught sociopathy is a different phenomena all together, and as usual, if you remove the creature from the operative environment, the conditioning goes ker-poof, for better or worse. The problem is that our civilization, as we know it, sometimes rewards psychopathy big time. A clever sociopath born into the right place will have a unique advantage: they can become unfathomably rich, and they are legitimized and empowered to make major decisions for all of us. Forget dragons and zombies: that's a real horror story right there, made all the worse by the fact that it has the gall to be true.
Of course, that's also rather historical, too. Most human rulers, or at least the ones that strive or select themselves for authority, have been absolute shits. Show me a king and I'll show you an inbred self-important monster with far too much money and power. I'll hide none of my scorn for that pack of celebrated warlords, slave-drivers and madmen. I doesn't matter when or where, either. I think that the ultimate human flaw isn't that some of us are bad, or that we do reprehensible things, it's that the good, the wise, and the decent always lose out to either their own worst traits or to a person who has nothing but worst traits. The sorry part is, most of us really are decent, but damn do we all just gather together and shrug helplessly as the most debased among us claims claims it all, including us, as our own — and we do nothing!
Personally, I don't think one should be conjuring up things that humanity has done as evidence of human glory. Take those pyramids for example: they showed an application of supreme organization, teamwork and ingenuity… as entirely subservient to the terrifying whims of superstitious stupidity and aristocratic narcissism. The invention of the aeroplane was a fantastic display of how an engineer could apply all the theoretical understandings of different physical laws and principals, and make a practical vehicle that can give a terrestrial creature access to the skies… much so the better that we can load onto them equally clever weapons, such that we can force those without such machines to submit without question.
Industry isn't so easily dismissed, because, like agriculture, it's sort of an apocalypse. Not THE end of the world of course, but the end of the world that came before it. There's no turning back from it: it redefines everything, and suddenly everything about civilization has to be renegotiated. I hope, earnestly and fervently, that we haven't outwitted ourselves, and that our future isn't one of total planetary destruction like the way a lot of TCB fics show it. Of course, that's the drama of those fictions: that's the what-if that they're proposing. It doesn't mean the authors assume (outside of the fiction) that it IS the future of humanity, just that it is one.
Since we keep bringing up Chat, she actually presents not the future, but a fun-house mirror of the world as it is, with future themes worked in. That's the way of classic golden age science fiction, and it's what makes her unique. I don't know why she gets under so many people's skins so much, although it's strangely fun to watch it happen. Personally, should I actually commit to posting any of my artwork and writing, I hope I light as many fires as she does. It's better than being ignored, entirely overlooked, or the WORST POSSIBLE THING, which is to cause nothing, to move no emotions, to be entirely trite and forgettable. Anyway, wow off-topic.
I'm actually pretty excited about the dragons, too. It's an amazing repercussion of the setting: there's only a thin little barrier between the greatest bogeyman, the greatest, deepest, nightmare in the heart of the human animal: dragon. And if one of them had a special fancy to, they could just pop over for a quick visit. Knowing that, I would wonder how many people could sleep so easily at night, knowing that They are out there, real, physical, and they might just be thinking, right then, about you.
776936 I think a lot of the discussion on the matter of the human creature misses an important point. One of the most important aspects of our evolution was the socializing. Not tool use, not the bipedal thing, but the social learning. We're naturally empathic with each other, and a lot of our thoughts are how the self fits with the others in the social group. That means a lot of the behaviours that we find so shocking, like murder, rape, war, and so on, are actually malformations, instinctual misfires, and such.
give this man a cigar. he just described human nature better than blaze, chatoyance, and 95% of all TCB writers ever could.
Of course, that's also rather historical, too. Most human rulers, or at least the ones that strive or select themselves for authority, have been absolute shits. Show me a king and I'll show you an inbred self-important monster with far too much money and power. I'll hide none of my scorn for that pack of celebrated warlords, slave-drivers and madmen. I doesn't matter when or where, either. I think that the ultimate human flaw isn't that some of us are bad, or that we do reprehensible things, it's that the good, the wise, and the decent always lose out to either their own worst traits or to a person who has nothing but worst traits. The sorry part is, most of us really are decent, but damn do we all just gather together and shrug helplessly as the most debased among us claims claims it all, including us, as our own — and we do nothing!
that's both true and untrue. we all know that there have been some tyrants and heathens sitting on thrones throughout history. but the good ones have made a bigger impact on the world than any tyrant can. Genghis khan for example, might have been a warlord. but he was a warlord with morals. he created the biggest empire in history and laid down the foundations for modern society by getting rid of aristocracy and trending pants. Constantine pretty much made Christianity a world wide religion and is thought to be the founder of the eastern roman empire. for every tyrant or psycho in charge, there's also someone who's a great ruler.
Take those pyramids for example: they showed an application of supreme organization, teamwork and ingenuity… as entirely subservient to the terrifying whims of superstitious stupidity and aristocratic narcissism. The invention of the aeroplane was a fantastic display of how an engineer could apply all the theoretical understandings of different physical laws and principals, and make a practical vehicle that can give a terrestrial creature access to the skies… much so the better that we can load onto them equally clever weapons, such that we can force those without such machines to submit without question
it doesn't change the fact that their a wonder of the ancient world. each one of the seven wonders was (and in the pyramids case, still is) a testament to human ingenuity and grace, and a monument to civilization. also superstitious stupidity? you really went there? and as for the aeroplane... well, ok yeah, but that wasn't the original intent.
I don't know why she gets under so many people's skins so much,
Edit: I'm changing this entire answer due to new information. The reason i now hate that creature from the black lagoon is because it wrote Operation candy ass. Any being that can write something like that and expect us to view the characters as heroic protagonists should have any and all ties to the human race severed out of shame that we could produce someone that deranged.
And i do hope you succeed with you quest to start fires.
I demand more.
i just realized there was a new chapter.
and oh was it glorious.
dragons > ponies.
778847
GENGHIS KHAN
“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”
…was a warlord with morals. I hope I never meet one without any, then.
Constantine. Saint Constantine. I take it that you follow the Christian, belief. I believe my comment regarding the pyramids and my round dismissal of superstition has cued you to my feelings of all such beliefs. If the Great and Beautiful Men, those holy clergy in the service of God had their way, I would be rather quite dead, and it would be public and brutal. Of course it would be deserved: I'm the very worst of criminals, an apostate. I suggest we both stay terse on the subject. I will add that the great and holy Roman Emperor Saint Constantine arranged for the state-sponsored executions of both his wife and eldest son. Both of their deaths were cruel and extremely unpleasant.
If these two were examples of good ones, then I wonder who the bad ones are!
But, anyway, this is all a bit of a diversion. Remember, one of the scary differences between humanity and the ponies is the frame shift: these little sapient horses are frighteningly well-behaved. Or at least that's the conceit, anyway. They just don't have any of those unfortunate glitches that the human genotype sometimes causes. Well, again, conceit. If the whole little horse thing is too much of a distraction, let's push it aside, and simplify matters. What if our understanding of the genome, animal social behaviour, and medicine advances to a point when we can produce a serum that removes all genetic problems with a patient, and even grants many permanent benefits? It will turn a violent and stupid psychopath, a person that actually just has several developmental, hormonal, and genetic deformations, into an person that's gifted with a strong conscience, who is well-behaved, and suddenly finds in himself the patience to read something other soda labels. He's quite happy he drank that stuff the doctors offered, even though the artificial grape taste was kind of nasty.
A woman that seemed normal also deliberately acquires this treatment, because then she won't need glasses. A week after taking it, she finds that maybe it wouldn't be funny to disparage an associate's reputation out of jealousy. She looks into the matter, and discovers she had a catalogued mutation that was making her extremely aggressive with those her body considered rivals. She would remember how she would have really nasty headaches sometimes, and realized that they were due to her repressing her buried instinct to attack or harass some of her friends, family members, and co-workers. This leads to an existential afternoon of wondering who she ever really was, and is now, but then realizes her body was attempting to rob her of her free will then in about the same way that it is now, but at least the life that she's now living closer resembles the one that she would have wanted before, and that she's more happy now, at least due to a lack of headaches. It was all thanks to an afternoon in the local alteration clinic.
It's not like the big stuff goes away. The planet's ecosystems are still threatened, nobody likes politics, and the Bears didn't make the Super Bowl again, but for some reason it all seems more tolerable. Crime rates start falling even faster than before, it seems like the streets are safer, and it's weird, but suddenly even big companies start acting a little more, would you say, decent, maybe?
That's basically the same as The Conversion Bureau. It isn't as dramatic, and there's no magic, but it's essentially the same. The problem with discussing any shortcomings of humanity is that you make it sound like monsters when comparing it to something better (by moral metrics). I can also see how the whole matter is extremely disturbing to somebody whose beliefs are anathemic to the idea of a being, or a state of being, that's naturally superior to a human in terms of behaviour. I can also see how that'd be compounded with the physical transformation as well, especially to that of a human-sized magic horse. Personally, I think the whole matter is quite entertaining, and it gives me a lot to think about. Also, the collective reactions have been really interesting, too. There was this one guy that was writing this fic about his self-insert protagonist who receives a mission from Discord to kill several TCB authors. In the comment section, a few of the said authors showed up, and did you know that Krass is a trained sniper? Very suddenly, the author decided that the work wasn't worth any more of his time and energy. Oh ho ho!
I'm going to go out on a limb here, which I don't usually do, so drumroll please: did the First-World bit happen specifically with you and Chatoyance? If it did, it left an impact, because you've brought it up a couple times now. I wouldn't let it bother you too much. There is a big disparity of world-views and feelings about life and the world between an average citizen of Somalia and the average citizen of Canada, yes. There's also a similar gap between two Canadians of two different dispositions and income brackets. There's even such a gap with a single individual from two different times in their life. A lot of people on here are pretty young, and sheltered from a lot of the scarier stuff out there, and I've seen more than one comment on human-related fics on here show the ignorance that comes from that. To be honest, I've had the gall to bring up the issue with a couple of people, myself, but only after those people claimed to have never encountered any unpleasant thing in their life. If you've never lost somebody to murder, found a mutilated dead body, if you've never been raped, if you've never been attacked, or gone hungry, if you've never ran from a very real threat to your life such as a group of people that are displeased with your ethnicity, then there's that damn gap between you and somebody that has gone through some of that. Remember, you don't actually know this woman, and she doesn't really know you. You're just engaging these spectres of each other, these shadows.
Once I saw an online tiff between two people. One of them spoke badly of his father. The second berated the first, telling him that he should love and honour his parents, because they did the best job raising him that they could. The first informed the second that his father trapped both he and his sister in a basement for three years, and subjected both of them to uncountable incidents of sexual abuse before they managed to permanently escape. The second didn't post a reaction to that, possibly because he suddenly agreed that the first's father was a dirtbag. I don't think too ill of the second guy: he had likely been encultured with alright parents and he's likely seen others complain about their parents when the complaints weren't warranted. It's hard to be truly anonymous online, because our expectations colour every interaction.
In any case, it's just a bunch of bizarre fanfiction written by a bunch of weirdos anyhow. If I were anybody, I wouldn't put too much stock in it.
*cough* Um, sorry, Windchaser, for getting all of uhhh that ↑↑↑↑↑ up there all over your otherwise perfectly respectable comments!
I'm really enjoying this thus far. Your depiction of the bureau was really evocative somehow. I like your handling of Spike, and I hope to see him get a central role if I get to see more of it.
It might behoove Twilight to see if she can't find a truth-telling spell. I think that the right application of magic would make interrogations a cinch. (Failing that, there's always the want-it-need-it spell. Works every time.
)
779413 yes, yes, i know. "the greatest thing in life' and all that. i said he had morals, i never said he was a nice person. although i never heard about the whole 'sentenced his family to death thing.'
and while i am a follower of the christian belief, my comment of 'did you really go there.' came from me being a very avid fan of ancient history and mythology. it utterly amazes me to see ancient civilizations and how they viewed the world. sure we've grown out of believing that volcanoes erupt because the fire gods were angry with (insert city, person, or action here) but it still fills me with child like wonder to learn it. so i was slightly offended when you called it superstitious stupidity.
and i wasn't the only person she used the whole 'first world' argument on (although to my knowledge i am the first person she used that argument on while using the word 'corn doodle' (which i still don't know what it is)) after reading her stories, im starting to think that the relationship between equestrians and mankind is less of a relationship between best friends and more like between man and ood.(any nuwho fan should know what I'm talking about.)
and really? someone actually wrote a fic like that?
words cannot describe how hard I'm laughing, but I'm wondering if it counts as a revengefic, or a hatefic? I've got to find it, it sounds hilariously bad. although i highly doubt crass is a trained sniper...
779760
I actually meant "superstitious stupidity" in the most affectionate way, given the circumstances. The culture present in the Egyptian valley at the time had some interesting beliefs about how the universe worked, and the ruling class found interesting ways to exploit those beliefs. Specifically, they convinced the masses that they were god-born. That play gets borrowed by a lot of people through history. God save the queen, mm?
I believe a corn doodle would be one of those puffed corn snacks, like Cheetoes. There was a cartoon somewhere that identified them that way. Corn, because it's made of corn, and doodle because they're these little squiggles? I don't like them much myself. That powder gets everywhere, and they always taste kind of stale.
I had to do some wild guessing, but here's the guy: http://www.fimfiction.net/index.php?view=category&search=greekdollmaker
All I've read from him is that last thing. It and his comments read like a cry for help, so I can't give any commentary on the rest of the stuff he's written.
Also, yes, Krass is a trained sniper. It doesn't mean he puts that down on forms next to the occupation field, though. That's how armed services train you: a combination of what you want, what they want, and what you've the aptitude for. A friend of mine from high school ended up with 100+ hours of detailed demolitions training. I wouldn't have trusted him with a firecracker in high school. Now, given an afternoon and the materials, he could likely level a bridge. Fantastic.
*carefully sidesteps debate on human nature*
In any case, this is certainly an intriguing twist. Definitely looking forward to more.
cant wait for the next chapter when is it?
I do hope you haven't abandoned this fic. i really like it.
Please tell me your continuing it. Pleeeeeeaaaasssseeee.
1033166
Oh I will continue doing this, but it's currently 2nd on my priority list after my NaPoWriMo story.
I know it's been forever since it's updated. But i just thought of something and now i cant believe noones commented on this yet.
"And i went in to a burning ring of fire."
"I went down, down, down and the flames got higher."
Also, UPDATE DAMMIT!!!!! some of us have social obligations to avoid ya know.
Please Continue this.