This story is a sequel to Cataclysm
First Person Alternating Perspectives [Equisverse Era 1]
This story is a sequel to Cataclysm. It is not required you read Cataclysm before picking up Catalyst (Though it is recommended). This story is technically a crossover, but the nonFIM material is pretty much completely lacking lore. Aside from the physical setting all alien lore is of my creation and contained within the story.
The Dark God, Dawn, had been defeated. Helpless, he lay before his mother and the Alicorn Princesses, who granted him one chance to prove he deserved mercy despite his unfathomable and foolish cruelty. He used that one chance to trick Twilight Sparkle into banishing herself to another universe. The same universe the liar claimed to have banished Twilight’s parents to, long long ago.
With nothing but the fur on her skin to her name, Twilight must survive long enough to be rescued by her friends, whom she is absolutely certain will do everything in their power to get her home. With little else to do Twilight sets out to find safety, friends, and fate willing, the biological parents she only recently learned she has.
After all, every adopted child desires to meet their birth parents at some point in their lives. And well, if Starswirl and Clover are truly alive and well within this universe as Dawn claimed...
Featured on: Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at 5:47 AM UTC
And Again on: Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 9:23 AM UTC
And Yet Again on: Sunday, May 21, 2017 at 8:39 AM UTC
And Yet Again on: Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 7:55 AM UTC
This story takes place in the Beta Equisverse Timeline. No storyline beyond that of The Bridesmaids, Horseshoes, Dinner at Ravenloft, Nightmare: An Equestrian Tragedy, The Queen is Dead, All Hail the Queen, Lyra-7%, Exile’s Journey, and Cataclysm is canon to this timeline. However, foundational concepts such as thaumaturgic current from other works of mine do apply.
Welp, here we go again...
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Ohh Meep! Your spoiling us with the speed and quality of these!!!
Let Cromagna Twilight commence!
Why does the bureaucracy make some ironic sense. By the same sense they can't release TWilight alot of places would argue since she 'broke in' she should be sentenced as a criminal or immediately released since she isn't a criminal
So, Ark. Didn't expect that, even with you talking about it on you blogs. Is Twilight going to tame the unicorn?
By the way, I'm sorely disappointed with you not taking option one with her. Just because the what the apple'ry would be epic. Also, being like Tirek would certainly leave a mark. But it would be rather unique. And interesting.
Oh, and I just thought about something. Are her parents imprisoned there for a thousand years, because of corporate oversight and bureaucracy? That's NOT going to end well for that corporation, when equestria gets there. I don't think the princesses will take well for having family and friends effectively kidnapped for bureaucracy' sake. Not one bit.
8070747 I'm not sure how this will play out Celestia is probably far more familiar with the bureaucratic hell governments can create unintentionally The torture might be harder to accept after all they can die or be killed but are still brought back to finish non existent sentences
Oooo, I'm the PotW.
At least checklists still remain to be loved.
Ahhh, so we're doing ARK but with ponies, I suppose that isn't a surprise. Good thing Twilight fell in with Cam as opposed to being captured by Charlie.
8070591 I prefer to think of it as me getting to do what I love and tell silly stories that you can still take seriously and enjoy.
8070679 Exactly. That argument is going up against "IT"S OUR FIRST CONTACT, ASSHOLES!" so you have "rule of law and order" fighting it out with "dont piss off a species of actual wizards! DO YOU WANT A WAR AGAINST MAGIC SPACE WIZARDS!?" Because the government ahs no idea that ponies are not simply from a planet in their universe.
8070747
You need to go where your muse takes you, and because ARK has ABSOLUTELY NO CANNON LORE, my must has been there as of late. There's little else to ponder while manning a lookout tower for 4 RL hours... So I started to think up lore. ANd then I wanted to write a story. SO I am.
But I cant count this as a crossover, not really. All I am doing is using the basic idea of a setting. All the features of which are public domain...
Dont blame me, blame the dice. I randomly rolled the outcome.
It's less time on their end than Equestria's, but there will still be anger.
8070818 Yeah, Tia WILL understand how a compleatly unexpected situation can cause a compleate failure of operation. But just because you understand dosn't mean you approve... Sometimes to do the right thing, you must work around or over the law as written.
8070837 Yeah, kinda. There isn't much lore for ARK (there's litteraly just for names with very little characterization at all... And they are subjects who know nothing about the ARK itself). So it's more like "Ponies in Jurassic park full of survivors and scifi stuff."
I had to go where my muse went, which was filling in the gaping hole that is "What the hell is this palce?" while playing ARK. Don't worry! It will be a fun read like always :D
8070872 meeps, you can't leave such choice to dice! They'll take the less amusing route just too spite you!!!
You still didn't say anything about the unicorn. Twily should SO tame her! Yes, it will be a girl. I'm sure of it
Just thought about something, Twilight believes she died and this is a new life. She has no reason not to seek love or explore who she always was deep inside. Kinda curious about how will that go with the fight for survival part of it
And I still say you should have gone centaur
Uhhh.... She's a Princess of Equestria, she IS her nations government. Or, at least part of it. Can't she just authorize her own release? Then again, as far as he would know she could just be saying that......
8070887
You ma'am/sir, have never seen one of my random roll tables have you? There were 12 different options for the outcome of those three choices... I liked them all too much to choose myself. (A geneticist uses nanomachines to alter an alicorn, a creature that's half biology half magic, to fuze human DNA into her. What could possibly go wrong?)
That's because I didn't think of that untill now and am debating...
Chapter two will shed some light on this. Though to be fair, she's not certain if she died, but she's leaning towards the idea that she did. What she decided was that either way she needed to treat this like she did die for the sake of her sanity.
FiM pones do make adorable Taurs...
NSFW: Artful Nudity (topless)
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But the die spoke. And it had to speak because my friends didn't give me any real advice on where to go.
8070891 Yeah. Since she couldn't possibly verify that claim, it wouldn't count.
8070918 Yeah, kinda thought of that as I typed it out. Still surprises me that she didn't even try it.
8070923 To be fair, she's had one HELL of a day. Little things like that tend to slip the mind when you're not even sure if you just died and were reborn or not. Let alone you just left a warzone where you watched a loved one die...
8070933 That's true I suppose.... is her mind still all in a kerfuffle from Dawn screwing with her, or did moving dimensions fix it like when she went through the mirror?
8070936 With Dawn dead his curse ended. She's freeminded. It's just that her mind is at present a sea of stress and emotion soup. She'll be better in the morning after a night's sleep. (Which is totally safe. Red asked the local Troodon's to watch over her.)
Huh. ARK.
. . .
Nobody has horribly unrealistic and terrifying bodily proportions this is inaccurate -99999999/10.
It's called a salt marsh, and it taps for blue or black mana. Either that or a polluted delta.
Also, damn it. This story is going to make me want to play Ark
I suppose there are worse fates
8070944 +100 internets for the Magic joke
8070944 If you get a copy, you're welcome to pop onto my private server ^^ Zallycat's on there.
8070948
Yay Internets! I've been saving those up.
Wanted to go with just polluted delta, but sac lands don't translate well.
8070891 They have no way of knowing that one way or the other. It would be like me claiming to be the President of the United States in a country without contact to the rest of the world.
8070872 Well they do have the excuse the aliens are radiating toxic levels of radon.
8070944 we call it 'mangue'. No idea about the English name, though.
8070916
1- Twily would make for a totes adorbs centaur.
2- you need better friends, then
3- obviously NOTHING can go wrong, silly!!!
So does being forcibly changed hurt her specifically can her alicorness be restored.
8071014
I was making a Magic: The Gathering reference
I think the English word would be a mangrove or some sort of estuary.
8071095 oh, I knew about the joke, yours was only the last post about that. I do like my dual lands without pain, though.
8071081 They seem to believe so now whether or not that's true is another matter
Ah an Ark Survival cross over, I highly approve!
Anyone wanna start taking bets on how long Twilight is going to be here, how many of her friends get stuck in with her trying to rescue her, and that Star and Clover live in the house on the hill.
8072008 Hey, could I get in on that?
8071081 It can be restored, and it's not even gone realy :P Alicornhood is more magical than biological.
8072193 Ty for the explanation
Don't know why but this has been in my head since I read this chapter:
Twilight in ARK.
She's fucked.
8075126 It's cool though. After 10 or so deaths everyone starts to work out how to get ahoof on a case of not-die.
Huh. Twilight trapped in ARK. This is gonna be real entertaining.
8075163
I meant that being trapped in ARK is going to do terrible things to her mental health.
She's trapped in a hell of endless monsters of various kinds where even death is no escape.
After a few weeks she's going to be in a state where she will never be able to fully recover and adjust back to life at home. This is because she is NEVER truly safe.
8076827 I know, I was being nieve in jest :P
Twilight will change from this experiance, yes. But it wont all be negative. Cuz Friendship is Magic.
Before ya'll get all conspiracy theory-ing about Flash. This is what's basically happening...
Get it? He am her conscious telling her to Mare the Buck Up!
8077636 Spoil sport...
8077638 You know you love me.
8077655 Course I do
As long as imaginary Flash is being helpful what the heck.
MORE PLEASE
Pleeeease dont go jumping between characters like in cataclysm.
It sucks a lot of joy from reading a story.
What the frak is torpidity?
ing your buttocks, and they don't like lube.
Oh Twily, never, EVER challenge fate/destiny/the universe/Discord's boredom. They like
I wonder, is the zebra girl killing herself to get fur back?
Is Camo Red? He didn't seem to be one for not checking his translation with a native, to me.
This was nice
, we get enough world building so we know what's going on without being boring, the 'ARK tutorial' and we see Twi is going to have some friends soon.
Also Twi, you survived day 1, as a veteran survival game player, I will tell you right now, your bucked.
8077966
Here ya go...
8077935 First off, you must be new here, as all of her stories do this with clearly defined change points. Second, I find it hard to believe you have never seen this style of writing before, it's fairly common in first person perspective stories, especially ones that require multiple plot threads. She hasn't ruined anything with story, it's just not to your tastes, which is fine. Just don't go around saying something is ruined cause an established writing style of the author isn't what you like. Learn to live with it or quietly leave and find another story more suited to your needs.
8078428 I deserved that
So, changing islands is like changing servers? So they basically went for a new server to carve themselves a place to call their own before the other players get dibs?
8078459 It's exactly like that. You're spot on in your assessment.
8078428 8077935 The jumping between various groups is common in Meeps stories. Not sure why it felt especially jarring in Cataclysm maybe it was because we were going in 6-7 directions rather than the 2-3 that seems more common
8078601 Admittedly, the split of the 6 was pushing it. But in reality, Cataclysm consisted of only 3 main plot threads, the 6 and the elements, Dawn and the war, and Faust's investigation/intervention. All of which tied in together at the very end. Being the conclusion of Beta's first main story arc required all the main characters. Unfortunately, in order to sell the point of splitting the 6 being a terrible idea, it was necessary to split the 6, which required mostly encapsulated character chapters.
Do not fret though, Catalyst will only consist of 2 plot threads. Twi in the ARK, and the Rescue Team.
8077966 Torpidity was explained properly by Popmannn :P But I'll say here that in this context it's your ability to resist damage from the environment, poison, and concussive force's attempts to knock you unconscious. But not Troodons. They don't care what your Torpor stat is...
Technically yes. She's taking the "travel to other ARK option (There are multiple independent enclosed habitats). This involves the body she's using being destroyed and a new one made elsewhere. However, people inside the system don't really die, or even experience a consciousness interruption during this, or a typical death, so they have full continuity. This is due to their cybernetic systems, the organic parts no longer house their minds and souls, they were smoothly transferred into the nanite hive. As such, it's more like she's downloading herself into another meat bag which was grown using her recovered DNA than the classic 'teleporting kills you!' Delima. Even though the current organic part of her body will be destroyed, not moved (Which again, doesn't matter, because she can be transmitted.)
Camo, and all of Nyota's friends, speak Zebrican. She taught them how, and they use it with each other to prevent their plans from being intercepted. The note Red wrote was in Equish, and Red is less fluent in Equish than he believes.