Meteors fall. There's a blaze of fire across the sky, a moment of impact and since everypony was lucky, nopony was hurt. It means there's a meteor embedded into the soil of the Acres and for just about everywhere else in Equestria, that zero-injuries landing would pretty much be the end of it.
But it's Ponyville. And for Applejack, the meteor was the easy part.
(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)
Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.
Chapters (1)
Author's semi-public note: Samey90 inspired the idea of having Cranky be the Meteor Mover. Hey, a traveling jack needs a paying job...
I like this.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=mlp+rarity+my+destiny+is+a+rock&&view=detail&mid=2B7B483BB7AB74301D672B7B483BB7AB74301D67&rvsmid=AB2635772A5B1A41F9B0AB2635772A5B1A41F9B0&FORM=VDQVAP
Why is this bad?
Maud
OK, got the reference David Gerald Cthorr
Open mind. Does that mean that your brain fell out of the hole in your head?
Said a man who studied yoga with zeal
"All bodily sensations are so unreal.
Yet, when I sit on a pin
And it punctures my skin,
I dislike what I fancy I feel"
"-- make that grounded for a moon."
I'm pretty sure Apple Bloom is already grounded until Celestia needs dentures.
And it wasn't even Nightmare Night.
I do like how Apple Bloom isn't the only member of this family who's convinced that older siblings are hopelessly stupid.
The meteor isn't giving off the color out of space, so I think they're safe.
Holy crap, Applejack actually kind of got through to Scootaloo.
Bureaucracy in action. Especially when guided by Rainbow Dash.
I honestly can't say I'm too surprised by the existence of the Interpreters. Revering celestial objects sends thoughts along bizarre but internally logical paths. Ones that want nothing to do with any inconvenient alicorns who don't fit in their cosmology. At least Twilight has a suitably stellar mark.
That's some exquisite irony there.
Denialism horrifies me on a visceral level. Not least because it seems so terribly familiar.
Ah. I rather hope this is the final straw for the surveyors putting up with those eccentricities.
The meteor's silence... is understandable. It's possible that an extraterrestrial rock operates on a different frequency band. Heck, there may just not be enough mass to return the signal, depending on how that works. Or maybe the voice of the earth comes from more than just accreted solid matter...
Suffice to say, that penultimate scene gives me a lot to think about.
I've been looking forward to this one since you first pitched the idea. It was most definitely worth the wait. Thank you for it.
so the servayers just wanted free food or am I missing something? (need a real answer, I ligit don’t know what took so long)
If I am not mistaken, your cover image is the Willamette Meteorite (native name Tomanowos), found near Portland, Oregon, though the actual impact site was Montana or Western Canada, and it was carried by glaciers to it's resting place, making it a very unique glacial erratic. An excellent choice, in my opinion. I wonder what Maud would have thought of it.
This was a very interesting story...not sure if I liked how it ended, but we would have had much different endings.
(Ending on request.)
Sometimes, you have to wonder just how much civilization and Ponykind runs on the simple fact that nobody is poking at the machinery too much. Skywise seems to revel in putting nitroglycerin in the machinery, just to hear the bang. And, I like how Applejack seems to get even more frustrated as everyone seems to make her little place of sanity go insane.
And, yes, David Gerrold is a bastard tease that either needs to publish new stuff or get another job-not beg online for money because he's nearly broke.
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I’ll bet that Applejack counted up every discarded core she found, and wrote up an invoice. The only question being, did she send it to the government department in charge of the surveyors, or the church?
I’m glad she finally got some time with the rock. And there’s a part of me that’s sorry she didn’t Get an answer back. Oh well...
Happy hundredth.
I don't suppose anyone would mind if this triggered astrophysicist strangled Skywise with his own intestines?
Always nice to see some astronomy in my pony. And it was certainly cathartic to see Applejack—or should I say, Lady Applejack Mallus of House Rosaceae—finally kick those nuisances off her land.
I can't say that I enjoy this portrayal of Scootaloo, however. It's getting to the point where I'm tempted to skim any Continuum story sections involving the Crusaders, her in particular. Some development, any development, would be greatly appreciated.
Oooh! Applejack POV! Soo nice!
Huh, no confrontation with Rainbow about the excessive size of the marked area...
And psychological study on Scootaloo was unexpected, but real cool!
Thanks to you for writing this story which inspired Cranky as Meteor Mover.
Also Griffin Psychology info on Denialists is cool too!
Story's end is nice! ... Open Questions if she takes it or not... And who else gets one...
Lol if it triggers a Mark.
Oh, hey! It's somepony reasonable!
Oh, that's unfortunate.
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Personally, I think that Equestria is a giant magitech computer thingy, and they're asking the planet to move itself around somehow.
Don't make Applejack angry. You won't like her when she's angry.
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It made a great cover job for someone formerly in Her Royal Highness's Secret Service.
9067196 I thought about that, but discarded it for (what seemed to me) being completely unfeasible.
Though having someone else say it does make me feel a tiny bit validated.
Happy 100th! You made it!
Now onto the next 100 ones!
A very nice story by the way. The bits with Cranky and Scootaloo at the end were interesting but the part with Big Mac were the funniest ones.
I'm glad we've travelled deep enough into Triptych for us to get some Continuum stories featuring earth pony magic.
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🎶 Facing death everyday is a tough job for any man
But his hours are flexible, and he's got a great dental plan!
There is no conceivable southern accent that would render "meteor" as "mah-teor". None.
>That con-mark threat
Beautiful. How have I not seen that used before?
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Mmmaybe the same accent that renders that renders the thingy with bric-a-brac hanging by strings/wires from a series of balanced rods as a "mo-byle"?
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Yep, in fact, every last one will result in this: Me-te-ah or some variation there of where the emphasis is on the last part.
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there is one staring snowflake (not snowflake shoe hare) that gives scoots some development, I forgot what it’s called though.
...awesome...
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I kinda figured it was something like a rogue planet and that Sun and Moon were ancient Unicorn (Alicorn?) devices designed to heat/light the planet and add an artificial tide/grav control so it doesn't suffer a full ecological collapse.
I can't help but feel a little bad for Scootaloo.
Is it possible for a pony to fall into their lack-of-mark?
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Of course it's not a southern accent.
Ponyville's not to the south.
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I believe the surveyors were covering for those ponies who were 'interpreting' the meteor; the religious ones measuring crater marks and squirrel tracks.
You really seem to love despising the Crusaders, don't you?
If things were as realistic as some people say of your 'verse, lottsa legal action would have been taken already. That is, if the crusaders were meant to be as terrible little shits as you portray them. Lawsuits, child protection, the works. But that'd put a definitive end to it, and not drag out this horrible awful pain you seem to keen on relishing in.
It's not realistic, it's dramatic, at least I think so.
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The fact that Big Mac and Applebloom don’t use the same pronunciation suggests that Applejack’s accent is as put on as Raritys.
I think it’s possessive. It’s not a mispronunciation of “meteor” but it is “My ‘teor.”
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Well, if the whole darn thing's actually a pile of thaumically responsive nanomachines...
When it comes to meteors, Equestria is inferior to our USA
- here, meteors belong to the landowner whose property they land on.
(I dunno if forcibly denying landowners access to their property and means of making a living is something Equestrian meteor surveyors actually do or something the cultists just made up, so I shan't hold that part against Equestria.
)
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Dude-slash-dudette, so long as you don't mind this-equally triggered engineer-trained space-lich necromancer from staking his soul out on the moon afterwards, I'll hand you the knife, help with the coiling[1], and I've got a shovel ready right here...
We went to the Lake District earlier this summer on holiday and one day, as we were walking along the prom, I saw group of folk posting up a big sign about how we've all been lied to and the Earth can't be round. After the initial shock that apparently we have them in the UK too, never before have I had to repress the urge to break Aotrs regulations on plausible deniability and set people on lightning in public before.
Denialists (and I'mma gonna appropriate that phrase for all such folk) are something that sparks my ire with alarming alacrity and intensity.
[1]Strangling people with their own intestines is actually more complictaed that you'd think.
I just don't like your Applejack, She's smaller minded than the canon Granny Smith, which says something. Scootaloo is not a criminal
I'd like to see her meet Alex Warlorn's Nightmare Mirror
but I did like the other stuff, the ponies investigating, Skywise, stuff like that
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Eh, it wasn't so terribly long ago that children could get away with all sorts of stuff. My co-worker and his brother set a dozen fires trying to burn down his elementary school. One of them mostly succeeded, and when they got caught at the new school it was a year of house arrest.
My friend from college made napalm in his garage, and used it. The stories of what my dad did as a kid made me wonder how the hell he lived to have children.
It's only quite recently that nannyism has brought questions and police and government agencies onto kids that run a lemonade stand or play outside without a parent indirect line of sight much less real problems.
That having been said Estee's presentation of the CMC paints them as a child gang destined for juvenile detention, honestly.
oh, NOW i see why moving the meteor is going to be hard for AJ!
also the parts about Deniers and Conspiracies made me think of...the Flat Earth Society!
yup. they really are that crazy.
oh yeah, Twilight should have told the griffon that HE does not exist!
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Inspirer's note: inspired by several old bureaucrats I never knew existed, but you always end up needing them to sign some papers for a reason nobody knows.
Also, I get a feeling that if a meteor landed on the Rock Farm, no one would ever know because it'd be picked apart on the same night (and possibly eaten). Hmm, now I wonder if eating a meteor without alerting the officials is a crime (I guess you have to pay an astronomical amount of money if someone finds out).
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You know what the really sad part is about flat-earthers? You can easily prove the Earth is round just by looking out the windows of a commercial airliner. I know, I've done it myself.
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Let me start selling fake knockoffs on your front lawn without permission and see how quickly you find it a crime.
That description Rainbow gave put me in mind of Metroid Prime first.
Oh, Roseluck, don't you know "they" already have the devices in those stories, and they're just keeping it hidden?
Hmm, so we can put this either before Unstable Sale, or, conversely, after an unwritten (as far as I can recall) reconciliation of some sort.
And I'm guessing that step beyond is to refer to Big Mac by his full title?
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the point is that's not something she would do
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there's also watching a ship go out of port. it'll slowly sink as it passes the horizon.
They'll just say "That's A mirage."
I've had that conversation.
Ouch, that line about Scootaloo being made for dragging through the dirt is the harshest line I've ever seen in an Estee fic. I know AJ really doesn't like her, but damn. I guess it feels harsher too since we don't know where this takes place in the timeline, so Scootaloo could be really young here.
But yeah. Great way to celebrate your hundredth story, man.
Forgot to mention that I loved the scene between Pinkie and Applejack at the end, those two have such a layered dynamic in your 'verse that's so rewarding to read.
I'm fascinated by the church cult. And come to think of it, that's something that's come up semi-often in your works. The deliberate skewing of known information to mislead weaker minds to better control them. Or the worse possibility, unguided insanity leading the group into flames and calling it salvation.
I was more than a little disappointed in that the rock wasn't channeling Pear Butter or Bright Macintosh; the conclusion to "Apple Family Reunion" strongly indicates that comets are the spirits of deceased ponies, after all.
The really interesting bit is the business with Pinkie Pie. Once again, what was done to her makes her life feel awkward to the pony living it.
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The cmc are basically criminals if you don't blow off everything they do as comedic. Scootaloo was comitting fraud right here! Estee does dump on them pretty hard, though.
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yes I am aware she was, I am saying it was bad writing to have her do that
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Flim. Flam.
Lying on Honesty's homestead for profit is a Bad Idea.
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nobody seems to be getting my point that Estee shouldn't have written her like that