"Where are the explosives, Pinkie?" Gleaming Shield wasn't gleaming so much anymore, but she was cleaner than Gilda was, and didn't look half as tired as Gilda felt. They'd just got back from searching the catacombs under the Cathedral of Labour for what felt like the fourth time, but was probably only the second.
A better name than 'catacombs' would have been 'sewers', in Gilda's opinion.
"Twilight! Oh, It's so good to see you! Alive! There were so many ways that- well, none of that happened, obviously. Look at you! Breathing! And not zombified at all!"
"Pinkie! The missing explosives! What did you do with them?"
"You kind of stink, though. Aren't the prisoners the ones that should be all filthy and stinky and angry? What's the point of building dungeons if you're going to clean them? The prisoners end up all neat and tidy, and the guards are the ones who look like they're rolling around in the filth!"
"You have to know we just got out of the tunnels under the cathedral! We can't find them, Pinkie! Where'd you put them? We have the detonator, they're not going to go off now!"
"Oh, that doesn't sound right. Which detonator did you find? Who gave theirs up? I'm thinking Uncle Sandstone. He never did approve of our insurance policy. Did he get a pass for giving up the backup detonator?"
The captain closed her eyes with at least half as much disgust as Gilda was feeling right then. "Gilda! Go have them search Sergeant-Major Sandstone Pie's quarters and person. Again."
"Oh, Oopsie. Tell Uncle Sandy I'm sorry I gave him up!"
"Oh, hello, Gilda. Nice to see you. You're cleaner this time." Colonel Pie wasn't nearly as cheerful this time, but then, Captain Shield wasn't there for her to act up in front of. The bruising and the bandage-wrapped immobilizer on her left foreleg might have had something to do with her lack of energy, though.
"We found the rest of the detonators. And the entire battalion is in the stockade. All eight hundred and thirty-seven."
"Thirty-seven? There should be eight hundred and forty-three. Did somepony get hurt?"
"You know very well that Lieutenant Maud Pie and her team are missing. Where is Lieutenant Pie, Colonel Pie?" the bat-hen demanded.
There are too many Pies in this mess, Gilda fumed to herself.
"Oh, impossible to say now that she's had time to run. Could be under half the city by now. Or tunneling halfway to Bridlederry, for all I know. I told her to dig so deep that even I couldn't find her."
"She's digging? How far could she have gotten in three days? She can't be going outside of the city, the detonators won't work if she takes one that far away."
"I thought you said you had all the detonators?"
"If Maud Pie has one, clearly we don't have all the detonators."
"Where is Twilight Sparkle, anyways? Why is her bat-hen interrogating me? By your lonesome?"
"The captain is busy with your co-conspirators. Cheese Sandwich insists he didn't know anything about the bombs. I almost believe him. The spooks don't, though."
"Oh, yeah, the spooks." Pinkie Pie waved her bandaged foreleg. "Flagg Staff sends his regards."
"I didn't figure you did that to yourself. Charming paranoid, isn't he?"
"He doesn't fall for the changeling distraction anymore. I gather that's your fault, Gilda de Griffonstone."
"That maniac isn't my responsibility. Nor is whatever he did to you."
"He stopped quickly enough when I pointed out that the bombs might not have anything at all to do with the council job. They might even be insurance against ponies doing things like shoving hot nails into my frogs."
Gilda winced. "Sorry about that."
"Like you said, he's not your lunatic. Whose lunatic is he, is the question you silly ponies ought to be asking. I'm pretty sure he isn't mine," she sighed, looking at her bandaged hoof.
"About the bombs…" Gilda tried, hoping to get the discussion back on track.
"It's been three days, has it? Hard to tell in here. They're doing a good job, delivering the food at weird times. I've totally lost track of the time."
Gilda grimaced, realizing too late she'd given the pink menace exactly what she wanted.
"Three days… has the coronation happened yet?" asked said menace.
"We couldn't find the bombs, they had to move the ceremony to Government House. We can't use the cathedral until we find the explosives."
"Didn't keep you from using it for the abdication, did it? Nice job on that, by the way. Surprised the roadapples out of me."
"I don't believe that for a second. You had that plotted out to the minute. You laid the rails, we just ran the engine over the tracks."
"Is that what you think I was doing? Luring you into doing my bidding? Am I that clever?"
"I think you're exactly that clever. I just don't know how you did it. Nogriffon could possibly keep that many factors in their head. Nogriffon could possibly predict how so many different people would jump, minute to minute, second to second. We came damn close to everything ending in fire, Colonel Pie."
"Hrm. Then maybe it's a good thing I had an insurance policy, isn't it?"
"What I don't understand is why?"
"Why what? Why the revival of the national council? We couldn't end the war short of extermination without it, Corporal."
"Why did you stack the council with scoundrels? Why endanger the whole project by filling the gallery with crooks, criminals, and pocket warlords? We thought for sure that you were going to let the rebels into the city and engineer another Crab-Bucket."
"What? That's silly! Why would I repeat myself? Nopony likes a one-trick pony! No, it couldn't be the rebels. Again. They'd know better than to dance to my tune again, those that survived. And those that survived have mostly fled the city. The war's out there in the districts now, you know. Almost no rebels worth the name left in town. I made sure of that, you betcha.
"No, no more letting the rebels take the blame. I figured that if the city was going to self-destruct, I might as well bring the destructive elements inside the council itself. Keep the bloodshed contained, you know?
"And they might have surprised you, Corporal. Your scoundrels. Bad ponies have hearts, too. They get lonely, they want to be loved.
"Why did I choose the bad ponies? Because they're villains, Corporal. The good ponies have people who love them, they have hopes, dreams, expectations, priorities. Family mares have their family to think of; businessponies have their customers and their suppliers; landowners their tenants and their debts. Only bad ponies have room in their hearts for everypony, because they know deep down, nopony else will be there for them when the troubles come a-flocking. Patriotism is the last refuge of bad ponies, because they have nopony else. It concentrates the mind wonderfully, having no other choices. Of course I chose villains! They make the very best patriots!"
"But you threw them in with unionists, and nogriff else!" Gilda yelled. "We thought for sure you were just collecting griffons who you wouldn't miss. It looked exactly like you were planning another massacre!"
"Well, Corporal, what you see is your own problem. I like my pirates to dress like pirates. I don't trust villains that walk around dressed like bankers and good ponies. It makes my back itch." Pinkie suddenly spasmed, scratching her back like the maniac that she was.
"Are you quite alright, Colonel Pie?" Gilda asked, half-mocking, half-solicitously.
"No, I'm not. Three days… three days. So they're crowning the pink one today?"
Gilda raised an eyebrow at this characterization.
"Oh, you know what I mean. The little princess. I didn't really see that coming, you know. Despite what you seem to think, I don't see everything. The princesses are - it's like, they cast long, weird shadows? You can see some of the ripples, but you never see the stone. Look, Corporal."
The pink earth pony lunged, sending her chains rattling, her blue eyes bulging out of their sockets at a startled Gilda.
"Where is Marble? Where is my sister? I need my little sister! Right now! Give her to me!"
"Y-you're in no position to demand anything, Colonel Pie. Sergeant Marble Pie is in good talons. She's safe. How many of your relatives did you bring into the service with you? Is there anyone left at home?"
"We're earth ponies, our farms damn near run themselves. I'm not worried about Marble, she can take care of herself. I care about me! I need my sister! Right now!"
"Why is that, Colonel Pie? Does it have something to do with those drugs we found in her bags?"
"The drugs are just tools, they can be replaced by willpower. But Marble's the one who knows how to- oh, no." As quickly as Pinkie had scuttled forward, she retreated to the back of the cell, staring at something over Gilda's shoulder.
Gilda craned her neck, looking to see what the madpony had seen, if anything. The only thing she could see was a spider working on its web in the corner above the jail cell door.
"What is it, that spider? It's a common house-pest. Harmless."
"Where did you get that nonsense? Spiders aren't pests, they keep down the pests. I love spiders! No, no, if you have some more spiders, I'll give them good homes, I swear. Just bring me Marble. I don't want to be alone when they come! Oh, please hurry. Please, please please -"
And then Pinkamena Diane Pie, lieutenant colonel of the Rock Valley Pioneers, brevet colonel in the volunteer service, bureau chief J-13 Special Party Planning, stopped talking and started screaming like a terrified filly.
"I'm telling you, captain ma'am, she just collapsed and started screaming and sobbing. I couldn't get anything out of her. The guards say she hasn't touched her food since yesterday." Gilda was standing beside the military police jail's east-wing guard-post, two pony MPs staring wide-eyed at her and her unicorn captain as they waited for the officer of the day to bring the cell-keys.
"Sergeant Pie refuses to say why she had to deal with her sister personally," Gleaming Shield observed mildly.
"Can she actually say anything?" Gilda asked, dubious. She'd met Sergeant Marble Pie, and never heard her say a syllable.
"Despite what you think, Gilda, Marble Pie isn't a mute. Yes, we did get a few words out of her. Some indication of dosage, when I told her we were going to drug Pinkie with her help or without it. But she claims she has to be here, and won't say why." The officer of the day arrived, and led them down the corridor towards the imprisoned party pony's cell.
When they arrived at that cell, Gilda noted the splat of green ooze dried dripping opposite of the cell door. She sniffed at the mess as the MPs unlocked the cell door, and wrinkled her nostrils. Peat mush. I'd have thrown it at my guards, too.
Pinkie Pie was sitting in the center of the cell, her head bowed. Her mane was flat and greasy, hiding her eyes, but not her flattened, pursed lips. The cell was well-lit, but it seemed like the earth pony was draining all of the color and light towards herself. Not like that other pink pony, not as if she was drawing it into her, but as if there was something… some aura which was making the light… fade.
"We have a new duchess," the mare said, her eyes still hidden behind the darkness of her mane. "It was a great success."
"Y-yes," Gleaming Shield said. "The guards told you?"
"In a manner of speaking. I could smell it on them. A party. A successful one. Was there singing?"
"No, no there wasn't. I was disappointed. I wanted to see heartsong for myself. Gilda here got to hear two heartsongs in as many hours, the first I've been able to confirm since… I don't know. They say that they used to sing at the Grand Galloping Gala every year, like clockwork. I've never seen it."
"Heartsong is overrated. It wakes things up. Things you don't necessarily want to meet in a dark night of the soul. Or was that dark alleys? They're kind of similar when you're lost in them, Twilight."
"You know I don't like to be called that."
"And yet I can't be bothered to care. Most of me knows you by the old name, you know. It baffles them when I talk about Gleaming Shield. Except the ones that aren't Pinkie Pie, and the Bubble Berries get really, really confused when I use that name."
The earth pony paused for a second, and then looked up through the curtain of her lank mane at the unicorn. "You're not supposed to be Gleaming Shield. It breaks everything that you are."
"I'm sorry you don't approve, Pinkie. You've been scaring your guards."
"Good. They should be frightened. This is a horrible world. I should be one of the hanging Pinkies. It's an abomination that I'm me."
She turned at something Gilda couldn't see or hear, staring at one of the walls, then suddenly-
"SHUT UP ALL OF YOU! You don't get a SAY! You're all dead! Just hang there, and stop whispering! Yeah, that's right! I'm the one that says anything! You can just all shut up and let me talk to Gleaming Shield here! No, not that one, he's as dead as all of you! No, I'm not getting my genders mixed up again!" Pinkie's mane had blown back with the first scream, and her eyes were burning like Hotspur's under Cadance's influence.
"You gonna be quiet? I'm talking to my Twilight now! Right? Right. I'm sorry, Twilight," she said, calmly, turning back to Gilda and Gleaming Shield.
"The tree comes, and they come with it. And they just hang there, and they gossip. Like grannies! Dead, grimacing, rotting grannies! About everything! And they won't shut up until Marble sings them to sleep. I need my sister. Bring me my Marble." Colonel Pie bowed her head again, and hid those eyes full of Hades behind their curtain of lank, pink mane once more.
"They say we might be free and clear, by the way," the earth pony continued. "We're not going to see any new outbreaks. Not in the Isles, anyways. Who'd have thought that a mind-controlling abomination like Mi Dolente Cadenza would be the missing puzzle-piece? Also, there will be gonne smugglers on the west shore in a day and a half. Evening tide, this little port hamlet named Gould's Jetty. Get there ahead of time with the Princess's Own, and you can roll up the entire operation. Don't get there in time, and things get weird again. Not bad weird, though, I don't think." Pinkie turned her head, like she was considering something.
"Are they still going to be the Princess's Own, now that Celestia isn't the Duchess? I never understood how that worked. She interacted with the griffons as the Duchess for so long, how did the Rangers end up being the Princess's instead?"
"Cadance is still a Princess of Equestria, Celestia will probably transfer her colonelcy to Cadance," Gilda opined, staring at the terrifying pink conundrum slumping in the middle of the cell. "The Rangers are an EUP unit, not in the local military structure except by extension."
"Yes, Corporal, I know how these things work. But it's a new start, isn't it? When the time comes to transfer rights, that's the time to make things… right. To fix the things which are wrong. Can you ask her to come here and fix me?"
"Who, Cadance?" Gleaming Shield said, with a pitying look. "We couldn't possibly risk her safety by exposing her to you. She's fragile enough as it is."
"She's stronger than she looks," Pinkie said, her eyes hidden. "But I can see how you'd not want both of us in the same room. Celestia's right about her, you know. This world is Cadance's fault. No, you shut up, you just bucking hang there and keep your opinions to yourself, Pinkie!"
The mare took a shuddering breath, and continued. "It is her fault. If she'd controlled herself and saved the witch like she was supposed to, none of this would have happened. Look at you all! You were all happy, weren't you? You smug, horrible ponies! Damn you all for not being real! Damn her for not making any of you real.
"DO YOU THINK I WANTED TO BE THE ONE WHO GOT TO BE REAL?"
Pinkie Pie collapsed into a pink puddle, and started adding to the puddle with high-velocity streams of tears. Gleaming Shield broke free of Gilda's grasp, and rushed to her fellow-Academy graduate, gathering her up in a hug.
Gilda looked at her captain comforting the madpony who had nearly killed them all, and watched vigilantly for any twitch which might be Pinkie's mood turning murderous.
"I ju-just want my Marble. I'll be good, I'll be good. I've tried so hard to be good, but that damn princess messed things up so badly, and I see every last bit of it! Everything that we could have been, and will never be. This war made it all so much worse, you see. Can't you see?"
"No, Pinkie," Gleaming Shield said. "We don't see the world like you do. We can't see."
"And- and- that's a good thing. You'd be crazier than I am if you could see what I see. I - I - oh, that little bird. That little kitty. I did that to her! I did. It was my fault. She was my fault. Oh, she'd have been dead if I hadn't, but I scared her so badly… The blood gets everywhere, you know. Sometimes I can see the real blood, and sometimes, it's only the blood that might have been… The cathedral was the crux, you know? It was the point where everything turned, one way or the - well, a hundred others. But more good ways than bad! I think? I thought. So I put all of our bad eggs in that basket, and built it as strong as I could.
"I built it like an ark. An ark to carry us across that nasty little stream. Did it go well? It felt like it went good. I didn't see anypony die that day, not for real. So many ways for it to go wrong, so many ways for it to go really, really wrong.
"Of course I built an insurance policy into the ark. Into the buttresses. They're in the buttresses. The bombs are in the walls, and because there are no walls in that silly mass of stone and glass, I had to put them in the buttresses. Don't blame the Pioneers, they were following orders. And I had different ponies build the bombs than the ones who put the packages into the hollows.
"Maud will know how to defuse them. I'll tell you how to signal her, and she'll come out of whichever hole she dug for her team. Just give me Marble. I can't sleep like this.
"Please."
Sergeant Marble Pie sang sweetly, like a chorus of angels. It was exactly what Gilda had imagined when she’d listened to Grandpa Gruff’s stories of the ponies of Equestria and their songs. She sat slouched outside of the cell and listened to the mare sing old Harmonist spirituals for her disturbed sister.
Gilda sat and waited for the knock, waited until they had finished.
It was a long time coming.
This chapter gives me chills. I love the version of Pinkie conjured up here.
This one was scary.
...oh. I can see where Pinkie is coming from, then. Plans within plans, and all that. Poor girl. God help her.
9423390
I guess her connection with the other Pinkies from the alternative timelines is both a blessing and a curse.
...
No words...
This is the dark timeline.
You mister know how to write a mad mare. So we are in one of the alternate timeline created by Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie somehow, broke more than the usual fourth wall and is connected to more Pinkie Pie.
Chilling but I sooooooo hope this is not the last we see of her. If they believe her, or more like manage to convince them, her well of information and tactical mind could still be usefull. Her knowing information she shouldn't, like Cadence and the witch could be the key in convincing at least the pony in charge. That could be the begining to know what exactly is going on. Maybe Maude will be more informative about this.
But man, the whole Pie clan was on it...
Pinkie here.. has dove through the waters of lethe and found aletheia in its waters.
How much is actually left, is very much in debate. But interesting despite this, she does have potential here if she is submerged in the wake of cadence. To be blinded, and let be fixed, as she in turn can anchor as the sisters have.
Poor pinkie. Access to info from other timelines but can't handle it very well.
Ah, poor Ponka. It sucks to be a 4th wall breaker when you're in the darkest timeline. Sounds like Pinkie was hoping for redemption but hedging her bets.
Pinkie is a menace to every living thing and has admitted to theft of military materiel, treason during time of war, as well as preparing to commit additional treason if things didn't go the way she wanted. Why don't they just cut her damn head off (along with Marble's and Maud's for aiding and abetting as well as desertion in Maud's case) and be done with it?
9424263
Simple answer... The gonne smuggling.
Complicated answer... Everything she said before that, and then after.
9424354 From the perspective of anyone not graced with our out-of-story knowledge, everything Pinkie said was just the ramblings of a dangerous lunatic.
Even with our knowledge, Pinkie just tried to justify her actions through Omniscient Morality License, because hey, she knows how things are supposed to go, and she's real and the rest of you aren't, so what does it matter how many ponies and griffins she murders if things go the way she wants them too.
She' s still a traitor and a murder, and should be dealt with as such.
(Not that I really have any expectation of that happening, or of my comment drawing anything other than polite disagreement or ire.)
9424049
Hmm that Pinkie information ARE to be believed is obvious... otherwise she would NOT be a fuc*ing COLONEL...
9424378
Hmm It's CLEAR in the story that Pinkie's foresight is well known in the upper military echelon... That's why she is a colonel [that is pretty high up on the command chain].
She has the authority to requisition material. She has the authority to set up secret mission... She can do a LOT of things... With magic going on, beheading her would be a gross dereliction of duty. Everything in this has to go back to the people above. And Celestia is for sure going to approve. So...
9424083
Or worse than that, the insane Pinkie could have used her knowledge of alternative timelines and dipped herself into the Mirror Pool and made copies of herself so she could work at the problem from multiple "angles".
9424378
With our knowledge, it's clear she was attempting to solve the trolly problem.
It certainly does appear that her plan is succeeding in ending the conflict with as much haste and as little blood as possible, and that much is clear even to those in the story.
Huh. So if I'm reading this right, Pinkie, in typical Pinkie fashion, is self-aware that this is an AU, and is aware of just how badly that messes things up for everypony as a result. She sees what should've been and sees that is something to work towards, but the AU messed things up so badly, it's difficult to find the way back to it...especially without losing ponies along the way.
Further, the timeline being an AU seems to have tainted Pinkie, or so she seems to imply. The Pinkie we see here is, in her mind, not the same as the Pinkie we would have in canon. And it bothers her greatly, and perhaps is why she's left...unstable.
Assuming I'm interpreting her cryptism correctly. An enigma wrapped in a riddle danished with a puzzle as always, her.
At any rate, Pinkie did indeed plan for everything to go as it did, with exception of Cadance becoming the new duchess...she just also, as she said, put all of her eggs in one basket and planned for many other alternatives as well, in case it went that way instead. Her plans stretch ethics a bit, of course, and we knew that going in...but I admit, now that I know her side of the tale a bit better, I can see her logic to acting the way she did. She just...maybe got a bit carried away, too focused on achieving the end goal that she missed what was happening along the way...actually, there's probably more than one way to look at it, but there's the one I'm walking away with for now.
9424411 Actually, she stole materiel (confirmed in this chapter), "requisitioned" troops outside of her chain of command (the entire pioneer brigade which has no business even being in Trottingham) and had them rig up a building to blow while filled with civilians, and she deliberately set up both allied military units (who are not part of her chain of command) and civilians to be killed by rebels. None of which is ethical or legal. Also the High Command was actively trying to have Pinkie arrested (confirmed in Nine Offices Down), but every witness to her actions kept having "accidents" and then changing their testimony.
9424700 Yes, she got the local rebels out in the open so they could be dealt with, by setting up allied troops and civilians as unwitting bait to be killed. She's at best a well intentioned extremists, and none of that changes her being a traitor and murder.
It is clear that several people consider Pinkies actions to be justifiable, while I just see another war criminal. How about we let it go at that and see what more Mitch H has in store for us?
Poor Pinkie Pie. :(
9424780
The problem here is one of foreknowledge...
IF you have magically induced knowledge of what will happen it start messing up the normal law of cause and effects...
Is it right to say that someone is guilty of endangerment if he has perfect magical knowledge that the danger would NOT come to pass?
Let this be a reminder that our justice is not pony justice.
Now let's crack on. XD
9424780
Again, this is the Trolley problem.
If you do nothing, N people die.
If you intervene, Q people will be killed instead.
There's a logical failure at play in how you are approaching it, and that is that you do not consider inaction to, itself, be an action. This makes it acceptable for Pinkie to do nothing and allow 200,000 innocent people to die from a protracted war, but not acceptable for her to do something which results in 100 innocent deaths.
Morally, her actions can't be said to be wrong.
Ethically, she shouldn't be in the military if she wants clean hands.
Aesthetically, her actions are repugnant and worthy of scorn.
9425926 9424912 The problem is Pinkie claims to know how things are "supposed" to go, not how things will go (and that is a very important difference). There is no indication that anyone in Trottingham believes this. (Yes, someone clearly does believe back in Equestria, otherwise Pinkie wouldn't have her obviously arranged rapid advancement and special place outside the chain of command.) But if, say, Captain Placeholder (or Colonel Sombra) committed the actions Pinkie did, and then tried to justify himself with the claims Pinkie made, I honestly doubt there would be this much discussion about it.
And even if Pinkie's visions are real, and she felt a moral obligation to commit treason, murder and other crimes for the sake of "the better future" she saw, it doesn't change the fact that she committed treason, murder and other crimes based purely on the voices in her head (whether they happened to be right or not). Yes, for the sake of argument, her actions might have saved 200,000 people in one of the possible futures she sees, but they did kill 100 people right here and now, and she should still be held accountable for it, especially since "Trust me, I can see the future" is not a valid defense in a military court of law.
9426247
The point is that she HAS commission to FOLLOW THE VOICES IN HER HEAD!
in a HUMAN NON MAGICAL military court of law.
It ALL goes down to "Do the highest authority on the place [aka Celestia] believe/knows that Pinkie IS a prescient?" That is the point I'm making and you are discounting.
The presence of magic throws a BIG wrench in the common working.
9426370
This point ultimately ties back to the issue of Pinkie’s rapid advancement through the ranks. Who was responsible for this?
As an aside, who is this “witch” that Pinkie mentioned that Cadence was supposed to save? We all know who we think it’s supposed to be, sure, but is it? Because if it is, then whatever is happening here goes back to way before the sonic rainboom, meaning either the course of this reality has nothing to do with Starlight Glimmer, or it has everyrhing to do with Starlight Glimmer. I mean, you change history, and it’s going to create a shockwave in the timeline.
Shockwaves don’t just move in one direction, right?
Hmm. Is Pinkie just considering all the bad ways to see Twilight, or has her clairvoyance scattered along all probabilities after running facefirst into Celestia's glowering visage? Or it could just be obfuscating ponkery.
Holy crap. She in touch with the Greater Pink, of which she is but a single facet.
Or, you know, she's insane. Not mutually exclusive states of being, come to think of it.
Ah. Worst-case scenario: She knows they're there, but she doesn't know that they live elsewhere. She thinks she's the only one. And, depending on how temporal physics work in this story, she may be.
And there's our divergence point, assuming she's talking about Prismia. This worldline may not be Starlight's fault. Heck, if we really want to be meta, the blame could be placed on...
Oh. You may want to sleep with one eye open, Mitch.
9426985
Like an idiot, it only now occurred to me to try translating her name. “Mi Amore Cadenza”; literally “My Love Cadence.”
“Mi Dolente Cadenza”; “I Grieve Cadence.”
...
She is not, in this timeline, “Loving Cadence,” but rather is “Grieving Cadence, the Princess of Sorrows.”
9427488
I'd just thought she'd chosen a different title after Shining died.
9427502
As far as I recall, we don’t have a confirmation one way or the other, and now that it seems the timeline is even more different than initially believed, who knows anymore?
9426370 Well unless Celestia (who is no longer the highest authority in Trottingham) actually steps forward and says "Yes, I know what Colonel Pie was up to and she was acting with my approval", then Pinkie remains a lunatic traitor and is SOL, because every other authority we've currently seen (Prince-Major Blueblood, the Governor General, the new Duchess, and even Pinkie's own commanding officers) apparently either do not know of, or do not believe in, her ability to see the future and authority to act on it.
9428461
And you're Indonesian...liek me.
And yes, Hearts of Iron4 Fuherreich.
So pinkie finally gets caught, and yet I can't help but feel she may have had a point. The best villains have the best justifications and you have made her a beautiful villain.
Sleep tight little pink horse, may the crazy be better tomorrow.
9426247
I would have to agree with you. True, I`m one of those people that believe in "Sacrifice the lives of the few for the lives of the many." Or "The ends justify the means.", but as you said, Pinkie only knows POSSIBLE futures, not futures set in stone. Unless Pinkies plan is to make sure these futures actually happen.
Re-reading this, something important came out: It sounds like Pinkie is saying the way this world went off-canon isn't when those griffon terrorists showed up with bomb,s but before that, when Cadance somehow failed to redeem Prismia. I wonder how she became an alicorn anyway.
I do
Oh Pinkie. What a poor, tortured soul.
This was a genuinely scary portrayal of Pinkie, and I love the insinuation of Cadance's failure with Lady Prismia being the divergence point of this AU.
Is it safe to say that the Point of Divergence for this AU is when Cadence killed the witch instead of reforming her?
9748006
Yes. Although there was a great deal of world building explaining why that mattered that never got exposited because Celestia spends the entire story a continent away from the action.
Pinkie's a self-contained nexus of the potentialities of the timeline(s), but only for herselves?
Reminds me a bit of Doctor Manhattan, knowing the future but only in regards to himself.
9919863
Oh, she's going to be in Pony Leavenworth for a long long long time.
High treason is a capital offense. Nowadays it's punishable with life in prison and sometimes death penalty. In the time period of British Colonialism that this fic is going for, she will be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
Wow... I could spend the next 3 weeks on a voluminous treatise encompassing much of human history as a demonstration of why this is utter bollocks.
The only reason Pinkie's plan worked is she had the script. Deadpool could have done the same, only been much funnier about it. That's right, Pinkie... you weren't funny. At all. YOU FAILED AT YOUR PARTY PONY MARK!!!
(Pinkie dies from instant Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome)
Oh, so this is one of THOSE Pinkies, the ones who, like the comic Joker, can see that they're all just characters and the madness comes from knowing that they're not real.
I find that silly. Being real is far more horrible. It means no one can enter to retcon the bad writing in your life. You must write your own story, and without an editor to smooth over the rough sections.
In my case, I cheated. I read the ending first.
"No no, Pinkie. You're seeing, but not seeing. There's one final layer to peel back, then the one to blame will become clear. " Alondro tears the fabric.
"M-Mitch H?" Pinkamena whimpers. "You... you did this to us? YOU made us into... this?" She lunges so suddenly that the wall creaks and cracks. "WHY?! WHAT THE BUCK DID WE DO TO MAKE OUR WORLD THIS WAY?! DID YOU ENJOY OUR SUFFERING?! OUR AGONY? MY AGONY? SO MANY... so many... why... even at his worst Discord wasn't this cruel..." Alondro raises an eyebrow and Pinkie rolls her eyes. "I'm not talking about THOSE fanfics, you know!" she huffs. "We all know that if Discord was ACTUALLY a super-intelligent psycho, the Princesses would've all been dead LOOOOOONG before canon and Psycho Discord would be utterly unstoppable." Alondro smirks. "Oh... ohhh, you clever bastard, making me admit that and crushing all those false worlds in one fell swoop. You really ARE the most brilliant being in the omniverse!" Alondro blushes and waves a hand coyly.
Alondro has the most terrible power of all: he exists.
9919863 I just told her everything was the Author's fault.
She'll be paying his dreams a visit.
Interesting. So it was off before even the bombing.
Now I wonder what set this universe down this darker path? I hope we find out what happened to Luna as I feel that has all the answers.
Well pinkie got a whole lot more interesting.
Ummm. What exactly is lurking in those catacombs, Pinkie?
Hah. I guess she taunted the poor fellow about that a bit too much.
Isn't it obvious? It's so you and Twi would be there every step of the way. So you'd involve Celestia. So it would all lead to real change
That's a messed up kind of deep
Oh no. She planned it for so long, and then she missed it.
The actual party
Dear gods, that poor mare...
Ugh. Built into the stuff they reconstructed. I feared that might've been the case
Wow, that was chilling. And makes me feel bad for her.
I wonder who's the witch she mentioned...