This story is a sequel to Do Ponies on Earth have Magic Dreams?
Set in the Pandemic Universe
A group of weather ponies from up north take a much needed cross country vacation to a little Oasis out in the middle of the Arizona desert. What better way to get out of your element than to see the sights, enjoy the great outdoors... help conduct an illegal weather management program?
what could possibly go wrong?
This is a collaborative project with Lawra. Huge thanks for co-writing and collaborating with me on this, it's been a ton of fun!
Special thanks to Halira for allowing us to use some of her characters for this story and offering some feedback towards the end, and of course ASGeek2012 for creating the original story that sparked all of these little side projects!
Pre Read by:
Halira and Alias_the_J
nice start
tracking
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Thanks, updates will be every other day.
I might be a little partial but I enjoyed the start.
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Talk about a reputation, who hasn't heard of her at this point?
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Since Tonya's trialhappened in the afternoon every night pony in Europe and most of the United States had to have seen Sunset Blessing's involvement in what happened. I'm not sure that makes her look bad to them though. She ordered a hit onapony that raped a Dreamwarden is the mother of one. Since most night ponies are mares it was said that they had a pretty agreeable stance with what Tonya and Sylumset Blessing did in regards to a rapist.
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Bringing to justice a rapist, positive. Doing so by having her wife mind control another to do it against their will, that's another story and anything like that is a big no no for Emily who will get some more characterization in the next chapter.
As for Dazzle looking down on her, she's seen the public stuff about Sunset's Shimmerist church, and where she comes from is an area that leans more on Harmonist views so Sunset is not particularly well liked in general.
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For a short story I feel like we tried to pack as much in as we could.
And just like that it's come to an end, hopefully everyone enjoyed this short little detour.
Wow, did Sapphire Sky act really arrogant here. I think she was let off a little too easy considering the damage she did. (Not a criticism of the story at all, just my impressions of the character).
Anyway, it was a nice story, and no reason it can't be moved to the canon folder.
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It’s kind of funny, that came up a bit during discussion a few times, this epilogue probably went through the most changes out of any part of the story and we have at least two or three alternate versions of Silver’s reaction that varied from pure anger to what we have now. Ultimately it boiled down to him being stuck between a rock and a hard place with how to deal with her, he either tries to press charges and admits he broke federal law in the process (which could lead to serious litigation and probably land him in serious trouble and jeopardize the Oasis) or he’s thankful that no one got hurt and works overtime doing damage control to try and keep it all under wraps given that she’s offered to help rectify what she’s done. We decided to ultimately go with the latter given that the group is still working on branching off from having to rely solely on Sunset for help and funding.
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It really was difficult trying to decide what the amount of fallout was going to be. But in the end we went with a pony forgives... under conditions that she works to make up for it.
While she does drastically overreact to the thought of her friends being screwed over while she was away, the Oasis now has a nice lake to enjoy and for a few days the valley is going to be lush and green from all the rain. Misunderstanding was cleared up so now everyone can be friends.
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And with any luck their earth ponies can work towards keeping it lush
It's official: PRISM is going to make combustible lemons that burn houses down! (and pay Valve royalties for the idea.) XD
Silver is so lucky he caught Sha'am in a generous mood, any other time he'd be punished severely for such disrespect. Also I take it that this establishes Sha'am as Silver's least favorite Warden? To be fair she's probably the least favorite to a lot of ponies.
This was quite an enjoyable read, there were a few spots where I couldn't tell who was speaking, but overall it was pretty good.
I will say I'm conflicted on the resolution in regards to Sapphire Sky's actions. On one hoof, I feel Silver forgave way too easily, especially considering how smug Sapphire acted during all of it. On the other hoof, I find it admirable that he forgave her and saved his anger for who was ultimately responsible: Sunset Blessing, even if it's really Tonya that gets chewed out.
Also as much as I loved Silver's antics in the beginning of the story, I have to ask: are all night ponies addicted to mango products in the universe (especially beverages) or just the ones on your side? I don't remember anything mentioned in AsGeek's, or Halira's stories that suggest that.
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The portal reference is even more meta if you really read into it, the pony that makes that reference is named Atlas, after one of the coop robots from Portal 2. As for Sha'am, she's definitely Silver's least favorite, there's some stuff that I'll bring up in New Horizons that touch on that more, but for now this is probably the most direct thing we see regarding it. In the original draft of this chapter he actually got attacked by the vultures that are briefly mentioned, and it's even alluded to slightly with the comment about him realizing he wasn't being attacked, but that wound up getting changed super late in development. Just for fun, here's the original ending that got replaced:
The big thing that makes no sense to anyone except Lawra and I is Silver's handling of the whole aftermath of the Great Storm. The simple answer is that a pony forgives, the complicated answer is that forgiveness was the best outcome he could have pursued. PRISM is still a fledgling organization and while they have financial support from SPEC, at this point in the story's timeline they really couldn't afford to handle the long and very expensive legal battle that'd wind up happening. This gets expanded upon greatly in New Horizons, and the whole theme of my series is that actions have consequences, both big and small. In Departures we see Silver basically break the law to find an easy solution for the weather management issues that they're dealing with in the Oasis, here we see a direct negative consequence for that. If he tried to pursue some sort of suit against Sapphire he'd likely get hit with federal charges for breaking federal law, and that would more or less wipe out the Oasis before it even has a chance to get going.
A big theme that I started to focus on is that The Great Storm really gave the Oasis a much needed jump start, and continuing that theme of actions have consequences, a negative consequence becomes a positive one in the long run, to the extent that nothing in New Horizons would be possible without it having happened. This all gets directly brought up in New Horizons once the overarching narrative really starts to come into play, here's an excerpt from one of the chapters that touches on that specifically:
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You know, I didn't quite catch that part. Probably because I never played co-op. Barely did my first playthrough maybe two months ago.
Definitively going to be something Silver & Dusk will have in common if I ever create his story anytime soon. Although Dusk is planned to go a step further than just disliking Sha'am.
I'll say one thing, Silver has some really good self control. Me & my oc Lunar Dusk, would likely start chewing Sapphire out and start digging our grave there. XD
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It's actually really funny, I have about three or four different drafts of the ending that had reactions ranging from pure anger and malice, to even more lighthearted. Lawra co wrote this story with me and we spent a long time trying to find the right balance. In the end I think it worked out well
Great story, thanks : )
I'm currently confused a little what to read next, New Horizons or Do Ponies[...], one is tagged as sequel, other looks like prequel based on description : )
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“Do Ponies...” is the prequel and also the story I’m currently working on, so I’d recommend that one
Good good to get some more stuff settled on how then ponies in the Oasis are doing, from where the prequel left off ^^ And still more left to be answered