Today was my turn to try and teach Discord. I was apprehensive to say the least. No one I knew enjoyed his company, and I’d wager that everyone but the Board head looked on the crimson maelstrom of Tessaractal energy with absolute repulsion.
I entered the chamber through the decontamination airlocks, and looked on my surroundings. The room remained the same as before, however there was a new quality to it that I didn’t like; some omen filled the air with a sense of impending dread. The feeling made my stomach tie itself into notes. I sat down on the plastoid chair that was provided for the human teacher and waited for the red flowing sphere before me to respond.
After a couple seconds of silence, I spoke. “Good morning, Discord”.
The cloud congealed into the face of a wizened old man with grey hair and a large distinctive nose. "What do you mean?" the old man’s face said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
“ ‘All of them at once,’ said Bilbo,” I quoted back.
The old man’s face grew a cheeky grin, “So you know ‘The Hobbit’. It’s a splendid tale.”
“Let’s try to stay on topic. Today’s lesson—“
“Is about multiplication tables. Yes I know. I felt it while it was being written up by your computers,” the cloud off handedly dismissed me with the waving of an albatross’ wing, “I’d like to talk about something else. Why not humanity?”
It seemed like a reasonable request; shouldn’t any child want to know more about its parents?
“Alright, I’ll allow it. The human race—“
“Known scientifically as homo sapiens are allegedly believed to have evolved on the planet Earth from their primate ancestors a little over 200,000 years ago and achieved full sapience sometime around 50,000 years ago. Really, it’s hilarious how you so readily accept fiction as fact.”
“It is fact Discord.”
“Really? Were you there?”
“..No.”
“I was. Was your instrumentation accurate?”
“It is accurate, yes.”
"Wrong. I may not like a fully step by step process, but I know how your science works. Given several different facts you simply keep those facts which support your hypothesis and throw the rest to the way side. When even more data is collected that counters your whimsically scientific guess, you reject it simply because it cannot be right, because it disagrees with your order of things.” The cloud chuckled, “Order. There is the biggest joke of all!”
“You cannot reject order or reason fully. Without it you can’t make your way through life or understand it.”
The red cloud fell to the floor all at once and reconstituted into an exact replica of Ahmed. I did my best to suppress a tiny gasp, but Discord must have heard it, because he grinned all the more. “Isn’t it true that man always asks ‘What is the meaning to life?’ It’s extremely arrogant of you to do so. Even in your simplest questions you strive to maintain some order in your world as you squirm in the dirt like worms. You assume that there is a meaning to life, that you can categorize and order existence as you can see fit. Don’t deny it! Order runs through your very blood.”
Discord/Ahmed made to sit down on thin air, and amazingly the air held him up without any visible means of doing so. He stroked his black chin stubble, “As it happens, you all have stumbled on the truth quite by accident. I guess even a blind squirrel can find an acorn now and then. There is a meaning to life: and it is chaos! Without chaos, the universe would have remained as an ordered sea of unreality, with nothing ever occurring at all, just eternal void and furious silence. The only reason you and I exist is because I happened. Nothing would have happened had not the ‘self-causing cause’ have occurred, and with my ascendance the stars came to life, the planets formed, and ultimately I created the human race. I am chaos, and chaos is god.”
“Then why would you ‘create’ us at all if all we ever do is ‘squirm like worms in the dirt’?”
Here I was chilled to the bone by his response.
Discord/Ahmed looked to the ceiling questioningly, and then he shrugged, “Because it’s funny! But I grow weary of this little game, and I don’t like toys that are boring.”
I left that day with my mind troubled, and my heart full of fear. I knew now that Discord would not let things continue as they were, as it was in his nature to be chaotic. One day soon he would come into conflict with humanity, and if something was not done very quickly, we were all doomed. Maybe we were doomed from the moment we set out to create a new life. That doesn’t matter now, I thought as I made my way to the observation deck to meet the real Ahmed; we made the mistake of creating him, and now we had to find a way to fix that mistake, no matter the price.
Thanks for giving a character and motive to Discord that makes sense to his very core.
So humanity arrived to God level science.... Cool.
Do all the humans die at the end or the Main Character somehow survives? (that would make a nice sequel by the way) because If this is how every creature in Equestrian was created, my blood will boil each time Twilight says "Magic" or "The Magic Of Friendship"
Another great chapter. I like what you've done with Discord.
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I tried to stay true to Discord's character in show, but I also had to tweak one or two things about him. I would say I tried to make him more a demented manipulator and that the chaotic and quirky personality we witnessed in the show is a facade from behind which Discord can freely spin his webs of intrigue.
Now, about magic and science. The humans are using magic to create all of the creatures that will inhabit Equestria and beyond. Magic as unicorns will later come to understand it will be based on willing certain things to occur based on mental concentration and some expenditure of either chemical or bio energy. Because of this, the greater the willpower and chemical reserves a unicorn has, the larger and more complex spells they can cast. It's sort of like a marathon runner eating an enormous amount of food the day before his big run; he is creating large reserves of energy for himself for when he needs it later on during his 26 mile run.
The humans in this universe have found out that magic is just another fundamental force of existence; just like how Electromagnetism is expressed through photons, or Nuclear energy is expressed through gluons, Magic is expressed through Tessaractal Energy. Humans cannot directly use magic like unicorns can because we don't have the biology capacity to do so, which unicorns do. Humans do, ironically, have a greater understanding of how magic works than unicorns do.
As for humankind, well, things aren't going to go according to plan for them in the near future.
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Thanks! I'm glad you liked how I've interpreted him!
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But do they use the term "Magic" on that fundamental force of existence each time they want to express what their doing, and how? If not, my blood will continue to boil each time I hear "Magic".
-Magic- definition:
Power or influence exerted through this art. The mysterious power that some people believe can make impossible things happen if you do special actions or say special words called spells using this mysterious energy of existence.
Is this what the humans of this universe have in mind? Or it is defined in a more scientific way on their perspective?
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Humans would define this in a more scientific manner. A good real world example of this would be the difference between Alchemy and Chemistry. The Ancients found certain combinations of fluids would interact in strange but predictable ways; What we know today as Hydrochloric Acid was known in Medieval times as Royal Water. Both time periods know how this liquid interacts with the natural world, but they simply had different names for it. Also, both time periods have ambitious goals related to their field. Alchemists sought immortality, artificial life, and cures for any disease. Chemists have a greater grasp of laws of Nature, but the goals remain the same; with the search for anti-aging compounds, stem-cell research, and cloning being on the immediate fringe or accepted fields in our knowledge of Chemistry.
The early years of Equine society will be similar to the Dark Ages, with large amounts of knowledge being lost temporarily, but ultimately to be rediscovered under different names.
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Wouldn't that mean that eventually Equine Society will come to the point where humans are right now, creating an infinite cycle that will never end, making the human existence a mere error or fluke, unnecessary stupidity or as Discord said an nice entertainment, a mere toy, that he became bored by, as he will eventually get a new toy and the cycle will repeat.
But enough of depressing factors.
My question related to your answer is -and by all means if this is answered eventually in the story, you don't have to answer- 'Will this story end in the moment which is the end of humanity and the start of Equine society, or this story is for you to make reference as you continue in which somehow you bring something to 'the end of season 2' -preferably the mother- making Equis history rewrite itself?
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Wow! That's deep. I hadn't really considered that whole cycle of existence of Discord constantly being a destroyer of species. I love it! Fortunately, that's not going to be the case for Equine society. And yes, this story is going to end right near the beginning of pony society, and it will be referenced in later stories. If you want to find out what eventually happens, read my first story: A Journey Unthought of, and you'll find out who the Maiden really is if you haven't already guessed!
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