Chapter 35: Epilogue
“Captains log, stardate 2334.75. The Enterprise is currently departing the planet hereby identified as Equestria, a badly-damaged Klingon warbird in tow to be dropped into orbit in the nearest uninhabited star-system for future recovery. I am...unhappy to report that the diplomatic mission with the planet’s inhabitants was a failure. I am hereby assigning the planet a Class IV approach warning, designating it as a neutral but hostile warp-capable world on Federation border space. The inhabitants have requested that no aliens approach their orbit, and I intend to ensure that Starfleet honors those wishes. Additionally, an alien vessel denoted as of ‘Ferengi’ origin is expected to depart from the planet in the near-future, pending the service of its occupant in accordance with laws of the ntaive inhabitants. As for the fate of the unknown alien vessel denoted ‘Antigone IV’, its origin and, ultimately, destination remain unknown.”
Kirk sighed and pressed the button to terminate the log. He leaned on his elbow, watching as the tiny dot of the planet receded into the distance of space.
“Captain,” said M’Ress, rotating in her chair. “Permission to speak freely.”
“Granted, Lieutenant.”
“We are leaving the planet undefended. If the alien ship delivers news of the dilithium deposits, their forces will not stand the barest chance of defending their space. They arguably no longer even have warp technology.”
“Which is all the more reason to leave them alone.”
“Captain?”
Kirk sat up, thinking for a moment. “I think it is clear that they are not ready to join the Federation. Not quite yet. Maybe not ever.”
“But Captain,” said Chekov, “if they have produced warp technology, and first-contact made, then it is not relevant that they no longer produce such a reactor. They are still denoted as warp-capable.”
Kirk shook his head. “No, Ensign. I think that, maybe, Rarity was right. At least partially. That warp technology alone isn’t the only qualifier for joining the galactic stage. That there are other features to consider.”
“Or that they fail to accept the reality of the situation,” noted Spock, looking up from his instruments. “I find their idealism highly illogical. The social construct by which they approach life is simply incompatible with the actual, empirical nature of the galaxy.”
“Maybe it is, Spock. Maybe it is.” Kirk paused. “But is it really their fault?”
Spock raised an eyebrow. “Captain?”
“Maybe it’s the other way around. Not that they can’t accept our way of life, but that we’re not ready to accept theirs.”
“Universal peace,” said Uhura. “A galaxy where war and murder are just abstract, empty threats. It sounds nice, doesn’t it?”
“I believe that it sounds untenable and unrealistic,” countered Spock.
“Maybe,” said Kirk. “And maybe not. Who knows. Maybe someday we’ll grow enough as a people to come back here. Maybe when we’re ready, we can return, and she’ll be waiting for us then.” He watched the planet vanish in the distance, back into the starry blackness of the galaxy. “Maybe there’s something we can learn from them. A kind of...innocence. And I think we’ll get there, eventually. It just might take a long, long time.”
From a small vent in the rear of the bridge, Lyra could not help but agree.
It was night. The world had become dark, lit only by Luna’s moon. It was a brilliant crescent high above the tops of the ragged, contorted trees, the darkness of its far side lit by the dim lights of the lunar colonies. Celestia looked upward, staring at it through a hole in the ceiling, and passed out of its light and further into the darkness of the ancient castle.
Her hooves tapped on the weathered, overgrown stones that had once been so clean and beautiful. Before, in her own rage, she had leveled it all. The ancient castle, where she and her sister had ruled as children, built far away from the pony civilizations that they chose to ignore. A sanctuary of peace and sisterhood hidden deep in the wilds of the Everfree Forest, the untamed land that had been their playground as fillies.
Although it was older. Or it had been. The memories had faded, and Celestia could not recall them all. Of strange ruins so very different from the ones she now walked, built with strange curves and stranger architecture, crumbling in a way that was somehow disturbingly unnatural. As if they were neither stone nor metal, nor any substance that she had known the name of.
But she supposed it was an aspect of her ancient nightmares. Nightmares that had recently returned, despite her sister’s best efforts. Of a crying man grasping the ash of his dead brother, of ponies tortured in tanks, and of the expressionless face of a man she thought she had loved as he callously pulled the trigger of his laser-gun.
She could not sleep. So she wandered. Alone, because that was all she ever could be. Luna had returned to the moon, Cadence to her hole, and Shining Armor to his hive. She had no one left to speak to—save for one. Waiting on what she now understood to be her royal duty to make the hardest decision she had ever made.
She entered a large room, the arches of the ceiling crumbling to dust but the stone table beneath it still largely intact. A table where she had once held meetings with great warlords and wizards of untold power, and where she and Luna had played Parcheesi every Thursday afternoon. A table that was now cracked and dusty, populated only with anemic vines crossing it in almost pure darkness.
In a shattered piece of glass, perhaps a remnant of a window or a shattered goblet, she saw herself. A reflection of what she had become. The color had returned to her mane, but not completely. The edges still remained vibrant orange--and her eyes still held a strange grayness around pupils that, sometimes, when her day was brighest, narrowed into thin slits.
Celestia paused, looking around the room and seeing nothing. She waited, but upon finding nothing, turned to leave—only to stop as she approached the threshold of the door. She heard a strange sound, not quite a hiss or a pop but something like a deep and terrible growl. Then she smelled it. The sickly-sweet smell of tachyons with a strange and ominous spicy undertone, the scent of the concentrated dark-matter that only the most depraved of wizards had ever managed to concentrate.
She turned back to the darkness to see a pair of luminescent blue eyes staring back at her. A shiver rain down her spine, and she lit her horn to drive away both the darkness and her sudden unease.
Her glow illuminated a pony seated at the far side of the table. She was strange, but in a way that Celestia could not quite describe. She was an earth-pony of exactly normal size, her coat perfectly white and her mane long, silky, and blond. Her eyes were enormous and blue, with a pattern of complexity that Celestia had never really seen in any other pony. The clothing the pony wore was simple, a kind of thin, formalized armor adorned with crimson and violet. Her cutie mark was not visible from where she was seated, but Celestia had seen it before. An image that had no meaning to her, a stylized depiction of flower heads surrounded by a ring of horns.
None of these things alone were explicitly odd. But somehow the presence of all of them at once made Celestia uneasy. The way the pony seemed to stare both into her and at nothing at all, the way her motions were not exactly at the right speed. Either too slow and deliberate or far too quick and sudden, like an enormous skittering insect. And, as Celestia watched, only the pony’s eyes moved, twisting to face her.
“I had warned you,” she said. Her voice was soft and melodic to the point of being excessively beautiful.
Celestia sighed and approached the other side of the ancient stone table—but did not sit.
“That you did.”
The pony tilted her head slightly. “And the situation, then?”
“They had them in...in tubes. We..are still trying to get them out. But progress is being made." She paused. "But if we do...their magic. It's gone. And their bodies are sick in ways we can’t fix. Some worse than others. One was...one was a little girl...”
“And your student?”
Celestia lowered her head. “She refuses to speak to me. She’s been traumatized. She panics if she’s near ponies other than Moondancer. She’ll never use magic again...and might never have a friend.”
“Apart from Moondancer.”
Celestia sighed. “I know.”
“At least they have each other.”
“But if it had gone so differently...”
“Some individuals have proposed that outside the mathematical constraints of a single universe, there are many. An infinite multiverse. So perhaps there is a different version of her that had a much less horrific life.”
“Perhaps. But my Twilight is in so much pain, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Celestia paced to the far side of the table, looking up at the tattered remains of a banner depicting a version of her and her sister. A banner made before the ancient wars, and before Luna had been banished to the moon.
“And the others. Rainbow Dash...the damage. I can't fix it."
"Was my schematic for the implant inadequate?"
Celestia paused. "No...but the damage to her spine...it's too severe. She'll never fly again. I hope only that she can get used to being an earth-pony now."
"Really? I had assumed I left instructions on how to replace the spine as well. Although not being allowed to dedicate my own doctors to the procedure may have indeed left damage that even we cannot repair."
"And Rarity...poor Rarity...”
“A fatality?”
“No,” snapped Celestia. “We saved her, but...barely. The scarring was...severe. She’s retreated from public life. I don’t even know where she is anymore. Nopony does.”
“At least you managed to save one.”
“I didn’t do anything. It was the hologram that they left behind. That was the only way she made it through. If it hadn’t been for that...” Celestia shivered. The situation could have ended so much more badly.” She hesitated, not sure how much to say. "Right now, it's working with the alien. Trying to save them." She shook her head. "But the others...I don't think they can be fixed."
"Others?"
"The ponies in my guard and Luna's that saw...what happened. It will take years, even lifetimes of therapy and support to even start. But they can't unseen it. Even now, Luna's trying to drive back the nightmares, to give them some peace...but it's affecting her too. She won't admit it, but I'm her sister. I can tell."
"I am admittedly only familiar with the most rudimentary perspective of what occurred. Was not the slain criminal the one who disfigured your student? Forgive me, I suppose, but would you not feel justified in his execution?"
Celestia shook her head, angry and confused. "He...he hurt her. And I'm so, so angry. At him, for doing it, and at me, for letting this happen when I should have stopped it. I...I hate him. I hated him then. I hated him so much and myself so much more. Every time I think of what they did, what I let happen--" She clenched her suddenly fanged teeth, feeling the heat of the rage spreading while the white pony watched on, impassive and amused. She gained control, though, and took a deep breath.
"But then he was still a person. I can still hear his brother crying. That man will never hug his mother again. He might have had friends...children. That there might be orphans who will never see their father again and never know what happened to him. He was cornered, afraid, and he lashed out. He took everything from Twilight...but that doesn't justify taking everything from him. Not like that." She looked down at herself. At the changes she could not force away. "When I am...her, it takes everything I have to hold her back. To reign her in. Every ounce of my willpower to keep her controlled as best I can. To keep her from hurting ponies and people. And he...he just pulled the trigger. Like it was nothing."
"I am assuming you were in danger."
"I could have survived."
"But were you willing to take the chance? To allow this planet to lose its Princess and fall to chaos so that the man who tortured your adopted daughter might survive?"
Celestia was silent for a long. She hated the thought of it. The failure she found herself facing. Ultimately, the reason she had driven Kirk away. The reason why she now stood before this pony, still stalling at doing what she knew needed to be done.
" I built this world so that decisions like that would never need to be made. And it must remain that way. At all costs."
The pony seemed completely unperturbed by the sight before her. “And yet that has occurred. It seems that the political status of this world has reverted to the status quo.”
“It...has. For now. But now we know enough to see how bad that really is...and how bad it will get.”
“My offer still stands, as it always did. The Federation is a barely legitimate confederacy of warlords constantly plotting new ways to fight new wars. Against Klingons, or Romulans, or the Borg and Dominion when they get here. Whereas the Alliance is committed to much more benevolent goals.”
“Like...what?”
The pony’s mechanical pupils dilated, and a smile crossed her face. “The empirical truth of limitless economic prosperity. And through it, absolute peace and unity throughout the universe.” She pressed her front hooves together on the table. “Furthermore, we do not build ships out of ponies. Our process for achieving faster-than-light travel is much more human.”
“‘Humane’. You mean ‘humane’.”
The smile grew. “I am glad you agree, Celestia.”
“And I suppose you’re after the dilithium too.”
“Of course not. Dilithium is for primitive idiots who use antimatter for fuel. Nor do we require the element zero. Our core assembly procedures are quite efficient. A recent mining operation on the planet Thessia has yielded a substantial quantity within a region of space that formerly contained a highly violent and treacherous society that now has a homeworld totally lacking warfare in the slightest. Because, I have said. The Alliance is committed wholly to bringing peace as often as we can.” Her head tilted, but only slightly. "Unlike those aliens that did such terrible things to your citizens."
“Then...what do you want?”
“What do I want? What a question. I have ruminated on it for nearly one thousand years. On a personal level, to be less bored by my eternal existence. On a broader term, the evolution of my species. In terms of this project? This.”
She extended a hoof, filling the room with a disturbing red light as a hologram was cast over it. A depiction of a device Celestia could almost not understand, but one that she understood was massive. A machine with two vast extensions, something that she suppose might be a starship—or something similar.
“What is it?”
“A transdimensional mass relay. We will require your people’s assistance in building it, and some of your resources. Ours are unfortunately limited by dangerous aliens that wish to constrain the prosperity and industrial development we bring to our own universe.”
Celestia looked at her, attempting to see the barest glint of emotion. There was only an impression of bored joy.
"Do you think I'm stupid?
"Not especially. Or else I would not be here, would I?"
Celestia gestured to the hologram. "I know what that is. What's at the center. This machine, it's powered by a Necroforge."
"This is correct. And the fundamental reason for my request. At present, interdimensional travel is nearly impossible. It is only achievable by extremely rare and powerful machines."
"And you."
"And myself, yes. Only a very small vanguard can pass through at once. But with this, our universes will be connected without limit. The ability for us to summon a literally unlimited number of vessels, should they be required."
"And why would we 'require' them?"
“So that when danger comes, you can call forth the full force of my fleet. For the defense of Equestria from any conceivable threat. Our time insertion into this universe was planned to make us superior. For now. No threat will dare to approach your world."
"But at what cost?"
The white pony's eyes narrowed. "At the cost of actions you will never need to see. Never need to even consider."
"I mean, what's in it for you?"
She smiled. "So that we can gain a foothold in this galaxy, to continue our economic progress here in addition to at home. However, I cannot acheive this from my end. The Necroforge must be ignited on this side. The only being capable of opening the door to let us in is you."
"I know."
"And of cousre, our actions will be limited to distant worlds. I do not intend to interfere with your world, and I give you my word that Equestria will not be touched without your personal permission.”
“Because they will come, won’t they?”
The pony nodded. “I think so. But I cannot guarantee it. But this is your decision. Space has bored us. Bored me. The multiverse beckons. There are so many new ways to find our evolution. And you have seen it with your own eyes. The aliens will betray you. They will exploit you. You, and all you hold dear."
Celestia faultered. "I need to discuss this with the Council."
"And I, like you, am not a fool. The Council is a toy you created to give others a sense that they have any consequential meaning on your planet. But the decision to protect all the little ponies ultimately comes down to you. This is not a matter of politics. This is an agreement between two equals. From one goddess to another."
"I know."
"Look at me. I am most certainly a pony. You can trust me. Open the door, and we will ask nothing more in return.”
Celestia stared at her. She took a deep breath.
“You are no pony. But I don’t suppose I actually have a choice anymore, do I?”
Celestia extended her hoof. Babylon extended her own, tapping it, and the deal was sealed. Celestia shivered, wondering why her hoof felt so very cold.
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I didn't expect the story to end this way but I'm not disappointed.
I'm surprised Celestia knows (or remembers) what a Necroforge is. She's certainly forgotten a lot about the early days of her rule, if it matches with Seventh World canon. And I suppose it's not too surprising that if a/the Necroforge existed in the Mass Core universe Babylon would about them. I like multiversal shenanigans and hope we get see more from you. I loved the concept of the Starlight Corps. And I'm still hoping you'll share 192 and Vocqutus with us someday.
I never trust anyone saying they need help buolding immense machines, as I have a book wrritten by an Earth author, where he happily goes through the workings out on how to build an interstellar worm hole, by the simple expedience of trawling through the local interstellar Oort cloud, buldozing the material together using an immense fleet of humongous Bussard drive ships, to form at its end a ten stellar mass black hole.
Instead of say, building 10 million planet Earths in system, or Dyson spheres for a trillion surface areas, or any combination of other methods.
Hitting a planet is for those who eithe have no capability of doing what they claim they want to do, or theyre just in it for the kicks and want to use the place as their personal hunting estate.
They hate vaccuum wave triggers. Theres no fun to them in their victims quietly erasing themselves from existance.
While I think entwining your Mass Core story with this was a mistake, that could only be seen in hindsight.
Take that out, and you have a fascinating story of plausible Trek first contact, and an interesting approach to what may have happened if not for Twilight at the wedding. A couple of other minor issues but I won't dwell on them.
It's foolish to drive Federation away Celestia, they can help you.
”I shall this failed work serve as a monument to my limitations,
but refuse it to become a gravestone to my career.”
Bahh... don’t say that.
There was just a big wtf moment in a final chapter.
Look at the comments you earned over the story.
That is what I said in my reply to you - you have gained enough interest from people who want to see this story through, despite that chapter.
This story of yours is not failed, but like everything, we all learn.
Thankyou for your words
" Captain , Doctor McCoy is reporting a common occurrence happening on all the crew decks ..."
"Is it dangerous?"
"The affected crew members are waking up to strange laughter and giggles , Not to mention their hands appear to be covered in pony saliva"
I started reading this story for it's comedy tag but it could have better used a dark and drama tag.
Wtf happened with Rarity and Rainbow Dash finally flying and Celestia just "She is basically an Earthpony now lol"
Why were they even part of the story when they get such a troll ending??
11171658
I think "sort-of-crackfic" fits better.
On a personal note, there are few things that pisses me more in any sci-fi work than ultra-advanced aliens performing cultural posturing and mocking primitives for...well, being primitives and not having access to their special stuff.
What?
11171662
The structural implication may not have been clear. Flam revealed himself to be a robot by firing his blaster; Flim tore himself open to fire the rockets and also indicated that he, too, was a robot or at least a machine of some sort. Daybreaker was going to let them go until they attacked Luna and in the process demonstrated their true nature.
I have made wording changes to increase the clarity of the scene.
So finally reaching the end of this I'm realizing why the crawl to the end featured so much dunking on the Federation.
I am not a fan of Mass Effect but weren't those assholes just riddled, absolutely inundated, by intrigue and more than a mild case of racism? Do they have room to say the Federation are warlords?
This really just feels like you set up something just to troll Star Trek fans. Absolutely depressing lurch towards the end that I hope you never repeat.
This is a disappoinment 3 years in the making
11171662
Celestia is basically a child goddess who created her own Neverland so she didn't have to cope with the real world.
Does anyone remember Lyra? Nobody mentioned her after sacrificing herself for the team.
11171671
Like Rainbow and her 'robot' wing, Flom headshotting Rarity, and Flom actually dying from his imploding shield and not Kirk's phaser beam? I don't want to play gotcha games or come off as attacking you, and I understand you're done with it, but even in the previous chapter it said Celestia didn't understand robots.
And Flom, Kirk, and Celestia made their nature known too. Kirk was the only one of the three who didn't want to use violence.
Also, is it just me experiencing this? I didn't receive a notification about your (or Raistlin's) reply in this chapter to my comment on the previous chapter.
11171703
Right, and Lyra, who also seemed to believe she had killed Bon Bon.
As someone who hasn't read the Mass Core series, could someone please verify that the "pony" that Celestia just agreed to help, is in fact part of the same group that kicked off this whole thing? A group who apparently targets populated planets to crack open for resources? If so, Celestia may find her entire coat soaked red from all the blood on her hooves.
Edit: And for the record, this work is flawed, not failed.
11171668
Luna runs a lunar colony, Cadence's Crystal Empire is a literal hole in the ground right now, and Shining Armor is married to a Changeling.
11171703
I gotta say, this story was doing so well for so long until the last three chapters just kinda went off the rails. Bit of a disappointing end to an otherwise pretty solid and enjoyable read. That's my two cents on it, anyway.
One thing to note. There are powers in Star Trek that would probably take exception to a interdimensional invasion. The Q or Trelane for one. Others have the power to be dangerous far beyond there ken like the First Federation or the Borg. Others are powers that are quite vast. Honestly I hope this continues. A Trill seeking to repair its pony host. A despondent ruler seeking to heal her student, a world seeking warp travel again and mayhaps finding it in a derelict Klingon Warbird? Maybe even seeking out a ship they just banished from there world because they learn that they cannot go it alone in the wide universe?
11171741
Yes. She is, essentially, Marc Antony's boss; Marc Antony and Four are functionally mercenaries.
The question, of course, is how.
For the most part, this was an enjoyably bonkers crossover. You just didn't stick the landing. Celestia does come off as more deluded than idealistic at the end... though that's arguably the point, given that she's also doing the deluding. (The self-serving hypocrisy doesn't help either; Babylon all but said she'll do much worse things than Kirk ever did. Celestia just won't have to watch them happen.)
Again, I did enjoy the story for the most part. I hope it's been a learning experience for you, and I don't mean "I need to crawl back into my obscure, moist corner of the fandom."
11171680
The statement that “the Federation are warlords” and “Federation communists” came from the mouth of someone who has twisted takes on galactic society.
Honestly, I think those statements were well used... in the context the author used them.
Those who are very cynical (Trill Rarity, and in later generations - the Marquis) have their own validations as to why the Federation in all its wholesome, feel-good glory is just a communist institution with a penchant for war.
It’s not possible to agree with all the views in the story as some are diametrically opposed. But even if Trill Rarity may come across as a cynical bitch and the Ferengi are capitalistic pigs, the characters in question provide enough of their own arguments and experience so we understand their view on extra-planetary society.
Which is why, even if the closing chapters made me go “...huh??”, the story itself was solid enough that I wanted to see it through.
11171802
I too wanted to see it through... but it never actually WENT through. It fell apart just before the finish line.
Everything was good and interesting and felt like it was setting up some sort of AU... but ultimately it's all for the service of a different AU. And that's the biggest issue I have. This was a Star Trek crossover for no reason in the end. It all feeds into a Mass Effect crossover in a haphazard mess. The Mass Effect and Star Trek elements fail to make direct meaningful contact until the eleventh hour, and after it's all over it's like it doesn't matter as more than a catalyst.
I'm basically saying what Unwhole has said about the story, at some point they just really wanted to write Mass Core again. Unfortunately instead of doing that separately it folded in and wrenched the satisfying conclusion away from the story - and I'm not saying Equestria not joining the Federation is a bad ending by itself, it's one I was expecting - totally neutral Equestria. I wasn't expecting THE ALLIANCE FROM AN ACTUALLY DIFFERENT UNIVERSE ENTIRELY to scoop them up at the end instead because that was far beneath all expectations.
11171805
This is exactly why this story is so infuriating.
It puts all of its emotional punch on a focal point that completely misses the target. And not just a target, but any reasonable target. This is amplified by the segmented tonal inconsistency, turning from a dumb comedy before whiplashing to pretend to be serious only to do what amounts to pulling out the emotional rug at the end. It's not serious enough, then too serious, then it turns out it comes across as if it were all a joke the whole time.
It's not better being the writer versus the reader. It's like building a shed and finding it lopsided with the roof too small. But (and this is not an excuse, it is really more of a compounding problem), the level of misguided foreshadowing is so ingrained that this story can likely not be repaired.
Mess. A horrible twisted mess that falls prey to the biggest failing of poor writers. Adding something because "hey this sounds cool". Not to shape the story or tie together the different parts.
I would be ashamed to have written this.
11171829
At the very least you're conscious of it.
In terms of writing it's great. It's just this twist in the story that makes everything fall apart.
I won't be like some people here and say "aw, don't beat yourself up, it was good" but I also won't be like a certain recent comment saying you're a poor writer that should be ashamed.
If anything what I want to say is "you tried but it's painfully obvious you can (and hopefully want to) do better".
11171846
"This fic is bad, and you should feel bad" is NOT constructive criticism. Please explain how the author messed up so s/he may improve going forward. Otherwise you come across as a jerk.
I think at the end, this story can best be summed up as being okay. I mean that in a good way over all, but still it's okay.
The Mass Effect elements were interesting, and I thought they made for an interesting addition to the story, but in the end didn't really add much to the story as a whole. I've never really read any of the Core stuff, but didn't find any more distracting then any other crossover that I wasn't familiar with. Sadly it made the last couple of chapters a bit confusing for the climax, as it didn't really have the weight I think it would have if I was familiar with that bit of the source material. I wasn't a huge fan of EMH being in it, but that was really only a minor issue. I felt some of the jokes did go on to long, but that's more of a subjective thing.
That being said, there was a lot that the story did right. I really liked what you did with Rarity, fist the way she arrived in the story, the mystery about her and the way it was resolved. In fact, I would say most of the mystery elements worked well until the end, and while some of answers were easy to guess, that was only because the clues were well set out for anyone paying attention.
Taken though the lens of the story being a comedy, I felt the Star Trek characters were pretty on point, and always happy to see TAS characters make an appearance.
So, when taken together, the story ends up being just okay, and felt like a really good first draft.
Given how confusing this story was and how OoC several characters are I agree with the author on this story being a failure. I initially upvoted it but removed that upvote later but I don't think it warrants a downvote.
Two words.
IT SUCKED
11171846
I feel like that's an unfair thing to say. Unwhole Hole has made it clear this story didn't develop the way it was originally planned and envisioned. For the intended audience, per author's notes and comments in several chapters, this would have been more cohesive than it was for the secondary audience that appeared. And yes, that's an intentional parallel to the show itself and all of us.
I have my problems with this as well, but I've made my best effort to be specific and constructive when expressing them. There are authors on this site who would have simply bulldozed through everything the readers brought up and blamed them for "not getting it" coughPrincess'sCaptaincough, no matter how well written their comments were. That didn't happen here. Unwhole Hole has been visibly making a sincere effort to rework and adapt parts of the story where it was possible to do so, in recognition of what the readers have said, and indicated personal dissatisfaction over the ways the story didn't or wouldn't hold up for the readers.
Personally, I'd be proud as hell to write and finish a story that took the rocky path this one did and come out of it with the perspective and humility we've seen. So fie on your shame.
Ok, so. I pretty much agree with everyone here in that this ending could have been better. But the story overall is by no means the worst piece of yours I've read. (That would be Derpy Deeds, which I couldn't bring myself to finish.) I think you salvaged this as best you could, given the circumstances. I still had fun with it. The bigger transgression on your part, IMO, is ending #277 they way you did. Because that story was amazing, and instead of diving into a thrilling new arc like I expected you to, you just didn't.
I'm gonna toss my thoughts out to contrast against the haters. I overall really enjoyed the story, more than enough to feel curious what a potential sequel could hold. I felt a little confused over only recognizing the Star Trek crossover, and not even knowing what the other crossover involved is, but that just makes me curious about what that's all about. The story was a bit rough and rocky at times, but I would not call it a mistake or a failure, nor something to be embarrassed about. I've read so much worse that would have me just give up on it, while this held my interest the whole time, and I really liked to see a different take on how ponies operated.
What's more, the story actually FINISHED! I've lost count of the stories over the years that were going great and I was eager to see where it'd go next, only for it just drop dead silent right in the middle of whatever was going on, from what I can only assume was burnout. So I'm glad to see this was an interesting story that actually concluded, instead of just fading away to forever be unfinished with no resolution of any kind.
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This is irrelevant to the story here (of which I find myself agreeing on your take) but out of curiosity where is this bleghurghTwilightsCaptainahemsneezemhm? Can't seem to find it anywhere.
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Ah, it turns out that wasn't quite the title. I've corrected it.
Oh Lyra, you sneaky lil' shid.
This story, at this point would benefit from amputating the last 3-4 chapters entirely and either being left incomplete or rewritten to boot any Mass Core references entirely. It sours almost the entire story and feels like the internal continuity warped into some Lovecraftian realm that was utterly inimical to the life of the characters, the story's world, or it's sanity.
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That would not solve the issue with the first ten chapters being excessively silly, though. The only part of the story I feel works is the middle. The beginning also needs to go.
However, you did give me an idea I will need to think about (although may not act upon). Considering ways to "fix" this story, there are several possible ways, but the most efficient way might be to eliminate the Star Trek aspect entirely. Construct it as a purely internal mystery, maybe built around Rainbow Dash and Lyra without the need for them to act like silly foils to Kirk and Spock. It solves some (but not all) issues with the ending too.
That might actually work.
Followed this story at the beginning, stopped at chapter 15 or so, binge to completion today. Very good!... Until the last chapters. What the hell.
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Gotta agree with WanderingPony. The story is good, you just need to erase the frankly horrid ending. It's a very silly at times Star Trek story with various implications. If anything it's the Mass Core that has absolutely no place in it. You wrote a Star Trek crossover with plenty of silliness that had a very dark secret and then suddenly became a cross with your other universe.
This story became popular because of the Star Trek, silliness included. Removing that wouldn't be fixing the mistake with this story, would be removing all it was in order to save a, sorry to say, very mismanaged and nonsensical entry in another series.
It felt like an old Trek episode. Mystery, shenanigans, new contact with a truly alien species. Preserve that, it's awesome, it's the different thing that brought so many to read it. And if you want to get another Equestria to your Mass Core stories, you need to write something from the ground up for that.
I've got to laud your effort and not leave this be a coffin to your writing. I can just recommend you don't be blinded by what worked and what didn't, because what you suggested is exactly that. You're trying to toss away everything to preserve a bad ending instead of tossing away the ending to save the story.
All in all I'll tentatively leave my Favorite still on it. It's good until the WTF end, it has the potential to shine further still. I hope you'll give it the ending that it both deserves and you have shown you can give it with how you wrote it all.
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For clarity, in a new version I would also be changing the ending as well.
The idea I have been considering is reconstituting the story with the same basic elements but in an alternate, technological version of Equestria (as presented here), written as a mystery with its own in-context ending.
Writing a Star Trek fanfiction was fun (and apparently popular), but I think the narrative quality could be improved greatly if rendered without reliance on any major crossover elements. Just a straight, solid AU story.
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I want to echo what Gyro Pony said. This wasn't a perfect story and those of us unaware of Mass Core probably would have enjoyed it more without that aspect, but it was still an enjoyable story overall.
I feel you did a fantastic job of writing the crew of the Enterprise. And I liked the contrast of the "wacky" ponies as a great source of comedy. Thanks for the good read!
(Though I think with your experience you’d probably reverse this Oscar Wilde quote)
I’ve had Warp Core Conspiracy on my RIL way back when you first uploaded it. I generally wait until fics are done before I start reading them. I caught that you made *two* blog posts about this story but didn’t go into reading them to avoid spoilers. I wanted to read the story! I love star trek, and I am a fan of some of your works. Though never did get around to reading Mass Core.
I did read the comments and the blogs once I was done with the story, and you already had your mea culpa and fallen on several samurai swords. Which is a… good thing? Though there is the fear that you might overcorrect yourself. I certainly want you to be still be thrilled to write pony stories or write in general, even when it might not always connect or land or go to plan! Hell, I’ll even read another star trek story from you and would love to see your take on a potential TNG era return that you mentioned in the blog post
For all the imperfect gem this story ended up being, I will say that your writing still kept me intrigued and interested. The last long fic (100k+) words I read from someone else I chipped away at it one chapter a night over the course of months. I read this story in four days. Not sure if anything I will say will be revelatory. I can just share my experience with it and maybe you might find it helpful?
I did very much enjoy the Star Trek elements and the usage of the TAS crew instead of the pure TOS crew. I didn’t mind the anachronisms that much, Star Trek has always had more in background lore than in the show, for instance TNG’s Enterprise canonically has dolphin crewmembers who you never see in the actual show.
I do think the middle portion of the story gets in a sweet spot where drama / humor/ worldbuilding is in good balance. From M’ress stealth mission to Moondancer and Scotty working on the core to Rarity-Trill introduction it’s all golden. If you ever need to go back and wonder which parts worked, that was the best IMHO.
The ending... what bugged me the most wasn’t the introduction of a third franchise to crossover, or even the pulling in the mass core fanfiction. I think Celestia’s speed of turning away Kirk just undermines the theme. Her blatant, immediate hypocrisy just sort of negates everything else.
Maybe it’d have been better to have a bitter sweet parting instead?
Something like… Kirk and Celestia having a final talk in private. Her being regretful, outlining the differences between them. Basically the same conversation Kirk had with the crew, but it’s more personal as its two erstwhile partners now broken with this insurmountable divide. Maybe throw us a little bone of saying how the surviving Ferengi helped regrow Twilight’s horn / RD’s wing / Saved Rarity.
Afterwards you can still have Babylon show up, play the proverbial ‘Faust’ of giving Celestia the offer of safety that she did of the protection of the alliance. Point out that it was their technology that help mend Twilight / RD. Have Celestia consider the offer but not give her answer for the ominous end.
Not trying to write it for you, just spit balling a way of giving the reader a little longer to think on it and making Celestia seem a little more reasonable if she took time to come to her decision instead of immediately. She’s still a hypocrite, just without as much whiplash. There are options without lopping off entire arcs and limbs of storytelling I think.
In anycase, I still thank you for writing the story. Sorry I wrote so much.
What is there to say that hasn't already been said? I came for Star Trek, wasn't bothered by elements that didn't require previous knowledge of TAS or Mass Effect or to enjoy, and ????????'ed the ending. I could totally hear the hum of the engines, the snap of a teleport spell, and the wail of Red Alert as I experienced this story. No context for Mass Effect so Star Wars sound effects stood in and it worked out that way for me.
My favorite part was Moondancer's transwarp equations. I just love seeing what you can do with a foundation built to reconcile clashing world mechanics. Transporters are unsafe for unicorns because of their magic source? Beautiful. Pony magic makes natural warp fields? I wholeheartedly accepted that headcanon back when I read Equestria's First Warp Drive, where they played with the idea even more. Crystal caves are a bunch of worthless dilithium crystals? One pony's trash is another civilization's treasure, I suppose.
I'm fine with a need to keep the Federation and Equestria separate. Element Zero being toxic to humans over extended periods was more than enough. Murder charges, though? Kirk killed a man -- as a last resort to stop further loss of life; that's not murder. Pony morality is still free to draw the line at killing though.
I didn't need the body horror found in the warp core. Implants are one thing, but exposed bones are a bit much for me. Character clichés like Spock startling Kirk and hooman obsessed Lyra were drawn out too long.
I'd rather Twilight have gotten a happy ending. Send her to group therapy with Tempest/Rainbow. Even better: follow up on the obvious EMH foreshadowing and open up a medical clinic that can restore horns and wings (Tempest has accepted her condition now and it would just be wired). I want Twilight to go on -- to meet her canon friends; I don' wanna see her left emotionally bleeding out like that!
Skipping 10 chapter numbers threw me way off, as did a bunch of wrong words along the way. I had to re-read confusing parts two or three times until I got it.
Enjoyable story in a well-thought-out, but offbeat alternate universe. This is not a story I would have picked up had I remembered the spoilers I was warned about a while ago. However, I did make it to the end. Don't weed out the Mass Effect/Star Trek elements to fix the ending. Lyra's annoying
mythologyhistory lesson and the portal to the evil planet eaters told me everything I needed to know about coming shenanigans and just how bad these bad guys were.Now I want to try my own hand at a first contact Federation/Equus crossover. I hear there are lots of strange, new worlds in the Delta Quadrent.
This story needs a tragedy tag. Or at the least a dark tag.
Classic Kirk.
Trope Lyra.
Weird biology.
Overall good story but I don't think I'll be re-reading this.
Okay and..... yeah most of it has already been said, the story was fun, if having a few issues with kind of overdoing some of the jokes, or ones that really kind of never worked.... untl the ending kind of... just not that great. Not even talking the Mass Core things, as my comments showed, I was anticpating more Mass Effect stuff to show up, and even tying it more into the previous fic could have worked if it had been better set up. We already had the whole, Ponies came from another universe implication, the oddities ofthings going on, if things had been better hinted at and set up, and once the big reveal happened we got more context for just what was going on, it could have worked well enough to not have left non Mass Core readers baffled. That was a stumble but, could work.
Really my bigger issue with the ending is just how needlessly dark it got, all the damage to RD and Rarity, the state everypony is left in, the temper tantrum and Celestia acting like it can just say "No Visitors" and not have every major power in two quadrants coming by for what they have, and then making a deal with someone who cracks open entire inhabited planets for funsies simply becuase they were nice and circumspect and never directly said what they were going to do... and you can totally trust her!
Bittersweet could have worked, I'm even all for Equestria not joining the Federation... but the way this ended just.... felt like it wanted to be dark simply for the sake of being dark and it ignores everything it set up and already established just for that.
Not to mention the way it's crouched as some deep lesson of "Maybe the ability to travel at warp isn't the only marker needed for being brought into thing" which just...really shows a lack of understanding of how it worked. Yeah, achieving warp speed is the point where a species is deemed advanced enough to openly contact, but it is not the be all end all, ideally there will be months, if not years of research in place before an official First Contact is made, and that first contact is just that, someone stopping by, saying "Hey there, welcome to the neighborhood, here's a few introductory pamphlets about the region, we'll let this settle in and call if you have any questions." Actually joining the Federation is a much larger process that yeah, takes into account the planets social, political, economic, etc condition. Like I said, Equestria wouldn't qualify for admittance in the first place as there is no united world governing body, and the fic keeps forgetting there are more then just Ponies on the planet.
So yeah, I did like the story overall, some of the jokes were a bit off, like the constant mini-skirt jabs... we get it! Also, in context of the time, that was a rather progressive move given how being able to choose to show off that much leg was seen as liberating and actually a move towards great freedom for women. That said... this was also Gene Roddenberry..... who was very much a dirty old man that would also just want to see the hotties walking around in miniskrits so.... not a bad point, you just really overplayed it. And Spocks' snark and disdain for things... yeah aspects of the character, but this really cranked those up into Fladerization territory.
but despite that, it was fun... and then it just got dark for no reason while feeling like it was trying to paint the Federation as something it really was not to justify it. So overall.. some really great bits but, yeah really stumbled at the ending.