"What do you mean?" Luna asked, scooting up to sit.
Twilight looked torn between anger and shock as she took several steps back, "She says she didn't solve the recurrence principle."
"The what?" I asked, "Keep in mind that most ponies here don't have several doctorates in magical theory."
Twilight shook her head, "The recurrence principle. Basically, the world doesn't like things coming out and into it and the more each thing does it, the more dangerous it gets as they weaken the fabric."
"Dangerous how?" I asked, glancing at Midnight who were looking away.
Luna frowned, "It's not a linear progression. Your appearance in Equestria for example had almost no risk as it was your first trip. But the danger increases exponentially, especially when done in short order," she said seriously, "Such as only a month having passed, especially when it's so many of you."
"Dangerous how?" I asked, pushing myself up, looking at Twilight.
"It may cause a world breach. Remember that thing that appeared at the table when we tried to make a portal to send Midnight and Talon back?" Twilight said, "That wasn't a full breach, just a partial one to the space between worlds. A full one may... I don't know. I never got the math to work, it might throw a pony into the void and seal itself or... or it may cause a permanent portal a hundred meters across to any world or even no world!."
The size of small village.
We appeared just next to Ponyville. In the middle of Equestria.
I stared at Midnight, "You knew of this?" I asked her quietly, feeling ice slide down my spine.
She raised her wings defiantly and looked at me in turn, "I did the math with Starlight and the odds of it happening were low, barely two percent."
Two percent.
She gambled a lot of ponies getting hurt on 98 percent.
Luna let out a small gasp and I couldn't blame her. Out of all the fucking irresponsible... I never would have thought that of her.
Slowly getting up, I moved off the throne and towards her, "Two percent," I said, "Each?"
Midnight swallowed, taking a couple of steps back, shaking her head, "T-there were safeguards, Starlight w-"
She broke off as I reached her.
"So it was more than two percent. Everypony in ponyville. Roll of the die. Two percent."
"No! I-"
"Talon. Pinkie Pie. Rarity," I said, "I suppose Applejack might have made it if she was home. Maybe Rainbow Dash if she could fly fast enough. The ponies running the bakery? The storekeeps, the ponies in the market, the ponies living in the village? Not so much. There is a school in Ponyville, isn't there? How many foals go there? Is it within town limits?"
Midnight started to cry, "I... the math..." as she slowly backed away.
"Fuck the math!" I snarled, baring my fangs at her as I followed, "There are things you don't fucking risk on math! Not for such low gains!"
"We just-"
"We should have stayed," I told her, "We should have stayed and found a better way. A safer way. But no, you dec-"
Somepony touched my shoulder and when I looked, it was Luna. In fact, she was the only one other than Midnight that was on this side of the room, everypony else had retreated and... Sparks had a shield up around them.
Luna looked at me, "Page, I need you to calm down," she said softly but seriously, "Close your eyes, deep breaths."
I looked up at her before I did as she told me to. As I did, I realized my mane had been moving. My tail too.
Damn.
I had never done that before.
Suddenly I felt tired. Exhausted even. I almost fell and would have if Luna had not pressed her side against mine in support.
"Go home," Luna said softly but firmly, looking at Midnight, "I will talk to you later."
There was the sound of hooves and then wings as Midnight left.
I opened my eyes again, "Sorry," I said and then looked at Sparks as the shield went down, "...What's with the shield?"
Sparks uhmed and glanced at Sunset.
Sunset looked back at her before slowly approaching, "Page, you were... shimmering."
I looked at her and then up at Luna, "I wasn't sparkling, was I?" I asked in slight horror.
She frowned and then shook her head, "No. It was more like a heat haze around you. I could feel the dream realm around you so I told everypony else to take cover just in case."
"Oh."
That's new.
Page can manifest dreams when he gets angry enough? That's.... terrifying actually.
He summoned the Dream Realm into the Physical World. If he does that he would have dream powers in real life letting him do whatever he wants because the power of Dreams.
To be honest, that's a legitimate Worry.
I wouldn't want to be a sparkly vampony either.
I'd say 2% isn't worth worrying about but I've played Xcom.
Good, no sparkling vampires here. Also Midnight's explanation looks like pure speculation. How exactly did she came to those numbers?
So we could have weakened dimentional fabric around ponyville and page is now getting powerful enough that he can start bringing dreams into physical reality. Somepony is getting powerful.
If only discord wasn't such a flake he maybe could either investigate or intervene, but you just can't rely on him.
Dear God, He can pull people into the shadow realm........ And he seems to be related to an ancient leader. If he finds some obscure puzzle......
You know, percentages are a horrible way to look at statistical probability.
a much more expressive way of saying 2% is 1 time in 50. That makes the true risk much clearer.
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And we all know how dangerous those 2% can be
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But as they said, it wasn't 2%. Ideally, it's 2% [for Midnight] (at least thats what I gather), but two trips so quickly, and page has been in and out additional times the real percentage could be much higher. 2% I'd debate risking it, but 15%? 20%? Percentages can quickly add up to something a lot less certain.
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Oh, it's worse than you think. Afterall what is a dream than a story in our head? If the dream becomes real then... Well...
you can rewrite stories and the existential consequences of rewriting reality approach the powers of Discord.
Nice
eh who can really calculate these things anyways. Its like spock figuring out the odds the giant godlike alien being is going to squish them or turn into a balloon and pop, the math is just about as good as a guess when you're dealing with stuff way outside the envalope of what is known. Just don't go teleporting bread all day around the hole.
also also, DARTH PAGE
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Never underestimate the percentages, no matter how high or low they are, they'll ruin you lol
...FLUTTERSHY AND DISCORD HAVING TEA...
*Midnight barge in*
Fluttershy: Oh hi Midnig--
Midnight: I need Discord. RIGHT NOW.
Discord: EEP!! Wait wait wait! Listen..I accept my fate but can please limit it to just punches and kicks? I don't want to see the sock puppets again!
Midnight: The ice cream room.
Discord: What?
Midnight: I need to be surrounded by ice cream really REALLY bad!
Discord: Oh...oh dear. *makes a marshmallow door appears* Here you go. I even updated it with a wall of your favorite books for this possible occasion.
Midnight: Thank you. *opens the fluffy door and closes it behind her*
Fluttershy: We...will wait a couple of hours before telling anypony.
Discord: Agreed.
well... i think i really want to see Page take advantage of the dream realm due to a primal rage state i mean the dream realm is too close to reality manipulation and that alone opens up a lot of possibilities.
I would also very much like Page and the others to face the problem of the gap between the universes and the inhabitants of that space, I want to see the damned CHTULHU and other beings of cosmic horror trying to break through to Equestria!!! Let it become a fight for survival!
Poor Midnight, fellow readers, what would you have done? Personally, I don't mind strangers, they can die and I wouldn't mind, but I'm pretty sure if my family was around, I wouldn't dare do what Midnight did.
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There's also the question one should consider being if the additional percentages are additive or multiplicative. As for example, 2% + 2% =4%, but 2% x 2% (at least according to google) =0.0004%
that's a rather big difference in results between the two calculations.
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I'd personally say such powers surpass Discord by a fairly large margin because such capabilities could easily allow you to just rewrite Discord out of reality. Or transfer his powers to you. Or both!
Absolutely terrifying
Page almost turned Twilight vampire bad? Damn...
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It was a 99% hit success rate and 70% Critical
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Because 2% sound less than 5%? Or like people say 5 minutes if they mean 10 or 15?
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Time to du-du-duel!
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Until the Buttsex surprise comes out between realms
Curious.
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I mean, there may be couple percents that there would be gap at all, and then less than 0,000000001% that this gap would be larger than two centimetres.
Midnight: "There was only a 2% chance!"
Page: "Now how could it other be we actually hitting the critical failure like a
D&DO&O campaign on critical failure..."Midnight: "But... 2 %"
Page: "And suddenly the Alicorn bat-pone Statue is alive and has the personality of a lick happy puppy!"
Midnight: "But that scientifically impossible"
Talon: "Like that Time loop thing the day Cerberus left the Tarterus entry/exit unguarded..."
Page: "Great the Bat-pone Statue befriend Fern and now it carries Fern up here so they drool all over my fac- bläää!
Bad Fern, I can smell your last meal!... Why do you smell like Banana and Fish?
Midnight: "I wonder if the anatomical correct Statue can give us Bat-pone foal support..."
》》later《《
Norturnis has Sphinx sized Bat-pones
Can't really blame Page for his reaction. Really does sound like the sort of problem that more ponies should've known about and should have had more minds doing the figuring to both get more accurate figures and resolve the situation altogether. Admittedly, there may also not be a solution, but ponies besides Midnight, Twilight and Starlight should've known.
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And X-Com kind of drives that home because every single roll can be a matter of life or death.
I’m honestly a bit surprised that Midnight of all ponies took that gamble. I don’t expect the average pony to have a better understanding of probability than the average human (and it’s a scientifically proven fact that by default our intuition tends to rather suck in that area), but she’s Almost-Canon!Twilight and so doesn’t really have that excuse especially when she apparently has in fact done at least part of the math. That said, I can still absolutely understand her simply having folded under the pressure because the same canon has demonstrated time and again that she’s not somehow superequinely resilient when it comes to simple stress. We’ll just have to see how bad the aftermath really turns out to be.
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You're not the only one, 95% chance ti hit my behind
Oh no
...neat
Perhaps you could do a safe world portal in the dream realm
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The rub is, the multiplicative chance is not 2% x 2% - that is the chance for both causing a breach.
If one breach is already one too many then you need to calculate the chance for "no breach" and multiply it, i.e. for two people it is 98% x 98% = 96.06% for being lucky both times (and 3.94% for breaching at least once, including a 0.04% chance of both of them causing a breach)
Midnight gambled with high stakes here, yikes....
2% chance of a Dimensional Tear occurring and causing unknown amounts of death & destruction. 2% at minimum.
2% is WAY WAY WAY too high of a chance when lives are on the line. ESPECIALLY when there are alternatives.
Don't think so? There are over 20 Million airline flights a year worldwide. That's about 55 thousand flights every day.
If the average rate of plane crashes was 2% we would see 1,100 plane crashes... EVERY. DAY.
"yeah, but they're only traveling back to Page's Equestria once! That means there's a 98% chance nothing happens, right?"
It means on AVERAGE, 98 times out of a hundred nothing bad happens.
If you were to replicate the circumstances under which Midnight cast the spell...
You could possibly travel 980 times in a row with nothing bad happening... then something bad happens the next 20 times you attempt it.
OR... the bad thing happens the very first time you try. You're worried about your first attempt being that 2 out of 100 chance.
Low chances doesn't mean something CAN'T/WON'T happen, just that the possibility is low.
When lives are on the line... ESPECIALLY other people's lives... 2% is too big a risk. Page fully understands this.
So we find out the fabric of reality is getting weak and then that page is manifesting the dream relm... related?
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It seems everyone see this as 2% chance of catastrophe. It's less than 2% chance that anything happens. And what chance that if something happens, this something would be dangerous at all? What chance that this portal would be big enough to even swallow a frog?
so was page pulling dreams into reality like a powered up version of Freddy Kruger?
Poor Midnight. All that with just 6% Risk of obliterating a small village with at least 7 Residents having „Plotarmor“.
Page pulling the dream realm into reality is terrifying. Especially with the void sphere he created and left to float around one or two stories ago.
So, if Page can pull dreams into reallity, just how much controll would he have of them.
Just think of the possibilities, next time someone decleares war on Equestria, he only needs to send some Astartes into their country and they will beg for peace.
If I could add something via Dream power it would be:
Reminds me of Xarmar13 SC Saga x MLP story
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She's pretty far away from canon!Twilight by now. She is a Twilight who had her entire life ripped away from her several years ago, and when several years later she had finally managed to rebuild her happiness, she had everything she'd painstakingly rebuilt torn away for the second time.
That makes a lot of people willing to take more risks to get it back. Doesn't make it okay, but it does make it understandable. How many times can you ask someone to sacrifice everything that makes them happy?
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That comment is the clear winner of this chapter
♡
The dreamer walks the world! reality is the dream, the dream is reality!
All hail the god of chaos
Great Blank Page our Lord
Who rests beyond no longer
Who is silent no more
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Unfortunately twilight was never one for empathy. She literally has told someone is upset just to get it. I remember seeing her teach rainbow lessons and thought what bad behavior. Mare do well was about stealing the spotlight from everyone. The prank thing was revenge which is rarely ever a good idea. And all it did was hurt rainbow who thought she hurt everyone she cared about.
I think he's becoming the Alicorn of realms, like he was exposed at least three times to the magic that makes the transfer from one 'place' to another, and I believe what he did was try to close that Gap that was exposed, even instinctively, and let's remember: Luna said he is more powerful than her in the dream realm, so maybe his power is...evolving?
Well, 2% each aside, page being furious and leaking the dream realm is interesting. Does this mean that, with training, he'll be able to be considered a reality warper? Able to manipulate the world around him at will, disproportionately to the energy he puts in? I can imagine so many things he could do, maybe even cross dimensionql boundaries safely.
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Oh, I think I can empathize with her on that front and as such I’m actually not even as mad at her as some of the other characters in the story itself. Vaguely disappointed that she didn’t run more thorough checks, perhaps, but she has the same damn right to not always be 100% perfect as every other pony and in any event what’s done is done.
I’m just hoping that she’ll take a lesson away from this even if somehow nothing should happen at all (which basic trope knowledge may tell me is unlikely now the “Do you even realize what you did?!?” hammer has already been dropped, but I’m open to pleasant surprises), and I by and large trust her to do exactly that.
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Plus the cutie map could find a way to overcome the distance factor.
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I was wondering if anyone remembered that he did that
Page can manifest nightmares when channeling his anger, that is one of the most terrifying abilities close to Space-Time manipulation. Faust have mercy on Equestria.
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*checks load on boltgun, flask of blessed water, inquisitorial seal...*
great chapter