Prophesy says that Twilight Sparkle will not outlive her friends.
To preserve the Princess, her friends must survive.
They may not be immortal - but one year can become a thousand at the speed of light.
An entry for Science Fiction Contest II, where it took a Committee Prize!
Additional tags for spoiler purposes: My Little Pony: A New Generation ; Mane 5
Featured 3/23/2023 - 3/28/2023!
And featured on Equestria Daily on 4/4/2023!
Thanks to my pre-readers: The Sleepless Beholder, Dewdrops on the Grass, daOtterGuy, and Avery Day.
Chapters (2)
I maintain what I said for the pre-read. I broke into tears at the ending, because it's just that good.
That's the danger of playing clever games with Fate, he's a right spiteful bugger when he catches on.
Welp, time to go find Twilight, hopefully she's more than just a haunted skull inna cave or summat...
Well, it's certainly good that someone finally touched something like this theme
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Knowing twilight she might have figured out how to make something to freeze herself in a death state and thus making her die before her freinds but also be able to be saved by them when they retern. Imagine if twilight was sunnys great great something grandmother and has been frozen in a lab underneth her lighthouse all this time
As I said before: this is fantastic. The ending of the first part is pretty bleak, and I liked it for that, but I love the bit at the end. Hopeful but still a little melancholy.
Great work, and thank you for giving me the chance to pre-read this.
kinda want a sequel just for a fluttershy discord reunion
These are the kind of stories that remind me why I still read and write today.
Very Poignant, though somehow not bittersweet. It concluded rather satisfyingly, in fact. Though I guess its fair to say it's not really a conclusion, it feels like the end of the beginning.
Kudos.
I really enjoyed the story
And somehow I am reminded of TWO songs...
Wolfsheim's approaching lightspeed (we're here to move... we move to stay...when time stands still... a moment lasts...we're moving on... we're flying fast... approaching lightspeed)
And... perhaps in contrast to this...
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It may well be that Twilight went to limbo and now they need to find an artifact in order to return her. But that goes against the concept of this fanfiction. There were six pillars. After breaking their connection with the Elements, the main six appeared. but after the disappearance of Twilight Elements, there were five. This means that Twilight is either alive and wandering somewhere, or dead, and Harmony has abandoned her Element.
I’ve always noted from the first that McCarthy saying Twilight will not outlive her friends is not the same thing as her saying that the friends will live forever.
Mind I’m of the opinion that what she most likely meant was, “we’re not hardly going to show any of the Mane-6 dying or even implying that they died in the show, and as long as people remember the show they’ll remember Twilight, and all of her friends. And Applejack too.”
I do love stories that end with possibilities, and this one is loaded with them. But also, you wrote a story about the time dilation caused by moving at near-light speeds. Which invariably means that you reminded me of my favorite Queen song, “‘39”
”Don’t you hear my call —
Though you’re many years away
Don’t you hear me calling you?
All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand
All my life
Still ahead
Pity me…”
Of course in that song the Volunteers were “only” gone for a hundred years, not a thousand…but also unlike the Volunteers, Applejack and her friends still have a chance to find Twilight.
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I don’t know, I think the idea of finding Twilight somehow, in some way, is doable within the bounds of the fic. And it’s certainly in-keeping with the show itself.
Absolutely fantastic.
The part with Twilight Singing fucking *HURT*, thats how good it was.
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My first read-through kinda gave me the impression that some form of Twilight's "essence" had persisted through Sunny's alicorn magic thing, but I'm pretty sure that was only me making a far too literal interpretation of AJ's "Princess" line.
Just figured I'd let the idea take the air in case it actually generates lift.
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just read the premise, so far that looks soooo cool, the concept of immortality by technicality of time dilation
Honestly, I don't think this is your best work, but it's still good. Relativistic time dilation has so much good story potential. Two of my favorite pieces of fiction, Forever War (the novel) and Interstellar (the film) both utilize it to great effect.
The Desaturated World.
The part of my brain that wanders off into lore tangents wonders if there’s a connection between this and what we saw happen in Hope Hollow in Rainbow Roadtrip. Providing a measure of hope for the world if it can be similarly solved, if Sunny and friends haven’t already done so. Onward to the epilogue.
Outstanding work. Bravo.
A cute and not-so-lighthearted exploration of the very real problem that arose between Meghan McCarthey’s original vision for the show and the much, much later transformation and coronation of Twilight to end Generation 4. And you’re right, that is an extremely dark sentence taken out of context.
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I left her eventual path open for that - just off the top of my head there's half a dozen different ways she could've gone. But that's a story for another day.
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Two different pre-readers loved that part, too. Guess it landed!
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As I said - I don't really think it is either, but it's apparently good enough. So... yay?
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I was very purposely calling on exactly that, yeah.
The ending reminded me of an idea I came up with a while back: someone finds out about what's going to happen in G5 (the idea originally was to have a G5 pony rediscover time travel), so Twilight and a few others freeze themselves in stasis, only being unfrozen when Sunny Starscout gets the three tribes back together again.
A stunning and sober story.
Was it your intention to make a bridge between G4 and G5? Or did it just happen?
I would guess the latter. An idea from the original premise formed, words started, then the story formed.
That’s certainly one way in which the magic-less world of G5 came to be.
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You would be correct. The original outline was trying to create a sort of Twilight Zone-ish vibe: leveraging "Twilight will not outlive her friends" into a furious attempt to preserve the other five, only to find that extending their lives did not guarantee it would extend Twilight's.
As I wrote, that morphed into an attempt to capture a bit of something Dark Souls-esque: the idea of a fading world, looking back on past glory as it slowly ran down and fizzled into darkness. But by the time I got to the end of that, well. The ending felt wrong to leave there. And the G5 bridge felt right. It just plain made sense, even if it wasn't the original intention.
Just goes to show how sometimes a story writes itself, even if it isn't the one you planned.
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Well darn it, you did well mate!
The first chapter had us lost in the story, wondering how it could end, then the unexpected wrap up just worked.
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Are you telling me... that you got Captain Kirk’ed ?!
Well, you see Spike... when five star flung mares find themselves in strange new worlds...
What she means to say Spike, is that those engine designs were sure something to look at.
Even though I couldn’t get the pointy ear ones to smile.
Don’t worry Spikey, you’ll always be the Gorn for me.
She couldn’t stop talking about ya, buddy.
I know you left the ending vague on purpose, but I'm going to go ahead and interpret it through the lens of the opening paragraphs, that by attempting to shape the prophecy to their liking, they set in motion the ironic ending because they didn't think about the fact that the prophecy didn't say whether the friends would outlive Twilight. It makes the most sense and it fits the tone of the story.
If only someone had pointed out that as the Princess of Friendship, Twilight would make many friends over the centuries, and the prophecy didn't specify which friends she wouldn't outlive. Twilight still would have suffered the pain of eventually separating from the other five, but at least they would have gotten to enjoy those last decades together. And Equestria would have thrived.
So beautiful. So sad.
I love it. Thank you for this wonderful masterpiece.
Well that was... interesting.
And sad. Seems like a neat scenario to write fanfics in!
Man, who said you could make me sad?
'Cause they were right, dammit!
Good work!
Wow. This... is an amazing conclusion.
Fascinating and horrifying in equal measure. I can only hope Twilight found some way to banish herself as her mistake fixes itself, and that she timed it to return with her friends. Thank you for a great use of time dilation. Best of luck in the judging.
Oh right, there’s an epilogue.
My previous comment holds. Great stuff all around, and this opens up some very interesting future possibilities.
I like this explanation for why magic disappeared a lot better than the comics', and I like how you addresses the non-ponies too. Also, I didn't realise both groups contained two Earth ponies, two pegasi, and a unicorn until the last sentence.
I wasn't initially going to enter this contest, but man, does this make me want to. Absolutely phenomenal stuff
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That's how it goes for me a lot. Sometimes stories just happen.
Praise be to Calliope, my muse.
So where is Twilight Sparkle?
Somehow I didn't connect the dots from the description and spoiler tags. As soon as I started the second chapter the quarter dropped. Suddenly it all made sense. No kidding, I literally went "Oooooh!".
Yeah, I definitely enjoyed the story. The set up is maybe stretching it a little bit, but it didn't bother me. There are quite a few unanswered questions, but I don't think they matter. The story works very well as it is. I'm glad you posted it.
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Just don't wear a Red Tunic on a landing party
What she said.
Speaking of time dilation and songs, here's an absolute jewel of a space shanty:
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Even as a skull in a cave she'd still give out 5 hour lectures
Man, treating "Twilight will not outlive her friends" not as a promise, but as a threat... that's good on a "god DAMMIT I'm jealous I didn't think of it first" way. And the story itself is a really neat exploration of background canon and the gap between generations as well.
(Though, dammit again, now I want six seasons and a movie of the middle-aged Mane Six being absolute boomers about modern technology, and/or Rarity and Pipp loving each other for thirty seconds and then immediately becoming mortal enemies. Because they would. You know they would.)
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Oh dear lord yes.
This story can actually be developed into a whole universe in which the remnants of the main six will adapt to the new world and look for reminders of their families and so on. Perhaps they will go in search of Twilight, help in the confrontation with Opaline, etc.
You can come up with many options for the further development of events, but most likely this is not expected. The story ends where it ends.
I just don't like works in which everything ends tragically. In reality, there are enough tragedies, I would like something joyful.
Wow, what a case of making prophecy worse by avoiding it!
Don't ever, ever wish that on your monologuer friend. Their treatises, or manifestoes if you prefer that, could be the only thing that lasts you through an eternity of seeking, or in this case, evading an end.
The ending, that ending, that beautifully sorrowful ending!
I'm going to sound unhealthy, but this: If I had the brilliance to create something half as good as this, I wouldn't mind dying the same day.
I apologise for handing out such distasteful and pointless comment. Let me correct that.
I actually came up in 2019 in a fanfiction written in Chinese with some concept familiar as an analogue to the ending of G4. At that time, many were voicing their doubt in the fandom's vitality and some even decided to abandon their love for ponies because "bronyhood's dying anyway", so I coined together a world where magic just fades away out of no known cause, killing off sapience of all magical creatures. The story ended with Canterlot crashing off the mountain without magic to support its weight, while Starlight Glimmer loses her last sliver of consciousness and begins to feed on grass under her hooves.
Needless to say, that story scared, and probably scarred, quite a lot of readers. One of the user even dubbed it, "the most disgusting fanfiction that ever existed, even worse than 120 Days of Blueblood." But at the end of the day, my scandal did what I intended. I saw many of my readers voicing against the trend of fleeing the fandom, and my only regret is that I hadn't written an even more disgusting story, so that more can be steered otherwise.
All these babbles about myself is just to say that I know how hard it is to rip Equestria of magic and still make a decent story. Even if the airing of G5 saves the part of coming up with the concept, it's still an achievement to actually manage that. I've tried to reach there, and now you've been there.
I especially love how you put together several ideas and transit so smoothly from one to another. The details about how cultures and connections of the once glorious Equestria fall out into distant memories is something I never thought to include in 2019.
I remember hearing somewhere that, although cold-blooded science is what makes science fictions so appealing, humanity is what makes them really shine. On that, you have done fabulously. Congratulations on getting featured, and hope you rank good in the contest!
Well... I'll admit, I had been putting off reading this because it intimidated me. Seeing that you were one of my fellow competitors in the contest, and seeing how well received your story was, I was dreading what you had written, knowing it would be judged beside my own piece. I only dared to read it when my own story outpaced it in likes and views, and damn, was I right to be afraid. This is... Leagues beyond my own story. Heartwrenching and brilliant. Now I know for a fact that I don't stand a chance of winning first place, because hot damn. I may have bigger numbers on my story, but I would be truly astonished if you didn't take the blue ribbon next week. Beautifully done.
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If it's any consolation? I thought yours was great. Using Bonnie was smart and the whole thing was a fun laugh with an original approach. I think you're underestimating your chances, but we'll see once judging hits. Good luck to you!