Twilight Sparkle has proven herself to be an exceptional practitioner of the arcane arts. So, Princess Celestia decides that it is time she learned of the applications and consequences of advanced magic.
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Raugos
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Brilliant story! Has a good balance of humour and morals, and an interesting read
Dang. This is just cool.
...Why is it getting dislikes so fast? That's just weird.
Bwwaaaa? Ok so Celestia uses time travel to get her paper work done, the government to work, and teach? My brain it hurts
Upped and favved- I'm really liking this! I can't read the whole thing now, but I'll be coming back to it later!
no clue why it got some downvotes, but... some people are just like that.
It made me "Dawwwww" and tugged on my heartstrings at the same time. Another excellent story!
you have yet to reach level one of head aich on me. loved the story though cheers
1628072>>1628075>>1628083>>1628222>>1628956
Thanks for the support, y'all! Glad you liked it!
1629955
Anyways, thanks!
Hehe, yeah, well, not everyone is familiar with some of the aspects of time travel.
Okay, this actually makes a whole lot of sense. I've always wondered why Celestia never interfered with Discord, or Nightmare Moon, or with the Changeling Invasion. Its clear now that she was waiting it out, seeing if she was needed, if she had interfered in the future, before going back into the past and doing anything. And you bring up interesting points; if one knows the future, can there ever be any trust? I would have liked this theme to be explored a little bit more, but you did a great job discussing the implications of immortality, so I'm fine. It makes me curious, as well, if Celestia ever jumped into the future, then came back, just to see what had happened in her future (English tenses get very screwed up when time travel is involved). And the idea of gravity reversal as an offensive weapon is quite interesting. I always find it fascinating the dark implicationsof seemingly benign things found in kids shows.
Well, that was far longer than I meant it to be. TL;DR, Kudos to you. Have a mustache.
1631557 agreed and as to the dislikes well those people must have gotten an ice-cream headaich.
I faved and liked this even though immutable time travel is one of my major pet peeves. It bugs me like almost nothing else. It just seems to mess with free will too much from my POV.
My IQ is over 150, and I am still trying to wrap my bucking head around what I just read. You, good Sir, are a GENIUS!
Faved this one.
The lesson, oh Twilight Sparkle, Faithful Student of the Sun? It is this: Magic always comes with a price. Go back in time to relive your day and you take a day from your life. Celestia is essentially immortal but even she is burning a candle at both ends. For her, it is a matter of her duty to her Little Ponies but I don't think that there are many other excuses.
The question is, is this truly complete? I mean you said chapter 1, and this kind of is open ended. There are other implied lessons in the future one that could be neat to read.
1631726 Yeah, I was kind of looking for ways to excuse Celestia from not lifting a hoof in so many episodes.
As for further exploration of the theme, I'm not sure if I would've been able to go much deeper than that without making it a real slog to read through. I've got a feeling that 5k words on an idea is long enough for most people.
1633068 Well, it could be argued that free will still applies so long as you are still unaware of what happens as a result of your actions.
1633196 You can thank Gargoyles the animated series for my understanding of time travel. That cartoon is one of my childhood faves and really gave me a lot to think about.
1634583 Yeah, it's just a one-shot story. Sorry for the confusion. I made the ending like that so that it wouldn't look like an understanding of time travel is supposed to be the pinnacle of Twilight's learning. Maybe if future episodes raise similar concerns, I might be able to produce another chapter exploring those issues.
1635351All I know is you had me LOST lol
Because time and space are fun to play with!
The whovian inside me is sooooooo happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is amazing!!!! All of your stuff could be canon!!!!!!
One problem i can see is, if she judges things by what future Celestia warns her of, what if as an example: in the First episode NMM won and Celestia was banished(or all 3 of her, no future ones would be able to come later since they are banished "in the past"), so she couldnt go back and warn Celestia. Celestia takes it as nothing will happen so does nothing?
A major flaw for something Celestia relies on so much.
Feels the same as Earthquake warnings and such, still doesnt mean they will always be there to warn you.
2445205 Yeah, it's not an airtight theory. But then again, a lot of this depends on which Celestia NMM captures, if it's not all of them. And even if NMM did get all of them, it would only be if the future Celestias allow her, because they would've already experienced it the first time round, and know what to expect. Unless NMM managed to capture all of them separately so that Celestia cannot witness her own capture to prepare herself before jumping back.
NMM would have to be able to take her by surprise three times.
Eh, it gets complicated.
The idea is that history is immutable, so my guess is that whatever has happened will happen, and any action or inaction on Celestia's part will only make those events come true.
2445386
Thats the problem if she captures her(them) in the future, nobody would just appear from the future later to warn her(maybe NNM would create an illusion like she did with Dash but that would be in the present or something), thats why Celestia would just assume all goes well and would not do anything to stop her.
Its not just for the NMM incident, that means that Equestria is doomed any moment Celestia is "destined" to fail (but it actually being her fault since she just wont do anything). And the issue with ALL of time and space being set just... meh why fight something if you know it will get defeated because it is set that it will get defeated. (pretty much what Celestia is actually doing...
no wonder she doesnt tell anyone else about it)
So in short life is not in the hands of the one living it but is already set and you dont have to do anything, Twilight The Overthinker (nice title for her huh xD ) will get a new wave of depression once she realizes that.
hello, im celestia 2 of wednesday.
wow, my head hurts now
1635351 I really hope you get inspired to add to this story. I love the deep, mature tone. Do you acknowledge Twilight's ascension? If so, I would expect that she'll be learning some sobering lessons from this point forward.
2991633 I do acknowledge her ascension. As for adding to this story, we'll have to see. It kind of looks like they're going to give Twilight a pretty sobering lesson on power in the Season 4 opener anyway.
That was a very interesting read. I'm not sure how I feel about The idea of Celestia doing this constantly. It seems a bit implausible to me that she would be able to maintain a time travel routine on this scale and not cause more problems or rumors than she seems to.
During the introduction of the Celestias, I caught on a lot faster than Twilight did, as not only have I seen and read a lot of time travel stories, (and the story description said there was going to be time travel) but in The Chamber of Secrets, Hermione does exactly the same thing in order to fit her ridiculous course load into her schedule. Same rules of time travel too. (Time is consistent and anything you do will end up matching up exactly with what you observe the first time around)
I see you're one of those authors who maintains a canon across all their works. The thing that tipped me off was the reference to Luna's actions in Night Guards. I wonder if were more connections that I missed. I didn't actually realize until that point that I was reading one of your stories. This is where we get into your incredible attention to detail. Things like noting the one Celestia that was surprised by Twilight's time shenanigans, how very inconvenient it would have been for Celestia to have had foreknowledge during A Canterlot Wedding, and even a reference to Ponyville Confidential. I'd forgotten that Gabby Gums wrote about Celestia. (And in fact never noticed until now that the picture of her eating a massive pile of cake was actually sourced directly from the show) Speaking of which, how did they get that story? (And photo)
Good show, thumbs up, and now I think I must read more of your things.
2999322 Yeah, a routine like that is bound to create problems at some point. But it's still fun to mess with everypony's heads.
Regarding time travel, the immutable timeline is my favourite rule. If done well, it's almost like solving a mystery. 
Thanks for the feedback, and happy reading!
My reaction to this story and it's implications:
media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2fv14gf7q1r5wpaw.jpg
My goodness, that was utterly fascinating. And a great moral as well! Fantastic story, Raugos. You really need to write more; Everything you put out is exceptional, without any exceptions.
Really well thought out, and well written. And I see the experiment Twilight is conducting with her past self - can another way taken really change the future, and what happens then to the current timeline?
3603167 Depends on which theory of time you subscribe to. I tend to prefer the ones where if a change is made, the new events will branch off into a different time stream and cannot be perceived by the original timeline.
time travel:
attempt p=np
result: a message saying "DO NOT MESS WITH TIME".
-summary of the time-turner shennanigans in HPMoR.
Rule #1 of Time Travel: DON'T.
You'll hurt your brain, if not your relationships or the entire world by under-thinking or over-thinking what happened, what will happen, what may happen, and what already happened. There are ALWAYS unintended consequences. Always.
I can only see that sentence and laugh. I know it makes perfect sense in context, but it's just too hilarious to me.
Wow.
I'm impressed.
This is probably one of the most accurate representations of the cause and effects of time travel I've ever seen! It's right up there with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure! Well done Mr. (Ms.?) Raugos, Well Done!
6533934 Gotta thank Gargoyles for that. It exposed me to the concept of closed time loops and helped solidify my understanding of cause and effect when I really should've been paying more attention in school.
I think I must have opened this to read it at some time in the distant past, gone to other tabs, then lost the tab before actually reading the story. VERY glad I decided to "re-read it since I don't remember it".
3603167
Who says it was an experiment? Maybe the train is going to break down resulting in the road being faster? Or she will meet someone in need of help (Trixie comes to mind for some reason)? Actually, that could still be an experiment I guess! They aren't mutually exclusive.
4817488
p = np isn't necessarily impossible, it is just something that nobody has managed to prove or disprove and would have huge implications if it were proved (cryptography, such as for secure electronic communications would suddenly become a very different ball-game).
6437521
Yeah, the FiM setting tends to create stuff like that from time to time...
One of my favorites was when someone once pointed out that Applejack is very pragmatic, and has a distaste for unnecessary complications and too much (unicorn) magic when applied to farming. She very much looks forward to Zap Apple Harvest.
stories like this, are why i go through other peoples favorite lists. with less than 3K views, this obviously fell through the cracks.
I realize this is a five year old fic, but it seems unfinished. Celestia's statements about not trying to change the timeline followed by Future Twilight immediately showing up with advice about what to do in the future...seems like an obvious setup. Future Twilight took the train and then advised past Twilight not to. So if she follows the advice she gives herself, she creates a time paradox.
But then the story ends without that being developed at all, and I don't see a sequel.
8783606 This was just meant to be an exploration of the model for time travel where history is immutable. With the exception of jumping into alternate universes, every action has been and always will be taken in that specific way.
Ah, I guess I could've made that part clearer. The idea was that Future Twilight never actually took the train. No iteration of her ever did. It's a stable time loop of Twilight taking her future self's advice and then realising that it was the better choice only after the fact.
Immutable history versions of time travel are always the most fun to explore.
I do love the explanation for “why didn’t you go back in time?” Where the answer was “because future me never appeared.”
wait why does not make 3 time clones of right now and have them all do her 3 different parts then combine back into one? then she won't have to do the same day 3 times.
9738729
The time travel mechanics don't allow for clones. There's no splitting or combining.
I enjoyed this story more than I expected. But I do have a question:
Why doesn't Celestia form a council of ponies to help alleviate her workload? The ponies she selects may not be as capable as her, but it is a simpler solution than using time travel. The fact that she has been using time travel for a long time proves, to me at least, that for all of her wisdom earned from 1000 years of living, she has not learned the one lesson Twilight herself did in Winter Wrap-Up.
Magic cannot solve everything.
11325749
I cannot remember my exact frame of mind when this was originally written (wow, almost ten years ago!), but the short answer is that I probably didn't take that into account.
The story was meant to explore the practical mechanics, applications and implications of time travel for immortal Celestia, and how mortal Twilight can learn of its unintended consequences.
It was also written in a time when Celestia's image in the fandom was closer to 'wise demigod' than 'immortal princess'. The flaws of this scheme don't affect her to the same degree as a regular pony, and from her perspective, if she's able to shoulder the burden and has already been doing so for ages, why shouldn't she carry on?
Magic cannot solve everything, but it makes for a really convenient temporary solution. And you know what they say: there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.
11325813
"And you know what they say: there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution."
What does that mean?
11326165
It's a Russian proverb.
It's pointing out that 'temporary' solutions have a tendency to become permanent because people can't be bothered to revisit a problem and fix it properly.
11326185
Thanks.