I love it.

The first part makes me think of David Weber, with a touch of Robert A. Heinlein.

The second part evokes a little bit of Clancy and Cussler.

Nice to see it finally on this site.

>immediate thumbs up

>immediate favorite

Hot damn. Glad it's finally up here. When's the guesstimated release of chapter 2? As long as chapter 1, or was most of the time with 1 taken up by establishing the setting?

Firebird! Firebird! Firebird!

First thing I noice about this story is its word count. Time to start reading...

YES! It's finally here!! I could just kiss you now!

Firebird's of course awesome, but come on, Sunrise Glory needs some love too! I love me a scientific pony.  

Now please let Celestia get a curbstomb to the flank. And also give Bon Bon her punishment. It's loooong overdue.

>>18550351855035 Long, long overdue... And poor Mayor Mare. :( Dammit, it's rare for me to find sympathy with her. Here, outright anguish.

Xenolestia, your time has come. The ledgers must be balanced. There must be an accounting.

I come back from the Christmas Party, and there's the first chapter of "Conquer the Stars."

And who says Daleks only know hate? They clearly know of christmastime generosity...

Wait, was this that unnofficial sequel to Not Alone? I swear I saw something like it on Spacebattles. . .

Sorry if I'm wrong and my brain's just derping.

Hmm? I thought Comedy and Tragedy were mutually exclusive tags now?

>>18551391855139 It is the sequel to 'Not Alone'. No derping from you!

I love love love the Jefferson quote you have there. It's enough to warrant a fave by itself.

I can't wait to see where this goes.

Wow, I was wondering if you were going to post this here.

I LOVE IT

>>18551391855139 Ix, since someone's already gotten confused, could you add a note in the description that this is a sequel to Not Alone?

Anyway, it's looking great. Your portrayal of Luna is both plausible and delightfully frightening.

>>18551801855180>>18552411855241

Thanks for clearing that up fellas, much appreciated.

On another note, Merry Christmas to you all! Yes, even those who don't celebrate it. You don't get a free pass on the well wishing just because you don't celebrate it.

Ohohoho...

YES FUCKING YES!

Also, tag overload. Might want to trim it down just a bit.

>>18549711854971

Thank you. I'm taking my cues from Clancy, and the Calvin was partially inspired by the Rama from Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C Clarke. I'm also drawing something's from Ghost in the Shell.

That being said, there are references everywhere. Try and find them!

>>18550051855005

Well, I can reasonably write 1000 words per day, now that I've got my rhythm. The problem is that I'm having the forums review what I write, and while I might write fast, corrections are slow. The first two scenes alone took weeks of back and forth arguing to get them right.

>>185500185500

I just knew you'd say that.

>>18551481855148

I plan to make the reader experience a roller coaster of emotion, to make them laugh and cry and laugh again.

Tell me if I succeed.

>>18552411855241

Done!

>>18552901855290 Danke

Yes Yes Yes Yes!!!! may celstia's head finally get cut of her bitch of a body.

>>18552991855299

*angy Dalek glare*

This, my dear Dalek, is the perfect Christmas Gift! One I hope to repay come New Years by releasing chapter 1 of TCB: Systems.

And casting Luna as the primary antagonist was a brilliant inversion of the usual formula for Anti-TCB fics! For obvious reasons, Celestia usually gets this role. Yet Not Alone Celly was, quite frankly, a pathetic villian. An incompetent Buffon made dull-witted via a thousand years trapped in a perpetual Hug Box. An idiot, basically. Luna as discribed by Starman Ghost, however...

>>18553011855301 what? we are ALL thinking it. ANd also when is the story you know with all the different world equestria gets sent to going to be updated?

BTW, a friend of mine drew a picture of Major Firebird

Image: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/316/7/d/fibicolor_wip__by_moiderahofsanity-d5kih66.png

That was nice. Felt a bit info-dumpy in the beginning, but yeah, it was good.

Oh good.  I was waiting for something like this.  8 D

>>18553311855331

No, not really.

Some people want an actual story, rather than yet another mindless Equestria Stomp. Those get boring after the first thousand or so times.

Fortunately, Ix won't descend to that level of idiocy and his story will have interesting characters and an actual plot.

Nothing much to say other than interesting.  

Ooo, I've been waiting for this one to finally get here!

>>18554361855436 ok maybe i was a little overboard. sorry but still this is a amazing story.

This . . This is great. An entirely new story which can exist as an alternative universe sequel. Far too long I have seen TCB stories which just recap what has happened or new events, but nothing like this my good sir.

Also, I am hesitant to say that those downvotes you have received are from bias views on TCB, not on this story's merits.

How often will you release new chapter?

Copy/paste your story in this: Auto-Reviewer

That should cover the myriad of dialogue punctuation mistakes in the story.

You can thank me later.

Tons of exposition, not always handled as well as it could/should be. Granted, being a lover of chrome-speak myself, you get a pass. I must admit that I ended up skimming anything that was a lot of words without any quotation marks in sight.

Them tags are hurting my head.

Wow, I've been wondering what you've been up to Dalek and I am not disappointed! What I know about TCB is from TVTropes so I'm not totally up on what happened in this continuity, but this is shaping up to be a great tragedy. I'm not sure yet who is going to become pony-Hitler in the uprising; whether it's Trixie and her skillful showmanship and resentment of Twilight or Firebird with her connection to the successful humans and deep vehemence of the Diarachy.

I hope this ends with the Princesses doing the smart thing by surrendering and letting the Terrans put their collective combat boots to the collective necks of Gaia.

>>18549711854971 You and I read from a lot of the same authors.

Praises to the dalek emperor

>>18556941855694

Well, it's a sequel to TCB: Not Alone. That will have all the continuity you need. It's a rather good story. However, it's rated mature for gore (by mod fiat, though there isn't more gore than any FOE fic), so make sure you hit view mature first.

It's very helpful for giving you some context.

This if fucking wicked awesome! It seems like Equestria's brush with humanity has left some serious wounds. Riots? Sounds awfully like us. I bet that police force is made up of newfoals.

>>18556941855694

I advise going back and reading "Note Alone," by Starman Ghost, if you haven't already. It's the prequel to this story

>>18557391855739

It isn't- word of god is that Newfoals are utterly incapable of violence, to the point of, if a lynch mob was carrying one off, they would suggest that they tie his/her legs together so the newfoal doesn't hurt one of the angry mob by kicking accidentally.

... That's not my words, those are from the Spacebattles Thread.

A bit strange at first, with the very broad introductions, but the story quickly got VERY good when those ended.

I await an update, should you choose to supply one.

Finally finished the chapter. Holy crap. I await for more.

This could not have been any better!

Insta Like/Fav

this story, it pleases me, also, where can i find the original TCB stroy, i would LOVE to know the backstory

memetic cognitohazards

Is it just me, or is that a reference to the SCP Foundation?  

Favoriting so I can see what happens next.

>>18559241855924

Well, this story is a fan sequel to "TCB: Not Alone," a deconstruction of the original "The Conversion Bureau" story. I advise reading "Not Alone," before reading this.

>>18559481855948

ahh thanks, ill get right on that!

Then, on one Hearth’s Warming Eve, every nation on Equis declared war on Equestria.

That's what you get for overshooting the infamy limit. The Equestrian War of Containment anyone?

Also, Bitaly eh? I wonder if any in-universe characters notice the eerie parallelisms with Earth in the geographic namings.

Hoofington’s largest had spectacularly collased

This is terrible. But largest... what?

I like it, I can see the humans taking advantage of the rebellion to bring Luna and Celestia out of power. Of course there will be some problem inside the ship, some equestrians will try to take it if they discover it, and the closest fleet is years away. Weird that with FTL travel they decided to spread so thin...

>>18560141856014

Uh... What?

Do you mean "take Luna and Celestia OUT OF power."?

And the Equestrians may try to take the ship. But remember some very important facts:

1) The Calvin is a colony ship. It will not be going anywhere near enough to allow Equestrians to board, unless they are the ones that they want boarding.

2) This means that they will be several light minutes, if not outside the solar system entirely, away.

3) The prequel to this story, "Not Alone," established that humans are very, very good at war. A man barely out of boot camp can threaten a royal guard soldier, if he has numbers on his side... and for the humans, that was the state of things three hundred years ago. Now, humans have all sorts of sci-fi goodness, including power armor, energy weapons, shields, and drones. If the humans and their Naturalized Equestrian allies decide that they aren't going to take their ships, then Equestria is NOT GOING TO TAKE THEIR SHIPS. And this does mean that if it looks like the ship is about to be overwhelmed, they will self-destruct their ships.

I was hoping that a sequel along these lines would  happen, and I am very excited! My only regret is that the chapter isn't even longer!

>>18560471856047 Oh, yeah typo, my bad.

It's obvious the human will win, maybe helping the ponies and showing them that Celestia and Luna were wrong.

But the ponies are desperate and Luna is obviously brutal. That can be very dangerous.

Excellent

Interesting and very cool. Looking forward to seeing how you play this out.

Added: I didn't realize this was a sequel when I first read it. I ended up having to read the first. I am now even more impressed/eager for more.

I want more and I need it now!

BTW, is it Equis or Gaia? You keep changing it.

>>18559331855933

Actually, that's a real sort of thing. Human minds have holes in them due to their very nature - it's why a song can become "stuck in our heads." Information can become something of an intellectual virus, screwing up our thought processes, and when modern science came to realize this, there was a great deal of fumbling about for a proper name for this sort of thing. "memetic cognitohazards" is just one of the names they've come up with.

(And if you think it's bad now, just wait until we _actually_ understand the programming of the software known as the 'human mind'. Things will really get ugly then...)

This is going to be good.

-Liam

"I'm not saying that Celestia has been deposed." Laura was quick to clarify; “You are right in that account, Major: she is way too powerful for her ponies to have ousted her, even more so if she has the Elements of Harmony on her side. Even if the potential rebels had her sister join them, it would been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to succeed, assuming these rebels existed at all."

skroo u nyu woona republik rulz

But dayum this is a really long chapter...

Five moustaches for you!

Nice! I loved Not Alone, and this hasn't failed to deliver. I'm also curious as to what happened to any newfoals left on Earth?

One thing:

They charged the guard, the guard responded, and a demonstration became a full blown riot.

I DEMAND MORE!!!

>>18560471856047  Previous fic my ass, our very HISTORY tells you that we are very VERY good at war.  

Featured already. No surprises there.

Great. Three centuries on and Twilight still doesn't understand a blistering thing about the human race. No damned wonder Fluttershy booked; she couldn't stand being around that much stupid. With Luna wanting to crush ponies who don't like her sister's stupidity and Celestia still consoling herself with the belief that if she wishes hard enough, one and one can make five, I should think that the Equestrian Remnant State is powdered toast.  

>>18563121856312

Considering what was said on Spacebattles about Firebird's backstory, and considering the newfoal character in Not Alone, I think the answer to your question is "Newfoals on Earth were allowed to live out their lives, and it was soon discovered that their children did not share the mental and emotional hobbling their parents possessed."

This is cool, looking forward to more.

Nuuuuuu, I knew it was coming, but why did the chapter have to end?! This story is so awesome...!

Image: http://cdn.chud.com/8/8c/8c6ddd8f_this-is-gonna-be-good.gif

I hope that the next chapter is going to be released within the next 2 weeks, 1 week if you lower the word count of every new chapter. For the idea alone, 5/5

>>18564721856472 I smashed the like button of your comment, and you know what? Double liked !

>>18563791856379

Well, yes, of course, but the previous fic highlighted how good we are at war when compared to the ponies.

Excellent.

The Calvin and the Hobbs. I see what you did there.

One bit of confusion though, in the earlier part of the chapter, the crew of the Calvin is talking about the planet and they say there's nothing more than bacteria, but later on Twilight says the planet is "full of things that make the creatures of the Everfree look cute", unless she's a germophobe and terrified of bacteria.

And goddamn ponies are slow. They got kicked off their own planet and they still don't realize the problem is them? Firebird get down there and knock some sense into these ponies.

LOVED IT now all there is to ask is when the next chapter is coming out!

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK

Form: The SHON

Great story.

Though now I have this image in my mind of a crashed shuttle still smoking as in front of it Firebird in heavily modified power armor (with not a little battle damage) faces off against a serious looking Princess Luna (Firebird: STAY AWAY FROM THEM YOU B_TCH!). In the background the other members of the scout team are making a run for the close edge of the barrier while shooting randomly at the Royal Guards to keep them at bay.

If I had any talent at drawing I'd try to sketch this though if anyone who can draw would like to try then go right ahead, just please send me a copy or link when your done.

Then again, add a few more touches and this might make a good nightmare scene for Firebird to wake from (a sort of personal no-win scenario).  Perhaps a scene where the scouting group just barely manages to get through the barrier and call for help only to be greeted by the glassy-eyed stare of the colony ships captain as Princess Celestia walks up beside him with a triumphant smile on her face.  Firebird stares dumbstruck at the image, not even hearing whatever their saying as she desperately checks the power armors status displays while Princess Luna and the Royal Guard surround them.

>>18561601856160

The continent is Equis. The planet is Gaia.

Good to see this finally going up.

I really have to see where this goes.

>>18551481855148

It's a shame, thus, that thoughts aren't facts.

...Gah...

infodumps....

wall-o-texts....

Endless... ENDLESS paragraphs of needless description and exposition... GRINDING the narrative flow to a halt

There's a story on here SOMEWHERE, I know it!

C-Can't... breathe... text... too... thick.

>>18568741856874

I'm terribly sorry, but those info-dumps are necessary. I prefer to build up my world into something solid, than to give you an empty shell of a story.

The story starts just after the first one.

>>18564721856472

Look very closely at the posted dates. Veeeery closely.

Now, compare them to the dates on Not Alone.

Wibbly wobbly, timey whimey.

Truly am excited to see where this is going :D

Must say though, I know Celestia wasn't at all diplomatic when she came along to Earth but to not only lose all economic connections and diplomatic connections with every race on their planet, then also start war with all of them at once? These ponies have greater loyalty then dogs when it comes to their princesses cause I would have expected heads to role at the economic cut off...

>>18569111856911

I agree, world building is delicious. However, there are better ways to do it than massive paragraphs describing every tiny working part of the ships scanners.

Example: When Firebird meets Evening Star. Counting every break, there are ELEVEN paragraphs of infodumping and exposition! At this point, you are not SHOWING us their relationship, you are TELLING us. This massive block of texts grinds the plot to a halt while we are forced to read this awkward exposition on things that, while interesting, do nothing other than beat the reader over the head with, "THEY'RE GOOD FRIENDS!!!!!"

Also, when Sunrise and the captain are speaking after exiting hyperspace, you wrote this:

“Sir,” he whispered, “do you think we’ll find someplace worthwhile?”

Captain Rios frowned at the question as he considered it. The last time the Calvin had tried to colonize a system was fifty two years ago. They’d arrived, set down the colonists, and were gearing up for a massive population increase when pirates arrived. The attackers had been surprised by the unusually heavy defensive armament and fleet of the Calvin and had been slaughtered, but not before one of their ships managed to drop some sort of bioweapon onto the planet, forcing the Calvin to evacuate the colonists and leave. Sunrise, who had just been given his posting at the time, never quite forgave himself.

Seeing the effects overpopulation had been having on the ship, it was easy to see why. Even with the population growth halted, providing for the masses had become a problem, stretching the resources and recyclers of the Calvin to their extreme. Food and space were now at a premium. The excess population had to be housed in “temporary” slums that had grown seedier and seedier over the years; something that Firebird was intimately aware of, having slipped through the cracks in child services after her parents had proved to be completely incapable of raising her. Civil unrest threatened to rear its ugly head.

Consider this:

“Sir,” he whispered, “do you think we’ll find someplace worthwhile?”

Rios frowned. "I sure as hell hope so. Even with our measures to halt population growth, it's getting awfully damn crowded in here. The recyclers are running at over clock, and space is shrinking. It's only a matter of time till the natives get restless."

"I agree, sir, but we need to be careful. Last time we tried to settle down..."

"I know what happened last time!" Rios snapped, glaring down at the pony. "And it won't happen again!"

See? The same basic info got out, they're overpopulated and the last time they tried to settle down something badd happened, but we did it with half the words and it's MUCH more dynamic and immediate. The read can infer that bad juju happened and if we need to expand upon it later, we can do so with dialogue. Dialogue is ALWAYS better than exposition or narration.

Please forgive the snark of my initial comment. I'm only trying to help.

>>18569891856989

Here's a question:

Rios knows that information. Sunrise knows that information. Why would they need to remind each other?

>>18570091857009

Okay, point taken.

A retort question: Why do we need to know it all right now? Is that information vital to the plot as it stands? Is it necessary for us to know this right now? If not, why not wait until a more opportune time, say, when one of these two characters is talking with someone who doesn't know? A quick little allusion to it would arouse the readers curiosity, teasing them with information yet to come. It'd add to the character's depth, and give the reader more reason to keep reading.

All I'm saying is that those two paragraphs mess with the flow of the chapter, and I see that problem a lot in this chapter, IMHO. I can agree that a lot of it we need to know, but do we need to know it all right now?

SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!

Yes, yes, yes, yes! Finallyyyyy! It is here!

Instant fav and thumb up.

>>18570411857041

Point taken. I'll admit that I couldn't find anyplace to put that information in a way that wouldn't interrupt the story. So I just lumped it all together.

I might correct it later on, but as of right now, I'm busy with the next chapter.

And, to the people who downvoted the first bit of criticism I got:

I'm disappointed in you. That is all.

>>18569721856972

The other nations were the ones who cut off diplomacy and trade. They took one good look at what Celly tried to do and came to the logical (if incorrect) conclusion that centuries of diplomacy were all part of an immortal's plot to turn every living thing on Gaia into her loyal subjects.

Things went downhill from there.

im wondering where discord is in all of this shouldnt all of that chaos have allowed him to escape from his stone prison.

also wondering where fluttershy ran off to and if firebird and the others find her first

>>18553501855350

As mentioned before, it was my pleasure.

Good to see this up here. Let's hope that we can all get the second/third/whatever chapters up as soon as possible...while retaining quality, of course.

>>18568741856874

Extremely good point, but I didn't have a problem while reading the story before. I kinda just accepted it. Usually, I hate it when writers expose everything through loadsatext.

Still, it's something that has to be kept in mind.

>>18570791857079

.... I'm busy with the next chapter.

*flaps arms*

Omigoshomigoshomigosh!

()

>>18571031857103

Also curious about this. Is Discord present? Biding his time? Or just enjoying the whole thing?

>>18569261856926

Great, now the the Doctor is involved!

There will be no "Woona Repuliks" in this fic. This Luna is a full on medieval Tyrant here, with a genocidal hatred of humanity to boot. And by genocidal, I don't mean Xenolestia's typical "Convert 'Em All" style of genocide. I mean the classic "Kill 'Em All" thing.

Also, how do I reply to people in the new format? The old reply button seems to have disappeared

>>18572221857222

It appears when you hover your pointer over the speech-bubble (text box). For Dolphin Browser (on a smartphone), I just press on the speech-bubble (text box) and it'll appear.

.... I have no idea how to do it on Safari or an iPad.

>>18572221857222

Which means that there's a playing card with her face right on it. First they kill her, take down Twilight Goering and then they put Celestia on suicide watch.....by which I mean 'watch as she commits suicide.'

>>18572221857222

Not Necessarily. The only word we have on Luna is

One has to remember that Luna comes from another time entirely. A far harsher time. A time when harmony was something that was earned through blood, sweat and tears, and damned be everyone that opposed it.

She is not nice. Well intentioned, yes, but not nice. She's what Firebird would be if she came to believe that she could do no wrong.

This fic gave me so much solace from the last one's unresolved ending where Celesta got away scott free without any kind of retribution. I fucking love you dude.

I've been lurking on the forum where you've been developing this story, and I am very impressed with this first chapter of yours. Even with all the hilarious arguments, you still got it done. Looking forward to the next bit, whenever it can see the light of day.

This is awesome! Still....

Image: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/18887581/images/1335576400163.jpg