The Great Tragedy. The night an era ended. The night the skies stopped turning. The night the Canterlot palace, along with all of its occupants, was utterly obliterated.
Nopony knows how it was done or by whom. But they do know that one unicorn stood at the center of that calamitous explosion, and they know that Twilight Sparkle survived where two immortals had perished.
Twilight awakens in a world a shadow of its former self, abruptly thrust into the fallout of a disaster she remembers nothing of. Faced with a foe that is perhaps more familiar than she might realize, Twilight must find a way to restore her broken world and carry on the legacy of her beloved princesses.
Huge thanks to my proofreaders Some Person (chapter 1-12) and RazerWrites (chapter 12-14). The story would have been much worse off without them.
I do believe I'm going to have to read this.
Edit: Looks like the "DARK TAG? AUTO DISLIKE!" crowd is out in force today. Control yourselves, people.
Anyways, don't let those idiots discourage you from writing. The opinions of those afraid to comment do not matter.
This looks interesting, based upon the description.
Will read later.
There should only be one had.
This looks interesting.
When I have time I will give it a read.
farm2.staticflickr.com/1060/5124699989_a414738d44_z.jpg
Kind of scared to read, but like a siren it is tempting me.
...you took aimbot and hit my feels hard man. HARD. want more, will be watching
Succession is out? Haha, you kept us waiting long enough, Helrael.
Nice work so far! Can't wait to see where this goes!
I CRIED.
MOAR.
Awesome so far
Also are SA, Cadence and Twilight's parents dead?
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I have no idea what you're talking about
Was it in February I initially announced it? Ugh
Wow. Manly tears were shed this day.
Just making sure everyone reading this knows: Succession is only following the canon of season 1 and 2. Adapting the story to season 3 canon is just going to be too frustrating with such a long fic.
1766184 Considering I kill hundreds of ponies and maim Twilight Sparkle beyond recognition in one chapter, 3 dislikes aren't all bad. No discouragement here. Thanks, though!
1766283 It was meant to be past perfect tense, so it should be alright. But please let me know if you find anything else.
So, is it still a cliffhanger if the protagonist falls off the cliff?
Quesiton. I know I can just go on in and skim through myself, but I still wanna ask real quick. How exactly are the Princesses killed, and does it seem realistic to the readers? I ask because most people hold the princesses to a God standard, while I prefer them to be more of demi-gods, capable of long or eternal life, but still very much...well, killable. Not to say that I hate the Princesses or anything, but one of the main premises of a story I'm drafting rather depends on one of the princesses meeting their demise.
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I think I shall answer that question with a PM, just to be sure I don't spoil anything for anyone, and because my explanation has a slight chance of becoming a wall of text that I don't want clogging up the comment section. Prepare yourself
Damn it That was horrible.
Damn poor Twilight
Damn talk about a cliffhanger can't wait for the next chapter to come out to find out what happened.
Damn, that's four comments in a row starting with damn. What's with this chapter?
damn well damn.... I soo want to know what is going to happen next and how this gets solved.
And I'm kinda sad Shining Armor is also gone.... would have been nice to see him in this one.
I first read this when it had almost even likes than dislikes. I have to say, I don't know what it is but this fic strikes a chord. That and I'm jelly because you have double the likes I do XD
T.T manly tears were shed this day.
I like it, tell ya what buddy, you keep writing and I'll keep reading deal?
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You got it. Will post tomorrow.
My theory (No spoilers for this chapter):
Its twilight who "explodes", killing everything and everyone, and that's why she doesn't die. Also, that's why she has that neck pain thing, something made her "explode"... Or something XD
If Twilight doesnt go to the book, the book will go to Twilight
This story..
This pops on the list of latest updates. Immediately think yay another Twilight alicorn story!
I put it in my read later list.
I have no idea if I am in a fit mental state to read this without breaking down but I will try anyways.
It is now later and I am approaching 44 hours without sleep and I just read the comments.
I will update this with how that turns out.
Chapter 1: WHY AM I CRYING SO HARD!
I need sleep 
Chapter 2: Amber Vane and Twilight's conversation
Twilight's magic is getting to alicorn levels.
Twilight learns about fusion.
Twilight creates artificial sun.
???
Profit!
Also I can't believe it was Luna who did it. She was forced back into Nightmare, yes, that was
the scream. But the true perpetrator is... Twilight. After she ascends she will realize she needs
to set up the events of the "Great Tragedy" in order to take over. With her new-found powers,
a mere time travel spell will be easy. Hence, a time loop will be created.
The twist is, that night Celestia was going to tell her she was going to ascend anyway...
Perhaps that was the event that led to creating the loop in the first place?
A Spell System Visualization spell.
You know only Twilight would come up with something like that.
She totally would.
Another interesting chapter. Hopefully Spike's actually okay.
By any chance have you read Equestria's Twilight by Sapidus3?
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Yes I have in fact. Was sad to see it die or whatever happened.
It never occurred to me to actually kill Celestia before I read it.
Once again another great chapter...
ya know I've been thinking about the time travel bit....
Twilight says she cant change the events that have happened because there would be no reason to go back to investigate and thus the events wouldn't be changed.... However doesn't that let her be free to do other things in the past? She could go in the past to investigate (not change the main event) but somehow save a guard or 2 (her brother) by just warning them that something unstoppable is going to happen. ergo she hasn't stopped the crisis but has saved a pony or 2s lives.... (heck she could even tell them to lay low until after the point she cast the time spell that way she will continue to think her brother/guard is dead until she comes back from the past and they reveal themselves.)
LOL sorry for my ramblings... this just caught my interest.
I can't wait to see what happens in this thing.
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Y'know, due to the nature of The Great Tragedy, any number of ponies could have survived, since there have been recovered no corpses whatsoever from anyone within the palace...
For all you know she could appear IN THE VERY NEXT CHAPTER 
Ah, the intricacies of time travel
For all you guys know, Celestia may have travelled half a year into the future and somehow gotten rid of the "rubberband" effect
But, considering how Equestria is dealing with her loss, she would be a major douche for doing so
EDIT: Somehow forgot all about Celestia's corpse... Fail. BUT IT COULD'VE BEEN A DECOY.
HAHAH OOOH
oh one other thing.... does the crystal empire exist in this universe?
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Ugh, you'll see soon enough, I guess.
Not at all. Instead we have the griffon kingdom and pony-Russia (a subsidiary of Equestria Inc.).
I seriously doubt my abilities at coming up with good pony-based puns on Russia (or any provinces of Russia), though...
Well I was going to make a joke that the crystals in that kingdom provided enough light to make a fake day/night cycle for the surrounding area.
but meh... XD
Soon Twilight will make a sun. And she will ascend. Because that's what happened to Celestia.
"The sun was born when she was born" Yes, the sun was created by her and that's the moment
she became Celestia.
Also... FUSION-HA!
s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/1336170082_fusion10.jpg
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat, yeah!
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust, hey images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120816201002/halo/images/0/0a/Zecora_Emoticon.png
Hey, I'm gonna get you too!
Another one bites the dust!
ok was it really necessary to kill one of the elements....i mean zecora yeah but damn twilight could get some motivation to push herself in other places.
this is getting better by the second and also worse-->why flutters i mean why?
waiting to see where this is going...
1804872 no pinki only sensed one of her friends dying. and that turned out to be Zecora so flutters should still be alive.
That escalated quickly!
And why'd you go and off Fluttershy and Zecora?
Also my bet is that the Ursa was possessed by Nightmare.
Now im sure it was twilight who destroyed canterlot
1805543 I had a feeling you'd say that.
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my guess is that celestia made sure twilight got some of her power to make a sun and then she sploded the castle to save her from nightmare moon or she just went boom from being killed.
Getting very interesting, I am really enjoying this story so far and am looking forward to the next update!