A Brief Timeline Of My Considered Ideas For The Third Science Fiction Contest

Klatu Barada Nikto, Earthlings.

Bicyclette's now seemingly-annual Science Fiction contests have wrung out of me some of my favorite works in the past. I think Sam, Rocket Chicken, and to an honorary extent, Something Stays are very good stories, even filtered through my goggles of self deprecation. Of course I felt compelled to enter the third occasion, and I said as much on the original post. It felt like a wonderful chance to push out another story chunk from the annals of my Word Factory.

Here is an itemized list of the considerations leading up to my eventual bowing out.

IDEA THE FIRST: Okay. So, it's Sunset Shimmer, right? She falls out with Celestia and goes into the mirror portal, but get this; She's split in two. One mind controls both pony and human bodies, in both worlds, and eventually, one dies and the other stays alive. That's cool, right?

BUT THEN: God damn it, I'm so sick of tragedies. Who knew near-suicidal depression for years on end would make you such a sadsack? I want to write something comedic, and besides, that's hardly sci-fi to begin with.

IDEA THE SECOND: Alright! I've done space travel, I've done Matrix universes. How about aliens? So, in this next premise, an alien facehugger/Body Snatcher thingie lands in Equestria, and attacks Twilight! The joke will be that nobody can tell the difference, and she pretends to be... A normal pony...

BUT THEN: Shit, god damn it, that's Thrackerzod.

IDEA THE THIRD: Okay. Keep the body snatcher idea, but it doesn't talk. It's more like... The Thing. And I don't want to write Twilight. Celestia, maybe? Ooh, wait, every princess gets attacked at once, by a different kind of alien! A body snatcher, a Thing, a robot, and they're all replaced, and the aliens have their meeting as normal, pretending to be their respective alicorn...

BUT THEN: Man, that's way too much work.

IDEA THE FOURTH: Back to basics. Body snatcher. Celestia. Pretending to be her, going about and...

BUT THEN: Why does the shapeshifter need to be an alien? This is just a Changeling plot, and a really generic one at that. Fuck this. Man, and I really wanted to do an homage to that one plotline from Work Sucks...

IDEA THE FIFTH: Twilight again! She wakes up in her bedroom one day, but she's suddenly in a zeerust pulp sci fi world! Everything is the same, but Equestria is a spaceship, her castle is a sleek moonbase, and everything else seems to not notice a difference...

BUT THEN: ...Wait, this is stupid. Where am I going with this again?

IDEA THE SIXTH: Hey, Mars Attacks was going to do a comic crossover with My Little Pony that one time! That's a fun idea, and since crossovers are allowed and it's not exactly a concept that needs much explaining, I could pop out a quick and short crossover comedy-horror-gorefest. Start with a base in the Frozen North picking up a UFO sighting and...

BUT THEN: ...Wait, I have two days left. Fuck.

I now have five story openings, watching me longingly from my drafts. Jonny Freakinouter.

Enjoy the contest, everybody else.