Warwolf can be smart sometimes. · 1:47am Mar 1st, 2013
Alt title: How to write Equestria on Earth
Note: this is a response to another poster in a thread.
Chat, it appears you are utterly missing the point of my post, so allow me to elucidate.
The idea of 'convert or die' being the ONLY way to create drama in a setting where Equestria pops up on Earth-- and to be brutally honest, the Conversion Bureau fics are essentially part of the Equestria on Earth genre superset anyway-- is the issue at hand. This does not mean that 'conversion' of a sort couldn't still be possible if humans didn't have to give up their bodies and minds just to go to a place that is, in essence, slowly eating their world and will kill them otherwise. Lifestyles would be affected by both sides if humans were able to enter Equestria in the CB setting without being forced to give up everything just to appease beings who are putting proverbial guns to the heads of the entire species. Ponies would have to accomodate a new species, one as intelligent-- and in some cases more intelligent-- than they are. A species that can and does manage to get by without any kind of magic and yet isn't left in the proverbial stone age.
How do the ponies adapt to that? How do humans adapt to a world where the technology level is completely schizo? Ponies have lasers, night vision goggles and computers from the forties. Yet despite those technological advancements, thatched roofs, a style not seen since the middle ages, are the norm for many buildings just in ponyville alone (if Pinkie's 'smile' song in the episode with Cranky Doodle Donkey is any indication) and the architecture of most buildings in ritzier places like Canterlot seems barely better than the early renaissance. Trains are only just now apparently being powered by steam, and cars don't exist, probably because most ponies wouldn't have the dexterity of limb to use them as needed, but I'm sure a pony version of the things could be developed at some point.
Better yet, how do the ponies adapt to the fact that humans have discovered whole new branches of science and mathematics that would leave some of the brightest ponies of the age with their jaws hanging in the dust? How would they deal with the knowledge that once Equestria subsumes the Earth, Celestia and Luna would no longer have any control over sun or moon since the planet itself still rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun, removing that particular bit of control from their leaders? (And given that for all we know the sun and moon might have only been controlled as it regarded Equestria in the show-- if it hadn't, I'm pretty sure every nation on whatever planet Equestria sits on in the show would have come down HARD on Nightmare Moon had her attempt to bring about eternal night come even close to genuinely succeeding.) How do humans deal with weather that is otherwise controlled by the ponies?
How do both species deal with the question of space travel? Humans have been to their moon. Thus far, Luna is the only equine to have made it up there and probably isn't eager to repeat the experience given she was trapped on Equestria's moon for a millennium. How is interspecies romance dealt with? Do ponies and humans ever fall for someone of the opposite species, and if so, how do those around the couple react? How does humanity govern itself once in Equestria? Do they retain their nationalities and simply resettle their lands once the barrier passes by, or do they choose to be part of the Equestrian kingdom? How does the magical nature of Equestria help or hinder the recreation of humanity's great works and technology? On the subject, how do the artificial satellites in orbit around the planet fit into the picture? What about the International Space Station? The Mars lander? The satellites we launched out past our own Solar system are still out there too.
The idea of conversion doesn't have to mean conversion of one species into another. It could mean a conversion of lifestyles as two cultures have a genuine crossover, and life converts on both sides from what either side considered the norm in order to deal with upheaval of a very different kind. Could people still become ponies if they chose to? Sure. There's no reason the potion couldn't still exist in a setting where humans found a way to develop a means of surviving the barrier as humans. The PER could still come to exist in such a setting. They're practically religious terrorists in the majority of fics they pop up in already anyway, so their evil intent could remain intact in this kind of setting. Does that mean the HLF could pop up as a reponse? Yeah, probably they could. And that opens up all new forms of drama.
Think about it, all new ways to tell these kinds of stories, and all that needed to be changed was removing the 'convert or die' aspect of it. It boggles the mind, don't you think? 
I wanna see a story like this
875806
I'm actually writing one right now. I've submitted it to a review thread on Ponychan's /fic/ and is waiting for someone to review it. It should be published within a week.
875814
My body is ready.
875814 Can i get a link to the review thread?
875858
http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/126497.html#126801
You can read the synopses and see the cover art there. If you want to spoil yourself, the first chapter is linked there too.
What exactly was this in response to? o.O And where do I fit into it?