New Chapter for Sunflower: Harmony · 10:16pm Sep 4th, 2014
I give greetings to everyone.
And though "Talk like Zecora day" is very fun
I'm afraid this blog post will be too long
For constant rhyming to sound anything other than wrong.
That's enough of that. Anywhoo... New chapter of Sunflower: Harmony is up! Chapter 11 is in editing. Sadly, I haven't gotten started on 12 yet, though I'm excited to get going on it. Some really cool things that I've been dying to write are up and coming. The slice-of-life stuff that's been going on will get less focus, as Erin is pretty much settled in by this point (she still needs to set up her lab, though!)
The reason for the lack of progress on 12 is that I'm concentrating on finishing up The Cutie Mark Allocation Agency, which I intended to finish by the end of last month. Yeah, I missed that deadline 
So, I'll focus on finishing that, so I can dedicate all my writing time to the Sunflower 'verse. 
I've noticed some questions and remarks in the comments section, so I decided to turn this blog post into a kind of mini Q&A. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments below!
Please note, below this point there may be spoilers for up to and including Chapter 10.
So far, the most consistent question that I've seen is, "How much of the canon of season 3&4 will be used in this story?" The answer to that is complicated, but I'll give it a shot.
This story is going to be long. Probably longer than the original Sunflower. Still, I don't think it will be long enough to make it to season 4 material. So, no season 4, at least in this story.
As far as season 3 goes, I'd like to consider it all canon... with some tweaks. Without giving too much away, certain events in this story will cause ripples that will change how the season 3 canon intersects with the Sunflower universe. For example, it may be that Pinkie Pie is so satisfied with the eventual instant messaging system between her tablet and her friends' that she doesn't bother trying to find the Mirror Pool. Does the Mirror Pool still exist? Well, I don't see why not, even if I don't end up using it.
Other events may happen in the background. For example, Babs Seed. I may work it in that the viewpoint characters notice the Cutiemark Crusaders running around, and Babs is around as well, but I won't be focusing on that.
As for specifically what I will include and how... Well, I like to surprise people!
As far as Doctor Rost and his little nugget of Black Tide goes, well... As you can see once you read the chapter, Maggie isn't taking any chances. She'll dump him into a whole different reality, lab and all, before she allows the Tide to break containment and threaten Earth again. Still, knowing more about the Tide is critical to the human race, thus Dr. Rost getting a place at the Harmonics compound in order to work with Dr. Edwards, who is a leading expert in cybernetics, and especially in brain/cybernetics interfaces.
Also, I've heard questions regarding whether or not the Earth First group from the first story will be making a comeback. Yes and no to that. The original group splintered once it became apparent that humanity wasn't going anywhere, which was the key point of the group in the first place. However, there are definitely groups of people who don't like the thought of "aliens" just roaming around Earth however they please, or who may see the ponies as a corrupting influence, and so on. So, we definitely haven't seen the last of them, though I don't currently plan to have them play a particularly large role in this story.
Any other questions? Want to know what's the deal with Kingdom of Corinica? How to make Ditzy's carrot casserole? Go ahead and hit me up in the comments!
And, as always, thanks for reading!
~Hoopy
Well, I know what I'm reading for my bedtime story...
Challenge accepted. I want, NAY! DEMAND the recipe for the carrot casserole!
All of the above?
Also, why does humanity need to study the Black Tide? I'm with Maggie, dump the stuff in Lava World and be done with it.
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I'm pretty sure that this is the recipe that I tried before. It was pretty tasty!
The Kingdom of Corinica was actually something that's been in the back of my mind since the early days of the first Sunflower story. I love adding little details to stories, coming up with background details that may not even make it into the story itself.
When I was writing the part where Twilight was freaking out about Erin not being part of the magical field, that's when this occurred to me. Some ancient (and at that time, unnamed) kingdom where they figured out a way to forcibly cut a pony away from the magical field. That's why Celestia was concerned when she heard Twilight's old professor tell her that she was writing a book about a mare with no connection to the magical field. It turned out to be something completely different, but Celestia was wise enough to jump on it.
As far as the Black Tide goes, there's still tons of it (literally) back in the Scar, the area of India that the Tide devoured and has now been fossilized by the Elements of Harmony. Even though it's currently dormant, humanity is worried that it may reactivate, or that whoever sent it may send more. They're studying smaller samples of it desperately while also digging up and destroying the larger pockets of it as fast as they can.
2428330 why study what almost killed you? Easy, so if you encounter it again YOU are the one that kills it. It's the same reason we study deadly pathogens
Will the world of Harmony be explored in the story? Also, Rainbow Dash + Star Fox = Happy lizardman. Make it happen, please?
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Absolutely. Starting with a small section of the next chapter, and even more so in the one after that. It's when the survey team gets there that things will take off. That's about one month away from where this chapter takes place in the story's timeline.
2428860 And am I correct in my assumption that the Harmonics team has stumbled across my home planet?
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I can't say for certain. Let me know if you recognize any landmarks, though
What happened with those ponies that
stormed off in a huffleft after Celestia decided to let the humans over? Is their nation going to be relevant or did they leave the story when they left Equestria?This includes his editors.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the event that finally mends fences between Erin and Meadowlark will involve Erin saving Marigold's life. I don't know how, but I think that's the only thing that will get it through Meadowlark's head that Erin's not a bad pony.
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Hmm, I thought more people would be asking. Well I quickly thought up a few more generalized questions. Answer whatever you feel like.
How big was the Tide in the end?
I'm gathering It started in India but in the end is shown to also be in China, does this mean that Nepal got flattened...... literally. Watching the Tide bring down Earth greatest mountains would certainly be a sight to behold.
Did it get turned to real stone as the ground was before the Tide hit, or has it just fossilized the nano-machines?
How deep did it go down anyway?
Since it was consuming info from humans does that mean it was able to figure things out and get some real intelligence and not just following programming before the end?
Is the Harmonics compound based upon any real-life buildings or locations?
Whenever I hear of secret labs and teleportation experiments, I always think of Black Mesa. Whereas Black Mesa is a huge sprawling complex, the Harmonic compound from what I have read always seemed rather small to me. In your mind how big is it?
The Tide consumes the Earth then realizes its mistake and decides to bring back one life-form to inherent the earth.... Dogs or Cats?
Major Morris still kicking around somewhere?
Do portals open in the same place in both universes? Such as Harmonics is close to Ponyville, but this other gate in Scotland is several thousand kilometers away, so if they open a gate the gate in Equestria will open several thousand kilometers away from Ponyville?
Are they going to finish any of the Arks? It would seem a waste to dismantle them all.
In the end of Sunflower you mentioned a fusion powered bot, which would be very impressive in a car sized object. Or did you mean a fission powered like device, like what is used in the Curiosity mars-rover? Either-way both of these would generate more than enough power to make solar panels useless (I think). The space the tiles take would be much better put to use with more scientific instruments. Also sending a fusion or fission powered device to an alien planet with potential intelligence around would perhaps not be the smartest idea(not unless you want to give them a potential tech boost and/or radiation poisoning), best off going for an all solar powered robot for that. Sorry, I started nit-picking again.
Erin had some pretty impressive cybernetics implants on the first trip in. I'm not expecting any Ghost in the Shell type things but how advanced are they in this earth and are we going to see anyone else with implants or artificial limbs, eyes, etc?
Erin's(or yours) favorite Ghibli movie? Or if your like me and can't pick just one, then top 3?
OK, that's more questions than I thought I would have when I started.
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Starfall Island is still part of Equestria, it's just a large island in the middle of a big lake where only the very rich can afford to live. Well, them and the ponies that they house as servants.
They may play a part in this story, or they may not... I haven't decided yet.
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I am very mysteeeerious!
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A little over a thousand miles in diameter at the end. It had taken out a nice, nearly-circular chunk of India, Kashmir, Nepal and China by the time it ended. It was semi-circular due to the fact that it proceeded more slowly through the mountains. The nano-machines had a lot more to digest, there! A mountain attacked by the Tide would have nano-machines crawl up the surface, continually collapsing down into the rest of the Tide as it converted the mountain.
The Tide wasn't all that deep, relative to the diameter. About 100' thick on average, though it did tend to ripple and bulge in places.
When it got hit by the elements, what was left was a very porous "stone", basically fossilized Tide. It tends to break and flake pretty easily. Little pockets of Tide remain trapped inside of this. Luckily, it's pretty easy to clear the fossilized Tide, but with the sheer volume of it, it's still going to take a very long time.
It was beginning to gain intelligence, yes. If it had been left alone, it would have achieved a sort of sapience. There was a certain sameness to the "neurons" in the Tide, optimized for information storage rather than retrieval or processing, but it could alter the configuration of them as information was gathered. Eventually, it would have been fully thinking and self-aware.
That wasn't really an option for humanity, though. Because, by the time the Tide realized what it was doing and that maybe it should stop (assuming it ever did) the world would have been devoured by fae sprites.
The Harmonics compound isn't based on anything in particular, though the new visitor center is based on a building I see occasionally (oddly shaped, mostly glass, looks like a cube standing on one corner and sunk halfway into the ground). I can't recall the name of the place, so I can't find any images online, but I'll try to remember to make note of the name next time I drive past it
Most of the Harmonics compound is above ground. It was built really quickly, with no eye towards aesthetics. The buildings were all built separately for the different departments, food, housing, etc, but were eventually linked together via corridors after they were built. Machine rooms are underground, housing diesel generators, water pumps, AC and heating, and so on.
Once they realized that they had the potential salvation for humanity there, they built a huge wall around the entire complex.
As for the size, it's definitely nothing like Black Mesa. I'd say... about the size of a decent-sized college campus, though a lot of that is empty grass up until you hit the wall... That's to leave space for expansion. Maggie really wants to replace a lot of the old, ugly buildings with newer, better ones, since the current ones are kind of just strewn about almost randomly.
I see the Tide as being more of a cat-loving alien monstrosity. That's mostly because cats need very little care and like to sleep out in the sun. And there would be lots of sunshine hitting the Tide, once all the shade was gone.
Major Morris is still about, though he's not currently the military liaison anymore, not since the Harmonics facility got private security. He will be back in the future, though. I have a lot of detail for the Major, I'd like to keep him around
Portals will open pretty much anywhere, but are much more likely to open where there's a weakness in the veil of the other world. For Equestria, that's currently inside the building located in the Canterlot gardens. The crystal spires that frame the gate on either side help to bring it in at the same place (roughly) and stabilize it.
If the second site were trying to reach Equestria, it would open a gate in the same location. Unless there were already a gate open, in which case... Well, who knows what would happen?
On a world without the same kind of weakness, portals can open pretty much anywhere. Though, over time, they will tend to concentrate in an area, like with the portals all opening up near Ponyville, because of all the damage to the veil happening in one spot.
Most of the Arcs were scrapped, though there's some thought that they might make good Mars expedition vehicles. So, a few were kept around, though they need a lot of work to get them fully functional (It was going to be down to the wire, timeline-wise, on whether they would be ready before the Tide reached them or not).
Don't worry about nit-picking! Pick away! I may retcon the vehicle, though I hate doing that to something I already published.
That's one of the things Dr. Edwards is upset about. He was mostly interested in prosthetics, getting replacement limbs/eyes/hearing to people who were injured. His project got scooped up by Harmonics when they realized they wanted to send someone out scouting, which is a big part of why he was crabby in Sunflower. They moved him, changed the parameters on his research (he originally had no interest in building chemical analyzers into lungs/stomachs, etc) and gave him very little time to do it. Sadly, with Ascent, replacement limbs and organs aren't really the wave of the future anymore, though he could still have a market in those who want to be "better than human".
I won't lie. Erin's taste in movies is my taste in movies. Though, Spirited Away is Erin's favorite and Princess Mononoke is mine (odd how that happens when I'm writing a character...). To round out my top three, Nausicaa is up there too. But then I feel bad that I didn't give Kiki's the #3 spot, and then I feel bad that I didn't give Porco Rosso the #3, or Howl's Moving Castle, or... Well, you get what I'm saying
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Thanks for the great reply Hoopy. As someone who enjoys reading The Silmarillion I appreciate the thought you have put into the back-story.
Yeah, Ghibli is like chocolate or ice cream, different flavors, but all still good.
For me I would say Laputa just edges out the others.
Happy Flower