Author's Intent: A Change in Three Parts · 3:40pm May 7th, 2015
So, I think I started a small riot in the comments.
Shown: The CiTP Comment Thread
Or, perhaps I should say, a small bout of heartfelt but intense debate. I am actually really pleased to see so many people who thought the story was worth thinking about, and who got so many different morals out of it. To me lots of thinking and different conclusions means I wrote the story well and evenhandedly, instead of as an Author Tract. And that's a good thing.
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut but but but but but but....
Butts.
That doesn't mean this is a case of "as long as you think about it, there is no wrong answer!" I totally wrote this story with a right and a wrong side in mind and tried to make the narrative guide the reader towards that conclusion. So just to clear up all that hate I'm getting in the comments, the official Author's Intent is below. Bear in mind, I'm a huge believer in Death of the Author, so if you choose to get something different out of it from my intention, that's no problem. Also keep in mind I tried to make both sides seem reasonable instead of straw-manning them, so if you think the "wrong" side makes a few good points, that's fine too.
Spoiler shield activate! Spoilerriffic spoilers below.
Abandon all hope of twist ending, ye who go beyond here.
Dust is right, the Mane 6 are wrong.
The key point of the debate goes back to Dust's opening line to Twilight: "They aren't wrong, they just don't matter." Nothing the M6 say is factually incorrect, they're just not persuasive arguments for why her work should be censored. They were intended to be, respectively:
Applejack: Appeal to Tradition. "We've done it this way for a hundred years and your newfangled technology magic is destroying our way of life." Her comments were designed to echo those of turn-of-the-past-century farmers who felt that industrialization was destroying traditional farming. Which, as Dust points out, it did—but we don't consider that a bad thing.
Rarity: Black and White Fallacy. "Our only options are either knowing that it's completely safe, or banning it." While her safety concerns—that right now it's only been tested on one atypical pony—are totally valid and correct, she jumps from that to her conclusion too quickly. There were other options for testing, safety, etc.
Fluttershy: Black and White Fallacy. Her argument that the technology will cause social unrest in a vacuum may well be correct, but society does not exist in a vacuum. Governments have lots of methods to prevent social unrest other than outright forbidding a given item—options that Fluttershy glosses over.
Rainbow Dash: Ad Hominem. Her argument boils down to "you are a jerk and therefore everything you've made is inherently untrustworthy." Needless to say, this is not a valid argument, although Dust is kind of a jerk. I included it both because it felt right for RD, and because it mirrors similar attacks I've seen against technology and science. A real life example of this might be: "We should reject smartphone-based car apps because Uber's CEO once threatened a reporter."
Pinkie Pie: Argument by Incredulity. She can't imagine a use for it, and therefore concludes that it has no use, despite the fact that there are numerous ponies who obviously disagree with her (or they wouldn't want it for themselves).
The fact that these arguments are not resolved in the third chapter is intentional, because the third chapter is about inevitability. We (meaning our modern society) can argue all we like about is a given technology is good or bad, but history has proven again and again that our arguments basically don't matter. Once it exists, people will find a way to use it, and it will eventually become widespread. In all of history, no government or social movement has ever been able to effectively suppress a technology in the long term. It will get out there...
...and when it does, teenagers will use it to annoy their parents. 
You sir or mam have earned a follower. I picked up on this train of thought while reading but I had no clue it was intentional! Write on you glorious bastard!
Very interesting! I didn't expect something like that.
Of course, I still think I'm right, in that I don't necessarily agree or disagree with either Dust or the mane 6. Just because some reasoning is fallacious doesn't mean a lot of ponies won't see it that way. Funny thing about sentient creatures: they're not logical.
You failed in each one of your stated tasks. The arguments you presented were incomplete, but not inherently fallacious. The counterarguments you presented, conversely, were incoherent largely because they reduced the arguments to those fallacies. Your writing was extremely biased and the fact that you believe being told that "means you wrote the story well and evenhandedly" is actually kind of frightening.
Put it another way. If a reader decides to question your train of thought, this work is one big mess.
3052232
As ragingly constructive as that comment was, about half the comments are people who agree with one side, and about half the comments are people who agree with the other side. Just playing the numbers.
After reading this, I actually feel compelled to read it now. Before reading this, I just put it in my read later with no real intention of reading the story--as with most of the stories I file under read later.
The Fifth Part: Dust is shot on sight when a guard sees her transform and assumes she's a changeling.
3052242
I totally considered doing this.
Another problem with flutershy's argument is that the costs she mentioned included the cost of all the equipment to preform the ritual, not just the cost to preform it. I suspect that there was very little capital loss, so that the second time the ritual is preformed it would cost only a fraction of the initial investment. Its a capital costs (research, the spell circle, the mirrors, etc.) vs incremental cost (labor to preform the ritual, regents consumed in the ritual). Its not uncommon for business to spend millions of dollars at start up to produce a cheap product.
On second read, this blog post included, the third chapter comes across as more anvilicious than it originally did. This is magnified in part because we don't see any negative consequences after the fact, just Dust being a dangerously reckless jerk followed by everything being wonderful. Dust might just have invented cellphones and silicon chips, or this might be more akin to DDT or Thalidomide. I think my headcanon fix-fic for this will be that the third chapter was Dust daydreaming about an ideal outcome, when in reality the procedure proved unrepeatable and Dust's condition was determined to be a non-heritable mutation.
Which now occurs to me: Dust is actually Magneto's OC, and the transformation procedure is really Terrigen Mist.
3052485
Unless all those spell components are consumed in the casting, in which case it'd get progressively more expensive, not less. Imagine scarcity setting in: what happens if there's a limited supply of "Gems from ancient Unicornia" or "clouds from Old Pegasopolis"? Then not only would the procedure be prohibitively expensive, but limited to first adopters.
For my part, Dust was totally right and I started to get more and more annoyed at the rest of the cast as the fic went on.
3052232
You're criticizing this as if it were a persuasive essay, instead of a story. Ironically, you justify entering into a persuasive essay of your own (the critique) by making an unsupported assertion: "almost no story". Indeed, nothing you've asserted has been actually backed up; you just say that the Mane 6 do actually have a point, and aren't actually engaging in any logical fallacies, and then pad it out with several arguments that only make sense if we accept your premise that this is a persuasive essay instead of a story.
Given the tone of your comments, your line about being trained to "remove emotional arguments" is more than a bit funny, because you very strongly come across as if the story has made you so angry that you need to tear it apart by any means necessary.
media.tumblr.com/b3b32be10c338c3edaf07f1cc87c23dc/tumblr_inline_mr7abhwX981r8pgc6.gif
more butts
That last gif is one of the best the show has ever produced.
I want to say my comment may have gotten taken out of context, but such is life I suppose. I understood the third chapters purpose, although maybe not to its full extent. I did how ever disagree with the light it shown on apple bloom it felt a little Out of character, granted her character as a teenager is up to debate as everyone changes drastically in that time frame. I just don't like it. So in my I've more or less just altered the the post chapter two scene to being a shot of Ponyville years later with Apple bloom clearing up the weather on a warm spring afternoon. Then settling in to do some work with potions as a unicorn. With the closing scene being Applejack coming over to ask for help with some apple bucking Abs reverts to an earth pony and follows her sister out to the farm along the way passing other residents of ponyville transforming though the triangle. To me its a happier ending and serves mostly the same point.
Well, if nothing else, I gained a bit of knowledge on the names of different types of arguments.
Don't you just love it when you start a salt mine without meaning to?
What is Death of the Author?
3052485
Exactly. You don't need to build an entire assembly line for each smartphone manufactured, nor do you need an entire development team to reinvent it each time (although some companies do seem to try :P)
Presumably most of the incredibly expensive materials mentioned are part of some sort of array, not reagents.
3053409 "I reject your reality and replace it with my own." Not worrying so much about what the author wanted you to get out of something, but more what you did get from it, whether they wanted you to get that or not. Reader's interpretation more important than the author's vision. Actively murdering the author. Finding lessons and viewpoints that the author didn't ever mean to put into the story. Other ways of saying the exact same thing.
3053409
It means: "What the author meant to say matters less than what the reader thought he said."
3052232
It is widely believed that it is impossible to construct a sound and universal logical argument that concludes a moral judgement. In the absence of evidence supporting or opposing a cause, the sane thing to do is to let it be and let others decide. Dust wants Twilight to let him be, and so he has only to demonstrate that there is no evidence opposing his cause.
Also, your mother is fallacious.
I agree with you on every single point you make except the last one: I've yet to hear of any teenager who has successfully annoyed their parents with a Zeppelin.
I see Pinkie Pie's argument more as one of paternalisim than of incredulity. If it is not inherently harmful, then what gives the government the right to tell you whether or not it will be good for you? That is an individual choice that every pony should make for themselves.
I think the story as a story held up fairly well until you felt the need to tell us what it meant.
I'm also not sure what kind of an ego it takes to declare that any opinions other than "TECHNOLOGY GOOD" is irrelevant. I'm not even going to go into the logic that you've used (which, even though I agree with it in theory, is full of holes, and fails utterly to address some very basic questions about the technology) and point out that there are plenty of other authors who have used colorful horses to push a ideological agenda, and every time the story has suffered for it.
We don't need another Ayn Rand imitator in the community. A story where the hero crushes the "opposition" with his amazing "logic" and "moral fortitude" is a cheap, easy way out. By portraying the weakest arguments against the adoption of technology, instead of the full, reasonable objections that many of these represent, you do yourself, and your reader, a disfavor.
3053779
Uh, no. The burden of evidence rests on Dust. She doesn't want to present it? Fine, Twilight doesn't have to allow her to publish. Like Twilight said, they don't live in a democracy.
3054169
What about those radio controlled miniature ones? I'm sure some teen somewhere has managed to be very annoying with one of those.
Changeling OP plz nerf.
3052929
For my part:
I love the concept here, but, well, the pedant in me has to point out that what we're given isn't actually a story. If I might quote the author?
The first two chapters are all about the Mane 6's reactions to Dust's spell, and like it says, their reactions don't matter. Therefore by the transitive property, the first two chapters are all about things that don't matter. Looking at the piece as a story, those first two chapters are all setting and backstory. The stakes are all general rather than specific, and the characters are largely representations of ideas like the characters in a Socratic dialogue. The piece then skips any sort of story that could arise from this setting and goes to the third chapter to give us the conclusion.
That's what I find to be so much fun about this: Jaxie lets us imagine the story for ourselves in the gap between chapters two and three. The first two chapters set up the game board and the third chapter tells us who the winner is, but the game itself, the story that would take us from the initial conditions to the outcome, that's not here. We're left to our own devices if we want to see how Apple Bloom first learns of Dust's experiment, if we want to see her sneaking out of Sweet Apple Acres to get more information, if we want to see her volunteering to be Dust's next test subject and Dust feeling obligated to tell Applejack about it and everything that would happen after that. All that stuff would be the story, but it only exists in our individual heads.
Even better, the story I would put in the gap there probably isn't the story anyone else--including Jaxie--would put there. We're all heading to the same place--chapter three--but we're all going to arrive there by different routes. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure book with writing on the first few pages and the last few pages: the middle pages are left blank for us to fill in ourselves.
It's a really nice piece, Jaxie.
Mike
Yeah, that message was way too in-your-face "progress is inevitable" with each character being basically echos of how we argue over progress almost every day. Which made it all the more fun to poke fun at the vagueness of the ending once a few interesting bits had some rather fine double-edge sword implications for a darker route.
I can only really say it got this popular in the conversation department mostly due to a couple people. But yeah, still a bit surprised people took the story to so many different conclusions. No offense. But I didn't think the comments would explode to where it's gotten to so far. There are some interestingly hilarious comments.
I still think there should be a sequel with magical dysfunction from this spell. A whole new breed of ponies even can come from all this. xD
So much potential for a dark story.
3053513 Reminds me of the famous author who once sat in the back during a lecture by a famous writing critic when his book was being discussed. Afterwards, the author talked with the critic to clear up some misconceptions and was quite curtly informed that the author had no idea what it was he had written. (Parodied by Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School (clip is a little low volume)
There's only so many times a story can show up in your feed, with the added temptation of witnessing some sweet, sweet drama, until your resistance breaks...
The very short of it is: I didn't think I would enjoy the story based on the description, and I was right. So I've only got myself to blame for reading it anyway. (Or trying to.) Or maybe I can blame Present Perfect, for telling me I have to read it.
I still feel out of the loop, because I don't even get to the point where I would join the debate on whether Dust is right or not, or get angry about the positions commenters would have on it. I got left behind at about the point Applejack showed up, thinking: "That's not Applejack", followed by "That's not Rarity or Fluttershy", etc., and eventually "This is not MLP fanfiction at all".
I tried not to stick to that knee-jerk reaction, but this blog post itself more or less confirms it by listing the viewpoints the Mane Six are being enlisted to serve as mouthpieces for, turning into racists, jerks and censorship abetters, and making it very, very clear that the story is about real world opposition to the freedom of scientific research and technological progress.
The part that makes this a fatal offense, I think, is that the Mane Six are not only portrayed as negatively as they are - racists, jerkasses and censorers - they are not even given the chance to learn that they were wrong. The Mane Six constantly display flaws and foolishness throughout the show, but by the end of the episode, they will have learnt something and do better the next time. Applejack learnt something from Bridle Gossip, Rainbow Dash learnt something from Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, Fluttershy from It Ain't Easy being Breezies, and on and on and on. The third chapter of A Change in Three Parts might have been intended to only show the "inevitability" of scientific progress, but it also showed us that, for whatever reason, Applejack will still be racist years down the road.
One of the main appeals of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is its positivity. It's a friendlier, less cynical world. In few places is that better illustrated than at the end of Wonderbolts Academy. Rainbow Dash realizes that the Wonderbolts are not a flawless organization; that she may have to decide between her personal values and the dream she has followed since childhood, and realizes the former takes precedence. It would have been a powerful note to end the episode on - but because this is Equestria, and these are ponies, Spitfire stops her from leaving and she is allowed to keep her dream.
I'll put it like this; if this story had taken place in the FiM Equestria I know, and had involved the Mane Six I know, Dust would not have been in debt in the first place, Applejack would have helped her clean up the house, Rainbow Dash would not have been a complete jerk, and Twilight would have been first in line to help her get her research published against any resistance there might be. Because the Mane Six are decent ponies, and because decent ponies are decent to each other.
That, at least, is my take on A Change in Three Parts, belated as it is. Maybe I'm missing something crucial, maybe I'm just generally odd about fanfiction, maybe I just need the hiatus to be over.