Lord Destrustor's ultra-lame story-killing spoilerblog infodump for Frequencies! · 2:38am Aug 2nd, 2015
So here we are once again, about to bury another story of mine.
I feel this took far longer than it needed to, but I guess losing the motivation to write kills even the motivation to be done with the whole thing in the first place.
Or something.
Warning, this one is long as heck. Anyway, as usual;
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So after falling several miles without any safety equipment or the ability to actually fly, Spike wakes up with a severe headache. Turns out his head broke the signal detector’s fall, damaging it even further than when he ripped out one of the horns.
Rarity is freaking out nearby, yelling for anyone to “take it off, take it off, take it off” and that she “can hear it”. Scootaloo rips out her flimsily-attached horn, at which points she calms down. After Rarity slaps Spike for the whole “putting her at risk of getting affected by the signal” thing, Rainbow finally emerges from the bushes to join up with them. Scootaloo notices she’s wounded, a slight case of getting stabbed in the ribs by a branch. All in all, it’s the only serious wound they received from their landing.
Scootaloo patches up Rainbow while the other two gather whatever they can find of their belongings, at which point Rainbow urges everyone to move, as she is certain Cloudsdale will send ponies to make sure the job is done. With the help of a mud puddle, they camouflage their bright colors and move on.
They soon find they have landed a few dozen miles away from Manehattan, and decide to head there as a pit stop to get their things in order; the detector needs repairs and Rainbow needs rest to heal.
As they travel, Rainbow’s condition deteriorates; the wound is developing an infection and she’s getting sick. When they finally get to the big city, they are pleasantly surprised to meet Babs in the outskirts. She escorts them to a safe location in the mostly ruined city; a skyscraper whose only entrance is another toppled skyscraper leaning on it. (the fire exit stairway has been repurposed as an actual stairway, putting all the stairs along what used to be the wall.)
Anyway, once inside, they meet with Professor Tuner Dial; a unicorn who, to their surprise and immediate distress, still has his horn. Professor Dial is actually the leading researcher on radio transmissions (and also used to host a fairly popular Manehattan radio show), who had the brilliant idea to jury-rig a small faraday cage around his head when the signal first began. It was simply a way to isolate himself form a minor annoyance at first, but he eventually decided to keep it on at all times when other unicorns began going insane.
With his unkempt hobo beard and his gaunt figure (not being able to eat except with a straw makes it hard to stuff one’s face), he explains what happened in Manehattan since the signal hit; Apparently a group of affected unicorns blame him for the signal, due to him being unaffected, and are hunting him through the streets. He would flee the city if all his equipment wasn’t stuck in this building. Groups of survivors (like Babs) have taken to setting up traps and misdirection to buy him time to find a cure.
He is still far from that, but it keeps the hope alive in the city. He and Spike share what they know about the signal, and he helps Spike fix the detector so that they can be on their way as soon as Dash feels better. With proper medical aid and a safe, stable environment, this takes about three days.
There would have been a few conversations during those days; notably one where Dash explains what’s been going on in cloudsdale, one where Rarity tells how she lost her horn, and a short scene where Scootaloo goes to have a private conversation with Babs, about Apple Bloom.
Anyway, once they’re all set, Professor Dial sends them on their way with warm coats, as he says the climate up north is being unusually cold.
So they set off, traveling north for a few days or so, quickly reaching a perpetually-cloudy region, where the ground is covered with increasingly-thick grayish snow. Dash speculates that the large retaining cloud wall between the frozen wastes up north and the normal Equestrian territory must have sprung a frigid air leak from lack of maintenance, although that wouldn’t explain the ever-present grey clouds.
They then pass by Neighagra, once a bustling city now entirely abandoned and heavily damaged. Spike remembers that before the Signal ruined everything, Twilight was preparing to go to the famous annual Neighagra magic convention. This place was probably absolutely brimming with unicorns when the signal hit, explaining the extensive desolation. The heavy grey snow everywhere explains why there’s no one around anymore. So they scavenge supplies from the ghost town and continue north.
They soon come to a vast empty space devoid of trees. In the distance they can see a sharp hill from which a large plume of smoke is rising, which is apparently what is fueling the incredibly dense cloud cover.
They go there, the detector pointing straight at it, and eventually find a large cavernous hole in the side of the hill.
Inside, they find a giant hoard of gold, a giant emitter like they saw in Ahrkalzahn’s lair, and a giant, sleeping red dragon snoring incredible amounts of smoke. The very same dragon two of them met once near Ponyville.
Thar be our dear friend Smaugaestus.
They accidentally wake him up at one point, and Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash start distracting it to give time to Spike and Rarity to find a way to break the emitter.
Rarity looks around for a while, before picking up a lumpy rock from an important-looking pedestal and handing it to Spike. She tells him to blow fire on it until he starts to hear cracking noises, at which point he should throw it at the emitter.
He says the dragon is kind of in the way, and that he couldn’t throw it at the emitter unless the big guy moves, to which she replies she has a plan. When he turns to look at her, she’s wearing a whole bunch of jewels and valuables from the hoard. She runs in front of Smaugaestus, shouting to get his attention. When he sees her wearing his precious treasure, and then recognises her, he gets extremely angry.
He chases after her while she flees the cave. Spike manages to finish heating his stupid rock, and throws it at the emitter. To everyone’s surprise, the rock explodes violently in a cloud of steam when it hits the emitter, damaging the main crystal and filling the generator gears with a whole bunch of rubble. The thing starts looking like it’s about to explode, and Spike and the pegasi start running out of the cave.
About halfway through the tunnel, they come face to face with Smaugaestus, who is clearly wondering what that explosion sound was. Rainbow scoops up Scoots and Spike and, without even slowing down, runs past the dragon by wall-running. The dragon basically takes up all the space, but by using her wing for lift she manages to stick to the wall way above the dragon’s dangerous feet.
They meet Rarity just outside, the unicorn hastily discarding all the jewelry in the snow. They unanimously agree to just book it before the dragon comes after them. Not long after that they hear a thunderous explosion, barely muffled by the stone walls. Immediately following that they hear the most furious dragon roar they have ever heard. Looking back they see Smaugaestus literally bursting through the side of the hill and letting out both a giant pillar of flame and the most obviously “I’m going to kill you” roar of all times.
Smaugaestus, with a mighty flap of his wings, leaps almost a mile straight up, and plunges towards the four, spewing a cloud of flame and smoke all the way. He clearly intends to crush them as violently as possible.
Rainbow, still carrying both kids on her back, pushes Rarity out of the way and leaps out of danger just in time to avoid Smaugaestus. The dragon, blinded by both his unfathomable fury and the smoke he’s still belching, misses them all and crashes right through the lake’s thick ice cover.
It’s then that the travelers finally realize the white, barren expanse they are traversing is, in fact, a huge frozen lake. Due to the dragon’s crash, the whole surface begins to crumble.
They run as fast as they possibly can to outrun the collapse, entire blocks of ice tumbling and flipping behind them. Rainbow makes it to shore safely, but Rarity, slower than the athlete despite being free of the two youngsters’ weight, doesn’t quite make it. She slips between two blocks and immediately sinks in the freezing water.
Both Spike and Rainbow Dash immediately want to jump to her aid, but their arguing and Scootaloo’s objections keep them on the shore long enough for a colossal shape to emerge right in front of them.
Smaugaestus gasps painfully before spitting out a great deal of water. He starts clawing at the ground desperately, ripping out trees and gouging the soft clay but never managing to drag himself out of the lake. After about a minute of frantic thrashing and extremely labored panting, he loses what little grip he has left and slides back into the water. He does not come back up.
As they contemplate Smaugaestus’ watery grave, they suddenly hear a fainter, softer gasping cough behind them. By some miracle, Rarity’s sinking form was thrown right out of the lake by the dragon’s emergence, and they run to her just as she falls out of a tree.
Both Scootaloo’s and Rainbow’s survival knowledge kicks in; Rainbow orders everyone to give their warm winter coats to the unicorn, while Scootaloo takes Spike to look for suitable firewood. Rainbow takes the barely-conscious unicorn on her back, and quickly finds a large pine tree to use as shelter. She lays a coat on the needle-covered ground below the tree’s branches. The group builds a fire and start working to stave off hypothermia; Scootaloo and Rainbow lie next to her to share their heat with contact and continuous massages, while Spike sits with his back in the fire, using his reptilian attributes to transfer the fire’s heat at a fast pace while serving as a pillow for the unicorn.
To keep Rarity awake, they make her talk, namely about what happened in the dragon’s lair with the rock. She reveals that the rock she made Spike heat up was an aqueous geode (as mentioned in chapter 5.) Heating the geode made the water inside build up pressure, forming a steam grenade of sorts.
They keep her warm throughout the night, and save her life. They take a few days to let her rest, taking a break themselves. During those days the clouds start to break up and clear a little, no longer sustained by Smaugaestus’ nap. Spike takes the time to triangulate the final emitter’s exact location, using simple geography and the known locations of the first two; it apparently rests in the smokey mountains, somewhere southeast of Vanhoover.
Once well rested, and with the weather warming up slightly with the return of some sunlight, they set back out. They once again follow the detector, who now acts as a direct compass pointing towards the only emitter left.
Some time after leaving, and while looking at the clouds still dissolving above, Scootaloo notices one little, very distant white cloud looming extremely high above. She remarks that it kinda looks like… Cloudsdale?
It’s then that they are ambushed by Cloudsdale troops, with Lightning Dust directly leading them.
Desperately outmatched and incapable of fleeing, they surrender; to the surprise of everyone, Rainbow submits first.
She reveals that while stuck in Cloudsdale, she stayed very interested in the rapidly-changing laws of the harshening government, in the hopes of finding a loophole that would allow her to get exiled but not executed; so she could have the chance to return to Ponyville without letting Cloudsdale know that it still stood and was ripe for the pillaging. Seeing as she was still in Cloudsdale when the rest of the group found her, she did not succeed.
However, her efforts gave her an exceptional amount of knowledge of Cloudsdale’s laws, and she invokes an extremely old addendum to the archaic execution laws brought back after the signal hit; a pegasus sentenced to death by falling is fundamentally entitled to choosing his or her place of execution. This old law allowed the condemned to choose their final resting place, as they would traditionally be left to rest wherever they landed. The death penalty laws were brought back whole from olden times, with that addendum yet valid, and so Rainbow is legally entitled to choose her place of death. She officially chooses the location of the final emitter, without specifying that she does so in order to have the group brought there.
She buys everyone some time that way. Lightning rightfully suspects this to be a trap of some kind, and sends a part of her group to retrieve heavy weapons from Cloudsdale while the rest proceeds to the indicated coordinates. Both groups are to meet-up over a small town called Rainbarrel (insider reference to one of my other, totally unrelated stories yay!)
Captured and detained, the four go along with this, trying to figure out ways to get out of the situation.
Being trapped in a cage carried hundreds of feet in the air leaves them very few options, so they end up doing nothing much.
The groups of pegasi meet back up soon enough, and Lightning’s squad find themselves equipped with their serious weaponry. This includes, most importantly, heavy steel spears with retractable handles near their blunt tip to allow better grip for hooved creatures.
They finally reach the defined coordinates, and easily spot the final dragon’s lair; an impressive mountain split neatly in half by some geological event millennia ago, with a wide hole recently dug into one of the resulting cliffsides.
Lightning Dust decides to bring the four into that hole with the rest of her troops, with the intent of showing the traitors that even whatever violent friends hanging around inside were no match for Cloudsdale’s military might. She plans to walk right into the suspected trap, and defeat it cleanly to instill despair into the four’s hearts so their execution can be all the more poignant.
Inside the young cavern, they see no one at first; an eclectic assortment of furniture of wildly varying sizes, several high tables full of random mechanical parts, and a huge circular mound of grey leather in the middle of the room.
Suddenly, a loud, guttural sound erupts from the grey mound, along with a spur of green flame. The flame materializes into a huge scroll that a giant, grey hand springs from the mound to snatch in the air.
Everyone immediately hides as best they can while the giant grey mound begins to unfurl into a terrifyingly large serpentine grey dragon.
Dagothurial.
Dagothurial, seemingly unaware of everyone in the cavern, casually flexes his back; stretching the dozens upon dozens of arms he possesses. He finally unrolls and reads the scroll, in a suspiciously loud tone of voice and in “English”, a fact that puts a lot of ponies on edge.
The scroll comes from Ahrkalzahn, and informs him that the gold dragon has just returned to his lair to find it in disarray; with his emitter destroyed and the archive of their conversations stolen. More distressingly; he cannot reach Smaugaestus via flame messages. Ahrkalzahn tells Dagothurial to be careful, as he is now certain someone has discovered their project.
Dagothurial bends down, bringing his head to the ground while casually asking “I do wonder if my dear guests know anything about this, hmm?”
The ponies, now exposed, start talking to the dragon. He monopolises the conversation, inquiring about many topics; smugly mentioning that he’s glad to hear of Smaugaestus’ death, asking who killed him, how much do the ponies know, and such. He also takes a keen interest in Spike, guessing he’s the one who managed to bypass Ahrkalzahn’s dragonbreath lock, and wondering why a proud dragon such as himself would ally with the hooved vermin; what defect exists in his feeble child’s mind that would make him consider them his equal.
He eventually grows bored of this, and states his intention to kill everyone present; it has been a while since his last pony stew.
The battle engages, Dagothurial’s countless limbs and pyroclastic breath against the pegasus squadron. About a dozen get killed before Dagothurial manages to catch Lightning Dust in the air; he does not hesitate to rid the ponies of their leadership by clutching her tightly in his hand and punching the nearest wall as hard as he can. (imagine doing that yourselves with an egg or something)
As he drops the bloodied, formless body to the ground, her spear rolls towards Rainbow Dash; she grabs it, an idea forming in her head.
She heads to the nearest table, holds the spear hidden under it, and taunts the dragon. She then makes a show of looking ready for a pursuit, as if she expected him to chase her around the table.
He mocks her unbelievable stupidity and lunges straight through it, biting the whole thing into splinters and cleanly taking the pegasus in his mouth.
He rises to his full height, smugly opening his jaws just wide enough to show everyone the stupid pegasus in his mouth without letting her escape, before winding up for an exaggeratedly theatrical chomp.
Rainbow, meanwhile, stands up with a manic glint in her eyes and Lightning Dust’s spear in her front hooves. She braces the weapon, point up, on the dragon’s tongue, just before he bites down.
The sharp steel stabbing the roof of his mouth makes him yelp in pain, opening his mouth as wide as it can go. Rainbow seizes the chance to turn around and buck the handles of the spear as hard as she can, making the dragon cry in pain as the weapon buries itself further into his flesh.
Rainbow leaps out of his maw just as he belches out another blast of burning ash, avoiding it neatly. While she falls, she yells at the assembled pegasi to “Buck that bastard in the chin!”
Lightning’s second-in-command (an OC I planned to give an adorable stutter to) complies, ordering the troops to split into two groups; one to keep the dragon’s many arms busy while the other clamps his mouth shut.
They execute the plan almost flawlessly, with the bucking teams tackling the dragon’s jaws from both directions and causing an absolutely horrendous crunch to echo around the cavern.
Dagothurial, wide eyes suddenly filling with pained tears, emits a whine pitiful enough to sound forced if it came form a puppy. He then starts foaming at the mouth, vomits violently, and begins convulsing. His uncontrolled, bone-breaking spasms soon carry him over the edge of the cliff, where he tumbles five hundred feet straight down.
And so he ends.
In the newfound silence of the lair, the ponies catch their breaths.
While Spike and the gang look for the emitter, Rainbow Dash finds the mangled body of Lightning Dust, still somewhat alive somehow. Amid the blood pouring out of her mouth instead of the breath she can’t even take anymore, she mouths the words “I’m sorry” before dying.
Now definitely deprived of their leadership, the Cloudsdale ponies take stock of their situation, eventually coming to admit that maybe Spike and his friends were telling the truth. The second-in-command mentions that although Rainbow was slated for death, she was never officially stripped of her rank and is now the highest-ranking pegasus in the room. With a sheepish smile, she asks what Rainbow’s orders are.
And that would have been the end of the linear narrative, and of that particular chapter.
The next chapter was planned to be named “Epilogues”, and would have been a counterpart to “preparations”; a series of small vignettes showing the various key elements of the conclusion. Unlike Preparations, Epilogues would have been in a scrambled chronological order, with the scenes ordered in a loose progression of emotional impact.
1, The first would have shown Professor Tuner Dial hearing a sudden knock on his window and getting a visit from the stuttering pegasus seen in the fight with Dagothurial. She would then inform him that Spike the Dragon requests his assistance.
2, The second vignette would have begun with an unnamed pony, bored, hungry and depressed somewhere. Trapped in place, she would lament what had happened to the world, and how she could do nothing to stop it. And then Twilight teleports in front of her, with Spike wearing a strange contraption on his back. With a cry of alarm, the unnamed pony obviously Celestia would then yell at them to run away before charging up for a crystal blast.
And then Spike would flick a switch on the device, and Celestia would be wracked with the most insanely unfathomable pain she has ever felt, greater than even everything else she had ever felt combined. After a moment of agony, she would have heard the click again, bringing the most soothing return to normalcy. When she would look up again, she would feel no desire to attack. She would be cured.
3, The next scene would have been a quiet scene, showing Spike reflecting quietly in a nice room at night (one of the few still standing mansions in Canterlot). Celestia then walks in, a nice net of copper mesh artfully wrapped around her horn, asking why he isn’t partying with “the others”. He tells her he can’t understand why Twilight would forgive Applejack so easily. She explains that it’s easy to forgive a friend for almost doing something you want them to. She then admits that there were many times during those four/five months of solitude where she also wished for a quick death, just like Twilight probably did.
She then bows down, and thanks him; not as the princess, not in the name of Equestria, and neither as a symbol or even a peer. As nothing more than the feeble, powerless mare who spent five months wishing for death while her country burned, she thanks him from the bottom of her heart. After a hug where he feels mysterious warm water dripping on the back of his head, she tells him that if there is ever anything he wishes for, she will do absolutely everything in her considerable power to grant it. Before leaving, she mentions that Luna wants to know if he would like dreamless sleep for a while. He says it would be nice.
4, Next would be a jump back to the streets of Ponyville, with Scootaloo standing around with a shaking, troubled Sweetie Belle near the library. The two infamous bully fillies taunt them from afar, throwing spite and disgust at the “monster”, the “psychopath”. Scootaloo approaches them, calmly giving them a summary of everything she’s done to see her friend happy again; how she fought dragons, fell miles from the sky, walked a few literal hundred miles through rain and snow and storms, and other insanely dangerous stuff that failed to leave even a single scratch on her. She tells them that if they ever want to generously give her an excuse, she’ll personally show them both what a rich bitch being fed her own cutie mark looks like. When they hesitantly claim that she wouldn’t, a sudden Rarity appears to tell them that Scootaloo would indeed do those things. As “proof”, she shows them her black eye and numerous bruises, saying they’re from this morning when she angered the filly accidentally. The bullies flee in fear, followed by Scootaloo’s yells of “If I ever see you talk to her again I’ll SNAP YOU BOTH IN HALF”
5, Next up would have been Fluttershy and Rainbow’s reunion, with RD casually barging into Flutter’s office. Fluttershy begins freaking out, thinking she’s lost her mind and hallucinating, claiming it’s impossible and that Rainbow is dead, and that this isn’t real; until Rainbow grabs her into a hug, asking “This real enough for ya?” Fluttershy breaks down in incoherent tears, holding Rainbow as if her own life depends on it, while RD quietly reassures her that she’s here to stay, and that everything’s going to be fine. At one point Fluttershy’s hoof touches RD’s wing stump, and she falls apart even more. Rainbow simply answers “Shh, it’s okay; I’ll just find something else to be awesome at.”
6, Next mini-scene would begin with Twilight organizing the library while Spike tells her about how Professor Dial helped him make the curing devices, and how his expertise was a great help in creating an exact opposite signal to counter the dragon one. Suddenly, a bruised and black-eyed Rarity bursts into the room, and, without a word, walks up to Spike to plant a full-on kiss right on his mouth. In the following shocked silence, she simply tells him “Let’s talk about this again in a few years, okay?” before leaving. “I’d love to stay here for a chat, Twilight, but I have a sister to take home. Ta-ta!”
7, Next, to break up the non-stop emotions, would have been a scene of a squadron of pegasi preparing to assault the mysterious town of Cloister (hinted at in chapter 10)
Cloister turns out to be a unicorn trap, founded by guilt-ridden unicorns to contain themselves in a place from which they could not harm other ponies. The town is built as a circular walled moat with stairs and ramps and such, allowing land-bound ponies to enter safely but making it impossible for them to leave. Inside Cloister, unicorns are spared the madness of the signal by having no way to see anything but each other, nullifying their murderous urges. The scene would have consisted of the briefing immediately preceding the assault; the plan would be for the pegasi to enter the town in teams of three, one “mule” carrying the signal nullifier, one spotter to keep an eye on their surroundings, and one operator to flick the nullifier’s switch. Any unicorn they came across while inside the town would be subjected to at least five minutes of the nullifiers to cancel the signal’s influence before getting a copper-mesh hornguard attached to their horn to prevent any further tampering, as well as to avoid the painful effects of the nullifiers while the pegasi swept the rest of the town. This scene was meant to be mostly a bit of extra information for those curious about these loose ends of the story, before going back to the emotional peaks of the conclusion.
8, The Next part would have began on the same day (I kept a detailed count of the days passed while writing the story, and would have been able to mark the epilogues according to the number of days since the incident, just like the various scenes of chapter 1) as scenes 4 and 6, a few hours before both. It would have shown Scootaloo loitering around the entrance of the Ponyville holding cells while further in their depths, Rarity’s voice can be heard arguing with a guard. She wants to see her sister. The guard explains to her once again that Sweetie Belle, while cured from the signal’s influence, is still insane and feral, and thus dangerous. Rarity hears none of it and eventually makes the guard agree to let her in her sister’s cell. Sweetie’s ensuing screams and violence make Scootaloo cringe for a while, during which Rarity patiently takes the abuse while insistently trying to convince Sweetie that she isn’t a monster anymore, and that she can stop hitting her any time she wants. After a few moments of this during which it is hinted that this is how Rarity got the bruises she shows in the previous scenes later that day, she eventually manages to get through to Sweetie Belle, prompting a heavy pause followed by “…R… Rarity?” The sisters reunite at last, and Rarity assures Sweetie that she still loves her more than anything, despite the young unicorn’s protest of “But… I hurt mom, didn’t I?” (hinting that one of the main things to break Sweetie’s mind so thoroughly as to make her a feral animal was the fact that she did indeed kill her own mother, because I’m a horrible person who wanted to make Rarity one of the most secretly emotionally burdened characters of this story as a way to display her immense strength of character.) The scene would have been told entirely from Scootaloo’s location, with the events told only through dialogue and sound clues. It ends with Scoots crying happily and getting ready to be there for her friend once their family reunion is over.
9, And then the very end, a scene that begins with Twilight waking up from a deep sleep punctuated by an intense headache. She’s in a dark room, a corridor. As she looks up, she sees Spike looking at her a few dozen feet away, with a small hesitant smile. When she notices there are no bars between them, she panics and takes a step back. And then she notices she took a step back from something she should have been attacking ferociously, and understands what that means. She immediately starts sobbing uncontrollably; walking, trotting and then galloping towards Spike while she even instinctively uses her magic to draw him closer faster. They collide into a tearful hug, where all she can say is an endless repetition of “Thank you.” Spike says “I did it Twilight. I fixed everything. Are you proud of me?”
And then the story would have truly ended on that hug. I also planned to have an extra bonus chapter detailing the historical repercussions of the story on Equestria for a number of years afterwards.
Prologue
1: Preparations
2: Departure
3: Silences
4: Tracks
5: Appleloosa
6: Climb
7: Lair
8: Archives
9: Fracture
10: Companionship
11: Tyrant
12: Stratofortress
13: Trial
14: Freefall
15: Recovery
16: Manehattan
17: Resumed
18: Neighagarah
19: Smaugaestus
20: Loophole
21: Transit
22: Dagothurial
23: Epilogues
Historical repercussions
All in all, I think the story would have reached a little over 100k words.
Some various notes, in whatever order I think of them:
-The nullifiers Spike and Tuner Dial created would have consisted of a miniaturized version of the dragons’ emitters modified to output two signals at once; one being an exact copy of the original one who ruined everything and the other being its exact, precise opposite in every way. They would work by overriding the signal’s conditioning and replacing it with a set of perfectly opposed compulsions locking each other in a perfectly balanced tug-of-war of sorts, where the pony’s will would be free to act in whatever direction it would choose. They didn’t actually cure anyone, but they nullified the influence. As noted in “Archives”, exposing a pony to conflicting signals provokes a headache, explaining the intense pain caused by the nullifiers.
-The reason they can make smaller versions of a crystal that Ahrkalzahn described as “the smallest he could make it” is simply because he is too big in comparison; Spike’s much smaller hands allow him to carve crystals at a scale that is simply physically impossible for the immense dragon.
-Also hinted at in “Archives”, an alicorn’s slightly different brain causes a few changes in the signal’s working; both princesses, under its influence, could still cast spells “normally”, although at a considerable expenditure of strength. As such, this is why Celestia never responded to Spike’s letters in the first few weeks of the signal’s deployment; it would have drained her of so much energy that she would not have been able to move the sun that day, and she deemed it more important to prioritize this task. On the other hand, the crystal blasts were so encouraged by the signal that they were basically effortless, allowing a terrifying number of uses, even when exhausted. This slightly different biology also makes the nullifiers considerably more painful to them.
-The two royal sisters were affected at roughly the same time, allowing them to meet non-lethally. To protect their ponies, they each incapacitated one another; Luna chained Celestia to the floor with a magical silver chain that only she could break, after which Celestia banished her to the moon again. Celestia was ready to go with her, but Luna insisted that at least one of them needed to stay on the planet to rotate the days, and that she would rather not do so herself as she feared what she could do in ponies’ dreams in her current condition. It turns out banishing a willing target is easy enough to not require the elements of harmony, and Celestia then spent five miserable months wallowing in the guilt of the innumerable murders she had committed that day, as well as that of cursing her sister once more to the horrible fate she endured for a millennium.
-Tuner Dial is Vinyl Scratch’s dad. Before they leave, he asks the four travelers if they’ve seen his daughter; a unicorn whose coat and mane are lighter, more vibrant shades of his own, and who was a famous DJ in Canterlot, always wearing shades. Rarity recognizes the mare, but says that she has not heard of her after the signal started.
-Whatever happens in the Crystal Empire during the events of the story is left to the readers’ imaginations. I had planned nothing at all about it.
-Chronologically, the epilogues happen in the following order; 1,5,9,8,4,6,2,3,7
-The historical repercussions chapter would have detailed the fate of Ahrkalzahn after the events of the story. Abridged, his tale is as follows; After sending that worried message to Dagothurial and getting no response, he immediately understood that the plan had utterly failed and fled to Draconia. Some time later, after Luna had rallied Equestria’s allies and warned the world about the dragons’ actions, the nation of Draconia, in their usual fashion, unanimously cut all ties to whatever could make them look bad. Drakelord Baphomet was ousted and his successor, Drakelord Ahriman, happily collaborated with Equestrian authorities to capture Ahrkalzahn. After the Draconian justice system gave him the traditional ritual disfigurement as a show of common will, they handed him to Equestria, to be judged according to their own laws as well. He was judged guilty of “crimes against the sanctity of life”, an unprecedented charge invented specifically for him, and sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment. As an additional punishment, he was also required to build and maintain a life-sized ferrous pyrite statue of himself. For years, ponies were heartily encouraged to visit his prison to throw the most vile, disgusting things they could manage at the statue, so that Ahrkalzahn could have numerous chances to “clean himself of his sins.” This additional punishment was also a way for him to shorten his sentence willingly, as he would be released whenever he’d cleaned the statue “threefold for every soul taken by your greed.” This would have still taken a truly considerable amount of time, as the official census for the number of victims of his actions placed the number of cleanings just slightly above two million. Despite the six dragons taking shifts to guard him and the fact that he was both declawed and muzzled for the whole duration of his sentence; he eventually managed to escape by breaking a tooth, snorting it out through his nostrils, and using it to carve two complex runes on the floor of his cell. One rune was a teleportation circle, and the second was a delayed explosive. He used his tooth to slice his wrist and activated the runes with his blood, teleporting away and destroying all traces of where he went. He was never seen again.
-Drakelord Baphomet wormed out of any direct repercussions thanks to the considerable fortune he had amassed over the years, hiring the best lawyers in the world. The loopholes and technicalities they found for him allowed him to walk away free. Despite this, he was still irreparably dishonored, and spent the rest of his life in near-solitude, as no other dragon allowed themselves to fraternise with such a shameful individual.
-Cloister, once cleaned, grew into one of Equestria’s biggest cities; most of its inhabitants had little to return home to, and the sexuality-boosting effect of the signal had caused many of them to start new families within its walls. Cloister came to house the biggest mental institute of the nation, helping a great number of traumatized ponies during its many decades of existence. A university was also eventually founded, and Spike, during his later years, came to teach history there.
-Dagothurial, in my head, was made to resemble a giant, gross, centipede. He has exactly 57 limbs; 29 pairs, minus one he lost at some point during his life. Two main arms closest to the head, two major legs closest to the tail, and 53 smaller arm-legs along the entire length between the major pairs. He has no wings, but can easily walk on walls and ceilings. To complete the centipede imagery, he also bears two long, prehensile whiskers who tend to look like antennae in their general appearance and motions.
-Hornguards became a long-standing staple of unicorn fashion; first as a precaution against further events like the signal, then as a habit, and eventually as a simple fact of life.
-Rarity is actually the one responsible for taking out her own horn; in the panic of the first day, when she realized her horn was the problem; she stuck it into a crack between cobblestones on the ground and then twisted. This turned out to be extremely painful. Once rid of it, she abandoned the horn there, where Spike eventually found it.
-Cloudsdale spent years following the story as a mobile fortress to defend Equestria’s weakened borders. Once the nation had recovered enough that it was no longer necessary, it was cracked open and refurbished into a city once more.
-Rainbow Dash was Cloudsdale’s commander during that time, but retired to return to Ponyville afterwards.
-What happened to Cloudsdale prior to Spike, Scoots and Rarity finding their way to it was a simple story of panic, politics and propaganda. Lightning Dust’s father was actually the mayor of the city. When the signal happened, his city was suddenly flooded with refugees, most of whom were scarred, terrified, and speaking of “unicorns killing everyone”. In the ensuing confusion, he took the most political stance on the matter; jumping to the popular conclusion and blaming everyone but his people. Soon, the official explanation of the event became that the unicorns had rebelled and betrayed Equestria. Slowly but surely, the “rumors” of this became fact, and then mandatory. Scaring his citizens into staying safe was the most sensible option after all. He came to declare Cloudsdale as an independent city-state, seceding from Equestria. Soon after, however, a congenital heart defect combined with the stress of the events caused him to suffer a fatal stroke, and, in an act of popularity-driven nepotism, his daughter became his successor. She then diligently followed in the dictatorial footsteps of her dear father.
-I decided the three main dragons of this story would all have a different thing they considered valuable to hoard, and I intended it to be a subtle hint of their characters; Smaugaestus had the traditional gold and jewels –he was in it for the riches, which paradoxically made him most vulnerable to doubt. There are other ways of gaining wealth than the genocide of a species. Ahrkalzahn hoarded books and knowledge; he was in it for the science and nothing else, blindly and to the expense of all. The things he wished to learn involved these atrocities, and thus they were acceptable. He only allowed himself moral objections when they didn’t run counter to his goals. Dagothurial collected… furniture of all shapes and sizes. …Because he’s a fucking psycho. He’s the actual weakest link of the group; both the least useful member and the most prideful. He didn’t come up with major breakthroughs, and his contributions to the project amounted to little more than a sociopathy advisor and lab assistant rolled into one, although he would certainly have claimed to be the linchpin of the entire thing. He collects trash as treasure, and sees himself as the greatest treasure of dragonkind.
… That’s all I can really think of… If you have any questions, I’ll happily spill the beans in the comments.
Another thing I wanted to mention, however, is one the few disappointments I have with the story:
When I started to flesh out the dragons of the story, I decided early on that all their names would be references to things. I spent quite some time coming up with them, and even thought that it would be a fun idea to let the readers try to guess them. And then… no one really cared. Oh well. Since it’s never going to happen now, I’ll just list them all, and what they refer to.
Ahrkalzahn: The gold-scaled, intelligent dragon in a position of power, whose name ends with “lzahn”, references Dunkelzahn; The gold-scaled, intelligent dragon in a position of power whose name ends with “lzahn”. Contrary to his nomenclatural inspiration however, Ahrkalzahn is a total bastard. Also he would totally never be elected president of the United States.
Smaugaestus: The big, scary red dragon who was seen in “dragonshy”, yes that exact one. In obvious reference to Tolkien’s famous dragon, Smaug. Both are red, hoard gold, and -at least temporarily- live in a place called the “Withered Heath.”
Dagothurial: Dagothurial is a complete psychopath believing himself to be flawless. He is of ash and great pride, and resides in a place called Red Mountain. He enjoys enslaving innocents, finds delight in manipulating the minds of those around him, and moves his lair to a place he calls “Dreamer’s Cleft” when the project gets underway. His lair is also the third one our heroes visit on their quest, and is the location of the last battle of the story. His name is a reference to Dagoth Ur. Dagoth Ur is the final boss of the third Elder Scrolls game, a prideful and insane creature found in Red Mountain; a den of ash and slaves, and indoctrinated dreamers whose minds are controlled through dreams. He believes himself to be just and righteous in his actions, never once doubting his atrocities.
Both are monsters, delusional and unashamed.
Drakelord Baphomet: The cruel sponsor of the story’s antagonists, and in a way the root of their evil.
His name is taken from Baphomet, the figure whose image is now usually associated with The Devil himself. Yeah, basically the dragons of my story were led by freaking Dragon Satan.
Of note, Baphomet was a “mercury” dragon. What that means is that his skin basically looked like a mirror. He was a gigantic lizard of chrome and evil. Isn’t that kinda freaking badass?
Drakelord Ahriman, Baphomet’s successor on the throne of all dragons. I never planned what he looks like, as he is mostly nothing more than an afterthought of the story. Since he doesn’t have much of a role in the story, his name is mostly just something I think sounds cool. Angra Mainyu, A.K.A Ahriman
Drakelords usually reign from the big official throne room located in the “Impregnable Castle Ahzi Dahaka”, also known as the “three-pronged fortress”. Google might tell you that this is a reference to ancient Persian/Iranian dragon myths, but it’s actually an uncultured layer removed from it; In Ogrebattle 64, a game I enjoyed quite a lot, the dragons you could recruit as troops would evolve throughout the game according to their elemental affinities and alignment. The Ahzi Dahaka was the most advanced earth-elemental form of dragons, and its name stuck with me. While the game’s name for it was obviously taken from the mythological roots, my main inspiration for the fortress’ name was the game unit. A quick research about the name early on in the process of writing this story was what led me to make it a “three-pronged” castle, as the mythological depictions of Azi Dahaka usually describe it as having three heads.
And now, for the chumps;
Principles of Electrical Flow and Behavior, a Primer, by Narcissa the Black
Narcissa the black dragon, author of a book seen in Ahrkalzahn’s lair. Her name references the mother of one of the most well-known magical brats in modern literature. Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black Was Draco Malfoy’s mother. …Draco… Heh.
‘Subtleties of the Forge, by Hephaestus the Red’
I hope most everyone is familiar with the greek god of the forge, right?
‘Tasty Tools: a Guide of the Many Uses and flavors of Gems, Jewels and Crystals, by Paracelse the White’
Paracelse is the French name of Paracelsus.
Gorynych, as exclaimed by Ahrkalzahn in one of his correspondences, is a type of east Slavic dragon.
And Zirnitra, mentioned immediately after, is also a type of Slavic dragon. I was mostly just browsing a Wikipedia list of mythological dragons at that point, to use as a sort of “by God/Jove/Celestia”-type expletive for Ahrkalzahn to use.
So, that’s about it, I guess. That’s how my epic saga was going to end. A bittersweet ending to a miserable journey.
Final thoughts on the project? Well, obviously I enjoyed it. What first started as a “what if” mental image of a plot point of a story I was reading turned into a simple one-shot, who grew into a massive and unexpected 18k words of Spike’s misery, and then grew further into a sequel of greater scope than anything I’d ever done before, not even counting the fact that it was an exercise in verbosity from the very beginning. And I very much enjoyed it.
If I have one regret with this, is that it didn’t get as popular as my other stuff. It’s selfish in a way, I know, but if there’s one of my stories I wanted to succeed, it’s this one. Where “My Voice in a Head” was the little half-assed, slap-the-keyboard-until-about-3k-stupid-words-stumble-onto-the-page story I wrote to have fun and not worry about anything, Frequencies was the story I put actual work into; Meticulous prose, some actual research, a plot planned from the start and rife with foreshadowing and twists of various quality. If I could have chosen a story of mine to get featured, I’d have taken this one, probably.
But then again, considering the current circumstances, I guess it’s best that not that many people got invested in this; there’s less disappointment in the masses.
…And with this blog dies another of my stories. I’m not sure how to feel about this yet.
If any questions remain, feel free to ask in the comments here. I’ll answer for you, friends.
It's a shame we wont be getting this proper, but thanks for at least providing closure to one of my favorite stories on the site, pretty interesting stuff, too.
Thank you! While it is sad that you decided cancel this story, I'm grateful that you still took the time to tell us how it would end.
Still love the stories and this universe.
For the record, I really.liked it and eagerly awaited any updates. Thanks for at least wrapping it up here in a way.
Don't get discouraged, keep doin you boo!
I can only agree with the other commentors.
I really enjoyed this.
Many thanks for what there is.
At least you summarized it and didn't leave it hanging.
I saw this story in the featured stories box, I'm pretty certain... I could've sworn that was where I found it... I was disturbed by the evil and the dark of the story, but that was the goal, right? Sorry for not figuring out any of the dragon name references
Thank you for telling us in so much detail what would've happened. It's the next best thing to getting the story itself. Thank you for writing any of this, really. Good story.
It really saddens me that this story didn't get the attention it deserved, I really enjoyed reading it.
Thank you for telling us how it ended. I immensely enjoyed the story and would have loved to see it completed. This is probably the next best thing, though
Dagothurial collecting furniture makes me think of something I was going to do in a dnd campaign once. while looking at what a DM could put in a dragon horde I intended to have the party fight an eccentric white dragon whose horde was entirely ... music boxes.
Does this mean your calling it quits on this?
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Basically, yes.
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A shame, but its your work to do with as you wish.
I'm glad you did this. I loved this story and universe, so at least it got some closure. I'm curious about the long term mental effects that the unicorns would suffer, Twilight in particular.
Aww... I considered this to be one of the best. But ah, at least I get to know what would have happened (unlike other stories where there is.no blog post at all). <3 Thanks for making the ride last this long.
This story really deserved a lot more attention. After waiting for an update I finally found this story again and luckily this blog. I'm glad to finally see how it would have ended and thank you for taking the time to let us know even if you can no longer continue it.
You put in a lot of work into it and it really showed in every chapter. A bittersweet 'what could have been'.
Anyway, thank you again for writing this and for letting us know how it all would have ended up. What would have happened with Applejack though, with all that she suffered as well, Twilight would have forgiven her, but would she have gotten over her bitterness towards unicorns? Would she have forgiven herself?
Just realized, Smaug dies in a lake, I see what you did there.
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Yay, another accidental reference... I'm very good at this, apparently.
And for Applejack... yeah, her situation would be complicated. She was heavily scarred, both physically and mentally, and would bear those things for a very, very long time. and that's not even considering the things that happened after the direct tragedies. Thinking back on it, she would one day come to the same conclusion Scootaloo had spouted about her in chapter 10; that she had been a huge coward. That instead of going out there to support her friends and make herself useful to the entirety of Equestria, she had chosen to remain safe in her little corner and be of use to no one but her closest loved ones. She would eventually come to resent the idea that despite her best intentions, her solution to the problem was wrong and entirely misguided; whereas Spike's foolish, suicidal plan made him a hero. She hated him for a long time for that; as much for the fact that he had proven her wrong, as that of the idea that he had shown himself to be more hard-working, courageous, and compassionate than her. He (as well as Rarity and Scootaloo) had been more of a hero than her, and a part of her was jealous.
And, on top of that, the simple fact that she had wished for the death of one of her best friends for something that was entirely out of the control of said friend was something that, once the dust settled and things returned to a semblance of normalcy, she couldn't possibly justify to herself anymore. Every little spark of forgiveness she gave Twilight made that guilt that much heavier.
All those things weighed on her for years, and she buried them under ceaseless work.
In the end, I'm not sure I even want to decide whether or not she found the strength to forgive Spike, or even herself.
I really feel it's better to leave it up to the readers.
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Well since I don't really like tragic endings I'll imagine that Applejacks anger, jealousy, and guilt did go on for several years and her duty as the bearer of the element of honesty was what made her come to the conclusion in the first place about her actions and how she hid from the rest of the world. It was only by being honest with herself that she could once again use her element, but each use requiring her to admit to herself each time what she had done was wrong. This placed an additional strain on her but her guilt and stubbornness made her refuse to abandon everypony else again whenever there was another threat to equestria. This combined with her anger and jealousy towards Spike, Rarity, Scootaloo, and Rainbow Dash would bring her to a precipice where she would keep throwing herself into her work at the cost of her own health and relationships, both with her friends and her family.
The news of Ahrkalzahn escaping would actually seem like a blessing to her, causing her to see this as her chance to finally redeem herself and make peace with her personal demons. Setting out alone to chase after Ahrkalzahn, she would leave everything behind to make everything 'right'. If we really want tragic then she would never be seen again, but I said I don't do that so...
Applejack would travel across Equestria, coming in contact with so many other ponies out there who are racked with guilt and shame even years after the events of Frequency. She could talk with Princess Celestia and hear from her about hurting your own family and how even the most powerful ponies that everypony else would look up to can still be brought low and made to feel so weak and powerless. She could meet scores of Pegasai from Cloudsdale also on the hunt for Ahrkalzahn who did atrocious things under Lightning Dust's rule but went even further than Applejack. They didn't just think of killing their unicorn friends, they went through with it and kept on killing friends and even unicorn family members until Lightning Dust was gone, everyone was cured, and they couldn't lie anymore about what was really going on. Seeing ponies who are in even worse positions than her would be humbling but also put her own misery into perspective.
Roaming Equestria she would come across story after story of those like her still trying to pick up the pieces but stuck with their pasts. I see her finally being honest again to herself about her feelings towards Spike, Rarity, Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash, and even Twilight and finally heading home, meeting all her friends and family along the way back as they set out after her to try to get her back. Her family farm being taken care of by other ponies in Ponyville that don't resent her for what she did and sympathize with her as they feel the same way as well.
Returning home she opens a part of the farm and converts it to the Apple Bloom Healing Center, 'We fix you up with Hard Work', in memory to Apple Bloom and how she most likely would have gotten some sort of craftsman type cutie mark had she lived. But with Celestia's help makes it into a rehab hospital specifically built to deal with PTSD and give those visiting a chance to work outside to work off their frustrations off in a productive ways between group therapy sessions and one on one counseling. Maybe while she was traveling she saw the poor attempts by others to try to assist those like her and took all the best ideas home with her to implement at her place.
Being the founder, and it's first patient helps Applejack, she never really goes back as she and everyone else have been changed dramatically, but instead of an open wound on her soul it begins to close and scar over. She even attends Spikes and Rarity's wedding as well as offering them to use the entire center for the ceremony, catering free of charge.
So I'll chose to believe that while Applejack has a ways to go, she will heal and she will find a way to forgive herself and everyone else for everything that has happened.
Oh, and Ahrkalzahn went north to hide and stumbled into Yakyakistan where the Yaks found him cold and half buried in the snow. Seeing as how their huge horns had allowed the signal to infect them and make them go mad as well until Cadance flew over with the cure, they stomp Ahrkalzahn flat. He manages to escape but Discord tosses him into his dimension where everything he knew no longer applies, all magical laws are nonsensical, and everything he learns has a 50/50 chance of no longer even being true after a few seconds. And so he spends the rest of his life surrounded by utter incomprehensible nonsense doomed to be completely ignorant of how anything works for the rest of his days.
Seriously, that isn't a tragic ending.
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Wow, you really thought a lot about this. That's great.
The Cloister Asylum/Mental Hospital/whatever it'd be called would probably greatly appreciate having a place to send patients for a change of scenery.
But how would they notice the difference?
Thanks for that great comment, though. It's awesome to see someone so deeply invested in that thing I wrote.
Wow. Um, apparently I'd somehow missed that this post existed, and first now found it when "nostalgia"-ing my old favorited stories.
Frequencies
would becomewas intense. All the battles, problems, darkness, politics, fear... Even when summarized like this, it was enjoyable to read. And then all the bonds between characters. AJ's stance, Twi and Spike getting back together. Thanks for writing this summary, even if I'm almost half a year late here.Aaaand, sorry for not picking up on the dragons, I'm a bit too culturally deprived to see what you were going for.
I've got to admit that my favorite scene is in the first Frequencies, where Twi' was fighting the signal just to tell Spike how much he means to her. I am not sure why I like it so much, but it was intensely touching. So, imagining the resolution here now when they got back together under the circumstances you described, heck, that feels good. Thanks again.
Finally, a happy 2016 to you!
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I'm glad you still enjoy the things I wrote. Thank you and good 2016 to you too!
I missed seeing this was canceled until today, happens when you have 2560 unread chapters in favorites and haven't had time to read, I am so glad you made this closure blog post. Thanks for a great story, the point when we found out about the dragon's plan was truly horrific. Bravo!!!!!
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I'm going to add this to my head cannon for the story as well!
I'm glad I finally read this, it gives me closure and I can definitely see that you put a ton of thought into this story. It was dark, probably too dark for me.
Fairly certain it gave me a few real nightmares one day, but that time has hopefully passed.
Even now I am glad for this blog. There are so many stories we are left without closure, but even seeing it like this lets us knlw what was all in store yknow?