The Freeville Chronicles Prequel Experiment

Okay, this is a little experiment I would like to start with the FoE and Post-Fall communities.

For some time, I’ve been thinking about doing a Freeville Chronicles Prequel story that would tell the time from the Lindisbarne landing to the founding of Freeville. Currently, my idea is to have several different POV characters, and have each chapter from the POV of one of these characters - kind of like in G.R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series. I already have some ideas for the Prologue (POV: Eadgil) and the first chapter (POV: Sun Streamer, Sunrise Splendor’s mother - but then again, I’m actually not sure yet how to continue her story after that one chapter).

Now I already have a few ideas how to fill in some of the gaps with regards to how the invasion happened. For example, I have a few different ideas of how Dainn could corrupt the Crystal Heart, although only one of them is really fully fleshed out, and also really simple. (There is an OC in the Fall of Equestria universe we know has a magical connection to the Crystal Heart, and would not be above helping the caribou, at least at first. I’m talking about Schorl Tourmaline, of course. Yes, I’ve already discussed this idea with Schorl, although only briefly.)

Furthermore, since the Crystal Empire reappears in Winter, i.e. six to eight months after the Lindisbarne landing, it’s also believable that Lindisbarne might be rather isolated, with essentially hundreds of kilometers of Nothing between it and Equestria, in the place where the Crystal Empire will once come to be. Similarly, as I’ve argued elsewhere, the events of Keep Calm and Flutter On likely didn’t happen in FoE, or at least not the way they happened in the show, since the timeline doesn’t add up - which gives us a lot more freedom about what to do with Discord - though Freeville Chronicles will at least imply that he is not imprisoned in stone any more. I do like the idea that Dainn thinks he tricked or defeated him, but Discord actually fooled him to think so.

Of course, there are still lots of other issues with the events from the Lindisbarne landing up to the Canterlot takeover. For example: After Lindisbarne, why do the pegasi not use their flight to get away and get help? The caribou pluck the feathers of the mares, but only after one escape attempt that already happened, i.e. too late. They don’t pluck the feathers of the males at all - so nothing would be easier than feigning to go along with them and then flying away and get help once unobserved. (I first thought of having some of the ponies get away during the escape attempt, only to then be killed by Sombra’s shadow somewhere out in the wilderness - but that really doesn’t work if they can fly, among other reasons because at least the male pegasi from Lindisbarne will likely try to escape not just once, but repeatedly and at different points in time - and we know some are still in Lindisbarne after the first escape attempt). Of course, that’s only one issue out of many.

The issues are quite honestly overwhelming, but keep in mind that I feel only loosely bound to NCN’s “canon”, and that Schorl Tourmaline’s stories are the only ones I really feel bound by for my own writing. So we can take some liberties with what NCN has set up. I don’t want to take too many, but as many as necessary.

It is a rather hopeless project to tell a story during this period of FoE that wants to make sense. But the idea of writing a prequel to Freeville Chronicles is an idea that is dear to my heart - it is something I definitely want to do eventually if it is at all possible. But I also absolutely don’t want to add in convoluted nonsense just to make things work the way they do either - so it is possible that a prequel that takes place during this time simply isn’t a viable option. But I haven’t lost hope yet.

So what I want to do is: I would like to make working on these issues a community project. My question is how you would tell the story of the Fall in a way that makes sense, solve the continuity errors and logic gaps, and also which POV characters you would want to see. And then I'd take up the ideas that make the most sense. We could also make a list of issues that need to be addressed.

Essentially, I appreciate any help you want to offer. Do you just want to give critical input? Pitch ideas and work on solving issues? Proofreading and editing? Maybe even write one of the POV characters yourself? I really want to make this a community project, so you decide the degree to which you want to get involved. This is a large, possibly enormous project, and I do believe that these issues can only be solved by the community as a whole.

I still don’t really know how to organize this, but we’ll work it out together. Maybe we can use my Shattered Order group as a platform to tackle these issues, since as the Freeville Chronicles prequel, this would be a Shattered Order story. But we can work something out together.

If you want to participate in this, or if you have comments, please post in one of the threads in the FoE groups:

Post-Fall
The Real Fall of Equestria Fan Group
The Shattered Order group