Reflections - AMA II · 10:00pm Feb 4th, 2018
Henlo, everyone. Welcome to the Ask Me Anything volume II. I’ve compiled your questions and would now like to hold this session in order to answer them. There aren’t too many of them but I think, nonetheless, we’re going to have fun with this.
Read on ahead for discussions on multiversal ponies, shirts, and portals.
For this AMA, the questions are quite general (I.e. none are pointed at anypony in particular). As such, I decided that I should go ahead and bring the whole crew. Say hello, everypony.
Starlight Glimmer sprang to her hooves. “What in the hay!?” she cried.
Chrysalis, who sat nearby, twisted in her seat and glanced at the void around them. “What is this. Where are we!?”
Sunset Shimmer hummed and glanced around as well. “Huh. I’ve been here before.”
Chrysalis shot to her hooves. “What!?”
“Me too,” Twilight Sparkle said.
“Twilight, Sunset,” Starlight began, “What’s going on?”
Hello.
Crystal Faire chuckled and shifted on her cushion. “We’re going to be interviewed. It seems that a plurality of us have been here.”
Rest assured, you have nothing to worry about.
“These are always interesting,” Crystal continued. “And fun.”
Chrysalis snorted. “If you say so. Actually. I would love to be asked a question or two.”
Starlight sighed and took a seat on her cushion. “Alright. Alright. If all of you say so.”
Very good. Get comfortable, everypony. Let’s start with the first question.
Given we know that portals can be opened between realities, what are the chances that a pony might have been able to use such a spell (or similarly-acting artifact) to escape their collapsing timeline?
Crystal shifted in her seat. “Oh. We’ll have to be careful about how we talk about this one. What sort of portals are we talking about, exactly?”
Sunset raised a hoof into the air. “Oh! I can take care of this one. See, one of the things that I handled in my home timeline was portals to alternate realities. I mean, these were different from the mirror portal and everything.”
Twilight frowned. “Or maybe the questions just about the mirror portal or things like it?”
I believe this question is meant to be somewhat general.
“If that’s the case,” Crystal said, “then the answer to this is simple. Every portal that I’ve seen thus far has lead to some other reality, except that reality is yet another part of a single timeline.”
Chrysalis nodded. “I remember you explaining this to me. Equestria, this… human world, and some other places. They are all parts of a single timeline.”
This is correct. The thing about these spells and similarly-acting artifacts is that they wholly exist within the reality itself. As such, whatever effects they have are confined to the reality.
Starlight scratched her head. “Uh, that makes sense. So, uh, what exactly does that mean, then?”
“It means that you can’t develop a spell or create an artifact that can allow you to go between timelines,” Crystal explained.
“And so why is it that Crystal and Celestia and that Miasmus were able to go between timelines?”
Because some part of you has to be explicitly connected to the greater multiverse. Crystal is a given since she has the ability to see timelines (although it goes further than that). Celestia and Miasmus are somewhat more interesting because they were mostly present in the interverse before we saw them, and they were able to appear in timelines as they did because they pushed up against singular timelines. It’s once they are in timelines that they lost their connection to the greater multiverse.
In other words, in order to make something that allows travel between timelines, you must make use of an existing connection, and now that the multiverse is saved, the only such connection is Crystal.
“And those journals that I plan to make,” Crystal added.
“I see,” Starlight said.
Indeed. Although given what has been learned, there is nothing stopping her from creating more connections.
Puma shirt or panther shirt?
Panther shirt, definitely.
Sunset stamped the ground. “Hey. I’ve watched that show.”
Me too! As a matter of fact, I binged the series just a couple weeks ago. So I get this reference.
Chrysalis frowned. “To what are we referring to?”
It’s a human show. It exists in my world and, evidently, in the world that Sunset lives in. It’s an animated show.
Crystal scratched her head. “A faint memory stirs. What was this show called?”
Gravity Falls.
“It’s a good show,” Sunset said.
“I have… seen this show. I think,” Crystal said. “It was a really really long time ago. I can’t… I can’t remember much from it.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “You?”
“I like to go to the human world sometimes. Because I can’t see anything there, anything I come across surprises me. So it’s a good time.”
Twilight smirked. “Oh, so you get to be down with us normals over there, huh?”
“I am not so comfortable with it but I do get the occasional kick out of it.”
Sunset shrugged and then looked up. “I don’t have any opinions. They were the same shirt except different colors.”
This much is true. I’d still get the panther shirt.
“Why?”
Well, it was my high school mascot. I always gotta go with the panther.
Did all the ponies miasmus dragged into the multiverse end up getting shoved into a timeline and killed when they used the supercomputer to save reality?
“Didn’t we have a conversation on this back at base camp?” Starlight asked.
“We did,” Chrysalis replied.
“Celestia was out in the multiverse too. And Crystal’s mom,” Sunset said. “They basically faded once they were back in a timeline.”
With some faster than others.
Sunset deflated at that point. “Yeah. I wonder why that happened?”
“Because it’s not bijective,” Twilight blurted.
After a pause, Starlight snorted. “Uh, what?”
Twilight shot to her hooves and took a giant breath which puffed her chest out. “A bijective function is one which is both one-to-one and onto between—”
Woah, I am going to stop you there.
“I…”
I’ll just keep this simple. You can’t go from higher dimensions to lower dimensions without some data loss. Extrapolate from this what you will about why they faded out but that’s all I’ll say.
“The only reason we were able to survive at all was because we had that spell on the crystal heart. It kept us grounded if you wanna think about it that way,” Sunset said.
Crystal hung her head. “I still do not think that there was anything that we could do for them.”
Three of the others also hung their heads. Chrysalis meanwhile, shrugged.
The question still stands.
“So… did we? Did that happen to all of them?” Starlight asked at a near whisper.”
Crystal swallowed and solemnly nodded. “I am… afraid so. And given the circumstances… I do not think that outcome was one that I could avoid. It is a heavy price for fixing what was broken…”
If it is any consolation, I would imagine that it was instant for all of them. They would have never felt a thing.
Crystal shuddered. “Then perhaps it is for the best. It was at least merciful. And yet… there is still much to make up for.”
At that, Twilight reached over and placed a hoof on Crystal’s withers. “I know you’re still trying your very best to make a positive difference. As long as you do that… I can’t complain, really.”
Crystal smiled. “Thank you, Twilight. That puts my mind to ease.”
Starlight, Sunset, and Chrysalis exchanged glances and then eventually shrugged.
I suppose that’s everything. As such, I will conclude this AMA here.
Chrysalis’ eye twitched. “That’s it?”
…That’s it. I did say there weren’t many questions. Hopefully, if I ever do another one of these in the future, there will be more than this.
“This was a waste of time,” Chrysalis said.
“Hey, it was short, but still kinda fun,” Sunset said.
“You know, it kinda was,” Starlight said. “Thanks.”
“Well, see you around, RQK,” Crystal said.
Farewell.
Hmm...well, that settled my question.