[How It Could Have Ended] A Different Kind of Pegasus Device: Episode 1, The Device Reawakens · 4:59pm Jan 5th, 2019
Excuse the long title, it gets abbreviated later.
[G-Docs Chapter Link – The Device Reawakens]
Back in my early days on this site circa 2014, I had a vision: a vague adaptation of my newest favorite TV show, Stargate Atlantis, told through the lens of MLP. I called it, “A Different Kind of Pegasus Device”. It eventually morphed into far more of an original story, though the direct influences are often still easy enough to see. Apologies to those who don’t know Stargate Atlantis (SGA from here on), I’ll teach you as best I can as we go (in Star Trek terms, Atlantis taking place on a faraway base with the cast exploring an unknown region of space is similar to Deep Space Nine). My goal was to exploit the detail that both shows involved the word “pegasus” (pegasi vs. Pegasus Galaxy), all inspired by the SlyphStorm song “Pegasus Device” (“Rainbow Factory”-adjacent) and how some of its lyrics could be construed as referring to the Stargates and Wraith. I also commonly take issue with sci-fi shows having only a main cast surrounded by redshirts, so I was determined to give everyone from a large group of named characters at least one moment before rotating them out for the next one; owing to this, many recurring names become important at times, so try to keep track, and look ’em up if you want. The result of this effort was a 26-part season of long and short adventures at various degrees of being planned out; in the end, words didn’t flow easily for too many parts and the likelihood of any level of completion in a timely manner dwindled past hope, so, once a top priority, it eventually fell untouched by the wayside, until now. The setup is simple. Late during MLP season 4, this story diverges from the show and reveals new backstory to spiral in its own direction. So without further delay…
We begin Episode 1, “The Device Reawakens”, in a chapter called “The Cloud Ring” with some ominous lines from “Pegasus Device”. The citizens sleep, never quite knowing when, that device will reawaken, hungry again… An establishing shot of Cloudsdale gives us “Rainbow Factory” references before a group of pointy ships fly away from it. We cut back and forth several times between now, when Rainbow Dash is chasing these ships, and a few minutes ago, when she arrived to visit her parents. Three guesses what happened in between, and the first two don’t count. The Wonderbolts had been practicing for the Equestria Games when a trio of Wraith Darts (one-man fighter ships with a culling beam that scoops you up and stores you as an energy signal, straight from SGA) attacked Cloudsdale. The Darts capture several of them before moving on to the city, grabbing Rainbow’s father, Rainbow Blaze (her canon parents hadn’t been revealed yet, so I used my headcanon at the time and refused to update it, like any fan). Rainbow kicks a dent in the Dart (important for later) and gives chase, but they flee the city and head towards a cloud ring like those used in training flights, but a portal appears in it and they fly through; Rainbow chases the ring as it flies up out of the atmosphere, but is forced to give up. As its cloud cover strips away, it is revealed to be a Spacegate (an SGA exclusive, a Stargate with pods that let it float in space instead of being on the ground).
Chapter 2, “Capital’s Punishment”, starts with a brief scene in Equestria’s Frozen North ripped from “Bionicle: The Mask of Light”, in which two crystal ponies (Autumn Gem and Night Knight, remember their names) are searching for and by chance trigger a glowing hexagon outline buried under the snow. In Canterlot, the nine pegasi kidnapped by the Darts (Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, Misty Fly, Surprise, Spectrum, Rainbowshine, Crescent Moon, and Rainbow Blaze) are tallied, as Celestia reveals that the Wraith have been a recurring threat across her rule, but have always struck too quickly to respond to. As told to her by a crystal pony long before, the citizens of the Crystal Empire had fled to Gaia (Equestria’s planet) ten thousand years ago to escape a losing war against ruthless aliens called the Wraith, who use equine ‘life energy’ as food (they’re humanoid in SGA, but are otherwise directly from); she was told not to respond to the Wraith attacks, as angering them would doom the planet, as would them discovering any crystal ponies here. As word of the Arctic discovery arrives, so too do more Darts, now attacking Canterlot. Big mistake, as Celestia had been secretly given a drone weapon (a small yellow squid-like rocket that’s controlled by thought, taken from SGA and in this story distinctly crystal pony technology), and now within range, uses it to destroy the Darts (drones can burrow through targets without exploding if desired, so they can be used multiple times; think Yondu’s arrow), unofficially declaring war on the Wraith. To deal with the retribution soon to arrive, they’ll need the Outpost just discovered to access the Lost City.
Some backstory for Stargate Atlantis. Stargates are large ring devices that open wormholes between each other to allow for instant transport between planets. SGA is a mid-series spinoff of Stargate SG-1 where, after a big season finale, a new team uses a buried outpost found in Antarctica to reach the Pegasus Galaxy and finds Atlantis, the former home of the Ancients, the race who built the Stargates. A plague drove Atlantis (a city-sized spaceship) from its dock at the Earth Outpost to a planet in Pegasus, but the Wraith soon drove the Ancients back, abandoning Atlantis at the bottom of the ocean and leaving through the Stargate inside. Borrowing from this, the Crystal Ponies in this story are recast as stand-ins for the Ancients, but Gaia is actually in the Pegasus Galaxy already, hence the Wraith attacks. Atlantis, however, was never on Gaia, and the Outpost and Crystal Empire were constructed by the crystal ponies after they fled here, though they still sank Atlantis to hide it before leaving.
In Chapter 3, “The Outpost”, Twilight tracks down Flim and Flam, whose cider machine, if you remember, has that conduit where magic can directly power it, a crude and rarely used design that turns out to be needed for the magic power generators being developed to supplement any missing power supplies the Outpost and Atlantis may have (based on SGA’s naquadah generators, a fictional substance that does everything it needs to do). It turns out that the Royal Guard really are useless and are needed in Equestria for show, so basically the entire town of Ponyville volunteers for the Atlantis expedition and are meeting at the Outpost; this story decision is a direct result of which recurring background ponies had names at the time. While Autumn Gem (remember her?) and Fleur de Verre (a common tag team throughout the story) explain how Crystal technology can only be used by one with a specific crystal pony gene (called the C-gene) that has partly integrated into the non-crystal population (a plot point taken from SGA), we see a series of flashbacks where the Mane 6 say goodbye to their families (and the CMCs act suspiciously, three guesses). This leads into the chapter “Droning On”, which shamelessly rips a scene from SGA’s premiere where Beckett (Fluttershy) accidentally triggers a drone weapon to fly at O’Neill’s helicopter (Rainbow Dash). Quick rundown: only Rainbow, Fluttershy, and kind-of Applejack have the C-gene among the Mane 6; we meet soon-to-be-important Minuette and Electra Ski (an OC of mine) who awkwardly have the same colors; there’s a door in the Outpost that won’t open, it’ll be important way down the road; and the Outpost’s power source, a ZPM (Zero-Point Module, an SGA plot device of extreme battery power), is out of energy.
Chapter names in most installments of this story are few and far between, and they run dry about here. Celestia arrives, has a later-relevant line with Rainbow, and a jury-rigged remote for Gaia’s Spacegate brings it down through the Outpost’s opened roof. A wormhole to Atlantis is dialed up, and after confirming there is in fact a room on the other end, Twilight leads the way through the Gate.
In the final chapter of the episode, “Lost City”, the Expedition team files in to the dark and quiet city of Atlantis as lights start turning on for some of the members but not others (C-gene recognition). As we explore (the design of Atlantis is lifted directly from SGA without changes), a room full of ships is found by the oft-shipped pair of Lyra and Bon Bon (this is funny, laugh already), Time Turner (totally not Doctor Whooves) has found a blue laser pointer (totally not the sonic screwdriver) that can interact with Crystal tech, and Nurse Redheart finds a lab where a dormant C-gene can be activated in individuals (developed on Earth in SGA, but only because of 7 SG-1 seasons of leadup). In the meeting hall, Twilight explains Gate dialing (from SGA; out of 35 coordinate symbols, 6 are dialed to spell out an ‘address’ finished by the source’s point of origin symbol, and if there’s a Stargate at the dialed location, they link up for one-way travel, you to them); the ships found earlier are dubbed Puddle Jumpers (as in SGA; the ships are flying cylinders that can dial and fit through Stargates); and their mission statement is set out as being to use Atlantis’ resources to help prepare Equestria to face the Wraith, as well as explore the galaxy to find other resources and allies, and find new ZPMs to power the city, as Atlantis only has two dead ones and one running on fumes to power the shields keeping the weight of the entire ocean above them from crushing them flat (same as SGA, but this story’s final ZPM has slightly more power, as is important next episode). Dialing back to Gaia, however, reveals that, “Our quick fix to the [Spacegate’s] drive pod remote using the wrong type of control crystal lasted about as long as we thought it would,” and the Gate has flown back into orbit. Meanwhile, the captured pegasi awaken in a dark cell. To Be Continued…
A comment on character parallels. Largely based on SGA season 1, Twilight is the head of the Expedition at Atlantis, just like Dr. Elizabeth Weir in SGA. The get-it-done action lead will be Rainbow Dash, like Col. John Sheppard (no relation to a Mass Effect character). Applejack takes a more reserved approach, like the kinda just there Lt. Aiden Ford (who was replaced in season 2). Timid and kind, Fluttershy and Dr. Carson Beckett are clearly the same. The other Mane 6 don’t have clear parallels, but other characters do. Nurse Redheart is played like the SG-1 character Dr. Fraiser. A later character will take a secondary equivalent to SGA’s Teyla. And finally, I hope you remembered her name, because crystal pony Autumn Gem is an off-site equivalent to Dr. Rodney McKay, the blunt know-it-all full of technobabble and himself, but is normally left to only chime in from the Outpost on occasion.
“The Device Reawakens” was always meant to be a parallel to the SGA premiere, “Rising, Pt. 1”, as well as to catch up/skip over the history from SG-1 and details of all the components to be featured in the background for the rest of the story, and it does little else, being probably a bore and possibly a drag. Prepare for another clear plot-stealing installment next time as things finally get going in Episode 2, “Harmony Under Pressure”…
Kudos.
I'm gonna check out the first chapter.
For some reason, I don't write that much sci fi.
I did watch most of stargate.
Saw some stargate atlantis and even Stargate universe.
Oh, the doc has only view rights.
Give folks comment rights if you want help.
--------------
I do wonder about your plan to break up action with a flashback.
Did that once in a story, and my editor complained that the flashback kills the action of the previous scene.
So I changed the flashback into a scene about the main char, and then did the action later. The story flowed better and there was no:
Gonna do action!
*Hits non action wall of flashback*
My nose!
Jokes aside, you need to be careful switching your POV.
Do it too many times it gets confusing.
My suggestion would be to put the info that you need to show before the action bits.
Transition from that to the action bits.
You could also do a flashback too while not in an action situation and then go to the action later.
This way, the action isn't diluted.
4996200
Wasn't sure if View or Comment was the way to go, never used G-Docs outside of a group project before. I (think I) changed it to Comment now, maybe that'll allow more involvement.
If this is about the opening scene, my goal was to grab reader interest to hold it past the setup (similar to "I bet you're wondering how I ended up in this situation"), then not reveal the stakes of the chase until the end for suspense until the maximum "wham" moment. May or may not have lined them up the best, but these scenes are somewhat meant to be flashing in Rainbow's mind during the chase.
I try to only switch POV excessively if there are only two POVs to switch between so you know you're now in the one you weren't just in. Of course, I know who each scene is with, so I may forget to note it every time on the page.
But what if the action scene is here and done too quickly or drags on too long? My solution, space it out with other stuff either within or beside the action so it doesn't become a bland Michael Bay explosion-fest of "oh my goodness, it's still going on". At least, that's my general intention.
4996234
Why not just have rainbow chase the alien ships?
You start with action. Can't do a flashback during the action also because it doesn't make sense.
I'm focused on chasing these strange ships and then I'm going to go into a daydream. Who knows what these things could do, I better focus and watch them carefully.
Flashbacks are kinda like daydreams. They take up most of the mind unless you're doing a one liner.
Or start with Rainbow relaxing on a cloud and then getting all melancholic, and then do the flashback stuff.
Then an alien ship whooshes by and rainbow investigates.
This way you have the flashback and the action and it flows well.
--------------
I have to remember that you put multiple chapters in one doc.
I put a chapter in its own doc.
4996301
Well, yes "chapters", but it's really just its own "episode". If this installment were on TV, it would be episode 1, with each chapter being roughly the span between commercials breaks or so. Really, I started the story with each adventure being only a chapter, but then realized just how insanely long it would all be, so I recast the story as a full season and upgraded each adventure into a story meant to be posted separately like many other fanfic series I see, which naturally meant each would need its own array of chapters. It gets less confusing in later episodes where I haven't established chapter divisions to name.