[HICHE] ADKoPD: Episode 7, The Path to Power

I feel like now is the time to explain the “progression” I’ve hinted at before. It started with the initial Wraith attack, breaking the peace and security of Equestria, with Atlantis providing the promise of a happy ending. Our heroes poke around in episode 2, finding the ruins of a Wraith rampage, a grim preview of their own future. Episode 3 has them stepping up to help, but failing terribly, a harsh reality check and a shaking of their confidence. Then episode 4 shows them, as stated previously, that a power to rival the Wraith does exist, also giving them the tool (the tamed Dart) they needed to enact their rescue and first major victory last episode. Though only recent arrivals, the Expedition has overcome adversity to prove their place in the galaxy and strike back at the Wraith, and now, their good karma grants them a reward. Welcome, friends, to Episode 7 of “A Different Kind of Pegasus Device”.

[G-Docs Chapter Link – The Path to Power]

“With “The Power of Flutter Valley”, we’ve reached the first and by no means the last episode where this summary will probably be a clearer or more complete read than the draft itself, which will add little beyond specific dialogue.” Remember that? It’s getting worse. Not only is this episode missing most of the middle journey, but the climax is a footnote in the form of “and then they won”. When this story fell to the wayside of my attention, this episode was one of the worse hit, but unfortunately it still has upcoming competition in that regard. So, y’know, be prepared and all.

The first thing you may notice is that this episode’s name contains the word “power” much like “The Power of Flutter Valley”, being the first time a major word is repeated between titles in this story. This is not by coincidence. We pick up with the rescued G1 ponies from last time being shown the Atlantis Gate Room, Fizzy shocking everypony by unknowingly triggering a replacement console for the damage from “Enemy in the Sky”—which, if you’ll remember, means she somehow has some amount of crystal pony DNA—and the computer brings up the address for her home world chunk of Dream Valley, the catch-all G1 location which in this story contains all G1 lore not explicitly split onto other worlds (and there are several). Twilight leads a team to bring the G1s back home, the Jumper arriving through a Gate sitting on top of a physically-solid giant rainbow, and arriving at Paradise Estate, the only building in sight. After convincing the other ponies there that they’re not Wraith, Ribbon has a heartfelt and episode-referencing reunion with her daughter, Baby Ribbon, because G1 lore uses magic mirrors to breed. I’m…I’m not gonna touch that. While there, however, background pony Lucky Clover’s luck brings him to a storybook with a drawing of a familiar object in it: a ZPM. Apparently, there’s one hidden somewhere in Dream Valley. Cue plot.

The world of G1 is the wildest and most dangerous magical landscape in MLP after G4, if not more so, and if the Expedition is going to tackle this obstacle, they’re gonna need help from that one line between Rainbow and Celestia from “The Device Reawakens” I said would be relevant later. Rainbow had then been unable to find somepony who is now available and arriving on the scene: Daring Do herself. In the brief return of named chapters, “Dare Me”, the treasure-hunting master is here to use the clues in the book to decipher where in the vast expanse of G1 Ponyland the ZPM is hidden…but I never wrote that part, so let’s jump to already knowing where to look: the Purple Mountains, a location from a G1 episode.

After just starting their trip in the Jumper, Daring Do and some accompanying G1s decide they don’t like being crammed into a flying soup can and would rather hoof it through the landscape to reach the Purple Mountains, so Rainbow joins them on the ground. As the Jumper flies on ahead to arrive first, the others face a few unwritten challenges including a toll bridge troll from another G1 episode that they troll on hard to get past. Meanwhile, however, Fluttershy had come with them to Paradise Estate on Fizzy’s invitation to visit Posey, the G1 pony Flutters was based on. In “Posey’s Garden”, they have a short sequence in the titular location referencing the relevant brony song “Into the Green” by &I (yes, that’s their name), and some flying color streaks from a Fluttershy-based PMV for the unrelated song “The Garden” by Cut Chemist make an appearance. Following on the word “capoeira”, a style of martial arts dancing, from The Garden’s Portuguese lyrics, I intended for either the ground team or Fluttershy and Posey to rescue the other from something, perhaps incorporating capoeira moves while doing so, and with the color streaks bringing their distress to the other group’s attention…buuuuut I never came up with what this incident would be about, so let’s just skip ahead to both parties heading for the Purple Mountains together, having expected their detour(s) to give the Jumper team enough time to find the ZPM already.

When Daring’s company finally catch up at the base of the mountain in the chapter “Crunch Time”, however, they find the other team turned into statues. I never told you what the G1 episode the Purple Mountains were from was called. It was “Crunch the Rockdog”. Let’s meet Crunch now. He’s a giant stone dog that turns others to stone with a touch because he wants to, and he’s already gotten the Jumper crew. He sends his Pac Man boulder minions after the new arrivals, but through various antics, and quotes from the LEGO Rock Raiders video game by Wind Whistler (the Twilight of G1), they defeat the minions. When Crunch comes after everyone himself, Fluttershy pulls her Stare-down trick from the cockatrice in season 1 and subdues him. In G1, he’s tamed by a chunk of the Heart Stone (the artifact replaced in this story by the ZPM)…but I never planned out events this far and he just stops after that. Actually, maybe he just broke from the Stare, because the ponies discover that he was just some sort of automated robotic guard dog meant to block entry into the Purple Mountain (and the statue ponies revert to normal after he breaks). In G1, ‘His Elevated Eminence’ of the Purple Mountains is a living, talking purple mountain; in this story, it’s just a mountain, but it’s home to something from SGA instead. Rainbow and Daring venture inside a cave in the mountain, only to find a panel on the wall that looks like the ones in Atlantis. To Be Continued…

I said it at the beginning and held off on apologies for it throughout, but this is a very incomplete episode that’s barely more than an outline, with more time spent explaining references than story beats. Join me for part 2 when I hope lore explanations fill up more space than this in “Do These Genes Fit Well?”