[HICHE] ADKoPD: Episode 15, Letters from a Pegasus

One way many stories build characters up is by first beating them down. While thinking about this story one day, I realized or decided I hadn’t done that enough yet, so I made this episode to make up for that. Welcome, friends, to Episode 15 of “A Different Kind of Pegasus Device”.

[G-Docs Chapter Link – Letters from a Pegasus]

Our title today is from the SGA episode “Letters from Pegasus”, whose “recorded message talking heads” format inspired a unique mechanic. See, I had the idea that this episode would be presented purely through journal entries written during events by a character and to hold off on identifying that character until the climax. I went back and forth on whether to hold to that and ultimately made no decision before the story’s release timed out, so the draft is just the outline of the story largely independent of the format it would be presented in, unless I was trying something clever with a sentence or so to test how it might work.

To save on the drama for this summary, I’ll tell you now that the POV character is Rainbow Dash. The intent was to use my OC Electra Ski as a red herring to make people think that she was the overconfident light blue pegasus that events were following, but the fact that few people would think of the wrong answer and instead assume the right answer without realizing the chance for misdirection was a dissuading factor in holding the course for keeping her unidentified. Also, why taunt development for an OC and then cop out by giving it to a Mane 6 instead? And it’s not like I could change it to actually being Electra, as this episode has long-lasting consequences for the character and story that only work for Rainbow. Anyway, that’s the turmoil of story planning.

The plot begins as Rainbow writes the first journal entry (a suggestion by Bon Bon, a nod to G1.5) a ways into the mission, stray lines of her narration popping up throughout as the draft basically recounts an extended series of flashbacks. Arriving through a grounded Stargate on a forested world, the Jumper, flown by Derpy Hooves, gets damaged by a draconic G1 monster called a Stratadon, Rainbow trying to elbow her way back into the pilot’s seat before a laser blast from the distance tears off the ship’s left side. The crew (Rainbow, Derpy, Lyra, and Bon Bon, everyone being important for the first time in a while) bail out as the Jumper nosedives into a lake of purple sludge and sinks (rip Jumper 2), Derpy zipping back in to fetch a med kit, as Rainbow had broken her wing during the ordeal. Turned around several times over, the group sets off in what they hope is the direction of the Stargate so they can blacklist this planet and never return. After discovering that days and nights here are only three hours each, they find another sludge lake that the life signs reader goes haywire trying to look at; it isn’t alive, but it also isn’t not alive, but not really…or something.

The journal is only written in during the downtime after the events described had happened, and another entry recounts them abandoning their campsite on night 2. They gather around a fire for the night, but are interrupted by a 20-foot frilled lizard attack, which drives them from camp, but as they look back, they notice that the reptile is wrapped around the fire, cowering as it looks everywhere for an unseen danger. What is something this size and that fierce so afraid of? Lyra tosses another branch on the fire for it as they leave. The mystery deepens when the next sludge lake has an ancient Wraith Dart ‘carcass’ half-sunk in the middle. What has been going on here? To their disappointment, they find the large old-looking turret that likely shot them down, meaning they’ve been going away from the Gate this whole time, when they are attacked by a large and spindly silver dog-beast with spikes on its back. This creature, Spinax, is taken directly from a LEGO Bionicle set. In my personal enthusiasm for the energy hound, I invented many noncanon things about it that are displayed in this story, but what I didn’t invent were its tracking skills and persistence once it has a scent. Spinax chases the Expedition into the underground base beneath the turret, and they lock themselves inside. Safe at last?

With this period of respite, the journal entries begin creeping closer to being written live, as the group finds a recording by some troll creatures warning anyone who finds their message of the danger that is destroying their world. And at last we discover the bounds of this planet’s past-Gen world chunk: taken from the original G1 MLP movie, we have the three (human-looking) Witches of the Volcano of Gloom and the Grundles from Grundleland, as well as Praise Lord Smooze, nothing can stop him. To fight off a Wraith attack, the Grundles helped the Witches cook up their ultimate creation, the living ocean of purple slime called the Smooze, which they hoped to use against the Wraiths’ living ships. However, because the Witches are incompetent, the plan backfired, and the Smooze not only swept away the Wraith, it flooded over and killed the entire landscape, its mere presence sapping the essence and energy of ‘livelihood’ out of everything. Hiding in this bunker, the few remaining Grundles left a warning borrowed from Doctor Who’s “The Waters of Mars”: ‘one drop’ is all it takes, and its infection of madness spreads, starting with a loss of happiness and ending with one’s soul being consumed from the inside; depression, basically, but evil. Then the message abruptly cuts off with the startled realization that one of the Grundles inside had been infected; whatever happened next, there are no traces of any Grundles here now. Paranoia begins to grip the Expedition that they may have locked some of the Smooze inside with them, too. As she writes, everyone secretly brings a suspicion to Rainbow about somepony else’s close contact with a Smooze puddle, but Rainbow takes her own negative attitude as a symptom that leads her to suspect she’s the one who’s been afflicted. Upon discovery of a device meant to detect the Smooze, tensions break and accusations fly. It scans Derpy and an indicator lights up red, but no one can agree on what red means to a Grundle to interpret the result. Lyra is heartbroken that Bon Bon suspected her, but they both get red lights from the device, leading to a quick make-up (otp ftw). Then everyone realizes they forgot about Rainbow scribbling away in the corner. After the device blinks red for her as well, they realize it can only mean that they’re all clean, and they sit to absorb the reality of their hysteria. As a drop of purple drips through a crack in the ceiling.

The Smooze had settled and shrunk into a state of semi-hibernation since its initial release, the landscape growing back over time but remaining under its oppressive aura, creating a bleak world ruled by darkness and fear. However, the Expedition’s arrival and the subsequent rise in activity therein had nudged the Smooze awake again. Despite having been passive, it had managed to slowly erode its way through the ceiling, and now breaks through and floods into the bunker, the device’s indicator flashing mauve before being swallowed (red meaning “peachy” and mauve universally meaning “danger” is from Doctor Who as well; mauve indicating danger areas was also used on the Wraith’s antenna station map). Rainbow accidentally breathes in a cloud of fumes from a cascade of the sludge that lands in front of her before the group flees into the dawning of the fourth day, Rainbow’s journal entry being cut off mid-sentence so she can run. In a scene straight out of King Kong, they try crossing a tree trunk fallen across a ravine, only for a danger to appear on both sides, Spinax returning to block their path before being scared off by the Smooze behind them, splintering the trunk in its haste and trapping the Expedition. They run along the ravine to a sheer cliff as the Smooze ocean, filled with eyes and taunting mouths, blocks off every land escape route behind them. Rainbow takes a moment to write her final journal entry, trying to say she forgot to introduce herself as the payoff for the possibly-abandoned plot point of the audience not yet knowing who she is, but is interrupted by Applejack calling to her from one of a pair of Jumpers uncloaking to rescue the group (in one of the only scenes outside of episode 1 I actually wrote out in full), after they’d failed to make their check-in call. The Smooze chases the Jumpers to the Gate, and as they slip in, it throws globs of itself through (because objects aren’t transferred until they’re completely past the event horizon and it would take too long to fully flow through), but it was outsmarted, as the Jumpers had fled not to Atlantis but to a random Spacegate. The Smooze globs dehydrate and freeze in the vacuum of space, hopefully neutralized, but no chances are being taken. Both Grundleland and here are now no-go zones for the Expedition.

Minor point, but in addition to G1, this story’s Smooze, especially the creepy forest presentation and even the tree trunk bridge, was influenced by the green slime infection that wracked Prexxor Chasm in Chaotic, which by coincidence also resembles the G4 Smooze. So, that felt like the most coherent, gap-less summary in a while, as this episode was one of my favorite and most clearly defined ideas, and I’m proud at the result, but for one thing. That big gimmick with the unknown journal author; was it worth it? In all honesty, probably no. My final judgment is likely to be to take out the name reveal line and just say it’s Rainbow behind the journal from the start, but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you all about my plan so I had to leave it in the draft just long enough. It was a nice thought, if only it could’ve worked. As for what did happen, this plot thread isn’t stopping here. No, this is only the beginning of Rainbow’s troubles. Let’s take a break next time in an honorary part 2 and see what it’s like to spend time at Atlantis as we live “A Day in the Life”.