The Stars Revolt: Human Ascension · 12:44am Dec 21st, 2019
After Twilight ascended to Princess, she began researching how to let her friends join her. After all, there was the real fear of outliving all she loved. And yet, there was one other problem. One person she couldn't help but lose...
Unless...
Shepherd: "Twilight... You've been pouring through every book on humans you can find. And every book I could get out of the old human archives. Can I help you with something?"
Twilight: "Well... Um..."
Shepherd: "And asking me pointed questions about human 'ascension', right?"
Twilight: "... I just don't want to lose you. I don't want to spend the next thousand, ten thousand years, missing you."
Shepherd: *Hugs her* "Aw, Twilight..."
Twilight: "And even if the rest of my friends ascend too... Losing you... Or forgetting you..."
Shepherd: "I understand." *sighs* "Well... The religion I follow holds that death is not the end. That there's an afterlife, we will go to one day."
Twilight: "I know! We know there's an afterlife!"
Shepherd: "Well... That helps me in a lot of ways. I think...
Twilight: "And really, even Celestia and Luna and Cadence and... And myself... Can die. We're free from the rigors of aging and we're tougher, but we can still die. Maybe even of old age, eventually. But to watch you wither away and suffer and die? I... I don't think I can handle that."
Shepherd: "... All right then. I promise Twilight, I will do everything in my power to stay around as long as possible. Because the worst thing for anyone to be? Is alone." *He kissed the top of her head* "I swear it. And hey... I want to have as many awesome stories to tell my grandparents in Heaven."
Twilight: "Thank you..." *Wipes her eyes* "Um... Do you have any ideas?"
Shepherd: "A few. There is the idea of enlightenment. Of breaking through and kind of 'ascending' to a higher state of consciousness. There are people on my planet who have such good control over their bodies they can withstand any kind of pain, or control their body temperature, or other things. There we don't have magic, but here? Well... Maybe there's a way..."
Twilight: "Let's try as many as we can!"
Shepherd: "Unfortunately a lot of them involve being close to death to achieve that."
Twilight: "... Let's do those later."
So... I am considering another oneshot with Shepherd kind of ascending. But what that would look like is a good question. What would an Ascended Human be like? I'm thinking, like much of humanity, it's a bit subtle and abstract. But what do you think?
"Did you think Tartarus was just a name? The Elysian Fields aren't even a mile away from it. I went there on a field trip once!"
As for human ascension, yeah, I can't imagine there would be a lot of overt signs. Serenity, confidence, great wisdom, all the fruits of spiritual cultivation would be on display attitudinally, but I don't think Shepherd would grow an extra pair of limbs or open a literal third eye.
5172614
Personally I'm thinking it would be a bit more like this:
Simple. Throw him into the pool that Pinkie used to make copies of herself. Freeze a few of them. Then as each one ages and or dies. Thaw out the next.
He could attempt something in the vein of those buddhist monks who tried to achieve buddha-hood by drinking tree resin until they were basically mummified alive. Naturally, that sect got made illegal fast, but since timberwolves are made of animated wood maybe Shepherd could try something similar and have it work.
It could also explain any cool reality-bending powers you want to play with, since buddhist monds are always shown to have them in pop culture.
I can't think of anything for an Ascended Human, but for immortality it always seems in stories that Humans with magic live longer if not indefinitely and are occasionally immune to aging.
But thinking about it, said mages never really look different from normal people, so a subtle ascension would probably be the way to go. Not to mention thinking about Twilight trying to confirm said ascension with no real indications that it worked.
I could always be wrong, however, so just my opinion.
Human ascension is overrated. Just ask Daniel Jackson, most of the people who've done it are assholes.
I imagine it'd be like the protagonist from King-Fu Hustle ( I forget his name at the moment). Going from being crap and weak, to serenity and the ability to force palm someone into the ground. Or like Warhammer 40k's God-Emperor where you live forever and can beat down ye olde gods and all your kids are exemplars. Or something like that.
His hair spikes up and goes white.
(Totally not ultra instinct)
In absolute seriousness, it should look like Kung Fu Panda.
You still can go for the wings, halo and such, just for fun.
Infused with enough magic to stop his aging process, possibly due to getting hit by the Magical Elemental Rainbow of Death.
By accident, of course.
5172688
Perhaps the effects are not immediately noticed it noticeable...and the years pass, and Shepherd suddenly notices that he has a distinct lack of grey hair or hair loss.
Robots
If you want to parallel Alicorns to an extent maybe he grows wings and a second pair of arms? No very subtle though.
I'm reminded of the webcomic Twokinds, where at one point the main character got obsessed about digging into life-extending magic because his girlfriend happened to be of a species that's much shorter-lived than humans.
In the end, he realised that his studies were wasting all the time they could have together, and just decided to let it go and enjoy the time they had.