Divergence - End of Line · 3:00pm Mar 1st, 2020
Well, here we are again. We’ve reached the end of Divergence and the end of the Crystal Ball Trilogy.
It’s time for another post-script. I’m going to take a few moments to talk about Divergence’s development, especially since so much happened both in the writing itself and in real life during its time. I’ve so much that I could and want to talk about.
There are, obviously, major unmarked spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned!
I mentioned a long time ago that I had ideas for two more stories after Feedback. The first became Substitute, obviously, after a bit of building up. The other idea I had was chapter four, when Sunset observes a horrible truth about herself and makes the decision to sacrifice herself. The entirely of Divergence stems from there.
It’s no secret that much of my writing has been motivated and inspired by music. In the case of this story, I was influenced by the track Severus and Lily from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II. Actually, I must admit that it was also the associated scene that inspired me here. I think there is a similar feel to it here.
But there was definitely a gap between Substitute and Divergence, and even Divergence took quite a lot longer than its predecessors. So, what happened?
The truth of the matter is that when I completed Substitute, I had the idea for Divergence in regards to that scene, along with some things related to it—I fully planned to explore the origins of the Nameless with the story and finally pull back the curtain on its existence—but that was all I had. I didn’t have enough of an idea to even start the story.
That, and I had another idea for a story that was far more concrete. That story ended up being Reflections, to which I dedicated another year of my life too. This was a year that I did not spend working on Divergence for. Even once I completed Reflections, I had gotten a little closer to figuring out what was meant to be in Divergence, but still not quite enough to start on it.
To add to this, I had struck up a partnership with Onyx Archer and we had decided to write a collab together. I put my focus into that for a while but admittedly lost some steam in it part of the way through. I do intend to finish it, as I finish the things that I start, but it did find a place on the backburner for a while, especially once I did eventually figure out what Diverence was.
I’ll digress for a moment to mention what some of the other constants in the story were. I knew that yelling match in front of the school at the end of chapter two was going to happen. Twilight screaming from the train caboose was also a constant. Adamantine trying to make amends with Twilight was also a constant. And the crystal ball breaking and them seemingly losing Sunset for good was the last constant.
Getting the first few chapters completed had some share of difficulties, although more of them had to do with the timing of scenes. I’ve done everything that I can do have internal consistency with the stories, something I am sure that a lot of people appreciate, and there were effects I wanted to introduce that not only preserved the behavior seen in the previous two stories but also enabled key scenes that I wanted to tell in the story (without, truthfully, making them too silly). Again, the scene of chapter watching that fateful conversation between Celestia and Twilight was of utmost importance and enabling that was top priority.
I came up with some mathematical models to attempt and tackle the time dilation. My first model was a simple integral of an exponential function, since it would give me the ending configuration that I wanted and satisfied most of what I wanted to accomplish, but then the problem became, “Well, how would they even be able to utilize this mechanic in-universe, especially when it has to happen before they’re even aware it exists?” I tried some modifications of it that seemed to get closer to what I wanted, but I realized that making the function more complicated ran the risk of being too non-intuitive which would have been especially detrimental to readers. So I took a step back and reexamined what I could possibly do, and I realized that if I wanted to fix the above utilization problem, I had to involve the other layers.
With that in mind, I started thinking about how each higher layer might interact with the present layer. The solution that I came up with was a geometric series solution, and I played around with the fractional value to see if it would get me what I wanted. I wrote a calculator in python that came up with a timetable that showed what would happen when, and that allowed me to fine-tune the value to get everything lined up just perfectly. This also had the added benefit of being something I could reference later on in development (and I did, plenty of times).
Now I must mention Zeno’s Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. The very very short version is that a racer (Achilles) trying to catch up to another, slower racer ahead of them (the tortoise) can only ever reach the point where the tortoise was previously at, as the tortoise will have moved further ahead in that time. What the real world tells us is that Achilles must eventually pass the tortoise, despite this. You could construct this so that this point where Achilles meets the tortoise is exactly the finish line, meaning that Achilles and the tortoise finish in a tie. What I ended up with was a version of this, only slightly deformed and then generalized to infinitely many racers.
I had that figured out, and could make the rest of the story work out mechanically. So it was now a matter of figuring out the more particular beats.
I’ve talked about the reasons why Divergence took so long to start. I’m now going to skip ahead in the timeline to talk about the reasons why it took so long to finish.
The first was that after I had gotten the first few chapters done and started publishing them, I started putting the book versions of my previous three main stories together, which itself was quite a task as I had to go through them paragraph by paragraph to make sure everything checked out. This took the better part of a few months.
And, not long after that, I discovered Dungeons & Dragons with the help of a few classmates in my graduate physics course, and we started playing weekly games. I wrote a short piece for my character (an arcane archer by the name of Salimuyne Vakarian), and then I continued writing pieces for her, eventually writing a sort of anthology that spanned the entire campaign. I’m not entirely done with it at the time of this writing, but even now I am almost finished. I’ve even torn myself away from it to finish Divergence (since that’s what people were waiting on any way), but I know what’s to go into those ending chapters of Sali’s story. My plan is to finish that up after this and get that stuff onto reddit. (And then I’ll finish Retrograde.) I spend eight months, more or less, on this endeavor.
I think the time could have been better organized, but I ultimately am happy to have done the things that I did regardless. For now, however, I am happier to finally have fewer projects to attend to.
For certain, the story would have been a lot different if it had been written immediately after Substitute, as neither the My Little Pony movie nor Forgotten Friendship had come out then.
Tempest Shadow’s inclusion seemed like a thing that I should definitely do even though I wasn’t quite sure exactly what she would do just yet (but I knew she would fight something at some point). It’s a bit of a happy accident, I think, that I was able to make the foe she faces in the end the Storm King(s), as it stands as a nice contrast to what she did in the movie and serves to give her additional arc to what she had there. In a way, this sees her story to full completion. Truthfully, I didn’t even figure this out until it was already time to do it, but I had at the same time (paradoxically) been edging myself into it throughout the story anyway.
I chased this in order to satisfy the unwritten requirement of some adventure B-plot in the story, at least (as had been the case in the previous stories). I eventually saw that doing it straight wasn’t going to happen. But I came pretty close. The end product has a lot of interactions about it that I like, and captures the spirit of what I originally started out for, so I’m happy with it.
Wallflower Blush, meanwhile, crept up on me. I’ve expressed in the past that I had done my best to ensure that my stories could coexist with the show canon, and I had written them with that in mind. However, as I started thinking about her character, who had been the antagonist of Forgotten Friendship and had wiped Sunset’s friend’s good memories of her because she was not convinced that Sunset had truly redeemed herself and become a good person, I started to realize that, given the events of Feedback and Substitute, it would be quite silly to say that the events of Forgotten Friendship still happened. So I had to make a concession there from the get-go.
I wrote her as a cameo at first, to show that this was indeed the case. But then I had to think about it much more. She had an existence in this world, and she possessed a magical item which allowed her to do antagonistic things in the source material. While it was canonically destroyed, that couldn’t have happened here, which suggested a loose end in the world. I realized that not only did she have a potential arc in the story, but her involvement allowed me to tackle some problems that I foresaw having with Tempest’s arc in the story (one of them being how exactly Tempest could actually going about defeating the Storm Kings and what would logically be a large army). In this manner, she infected this story.
I will definitely say that their plotline was much harder for me to write because it was so variable. It felt like, no matter what I wrote, the next part could have been anything, but I had to carefully choose what could happen that would get me to the desired outcome. It could have also been that I had been putting off thinking about it until it was already time to write it, and because while the set up was very much done in tandem with the main plot, once they actually went there, it was by and large its own isolated plotline. It was something I definitely think I wrote more off the cuff, as it were.
At this point, I could probably say things about the things that weren’t off the cuff but somehow did change during development. Aside from Wallflower Blush being a thing and Tempest Shadow combating the Storm Kings, there were other things.
There once was a suggestion that the universe itself was periodic in that it repeated itself every lifetime of a universe (every several billions of years or so). The layers would have then just been these iterations. I decided to scrap this idea, however, especially since I had already been viewing the real situation as nested realities anyways. The final picture of somewhat different from this anyway, although not too much so.
And the identity of the Nameless itself, was another thing that fluctuated for a while. A very early version was that it might have been Twilight somehow. And then it quickly became some beings and entities that were not Grimb’vltr (pronounced Grim-bah-ville-tur), although I knew I would have to come up with new concepts for that one. It was right around the time when I decided that it would be Grimb’vltr, both the Nameless itself and the architect behind it all, that I also decided that they would meet Grimb’vltr as well. I think this was my best decision as it allowed me to really bring everything full circle as well as really start pushing a lot of the themes in Divergence.
And, admittedly, the themes of Divergence were something I also had to discover along the way. My first concept of Divergence was that the seal wanted to keep the realities from diverging too much, for some reason which I forget now. They are explicitly brought back together in this story in its final form, but it was not something on the table in the original idea. It turns out this idea of splitting and coming back together was something I could apply to the characters as well. Again, it’s one of many happy accidents that happened with this story.
The development of Sunset getting a corporeal body wasn’t something I started out with either. I did plan to have her communicate through Adamantine (for the rest of the story even), but I realized that the framework was already in place for them to do something much more efficient. Does it perhaps dampen Sunset’s prior sacrifice? Perhaps, and unavoidably so, but it gives us more time with Sunset, which is a big plus. Once again: happy accident.
Adamantine was also always slated to die. But in the original concepts, I imagined she would sacrifice herself (say, by walking through the mirror portal) after everything was done to essentially force Sunset out of the seal herself. I couldn’t explain this in a way that seemed natural so I opted for methods which had prior establishment instead. Thus, Adamantine met her end in the way she did.
I, for one, think she deserves a long rest.
A goal with this story was to wrap up nearly every storyline that had been set forth, both those started in the source material and those from my own hand. This was quite a task, but a welcome one, considering that I could offer some characters the endings they deserved that, sadly, the source material could never give them. This motivated a lot of what I had planned as well as drove me to consider things I had not before. The result is that I’ve fully deveoped the mythos into something complete, a feat which I am immensely proud of.
However, doing so meant making some more concessions regarding my efforts to preserve the status quo. While most details are minor, there is one which will have ramifications years down the road (within the universe, at least). I feel like I might have been a lot more stingy on this had I written this story sooner, but after writing Reflections and exploring the concept of infinitely many Equestrias where things had gone differently, I warmed up to the idea. This series of events would not necessarily be the exact universe of the show, but rather it would be a nearby neighbor.
(Actually, according to Reflections, this is the prime timeline and the show is simply a derivative / near neighbor of it! Maybe that makes me conceited for thinking of it that, but we take these where we can.)
This marks the end of my journey with Sunset Shimmer which started with Feedback, ran through Substitute, and arrived here. There are a couple things left to do with this story; namely get the digital PDF version and the printed book version of this story already, but they won't be far behind.
So what now?
Like I said, I want to get that Dungeons & Dragons stuff done, and then I will complete Retrograde. After that, I will not be working on pony fiction anymore. There was one idea for a story that I had concerning The Dazzlings, particularly having them learn how to sing more positive songs (especially in order to survive), but this had been before Backstage Pass and well before the thought of them returning for even a little bit was even on the table. I don’t feel so inclined to write that story anymore, as they are shown to have been doing just fine.
And, truthfully, for many many months now, I have felt somewhat overwhelmed by the number of projects that I have had on my plate, primarily with this and the two other aforementioned stories. I wanted to have more of this done sooner.
Especially now that I am in my graduate studies and will soon be working toward my doctoral thesis (for my physics Ph.D), I want to minimize the number of projects that I have. This involves finishing new projects, and… attempting to not take on anything new.
I’ll have plenty to keep myself occupied in the coming years. That I am sure of. And, if it is not enough to keep me occupied, I already know of some new projects (which are not pony either) that I can take on; one of them is actually already existing but it’s been behind closed doors for a very long time.
So that’s it. I want to thank everyone that’s been on this journey with me, especially those who were here from start to finish. It’s been a long road, and I’m happy to have reached the end of it. Today is a new day. And so too will be tomorrow.
-RQK
Ah, I'm gonna miss you. But know that your work touched people, and that art is, heh, timeless.
You took us on a fantastic ride. Thanks for doing so, and I hope you take the chance to pop in around here from time to time.
Now I know how to pronounce it. You don't want to hear my actual attempts. Grim wouldn't be pleased.
I still personally say no. They still had to communicate with Sunset. There were going to be scenarios where Adamantine was needed in one group while another group needed to communicate with Sunset. I think they would have naturally had to try to figure something of the like out.
You monster. How could you?
"How could you be such a hypocrite?" RQK replies.
"Shh! Nobody else knows yet."
Thank you for these four stories. As much as it pains me to see you say goodbye I do get some comfort knowing that you still have one last ride to finish. I look forward to it, and if I am honest, I'm kind of not at the same time.
I just thought of this. Could Divergence be this timeline's course of events of what would otherwise be Forgotten Friendship?
Glad to see it finished. It was a great ride. Any idea when the print copy will go up?
5213110
Yes. This essentially replaces that.
5213118
Yes, very soon. I predict within the next couple of weeks.