TMy Empire of Dirt
MLP: FiM
Equestria Girls
Drama
Mystery
Sad
Sunset Shimmer has been defeated at the Fall Formal, but something has gone drastically wrong and Principal Celestia must play magic detective to rescue Sunset from the fallout.
Suicide / Self Harm
Alt. Universe
Sunset Shimmer
Principal Celestia
PrincessColumbia · 86k words · 320 7 · 8.1k views

[EXTRAS] The Future of Empire · 4:42am May 27th, 2020

So as I whittle away at the second half of Empire of Dirt and having (finally) completed Music Box Blues, I have been giving thought to the future of my little story that began life as a cathartic exercise to "shake out the cobwebs" and clear my mental pallet for Lost Little Wolf (which was itself a way for me to get over the pain of my divorce).

My brain does things in threes. Not sure why, honestly, but I just really like odd numbers. If a book series isn't a trilogy, it's gotta have five books. If it has 10, why not 11? I even think best in sets of three.

So when I came up with the idea for Empire, my mind cast forward in time to say, "What happens next?" And if there's an immediate answer of, "Why, [insert thing that could happen here], of course!" then I know I've got a series on my hands. So when my imagination plotted out how Sunset and Celestia's story arc ended and I thought, "What happens next?" and immediatly came up with, "Well, the Sirens enter the story, of course!" I knew I'd have to follow-up what I'd already written, and I'd have to do it in such a way that addressed similar issues of humanity and the real problems we face in real life through the lens of Horse-girls.

See, Empire is all about trauma, depression, and recovery. For all there are magic and parallel universes and the like, in the end, it's about two people who find out that their hearts are healed best by each other, and muddling through everything that stands in the way of that, usually in the form of incredible emotional and spiritual baggage that needs to be dealt with along the way.

Naturally, in a world like EQG's, such things are going to be handled alongside things like learning how to use new magic that's suddenly accessible by a handful of students. When these students can canonically can summon a skyscraper-sized alicorn and use said alicorn to fire Orbital Friendship Cannons and weaponize talking to animals, the stakes for working through mentioned emotional baggage are going to be commensurately higher. That said, I had never intended on writing anything more than just three stories in this series.

So imagine my surprise when Music Box Blues manifested itself in my consciousness.

I've never before written a side-story that was so integral to the main story I was telling, so I honestly didn't know exactly what I was doing with it. I do have certain regrets as far as it's execution goes, but as far as, "Holy shit, where did THAT come from?!" goes, I'm more proud of Music Box Blues than my vastly more popular "Consequences of Good Intentions."

Naturally, since Empire got it's own Christmas story, the upcoming sequels will also get their own winter-solstice-holiday specials.

Spoilers ahead, for those who don't want the angsty goodness revealed before the stories can do so, turn away now.

The next story, currently titled "Voice of Rage and Ruin" (...I know, right!? ) will, as mentioned, focus on The Dazzlings. In addition to our favorite Mean Girls, a new enemy will be revealed that could destroy everything that Celestia and Luna will have worked for, one that The Dazzlings will have actually stopped from taking over the EQG world nearly a century prior. In addition to the personal growth story in "modern" Canterlot High, there will be a story arc that ties in with the current story that happens in the EQG equivalent to the 1920s.

The Christmas special for "Voice" will be titled "Tochter aus Elysium" and feature Dean Cadance as the main protagonist. And that's as much as I plan on revealing at this time, and if you haven't figured it out by now you're going to be slapping yourself when you get it. Yes, it's based on a Christmas story, too.

"Book" three is tentatively titled "You Need Never Feel Broken Again," and will be BIG. The scope on this one is honestly going to be probably bigger than most people might expect of a series like this, but it will, at its core, be about people overcoming the harsh realities of the real world. Magic and the multiverse will obviously play a role, but only as the canvas that the story happens against. Some threads that are going to be revealed in Empire are going to get resolved here, so if there's anything that you're wanting to rant about me not wrapping up neatly with a bow in Empire, that's because I've already got the story resolutions planned out elsewhere.

The Christmas special for this one is as yet untitled, but I've already got a solid idea on the story, which will naturally be directly connected with "You Need Never Feel Broken Again," and yes, will also be based on a Christmas story, though this one you might not have heard about even if it is considered a classic of literature.