Long Live East Horse · 2:36am Jul 3rd, 2020
Art by BrilliantLuna
So in case y'all marsupials didn't pick up on my overtly-subtle hyperlink in the last blargh, a certain story has picked back up again.
That's right, after two years of emulating a dead elephant and becoming the second most beloved circle-jerk meme of /mlp/, the Awful Roadie train continues. Ofolrodi, of course, is the ninth installment of the stupidly epic Austraeoh fic series, and east horse is gonna fly east.
It has taken a while to come to this point. Several weeks of reading, rereading, editing, taking notes, then finally slaving through a new hodgepodge of material. In the end, I wrote nearly 20k words of content and in the week since I uploaded a follow-up chapter that's about 8k words.
In short, Austraeoh is no longer a "daily." This is for multiple reasons. For one, I haven't the stamina anymore, maaaaaaaaaaaaaan. For another, Austraeoh as a narrative has gotten so epic and so multi-faceted that uploading daily simply defeated its execution. Back before the latest hiatus, I'd be coming home from work and farting out chapters just for the sake of farting them out. As a consequence, there'd be "daily" installments that consisted of just one scene or one exchange of dialogue and it allllll felt like pendantic chaff. This meant that the plot of Ofolrodi almost went nowhere (in a fic whose setting is predominantly/uniformly dark, dismal, and bland) and the characters talked unnecessarily for paragraphs about stuff that didn't need further explication and blah blah blah...
It was an excessive amount of suckage. Extra painful on the heels of Utaan, which I still consider one of the best things I've ever written. This is unfortunate because Ofolrodi is more or less the destination that our illustrious east horse has been easting to. I know I'm the king (princess?) of anticlimax but that's doing readers an extra-extra dirty.
Anyways, now Austraeoh is back. And from here on out the plan is to make bigger chapters that close themselves thematically instead of purely structurally. My aim is to have an upload every week... or at least roughly so. In between, I can take days off and work on other materials--such as Welcome to the Club and stuff on other alts. No, not that alt. Besides nobody reads Appledashery.
It's a strange thing being "back." I can't say that I'm experiencing the pure euphoria that I've so envisioned all these months. Maybe because I'm still fresh back into it and I'm too assailed by doubts and past failures that I haven't quite allowed myself to enjoy the reality of it thus far.
But it's nice more-or-less reuniting with "the gang," again. I namely speak of the Lemur Cave, aka half of the present-day functioning Noble Jury. Alamais was gracious enough to have kept the place running all this time--even after I departed from it early last year. At the time, I felt that I didn't deserve an "SS&E-centric Discord group" and so I shuffled on to more depressing pastures. Since then, the group has more or less steered itself into broadly thematic territory regarding long-form fics as a whole, such as Czar_Yoshi's epic The Olden World which was completed earlier this year. Now that I've returned, I see there's still the Skirtsian influence abounding, and it both humbles and flatters mesa.
I should also take the time to give thanks to Propmaster, Jake the Army Guy, Scampy, and 24th Pegasus for helping me get back on my feet. Each contributed in their own ways, and I eventually found the motivation to return to the grind.
A big shoutout also goes to B_25. Several months ago, around the start of the apocalypse, he suggested I copy his writing tracker thingy. I've now got such a system in effect which can be viewed via Google Drive. I've made this public on both the SS&E and IC user pages, and it shows what I'm working on and in what-sized-chunks. This is something of a work in progress and it'll probably go through some changes, but in the end it's a way of being somewhat transparent about what I'm working on so that marsupials (or Noble Jurists, at least) can find proof that Ofolrodi is back in business.
Another thing I started which was totally not conveniently timed with the upload of a fic that happened to have been in hiatus for two years is a Ko-Fi. You can find the link for it now on both SS&E and IC. This, in addition to my Patreon, is further proof that 2020 is The Year of Shameless... aka How I Stopped Hoping and Learned to Love the Covid.
In all seriousness, though, I'm not in any dire straits yet. I'm in the same choppy boat as most people. I'm just throwing the pot out there in case anyone feels generous because--with my retail existence suffering the expected beating--it certainly doesn't hurt to take the shill pill. No pressure, of course. I say this after having already witnessed uber generous contributions, and I thank y'all for going the distance for a fat lemur who doesn't deserve it. I appreciate it greately. Here's hoping I make it worth y'all's while.
Something that occurs to me practically every time I make a big blargh or update regarding Austraeoh, even eight years into it, is that most people don't know what the flying fuq it's all about.
And y'all really can't be blamed. Its bleak-ass excuse for a synopsis was engineered purposefully to be cryptic and unrevealing. The fic started off as an experiment in daily literary uploads. The narrative exposition was sparse and minimalist at best, forcing the readers to ask twice as many questions as any of the answers they had mercifully received.
This--by and large--was the acting theory behind the first fic. But as things start rolling into Eljunbyro, Innavedr, Odrsjot and beyond... it turns into a grand narrative that depends largely on the preceding books to explain and maintain. In essence, the first fic was a test to see if anyone had the strength to endure the sheer size and epic scale of the series as a whole. Amusing--perhaps--that the first book is still the smallest installment of the entire saga.
I feel that enough time has transpired for some degree of explanation to be given about the overall plot of Austraeoh. This isn't for everyone, mind you. The greatest fun of the series has always been about going in blind. Most marsupials and Noble J00rists who wax nostalgic about the series comment that their favorite things was rolling in--not knowing what to expect--and then being pleasantly surprised. Later on, as the journey piles the plot devices higher and higher, the readers typically find camaraderie with one another and share in a unique culture through the fics' comments section.
But, understandably, there are those who want an actual friggin' synopsis so as to know whether or not the series is worth their time. In essence, Austraeoh is a dumb, pulp-y adventure yarn with multiple landscapes, environments, characters, conflicts, and themes. The core of the narrative is Rainbow Dash... yes, "flying east"... but it's much-much more than that. There's an entire fanon lore that's established that expands upon the canonical content of MLP:FiM S1-S2 and turns it into a super crazy high-fantasy-semi-sci-fi epic.
I don't intend to spoil everything about the series in this blargh, but in the paragraphs to follow I'll nevertheless tag it in order to give the scant few of you who enjoy pure discovery an out.
In Book one, we witness Rainbow Dash flying east--beyond the borders of Equestria. She has a saddlebag full of necessities, a pair of goggles with the initials "S.L.," and the Element of Loyalty pendant perpetually wrapped around her neck. The reason why Rainbow is flying such a long distance from home, both in the day and in the night, is never explained. In fact, there is absolutely no dialogue for approximately fifteen or so chapters. All we see is Rainbow flying, stopping by to observe scenery, or encountering random hazards in the wilderness. When we finally had spoken words, it's only because Rainbow Dash has chosen to pay a visit to some of the local ponies living outside of Equestria. She gets caught up in a few random adventures--very much like Star Trek away missions that feature unique cultures. During her visits with the ponies of these towns, villages, cities, nations--she discovers a door to a deep underground chamber. The door has a unique symbol on it and it responds to her touch--or perhaps to the glow of her Loyalty Pendant. In any case, Rainbow Dash is allowed to enter this vast sprawling subterranean cavern full of shiny gold machinery. It's implied that this "machine layer" exists beneath the belly of the entire world.
During a full moon, it's revealed that Rainbow Dash can have a long-distance conversation with Princess Luna thanks to a spell that the alicorn herself placed on the Loyalty Pendant. Any expositionary explanation of Rainbow's circumstances are only hinted at, and the narrative still keeps the reader in the dark as to why Rainbow is out that far and on her own and seemingly searching for something... or nothing. The only time we get any underlying sense of purpose to the story is when Rainbow Dash meets up with a half-breed Alicorn named Whitemane who expounds a bit upon the "machine layer" Rainbow Dash discovered deep underground.
Rainbow's journey is an adventurous one--mostly pleasant, in a lot of cases. But she finally hits a snag in the kingdom of Silvadel where Axan, the Divine Dragon Matriarch of Fire, has nested herself along with her brood. An entire civilization has been torched to ashes in order for the Dragon Queen Axan to claim her nest, and when Rainbow Dash finds a band of surviving Silvadelians, she sympathizes with them and attempts to talk Axan into giving the ponies their home back. In the ensuing confrontation, Axan reveals that the world "is dying," and the vague words that Whitemane previously imparted gives Rainbow the feeling that she may play a pivotal role in the grand scheme of things.
Axan proves more than a mere obstacle to test Rainbow's resolve. She momentarily has a crisis of faith, and it's finally hinted as to why she's been flying east for so long. Rainbow Dash is also dying, and this journey was meant to give her a sense of catharsis--especially following some unmentionable tragedy that befell Equestria back home and caused her to loathe the name of Princess Celestia. Ultimately, Rainbow Dash decides to follow her courageous nature. She takes Queen Axan head=on and ruins her hoard, forcing her to abandon the nest. Axan friggin' murders Rainbow Dash... but before she can deliver the final blow and extinguish the awesome pegasus forever, she recognizes something about her and the pendant. She mouths 'Austraeoh,' the fic's title, and seemingly leaves the scene while Rainbow Dash loses consciousness.
This is the end of the first book--the very epitome of a brutal cliffhanger. The second book--Eljunbyro--pulls a Metal Gear Solid 2 by featuring a completely different protagonist in a different setting. Specifically, it follows a mare named Bellesmith in the Ledomaritan Matriarchal Confederacy, a warmongering nation with a powerful centralized military government that's at war with another nation to the east named Xona. Belle is a unicorn with a broken horn that allows her to "jack into" a magical spell that's similar to the Animus from Assassin's Creed. With this spell, she witnesses the memories of "the subject" which--as becomes evident to the readers--turns out to be Rainbow Dash. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn about the events preceding the first book which brought Rainbow Dash to where she was in Austraeoh.
As it turns out, the "Alternate Universe" tag of the fanfic series kicks into effect in the S2 opener of MLP:FiM. Discord had stolen and scattered the elements, manipulating the Mane 6 in the hedge maze and forcing a divide between them. However, in this continuity, when the Mane 5 attempted to use the Elements of Harmony without Rainbow Dash (Twilight jokingly called Spike the 'new Rainbow Dash' and threw the pendant on him instead), they caused their own demise. To be more specific, the Elements of Harmony backfired and Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie all friggin' exploded. The shockwaves of this event shook Rainbow Dash out of her discorded funk. She abandoned Cloudsdale, flew immediately to Ponyville, and confronted Discord--who was seemingly just as surprised by the event as Rainbow was. Putting on the Element of Loyalty--the only remaining pendant--Rainbow Dash somehow... absorbed the harmonic energies of her remaining friends and flew enchanted circles around Discord, single-hoofedly turning him back to stone. Then--in a fit of rage--she knocked the statue of Discord over. It shattered, but then Discord's chaotic essence seeped out and flew straight into Rainbow Dash while creating a multi-dimensional rift within the heart of Ponyville.
As a result of Rainbow's actions, Princess Celestia had to position herself permanently at the rift and guard it in order to keep the chaos from spreading and consuming the rest of Equestria. Princess Luna had to take on the task of controlling both the sun and the moon. In the meantime, Rainbow Dash was forever poisoned by the dragonequus chaos that she absorbed after shattering Discord. Her mortal equine body cannot sustain the chaos--which is working to literally morph her into a pony/dragonequus hybrid at any given moment. The only thing keeping Rainbow Dash from transforming is wearing the Element of Loyalty. However, even the Element is not enough, and eventually Rainbow Dash will succumb to the war of harmony and chaos within her being. It's only a matter of time before she dies just like the rest of her closest friends.
Overcome by grief and not willing to just settle in place and let time take her, Rainbow Dash mulls going on a world-round flight before she croaks. It is here that Luna expounds upon the true nature of the world--it is not a sphere, but instead a curved plane... like a broken piece of a circle. The plane was discovered by alicorns--pure harmonic beings from another part of the universe--and when the alicorns learned that there were pony beings living on this floating world, they decided to use their combined harmonic magics in order to provide daylight, moonlight, and natural equilibrium. However, they only had enough strength and resources to do this for one side of the plane--so they opted for the convex side. The concave side--the opposite side of the world--would forever be the Dark Side, unblessed by a sun, moon, or natural balance. However, in case things got so dire that the entire world needed a cosmic reboot of harmony, they placed the source of their power--the Harmonic Prism--in a secure structure in the dead center of the Dark Side called the Midnight Armory.
Rainbow Dash--daredevil to the last--gets it inside her skull that she can fly in one cardinal direction, span the edge of the plane, cross over to the Dark Side, and become the first mortal equine to lay her hooves on the Harmonic Prism. It's never suggested she actually believes she can accomplish this task, nor does Luna pretend it's physically possible, but it gives Rainbow Dash something to aim for... to preoccupy her mind so that she can constantly be in motion and having adventures instead of just dwelling on the tragic death of her friends. Besides--if Rainbow Dash can somehow possibly make it to the Midnight Armory and claim the Harmonic Prism, then there's a chance she can restore harmony to Equestria, rid Ponyville of the chaos rift, and allow Celestia and Luna to rule the land as normal once again.
We learn all this through Bellesmith of Ledomare. Eventually, Belle and her husband Pilate rescue Rainbow Dash from where her magically recuperating body has been housed, and the three of them try to flee the Confederacy as enemies of the state. Along the way, they make several companions who join their little courageous exodus. The group claims their own airship--the Noble Jury--which becomes their collective title. As the Noble Jury soars east to escape Ledomare, they get caught up in local politics, rogue bounty hunters, continental war, eldritch draconian horrors, zombified ancient ponies, grilled cheese, and a pegasus sex crater.
Along the way--and with more and more exposures to the "Machine Layer," Rainbow Dash learns more and more about the cosmology of the world. She discovers that the curved plane that she and everyone lives on--whom the alicorns discovered and blessed with their magic--is but one tiny piece of a gigantic artificial space colony referred to as "Urohringr." At some point in ancient pre-history, thousands upon thousands of years ago, a cataclysmic event referred to as "The Sundering" broke this tiny sliver from the rest of Urohringr. The reason why the world is "dying," as prophesied by Axan in Book One, is that the piece is not whole or stable without the rest of its structure, and it's only a matter of time (eons, perhaps, to mortals but a twilight stage of decay nonetheless) before the entire plane goes cold and not even the sparse alicorns' harmony can maintain it. As it turns out, Rainbow Dash is no mere awesome pegasus--but the essence of her being falls into a pattern along with the rest of the strange magic manifested by the Machine Layer. She learns that she is the "Spark" that is needed to restore balance, and it becomes all the clearer to her that fully circumnavigating the plane and acquiring the Harmonic Prism from the Midnight Armory is about more than just restoring harmony to Equestria. It may very well mean restoring the plane to the rest of Urohringr and saving all civilizations everywhere from an otherwise irreversible doom.
There are multiple, multiple story arcs and character-driven storylines and side-adventures and nuggets of lore all over, but Austraeoh--in a nutshell--is about Rainbow Dash having to fly around an artificial plane in order to stop a distant global doomsday and ensure a prosperous future for all living things that call this place home. There are times when the narrative is more immediately focused on dramatic conflicts like the War between Ledomare and Xona or the Attempted Coup in Val Roa or the Great Deception of Rohbredden (among polynumerous other narrative strings), but the grand sweeping scheme of the series is very sci-fi, very epic, and very... very... very long. Yes, it features Rainbow Dash John McClaning it against all odds through multiple conflicts while shouldering a wibbly-wobbly personal plot shield, but the biggest challenge of the story is making it new and unique and interesting with each installment, which I mentally treat like expansions to an MMO starring East Horse.
For better or for worse, the series--and its readers--have endured to this day. And I intend to carry it further and further, as long as it takes, barring any global apocalypse.
Whoops,
-SS&E
i am really glad the fic is back on the rails and is chugging along once again.
and eewww, spoilers.
As someone who just finished rereading (for the fourth time!) in time for the new uploads, I gotta say this is a fabulous synopsis.
Also, welcome back! I’m selfishly glad you’re back in a place where you can work on this, but all the more glad for you that you can and want to, because nothing is worse than working on something purely out of a sense of obligation. Stay well, and we look forward to continuing the journey!
I know I've said it a bunch of times already, but I really am just so proud of you for getting back on the east horse!! Add yourself to that list of names of those of us who helped you get back on your feet, hon. You did this. You earned this. And I couldn't be happier for you
media1.giphy.com/media/yziuK6WtDFMly/giphy.gif
Blasphemy!
We do, too!!!
Wait...so you're Imploding Colon?!
5299732
Welcome to the Noble Jury and Lunar Ninth, friend.
nice to see you back, skirts. I remember always seeing Austraeoh pop up in recommended lists but because of the extremely vague description always held off. I hopped on the eastwards train around book 5 (or was it 6.... man it's been that long) and I'm glad I did.
Not recently we haven't...
Most importantly, it is technically in the same universe as Pound Puppies. Obviously, it is no mere coincidence this comeback happens immediately following the premiere of Pony Life. I look forward to finding the connection
But . . . But I read Appledashery.
Well I've been experiencing euphoria about this for days.
The plane was discovered by alicorns--pure harmonic beings from another part of the universe--and when the alicorns learned that there were pony beings living on this floating world, they decided to use their combined harmonic magics in order to provide daylight, moonlight, and natural equilibrium.
So, avoid the dismay of trudging through a few million words to be absolutely disappointed, thanks for the heads up
Oh, so THAT'S what the story's about! To be fair I expected a Ringworld to be involved somewhat, it was kinda needed for such a long flight in a single direction (over three and a half million words of it), but nice to see it confirmed.
I'll take that into consideration and think about reading it. But then again, 3.6m words is... daunting. To say the very least!
Nice to know you're back into the game of writing such an deservingly-called Epic. I wish you the best of luck!
5299732
I had that same reaction when I found that out years ago.
5299832
I am so mad at myself for instantly remembering the damn acronym...
You take that back!
If there were any doubts as to whether we were truly back and going again, this put them to rest
I actually found the slow beginning of ofolrodi pretty fitting to the situation:
The group travelling through the dark side slowly without finding anyone or anything else for a long time.
Hey, who downvoted Gatsby? Bad show, Old Sport!
5299732
5299849
Now, now—pay attention: this is learned in the second book, so it's only a few hundred thousand words before the broad strokes of the cosmology are revealed. Basically right after the prologue.
5300122
I also didn't mind it at the time, but I wonder if I will if/when I ever make the time to reread it...
I actually found you through Appledashery. I'm sad that it probably won't get continued but honestly it's frigging insane how you write so many other fics. I'm going to have a good time munching all that while leaving my first love up to imagination.
I LOVE YOUR WRITING! YOU ARE GOD-TIER!
Oh heck fricken YES
SKIRTS WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOBODY READ APPLEDASHERY HOW DARE YOU DISREGARD THE NAMES OF AUTUM RUSH LIGHTNING BEARER WHITEWOLFSTORMRUNNER BABYSKITTLESMONSTER ARANCAYTAR DR. EGGNOG AATXE TWILIGHTUCRAZY LEFTOVER FROM SAIKANO SALAD KING SHEENDOUGH PHOENIX KITTEN VIOFRIEDSEVEY KHAO MIDNIGHT REFLECTION ROBORED HESTIA GAMMAHOOF PROPMASTER SAM THE ANTI-NINJA FLOYDIEN PALEOBRONY TRUE EDGE TCHERNOBOG LONE GAZEBO MISTER SAXON FISHBERRY YOSHI FAWFUL NORTH BOUND BULBAJER NASTY MISTER MONKET ZAPONATOR COMMANDER CUDDLE I THOUGHT I WAS TOAST JAY BAKER TYPOG!YPHIC DESTINEDJAGOLD BRONYINHIDING CHEWIERULZ LUCYHORSETHING TIM THE PLANES-PONY FOURTHS REMNANTS CODAULUX SERAPHIMUS BOOP-HAPPY LASS AND EVERYONE AND OF COURSE....
THE ONLY AND ONLY....
YOUR SON....
SHARP QUILL
A.K.A. ESSAY QUILL CHECKER
(and me!!!!!!!!!!!)
I’m also amazed that Cavetown’s Meteor Shower wasn’t passed by your Dark Horse queen-offering sacrificials upon your throne by this lowly child peasant.
Yknow, I withdrew from the fandom a long time ago. I stopped watching the show, viewing the art, and told myself I’d only follow the few fics left that I’d been reading until they were finished and not start anything new. This series is, essentially, the only fic outside of 24th’s stuff that I still followed.
I can’t believe I’ve been reading this for literal years. I was a bit melancholic whenever I logged in and saw it sitting there.
It’s like returning to see an old friend after a long time. You aren’t the same people anymore (hell I’m not even the same gender I was when this started ) but you get back into it almost as if no time had passed at all.
Hope the grind ain’t too rough. <3
There are people wanting appledashery
