What's Next for CRISIS

With the main CRISIS: Equestria trilogy complete (consisting of A Royal Affair, CRISIS: Equestria, and New World Order), as well as the adult-oriented side project (which I won't link here, but you can find it in my story catalog), it should be worth noting that the CRISIS-verse is not over by any means. I still love this world I've created and the characters that dwell within it, and I still want to do more with them, but the story is pretty much done at this point, right?

Well, technically, yes it is. As in, the mainline CRISIS-verse is done with.

The next project coming down the pipeline is a sort of "What If?" story line, which takes place after A Royal Affair (so that story and its events are still relevant and important to the story), but changes a few things about the original CRISIS: Equestria so that the characters we know and love—canonical or original—go through an entirely different set of experiences that drastically alter the way that they grow within the CRISIS-verse canon.

This is what I'm calling CRISIS: Equestria - Divergence.

The basic premise that I can give for now is that the foundation of the story is based on a simple concept: in CRISIS canon, the order of Chronomancers (which Tick Tock and Sundial are members of) assigns Chronomancers to different worlds within the MLP: FiM multiverse, who are tasked with protecting them from the dangers of the Void beyond the worlds. In CRISIS: Equestria, Tick Tock is the assigned Chronomancer to Equestria-V, where the bulk of the action takes place, and it through her decisions and actions early on in the story that set the Mane Six down the road they must travel, and also influences the actions of Silvertongue and thus the Mean Six as well.

So, Divergence will ask, what if a different Chronomancer was assigned to Equestria-V at the time of the original events of the story, one with a different set of skills and a different view of the world? How significant would those changes be?

The main draw for Divergence, for myself at least, is the opportunity to explore story ideas that I had for the original CRISIS: Equestria that never got touched on, mostly because CRISIS: Equestria was a very much seat-of-my-pants story for most of its run; lots of plans got dropped or changed as the story progressed, either because the flow of the story didn't make them convenient, or because they contradicted things that were starting to move along. Lots of ideas that came up were spur-of-the-moment as well, and sometimes, yes, they weren't terribly well thought out.

To give you a sort of idea of what I mean, here are a several examples of plot points that never got off the ground; some of these may or may appear in Divergence in different ways:

• The Mean Six went through several design changes before I settled on the ones that I used, and there are a few things about them to this day that I'd change if given the opportunity...
• Originally, the plan was to keep the Mane Six in New Pandemonium City for the entire extent of the story, and that they would need to integrate themselves into society there to survive until they could get home.
• Queen Blackburn was not originally even in the story until until we started getting close to the Hope's Point chapters, and was designed to both be an ally to the characters but also a source of conflict for Fluttershy because of Lockwood.
• Related to the above, originally we were considering pairing Lockwood off with Rarity instead of Fluttershy.
• The Mean Six were going to end the story being regressed to foalhood when they were purged of their Darkness, and Lockwood was going to adopt them.
• Flathoof and Briarthorn were intended to die (or rather, stay dead), and Gadget and Crossfire were to survive the crash.
• Originally it was Twilight that was going to end up in a relationship with Flathoof.
• Related to the above, Tick Tock was originally going to be a bit less subtle about her developing feelings for Twilight.
• Equestrias I, II, and III were going to be explored briefly as the heroes chased Silvertongue towards Equestria Prime, and were going to feature ponies from Generations I, II, and III.
• I couldn't decide at first whether Flathoof or Lockwood was going to go to Equestria-IV at the end of the story, but it was always the intent that one of them would.
• The original "final battle" was going to be against Nihila rather than Silvertongue, and I'd considered killing off one of the Mean Six in the process, though I never settled on who before dropping this.
• Flathoof and Lockwood purposefully are crafted to represent Equestria-V's own "Elements", which are combinations of the Equestria-IV ones; Lockwood being Compassion (Kindness+Generosity) and Flathoof being Duty (Loyalty+Honesty). This was dropped as I never came up with a third to combine Magic+Laughter.
• Royal Affair was intended to have a few extra scenes of Blackburn and company investigating mysteries in New Pandemonium City that were threats to Hope's Point, but these were all dropped because they didn't fit the tone or the characterization of Blackburn.
• Come New World Order, the original intention was to focus on the war in the south in a Game of Thrones-style political focus involving the various noble Houses, shifting between characters to see the various viewpoints.
• There was intended to be an undersea adventure in New World Order to see the sea ponies of Equestria-V that popped up following the original story.
• The cast of New World Order was to be more diverse, including kirins, changelings, hippogriffs, sea ponies, and zebras in addition to the normal ponies, but once the story shifted into a more traditional adventure most of these were dropped and relegated to supporting characters.
• The character of Nightshade, the daughter of Stormy Night in New World Order, was intended to be much more important to the story; Flurry Heart ended up taking her role.
• Bluebolt's strained relationship with her mother, Blackburn, was supposed to be delved into a bit more, with the main gist being that Blackburn was in a state of major depression and self-loathing sometime following the birth of her second foal (Fireglow), once her investigations into SIlvertongue revealed just how deep his machinations and intentions went; Blackburn admits in the written story that she couldn't imagine doing anything different, and the fact that she considered Silvertongue's plans worth merit was rather striking for her.
• There originally going to be two clans of changelings in New World Order: the ones that we see led by Aculeata, and another branch that were slaves to Pedigree and the NPAF for use as spies/weapons.
• Weaver was not going to be the only Shadow at first; there was to be a trio, actually, and its noted in-fic that there were many more than that.
• Originally, the pairings were Bluebolt/Sundial, and Symphony/Weaver.
• There were intended to be more monsters in the south, both in the original story and in New World Order, mostly to go along with Zarya's story line.
• Pandemonia was intended to have a much larger role in the story, but the tighter focus made that difficult.

That's a lot of things I didn't end up using! If you can imagine what situations might have been like if some of these ideas had been used, then you should be excited to see how things are different in the official Divergence story, which I am planning to have ready to post by the end of August. I look forward to seeing the results, and hope that you guys are as excited as me!

Comments

[Mr cold ghost]

I can’t wait!