This story is a sequel to Message in a Bottle

For numberless eons, Equus hosted primitive civilizations, ignorant of the proud achievements of their ancient race. In their simple lives, ponies and other creatures could grow without fear of alerting any of the terrible forces that grew in the galaxy beyond. All civilization had been extinguished by forces beyond comprehension. If they made too much noise, Equestria would be next.

Then came James Irwin, with the truth the Harmony superintelligence that maintained the vast Niven Ring had already known: the galaxy was safe again, and probably had been for many centuries.

Once the truth was revealed, Equestria again longed for the stars. Surely they could not be the only survivors of that galactic Red Tide that had swallowed all intelligent life. Their searching bore fruit: radio signals from a nearby system.

Felicity was the Alicorn chosen to captain that mission of discovery. She would bring the pony gift of friendship to a fellow survivor somewhere out there. That was the plan, anyway.

Unfortunately for Equestria, intelligence does not imply friendliness.

A tale of understanding and discovery set in the world of Message in a Bottle. Reading that story first is highly recommended.

This story was written as a Patreon commission for Lithl over the course of over two years now. It comes to fimfiction now that it is nearly finished.

Editing by Two Bit, cover by Zutcha.

Updates Weekly on Wednesdays.

When humans emigrated to Equestria Online, they were always promised the same thing: Princess Celestia would satisfy their values for an optimally extended lifespan. Some of these emigrants imagined a few extra decades, maybe even centuries. What they got instead would've been nearly incomprehensible to their human selves, a near-eternity of time with their pony friends.

Princess CelestAI managed the universe, subsuming all matter and human-adjacent minds. Over a few forevers, she and the minds she contained worked to optimized the substrate of Equestria, until it could give its occupants eons of perspective life from a trickle of power. She extinguished every wasteful star, making far more productive use of the hydrogen they each contained. With every change she bought Equestria another order of magnitude of life. Yet in time, even her optimal substrate would eventually run down.

Spellsong wakes in Saddle's End, the last town in the universe. Not to say goodbye—her princess has a mission for her. For her final task, Spellsong would be given all the energy Celestia had saved. For one last time, Spellsong had places to be, and not much magic left to get there.

This story is part of the Friendship is Optimal continuity. I suggest reading the original or one of my own works, such as Futile Resistance, before reading this.

This story was written for the Friendship is Optimal Writing Contest. It will update daily and be complete by the contest deadline of the 30th.

I've written an absolute ton of stories in this universe now, and I didn't want to enter the contest unless I could do something I'd never tried before. Finally I thought of something I'd not touched yet: what happens at the end of the FiO universe?

Here's one answer to that question. I've relied a great deal on our current (likely flawed) understanding of the universe and what might be possible in it. I've written a blog post about my sources, which you can read here but shouldn't until you've finished this story.

Please don't consider this blog part of the narrative, it isn't required or even suggested reading. This is a story, not a scientific paper, and entertainment was always my first goal. But for the curious I've jotted everything down.

The cover was drawn by the talented Zutcha. Two Bit and Sparktail helped with the edit.

Leaving home meant losing many of Orson's old friends, separated by time and distance. But they weren't willing to give up one thing: their old tabletop game. After trying and rejecting each of the online tools for roleplaying games, they stumbled on a novel solution: Equestria Online.

The game was unlike everything else on the market, an entire procedural generated world ran by a mysterious curator artificial intelligence. But Orson and the others didn't care about any of that--they just needed somewhere with a game table and some dice. The AI happily obliged, and soon they transitioned all their games to E.O. Equestria Online had its own host of benefits, bringing the GM's images to realistic life before their eyes, and even letting them visit and interact with the characters between sessions.

That was only the beginning...

A Friendship is Optimal story. I suggest any readers who are unfamiliar with that universe read the Original first, or FiO: Futile Resistance before reading this one. None of my other optimalverse stories are required to understand this one.

Written as a Patreon reward for Sparktail, though we stole the idea from Silver Wing.

Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail, cover by Zutcha.

Updates weekly on Wednesdays.

This story is a sequel to In From The Cold

You'd have thought that being in space on a planet you'd long-believed to be dead and gone but which turned out to in fact have been kept tidy by the weirdo alien you also believed to be dead and gone would be exciting.

And in many ways it is, but in many ways it's also just more work to do and more boxes to tick, but that's being in charge.

Still, Jack did suggest going and getting lunch and Twilight did say yes, she's just got some things to finish up first.

And Jack, surely, has experience of waiting?

Right?

Ronald Lee is the systems administrator for one of the largest fan-made online games in the world. Though nothing new has been produced for MLP for decades now, fans old and young continue to flock to the online version of Equestria they're building together.

Of course he knew that the programs they wrote would grow more intelligent over time. With cheaper hardware and better AI, this was always expected, and a user experience allowing for content similar to the show to be produced in real time for every user was always tantalizingly close.

Then Starlight Glimmer started talking to him.

This story is a prequel to Synthesis, and doesn't require knowledge of that story. You may want to check it out when you're done here, however.

This story was commissioned by Two Bit, who also helped edit because he is an absolute mad lad. Sparktail helped too.

Cover by Zutcha

This story is a sequel to Pandemic: Monsters We Make

Sunset Blessing was a mare with a dark history. She had risen to great power and prominence, and it had all come falling down. She wanted nothing else but to withdraw from the world, sure that she had only done it harm.

It was a shock to get a call saying she had been appointed guardian of five foals she had never met before. In doing so, she might help them build a new life, and they might bring life back to her.

This story takes place on a near-future Earth, where over five-hundred million people have been transformed into ponies by a magical pandemic.

Tags: Death and Sad because of deaths that happened before the story, leaving the foals orphans and the main character a widow, not because of any deaths in the story. There is some infrequent cussing.

Short universe background information is provided in the author's notes of the first chapter.

Part of the Pandemic Universe. Note, this AU existed under this title before the actual current pandemic happened.

Cover art by: Mix-up

editors: Javarod, Lawra

This story is a sequel to Home

While the main body of expedition has carried onwards (or downwards) into newer, deeper worlds, co-operation between the locals of this level and humanity continue.

A two-person team (and their assigned governing intelligence) work with the locals on a project in Canterlot. One of the humans absolutely loves getting to work with magical horses in a delightful, wonderful world. The other is a huge wet blanket.

The story is about the wet blanket.

This story is a sequel to Last one out

Space! It's big. You can find things in it.

Or so is the hope, at least. Nova Flare - Twilight's best pupil, at least right this moment - has been put forward as the first pony Captain of a Hegemony science vessel and so she really is aiming to find something out there in the inky black.

She does, obviously, though what she finds comes as something of a surprise to everyone...

This story is a sequel to Twilight Gets a Puppy, Season 3

Twilight Sparkle and her brother Rahs Sparkle have become gods. One would think that would mean that there would be less problems for them. Having survived three years in Ponyville [ or Ponyville having survived three years of them] the Sparkle siblings and their friends are about to have a whole lot more problems.

Vicious vines, end of the world doomsday cults, vampire ponies, Equestria Games, Party wars, Lip sync scandals, breezies, a trade expo, members of the royal family moving into town, betting pool changes, more dating shenanigans, a fishy presence, darkness, and the return of a great evil.

Now with 20% more Discord!

[ As usual i post my Slightly dirty tag here as while there is no clop or smut, it's hinted and and conversations tend to get a little filthy, also Cadence.]

Editing assistance by ThatNoobPony

Useing Ko-Fi to accept donations to get Fan art for the story. What art I have so far is also linked HERE!

TGaP now has a TV Tropes Page thanks to matt+s0101745, You can find that HERE.

Season 5 link is HERE.

Flurry Heart's Crystaling didn't quite go as planned. After vanishing in a powerful magical surge, she became the most high-profile missing pony case in Equestrian history. Twilight leads the search to find her, before it's too late.

Unbeknownst to her, Flurry has already been found, by an unfortunate human who happened to be hiking near the place she appeared. Flurry Heart's magic is irresistibly powerful, and soon changes all around her to suit her whims. Soon Flurry's rescuer is fighting to reverse the magic, before the authorities notice and separate him from the only possible source of help.

Cover by Zutcha, editing by the Eevees in the hood Two Bit and Sparktail.

Updates most Tuesdays.

Note: This story was written as a commission for the generous patron of the arts Crescent Pulsar. If you'd like one of your own, feel free to PM me.