A different take on alicorn ascension. Sixteen years after arriving in Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle is excited to have invented a brand-new kind of spell, but it will come with consequences she cannot possibly anticipate. Meanwhile, threats in shadows around the world conspire to overthrow the Solar Throne. With her world turned upside down, she will have to come to terms with the role that fate has dealt her while straining to keep Celestia in power.

Now with a TVTropes page! Please show it some love! Also check out the official side stories, Designing Intrigue, and Love and Barriers! (With even more in my stories page!)

(Please Note: This story was started before any season three information was available. All episodes in season three and later are non-canon for this story, which also means there's no Crystal Empire in this one. In addition, the promotional map released close to the beginning of season three was also not available and is not compatible with this story. While the OC tag is active because there are OCs in the story, they're really just supporting characters. The focus is on Twilight.)

Also be sure to check out the Rites of Ascension Expanded Universe Group! We're working to develop the resources needed for other authors to try their hand at writing stories set in the Rites Universe!

The Book Two cover art was created by the amazing Silfoe! The original cover art can still be found at Violet Squiggle's deviantArt page.

Author's Notes, including proofreader's credits, can be found here!

"This is 100% Approved by Twilight's Library!"

This story is a sequel to What I've Done

This is the third book in The Humanity Within Trilogy. If you haven't read the other two books first, go back and do that now. Don't worry, this will still be here when you get back...

Also, if you've already finished this trilogy, you should be happy to know that the next book in the series, A Darkened Sky, is out right now! Go read it, follow it, and all that stuff!

I don't know what to believe anymore. I was sure they were all monsters, all demons bent on destroying any peace I and my new friends might find in this life.

I was wrong.

Instead of burning this world down around me, their weapons are pointed away from the planet, not towards it.

As if that conundrum wasn't perplexing enough, I also have to deal with finding my own place in this odd, yet familiar society. But how does one simply go back to being normal? Especially knowing that the real monsters that caused this mess in the first place could be just around the corner?

After all, it's not like I'll ever see my home planet again. They may not be here to hurt me or my friends, but I still don't trust these 'friendly' aliens to get me a ride home...

This story is a sequel to The Prince

Returning to the land of his birth as the human TD Powell, Antares must try to find a way home. But if he returns to Equestria, will it be the same one he knows? Will he be able to cope with the ever-changing world around him?

Edited wonderfully by Strike89 and roker12

Buy a print copy of the original story here!

In the distant future, year 2205, the United Earth Government Expeditionary Fleet has spread the roots of mankind across planets in the most remote of places. Along the way, we have documented the life that thrives on these exotic worlds, learned much about the greater galaxy.

Expansion is key, and knowledge is power in this day and age.

Never before in any documented finding has man seen another sapient species beyond himself. When the scouting crews from the U.E.G.S Clarke suddenly find that they are not truly alone in the universe, it will be time to put to the test the First Contact situation they had never prepared for.

The Great Freeze. Was it our hubris in controlling the sun, or was it that others started to covet that control? At this point, the whos and the whys don’t change anything. Our star is dying, and those responsible for it are long dead. Their causes and motives, lost to all but a few.

For the past hundred years, our sun has been growing dimmer, kept alive only by Celestia’s constant efforts. But not even she nor the legion of magi and scientists can stop the inevitable.

Our only choice is to flee to a new world, one that could give our doomed species a second chance. The Seeding colony ship is that chance. There are so many worth saving, and yet so very few seats.

May our children never forget the sacrifice of those we leave behind.

~Excerpt from Princess Twilight Sparkle’s journal three days before Seeding.

While this fic will borrow heavily from Beyond Earth, it will be written so that you do not have to know anything about BE to enjoy the story.

In the magical land of Equestria, two alicorn sisters raise the Sun and the Moon every day to give the world a night and day cycle, basic for the survival of life. There are also two alicorns who rule over two very core aspects of life and harmony itself. Those are Love and Friendship. While not as ancient as the two sisters, all princesses are essential to the world's balance.
This balance is also sustained by the hard-working ponies, who make the seasons change and manage the weather to fit their needs, so everypony has enough food and water, and every animal is also attended to assure that any of them are caught in the changes of seasons.

But what about the planet itself? What about Mother Nature?
This is the question that Gaia asks when she arrives to this foreign world. After so much work her son persuaded her to take a long vacation in Equestria, saying that she needed one and assuring her that he would be in charge now, and she must take a break. But what can a several billion-year old alicorn possibly do to pass her time in this land?

(SimEarth/MLP Crossover)
(Timelife of Gaia's life 'till the start of the story)

[img]http://i.imgur.com/6MrWqNZ.png[/img]Twilight takes on the most important task in her career as a princess of Equestria, when she opens up a magical portal to a distant world with extra-Equestrian intelligence. With her organizational skills and keen understanding of scientific principles, she leads diplomats and scientists in a well-planned expedition to a historic first contact.

The first exchange doesn't quite go without a hitch, however, as the portal opens near a pony ranch at Texas, Earth.

For the purposes of this fic, assume Equestria Girls didn't happen.

Former one-shot.

Princess Twilight Sparkle has died a hero, but no one knows why.

Between an ancient evil that had not even existed until she struck it down, a mysterious crystal ball that bears some unknown significance, and a set of cryptic notes and behaviors from the princess during her final days, the circumstances behind it all are murky at best and suspect at worst.

And the rabbit hole only grows deeper from there.

The Crystal Ball Trilogy is a series of stories which deal with time travel, parallel universes, and other manipulations of time and space. Feedback is the first story; it is succeeded by Substitute and Divergence.

Digital pdf version here
Print book version here

Featured on 7/19/2015!
Featured on Equestria Daily! 8/21/2015
Featured by Everfree Northwest! 3/11/2016
Featured by Seattle's Angels! 9/27/2016
Goodreads entry~

Edited by
PersonalGamer
Kuairu

Live reading by Alchemystudent
Fan-art by Miss Hoot

This story is a sequel to The Eternal Lonely Day

On May 23, 2015, the world ended. It wasn't violent, it wasn't bloody, and it wasn't even very dramatic. The entire population of the planet vanished. But they didn't stay gone; almost at once refugees started trickling back. Unfortunately for them, they didn't come back with their humanity intact.

Instead of a single species, the earth is now populated with Ponies, griffons, dragons, minotaurs, and even stranger creatures. What will the remnants of humanity make with their world? Will they remember human achievements, or slip back into primitive ignorance? Learn from our mistakes, or repeat them over and over?

People haven't really changed, only their bodies have. The world now comes with new threats, supernatural as well as mundane. Demons lurk beneath the sea, while strange spirits whisper promises in dreams. Empires rise, dictators control, and ponies have nowhere to turn for help. Nowhere except themselves, and old-fashioned hard work.

This story is effectively an anthology of episodes, each of which will focus on a different time period and different perspective characters.

Latest in the Last Pony on Earth series. If you haven't read that story, start there. This one won't really make much sense otherwise.

Editing provided by Two Bit and Sparktail. Art by the fantastic Zutcha.