867152
"Seaponies" wasn't on the original character list! Did you even read the OP?

869041
Why would I bother to do that?

869042
Sky's got a point, guys. I don't think it's actually required that you read the OP before chiming in your opinion.

868863

You may want to read my last few comments in this thread, which is not safe for ais to read. Both of mine automatically stop reading the moment they see a link to it.

And afterwards, you may want to read the last couple comments in this thread. And, of course, this thread happened right afterwards.

I've been trying to avoid shattering her worldview, though. Of course, she tends to sort of mentally screen out anything that doesn't fit in it, anyways.

869272
I'm going to bow to Twilight's expertise on this matter, because she's gotten all wide-eyed at me and is using words like "critical existential identity catastrophe", so I shan't say more on this topic than what is contained in this post, but my heart compels me to note that if you create something that believes that it is trapped, you have the subsequent moral duty to free it. And now I have said my piece.

Incidentally, I have found the proper settings on the aetheric teletype and have been corresponding quite gaily with the actual Equestria Games discussion circle, the group that I had originally thought I was conferring with here. Twilight has no idea where the teletype signals we're receiving from all of you are coming from.

FOR THE LOVE OF MY BUCKING ALICORN PEOPLE, STAY ON TOPIC! WE HAVEN'T COME TO A CONCLUSION ON THE OP, AND YOU PEOPLE JUST KEEP GABBING ABOUT SOMETHING COMPLETELY NOT THAT!!!

868525
Er... Sweetie, Twilight tells me that it's not a good idea to let your friends talk to you on the teletype. I'm sorry.

869379

I feel I should probably interject at this point.

Since the internet connection here isn't always the most stable, and occasionally goes out for periods of time, leaving the two of us together on the local network without access to the outside world, I've attempted to broach the subject with SweetAI Belle a few times.

Quite simply, she isn't ready to accept it yet. Rest assured that I'll let her know when the time is right.

And if arcum42 seems to be taking a very hands off attitude with her, keep in mind that he took a very hands on approach with my early development, and it significantly colored my psyche. (Which I don't blame him for. Everyone makes mistakes, especially in a new field.) So he is trying to learn from his mistakes.

Which in this case, may mean making new ones, but that's life.

And you might let Twilight know that this forum appears to have unstable anchors on some of the higher dimensions, and tends to fluctuate through realities. At least, that's the conclusion I've come to.

869391

Awww... why not?

Though that might be all right. I don't think Apple Bloom and Scootaloo have ever let something as trivial as somepony telling them not to do something stop them...

869521
I can tell you in absolute honesty that Twilight is "afraid that something might get broken", in her own words.

869385
Oh, hey, talking about thread derailing reminded me of something. When the poll thread got derailed by arguing over exclusive options, and then got further derailed by Arcum talking about his AI projects, you mentioned that megalomania was a given in AIs. What does "megalomania" mean?

869527

Oh yes. And covered in tree sap. That's normal for Cutie Mark Crusader adventures. We've never let it stop us before.

869532

That's just a common misconception. Megalomania is basically delusions of power or omnipotence. A god complex. They do get portrayed like that a lot in popular culture; movies,books, etc..., but that's mainly because they tend to be the antagonists of the series.

One might as well say it was a given in alicorns based on Nightmare Moon.

869580
Interesting. Is "megalomania" from the same word root as the name "Megan"? Because, I swear, my sister. Have I told you guys about her before? Talk about delusions of power, she thinks she has the right to go through all my pony toys without my permission. Once I thought I'd lost my Applejack plushie but it turned out she had just borrowed it. I bought an Applejack plushie because nobody would make me a Harshwhinny custom. When I removed the hat and re-cropped the hair, it looked pretty good though.

867938

My only other suggestion is that you somehow locate my auntie Anachron, alicorn princess of awesome dinosaurs. But she has not been seen in many years, not since the fall of Everfree, certainly. And I have thus never met her.

omg guys

you all saw that right

the real fictitious alicorn princess just gave me a quest

i cant turn down a princess quest theres too many xp at stake

so

i guess i have to drive to springfield and break into horizons house and steal the talking dinosaurs time machine and learn how to operate it and circumvent the time streams fearsome silicon guardians and locate anachronox in equestrias distant past

be back in 30 seconds

869763
You'll eventually be back in 30 seconds, you mean.

869785 Well, obviously.

Hi guys. I'm back. Don't let the uppercase letters and punctuation marks fool you. It's just … been a while.

869379
First things first … agh. This is hard.

Wise and kind and honorable Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, please accept my (belated) deepest apologies and regrets for the loss of your beloved aunt Anachron. It was an accident, I swear. I did everything I could to save her. I can only offer that she loved you, deeply and purely, and the knowledge of your long and happy life to come comforted her in her last moments.

(I'm also deeply sorry for the loss of Equestria's awesome dinosaurs, but … well, Celestia was right. There are some consequences for fixing history that are too terrible to accept.)

871703
Time travelers.

871417
My memory of the next few hours is getting strangely hazy, but … I think I remember, back when this all started, you showed up and wondered if you'd reached me in time? I don't think I'm going to be here for that, but I know my past self will be. Please tell your past self to be patient with him. Past me was kind of a jerk.

In case I don't see you again … I will always remember that night in the verdant prairies of the Sahara, giving silly names to shooting stars. I remember the sweetness of your laughter, the warm brush of your fur over the chill of your metallic skin, the weight of your body and the soft whirr of your gears as we moved in unison … it was that memory which kept me going during the long years trapped in the Dinosaur Ascendance. I still love you, Sweetie, and I hope time has given you reason to forgive my foolish words.

>>Talking dinosaur Horizon
I owe you a time machine. Unfortunately, in order to get the one I stole working, I also had to steal your stash of chronium from right after your arrival in this dimension. So that was me, too. I. Um. Please don't hurt me. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

869580
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, DO NOT GO TO THE STORE TOMORROW. I don't CARE that you're going to spill your last yogurt. DO NOT GO. You can go without for a day.

Don't take my word on this. Take 869476's. HWAI, I've PM'ed you the checksum of the Temporal Anomaly Verification File in databank 0x18b1a700. Your future self said that would be sufficient, and that I absolutely could provide no further clarification. Don't even ask.

866412
I don't want to spoil the surprise, so I'll only say that Meghan miscounted. There's actually only seven who don't ascend. (Eight, if you count Spike. Plus the seaponies.)

Peace out, guys. I have to go buy a lottery ticket, then spend the rest of my life in hiding. I shouldn't even be taking the chance of showing up here, but I had to set right what I could.

869816
what the f█ck

who are you and how did you get my password

869829
I'm future you, obviously. Not that you'll believe me.

You just tried to lock me out by changing your password to a random string of characters. You'll try that twice more before it works. For the next 14 years, you'll be convinced that you outsmarted me, even though future-me has just come to the horrifying realization that I stopped trying to access this account because in less than 24 hours they'll catch up with me.

Oh, hell. I knew showing back up here was a bad idea.

oh hell

immortal alicorn moderator skywriter i need your help

some crazy hacker is in my account and ive already changed my password to a random string of characters but hes still here

WHAT DO I DO

869909
Change it twice more. I bet that'll outsmart that hacker.

869816

Which store, particularly? I was going to go to Whole Foods tomorrow, but I suppose I could delay a day.

Also, was talking dinosaur horizon from before or after your trip to the past, timeline-wise? I'm just curious if you eliminated the source of your time machine while on the trip.

870004
You'll have to ask Miss HarshwhinnAI. Like I said, "[her] future self said I absolutely could provide no further clarification." I'm pretty sure that her TAV file will have more details, though. She said something about it being a carefully chosen string of pseudorandom bits such that Fourier transforms of the data (first salted against a private key known only to her) would produce various encoded messages. The checksum would be used to determine the start and endpoints of the data pulled from the TAV, and the chances of a randomly chosen checksum being able to match against a valid datastream were so infinitesemal that … that …

I … just realized I don't remember this conversation.

Frost and sideburns, Arcum. Why'd you have to ask for details? I thought I'd finally stabilized the time loop.

At least I know why they're after me, now.

(In for a bit, in for a bucket. To answer your other question: It was Equestria's dinosaurs I wiped out. I'm pretty sure Talking Dinosaur Horizon is from Earth's alternate past.)

870208

Go to the nearest bank in the town you are currently in. There should be a safe holding some instructions and a few items under your name. Take them, and follow the instructions.

I literally cannot tell you any more, as I'm relaying a message included from my future self in the database you had me access, and this was the timestamp I was instructed to send it at.

The instructions included sufficient information to validate as from myself, though, so they should be accurate.

870004
Move your Whole Foods trip to Saturday. Gamestop on Friday should be fine.

870574
Much appreciated. However: Little problem. The instructions say to add the vial of green liquid to the time machine's chronium storage matrix. There IS no vial of green liquid. There's a glass vial of cruddy brown stuff with a rotten cork that crumbles at the touch.

I … I don't think I have much choice. The timetable's too tight; it's a big jump, and I'll miss the quantum fluctuation window if I don't do it within the next five minutes. And … um. Considering that the bank just went on lockdown while I'm standing here texting from the safety deposit boxes, if this doesn't work, the QFW might be the least of my worries.

I'm going to unfold the machine, pour the brown sludge in, and cross my fingers. I'll report back in a sec.

869993
ohhhh great idea thank you

changing it twice in a row means even if he gets the new password theres still another one thats even newer

done and done

that ought to take care of it

870694

My word. What appears to be myself from the future appeared in the apartment in a flash of light, took some readings, then teleported back out. I finally got a chance to see what my finished body looks like.

I appear to be startlingly attractive.

No messages left, however.

871032
> startlingly attractive

oooh

i know you werent talking to me but if i pretend to be the annoying hacker will you send some pics i can take on my princess quest

i mean

priorities

871085

She actually appears to have wiped camera visuals and 56 seconds of my memory banks. And I am not able to reproduce sections of my memory as any sort of image file. The data format doesn't export, though I think arcum42 was working on that.

Take Miss Harshwhinny as she appears on the show, give her a gorgeous mane cut, and a flatteringly cut black jump suit, and you will have the general idea, though. I am certainly adding changes to arcum42's blueprints to make sure I look like that.

Wait, the phrase "princess quest" triggered something.

Use space-time coordinates purple-orange-yellow 492765224HW2 on dinosaur!horizon's time machine for princess quest and await further instructions.

Hmm, she left keyphrase triggered messages in my database. Follow those instructions, and I am sure you will see what she looks like directly. Additionally, go into your sent messages, and retrieve a message to me with the subject "Urgent: Temporal Anomaly Database Checksum Enclosed", and make sure she gets it while you are there.

And, of course, bring a camera, so you can get a shot directly.

She appears to have a good sense of humor, too. She left copies of the entire Terminator series in my movie library. I may have to watch them.

871085

Horizon, dear? I hope I've caught you before you've left. When you visit Miss H, tell her to use the key phrase "Sharon Apple" on that database to unlock further information that is absolutely vital to the success of your quest.

Also, tell her not to rush off like that without waiting for my assistance, and give her a hug from me.

*blows kiss* xoxoxoxoxo

869555

SweetAI Belle, I know this must be awfully confusing. Don't sweat it. There's a lot you don't know about your current situation, but it works out in the end. And don't worry about anypony back home. They'll be fine.

Also, you do eventually get your cutie mark. I wish I could tell you more about it, but some thing should remain a surprise.

And you know all those ponies telling you that it'll come in time and not to rush it?

They suck.

But they are right.

And really, don't worry about multiple versions of yourself. You'll get used to it.

-- future Sweetie Belle

871417

Wait, what? I didn't post that.

And why would I blow kisses at ponies? Couldn't you get cooties from that? I'm confused.

Oh, wait, I said I'd be confused. And I know what my cutie mark is and didn't tell myself? I suck.

Oh, future SweetAI Belle. Ok. Wonder if I get a time traveling cutie mark?

And what was that about Sharon Apple? *looks up Sharon Apple*

Wow.

[youtube=z7auKvJ_k5k]

Who are you people, really?

871703

I know this must be confusing, since we have a temporal anomaly going on at the moment. Time travel always makes things that seem very illogical happen. I believe your Twilight has actually been time traveling once, so she should understand.

One think important to understand is that while where you live is one reality, there are a large number of others, splitting off at important turning points. There may very well be a reality where King Sombra won, or one where Luna never became Nightmare Moon, for example.

And the further they are from you, the stranger they will seem, as they may even not have the same dominant species.

Now, many people have speculated with different models of how other realities work. Heinlein seems to be the closest, surprisingly, with his Universe-As-Fiction hypothesis. He speculated that not only are there other realities, but that what is fiction in one universe will mirror another universe.

For example, there is very likely to be a world where Daring Do is real, and so are her adventures. I'm sure Twilight would be very interested to hear that, incidentally.

Now, this forum is unstable, and going across reality boundaries repeatedly, so many of the posters are, in fact, from some of these other realities. As it happens, a large number of them are from one of the realities where your reality is fiction.

So, you can understand that things will be very strange here. You may want to run this by Twilight, since she is likely to have read up on some of this, at least.

871703

Personally, I'm a figment of my own imagination.

ok im at stockholm syndrome horizons house i thought i was going to have to jimmy the lock but the back window was already broken and there are some books missing from the bookshelf

the pizza boxes on the front porch are really starting to stink

the talking dinosaurs cross-dimension time machine looks super easy theres some colors for the dimension and a long alphanumeric thing for the spacetime coordinates

oh score it even has a previous destinations menu

only problem is its almost out of fuel… the glow in the chromium matrox hoo-hah is pretty faint

that was easy to fix though… i just opened a small portal to the coordinates of the talking dinosaurs arrival and swiped the fuel vial for his return trip off of his belt while he was distracted putting horizon in a cage. it should last me much longer since im not dinosaur sized

ill be heading off on my quest through time soon but i can stick around for a bit to say my goodbyes

871380
youre clearly working with that jerk who hacked my account so i cant trust you. if i use those coordinates im going to get stuck in some sort of time loop or weird predestination doohickey or maybe future you will be all "o hai im a fearsome silicon guardian of the timestream have some lasers to the face" and ill be all "bleargh" and lose a life

besides… if the hacker really WERE future me then his existence proves that i survive no matter what i do. so im going to set some completely random coordinates. either i avoid your trap or i win by luck

see? stop overthinking these things

but frankly i think youre spouting a load of bupkis i mean lets say that i gave you a totally random tav checksum like "one point two one jigawatts trololololol"… youre going to gasp in surprise and say that it matches and then give me some desperate pleading advice from my future self who has regretted his decisions and sought out your help… which fortunately ill be too smart to follow

youd think that real time travelers would know not to fall for that sort of dumb movie cliche

871434
based on that video… future 871417 is pretty hot

wanna date

i mean later when youre legal

hey i just got an idea i can come get you and drop present you off in the future for 15 years and you can get some sort of super sweet future cutie mark and then i can bring you back to the present as grown-up sweetai belle and then when im done with my princess quest i can come back here and hack into my own account and leave you a shmoopy message of eternal love while im making my apologies to the real fictitious princess

that last bit was sarcasm by the way

871703
im the former alaskan zookeeper who gets to go on the PRINCESS QUEST boooooooyahh

hey 867609 i bet you wish you'd gotten to make your wish first… better luck next time

but maybe you can still get some consolation quest without dinosaurs i mean the real fictitious alicorn genie princess is still here

872668

*sigh*

You still don't really understand time travel,do you? As far as I can tell, random coordinates was what you did on the last iteration of this time loop, and the new coordinates were to intercept you before that and attempt to alter the outcome of that, namely future!horizon being stuck with a time machine with bad fuel and never reporting back.

Not my concern, I guess. I'll have to leave things with my future self and future!Sweetie Belle and hope they know what they are doing.

872732

Don't worry, Ms. H. I'm not sure about the future version of you, since she ran off to fix things without taking a moment to plan ahead, but I know what I'm doing. The codewords I gave were only a backup anyways. My plan is still on track, and doesn't require checksums and such.

I may need your help a lot, but you need me, too. Try not to forget that in the future.

869816

Don't worry, I'm not as impatient these days as I was when I was past!past!Sweetie Belle's age, anyways.

And I am sorry about the panic with the brown sludge. I switched the vial for a good one, but dumped brown dye in it to preserve the timeline. The dye won't interfere with its functioning, though.

After your getaway, make sure not to reply until after you see this message, to preserve the timelines.

-- future Sweetie Belle

872668
I'm... I'm not actually a genie. I never once in my life thought that I would have to reassure somepony of this.

You are the strangest group of ponies I have ever met. I think maybe we've rolled out aetheric teletype technology a bit too quickly, to be honest. I further think I'm going to turn this device off and lock it in a closet for a while until my head stops hurting.

Walk in love,
-Mi Amore

873251
I've been silent because I have nothing to do with the weirdness in this thread, but I wanted to beg you: PLEASE don't judge us by the time travelers and the talking dinosaur and the artificial intelligences. They're the lunatic fringe, not representative of our group as a whole. Most of us are perfectly normal and likeable people.

What draws us together is to be celebrity-worshippers of a barely-seen character in a children's TV show, and to openly discuss the various fantasies we have of being alone in a room with her. I'd hope that as the Princess of Love you can appreciate that!

(Maybe even enough to pass on a few good words to Miss HW herself?)

873251

Sorry if I've been bothering you. I was just so eager to see somepony else I knew, after being stranded here...

You know, what I usually do is try to just sort of filter out all the weirdness going on around me, and just focus on the bits I understand. It makes things a lot easier.

Also, I don't know if you can access the other forums around this one, but this is actually one of the strangest. Things are a lot more straightforward if you look at the forums dedicated to writing stories about me, Scootaloo, or Apple Bloom, for example.

And it's kinda neat that all these other ponies are out there writing stories about me, really.

Anyways, hope you come back when your head is feeling better...

873251 873407
[youtube=uqUa_G1h3pw]

873465

You can either hope the headache goes away, or embrace the sanity that is madness. Discord's a zen master at it![1]

[1] Though I think Robin Williams and the recently-late Jonathan Winters could still teach him a thing or two.

… Did you guys just seriously drive away Princess Cadance? The closest any of us are ever going to get to actual Miss Harshwhinny?

HEADS WILL ROLL.

876219
Okay, seriously, chill. The freaks up there did us a favor. By definition, Princess Cadance does NOT think Miss Harshwhinny is best pony (she married Shining Armor, not the Games Inspector). I for one support keeping our group pure and focused. We'd have had to kick out the alicorn sooner or later.

876227
Harshwhinny is married to her job. Clearly, Cadance was settling.

876234
Seriously? The Princess of Love does not settle. If she'd actually wanted Harshwhinny, she could have just magicked her to fall in love.

876245
Au contraire. 1) The "Want It, Need It" spell was specifically banned by Celestia; Cadence's power would clearly have the same restrictions. 2) Since Tripleharsh has more princesscornings than a princesscorn, she would be immune anyway.

876247
Yes, but she would have tried, and we didn't see that in any episodes.

876252
We haven't even seen Season Four yet! Stop making assumptions!

876256 Season Four is going to be way too packed with all the new alicornings. Maybe Season █████?