Hello everyone and welcome to the first (as far as I'm aware) Cyberpunk Equestria Story Contest. 

I started this contest with the desire to bring life to the Cyberpunk Equestria group as well as encouraging the creation of more cyberpunk stories here on FiMFiction. 

Now onto the rules.

Rules

• Your story must possess cyberpunk elements. These can include: cybernetics, dystopian cityscapes, hacking, cyberspace, corporations controlling almost everything, robots, hovering vehicles, etc…
• The story can be either a future or alternate universe of either Gen4 or Gen5, but must take place in Equestria. 
• AUs and OCs are allowed, just be aware that the judges might not be aware of any worldbuilding/lore outside of what's in MLP.
• The story must be SFW (Safe for Work). It can have implied sex, but no actual clop. Also NO foalcon and no incestuous pairings. 
• Aside from the Fetish tag, all tags are acceptable.
• Must have at least 2,500 words with the upper limit being 15,000 words.
• It MUST be a new story and can't be one that you've already published.
• When submitting your story, make sure you put it in the 2023 Cyberpunk Equestria Story Contest folder by midnight on June 1st 2023 and the story must be complete at that date.
• You are allowed to post multiple entries, however only one may win a prize.
• Have fun. 

The contest deadline is June 1st 2nd at midnight (PST).

Feel free to ask any questions if you have any. 

The judges are: Calmflame, Moproblems Moharmony, Short-tale.

They will be judging the story on:

• How well the story portrays the cyberpunk setting/elements.
• How good the story is and how well the characters are depicted. 
• How well the story is written.

There prizes are as follows:

• 1st Place: An art piece by Mutter Butter with Full shading, full body and background.
• 2nd Place: A flat, full body art piece by Mutter Butter.
• 3rd Place: A no color, full body art piece by Mutter Butter.

Here’s an example of Mutter Butter’s artwork:

Prompts:
So, I had some ideas buzzing around in my head and I figured I could throw them out there, potentially offering you all some inspiration that you could run with it. Of course, if you don't use these prompts that's totally fine too. 

• Takes place on an island resort or coastal town.
• Takes place during a festival like Hearth's Warming or Nightmare Night.
• Deals with an immortal’s day, how they adjust to the changes. Discord, Alicorns, etc.

And there you have it. Thank you all for reading the information on this contest. I look forward to seeing your entries. 

This is gonna be good!

7824269 Yeah.

When submitting your story, make sure you put it in the 2023 Cyberpunk Equestria Story Contest folder by midnight on June 1st 2023 and the story must be complete at that date.

Deadline is midnight at the BEGINNING of June 1st 2023, or the end?

The story can be either a future or alternate universe of either Gen4 or Gen5, but must take place in Equestria.

What if the creatures live in an AU, and are anthro or humans/humanlike?
Asking for my rough outline.
I really do have a reason for that idea.

7824633 The end.

7824655 We're looking for stories with ponies.

I missed the sci-fi contest recently because I've been quite busy, and frankly, I should be using time I have to work on my own story, but a diversion into sci-fi MLP for a few thousand words sounds like fun. And with a month and a half to write this, I think I can make that work.

I'm actually a sci-fi writer at heart, even if I've never done that for a story here. But I had a few ideas float thought my head when I considered doing the sci-fi contest that were cyberpunk in theme.

Count me in.

7824788 Awesome!

7824675
Thank you! I will try to choose any entries of mine accordingly.

7824256
Related to an earlier question - is EQG allowed? Not sure if that counts as G4 or "stories with ponies".

7825588 I'm going to say no, as I was really just wanting regular pony stories for this one.

7825792
Fair enough.

7825792
Is it alright if the EQG universe is simply a factor in the story? I was considering having the origin of technology in Equestria be the EQG universe, but the story itself was going to take place entirely within Equestria.

7825974 I think that would be fine.

7824256
Well it looks like Imma have to dust off the old system and show these new kids that the Cyberpunk genre is more that just the tabletop. Plus it gives me an excuse to soft-reboot/expand the world of CyberPone.

This is gonna be quite a ride :3

7828285 I'm excited to hear that.

7824269
7824633
7824788
7825588
7828285 Just thought I'd check in, to see how everyone was doing.

7831258
I've got my concept decided on, and I've got notes written for what I want the story to be about, but I haven't started actually writing yet. I'm hoping to get to that later this week.

7831258
Planning to start soon, but because EQG doesn't count I will probably just take my time and submit it as a normal CyberPone story (assuming I even finish it lol)

7824675
I think I might do better with this rule if I understand the reasons for it.
Why ponies, as opposed to Equestria Girls, or even humans in a story where ponies play an overwhelmingly important metaphorical and symbolic role, or a human based or fish based AU of Equestrian stuff? Why "The story can be either a future or alternate universe of either Gen4 or Gen5, but must take place in Equestria" (which originally I thought if we allow AUs might not have to involve ponies at all.)

I say this as someone among whose favorite horsewords short stories is

EFriends, With Occasional Magic

• MLP: FiM
• Slice of Life

The magic of friendship is showing people the good in themselves. Sometimes, with ponies.

• Human
• Main 6

Bad Horse · 2.7k words  ·  116  8 · 2.1k views

a story that supposedly isn't set in Equestria at all, but might be all about Equestria too (and which wouldn't qualify for any cyberpunk contest, but because it's not cyberpunk.)

If I don't really understand the reasons for the rule, once I try to get creative I will probably just screw it up.

7831369 So the reason for it being ponies is because, well, I like ponies.

So, with the AU the idea is that it allows the writer to exploit different potential universes/timelines for their story. For example, your story could take place in a universe where Nightmare Moon returned and defeated the EoH or maybe King Sombra and the Crystal Empire didn't disappear, etc...

I so often have trouble just taking for granted that pony Hacker Ed can type well on 'his' hacking computer with those one-toe hooves. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CowboyBebopAtHIsComputer

I mean, maybe that's a story idea in itself, but still...

7831387
See, once you say that, I start wanting to write a story about ponies that isn't really in G4 or G5, but qualifies somehow or other to be on fimfic anyway.

I guess I want to break the rules and subvert the system, but in this story contest maybe that doesn't quite work.

7831258
Coming along really well! I just have to finish my finals and I can speedrun the rest of it.

7831397
Well, since we're talking cyberpunk, there could be all sorts of cyberwear involved. The computer could be tracking his eye, ear, and tail movements in addition to all four hooves (and wings and horn are possibilities), and there could be a neural interface involved. Just tracking where you are looking and left and right ear twitches is enough to essentially be a mouse. Some people use chorded keyboards, too, where just a couple keys effectively act as a full keyboard...

You could have buttons on the floor, operated by hoof stomps, too.

--Sweetie Belle

7831764 It seems very likely that you'll already be entering this contest with your awesome cover art

for the contest entry story.

But given that you have story ideas as well, I think you should also enter this contest with your writing. It's been years since you wrote anything. What's holding you back?

7832619
I was already pretty much figuring I was likely to be the only one entering the cover art contest, since I really haven't seen many people actually creating ai art on fimfiction.

And I don't really have story ideas. That was just ideas for how things work in a cyberpunk pony universe, and I'd already thought a bit about that, since I wrote a 150 word cyberpunk pony flashfic previously. (The Apple Jack, all about Babs Seed trying to hack Sweet Apple Acres. Babs did use her ears when hacking in that one.)

One thing that changed was that I used to have to take the bus too and from work (and everywhere), and waiting for the bus and on the bas was actually a decent writing time. These days, going to work is walking over to a desk in my apartment, and I get everything delivered.

I also have a fair amount of executive dysfunction, and a lot of interests, and other interests have tended to win out. (I got back into programming, for one, and there's the actual ai art I'm doing. Also, playing games more. I'm actually pretty close to winning Dark Souls 3 right now, and am almost a year into a relatively new Stardew Valley character.)

So a combination of things, and since I am rusty, I'd be more likely to write a flash fic then try to write something 2500+ words if I was going to write something right now...

--Sweetie Belle

I just can't do this.

I got a good chunk done... but it's beginning to feel dull as it's just one long leadup that has no real appeal to it. I'm hardly putting in any depiction about the characters, let alone the world that I can't see being anything more than a spotless utopia. The characters seem boring and some are only there for a few paragraphs. The innovated wonders of magick seems more magic than tech. And while my intention for entering is to attract people over to the main story this is based off of, I'm leaving more questions to be answered for that story than I am at delivering something satisfying to read with this story.

*Sigh* Despite it being centered in a town made by a corporation, I don't think this is working out for me. I would've really loved to present the head of the Magick Kingdom Corporation and to show how remorseless he is, but it won't cut it at being a fun story to read if people are looking for pipes, neon signs, robots, and computers. I want to try and enter the May shipping contest, but doing that along with this contest is just too much for me in my current state in life. Even though it's still early, I'm just going to fold now and drop out of this.

I still want to leave at least something, so I'll just leave the cover art I made for the story to at least fuel the imagination.

7825792

Hm, okay. I personally like EqG more, but whatever. FiM fics are clicked more anyway

7824256
Define “cyberpunk”.

7836680 As in the genre (though if you want to base your story off of the game/anime that's fine too).

7836697
You said the cyberpunk contest was going to end at midnight on June 1st, but what time zone would that be for exactly?

7839350 I'd say Pacific Standard Time (PST), cause that's the timezone I live in.

7839365
okay, thanks.

I'm looking forward to judging all these fics guys/gals, keep up the good work!

There are three(ish) days remaining.

Internal screaming intensifies

Really neat to see such a wide variety of stories and styles on display for the contest! This was a lot of fun to be a part of!