So, I've heard that Moriah thinks of Luna and Celestia, who saved the entire human race (HPI indirectly), murderers.

I do not deny the Preservation Spell will result in the deaths of many of those affected by it. Jets will crash and kill most, if not all, aboard, I'm sure, Ships will end up stuck out in the ocean until they sink, but their occupants will have likely died long before that.

So it comes to the question of whether or not the ends justify the means. Was the Preservation Spell the best way to save humanity, seeing that humanity's own solution only saved 500 humans, humans who would have starved to death and/or run out of resources if not for the Preservation Spell?

In this writer's opinion, despite the probable loss of life the Preservation Spell will cause, the ends do indeed justify the means.

What do you think, though. Do the ends justify the means?

Well of course the ends justify the means. It was "all but 500 die" or "most live". I think Moriah was just dealing with directionless anger when she accused them of being killers.

I do think the entire ordeal could have been coordinated better but that's another story.

4686898
I think it does. It was the only means they could think of that quickly and they had next to no understanding of how our hightech civilization works.

The few ponified humans that were invited to Equestria and chose to stay there might tell them about it in more detail, to a degree. For Luna's sanity's sake one can hope they won't be as imaginative as we here in this group when it comes to scenarios of what might happen to the lonesome returnees, especially in the early decades or even centuries.

Tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions or even (depending how history plays out over this vast span of time) over a billion will die. Many more will live though. The spell was horribly botched on so many levels, but the alternative was extinction. And as history shows us, have enough death and it becomes a matter of statistics, not personal fates. I can't imagine that it won't be viewed as mainly positive in the very end, especially to the billions of natural born ponies that will inhabit earth then.

4686905

Quite. One of the problems early on was that humanity decided not to work with the Equestrians after a few humans died. Statistically, the survival of humanity should still have overruled that little fact, but I suppose people will be people, right?

4686906

Indeed. When it comes to a choice between sacrificing many lives or extinction, the choice becomes painfully obvious. While it would pain one to see so many die, it would be even worse to condemn an entire species to extinction.

And the end result? Humanity became the last sentient species in the galaxy, at least for a time. Why? If you believe life on other worlds, sentient life, there's no longer a reason to. It's likely that life is not dead. It's one of the things that actually occurred to me. Of all the possible sentient races in out galaxy, ours was the one that was saved, and many others condemned to extinction.

But that might be going too far, but still. It's still something to consider, though.

But I digress. I do appreciate your input. The fact that you agree sheds additional light onto this.

4686912

ours was the one that was saved, and many others condemned to extinction.

I've thought about that as well. It's pretty much inevitable that there is life out there, just from this year on, no possible sapient life (or with a soul, as canon puts it) will remain.
When we finally discover interstellar travel, we'll have the answer to the question if we are alone. And it will be yes. As in since recently, we are.
I think the whole thing will finally sink in for everybody the moment we find the 10000 year old ruins of instantly wiped out civilizations on distant habitable planets.

4686918

Glad I'm not the only one who went so far as to look at the 'grand scheme of things'.

I have to correct you, it's pretty much inevitable there was sapient(soul-ed) life out there. Now....not so much.

I wonder what would be left after 10,000 years. Of humanity, there would be no surviving trace, save those still returning. Beyond that, there would be no trace of humanity.

Of course, in Mass Effect, there are still function 50,000-year-old ruins, so I suppose of a now long-dead civilization was advanced enough, there would be some pretty grand ruins to find, and therefore some technology to exploit and use for the benefit of ponykind on Earth. That is, unless the tech is inferior to our own by that point in time.

But still, it's a pretty deep train of thought, isn't it?

Moriah's entirely right in her assessment. They fucked up with that spell. A simple warning: "On the given date and time, we'll turn you all into ponies" could have prevented most of the vehicular deaths caused by the spell. If people knew not to be in a vehicle at the right time, Moriah's accident would not have happened.

The other side of the coin is of course that whatever humans the princesses spoke to told them not to contact them again. That's just bullshit on the human part, but when the princesses decided to defy them by casting that spell, they should have done so outright and completely and contacted them again. Tell us what you're going to do if you're gonna do it anyway. Not doing so is just an act of reckless arrogance.

4686930 It sure is and it's entertaining to follow.
Well... after 10000 years you'd still find all our things made of polymers, every time erosion uncovers the right areas. Especially tyres. Those are made for eternity. But on first glance? Nothing.

Mass Effect is not the worst comparison. And yes, how 'much more vastly advanced' can a civilization be compared to another civilization that routinely embarks on interstellar voyages? Extremely different, yes. But more advanced? Only in certain areas, most likely much less advanced in certain others.

I have to correct you

I think I wanted to say the same thing but tripped myself up in my sentence structure. ;)

4686898

I have to admit, I consider the spell the best solution to a nasty problem no actually good solution would be ready in time for. Still morally grey as hell, but I do think the ponies hearts were in the right place.

But the 10 000 years thing? That's utter madness, and I haven't heard a single bit of justification for it except that Luna found it a nice, round number.

I mentioned this under the story proper already, but at least 1000 years could have been justified magically. That its a number of power, that magic 'likes' when things takes that long, and would help stabilize the rest of the spell. There's even tangential proof of it in MLP canon. (Nightmare Moon, Crystal Empire, Tirek.)

That would have made it an intentional if tragic design trade-off instead of... well, again Luna just plucking a number she liked out of her rump.

4686898 In the words of Lelouch vi Britannia,

. I would agree with Lelouch.

4686950 I have to agree with the Lord of Dorkness. The ponies chose the best option out of a bunch of options that probably weren't that good anyway, but there really was no need for the 10,000 year thing.

4686950

There are pros and cons to the numbers used. I think with the way certain events are planned to play out, it'll be more helpful in the long run than a shorter amount of time.

(You should join the Skype Group Chat, we talk about this stuff, and it'd be cool to get your input)

In fact, a shorter amount of time like 1000 years may result in most of the world's population dying. Or maybe not, it's really hard to say. It wasn't a risk the Princesses were willing to take.

I will say one thing though: With the threat of Odium, I believe having a really short time period (or none at all) may have made that situation much worse, if not impossible to resolve without massive losses, because there would have been a ton of inexperienced people to control as no one had the knowledge to fight against him.

Over 10,000 years though, this world would no longer be the world that the humans left. Their descendants, and any of the uplifted species, would be the ones who own the world at that point. The returning humans would be immigrants at best, unwanted at worst, and all of them without knowledge, power, or wealth.

4686934
I agree with your sentiment, but the impression I got of the actual spell was that it was cast beforehand in readiness for the moment magic activated in our universe, and that it would do the actual turning people into ponies automatically when magic both became available in the universe for the spell to work and would otherwise kill everyone.

From Luna's description, I think she knew to within about a year when that would be, but couldn't predict the exact moment. I don't think they really understood enough about Earth to know just how many vehicles there were, but if they had, can you imagine people just not using any transport for a period of months to a year on her say-so?

4686898
The only problem I have with it was the fact that most will only 'come back' many years later.
The only reason given for this is that "the chaos would kill many" but I think it would end up with fewer deaths then what they have going now.
There is no guarantee that civilization will rise again, so we could have many decades with survivors coming back in a decaying world with nothing operational, forced a roam a almost resource less environment.
While chaos and anarchy would reign supreme for a few months, I imagine that things would calm down within a few months if no time travel was involved.

4687698

Indeed. But remember, things like jets and cruise liners will appear with all their occupants, so will appear far into the future. I'm not going to assume the technology will exist that can save them, but it is still a possibility, however unlikely. Do to that unlikeliness, it is likely those jets will crash, one way or another.

And canon states civilization will rise again.

4687750
Well, to save the people on those jets and cruise liners, you need to know when and where they will reappear, otherwise the will just end up going as long as they can until they crash/sink. Which, given the new bodies they will all have, will probably not take long, killing those on board.

I never said civilization wont rise again, I am saying that it wont rise for a while, due to the fact that so few are left to actually start self sustaining colonies. I don't think that any colony in canon has the population to sustain itself, even if they practiced polygamy. Leaving the ones who will come out of their trip through time will be left in a decaying world where most things wont work, let alone help them survive.
There is nothing more damaging to the human mind then a large and sudden change, and with no one else around to support them, and the fact that what used to be their lives crumbling down around them, I imagine many will take their own lives, adding even more to the death toll from the way the spell was handled.
In the end, I just feel that less would have died had the time travel not been a part of the spell.

4687773

The time travel was the only way, considering the rumors I've heard about Founders. I haven't read it yet.

4687823
To my knowledge, time travel only happened because Luna thought that too many would die in the chaos of 7 billion people turning into different races at once. Though I think the death toll from the fact that most of the human population is time traveling will be higher then if they didn't.

4687861

I would tend to disagree. While I od prefer to see the best in people, cutting out the time travel bit would only end up causing more death, and possibly even extinction. As ponies can barely operate anything on Earth, starvation would rule, and billions would die.

4687933
Extinction would not be possible in a no time travel scenario, simply because of the fact that large, self sustaining groups can form in this scenario, it might take time, but people would learn to use the new bodies. I imagine that in a few months, a good amount of people would learn the basics of their new bodies, and would help others learn theirs. The first to do this would probably be military forces, and with the military of various nations (which may or may not have collapsed at this point) back in power, they could go and rebuild the nations they worked for. While in the time travel scenario, people are so far removed from each other that many would end up dyeing before a good enough amount of people will come back to form a self sustaining colony.
Both scenarios end with a lot of death, but I think that the no time travel one ends in a generally better state then the one that were stuck with.

4687995
That is a best-case scenario that has a slim to no chance of actually happening in the real world. Look at human history, and the faults in your best-case scenario will become rather obvious.

4688719
In any case, I think the no time travel scenario ends in a better situation for everyone who survives it. Even if the future was not as optimistic as I can be.

4688992

Um....no, not really. If no time travel, then we be MUCH worse off. I've seen Mad Max. That'd be a lot like what would eventually happen.

4689016
Wasn't mad max about a almost dead world with no clean water to speak of?
A change of race is not going to lead to that.
I am not saying everything is sunshine and rainbows in this scenario, but I think humanity is better off because of this.

4687750 Cruise Liners might be much easier to save than jet liners. For one, Cruise liners won't immediately crash as everybody inside freaks out. Two: the tech to save a cruise ship is much lower than a jet liner. The hard part about saving a cruise liner would be finding the damn thing to bring it into shore, which the crew might be able to do on their own if they were disciplined, skilled, and lucky enough. Having teams of sailors ready to render aid and maintain order on the ship would probably be the best solution, though it would require a lot of coordination on multiple fronts. There is also always the option of a good Samaritan captain simply guiding the ship to land/ taking the passengers and crew on-board depending on how large of a cruise ship we are talking here.

A jet liner would need a clear space to land,which may or may not exist, and at the probably a radio to talk them down into a safe landing zone. While getting a trained pilot up there would probably result in a safer landing, it would also require performing a very dangerous maneuver to get them inside. All of this must be done while everybody on the plane is undoubtedly on/past the verge of panic. Not saying there's won't be some miracles, but the pilots would probably have nerves of steel. Not to mention the possibilities of barreling through a cloud city...

4689096
I think it's better off the way it is.

4689242
Quite so. A cruise liner is a LOT easier to save as it's easier to board. In the future, we really wouldn't need jets anyway. Why? Pegasi fly, and Unicorns levitate and teleport.

4686950 I personally could not think of a 'magic number' for how many years to have the people return. I would argue that it would be difficult mentally, socially, etc for anybody returning at any point on the timeline, but having a long period at least increases the chances that the world had gotten its stuff together in time to care for the massive influx of people. While there are other options that might have had potentially better outcomes, the time travel thing seems like the safest bet in terms of pure survival. Though I do hope the spell at least makes sure to have people in high-rises reappear on the ground...

Where I do think the Equestrians dropped the ball is only having (apparently) one copy of the library sent through. Even if you couldn't afford to send multiple copies of the entire thing, you could still distribute the 'cliff notes' version to different survivor groups. This would be helpful for groups that are not in North America. If the Equestrians and HPI had talked about this, the HPI could have easily filled pallets of thumb drives with copies of the library to distribute. Though according to the timeline, the information does make it out eventually even with Odium's interference.

4689252 Eh that would be the far end of the timeline. Even then, there are a few scenarios where a plane might be preferable. For one, it could be designed to carry more than a pegasus or unicorn, and at higher speeds/altitudes and longer ranges. If nothing else, the Earth Ponies want to fly too. But yeah, they would probably be less prevalent compared to modern day.

4689319

I meant the bit about 1000 being a magical number quite literally.

It's called numerology, the belief that certain numbers, series of numbers or even outright calculations have mystical power. 1000 have strong divine connections since it used to be what 'infinity' is now before that concept got invented. Sadly, I don't remember many details since it's been years since I read up on it, but for one example its one of the few numbers demons may appear on Earth in.

Still, if the case was making doubly sure as few as possible died 10 000 years still seems utterly boneheaded to me. Coming 'back' into a long ago decayed penthouse in a high-rise. Morriah's story repeating a thousand times over. Hard to colonize places like Las Vegas, since long reclaimed by the desert...

Again, heart in the right place, but somepony really should have spoken up what a cruel mercy tearing apart so many lives, loves and friendships would be.

4689553 True, Las Vegas would be borked. And I did point out earlier that I didn't know if the spell put people in high rises on the ground or not. Though there is nothing you could do to prevent the "Reappearing in bad locations" issue though. You would have to keep every building above a certain height standing for however long a period we are talking about. You'd have to keep the roads and train tracks clear too. But yeah, they probably could have gotten away with a larger seed population, say a few million worldwide, and shorter time-span. This goes double if they had coordinated with the HPI. I would like to point out that the scenario as it stands is almost like a game of Civilization in scale. I will admit that I am excited to try writing during the 3000+ range.

A bit late, but I just stumbled on this group after noticing a PaP side story in the feature box. Hopefully no one minds the 7 week necro.

If I understand how the ponification spell works, a vehicle doesn't return until all of its passengers would, and then it does it all at once. This would mean that any vehicle with more then two or three passengers would be almost certain to appear near the very end of the 10,000 year period. Assuming they survive these survivors might be considered some of the luckiest; they're likely to have at least some friends and family with them, and the vehicle they're traveling in/all their belongings might be worth quite a bit, depending on what level society has rebuilt to. Even if the tech doesn't matter, they're still intact artifacts of the old world.

Cruise ships should be pretty safe. A surprisingly large number of them would probably be docked at the time they disappear; the rest, traveling at sea, would still have weeks of supplies to figure out what was going on or be contacted by pony civilization. Unless they completely lose themselves in panic, they'll probably be fine. Planes would be trickier, but assuming they weren't in the middle of takeoff or landing the pilot would probably have a few hours to get used to what was going on and try to land safely, or to be rescued by an established civilization if they make an effort to do things like that.

As far as did the ends justify the means, I feel that Luna had pretty much 4 options: Turn everyone into ponies, Warn the world and turn everyone into ponies, turn everyone into ponies with the time displacement component, or do nothing. I think most people will agree the last option doesn't really deserve consideration.

Just turning everyone into ponies results in massive chaos, famine, and death. I don't think it would be as bad as many seem to; Humans tend to be quite adaptable during times of extreme stress, and earth pony magic would help feed those who survive the initial chaos. But I'd still say billions die; maybe half the world's population or abouts ends up surviving, but are able to mostly maintain current society. It'll be hard to keep doing every job with hooves for the non-unicorns, and the global economy collapses, but enough engineers and scientists survive that they can still make microchips and automobiles.

Warning them and turning them into ponies is like the first option, but better. Since the day wasn't pre-determined, vehicles will still crash, and some people will refuse to accept it and panic. But with the warning most people will adapt quicker, plans can be in place, and food can be stockpiled. Probably the best option, with deaths in the millions rather than billions, but the ponies were told not to contact humanity again. This was a monumentally stupid thing to tell them, and also a stupid thing to agree to, but in the end it does make the choice less clear cut.

Option three makes for the best story! However, also many deaths and the collapse of all but the tiniest fragments of civilization.

4686934

While I agree with all of ArminiusSilvanus statements, we should not focus on what has happened, as we can’t change the past, but what will happen. What about amending the Equestrian “turn humans into magical, talking creatures” spell so that all future returnees will learn the all the basic to advanced knowledge of their new bodies before they return to the physical world?

Imagine all the preventable accidents, injuries, and deaths that would not happen at all, if returnees already knew how to control their bodies and their species’ special abilities before they returned. For example, Moriah would not have had a broken horn if she could have used her magic to properly control her airplane and thus had not crashed landed.

I can imagine other ways the Equestrian spell can be changed for the better. An addition to the spell could allow spell casting creatures to determine when and where future returnees will appear. Thus, there will be well-trained and well-equipped, search and rescue teams sent out to locate, save, and comfort anyone who returns from the time stream.