The Ascendency.

Soon, in various works of the Weedverse, I shall be introducing the Ascendency and I thought a post was in order to give people a heads up. I've thought about this for a long time now, and after much consideration, I think a little foreknowledge is in order. Reading beyond this point is optional, so if you don't want to know, flee now.

The enemy are not the only ones dabbling in animancy, the magic of the soul. The remnants of the Equalist movement believe they have the answer to true equality and that is for everypony to become one type of pony so that here is no division. These Equalists call themselves the Ascendency, and as any of their members will tell you, they come in peace.

Patching together a template of souls from the very best among their number, they unlocked the knowledge of ascension. (Or so they would have you believe) Using their magic, they are shaping themselves into alicorns (or what they believe are alicorns) by merging earth pony, pegasus pony, and unicorn pony soul fragments into what they believe a alicorn is. They have earth pony strength, pegasus pony wings, and unicorn horns.

In reality, while alicorn in appearance, they are a long ways away from an alicorn in power. The pieces, the soul fragments, they do not mesh well and these pseudo-alicorns are faulty. When flying, their magic weakens and their earth pony strength diminishes. When using magic, their ability to fly becomes compromised and they run the risk of crashing. Using magic also leaves them physically weak. When using their strength, their magic falters it is difficult to fly, as their wings don't generate the lift required.

But, they are working on fixing these problems. For now, they are equal, and ultimately, that is all that matters to them.

As any member of the Ascendency will tell you, they are the good guys. They're working for a better future, a more equal future, and a future free of the princesses. After all, if they are all alicorns, the princesses aren't so special anymore, are they, and what good are they?

Discussion is encouraged.

Interesting concept. Will it be told from the perspective of the characters we know and love, or from the scheißeköpfe Ascendancy's perspective?

Reminds me of the "Stygian Sisterhood", people who wanted to be more than human, and did so by ripping out parts of their psyches and replacing them with inhuman minds, eventually creating a patchwork mind that would grant them immense power, out of bits and pieces of pure inhumanity. All while looking completely human.

I didn't much like them either.

Intrrsting, and creepy.

This is one of those ideas that's so scary I wish I'd been the one to come up with it.

Well, that seems like a problem.

Also seems like something that is Lantern relevant.

If I recall correctly, Cadance was helped to ascend by Celestia's animancy, so the Ascendancy may be on the right lines. And that's a scary thought, given the ruthlessness the Equalists have demonstrated in A Perilous Romance of Swans. If they get fully-powered, fully-indoctrinated alicorns, that could cause some pretty severe problems. Even these false alicorns could well be dangerous off sheer flexibility even if they can't use all their powers at once.

Another scary thought: If a false alicorn is made by cobbling together bits of souls from members of each of the three tribes, what does that do to the donors? And do the donors have to be willing?

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Another scary thought: If a false alicorn is made by cobbling together bits of souls from members of each of the three tribes, what does that do to the donors? And do the donors have to be willing?

A far more scarier thought: what if someone was 'made equal' against their will for their own good?

5619050 Well if they are piecing together parts of their souls. I'd assume that they get a Earth, Unicorn and Pegasus together and do some soul part swapping so each one has a piece of the others.

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Except with Cadence Celestia used a Piece of her own soul and I think it was mentioned that with Twilight Celestia just reworked Twilight's Soul if I remember right. So it takes either a piece of an Alicorns soul or one soul being completely reworked, not cobbling together from a bunch of parts like you are Doctor Frankenstein. Also, even if they could the new Alicorns would never be Equal to Celestia and Luna as they are Immortal... and they were made by Centaurs who are pretty much a precursor race, while all these others are just jigsaw puzzles put together by a punch of idiot unicorns messing with powers they should not be.

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Image appears broken.

Edit: Image now appears to have been fixed.

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Patching together a template of souls from the very best among their number, they unlocked the knowledge of ascension. (Or so they would have you believe) Using their magic, they are shaping themselves into alicorns (or what they believe are alicorns) by merging earth pony, pegasus pony, and unicorn pony soul fragments into what they believe a alicorn is. They have earth pony strength, pegasus pony wings, and unicorn horns.
In reality, while alicorn in appearance, they are a long ways away from an alicorn in power. The pieces, the soul fragments, they do not mesh well and these pseudo-alicorns are faulty. When flying, their magic weakens and their earth pony strength diminishes. When using magic, their ability to fly becomes compromised and they run the risk of crashing. Using magic also leaves them physically weak. When using their strength, their magic falters it is difficult to fly, as their wings don't generate the lift required.
But, they are working on fixing these problems. For now, they are equal, and ultimately, that is all that matters to them.

...Fallacious alicorns, or fallacorns. Truly an insidious foe!

This is chilling.
Especially thinking what Grogar might do with them.
But Grogar might be considered the great Equalizer for are equal in death.

Okay, so, I'm gonna try to keep a level head but... alicorn ascension in many many ponyfics is an rather frustrating topic, for me.

Essentially because it is the ultimate expression of inequality. Of the superiority of the pony monarchy.

You're so worthy you deserve to be the apex of ponyhood and might deserve immortality or even godhood.

But, of course, in almost every case, it's not actually pure worthiness that does it, but happenstance or privilege. Twilight was worthy, right?

But she was only worthy because she was groomed for worthiness. And even if she became worthy on her own, she couldn't ascend unless Celestia decided to give it to her, which Celestia only decided because of her relationship with Twilight. And, I don't even know why Celestia decided to do the soul shard thing with Cadance, but it was probably related to Celestia's relationship with Cadance, and I think I remember hearing it gave Cadance alicornhood and immortality by accident.

And everyone else in this thread is talking about how horrible and inequine it is to do this soul shard thing, or how terrifying it is that an evil faction (the Equalists, which... I guess is a Swans thing? I haven't heard anything from them since Starlight left VI's plot.) has this method available...

But I am more interested with what will be the social conflict that comes with this. Because if I don't miss my mark, this isn't going to be a campaign of subterfuge, secretly creating alicorns and using them for combat, but a public campaign of "Become like a princess! Become the best version of yourself, with access to all the magic of ponyhood!"

They're co-opting the strongest symbol of the monarchy's superiority, the alicorn, for their own movement.

So I want to see what method can be used to fight it... that isn't playing into the idea that there is inherent superiority and inferority, and you, by being deemed unworthy of alicornhood, are not worthy.

And, of course, that everyone is probably also right the Equalists are going to do horrible things with it, and the process may be a horrible one to go through.

... I think that went pretty well, overall.

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The problem is, the method that they are using is janky as all get out, causes mental instability, and it will be done to ponies against their will as part of an indoctrination.

But, it will be slow to build. We'll see some mention of them in Princess Twilight Sparkle's School For Fantastic Foals, a little bit more in The Perilous Gestation of Swans and Princess Twilight Sparkle's School For Fantastic Foals: Winter Break. But they will become a big damn problem in Princess Twilight Sparkle's School For Fantastic Foals: Spring Session.

They will also be big part of an as of yet unnamed story that I might be calling The Soul Thieves. Don't know yet.

So a gestalt soul to make a pseudo alicorn.

I can dig it...

But what happens when your gestalt souls together that aren't ponies?

I ask that because the Equalists...seem almost like the "Some more equal than others" type.

Sure a gestalt of souls to make an ad hoc alicorn seems equal...

But what about the non-pony citizens? Don't they deserve equality? Or are they "Non-peoples" to the Equalists?

See with animancy able to do what you describe...this leads to the possibility of true abominations. One would wonder what kind of wonders Grogar could shows us gestalting together some of the ancient and forgotten souls he has under his cloven hoof...

Aaaaaand now I have Borg flashbacks :/ these fucks arent seeking Equality, they seek Conformity pure and simple. The death of all personal and societal growth because change could mess up the singularity they strive for would eventually cause an end to anything requiring creativity or specialized skills which would cripple Equestria and leave it vulnerable and not to mention that getting rid of the Sisters would END ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT! So yeaaaaaah not the smartest group of whackos, no wonder the "best of them" couldnt make a true Alicorn, the source material was as unworthy as it gets.

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Well, for a necromancer, animancy is just a useful subset of skills.

Grogar is an old master with tens of thousands of years of experience and knowledge.

Celestia's been learning for about a thousand years now, as she started her studies as a back up plan in case she had to rip Nightmare Moon out of Luna's soul when Luna returned. Celestia was wily and hedging her bets. Pay attention to this part, as this is going to be a big deal later.

And the Equalists... they've been at it for a couple of years now through reverse magical engineering. They have absolutely no idea what they are doing, the long term effects, or how certain outside influences might be affecting their actions. In short, they are brilliant idiots. They're like the Best Koreans and their nuclear program.

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Look at this in terms of Medical Professionals. Celestia is a certified surgeon with years of experience in what she has done. These Equalists are backalley doctors with no real experience or training other than what they have done to poor SOBs in the past that people would go to out of desperation and more often than not will end up worse than when they went to see them.

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Medical Professionals is a pretty bad metaphor, because in that metaphor this means that if you need a life saving surgery, Celestia has only operated on two people ever in her life, and (apparently) has no plans to operate on you or anyone else. If you're gonna die from it, tough.

So the only option is the backalley doctor.

But alicorn ascenscion is only "prevents you from dying" in the abstract, since it probably makes you tougher and possibly live forever depending on the method, but not really "life saving" unless you're dying of an illness that you wouldn't be dying from if you were an alicorn, or are in direct physical danger that the extra power would save you from.

And beyond that, kudz has already said this is part of a brainwashing procedure, which would make it awful even if it made Twilight quality alicorns.

And beyond that I was talking more about the philosophy of why people would want to reduce the inequality that alicornohood represents or coopt it for their movements and why it would at least be something that would produce a significant social conflict, rather than whether or not this method of ascenscion is safe.

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Two ponies?

Wrong!

Celestia created and has experimented upon Helianthus for about a thousand years. She practiced upon her own soul and she learned her art thoroughly and completely before she even attempted it upon another.

Wow, that's kinda disheartening. I'm gonna go be sad now.

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Well, the point I was making wasn't about her skill being deficient because she only operated on "two ponies" but that she has only gone out and operated on two other ponies. She hasn't opened her services to the public, and probably won't.

(... Probably.)

Also it reminds me I still don't know why, if Celestia spent all this time honing her skills, she decided to give a shard to Cadance.

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You are now a moderator or /r/Ponyang

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Huh?

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Reddit joke/meme.

If you badmouth Best Korea, people will jokingly tell you "You are now banned from /r/Pyonyang." A subreddit that is uh...

... I think the people running it might be genuine?

God I can't even tell.

All the comments are either deleted or about how people should praise glorious leader or really generic "this is a good post" posts.

Sounds like a twist on Avengers: Age of Ultron?

Tries to create the perfect protector, but it isn't perfect itself, deduces to save humanity it must destroy it. Yeah never understood that part either. It IS Marvel!

5619788 Reddit folk are as skin deep as the 'thickness' of their fedoras.

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As a person who has a reddit account, this means I am insulted.

Since I don't own a fedora, this means my skin is very thin and You Are Now My Mortal Enemy.

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>group is called Weed World
>haven't received any weed.

kudzuhaiku pls

5619824 One of the reasons I came to this site was partly because of all the spamming the fedora wearing types do everywhere creating hate. Got to be rather annoying plus all the other everything else haters, 911 conspiracy nuts and the like. Sorry if your insulted, it's a personal thing. If it's any consolation I DO have 'fakebook'*sic* account only I don't use for what people normally use it for, only have it because some sites demand it for access, so fake named it plus superfluous information not relevant to me. So people can hate me for that if they want?

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Click under stories folder, click The Weed. Have free weed.

5619846 And here's the correct colour pipe to smoke it.

Edit: or this one

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I alternate between wearing a waterproof flatcap or a leather kepi. Fedoras are for suckas.

I also stick to VERY specific subreddits relevant to my interests and rarely post anything. Mostly just use the site as a news aggregate and a place to easily find amusing pony pictures. Also /r/asksciencefiction tickles my fancy.

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Mang, I rock a corduroy trilby.

Of course, it doesn't fit over my nappy head so well any more since I let my hair dread up. Got sick of keeping this shit straightened.

5619859 And people filling youtube comments with this junk.

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5619859 I'll stick to my beanie, keeps my balding head warm.

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Might I suggest...

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There is a reason I don't read Youtube comments.

Honestly aside from my Facebook friends and well...here...I don't really socialize online.

I have become a real-world and digital hermit.

5619920 Even my talking critter collection wear beanies Note: don't warm wash genuine woolen items.EVER!

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You get a thumbs up for the dresden files reference.

5619873 Going motorbike riding (or bobsledding, SNERK) must be a Tartarus of an inconvenience!

Back on topic how about a name for these weaker alicorns, my Silly suggestion, Wispicorn or Aliwisp?
Maybe Vitrecorn?
Here's a good one Brevecorn (Breve or brevis: short or cut)
From dictionary.com

Also, brevis. a note in medieval mensural notation equal to one-half or one-third of a longa.

I'm guessing that's where 'abbreviate' comes from.

Aaaand the discussion devolves into something having nothing to do with alicorns or ascension.

I am dissapoint.

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Your suggestions are far more original than my ideas. I was thinking fauxcorn or fakecorn.
I love being able to look up synonyms to words. They give me better ideas. Like ficticorn (fictitious alicorn). How about phonycorn? Aliphony? Some roll off the tongue better than others.

Pretty much what I was doing although the wisp ideas was from seeing 'Brave' on telly again recently. Don't really go with the fake idea as I believe they are part way to true alicorn but only about a third ways. Couple more like from facsimile > Alicsimile or simulacrum > Simulacorn? Then there's Reprocorn (I like that one), Mirrorcorn, Mimecorn, Alicopy, Duplicorn, Ersatzcorn and a really silly one Xeroxcorn™ !

5620902 We're still discussing it Scarry, it just takes us a while.

5618902 yeah they do sound like shitheads don't they
5619915 I must have one

One of the things I am most cureoius about is what affect all this sole magic might have when involving non-ponys or not completely ponies. Could you make an alicorn warden or hippogrif alicorn? What about mixing pieces of magicaly inclined creatures soul with a pony for a bost, if they are already geneticly compatabule Megara being a great example. I shudder to think what would happen if you tried to take a piece of discord soul or a piece of a timber wolves. It is some really scary thoughts. Any opinions about what would happen? I would also live to see a successful not 100% pony alicorn or race equivalent.

Ps my spell check is a bit janky