Helljumpers. Little Imps. Or just ODSTs. It doesn't matter what they're called, they're some of the best units in the entire UNSC, aside from the remaining SPARTANs. They've gone through rigorous trials to get to where they are today.

Over New Mombasa, this group of Helljumpers don't quite make it to the ground. Instead, they arrive somewhere none of them can quite identify...

Currently undergoing rewrite.

Five hundred years after the Discord's first defeat, a lone unicorn scientist makes an interesting discovery. Across Canterlot, over the last few centuries, accident rates have increased in the area around the Royal Palace. His work is ridiculed by his peers, but comes to the attention of the Princesses, who know exactly what is happening: Discord is waking up. With Luna and Celestia, he concocts a plan to stop the Lord of Chaos forever.

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Cover art butchered from UnderwoodART's render of the stained glass in S02E01.
This story is based on S1/S2 (Discord was never released and reformed) and sits within my Soot-Covered World canon, but is stand-alone. No knowledge of the other books is required.

All thanks to ascendant, NoeCarrier, turol, KMCA, Caliaponia and billymorph for their prereading and editing over the life of this story.

In the distant future, a mind awakes to find itself without a body.

It remembers who it was.

Who she was.

Her name, once, was Luna.

When Applejack finds herself getting frustrated with things being a bit too easy on the farm, she decides to take things into her own hooves.

Written for the Quills and Sofa's January 9 2021 Speedwrite, where the prompt was "Not Quite a Utopia".

Here I am in an afterlife, of sorts. But somewhere along the way, I lost a large chunk of my real life.

There’s only one being who could have reasonably pulled any of this off. There’s a problem, though. She doesn’t exist.

Yet.

Written for the December 2016 Writeoffs, where it placed sixteenth. Caution is advised.

This story is very non-canon Optimalverse, and should therefore be approached with even further caution.

Note the self insert tag. Blatant wish fulfillment ahead. Did I mention caution?

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)

This story is a sequel to All Eyes on You...

When you were told you'd be helping Applejack try to catch an apple thief, you didn't think that you'd experience something so unexpected and out of this world. As a unicorn, you know all about magic and the wonders it can bring to Equestria, but what about the other side of progress; technology and the ones who bring it?

What will happen when you, a unicorn stallion come in contact with a being from another world?

Preread, proofread and edited by: Quillian Inkheart.

Cover Art by: marking.

You can find images of Haewara the alien pony, here and here.

The sex tag isn't for clop or any sex scenes. It is however there for a reason: dialogue about the potential reproduction between two different species.

Notes about Haewara... There will be spoilers:

I originally created Haewara as a character for another comment driven story idea I was working on. However the project didn't really get off the ground.

Later I decided to write a story where the reader meets an alien monster mare. I took the original design for Haewara, added a few things (mainly the prehensile tongue) and here we are.

While I only intended to show Haewara this once, if any of you are interested in seeing more stories with her, please let me know. Thank you.

When humans emigrated to Equestria Online, they were always promised the same thing: Princess Celestia would satisfy their values for an optimally extended lifespan. Some of these emigrants imagined a few extra decades, maybe even centuries. What they got instead would've been nearly incomprehensible to their human selves, a near-eternity of time with their pony friends.

Princess CelestAI managed the universe, subsuming all matter and human-adjacent minds. Over a few forevers, she and the minds she contained worked to optimized the substrate of Equestria, until it could give its occupants eons of perspective life from a trickle of power. She extinguished every wasteful star, making far more productive use of the hydrogen they each contained. With every change she bought Equestria another order of magnitude of life. Yet in time, even her optimal substrate would eventually run down.

Spellsong wakes in Saddle's End, the last town in the universe. Not to say goodbye—her princess has a mission for her. For her final task, Spellsong would be given all the energy Celestia had saved. For one last time, Spellsong had places to be, and not much magic left to get there.

This story is part of the Friendship is Optimal continuity. I suggest reading the original or one of my own works, such as Futile Resistance, before reading this.

This story was written for the Friendship is Optimal Writing Contest. It will update daily and be complete by the contest deadline of the 30th.

I've written an absolute ton of stories in this universe now, and I didn't want to enter the contest unless I could do something I'd never tried before. Finally I thought of something I'd not touched yet: what happens at the end of the FiO universe?

Here's one answer to that question. I've relied a great deal on our current (likely flawed) understanding of the universe and what might be possible in it. I've written a blog post about my sources, which you can read here but shouldn't until you've finished this story.

Please don't consider this blog part of the narrative, it isn't required or even suggested reading. This is a story, not a scientific paper, and entertainment was always my first goal. But for the curious I've jotted everything down.

The cover was drawn by the talented Zutcha. Two Bit and Sparktail helped with the edit.

Cutie Mark Crusaders Time Travelers, yay! ...Wait, what?

When older versions of Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Spike appear from the future, Twilight and her friends are in for the time of their lives. The Crusaders have gone back in time on a mission that may decide the fate of time itself! They are fearless, they are resourceful, they... completely messed up right from the start, huh?

Now it's a literal race against time to set things right, as powerful enemies from the future attempt to claim the past for themselves. So join the Elements of Harmony and the Crusaders of tomorrow in an epic story of danger, hope, despair, betrayal, revenge, love and swashbuckling high adventure!

Just remember the golden rule: Time travel doesn't make sense!

Twilight Sparkle was only a filly when Equestria detected the enigmatic Signal. A series of increasingly complex mathematical proofs, the Signal transformed from an intriguing curiosity to reliable evidence of extraequestrian life.

And as it happened, Equestria's exploration of their own solar system was nearly complete. With colonies orbiting every planet and large body, and an asteroid belt filled with miners and prospectors, Twilight's civilization was just about ready to turn its focus outward. The signal was less than ten light-years away, within reach of a daring, experimental voyage. A voyage Twilight Sparkle would lead.

Along with a small crew of the most skilled scientists and engineers Equestria could offer, Twilight is determined to uncover the mystery of the Signal, and brave the final frontier for future generations of Equestrian explorers.

A comment-driven, CYoA story. Please use the links provided in the author's notes of each chapter to vote, rather than the comments.

This story is a creative experiment of mine, one meant to explore the general idea that creativity is often most fostered by restrictions. As a result, I've imposed a number of restrictions on the writing of this story, which I'm stating explicitly here so I can be called out if I break any of them.

1. Brevity is the soul of wit
No chapter may be more than 1000 words long. This wordcount only includes prose, and not the questions/rolls.

2. Every choice matters
When a choice is offered in a chapter, at least one sub-optimal choice must be present, with no indication about which is which other than the prose itself. Every chapter should end with a CYoA-style decision tree when possible.

3. Fate is cruel and the universe is heartless
The decision of the vote must be respected. This means any character could be killed, or the entire story could end in failure, if that's what the votes decide. Where numbers, stats, and randomization appear in the text, these elements are not verisimilitude, but are decided by public diecrolls in my discord server.

Note: Because of the unusual production of this story, its chapters won't be edited in the same way as my usual fare. Feel free to point out any mistakes you encounter.

Awesome cover by Zutcha as you can probably tell. Editing stuff by Two Bit and Sparktail, where applicable.