I actually can't tell where the editing stopped...

I'm guessing that you stopped editing at the Starswirl diary. Just a random guess :P I really didn't notice anything all that different.

Also, the Lonely Mountain. Nice

according to the counter, I was the first to even read this chapter. YAY!!! I LOVE THIS STORY!!!

Oh man, twilight s getting a little possessive, will something happen?

YAY, I beens waiting. Good chapter and even more foreshadowing. I still say that humans were once intelligent and Celestia did something. Keep up the good work, and hopefully yer editor and you can work around whatever issues arose. I know life can get in the way.

awwww max and twilight are getting closer, kinda impressed discord is able to maintain such an elaborate facade for so long. kudos to him

Imma guess 6th paragraph in, namely "... the statues I and Lyra...". But I just love this story, quite a unique look at the HIE genre.

I feel like the editing stopped around Starswirl's section. Started seeing "suppose to" instead of "supposed to" (Twilight on the Domesticating Humans note), and

Also, the Grammar Nazi within me is bothered by "the statues I and Lyra saw" rather than "Lyra and I saw."

Heartless judgement aside, this was a nice world-building chapter. I felt an "Oh Shit" moment when Ebony mentioned the Battlemages answering to the Archmage, and The Law of Conservation of Detail tells me that we're going to see more of that blue-eyed brunette.

I will say, however, that this was a bit of a disappointing chapter after the chaos of the Gala (there's a pun in there somewhere). I understand having a breather episode after that emotional roller-coaster, but it felt like nothing really happened. "Max and co. go into the Archives and learn nothing" could be a synopsis of this chapter. At least after the Fighting Ring our breather episode told us that Max wasn't alone and had people that loved him, and he still had a shot at a normal life. But here? Not much.

I'm still waiting for someone to show Max that mysterious grey box with the apple symbol on it though... :)

*************

Note to self: don't read fanfiction after working as an editor; you get all verbose and analytical.

Sorry for long post.

Celestia knows what's going on

3978751 Based on the romance tag? Yes.

YEA!!! Update lovin it keep up the good work.
can't wait to see what the dreams are about, its bugging me!

Dammit it's amazing! This fic has been consistently good, I am never disappointed when a new chapter comes out.
Can't wait for the next one.

...Did not notice any errors. 5/5, would read again.

That was a nice chapter. I have to say the 'drone' intrigues me, will we be hearing more about them soon?

nice chapter. the ending was really cute :) these teasers about information about the origins and nature of equestrian humans are torturous teasers!

*insert Fluttersquee* Now that that is over, this chapter is fantastic. We have a potential *cough* mate with the female and we get to see Avera acting rather adorable with Max. All in all, I couldn't be happier.

The new lore involving humanity is pretty neat. We seem to have a psychological effect on the ponies that we (unknowingly) use to our advantage. I can't wait to see what happens next. Keep up the great work.

An Equestrian human that's attractive? I smell a conspiracy! Wait, no... Is it a coincidence... Hmm... That doesn't sound right either... Maybe a heist...

“Nothing’s suppose to,” Twilight replied... and “What was it I was suppose to see again?” Sorry if this is nitpicky, but both of these should be "supposed".

Chapter seems pretty solid to me.

Good chapter Max... but what are those "drones"

I keep getting this thought in my head that Twilight might try a human transformation to try and catch Max's eye. Eh, just a case of plot bunnies I guess. Excellent chapter, and only a few errors here and there but nothing that made me stop reading.

If this turns out to be post earth or post TCB . . . I swear to God.

I'm either way too tired to notice mistakes or did well enough that I didn't see anything. After checking the other comments, only one mistake was found it seems. Pat yourself on the back dude, you did a awesome job.

You stopped editing earlier than the Starswirl entries. Here is a sentence from much earlier in the chapter.

“Take as long as you need,” the stallion said as the doors can to a stop. He leaned on his halberd slightly, a tired look in his eyes as he smiled softly. “Please try not to get lost.”

Look at the "the doors can to stop." I think it should read "the doors came to a stop."

Man have you seen all the fanfics that were inspired by this it was like a boom when this appeared in top again. Anyeays good work, but im missing that peagsus called sunny

Aside from the things other people have mentioned, I saw two places early on in the story where you followed "neither" with "or" instead of "nor". There were a couple others, but I didn't mark them 'cause I'm lazy, and it's a huge pain in the ass to edit outside of gdocs.......

Anyway, interesting chapter here. Lots of information and setup for things that'll be happening soon and what not. I did have two questions though: What age do ponies usually live to in this world of yours? Since she Sentinels can't even be considered for promotion until they're 70, the average lifespan must be significantly longer than a human's. The second is about how widespread the knowledge of Max's intelligence is. I had thought it was being kept mostly secret, but form the way this chapter was going it seems like just about everyone except the general public knows now.

3978836
I'm assuming the whole point of the archives was to show us a whole wall covered in Chekov's guns. Those two excerpts in particular seemed like they were important in ways that we just can't quite see yet. Not to mention the information about the Sentinels and the Battlemages. I have a feeling we're gonna be seeing the relevance of that bit before this is all over.

3979104
Fair point about Chekhov's Armory. And I'm sure I'm going to feel like a moron later for not picking up on some of those things. That said, I'm still waiting for more to happen. Sure, the payoff can be great when Chekhov's Guns actually come off the wall, but in the meantime...?

3979073 Go on....

for my level in english it s good xD

While we can be versed in many different forms of magic, most Battlemages choose one particular type of magic to train solely on. Fire, water, ice, wind, earth, and air are usually what they are good at.

Isn't wind and air the same thing? Why would they be mentioned separately?

3979130
True enough. It'll be quite the let down if all the suspense in this chapter doesn't really develop into anything. Also, you get +1 internets for the "Chekov's Armory" thing. I hadn't heard that expression before, so points to you for that one.

3979073 what's TCB?

3979104
The passages were pretty obvious. Celestia knew of humans, had a name for them, and said she killed gods. The best fit scenario is that this is an after-the-end tale in the vein of Planet of the Apes.

3979311 Pretty sure he stole the term from TV Tropes

also

‘Now I have saved lives, but destroyed gods in the process’.

.......Welp,Anyone with half a brain see's what that could mean

3979263 Dont forget water and ice!

You know, If a random hot lady came up to me, smelled me and then nipped at my chin with her teeth, I...................... I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought. What was I saying?
Anyway, Great chapter as always! Really looking forward for what ever's coming next!
But now I must sleep because this chapter has kept me up w/out me realizing it.

I sighed heavily as I flipped absentmindedly flipped through the pages of a large tome,

Wot?

~Have a good one.

3979263 more than likely wind is stuff like a tornado or a breeze and air more like gas or being able to remove it and create a zone void of O², or i could be over thinking it and its an overlooked similarity. Though what do I know I work on dark and light magic concepts.

3979421 water and ice are both made of H²O, but that's physically the magic versions can be vastly different.

Cute display of jealousy by Twilight when that human bumped into Max. I wonder what she was doing. Still, loved this chapter.

3979345 I think it means The Conversion Bureau. I've never read it, so I have no idea what it's about.

Did I spot a Sonic reference?

3979375 3979347 There has to be more to it than that. If it was that simple, Celestia wouldn't have had to go to the archives to look up information on intelligent humans since, if there was any, she and her sister would have been the only ones who knew it. It's possible that she did have something to do with the end of human dominance of the planet, but since no pony had ever heard of them, even in rumor or legend, it would have had to have happened a very long time before Starswirl, even before the joining of the three tribes. Unless there was some sort of memory erasing....thing....or whatever.....

It seems far more likely that Celestia's comment was simply relevant to what Starswirl was thinking at the time and not something she said specifically about humans. Also, if I had to take a serious guess at it, my vote is that her comment was directed at the spirit/ghost/thing that has been trying to get Max's attention this whole time and was protecting him in his dreams.

There's just too much we don't know yet, and a lot of things we do know without understanding how they all connect. Discord brought Max from another world, but we still don't know why. Who is the spirit that's been protecting him? He's been told to "help them", but we still don't know how or why. The artifact under the mountain is calling humans to it, but for unknown reasons. The humans seem to be getting smarter, or at least gaining self-awareness for unknown reasons. The documents suggest that there was some sort of ancient connection between ponies and humans that either predated their apparent "discovery", or came into effect upon their discovery. Celestia obviously either knew something about humans already, or whatever affected the rest of the ponies got to her as well, which allowed her to come up with the name.

And then there's Discord. His plan is a lot deeper than most people think it is. We've been seeing lots of parts of it, from lots of different sources, but the whole picture is still far too murky..... That, and I'm tired, so I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff.

......Though.......the memory thing could have happened, I suppose. But that would make Celestia's attempt to find information on intelligent humans in the archives even more unusual.

3979073 yeah, that part with Celestia and "gods". if that made destroyed our civilisation and turned our kind in a god damn animals imma flip. srsly, loving and tolerating ponies my ass.

3979345 The Conversion Bureau. tl;dr version: ponies find humanity, Celestia decide that we are horrible and should be converted to brainwashed spineless "newfoals" using the potion or die. Enter the traitors of humanity who help ponies. May include ponies who oppose Celestia. Those stories mostly written and loved by nolifer omegas who think that we're inferior to imaginary Utopian ponies, and species traitors.
Even more tl;dr version: Remember, kiddos, being Nazi[Spezie?] and genociding is bad!

...
Scenario 1: Celestia destroyed the world of man.
Scenario 2: The humans done fucked up and Celestia picked up the pieces.
Scenario 3: Aliens. Probably ties into Scenario 2, see the Archie Sonic Comic for details.
Scenario 4:...
Scenario 5: Profit!

3979345 TCB stands for The Conversion Bureau. A.K.A., a brony's worst PoE nightmare.

This chapter was no doubt a "set up" chapter, designed to create little bits of information that will later come into play at a later chapter. But there is one thing that was mentioned in this chapter which does actually explain a few things that of been going on. Now it seems we have an explanation for why humans almost never smile and are never cheerful. Why should they be? They've been screwed around for eons and they know that the people that are currently enslaving them are pretty much rapists who took them away from their homes. Humans never smile because they're constantly surrounded by the species that enslaved them and violated them century after century. What do they have to smile about?

It's a simple part of nature. Animals will grow to react differently the more time they spend around humans, thus these humans have grown to react in a certain way the more time their kind were forced to spend around ponies!

everything really seems to indicate so far, that this version of equestria is a post human civilization earth.
Mankind experienced a downfall at some point, for whatever reason, and they were forced to degenerate, either naturally or with magic. They became more 'ground adept' for some reason, with the digging and all, and now after 900 years of their discovery, some monumental change in their evolution is going to happen.
'the real humans' are going to return.

The key to this event still is, whatever lies deep beneath the mountain of Canterlot.
Oh my music track for the dark archieves.

With all the abuse this guy goes through, his name might as well be Mick Foley.