Appledashery

by Just Essay

Alicorns Had a Dream, And That's the Start

"We are now departing!" Epcot sing-songed. "Our final destination! Your own personal pocket of Cider Space! Teehee!"

"Look, that's awfully cool of you n'all," Rainbow Dash said, fidgeting in her upright seat as the ride hummed along, rolling ever-onward to their right. "But what I'm really looking to do is find my friends and get—"

"Oooh! It's starting!" Epcot stifled a squeal. "Oh, it's been eons since I got to do the tutorial with somepony! And a mortal to boot! Let's see if I remember all of it..." She dragged her hoof across thin air, opening up a glistening portal through which she procured a wired microphone. "Ahem." While the two ponies rode past a series of glimmering cloud formations, she boldly spoke: "Wait until you see the new dreamscapes of tomorrow! Desert farms, floating cities, even colonies in space! But, y'know..." She grinned aside at Rainbow Dash. "This wouldn't be the first time that anypony has tried to make this trip. Alicorns have been dreaming about the future for centuries!"

Rainbow was about to interject yet again when fancy organ music started playing. Her eyes jerked towards the right, spotting the first of many ancient diagrams that had been turned into animated dioramas with flickering amber lights and watery ripple effects.

"Here's the stuff dreams were made of! Several hundreds of thousands of years ago!" Epcot grinned, took a deeeeeep breath, then grinned again. "Yupperooni! It's always fun looking back at tomorrow! Come on! I'll show you what I mean—"

"For real, you don't have to give me the whole friggin' college lecture," Rainbow Dash said. "A simple explanation about this... uh... Cider Space would do just ni—"

"There's the grand ol' stallion himself!" Epcot said, standing up as she pointed at a giant bullet-shaped metal vehicle hanging amidst twinkling cosmos. A young stallion floated in zero gravity, surrounded by floating tomes, ancient navigation equipment, and a floundering chicken. "Starswirl! This is how a venture into the final frontier looked like to him back in the Post-Chaotic Age! Ol' Star may not have had all the answers, but he certainly began inspiring the right idea!"

"Wait..." Rainbow tapped her head, cross-eyed. "Starswirl... Starswirl..." She brightened. "You mean Starswirl the Bearded? But... like... where's his beard?" She blinked hard. "And he totally wasn't an alicorn!"

Epcot giggled, glancing away from her microphone. "Well, for a mortal, he was a little ahead of his time. Heehee... one of the first ponies on the physical plane to be granted the powers of magic by alicorn kind!"

"Granted the powers of magic?"

"Mmmhmm-Hmmhmm!" Epcot grinned from ear to ear. "And—being a pony born on this plane—he was able to bridge the gap between mortals and immortals and come up with a means of communication!"

"Soooooo..." Rainbow Dash squinted. "Cider Space, right?"

Epcot immediately turned towards the scene of an ancient alicorn city full of flying machines and magically floating platforms. "Y'know, alicorns have painted some pretty fantastic views of the future!" Rainbow groaned and face-hoofed while the otherworldly tour guide went on. "And some pretty mixed up ones, too!" She giggle-snorted and gestured at a large ring-like structure. "Here, they drummed up this silly idea of using an ENORMOUS habitat ring to carry their organic DNA eternally into the cosmos! I mean, talk about goofy failures!"

"Er..." Rainbow's ruby eyes blinked curiously. She lifted a hoof. "Wait—"

"Easy living!" Epcot gestured as the ride carried on through a palace balcony where alicorns reclined on sofas and bathed in tubs. Meanwhile, crystal-powered golems swept the floor and cleaned the banquet halls. "It's always been just around the corner!"

"What's Starswirl got to do with this?!" Rainbow asked. "When or where does the friggin' Chalice come in?!"

"Hmmmm-hmmm-hmmm..." Epcot bobbed back and forth, eyes shut as she pleasantly hummed. "There's a great big beautiful tomorrowwwwww, shining at the end of every dayyyy—"

"Dang it!" Rainbow snarled. "Enough with the cast member bunk! I swear, you were more useful as a floating 'yes/no' suppository—!"

"And yet, today, with what alicorns know and what they've learned from the likes of Starswirl to do, they really can bring their dreams to life!" Epcot grinned as the ride carried on through a hallway full of dancing rainbow light. "It's taken a lot of hard work, but if the alicorns can dream it! They really can do it!" Then, with a proud wave of the hoof, she gestured outward. "Tomorrow's horizons are here—today!"

Just then, the ride emerged onto an enormous screen, upon which was projected an ocean of cider, from the depths of which emerged terrestrial landscapes and mountains and palaces full of ethereal alicorn figures. In the center of it all floated a magic statue of Starswirl—beardless—in the embrace of several smiling alicorns as he held a suspiciously familiar goblet up high in his hooves.

Rainbow blinked, her eyes so deeply saturated with the vivid imagery that she felt like she might teeter over and fall off the ride at any second. "Oh..." Her ears twitched. "...well that's kinda awesome."

Comments

[Sharp Quill]

It's always fun looking back at tomorrow!

I dunno. The original Tomorrowland at Disneyland got so ripe it was rebuilt from scratch—to something even more anachronistically "tomorrow."

"There's a great big beautiful tomorrowwwwww, shining at the end of every dayyyy—"

I remember when that was still at Disneyland. The ol' GE Carousel of Progress may have retired to Florida, but at least the smog has never been happier.

Here's a home video of the entire ride. After you've seen the final segment, you'll understand what is meant by the phrase "looking back at tomorrow."

[youtube=KKz6qdexetY]

I see that GE no longer sponsors the ride.

[Keradon]

...I really should be glad that we're not near the "It's a small world" part of this. I really... really should be glad for this...

But if we leave this part of Cider Space and go to a spot that remotely says "Kingdom" in it's name, I am screaming so very much.

...bear in mind I will still read it, but I will be screaming as I do so. I will confirm that my wife will give me a strange expression as I do so.

[Sharp Quill]

5550350 True story. I was once on it's a small world when all the boats got stuck for some reason. For like ten minutes, we didn't move an inch, seeing the same damn puppets repeat that same damn song over and over again.

There was no compensation for the brain damage suffered.

[Keradon]

5550376

Oh my dearie, dearie goodness.

...

At least you survived with sanity... somewhat intact! Perhaps you could even write a story based on it?
Although I'm now picturing a dark story, like a variant on Five Nights and Freddy's.

[Tchernobog]

"Here, they drummed up this silly idea of using an ENORMOUS habitat ring to carry their organic DNA eternally into the cosmos! I mean, talk about goofy failures!"

[Sharp Quill]

5550485 Write a story… but with ponies… grimdark, definitely.

That might be good therapy. But I have few facts to base it on. No explanation was offered. The obstruction, whatever it was, was too far ahead and around a corner to see. The water was flowing, so that wasn't it. It was a long time ago, but I do remember wondering when a cast member—yes, that's they're called—would come by to help us out of the boats and point us to the emergency exits. And then the boats started moving again, but it was like an L.A. freeway, heavily congested all the way through to the end.

[RainbowJack2000]

5550350
5550376
Come on, guys, "It's a Small World" wasn't that bad, was it? The only thing that freaked me out was that I thought the dolls were going to reach out at me or something. The song didn't really bother me much.

[Sharp Quill]

5550582 The arrangement of the music differs in each segment, to showcase the musical culture of each region of the world. To hear the same arrangement endlessly repeated qualifies as a form of torture. Strangely enough, I have trouble remembering which part of the world we got stuck in. Must be part of the healing process.

Found a high quality home video:

[youtube=txRVFhljfeg]

Just imagine being stuck in one place.

Hmmm… Put a gun to my head, and I'd have to say it was around the 11 minute mark, but the ride has clearly changed since I was last on it way too many years ago. Lots of Disney/Pixar films have been inserted. The room with Toy Story is completely new to me. And I see that Bank of America no longer sponsors the ride.

[Aatxe360]

Never been. I was hoping for a ride more like in the first Willy Wonka movie, but we can't all get what we want.

Just Essay's headcanon about Starswirl is interesting.

[Lightning Bearer]

A young stallion floated in zero gravity, surrounded by floating tomes, ancient navigation equipment, and a floundering chicken.

i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/131/399/fry.PNG?1307468855

"Here, they drummed up this silly idea of using an ENORMOUS habitat ring to carry their organic DNA eternally into the cosmos! I mean, talk about goofy failures!"

tapety-wallpapers.eu/upload/640x480/fry-eyes-09-07-2009-14-16-59.jpg

[RoboRed]

"Here, they drummed up this silly idea of using an ENORMOUS habitat ring to carry their organic DNA eternally into the cosmos! I mean, talk about goofy failures!"

...Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiitt a second....

[MoonMirror]

5550242 I miss the old 80's car designs of the future, with talking digital dashboards and headlights that pop up, it's interesting to go through old stuff like that carousel of progress, or old car magazines talking about car automation without a driver, and realising it's not all that dissimilar to what they're still trying to perfect now. Maybe one day Nintendo will perfect that gaming glove and virtual reality headset the show had going at the end there, can't do any worse than their 90's attempt.

[Sam the Anti-Ninja]

5551019 It's either an Austraeoh reference or else the Halo universe randomly intersected for no reason.

[Leftover of Saikano]

Dear Author seems to be enjoying this arc.

[RoboRed]

5551374
It's an Austraeoh reference.

[Sam the Anti-Ninja]

5551864 i know. I was making a sad attempt at being funny.

[Sharp Quill]

5551327 It's not just that, it's also what they got wrong.

They mentioned laserdiscs, for example; DVDs barely existed when that ride was last updated. Everyone now should have a car phone. They also mentioned high-definition TVs; the one they're playing that video game on has a 4x3 aspect ratio.

Take a close look at the quality of the graphics of that game. Crappy by today standards, no? That video was created manually by Disney's special effects people to blow the minds of the audience—and it would have, back in the late 90s

Also note what's not mentioned—like the Internet or smart phones or even a home computer. Today, the big thing would be operating your oven via your smartphone when you're not home, not talking to it while in the same room.

There's nothing like yesterday's vision of tomorrow.

Getting back to this story, how did the alicorns' vision of their tomorrow conflict with reality? They're all dead, after all.

[Jay_Baker]

I'm not trying to be offensive so I'm sorry to people who find this comment offensive but basically what this thing is starswirl the bearded is Jesus there?

[Sharp Quill]

5555587 A legendary character in Equestrian history who's mentioned a few times in the show. Twilight dressed up as him during Nightmare Night in the episode Luna Eclipsed. For more information, see this.

[Future Regret]

I was gonna call Austraeoh being a dream last chapter but got derailed by the existential crisis.

[I Thought I Was Toast]

And now the Bioshock hunch has lurched past Bioshock vibes into Bioshock heeby-Jeebies. It's suddenly absolutely terrifying to consider how much the original idea for EPCOT actually could fit into a Bioshock game. It's only a theme park because Walt died before it was finished... You have ruined the innocence of the happiest totalitarian dictatorship on earth good sir.

[arancaytar]

"Here, they drummed up this silly idea of using an ENORMOUS habitat ring to carry their organic DNA eternally into the cosmos! I mean, talk about goofy failures!"

Urohringr? I hardly know 'er!

But really, I'm surprised that this setting seems to be emphatically not-Austraeoh. Does this just mean they don't have the weird dark-side/midnight-armory thing here, or does it completely alter the geography east of Equestria, so that Emeraldine, Ledomare, Val Roa and Rohbredden never existed here?

Edit: On another note, those Disney references in the last few chapter titles sailed right over my head initially.