• Member Since 15th Mar, 2012
  • offline last seen Jun 19th, 2017

Obselescence


[center]Bye guys[/center]

E
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Twilight Sparkle's Harmony Project is the culmination of her life's work. The only thing left is for everyone to be gathered, so that all of Equestria can join together in Harmony.

But now that success is staring her in the face, Twilight begins to have doubts. Fortunately, she has a friend like Discord, who is only too happy to lend a paw to a friend in need...

Editing work courtesy of NorsePony.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 206 )

That ending...

One of the best things about this, I think.

~Skeeter The Lurker

A very well-driven tale, Obs. Always enjoy reading Discord conversations done right :raritywink:

bravo! that ending was perfect, i can just imagine that evil little smile on his face as he says the last line.

At first I thought Twilight really should have seen that coming. Then I realized she's in a terrible position to be considering these things, and under a time limit. Then it was just realizing that Discord is just as clever as Q ever was.

Goshdarn, that was brilliant. Very nice, Obs.

Just when I thought discord was finally mellowing out. ..

3597045 What happened in this story?

"It's more fun to misinterpret." Man, that has to get on a t-shirt, with Discord winking at the viewer. I like this story a lot. Upvote from me.:pinkiehappy:

3597221 Didn't you read it?

3597262 I did, I mean I like it and all but it still didn't make much sense to me though I did understand the ending a little bit.

Oh, uh, this comment is kinda spoileriffic. Reader beware.

There's a lightning quality to this story. Brief. Intense. Searing. The aftermath leaves you reeling, with funny purple-green images scalded into the mental retinas.

Or in this case, with profound and haunting implications on the fate of the world, and not your low-fat regular fate of the world stuff either, oh no. I'm talking the ultimate fate of every iteration of the world that could ever possibly be.

And in all this, for all his awesome power, Discord is the underdog. Everything he's banking on is, everything he can pull is, boiled down, hope for a single glitch in entropy itself. A huge loop in infinity, leaving a world sidling along sideways until every little twist and turn of Twilight's life and every life tangent to hers along the way really is a twanging string on the acoustic guitar of Fate.

And the sharpiest, stabbiest stabbing part under the bigger stabbing parts? There's Harmony, and there's Discord, and there can never be certainty that either of these outcomes is good, or if they're even different, only that one will come to pass in the fullness of time.

Damn, Obs. Just Damn.

3597221

Forgive me... But...

Read for yourself.

~Skeeter The Lurker

3597302 Jeez thanks Skeeter.:ajbemused:

This was masterfully written. It had good emotional turmoil in Twilight and Discord didn't do anything entirely bad or entirely good. It leaves a lot up to interpretation and guesswork of the reader. :pinkiehappy:

3597302 Mother of god... I CHOSE CHAOS!!!! Harmony literally sounds so boring.

3597332 I wonder if they're turned into a giant blob like in Evangelion or they just become a really big, gay rainbow of harmony.

3597346 Or they could be dead.

3597295 And then there's the realisation that Harmony or Chaos, if you take a wide enough view, aren't any different at all.

A well written story. If there is one thing we should all know by now, always pay close attention to Discord's wording.

I always thought a world of endless order is no more desirable than a world of endless chaos.

You want Harmony in an overall sense, but you need that little bit of Discord to keep everyone on their toes & stop life from getting stale.

Yup, that was Discord written right, all right. :yay:

This is what we call an apocalypse-apocalypse situation.

On slight problem:
You have a character Tag of Alicorn Twi, but the image for the story CLEARLY has the original Unicorn Twi. Isn't that abit of a continuity conflict?:twilightoops:

Notion for a conversion Bureau type fic: ponies come to earth to impose Harmony on humanity. After all, Twilight knows by experience its best to test her spells first before trying them out on her friends... :pinkiecrazy:

Eden #29 · Dec 8th, 2013 · · ·

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." (quote)

Who can understand, he had undertand :derpytongue2:

The pony instrumentality project? Huh, that kind of led to a reset too. I don't think I ever considered that humanity losing was a possibility the next time round.

Twilight. NEVER make a contract and become a magical girl. NEVER! DISCORD PULLED A KYUBEE! :pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy:
static.zerochan.net/Demotivational.Poster.full.469329.jpg

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

This"harmony" thing reminds me of the "convergence" in Dead Space 2.

FM
FM #34 · Dec 8th, 2013 · · ·

Twilight: I don't get it. Time goes back and I do the same thing but maybe not? What?

Discord: Did you play Bastion?

Twilight: Yes.

Discord: All right then, it's like Bastion.

Twilight: Oh, why didn't you just say so!

Hmm, always nice to read about a good Faustian deal.

huehuehue c wat eye did thar?

Anywho, my only head-scratcher is that if Discord wanted this to happen so he wouldn't have been beaten... then why doesn't he just do his thing now? I mean, the Elements are gone, and he said himself in S4E2 that now there is nothing holding him back other than his friendship with Fluttershy. So, if he wanted to be bad again, why not just do it? Unless he's claiming that he doesn't want to be her friend, in which case... again, just go nuts. Or, does he hate that part of himself, so he wants it to have never happened because he cares too much and he hates that? Well, in that case, he could still just...

You know what? Never mind. Good read, Obs. :twilightsmile:

3597998
I was going to make this comment either way, but seeing your comment, I realized that mine was a good answer to it:

To me, realizing the reason that Discord did what he did was the most brilliant part of this piece. (If you don't know why, and haven't taken a second to really think about it, then you really should before you continue reading the rest of my comment).

Now then, as I was saying...

This was really clever. If Discord really doesn't feel happier now that his friends are so important to him (as he stated), but can't bring himself to betray them because of his conscience...what does he do? He's like an addict, he says. An addict who, though he suffers, can't bring himself to stop. Unless, of course, he could go back to before he had a conscience in the first place.

In essence, Discord's reasons for not directly sabotaging Project Harmony are the same as Twilight's. His and her own consciences stop them. But this deal gives him the same thing it gives Twilight: a conscience-free way to try and get different results the next time around.

Impressive writing on Obs' part.

"They used to call the devil the father of lies. But for someone whose sin is meant to be pride, you'd think that lying would leave something of a sour taste. So my theory is that when the devil wants to get something out of you, he doesn't lie at all. He tells you the exact, literal truth. And he lets you find your own way to hell."

Wow, just wow... This was awesome, but my mind is presently too blown to fully express how awesome it was.

The strangest thing is, after reading the ending I can't help but wonder, "What if there was something, one little thing, that I misinterpreted, therefore changing the meaning of the story for me?"

Probably not, but still...

The Reapers approve.

Alondro #41 · Dec 8th, 2013 · · 2 ·

3597726 Seriously, I want Shinji Ikari to show up and smack Twilight upside the head for this, "I TRIED THIS AND IT SUCKED!!!"

The Princesses agreed with this too? Have they all gone mental? Are they completely stupid?

No wonder Discord was able to trick her so easily with this deal. The implications were obvious to anyone thinking clearly.

Alondro #42 · Dec 8th, 2013 · · 1 ·

3597366 But who's to say that true Harmony comes from being all squished into some sort of collective consciousness? That is Twilight and the other Princesses' incalculably gigantic mistake in this story. They are allowing their unscientific, unprovable sentiments overrule intelligence and evidence.

As always, allowing emotions to influence world-changing decisions leads to disaster.

3598099

I like this guy's moxie.

Reminds me of the TNG episode "Tapestry". Nice work.

3598280
And historically, trying to remove emotions from your decision-making either turns you into Buridan's ass, or leads to ten times the chaos as you fail to acknowledge the influence of your emotional states. Reason vs. emotion is a huge false dichotomy.

not bad. though i always believedp philosophy and ponies should be kept in two different dimensions.


thoguh what is with everyone depicting discord as god and having fate as part of the series? Discord power is chaos, twisting the physical world around him, not screwing with time and such. his power has a nem and a method to it. he is nothing that compares to godhood...............
would also argue that they do have a lot of thigns that could stop him. the Crystal Heart for example, or simply shoving him in front of the tree itself and seeing how it would react to theo ne who tried to kill it.

and harmony is not what is being sought here. harmony does not exist unless two alternative views come together and cooperate. if all became one, then harmony is thus defied and all becomes sterile. not to mention they by nature of magic, mind, and their cutie marks desire individuality moer than anything. this concept does not work with the series.

though like i said, philosophy and mlp does not mix...... blame pinkie pie for it.

3598355 Do not be foolish. Emotions are weakness! Hence why I have ensured that my Daleks shall have none! :pinkiecrazy:

3598295 Q would find these ponies way dumber than Picard. Baldie would be smart enough to never agree to this concept of false harmony, nor fall for Discord's trick either.

Picard is awesomest pony. :pinkiecrazy:

3598295
I got a compliment from Obs.
Oh my gosh! :rainbowkiss:

3598367 Ponies almost done messed up with that harmony gig. Good thing there's always Discord with harmony.

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