The
P. E. R.
Michelson and Morely
The Speed Of Right
By Chatoyance
OPERATION THREE: PURPLE RAIN
For decades now, endless miles of gray, dead wheat covered the astonishingly flat plains. There were no mountains, only the curve of the dead fields meeting a reddish-gray sky of perpetual smog. It was Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, the site of the Last Harvest, where a strain of genegineered wheat had promised total defense against all pests be they insect or bacteria.
The product had exceeded all expectations. Nothing organic could digest the wheat, nothing in the world. It would never rot, never decompose, and it was poison to all animal life. Wheat had finally been made safe from every pest, just as the original proposal had claimed. The wheat had dominant genes - within a fortnight or two, all wheat, everywhere on the Earth had become the wheat from Assiniboia. The genes had spread laterally to other crops as well, ending forever the plague of fresh vegetables, most fruits, and almost all animal fodder too. Finally, the world's crops were preserved from being lost. Forever.
For the nanofabrication industry, with the power to convert human waste into nutritious bars, disks and cubes, however, business had never been better. It became the most dramatic shift in wealth within a single industry ever recorded.
The lead genetic engineer that had created the Assiniboia Wheat lost his job, of course. Only reasonable, considering the extinction of all wheat and most vegetables and other plants and countless species dependent on all of that. He barely got a decent severance package. Fortunately, by the most amazing coincidence, there was an extravagantly enriching position already waiting for him in the completely unrelated field of nanofabrication. Thus those concerned for his well being can be assured that he made a vast fortune and in the end was able to live in a great mansion surrounded by Blackmesh guards and a surprisingly uninhibited entourage of nubile young girls and not a few boys - just for a change of pace.
One of the inevitable, cast-aside offspring of the sort of parties the wheat engineer indulged in grew up to be a brilliant genegineer in his own right, and as is often the case with youth, found himself angry and rebellious with regard to what his mother could not successfully prove was his father. The angry young genegineer turned his back on humanity itself, when he had the chance, and was one of the first to enter a Conversion Bureau. Recruited by PER, though no longer capable of black, undying hatred, he was still fairly miffed, which is just the drive needed to become the lead hacker on the Serum Weaponifization Team. His name was now 'Codepony', and when he was not trying to hack the nanotech inside ponification serum, he had the more mundane duty of seeing to its distribution from the main PER base in Assiniboia to the waiting enclaves in the rest of the world.
Today he had gotten a particularly large order, especially unusual considering that it was from Squamous, New Mexico. Two-hundred and fifty gallons of potion was an enormous amount - whatever project the PER was up to down there must be truly impressive. Nopony in their right mind would make an order of that magnitude without an astonishingly good reason, it was unthinkable. Therefore it must be important.
Naturally, he approved it.
"Are you sure this is OK? It seems like an awfully large amount of potion to me, Ginger." Nutmeg was worried, a feeling that had become as familiar to her as terror, disappointment, trepidation, outright jaw-dropping incredulity and all the other new colors that Ginger had brought into the palette of her life.
"Don't be a silly filly, Nutmeg." Ginger beamed reassurance like a fifty-thousand watt tower of confidence "Requisitions exist to be made, and we are, after all, true knights of the PER! You can't run a crusade without resources, after all!" Ginger was busy doing his toenails, a tasteful and delicate pink, as usual. The strangely sweet smell of polish filled the barracks.
"And you got approval for this from Barnsour, right?" Of course he did, of course he would... but it was just comforting to make sure.
"Umf." Ginger was having trouble with his little toe on the left side, fortunately he was astonishingly flexible. Ginger lay his leg over his neck, his foot dangling off away to the right, roughly at at eye level. This allowed him to reach up with both hands and paint the toe properly. Nutmeg always found herself staring in wonder when he did this, a free contortionist show is always good fun.
"Was that 'umf' yes... or 'umf' Don't Bother Your Pretty Head About It Because I'm Definitely Not?" The sinking feeling in Nutmeg's stomach had started to pick up speed, soon it would breach the mantle and dive for the core where the lava devils waited with sharp, gnashy teeth.
"Remember when we first arrived and were introduced?" Now that the left toe was painted, Ginger had lowered his left leg only to flop his right one over his neck. Apparently, anatomy was yet another thing Ginger was unafraid to push to the extreme.
Nutmeg had tried to block her memories of that day, but they came rushing back despite her effort. Ginger accidentally dousing the third recruit in potion was embarrassing enough, her own nervous inability to stop giggling every time she saw their hot pink leader was only topped by her initial effort to feed him a cube of sugar while cooing about what a pretty little mare he was. Oops.
"Barnsour himself told us that if we needed anything, we should just help ourselves. This is all perfectly legit." Ginger's other little toe was proving more troublesome, Nutmeg couldn't help but imagine what it would look like if her partner lost his balance on the bed and flopped over like a car tire that had rolled loose from some incompetent mechanic.
"He was talking about the lunchroom! He was talking about sandwich fixings!" Nutmeg tried to see if she could get her leg over her head, the effort was as painful as the result was unsuccessful.
"Oh, you worry too much. I knew what he really meant. I'm sure everypony did." Ginger waggled his freshly painted toes at Nutmeg, the fact that they were next to his own head couldn't help but make her laugh. "Do you think ponies paint their hooves?"
The tall plumber in the spotless pink jumpsuit tromped down the long ramp into the dank boiler room of Squamous Valley High School - Home of the Squamous Fightin' Squaws - and joined his partner. "Here's the stopcock. Or is it a gate valve? I think I shall call it the latter, since the former suggests a rather unhappy ending to an otherwise pleasant evening." Ginger Michelson took off his bright red cap and used it to fan his long, platinum locks. "It's dreadfully stuffy and warm down here, my hair is a damp mass of sticky strands, and I swear I've been nowhere near the quarterback!"
Nutmeg Morely grimaced and took the metal part. She began to fit it into the existing system in order to complete the connection to the 250 gallon tank that they had - with the help of several brawny atheletes - wheeled in. Fortunately, this time the part was the right size and mated well with the existing pipes. She tried in vain to think of a way to announce this to her partner such that he would not respond with an innuendo and finally settled on "It's done."
"Oh goody! You really are indispensable, Nutmeg. This will be our greatest triumph, and it is all due to your inestimable skill at sticking one thing inside another!" Ginger grinned, his hand on his hip, the other brushing delicate wisps of hair from his eyes. Apparently the innuendo factor was entirely separated from reality, much like Ginger herself. Himself. Whatever.
Sodden with sweat, Nutmeg's rough, dark curls hung flaccidly down her grease-streaked face. Her previously green jumpsuit was now some shade of What Babies Do. The boiler room was not merely filthy in the conventional sense, rather it was a magical wonderland of schmutz, where mere filth was considered unworthy of residence within its gated community of slummocky defilement. She felt sure this was where the fecal fairies pranced in feculent, mucid passetemps of slubbery, stercoraceous scurfiness. It could be cleaner.
"So tell me again why we don't just get outta dodge right now?" Nutmeg realized that somehow grime had managed to get inside her jumpsuit, where it was currently exploring the topography of her personal landscape in a particularly investigative manner. Perhaps the purulence had evolved to sentience and had recognized in her a fellow entity - certainly it was trying to Make Contact.
Ginger was, of course, utterly pristine. At least his perfume helped overcome the stench of the boiler room. Pity it did so with the subtlety of a commando slitting an enemy trooper from stem to sternum - that perfume could be weaponized was a troublesome revelation to Nutmeg. "Nutmeg. Nut-meh-heh-hehg... no true artist would ever miss the opportunity to see the debut of their creation! Besides, we must be on hand in case anything should need adjustment or repair. Your marvelous skills will no doubt be needed to assuage the fury of the pipes, once the potion begins to spurt!"
Nutmeg tried to wipe the greasy sweat running down her face into her eyes only to realize that just made things worse. There was a cloth somewhere around here. "And while I'm doing that, you will be...?"
"Managing the situation, of course. From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs and all that! Say..." Ginger cocked an ear at the sound of a electronic horn "... it sounds like halftime is over! We should go and cheer our teams before theirs, and our, mutual victory - don't you think?"
"Mutual victory?" Nutmeg was puzzled.
"A victory for Celestia, is a victory for us all, Nutmeg! Show some team spirit! Rah! Rah! Sis Boom Bah! We've got a team that's backed by pride! There must be some Ponies on our side! Stand up and yell, for our victory tonight! Come On Ponies, fight! fight! fight!" It was really quite expertly performed - Ginger must spend an inordinate amount of time doing cheerleader practices. Nutmeg found herself more than impressed, but was left with a nagging question.
Where in Equestria had he been keeping those pom-poms?
The Squamous Valley Squaws had submitted to the White Skins in the end, and they returned dripping, covered in the sweaty scent of manhood in its prime. The game was over and it was time to hit the showers. Snapping towels licked out for their traditional prey, naked buttocks scampering for safety amidst the tiles. Grinning in the background, holding a ridiculously oversized wrench to a stall marked 'Out Of Service' stood a tall, platinum blond plumber in a pink jumpsuit. He was whispering into the delicate headset mostly covered by his long hair. "Wait for it... wait for it... Oooh! Oh... my!"
"Now? Should I do it now?" The whisper on the other end was frantic and unsure.
"No, No, not yet Nutmeg!"
"What was that then?"
"What was what, Nutmeg? Oh... oh my..."
"THAT! What's going on up there? Have we been seen? The adjustments aren't showing are they? Nothing's sticking out is it?"
"I... wouldn't exactly say that... Nutmeg. Goodness!"
"GINGER!!!"
"It's fine, fine, Nutsy, just hold your horses a little longer... longer still. Longest yet. Oh... my."
"Alright you apes!" The coach was not a happy man, the Squaws were not known for winning and everyone seemed to want to blame it on him for some reason. "What the fuck went wrong out there? Shlomovitch! Get your damn panties off and get soaped up! Friedmann, Epstein what the hell happened? You call that defense? They blew you off like toothless Trixie when the Fleet's in town!"
"Come on, Coach!" Kaplan was a quarterback, but he felt the Coach was being too hard. He was the last to step into the flowing water. "We did our best out there! They always rape us on the third down! They did their best!"
"Now." Ginger stepped back into the corner, so that there was no possibility of anything splashing him.
The nozzles of the showers turned a pale purple. The stream did not have to be pure, undiluted potion so long as the flow was continuous. Minimum exposure was the only issue. The new, stable anesthetic worked rapidly, with the boys slumping down on the tiles. Coach Rosenberg saw his entire team slowly collapse and dashed in to catch Leibowitz as he fell. The violet, sparkling spray instantly drenched the Coach, and he too stumbled and fell asleep.
The Squamous Valley Squaws and their coach blanched white as dough in the flow of tinted water. Within minutes, their bodies looked like sacks of angry snakes as muscle and bone dissolved and reformed, writhing and squirming under the pale, fruit-soft flesh. Their limbs swelled into bulbs, from which smooth hooves soon extruded, even as their heads expanded and necks lengthened, large new eyes forming and rising like bubbles in a doughy sea.
Ginger looked on with unhidden envy. It would be so easy, so simple to just step forward, to walk into the pale purple streams and... no. No. It wasn't honorable. Nutmeg was still down in the boiler room, and neither had yet earned the right. They could be ponies only when they had saved enough humans from inevitable doom. There were only four years remaining before the earth was annihilated. Somepony had to save these fools. Somepony had to rescue them from their denial and arrogance.
It was difficult being a freedom fighter, Ginger reflected. Unlike those they saved, it would be a long time before they would know the freedom of the sky, the freedom of perfect strength, or the freedom of real magic. Ginger sighed. At least the team would know these things. Such lucky stallions they were.
By now, their coats had come in, in every shade of the rainbow, and long tails and manes had spooled out. They were wet but perfect stallions now, and it must be exactly the same in the shower room for the visiting team. Ginger touched the small contact on his headset, ready to tell Nutmeg to stop the flow, when a gaggle of young girls ran in. What the...
The lead girl had a holocamera, clearly this was some kind of high school prank. The girls stopped, aghast at the scene. "Oh. My. God. What is this? Some kind of a joke?"
"What the shit? Stuffed animals?"
"Those bastards must have heard about what we were planning and they put stuffies in here! They're somewhere laughing their asses off at us right now!"
"Jesus, Libby, those aren't stuffed animals. They're real, or artificial or something, but whatever they are, they're alive!"
"Those are alive? They could drown!"
"No way, it's only a shower, dipstick."
"We gotta save them, Libby! Come on!"
"Oh, Christ... Judith, go get the rest of the girls, we can't do this ourselves."
Ginger watched with unabashed glee as the girls, other than Judith, who had left, attempted to move the ponies, heedless of the spray. As they slowly fell and began to change, Ginger reported the event to Nutmeg, and asked how the potion was holding out.
"We've still got plenty. 250 gallons is a hell of a lot, Ginger. Are you serious? There's more coming?"
There was indeed. Twenty more young women entered, and seeing their friends having some kind of fit, ran as one to help them. Soon they too were soaked and changing.
Ginger reached into the pockets of his jumpsuit and pulled out thick, neoplastic gloves and a razor knife. The jumpsuit itself was lined with neoplastic, as were his shoes and socks. "Cut the flow! I'm going in!" When the water had turned completely clear, Ginger stepped over the bodies, slashing necklines, pants, and anything else the least restrictive that threatened the health of the squirming, flopping shapes.
By the door, he radioed back "Start it up again!" The flow turned pale purple once more, and the bodies of the women completed their change, beautiful manes and tails growing out before Ginger's envious eyes. It was too much. He had to leave.
Walking away from the building, Ginger noted more students and faculty running toward where he had just left. "Just let it run, Nutmeg. Rendezvous at base. Repeat, Rendezvous at base."
The response was slightly garbled by static "What.... leave... you sure?... Ging..."
"Leave, get out, run, vamoose, skedaddle, move it Nutsy!" Tears filled Ginger's eyes now. All those new ponies. All the new unicorns and pegasai and earthponies, all the saved lives, all the beautiful new lives, and he wasn't one of them. Not yet. Not.... yet.
But maybe! Turning back for one last look, the crowd pushing its way into the building was larger than before. They must be stacked like cordwood in there.
Baron Barnsour clopped up to the podium, a fiercer than usual look on his muzzle. "ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! SETTLE DOWN PONIES! I SAID SETTLE DOWN!"
"First off - I won't make you wait, not after THIS." Barnsour clopped his hoof down on the big button on the podium. Behind him on the portable holodisplay was the latest news report. The sound was muted, but text streamed by at the bottom: SQUAWS WHIPPED LIKE PONIES IN GAME, NOW REALLY ARE.
Barnsour looked at the screen, shook his head, and turned back to the assembled members of the PER. "Achievements for the week. Team Pauldron! Twenty-five? Twenty-five? Are you muffin' kidding me?"
Hinny the Gelding stepped in front of an upset Colt Creamello. "It was a tough week, Baron! We had real trouble with..."
"I don't want to hear it, Hinny. And that goes for you too, Dapple!" Dapple Grey had started to object, but instead lowered his head. The fourth member of Team Pauldron, Perliono Mustang, just stared at the floor as if the spots and splotches on it were an ancient language that held the secrets of how not to suck.
"Alright.... next... " Barnsour was not a happy pony today, it seemed. "Team Vambrace. What have we here?" Barnsour checked the paper on the podium. "Thirty conversions. You beat Pauldron, I'll give you that. That's all I can give you. I don't know what I can say, ponies, step it up! Step it up!"
Sorell and 'Withers' Sabino simply looked sad. This was not going to be easy.
"And now we come to the new shining stars of the Squamous PER. I gotta admit, I'm as surprised as anypony, but... there you have it, right there on the screen. Let's have a big round of applause for this weeks star team, Ginger and Nutmeg, Team RUMPGUARD - ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY ONE CONVERSIONS!!!"
Both Team Pauldron and Team Vambrace sagged where they stood. The rest of the ponies in the headquarters just stared, still unbelieving, even after a day of holonews and wailing sirens scanning the streets. The two humans. The two bloody humans. Team Ass Protection. Impossible.
But then the thunder began. It started with Skewbald of Team Vambrace and spread to the crowd. The building began to shake with the furious stomping of hooves, an earthquake of applause, astonished, miffed, and yet proud, too.
Ginger beamed, as if he had won a beauty contest. Nutmeg shifted uneasily, smiling despite herself, her hands clenching and unclenching, not used to actually succeeding at anything.
"So.... one hundred and eighty one points. How are you going to divide that, you two? One of you going to go pony today then?" Barnsour found himself caught up in the moment, even he was grinning. It was, after all, quite an achievement.
"Um..." Nutmeg spoke quietly "We... we always try to divide things equally."
"That is right!" Ginger glowed with excitement "Right down the middle, because we're a team!"
"So..." Barnsour tried to work out the math, but he was not very good with a pencil in his teeth. His secretary quietly crept up and told him the score, she had worked it out in her head. "Um hmm... you're kidding. You're not kidding."
Barnsour wore an expression that would be at home on a sad clown who had just gotten the news that his mother had been killed by a dog, and then found out the dog was HIS dog and would need to be put to sleep.
"So..." He began "...that's... ninety-nine points for Ginger... and... ninety-nine points... for Nutmeg. Um. Well. Congratulations, you two. I guess. If that's how you want to do it..." He trailed off. He'd so been looking forward to being able to recruit new Fifth Column Infiltrators. Well, one point. One little point... Ah!
"I've got a great idea, everypony!" The Baron was smiling again "What say we just spot Team Rumpguard those silly two points and have ourselves a grand old PER conversion celebration!" This brought the house down with applause and happy laughter. It was always a great party when their own got converted. It was just what everypony needed.
"NO!" Shouted Ginger and Nutmeg together. "Thank you, but we can't accept. Not yet." Ginger was his usual earnest self, honorable beyond all reason, just like his partner "We must earn our ponifications, that was the rule, and we follow the rules, right Nutmeg?"
"RIGHT!" It was clear that Nutmeg was unhappy at this, but she was every bit as honor bound as Ginger. "Gingey and I will just have to earn those last points another day. We insist. No special favors for us. We are proud to be part of the PER, and we won't sully the honor and tradition of the Squamous Enclave by taking points that are not rightfully ours!"
Twenty-five pairs of pony eyes stared at the two incredulously. Some muzzles gaped. Finally, Baron Barnsour cleared his throat. "Ahem... well... I... see." He shook his head once again. "Very well then, until... one more point... each. Indeed, how hard can it be?"
Twenty five ponies laughed heartily at this. After a score of one-eighty one, what pony dared argue?
Ginger smiled proudly at Nutmeg.
Nutmeg looked uncomfortable. One point. Foal's play.
Michelson, Ginger: 099 Morely, Nutmeg: 099
I thought I would note - what Ginger is doing when he paints his toenails? I never painted my toenails, but I once, long ago, could do that. Back when I was young and very, very, very thin. I miss being that flexible.
This was funny. Ginger is hilarious and funnily enough I hear -- just which pronoun should I use for Ginger?-- trying to do a Jim Carrey impression every time the lanky one drags out "Nutme-heh-ehg!"
Too bad our two "protagonists" are now in "comedy failure zone."
I mean, they'll never figure the OBVIOUS way to complete their one hundred ponifications... or will they?
It'll probably be about 20 chapters or so before they finally get their last points
Definitely funny, not the laugh out loud sort but certainly the continuous snorting variety. Somehow I foresee that the one extra conversion for both of them is going to be a while in the making and most likely each other by accident.
Purple... Rain...
Hehehe, I think I had the same idea... oops
1. lousy. point.
this is going to take forever for our favorite manzai duo, isn't it?
also, one thing I noticed:
"Nutmeg tried to see if she could get her leg over her head, the effort was as painful as the result was successful."
Does that mean she managed to do it, except at the cost of excruciating pain, or didn't manage to do it without getting hurt by it either?
527993
well, Ginger is male, and Nutmeg female. At least, according to the pronouns used when they are preparing for the mission, right after the introduction of "codepony". More specifically,
Nutmeg was worried, a feeling that had become as familiar to her as...
Ginger was busy doing his toenail...
528276
That's what I thought of too.
528312
If Team Rumpguard is indeed a Team Rocket reference, then your analysis is exactly correct: Ginger is male and emphatically so, but is quite fond of feminine style, especially when it comes time to don disguises.
1 point....
they're gonna fail hard right? after all.... Barnsour did say that: "How hard can it be to get one point." hum.... bro, that's a jinx
I'm going to expect a mass exodus of the New Mexico region with such a large amount of simultaneous conversions.... leaving only 2 humans..... guess who they are.....
and in a dozen chapters or so they'll finally go smart and think: "Hey, we're humans too, it wouldn't bend the rules much if we convert each other." that or they gonna be stuck at 99 points until the Barrier reaches them....
EDIT: And really those people at the football game were imbeciles.... they see ponies under a purple shower? LETS GO HELP THEM, looks like they didn't know about the ponification serum....
Wouldve been better if they hooked it up to the fire sprinklers and set those off.
529408
Damn, you're right. I guess I just have trouble thinking like a freedom fighter.
Also, I can't believe nobody got the rudest joke I've ever written, right in this chapter. I expected anger and complaints. Maybe it's better it wasn't noticed...
A nice update to this story. The switch in slap stick to dirty humor was a real change up, but it was nice seeing a different style. It was still humorous but didn't ring with the same silliness the first chapter held. All the same, I enjoyed it.
One minor error I figured I'd point out:
(Ginger beamed, as if he had one a beauty contest.) "won"
My favorite line was easily: "The two bloody humans. Team Ass Protection. Impossible." Team ass protection? This was just great since I'm still laughing at them being called Team Rumpguard.
529566
Well, I noticed a lot, a real lot, of dirty jokes, both subtle and not so subtle, so I'm not sure if one of them happened to be what you're talking about. Some of the stuff in there I haven't read before so that was surprising. Thought I'd seen all the dirty humor out there by this point, how wrong I was.
529566
Itd also make more sense why the count was 181 with only one set of showers active.
Wait a minute.... couldn't they just convert each other!?
Then they both get a point each!
530059
Converting PER members doesn't count. That's why Ginger didn't get a point for accidentally spilling potion on a third recruit when they were first inducted.
They are insanely honorable.
This has me wondering what it would be like to live in a world where you're at a daily risk of ponification terrorism. Every drinking fountain, every fire-sprinkler system, every public pool and water park is suddenly an outgoing drunk-dial to Fate, and God help you if she picks up. I think it would lead to a very thirsty, very smelly population after only a few headlines, not to mention the attention of people and factions situated against the PER, such as Celestia, the HLF, and regular folks who'd just prefer to have the decision left to them.
I still don't find Nutmeg and Ginger—or their cause—to be sympathetic, but that reptilian slow-down-to-look-at-a-car-accident part of my brain wants to see what the Black Sunday of pony-terrorism would be like. I guess it would be Purple Sunday, but still. They seem to have found their footing, but that was largely in a consequence-free environment. How would they handle someone halfway competent standing against them?
531392 "How would they handle someone halfway competent standing against them?"
For the other side, we have the HLF, the Human Liberation Front. They are as fanatical in opposition to ponification as the PER is to promote it. They are mirrors of each other, and I have had notable HLF characters in my stories before.
The PER will potion bomb humans, in the effort to save them from inevitable death when Equestria eats the world. The PER was founded by ex-worldgovernment secret agents who were genetically altered so that when they were ponified, they would retain the human capacity for violence. Their original purpose was to be available to assassinate the princesses, or other targets, inside Equestria, if needed. Unfortunately for the worldgovernment, they became fanatical devotees of Celestia, only without pony inhibitions. Those original agents recruit from ordinary people, most of which lack real skills of any kind.
The HLF believes that it is better to die human, than to - in their view - be replaced by a grinning, inhuman, joy-zombie monstrosities. Most HLF are from military/paramiliary/militia backgrounds, they know weapons, they know tactics, and they are not clumsy or funny. They are at war, and they intend to win, and if they cannot win, they intend to deny Celestia human thralls. They will destroy the world, if they have to, and there has been at least one story involving just that.
In a direct confrontation between the two, which has appeared in several stories, the PER come in waves, their only weapon potion, trying to convert the humans. They always stop for their fallen comrades, and the bodies pile up as they do so. The HLF gun the ponies down, their view obscured by the piles of bodies building up as the ponies, who can leave no pony behind, die trying to comfort and save the fallen. When a PER pony manages to make a hit, and one of the HLF transforms, other HLF members shoot the newly created pony, if they can. They see these executions as mercy.
Unless the PER manage to transform the HLF in time, it is a slaughter, because the majority of the PER cannot actually kill or maim, and the original WorldGov agents that can are far and few between. Even if the PER win, it is Pyrrhic, because the HLF are willing to kill for their goals, and the PER are not. Frankly, such battles are often rather one-sided, and very, very sad. If the PER win, the last of the HLF usually shoot themselves rather than be transformed.
If the HLF win, there are no more PER in that area. They pile the bodies of the dead ponies and burn them, the live injured they take to base and do the most terrible experiments and tortures on - in an attempt to discover some means, any means to better destroy, unconvert, infect, or otherwise wipe out all ponies and ultimately, Equestria itself. There have been quite a few stories exploring this side of things too.
Both sides are certain they are right, both are fanatical, and both are denounced by Celestia and earth's Worldgovernment equally. But they exist, and they fight for their causes, and it creates a lot of exciting, wonderful, marvelous drama, horror, and conflict within the Conversion Bureau universe.
It appears that Ginger is already studying the arts of pinkiemancy, given those pom poms...
I can't help but wonder if, on some subconscious level, these two are going to start sabotaging themselves. Fear of the unknown, you know? They've been doing this for so long, they don't know where to go from here. Or maybe they're just cursed for the sake of the lulz.
Also, you missed a perfectly good chance to use the word "mephitic."
531742
I would think fanatical devotees of Celestia would respect her wishes, even accounting for retained human traits. To do otherwise is to essentially claim that one knows better than she does, and what truly loyal pony would do that?
The pony-wave tactics you mentioned were present in my first story, Ten Rounds. When I wrote that, though, the HLF hadn't debuted in a story yet, and the main difference I had was that ponies actually were little less than mindless extensions of Celestia's will, which is why those tactics were used in the first place. Outside of that Ten-Rounds-style universe, the sense of self-preservation that even non-sapient creatures have would make it a no-go in the pony playbook. They'd still try to "help," of course, they just wouldn't be so wastefully reckless going about it. On the human side, they were just regular folks trying to stay human, not trained fighters (though experience is a hell of a fast teacher). In addition, the idea of the Barrier expanding and the world being swallowed up also had not yet debuted; the Barrier just prevented human invasion. Humans actually had a real choice between going or staying rather than a false choice of going or dying. Some stories even had Equestria disappearing after some time, leaving humans alone again.
All I'm saying is that the motivations of characters has a lot to do with what's going on around them. The concept of an encroaching Barrier was a huge shift in how TCB stories got written. Such a setting necessitates a culture of escalation, which in turn would give birth to organizations like the HLF and the PER as a matter of course. Humans' hands are forced; you can't stay on the fence in a world like that, and people fight hardest when cornered.
Speaking of cornered, I remember reading your continuation story Ten Minutes: Aftermath, and I enjoyed the character exploration of someone who hated Celestia being forced to interact with her. What made it great was that I could just as easily have seen it turning out the other way. Human resolve is strong, after all, and one thing tons of TCB stories are lacking are human characters with the strength of their convictions, regardless of how the author or readers are meant to feel about it. Reading Aftermath again made me want to write out the conversion dreams of the humans in Railroad Seven-Three, but I resisted.
lol dint read the fine text never mind.
I swear by the ponyhell and stars above, those two won't survive a month in Equestria
I guess you could call it a...
puts on sunglasses
CHANGE ROOM!
YEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!
a lot of fun to read also the jenniverse.com/images/threebreeds%20sm.png is an amazing little detail keep up the godly work
Utterly hilarious, although I didn't find the dirtiest joke ever...
Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do comedy. This made me laugh many times throughout. It may be an art form and difficult to perfect, but you honestly made me giggle like an idiot whilst I was trying to look calm and composed in a meeting...
Terrorism, zany schemes, a kinda strict girl, and an effeminate guy?
cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/quizzes/cat_img/74.jpg
nope, doesn't ring any bells
now if they had a cat I might think team rocket had some inspiration in this... but that'd just be silly
529408
Exactly what I was thinking.
Dirty joke: "It could be cleaner."
> how hard can it be?
There are four chapters left. I can describe the probable outcome in two words.
> Foal's play.
Not those words. "Hilarity ensues." Those words.
On one hoof, 181 conversions is pretty spectacular compared to what the other teams seem to get normally. On another hoof, they wasted enough potion to convert over 10,000. I'm surprised nopony is upset with them for that. At any rate, this story continues to entertain and delight. Also, I realized what kind of dark comedy this is- it's the kind you find in the Fallout universe. So the people who are finding this hard to stomach probably don't care much for that universe either. Which means they aren't the kind of people this was written for.
531742 What about the IHSA which you don't include, the one who wants to preserve humanity, but doesn't hate ponies.
Wow, the wheat hasn't even decayed?
...And then I read the end of the paragraph, having asked the question at the beginning and begun speculating about anti-decay gengineering in the middle. :D
Also, um... someone in the testing division got fired over that. Probably many someones. With actual fire.
And then the story answers that. I was, of course, forgetting how much security could be bought in this universe.
I was more or less right about just what caused the "mistake" in development, though... sigh.
Some nice looks into how Michelson and Morely feel about what they're doing.
...Surely two points can't be that difficult to get? I expect that these two will prove me wrong, though...
And I think that I'd better stop here for the night, I'm afraid. Sorry that my commentary's a bit sparse. I am quite enjoying the comedy, by the way, but unfortunately it's a lot (a lot :)) of little things all over the place instead of a few big oh-dear-I-have-to-take-my-glasses-off-because-my-eyes-are-watering-I'm-laughing-so-hard things that would be easy to comment on. I've definitely been smiling and laughing, though. :)
529408
529566
Actually, that makes sense to me. Based on what I've read, the design of most fire sprinkler systems would make that pretty impractical. If they could pull if off during a school day, sure, that would be great, but they probably couldn't.
531742
Interesting; thank you for posting that. I also didn't know that the PER couldn't make more PER ponies (the ones who don't have the combat inhibitors, that is, not just ponies in the PER).
531974
"I would think fanatical devotees of Celestia would respect her wishes, even accounting for retained human traits. To do otherwise is to essentially claim that one knows better than she does, and what truly loyal pony would do that?"
"Oh, but we are respecting her wishes! Yes, of course she says in Earth-accesible media that we should stop, but really, what's more likely? That Princess Celestia doesn't want as many humans as possible saved as quickly as possible, or that she's having to watch her words to prevent the silly apes from panicking even more than they already are and hurting themselves further? Look, here's a screenshot of a freezeframe from an interview she gave; it's a bit hard to make out, but you can clearly see she's half-winking..."
...And then I looked at what I'd just typed realized that one has to be careful, particularly when commenting on a chapter that already contains dirty jokes, about how one uses the word "winking" when talking about ponies. Oops! :D
Anyway, goodnight. :)
Absolute stupidity... "Hey, everybody seems to be having a problem in the showers, better rush in and make the same mistake so many others made." What, are the people of this time frame lacking in the intelligence department?
... wheat. Forever protected, you say? Not if you... blow up the planet. Not that anyone would...
What would have happened already if the badass version of me was in this:
*during the "we refuse to get Ponified until we've earned it" scene*
*Breaks down the walls, and enter about a few dozen fully armored men*
"It's killing time!" [Insert bloodbath here]
You know, if Ginger and Nutsy transform each other, they'd both be at goal.
11499867
They are far, far too honorable. They are driven to play by the rules. No cheating for them, no siree. 100% by the book. Their dignity is all they really have!