Twilight Sparkle's day began with assassins from the future. It only got worse with the addition of time-traveling vigilantes. The memory wipes didn't do much to improve it. And the less said about her own self's intervention, the better.
It's not been a good day for Twilight Sparkle. And if she doesn't get to the bottom of it all, the future doesn't look bright either.
A companion piece to From forever, with love by monokeras and to Paradox by CCC, tackling the same basic prompt in a different way.
Chapters (5)
I like how I accidentally clicked on comedy and got this. How DD going?
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It's going fine. I've got the rest of the sequence with the main three in the North fairly well mapped out (and after that, the really fun stuff gets going), so once I've finished this, I'll hopefully be able to start cranking out updates for it at a somewhat faster pace.
I'm a sucker for time-loop stories, granted, but I'm really enjoying this already. Some really sharp ideas and well-timed punchlines in here, and I have a feeling that this is far from the last we'll see of the Time Police.
It was... somewhat unexpected to scroll down and see a bit of my art being used as a cover page. I don't mind - this story looks interesting and I too am a sucker for stories that fiddle with time - but it would be nice just to get some sort of warning beforehand.
I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
5399973
Glad you approve thus far. I imagine they'll reappear in due course.
5400051
Apologies for not asking beforehand. I saw the piece on DeviantArt and was taken by it. Since I don't have an account there of my own, I'm usually unable to ask permission, but always try to give proper credit. If you want me to stop using it at any point, let me know.
Huh. Twilight is Equestria's Hitler, at least in terms of being targeted by time travelers. Heck, the Time Police have to save her so frequently that they treat it as a training mission. Color me intrigued. The dust in her throat at the end was a nice subtle gut twist. Looking forward to more.
Huh... Interesting Title and the Title Drop was expected, and the story's in Winter, don't get that much...
I haven't finished reading this, but I've got an issue... when it says "Two more blades"... Was the first blade dropped and therefore there are now three blades in play? Because the "third blade", seems to mean that you meant "Two blades" instead of "Two more blades", back there... I'm trying to count the number of blades in play here...
So, they didn't fix everything... is that the thread that unravels the whole sweater/plan?
Does this occur in conjunction with "From forever, with love" or are they just related by virtue of starting from the same prompt?? Well, I'll find out in about 10 minutes or so...
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Glad to have your interest.
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Whoops. Well-spotted, and fixed. She pulls out one blade initially, produces another when she pursues Twilight outside, whips out a third during the fight, and brings out a fourth when the first three are destroyed. Hopefully, that's how the knife choreography should now play out.
It shares the same basic time-malarkey prompt with FFWL, but doesn't share the same universe or timeline. One isn't necessary for knowledge of the other.
Just going to leave this here:
...But, Twilight wouldn't do those horrible things.
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Time will tell.
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The future is unpredictable, but who knows? Maybe Twilight won't go bonkers, but instead another takes her place. Or maybe things get worse and civilization collapses into ruin. Or something strange like Big Mac becoming a princess.
For want of a nail after all.
Well, this is a pretty interesting start.
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Glad you think so. Hopefully, it can continue to be such.
5416043 Considering the other stories of yours that I have read, I'd be surprised if it didn't.
Oh dear, shit is going off rails.
5444887
Just a little bit, aye.
Either Twilight is going to destroy the timeline as the Time Police know it, or their constant intervention and her paranoia will combine to form a self-fulfilling prophecy of tyranny. Either way, this is going to be an epic comedy of misunderstandings.
Also, being legally dead doesn't sound too bad. I mean, hey, free garlic.
Looking forward to more.
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Or, depending on the undead traditions, free rice scattered in your path, free burial at a crossroads, or free stakes applied through your torso. So many freebies!
Free garlic!
Glad it continues to entertain.
missing a quotation mark...
I think I get it now! If you do stop, you get to die! If you don't... you suffer a Fate Worse Than Death!
***
Nice to see what the Time Police look like! I wonder how it started, where it's located, and who commands it... How do they recruit?
Perhaps a comma before 'incandescent'? What's going to happen next?
I'm liking the chapter titles being quotes from the chapters! It's always interesting to see how they come about!
Nice terminology too!
So, the Fray is a measure of how much the timeline the Chrono-cube is placed in deviates from the timeline that happens... or something? How much Fray is dangerous? Is any amount of Fray dangerous? I suppose not, given that 8.0% Fray is good. I guess if they try for 0 Fray is near impossible because going back into the timestream adds Fray, unless you're really careful, so it's hard for it to go below a certain point...
Yep, agree with FOME two posts ago!
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Thank you for the corrections. One of these days, I really will have to go about finding an editor.
Yep, you've got it. Fray is a measure of how badly disturbances in the past have mucked up the smooth functioning of the present. There's always going to be a small amount, since time-travellers are hard to regulate and most of their offences are fairly minor in scale. The flow of time's got a lot of momentum behind it, and stomping on one butterfly's not going to do much to throw it off. However, something major, like assassinating Twilight Sparkle before her rise to power, will rapidly increase the Fray levels. If they get past a critical threshold, then the current timeline will necessarily change and eliminate anything living in it. The Time Police are rather keen on this not happening.
As for more details on the Time Police themselves? They're a-coming.
Tenebris. But is she really Twilight?
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We don't know that's the case. Granted, it might seem that Future-Twilight is Tenebris, but remember that earlier Lieutenant Bramble said, "Sparkle herself would probably be more suitable for training baby Police than Tenebris,” so there's at least a chance that they're separate ponies.
Nightmare Twilight? Develop a conscience after wiping out a country? Create a time-force to prevent temporal muck-ups?
5465641
that's my point. This must be Tenebris(unless future Tyrant Twilight suddenly showed up) but the future Twilight "I'm you" thing could just be a trick.
5465664
So you're telling us it's definitely one thing, unless it's something else.
Thanks for clearing that up for us. =P
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There are undoubtedly very good, straightforward answers to all these questions.
Damned if I know them myself, though.
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Lol. Love it.
And yeah, I've been there too. "What happens next?" "Damned if I know. I just write the thing."
If there are two Twilights, then there is the possibility that one is a fake, whether it be Tyrant or Tenebris. Of course, there's always the possibility that they're both fake...
5465641
They refer to past-Twilight as Sparkle. Potentially, he was doing the same there. "Their namby-pamby Twilight would do a better job than ours!"
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I'm reminded of the MadTV sketch where "Arnold Schwarzenegger" talks about his newest movie.
"Who are you?"
"I'm you!"
"If you are me, then who am I?"
"You're me too!"
*inarticulate gibberish*
Oh! More Time-Chaos! Discord??
Why can't they go back to before the Fraying Point and correct it from there? A matter of precision? A matter of: can't go back to the same point twice? Or something? Or: The Cube sends them X amount of time into the past, and the Time Police still advance in time, so the time they get sent back to, keeps moving forward, too.
Also: 'rarity'
Nice opening! And as always, nice Title Drop!
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Precision is more or less the reason in-universe, yep. (Authorial incompetence plays a larger one out of it.) There's also the possible matter that going back before the Fray-inducing event can potentially retcon the actions of Time Police involved in incidents post-Fray. The consequences of this are both terrible and shown with great enthusiasm to Time Police recruits.
Or something like that, anyway. oh god i have no idea about time travel why did i think this was a good idea
Glad you continue to approve!
Well. This raises all kinds of questions... and I think I may have guessed a few answers. After all, in such an unlikely-seeming future, it makes sense that the focus of that timeline would have a vested interest in seeing it realized.
Eagerly looking forward to more.
5476190
Glad you're still enjoying it.
Couldn't possibly comment on that implied guesswork.
I'd love it if it was just something like Twilight manipulating the history books to get herself off the throne after Celestia and Luna are gone
5485218
It's great fun, being a writer that knows what's going on.
Or approximately knows, at least, time travel is confusing
Well isn't that just a victory for carefully managed paranoia, not to mention the general concept of being ready for anything.
Either this whole series of time interventions is so going to be what creates Tyrant Sparkle in the first place, or it's going to create a fray built on the actions of the time police themselves that they might not be able to fix.
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It ain't paranoia if they really are out to get you.
There's going more than one terrible consequence from all this malarkey, certainly.
Good thing AJ is reliable, because Twilight has checked out for the moment.
You know, I was definitely wondering about all that damage to the Boutique. Nice to know that the Time Police has a very broad skill set.
This is a great example of why Rarity is absolutely best pony at times.
All Tartarus may have broken loose, but it was beautiful to behold.
Beautiful.
Oh my. For some reason I was thinking Luna for Tenebris, right up until just before the end of the chapter when I remembered its title.
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I do like to incorporate a bit of beauty every now and then. Glad you continue to approve of all the convoluted mayhem.
I'm guessing this is when the future is changed from Nazi Equestria, to 1980's action movie Dystopia Equestria. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Fluttershy.
Oh, and the Crown was referenced.
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fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/343/3/a/fluttershy_tha_terminator_by_ironmanjae-d4ikvq1.jpg
I've heard of sillier propositions in my time.
Glad you enjoyed the reference.
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I'm going to guess that if you go back in time to before Fray that you accidentally caused yourself, and prevent the Fray from ever starting, then the alarm to tell you to go back the second time never goes off, and so you never go back, and so you never fix the problem, and so the Fray happens anyway, and so you do go back and time a second time and so it doesn't, and nine times out of ten the temporal paradox resolves itself into "you go back but fail to prevent the Fray", forcing the ponies to have to go back to afterwards anyway (and you really don't want to know what happens to the paradox if you aren't that lucky).
Going back to before somepony else triggers Fray and preventing them is alright; the trouble only comes in when your own timeline gets crossed. (Which means that if any Fray gets past these Time Police, it might be picked up by a different Time Police agency a few centuries down the line with better technology instead).
5516111
...I understood some of that. I think. The Time Police have a very complicated job, that's undeniable.
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I believe that it was Douglas Adams who said that the most difficult part of time travel is the grammar. If we had some sort of tense that could properly deal with something that did not and can not happen due to temporal paradox, I think I might be able to explain it in a more straightforward manner (or possibly not, I can be verbose sometimes...)
5516237
Douglas Adams has far too much to answer for, bless his ingenious soul.
5516111
you leave yourself a note to go back because otherwise it doesn't get stopped
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I'm betting on Twilight becoming the founder of Time Police. Magitech, meddling with time and history, and obsessive attention to preserving details... it seems like it would appeal to her, a lot.
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Working on the next chapter currently.
We'll see what the future holds for her.