Balance is the vital element to keeping peace. Without balance, there is no control, only greed. Without balance, there are no morals, only sin. Without balance, there is no good, only evil. The ponies of old did not understand this. They fought until the land bloodied with their own kin’s blood. Ponykind threw away what made them creatures of balance. Love, friendship, bonds…all weakness. They hardened their hearts to the world, and the world, in turn, shunned them. Magic throughout the land began to cease. The ponies quickly gathered what was left and, once they had enough for themselves, they took from those who they felt did not deserve it. They horded it in their forts and bunkers, threatening all who would oppose them.
In the end, the magic tainted, no longer able to maintain balance. Little by little, as ponykind used up the magic reserves fighting each other, their minds became tainted with greed and power. The magic itself began to seep into the lands. No trees or flowers grew. Animals mutated into abominations. Crops withered and died. Then, ponies died.
The survivors quickly built shelters and took refuge in the ground. They vowed to never return to the surface.
Too bad their ancestors would not follow in their footsteps.
~~~~~~~~~
More Most Dangerous Game Entry. Please provide constructive criticism. It has been a good long time since I have written a longer piece, so the pacing might be a little off. This is a story based on this prompt:
-"In an Equestria devastated by an apocalyptic war, the few that remain try their best to survive or rebuild--however they can."
There's far too much exposition in the beginning. You don't need to relate to us the history of Equestria all at the beginning. It'd be more natural and more interesting to introduce it throughout the story. Let the events of the story convey the necessary information. The description also doesn't make much sense. Why would it be that "without balance, there is no good, only evil?" Is the world naturally predisposed to being a terrible place? You can't really make a claim like this without anything to back it up.
The story could use some more developing of its setting. We don't really know anything about Undergrowth, and while its regime appears to be corrupt, there's nothing about it that seems related to the ponies' exodus underground. No sense of history, of its place in the world (is it the only town underground, or are there also other larger cities and communities in the region?). To be honest, there's little about the story that is even related to ponies. If you changed every character into a human, nothing in this story would change.
I guess it's still the very beginning of the story, but there's nothing particularly interesting about the characters. You did a decent job of making them charismatic, but they don't really have any interesting characteristics beyond that.
The poisoning and mad escape towards the surface afterwards didn't make much sense a lot of the time. Why would Cherry try to save the two if she thought they really did murder her father. The fact that she even tries to execute Hailstorm shows that she doesn't trust them and it's actually laughable that she attempts it then gives up. Also, I don't know if they really considered the ramifications of leaving towards the surface. Cherry can only open the door from the inside, meaning that they just trapped the entire population of Undergrowth below ground, seemingly permanently. It'd be a much more interesting question to ask than, "Oh gee, the citizens are starting a witch hunt for us. I wonder if we should really decide to leave this place."
Finally, the story could use an editor. There are a few misspelled and wrong words, awkward tense-shifts, dialogue without quotation marks, etc.
5593519 thanks for the criticism! I appreciate that more than a dislike with no comment.
This entire thing was to try and see if I could yet grasp how to do a full-fledged series. Ive tried several times in the past, but i just cant get things to connect.
this was a good experiment to see if i could start a story off well and be able to branch off. I admit, near the end, i was almost out of time to write. However, that doesnt give me a reason for such a rushed ending.
i will look into an editor. I usually am fine on errors and grammar but i can miss a lot of things. As for the pacing, thanks for the advice. I will remember that as I write my next two short stories.