Silver woke up in his hammock and rolled to his hooves with a yawn. The horn played outside loud and clear. It was time to wake... up?
Wait, where was he? He looked around the barracks with a raised brow as other stallions and mares stirred themselves quickly and began getting prepared. It looked like a camp, or some kind of military thing. That seemed silly though, as he was no member of the military. He tried to feel if he was sleeping, but no such feeling of being asleep came to mind.
"Why're you looking so spaced out, Private Silver?" A pegasus mare trotted in. It was Rainbow Dash, but she was missing a wing, replaced with cold metal. "We have to get moving." She reached out and put a hoof on a stunned Silver's shoulder. "I know you're nervous, we all are... but we have to face His army here, or all of Equestria will be overrun." She slapped him lightly. "So shake the sleep from your eyes and get out there." She turned and trotted out, most other ponies saluting her as she went past.
Silver found his foot (hoof?) locker and started getting dressed even as his mind raced. Where was everyone he knew? Why wasn't he in Canterlot? How could this not be a dream?! Rainbow Dash couldn't have lost her wing overnight, not with that prosthetic. She acted like this was normal, just like everypony else.
Maybe it was normal...
Silver shook his head quickly as he emerged from the barracks, his helmet jostling around but held in place with a strap under the chin and by merit of being pinned on his horn. He spied a line of other... soldiers? and quickly joined them, standing in row alongside the others. Everything was wrong, so wrong. These were no royal guards. They were normal ponies. They looked haunted. He got the impression most of them didn't want to be there, but there they were.
"Alright! Today is an important day..." Rainbow Dash trotted back and forth along the line. She was flanked by Pinkie and Maud Pie, who looked deadly serious. "If we can stop them here, we'll buy the rest of the army some needed time. We can turn this around, and we will. Today is the day we shine." She slapped a hoof on her metal-plated chest. "We're going to change history! For Princess Celestia!"
"For Equestria!" echoed all the ponies around Silver as if by rote activity.
Change history... change... Shit! Silver scowled. Had Starlight's intervention gone so horribly wrong that this is what Equestria was reduced to? He looked around with a building panic.
Suddenly Pinkie was standing before him. "Turn that frown upside-down, soldier. We have a nation to save."
Silver blinked at the stern Pinkie and tried to ease his expression. "Sorry, uh, ma'am. Have you seen Night Watch?"
Pinkie raised a brow at him. "She's scouting the enemy movements, as usual. Look, I know lots of us would rather be with our loved ones about now, but if we don't pull this together, there won't be a place to be with them in. Do you want to live in a world controlled by Sombra?"
"No?"
"I can't hear you." Pinkie leaned in closer.
"No ma'am!" Silver offered a clumsy imitation of the salute he'd seen others doing.
"That's better." She returned to Rainbow's side.
Silver internally relaxed a little. Night still existed, doing something she'd probably take pride in. Not all was lost. In fact, gauging from Pinkie's reaction, they were still an item in this crazy world. He followed with the others as they got to marching, presumably towards some site they intended to... fight...
He swallowed with renewed nervousness. He was really marching out to battle. His horn glowed softly as he conjured a low-level version of his personal shield, testing it both with and without the added flames. He had no intention of getting wiped out in an alternate Equestria. More importantly, how did he fix it? How was the spell even used? Starlight had it, and he didn't, and he had no idea what change and specific time she went to.
"Still nervous?" A stallion walking beside Silver asked. "It's cool. We'll stick together."
Silver glanced aside to see who was speaking and started. It was Rough Tumble, trimmed with regular work and wearing the same battle-ready outfit as everyone else.
"What? You look like you saw a ghost." He leaned over and kissed Silver on the cheek. "I'll protect you."
Silver burned a bright red. Tumble would protect him?! Were they an item in this timeline too? Gah! At least one timeline where his lovelife was nice and simple would be nice. "T-thanks, uh..."
"Just focus on blasting the crystal ponies, bonus points if you can knock those crazy helmets off of 'em."
Silver raised a brow. "Crazy helmets?"
Tumble frowned a little. "You really are shaken up." He threw a leg over Silver and pulled him close. "Look, relax. I'll be there. You do that unicorn thing and I'll keep them off you."
Silver nodded stiffly. "Right, unicorn stuff. So, helmets?"
"You really forgot?" Tumble released him. "The control helmets? They're how Sombra controls his army. Knock one off and the pony goes down, but it's a lot harder than it looks. Still, a slap to the head is still a slap to the head. Figure if you knock one out, that's just as good." His shoulders lifted mildly. "That's all you have to focus on. Don't worry about the rest, that's my job."
Silver gave a firm nod, his mind whirring. He obviously wasn't as talented in this timeline if Tumble was busy convincing him to just use a basic unicorn blast and nothing else, but if he had become a unicorn and was almost immediately pressed into the army as his service instead of what he had done in his original timeline... that made sense. He might have never learned the unicorn alphabet at all, or any spells besides what a unicorn could learn without it, namely force bolts and telekinesis. He was just thrust, wide-eyed and probably scared witless right into a war.
"Tumble."
"Yeah? You're looking better."
Silver smiled. "I am... I won't just be doing what you said to do."
Tumble frowned a little. "Don't get carried away. We're a team."
Silver nodded quickly. "Right, I get that, but I've been practicing some... other spells."
That surprised Tumble. "Huh? When? Are you sure that's a good idea? I heard spells you don't know good are pretty bad."
Silver bumped against him. "Have faith in me."
That relaxed him and he smiled gently. "I do. Look, do your best, just stay behind me, alright?"
Silver began letting loose the power within himself, letting the current flow hot just to see how well that rush of energy moved in his subtly different body. Surprisingly, it was about the same as before, but he quickly decided that wasn't so odd. In this timeline, working on output was probably a daily activity, even if he didn't get a good education on spellcraft. A sudden thought made him twist his head around, but his flank was covered in armor. "Say, uh, Tumble, do I have a cutie mark?"
Tumble raised a brow. "Not unless you got one this morning. That'd explain why you're acting so funny." He smiled. "That'd be great if you did. A sign from destiny right there."
Silver wondered if his brand still burned bright on his flank, but he certainly remembered his most treasured spells, even if he didn't have his spellbook with him anymore, a fact that bothered him a little.
The trail they were following opened up into a larger field, huge cliffs on either side overlooking them. Across the way, another army approached. They were crystal ponies with pelts that looked cloudy. There was no shine in those ponies, except the glaring green slits in their helmets. The two opposing armies lined up across from one another, as if waiting for some signal from someone.
Celestia herself strode to the fore of the army. "You will be turned back, Sombra. Not one hoof further will fall to your hooves this day or any other!" She slammed a hoof into the ground, and the battle began with a tremendous roar of hundreds on hundreds of ponies on either side, charging wildly towards one another.
Sombra was there. Silver caught a glimpse of him just before he conjured a huge pillar of stone to stymie some brave royal guards that had tried to charge him directly.
This was a true war. He didn't even think Equestria could physically support such a thing. He ducked back as one of those green-slitted ponies came rushing at him, only to catch a hoof across the helmet from Tumble. "I got this!"
Silver reached out with his magic in all directions, and it was a mess. He could feel countless ponies moving through his field, fighting in the field, falling... He focused on one of those great control helmets and sent his magic flowing around and into it through every crack and pore, though there weren't many. Fortunately, mind-controlled or not, they had to breathe. There. There was a hatch on the inside, burned shut with magic, but he could feel it.
With a sudden seizure of his field, an intense pressure built around that welded joint and the helmet exploded off the dazed pony's head. She collapsed into the dirt and Silver smiled, panting from the effort. "One down..." There were countless more to go.
An enemy soldier threw himself at Silver, crashing into his shield in a show of color and heat. Shields of that sort were poorly made to handle whole bodies being thrown at them and began to buckle dangerously, but the heat pouring out was intense, like a geyser of flame across the face and barrel of the controlled crystal pony. He didn't even cry out as he sank to the ground, burned savagely.
Silver sank to a knee, heaving for breath from the exertion, eyes stinging with tears. The idea that he'd just watched... no, he had killed that pony. He hadn't had to kill since his dream. Was this all a dream? His senses kept telling him no, even as his mind wailed for it to all be a horrible nightmare.
"Silver!" Tumble was over him, standing watch. "Get up! You alright?" Another pony approached and Tumble began wrestling them away, carrying the both away from Silver.
He struggled back to his hooves. Ponies were counting on him. This would be a terrible time to have a mental breakdown. He could... cry later. He locked eyes on the pony Tumble was wrestling fiercely with and let out a sudden shout of fury. The helmet burst free of the pony and they sank to the ground with blank eyes, stunned and out of the battle. He knew where the catch was. He could dismantle those cursed helmets, one by one, if he had to.
The fog of war pulled back to reveal Sombra approaching them on calm hooves, his armor jangling with each step. "What have we here?"
you've earned a 'hmm' from Trixie on this one.
Son of a .
I had a feeling this would happen. The timing's right and you just can't resist screwing with our heads whenever you can.
And so it begins.
horrible wrong - horribly wrong
presumable - presumably
battle begun - battle began
*****
Fantastic chapter!
Not because Silver is caught up in the war with Sombra, not because he has meta knowledge that may confuse Sombra enough to cause him to falter, but because this means he is so integrated into the weave of the land that he's been carried along on the ripples in time, including his relationships. This gives me hope that the foals will still be there when it's over.
I'm cautiously optimistic.
Hm, I didn't expect to come to the end of season five quite this quickly, but I suppose it makes sense. Most of the other episodes were far more focused around members of the Mane Six, so there wasn't really anything else for Silver and co. to do in the meantime.
That said, the big point worth noting here is Silver's awareness of being in an alternate timeline. Simply put, that needs an explanation. I'm sure one will be presented shortly, but I'm dubious as to what it could be. I don't recall Silver necessarily being involved with time travel before, so he certainly shouldn't have any innate qualities that let him remain unaffected by a rewritten history. Likewise, without any sort of particular spell or protection to immunize himself from having his past altered, the current present should be the only one he remembers. (My suspicion is that there's going to be a reveal that, when making the spell for Starlight, Silver wrote an exception for himself into it, or something along those lines.)
But that bothers me less than the fact that Silver is able to just make the brainwashing helmets that King Sombra is using on the crystal ponies explode after a few seconds of examining them...at a distance in a chaotic situation, no less. That's just...that's too Mary Sue. The explanation for how he can do this simply doesn't hold up; in fact, it doesn't make much sense overall - the brainwashed crystal ponies still need to breathe, and that somehow connects to a "hatch" (presumably of magic?) that when squeezed, makes the helmets blow up. Uh, what? Even if Silver does have his cutie mark in this timeline, it's normally taken him hours of trial-and-error to make something, and that's with a spell. This just comes across as incredibly contrived.
What was more interesting was the apparent development that Silver is still with Night Watch in this timeline (which seems odd, since King Sombra came back at the beginning of season three, and Silver originally came to this world in early-mid season four, so presuming that Night was sent out early, which seems likely, I'm not sure how they'd have met), and yet is apparently in a relationship with Tumble as well. A call-back to the earlier versions of his herd, perhaps? I wish we had a bit more time to examine that, but that can't be helped too much I suppose, given that even Silver doesn't know what's going on.
Still, it feels rather odd that Silver, who is supposed to be barely more than a colt, is in the ranks of the regular army. For that matter, why is he a pony at all? The war would have started before he got there, so was Luna willing to turn the human David into a pony while there's a battle for their nation going on? I suppose that this won't last long enough to delve into the backstory, but in all honesty that's probably a good thing, since I really doubt that much of this would hold up under close examination.
I've been waiting for these glorious time travel shenanigans.
War. War never changes........ or does it?
7189977 Silver knocked out two soldiers in the time more experienced warriors could have done the same or better. Is this Mary Sue? I tried to emphasize how inefficient this method was. Did I fail?
7189943 I hope you enjoyed my slightly altered view of the events shown in the episode, from a just ever-so-slightly skewed perspective. Same story, different angle.
7190316
It was enjoyable reading it from Silver's perspective. A blow for blow retelling of the information from the episode would have been a 'Why bother?' but this adds new information that does not break events we witnessed in the show.
7190332 I feel I should ask, since a claim of taking my self-insert too far and being OP/Mary Sue/Gary Stu is serious business. Was Silver OP this chapter?
It's just a jump to the left...
Seriously none of you have done this gag yet? I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.
7189977
While fighting and hyped up on Adeline soldiers can do crazy things that are not normally possible. When you're on a strong kick of adrenaline you will start to perceive things at an increasing rate so the possibility of breaking a spell that quickly is feasible.
One word. Draft. I just had to sign up for the Selective Service, so in theory I could drafted at 18-19 which is barely more than a "boy"
Magic, he ain't got to explain shit.
7189943
When the spell was finished in the show nothing had changed, so Silver's family is fine.
7190114
You did good, a Gary Sue would have done that in half the time, or killed them both and wouldn't have hesitated. Silver on the other 'hoof' was scared shitless after killing one guy... pony.
7190369
No... But he was close (IMO) to being one on the other end. In combat you shouldn't worry about your enemy's well-being unless they are a HVT or not confirmed to be KiA. His concern for the slain pony shows him being almost to companionate.
It wasn't a dream though, Surprise (the pony) is very real (in this story's context) and there in lies the wierd part.
Silver has killed before in the "Dream" if one can call it that, he is not stranger to bloodshed much less on blood his own hooves.
He has a squad mate (Rumble) to worry about protecting, a wife/marefriend (Night) to go back to so his sorrow about a enemy combatant life being lost is and should be there at an emotional level, but big picture? That pony was going to kill Silver in a war, against the Crystal pony's will? Sure. Would Silver 'died' if he didn't kill the attacker? Probably if not definitely.
This though was great way to pull Silver back from the brink of empathic Gary Sue.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
I like it, it is bring back warrior Silver Stars.... But if Silver keeps recognizing that he is in alt time lines he'll probably be a slightly more cynical pony afterwards. Which would help against shit like what happened with Starlight Glimmer.
Sorry for the long post.
Well Silver, back into the line of fire, huh?
Once you've stepped out of time that same spell must protect you from others using it?That's a neat (if a bit unfortunate) side effect...
Keep going! ;)
Dash
So far, Silver is using magic normally, if he ever reduces the light spell to its constituent parts, and combines it with teleportation, transmogrification, then he has a very good chance of reaching the class of nuclear magic.
He would have power as long as he has mass undergoing conversion to drive the spell.
Which means it would be devastating if anyone got to interact with him, and analyse such spell.
His fire shield is still limited by the magic flow he can personally handle, instead of the magic flow the energy manipulating spell he creates can handle, which related to the wizards wheel, uses the magic flowing through itself to strengthen itself.
If all those helmets are designed te same way, an intresting creation would be a collection of functions, to scan for a helmet, to scan the helmet, to target the hatch, to pop the hatch, then set the collection up as a seperate spell linked to a power pulse or shield drain. The more he gets hit the more energy is available for the spell to target and take out the helmet.
Far better for his sake than going for anatomy spells such as pacemaker.
7190658 Fixed!
7190114 In all honesty, the idea that it was "inefficient" didn't seem to come through. Rather, given Tumble's speech that served to emphasize how the helmets were the best spot to aim for, and the implication that damaging or removing them was difficult to do, it seemed to highlight the accomplishment that Silver made in just making them blow up. The problem was that his being able to do that didn't feel deserved, but rather came across as rather contrived.
7190750 Left panting after each time, staggering and wobbling, and we're still taking two ponies (Silver and Tumble) taking on 4 ponies (Tumble bashed one, Silver popped a helmet off one, one charged into Silver's shield, and Silver popped one last one). Without Tumble, Silver would have been crushed, easily, so giving him the credit for it all...
None of that feels right. In the grand scheme of warfare, Silver did very little but earn his paycheck and a good patting on the back if they survive the battle.
You're acting like we haven't had entire chapters devoted to Silver refining the breadth and acuity of his telekinesis, like this just came out of nowhere.
I don't get it.
7190498
There's nothing to suggest that Silver is experiencing an adrenaline rush, let alone tachypsychia. Moreover, that phenomenon makes it "common for an individual experiencing tachypsychia to have serious misinterpretations of their surroundings during the events" that bring on such a state, making it less likely that Silver could do fine programming - which is what magic manipulation has always been referred to as in this fic - rather than more likely. That he could then do that at range, on an unfamiliar magic item, makes it all the more unbelievable.
Two words: poor reasoning. Silver has regularly been noted to be young to the point where he hasn't finished growing, which suggests that he's younger than the Mane Six, whom Lauren Faust stated said were "anywhere from 12 - 17."
Even magic has to answer to internal logic and consistency. Suggesting otherwise is a poor excuse used by hacks.
7190770 You're suggesting that the high cost and immediate inefficiency of what Silver's done diminish the overall nature of his accomplishment, and it doesn't. The practical impact is a separate consideration when compared to the fact that Silver just found the self-destruct switch to what lets Sombra have an army that can invade Equestria. Once he shares this particular revelation with other unicorn soldiers, much less Celestia, the war is effectively over, as they'll be able to line of regiments that can make the helmets go boom all at once, probably while the earth ponies and pegasi run interference. Being on a battlefield for two minutes and finding the single greatest point of vulnerability on what keeps the enemy troops' numbers up is a feat of irreducible proportions, even if he can't use it on a larger scale all by himself.
In the grand scheme of the war, he just won it for Equestria.
Insofar as his telekinesis goes, the chapter doesn't make it sufficiently clear that that's somehow responsible for making those helmets explode. There's something about them breathing, and a "hatch" of some kind (apparently in the flow of magic), and then...boom. Telekinesis will let you move things, but not detonate them.
7190796 There was no programming or new spells. He used the advanced telekinesis we kinda made a big deal about when working with Trixie. Remember that?
7190817 Not to the point where he was detonating things, no. How does "they still need to breathe" and "there's a 'hatch' (in the flow of magic in the helmets)" equate to "I can use telekinesis to make things blow up"?
7190809 Dude.
First: You need a well-trained spell-user, that's already a vanishing minority of unicorns, and only unicorns need apply.
Second: Teach them the spell, do it quick, the war's still raging.
Third: Yes, my super highly trained soldier just took out a grunt! Stop looking tired, do it again! This war is so in the bag!
7190827 I don't agree with those points:
Only unicorns need apply, sure, but the issue of creating spells has always been portrayed as far and away more difficult than learning or using them. We've seen more than a few unicorns that were able to pick up on Silver's spells pretty quickly once he taught them what he knew. This is not something that only he can do.
There's no time crunch here. Equestria is fighting Sombra to a standstill, rather than being on the edge of being conquered. Silver can fall back, show that spell to someone in charge (e.g. Princess Celestia) and have her start to make it part of the required training and practicing for unicorn soldiers.
Silver isn't a super highly trained soldier; he's a colt, and he had enough energy to use a one-shot spell on two enemies. Even if any other unicorn can only do that much before no longer being combat-capable, that's a 2:1 ratio of wins:losses when comparing the Equestrian army to Sombra's, without taking the earth ponies and pegasi into account. Having a one-shot, apparently unstoppable take-down of the enemy's troops is not something that can be overstated for how much of a tide-turner it is.
7190852 Silver is a colt? He was a grown assed man before he came to Eqestria. Just sayin'.
7191075 There was that whole sequence, when he became a pony, with Luna regressing his age, remember? It's been mentioned a few times since then that he isn't a fully-grown pony.
7191112 Yeah I remember something about a grown-assed man being turned into a blank flank colt, now that you mention it.
them
So Silver is going to experience the changes in history for himself now huh. Some friends and I discussed this briefly that the timelines Twilight went to were timelines of their own and not her timeline being changed over and over with Starlight's interference. Still, I kind of want to see how Silver survives Nightmare Moon or hell, Queen Fast Change.
7190369
No, I don't feel that he was overpowered, and certainly hasn't crossed the line into Mary/Gary Sue/Stu territory.
A lot of why I feel this way has already been put out there, so I'll summarize as best I can.
7190852
Many previous chapters contained scenes of Silver Watch training his advanced TK abilities until the techniques were as close to second nature as he could achieve in the time he had before the current events and, of course, there was no sense of urgency to make him push farther up the learning curve.
Perhaps it would reduce confusion if it were 'latch' instead of 'hatch' here. Even so, it made perfect sense to me:
1 Silver uses his advanced TK techniques to feel for a weakness in the closest pony he can single out.
2 Fortunately, the helmets are not air tight since the ponies inside still need to breathe.
3 Feeling around inside, Silver is able to locate and visualize the weakest point, the closure that allowed the helmet to be fitted to the pony.
4 He uses a concentrated burst of TK to pop the closure, but it's welded shut and it takes a considerable and draining effort.
5 This took time and concentration and in the midst of a free for all on the battlefield the time it took left him vulnerable to attack. Rough Tumble took out one, but Silver had no time to do anything but put up a shield, also well established as draining, though more efficient than his original concept, and in their mindless berserker state the crystal pony pressed the attack until the shield killed them.
6 He still managed to pop another helmet before drawing the attention of the enemy commander and now his plot is in a sling.
Another question that's been raised is whether or not Silver developed and used a new spell for the purpose of removing those helmets. No, he used a well established TK technique that allows him to use his innate unicorn ability to first search for a weakness by 'touch', then to focus his innate unicorn TK to pop open the weakest point in the helmets, although with considerable and draining effort.
Are advanced spells difficult to create? Absolutely. Are they by comparison easy to learn? This is an apples and oranges comparison. Of course something that is possible is 'easier' to do than something that is practically impossible without years of study, trial and error. It's already been established in Silververse canon that the advanced TK that Silver has learned has taken him weeks, if not months to learn to use at will. Another proof that learning a spell can be very difficult is the time travel spell that Silver created himself. He doesn't have it memorized and it was difficult to cast it from his written notes.
Does Silver have time to teach other unicorns what he's discovered before Sombra's army can adapt? We don't know. We can't know. It hasn't been revealed what the state of the Equestrian army is vis a vis the Crystal Empire army. One can argue hypotheticals until blue in the face but there is only one person that knows for certain and he hasn't revealed it yet. Incidentally, what has been revealed is that Silver's clever trick has drawn the attention of Sombra himself. That does not bode well for his chances of passing his trick on to others.
7191215 I disagree strongly with most of what you've postulated here.
No, there were a couple chapters of him practicing telekinetic flight with Trixie, and unless there's something else I'm misremembering, that's about it. Moreover, as you noted, he didn't do this with any particular urgency, so he didn't really accomplish all that much besides a (rather wobbly) use of telekinetic flight. Labeling that as "advanced TK abilities" strikes me as being far too generous.
I don't think the terminology is the problem. Rather, the problem is that telekinesis lets you move things without actually touching them. The very idea that he can "feel for a weakness" in something is already pushing what can be reasonably inferred about what telekinesis can do.
This also ignores the "telekinesis requires line-of-sight" provision that was the implication up until then. For that matter, why does it matter that Silver is able to reach inside the helmet at all? The story goes out of its way to imply that this is important, but doesn't explain why that is.
This is also pushing things. Even if we presume that telekinesis allows for tactile feedback (something I don't recall), it doesn't necessarily follow that a welded closure is the "weakest point"? According to Wikipedia, "Many distinct factors influence the strength of welds and the material around them..." some of which can be stronger than the base metal.
Even putting aside the use of the helmet "exploding" as figurative rather than literal, if telekinesis requires practice to learn how to use in various manners, then when did he suddenly figure out how to use "concentrated bursts" of it? Remember, he can't just come up with new ways to use it on the fly, since just picking up and moving himself required practicing to be able to do, so postulating that he was able to just do it on the fly isn't a viable explanation. For that matter, neither is simply equating this to a simple burst of strength, since the strength necessary to rip apart welded metal is almost certainly far more than the strength necessary to lift his own body weight.
This really isn't relevant. Silver was able to instantaneously hit the proverbial off-switch on one of Sombra's soldiers. It left him vulnerable, but so what? He had someone else covering for him. Once he spreads this particular technique around, every unicorn in the army will be able to "look, snap, yank" the helmets off of Sombra's troops, and the war will come to a quick end. It won't be difficult to use in battle, since (all else being equal) there are more non-unicorns than unicorns (e.g. pegasi and earth ponies) to run interference while the unicorns do their thing. And since they have enough energy to do at least two helmets before they're too tired to continue, they'll win more than they'll lose.
And Silver came up with the technique that makes this possible in under a minute. Between that and the dubious explanation, I continue to find this to be a level of reasoning that doesn't live up to scrutiny.
Again, this part isn't relevant. If anything, the fact that he got Sombra's attention speaks to the fact that Sombra has recognized just how dangerous this could be if it gets around. He knows that Silver just walked onto a battlefield and started one-shotting his troops.
That might be true, but it's a meaningless distinction. Either way, it's something that can be learned by any halfway-decent unicorn (Trixie could do learn it, don't forget), and even then that's only if you accept that learning to telekinetically lift yourself in flight would enable you to reach into a helmet that you couldn't see the inside of, get tactile feedback from it, and rip apart welded metal by somehow using strength many times greater than what's been heretofore shown via telekinesis. (That's leaving aside the open question of whether or not the welded point is the weakest point, something the chapter never once says.)
No, it's not. An "apples and oranges" comparison denotes comparing things based on differing criteria, but this is using the same criteria for each: the time and the effort involved.
Hence why we can make that comparison in the first place.
That was never established. He studied telekinesis with Trixie for a relatively short period of time that was never specified, but never seemed like more than a few weeks.
Except he didn't create that spell. That spell already existed; Silver just modified it (which he did in an afternoon). That's leaving aside the fact that that was an exceptionally difficult spell to begin with, rather than a modification of a basic ability that all unicorns know, which is what telekinesis is.
Based on what we've been told so far throughout the story, we can make an educated guess based on some pretty solid evidence.
Unless you're suggesting that there are no unicorns in the army, the question of "the state of the Equestrian army" is a moot point.
Your suggestion that there's no way to judge any sort of theory as more or less plausible than any other isn't something I agree with. We have basic information, both from the show and from this chapter (and previous chapters) which can be used to draw reasonable inferences, presuming that we stick to inductive and abductive reasoning and using basic problem-solving principles such as Occam's Razor or the mediocrity principle.
But which does suggest that his trick is significant, since Sombra is paying attention to Silver rather than to Celestia, who is also on the battlefield.
7191345
Feeling with his TK from chapter 121.
'Seeing' with his TK and using it to manipulate things simultaneously in chapter 125.
And flying, as you mentioned, from chapter 133.
So yes, it seems you are misremembering, and most all of the rest of your objections follow from this incomplete foundation. Sorry to put it so bluntly.
7190809 Oh hey! We have guns that can kill several people in a second...we have this in the bag!
Yeah...no.
Your logic is failing here, go get some sleep or something.
7191345 Uh.....you remembered the fights with Nefertari?
He has already have that ability since even before that...the ability to feel around things, to see things that normal eye can't see...
7191345
7191484
7190770
7191445
Everyone, calm down.
Though Alzrius may be going a bit over board by suggesting that Silver may be a Gary Stu, his points do somewhat make sense I guess.
The helmet popping thingy isn't really well explained there David, perhaps the helmets are Pressurized whilst providing the pony a supply of oxygen?
Erm... this is redundant because why waste resources when you could already breath just fine in open air?
Also, if the helmets were pressurized and exploded not only would the crystal ponies die almost instantaneously from de-pressurization but they would be so dead that their heads and bodies would explode from the rapid moving gases in their bodies. This is very real and has happened to deep sea divers and astronauts (Though its less gruesome for astronauts...)
7191345
Anyway, Alzrius... what you said was a might bit extreme. Silver DID take advanced TK lessons from a book from the Canterlot Archives. Considering that magic can be used for telekinesis and supposedly Telepathy... would it not be so ridiculous to assume that it allows for "the word for that psychic ability that allows for people to feel sensations outside their being"? The horn is directly hooked to the brain internally and magic is more or less psychic abilities for Unicorns.
And straining your mind like that... hurts a lot to psychics in every fiction ever about psychics.
These are... in fact quite advanced. And Silver didn't singlehandedly take out a battalion of crystal soldiers. He is far from a Gary Stu for this reason.
Now, I hope this has cleared up everything?
7190827 he should have remember that she stole his mark last time and thus their was the hole time thing
7191468 Trying to draw a parallel between "guns" and "instantly finding a sure-kill weak point" is a failure of logic. If you think someone needs sleep to see that, then you're the one dreaming.
7191484 Where exactly in his fights with Nefertari do you see that happening? I'm more than happy to look back at a particular citation or quote, but so far you haven't made any.
7191445
Okay, now that's the sort of citation that lives up to the standards of a debate. I'll admit that that part does equate to receiving tactile feedback via telekinesis. However, that's only part of the issue at hand.
That's not "seeing," that's the telekinetic equivalent of walking around and touching things to determine their shape. It doesn't suggest that he can do this to things that he doesn't have line of sight to. But again, this isn't the major point...
I'm not sure why you brought this up, since it's not particularly relevant to the conversation about Silver's yanking the helmets off. I mentioned that only to highlight what he had done with telekinesis so as to underscore what he hadn't done up until this point.
First of all, you're not being blunt; you're doing what you're supposed to be doing in a debate, which is citing your sources. That's a good thing, and you were right that I did forget about a few of these things.
However, you're wrong to suggest that "most all of the rest" of my objections follow from that. That's because Silver's telekinesis slipping into an enclosed area that he can't see (e.g. the inside of a helmet that's being worn) isn't something we've ever seen him do before. More damningly is the issue with him ripping open a welded closure, which suggests a telekinetic strength that has never been demonstrated. The salient points of my objections are those, and what you quoted doesn't undercut them.
7191675
To be fair, I think that we're supposed to understand that the helmet "exploding off" the pony after Silver tampers with it is figurative, rather than it literally blowing up. That said, that confused me at first too, and I'm still not completely sure.
Leaving aside the issue of receiving tactile feedback - which Daremo properly addressed - it's that he was able to use his telekinesis to rip welded metal apart, which is an act of strength never before manifested. Quite the opposite, since he had to struggle just to lift his own body weight in the air adequately. Even if we grant all of the other points, that one remains a substantial issue.
The issue of strain isn't the problem.
Silver has some advanced abilities insofar as telekinesis goes, but that's not the reason I levied that particular charge at this chapter. It's not even entirely because he can suddenly use his telekinesis in a way that he never could before, either (e.g. that burst of strength, which may or may not have exploded a helmet, and either way is strong enough to tear through welded metal). It's the fact that he was able to look at a problem of severe magnitude (e.g. there's an army of brainwashed soldiers advancing) and instantly solve it (e.g. just removing their helmets), despite his ability to do so, as having been established in previous chapters, being questionable.
Silver's telekinesis has never been portrayed as having the degree of power necessary to use an act of brute force to that extent. Quite the contrary, he was focusing more on fine control rather than pure strength. Even if we posit that he could feel around inside of those helmets, it doesn't fit with what's established to say that he can just rip them off.
Respectfully, I don't believe that it does.
Yup.
7192153 one thing... he has used strength in his magic before, for the short time he was in the worlocks, thy gauged his magic wear thy hold something intensly and release the magic all at once which is what he did, he did not use brute strength but he did do that thing
7221003 I don't believe that that's correct. As I recall, that was him lifting weights with his telekinesis in order to gauge his level of strength; it wasn't any sort of "compress-and-release" burst the way what we have here seems to be, and that certainly doesn't seem to be anything equivalent to ripping apart welded metal.
Moreover, that's largely a moot point. The training with the warlocks was part of what happened in his dream, and even if he did gain new knowledge during that time he didn't gain new strength; all of that happened during one night's dreaming, and so couldn't affect his body (or its ability to channel magic) in the real world.
7221035 7221035 no, actually it was during his real life, i know because chapter 12 he gets turned into a mare and soon after he gets pregnate and he was not a female or a lunar unicorn when he does the warlock thing
>> 7221035 ha HA i win this round http://www.fimfiction.net/story/253437/26/putting-on-a-silver-robe-and-wizard-hat/26---darkness
7221083 Leaving aside your unsurprising small-mindedness at "winning," it's true that I was incorrect with regards to Silver's training with the warlocks; that was in the real world, not the dream world.
That said, it still doesn't speak to his training being able to make him rip welded metal apart.
Here's hoping you do what the show couldn't and actually explore these alternate worlds