Chapter 9: June 1
Dear Journal,
I feel like I never sleep as well anywhere that isn't my own bed. Of course, I used to think that I could never get a good night's sleep without the sound of traffic and the trains and buses constantly going by. I guess each of us have room to grow. Still felt kinda groggy when I woke up this morning, and I guess I felt that way the rest of the day. I don't really get it, because I'm used to going to bed and waking up early from my work schedule.
It felt too weird to use the beds here last night. I don't know why I feel comfortable doing it back in the city but feel terrible here. This house is inferior in every way, looks like it was probably built in the early fifties maybe. I wonder if it's because "my" new house in the city feels like it used to belong to "my people." I know city dwellers, even if they were the rich kind that lived out in the suburbs a little. I don't know farmers. I feel like the house itself wants me out. It made noises last night, shifting in the cold and the wind (as houses do). Can houses be intelligent too?
Sky must've felt it too, because she didn't want to use the bedrooms either. I crashed on an armchair and she hit up the couch, so that was okay. I'm so stupid small I could probably fall asleep on my old lap. No, not that small. Not quite. I might be too scared to face the world if I was that size. Huan probably would've mistaken me for a cat and eaten me. Fun fact, he actually went inside this house. Why won't he come in with us at home? That dog makes no sense!
Day two of surreal farm adventures dawned with more bizarre encounters with animals acting weird. What would you expect cows to do if they’d been released from their barn by a stranger? If you're me and you've lived your whole life in the city, you would expect them to leave.
Maybe they really liked the farm, so they wouldn’t wander too far away in their grazing. I was willing to buy that this morning. Things just got stranger when we made our way out. Of course this farm didn’t have power, but Sky apparently knows how to cook toast on a fire, so she did that. Can’t say I’m not a fan of having someone to cook for us both, that’s really nice. Wish having someone who likes to cook didn’t require that person also insist on taking weird trips into the middle of nowhere. Granted, this place is no less our home than the city was. If we really wanted, we could set up out here as much as there. Might even be easier in some ways. Except that the house (and the chickens) are out to get us.
Sky offered that option indirectly. She didn’t actually ask to move out here, though she said a few different ways that living on a farm was probably better than living in the city. I was firm with her; insisting that while it might eventually be an option, to get to that point we would want the abundance of machines and hardware that can be found in the city. Maybe long-term we could move out someplace like this, maybe in one of the northern states. Not now. What won her over wasn’t any of that logic, but the idea that there was almost no chance of anybody finding us out here. At least if we lived in the city, we would be likely to attract the notice of anybody else who traveled through the city in the months and years ahead. That is true, right? The chances of somebody stumbling into us living in a random farm are about zero. When we do finally leave the city, we'll have to make sure we paint very obvious directions to our new homestead, so people can find it.
So we tried to get moving as quickly as possible, knowing the scale of the task ahead of us.
I didn’t think the chances that all the cows would stick around through the night were very high. Maybe we’d get the most pliable to go with us. We weren’t herding dogs, and we weren’t cowboys, so… really, the plan was doomed. I’d be happy just to keep eggs at this point. I wonder if Huan could've helped.
Let’s start with the chickens. We didn’t use a cage to get them to not wander off. Sky fed them, talked to them through their enclosure, explaining we were going to take them with us to somewhere safe, and turned around to lead them back to the truck.
Yeah, pretty stupid, I know. They followed her. Honest to god, the whole group (flock? Murder? No, that’s just for crows) more or less mobbed after her down the road, the hens keeping the few chicks in line.
That left me alone in the farm, and a whole lot of loose animals watching me. Watching me. Like I was supposed to give a speech or something. A speech to whom, all the animals that don’t understand English? What was the point?
Apparently it worked. I watched Sky do it with the chickens, and it worked. Something to do with being animals ourselves? That doesn’t make sense. It can't be that I apparently don't like the taste of meat (despite my protestations), because animals are eating each other all the time! Just because I’m no longer (apparently) wired to want to eat meat doesn’t mean we’re somehow friends now, right?
This was all too silly for me. Still, what did I have to lose? Just as they couldn’t understand me, they also wouldn’t be judging me for thinking animals could understand me, right? In the end I said something like; “You’re not going to be safe here anymore. My friend and I want to lead you somewhere better. We’ll take good care of you, if you follow us.” Whatever. I don’t really make speeches, let alone for cows and a few grimy looking farm cats.
I started walking towards the truck. Like something out of a horror movie, they started following. All of them. If they said anything back I didn’t understand it in all the animal sounds (they still can’t talk, right?) but they followed. Soon I’d caught up with Sky, and she noticed I was leading a herd now. Even the cats followed along. Post-apocalyptic Dr. Dolittle. I’d tolerate another terrible movie if it meant people came back to make it.
This changed things. We couldn’t leave any of the animals behind, not if they were going to act this way. Sky agreed that they were acting strange, but what could we do? It might not actually be a good idea to bring more animals into the city with us. How long will our food last? I know Sky wants to bring them, she wants to make their contributions available to our diets. She says she’s willing to do all the work to take care of them.
Can we afford this much distraction? What if there’s a fire this summer? We won’t be able to drive a cattle truck at fifteen or twenty miles an hour to escape a wildfire.
Getting all the cows and chickens loaded into a truck was easy. I just opened the door and asked them to get in, and they did. Promised we were going somewhere safe, cuz’ we are. I still think it’s pretty stupid. But at the same time, it hurts to imagine all the animals suffering all over the world. For thousands of years dogs and cats and cows and stuff have attached their destinies to humanity. Now the humans are all gone, and they’re starving. We all go into that good night together. Humans gently, but many others in blood and horror. Mass starvation like nothing the earth had seen since the last great dying. Wonder if endangered animals were smart now too, so they could be smug about it.
Did turning into a blue pony make me soft somehow? Sky seems soft. She has a cloud on her butt. She’s got wings and feathers and talks about the animals.
I just want to survive. I want to put a colony together. Ensure that, even if humanity doesn’t live through this, maybe some kind of civilization can. Even if Sky felt the same way I do (and frankly I’m not sure she does), the numbers just don’t bear that out. How many of our strange new race would it take to have enough diversity for a population? How does reproduction even work for ponies?
Not gonna think about it. Something’s going to rescue us before that happens. Sky and me… we’ll get out of this. We’ll be back in reality before you know it. She can go back to… well, she probably doesn’t want to go back to anything. She can go to something new and I can go back to my life and my friends will be back and my family will still exist and everything will be perfect.
Maybe let’s be realistic, you and me. Probably none of that. I’m probably stuck like this. We’re both stuck like this. Too bad we both didn’t get wings. Then Sky and me could fly away, find more people. Guess she could leave. Well, if she could fly. She didn't fly today, or any other time I've been around her. That's why she can talk to the chickens! She's a flightless bird too!
Drove the truck back to town, and I had to drive slower with all the weight in back. Not that I wasn’t driving slow to begin with. We didn’t take the cows back to our house, there really isn’t space for such big animals. Fortunately, there’s a park pretty close to where we live, just over a block. It’s got fences… nothing big enough to stop a cow, but I’m not really worried. Plenty of food (until all the grass dies), and a pond big enough to last years before it dries up. Plenty of big buildings across the street we could convert into a barn.
No, not we. Cloudy Skies can convert into a barn. This is her project. I have important things to do, like making sure the people have enough food to eat. Like finding better ways to contact other survivors than hoping they hop onto the radio when I'm listening purely by chance. I've got some interesting ideas for when we're a little more secure. Maybe now that we're not taking silly trips I'll actually have the time to get some real work done.
Unlike cows, the chickens aren’t as safe wandering the city. Stray dogs probably couldn’t take down a cow, but they could easily kill our chickens. Fortunately, the house I chose has high walls and a backyard big enough to keep most of them out. I might have to put barbed wire or something on it if we find animals are a problem. The cats just sorta dispersed into the city. Not sure why they followed us at all, honestly. Glad they didn't stay. Would've been awful if they had stayed to hunt the chickens.
I never much cared for animals. Maybe this is some kind of karmic revenge.
—A
These guys became way more obedient once all the humans disappeared. Just look at those eyes. Is there a person thinking behind them now, or just another animal? My In-N-Out Burger isn't supposed to be this smart.
Stats
Page generated in 0.029 seconds
Total duration
951 users online
509,480 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
All right then, A's got to be male or that wouldn't even be a viable issue.
I can't speak to how the cows might have been affected by this event, but I don't imagine they would have wandered very far during the night. Not the most adventurous of animals, especially when they're near their accustomed food source. (Of course I'm a suburban boi who knows little enough about them so feel free to correct me.
)
Earth is being Equ(estri)alised.
Horrible work, dirty work, bloody work.
Considering how evil he thinks the chickens are, it's surprising he's letting them stay close. Or is it a case of keeping your enemies close?
Cute cow drawing btw!
Huh. Not a whole lot to say besides the enviable, "Why the hell are all those animals listening to him? And also how will Sky learn to fly? Ugh! It's so confusing!" Main reason I say this is because I can't try to predict what will happen. And I like this confusion.
Also do I smell AxSky shipping in the future? 36.media.tumblr.com/46501a1477e4e85bafca0d8374af86d2/tumblr_mux9ddO0wp1roqv59o1_500.png
ooo lovely new chapter.
Really hoping to figure out its gender. You make it so confusing
.
for
well now.
Just to let you know, you are on the Feature Box for me still, or again?
Anyway. I wanted to let you know that all things said and done, those animals do seem a little too smart, but I am going to talk to my mom, she raised heffers for 4-H. She might be able to tell me how intelligent that can be.
Still, this is interesting, something is not right, where are the cars that were driving on the Freeway? I do not care where you might be, but even at Midnight their are truckers on the road, cars, heck even I have been on the Freeway at Midnight for vacation and for helping a friend.
so where did the freeway speed cars go? You mentioned it was free of cars and Traffic...
Also...
This is California, will there be any earthquakes?
Also how will they fight or protect themselves from Wildfires?
When the fires start, what is going to happen?
that is my concern, because well, at least from the news, they can get very bad.
Great now I wonder if Equuis or Equestria has Earthquakes or something.
Anyway keep up the great work and once again kudos on making me think.
Yus,is new chapter!
Since it's a journal type entry system I'm going to try letting stuff like this slide as much as possible, but I think you meant to say "Did turning into a blue pony make me soft somehow?"
Silly A, a reliable source of milk and eggs is exactly that.
I wonder if there will be any unforseen consequences for bringing the pack of farm cats into the city.
SOMEONE BETTER PICK UP THE PHONE BECAUSE I FUCKING CALLED IT!
Earth is turning into Equestria! Can anybody explain how THIS works huh? I don't think any animal is compliant enough to follow the words of a little multi colored pony!
Also, Sky is suspicious! What the heck is with her mindset, she TALKED to the chickens first thing, she seems to KNOW something!
Seriously, there is something she knows and is not telling.
...
...
...
I don't know what to think.
Earth being past Equestria would be interesting , meaning if before the event, the show existed, it was a sight of the future. But I want to see something not so predictable. Please surprises us -A
And like American_Brony said, I thought not having cars on the freeways or roads is off. If the "Event" happend in an instant, everything everyone was doing stopped: ovens, cars, anything. It would cause fires maybe explosions ( accidents ). I like the silent and peaceful city but it doesn"t feel right.
Loved it
6040571
You're on to something here
I'm putting my money on this theory and I also do think sky is acting strange
A little too pony for a former human
6041051
Rightly so Fancy!
Now let us await her explanation...
Did I detect some foreshadowing at the end of the chapter? Perhaps the consciousness of humans was shoved into the animals somehow? How about Sky, she sure doesn't act like she used to be human. Regardless, this has been great so far. Really good stuff to pass the time.
6040530 And yes. Yes it did. So furry fuzzy soft.
6040430
*ships harder*
6041280 There was that too, though it depends on what "something" the stallions might have tried.
6039003
Well, I'll still try my best. I just don't know how good a job I'll do next week, but... guess we'll find out.
6039339
scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xfa1/t51.2885-15/s306x306/e15/10995254_609788279155078_2024717893_n.jpg
6039588
I suppose the universe does have some similarities in that way. (though unlike TCB, everybody isn't a pony, everybody's missing. Barring some few exceptions)
6039936
Pretty sure A is on the list of people who hasn't ever thought about zombies or survival in this context before, though we can't be certain since A hasn't talked much about specifics like that. Pretty sure A doesn't need chalk though, at least not unless exploring unfamiliar buildings happens. A does carry a map of the city, probably with one of those grids and all the street names on the back. Might be useful for exploring buildings though.
Not sure how far you are in the story yet, but A has already expressed pretty vocally the desire to never wear horse-shoes the way they're conventionally worn. I think nailing things in one feet is a fairly horrific idea. I'd never heard they were bad for horses, and I did take a glance at the website. Pretty interesting stuff, though it did prompt me to explore further to the scientific literature on the subject. There didn't seem to be a consensus at all with the literature I found through my University's database access. (not that the arguments you and the site you linked weren't sound, they were). If I couldn't find any "proof" one way or the other in two hours of searching, I doubt A would've had the time before the net went down with so many other survival things on the brain.
It's a moot point, because A would never ever use horseshoes. I'm sure if our horses could talk we probably would've found another solution to nailing things in their feet too.
6040059
dwightbrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/occams-razor.jpg
6040234
Just 'till tomorrow! ^^
6040371
I'm pretty sure A's about as uniformed as you when it comes to the way animals are supposed to act. Probably just wanted them to wander away so they wouldn't have to deal with them.
6040421
I don't know if A really thinks they're evil. I just took it as feeling uneasy around animals acting differently than A would've expected.
6040430
I think I'd consider it a personal failure if people predict what's going to happen clearly before it does. Of course, I get to cheat when people comment. If I change something before it shows up, they'll never know, will they? >.> Iterative story development, that's what this is. Getting user feedback chapter by chapter, so the story can actively improve as it goes.
6040443
ONE DAY. Well, maybe not. A isn't taking any special precautions to conceal their own gender. Some people have taken things that already happened as proof one way or the other. I'm sure more stuff like that will happen, particularly if shipping happens. Well, maybe not. Could be a slash ship I guess, or a straight one. No way to know that way either.
6040469
Gotta love those little typos. Got it, thanks for pointing that out!
6040498
COULD THIS BE PROOF? OR could "he" have been afraid of some kind of contest for dominance over Cloudy Skies?
Illuminati confirmed.
6040503
Earthquakes are fairly rare here, just more common than in other places. We get a bad one every ten years or so. Last big one that did lots of damage was the Northridge quake when I was a tiny baby, so I don't even remember that. We do get tiny ones every now and then, but most of us just ignore those. We've got a great building code, and most buildings can take some pretty serious quakes. Not fires, though. If a wildfire starts (most of those are caused by careless humans, like tossing a cigarette or letting a campfire get out of control), but not all of them. Lightning or an electrical fire somewhere or even a piece of stray glass could start it in the absence of human agency. When that happens, it could destroy a huge chunk of the state (maybe even expand into Nevada and Arizona, depending on the wind).
The other thing you talk about, namely "where are all the things people were driving?" is a question others have asked. All I can tell you is that I didn't miss this detail or not notice it, and there is a reason for what happened to them. Maybe it sucks (no way of knowing if people will like the reveal at the end of the story if it happens), but it DOES exist.
6040530
That does seem like the kind of error that could be left behind, but I fixed it anyway. Clarity over authenticity when it comes to most errors.
6040537
The great cat/dog war of 2015. The streets will run red.
6040571
It does seem like you're on to something. Can't say I'll say which parts of your theory (if any) are actually right, though. That'd be lame. Sky does seem like an interesting character, though the question of how she got that way...
6040961
Yeah, I said that up there, but I'll say it again: That wasn't an oversight. If just people had vanished the cars and planes and stuff would've crashed and plummeted all over the world. They didn't. There is a good reason for this. Well, maybe it's not a good reason. But there is a reason. You can evaluate if it's good or not when (if) you learn it from the story, because right now A doesn't know it either.
6041086
I left this in as a little bit of authenticity for the talk-to-text program that wrote the entries, but this has confused more people than just you, so I got rid of it. I love this picture, though! Nerdhuman Twilight is so cute! ^^
6041095
Maybe! though I don't think A really thinks that the humans became animals. That would leave the animals all unacocunted for (there have and are many many more animals than the world's human population if you take all the species together.
6041280
And so the debate continues!
howtojointheilluminati.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/obama-illuminati.jpg
Realization of livestock being intelligent gets its right amount of creepy.
I love how you've been expessing things with the stricken text, but can you strike text with voiced commands?
6040961 That is a big point. There are some things you can't just walk away from. Consider the nightmare of nuclear power plants running untended... countless factories full of hazardous chemicals running wide open, unmanned.... LA should have been dotted with fires from abandoned ovens and stoves and grills and tipped-over candles.... Cars wrecking, trains derailing, ships crashing, airplanes falling out of the sky.... consider what a single tanker truck full of hazardous chemicals can do if it crashes. "A" should have woken up to a world that looked a WHOLE lot more post-apocalyptic.
This indicates that the force that abducted every human being on earth was exceedingly intelligent-- and very very tidy; stopping and parking all the vehicles (They didn't just STOP, the roads would have been full of stopped vehicles) turning off all the dangerous appliances and machinery....
And yet oddly selective: leaving millions of animals trapped to slowly starve...
Possibility: The force or entity or spell in question issued a mental command to all humans that amounted to "shut it down and step outside." They were given just enough time to turn off the stove, or blow out the candles on the cake, or park the bus, or hit emergency shutdown on the factory, or land the plane, before the whatever-it-was beamed them up....
Possible explanations for WTH happened:
1) It's all a dream/illusion/computer simulation, part of some sort of test of character. BLEAGH. I hope not, I hate those stories.
2)The Whoever It Is wants to start over with intelligent domesticated animals and left a few humans in tough little pony bodies to help the new races out the gate. Meh.
3)The rest of the human race didn't disappear, THEY did. Something more or less like "the Langoliers..." some sort of temporal alternate-timeline hiccup made a duplicate earth, and accidentally brought a few humans along for the ride as ponies... The real world is fine, A and Cloudy ended up on the Copy-planet.
4)something weirder. I'm hoping for weirder.
Note: dairy cows need to be milked daily, if they're lactating. Otherwise they will get painfully overfull, get ruptures, get infections and die.
Maybe some research would be a good idea.
There's a lot of videos on Youtube, particularly the series "life after people." It basically speculates about.... well, precisely this scenario.
Still think......
vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/le-miiverse-resource/images/f/fd/Ancient-aliens-guy.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140915005854
6041863
Yeah I watched something exactly about this topic with my father. It was pretty interesting tho being only speculation.
https://youtu.be/3LRucoIcmww?t=1m37s
6038391
I think there is an explenation behind all this and we don't have enough clues to know yet, but if Cloudy
KickerSkies could learn to fly and maybe interact with clouds, it would come handy.6041526
Please! Stop hiding the truth of the evil that are chickens!
6041539
See, it's too bad the internet doesn't exist anymore. That kind of thing seems much closer to what A actually wants. I've also found Velcro-applied horse-shoes that would work (though getting them on would be terrible). But if A had the time to look for those things during the first few days when the internet was up, that didn't make it into the journals.
6041541
The software A is using, Dragon Naturally Speaking, does allow formatting like bold and italics, but I don't think it permits strike-through. A would've had to go back and add those things after recording.
6041857
I think Cloudy Skies is aware of this fact.
6041863
We've talked about that series in the comments. Actually I named the group after it. Entertaining, informative, generally accurate. There's a Canadian show about the same subject I watched too, before writing this story. More of my research came from "The World Without Us" (Alan Weisman), who used real world stuff much more than LAE did. Apparently Fox optioned the book for a movie, so keep watching for that. I know I'm looking forward to it.
6042822
Well, at least you don't have to wait long to find out. Always the consolation prize with this story.
Loved that one.
Cloudy is really growing on me, no matter how uneasy she makes me (and A) feel. Yes, she's definitively hiding something, as A figured out himself after the first 30 minutes of meeting her, but I get the feeling that it isn't out of malice or that it's even necessarily a bad something. She's... complicated, for sure. She's very pony, but in enough instances there are moments that cast some doubt on that. I like that (and her, somewhat, I guess)!
As to that cloud on her butt: my brain spent the better part of yesterday evening contemplating that and came to the conclusion it's not a special talent in being a downer.
She's just (or could have the potential to be) a specialized weather pony:
You know those still, cold, wet, misty mornings in early autumn? If you're up early and walking through a park or forest you get this tranquil feeling induced by the silence that's only broken by the sound of water dripping from multicoloured leaves together with the distinct smell of wet earth in the damp air. And where the mist clears a little you only see a light, featureless grey sky above. It's serene, unpleasant, boring or beautifully melancholy, depending on who you are.
The same in winter with much shorter days, lower temperatures and bare trees on the other hand is just depressing for most people, even if there still is beauty to be found for those few who still venture out of their own free will. Which aren't many (I'm one).
That's her, getting this kind of weather just right down to the last detail, a piece of quiet art.
Now imagine Rainbow's attitude toward a weather pony like that.
You get the picture.
Thats probably not what Cloudy is, but her character has me thinking. Also: Nightmare Mist. The drizzle will last forever.
If nothing else I'm going to use that description for an OC who'd be happy 'if all the rest got killed' :)
6041852 http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/647/651/9c0.png
6042211 This is... weird for me. I know three of the kind but then I'm Danish/German. Where do you live?
All this talk of rebuilding civilization makes me see a bit more significance in A's alias. A. Alpha. The beginning. Not sure if that's intentional or not, but it's interesting.
Also, ponies as stewards of nature coming to the fore. Not sure how intelligent the farm animals are or will become, but it's fascinating to see them listen. Really, A and Cloudy's approaches are both necessary. A is making sure there are enough people for a working society. Cloudy is looking after the infrastructure needed to support that society.
What does that make you? Some kind of bovine-feline hybrid monstrosity?
Also, it would be interesting if there wasn't a single thing special about Cloudy except that she's a real nutter. Disappointing, but interesting.
6041526 Realitycheck is partially right about horseshoes. What he does not mention is why people shod horses in the first place. (Here's a hint, it wasn't because they were idiots.)
Horses originally came from an arid steppe climate where they traveled constantly at low speeds to graze. The temperature, lack of humidity, and constant movement hardened their hooves. However, northern (where nailed hoseshoes are thought to originate from) and central Europe as well as many parts of the US have a much wetter, colder climate, and domesticated horses travel much, much less, both these facts meaning that their hooves don't harden like they're supposed to and that they broke more easily. The fact that they were kept in stalls, standing in wet, ammonia soaked straw all day made their hooves even more brittle. This led to shoeing to protect their hooves from developing dangerous cracks.
The example he brings up? Houston police horses. What's the climate in Houston, TX? Dry and hot. What do police horses do all day? Walk around at low speeds. Perfect conditions for unshod horses.
Also, inflexible steel, aluminium, titanium, copper, and magnesium (Yes, there are magnesium horseshoes. No, I don't know what they're for.) aren't the only alternatives. There's rubber and plastic as well. Shoes are also glued on, not just nailed. Hoof boots, as noted below, are also an alternative.
Bare hooves are healthier if it's possible to have them. Long domestication has left some horse breeds more dependent on shoes than others. Another option is hoof boots, like the Princesses and guards wear.
There are also orthopedic and other medical horseshoes.
Considering the climate in L.A. and how much A is walking, shoeing shouldn't be an issue. Of course, they're magical ponies, not normal horses, so who can tell? Some good glue and some thin strips of rubber would make adequate improvised shoes in any case.
6041852 Something supernatural must have stopped all the nuclear reactors, or rather, let's hope it did. Reactor do not stop at the flip of a switch. Depending on the reactor, the shut down procedure can be really, really long. Granted, emergency measures can stop 'em in a few hours or days, but those are oftentimes meant as temporary stopgap measures to prevent immediate meltdown, not for permanent shutdown.
Due to how some reactors and their emergency measures work you could just activate those and leave 'em. They'll gradually shut down on their own. It's still stupidly unsafe. However, simply leaving after emergency shutdown would result in a meltdown in the case of many other systems. A reactor with a positive void coefficient (more void (bubbles in liquid moderators) in the neutron moderator=hotter reaction) would be extra sensitive to this, but all of the reactors in the US are of a type that has a large negative void coefficient.
Of course, there are some old crappy reactors in other parts of the world and meltdowns tend to have a global impact. Like old reactors with graphite neutron moderators. *shiver* Bloody insanity building those things. Of course, they are an old Soviet design and were only built in old Soviet states.
The insanity of those designs can be summed up in two facts: They have a positive void coefficient, and graphite burns at high enough temperatures.
Chernobyl was one of these designs.
Fun fact, there are 11 of those still in operation as of 2013, albeit with improved safety measures. Wonderful world we live in, eh?
Essentially, if all the worlds reactors weren't shut down instantly via magic then things are going to get unpleasant. Teleporting all the reactors to the moon would be a viable solution. I'm sure that Luna wouldn't mind something to warm her hooves at.
About your possible explanations:
1. Fuck this option. "It was all just a dream," endings make me wish I was a violent person.
2. This looks to be pretty likely.
3. Meh.
4. I like weird. Weird is good as long as the explanation isn't just, "It was Discord all along." Bleh.
this story always leaves me wanting more.
YAY for daily uploads!
That deserves a Pinkie party.
Great dying? This might be something because of A writing this, but the official term is great extinction.
6040503 If Equestria had earthquakes, do you think Canterlot would still be up there? Maybe Griffonia has them...
Well, they can be haunted.
6044510
The Great Dying is a more poetic name but scientists don't shun it. Neil deGrasse Tyson used it multiple times in his narrations in Cosmos: Spacetime Odyssey.
I'd eat them regardless of being smart. Also, while there are ponies, I have so many thoughts about the other races. What if someone gets turned into a Gryphon instead? Or maybe the dogs prowling the city get a bit more intelligent and start walking upright? Or maybe even some, ahem, Psychos, to deal with. Not docile like Cloudy Skies, but dangerous like The Hatchet Man from Dead Rising. There are so many things I anticipate in this story!
Does that mean she's a Scootaloo???
Did he ever mention what his cutie mark was? I looked over it, and he didn't say.
He mentioned Sky's cutie mark but not his own. I probably just missed it, but I might be right.
SO much mystery and intrigue! We know next to nothing about any of these characters and yet it's so engaGING! I still want to know our main character's gender, though most of the evidence points to being female, what with the tank tops, and the fear of stallions, but at the same time, the thankfulness that the other 'human' is female could go either way...
What does that say about him being able to speak to cows...
6668500
This implies that reproduction is technically possible, though it would not be useful in the long run. Between male and female horses. I imagine that makes would be more likely to stomp weird things flay instead of running away. Additionally, ponies would be to small for horses to mate with.
For me, the best part of the movie 'Riddick' was watching his survival on 'Not-Furia'. I don't mind the survival aspect one bit.
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/139/472/tumblr_lkmu87IQJj1qigqmwo1_500.jpg?1308878007
Interesting story so far. Not sure I like the narrator though, he seems kinda aggressive and not very sympathetic. Some of that is probably the isolation though. Maybe he'll change as time goes on.
Cloudy Skies seems nice, I hope she gets a bit more character development.
I have only joined this site recently, having been referred here by a link on the Chakat's Den page; but I enjoy this sort of alternate world-building, and would love to link it to other narratives, if I can. 7@=e
8740096
There's quite a bit of room for that as the narrative goes on and its magic system and mythos get built up a little more.
8740189
Indeed. The "Cosmic Lotus" storyline suggests a possible vector by which a mana burst might impact Earth (if deflected by the Alicorn of Time): imagination suggests how the Equestrian leadership might deal with it. 7@=e
I've seen coyotes take down a cow.
this reminded me of a recent "blog" by one of my favorite FimFiction authors, Estee about "tenants", that is, semi-sentient animals like cows.
in his stories, sheep are quite smart but VERY gullible! they will believe ANYTHING anypony tells them! if told several contradictory things, they will 100% believe the most recently told thing!
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/942657/patreon-blog-takeover-guardians-of-the-lost-the-care-and-study-of-tenant-species-pseudosapien