Equestria's history is like a swan on a lake, seemingly graceful motion hiding the furious effort beneath the surface. Whose effort? Twilight is about to find out.
An expanded version of an entry in the June 2015 Writeoff Competition. Prompt: A Matter of Perspective
Rated Teen for death, undeath, and mutation without consent.
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Interesting concept, I liked it!
Marvelous, fascinating, and slightly brain-funky.
This is by far the best excuse for the insane time jumps and impossibilities in the show that isn't the actual reason!
Well done, well done indeed.
Though honestly, I prefer medium rare.
I don't think I read this in the writeoff. I'm almost glad, because it means I get to enjoy it for the first time now. I like it. A lot.
Man, this makes three WriteOff related fics uploaded today. What's goin' on?
7128676
All qualities I aspire towards, especially the brain funk.
7128699
Thank you, my good Weepintuff. I'm glad you approve.
7128707
(And yeah, doesn't look like you entered that round of the Writeoff.)
7128737
My current guess is that it's a ripple effect from Serendipity manipulating higher levels of reality to realize her own existence.
An excellent work. It's always fun watching people try to construct a sensible time line, a feat that has become increasingly difficult with each passing season and may now be impossible. In universe, anyway. Out of universe, the reason for all this is pretty clear: the writers couldn't care less about it; they make no effort at all to keep it consistent or plausible.
Good for Equestria that they have a sort of omniscient time wizard watching out for them. Just unfortunate for him that he alone has to bear witness to so many horrors so that the rest can sleep at night. As Starlight showed, so much could go wrong.
Interesting story and fun explanation for the show's wacky timeline. Based on how many holidays and seasons they go through, this makes as much sense as any. And huh, you even threw in a reference to Sunset ascending, always happy to see that.
Well done! I don't know what else to say besides how much I utterly loved this. Great job!
It was all I hoped it would be and more. Was not expecting Discord to play such a large role. Always appreciate when a writer uses him well.
I'll probably have to take this as headcanon if my own efforts to decipher the timeline come up for nought.
*Sees title*
Huh. Methinks someone is a Heinlein fan.
A brilliant method of explaining the... lax approach the writers have taken in regards to the timeline. Also, some of those failed timelines creeped the hell out of me.
Heh. When the best efforts at order fail, fail, and fail again, there's one last resort.
Time for a little chaos.
Does this in any way relate to Lazarus Long?
-ain, time travel is the cause and solution to an infinite number of problems. Once ag-
derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/3/29/588226__safe_solo_screencap_animated_smiling_cute_derpy+hooves_sitting_loop_derpabetes.gif
7129107
It's clear, yes, but I hate Doylist explanations for Watsonian problems. Plus, there is some continuity in terms of callbacks and personal plot arcs. (Heck, there was even an explicit reference to one of the G. M. Berrow books in "The Mane Attraction.") As such, I tried to create a model that accurately reflects the state of causality in Equestria.
7129116
If Sunset Shimmer ever does return to Equestria and doesn't have wings, I will be... well, not surprised. It's not like they ever spelled it out one way or another. But I will be disappointed.
7129370
I don't want you to give up your efforts, but I do love it when I give people new headcanon...
Eh, best of luck. If all else fails, you have a fallback position now.
7130094
Just because I'm mostly about wackiness and card games doesn't mean I don't have a dark side. There are many ideas I'll never write, many stories I'll never tell...
7130118
Sometimes all of the debugging in the world can't compare to giving the darn thing a good, solid whack.
7130177
Star Swirl would, in fact, dare to eat a peach.
7130391
Only in the most tangential sense, as mentioned in the author's note.
7130400
Ah, applauding Best Pony. The highest praise to which I can aspire.
7130118 Indeed, I still remember how my friend once punched his laptop when it froze after much debugging had failed. It worked!
It's here! ... What's with that ending? ... Starswirl's from the future or something?
I guess Twilight got a memory wipe... ... And Starswirl can't affect the events of
histhe past without a paradox, so he has to affect the future, where both 'past' and 'future' are from the point where he left time...There two typos somewhere, and one of them is an extra space... Ah:
"New(s) from northern Equestria!"
"in haled"
7130674
No, Star Swirl went back a few minutes to before Twilight found him, told himself he'd taken care of things, and left before she reached the throne room. I've adjusted that last scene to clarify matters.
I liked this one. The bad future segments and attempts to fix them were very creative, and earn a thumbs up all on their own. I could have done without shoehorning in an attempt to "explain" comic time at the end, but if that's where the inspriation comes from, that's where it comes from.
This is an excellent explanation of why FiM makes so little sense in time!
Well... the Serendipity timeline will certainly be unpredictable.
7130690
Ah, so that way Twilight doesn't remember Star Swirl.
I love time, it makes my brain smile. The sheer complexity of it.
Very interesting concept. I like how it explains stuff like Running of the Leaves and Winter Wrap Up, but also explains stuff like Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide just happening to be in the library.
7130401
Accuracy is a seductive and Terrifying thing.
7130401 Yeah, from your other works I can tell you're really good at the dark stuff. Whenever you drift in that direction I'm usually left with a similar feeling to the first time I read Fallout: Equestria. The same feeling of "how could everything have gone this wrong".
neat!
7130805 Aside from the writers not doing their homework and remembering pertinent continuity.
Not many fandoms have gone to this length to explain away writing problems. Most fans just get pissed and rage-quit after a while in other show fandoms. Such as "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica".
I am not sure that this is a good thing, though.
Of course, the typical causality paradoxes result from all of this, UNLESS the alternate universe view is in play... in which case it's all moot because all the possibilities are happening regardless and everything is pretty much pointless, really.
Time travel just doesn't end well.
7131533 You know, proving that you are smart and proving that other people are dumb are very different things. One raises you up. One pushes other people down. Now, let me ask you a question. Is it more easier to do a push up, or to push the earth down? They both have the same effect, but which would you do? If you really are smarter than the rest of us, it will show in your work and people will respect you for it. So go prove it. Make something awesome. I know you can, I for one believe that there's someone great behind that silly grey profile picture.
7131573
You're saying this to one of his comments which are actually quite tame and inoffensive. Since you were obviously saving this speech to use on him when you could, you should have waited for a comment of his which was actually sarcastic and offensive. You wouldn't have had to wait long anyways.
7132110 You know, you're right. I think I've got a bias about his comments, thanks for pointing that out. Sorry Alondro, if you look at this.
7131541
7131573 *Alondro raises his pinkie... and pushes the Earth down*
Both are equally easy... TO A LIVING GOD!!!
7132336 Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Norris. I didn't recognize you!
7132110 TRUMP 2016!!
(And I wrote it in chalk too! SCAAAAAARY!!)
7132336
You mean, to a student of relativity.
7132425 What's the difference? It's all relative to your perspective anyway.
7130862
Making brains smile is why I write.
7131533
Some look at an issue like this and gnash their teeth. I see an opportunity... after gnashing my teeth.
Discord... you went full Tzeentch and turned Fluttershy into a Chaos Spawn. FLUTTERSHY! INTO A CHAOS SPAWN!
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7132411
Oh, are you the one who chalked that and "FEAR THE CHALK" on our bike path? Because I think someone tried to hose it off.
7133640
Sort of, yes, but a draconequus is very different from your standard 40k Chaos Spawn.
7133768 Doesn't look much like he turned her into a draconequus. Does look pretty horrible.
Mister Fancy-Schmancy-Chronomancy
I hope you took a moment after writing that name and just sat back and felt very proud of yourself. Because it's wonderful. As is Discord, and the creation of his Serendipity, which gave me the horrors.
7133637
No wonder I'm following you.
I guess that's one way to explain the seeming temporal impossibilities of FiM. I still prefer the 1 season = 1 year solution, if only to preserve my sanity
7133771
Well, ponies kept saying that whenever he showed up, so they must have been addressing him.
7134180
Writing Discord is always a delight, regardless of his moral alignment.
7135005
Bah. Who needs sanity when you can have wizards watching over Equestria from historical phase space?
7132425 *pushes the Earth into an alternate dimension, where mice are 10,000 feet tall and breath nerve gas. It's a very dismal existence...*
7133637 It's one thing to write fanfics to explain the issues away... it's another to defend the show's plot holes as acceptable and decry critics for pointing out the obvious.
One is being creative and trying to fix the broken story, the other is akin to religious fundamentalism.
I am quite firmly set against the latter, and cautious about the former, as such things after lend themselves to the proponents of the latter. Such was the case with the "Star Wars" prequel defenders utilizing secondary material to defend the terrible movie plots.
I tend to prefer satirical methods of pointing out story flaws, because then the fanboys can't exactly point to such material as backing up the canon when the satire is clearly lampooning the problems.
7137495
Anyone who does use this story as a defense has to admit it's a damn shoddy one, since it makes a point of pointing out all the reasons why the show's chronology shouldn't work. It can't even rely on "A wizard did it." The wizard tried and failed.