Marked

by Eisen

(Soundtrack for Marked)

Author's Note:

Hey guys! As you know, through the later portion of the story, I began composing music for some of the chapters, and made the songs free to anyone who wanted it.

Well, all songs have been compiled here, so feel free to listen or download!

Click here to see the full soundtrack.

Comments

[ferret]

Good story. Had its sticking points, but it was well paced, and very skillfully intriguing. I certainly had suspected a secret cabal of Unmarked ponies, but not a hegemony of all Equestrian industry, to hoard knowledge and technology until it can be used to increase profits. The multiple endings wasn't really necessary, but it was nice of you I suppose. Would have been fine with seeing which choice you wanted Twilight to make, or as I predicted, all three choices at once.

"Excellent work, Twilight. With Far Reach in Tartarus, you will be able to take over Trident, and safely rule the world."
"Cool story, princess. I gotta be going now."

(walks downstairs)

"(Okay, Far Reach is dead. Trident is effectively dissolved.)"
"That's great! I'll warm up the Brander and we can get to marking some happy foals!"
"Before you do that, come walk with me a sec."

(later)

"Well, Mark Maker, the way I see it, without Trident to hurt ponies and with everyone Branded, we'll all be able to live peacefully together for all time. I doubted you at first, but you really taught me how true it is, and now I'm behind the idea, one-hundred percent. "

"Really, princess?"

"No."

"What?"

"You might want to cover your ears."

(the whole mountain explodes behind them)

[Eisen]

7399412
Marks are fairly permenant, nobody lost their Marks, but the Trident lost their means of control, and, in this ending, no future ponies will ever get Marks, and that knowledge is public.

[2weirdy]

Alright, read through all 3 endings and epilogues (after making my choice for A).

My conclusion is that no one choice is better or worse than the other. It all depends on how much you value free will as an inherent thing, and what you consider mind control.

Personally, I contribute literally zero inherent value in free will; I consider it valuable exclusively because there is no person alive I would unconditionally trust to do the right/efficient/good thing to the best of their abilities. I value it only because, in all real-life situations, it leads to greater expected happiness, and because I don't really trust anyone completely. I only even trust myself mostly, which is more than anyone else.

Thus, for me, it wasn't even a difficult choice to make; A leads to greatest happiness, peace, stability and expected life span.

What I personally find interesting is how much people hate having their choices being manipulated if they know it is, while simultaneously doing the same to everyone else by posting a comment. All information received affects your choice in the end. A Brand perhaps would do so more than simple talk, but it would be considerably less than the effect of the cultural environment one is born is.

On a similar note, I consider letting someone die and killing them equivalent in terms of morals. Thus, yes, I would support assassinations in certain circumstances if lives would clearly be saved by doing so. People cannot intuitively grasp larger numbers; we are incapable of it. Therefore, the best choice, morally or otherwise, can only ever be determined by calculations rather than purely doing what feels right (even if you define what is morally good as what feels right, that can be calculated as well).

Lastly, for all those who think so, yes, I am a cold, calculating, selfish asshole. That however, has no effect on whether or not I'm right. Additionally, what is interesting (to me) is that I have caused no more harm to anyone else even with those attributes, relative to "normal people".

[Eisen]

7647773

I don't remember writing anything about soul transfer...

[Memz]

7787350 Foals commiting the crime? post marking independance from the brander?
I never said anything about foals committing crimes, and I said that the Independance post-mark was implied as more explanations were given around the topic from different points of view.
I have no idea where you got the idea of pre-branded foals committing crimes out of the things I said, but if you think about it, that might actually be a partial truth, if a three letter acronym we all know of is any clue; the CMC do some pretty ridiculous things, certainly crime might be on their list of possible cutie mark journeys.
Well, at least that kind of argument applies to the CMC before they finally got their cutiemarks in season... 6 or 7, can't remember which.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

9110351
I'm going to answer that. But, its been almost 2 years, I've forgotten. I'm going to have to reread the story. It will take awhile

[Bloody_Tofu]

This was a great read. Thank you for wrighting it.

The only thing that threw me was the ending. I’d have liked to have seen epilogue integration with her and the princesses. Also the multiple choice threw me far more than it should have. Not sure why.