A direct continuation of '27 Ounces: A Tale of Eight And One Half Ponies', the lives of a family of newfoals from their very first arrival in Equestria is followed. Join Caprice, Alexi, Pumpkin and Buttermilk in their day-to-day lives as they adapt not only to being humans-turned-Equestrian, but struggle to help found a new village in the ever expanding Exponential Lands. This is a story of courage, survival, and the process of bringing a new landscape under proper Equestrian dominion. Starting without weather, shelter, or any understanding, these brave newfoal pioneers face daunting odds.
Knowledge of the previous novel is not needed to enjoy this tale.
Chapters (32)
sweet sun and moon, YES!
one thing though, <WARNING! WARNING! theoryrant incoming! WARNING! WARNING!>
From what I gather from the story, Equestria gets a multiple of the surface area converted from Earth, added to its own landmass, right?
Then, this must mean that either:
- the border between equestria and Earth can be crossed in more than one way (earth-> Equestria inside sphere, Equestria inside -> Equestria outside), with the additional landmass added somewhere far beyond the border itself.
- the border somehow shrinks on the Equestrian side, as it grows on the Terran side, with the additional landmass being distributed evenly across the existing landmass (hence towns growing apart etc.)
- you made a mistake and meant that the Equestrian border is much larger than the Terran border.
- I made a mistake in my assumptions and should read this a few more times untill I get it (my personal theory)
</ theoryrant>
still, I love the series so far, the stories only get better and better, and I will definitely keep on reading this.
33403
Understanding the Rucker Sphere (as taken from Dr. Rudy Rucker): Imagine that our three-dimensional universe is a two-dimensional plane, like a sheet of paper. Embedded in that paper are living squares, called 'Flatlanders' (ala Abbott's 'Flatland'). The can only see in straight lines, so to them there are only four directions: north, east, south, and west. 'Up' and 'Down' do not exist for them, they are extra-dimensional concepts.
Now, imagine that on the other side of the sheet of paper we have a race of triangles living in the page. Now we use a hole punch to make a portal between the two sides; the squares (humans) can now see the triangles (ponies) through the hole. They can do this, because if you draw a line of sight from a square on one side to the hole, then turn the paper over, and continue the line on the other side, it could hit a triangle. This means that for the squares and the triangles, the round hole looks like a circle that contains the other world, the other side of the paper. If they 'walk' around it, they always see the other world through it.
Now, let's bring that up into our world, our three dimensions of space.
The equivalent of the hole in the paper would be a sphere. It could be any size, but it would look like a mirror ball - like a X-mas ornament, only it would be reflecting another world entirely. That hole would be a sphere that a line of sight in our three dimensions could enter and go through from any angle - above, below, north, south, east, and west. This works because we assume there are more dimensions - just as our sheet of paper existed in our world, so our world would exist in a higher space with at least one more dimension.
Just as the flatlanders had 'up' and 'down' as alien directions, we have 'ana' and 'kata' -hyperspace directions that we cannot point to, or imagine easily.
The spherical hole was punched in those dimensions, and just as the squares and triangles saw a circle that displayed the other side of their sheet of paper, so the humans and the ponies see a sphere that displays the other universe, Mundis, or Equestria.
It is possible for the appearance of the hole to be different in size on one side but not the other; all that matters is that every point correspond. This is not easy to do with a sheet of paper, but perhaps it would help to imagine that the sheet is very deformed, like a sheet of rubber.
On the Equestrian side, they have a nice, convenient little hole, that they can use as a gateway to welcome newfoals.
On the Earth side, that same hole is an ever-expanding mouth devouring the planet.
The mass and energy and time and space of the earth is converted into more Equestria. Equestria is literally eating the earth, and the spacetime it floats in. The benefit goes to the Equestrian side; they get a lot more out than they take in; Equestria has magic, so it is a form of extropic universe, unlike the extremely entropic cosmos of Mundis.
What is entropy? Loss of information. Extropy? Gaining information. In this case, information is matter, time, space, and energy. Thus new mountains, new lands, new trees, new everything, constantly expanding out like water flooding out from a hose. Equestria, in my vision, is inflating, as it eats the earth. In my previous stories I have hinted as to why this is being done, and why there is any bother about saving the humans at all.
33466 This is what happens when a physics person writes fanfiction.
In any case, great to see a continuation with these characters. Can't help but wonder if Alexi's unfinished plot thread with the Black Market from 27 Ounces will show up here? Might be hard considering they've already gone to Equestria, but I guess we'll wait and see. Looking forward to more!
What I couldn't help but notice was the cameo we'd seen as the four were on ship; my guess is that said grey pegasus was the one who ferried the letters to that HLF idiot flying the chopper.
Oh my, you really did make Pumpkin look just like Pokey.
Oh, this is gonna be interesting
But...
"For every mile of the Earth that Equestria devoured, ten thousand miles within Equestria were gained"
a thousand? While seperating existing cities? By the time the Earth is gone, there will be such vast distances that everypony will be seperated from everything. I think that's a bit harsh
Alexi and Caprice are back!
Woo!
"Everything looked as if it could only get better."
Aw, man. Things are totally going to go to shit, aren't they?
In all seriousness, I'm enjoying this so far. It's interesting to see a native pony (who isn't part of the Mane Six or a background pony) reacting to the remnant values of Earth.
Also, every time Buttermilk is mentioned, I squee inside. Just the descriptions make her sound diabetes-inducing adorable.
Keep up the good work.
33915
that is what Chatoyance is saying! That's how come there can be enough space for all the billions of humans inside the apparently-tiny "island" of Equestria. Incredibly harsh for the existing inhabitants... I think I have a solution, and that solution is a story I've been meaning to write for a while, but have lacked the where, how and most of all why. Now I have the why...
I'm enjoying this so far! Is it wrong or silly of me to hope for a softer, happier landing wherein the conflict isn't quite so... harsh, and more humorous?
Still, Chatoyance, write what moves you! I know it'll move me.
It's a clever idea, but I think Chatoyance is taking the concept a bit too far. I like the idea, but apparently Chatoyance's idea of a happy ending is an eternity of Equestria as it is now forever. I prefer Ponies in Space!
No, really, the land-expansion doesn't have to be as completely-ridiculous as it is unless you plan on making Equestria it's own complete universe instead of a really large, magical planet. I'm no, uh, philosopher(?), but having the possibility of somewhere else to go, Space, is good for Humanity. It always irks me when I read fanfics where Luna, in addition to doing the moon thing, places the stars in the night, since that reduces stars to simply pretty lights. In reality stars are, well, not just fascinating nuclear balls of fire but at the same time a living dream of a future we can't truly imagine. So when I read that future-Equestria isn't just a hyper-space planet, but instead practically it's own closed-in and relatively uniform universe, (Little Pony villages everywhere with only the various environments Earth has) my inner Trekkie screams for unknowns to explore.
So basically I'm typing away about a pet-peeve. It's really not a big deal and isn't related to the stories you've been telling Chatoyance, so unless you want to write directly about future-Equestria and/or Ponies in Space, this kinda stuff you can really just ignore/forget about. That stuff has been done in other Pony fanfics, but not in CB stories, as it's really not what CB is about at all.
I personally have thought about doing a CB fic that would have a different relationship between Ponies and Humans than usual, which would involve science and magic and maybe eventually technomancy warp drives, but I can't write characters to save anyone's life. Don't ask for an explanation for that, I don't completely understand it myself. I'd happily send someone my ideas if anyone wants to read them though! (You don't. Please, don't motivate me to actually type up a blocky paragraph or three of boring setting-filler.)
One more thing: Is it ok for me to go off-topic in these comments? I don't want to annoy anyone please. (Heh, too late anyways?)
Freaking hell, that's huge! Whoops?
34213
"No, really, the land-expansion doesn't have to be as completely-ridiculous as it is unless you plan on making Equestria it's own complete universe instead of a really large, magical planet. I'm no, uh, philosopher(?), but having the possibility of somewhere else to go, Space, is good for Humanity."
Space may be good for humanity, but that is in Mundis Mundis, a hostile cosmos of entropy, limited resources, the constant fight for survival, and zero rational hope of gods, spirits, or anything beyond death but oblivion: a mechanical universe.
Equestria, let's face it, is a fairyland. It is precisely equivalent to L. Frank Baum's Oz. Equestria is an extopic cosmos of plenty, where at the wave of a unicorn's horn ten quadrillion atoms can rearrange themselves politely from a rock, into a fine top hat, or Twilight Sparkle's equine parents into two breeds of cactus sitting in clay pots. Equestria is a universe with not one, but three living gods capable of literally anything; whether it is raising the sun or moon, or, in the case of Discord, making the land twist into ribbons, making the mountains float, or turning the sky to chocolate.
Actually, I take back the reference to Oz: comparatively Oz is a very magic-poor universe compared to Equestria. Even the great Empress Ozma herself could do none of these feats, and she was the second most powerful entity in the entire series (the primary being the fairy queen Lurline, who created Oz, then was never seen again).
What need of space, and stars and new worlds to conquer if you are not a desperate primate evolved to commit genocide in order to expand and gain new territory?
Why escape earth, doomed to die when its star eventually roasts the planet, if you live in a realm rather than a world, that itself can never perish?
I write stories of humans faced with the greatest terror of all: actually getting what they imagine they want when they pray to their gods and worship in their churches and temples; an eternal land of kindness and brotherhood, ruled by wise and compassionate, eternal parental figures, freed from the drive to fight and acquire and conquer. Is this not the heaven of nearly every faith since the days of ancient Egypt? (actually, the Egyptian afterlife was remarkably like Equestria, only with humans instead of ponies)
Still, I am not as cruel as perhaps a better writer would be; my humans are given special grace before being tossed into paradise - they are remade into creatures capable of eventually adapting to it. A cruel story would be one where there was no change to the psyche of Converted humans; they would end up in Equestria a plague of greed, violence, and selfishness that would bring doom to the realm.
Of course, I subscribe to the Celestia-as-benevolent-tyrant theory; she is too smart, and too ruthless to ever permit that.
In my Equestria, there is no space. The sky is a work of art, the stars a painting brushed with magic. Equestria is a place, not a planet, it does not orbit a star, a magical sun is created each day and moved across an illusory sky.
If you like, think of my Celestia as a candy-colored Cthulu, the stars have finally aligned, and the ultimate doom of an Elder God has come; the mind-crushing horror of perpetual Summerland.
34299
That....was beautiful.
"Everything looked as if it could only get better."
...Cue everything going to crap.
On the subject of the whole Earth - 1 mile = Equestria + 1000+ miles thing... Ok, putting aside that if Equestria operated on similar physical laws, that would result in a planet with a mass (And GRAVITY) larger than Jupiter, that's still one heck of a kingdom to try and hold together, magic notwithstanding. Celestia and Luna can only be at one place at a time each, and the sheer logistics of keeping a country that big in communication with itself on pony level tech is a bit mind boggling. Again, magical means are available...but only to a rough 1/3 of the population, and even then, their own personal magics aren't usually suitable for anything too outside their personal talents. Heck, even if it were a 1 to 1 conversion, running even an earth size nation would be a major chore, even with magical aid.
34472
I would reiterate: my vision of Equestria is that it is not a planet. It is a place. A realm, a zone, a universe vastly different in construction and laws than our own.
Based on the stained glass image in Celestia's hall:
i878.photobucket.com/albums/ab342/caelumblue/MLP%202010%20Screenshots/prettythroneroom.jpg
I see that as the apex of a parabolic infinite surface, not a globe. That surface is the land of Equestria, stretching off perhaps forever. The sky is a short space, like a cap, that encloses it, and the planets and sun illusions created by god-level powers.
But, if I am wrong, and it is a planet, there is no problem; Equestria is not our universe, and what we call the laws of nature do not apply to it -except, perhaps, just a bit, in the Everfree forest.
Woo, go Alexi!
Also, finally, finally, FINALLY! I've read a lot (I won't say all because I really doubt I'd even be close) of CB stories, but this is the FIRST that actually gives us an EQUESTRIAN antagonist. Other stories have had the HLF, that extremist pro-pony group whose name I can't remember, or other human made threats, and seem to completely forget that ponies aren't exactly perfect either. About time we had a rotten pony (or rotten pony group?) show up in a CB story. NOT that I'm happy about what Windfeather's done to our group...
Its just a nice change of pace, is all.
34612
That's actually how I see it - mostly because if it were a planet, that would be intriguing but ultimately boring. I would rather my fantasy universe be rather more interesting than that. The princesses, as I see it, DO literally raise the sun and the moon - and they are as have been depicted for millenia in the old orreries; a geocentric (Equestriocentric?) rather than a heliocentric system.
It also means I can write crazy stuff like "the business trip" which is so much more fun :D
34299 'What need of space, and stars and new worlds to conquer if you are not a desperate primate evolved to commit genocide in order to expand and gain new territory?
Why escape earth, doomed to die when its star eventually roasts the planet, if you live in a realm rather than a world, that itself can never perish?'
Because it's AWESOME.
34715
OK, I can't refute that. Awesome trumps everything.
Oh my gosh I love you soooo much right now
Actualy I've been meaning to ask. Its clear that some planning goes into your works, given how quickly new chaptors are relased. I've been wondering though, do you get ideas for specific scenes and work arround them, or start off with a vague plan for the story as a whole and work in the details? Having tried and failed to start my own fics I'm trying to annalyse how other authers go about writing to see if there's something specific I can change to get the creative ball rolling.
Thank you again! :)
Cherry
35393
"Actualy I've been meaning to ask. Its clear that some planning goes into your works, given how quickly new chaptors are relased. I've been wondering though, do you get ideas for specific scenes and work arround them, or start off with a vague plan for the story as a whole and work in the details? Having tried and failed to start my own fics I'm trying to annalyse how other authers go about writing to see if there's something specific I can change to get the creative ball rolling."
I start out first with an idea, a general notion of what I want to write about. For 27 Ounces, that idea was 'lives affected by one bottle of ponification serum'. For Euphrosyne Unchained, the idea was 'what if an intellectual person wanted to be more like Pinky Pie'. For The Taste Of Grass, it was simply 'I cannot stand not knowing what happens next to Alexi and Caprice'.
Once the idea is there, I figure out two things: first, where do I jump into the lives of the characters, and second, what is the vague ending I am trying to reach. For The Big Respawn, my start was 'two hard-core gaming boys finally have to face ponification' and the vague ending was 'despite trouble, their friendship endures.' For Euphrosyne Unchained, the beginning was 'three girls go in a Conversion Bureau'. The vague ending was 'the intellectual girl finds that it is her choice who she is'. For 27 Ounces the beginning was 'Dr. Pastern has troublesome patients' and the ending was 'the clinic gets attacked, and everyone's life is changed.'
The next step for me is to make sure I know my characters and their world. To bastardize Sun Tzu "To know one's characters and one's world, the writer need not fear a thousand stories'. Basically, if my characters are real in my mind, they will act and speak according to their nature, and if that nature is true, they will tell the story for me by what they would naturally choose, and how they would naturally respond. If I know my world clearly, then I have the environment that forces my characters to make decisions, and if the environment makes sense, the decisions will make sense.
Then I sit back and let the story unfold; I am reading it as I type it, eager to hear the story in my head. For me, it is like I am being told the story, and I just type it down as the characters do what they do. I suppose you could think of it like this: if my mind is a holodeck, then I run holographic characters in a specified environment. The characters personality traits determine what they do, I just sit back and watch. I guess I try to emulate other minds inside my own.
For instance, Alexi is very real to me. So is Caprice, So are all of my (major) characters. They are all based off of people I actually knew, or parts of people I knew, or bits and pieces of me. Little events within the world that happen are all real events I have experienced myself, or have been told about, which get changed or altered by the characters. Example: Ryan the transman has his dad get mad because he is transsexual, and faces a gun to the head; my own father put a gun to my head, I just tossed that event at my character and let it play out for him, and had the character react however he would in my head. The event was real, Ryan was real (based on a transman I once dated) but the way it played out was how my emulation of the Ryan character would deal with it. Same thing for every other event in all of my stories -fancied up, of course, for a world of magic and general weirdness.
If I have done my world right, and if I know my characters clearly -if they are alive for me in my mind - I can start with my beginning and the characters, like good horses, will just know the way home by themselves.
And, if they should take a different path, and that path looks better than what I had planned... well, that's OK too. Better than OK! Sometimes my characters have a better ending that I could have invented. That's a kind of magic feeling, and I love it when that happens. Teacup, Down On The Farm did that, and I was really happy with the result.
So I trust in my characters, and hope they trust in me. So to speak. Is any of that useful at all?
Am I the only one who thinks that this entire ordeal is set up by Princess Celestia?
We know for a fact that LITH!Celestia values personal freedom highly, given her reasons to limit the use of mind altering spells in teacup's story: she did not think of them as inherently bad or evil, nor did she limit them because of the sheer power involved. She limited them because they interfered with one's freedom of thought, meaning she must find this a more important reason than anything else.
We also know that she is still somewhat prone to plotting and planning, given the way she handled Teacup's problem: rather than giving a straight answer, she basically made Teacup think and come up with her own answer.
I think Celestia intends to make the towns in the exponential lands self-sustainable, on one hand to promote personal freedom and on the other hand because, due to the large distances, one would either end up with large clusters of towns somewhere on the edge of Equestria, or the towns would become completely reliant on whatever official support is sent their way.
Or maybe Windfeather is just a close minded fool and I am looking too much into this.
More than I could have ever hoped
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer in such astonishing detail! I shall defiantly be experimenting with what you've suggested there. Your stories are wonderful and have really inspired me to have another go at fic writing.
I’m amazed at how quickly you can produce new chapters and am really looking forward to the next instalment of this fic :)
Looks like they need to work on getting telekinesis going for the unicorns, get the crates pried open that way...
Also, really hoping Windfeather gets his by the end of this. I mean it was one thing just dumping them out there, but now it appears he's dumped them out there to die a slow death (maybe, depends on what all turns out to be in those crates). So yeah, he'd make a lovely addition to Celestia's sculpture garden...
I love the world-building (literally!) in this series as much as in the previous! Oooohhhh there's so much I could speculate on! Woohoo!
With the addition of 19 billion almost human minds. I can't see Equestrian society escaping change. The royals in Canterlot will be rather unhappy with the newfoals and their attitudes towards them... especially considering some newfoals will be people of influence in old Earth. Celestia may prevent actual import of human technologies, the newfoals will still bring their own culture, language and technological understanding with them in their minds.
There will be an industrial revolution. The introduction of steam power at the very least... to plow the fields and trains to move ponies and goods over great distances. Airplanes (for all those who really wanted to be pegasi but just didn't have the wing genes) And writing with your mouth.. will quickly go out the window. It won't be long before some inventive unicorn newfoal will reinvent a typewriter in Equestria... although it will probably be based on magic.. dictation quill?
It is very likely that human languages will dominate the exponential land since the newfoals will come by the boat loads together and will quite likely setup a village together.
Now that is something I expected. A native equestrian that is less than welcoming to the flood of newfoals that would drown equestrian traditions, culture and way of life.
Good twist for a genra that usually has only bad humans. Now we have bad ponies too.
Salt seems to primarily be an intoxicant in Equestria, though, so Caprice may be totally off base about pony biology.
35564
) because they can?
It would be funny if they don't need to eat salt. Maybe Ponies simply have magical digestive systems that turn most kinds of food into good nutrients and everything else, and therefore they eat highly varied diets (or extreme amounts of sugar
35820
I think I recall Noah (Letters From Home) saying that ponies can live off the land no problem so no one is in danger of dying for having no wealth.
35942
Then again, that is later in the timeline, so its entirely possible that Princess Celestia changed the world in response to the plight of the newfoals.
I really like this Robinson Crusoe-style part of the plot. :)
This story gets more and more interesting as I read!
Can't wait for next chapter.
34612
I suppose Equestria is somewhat similar to your Khex classification then, with some Arcaynia mixed in.
http://www.unicornjelly.com/alt77.html
If I were a pony in Equestria, I'd be manning an expedition to study the receding edge of undefined space.
I guess catching water drops would be the first step in cloud manipulation? Makes sense.
You know, I had a thought as I read the part with Caprice talking to her group. Windfeather is very very dumb. I'm assuming that this isn't the only group he(and/or any possible conspirators) have dumped out in the middle of nowhere. Now Caprice is making it clear to this group that it was NOT Celestia or Equestria at large's fault, but what about any others? Others might not be so rational in their blame assigning, so depending on how well they other groups fare and how long it takes for contact to be re-established... The blockhead's potentially creating a bunch of future nations who might be, if not outright hostile(Pony mentality being pretty against violence), at least very unfriendly with main Equestria in the future,
36264
Windfeather is an idiot for the simple reason that, despite the exponential lands being as big as they are, powerful spells and other strong efforts by many would be able to locate the various settlements anyways. It would take much more than the efforts of one lone pony to completely isolate the newfoal settlements for more than a few years. Windfeather's betrayal so far might be merely falsifying the locations on the maps, which would require others to search to find the real locations of the settlements.
This group though is completely at the mercy of PLOT and therefore probably won't be found for years.
36371
"This group though is completely at the mercy of PLOT and therefore probably won't be found for years."
Consider the two possibilities: they are found very soon, or they are found years later.
If they are found soon, the story is quickly over; Windfeather would be punished, and everypony would end up in a nice town, with nice lives. I suppose I could tell stories of how good the cake tasted at the local bakery.
If they are found years later, or never, we can find out how they manage to make nature work, how weather is created, what is in those twenty damn crates, how they deal with childbirth, farming, learning what magic means, and of course what astonishing plan they might come up with to try to contact anyone else out there.
With nineteen billion humans being shipped to Equestria, is it PLOT that they are lost in the herd, forgotten, or just simple mathematics? Which of the two possibilities above is the most interesting to read about? What is the primary duty of the author to their audience?
These are questions I ask myself, constantly in this story.
Wow, You're the first conversion bureau author i know to mention the everfree forest at all! By the way, I'm asking around, do you know of a story in this setting in which Equestria becomes like Earth instead of the opposite?
Oh shit. Now things are happening. Bad things!
C'mon Alexi and Caprice! You can do it!
as usual, thanks for another awsum read, can't wait to see the next chapter!
Don't be ashamed to be a nerd, Droplet! Be proud that you know things! Keep being a nerd, even as a pony!
Yikes, I wondered if things might start to get a little bad til they figure out weather control, but geez...
Looks almost like their part of Equestria's 'pocket dimension' is actually breaking down or something...
37162
I think that it's just that it's not being maintained properly. Hopefully the pegasai will be able to figure it out in time.
I love the way the supporting cast is developing. Go newfoals!
I think the water is "evaporating", returning to the skies in a fine mist. This mist is what is making the sky white. What the town needs is for the pegasai to fly around and gather it into big enough clouds for it to start to rain down.
37469 This makes sense, scientifically speaking.
Somehow this story gives me a very strong Dwarf Fortress vibe, not that I'm complaining.
Ooooohhhh.....No es bueno......
*Crosses fingers* Please let the haze be clouds...please let the haze be clouds...
Eeep
Thats a looong way down.
"It's wonderful... Peaceful. Like you're part of the sky itself. I supose flying in Equestria is less of a phisical act and more of a state of mind."