Original Writeoff Version
The alarm clock on Carrot Cake’s nightstand was set to four in the morning. Today, like most days, he was already awake when it began to buzz, and he switched it off with a light tap of his hoof.
“Munsilasii…” Cup Cake mumbled beside him. It sounded like either tired or shower. “Amaashli,” she continued, and rolled onto her side, pulling the covers back up over her shoulder.
Tired, then. Probably. Carrot gave her ear a little kiss and absconded to use the shower.
Bakers were the first to rise in Ponyville. They had to be. When Carrot emerged from the shower the house was already filled with the warm scent of fresh bread. He toweled his mane and headed downstairs.
The first trays were in the oven, and Cup sipping coffee at the table. She smiled and indicated the counter, where the pot was still bubbling. “Anum?”
“Thank you.” He poured himself a cup and sat. “Shower’s yours, if you want.” He mimed turning the faucet and holding his head under the spray.
She nodded and set her mug on the table. “Shiikgi adi, shami ushash shirman. Gar!” She gave him a kiss and headed upstairs.
Pinkie Pie joined them shortly before opening. She bounced over to the counter and opened up the displays, pulling out the trays to ready them for the treats. “Zel Cake trealop!” She paused and bit at her lip, and then slowly spoke again. “Good...morning… Mister Cake!”
“Trealop,” he said, and walked over to give her a fatherly hug. Learning even a few words of another pony’s language was a sign of immense commitment, and every time she greeted him it was like a warm candle had lit within his heart. Of course, Pinkie was close to being able to greet the entire town. How she could remember all those words, much less who they belonged to, baffled him.
Cup joined them, her mane still damp from the shower. “Pinkie! Trealop.”
“Zal Cake trealop! Weepeggle?” Tones, at least, hadn’t changed, and the up-inflected ending was clearly a question.
“Nii gi e gik.” Cup ruffled Pinkie’s mane, and they walked into the kitchen, speaking to each other in quiet voices that said nothing, but somehow still meant everything.
Twilight Sparkle was one of their first customers, as she was most days. The Princess of Friendship was also an early riser.
Also as usual, she was wearing one of her experiments: a wire necklace with a flickering jewel in the center. It was encased in an array of thin metal fins, which Carrot took to mean it generated a fair amount of heat.
Her horn glowed, and the gem lit up with an inner fire. “Hello Mister Cake! I would like four—” the gem sparked and went out with a puff of smoke. “—kiraric par rede.”
“Seven words! That’s getting better,” he said. “Four of what?” He mimed pointing at the treats in the glass display between them.
Twilight’s ears drooped, and she motioned toward the eclairs. He gave her five, in hopes of seeing her smile.
It worked. She glanced around, as if to make sure they were alone, then leaned over the counter to give him a peck on the cheek. Then, cheeks aflame, she darted out the door.
Pound Cake was the last of the family to rise. He fluttered downstairs and settled into a chair, mane still a mess, feathers all afluff.
“You’re late,” Carrot said. “Pumpkin already left for school.”
“School’s stupid,” Pound said. “All we do is math. Why couldn’t Discord have screwed up everypony’s numbers, too?”
“Princess Twilight says that’s impossible. Math is universal,” Carrot said. He enjoyed speaking with his children – like most foals, they quickly learned their parents’ languages, and often served as translators in the family.
“It’s boring!” Pound thumped the table with a hoof.
“You’ll be glad in a few years when the princess fixes things. Now, off to class!”
It was late when Carrot settled into bed. Cup was already beneath the covers, drowsing, and he snuggled up behind her.
“Love you,” she mumbled.
It had been seven months since Discord’s Curse, as Carrot called it. He assumed everypony else called it the same thing in their language. Only the word "Discord" was the same.
It was impossible to learn enough to speak with everypony. One had to choose carefully. To decide what mattered. And, he reflected, that wasn’t so hard.
“Ane khimshuk,” he whispered.
Love you.
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6631875 Not a clue, it's a been a long time since I read that story. It was in an anthology of post-apocalyptic short stories, all of them written around something besides the usual nuke-it-until-it-glows premise, that much I do remember.
6632248 6632167 6632133 6631007 6630992
ありとございます！私はこの話を楽しむ事が好きです。^.^
meanwhile, in the darkest depths of Tartarus, inside a welded cage, in a second scale model of Tartarus molded to fit inside the cage, in a second cage inside the darkest depths of that second Tartarus, surrounded by the now useless Equestrian tax code, volumes 1-500, arranged in neat rows, is a pile of broken stone fragments that almost look like they once formed the statue of a surprisingly nervous looking draconequus.
6632358
Theres always interpretive dance!
It's so simple, and shows great stories aren't defined by complexity. And I like it. Well done, congratulations on the win!
I reviewed this story!
My review can be found here.
Huh. Just now noticing that "Babylon" is a (probably unintentional) pun. Babble-on.
GENESIS 11:1-9
I shall remain neutral
6632285
You know, what would really be nasty? A pony receiving a language from Discord's Curse that his or her body (larynx, hooves, wings, tail, eyelids—anything that could be used as a form of communication) is physically incapable of reproducing. For example, an earth pony receiving a language that required absolute positioning of both ear flaps and wings—that's not a typo, both ear flaps and wings—to convey the precise meaning of spoken phonemes.
That aside, I suspect some sort of logographic pidgin would rapidly develop out of sheer necessity. Twilight then hacks together the magical equivalent of a Chinese typewriter for it—complete with text prediction!—and they're off and running.
I think you're ready to see... the GATES OF BABYLOOOOOON!
Great story, short but very effective!
6635451
It's just
that they're carrying on a secret affairTwilight being Twilight.Meanwhile, Yakyakistan completely self-destructed.
6634553
Yeah a lot of people think "babble" comes from the Tower of Babel, but it turns out they're unrelated. Babble most likely comes from the sounds babies make when breaking into speech, as similar words are found in several languages and may have entered common tongue independently.
6636855
?אתה מדבר עברית
I think the reason Discord hasn't returned, is he realized that even Fluttershy would
probably kick him in the
dragondraconequus balls for pulling a "prank" that low.6632507 Well how's poor Twilight supposed to say anything if everyone talks through dance?
Wow... super creepy and super sweet. Weird mix, but I think I like it.
Short, but the idea's there and I like it
6634553
That would be where the Tower of Babel was located, in Iraq, on the Plain of Shinar, where Nimrod set up a one-world government about 200 years after the Great Flood of Genesis. The people he enslaved and had the tower built had one common language as being all descendants of Ham, Shem, or Japeth (sons of noah).
6631881
The actual story of the Tower of Babel is that man had been told after the flood to go forth, multiply, and conquer the land (spread out and stake claim to the planet he gave us). Instead, they all grouped together and stayed in the same place. Then man, who has no chance of ever coming near to God’s level of power or holiness, said to themselves: “Let’s make a really tall building! Then we will be as cool as God!”
So God scrambled their languages, making their prideful project impossible and forcing them to go do what he told them to in the first place.
9731356 That's not what your holy book says. Genesis 11:6-7 And I quote.
Yahweh wasn't worried about humans not obeying his command to spread and settle. He was worried about the competition. So man could have become as great as God, because he basically admits it, and he's supposed to be the omnicient one.
Fortunately, after milennia of being beaten down and fractured by this massively unfair abuse, humanity is beginning to both come together again and bypass language barriers using translation programs, and building 'towers to the stars', courtesy of SpaceX, Blue Origin and the many other scientists, engineers and people of vision who are working to expand both our knowledge and ability to expand out into the universe.
Oddly enough, that's exactly what God's original instructions were in the first place, to name all the things, and spread out and settle. If he'd just left well enough alone, we'd already be out among the stars and colonising the galaxy rather than just starting to escape Earth. If he actually existed that is.
9866515
You’re taking verses out of context. If you’ll remember, not long before this, their was an event wherein humanity was so corrupt, so depraved and evil, that a God, who called man ‘very good’ upon creating him, who made us in his image, who created us for relationship with him, said he ‘regretted’ making mankind. One man in all the world found favor with god, and he and his house where saved when the Lord cleansed the Earth with water and made a pact with the survivors not to do so the same way again.
Who said that humanity doing ‘anything’ they wanted would be a good thing? Despite its use in helping end a major war, I wouldn’t say the nuclear bomb was a good thing. Humanity is just as likely to do good as evil with what it has been given.
And again, the major problem here want that they COULD do anything God could do, but that they had the PRIDE to say they could be as great as God. If a child starts ordering the parents around, starts telling them that he is in charge and telling them what to do, is the right thing for the parents to take it, or discipline the child? And we are children in God’s eyes, in terms of time, knowledge, and maturity.
While the words are there, nothing about this verse implicitly says that the Lord, creator of all things seen and unseen, who spoke the universe into existence, felt threatened by us mortals, who on this side of eternity live for a blink of his eye and who by our very nature are incapable of comprehending a being with no beginning or end.
While I believe everything in the Bible is true, I do not believe every word of it is meant to be taken in its closest, most literal meaning. Parables would make no sense then. God did not approve of the hubris of man, and their disregard of his missive, so he scattered them.
If you look at the Bible, it was written cohesively over the course of thousands of years. It is the most impressive crossover story in the history of the world. Despite all those mortal hands putting pen to paper, it is ‘inspired’ by the Holy Spirit, meaning the true author is the Lord. That said, the Bible say’s it is absolute truth to those who read it, and that God is all powerful, loving, all knowing, and above all, perfectly holy. Nothing we do can ever compare to that. And if you are going to take one part of it as an example, then you have to take the rest of it into consideration as well.
God according to the Bible literally on another plane of existence compared to us, and the thought that we could ever be as great as him is laughable. The last being to have that level of pride hunts us to this day, ‘like a hungry lion’, and God not only does not fear him, but has a special place in the fiery lake for him at the end of all of this. Revelations shows how Satan himself will lead the nations of the world against God, and how with a word Jesus will singlehanded win the war.
I am by no means an expert, but their are plenty of people who started with the same world view as yours and made their life goal disproving God, only to convert to the same faith they despised, because they could find no other answer. People much smarter than me, I might add. If you have questions regarding the meaning or validity of what I prescribe to, I would be willing to talk. And if I cannot answer I’ll find the answers myself. But please try and be respectful when approaching the topic.
Despite what your current beliefs on the matter are, I hold Yahweh in the highest place of honor, and having someone so aggressively disparage him is not only disrespectful in my eyes, but highly uncomfortable to approach.
9866753 Whereas I am equally uncomfortable with the idea that some non-existent supernatural entity has such a hold on your mind and ideals. I hold the ideal that man needs no supernatural being holding his hand, that humanity, with all it's flaws, evolved from the mud and despite superstition and pettiness and all the ways we harm ourselves has risen to the point where we are finally starting to understand the universe around us and how we can learn from it and protect it, and help one another.
I am an atheist, technically an agnostic, because I can't prove absolutely that there isn't some kind of deity or higher power. However, I have read the Bible, and that as much as anything else convinced me that if any kind of deity or deities exist, it can't be the one described in that book. And if he did exist, the only sane response would be to fight him. Threats of a 'fiery' (sic) lake and eternal torment don't frighten me, they just increase my desire to beat in the face of the bully making the threats with a two-by-four.
The old metaphor of Yahweh being a father and us being children so we must obey him needs work. A parent, a good one at least, takes care of their children and teach them right from wrong, but ultimately they are expected to let their children become adults and go off on their own. Yahweh's parenting style is more the abusive, controlling parent who beats his children for disagreeing with him and never lets them get out from under his thumb.
Now I apologise if this makes you or any other Christian uncomfortable, but this is my honest opinion, arrived at from years of thought. I really shouldn't get so annoyed over something that I don't think actually exists, but it's more that so many millions of people over thousands of years have been caught in this trap, revealed religion, where some guy in a fancy hat tells you how you should live your life, because god, and if you disagree, you're wrong. And then makes you pay for the privilege. And I'm not just talking Christianity, I'm talking all religions, right back to the first shamans. I know that's unfair, many of the preachers are just as convinced as the people they command, and many of them are people of genuine good will. But I believe that they would still have been those people, with or without religion.
I'll shut up now. I know it's futile to argue with a true believer. You were undoubtedly taught this stuff from a young age, and unlike with me, it stuck. It not really any different from Starlight's village, just bigger. Far more people have started out being taught a religion and then ultimately rejected it when they figured out it's flaws than have ever gone the other way, but it has to come from within the person themselves, when they start to question rather than blindly accept what they're told. And that's hard, too hard for most people.
I don't want to argue with you, I want to help you, but I don't know how.
9868062
And I am sitting on the other side of the fence feeling the same way. I believe that that pit DOES exist, and any one person I can convince of the truth is one less person who has to suffer there. I wouldn't wish that place on my worst enemy... Rules are there for a reason, and Gods rules are no different.
Yes, I was brought up in the church. But as I went through my life I had an epiphany that my faith had never been my own, only what my parents had taught me. The schools were telling me that evolution was fact, not theory, and that this was how the world worked. It all sounded so cool to me, being a big science nerd. Everything I knew could have been a lie.
I had a crisis of faith where I didn't know what to believe. It was only after study, lots of thinking, and what I believe to be providence that I came to the conclusion that not only would I much RATHER believe that there is a higher power with a plan for my life, but that it is what I HAD to believe, based on history, science, and the testimony of others. God doesn't want BLIND faith, that is what causes tragedies like the crusades, or inquisitions. I am not only faithful, but informed, and I trust God with what I know of him. People end up hating religion not because of things God has done, but because of things men have done in his name. I resolve not to be part of the problem.
God's lake of fire is was never meant for us. It was designed for the devil and his fallen angels. But sin is antithetical to him, he cannot be in the presence of it, and so must remove it from his presence. That is also why sin IS sin. God is a relational God, a God of love. Sin is anything that ultimately breaks relationship, whether that is between each other or him. Praising a false god of gold over him and denying him, lying to others, murder. They hurt and therefore are sinfull.
That is all Hell is, a place where God is not, and since God is good, no good can reside. And the lake (different place from Hell) is where sin, and thus the unrepentant sinful, will be cast when God perfects everything in the end. God isn't a tyrant sending people to damnation. He gave us an out, a lifeboat in the form of Jesus, and he desperately wants us to take his offer and join him in paradise because he paid the price for our sin. The pit is where we CHOOSE to go if we reject his help.
God IS my father, not just because he made me, but because he knows best for me, is WISER than me, and loves me. And I love and fear him the same way I love and fear my earthly father. I have peace and hope knowing that he is watching over me because of it. Peace and hope many people in our world today cannot say they have.
9868153 Without being insulting, I've heard that "it's not God's fault that you're condemned to eternal torment for not believing in him, it's the way things are set up." before.
Except that God is supposed to be the one who set things up. He could have rigged things so that people who didn't believe in him didn't get thrown into hell, but he didn't. God is either omnipotent, in which case he's responsible for it, or he's not in which case he's operating under false pretenses and I want a second opinion.
I really don't understand how you could look at this set up, actually step back and look at it from first principles and say, 'Yes, this is what I want to believe in. ' You can at least see why I see the whole thing as a particularly nasty version of 'demanding money with menaces', except it's someone's entire life that's being demanded. When the ulimate sin is not any evil you do on Earth, but not believing in God, that's where I draw the line. We are told to by God to love even our enemies, but God doesn't love us unless we love him back?
As I said before, my own sense of right and wrong could never allow me to worship such a god, only fight him with everything I had.
God loves us regardless of if we love him. You can watch your loved once choose a destructive path and be powerless to stop it. And while God has all the power in the universe, the one thing he won’t do is force us to choose him.
He did not create us as machines, to be his yes-men. He gave us free will. Freedom we used to chose to disobey his rules, bringing sin, death, and suffering into the world. We can CHOOSE Hell. And we live with the consequences of our actions to this day.
God removed himself from what we call Hell. Hell is what we ask for if we choose to say we don’t need God, it is a place he takes leave of. God doesn’t send people there, and he literally came down and died the most horrible death imaginable so that we could be saved from it.
That is not hot air, a study was done, and it was decided that of all way’s to go, crucifixion is the most agonizing way to be killed. He willingly left Heaven, became mortal like us, lived a life on this broken world, and suffered THAT so that we could be spared. But again, he won’t force us to choose him.
If God ‘set everything up’ in a way that was ‘perfect’, where everyone went to Heaven, free will would have to go. We would have zero say in the matter. He would be a true tyrant with us being simple slaves to his will rather than willing servants.
The fact that the creator of the universe cares that much for me, that he would leave paradise, go through shame, ridicule and death, just to offer me a place in his kingdom regardless of my past actions is my hope.
A shamefully, shamefully late review notification for you. In short: Slice of Life at its sliciest, and I love that our horizons are kept so limited. A lot of story here for such a short fic. Liked and faved!
10183205
:D Thank you for the review!
9868202
Personally I always see the bad stuff that happens to us as him trying to pound sense into to us before it too late. We all have bad sides even if we aren't as bad as some of the people in prison we still need sense knock into us to be better. He trying to help us be the best we can be. He doesn't want to force us to be good but he trying to convince us to do the right thing before its too late. Like you might punish a child before they end in prison for life. You do it to get them to understand what the right path is.
10787260 Except that it's not a true analogy. If bad things were only a result of things we did, then maybe. But how does a child or mother dying in childbirth teach us a lesson? How does a lightning strike randomly burning down a church with people inside, or a tidal wave wiping out a city help us to be better people?
10787692
Maybe the lesson isn't for the kid but someone else. There a story in the Bible about a guy who must had the worst luck ever because death would have been a blessing with his bad luck but in the end it was a lesson in that no matter how bad things are the lord has a plan we just don't know it. Also he needed nicer friends. Seriously who goes to see a sick friend and blames them over and over for their bad luck instead saying get well soon sorry about your bad luck.
10787705 I don't even... So your saying that when a mother or child dies in childbirth, it's a lesson for someone else? That the burned down church teaches someone a lesson? That the tidal wave shows someone the true way by destroying a city? Even if that's true, the people who died in the process still died. What do they get out of it? The only lesson I'd take away is that God is capricious and not above slaughtering people like cattle to make a point. Guess he hasn't moved on from that 'Send a flood and wipe them all out' mindset after all.
Take Job. He gets crapped on because of a bet between Yahweh and Satan (and isn't that a lovely concept?), has all his wives, children and servants die and is impoverished but because he stayed unwaveringly loyal to Yahweh, he ultimately gets all his stuff back and more. All very well, but what about all the poor sods who died in the process of testing his loyalty? They're still dead as very dead things that are dead. Of course they were only women, children and servants, so that makes it okay.
I've always said the best way to make someone an atheist is to have them read the Bible.
10787756
Life hasn't been fair since the apple got eaten what do you expect. That everyone gets sunshine and rainbows?
10787793 Yeah. Place an apple tree with forbidden fruit right in the middle of the garden where your creations are without a concept of good and evil, where nothing can harm them, and therefore do not understand consequences, and just tell them not to eat it. Genius!
If Yahweh really didn't want them to eat the apple of knowledge, put it on a mountain on the other side of the planet, or at least put a freaking fence around it! And let's not forget Yahweh is omniscient, not that you need to be to see the train wreck that's coming, so he had no excuse for what happened.
But no, it's not Yahweh's fault that he failed to take the most basic of design precautions, it's his creations. So he curses them (and their decendants, who had done him no harm, so basically Yahweh is Severus Snape) to unending suffering and toil. Classy move there, Yahweh.
10789564
Considering of the hundreds of trees available they only had leave 2 alone as a sign that they could be trusted with this responsibility. Should he say i don't trust you to do the right thing before given the chance to do anything wrong and considering sin didn't exist at that point they should have been able to handle it. Let just throw people in prison for crimes that they might commit in the future even though they are supposed to be responsible and trustworthy. And yes some people today blow that trust but some don't. Should they be punished for something that might never happen. Plus if God never gives us any trust then how can we be trustworthy.
10789581
Wow! That is such a poor analogy I'm actually in pain from reading it. The whole point is that pre-eating the apple, Adam and Eve had no more understanding of rules than toddlers. That's the point, innocent means you can do something wrong without any ill intent because you don't understand the concept.
It's the duty of a good parent to ensure that their child understands the consequences of doing something wrong or causing themselves or others harm. If that's not possible, then it's their responsibility to see that they can't harm themselves or others by putting in place reasonable safety precautions.
Putting a safety guard on a bandsaw is not the same as locking up the operator in prison so he can't possibly injure himself.
10789619
he did tell them what would happen and they understood a little bit. They were innocent because there was nothing bad that could happen. But they were trusted with one job don't eat of 2 trees. Such a simple thing even a child could handle it. Sometimes you have take the knowledge you have and trust it
10789650 Which they weren't capable of doing. That's the whole point. Though we are forgetting that they did, until the serpent told them otherwise. Now if they had a concept of right and wrong, they'd have understood that it was wrong to go do something they'd been told not to, but to someone innocent, one instruction is as good as another.
And even you can't justify blaming the children for the sins of the parents. Original sin is one of the cruelest concepts in Christianity. Jesus, a part of Yahweh, dying (temporarily) to give a way of removing original sin is like pushing someone down a pit, then lowering them a rope and expecting to be praised for pulling them back out.
10789677
One they had the choice to say no in fact they could have left the tree completely alone never going near it. The only reason to stay near a place you aren't allowed is doing something you aren't allowed to do. In fact after the first no they could have said that he is lying about God. Trust is the most important gift anyone will ever give someone and as for the descendants maybe sin is like oil you can't get rid of it once it out there easily.
10789697 You clearly aren't getting it. A toddler could leave a pile of sweets alone, when they're told not to. But will they, especially when someone else tells them it's okay? That was the situation. Until they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they did not have the capacity for that sort of judgement. And clearly, you are not able to see that, so I won't try to explain it further.
As for sin being like oil, how is that any kind of reasonable argument. What possible justification can you make for comparing the two? How is an act committed, owened by one person somehow magically transferable to their descendents? On that basis, if your great grandfather attacked mine, I should be entirely within my rights to punish you for it.
The God of the Bible, Yahweh, is portrayed as a psychopathic jerk who regularly punishes even the people he's supposed to have 'chosen', and for an omnicient, omnipotent being is somehow terrified that anyone will get even close to him. Which is where this started.
Humans build tower to get close to God. God sees that they're doing something impressive and craps himself. God sabotages effort by preventing them from talking to one another. What's he so scared of? If he's actually a decent person, he should be glad to see his creations rising to become something greater.
10793809
if someone is telling you to do something you know your not allowed to do should you stick around to talked into it. Sometimes bad stuff that we do can have a lasting effect for years. Look at racism it started with slavery then a war then separate but not equal now together but still working on equal.
10793847 Irrelevant. I posited specific cases. You have not yet answered one of them.
Ancestor does something bad. God punishes their descendents. All their descendents, even if they have not yet done anything bad.
Stop talking about slavery and oil, and tell me under what circumstances this specific thing makes sense, unless you are a vindictive plot-hole. Like I said before, this means Yahweh is basically Severus Snape.
10793914
Where did you learn right vs wrong. From adults. And since adults can't deny their bad sides they teach children that whether they intend to or not. And considering only 2 people in the whole Bible got spare the usual death they says its harder than it looks to be good.
11255011
She went in for the smooch and not a hoofshake. She's a homewrecker.