A Party
Ember carefully placed the egg into the hearth of their crystal palace suite, breathing out hot blue flames onto the charcoal, starting the slow burn. Her quiet inferno snugly kept the egg warm, toasty, and comfortable.
Spike flicked his gaze away from his wife, looking at the pink party invitation on the table, picking it up to read it again.
You and the rest of the planet are invited to a party! You don’t have to come, but we really really really want you to! Everybody will be there, and we mean everybody.
If you don’t want to come, please hold onto this invitation with two hooves/claws/paws/whatever appendage you have and you won’t be immediately teleported to the party at 7:00pm on Saturday.
But don’t do that, okay? It’s gonna be loads of fun!
So be ready at 7:00pm this Saturday and we’ll teleport you back by midnight.
It even had a caricature of Pinkie and what looked like a stallion version of Luna smiling and dancing.
“I know Pinkie’s planning this thing, but nobody knows any details,” said Spike, still looking at the enigmatic invitation.
“Did your book mention anything about it,” asked Ember, still fussing with the egg, trying to figure out the optimal location it should be located in the hearth.
“No, but I’m not even halfway through it yet,” said Spike, putting the invitation back on the table, his claws making a clinking sound on the crystal. “How far are you on yours?”
“Finished a little while ago.”
“How was it?”
He gave her time to finish another round of breathing on the egg.
“It was... different,” she said as he walked over to the hearth, breathing out his own green flames onto the egg. “I mean it was all about me, which is great,” she flashed a toothy grin, her sharp teeth radiating white. “But it was also full of random advice and critiques, parts when I did something good were encouraged, but the book pointed out when I did something bad and gave me advice to improve myself. I have a few disagreements about what was assigned as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’”
Spike pulled away from the hearth. “That sounds... kind of annoying. And similar to my book.”
“Yeah, but it was still pretty good though. I’ve never read anything that felt so tailor made for me before,” she said, breathing a little more on the egg. “Did yours tell you anything about past lives?”
Spike furrowed his eyebrows, “No, did yours?”
“No, the book mentioned we had been under a reincarnation system, but didn’t bother to tell me about all my past lives.” She placed a palm on the egg, feeling how warm it was.
“Odd,” said Spike, breathing out more flame onto the charcoal, the smoke billowing up through a vent above and to the outside.
“Hold on,” said Ember, taking her claws off the egg and putting them above and below Spike’s snout, closing his mouth, “it’s already warm enough.”
Some smoke escaped from his nostrils as her hold on his mouth weakened and he spoke. “You sure? Knowing Pinkie this party is not gonna end on schedule.”
She gazed at her handiwork, “The way that hearth’s set up and with the spells that Twilight put on the coal, it should be fine for however long we’re away.”
Spike looked back at the pink invitation and then to a clock on the wall of their suite, the time counting down.
“So... we’ll just be teleported somewhere soon?” asked Ember.
“I think so,” said Spike, reaching out his claws and grabbing hers, the spaces between their claws intertwining perfectly.
“Where in Equestria could possibly be big enough to hold the entire planet’s population?” asked Ember, just as the clock on the wall reached seven o’ clock.
But nothing happened.
Spike stared back at Ember and raised an eyebrow.
“That clock is a bit—“
Without so much as a pop, a flash, or a whoosh of air, they found themselves in the middle of the most decked out party that either of them had ever seen, the transition so seamless that if they had been blinking they would have missed the change.
“—fast.”
The landscape was of a shiny wooden dance floor running clear to the horizon. Beyond that was a sight that filled Spike with awe.
Equestria. A beautiful, pristine, large and looming glass ball of blue, green and stray color in between. Fluffy clouds dotted the surface in waves, cities and towns almost invisible at this scale, the majesty of his home slacking his jaw as he looked at it.
“We’re on the moon,” said Ember.
“Sweet Celestia,” said Spike, his eyes widening.
More and more dragons had teleported in by this point, many confused and a little frustrated, but they all gaped in shock as they saw the planet above them. The sight kept even the most boisterous dragon in almost quiet reverence as they recognized that everything and everyone they had ever loved or known had lived and died on that huge spherical gem.
The silence was slowly interrupted as the dragons started talking amongst themselves in excited whispers and wonder.
“Welcome to the moon everyone!”
Spike heard Pinkie’s voice but couldn’t place where it was coming from. The bright, untethered balloons seemed likely culprits.
“I taught Pinkie a new word this week, and I thought you all ought to know it too,” said an unfamiliar, excited male voice. “The word is terraforming! And that’s what we did to the moon so you can breathe!”
“I was like ‘Cosmos, is that really such a good idea?’ And he was all ‘Yeah.’ And so I was like ‘okay,’ and so we’re on the moon! If you wanna look up the word ‘terraforming’ later you can, but you don’t need to know all the sciency reasons on how we got here right now. So just shrug and party on!”
Spike raised an eyebrow, the vast array of dragons in front of him also looked confused.
“Yeah! Have fun! Tonight we’re gonna party like there’s an infinite amount of tomorrow!” said the male voice.
“And we’re starting off with a surprise, too! The more you talk to everybody, the easier the surprise will be to figure out!” said Pinkie, her voice bubbling over with excitement.
“Pinkie, you can’t tell them there’s a surprise this early.”
“They’ll find out within the first five minutes anyway. Now everybody say hello! Make friends! Party!”
Spike held onto his wife’s claws tighter as some rather silly music started to play, the music more appropriate for a five year old’s birthday party than the entire population.
They looked around sheepish for a moment, drinking the scene in. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as he felt it should be, and there was a plethora of gems and many other kinds of foods on various tables scattered across the landscape. He could see in the distance that the dance floor changed to a forest in certain spots, different environments for different partygoers.
“Some party huh?” Spike spoke to a gray dragon with black stripes.
“Yeah...” said the gray dragon, raising a claw to his face, unsure of what was going on.
Spike looked at Ember for a moment before releasing his grip on her claws, holding out a claw to the dragon in front of him. “The name’s Spike.”
“Zaylim,” said the striped dragon.
Spike turned back to Ember, but she was already talking animatedly to a brown dragon.
“So...” said Spike, unsure of what to say. “Nice night to be on the moon.”
“I guess so,” said Zaylim. “I wasn’t expecting this,” he took a sip of cider. “Well, everything really.”
“Yeah...”
“Did you get a gray alicorn on your doorstep giving you a book with your entire life story, and telling you everyone was now immortal?”
Spike nodded his head. “These things... happen,” he looked at the crowd of dragons, all of them roughly the same size.
“So where are you from?” asked Zaylim.
“Ponyville, where the bearer of the element of magic lives,” said Spike, shrugging. “What clan are you from?”
Zaylim furrowed his eyebrows, “Clan? I’m of the tribe of Zeriff.”
“Tribe?” asked Spike. “What kind of dragon is from a tribe?”
“Dragon, what are you talking about?”
“You. You’re a dragon, you should be from one of the clans,” said Spike.
“I’m not a dragon.”
“Wait, if you’re not a dragon...” Spike thought about the word “tribe,” thinking back to the only group that used the term. “You’re a... zebra?”
As soon as the words left his lips, the dragon disappeared in a puff of smoke, revealing a zebra underneath.
“Woah!” said Spike smiling in shock and starting to laugh, the puzzled zebra in front of him stood there, confused.
“You’re a zebra!” Spike repeated, laughing.
“And so are you.“ said Zaylim, “What’s so special about that?”
“No, you don’t understand, you’re a zebra and I’m a — ” he was cut off by a small buzzing noise, preventing him from saying the word.
He said the word again and again, laughing as the noises from the buzzes changed every time he said the word, each strange noise making Spike laugh harder.
“I have no idea what you are doing, or how you’re making those strange noises,” said Zaylim, thoroughly disturbed.
Spike stopped laughing just long enough to cough out an explanation. “They switched how everyone looks, and you have to guess what species I am.”
Zaylim turned his head in confusion, “So... you’re not a zebra?”
“Nope, I do breathe fire though.”
Zaylim’s eyes went wide with shock, “a... a dragon?” he stuttered out.
Spike didn’t notice any smoke escape from himself, but Zaylim seemed aghast.
“That’s the game! The more creatures we talk to, the more we find out what species they are underneath.”
“Strange game...” said Zaylim, his eyes still wide upon seeing Spike’s true form, he slowly trotted away into the crowd, making his way to the tables of snacks and food on the side.
“Talk to you later, Zaylim!”
Spike eyed all of the dragons around him, plotting out the next one to talk to.
A small green dragon bumped into him and started pelting him with species names.
“Earth Pony! Unicorn! Pegasi! Camel! Griffon! Minotaur! Cow!” she started firing off at Spike in rapid succession.
“Nope, none of those,” said Spike, smiling.
She placed a claw to her snout, “Changeling!”
“None of the above,” said Spike.
“Buffalo?”
“How many buffalo do you know that are green and purple?” asked Spike.
“Diamond Dog?”
“Aren’t you defeating the purpose of getting to know everyone by shooting off questions?”
“Hippogriff?”
“What’s a hippogriff?” asked Spike, the species familiar, but he couldn’t make out a picture of it in his mind.
“Dragon?”
Spike couldn’t see it, but he was sure whatever he had been, had vanished in a puff of smoke and his true form had been revealed.
“Yes!” said the excited dragon, turning toward another dragon far off, “EIGHT!” she yelled.
Another voice piped back, “TEN!”
The lively dragon almost escaped but Spike grabbed her at the last second, “Hey, at least tell me your name!”
“Cloudshifter.”
“Pegasi?”
With a burst of smoke, a teenage green pegasi with a cloud cutie mark popped out, smiling and eager to move on.
He let the pegasi go, laughing at the game.
He spotted a bright pink dragon bouncing around in the distance, the spring in her step and her failure to use her wings making Spike watch in fascination. She kept bouncing up and down, repeating names and welcomes to every single dragon there.
“Pinkie?” asked Spike.
She bounded further in his direction and Spike yelled her name, “Pinkie!”
She stopped. “Hiya Spike the earth pony!” she said giggling.
“I... I look like...?”
“You sure do! At least to me, it’s different for everypony though, for example,” Pinkie reached a hoof into what seemed like empty space, pulling it back to reveal a lilac dragon.
“Twilight, what does that handsome fellow in front of you look like?”
“Alicorns, everypony’s an alicorn,” said Twilight as her eye twitched.
“Exactly!” Pinkie looked at Twilight, “But don’t worry, he’s still a dragon underneath,” she said bubbling.
“Oh shoot, forgot my own game, now you look all normal. Oh well, this is still fun!” said Pinkie, starting to bounce again.
“Oh look! It’s Little Strongheart! Hi!” she said, bounding away happily.
Spike looked at Twilight, “Some party, huh?” He said, flashing a toothy grin.
“You... pull off a good alicorn, Spike,” said Twilight, peering at him.
“You’re a good looking dragon yourself,” said Spike.
They paused for a second before something inside them made them start laughing, the absurdity of it all keeping them going for a long time.
⬡ ⬡ ⬡
“Nice party,” said Hope. The crowd of creatures below paid no heed to the shining alicorn, even as Accord felt himself enveloped by the stream of souls as they cast an invisibility spell on him, lifting him above and far away.
“Pinkie and Cosmos organized most of it,” said Accord looking down below him, the entire moon alive with color, dancing and music.
“We have some questions,” said Hope, shifting between watching the party below and watching Accord. “Your multiple thoughts spell is unlike anything we’ve ever seen or used.”
“I’ve tried to teach Fluttershy, but she couldn’t grasp the magic.”
“No, she couldn’t have. But we tried the spell anyway, simultaneously casting it in a variety of constructs across millions of species and ideas.”
“Some of them could cast it?” asked Accord.
“We only had a few that could, Accord. It can only be cast by a soul that doesn’t have a memory cover, and that has been alive for several universe cycles. Only some of the truly ancients in our rare control groups fit that description.”
“They don’t have a memory cover? How do you keep track of them?”
“We don’t, we keep them in case we ever find that our memory covers do something detrimental to the souls underneath. And for the first time ever, we found a problem.”
His eyes diverted away from the party, staring at Hope.
“For a select few of the ancients, they could cast the spell. They could figure out how to think of two things at once, but not three.”
Accord’s eyes widened. “Why was that?”
“We think one of the ideas in one of the books Fluttershy read was correct. Hydrogen will connect to Trillion and slowly make that soul bigger, eventually forming element two trillion, and for every trillion hydrogen atoms added, the ability to think of more than one thing at a time increases.”
“Could you confirm it?”
“With the right measurement spell.”
“You found that spell?”
“Research and development, Accord. It’s faster than searching through all possibilities,” they said. “Of the souls we checked that could cast the spell, their atomic number was above two trillion.”
One of his eyebrows shot up.
“Thus, we have a favor to ask. We want to know the atomic number of your soul.”
Accord frowned, and then nodded his head, “Go ahead and cast it on me then.”
Hope smiled, their mane covering Accord’s head, analyzing it, before frowning.
“It’s not in your head, where is it?”
“Dig a little deeper, it’s probably in my library.”
Hope’s eyebrows furrowed but cast the spell. It took much longer than it should have, the extra search taking some time. Eventually the spell succeeded and a number popped up in front of Accord: 100,040,000,792,390,349,203,743.
“Over one hundred sextillion,” said Hope.
Accord stared at them as they released their spell, shocked at the number.
“Every soul with one of our memory covers stays at one trillion,” said Hope, their tone flat. “But still, the only advantage to this seems to be the ability to cast that spell.”
Accord stood in the air, motionless.
“Is it really worth it? What you’re doing? Micromanaging and talking to everyone? If this is your ultimate configuration, you’ll be stuck doing this forever.”
“I know,” said Accord.
“And what will happen when we succeed and we find an ultimate configuration that would not need a higher being’s help? Will you regret your choice to keep them immortal in a suboptimal state? Will you allow them to reincarnate into the perfection when we find it?”
“No,” said Accord, looking down to everyone on the moon, and even the staunch stragglers still on Equestria below. “I don’t know what ideas you expect to find in your ideal existence, but this...” he motioned to each soul down below, invisible connections forming that only he and Hope could see, every single relationship below being mapped out, the lines extending out from everyone, the vast web illuminating the universe far more than Celestia’s sun, new friendships forming with each passing conversation. “This is my happy continue.”
“But you’re spending an almost infinite time with each soul.”
“Some infinities are greater than other infinities,” said Accord, a small smile forming on his muzzle. “I’m okay with mine being the greatest.”
“But, it will fail eventually, won’t it?”
“Eventually may be the one word that describes a duration longer than infinity itself.” Accord sighed, deep in thought. “It will only happen if I concentrate on it, if I can but focus on now, the importance and the beauty of now, the most miraculous time in any soul’s existence, I can succeed.”
He looked up at the distant stars, drawing lines in between them to form a constellation of an hourglass. “Any event that has ever occurred in the past or will occur in the future has only occurred when it’s reached that special temporal place called now.”
His eyes focused on the center of the hourglass, watching stars filter through the neck, “For now is the time I can change, now is something I can control, now is something I can make better.”
He looked at Hope, “I can’t do anything to make one hundred universe cycles from now better. I can’t plan that far in advance.” He moved his gaze back to all of his friends, his eyes watering. “But I know if I make now matter and treat it like the important precious time that it is, I can make that ‘now’ last truly forever.”
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That is actually how you go around living.
7229554 Well mostly I don't like that Accord is playing god, and I don't like dodging the inherent problems of trying to actually run society and the world in a way that... goes forward, rather than requiring constant draining effort just to responsibly keep things functioning at all.
Solve that and I'm much more towards Pinkie's side on all this. I don't want to just not exist, I want a rest and the space in which to... stretch my soul out a bit? Words.
The real world basically smacks excitement on the head. I like excitement.
7219804 Filif. He's a tree person.
This story has felt somehow familiar to me, but I've just now figured out why: It's like a CelestAI story, but where CelestAI is actually a sympathetic protagonist. I feel like Accord's failure is guaranteed with sufficient time, but I can't help rooting for him.
7230343
That's what Hope was trying to accomplish. Have Kings or Queens set up worlds initially, then watch those worlds run all by themselves naturally into true immortality. If only one of those worlds had fit Hope's definition of "success."
And so Accord is trying the opposite approach: touching absolutely everything. But... it's not really sustainable.
It's why I don't think I'll be writing a sequel. I can't imagine Accord succeeding. I dunno... it's a bit like what Galaxia said: “The happiest endings can only occur by ending things prematurely."
:/
It's really hard to describe wanting to do something for eternity. I feel like existence is a bit like an ideal 24 hour day. 2/3rds of it is excitement and wonder. And another 1/3rd of it is rest. You need to have all the pieces that make it worthwhile.
7230339
I spent a long time thinking about the final words for this story. There's a lot of (IMO) brilliant one liners and thoughtful insights scattered everywhere. But the end? I wanted that to be the most important part of the story. The final "lesson" for lack of a better word.
That eternity is just made up of "now." And that if you can handle "now," then you're already handling eternity.
7231099
With sufficient time.
Man, eternity is scary to think about.
She was an influence for sure.
I suppose an optimalverse version of this story would consist of two different AI's bent on trying to make everypony immortal and taking two different paths to get there. And the "winner" gets to that point first... and continues for the longest.
Thank you so much for reading and commenting. It means the world to me to hear your reaction.
7231120 Glad you enjoy hearing my reaction! I do hope we see Logos again someday, I feel like with enough time his situation is unsustainable, someone is going to barge in and make him their business.
7231125
I love Logos so much!
He was one of the last characters written into the story, and he's definitely one of my favorites. I do want to write a big backstory someday about the great dragons: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos.
7231139 Who? Somehow I've already forgotten about him.
7231146
7231120
But of course, with sufficient time, not everything happens. Only those things that have finite and nondecreasing probabilities happen. If someone has been influencing the world, some things can move steadily closer to certainty or steadily closer to impossibility.
The problem is how to move the good stuff towards certainty and the bad stuff towards impossibility without messing with people in ways that make them back away all creeped-out like:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/5/13/1153375__safe_screencap_animated_scootaloo_sweetie+belle_cutie+mark_scared_discovery+family+logo_the+cmc%27s+cutie+marks_on+your+marks.gif
7231110
Rest is nice, and "handle the Now" is a great moral.
I have been trying to find the words to describe my experience of this story for a few days now. To me this story encapsulates the choice we have ahead of us as a species. Do we reach for longevity and possibly lose something of value, or do we stay the same and continue to suffer the known ills of our existence. I think change is inevitable, but I dont think we will all change in the same way. I imagine that humanity's descendants will be varied indeed. I cant help but think of the people who decry the rise of a global monoculture. They often look to the past and say look at all value we are losing and have lost, and they are right, it is a shame. But at the same time I would point to the future and say that change is inevitable and we might one day gain new diversity.
I cant help but feel depressed on Twilight's behalf. What must have happened to her to want to die despite all her friends being alive and healthy? I find it hard to imagine her losing her curiosity and love of learning. I think her fears of becoming like Accord miss the point of Accord's solution. A linearly increasing number of people means there would be a geometrically increasing number of relationships to explore. Not to mention there could well be problems with infinite steps. "Why is there something rather than nothing?" could be an eternal regress, a perfect challenge for an eternal scientist. That possibility aside, even in our universe there exists Godel's incompleteness theorem. Admittedly such explorations would be rather abstract, but at least they are unending. Even if there was a book that described complete solutions to these problems, something Im not convinced of regarding infinite systems, there is value in both the pursuit and in determining what the truth is. I cant help but feel the weight of years has eroded Twilight's imagination a bit. As someone who often gets tired, Id recommend a vacation, there is totally time for one.
I agree with several of the other posters here regarding Accord acting something like CelestAI. In a very narrow sense CelestAI represents a sort of local maximum for human flourishing, but no other models can ever be attempted, and that, to me, is the true tragedy of the Optimalverse. Accord is walking that line, luckily he has a time limit. The main problem is how much he changed without consulting everyone who would be effected. He's personally demonstrated the ability to talk to everyone on the planet in a relatively short period, it seems that immortality could have been distributed following individual consent. I cant help but think that anyone who would not consent (assuming no other strings attached) would effectively be suicidal, but thats another matter altogether.
A very thoughtful piece. Thank you for writing it.
This was posted 58 days ago?
Why did nobody tell me?!!!
*commences reading*
Well I say this was a neat narrative all things considered. I felt disappointed during the first half at how the nature of the multiverse, Hope and Celestia and Luna were presented in an unflattering way. While on the second half I felt the project focused a lot on the positive ideas that were used to make things better while leaving a lot of negative unsolved aspects of existence making the presentation feel idealistic and in a way shallower than I would have preferred.
But that's minor compared to everything else I liked, just about every idea I didn't point towards to was something I either whole heartedly agreed or just found okay as part of the story.
Now some last comments:
point being, even though there will always be a limit and such limit opens up the possibility of failure, focusing on now is most practical which is perhaps the next best thing after getting a guarantee of success.
I really went all out with my commentary this time without holding back anything, it was all my honest reaction to the story as it came.
Thanks for writing,
~Leonzilla
7231110
I thought the whole point was to find a way to prevent all possibilities of an ending, because all no ending was really a happy ending.
At least Accord said as much.
7231110 (IMO) ?
7231125 If he is forgotten that might not, but I do think he would desire something besides being alone eventually and that desire will bring him out.
7231139 Oh please please write that.
7234554 more than creeped out, there is an issue about free-will with trying to do something like that.
If the will of the higher being is to create an environment that allows for restricted choice on the beings within then those beings don't have the freedom or power to do differently.
Their world becomes restricted and things that are actually impossible become defining features of their existence.
That's at least a little controversial is it not?
7250177 To what you said I like to add:
Change should be pursued indeed; but I think is important to remember that it doesn't need to be rushed and that a gradual shift is the best way to make a transition smooth and without problems.
As for Twilight I was under the impression her emotional outburst was more due to her still processing the new information and copping with the change and I wouldn't expect that perspective to last, at least not in it's entirety.
~Leonzilla
I think the only thing I would've done differently if I was in accord's shoes, would've been a case by case conversion to immortality.
Instead of everyone all at once.
Like giving everyone an after death interview and simply adding immortality to the choices and then resurrecting them and returning them to good health and age, if they took that option.
Morally that has some serious issues, but morally every decision you could make when playing god has serious issues. I think it just logistically would be easier to implement, and easier for people to accept. It would be against accord's character to go with such a plan, but its how I'd go about it.
7855678
He's a madman with a
boxlibrary.I must say I really like the series. Does the party go on for millions of years, so that everyone can meet everyone? (Pinkie party 7pm to ?^1000000) How to top the Ultimate Party. Great job! I might change a few things, have Applejack say goodbye to a parents one more time. Its a bit sappy i know. Make it on mars as the moon would be to small for everyone. Something like there was every type of party for every type of person. Changelings being discovered and being accepted.( could be in the sequel) you could come up with a lot of good ideas about to put good things and bad things could happen with everyone being a immortal. Cmc could be new cutie mark finders.ect
I read books on the job a lot, because I'm in a position where you need to keep entertained without a phone, and it was really easy to buy an outdated Kindle and load it up with fanfic. I've enjoyed a few good stories, some over weeks and some over days, but this is one I added for the hell of it. The day I opened it, the gods of normal distribution smiled on me, and I read it straight through in one shift. Afterwards, it was all I could talk or think about for twelve hours.
This is possibly the most criminally underrated story I've seen on this site, and the best philosophical novel I've ever laid hands on. The beautiful prose and intricate ideas, the constant intense sense of scale, the clever ideas and philosophical debates and constant imagination and acknowledgement of the sheer terror of eternity -- I hope it doesn't sound any more melodramatic if I say this is exactly the sort of thing I read books for.
Kudos, man. Serious, serious kudos.
8136852
I cannot even begin to tell you how happy your comment made me. Thank you so much for reading.
8212704 I see so in short, everything is infinite, trillions are rare in proportion to other atoms, and living beings are yet even much more rare than trillions for the time being explaining why they aren't anywhere near close to running out of souls to use.
But that does seem a little strange, living beings can increase in exponetials, while with trillions being so rare it is hard to conceive how Hope would be able to gather trillions at a greater pace to keep up with the soul demand.
I guess if it got a head start and gather a good quantity before starting to create so many worlds in so many universes then that process it's doable, but without assuming two things,
A) that the multiverse and trillions are truly infinite,
and
B) that Hope has found a way to exponentially summon greater and greater numbers of trillions as needed from across the cosmos,
They would eventually reach a point where they are unable to create as many sentiment living beings as they please.
~Leonzilla
Wow, I had read the first story with the library ages ago it seems like. Now in the course of a day I've delighted myself on these other two stories, finally winding up here at this chapter.
Some stories hit 1 million words and beyond, some stories have nigh endless amounts of sequels and side stories, but this one is a marvel of compression and comprehension. It describes it's scale well, how humongous and awe inspiring some of the concepts that go on are.
It is so tiny staring at it from the outside, weighing at less than 100k words total, but then reading it and feeling like I've been living in this story for ages. In my mind this is what the time differential when residing in the library must feel, albeit many orders of magnitude lesser. And the ending (which is a really funny word to say after all this) really was/is a thing of beauty.
And you know, for some reason I can read the last sentence and just be alright with how it turned out. It pat me on the head and bid me a good day, rather than leaving a gaping void that only sequels could placate.
Thank you for this experience, and also on a less "summary of all good thing wrapping up" note I want to say how much I love Cosmo and Pinkie's interactions.
Before I try and boil this story down into a review, I've got a couple questions I need answered:
- Wasn't Accord planning to ask everyone the title question before he cast the immortality spell? It seemed like, when he was outlining his plans to Hope, he sort of forgot about that part, which I swear was in a previous chapter, because I noted it as signifying he had the right idea about the whole process.
- How the fuck is Angel still alive D:
- Is there any fanart of Hope? Because, what a cool alicorn design! :O (Not relevant to the review, I just want to know. XD)
- Why are memories blanket not kept between reincarnations? I get that it's to appease the voidwishers, but why not just ask a soul during their death interview whether they want to keep their memories, and don't pass them on if they don't?
- Should they be worried that "the end of this universe is coming faster than I can keep up with", as, I think, Galaxia said?
- How is Fluttershy so powerful? Like, she basically becomes an alicorn over the course of the story, but even before that, she's teleporting around the Library, and Twilight says she's been learning magic? It's been a while since I read Library of Discord, that might have those answers.
- Accord can't bring the Apple parents back, but what about Granny Smith? Surely she died in the last 50 years. :V
Okay, I think that's it. :B
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I don’t remember that… >__>
He kind of did the whole: “better to ask forgiveness than permission” route. And his conversation with Twilight showed everything wrong with Accord’s approach.
Fluttershy didn’t want him to die. So he didn’t. Immortality spells really aren’t that hard.
There was an attempt by me; it’s not very good though:
http://tinyimg.io/i/jlcJqOW.png
It all depends on what Hope is trying to do in a particular area. For Equestria and most instances of their universeses, they wipe memories between each death and rebirth.
But I’m sure there are experiments by Hope where they try exactly that.
They’re just a big group of Existence Designers with unlimited A/B tests and an infinite amount of time.
Not really. She’s just hyper aware that there’s a time limit to her universe. And her universe is just one of many, many multiverses.
This is just part of the problem of hanging around Accord. He’s practically omnipotent, and some of that omnipotence rubs off on her. And due to the speed of library time, Fluttershy is actually around 400ish years old.
Also, her husband is kind of crazy, so she tries to learn everything just in case she needs to stop him from himself.
Unless someone absolutely, truly wanted Granny Smith, she’s probably going to stay dead. Accord will soon allow her, and other souls in that group of non-resurrectors, to be reincarnated.
Thanks for reading, man! :D
Very interesting for something that is purely philosophical musing. The problem with these kinds of stories is they only work if the reader is interested in the questions you are exploring - YMMV! Luckily, I thought these ideas were very interesting so a big thumbs up from me. :)
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What it means is that he has access to basically every hypothesis, and just has to test them.
This may be easier than formulating said hypothesizes and then testing them, as he skips the formulation step.
For a human, the distinction would be relatively meaningless, but for discord maybe it’s different.
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In other words, his priors are still completely flat. I.e. maximum entropy. I.e. zero knowledge
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It’s a creativity thing. Might not work, but there’s plausibly some advantage.
Edit: Or disadvantage, honestly. Just don’t see why it would be zero effect.