The perfect bioweapon: takes effect within minutes of exposure, has a 100% success rate, and those exposed spread it wherever they go. Armed with this powerful new weapon, an evil organization attempts to bring about a reign of terror unlike any seen in the world before. Unfortunately, the perfect weapon doesn't work quite as intended. Instead of killing its victims, it changes them into ponies.
Tiny, adorable ponies.
The world is doomed.
This story was written for the Transformations group story contest. It was originally published under the name "Consequences," though this story has been heavily revised since then.
Thanks to my usual crew Two Bit and Sparktail for the editing, and for everyone who submitted feedback on the original contest entry. As usual, my coverart is by the fantastic Zutcha, so go ahead and check him out of you haven't already! The story's changed a great deal since then, hopefully for the better.
Man, Starscribe, you're a machine (not to mention a great writer).
Is this really a complete story? It doesn't really seem to go anywhere and just sort of peters out at the end.
This is just more proof that Kafka is my guilty pleasure.
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My apologies, it appears some of it wasn't submitted correctly. It's been published now, though!
gah this is amazing!!!! 8D
I love transformation stories...
Man, this needs to happen to me at school
Intresting so far....
:I again, I must comment. I just love this story too much
6891585 Damn this should've been longer.
My only complaint was that it was short. But you made it work. Usually short stories skip the boring things, but you somehow made each bit and left nothing underspoken.
Excellent work, my dear man. Woman. Someone. Somepony.
Damn it.
I'm going to go and try and make a gender neutral term called Zem.
I'm guessing it's the herding mentality helping to keep people a bit more passive than they might have been. Or a slight sedative effect to the contagion.
Spelling is important.
The original terrorists report read "The virus worked great, but every subject is now a little hoarse"
I don't know if I should be thanking you or not for not forgetting about Canada
Home-grown terrorist spreading 'smallpox'. In school. That's... dark.
But the herd mentality is strong in these groups. Doesn't seem to be mention of cutie marks yet though. But that tidbit. Either longer lived or gained a few years.
Roughly housecat-sized object riding on a pegasus-
Tank rides Rainbow Dash on his 12 labors.
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If this happened at my school, I would be one of 3 people to know what was happening, and like it.
You've got the talent Star. I read this in it's previous incarnation, and I love it even more now. You tied up the story nicely with the last two chapters, that injection of 'life finds a way', hope and 'a new day' leaving us as reading with a better sense of fulfilment. Both transformation and adaptation. Nicely done as always Starscribe!
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! (breathes in) BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
(struggles to breathe)
I'm sorry. I just...AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! I just imagined Obama as a freaking pony wearing the presidential suit! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Holy crap, author you have slain me. You have officially slain me tonight. I salute you good sir or madam.
Giggle giggle giggle...Obama Pony...HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
6891187 No, Mettaton is a machine. This writer is just a human with deTEMMIEnation.
That description screams TCB. PER anyone?
But, considering that in Equestria ponies can live to, like, upwards of 300 if Granny Smith is any indication.....
This story was.... cute.
That's pretty much the only word i think i need for the purpose.
It had an interesting premise, was executed well and had a satisfying ending. If i had one complaint, it made me want more, tbh. and if you REALLY want me to nitpick, i saw a few serious grammatical errors,
but there's nothing else that's really needed for me to declare this a good story. 8 points on the
itude meter!
Zutcha is so pervasive in your stories that it was their cover art that made me take a look at this long enough to see the author and add it to the queue.
I won't say this story was short, but what I will say is it doesn't really have an arc. By the end, there's no real resolution, the biggest mysteries are left unresolved and the characters don't really change/grow or anything. This feels more like a primer for a setting than an actual, stand alone story.
6892327 exactly. I would probably be dancing up and down in joy
The perfect weapon... that nobody actually thought to test before deploying it?
As others have said, was a cute and interesting story of a sorts but it doesn't feel like it goes anywhere or does anything outside of building the basic frame of a setting. An interesting idea, I just wish it had more direction or more of an obvious goal in it's telling outside of just being there. I guess "Life goes on" is the current default outcome.
Hillarious premise, author of The Last Pony on Earth...
Must read! It's a given!
6893390 Test? Who need test? I am a genius! My plan can't fail!
6892974 It's less a short story then a story cut short.
There was something building up and then bam! Epilogue! It's over! Bye!
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And that kind of attitude is how you (somehow, God only knows why) get equinomorphic mutagens when you actually wanted that new strain of turbo-Ebola.
6893882 I can't help but to think of The Great Dictator by Chaplin, with these scientist demonstrating new revolutionnary inventions to Hynkel only to have these invention fail them.
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Now there's an excellent movie that I really have to watch again one of these days.
God damn it. I want me some wings!
Oh and how awesome would it be if instead of smallpox this was the contagion in The Division?
6893882 Some people call that Ebolapox and believe that it actually exists.
After all,we don't know what happened in the labs of Soviet Union during the Cold war.
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It wouldn't entirely surprise me. Ebola's main flaw as a biological weapon is that it kills too quickly. It's highly transmissible and lethal, but it incapacitates and kills so fast, it barely has any real time to spread through a population before it burns itself out. In the end, though, there's not much we could do about it even if they had, so what point in worrying?
I feel my soul being beaten every time I hear people complaining "want this irl"We were told that virus worked wrong and turned everybody into ponies while the story strongly implies that transformation was,in fact,planned.You can't screw with Ebolapox so much that it turns victims into colorful ponies instead of killing them.Also note that victims aren't just transformed,but given supernatural abilities, the ones that MLP ponies have.
I don't think it's the right time for conspiracy time, but there definetly were people(ponies?) who wanted humans to be transformed.Somewhat PER-like,as was stated by previous commenters.
(Conspiracy is supported by the fact that MLP isn't a thing in the universe of the story since nobody understands what is happening so nobody besides organizers could knew about ponies or their abilities)
Ah, hehe. I haven't read this story yet, but before I do, just wanna say that the title and the cover-image was pretty funny in that it looked like the primary casualties were people's suspenders
This was an excellent story. I find myself rapidly becoming a fan of transformation stories (hell, I've been posting one myself lately), and I like ones that focus on the characters and their reactions to it rather than on the event itself. I suppose that's why I'm not quite as adamant about finding out the how and why this all came about. I do admit, it does sound like it could be the start of a larger story, or at least spawn other stories in this universe, but really, it works as it's own self-contained work.
And, of course, dammit, it's giving me more story ideas of my own. Like I needed any more ...
If this happened at my school, I would parading about like I owned the place, singing 'Don't Stop me Now'. Teleporting around, or flying through the sky, or even just running, aimless and free.
6892386 God i have not read it but that made me laugh
6894371 Yeah that would be me also. Dont stop me know because im having a good time
6894371 If you sing that song, though, you might run into Vegeta who'll be quite angry that you're thwarting his plans.
Soooooooo... a poison intended to kill suddenly up and decides to magically transform humans into ponies, because reasons.
weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/seems-legit-25.png
Did he buy it from "Discord's Discount Bioweapons & Retromutagens" by chance?
6894083 Xcom 2 Baby the return of project starburst
6894539 Already preordered my friend! One of my buddies is gonna make a pony total conversion. All the soldiers civvies and advent troops are all gonna be ponies.
I'm so excited!
Know any more stories like this one? People turning into ponies is so interesting to me.
6892327 I'm the second brony at my chosen place of learning and the other would hate this.
What a fantastic story.
6892390 h0i!