22 Second Date
The Hearth, Deepwoods, Everfree Forest - 21st of Midsummer ‘15 EoH - Night
Hoofsteps rang against the stone, echoing off the smooth chiseled walls, transforming the lone sprinter into a charging cavalry. Sacred ran with an urgency rarely seen in the world, that of a true believer delivering news of the utmost importance to an unquestionable authority.
Those who dared to be by chance in his way were swatted aside with a pulse of crimson, their fates ignored. Their cries of pain unheard. Not out of malice, or callousness, but out of duty and loyalty. Father demanded news as soon as possible, and so he would get it with all possible speed. Consequences be damned.
Sacred only slowed when the iron doors leading to the throne room resolved from the darkness of the corridors. A shower of sparks and a shriek of metal on stone accompanied his sudden stop, and the creak of the iron doors opening with a pulse of crimson light came but a second after.
Sacred passed over the threshold and bowed in unison, helmet nearly scraping the stone as he closed the doors behind himself, taking care to do so with a respectful quiet.
“Father,” Sacred said urgently, “dire news from Trottingham! EUP forces have found and seized the regional training camp. I did relax security, as per your instructions, however those stationed there failed to activate the camp’s self destruct. Many of our records and much of our equipment is now within the enemy's hooves.”
Father sat silent for several moments. The red light within his eye socket rolling between deep crimson and bright red.
“For what reason did this failure occur?” Father asked at last, voice dripping with deadly venom.
“We greatly underestimated the recon capabilities of a group known as the ‘Knights of the Rampant Moon’,” Sacred explained. “It is quite clear that one of their number is a changeling capable of mind reading. A key operative appears to have been completely and flawlessly replaced by such a creature, and prevented the facility’s destruction.”
“Once again, our failure comes from inadequate information of our enemy,” Father said decisively. “My Chief Researcher in charge of espionage agent development is consistently unable to perform his function properly. Replace him, and do not recycle the remains.”
“I agree completely with replacing Arrex-seventy-eight, Father. But is it not wasteful to execute an agent with a battle scheduled two weeks from now? Surely he could be of some service in a shieldwall,” Sacred mused, his thoughtful tone echowing slightly amid the low hum of arcane machinery.
“You are correct, however, progress has been slow in recent years. My children are overdue a fresh view of failure’s consequences,” Father said amidst a slow shuddering breath.
“As you wish, Father. I will pass on your orders,” Sacred accepted, lowering his forelegs in a bow. “What shall I do to counter your enemy's move? I have several ideas, if I may-”
“You may not present them,” Father said icily. “The Trottingham camp was in your hooves, and the failure is therefore yours. As our enemy now knows the locations of at least two other Forges, we must advance our deception to today. If we do not react to this blow, they will know we seek to fool them.
“You will prepare Munitors to create fresh troops to make up for the day’s losses, gather half the legions, and strike at Ponyville today. You are to try as hard as possible to slay Twilight Sparkle in battle. If you accomplish nothing else today other than your death, make her fall. Go.”
Sacred bowed low once more, taking the care and effort to leave the room as silently as possible to do as commanded. He took his time walking through the twisting halls of the Hearth, as if to examine the crystal, metal, and glass conduit festooned stone. Sacred’s expression behind the impossibly black helmet remained hidden from the world, but the way his gaze lingered on, certain walls carried a nostalgic weight.
Regardless of personal thoughts, the loyal servant went about his duties, carrying Father's words to his children.
Over the next few hours, Father's will was done. A thousand crystal chambers filled with a thick pungent fluid. A hundred mages began their duties. Scores of engineers began to create tools and weapons anew. Four legions assembled, and poured forth from the bowels of the earth to form up in preparation for the day’s march.
Sacred watched as the ranks of his warriors marched, rolled, and slit forth, personally ensuring each and every last member of every legion called, and all of their supporting personnel left the Hearth. All but one, who sat at his side in the red cloak and black armor of a TR. After they passed the armored pony stood still, hesitant, spending a great time staring out of the cavern's mouth at the line of dappled sunlight of the forest. His cloak rippled as he finally stepped forwards, slowly moving to the line of light and stopping just shy of crossing over into the sun’s rays.
Sacred paused again, the armored pony at his side simply walked into the sun, taking a few moments to realize Sacred’s hesitation before turning around.
“Sir, it’s only light,” the red cloaked pony said.
“No. It’s her light. I can see it,” Sacred said slowly.
He reached out with an arcanite clad hoof, putting just the very tip over the line, and waiting another moment before at last crossing over the barrier.
“Sun burn only happens if your in harsh light sir…” The red cloaked pony said supportively. “And only if you are not covered.”
“That wasn’t my concern, Arrex-seventy-eight,” Sacred said, tilting his head back to look up at the dense forest canopy overhead. “So… These are trees then?”
“Aye, sir,” Arrex replied. “Have… Have you never had foraging training, sir?”
“No. Command training is different,” Sacred answered, still looking up, eyes flicking from place to place amongst the treetops. “I rather like these. We should put some in the mess halls.”
“They would add a little color, but perhaps too much,” Arrex disagreed.
“Mmm… Maybe you are right,” Sacred sighed, turning back to look at the amassed legions beneath the trees.
He stepped forward, walking towards the front of the army, and biting his tongue to avoid speaking further on the subject. There was another's will to be done by his hooves.
Lily - 22nd of Midsummer ‘15 EoH - High Noon
It would have been very nice to know that the Emerald Hive ran a small air transport service a couple months ago. Sure, Stalliongrad didn’t have any radio system, or even an arcane messenger network, but I’m pretty sure David could easily have built a transmitter from parts in Zebrica. It would have been nice to just wait in a hotel room and then get picked up via airship.
Though, given the situation, that still would have been impossible. I would have had to have been to the area to know about it beforehoof. At the least, it was nice to know that getting home to Ponyville was a short 4 hour flight.
It also would have been handy to have gotten a hold of those gemstones. Trixie barely had to explain how they worked to me. Yesterday I hadn’t cast a single spell, or really made little use of my telekinesis, and I could feel that energy still there! The normal limit to my daily supply was simply gone. A mind blowing concept to internalize.
Also a bit of a problem, as without knowing what my upper limit was, I couldn’t quite determine how much of my own energy would be used. Which is a thing many of my spells required me to know. Some experimenting was in order.
Fortunately Trixie showed me a spell which could transfer stored thaumaturgic current from a given object into the gems. With the reactor in the hidden lab under my clinic, working out what my maximum energy was now would be a sinch.
But all that could come later! I had a week of missed memories to catch up on, and a marefriend to go out to lunch with.
Scootaloo took my memory loss well. She was most happy I wasn’t dead, and fortunately it seems that all I really missed with her was lunches and conversations. Interestingly, she insisted I was acting the same towards her as I had been before attempting to improve her weather control. This implied that I could subconsciously remember that week, which gave me hope of being able to eventually remember.
Scootaloo had taken the airship ride to do her best to retell everything she had shared about herself to me during the last week. How she got revenge on her fillyhood bully by tricking her into signing up for the Solar Guard, but later regretted it. Only to ironically find out that said bully had really been changed for the better by boot camp. How she had done her best to enter motocross clubs to try and impress her mom with some kind of racing career, only to fail because she was terrible at biking. The time she got stuck to her bed via static electricity and nearly lit the house on fire with the spark from her being pulled out of bed by her uncle Big Mac. Good stories, all of them.
But while she was telling each story I could tell that she was avoiding talking about something. I knew in part what it was as well. I had operated on her during a recovery period. Why? More important, why was she not talking about that? Surely that was the biggest event to happen in either of our lives last week!
I didn’t press the matter for the ride over. Nor did I press it as we debated on where to go for a nice lunch date. It would have been rude to push the matter when she clearly wanted not to speak of it. However, it could be disastrous to put the matter off entirely. So I decided to ask over food. Nopony I had ever known would abandon food over a desire to avoid a serious topic.
After some debate, the two of us decided to go to Scootaloo’s favorite restaurant, the Quesadilla Shack. I remembered the converted bridge and canvas tent fairly well. I wasn’t about to turn down a chance to eat there, especially since I remembered the food being very good, but even more so since my marefriend loved the place.
And how could she not love it? The Quesadilla Shack had a homey sort of feel to it. They way the sunlight shone through the orange tarp-tent’s roof gave every table a relaxed homey atmosphere. Even better, the tarp trapped the scents from the kitchen, letting the smell of Ponyville’s ubiquitous fresh flowers mix with the scent of Mexicolt food. Few smells were more appetizing than that, and it more than made up for the simplistic to non-existent decor.
After all you go to a restaurant to eat something, not to look at things. That’s what art galleries are for.
Our simple conversation continued all through the line, and a few minutes after sitting down at a table. I was tempted to ignore the question further and enjoy my plate of Panucho, but there are some things that simply fester over time and cause problems. This really felt like it would be-
“So uh, you know those things have meat in them right?” Scootaloo asked.
I nodded, taking a bite of the tortilla wrapped goodness. “Ja I do. I need to eat meat, remember?”
She nodded, blushing slightly. “Right! Sorry. I’ll remember that eventually. It’s because you can’t absorb enough vitamin B-twelve from plants, right?”
I nodded, taking a second bite, and resisting the temptation to lick some juices off of my hoof. “Ja. Pernicious anemia is the name of the condition you’re thinking of.”
She nodded. “Right… But um, if you know what prevents your from getting enough B-twelve normally, why haven’t you fixed it?”
Ah this question. I’d expected something like it to come up eventually. After all no Equestrian was required to pass Germane Ethics exams.
I set my food down on the plate, and held up my hoof. “Notice how I’m eating with my hooves?”
Scootaloo nodded/ “Yes. Are you using this as an example, or do you not want to talk medical things while eating?”
“As an example,” I clarified. “I could easily have lifted my meal with my magic. But I didn’t. Because it’s not necessary to do so, und I have no real advantage in using magic over my hoof for it.
“I don't need fine control to eat. Nor do I need to hold many things at once. My hoof can grip this easily, and it’s very simple motions to get it into my mouth. So I used hooves, and refrain from the use of magic.”
Scootaloo’s eyes brightened a little, recognizing my point. “Oh I get it! Since you can get a hold of meat easily and it’s not hurting anypony you don’t feel a need to change your condition, even though technically it’s broken.”
“Ja… But also nein,” I said slowly.
I took a minute to pull the right words to mind. “It’s more like I don’t see anything which isn’t impairing a pony’s life as being something which is ‘broken’. Ja, I have to eat meat but well, so do pegasi unless they can afford protein supplements and hate the flavor. It’s not a real problem, to me this is just part of who I am.”
“Okay, I think I understand you,” Scootaloo mused.
“Why did you ask?” I asked inquisitively, picking my food back up.
It was too delicious to ignore for much longer.
“Well, you’ve mentioned lots of problems your people have, and I know you still have a few of them. I’ve been trying to work out why you didn’t heal them. You’ve got a pretty good reason for it. I mean, I wouldn’t fix something I didn’t think was broken,” she said, taking a bite of her own dish.
“It doesn't bother you, does it?” I asked. “My diet I mean?”
“No. But it’s not normal for a unicorn to eat meat regularly. Just wondering why you weren't well, conforming to the norm,” she explained. “I’m not saying you should conform, I mean hay, I gave you the, ‘be yourself’ speech. I just like to understand ponies, and well… You’re my coltfriend. I should be able to understand you.”
I nodded, satisfied with her answer. “Ja, you should. Und I should be able to understand you… Und I do a little bit. Enough to know that you want to avoid talking about why I modified you so soon… But, I think you know that it’s important I know why I did something that’s a breach of ethics…”
Scootaloo's ears fell, a wave of sadness washing over her features. “Yes… But can it please wait? You had a panic reaction, and well, it’s really not a big deal. That kind of thing happens all the time here. I’d like to have a nice lunch with you and just be happy you’re okay. Please?”
I bit my lip as I looked into her pleading eyes. It was very very hard to choose. I knew she would tell me if I asked, but at the same time, would that hurt her? And yet, I really needed to know! It was eating away at my insides.
Perhaps it would be best for a light version, something to tide me over until a full explanation? Yes. Yes it would.
“Can we compromise?” I asked.
“How so?” Scootaloo asked hesitantly, frowning suspiciously.
“If you promise to tell me the details later, I promise to not ask anything about it until this evening,” I promised.
Scootaloo blinked as her ears perked back up. “Oh! Yeah I guess that would be fine.”
She tapped a hoof to her chin, leaning back in her chair in thought for a hooffull of seconds before finally nodding. “I think the best way to put it, is that Twilight gave you a royal order to try and improve the local defenses in anyway you could, and I volunteered because my weather powers were pretty good and if we could just fix that ‘causes a stroke’ thing I’d be able to help defend Ponyville in case of another attack.
“I talked you into it by explaining that one of the few things I’ve ever wanted to do is earn my moms’ respect, and well, I’ve never grown out of superhero fantasies… So you worked on me because of a Royal Order and I convinced you to use me to help fill it.”
“Oh,” I said in mild surprise.
Now that was quite interesting. And also a very good reason to do something. Not the ‘talked into it’ part, but the Royal Order part. After all, if the government requests your services for the public good it’s only right to give them.
“Why would I have had a panic reaction to that?” I asked curiously. “That’s a very good reason, and after a monster attack like that, I definitely understand why you would want to increase defenses.”
“Well… There’s a bit more to it, but that’s the main reason,” Scootaloo explained, ears drooping slightly. “You remember your part of the deal, right?”
I nodded firmly. “Ja, I do. Simply commenting on the core of the matter.”
That was half true. I was still quite curious, but at the very least I knew that I was morally fine. If she had simply talked me into things without any real reason behind my decision other than her words…
As much as I loved Scootaloo it could never be a good idea to become emotionally linked with someone able to convince you to abandon your principles. My heart was singing with joy at the fact my actions had justification in attempting to aid the community. Even more so at the fact that Scootaloo took the risk of a thaumaturgic cancer as an acceptable risk for the sake of protecting others.
“I’m glad to be in love with a mare who would risk herself for the safety of others,” I said happily, giving Scootaloo the change of topic she clearly desperately wanted.
She blushed and turned her head to look off down the street. “You say that like it’s rare… I’d like to think that most ponies would be a hero if they could. I just happen to have someone in my life who can help me become well… Heroic.”
“Oh! We succeeded then?” I asked, ears perking happily.
“Uh, we?” Scootaloo asked, raising an eyebrow. “You did all the work. I don’t deserve any of that credit.”
“Nein! You do. Without you there would have been nopony to enhance. I’m half the equation… Und so you deserve half the credit,” I insisted. “So, how did we do? No more migraines when calling full sized lightning?”
Scootaloo cleared her throat and looked around the restaurant as if not wanting to be overheard. “Uh, well…”
“Why the secrecy?” I asked curiously. “Princess Celestia didn’t classify things, did she? I recall being told she summoned you.”
“Well… No,” Scootaloo answered at last. “But she did tell me it would be best to not advertise how much power you managed to give me... “
She gave me a nervous little smile before staring down at her food for a few minutes.
“Uh… Well… What can you tell me then?” I asked.
She squirmed for a minute before deciding. “Everything… But not here. For now, well, you made my weather control very very good. Notice how it’s a nice sunny day?”
I nodded,.“Ja the weather patrol is doing a nice…”
I trailed off as Scootaloo gave me a knowing grin. “It’s supposed to be raining now. I’m making it sunny.”
“How?” I asked curiously looking at her wings or hooves for any sign of thaumaturgic activity.
“Willing it,” she admitted quietly. “If you look up, you’ll see the weather team trying to make rain clouds, but they keep dissolving into water vapor. That’s me. I’m doing it… I wanted nice weather for our date.”
I craned my neck to get a view of the sky, unfortunately the tarp roof and buildings along the street limited my view to the tiniest patch of sky.
“Go ahead and look. I need you to know I’m telling the truth, okay?” Scootaloo asked.
Her tone held an odd urgency to it. She definitely did need me to know.
“Okay, just a minute,” I said as I got up.
I trotted out from under the tarp-roof and looked up to get a good view of they sky. It was most certainly a good day. Not a hint of a cloud in the sky for miles in any direction.
Hold on a second… I squinted up at the clouds and slowly turned in a circle. Checking twice just to be absolutely certain.
It was perfectly sunny and absolutely cloudless in a perfect circle that spanned all of Ponyville’s walled portion. And outside that line, the tell tell gray lines of a light showering rain.
Frowning at this oddity, but aware that in a nation with pegasi members such a feat could be achieved easily, I looked up to see if anypony was maintaining the ring of clouds. It took some hard squinting, but I could make out small colored dots of pegasi zipping around the cloud ring. It took me a few more seconds to notice them attempting to move the clouds into the ‘hole’ in the cloud bank, only to keep failing as the cloud bits just dissolved.
After a quick moment in which I wondered exactly what the buck I had done and wished I knew enough about the brain to be able to fix memory issues, I took a deep breath, went back inside, and sat down.
“Alright,” I said timidly, “I believe you.”
Scootaloo blushed lightly. “I should stop it though… The poor weather team is probably panicking…”
“Ja, looked like it,” I agreed. “How- er, how much can you control? Und did I mention any of how I did this?”
“Oh, I could do more, but well, plants need water and mom always gets mad when her trees are under watered so I’m keeping it to just Ponyville’s urban areas. … I’m mostly doing it because Princess Celestia and also Dusk said I should practice.”
I had been about to take a bite of my Panucho when Scootaloo’s words slapped me upside the head. “You met Dusk?! Oh my gosh I haven’t even thought to visit her in weeks! Or did I? Ugh! Bucking memory loss! Did I introduce you to her? Because er, well… You know. She’s not exactly normal.”
Scootaloo nodded, smiling slightly. “I know. But no. She showed up when you collapsed, drunk… Wait! How the buck could she get drunk? Is she a delusional mage or something?” Scootaloo demanded, looking irritable.
I quickly shook my head. “No. She’s really an immortal. She was probably at the pub she and I met at, the owner makes a mead which is essentially distilled magic. It’s very tasty!”
“Oh… Huh,” Scoots said with a half frown. “Uh, anyways… Well… You sort of made me similar to her.”
“I did what?” I asked in a calm tone.
This surprised me. I understood the words coming out of her mouth, and their gravity. How had I managed to keep my tone calm there?
“You, somehow, made me, like her,” Scoots said again, looking around. “Not so loud, okay?”
“But… She's… How?” I asked, feeling my brain start to panic.
A deep screaming cry of ‘What the flying buck did I do and how?’ Began to build up within my mind and heart. It slowly welled upwards as I desperately tried to piece together any way that what Scootaloo was saying was true and that I was the cause of such a complete and total break of reality and physics!
Why!?
When!?
How!?
The deep piercing wail of a massive horn slapped me out of my pending confusion meltdown! The single note reverberated off of the walls of Ponyville, as if every single surface was producing the booming note.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle,” a menacing and deep voice called, again, as if the voice came from every surface in town, “the Ashes are upon you! Your destruction is nigh. I am a fair stallion, I shall give you fifteen minutes to prepare your forces for battle. Should you not summon your warriors and meet me outside your walls, we shall enter your city, and it shall be no more. Except for the trees. I rather like them... That is all.”
Another loud blast of a war-horn punctuated the end of the announcement, shaking the ground slightly with it's sheer presence.
“Uhhhhh….” I said unintelligently, the aborted by pure terror confusion-meltdown having broken my brain just a bit.
“Huh, I thought we had two more weeks before this happened,” Scootaloo mused thoughtfully.
“What!” I exclaimed, the confusion-meltdown resuming from where it left off.
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Oh Azur... You are such a derp, but you also can't catch a break. Welcome to the rest of your life...
7118692 The problem here is you dont understand the concept of a benevolent dictator. Yeah, Celestia dose do some of those things. Generally without violence. Why? To keep things running smoothly, simply, and well. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and so she does her best to create a world where as many people are as happy as possible. Yes that's hard. yes it means certain things sometimes must happen. But look at our world, and look well.
Do you realy think this is the best system we could be running? No, it's not. The biggest problem humans have is too many cooks in the kitchen. We have too many people with power and different ideologies. Better one person with almost all the power who wants to make sure people live good lives than millions of people with a good bit of power who want only to get even more power.
SO yes, there are some bad things that must be done to keep one's self in a position of supreme power. But when that person has the best interests of others in mind and truly cares... Those consequences of that particular system of government are heavily outweighed. Especially because Celestia isn't likly to die and can continue being nice to the common pony for eternity if she so chooses.
Nice guy. Cares for his children.
That's assuming she's even around. She could well be off in Clover's little Pocket with Jade when battle is met and be a complete no-show. Not as though the Elements are really so good against an army anyway...they seem designed to be used against a single target. Very potent single-target weapon, but way too slow to use on individuals in a general melee.
DT in the Solar Guard, eh? Given her rather demanding personality and talent for getting others to do what she wants, if she could handle the structured life and that she would always have someone she'd have to answer to....she could potentially be a very good NCO or officer.
This is going to require talking, at length, later, but for now other demands must needs be.
Someone really needs to get out more...
Lily going into a confusion/panic meltdown whenever Ponyville's disaster of the week happens is going to end up being a running gag, isn't it?
I wonder what Sacred's agenda is....it's not meshing 100% with Father's. But it looks like there is going to be a battle next chapter....if perhaps a very short one if Tia's still around and releases a few percentile of her magic, or if Scoots cuts loose (and stays out of sight). If not, hopefully someone can get in touch with G&PT, since her combat prowess would be nice. Unfortunately, Luna and her Knights are probably still sorting out Trottingham....which otherwise just leaves the local garrison and one badass Diamond Dog to back up the Elements, for all the use they'd be in a mass melee.
Date #1: Monster attack and foalnapping
Date #2: Ponyville under siege
There is just no catching a break for these too, maybe they should try having a date in the Emerald hive or something, someplace its harder to crash there plans.
And is Rainbowdash still captain of the ponyville weather team? if so I can imagine the conversation that will be cumming after this.
DR: Why weren't you able to fill that hole in?
Scoot: Um that might have been me.
RD: What?
Scoot: I can control the weather, like all of it....
RD: .........
7118757
Yeah... They are not realy battle effective ether. I dont believe they are invulnerable while doing the whole 'charge' sequence, so in open battle well, like any other mage, they become a giant target for hatred.
Or you know...
"I thought you wanted to talk about it!"
"I don't know! The philosophical ramifications alone are crippling to think of!"
Nah. THe gag is going to be others teasing him for taking 5 or 6 times to realize that it's always resolved in about 20 minutes with little to no real lasting damage
I kid, but the joke is "Oh no, better make sure Lily's not panicking!" "I'm not..."
Poor guy's just distracted by how nice it is up topside
7118763
Yep. It's her day job. She mostly does it to stay in shape and because nopony in Ponyville is better than her at planning out a weather cycle. She's not like, extremely good at that, just the best in town.
And yes, that conversation will be coming :P
"All of it all of it?"
"Well, kinda. for a few kilometers."
"Horseapples!"
"Wanna see me zap that tree?" *zork!*
"... That's so AWESOME!"
Welp, so much for a quiet date.
7118789 It's a curse I tell you!
I'm glad they got the chance to go on a date before things went to Tarterous(sp) and the chapters keep me wanting more as always.
7111303 Her snowflakes made it so that she winter snow was calmer and more easily controlled by the weather pegasus
7118813 /me look sout her window at the icleands of Alaska. "I need me some of those..."
7118809 I had to give them at least the first half of a nice day out :P
7118789
It's Ponyville, the probability of something not interrupting the get together of two romantic characters is non-zero but entirely negligible,
7118823 It's why most couples don't go on dates, but rather "chill at a public place and partake in the activities thereabouts" If you dont use the D word, the odds of something going wrong are much lower.
Alas poor Lily, can never catch a break. First monster attack now a siege, finding out he pretty much made his marefriend into a demi-goddess, and not remembering so much from the last week. Someone needs a big hug and a nice nap next to his marefriend. :P
As usual great chapter! Love seeing more of our villains, and Scared's new obsession with trees. Hehe. I look forward to the next one hehe. :P
There is one thing I'll say about every villain you'll ever meet. They never, ever stop to consider the fact that attacking Twilight Sparkle is even more of a suicide mission than attacking Celestia or Luna is. Lets recap, shall we?
Twilight Sparkle.
5 ex-Elements of Harmony.
David & Jade.
Lifegiver.
Weather demi-goddess.
Knights of the Rampant Moon.
Emerald Hive.
Trixie (who, by the way, is the TR of all TRs).
Plus whatever miltia/EUP forces are still near Ponyville.
Then you've got:
Celestia+ Her forces.
Luna+ Her forces.
And the basic agenda of the invaders is to just waltz on in there and kill the motherbucking Princess of Friendship and Magic! Do these guys even sort of comprehend how hard it is to kill a damn Alicorn?
7118829
Well it's more like a :D New thing!
Most certainly.
7118830 Actually, Sacred knows full well that he is going to die, and that the task at hoof is impossible given his resources and numbers But he's still going to do it. Because he was asked to by his god figure. Morally and ethically, all he's got to work with is 'DO AS I COMMAND!'
7118835
Heh true that. I think I would be the same if I'd never seen trees. Or similar things.
Too bad he won't be getting one anytime soon. HAVE PATIENCE LILY! You two will get your special time.
7118840 OR WILL THEY!?!
7118845
One can always hope! ;)
I feel sorry for Lily, he must be so confused.
Nice to see that the intelligence dump from Trixie is paying dividends, and that nobody in the Ashes knows that it came from her.
Yeah, that's going to go well.
Sacred's reluctance to step outside into Celestia's light is kind of interesting.
Oooo, and suddenly I'm putting more of the pieces together regarding my guesses from the Celestia chapter and the possible identity of Father. Fallen immortal, formerly a friend (or more) of Celestia and/or Luna's from their youth?
This gem battery personal modification is really powerful. A potentially massive increase to your internal reserve, that itself can be refilled through external, non-biological means? That opens up a lot of doors, and not just for Lily (assuming they all survive long enough to spread knowledge of the technique).
There we go, disclosure about what happened.
Those poor weather pegasi.
Oooo, full disclosure.
Random prediction, Sacred's newfound interest in trees is going to backfire on him, though possibly not as much as the unexpected presence of a newly ascended immortal.
7119666 In regards to the spoiler: You're getting close.
It does, the thing is that's tisky to use for combat applications due to the risk of an overload (same goes for charging them exturnaly).
You can imagine the arguing... and it's hilarious :D
Heh, hardly random :P
7118525
... ... What you are saying here is "because magic". I know that nuclear energy looks free to a layman, but it consumes fuel just like a coal plant. The uranium fuel that is used is mined just like coal, and it is a limited resource. Someday it will run out if it's continuously mined. It's very important to remember that there is no such thing as something from nothing. If you were to make a carrot out of "thin air", you would consume a dozens of cubic meters of air to make one tiny carrot.
Celestia is now worst tyrant. She's intentionally crippling her citizens and country due to paranoia.
I'm going to assume you misquoted the lore docs, because you just reinforced my point.
1: magic burns calories from the user (quoted from Azure Lily abord the pirate ship speaking to David about magic)
2: Changling feeding is magical in nature and takes energy from a "victim". (from your quote)
To break this down using Meep and Friend: They both start at 0. Not hungry or full. After one day of activities, Friend burns through 1000 calories. Just doing pony things. Friend is now at -1000 and is hungry. Meep did those same activities. Meep weighs about the same as friend and did the same activities, so it's reasonable to assume that Meep consumed the same amount of energy. Meep is now also at -1000 calories. Remember that a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius, Friend stores calories in fatty tissue and blood suger as Calories, Meep stores them in whatever changelings store their hugs as.
So both Meep and Friend are now at -1000 calories each. Friend feeds Meep 1000 calories worth of energy in the form of hugs. Since the feeding is magical in nature, Friend's body burns body fat to produce the calories, putting Friend at -2000 calories, while Meep is at 0. Meep converts body tissue into food for Friend, enough to supply 1000 calories of energy. Friend eats that food and is now at -1000 calories for the day. Meep now has to re-create that matter. Since 1000 calories were provided to Friend, there's no way that less than 1000 calories were contained in the materiel that Meep now needs to regenerate. So now Meep is back down to -1000 calories. And that's only when breaking a half dozen laws of physics and biology to give them be best chances.
If they are even partially successful in the attempt to kill Twilight I don't think they have the slightest idea of the hell that will rain down upon them. The King's plans are already upset with data he doesn't know they know. The simple fact they know he exists and has let Luna and Celestia believe his groups had been wiped out before
7119784
Yes. I am. Because this is a setting with magic, and is not a Science Fiction story that rates 10 on the Mohs Scale. It's admittedly a "magic has rules like physics does" setting, but it's still magic.
Wrong. She's intentionally preventing her country with a ton of happy people who enjoy their lives from devolving into a cesspit of misery where a few are happy, and most slave away to make them more money while being impoverished. The adverage pony lives a life they enjoy, and is happy. That's literally the opposite of what a tyrant does to a nation.
Then the changeling is dead. Changeling hunger isn't like mammals, ether they have energy and are alive, or they do not. But let's ignore that as I understand what you mean.
Actually changelings are much less massive than ponies. The average ling weighs in at 26 kilograms (I had to work out insect tissue density to check if flight could be non magical), while the average pony is around 53 kilograms. So even if they did have the same digestive systems, their rate of caloric burn would be different.
Changelings store their food energy as raw arcane energy in a fashion similar to a supercapasitor, their unit of measure is the kilohug. For the sake of math, 1 kilohug converted to electrical energy is about half a kilotwatt.
Um... No. The magic happens on the changeling side. It work's like this:
Meep psionicly links to friend, and siphons off a small amount of bioelectrical energy, which is used to lock the link to that friend's current emotional state. Thermatugic energy (aka mana) comes in positive and negative, like electricity. Living creatures generate a positive charge, which attracts ambient negatively charged energy (Which is everywhere, sort of like how gravity is everywhere and thus gravatons must be everywhere). That emotional state is then used by Meep to amplify her own magic's 'voltage' in the same way the magic of friendship works, and induce a Thermatugic current to draw that negatively charged mana into her body where it is used as a food source. Some bioelectrical energy also leaves the friend, which along with a light dose of radiation (similar to a dentist's xray) Result in the slight queazyness and slight fatigue for the friend, who has realy not lost anything from this process. Aftwerwhich, the friend's positively charged mana supply begins drawing in more negatvly charged mana (which is generated by non-living things and sort of winds up drifting around space-time. The universe is full of the stuff, and as we keep moving through space-time to different regions, there's an effectively infinite supply. It just takes time to replenish.)
Not so. The friend has lost nothing, because they are the tongs used to get the food, and not the food itself. Thus, more energy than is available from that one friend's own biology's production of mana is accessible. The real limit to how much power can be taken via feeding is "DO I want to kill this individual I am using as a conduit or not?"
7119801 The problem with focusing on one ideology as the ultimate truth is that it blinds you to reality... This has been your moral for the story :D
7119867
*Note: After typing this I almost deleted it because 1: it's not really relevent to the story at this point, and 2: this post feels almost argumentetive, which is far from my intent. In the end, I decided to go ahead and post it, as I feel that discussion is always better than silence, and I dont think I said anything offensive. But I have negative social skills... so
Please keep in mind that below are simply the opinions of an empirical rationalist. Please take or leave them as you see fit.
While I did not explicitly state it, that was an opinion. Which is inherently neither right nor wrong. So *insert rasberry noise here*.
This here is a classic difference of opinion. I have a large number of rational arguments, emperical studies, and canon MLP references to support my assertions, and I'm sure you have the same. It's ovbious that you have strong beliefs here, so I'm relatively certain neither one of us will be able to sway the other. So I'm just going to write this up as "author power" and let it go at that.
Also, A tyrant is a term for any absolute leader. Most historical tyrants (which is a greek appointed position, the emperor chooses a tyrant to oversee a district. The tyrant answers only to the emperor, and has absolute power in his district.) were actually quite sucessful and managed their lands and people well. The negative connotations spring from propoganda during the fall of the empire. Granted, during Nero's rule, things got bad, but until then tyrants ruled over the most sucessful and wealthy nation in the world to that time.
That's what science fiction is. Writing a story with a rationale behind the impossible and delving into the hows and whys is what sci-fi is. Although the common term for involving magic in the story is "science fantasy". A fantasy story ignores the hows and whys and just concentrates on the storyline elements. To compare the two:
Sci-fi: Pegasi can fly because their wing structure channels their inner mana supply to catch hold of the aetheric field, providing far greater lift than the air alone is capable of. This allows for flight despite their otherwise impossible weight to lift ratio.
Fantasy: Pegasi can fly.
When something is written in a science fiction style, with detailed explainations built into the story, it invites commenters to delve into the rationale behind those explinations. Please let me know if I am getting annoying, but I personally find that debating the details of such systems helps me (when I'm writing or editing) fine tune the logic behind the rules behind the story.
Okay, this description only ignores one storyline principle of magic (as I understand it) and three basic principles.
As I understand it, mana, or the magic that a being can use, is generated by living bodies through their natural processes. This consumes energy just like any other biological function. Except for changelings. They get magic for free.
Moving energy costs energy. The whole equal and opposite reaction thing applies here. Physists would be overjoyed to discover a perfectly lossless way to pull energy, i.e. it costs equal amounts of energy to move as you get moved. In reality, there is always some loss in conversion - it takes more than 1 watt to move 1 watt.
You cannot destroy energy. Except it sounds like thats what changelings do... unless I'm missing something, they consume energy but give nothing back.
You cannot create energy. Except for "non-living" matter? Hunh? How in the hay does inert matter create energy? That makes no sense.
The only thing I can liken your description of changeling mana generation to is a turbine. But only in the concept of "tapping into something bigger". In every other way it does not match with your description.
7120231 Magic is complicated. What Azur said to David is a novis level surface skim of specifically how magic works with organic lifeforms. There is MUCH more to it, hence why there are many many schools of magic.
Correct, under mundane physics, it makes no sense. Under arcane physics, it's not only sensable it's a basic principal. Mundane Physics and Arcane Physics are much like Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. Bouth are accurate descriptions of the universe, but they don't realy fit together fully.
7119893 if thats the moral for the sotry what are you going to do with the rest of the story
7119784
To you and I, it is obvious that going post-scarcity gives you access to heretofore unheard of military prowess. But then, we have basicallyevolved to be tool and weapon users, and we have a technology base rather than a magic base.
Post scarcity=strong military is not as obvious to Equestrians. Equestrians are personally capable combatants first, weapon users second. Why bother inventing the gun in the first place when you can turn any old rock into a freaking mini nuke by tossing it (see: maud pie). That's not to say they never use weapons-but most of the weapons they do have are enchanted, which means unicorn enchanters will always be the bottleneck, and guns are a relatively recent development that aren't seeing much R&D because other things (a faster firing crossbow, or maybe a crossbow that fires 5 shots at once) are much more promising.
Equestria's military capabilities come almost exclusively from numbers, politics, and organization; numbers of spellcasters, numbers of pegasi, numbers of earth ponies, not picking fights with people they don't absolutely have to, and having reasonably competent ponies like Celestia and shining armor in charge. What little they need in terms of army physical resources (range weapons with an infinite ammo enchantments) is already being met without strain, (in contrast to canon equestria, which has to make significant changes to field a significant army), so there's no obvious benefit from throwing more industry at the military. They're also a bit like the Federation from star-trek*: they're already strong enough to face the threats they know about, without throwing everything they can into military, do they really need to frighten everyone around them while they're at it?
Without it being obvious that post scarcity=superior military, all that remains is the question of social philosophy: do you prefer creative minecraft or survival minecraft? Most ponies (Celestia included) would prefer the latter, or at least think they prefer survival mode. But, hey, give it a couple thousand years and ponies will probably change their minds (we see some of this change happening already in the form of lily's brother. )
*Galaxy class starships are, essentially, cruise and science ships that happen to have weapons. (ridiculous numbers of holodecks and recreation rooms, luxurious diplomatic quarters, more science labs than you can shake a stick at, family quarters...)Yet, despite all the wasted space they can go toe to toe with the dedicated warships of other alpha quandrant powers.
Then the federation made an actual warship: the defiant. The tiny thing was easily on par with an entire galaxy class ship, despite its small size. The federation never got around to making a galaxy-sized warship, to my knowledge. If they had, the rest of the alpha quadrant would probably have shit their pants in terror.
7120290 I was mostly just making a joke. The real point of my stories is to entertain, I dont realy put any particular messages in them intentionally.
7120341 This is perhaps the best description I've heard of my Equestria that didn't come from me, or Popmannn. Yeah, it's exactly like the Federation, only without space travel, and just at the Fed's early beginnings. Equestria is on the cusp of the old world dying and the new world being born. The cultural lag needs to run out before it's post-scarcity status is just a normal thing instead of something which would cause problems in terms of social structure.
7120353 I was joking as well since I don;t think the story is finished.. Then again maybe you plan on leaving us hanging or making multiple parts
And thus the Imperium of Pony invaded the United Federation of Pony, only the Federation had just acquired yet another friendly warp god. oops
7120415 Crapsack worlds should never fight Awesomesause worlds XD
7120252
That's funny, because physics is not. At its root, physics is very simple. So is math, biology, and any other hard science.
No, they do not. They are both filled with holes, patently rediculious theories, and even blatantly internally contradictory statements that neither accurately resembles reality. We simply do not have the tools to even observe the world as those theories attempt to describe, let alone discover reality at that level.
This statement is so contradictory to everything I understand about reality that I am just going to go with "Author powers". Author says this world works that way, so it does.
I don't ever recall any type of transmitter being easy to make
*raises hand slowly* "I have... once..."
when you really need yourself dead...
I'm curious as to how you plan to make this story work with ahtq, it kind of happens in the middle of it, and has some important plot stuffs.
Will it continue from where this leaves off, or will we have others perspectives on these events?
7122331
There are actually some very very very simple transmitters out there. I could build one in about 4 minutes if I had the parts.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-simple-AM-transmitter/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMgzUGBfXiE
ALso, if you cant get ahold of the things needed to make those microelectronics...
One of these two.
7122697 that's ridiculously simple, I wanna try that sometime
why do I even ask?
7122716
Because you don't think I'll answer comments after just waking up while I'm sleepyhungries.
7122723 timezones :P
7122737 By now, how do you not know what my timezone is? XD
7122760 yeah, the "over there" one
let's see...
fairbanks AK..
=
utc -9:00
I'm utc-6:00
puts you @ about
10:30?
7122779 Yes, that was accurate when you sent that comment.
7122958 yay!
I'm pretty sure being in Ponyvile was at least half the equation that allowed that to happen...
Curse you! Why are you making me like the villain just before the big battle!
Very good work, well done.
7123976
Pfff, let's be honest 80% "you're casting spells in Ponyville", 20% everything else.
That's a more important question than you might be thinking.
7124027
Nah... the correct math is probably like this:
70% Ponyville effect.
15% Cutie Mark in Biomancy
7% Personal Skill
5% Awesomeness
2% Deus Ex Machina
and 1% Cake