Chapter 5: Day of Reckoning
Twilight slowly raised her head off the floor and blinked. And she choked on her next breath.
Soldiers, or—no, the big dance. She smiled briefly before her skin ran cold. Sh-she was going to prison. A tremor shot through her body. Such trust everypony had placed in her, and she’d never get her good name back, no matter what. Unless… unless the judge accepted her plea, and—
No. Any of it or… or none of it. Everything bled together, curled up in the tendrils of fog that billowed through her mind. She gritted her teeth, clutched her hooves to her temples, and shook her head. Little blobs of light danced around in her vision, firefly sparks in the bleak night.
Was… was she dead?
Nothing to see, nothing to hear. A solid enough floor under her, but only those afterimages of something floated in the darkness. Then behind her, a soft scuffing noise, and a dim glow fell across her body.
It chased away the yellow spots, mostly. So she checked her body over. Legs, tail, wings, horn, all there. Her purple coat, unmarred. She glanced back to the source of the light—a rectangle. A frame, a door, open now. That door…
Her test!
How long? She’d been in this room for months! What would her friends think, her parents? She’d known other unicorns who’d graduated, and they’d never gone missing this long. Did they give her an extra-hard exam just because she was a princess?
Celestia… Princess Celestia. She’d be waiting out there. She’d never warned Twilight, b-but then she’d explained why she couldn’t, and she’d tried to help, tried to comfort Twilight.
Had she made Celestia proud? Already, the images faded from her memory. The sum total there, but the details gone. One thing did sit right there atop her brain, though: she’d betrayed Celestia.
With a gulp, she rose onto wobbling knees and walked toward the door. Beyond it, in the distance, stood Celestia in front of that tall wooden structure, the chancellor and his jowls peering down from the top. They watched her walk. Their faces showed nothing. Except Celestia. Just a hint of a smile, the one Twilight had learned to spot so long ago as a filly. When Celestia would nod at a correct answer, turn back to the chalkboard, but with a little hitch in the motion, a stutter just before losing sight of her student.
Twilight staggered back toward the assembly, and… where should she stand? In the spotlight, or—?
Celestia opened a wing, and Twilight sidled up to her, under it. “Shh,” Celestia said, squeezing Twilight against her. Twilight nodded and steeled herself against her trembling. She couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t.
Her robe lay on the floor a few feet away—Twilight picked it up in her magic and draped it over her back, in case it might ward off this chill.
From… somewhere—behind the tower of lecterns, maybe—Celestia levitated a floor cushion over and set it down in front of Twilight before walking her forward onto it.
Oh, thank goodness! Even with the days or weeks or whatever she must have spent lying down, her legs didn’t have much left to give. So she sank heavily into its welcoming embrace. Celestia remained standing next to her, but that wing still spread across Twilight’s back.
“Do you need anything?” Celestia said. “Some water, something to eat?”
Twilight shook her head and took a shaky breath. “How… how long?”
“About an hour. Maybe an hour fifteen.”
An hour!? Twilight braced a hoof to stand, but Celestia’s wing pressed into her back.
“Shh. Rest now.” Like before Twilight had gone in… in there, Celestia kept her gaze carefully trained forward, but she did flick her eyes down for an instant. “It’s okay now. It’s over.”
Only an hour… Twilight fixed her stare at the slightly discolored flagstone in front of her and measured her breathing, forcing it slower. Her heart as well, beating like a rabbit’s at first, but she tucked her chin against her chest and willed it to a less frenzied pace.
“Whenever you are ready to proceed, Miss… Spaaaahkle,” boomed a voice from above. And her heart skipped a beat before firing off a dozen in short order.
“Yes, sir,” she said, bowing her head. She tried to stand, but once again, Celestia pressed her down.
“Well, let us begin at the beginning then, shall we?” The old stallion cleared his throat. When Twilight looked up to nod, he had an impressive array of paperwork spread out in front of him. “So… you found yourself in the middle of a civil war…”
How did they know that? She whipped her head around to Celestia.
“We can observe,” the princess said before Twilight could ask her question. “It’s similar to Princess Luna’s dream magic, but less extensive and powerful. She helped us set it up long ago.”
“But what if… what if I’d done something horrible, or gotten romantically involved with somepony, or—”
Celestia closed her eyes and smiled. “We wouldn’t steer the test scenarios that way. We can control what you know about each one and how much you remember from your real life. Though it doesn’t prevent the unexpected entirely. We have had students who—” Her eyebrows shot up, and she finally turned her head to face Twilight. “In any case, we keep everything confidential.”
And now a smirk sprouted from her lips. “Now, do please tell us why you lied to my face and betrayed me.”
“W-what?”
“The civil war, Miss Spaaaahkle,” the chancellor droned.
“I-I don’t know,” Twilight stammered. “I didn’t have enough information. Both sides were right, and both were wrong. I was forced into a decision before I knew which side should win.”
Celestia nodded. “Yes, quite by design. You won’t always have the luxury of exhaustive information. You have to make do with what’s available. That’s an important lesson we wanted it to impart.”
At least Celestia didn’t sound angry. Her smirk hadn’t left, either. “All I know is that I might well have been complicit in having Applejack tortured or executed. I couldn’t do that to her or those poor ponies who lived with her. Those foals had done nothing wrong.”
“And they would have been very well treated if they had accepted my rule or moved on to one of the countless places where they would not have been in conflict,” Celestia remarked.
“But they’d been marginalized, imprisoned…”
“Because Applejack told you so?”
Just what Twilight had been afraid of. She could never justify her actions. She should have trusted Celestia. She should have trusted her, no matter what. “I-I don’t know. I believed in you, but… I’d spent so much time with her, gotten to know her. She wouldn’t lie about that.”
“Does that make her right? You left before I had finished explaining everything to you.”
Celestia had sponsored her! What did she have to gain by making her sound bad? “I know. I might have made a different choice. But she believed it, and I saw enough evidence of that. I don’t think either side was right. But hers was the one suffering. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“And then when I did speak to you afterward, you learned that things weren’t quite so simple,” Celestia said, sounding every bit like a scolding mother.
Twilight’s wings sagged by her sides. “That’s why I accepted my punishment. I couldn’t say that I was right, either. I’d done the best I could with what I knew at the time.”
“I see.” For several long minutes, Celestia remained silent. When she finally spoke again, some warmth had returned to her voice. “Remember, there are no right answers. What matters is why you chose the path you did.”
True. And if Twilight had turned in Applejack, she might never be able to look the real one in the eye again. They must have drawn her precisely from Twilight’s memory, down to every freckle, every endearing quality. “She deserved better. And I was willing to take on my fair share of adversity so she didn’t have to endure any more.”
“An egalitarian response.” The silence resumed and stretched on, the committee peering down on her. But once more, Celestia broke into the quiet. “And the result that most students choose. We will not press you on your answer anymore, as this is the first one. A warm-up, we’ll call it. But there are a few things I want you to understand.”
Celestia stood and positioned herself in front of Twilight, waiting until their gazes had locked. “The Elements are not absolute. Showing loyalty to one friend can mean betraying another. Kindness may require refusing to show generosity. Sometimes nopony wins. You have to strive for the balance that will result in the maximum good, not what will make everypony happy.”
So… Celestia wasn’t angry?
“And one more thing: I don’t need automatons. I need powerful unicorns who can think for themselves, whom I can trust to act by their consciences, who will tell me—” she leaned in closer, nose to nose with Twilight “—when they think I’m wrong.”
“I… I understand.” Celestia was right. She’d told Twilight that she needed nothing more than her character. She’d held true to that through the whole test.
“To the second scenario then,” said the chancellor as Celestia walked back by Twilight’s side. “You rather managed to alienate your friends, did you not, Miss Spaaaahkle?”
Twilight had this. She saw it now. She’d only done what she thought right in any of those dreams, and that was all Celestia had asked of her. She could do this!
“Some of them, yes, but for reasons that wouldn’t have made them real friends.”
“Be careful,” the chancellor replied. “You started out as friends with them, so something drew you to them.”
Twilight stood. Her knees no longer shook. “We were friends, and I still wouldn’t do anything to hurt them. But they should want what’s best for me, too. Falling far short of my potential isn’t worth the approval of friends who struggled with it as soon as our values started to clash. Thankfully, they were relatively minor disagreements, but it could have gone much worse, and it wouldn’t have changed my mind.”
“Except one friend remained steadfast,” the chancellor reminded her.
“Yes, Rarity. To be honest, I don’t know if I could have done it without her support. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I had that.”
Celestia pursed her lips. “You could have asked her.”
A slight misstep—Twilight hung her head. “Maybe I should have trusted her more. But if I’d read her wrong, it would have made things twice as hard for me. And for Derpy and Fluttershy, too, I think.”
“Ah, yes,” the chancellor said. “Those two. Tell me about them.”
“Once I got to know them, they were wonderful friends. Better than most of my other ones. Derpy and Fluttershy gave up their time to help me when nopony else would. I think they respected what I was doing, once I apologized to them.”
“Why did you apologize?” he said.
“Because they wouldn’t help me otherwise—” a thin frown began to form on the chancellor’s face “—but I didn’t appreciate how my friends treated them. W-was I supposed to?”
Celestia let out a low chuckle. “We cannot change who you are, Twilight. That was always up to you. But consider that kindness from you could result in quite the opposite from others. You might have called unwanted attention onto them.”
Twilight could only shrug. “I let them choose that. Even so, we only had a few months until graduation. Then they could get away. I hope showing them that somepony cared was worth that. And again, Rarity helped.”
“Yes, she actually would have backed you no matter what you did, by design,” Celestia said.
“But I think Rarity had more respect for me this way—earning my future instead of expecting her to give me one.” They’d gotten her rather right. Maybe that was why Twilight had warmed up to her so quickly.
With a nod, Celestia answered, “There’s something to be said for graciously taking what life gives you. And for wanting to make your own way. Students split about half and half on this one.”
Not surprising. But… “How would that many students know Rarity well enough to…?”
“We choose characters from the student’s own memory. Different players, but a similar situation,” Celestia said. Then her eyes glimmered.
“To the third test, then—” she abruptly turned to the chancellor “—with your permission, of course.” He gave a solemn nod in reply.
And so she faced Twilight again, her eyes blazing and her mane swirling in the windless room. “I must say, you chose quite an unorthodox path on this one. Only two other students before you have come up with that solution.”
Celestia took a step closer. “And this is the only result that I find… troubling.”
Troubling? The tremor in Twilight’s knees started anew. What had she done wrong?
“Twilight, Moondancer committed a crime, and you assisted her in getting away with it.”
Twilight’s mouth hung open while she fought for something to say. How could Celestia—? “W-what? But she couldn’t help it!”
“Yes, she could. She made her choice.”
Wasn’t Celestia supposed to be advocating for Twilight? She swallowed. Hard. Was she really about to argue with Celestia? “Yes, between a rock and a hard place. It wasn’t fair to put her in that position. What could she do about it?”
Celestia rubbed a hoof between her eyes. “She could be honest about it.”
“And risk going to prison anyway. That’s completely unfair,” Twilight said, squinting at her.
“So you decided that you knew better than a judicial system designed to take such things into account? You assumed nopony else could see what was happening and make an appropriate ruling?” Celestia replied as she waved a hoof around in the air.
Twilight looked down at the floor. “I didn’t know if I could trust them enough to get it right,” she said quietly.
“The original test didn’t include that little element of risk theory. I added that a few hundred years ago. Can you guess why?”
A spark shot through Twilight’s mind, and her body slumped. A clever trap, and she’d fallen right into it. She gave a weak nod. “Yes. The two obvious choices are to turn Moondancer in myself or convince her to turn herself in. Or to look the other way, I guess. My project would be irrelevant to those outcomes. But it gave me another way out.”
“One that only two students have ever taken before you,” Celestia said.
“Even if I trusted the courts,” Twilight said, her ears folded back, “nothing would ever repair Moondancer’s reputation. If they found her completely innocent, she’d still never find another job in finance. I fixed that the only way I could.”
“By letting her off? And by putting yourself in a position to be convicted for something you didn’t do, not to mention going unpunished for something you did do.”
Twilight’s gaze snapped up to Celestia’s eyes. “What… I did?”
Celestia nodded. “You presumably intended to perjure yourself, in addition to stealing your research from the company.”
“Oh…” She certainly hadn’t thought about that as theft. “I… I was afraid if I didn’t claim it somehow, Ledger would find a way. And I would have sold it to the same company. Just enough to live on, basically what they would have paid me anyway, so… it’s the same, right?” Even she didn’t believe that.
Celestia didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I just… I had to make a snap decision. I thought I’d made the best of a bad situation.” What happens to a princess who never graduates? Or who doesn’t have permission to cast advanced spells?
“On the other hoof…”
Twilight drew a sharp breath.
“The two prior students I’d mentioned sold the research out of pure spite to somehow punish the company for Ledger’s actions. And in the end, all three of you did the wrong thing for the right reasons. You wanted to protect your friend from a disproportionate backlash on what was a no-win scenario for her. You took on the shame and suffering so your friend wouldn’t have to.” She broke into a smile. Celestia actually smiled! “I can’t say I approve, but you did have honorable intentions.”
“Does that mean…?” Twilight said, her ears perking back up.
“Nopony is perfect, Twilight, and we do not require perfection. We require abiding by the principles embodied in the Elements of Harmony and the willingness to learn from your mistakes.” Once again, Celestia faced the panel and stretched a wing across Twilight’s back. “I do appreciate that you endured that shame in your friend’s place,” she said softly.
“And you took on the potential rift between her and Lyra. If Moondancer eventually tells her what really happened, and I think she would, your sacrifice may well inspire Lyra to forgive her. In the end, friendship wins out. The Princess of Friendship must have found that too enticing to pass up,” Celestia added with a wry chuckle.
Well… that was the point of the test, right? Twilight had stayed true to herself, and if that made her unworthy, then… she’d have to live with it. She guessed.
No, no! She’d fought harder for magic than anything else in her life, and she wouldn’t give up on that now! Like Celestia had said: she wanted unicorns who would tell her when she was wrong. A light tremor shimmied up Twilight’s body. “P-Princess Celestia…”
“I know,” Celestia answered quietly, tightening her wing’s grip.
“But—”
“I know.” Celestia leaned into Twilight’s side, and the tremor abated. She gave Twilight another squeeze and peered up at the chancellor. “I believe we are ready.”
The chancellor nodded vigorously, his jowls quivering, and in any other situation, Twilight might have snickered at him. “Very well,” he said. “Miss… Spaaaahkle, you may wait outside whilst we confer.”
With pursed lips, Twilight walked to the heavy wooden door, silently pushed it open, and slipped through. On the other side, a pink blur nearly tackled her.
“Aaaaaaaaa, Twilight, we’re so so so happy for you!” Pinkie Pie shouted.
“Oh!” Twilight yelped, her heart thudding as her forelegs automatically hugged Pinkie’s neck. “You girls came!” All five, and behind them, her parents, brother, and sister-in-law. That… was rather sweet of them! And maybe premature.
Applejack gave a sharp nod. “Sure did, sugarcube. It’s an important moment for you, and we wouldn’t miss it.”
“So where’s your egghead note?” Rainbow Dash said.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “What now?”
“Your… um… diploma.”
Twilight’s face burned. “Oh, that. Well—” she angled her muzzle toward the door “—they’re still discussing that inside.”
“Um… they must be deciding how many…” Fluttershy hid her eyes behind her forelock. “How many pluses to put on the ‘A’.”
Twilight cracked a small smile, and Applejack chuckled. “Land sakes, Fluttershy tellin’ a joke?”
“That’s not it,” Twilight said. They all stared, waiting for something more, but what else to say?
“So what did they have you do, darling?” Rarity asked.
Twilight shook her head. “I’m not allowed to tell. It’s a secret ceremony.” She still had a hoof across Pinkie’s shoulder, and at least that nice, warm coat against her kept her from shaking again. Her family gave warm smiles and nodded at her. They knew. They’d all gone through this themselves.
“You can tell us!” came a voice from down the hall, and Twilight snapped her gaze up—
“Moondancer! Lyra, Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, Minuette!” Twilight rushed up to them and hugged Moondancer. “How’d you girls know about this?”
Moondancer circled a hoof in the air. “Word gets around. So how did it go?”
With a shrug, Twilight said, “I don’t know yet. How long does it normally take them to decide?”
“Ten minutes, maybe?” Moondancer replied. She glanced around at the others.
“Twenty for me,” Minuette said. Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine nodded along.
“Over an hour,” Lyra mumbled through her frown. All eyes widened at her. “What?”
Twilight hugged her, and Lyra’s stiff posture relaxed. “It doesn’t matter. You all passed. Thank you for coming.” She extended a hoof back toward the door, and she walked them over to her other friends. Good thing Lyra wasn’t still mad at her. And Rarity, smiling at her. Rarity understood—she’d stuck by Twilight when nopony else—
No, that was all… Twilight held a hoof to her forehead. “It’s like waking up from a dream. You know how you sometimes have one where somepony makes you angry, then you feel strange around them all day, even though you know they didn’t actually do anything to you—”
“Yeah,” Twinkleshine answered, rolling her eyes toward a bouncing Pinkie Pie, “but don’t say too much.”
“Oh. Yeah.” So after making the obligatory introductions, Twilight sat on the floor, against the wall, and waited. The little bits of conversation among the rest had died off, and the longer the silence carried on, the more they fidgeted and conspicuously tried not to look at Twilight. But she could feel their eyes on her. How long now? Twenty-five minutes? Half an hour?
Just when Twilight thought the buzzing in her nerves might cause her whole body to vibrate, the door opened again, and the panelists all emerged, in single file, without affording her so much as a glance. Off in their own little worlds, laughing and chatting. And finally bringing up the rear, Princess Celestia. She stood over Twilight and smiled down at her for a moment.
“Um… well?” Twilight asked.
“I told you, my most faithful student, you had nothing to worry about. Of course you passed.”
“Woo hoo!” Pinkie shouted, and the rest all erupted into cheers. Then a sound like a whistling rocket, and a clump of confetti exploded above them.
“Heh,” Spike said, trundling down the hall with Pinkie’s party cannon. “Sorry, Pinkie. I think I found the trigger.”
Twilight rushed over to him and swept him up in a hug. “Oh, the girls brought you, too?”
He responded with a sharp nod. “Yeah! I wouldn’t let them come up here without me!”
By the time she’d carried him back to her friends, Celestia had already turned to leave. “I’ll catch up with you a little later,” she said. “Please. This is a time for friends. And congratulations. Besides—it felt like months to us, too. I could use some rest.” Only now did Twilight notice the dark circles under Celestia’s eyes and the way her wings drooped.
Twilight stared after her until she’d disappeared around the corner into the next hallway. Strange. But Twilight had to stay until morning anyway, so she’d still have time to meet up with her again. Seemed like she had something more to say, but Twilight guessed she’d have to wait.
“Hey,” Twilight said after flicking her gaze to the hoofsteps echoing from the adjoining corridor, “why don’t we all go out to lunch? My treat.”
“That’s… generous of ya,” Applejack replied. “But there are… one-two-three-four-five… fifteen of us. Sixteen, includin’ you. That’s a mite steep.”
“Please. I don’t get the opportunity very often. It would mean a lot to me to take my friends out.” Twilight gave them a little lopsided smile, and with a collective shrug, they all stood.
Her family started toward the back way out, though, in the direction of her parents’ home. “We’ll see you tonight, dear,” her mother said. “Share this time with your friends.” Of course Mom would say something like that, and good luck arguing with her.
But Spike tugged on her mane. “Can I leave that here?” he said, pointing at the cannon.
Twilight chuckled. “We can drop it off in my old room on the way. C’mon, girls.”
They’d talked and gabbed for hours. It would have made Twilight feel bad, but the restaurant wasn’t full, so at least they hadn’t been clogging up the table all that time. And as the afternoon had drifted toward evening, her Ponyville friends had offered their thanks and gone off to catch the last train. Tilted back their glasses for the dregs of drink and conversation, then walked away.
Except for Minuette and Lyra. They’d stay overnight at their parents’ places. As long as they’d come to Canterlot anyway, might as well squeeze in a family visit.
And not five minutes later, Lyra leaned over the table and cast a wary glance at the retreating waiter. “So, who sided with the earth pony rebellion?” she said in a low voice. Twilight nearly dropped her glass. Everypony but Twinkleshine raised a hoof, and Twilight slowly added hers.
“Yes!” Minuette hissed. “I knew you’d be one of us!”
Twilight’s eyes shot wide open. “Wait, can we—?”
“Sure,” Lemon Hearts said. “Not a secret with any of us now. Except for Twinkie there.” She let out a snort.
“Look, I told you,” Twinkleshine said, her teeth bared. “It was different in mine. They put my ex-coltfriend as the leader, and he kept hounding me to give Celestia’s soldiers a good beating. How could I not turn him in?”
“Well… up until Celestia finishes her story, and you feel like you might have just made a huge mistake for letting them go,” Lyra said with a shake of her head.
Wait, they all had the same test? Over their laughter, Twilight said, “I guess I figured the test was unique. I mean, it took friends of mine with very specific personality types to fill the roles well.”
“Everypony knows somepony similar enough,” Moondancer replied. “Besides, if they had to invent new scenarios for every graduate, they’d drive themselves crazy.”
True. Then that meant… “So, who decided to push themselves to graduate high school?” Twilight ventured. They all stared back as if Discord himself were standing on her horn. And knowing him, she rolled her eyes up to check.
“C’mon,” Minuette said. “This crowd? They can dumb us down, but they can’t change who we are. Like, of course we’d all choose to study.”
Also true. Not much to say there. Except… “I think there was a good lesson in there, though,” Twilight said. “We take it for granted that learning comes naturally to us. But that’s not true for everypony, and I think it was important for us to see things from their side, to know how much of a struggle it can be.” The other girls only smiled and nodded. Of course, they’d all figured that out long ago.
So, the third test…
Everypony looked down at the tabletop. Yeah, that one had proven surprisingly difficult. Difficult to go through, to justify… to admit.
“I turned in Lemon Hearts,” Minuette said softly. “I found her signature on the forms, but the committee told me afterward that she’d been set up, so I totally missed that one. Not a bad outcome, still, but… damn, I couldn’t look her in the eye for a week afterward.” She picked a hoof at her napkin.
Yeah, like… like a dream that felt too real to ignore upon waking.
“I figured out you’d forged the documents,” Lyra said, turning a weak smile on Twinkleshine. “I made you go to the police, but you were crying so hard about it, you could barely talk to them. Ugh, why couldn’t it have been someone I hated?” She flung a hoof toward the anonymous diners at the other tables, as if they’d all sell their own mothers for some quick cash.
Lemon Hearts pursed her lips and gathered her forehooves to her chest. “I caught Lyra, but I didn’t tell her. Not knowing any better, I went straight to Ledger, who of course pinned it on her. He took the plea deal, and Lyra got the heat for it.” She looked up at Lyra and mouthed a “sorry.”
A low growl sounded from Twinkleshine. “I waited too long to act. Let it go for three days, and by then, the police came knocking on their own. Got that one wrong, too.”
It could have been an hour before Moondancer spoke. No, just time playing tricks. But it did take a while. “You went so quietly,” she finally said. “I told you I knew, Twilight. And you just left. You nodded, gathered up your things, started crying, and left. I didn’t even stay to see where you went—I-I ran down to the vault and…”
She looked up, and tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. “That wasn’t long after you’d left for Ponyville. For real, I mean. And I couldn’t…”
“I’m sorry,” Twilight whispered. She patted Moondancer’s hoof. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know, I know. We sorted that out already. I don’t blame you anymore. But for the longest time, it hurt, and the testing committee couldn’t have known, and…” Moondancer wiped the tear streaks from her face. “It’s okay now. It’s better.”
Twilight gave her hoof a squeeze, and Moondancer smiled. She’d press the matter, but she’d known Moondancer long enough to recognize the set of her jaw. It really was better. And even a month ago, Moondancer probably wouldn’t have been willing to say that in front of everypony, so good for her on that count. In any case… Twilight’s turn, then.
“I chewed out Lyra for forging the papers, then realized Moondancer had actually done it. Then I…” Twilight shut her eyes, hard. “I doctored the records to make me look like the guilty one. I made the plea deal to get Ledger. Lyra was furious, I’m sure. Accusing her of fraud at first, then getting dragged out for it myself?”
Lemon Hearts gave a low whistle. “Wow. I wouldn’t have thought of that one. You’re just trading your situation for Moondancer’s, then. How’d you think that would work?”
“I-I planned to sell the research. I could have lived off that, easy.”
Twinkleshine raised her eyebrows. “Research?”
Waving a hoof in the air, Twilight said, “You know. The risk theory work.” Her friends all gave each other blank looks.
A sinking feeling settled into the pit of Twilight’s stomach. Now she had another question for Princess Celestia.
“Right this way,” came the waiter’s voice from somewhere over near the door, and a few seconds later, of course Princess Celestia trailed him to their table.
“Please,” she said, “I don’t mean to interrupt.”
But the other five had already gotten up from their seats. “It’s alright,” Moondancer said. “We’ve all been here before. It’s an important time.”
Twilight smiled, but… “Wait, you all hadn’t discussed your tests before? You didn’t know?”
An even broader smile graced Moondancer. “Not the third one. It’s tough to talk about. But you bring ponies together, Twilight.” She put a hoof on Twilight’s withers. Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but what could she say to that? “How about breakfast tomorrow,” Moondancer said, “in time for you to catch your train? Our treat.”
Twilight nodded, and soon, they’d gone. Silently. They could say their farewells tomorrow. So she sat, and Celestia said nothing, just wearing a smile as she might on the first day of a long vacation.
After the flickering candle at the table’s center had burned down a little more, Celestia said, “She’s right, you know.”
Twilight could only sigh. “Sometimes I think ponies put too much faith in me.”
“A sign of a good princess.”
“What if I’d failed?” Twilight asked.
“We would have removed your memory of the test.”
A reasonable answer. But Celestia had pushed the answer out quickly, saving her breath for…
“You said only two students before me had implicated themselves,” Twilight said. Celestia didn’t flinch at all.
Instead, she trained her gaze on the rising moon outside. “I did.”
“And how many students before me had the risk theory as part of their tests?”
A crescent moon, rather like a smile. Rather like the smile that grew on Celestia’s lips. “Now, Twilight, you managed to get yourself arrested and possibly imprisoned in two of the three scenarios. I shudder to think how you might have done so in the middle one as well, but I wouldn’t put it past you. Your curiosity got you in quite a bit of trouble.”
“How many?”
Celestia shut her eyes and chuckled. “Two.”
She gathered her words in her throat several times, but only after wrestling them into submission did she allow them out at a trickle. “You wouldn’t recognize either name. But they both showed great promise. They both fulfilled great promise, too. Not that I liked their answer, but when they’ve repeatedly chosen to sacrifice themselves for their friends…”
“Unicorns who will tell you when you’re wrong…”
Celestia laughed out loud. “Yes. I still think that option was on very shaky moral ground, but I do find it curious that my best students consistently chose it.”
Interesting. But soon enough, one more thing that had nagged at the back of Twilight’s mind. “Unicorns who will tell you when you’re wrong,” she said again.
After a few seconds, Celestia nodded. Then she poked a hoof at the pair of breadsticks remaining in the basket, levitated one up, and took a bite. “You feel like the exam is too… intense.”
Twilight didn’t answer. That was part of it, but not really, and—
“They are very important moral questions. Have you ever posed a scenario to somepony and had her respond that she couldn’t say how she might handle it unless actually faced with it?” Twilight bowed her head, but Celestia never looked over. “So… we make you actually face them. If we merely asked them as questions or put you in a dramatization you recognized as such, it would be too easy to give us the answer you thought we wanted.”
“But… most of the things I did were snap decisions. I could have easily gone the other way on any of them.”
Celestia shrugged and swirled the stump of breadstick through a cup of marinara sauce. “It doesn’t matter. The moral struggle behind the choice is the important thing. Remember what I said before: far more important than your decision is the reason why. You could justify different outcomes on any of the tests. Character still shines through. And nothing we did to tailor your memories in any of them would change that.”
True. Twilight opened her mouth to reply—
“Yes, the tests are rather taxing,” Celestia continued. She patted a napkin to her lips and turned to face Twilight once more. “Reality can be as well. These are unicorns who we hope will take on leadership roles throughout Equestria. We need them to be prepared.” A tired smile flashed as the napkin dropped to the table. “Yes, various committee members have questioned the—” she circled a hoof in the air “—intensity, as you said, but I believe it helps more than it hurts. It evolved over time into the form it takes now, and it has remained unchanged for the last eight hundred years or so. Except for minor details to keep it modern, of course. Maybe, given time, you’ll find you agree with it. Or maybe you’ll convince me to alter it.”
Celestia had managed to anticipate all of Twilight’s questions. So she waited for the last one. It took less than a minute.
And Celestia’s smile relaxed into one that reminded Twilight of wispy clouds. “You also want to know why we had you take the exam after all you’ve done for Equestria.”
Yes, and… and no. That question had tumbled around in Twilight’s head, but something about it hadn’t quite fallen into place.
“I told you when I first brought it up that it was only a formality. I meant that. For two reasons.” Celestia took a long breath and leaned back in her chair. “The committee members all know about you. They know you’ve proven yourself time and time again. They wouldn’t deny you this. But I already knew you had the strength of character to pass anyway, so it never came into question.”
Well… okay. But still that little suspicion that she couldn’t give form.
Celestia grinned and reached for Twilight’s hoof. “Through the years, I’ve gotten to know you very well. You’ve always felt like it’s important that nopony see you as better than anypony else. Or that anypony feel that you think you’re better. From your days as a student to becoming a public figure, you’ve never wavered from that.” Just a hint of a smirk played at the corners of her mouth. “If you had found out that such a test existed and that we had waived it for you…”
Twilight jerked upright in her seat. The last piece of the puzzle. Celestia was right. Of course she was right. “I would have insisted on taking it.”
Celestia nodded once more. “Lastly, I want to point out how often you try to take others’ burdens on yourself. You can’t solve everything on your own. I hope you will continue to learn how to let your friends return the favor.”
No more words passed between them. No waiter came to check on them. The nearby tables eventually emptied out, and the moon climbed high into the sky. And Twilight had never felt so warm, so comfortable.
“I am very proud of you, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said. Then she stood, and Twilight hastily wrote out a check, left it tucked under the bill, and followed her out. The lock clicked in the door behind them, and the two started down the sidewalk. The jeweled sky overhead, a nip of night air around them, and firm stone underfoot.
Twilight only had to be herself. Celestia had never asked anything more of her, and she never would. Celestia had never harbored a single doubt. And Twilight would never do anything to violate that trust.
Before heading off to her parents’ house, Twilight walked Celestia back to Canterlot Castle. In silence, side by side.
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I'm surprised that all the unicorns take the same test. I mean, there could be different copies instead of being identical. That way, they couldn't discuss it as easily as they did unless they all got the same version.
Honestly, I'm feeling exactly the same at this point.
And whew!
Was any of that ending discussion tailored in response to past comments, or were some readers just that good? Heck, I felt the same way Twilight did about how screwy and stacked the scenarios could get, even though I never ended up saying so- precisely because I also came to the same answer that Celestia gave, that changing the examinees' memories, situations or abilities didn't change their core character, and the important thing was how that ultimately reacted in the crucible.
Also, it was sweet to see a bit of the Canter Six group dynamic.
Heh. I thought her last question would have been 'would I have passed it if you'd given it to me earlier?'
[aplauso]
7046089 There could be different versions... but there don't need to be, since they're forbidden from discussing it with anyone who hasn't taken it. Celestia trusts them to honor the rules. If they suspected someone of foreknowledge, they could improvise, but otherwise, there's no need.
Still not really a fan
"Princess Celestia, were there any test takers who really surprised you with their answers?"
"If we were never surprised Twilight, we would never need to use the test at all. But there was one mare who went far beyond that. She refused to explain herself. She kept trying to force herself up and when I explained to her the consequences she informed us that she would not even accept a diploma from us. You've met her, actually. Her name is Trixie."
So... how many students have come out of the test with permanent mental trauma?
Rather callous of you there, Sunbutt, to just so casually remove someone's memories.
I still believe that having Twilight undergo the test was completely unnecessary, and Twilight has a right to be upset. Her keeping calm shows what kind of pony she is. That, said, the story was decently put together, and well done.
This was...really bizarre. I honestly don't know how I feel about this story.
I really can't even say whether I liked it or disliked it...
Yeah, that's why his name showed up a a grand total of three times throughout the entire story.
7049304 I don't follow.
So this is like the Kobiyashi Maru test for alicorns or something?
Except it's the lame Star Trek movie ones where they KNOW it's a test versus the vastly better-conceived ST: TNG version in which the test was something the candidate had no way of preparing for and which looked like a natural accident.
Anyone care to speculate what Discord will do once he finds out a test like this exists?
Yeah... THAT would be a far more interesting story.
Friendship and harmony my ass... putting people through a test like this and threatening brainwashing... god-awful fascist mentality.
The problem with these tests which underlies the problem with all simulations is that the same person may make different choices in almost identical circumstances each time it comes up. They are issues far too intricate and complicated for a single test to adequately cover, and anyone with proper wisdom should know this!
A person either possesses a strong ethical and moral character with a good sense of reason or they don't. This level of mental torture is unnecessary and likely detrimental in the long run. The subject of the test will find themselves uncertain of reality, or if what they remember is even real... if they do indeed have minds capable of questioning the Princess.
I, personally, would STRONGLY question this test's true objectivity, since these highly complicated scenarios with a bias already introduced: the friends put into these roles were usually acting in a way far out of character for themselves in the first place. A person's character always shines through to those who are observant. One would suspect a pony capable of making intelligent choices would never have such friends in the first place, as through day-to-day conversation, what those ponies were capable of would reveal itself. They are improper scenarios that a genuine mind would instantly doubt as 'real', thus contaminating the result.
As a scientist myself, we are taught to go to great lengths to eliminate all potential sources of bias in an experiment. Looking at this 'test' through such a lens, I find all manner of biases and improbabilities, with highly subjective results rather than any trace of objective outcome... the primary purpose behind any form of testing. Thus, I fail to see any plausible reason for these tests in the first place.
*smirks* I suspect I'd be the first to truly pass this test, as it would seem to me the REAL focus would be to find ponies wise enough to point out how flawed and meaningless the test really is.
7050631
You're presuming facts not in evidence, like the existence of such a technique. Besides, Twilight already spoke to verification that she could reproduce the signatures manually if they asked her to, which they will.
7050698
Which Celestia directly addressed. They all could have made different choices, and it wouldn't have mattered. In fact, their conversation over dinner revealed that her friends did make various choices, and they all still passed.
7051537 Yeah... the magical ponies in the show have already shown they have several means of copying things exactly... even ponies.
Copying a line of ink is child's play where magic is concerned. It's a basic application of logical conceptual extension. In other words, common sense.
And if the choices DON'T matter as to the final result, unless they really screwed up and just flat out joined the ranks of Tirek... then the test truly has no purpose!
6956347 Explain Starlight then. And also the fact that this is not some "All unicorns must attend" type deal, but rather a very specialized school, for a very very few elite, for unicorns with a major talent for magic. Not every unicorn there is. And it's clear you do NOT have to go to this school to learn anything at all about magic, it's just one of the best places to do so.
6980981
Why would that matter in the slightest when you can just reach in and rewrite the students mind to make them have had any experiences you want them to have had?
6981752
7002853
7002883 Agree this whole idea is rather ludicrous and massively unfair to Twilight in every conceivable way. Putting her through that much trauma, that much stress, fucking ALTERING HER MEMORIES.. Fucking with her MIND! Just for a 'formality'?
7046596 How could there be any? they can just remove their memories if they did... good as new... forget how freaking wrong that very concept is.
7050698 Agree with nearly all of it.. but you missed yet another issue with why these test make no sense and serve no purpose beyond tormenting the students and inflicting trauma on them. The test makes them whoever the test needs them to be. It rewrites their memories, makes them a totally different person, puts them in scenarios they would never actually have gotten in in the first place, and makes sure to make them the exact type pf person the test needs them to be for it to work. Like turning them into borderline idiots for that second test... fundamentally altering who they are... and then saying ti somehow actually test who they are. "Who you are" is the result of the collection of experiences you have had... once you start rewriting those, you are not the same person.
Needless to say I did NOT like this story..... there is so much about it that makes no sense. " like how the bucking hell Equestria has any idea bout "high School" and all the shit that goes on there, or the world of hi stakes big business accounting.... and apparently has for over 800 years. How in all that time... even the very existence of this test has been kept so secret... do they just wipe the memories of everypony that ever finds out about it that shouldn't? The very existence, and casual use of FUCKING MIND WIPING!
And yet..... yes I did not like it... BUT.. there is some good stuff here. The writing quality itself was really good.. you sold the feeling of "not quite myself" for Twilight well, that dual sensation of something just quite not being right but not able to place how. The idea of a Kobiashi Maru type test, seeing how you deal with a no-win scenario is great, there are some good ideas but... so much of it makes no sense and has so so many horrifying implications....
7323214 I don't understand a lot of your objections. That you think the test is too stringent, fine, others have said so as well. But thinking that high school and accounting are completely newfangled things to Equestria? Why would they be? You're free to imagine an Equestria where they don't exist, but it doesn't contradict canon in any way. Celestia even says they periodically update the scenarios, so even if you don't think accounting existed 800 years ago, why wouldn't it today? And what's the issue with Starlight? There are lots of explanations. For one, she might have studied magic external to the Equestrian education system, unbeknownst to anyone who might take issue with it. Celestia didn't even know the town was there, after all. But the best argument I can make for her not being there: I wrote the first three chapters of this in 2012, three years before Starlight's first appearance. She's a non-issue. I never said all unicorns attend, but I don't think it's outlandish to say any that show exceptional talent do. Look at Sunburst. As soon as he showed great potential, they whisked him off to school. It may not match your headcanon, but canon hasn't contradicted it.
7323214
There were too many flaws for me to properly outline and address with the time I had available!
Plus... as busy as I am currently, I can't justify spending the time to compose the elaborate critical deconstructions I used to which took me an hour or more to outline and write.
7325168 Don't worry main reason I finished the story was to do the full review for it, so got you covered there.
7324053 First off "Starlight" No, they did not "Whisk sunburst off" his parents decided to send him. At no point ever has it been even hinted there is this Equestria wide law where any unicorn above a certain talent level MUST be sent to the school, and without that this whole idea of "Licensing" falls apart. It only applies to the small, small minority of them who go to the school while any that learn on their own, which Starlight proved can be done, are free to not have their heads fucked with and undergo a relative period of months of trauma and forced into being somepony other then themselves. So what happens to any unicorn that shows talent but does not attend? Are they dragged off to the school and forced into the chamber for their turn to be traumatized and see how they deal with it? Or, just have their memories of being able to do magic wiped away... since Celestia is so blase about doing that to Twilight of all ponies.. just reaching in and erasing part of her mind.
As to the test... yeah I don't think it's "To stringent" I think it is horrifying and revolting. They force every student to submit to outright mindrape, force them to have their very self altered to fit what the test needs them to be, their memories altered, their very self changed into something else.. and then forced to live out experiences that have every possibility of leaving lasting mental trauma for them to go through. And nopony even bats an eye at how horrific this all can be.
I can go on and on about this aspect but.... SF Debris more or less makes a good case in his review of the ST Voyager episdoe Memorial, which tackles a similar type of deal.
Link here
Now while this case is NOWHERE near as utterly horrendous and wrong as the events in that episode, the underlying issues are much the same... just slightly mitigate by factors and of smaller scale, but still a similar issue.
And what makes it worse.... the test itself is still just plain wrong.. but you COULD make arguments for the results, there is something that could be debated... what pushes it into just plain freaking horrifying and WRONG, is that Celestia subject Twilight to this.... simply as a formality. For no actual reason beyond "She hasn't had her head fucked with and been made to undergo these traumatic events." Just for the hell of it, she subjects Twilight to this thing.
As to the tests themselves... first off, they are pointless... they don't tell you ANYTHING about the Pony's true self because the test outright alters who they are to make them accept this stuff. Alters their memories, their everything. Take the first one, it's supposed to also show if a unicorn will stand up to Celestia when they think she is wrong... but that did NOT prove Twilight would.. because that was not 'Celestia" as Twilight knew her, not was Twilight the pony she is. The test removed all her memories beyond the most vague about Celestia, removed her knowledge of the bond they had, every hard fact Twilight knew, it left a vague sense of trust, left her overall emotions as a kind of ghost.. but without the hard, solid facts and memories that created those emotions to provide context, any conclusions Twilight makes based on them is by it's very nature faulty and not what she would necessarily do if she had full access to who she was and her knowledge of Celestia. By altering who the subject is... they invalidate the test itself, thus rendering it useless for anything beyond potential mental scaring.
The Accounting thing... I will concede something like that could exist in Equestria, not 800 years ago, simply due to what creates places like that, and the level of development needed for those to arise as they are depicted, of which Equestria is just about at the point where they might show up. But that does not address the larger issue of the last two events (get to the high school thing later) that neither of them felt, in any way shape or form "pony". Not one thing (beyond a single tacked on scene in one of them) had the slightest hint of taking place in Equestria, of them being ponies. The entire tone of the setting, the way things worked, everything felt alien and unlike anything connected to the show or setting of Equestria. It came as a "Holy shit.. I am!" moment part way through the school one (the guidance counselor bit) when they mention her using magic to lift her backpack.... and I had that "Oh shit.." moment, when I realized that till that point, the whole thing had felt so non-pony.. I'd been mentally picturing them as human.. just because the whole story felt so unlike anything that would happen in Equestria, and was so out of tone with the setting that....I had to mentally force myself to remember these are supposed to be Equines...the entire last two segments were simply so divorced from every aspect of Equestria and the show we have seen, with no effort made to actually make them feel like a world of magic. That is the larger issue... with the third part anyway... that the writing itself felt so alien and so unlikely anything in Equestria.... it feels like they should be humans doing this.
And no, High School makes NO damn sense.. at all.. in anyway. First off, development wise, they are just about at the point where secondary education became a thing for more then the "elite" and started to become institutionalized like this is. But even then, something that large a deal.. is not once ever mentioned, in any way, and the mane 6 are at an age they should have rather recently gotten out of it.... and the CMC heading to it.. and nothing, at no point has anything even remotely like it been hinted at.... and the very IDEA is rather antithetical to Equestria... So make a pony spend an extra 4 years crammed into a building learning basic, mundane, same as everypony else stuff? That "works" (For a given value of 'work') IRL, because it's prepping the students for whatever they do later.. giving them a broad base, with a few electives to get them more they need to know... since very few kids know what that is at this point.
Ponies.. not the case, Cutie Marks. By that point, every single pony has earned their Cutie Mark, they KNOW exactly what they are going to do, what their path in life is, who they want to be (Yes with a few exceptions who have issues till, but they are just that, exceptions, not the norm, and rather limited in number) That is a total and utter waste of time, when they would be out perfecting what it is they KNOW they want to do, focusing all their efforts on their chosen field, not on all this useless crap. So no High Schools make no sense.. at all. And not once was "Cutie Mark" or "Special Talent" mentioned when it came to that version of Twilight deciding what she wanted to do with her life. Plus, the scenario relies on the whole High School Clique trope and it being accepted as fact... when Twilight was utterly baffled by that idea in EQG.
7325635 I think we could summarize it simply by saying there's a reason no one faulted Captain Picard for what he did while he was controlled by the Borg.
Similar situation here. The subjects are so severely altered from their normal selves, you CANNOT draw any conclusions about how they'd normally act from their behavior during the test.
It's like drugging them with hallucinogens and then declaring their intoxicated behavior indicative of their normal decision-making processes.
7326132 Hmmmm, not quite.. the Borg thing, in that, he was being outright controlled by them. Just an extension of their will.
Here, it's still their choices... but being made on faulty information, on thoughts that are not their own. Like I said, it leaves an impression of their feelings, they know they care about these ponies.. they have vague sense of how they feel... but they lack any of the facts and memories to give those feelings context. To understand them, and hence understand the situation, and yes, that does mean you can't accurately judge them on this.
But the fact it IS their choice, makes it worse for them, because it means they can then blame themselves, feel the guilt, shame, self hatred of being forced to choose to take those actions and know it was their choice.
Now I DO get that the point of the test is not so much what they choose, as why they choose that course of action, but it still means that 'why' is tainted by them not having the firm context for their thought,s feelings, and the situation. Just vague sensations and ghosts of feelings.
7326147 Ok, a better comparison might be that it's akin to assigning blame to someone with partial amnesia.
They have the vague feelings and familiarities, but none of the context, meaning their actions are skewed from their norm.
7326132 Well took longer then I thought, but
Here's that review I mentioned
7357055 *nods* I don't need to say anything additional after that.
7329684 But how does having one's memory altered help with that? Imagine if someone erased your best skill and experience and then forced you into a situation which tested what had been lost? How exactly is that at all helpful?
7329684 Also that's overlooking something else, these were not 'for' Twilight, this was something she puts every single unicorn with anything above the most basic magical skill through. Or at least those that don't want to be forbidden from ever using that magic. So how do these tests work under that idea? How is this a good thing to subject hundreds of thousands of ponies to, simply because they have a natural gift at magic?
7325635
I'll keep this to very short responses, because this is degrading into "your headcanon isn't my headcanon" which may be fine for determining you don't like a story but is useless for saying anything's objectively wrong with it.
You're proving my point for me. The instant he showed unusual talent, his parents sent him right off to school.
This isn't worth arguing, either. I think it doesn't alter who the pony fundamentally is, you do. We can agree to disagree. Enough said.
I guess you missed the part where Celestia said exactly that, and Twilight agrees she would have gone through with it if given the choice?
No, it's just supposed to test how they will act according to their morals. All of them do. You're reading a lot more into this than there is.
That's a very subjective thing. Cadence's wedding was conducted pretty much like an Earth wedding would. There are many examples of such things. If the show hasn't displayed an instance of what a story wants to use, I don't know how you can say that one choice or another is wrong. You even go on to say you can't imagine an Earth-analog high school existing in Equestria. You don't say why, other than repeating that it doesn't feel right to you. But why not? The show doesn't say there's no such thing. The comics, on the other hand, pretty explicitly say this does exist. So are they wrong?
Like Troubleshoes?
7359018
Except he didn't actually have talent at magic itself, but rather at studying magic, and Starlight, who DID have near Twilight levels of raw magical skill never got hauled off to be forced to go through this. Plus, Twilight wasn't signed up because she showed that level of power, it was simply because she was interested in studying magic for it's own sake, nopony knew about her power after her test. Same with Starburst, he was there because he loved to study magic. Not one thing actually points to some Equestria wide mandate that ALL unicorns with any magical skill MUST go to this school or forfeit their right to do magic. Which is the only way that system you described works.
Hence why I flat out said this comes down to a "nature versus nurture" philosophical debate. but the story hamstrings itself in doing it this way, because it is presenting things to Twilight half formed, her emotions about Celestia warring with her lack of context for those emotions. The confusion over things not being right distracting from the thinking, her latent feelings for Applejack, despite this not being anypony she met before coloring her trust in her. It all adds variables into the equation that will throw off the final result.
Yes, and yet it does not change that fact Celestia sent Twi through potentially mentally scaring scenarios, mind rape, and all the other baggage in this, without even a hint about what she was getting into. That Twilight took it so well, is one... yes something I can see Twilight doing. but does not alter how fundamentally wrong this entire scenario was, or the whole idea of this 'test'.
But 'morals' are based on what you have learned, on facts, memories, none of which applies when you are rewriting and erasing those. Also she DID out right say one of the reasons for that first one was to see if they would, and again the 'test' removes all context for those feelings, rendering them void for being tested accurately. And I am just seeing what is out right there based on the very facts being presented, while the story blissfully ignores the implications.
You know, aside from... being conducted by a living demi-goddess who moves the heavens themselves, being interrupted by an attack of shapeshifters who nearly use the event to take over the kingdom, and topped off by a Sonic Rainboom. Yes the ceremony itself was much the same, but the greater story was not.
No I made very very clear why, because 1. something that rather large a part of life has not even been hinted at outside that one comic, which yes I do have those exact issues with and the setting ALSO makes no sense, 2 The very idea makes NO sense at all, because by that point, ponies HAVE their cutie marks, they know what they want to do, wasting four years in a pseudo prison where they have a generic, standardized load of facts they will never need crammed into their heads rather then actually going out and focusing on their already chosen field to learn more in makes no sense at all. 3. Once again if they DO exist, why has not one of the Mane 6 ever mentioned it? Why has it not come up for the CMC given they are getting closer to the point of going there? Why has not one single mention of something this rather large ever happened? 4. That entire scenario revolved around accepting modern, common High School 'clique' mindsets. Something we saw Twilight was totally "What the buck is this idiocy?" at when she saw it at work in EQG.
And all that, again does not answer why, during the guidance counselor scene, not one single mention was made of Twilight's Cutie Mark when they were talking about what she wanted to do with her life? Or why this wasn't simply at the school they were being tested for in the first place. None of it makes any logical sense.
And my very next sentence was acknowledging that yes, there are still some ponies that are lost, to which I was specifically referring to him, but that they are a minority of them, and a rather rare thing.
Now yes the "ponyness" is more YMMV then objecive issues. But of the things I raised, I would flat out say one aspect there IS an objective flaw. The lack of bringing up Twilight's Cutie Mark during the counselor scene, or ever when she was wondering about what she wanted to do with her life. That is something that is such a huge, intrinsic part of the setting,there is no logical reason it would be totally ignored.
The High School thing, yes even then YMMV, but one I have yet to see ever actually answered how it could actually exist given all the issues about how it does not logically work. Or why invent something so questionable, and why the test would create something like this, rather then simply go with setting it at Celestia's school in the first place? It only reinforces the feeling of the story, being more concerned with telling this high school clique story then about telling a story about Twilight and Equestria.
Also, nothing answers why Celestia said one reason she subjected Twilight to this was because she didn't want her to get upset over potentially feeling like she was getting 'special treatment' in being able to skip the test. And then almost immediately tells her "But you totally would get special treatment" in them simply forgetting this whole thing happened and letting her ignore the whole "Pass this test that has nothing to do with actually using magic or be forever barred from doing what you love." bit. How does "Even though there are many good logical reason for why we did not feel you needed the test, you might have felt it a case of being treated special for it so I made you do it. Oh and by the way we totally WOULD treat you special anyway." work?
7359110
That's how it turned out, but they didn't know that at the time. He levitated a bunch of books to save his friend, presumably dredging up the strength to do so because of the urgency of the situation, and they take him off to school. He didn't suddenly show a talent for organization and research to save Starlight.
You're completely avoiding the point here, and you know it. And here's where I don't care to continue this discussion.
Suffice it to say that these are perfectly valid reasons for you not to like the story. The problem is that you're saying they're why everyone should dislike the story, and frankly, it's not your place to do so. The instant you try to say something's objectively wrong, it takes some serious justification, and all of your arguments are "I don't believe Equestria could work this way" while I do, and canon neither supports nor refutes either of us. It doesn't suit your tastes. Let it go.
7483146
Which is why you bring it up after six weeks just to say that?
Those are hard flaws in the story, half of which you did not even address and just try to ignore. It simply fails basic logic for something like that to exist, since again the only logical way it works, is if there is a law REQUIRING all unicorns with a certain level of potential to attend the school, something Twilight would have know of before this. The whole keeping it secret for that long is almost as hard to buy, as well as why bother when.. hey we can just rip those memories right out of your head anyway.
The very idea of this 'test' and how it's used is at best highly questionable, but the story expects us to buy subjecting innocent ponies to this level of trauma for no reason at all is perfectly fine. Despite the above issues of how the memory alteration could potentially skew the results, and the hard issue of, if this is all just a test, why does the scenario proceed best the point an answer is found to inflict maximum trauma? Such as having to actually feel the Princess for all intents and purposes severing a limb from your body, or getting to watch your friend get hauled off by the cops or in Twi's case go through that herself, including the whole getting booked procedure. Which undercuts the very idea of these being 'tests' and instead makes clear they were made as isolated stories in their own right, as that made it more 'dramatic'. None of that has anything to do with this being 'Equestria' but are all on the very set up and design of the test itself.
But as to Equestria, still failed to make any argument to make the concept of High School fit in with the fact that at that stage in their lives nearly every pony will have their own personal goals and know what they want to do, so that kind of thing is a massive waste of time, but regardless of that, the whole utter and complete lack of even the slightest mention of her Cutie Mark or Special Talent at all, while trying to decide what she should do with her life, and even more so when the counselor is talking to her about it, makes no sense at all, given they are such a fundamental concept of the world.
Or on Celestia's utter and ignored hypocrisy of "I put you through this because I didn't want you to feel upset about being treated special... oh and by the way we totally would have treated you special and ignored it if you had failed."
All those are hard logical flaws in the story that do not require any 'how you see Equestria' component.
Could I see someone liking the story still? Yes, the writing quality is very technically well done. So one who values how a story is written versus what it's about, sure. But this story does have several legitimate flaws in the basic logic behind it, as well as a premise that requires a LOT of though put into it, Messing with people memories, their very uttermost SELF, is not something to be added lightly and any story that does really needs to think out the consequences of being able to do so. It is never something to be done lightly and expect it to go over well. Something this story clearly never did, and just assumes it's perfect fine to reach into somepony's head and rewrite their very self. Alter what makes them who they are. Which is what altering memories does.
Beyond that, your response does not do you any credit, not any of them have, given your tendency to only cherry pick those aspects you think you can defend, while ignoring all the other issues brought up, not to mention having to come back after a month and a half.. long after I had stopped caring about the story, just for one last "I'm right but I don't want to argue this anymore" post, that again, ignores most of the issues actually brought up.
6956347 Twilight Sparkle has been casting epic-level magic for years without one of these "liscenses".
7852741 Only because she was still operating as a student, ostensibly under a teacher's supervision, for far longer than they were supposed to let her, and they would have gladly looked the other way, except Twilight would never be satisfied with getting special treatment. It's not a perfect arrangement...
7483603 Oh, hey, I forgot all about this. tl;dr
I'll be very brief.
Despite your attempt to accuse me, I have responded to every point you made up until you chose to make a barely relevant strawman argument to my response on one issue that completely avoided my point, and when it was clear you hadn't listened and were only interested in making "your headcanon doesn't match my headcanon" barbs, I saw no reason to continue. And then I find it very curious that you say I'm not addressing everything you say, when if you care to look, I had until you did exactly that to me. If you want to call everything after that stopping point "ignoring you," then I can't stop you, though they were all rehashes of older things you'd said that I'd already responded to. I never said you were wrong, either. I said you were arguing purely subjective points that are all but impossible to make any headway on, and I can fully accept that you don't like the story. I don't see why that's cause for snark and anger.
Respond however you like. You are welcome to the last word, and it will likely be several months again before I check comments on old stories.
9973760
It's basically happening in a dreamscape, so the ponies in it may perceive that lots of time is passing while in fact not much is. To Twilight, they would have felt like weeks, but as Celestia says in chapter 5 (I see you left this comment on chapter 4, so you might not have gotten there yet), the whole thing happens in a little over an hour.
11058458
Ha, and this was written well before it was canon.
11058478
Probably only because I don't know much about it...
Really great, and a satisfying conclusion, at that. :)
11059637
One of my more controversial stories. I had fun writing it anyway, and there are certain moments of it I do like to go back and reread.
11060224
People are dumb :V
I enjoyed this story a lot more than I had expected.
All four stories are engaging, flow well, nothing overstays it's welcome.
My only nitpick is the very specific consequence for failing the exam.
Not because I think it'd be unreasonable. Graduates of Celestia's school aren't just scholars and future leaders in a variety of fields, they're also, in many cases, very powerful mages. In other words, potentially dangerous individuals. So a test of their character seems important. Failing would only limit them to the levels of everyday magic the rest of the population is capable of; probably frustrating as hell, but not the end of the world. It just seems really difficult to enforce, unless the government uses methods that would themselves be morally questionable. And what if someone's just naturally skilled and powerful but hasn't received this level of higher education to obtain a license? Like GlimGlam. Could she just take the test somewhere and be legally OP?
On the other hand, if it's the only test of this nature the students have to pass then the entire concept feels like they're putting the cart before the pone. It's like you first teach a bunch of people how to shoot, and after turning them into the best marksmen they can be, you schedule a psych eval to see if they can keep their guns. (why do I feel like I've just described every military on the planet?^^)
Aaanyway ... so many questions, important questions about how to regulate and control a civilization of magic users ... and they distract from a good story that never intended to provide the answers.
The theoretical possibility of failing this test of all tests should be enough to freak Twi out in an entertaining way, no overly specific consequences necessary.
11529041
I was taking it as they don't learn anything that powerful at school, at least until they enter... the equivalent of graduate school, I guess, where they've already passed this exam. So I was treating it kind of like a driver's test. They teach you how to drive the car, then they test if you can do it responsibly, and if not, you still have that knowledge even if you fail to get the license. Then you could drive illegally at the risk of being caught. Interesting making it analogous to gun instructors, though.