Interlude: What Might Not Have Been (or, Do Astromares Dream of Rocket-Propelled Penguins?)
Cherry Berry stepped into the Horseton Space Center administration building’s makeshift throne room. Queen Chrysalis sat slumped on her little throne, bags under her eyes, mane in an even worse state than its normal lanky, greasy condition. “I was about to say good morning,” she said cautiously.
Chrysalis groaned.
“Seriously, what happened to you?” the pink pilot pony asked. “I mean, you’re no prize on a good day, but you look like your pillow mugged you.”
“You could say that, pony,” Chrysalis grumbled. “I had a terrible dream last night. I woke up screaming and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“A bad dream? What happened?”
“ I conquered the world.”
Cherry Berry blinked. “And that gave you a nightmare?” she asked. “I think you’ve got things backwards. That’s supposed to give me a nightmare.”
“Laugh it up, pony,” Chrysalis grumbled, shifting her position on the throne slightly.
“No, really,” Cherry Berry continued, “after a dream in which you conquer Equestria, you ought to be smug and insufferable.”
“Keep talking, pony,” Chrysalis replied, “it’s all going on the list.”
“Will you cut it out? You know what I mean!” Cherry Berry walked up to the throne. “We’ve got a briefing on Marked Knee’s project and the upcoming missions in half an hour. You’re obviously in no condition for it. Will you at least tell me what was wrong with your dream?”
Chrysalis sighed, looked around listlessly, then focused her attention on Cherry Berry. “This never leaves this room, do you understand? I tell you once, and you forget it. This conversation never happened. Agreed?”
“Um…. sure,” Cherry Berry said, shrugging it off. “I can keep a secret.” She leaned forward and waggled her eyebrows. “Is this about you getting Shining Armor off to some hotel where Cadance can’t find you and-”
“What? NO!!” Chrysalis looked disgusted. “Leaving aside the fact that Shining Armor is a meathead with one trick- almost literally- I’d rather go to a cake buffet with Celestia than put up with one more discussion about whether Batmare could beat up Iron Mare.” She shuddered at the memory of what she’d put up with during the weeks she’d spent replacing Cadance. “Are you going to listen or not?”
Cherry Berry plunked her rump down on the floor. “I’m listening.”
“Well, like I said, somehow I conquered the world,” Chrysalis said. “For about a day. Then some heroes showed up and, well, it was awful. But that wasn’t the worst part!” Chrysalis’s exhaustion vanished in a wave of exasperation and frustration and about a half-dozen other ations. “The worst part was, there was no way- no way at all, do you understand?- There was no way the plan should have worked in the first place!!”
“Why not?”
“Well, first thing I did, I had my changelings replace all the princesses,” Chrysalis said. “All four of them, plus Shining Armor and the diapered engine of destruction they call a baby. And all of Twilight Sparkle’s hero friends as well. And I think maybe all the Wonderbolts, too- I’m not sure about that part.” Chrysalis paused to consider. “In most of my plans I have them filed in with the Royal Guard under ‘incompetent buffoons, not worth bothering about.’”
“Sounds good so far,” Cherry Berry agreed. “Good for you, that is. Not so good for me. Especially since Twilight’s friends are my friends too. How’d you do it?”
“That’s just it!” Chrysalis threw her forehooves in the air. “I don’t KNOW how I did it! It just happened somehow. It’s like some scriptwriter just said, ‘What with one thing and another, a bunch of ordinary changeling drones replace the mighty alicorns who control the sun, the moon, love and friendship, their friends and their family, all in a single night, and nopony NOTICES!’” Chrysalis tugged at her mane as if she would rip it out at the roots, shouting, “If it were that easy, don’t you think I would have DONE it by now?!”
“Probably,” Cherry Berry admitted. “But explain it to me. Why haven’t you?”
“I was only able to go hoof-to-hoof with Celestia because I’d absorbed a megadose of pure, blind love,” Chrysalis replied. “Me, the queen, mightiest of the changelings, right? How many changelings would it take to do the same thing?”
Cherry Berry considered this. “Um, one, with a baseball bat?” she said.
“Come again?”
“Knock ‘em out when they’re not expecting it, then pod ‘em when they’re unconscious,” Cherry Berry said. “It’s pretty much what we always thought you did. Or maybe bite ‘em and put ‘em to sleep with your venom. I know you can do that. First-hoof.” She rubbed her neck in memory.
“Oh, sure, it sounds simple,” Chrysalis admitted. “But things that sound simple usually aren’t, take it from someone with experience. Consider what happens if someone hears a noise. Or someone comes visiting while you’re disposing of the victim. There are all sorts of opportunities for an alarm to go up, not least of which some pony realizing just how bad an actor some of my changelings can be.”
“Ooooooookay,” Cherry Berry shrugged, not really getting the point. “So things can go wrong. But they can go right, too, yes?”
“Yes, they can go right,” Chrysalis said. “I could probably take out three of the Elements of Harmony in one night with no trouble. Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, if you want names. But Pinkie Pie has no consistent habits to speak of, Twilight Sparkle is the magic equivalent of standing right next to one of our rockets when it lights, and Fluttershy has about ten thousand little critters to send up an alarm at the slightest hint of trouble.” Chrysalis looked firmly at Cherry Berry and said, “And each pony I add to the list in a single night raises the odds that something WILL go wrong. You understand where I’m going with this?”
“Okay, fine,” Cherry Berry shrugged. “But you admit it IS possible, just possible, that everything could go perfectly right?”
“NO!” Chrysalis snapped, rising from her throne and pacing around the room, and around Cherry, as she ranted. “Three teams of changelings, unsupervised- did I mention I apparently wasn’t any part of the capture plan whatever? Because apparently I had better things to do, like paint my hooves or rub fresh algae in my hair, than, you know, make sure a plan actually WORKED!” Pace, pace, pace. “Three teams of unsupervised changelings, in three different cities, capturing and subduing a minimum of… of…” Chrysalis’s lips moved noiselessly for a few seconds. “Eleven ponies! One of whom, by the way, spends her nights patrolling pony dreams or watching over the kingdom for threats like me! And that’s not counting the baby dragon with the spell that lets him send letters to Celestia instantly! So surprise? Ha! Forget surprise! No, absolutely impossible!”
“Okay, so let’s just say, for the sake-”
“Do you know, in one part of the dream I actually saw Luna in a pony’s dreams, warning her?” Chrysalis asked, not bothering to face Cherry Berry. “And apparently a bunch of my changelings reached into the dream and dragged her out! They can’t DO that!! No changeling alive that I know of has dream magic, not even me!” Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Believe me, the use I could make of being able to sneak into pony dreams and learn their fears, their desires, where they keep the silverware…”
“But in the dream you did it,” Cherry Berry said. “So what next?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Chrysalis said. “Apparently my next step in my master plan was… nothing!”
“Nothing?”
“My changelings replaced all the ponies I’d ordered kidnapped, then used a scrying scarabeus- it works a lot like the telepresence spell, that part of the dream was real enough- to tell me, ‘Look at us, queen, we’ve replaced the heroes, as you must know because you’ve got them in pods in your throne room, and now we’re just hanging out.’ Lounging in those crystal thrones Twilight and her friends have. And there I was chortling, saying things like ‘nothing can stop us now’ or some such drivel, rather than, you know, actually DOING something with my newfound advantage!”
“Well, you do tend to crow a bit when-”
“Did I mention my drones tend to be really horrible actors?” Chrysalis continued. “Granted it’s tough to get down all the little personality quirks of a subject without a memory spell on the pod you’ve got them in, but these drones were really, really bad. As in, even one of you ponies could figure out something was wrong within thirty words of conversation.”
“Gee,” Cherry Berry said flatly, “thanks for the compliment.”
“So Starlight Glimmer- that Twilight Sparkle’s student she picked up last year, right? Heads the research department at Cape Friendship? Anyway, she spots something’s not right, sees my drones and myself gloating over the scarab call, and goes and rounds up the usual band of misfits to thwart my evil schemes.” Chrysalis rolled her eyes, still pacing, still ranting. “As if my dream were some bad Lord of the Shoes knock-off.”
She hesitated in her pacing a moment. “And that reminds me,” she said. “I mentioned that somehow, impossibly, I’d captured all the princesses and their heroes, right? So anypony powerful enough to undo my scheme is out of circulation, right?”
“Well, I guess-”
“WRONG!” The pacing resumed. “There’s somepony left out, somepony with the ability to stop the whole operation with the snap of a claw. Who do you think? Come on, guess, you’ll never guess.”
“Maybe-”
“DISCORD!” Chrysalis shouted. “My brilliant yet impossible plan left out the single most powerful being at large in all Equestria! And oh, look, I’ve only gone and kidnapped his bestest pony friend in the universe, the only thing between him and rendering the face of Equus unfit for life!” She shrugged, not pausing in her steady stomping circuit around her throne as she said in a slightly calmer voice, “I admit it’s kind of hard to send changelings to subdue someone who only appears in Equestria when he feels like it. If Discord doesn’t want to be found, you just don’t find him. But knowing he’s out there, knowing he’s going to be furious at touching his precious Fluttershy, what do I do about him? NOTHING!!”
After several silent stomping steps made it clear Cherry Berry could get more than two words out, she said, “But in the dream you didn’t think he could touch you, right?”
“Oh yes,” Chrysalis agreed, chuckling most bitterly. “Oh, I had a reason. Because I had a special magic throne in my changeling castle, that’s why.”
Cherry Berry blinked. “Um… you don’t have a changeling castle. You’ve got a hive carved out of a hole in the ground under a mesa.”
“I KNOW!!!” Chrysalis bellowed. “But in my dream I had this huge, beautiful castle, all full of holes and pointy spires and moving stairs and walls that open and shut for no good reason!” She paused in her march of doom around the decidedly non-magical throne in her space center office to heave a deep sigh. “It really was a beautiful thing. You’d hate it. But against an angry sun pony it’d last about three seconds before going up in flames.”
“And this wasn’t a problem in the dream?” Cherry asked.
“Nope! And you want to know why?” The pacing resumed yet again. “Because of that magic throne I mentioned! Apparently I had this huge throne made of jagged rock. But it was a magic rock, see? It was a rock that nullified all magic of any kind- except changeling magic.”
“That sounds convenient,” Cherry Berry hazarded.
“I know, right?” Chrysalis agreed sarcastically. “By Tartarus, if I only had such a throne! Never mind the throne- I’d just like the stone it was made out of! Imagine thousands and thousands of little black amulets, and all the unicorn spells, all the pegasus weather tricks, all the earth pony strength in the world couldn’t touch you. That’s how I’d use an anti-magic rock! Not by carving a stupid CHAIR out of it!” After a breath she added, “It wasn’t even a very good chair.”
“So, how did it work, then?”
“The dream didn’t explain it,” Chrysalis said. “It just worked. All the time. I rather got the impression that the throne was the thing that caused the Badlands in the first place. Lush green woods and fields right up to the edge of the rock’s effect, then bango, desert and mountains and canyons. And there they were, the band of misfits- Starlight Glimmer, that stage magician who had the special on Channel Five a couple weeks ago-”
“Trixie?” Cherry Berry frowned at that. “I can’t really imagine her as a hero. I remember when she conquered Ponyville with a magical amulet. More villain material if you ask me.”
“Band of misfits, pony, don’t you read the right lousy books these days?” Chrysalis grumbled. “Her, Starlight Glimmer, Discord because of course Discord, and of all people Thorax.”
“Wait a minute,” Cherry Berry said. “That sounds like a changeling name, but I’ve been around your hive for nearly a year now, and I don’t remember ever hearing of Thorax.”
“You wouldn’t,” Chrysalis growled. “I forbade his name to be spoken in the hive, or here in the space center. He deserted the hive after the failed invasion of Canterlot. Said there had to be a better way of getting love other than stealing it.”
“Well, there is,” Cherry Berry said. “This space project, for a start. The changeling actors you’re funding in Manehattan. My odd jobs business.”
Chrysalis froze in place and made some very interesting faces, which appeared to Cherry like someone shouting dire, foul imprecations without any actual noise. Finally words came: “... yeeees,” Chrysalis ground out, “but that wasn’t the plan at the time Thorax betrayed me.” The queen resumed her march around the throne and around Cherry again as she added, “The last I heard, he was living in the Crystal Empire, getting full of love from the Princess of Food herself.” Under her breath, she added, “Well, at least it wasn’t Kevin.”
“Who’s Kevin?” Cherry Berry asked.
Instantly the glowing green eyes and slitted pupils of Chrysalis’s most baleful gaze filled Cherry Berry’s entire range of vision. “YOU ARE FORBIDDEN FROM SPEAKING THAT NAME AGAIN IN MY REALM!!” she shouted. “UNDERSTOOD??”
“Y-yes ma’am!” Cherry Berry said instantly, flopping onto her back in shock.
Satisfied, Chrysalis returned to her pacing and ranting, leaving Cherry Berry to pick herself back up. “So what with one thing and another they infiltrate the castle. Discord and Trixie being powerless, of course they get picked off by patrols. Thorax tries to fool me into thinking he’s Starlight Glimmer, but I see through his magic and remove his disguise.”
“You can do that?”
“Of course,” Chrysalis said. “I can sense my own kind, no matter what disguise they wear. But the funny thing is, Thorax’s wings were whole. No holes in them. And more important, they glittered. They looked like someone dumped a bottle of glitter paint all over them. I’ve never seen anything like it in real life.”
“Was that important?” Cherry asked.
“Oh, yes it was,” Chrysalis grumbled. “Quite important, as it turned out. Anyway, there was Starlight Glimmer, trying to break the throne by banging a rock against it with her hooves! I mean really!” Chrysalis threw up a hoof without breaking stride. “I know she was without her magic and all, but honestly, it was like the dream was trying to make her as pitiful as possible! Like the dream felt like it hadn’t driven home just how hopeless everything was for the forces of good!
“So of course I grab her, pull her out of harm’s way, and then to taunt her I decide to drain Thorax of all his stored love energy. Routine thing, no big deal right? Well, no,” Chrysalis grumbles. “He resists, naturally, and he actually puts up a decent fight for a drone. But it’s only a matter of time, right?” The pacing became stomping again, as hard as Chrysalis could put hoof to tile floor. “Well, that Starlight Glimmer tells him to quit resisting and to release his love energy into the rest of the hive. As if that would do anything! Ha ha! Well you know what- it did!!”
Tiles cracked under Chrysalis’s hooves as she continued, “Somehow or other freely giving away love made Thorax transform into this hideous pastel thing with mandibles for antlers and I don’t know what else. And then all my other changelings shared their stored love energy, and they all transformed too! And for some reason, my dream didn’t feel like explaining, this blew the roof off my changeling castle and made that convenient magic throne crumble into harmless rubble! No more magic nullification!”
Chrysalis’s voice rose to a piercing shriek. “And changeling magic simply DOES! NOT! WORK! THAT! WAY!” The bags that had been under her eyes were gone, stretched taut by the wide-eyed glare she gave the world as she raved. “What, were changelings supposed to go for years without food or something? Infiltrators go out, steal love, bring it back to the hive, and I take it and give it out to the others! If changeling magic looked like that, I wouldn’t have these holes in my hooves, and my shell would look like I crawled out of the paint factory rubbish bin!
“And then the one part of the dream so stupid, so asinine, so dumb that it’s actually believable, is that the ponies LET ME GO,” she said. “Oh look, we have a new changeling king, whatever that is, but you can become good too, Chrysalis. Oh, don’t feel like it? Just threatened revenge? Go ahead, fly away. It’s not like we have four alicorn princesses! It’s not like we have the lord of Chaos who could turn me into a breezie with a snap of his fingers! It’s not like we have six ponies with super-harmony magic who could shoot me down with a happy zappy rainbow friendship beam from a mile away! No, just let her go, we’ll just keep all her traitorous rebel changelings to live happily ever after in HER BUCKING CASTLE! THAT SHE DOESN’T ACTUALLY HAVE!!”
“My queen,” Occupant said quietly, “I’d never betray you, honest.”
Chrysalis froze in mid-stomp. Slowly, slowly, she turned her attention to the door, where the drone who acted as flight leader for missions and overall manager of the space center stood with a most sheepish expression. “What,” she hissed in quiet tones of imminent menace, “are you doing in here?”
“Er,” Occupant muttered, shifting uncomfortably on his hooves, “I kind of, um, was bringing Princess Luna to see you. She wants to talk about our moon fly-by mission.”
Chrysalis’s expression departed the Land of Rage, galloped swiftly through the Valley of Surprise, and rented deluxe lodgings in the charming burg of Terrified. She noticed for the first time the larger dark figure standing behind the small dark figure of her loyal bucktoothed servant. With a squeak she said, “How long has she been here?”
“Oh,” Occupant said thoughtfully, “since that part where Miss Berry mentioned the baseball bat.”
Chrysalis looked up at Princess Luna’s carefully blank expression, then down at Occupant, then back at the princess of the night. Then, with an ear-splitting shriek of unalloyed fright, she blasted a hole through the throne room wall with her magic and soared away as fast as her wings and her fear could carry her.
“Perhaps,” Luna said dryly, “we should reschedule?”
“Probably a good idea,” Cherry Berry admitted, rising from the floor so she could bow properly. She paused in mid-bow and looked at Occupant. “Hey, what happened to your wings?” she asked. “They’re kind of sparkly in this light, you know?”
“Oh, you noticed?” Occupant said. “It’s happening to several of the other changelings in the space center. We don’t know what’s causing it, but it doesn’t seem to hurt.”
Cherry Berry chose her next words with great care. “I think,” she said, “you should be careful not to bring up the subject around Chrysalis when she gets back.”
“You sure?” Occupant asked. “Because noling knows changeling medicine like the Queen.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Cherry Berry said, looking at Luna and getting a cautious nod in return. “We don’t want her to do anything drastic, now do we?”
Several days later, after Chrysalis had been coaxed back out of the Badlands and the hole in the wall of the admin building had been patched, the queen wrote a letter to Thorax, care of the Crystal Palace, Crystal Empire:
My former subject,
When we last spoke you and I exchanged some harsh words on the subject of changeling nature. Since then I have had cause to rethink my position, and I regret the things I said.
I understand you now have a good life in the Crystal Empire. This pleases me, and it pleases me that you should continue there unmolested by myself or any of my still-loyal subjects. I wish you a long, healthy, love-filled life in your new home.
But if I ever see you within a hundred miles of either the hive or Horseton, I will have your head.
Chrysalis
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Who wins the space race?
'MERICA! FUCK YEAH! *aggressively plays national anthem
7181210
Getting any inspiration from the kerbel sketchs from Door Monster?
lol YES kerbal space program with changelings this will be AWSOME
7186351 You had me at the word porn.
Well, I guess this might have been necessary, given the season finale. It might be difficult to continue the story otherwise.
Honestly, I thought that Changelings looked okay before. I prefer how Thorax and the others looked before their transformations, so I can share how Chrysalis feels about that part of her "dream".
Oh, and what did Kevin do again to make him an even bigger traitor than Thorax?
Yes, as far as I can tell, that’s how purely canonical changelings are supposed to work. q.v. Chrysalis’ imprisonment in a volcano for an unspecified period in FIENDship is Magic #5.
Producing an interpretation of changelings that perfectly fits all canonical statements, even just in the primary show canon, complies with a realistic universe, and still doesn’t create story-wrecking or tone-scrambling consequences is quite difficult, and canon usually doesn’t win this tug of war.
Too bad for the canon.
Before I read this I already know what must be done, An April Fools chapter a la Danny2462.
Haha well yes, nothing more to say about how stupid that was at all xD
But trixie and Chrysalis were great in finale (only good thing out of it)
Can we not do this.
Sorry but another author pulled this exact thing in which they tried to criticize an episode with the whole "it was a bad dream" thing and it was really obnoxious.
Not to mention some of the things you're critcizing aren't even plot holes.
Hope this helped you get over the clusterbuck of season 6 and it's lack of writers capable of standing up to Hasbro's now constant meddling.
S6 finale as a nightmare of chrysalis is my new headcanon, so thanks for that.
That said:
MOON SHOT HYPE!
The biggest plot hole is Discord.
He couldve just asked himself to come up from the past, or rememebred to come back from the future, then stood outside the region of magic death, and thrown orbital rocks or Panzer or any other such throne detecting and destroying methods. Of course the writers would then reply, but the hive is dynamically morphable, all impacing objects are absorbed or teh holes just reform like all others, and because of the hostages you cant use Oppenheimer class.
I think she took that rather well.
If the finale had any more plot holes they would coalesce into one gigantic black hole.
I like the idea of the finale being a bad dream. It's nonsensical enough to be a dream.
Hahah, hopefully the sparkly wings are caused by something else.
That reaction at the end.
And the letter.
I was going to watch the live writing thingy, but then I realised that evening where you live is middle of the night where I do and it's a business day.
Oh, Chrysalis is a silverware collector I see.
True, but it's a very homely hole.
Glares angrily at storyboard writers Yes....Oddly convenient...
Aww, he just wanted a little love. don't be so harsh on him.
Fully agree with ya' Chrysalis, I'm more of an Sable person myself.
(Cue pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows)
And while you're here make sure to visit the Panic Parlor, and dive off Fainting Falls!
If the hole was Chrysalis' shaped, that scene would be ten-hundred times better.
oh no, IT'S HAPPENING!
...And set it on a pike... And burn it... And dance on the ashes...
Hmm, yep. That sums up just about everything wrong with the season finale. Except for how stupid Chrysalis was for making the same mistake twice.
This was my favorite chapter so far chrysalis criticizing herself in a dream in front of Luna is just hilarious.
7774611 It was the best way I could think of to address the episode in the story.
And you're right, technically some of the things Chrysalis is ranting about aren't plot holes... in the cartoon. In the cartoon prior to the finale, changeling magic was undefined, so there's no reason what happened to Thorax couldn't be that way. It doesn't fit with how I've been writing changelings in this particular story, though, so it had to be addressed. Ditto the castle, which is actually one of the parts of the ep I liked- it's perfect visually, but it's the kind of place you just can't hide from angry magic ponies without, um, a magic-cancelling rock of some sort.
But the bit about how it's pretty much unthinkable that the changelings could take out all the heroes and powerhouses of Equestria in a single night save one, without anybody noticing, and neutralize even him? I stand by that. And the magic-cancelling rock? That too. Those were both plot convenience all the way, as was "break the throne and the rock loses all its power Because Reasons."
And finally, the show never really allows us to laugh at Chrysalis. This story is half-action, half-comedy, and my Chryssie is a little sillier than pure-cartoon-canon Chryssie.
7774409 The comics are emphatically not canon for this story. Little things aside, the ponies have been to the moon in the comics... by lassoing the moon and walking up the rope. Um, no.
7774735
Ah, I see you are already testing the Up Goer 5.
that throne was a bit far-fetched, but something like that was needed to neutralize Discord...and i have to agree, the way they simply let Chrysalis run away was silly. here's an amusing alternate ending someone came up with:
http://erictheblue.deviantart.com/art/A-new-member-in-the-team-642576728
7774953
I don't see why this needed to be addressed in the story at all.
When I saw this story update, I expected to seem something involving Changeling Space Program. Not seeing another author turning characters into mouthpieces just to address their personal problems and opinions with the television show.
I mean this could've just been a blog post.
Not sure if this was strictly necessary, but it was entertaining. Especially the unexpected audience at the end. Still, I'm very glad you started this before "To Where and Back Again" aired. The alternative would be a terrible loss indeed.
7775932 It had to be addressed because the world is full of Quibble Pants clones.
GUESS WHAT'S BACK
BACK AGAIN
(Ever considered installing Kerbal Space Ponies?)
OK, for my -actual- views on the episode, and how they agree with or differ from Chrysalis's in the chapter, you can now read the much-expanded author's note.
And for those who regard this as a author puppet rant, well, nothing in this interlude except Occupant's sparkly wings and Luna's visit to the space center in regards to an upcoming lunar fly-by mission is plot-important in any way, and both those points will be handled in greater detail down the line. Feel free to disregard this bit entirely if you like.
7777992 Considered it, yes, but haven't done so because the mod includes neither Cherry Berry nor Chrysalis. And I can understand leaving Chrysalis or generic changelings out, but Cherry Berry? Fail.
7778130 I'll complain to the mod creator later.
Well I can say I'm loving this.
I'm loving this.
I think it would be funny if at one point they encounter the kerbals
7779211
7779076
You make some good points, but allow me to make one right back: we have seen Pinkie, on a couple of occasions, pushed to and possibly even beyond the breaking point. For the time being I'm going to stand by her reacting to being helpless during Rainbow Dash's very near brush with catastrophe by not wanting to be at Cape Friendship anymore.
But, on the drive to San Antonio for my last convention vendor booth thing of the year, I had an idea which will bring Pinkie back into the story in a novel, unpredictable, but (I think) absolutely sensible way. That'll be in the chapter after the one I'm currently plugging away on. No spoilers forthcoming apart from that.
Fluttershy, on the other hand, is going to require some extremely special circumstances to get her inside a rocket capsule again, and that's going to depend on where the game play goes. She might do some quiet lobbying or diplomacy on behalf of Twilight's efforts, but I can't think of anything else right now that'd get her out of Ponyville and into later chapters of this story.
Of course, it bears remembering that the Mane 6 are -minor- characters in this story, and my main focus is going to be on Chrysalis and Cherry Berry.
That is quite possibly the most damning critique of the show I have ever heard. The loss of quality has gotten so bad that the show is now draining creativity instead of inspiring it.
7785139 No, no, you misunderstood my point. The finale would have pre-empted the entire premise of this story, that's all.
7791321 I don't remember having written a scene with -Chrysalis- in the wind tunnel, aka the Fun Machine. I did put her in the centrifuge, which might be the I-Don't-Remember-Eating-That Machine.
7791649 Yep, that's the centrifuge. Got a video of an actual astronaut using one off of YouTube.
I'd recommend you move that image at the top of the description to the bottom. It makes the formatting feel weird.
Why don't they just transform into rockets?
7808124 Yes, it is. The other day I actually built a plane in the hangar to see if I could do something with that part of the game. The controls, though, are just too non-fluid. I can't fly a plane sim with only keyboard controls. So Jet Set's exploration of the possibilities of jet propulsion will only be a background item, if that, for the rest of the story.
7808142 It's not made clear whether or not changelings disguised as inanimate objects actually become as durable as those objects. It's even less clear if you could safely nail, bolt, weld, etc. multiple changelings into a single assembly. Also, they'd still need fuel, and as established earlier in-story, air. So, not a real option.
7808173 Yes, but I can't afford the software to do video recordings of game play, and I'm not certain the netbook I'm playing the game on would be able to run both the game and the recording at once. Also, it'd be almost impossible to reproduce the exact results of most of the flights- especially Missions 4 and 5.
7808798 True, but Upper Crust first appears even dumber than THAT most of the time. Her role in canon life is to be the mentally lazy snob... but she does keep up with George Bull's lessons, even enough to understand why they can see the moon during liftoff even though Luna set it a couple of hours before.
7808181
Although I now have the image of Ass-Blaster Changelings lighting up and blasting into the sky after they shed their pastel outer shells.
Tremors 3 may have ruined my imagination, but it did it in a good way.
7808142
Please don't give them ideas.
jesus christ,no stupidly colourful changelings please.
7810411 I think that it was their analogue of Minmus.
1. This made me reinstall KSP again
2. I hope Twilight and Co will get a working spaceplane one day. Single-stage-to-orbit could mean massive cost reduction for LEO launches. Also, I think spaceplanes have a maximum possible dV limited by the engine efficiency and power, whereas rockets can just stage endlessly and go anywhere.
3. I NEED MORE OF YOU AND YOUR SILLY KERBLINGS *explosions used as punctuation symbol*
Dammit, you got me sucked back into KSP.
I've reviewed your story. You can find it here. Also, have a ribbon.
s13.postimg.org/5a2dthj87/Giz_Vyc0.png
7885736 Thanks!
Re: have no effect; every flight in the story is flown in KSP, and most of the missions and tasks for each flight are connected to some KSP-related issue. Also, KSP being a fun game as much (if not more so) as being educational, in default mode engines don't spontaneously fail- as they have been well known to do in actual rocket flights, even today. Remember, in our world Russia, with a crash program dedicated to building missiles because they couldn't outdo the US in nuclear bombers, went from zero to manned orbit in about twelve years. The only reason the denizens of Equus manage it in one year is a combination of magic (to speed up construction by orders of magnitude and to take care of life support) and the miracle of 100% mechanical reliability (within stress tolerances).
Re: your one complaint; it's not that I'm incapable of writing shorter chapters, but I feel that one theme equals one chapter. Flim and Flam's TV enterprise (and Cherry Berry's orbit shot) get a chapter. Space tourists get a chapter. Chrysalis establishing that she's just as good a pilot as Cherry Berry got a chapter. And Dragonfly cleaning up one unfulfilled contract got an interlude, which is essentially a chapter you don't feel guilty for skipping. Different numbers of missions in each chapter... but each chapter had a thematic focus that had to be covered and brought to some satisfactory conclusion before moving on to the next.
I'm currently working on the theme of making space probes work. It'll take two missions. (I've flown one, but I'm waiting to get there in the story before flying the second.) And the number of words it takes is... however many it takes.
7885913 Nothing that requires you to be familiar with the games then. It's not a crossover, in other words.
I didn't skip anything, why would I, I just thought the interludes weren't big enough to include in the comparison.
The themes were what I was talking about with the multiple chapter updates thing. You could mark them as Missions 12-14, parts one through five, post them all at once, and hopefully change nothing except making the story less intimidating to new readers. That said, it's a nitpick, and if you decide you like it as is I'm not going to push it.
Edit: Also, the picture at the bottom of your description would make a far superior cover image.
7885949 It would, except that I'm concerned only ants could make it out once it got shrunk down. Also, I hate losing the changeling-faction flag.
7886435 Then merge them into one image in something like paint, one on top, one on the bottom. You don't have to shrink either down, either. Just don't crop the image in the cover art setup (you can do that) and when people click on it for a closer look they'll see it in all its blown up glory. It's a wonderful piece, and considerably more eye catching.
In truth, I don't think anyone on this site is willing to admit just how much the cover art influences their decision to read a story (a lot). This story deserves more attention, and I think a cover art upgrade would be just the way to get it.