The Quiet Day
Shooting stars used to bring comfort and hope to those who saw them. They still did for Equestrians, letting them dream on peacefully with the knowledge that the night wasn’t all darkness. But for the Earthlings stationed near the Barrier or any form of military installation, any and all shooting stars were a possible threat, a possible sign of the Superweapon’s approach. No one knew exactly what the Superweapon was, no one had ever gotten close enough to it. Some people said it was some kind of magical attack, others said it was a golem. Whatever the Superweapon was, the only thing consistent feature about it was that it appeared in a streak of light, destroyed military structure and sowed chaos, and then fled. All of this, and without killing a single person. But given what the Equestrians’ potion did to humans, it might as well be sentencing them to imminent death.
So when a few streaks crossed the sky over the deck of Earth’s newest defense against the Equestrians, many breaths were sucked in anticipation. Everyone on board quieted down, nervous energy permeating their bodies. When the meteor shower ended, there was a wispy sigh throughout the whole ship as men and women returned to work. The Hummingbird-class ships were a recent development, swifter than any other ship out there, yet armed enough to deter any of Equestria’s outdated Navy. These ships were the ultimate culmination of pony and human unity, their engines being powered by magic of ponies who loathed the princesses’ campaign against humanity whilst being designed by human engineers. But beyond the symbolic value, there was practical value as well. For speed was what missions needed now, since the Superweapon could rip apart even the most heavily armored behemoths in a matter of seconds. Armor, be it magical or physical, was shredded like paper under the Superweapon’s power. There was no longer any point to extra, useless weight. The only point to ships now was to stop the Barrier’s expansion, and the means to that were currently in the cargo hold.
“Are you ready?” came a soft voice from the person next to the machine that would finally force Equestria to surrender.
“Ready as Ah’ll ever be. Equestria ain’t the way it used to be, not anymore” came a low, growling voice from the pony next to the machine. When ponies spoke the human tongues, their voices came out as rumbles and snorts more often than not, even for females. For Applejack though, it didn’t bother her in the least that she sounded odd to the humans. It didn’t bother her fellow guard either. “Ya sure this won’t hurt anypony?”
“That’s what the lab boys said” the human guard shrugged in reply. To a pony’s ears, human voices made them sound as if they were perpetually foals, especially in the case of females. It always made Applejack smirk a little at the thought of her middle aged partner being a rough and tumble filly. “But you know how they are. ‘Sarah, don’t touch that, it’s actually a nuke’” Sarah imitated, pretending to push up some glasses. Applejack rumbled in a pony’s version of a laugh along with her friend. It wasn’t rare for ponies to work with humans, be it for the Equestrian or Earthling cause. Whether it be because a pony felt that the princesses’ expansion campaign was wrong or because a human believed Celestia’s promises of the Equestrian potion being fixable(among other reasons), mixed ranks were common.
“Is it actually a nuke though?” Applejack murmured, looking at the cow sized, oblong device behind her. It was covered in all manner of metallic trinkets, magical crystals, and a bunch of other things she didn’t know the names to. While she had taken the side of Earth in this struggle, she knew of the devastation the humans’ nuclear weapons could cause. She would never help such power be deployed on Equestria.
“No, no. Hang on, lemme remember what the lab boys really said…” Sarah assured. “Uh, they called it a ‘Sin Hating Inorganic Transponder’” Sarah said, snapping her fingers as she did so. “It’ll just match the frequencies of the Barrier with our frequencies or something. That’s why we need to be here, ‘cause it would screw up the frequencies of remote controls, or something like that. Anyway, all it’ll do is let us give the Equestrian coast a pounding. If the princesses aren’t crazy, they’ll surrender by then” the human promised, nodding her head. Applejack gave a snort, tossing her head and making her mane shake.
“If they weren’t crazy, they wouldn’t be invadin’ and getting good ponies and humans killed” Applejack said, narrowing her eyes.
“Too true, girl. But it’ll all end soon” Sarah smirked, holding out her curled fingers. Applejack looked up for and let her expression lighten at the friendly gesture. Applejack’s hoof bumped Sarah’s hand, the comforting gesture lifting Applejack’s spirits somewhat. They were two alien people, and yet, could find friendship and unity. It pretty much put Celestia’s ridiculous propaganda in the grave. Humans were hardly the doomed savages she painted them to be, even if they were predisposed towards violence more than ponies.
Across the sky flashed a streak of yellow. Perhaps it could have been mistaken for a straggler meteor, but it was twisting oddly in the air, as if it was a snake. Concerned whispers began to rise an instant before an ear-splitting sonic boom smashed through the air. Golden beams of light rained down from the night sky, precisely cutting into the engine and crippling the swift little ship. People only barely had enough time to scream and move their hands to their weapons before they were promptly surrounded in crystal to freeze them in place. One second after the sonic boom, everyone on deck was frozen, the engines were destroyed, and there was a multi-colored projectile slamming into the deck of the ship. The metal buckled and broke underneath the raw magical energies, so bright that it blinded all near it. An awry bolt of magical lightning broke through the cockpit, shocking the captain and the ponies in the engine room into submission. The source of it all was a swirling maelstrom of golden, blue, and magenta magic, focused into a sphere. The Superweapon had found them.
The Superweapon began moving forward, as if it was being controlled by some type of intelligence. The orb of energy stopped at the stairs to the cargo hold. It was promptly met with a hail of bullets. The bullets stopped in mid-air and curved around the orb before the orb flashed once, slamming the woman guard against the wall with telekinetic might as it approached the Sin Hating Inorganic Transponder. The orb’s movement wasn’t delayed in the least by this effort. Just as it was about to touch the Earth’s trump card, a pair of orange hooves slammed into the orb.
“W-what are ya?!” Applejack hissed, pulling back her hind legs in shock after feeling the energies on her legs. It wasn’t a precisely painful feeling, just an odd one. But her hooves had definitely struck something. That something may have been harder than anything she had ever felt before, but it was definitely something. Orange energies began to focus themselves in front of the orb, and Applejack quickly leapt in front of the Earth’s superweapon. Futile an effort as it may be, she was an Apple; she wouldn’t just stand there and let some ball of magic do whatever it felt like doing. The orange energies crackled in the air for a few moments before dissipating. The orb of magic itself stopped spinning.
Within the center of all that power, all of that energy, was the unmistakable shape of a pony. It was covered in heavy, dark blue armor made of crystal that warped its shape and details, but it was definitely a pony. That much was plain from the pair of teal eyes that peeked out from the thick helm. Applejack was reminded a little bit of the old photos Sarah had showed her of carriage horses. The helmet did the same to this pony’s eyes, making them mere pinpricks that could only look forward. In fact, the armor itself seemed to all be to this effect. While Applejack assumed it had a horn due to its ability to do magic, the fact was that the armor was so absurdly thick that she had no idea if this thing was an earth pony, alicorn, unicorn, or pegasus. She couldn’t even see the Superweapon’s cutie mark. The most defining feature that could be seen past the bulky armor were the teal eyes, which glowed like miniature flames and left trails to match as the Superweapon moved.
“What is it that you protect?” the Superweapon spoke, and if Applejack had expected a multi-layered voice full of power and majesty, she’d be wrong. This voice sounded younger than her, younger than Applebloom even, and held no special quality. It was possibly a mare, but it could just as easily be a feminine stallion. “Why would you risk your safety over this human device?”
“‘Cause they’re mah friends, and this is important to them. And to all good folk who ain’t cowards” Applejack said defiantly, managing to keep her voice from shaking as she stared down the massive pony in front of her. Whether it was the armor or natural size, this pony looked capable of snapping an Ursa in half over its knee with no effort.
“I-it’s a special nuke…” Sarah groaned from the floor, only barely conscious after being slammed by the Superweapon's telekinesis. “We wanted to take you out with us. This was all a trap! So back off, unless you want to get blown up, you fucking monster!” Sarah spat towards the Superweapon. Applejack and the Superweapon blinked in tandem at the human. Applejack caught the bluff after a few seconds and nodded to back up Sarah’s point. It always did scare her how easy it was for humans to lie, but right now, she couldn’t be happier that they were good at it.
“That wouldn’t kill me” the Superweapon replied bluntly and coldly. Even if it was young, it had the voice of a stone-cold veteran. “And your weapons of destruction don’t carry such sorcery on them. You lie” the Superweapon stated, blue energies gathering on the peak of the spiked forehead of armor. “Fear not, I will take this information from your mind, human. Your savage nature will not interfere with the the truth of Equestria” the Superweapon informed Sarah, but its words lacked conviction. The Superweapon sounded like it was reading off of some script, a script that it didn’t like. Before the magic could leave its horn, a pair of orange hooves slammed into its cheek. The Superweapon didn’t so much as blink or lose the spell, simply turning its eyes to look at Applejack with some flicker of curiosity. “Why do you fight for her?” the Superweapon asked, a tinge of curiosity entering its voice.
“‘Cause she’s mah friend, and you’re no hero right now. You’re just a villain, invadin’ the home of folk who did you no harm and telling them what to do, what to become” Applejack said, snorting air out through her nostrils in a challenging way. “The humans could be our friends, ya know. We could live together. Go tell that to your boss!” Applejack whinnied, stamping at the ground and readying her hooves for another buck. The Superweapon’s teal orbs blinked curiously once more at the angered mare.
“We the Equestrians must show empathy towards other sentient beings. The world of the humans is destined to come to an end by prophecy, the only way to save them is to make them ponies so that they don’t murder each other in an apocalypse of nuclear fire. We must see their salvation through, even if-” the Superweapon was cut off by another buck to the face. Once again, Applejack might as well have been a mote of dust on the wind, but the surprise made the Superweapon stop its speech.
“Prophecies are a bunch of pony feathers! Every time, they never go the way ya think they’re gonna go. Always some kind of secret trick in them. ‘Sides, we could work it out together instead! Not turn ‘em into adult foals or treat em’ like savages. And that’s all assumin’ Celestia is even tellin’ the truth about this ‘prophecy’! Yeah, ever think about that? What if she's lyin'?” Applejack said, far more bold than she was a few seconds ago. The Superweapon realized why Applejack was being so confident as Sarah pulled out her pistol and fired off three bullets for the Superweapon’s unarmored nape. The sneak attack had been clever, but ineffective. The bullets stopped in mid-air, surrounded by a golden aura. Following that was a golden aura around the pair of guards, slamming them against the walls hard and holding them there.
“This is a matter out of your control. Whatever plan you had, we will defeat it. Humanity will be saved” the Superweapon said, actual emotion entering its voice. Unfortunately, the emotion was excitement and anxiety, the most unpredictable of moods. The Superweapon looked at the Earth’s trump card and began building up magic, their resolve clear.
“D-don’t do it...This could end the war. All this pain…” Applejack groaned out, eyes fluttering weakly. She was barely conscious after being thrown against the wall, which was more than could be said for her out cold partner. The Superweapon paused their magic charge, but didn’t turn around. “Come on, Celestia’s plan...she’d kill em’ all anyway. The new foals don’t have any mind left” Applejack continued, her voice almost pleading with the Superweapon. The Superweapon’s eyes flickered slightly, the brilliant turquoise fire fading slightly to reveal eyes that were very ordinary.
“I must do what is necessary for the humans to survive. It is my duty as an alicorn” said the Superweapon, spreading out a pair of wings just as armored as the rest of it. And all the same, they looked weighted. The fire in the Superweapon’s eyes reignited with a sigh. “It’s my destiny to fight for what is good, even if it may seem difficult. I cannot hesitate.” With that, the Superweapon’s magic built until the light from it became blinding. And then it discharged.
When an multi-colored shooting star surrounded by sonic booms entered Equestrian skies, ponies cheered. Even if they did not know the identity of the Superweapon(or even what it was), they knew that it was their best chance for ending this war and forcing the humans to stop fighting against their own salvation. The Superweapon didn’t so much as pause before it entered the tallest tower of the Crystal Empire through the window, opening then closing it with magic. The window led into a long hallway, lit only by the warm glow of torches on the walls. The Superweapon’s magical orb dissipated once more, and the fire in its eyes faded. Where once stood an intimidating symbol of Equestria’s resolve to save humanity there was only a very tired alicorn, who could do little more than pant in exhaustion from the strain of its own power.
“Ahem. Our magic, if you would?” came another tired voice from the end of the hallway. The source of it was Luna, looking rather annoyed and tired. All four princesses were present on comfortable thrones, though all of them looked haggard. Still, with the results that pooling the magic of five alicorns gave, they’d be fools to not suffer a bit of exhaustion.
“Yes, ma’am. My apologies” the Superweapon apologized, its horn glowing and then letting out a four tipped stream of magic. The light blue infused Princess Cadance, the yellow went to Princess Celestia, the azure to Princess Luna, and the magenta to Princess Twilight. Immediately, three of the princesses perked up. Celestia and Luna especially, returned to their usual majestic states. Cadance had worry lines on her face, but nevertheless put up a strong and rather proud front. Twilight, however, only barely freshened up. If anything, she seemed to look even worse. She had not aged well, with her feathers growing long and shaggy, her mane unkempt and wild, and her muzzle narrowing. The split between her friends over the meaning of the Human Salvation Prophecy had hit the Princess of Friendship hard, and no matter what, she always seemed dour and full of melancholy. She was still a formidable sight, but she was a vulture in a room full of eagles.
With the power boost gone from the Superweapon, its knees buckled from the weight of the armor. Gently, the other alicorns took off the heavy, bulky weights with their magic and hung them on wall hooks to let their Superweapon relax. The Superweapon was indeed a mare, just into early adulthood. Nevertheless, when she looked at her flank, it was still blank. Years of service and training under the princesses had not yet yielded a mark. The mare shook her mane to let the built-up sweat shake out and used a tired hoof to bring a jug of water to her mouth and guzzle it down. The princesses waited patiently for their knight to finish, though Cadance held some anxiety in her gaze.
“Are you alright? You’re usually not this tired” Cadance finally said, her lips pursing with concern.
“I’m alright, mother, truly. I’m alright…” the Superweapon panted, holding up her hoof to signal for a few more seconds of rest. Eventually, she stood up and nodded her head.
“Report, Flurry Heart” Twilight ordered softly. There was no real need to, but keeping things of habit made this whole war a lot more bearable for the Princess of Friendship. So the other alicorns indulged her on that.
“The Earthlings had come up with some sort of secret technology. They were transporting it to the Barrier.” Flurry paused in her report. The other alicorns raised their eyebrows as she did so. Flurry had never hesitated in the past, she had always been straightforward.
“And?” Luna urged, eyes narrowing slightly.
“I neutralized the threat” Flurry replied in a stony manner. Luna’s eyes narrowed even further at the vague reply. Flurry kept her eyes straight ahead, though her whole body quivered slightly. Nopony spoke for a short while.
“Why do you hesitate? You have something else to tell us, don’t you?” Celestia finally stated, causing a slight blush to appear on Flurry’s cheeks.
“All of these years, I have believed that the Human Salvation Prophecy was the only truth. That there was no other way to save the humans from extinction beyond turning them into new foals.” Flurry sighed before continuing. “To that end, we have created this ever expanding barrier, the potion that turns them into new foals and destroys their minds-”
“It doesn’t! I-i mean it won’t! It’s just a minor setback, I will fix it!” Twilight suddenly snapped, stomping her hooves and glaring at her niece. A stern look from Celestia quickly put an end to her anger, replacing it with a mournful expression on her countenance. When Applejack, Fluttershy, and Starlight Glimmer had found out what the potion did, they had been furious. Fluttershy had disappeared into the mountains with Discord, Starlight no longer trusted Twilight, and Applejack had outright left to go fight for the Earthlings.
“My apologies, temporary loss in their minds” Flurry corrected, bowing apologetically before continuing. “We have sacrificed many souls on both sides of the war to this end, and I endured it without question. I endured their suffering and said nothing because I believed that we were in the right. Before that even, when you first chose me to be the Superweapon of Equestria, I believed that the humans were beyond redemption. But on that ship, on that last mission...I saw an earth pony and a human who were friends. I could feel it inside of them with Aunt Twilight’s magic.” Flurry had averted her eyes for this part of her report, and only now raised them again. Cadance looked worried, Luna had a very nasty glare, and Twilight looked more miserable than ever. Only Celestia remained stoic. “The reason that I endured all of this was the Human Salvation Prophecy. But now, now I see that there must have been another way. Another way for us to have met, some way that didn’t make us enemies. What if the Human Salvation Prophecy...is wrong? What if they aren't so savage?” Flurry finished, holding her ground despite Luna’s death glare. For a moment or two, there was no sound in the war room save the crackling of torches.
“Did you think that we had not considered that?” Celestia finally spoke, her tone disappointed. “Did you think that we would truly be so heartless as to wish a war on both our peoples?” Celestia rose from her throne, her horn aglow. “I think it is time you learned the truth. Though some of us may feel the humans are violent through and through…” Celestia glanced at Luna, who turned up her nose defiantly. “...You are right that the majority opinion among the princesses is that they are not so different from us ponies” Celestia explained, moving closer to Flurry. The taller alicorn’s magic reached towards the floor, finding its way into the floor below the carpet. All the while, the other princesses stepped forward. Flurry was encircled now, simply watching as the carpet was lifted away by Cadance to reveal a glowing orb hidden in the floor. Inside the orb was a large, brown seed, and when it was touched by Celestia's magic, tiny sprouts of green crept out of it.
“The seed of the Tree of Harmony” Twilight explained, shooting a jolt of her magic into the seed. The air changed around the assembled alicorns, a great and powerful magic that was far beyond their knowledge permeating their flesh. Luna especially shuddered upon feeling it, but all of them exercised a healthy respect for the power of Harmony. “This where the voices of Harmony can be heard, where all of the magic that we have, the life force of everyone of us, even the humans, collects” Twilight explained to Flurry, her voice echoing several times over as a crackling aura of purple bio-electricity made itself known around her body. She was currently the only pony through which this power could be channeled. It used to be totally effortless for her, but with the loss of three friends, it took visible strain on the second youngest alicorn.
“Bestow on us Human Salvation Prophecy” Celestia requested of the power that channeled itself through the youngest princess.
“On a world separate from that of ponies, there live a people descended from primates. They are called humans, and are fully sentient as ponies are. They are an aggressive people by nature, and if left to their own devices, their planet would be purged of them by a powerful flame. The human lineage is fated to leave their planet by their own doing” Twilight spoke, her voice low and almost foreign. Flurry knew all of this, the Human Salvation Prophecy up to this point was common knowledge.
“This is the part we hid from you, Flurry” Cadance murmured quietly as Twilight took a breather. “From all of Equestria…”
“If the ponies live amongst the humans and guide them, then humanity would remain on their world. But ponies would be gone from Equestria” Twilight’s voice let out a bone shaking boom as she finished the prophecy. With that, the seed stopped glowing, the aura around Twilight disappeared, and the runic markings once again returned to their hidden states. The tiny green sprouts from the seed held out slightly longer, but still shriveled and died as Celestia stopped feeding it her power. The carpet was draped over the seed and the magical array, and the source of all prophecies in Equestria was once again hidden. Flurry simply stared at the spot where the seed was hidden, feeling her once static world view shatter.
“I’m sorry we hid this from you, but when we first heard the Human Salvation Prophecy, you were still young and…” Cadance began before trailing off, biting her lip with some measure of guilt.
“...Not your knight, yet?” Flurry finished. Her tail flicked as she did so, subtle anger causing her to involuntarily react. “The prophecy only says that ponies will be gone from Equestria, what if they just live on Earth? What if you have been looking at this all wrong? What if you began this horrid war for nothing?” Flurry said in a voice carrying a definite edge to it. She looked at the princesses with accusation in her teal eyes, daring them to reply.
“Do not presume to understand the weight a ruler must bear! It is all well and good for a pony who isn’t responsible for the lives of others to dwell on what-ifs, but as the princesses of Equestria, we chose the option that made sure that there was no threat to our ponies” Luna declared bluntly, looking down her nose at the younger alicorn. “To help the humans personally carries the risk of our extinction, and thus, we found a compromise in which we both help them and insure the safety of our folk”
“Flurry, I can fix the potion, and it’ll be alright” Twilight promised, looking a bit shaky on her hooves after channeling so much knowledge. Flurry looked at the ponies she had once admired, and could only shake her head. Logically, this was the right course of action. The survival of the ponies of Equestria couldn’t be risked on a gamble, especially when done for nothing but charitable purposes. The current path being taken was the one of least risk. Yes, it was logically correct, but as the daughter of the Princess of Love, Flurry despised yielding to logic. Flurry turned around, grabbing some towels off of a shelf and putting them around her neck in preparation for her usual bath.
“Flurry, what happened on the last mission?” Celestia asked, her calm voice finally getting sharp for a brief second. Flurry paused, but didn’t turn around.
“If the humans had a way of ending the war now, ending all of this pain and fear for both of our folk in less time...would you take it?” the youngest alicorn asked, picking up some soaps from the shelf.
“Flurry. What did you do?” Cadance repeated, speaking to Flurry as if she had been caught stealing from a cookie jar. All eyes were on Flurry's back as she put her hoof on the door to the bathroom.
“...I neutralized the threat” Flurry repeated. And with that, Equestria’s superweapon walked into the bathroom and relaxed after a hard day’s work.
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- The REAL Mister Pkmn · 16k words · 36 12 · 1.9k views
- no sh*t sherlock · 13k words · 96 16 · 3.2k views
- KrspaceT · 2.1k words · 80 8 · 4.8k views
- Pen Dragon · 2.5k words · 69 10 · 2.3k views
- Dolphy Blue Drake · 25k words · 116 27 · 3.8k views
- Inucroft1 · 2k words · 44 1 · 1.6k views
- Dolphy Blue Drake · 17k words · 62 12 · 2k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.943 seconds
Total duration
1,065 users online
1,945,880 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
https://static1.e621.net/data/dd/17/dd17e9f4b5201457fabf38014c81de75.swf
7415779 I'm afraid to say it, but I don't get it.
...I'm confused. What DID Flurry do, exactly?
7415808 I wanted to leave it ambiguous. If you think that she destroyed the human superweapon, then she destroyed it. If you think that she just crippled the ship and teleported away, then she did so.
7415788 neither do I
7415808 She neutralized the threat.
This story sounds like it should be longer. Why isn't it longer?
7415955 Because I am terrible at longer stuff. I am more in my comfort zone with shorter things like this, though evidently not great at them either.
7415937 -_-
7415827 ...Seriously?
7416094 Correct. However, I would personally lean towards her simply teleporting away after crippling the ship and freezing the crew. After all, her mission isn't to destroy other superweapons, just to make sure that vehicles and people are incapacitated ;)
7416093 ( ͡V ͜ʖ ͡V )
I wonder if a new prophecy shall be born one where it said the newborns foals shall usher a new doom for pony kind and the princess self-fulfill the prophecy by trying to stop it and all new foals pay for there mistakes and become monsters maybe it unleashing a new foe that not a one-shot villain it be an ironic fate then like the same mistake told about in king author about taking prophecy seriously and making them true
7423948 I didn't think too much ahead in this story's future, but if you think that's what'll happen, more power to you.
7424043 is it an interesting idea?
7424297 It could be.
Interesting, I wonder if this could become a full fledged story at some point, this premisse is intriguing.
7488480 About Flurry being a superweapon?
7488507 The whole setup of the story.
7488584 Anything in specific you liked?
7488653 the prophecy, the ever advancing barrier, the prospect of fixing the potion, anti-magic technology, etc
" “...I neutralized the threat” Flurry repeated. And with that, Equestria’s superweapon walked into the bathroom and relaxed after a hard day’s work. "
Oh no, Flurry killed Applejack!:(
7415808
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NothingIsScarier
7679170 Not here. This is just...confusing. Like a line of dialogue that would at least IMPLY something concrete is outright missing.
7679235
I like Flurry Heart's insistent terminology.
I've always felt it would be infinitely more interesting if this setting went back to its ACTUAL roots:
-The barrier is a cosmic disaster, not caused by anyone, the expanding of the barrier is happening on its own.
-The potions does NOT kill who the person was, the only mental changes are the trade outs in instincts.
-The barrier is not an actual wall, it's a dividing line like the border on a map, not a physical thing.
7679246 Feh. Agree to disagree then? :P
So like, what happens if the ponies win but can't fix the potion? Are the princesses just going to shrug their withers and say "I dunno' what happened, it's not my fault".
7800407 Twilight would keep on trying until her death, no matter what. Cadance would be upset about it to the point where she'd probably cut off the Crystal Empire from Equestria proper. Celestia would carry the guilt inside of her but ultimately think that what she did was right, albeit at an awful cost. Luna would say it's disappointing, but that they're better off anyway.
7800446 are the newfoals in this the "brain dead soulless husk type" or the "loss of identity and memory, but ultimately able to start a new life types" or somewhere in between?
7801609 They're the old personality overwritten entirely, but definitely capable of having a new personality(albeit a passive one). There are probably even some newfoals with the humans just for the sheer feeling of guilt they have that their birth was predicated on the death of another, though obviously most stick around in Equestria due to most ending up there and thus having their personality shaped the most by it.
Wow, and this was supposed to make Equestria MORE sympathetic? Sorry, but it just makes them pathetic. There are at least 2 meanings to purged by flame, good or ill. Nukes or expansion of the sun. All that leaving aside the fact that the entire first part of the prophecy was completely null and void the second they encountered the humans. For the second part, leaving the planet of their own power doesn't even remotely carry negative connotations. Also, nothing in the prophecy says anything about ponies. What's this about them getting stuck on earth?
And Twilights outburst is beyond pathetic if the brain is wiped so completely it's gone, there are no takebacks. Even if managed to correctly twist them into having the old personality, it would be a new person with similar memories.
8112868
More pathetic, possibly. But they aren't just out there for pure conquest and imperialism, which is why I said it made them more sympathetic.
There are others(rockets certainly make quite a bit of flame on take off), but so far as the Equestrians are concerned, they're going to assume the worst
Wouldn't it? The ponies aren't that numerous. Maybe a few million at best. If they were stranded away from their home, their culture would be slowly absorbed into the globalist and consumer based human culture. That culture can be good for some, but it's foreign to them and not something they really like. And there's also of course the interpretation that the ponies would be eradicated, which is the one the princesses took.
Well, from the human standpoint(if any knew about it), it could just mean that the ponies adapt to human society and grow to like it enough to leave in a mass exodus(as Flurry notes). From the Equestrian standpoint, it means that the ponies are going to be gone from their home, something that's far too close to destruction for them to risk.
It was supposed to be pathetic. She's in denial. She never wanted anything like that to happen, and does want to make up for her mistake. Even if her method is questionable.
And yes, the ponies are more pathetic now. They're unsure of themselves and only going as a 'humanitarian' mission in order to save humanity. They don't even think that they might be wrong about it, and then the whole thing spirals out of control into the war that we see now.
However, I do believe that by giving the princesses reason to use the potion instead of just using outreach and diplomacy, it makes them more sympathetic.
8112923
That was referring to the human lineage will leave of their own power line.
Also, I was solely talking about the human part of the prophecy.
If you go into the ponies will be gone from Equestria part, they look even stupider. Especially Luna's bs about removing a threat. If ponies packed up and left for earth en mass then they clearly think it is better for them there. The biggest change globalization brings isn't culture. You can still practice old customs all you want, the ones that go away quickly are the ones developed simply out of necessity. The biggest change is the acquisition of knowledge, and the expansion of choice. In this case, the choice of where to live. They're power hungry sociopaths, hiding the prophecy and the reason they're going to war. Which at this point seems most likely to keep as many people under their direct control as possible.
The ultimate problem is that even if the prophecy is 100% true, it has multiple meanings, that have multiple different results. Assuming the worst result and taking extreme measures against it, is like a major country taking all the money used in healthcare and diplomacy, and making a gun to shoot asteroids coming to earth, continuously powered by dead babies. There is an unknown chance of a bad thing happening, the prophecy occurs, now there is still an unknown chance of the bad thing happening. Starting a war and committing major war crimes is not a justifiable response.
Thats the thing, in this one especially, the potion destroys their minds. To use a computer analogy, the data is gone, not just having links be removed with the possibility of restoration. The hard drive wasn't just wiped, it was melted down and the scrap was used to make a new one. All this besides the fact is that the princesses sole argument is that we see clearly, and we know better than you, shut up and obey.
8113377
This isn't necessarily a good thing as it ignores what would make them move. It's easy for a lone nation with a low level of technological development or resources to end up getting preyed upon by bigger nations to the point that its populace is forced to leave to find a better life elsewhere(there's a bunch of IRL examples of this where a perfectly fine country is suddenly turned into exodus central by meddling from an outside power).
And again, the princesses don't know if it's just a migration or outright destruction of them from their land as a stab in the back.
This just isn't true. It's only very recently that an initiative to preserve old cultures has become a thing, and even then, you still see languages going extinct at an astonishing rate(to say nothing of things besides languages in culture). The global pecking order essentially makes it so that you're either a cog in the machine or you're getting the stick.
The best example of this is previously agrarian societies being forced into an industrial society and ending up with far more problems than they had to begin with. Equestria is pretty anti-industrialization, as you can see from their distaste for the Flim Flam brothers as well as their disgust towards the automation in the Sombra future.
Sociopaths would've just let the humans die(remember, this is what they think). Their morality is all kinds of screwed up and paternalistic but they are not just doing it for the lolz.
Of course, and that's why Flurry does call them out on it. It's just that the princesses happen to feel that the risk involved by being more open is too great because the prophecy is so unclear(as prophecies are oft to do in fantasy).
The chance is unknown, but then you have the dilemma of whether or not you want to throw the dice for being right or wrong. The princesses went with an option to attempt to sidestep fate so that they could save both peoples instead of just one. They're misguided in every possible way, but that is the reasoning.
The start of the war was accidental. Nobody knew that the humans transformed into ponies would lose their minds. From the human point of view, of course it looks like a shady preemptive strike, but from the pony POV, it's a tragic mistake. The humans retaliated, the ponies retaliate, and so on and so forth.
On a sidenote, while what they're doing is genocide for the humans(though the ponies insist they'll just fix it), that's not technically a war crime. It's a crime against humanity.
You could argue the same about Nightmare Moon, and yet, it was possible to restore her mind. The ponies do truly believe that they can fix the problems with the potion and, to their credit, they have made progress on it(relatively speaking. The new personalities are no longer adult children). Of course, this seems like false promises and lies to the humans for obvious reasons, but there isn't some attempt to wipe out the humans in the ponies' minds.
They're taking the path that holds the least risk to them while also fulfilling their friendly obligations, that's their argument.
I'm not saying the ponies are justified in what they're doing, but they do have reasons to think the way they do and it isn't just some kind of desire for dominance.
8113425
You realize that most of the examples you're thinking of are totally inapplicable to the current scenario right? Equestria is more than capable of matching military might, and they are set to become an economic powerhouse with very few changes. Thus, imperialism from the humans is almost completely off the table, especially given the retooling required to make the labor equal.
That's a very dim view of the upheaval caused by industrialization.You're going to have a hard time finding examples that aren't outside forces, or that particular government using force to speed the process up(USSR/China). If you count those, then we've lost far more Cultures by the expansion of empires in the middle ages, by the adoption or Roman/Persian/etc customs.
But we aren't talking about that. We're talking about globalization, something different, that in human experience, requires industrialization, but in the ponies cause, likely does not. Ponies are capable of production of the most exclusive of exclusive goods, if humans are allowed to enter, they have the most exotic of tourism, if individuals are applied at any level to current human techniques, production, especially crops, will grow by orders of magnitude. They are capable of participation in the global economy as is. Also, even though you think they are anti-industrialization, mass scale warfare, trains, and common household appliances practically guarantee that they already mass produce at least some things. Imperialism and empire expansion are by and far the larger cause of cultural loss, and globalization to gather and preserve heritages is the tool that brings them back.
Also of note, if the ponies were planning on taking everyone in, and they aren't industrialized, how were they planning on feeding the new population that is going to explode even further very soon? How are they going to house trillions of people on a dime without industrialized construction?
Sociopaths, at least the ones that make it in society, tend to front morality and are excellent liars. Of note is that they released an edited version of the prophecy as propaganda to justify their actions rather than let it out and have actual debates between people find all the catches in this plan. Also note, this is the leader who risked freezing the entire planet solid, multiple times, just so she could get her sister back. She risked the entire crystal empire on Twilights stupid test by not sending sufficient support or information. She endangered Equestria's superweapon group and an entire town on the chance that her panicky student who is prone fits of mania and hallucinations can fix a spell that 'the greatest wizard ever' couldn't finish, just so said student can become part of the ruling body of the nation, without consent of the governed.
War mobilization, and the mass influx of people who are unlikely to question them, and if they do, are unlikely to gain support, increase their power base. This is easily comparable to fascism, given the common emotional rhetoric and uniting the country in the face of an outside opponent. Their actions have the appearance of morality without the diligence required of people who should have long ago recognized their own fallibility. See: using the potion without proper testing, giving Flurry the briefing she should have had earlier, AFTER she has become fully invested in the war)
That is the point, it was unknown before and it was unknown after the prophecy. It gave absolutely no clarity on what the future held. They are looking at the same exact scenario with or without the prophecy, and are rolling the dice in a completely different way. Ignoring that prophecies are commonly self-fulfilling when people try to game them. Ignoring that scorched earth is a tactic, and we are far better at doing it now (In a way that fulfills the prophecy). If I tell you that when I flip a coin it's going to land heads, tails, or edge. That shouldn't change your previous guess that it would land heads or tails, discounting edge because it's so unlikely.
That it happens at all is a crime against humanity, targeting civilian populations with it is a war crime. Technically nothing they do can be war crimes because they haven't signed any treaties.
Basic testing should have revealed this before mass use. They could easily get a few terminal cases as test subjects. They could even use basic logic to ask, "If we alter them from one species to another, who is in no way related or similar. If the brain is staying the same, how are the neural connections to the new organs, sensory input, etc forming?"
You could not argue the same about nightmare moon. Either of the common reasons given, possession or madness, are hardly equivalent to what the potion does. That is excluding the notion that using the elements on her mind wiped her and gave her a more suitable personality. Any time you have a massive personality change from a single experience, especially one that has unknown effects, is that really the same person needs to be asked.
I get that you're trying to say that. I'm saying that if this isn't a play for power, then everyone involved is completely mad and so stupid that they should have wiped themselves out years ago because they're incapable of basic functioning. This IS me giving them the benefit of the doubt, that they have put some minor amount of thought into this, that they are capable of even the most basic forms of morality, that they are observant enough to realize when they don't know all the facts.
Asking first and getting shot down would be fulfilling friendly obligations. This is white man's burden under another cover. We must save them from themselves! And just like that's use, it is far more accurate to model their actions with the acquisition of wealth/power as the goal.
8113758
Only because of the Barrier, which is ever expanding by nature. Flurry as a superweapon is also strong, but without the Barrier, she can't be everywhere at once. Equestria would be utterly boned without the Barrier, and the Barrier is what is giving a driving force to the change.
Equestria's near pre-industrial, it's not anywhere close to being an economic powerhouse. Just because something is rich in resources doesn't mean a thing in the global system, you can still end up being exploited.
What empires did in the past doesn't justify what happened in the Industrial Revolution. Even in the UK, farmers had their land taken from them because the government found it inefficient as is and needed more labor in factories, leading to the problems of factory labor. Just because it's better than the Medieval isn't a huge achievement.
In the case of the ponies, they use magic in a way that keeps industrialization away for the most part. There's nothing that being incorporated into the global system would do for them but cause them problems.
Unless foreign governments impose it on them.
If this was all it took for a country to be safe from exploitation, many more today would not have such cruddy conditions.
It wouldn't work. Just as pegasi can't control weather in Everfree, earth ponies can't do anything special for farming on Earth. They're still strong and tough, but that's not enough to cause a difference. And mages who specialize in farming are a precious tiny minority, if any exist at all.
Their trains are pulled by ponies with literal horsepower, that's far from being industrial. Their wars are fought with spears, hoof, and magic, again, not very industrialized. As for common household appliances, chalk it up to magic. Most of Equestria is still sparsely populated at best, we know that the majority of it isn't even fully consolidated. They'd be horridly out of place as anything but another place to exploit in the current world order.
The Barrier would expand to cover Earth, which allows for earth pony style agriculture to solve the food problems. Housing can be solved by just scavenging the old human dwellings. They aren't going to pick up the humans and just leave back to their home dimension.
Right, but as the author, I'm telling you that they weren't sociopaths.
When was the freezing incident? We know from the dark future that Equestria survives just fine without a Sun(albeit the whole country turning into monster infested jungle). The Crystal Empire incident is really not her fault, as she had no way of knowing or reason to assume Sombra had returned. The last bit is just typical fantasy "It's your destiny" stuff, which comes with the genre.
In Equestria, fate is a tangible force that shapes events. Twilight was going to become princess one way or another.
No one said that they didn't handle the situation in the worst manner possible and drink their own propaganda.
When did I say they did that? Remember, they have human allies too which they can use to just detain their human civilian populations after hitting the military with it. Sure, if they won the war, then they'd probably have a massive slew of war crimes right at the very end as they rush to convert everyone, but they haven't done that yet. Right now, they're basically just relying on the Barrier's expansion.
They should have done that. But they didn't because they were overconfident.
Why couldn't I argue the same about NMM? There's no concrete info on her besides the comics which I don't regard as canon. The eclipse's darkness could easily have wiped out her mind.
You'd be amazed at how badly something seemingly innocent can go due to sheer ignorance and arrogance. Pathetic though the ponies may be in bullheadedness, arrogance, and etc., they didn't have a blind urge for conquest and such that you see get tossed around very often in TCB stories. That's what I was trying to avoid.
I'm glad you brought up white man's burden, because yeah, that is the case here, except they genuinely believe it instead of just using it as an excuse to suck the area dry of its resources.
Except that Equestria has no want for power or wealth. The place has entire areas where if you don't have love and light, you can't stay(the Crystal Empire). I don't see why it's inaccurate for the Equestrians to genuinely believe their own hype when their environment is practically ran on the same principle. Besides, so far as the Equestrians are concerned, the human situation isn't too different from the changelings. Just make them undergo a huge metamorphosis after we civilize them, they'll thank us later.
It's inaccurate and inapplicable in this case, but I'm not setting out to make the ponies heroic either.
8113856
I can't full response till tomorrow, but industrialization is far more than what powers your junk. Mass production based on interchangeable parts is far larger. And the barrier already evidences that they can close off whenever they want. And if it takes nuke level detonation to drop it, then no single country is going to be able to do it without getting everyone else on them
8113954
It doesn't. I don't think you understood that part well. No nuke is going to pierce the Barrier, not due to its strength, but just because attacks don't go through the Barrier. Equestria doesn't exist in the same dimension and the Barrier itself is hazy in its dimensional location. A nuke aimed at Equestria would explode, sure, but it'd be as if Equestria was a ghost city. The weapon in the fic that the Earthlings were using was something to anchor Equestria down to just one reality and dimension so that it'd be completely defenseless from human retaliation.
8113856
It doesn't matter what you're powered by, if you mass produce, you are industrialized. It is massively clear that they do mining at a level to feed an industrial economy, they mass produce parts for machines, they have cities and skyscrapers. The things they show simply cannot be reliably or safely done without standardized parts. Their trains in other situations clearly show that they at least run on steam power, likely better. They run without being pulled all the time and have smokestacks. Being pulled was clearly some level of emergency situation. Manehatten clearly shows skyscrapers, a form of building you have no need for unless you have space issues, advertisements for products, which only works if your mass producing them, and since it's completely urban importing them as well, those skyscrapers aren't just metal bricks, they have full glass paneling, something that requires standardization and mass production. The ponies are very clearly industrial level, whether by tech or magic. Ponyville and Appleloosa are clearly outliers as the infrastructure to support a city like that must be widespread. Looking at a landscape picture of Manehatten, you can also see: modern bridge design, a modern luxury boat design without a smokestack, modern architecture, and a statue of liberty equivalent.
Your adding things not in the fic that contradict the premise. Human produced items disintegrate at the barrier. Same with the ghostly premise. Also, if they're keeping the populations human, cut off from modern infrastructure, then they're causing mass deaths anyway. If they can use magic to produce food enough for the human population and take it over, then congratulations, they have industrial level agriculture that they can export to take part in the human economy.
If you're using magic to match the output from a factory, then congratulations, you have a country that can compete in the market with industrialized countries. Nothing? At the least access to schooling and writings would give them a basic understanding of ethics, the idea of consent of the governed, and modern medicinal practices.
Because her goals and actions were defined by their past history, and even afterward they share similar traits? NMM clearly acts based on things only Luna should know, and clearly still self-identifies as the same person, up to and including unwanted filial relationships and position in society. I don't care about the comics either, that's why I addressed the two most commonly looked at scenarios. If you want it to be further afield than that, that's the kind of thing that needs to be addressed because it's violating the reader's assumptions.
We're getting to the point where this is so far removed from the standard tcb setting that it might as well not be commenting on it. If you have to change everything to make them sympathetic, your stated goal, then they probably weren't. I'm saying they are either too dumb to live, or don't actually care all that much about the morality of the situation. Either way, they aren't sympathetic. Someone failing at doing something personally pulls the heartstrings. Someone failing at governance is cause for riots.
It does, the effects described on destruction are hardly subtle, and I said of comparable strength/effect, not that it was a nuke. If that wasn't power released from the weapon, then the same choice of incompetent vs uncaring applies to Flurry, because that's a lot of power that just got wasted for magic not working on Earth.
Then she still should have been sending far more than them there, because there is now a population that needs food and medical care far more than they need a puppet ruler and her buddies. As for Twilights ascension, if its destiny and fated, then there's no need for her to do something to put people at risk. If it happens anyway, then her actions have no effect on it.
As the author you wrote a story with information in it. As above if their actions are better modeled by being power hungry jerks unfettered by morality except in that it makes them look good, then hey, maybe they are. If they're so stupid that it is impossible to ascribe motivations to the actions they took because intent will never match method or outcome, then they're simply villains of a different type.
Do you honestly expect me to believe, that Starlight Glimmer, the mare who sees mind control as "everyone winning", would be against this plan?
8154634 Yes, especially when she was rife with guilt over the whole thing later on. As well as her general rebellious attitude too.
Truth be told though, you're probably right in light of more recent episodes that shows her to be totally dependent on Twilight that she'd follow the party line. Though the fic takes place some 15-20 years after the show's canon, so she might have changed. I didn't know that Starlight would end up being Twilight's super duper loyal assistant at the time I wrote this.
End line still gets a laugh out of me, years later
11087501
Yeah, looking back on it there's a lot of things here that are kinda funny, unintentionally so for the most part. Thankfully that final line was one of the few that was actually meant to be sort of funny
7415788
Did we lose????
Damn that prophecy was vague. It could easily refer to humans leaving on rocket ships.
Hello, can you explain what happened after that?
11590383
I left it up to viewer interpretation what Flurry decides to do and if the mission worked out or not