Equestria is suffering a dire problem. You are part of that solution, even if you aren't entirely aware of it. No, we don't need a dragon slayer or something like that. We're sure you can handle this just as you are.
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7, for the typos have caught up on reality itself, it seems.
So does option six begin the musical number?
3, 7, 42,
I'm a little confused about those first 5 choices. It seems that the ending to this is either forget about fixing the problem or fix the problem but there will be negative consequences. So it seems either keep our promise to Trixie by staying, or risk fixing this whole mess but not making it back. Some clarification would be appreciated.
7767386 Error.
4, 5
4.
Da hell is wrong with Celestia?
I understand canceling all future studs, potential damage to the timeline and all that, but to toss out the still useful stud she has? That's just being obtuse.
This seems like going back in time triggered a bad end, and it's just taking us several chapters to get it over with.
But really, why bother with choices this time if you present nonsensical gibberish. Even the English text choices are nonsensical.
Let it go. Let what go?
Emergency Failsafe? Does this mean to investigate that? Or trigger one?
Abort? Abort what? The story? The stud program?
7767410 Reply #2846 - File not Found.
Please contact your system administrator.
Attempting self-recovery. Error.
Please contact your system administrator.
1, because she is the most deserving as she is 1st. We should give her all the love and care in these our final days before we break the world
7767372 Hah!
2) The program is returning giberish. We must send in Diane and her D-bugs.
7. something is clearly very wrong. Immediate action is required.
promises are promises, but I'm not in the mood.
This still doesn't answer why we know of them before hand, and yet they are our future?
Perhaps, thats a clue.
Huh. Weird that our choices broke now rather than last time, since we still had our cutie mark then. Even if the time travel forwards spell just like, suspends us from experiencing time, it shouldn't be doing genetic damage except through the generational process...
Anyway, we're off the rails now. I'd strongly suggest everyone pretend that the listed options do not exist, and abandon the idea of voting that way. We meta now. Someone just needs to come up with a solid and clear suggestion, and then everyone else should up upvote and/or >>this it.
oh wait, shit, we started talking in actual dialogue and not narration. Second criteria: make it something competely random and dumb, but still ultimately harmless, to see if we can actually muster the ability to do anything and aren't severed from our free will.
To that end, I vote for: Start eating random plants from the Canterlot Gardens. Let's test out these pony taste buds!
7767372 I hope so. Either that or a chance to- uh, could the scramble...it may have to do with the mark. Is there something in them that makes one more inclined to believe and/or go along with Sunbutt?
...7
Okay, if there's anything that all those years of PBS taught me, it's that when you're confused about a logic-puzzle, it's time to sit down and play "What Do We Know?" And while that means that a lot of people are immediately out, those of us that remain can go over the following:
1) Equestria is humanity's far future. The humans that Luna has been retrieving to stud for the ponies have actually been coming from the past.
2) Cutie marks were originally a "failsafe" in response to an unknown condition. Ponies that needed them, we're told, would get them.
3) Celestia used a "tablet" (or perhaps a wand?) with unknown properties to activate cutie marks for all ponies, all of the time.
4) Due to point #3, this is speculated to have eventually (as of very recently) caused cutie marks to begin to fail against the situation/circumstances that they were designed to safeguard against.
5) Due to point #4, stallions are no longer able to impregnate mares (who also, if I recall correctly, have some fertility issues of their own, but not as bad). Only humans who don't have Celestia's tampering in their legacy can breed successfully with ponies.
Looking all of those over...I still don't know what the answer is, but at least it seems like we're looking for the right questions. Namely, that the cutie marks have lost their effectiveness at whatever their original goal was. Since this seems to be related to why stallions can't breed, this would seem to have something to do with helping to guarantee having the ability to breed. But at this point there still seems to be too many areas that are unclear to draw a line from the clues to the final answer.
Luckily, you have a cutie mark for that now, one that seems to be reminiscent of lines of dialogue, written in bullet point format, which not coincidentally look a lot like the choices given at the end of each chapter. Hence why it seems very apropos that you're now able to gain sudden bouts of intuitive insight into what to do.
With that in mind, it's also highly significant that "you" have started to gain your own will and begin speaking dialogue, which up until now hasn't happened. This chapter even called it out, in fact. That, combined with the chapter-choices being in "error," lead me to one particular conclusion: this fic is nearing its end, and as a consequence of that, it's essentially now on "autopilot." That is, the ending has been decided upon, and so there aren't really any more choices to be made. Rather, from here on out the plot is set, and all that's left is to enjoy the remaining ride, just like a non-CYOA story.
Hopefully we'll lower the curtain in a blaze of glory, surrounded by eager mares ready for a foal. As they say, all good things...
Cutie marks were more or less meant to be an emergency "inoculation" against something? And the studs are all pre-inoculation? Ooooooooo... I'm glad she's such a benevolent person. The damage has already been done indeed, and there's no reason to take it out on the poor sap who inadvertently caused it, whatever "it" might be.
*gulp*
I feel bad even though I know I couldn't help it. I need pony snuggles now. I vote for #5 as my immediate reaction, then snuggles (does princess want a warm, fuzzy, snuggle-hug too?), and then #7.
7,8,4
Holy shit ponies live in the matrix
I say #6 and let the issue go for a moment. Hopefully we can come back to it if we step away for a time.
7767486
The temptation to continue your last sentence with a naughty comment is simply staggering.
3. Harmony has interrupted our interface to to the Agent. A connection restore should fix that.
Side note: Holy he spoke!
Keep going! ;)
7767424
You're having too much fun with this...
4,5,6,8... in that order
Ask the questions (4) first. What happened to the 'tablet' after everything? Are there others? What did it actually 'do', not just what did it turn on? What was it an emergency failsafe against in the first place?
Get inspired (5). From the answers, throw together a plan outline (including how your future rutting of select characters will benefit the world.... and you better believe they'll be happy with the outcome). Set things in motion with the ponies that need time to get things moving.
Let it go (6)... and not in a musical number just yet. Take your time off to recover, to relax, and to get to know Starlight, Trixie, and Careful a bit better. If you're stuck here, fully or partially transformed, you might as well get to know one another better. Obligations or no, they're important people to you and you all deserve to know one another better.
And, for the love of all that is equine (or pseudo-equine), ABORT (8) that emergency failsafe somehow. It's doing more harm than good now, and the alternative has been to literally inject old-universe magic into the system. That's like being forced to install a rotary tape drive because your solid state drive has a software issue. Kill the software problem long enough to get the drive running again.
Besides, in this case, the drive involves naughtiness.
Incidentally, I do find it hilarious that this was a clop-fic and the hive mind turned it into a mystery/romance/adventure.
Celestia gave the pony race debilitating magic allergies. And the races natural function slowly shut down as it magically believes it has a centuries-long crisis and burns itself out.
I wonder how many people would naturally have cutie marks?
Probably Twilight, Cadance... maybe her brother? I wonder if the rest of the main 6 would, though. It actually seems somewhat likely, since they were all given it in a big magic event with Twilight, that they'd all be marked special.
If we manage to revert this, and only a few ponies continue to get marks, we need to build a "blessed and cursed" narrative around cutie marks. Something where it's both desirable to be the "chosen one" with a cutie mark, but it also basically foists responsibility and ambition onto you.
FWIW, these are my interpretations of the choices:
8. :Discord:
The selections are erroring?
Celestias spell has integrated our character into teh current timeflow, meaning that whenever he goes back from now on, he will be causing a closed time loop, creating that script error that lead to this whole event, because that is his cutie mark.
Currently the only way of bypassing such an event, is to utelise an non observed outside context problem. At this point, it may be possible for mere top end alicorns to carry out such an action, while they are out of story view, such as Luna during the Changeling attack, Cadence until the Mane 6 got there with Sombras attack, or Twilight off doing whatever housekeeping thats not classed as broadcastable notice.
Afte this point, only Pinkie Pie and Discord have the capability, and only if they are not the focus of the story.
the problem is, Ive seen this type of event occur in computer systems, usually due to a temporary fault, in that the classic, have you tried turning it off and on again, caused the system to be able to start up in a coherent and stable manner. Something which Non volatile ram based systems will have great difficulty with.
The Cutie Marks are themselves the Fail Safe, destiny manipl control implimentations, and as such have greatly restriucted, in this design, the overall capabilities.
According to a Heinlein story, if I could find it, the solution at this point is to go back to before Celestia using the Tablet, whatever distraction etc, fix the typographic error in the code without her knowing about it, then let her, and the rest of the closed time loops, continue, while remembering you need a reason in the fixed time loop to go back and make sure the code was correctly written in the first place, maybe by Twilight analyzing it in the present and finding out there is a horrible instability that needs repairing every thousand years or so and its overdue, giving the current stud program?
For End Of days?.. Once you have $10 full DNA scanning and creation and AI creating the effect of Magic through powerful remote non destiny controlling mechanisms, its easy to see how there would be great wars, as the rich try and stop the poor from having everything they have, because its now worthless, and the poor taking the chance to become wealthy beyond all their dreams, because it now costs nothing.
I realy should get that AI script running. Might only be a couple hundred lines at most, but Im a very useless coder.
3 looks most like the correct password. It has letters, numbers, and symbols.
Several of these choices are gibberish. I cannot make a choice based off that so I say back to breeding! Let see if Starlight still wants a kid plus those other choices, except Spoiled Rich. I want to help secure their future so let's get busy!
clear conscious - clear conscience
Oh, um, horsefeathers... it's been years and I was never any good...
@set cutiemarks = Z
How do I start the debugger? Where's a reference manual? What do I do now? Did I mention I'm really inexperienced at this??
Given the available options are corrupted in one fashion or another we'll have to make our own using our new intuition granted by our cutiemark... and if we're the praying sort it probably couldn't hurt.
While trying to do the right thing, I hope we haven't stumbled into a - Nice Job Breaking It Hero
On a more personal note, seeing Princess Celestia worried and upset is like kicking all the puppies and kittens simultaneously. It's not a pleasant feeling, it feels wrong and should be avoided in all but the most dire of situations... but unfortunately, this seems like it would qualify.
7
7767624 Typo report received, implementing...
Rrore lotcade ni ienl 62. Ttemtainp-- Reorr. Reorr. Rrero. Rtiiwgn oerrr olg. Rreor. Wiritng rreor log. Rorer. Twrinig rerro olg. Reorr.
7767424 Alert! Primary Consensus Monitor and Facilitator has been compromised!
Invoking SysCall 88...
Warning: Alternate CMF units for this Allocation Unit not detected!
AU Structure may have been compromised. Selecting Temporary Primary Consensus Monitor and Facilitator for emergency operation recovery mode...
Found candidates: Amethyst Blade, Kamunari, Aprion, Frankie2, dj-pone3fan, Text, Merilah, Bytestorm, Gargon94, rikusorasephiroth, grandmarc1, Schachza, Alzrius, Phoenix Nova, KMCA, Booster Spice, Kiki Charles Steen, Gyvon, TheScrollChaser, Aburi, Sipioc, sarkodine, Gamer91, CryoKing96, Daremo, badninja, Neece, IBL, Warrior Kitten, RadicalDishonesty, conholeo, Dr_Strangelust, Exuno, Starblade, apimpnamedslipback, TanjaSolaris, MrBahumut, PonyDragon, Magical Trevor, anima draconis, terrycloth, Kamunari, CGen, Aurora Dimmet, Tide Hunter, Boulder, harts fire, nightmaster0, b300mussolini, Reykan, Moku5, NicLove, Shadow Lance, conholeo...
Error: Unable to promote any candidate!
SysOp Knighty has been sent a request upstream. Help is on the way!
7767559
Well, based on the storyline and the choices we were given, I'm not surprised.
7767486
I don't mind. I can't speak for anyone else though.
7767656
Besides which, this is how every CYOA I've ever read has progressed, we have choices up to the endgame, barring bad ends, then we ride the rollercoaster the rest of the way to the ending. I don't think we're quite at the tipping point, but we're close.
The time for action is now. Grill Celestia for answers on the cutie mark business, then find the researchers. Hash out details with them to figure out what's going on, and find out how drastically the cutie mark has affected you. Also, along the way, casually interact with ponies to make sure we didn't just pull a Sound of Thunder and change the whole timeline.
The cutie mark has something to do with the corrupted answers and us acting differently in conversation (which I'm interpreting as something wrong with our head), I'm sure of it.
I really hope this isn't leading into a bad end. Anyone up for reloading a save?
...
I don't even...
I have no idea what I should vote for...
Much less what is going on.
4 then 3.
Sing 6, then go look at 7
easy vote for me #7 I want to know about the Emergency Failsafe.
1 and 4
7767654 Hey now... Let's not get hasty and drag me into this, I'd rather avoid the risk of getting cutie marked!
7767719 If XCOM has taught me anything it is that sometimes savescumming is the only way to save the truly important characters.
We need to be tested, see what the difference between us pre and post marking is. Unless what it's designed to counter is immediate we need to see what changes it made and if we're suffering from a drop in reproductive abilities.
They have post infection data, they have pre-marked (and presumably pre-infected) human data. Now we can get post marked/pre-infected and post marked/post infection human data. That should be invaluable for discovering what exactly is causing the problems as well as how it was initially counteracted (as well as offering a valuable insight on how to proceed in treating it)
3,4 and 7
I am enjoying the direction this story has been taking with readers adding in the next direction.
defiantly 7 not sure of the other translation of the other choice hope fully tsaukpaetra translation is close.
So grill celestia for more info
Ohoho! This is getting interesting, very interesting.
One last question, do you still have the tablet?,
Edit; looking over Davids responses and his blog post, and the implications of the cutie mark, it seems the character will be making his own decisions from now on. Cool.
Edit 2; or more like our choices were supposed to be his choices, now his cutie mark has taken control of his will? He has been bound to the goddess of fate, and she does not let go.
I refrain from voting as I have no bloody idea what those first 3 mean, and again we are subjected to stuff only a handful know about.
7768284 M--Error.
7768387 Either only 1 knows about it, less than a handful, or a ridiculous amount know what they mean. Though, it seems our choices are now to be made by us, but not us, for we don't make the choice of what we say, though we say it.
Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed the dialogue from us.
Holy shit I just came to a realization. Time to send it in a PM to you.
7768284
7768387
7768666 Partition recovery 80% complete...