• Member Since 11th Jul, 2011
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Dconstructed Reconstruct


reconstructing the deconstruction

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The Great Crystal War has raged for a year now. In that time, it has already claimed immeasurable lives, reduced parts of Equestria to ruin, and brought nothing but misery to everyone. In the middle of this conflict, two best friends are reunited under the worst possible circumstances.

This is their story of Survival, Sacrifice, and Friendship.


Made it to the Feature Box on 2/4/17 for about two hours. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Heh.

A short story once written in 2012, reworked and remastered for present audiences, now set in the Crystal War timeline shown in the Season Five finale.

Special thanks to: Prak, Pearple Prose, Skeeter, Majin Syeekoh, and R5H for helping me get this story ready.

Chapters (4)
Comments ( 7 )

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Not going to deny nor confirm this for the orginal draft. I Will go down on record saying I love Max Payne though

Comment posted by MrAR deleted Mar 3rd, 2019
Emperor #4 · Mar 12th, 2017 · · · 1 ·

It's pretty interesting that you write this story with Gilda in it. I don't think I recall seeing a single other Crystal War-timeline story that actually makes use of the non-equine races (I would expect there to be at least some freedom fighters or the like who know that if Sombra wins, he's going to turn their attention on them next).

The narrative is a little bit disjointed here. Given Dash's recollection at the end of the chapter, it sounds like this whole chapter is taking place right after she freed Gilda from her mind control, and the cuts and wounds on Rainbow Dash that Gilda has been stitching up lines up with the fight, but the early part of the chapter feels more like that they've been together for a while, fighting side by side. To find out that they've just reunited after two years of war-is-hell feels out-of-place.

I'm not quite keen on how you forced some events to stay the same, such as Gilda travelling to Ponyville to meet Rainbow Dash, becoming jealous of Pinkie Pie, and getting into a giant spat that ends up with her losing her friendship with Rainbow. That's a set of circumstances that should have never come to pass in the alt-timeline (Pinkie should never have come to Ponyville, Rainbow Dash seems unlikely to visit unless Fluttershy was living there, and of course Gilda coming along to visit even more unlikely).

Emperor #5 · Mar 12th, 2017 · · · 2 ·

Iron Will's appearance makes the inner fanboy in me happy, even if it is as a bandit (well, I suppose he did call his subordinates his friends, so there's some of canon Iron Will's personality still there, buried under the horrors of war).

Since it hasn't been mentioned, I assume Rainbow Dash hasn't lost a wing at this point in time and still has both of her natural wings (at least, I don't think it's been mentioned, I may have skimmed over it at some point).

On that note, I see you've been referring to the official Equestrian map, but I see one big issue with it: you're putting the geography of all this aciton in the south part of Equestria, with reference to the Macintosh Hills and Los Pegasus. However, the Crystal Empire is to the north of Equestria, so why would there be fights on the south end of Equestria between them and the Empire?

Emperor #6 · Mar 12th, 2017 · · · 3 ·

Ah, so that's how Dash loses her wing in this story.

It feels a little bit of an about-turn for Pinkie and Maud to show up and save the day, though. For the tone that this story strikes in the first few chapters, having those two save the day and all the bandits be alive if injured seems to lack sufficient grimness to the story, regardless of it taking place in the War timeline.

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First of all, thank you so much for reading. Always brings a smile to my face when I realize someone out there enjoyed my work. Small victory in an otherwise victory-less world.

t's pretty interesting that you write this story with Gilda in it. I don't think I recall seeing a single other Crystal War-timeline story that actually makes use of the non-equine races

Exactly why I wanted to write a story set in this universe from the viewpoint of someone other than the Mane six. While their views would certainly be interesting, it'd be threading on what is already worn ground.

The narrative is a little bit disjointed here. Given Dash's recollection at the end of the chapter, it sounds like this whole chapter is taking place right after she freed Gilda from her mind control, and the cuts and wounds on Rainbow Dash that Gilda has been stitching up lines up with the fight, but the early part of the chapter feels more like that they've been together for a while, fighting side by side. To find out that they've just reunited after two years of war-is-hell feels out-of-place.

This was, for the most part, intentional. The two are fleeing, tired, and in the case of Dash, barely hanging on after a nasty fight that could have easily seen her die if she wasn't as tough as she is. Perhaps I overplayed it a bit, so maybe tell me the exact places you feel this is unclear?

I'm not quite keen on how you forced some events to stay the same, such as Gilda traveling to Ponyville to meet Rainbow Dash, becoming jealous of Pinkie Pie, and getting into a giant spat that ends up with her losing her friendship with Rainbow. That's a set of circumstances that should have never come to pass in the alt-timeline (Pinkie should never have come to Ponyville, Rainbow Dash seems unlikely to visit unless Fluttershy was living there, and of course Gilda coming along to visit even more unlikely).

For a while, I too debated about having these events play out different. But in the end, I felt that despite all the differences, things would still more or less play the same if Dash already knew who Pinkie was. The timeline only split AFTER Sombra returned, which itself took place in Season two of the show. That means that all the mane six were living in Ponyville prior to the war breaking out. In the episode, when Twilight asks about the others, she says that Rarity and Fluttershy moved away to Manehattan to better help in the war effort, meaning that Dash, being Fluttershy's childhood friend, would also be present too. From there, we can assume that Dash and Gilda met, and that the events of "Griffon the brush off" also took place, albeit with differences.

Iron Will's appearance makes the inner fanboy in me happy, even if it is as a bandit (well, I suppose he did call his subordinates his friends, so there's some of canon Iron Will's personality still there, buried under the horrors of war).

I am very happy I nailed this character well. It was the one that I worried the most about.

I see you've been referring to the official Equestrian map, but I see one big issue with it: you're putting the geography of all this aciton in the south part of Equestria, with reference to the Macintosh Hills and Los Pegasus. However, the Crystal Empire is to the north of Equestria, so why would there be fights on the south end of Equestria between them and the Empire?

It was difficult at first, but I found a war map that fit my needs the most. This is that map:

k60.kn3.net/4/2/B/D/9/3/000.png

It feels a little bit of an about-turn for Pinkie and Maud to show up and save the day, though. For the tone that this story strikes in the first few chapters, having those two save the day and all the bandits be alive if injured seems to lack sufficient grimness to the story, regardless of it taking place in the War timeline.

This was perhaps the most difficult choice I had to make in regards to this story. If you got and give the original draft a look over, you'll realize that the plan originally was to have Gilda die, and Dash running away, only to later swear that she wouldn't run from a fight ever again. But as the story took shape, I realized that it was a conclusion that was far too expected.

"Oh, it's a war story. Of course one of the friends is going to wind up dead. How expected."

I did a bit of searching, and realized that I wanted the story to be different in that ending. Then I watched a few old war movies from the 40's and 50's, and noticed that that in those movies, there was this sense of underlying hope. It's a bit hard to explain without going into a big paragraph about it. You just knew that despite all the trouble the characters would go through, everything would be alright in the end, even there were sacrifices along the way. I wanted to end on that note. Despite everything that had happened to the two, there was a happy (if bittersweet) ending, and that they hadn't completely lost themselves to the war just yet.

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