I'm a long time science fiction and animation fan who stumbled into My Little Pony fandom and got caught -- I guess I'm a Brony Forever now.
The Writers' Group56,394 stories ·9,291 members
One-Shots18,907 stories ·2,369 members
Followers of Discord 2,749 stories ·3,185 members
Transformations5,229 stories ·5,794 members
This story is a sequel to The Death of Tiamat
Over 10,000 Years Before Present: The Cosmic Concept of Fusion is fasicnated by a new species of mortal life she's discovered, and she shows off her new idea for exploring them to her two best friends, Gravity and Dissonance.
Page generated in 0.279 seconds
Total duration
872 users online
431,394 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
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.®
Oh, this is brilliant! I love the idea, though I have seen similar such origins stories. What sets this out is how much you fleshed it out and gave them character before they became the ponies (and strange thing that is Discord) that we love. Definitely going in my Highly Recommended bookshelf.
8105844
I'm really glad you liked this. I knew I was taking a risk by telling this entirely at the Cosmic Level; it's essentially about the god-things of which (in the SWSV) Celestia, Luna and Discord are merely material Avatars. Neil Gaiman pulled this sort of story off, but I'm no Neil Gaiman.
8105886
Indeed, no one is but the esteemed Mr. Gaiman.
You are, however, a darn fine Jordan179.
That was pretty good, great job.
8105904 Agreed.
I'm certainly looking forward to more from you.
Ironically, I imagine equines, ponies, centaurs, zebras, were creations of King Leo. (Neptune was the god of horses.)
Fascinating, especially when contrasted with what we've seen of the Great Shadows. Similar beings in terms of scale, power, and comprehensibility, but very different when it comes to modes of interaction and end goals. Of course, the universes they inhabit are equally different. One is young, bright, and full of possibility, the other an undead husk of a cosmos that still exists only because of a direct attack on thermodynamic principles. Is it any wonder their highest entities diverge so much?
In any case, thank you for even this heavily filtered glimpse of the Cosmic Level. I can only imagine what Twilight and the others will think when they first experience it. And how they'll appear for that matter. And don't think I didn't notice the mention of the divergence point between the pony and human worldlines. I wonder why the Eldren chose to keep the hominids' PK abilities to a minimum...
Oh, and I do have to wonder about Gravity's assessment of the ponies as "girly." I assume that particular translation was heavily filtered indeed, given all of the gender role assumptions it implies.
But yeah, this one is wonderfully information dense when it comes to the deep details of the SWSV. Thank you for it.
umm.
I think I need to finish school and read this again to understand it.
I like the personification of abstracts though.
Ironic that Luna would call them girly when she'd eventually create the Thestrals.
8106728
The irony is entirely intentional.
8106266
The Great Shadows have replaced the Concepts in their universe.
Yes, the Conceptual culture doesn't translate perfectly into any of Humans or Ponies. Gravity -- herself female, and one of the bravest and most powerful Conceptual warriors around -- doesn't really mean "girly" in the gender sense when she says that. As Luna, she will have some fondness for pretty things; though rather badass pretty things such as fine weapons and her Midnight Chariot.
What she means is rather "decoratively useless" or "prissy" or "helpless." (Note that, as Luna, she has no problem recognizing the very feminine and hedonistic Rarity as a courageous heroine).
I guess I had her say it that way as something of an in-joke; this is how a lot of people who know nothing about My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic works envision The Show. They think it's all about being cute and feminine, while it's very much a celebrtion of courage, moral integrity, and active virtue.
All principles which Gravity -- and Luna -- respect deeply.
I really do like how you handled the 'otherness' of the Concepts here while still keeping them relatable. It reminds me in several ways of how Tim Powers has handled similarly cosmic beings in his books. Though his are usually even more alien and far less friendly than even Dissonance at his worst.
Fusion nodded. "There are worldbundles in which the equinids died, and the hominids lived," she said. "But on the main one I examine here, it was the equinids who survived."
I like the implication that the human world (ours) is actually one of the alternates rather than the one all others diverge from. I can almost imagine with Celestia saying to a human, "Why do you hominids always imagine that you and your bipedal forms are the ones best suited for sapience?" Kind of like that one Fredric Brown story.
Great piece of work and I hope we see you do more with the Concepts in the future.
8107465
I devoted some thought to writing the Concepts.
Celestia, Luna and Discord are -- though super-intelligent and super-powerful from a Human or Pony point of view -- still on the same rough scale as Humans or Ponies, intellectually and morally speaking. A very superior mortal can play in their league, as Fluttershy or Starlight Glimmer demonstrate. They can enjoy friendships with mortals. They are not incomprehensible in our terms.
The Concepts are ... beyond us. When Twilight Sparkle was projecting whole scenarios at Celestia and Spike in the Season Opener, that was the sort of thing the Concepts do in ordinary communiction, only their scenarios are far richer and more realistic. They can think in multiple dimensions of spacetime simultaneously and multi-task such thoughts. They are tremendously intelligent and supernally-powerful beings.
They are indeed, so intelligent and powerful that the reason why they make Avatars to explore the mortal world is because their full Selves would overpower and possibly destroy any mortal planet; it would be like trying to observe micro-organisms by going swimming amongst them. Even an Alicorn or Draconequus Avatar is far, far closer to ordinary mortals than it is to the Cosmic Self of which it is but a minor facet.
But I do hold that there is a continuity in life and experience, and so it is possible to hint at what the Cosmic Concepts are actually feeling, thinking, saying and doing. Which is what I attempt to do here.
And IIRC, in that Fredric Brown story, it was the equid form which was the primary one of the alien!
8106976
Ah. I admit, the in-joke went over my head, but it does work quite well. Gravity still hasn't gotten over the packaging, while Fusion and Dissonance are already designing their overpowered self-insert OCs.
(Well, overpowered in terms of the locals, anyway.)
It feels like it's been a while since I've read a story that could stand on either concept or description alone, and you appear to have done both here.
You also do an excellent job building up the mechanisms (both interpersonal and cosmic) by which your world runs with nothing more than allusions to them in your wonderful metaphysical metaphors.
And speaking of metaphysics your rendition of physical concepts feels extremely on-point.
10/10 Jordan, thank you for the read.
I've always been of the mind that any high order beings like the Concepts are the Shadows would be both awesome and terrible in there true forms, due to the limits of our poor biology. After all the mind can't really comprehend that which is more complicated then itself.
Though I would like to wonder what the mane seven, I count Spike, Flurry, Candace, and Sunset would like at this level.
Will you ever show the first meeting between these three and the new Concepts, especially Magic?
8124647
No. Though in an earlier version of one of my story arcs, I have a scene partly plotted and written in which Twilight Sparkle (almost) dies at the hooves of Random Flag as part of an attempt to awake Nightmare Moon within Luna, and Twilight (as Magic) ascends to perceive the Universe as a vast library, in need of some serious reading and reorganization to link it all. She is greeted by Gravity, who is well aware of the connection between their Avatars.
Magic decides to return and regenerate Twilight Sparkle, in part because the Ponies need her; in part because Luna needs her.
This comes as quite a pleasant surprise to Princess Luna, and quite an unpleasant surprise to Random Flag (who had counted that the delights of the Cosmic Level would free Magic of mortal attachments).
Unsurprisingly, Twilight and Luna proceed to kick ass on Random and his Changeling minions.
The comments sometimes referenced things called the Great Shadows. What are they and what story are they from?
8126586
Now I REALLY want to read that scene!
Cool story!
Edit: A year ago, when I first read this, I didn't fully understand the story, but now I can truly appreciate the genius of it. It's wonderfully crafted and, I feel, accurate. I don't know if anyone else agrees, but I would very much like a sequel.
"and for this reason all her knew her well did greatly love her."
Was "all *who* knew her well" intended here?
8869553
Yes. My bad.
8869553
Also I'm glad you pointed that out, because that was a very important piece of character background that I mangled. Luna's fundamental problem and merit -- that she is poor at making friends, but that those who take the effort to know her well usually wind up loving her greatly -- stem from the character of the Cosmic Concept of Gravity; it's an aspect of her that is not merely due to her equine Avatar.
You can has review!