G7.01: Citizen of Equus
Princess Luna nodded towards the side of the controls, though there was a flash of annoyance in her eyes. I’d be upset if my sister talked to me like that. Isn’t she in charge too?
Lucky started walking, following her off the edge of the glass. All this… they’d come so far, and they lost. There was no way the three of them could beat the princesses, not with one badly-injured Lightning Dust and one Forerunner with nothing but a crossbow. She didn’t even know if this was the right place—for all she knew, she had almost disrupted the waste-control circuits for Equestria or turned off the air supply.
It was doomed from the start. This was an Alicorn’s job. I needed Twilight, or Flurry Heart. We fought for nothing. Celestia would probably murder her just like Olivia. At least she wouldn’t have to live with the shame of getting everyone killed.
“Faster,” Celestia instructed, her voice betraying a little of her hesitation. “You should never have allowed her to come so far, sister. Even a remote chance she could have acted against us was inexcusable.”
“It is less than remote, Celestia,” Luna responded, her tone growing a little more annoyed. “She isn’t a princess. She was unable to convince Twilight or Flurry Heart. This endeavor has been a sad waste of lives from the start.”
They needed a citizen—an Alicorn.
“Save my niece,” Twilight had said. “Or make your own.” They had failed the first option. But maybe there was still a way to accomplish the second.
“In her humility, the child—” Lucky began. The entire control panel lit up at her words, a brilliant spotlight that focused on where she stood. The weight of attention focused on her.
Then she froze. A gold glow surrounded her, burning so brightly that parts of her fur were charred, and her eyes began to sting. It seared against her vision, like staring at the sun. But she couldn’t move, not even to close her eyes or look away.
The machinery of the room had fallen completely silent, as though listening for the rest of her words. But she couldn’t speak them.
“This is exactly what I meant!” Celestia shouted, her voice shaking with terror. “This one is far more dangerous than her twin.” Lucky felt herself lifting off the ground, even as the heat continued to burn at her coat, charring the skin beneath. She was consumed by the heat, by agony sightless and infinite. She could only see suggestions of the others in the room with them—of Princess Luna, her back turned on both of them and eyes downcast. Of Lightning Dust, her body a vague blur.
“Do what you feel you must,” Princess Luna said, her voice distant and pained. “You always have. But do it without me.” She turned, sparing one last compassionate glance for Lucky. Then she vanished.
“I have never seen a pony more twisted by Discord’s touch than you, Lucky Break,” Celestia said, the heat growing brilliantly intense. “Your pain will end soon.”
Olivia plummeted alone through an endless void. She struggled to move, to scream or to fly, but every effort failed. She was alone with her thoughts in the nothingness, her thoughts and the words of Harmony before it had banished her.
It was reductive to think of the program only as an enemy. Olivia had once dismissed the program, with a remote thought of destroying it as soon as it became too much of a nuisance. Now she knew—too late—how ignorant an impression that had been. But it was much too late to take back what she had done.
If only Olivia had listened a little better to her scientists, so much that had happened might’ve been avoided. Forerunner had known that, that was why it had given her so many. If she ever saw the probe again, she would apologize.
She landed on the farm. The impact felt as though it had come from an enormous distance—and the force was so great that a crater fractured out from around the point she struck, filling the air with dust and broken rocks. Yet she felt no pain, there were no broken limbs. Maybe Martin had been right about this place not being real, and her mind only being a “simulation”. Olivia found she still didn’t care.
To her surprise, there was a small gathering out behind the farmhouse. It was night now, and the stars were high in the sky. There were several figures here Olivia was not happy to see. They were all gathered around a great bonfire, sitting in comfortable chairs and cushions and snacking on various apple and pear related treats.
Discord was impossible to miss, even obscured in shadow. He seemed engaged in cheerful conversation with Pear and her husband. Considering Olivia had already seen him here once before, it wasn’t entirely surprising.
What was surprising was the pony next to him. Even though Olivia had never seen her before, she knew instantly who it must be. The stars twinkling in her mane, the dark blue coat, the feathers that glowed around the edges. The black splotch on her flank and the moon mark it highlighted. Princess Luna, sister of Celestia, had come to the land of the dead. Not only that, she seemed to be waiting for her.
She rose, nodding once to Martin who had been sitting beside her. There were other ponies there too, but they were facing away from her, and did not look back. Olivia couldn’t help but feel relieved that she could not see them.
The moon princess made her way over to Olivia.
Olivia straightened her back, preparing to use her training again. Discord had warned her about this moment—when Luna found her, she would be able to extract everything she knew. Every secret, such as the location of Othar, and the identities of every surviving member of the Pioneering Society crew. If Luna breached the vault of her mind, all would be doomed.
“I thought this was the world of the dead,” Olivia said, not bowing or showing any other sign of respect to the moon princess. “Unless Lucky killed you.”
“I have met her. She didn’t kill me. I don’t think she would kill anyone.” The moon princess gestured away from the gathering with one wing. There was nothing angry in her bearing, as Princess Celestia had acted. But then, they weren’t meeting after a battle that had killed many of Luna’s own guards. She was probably in a better mood.
“Discord!” Olivia called, a twinge of her desperation entering her voice. If it were only herself in danger, she would not have felt fear. But if Othar burned because of this—burned because of Olivia’s failings, when she was helpless to assist—there would be no greater torment.
Discord turned, pausing in his conversation. His neck twisted all the way around, in such a way that certainly would’ve broken the neck of any living thing. “Go with her,” he said, his voice unconcerned. “There is nothing she can learn that her sister doesn’t already know.”
So Olivia went with her, around the dark outline of the farmhouse. Between the healthy fruit trees, always overflowing and ready to harvest. “The ponies of Equestria call me the Pale Mare,” she said after a time, when they had gone some distance from the gathering. “They imagine that I’m the one who comes for their souls. I’m waiting until the end, to lead them back safely to return to their families. Some of them imagine I’m a judge, to weigh the actions they took in life, and reward or punish what they have done.”
“But they’re wrong,” Olivia guessed. She still felt tense, her body still coiled and ready to spring. But she could restrain—violence here would do no good. She would listen carefully, learning everything she could. She would strike only when her actions might stand to gain her something.
This was a different sparring ground—the battlefield of officers and politicians. Assuming she wasn’t just interrogated. “You weren’t there to collect my soul, when your sister killed me. I had to come alone.”
Princess Luna winced. “You are not one of the ponies of Equestria. Yet you are not as much their enemy as my sister thinks you are.” The princess stared at her, under the light of a thousand stars. “You seem about as much a monster as the rest of us.”
Olivia nodded. “Civilization is a flame always closer to going out than most will admit. Without the protection of those like me, it would be gone.”
Luna regarded her for a time—then they walked on. “I have some news you will like, and other news you will not like,” she said, after they had gone far into the fields. “I have a feeling you would prefer the worst news first.”
Olivia nodded.
“My sister knows about Othar now. Her society has already destroyed the place you call Landfall. When she has finished with Lucky, she will call upon Harmony’s weapons and destroy it utterly. She will boil the oceans away, and leave nothing behind. All who live there will die.” She did not sound threatening—yet she also didn’t sound like she was making a prediction. More like a person reading a sad headline in the newspaper three days too early.
“That won’t happen,” Olivia breathed, her voice dangerously low. Princess Luna might not be the one threatening Othar, but even delivering the news was bad enough. “My translator will win. She’ll beat your sister.”
“You think so?” Luna tilted her head slightly to one side. “I was there, only moments ago. My sister killed her soldiers. She is alone with her now, and the pony who adopted her. If you couldn’t beat her, I don’t think a translator’s odds will be much better. But…” She glanced over her shoulder, towards the distant flicker of firelight. “But Harmony will not destroy the ones you are creating. It is so pleased to have new minds to teach, it would never give up thousands of children to protect. Even if your city burns, its people will survive. Harmony has modified the hardware creating them, without your “Forerunner’s” knowledge. Their essence will be gathered before they even wake—you will lose no more of your friends.”
Luna seemed like she was waiting for something—relief, gratitude? Olivia gave her the satisfaction of neither. She found it hard to be relieved that her army would wake to be trapped in this place.
It wasn’t so bad. That one part even looked like home. She would like very much to go back there, even if she had to be a pony.
Princess Luna almost seemed to see her thoughts, because only then did she relax. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you failed. My sister has kept Equestria safe for many years… but I was never so convinced that what we did on the surface didn’t matter. We never really killed anypony. The ones we fought could actually have ended all that the ancients built.” She shrugged. “No matter how many times she said that, she would never come here to give absolution to the dead. She never saw their loss at being separated from the ones they loved. And why? Because of a quarantine meant to protect us from an enemy that’s all ashes.”
Princess Luna turned away, back towards the campfires. They walked together in silence for some time more.
“Absolution,” Olivia whispered, when the voices on the other side of the trees were getting close again. “Is there any of that left for me?”
Princess Luna spread her wings wide. Her eyes flashed, and for an instant it seemed as though she looked deep into Olivia’s soul. Olivia could feel the memories as Luna saw them—leaving Dustin alone in the restaurant, a ring still in his hand. Many lives taken on stations and cramped starship halls. She saw slavers and soldiers dead at her hooves in a cave. She saw the honored and brave of Equestria, who had never known true war. She watched them die too.
“The legacy of life is long,” said Princess Luna, her wings folding closed again. “The ancients once looked up from their single world, with only tubes and glass and curiosity. They looked and wondered and dreamed that maybe, maybe, someone else might be looking back. Many years later, they came looking. With machines and with starships they visited every star from one end of creation to the other—but there was no one there. They found only the smallest, simplest life. The further they traveled, the more sure they were. The act of fate that had created them—them and every other kind of complex life that had ever been—had only ever happened in one place.
“Endless eons came and went, Olivia. Life grew and multiplied and filled every world. It changed so much that its branches were more distant than ever they had been on that first small home. So distant that they forgot one another a billion times over. You ask for absolution. Know this: every terrible thing you remember is so ancient now that nothing is left of it but stardust. It is so ancient that the only trace it left behind are the memories you carry. As for what you have done on Equus—
“You did the best you could. You brought a tremendous wealth of new souls to Harmony. In some ways, you are the mother of a nation.” She leaned in closer, touching a wing briefly on her shoulder. “I do not judge the ponies of Equestria for their lives. But if they ask me to measure them, I measure using the love their friends felt for them. I can see there are a few who loved you very much.”
Olivia didn’t cry. Well, not that anypony saw. It was very dark in that orchard.
“This is the place you leave your regrets behind,” Luna said. “You will not turn the battle one way or the other anymore. Almost all those who served you are here. Soon enough, the last few will join us. You can grieve together in your defeat… then decide what you will do next.” The stars above them seemed to flash, a little brighter than before.
There were so many to choose from.
She reunited with her friends then, just as Luna had promised. The other ponies she had seen were Mogyla and Perez, who had fallen in a brief battle with Celestia.
Olivia could see in Perez the same desperate need she had felt in herself, only a few minutes earlier. “You did well, Lieutenant,” she told him. Though she didn’t know if it was true. Maybe it didn’t matter.
Some hours later, she found herself sitting beside Discord. Even Princess Luna had gone—quite abruptly, and without farewells. Whether it was panic in her bearing or merely sadness, Olivia didn’t know or care.
Discord floated above his chair, munching on the bones of drumsticks and leaving the flesh behind. Olivia was desperate for the taste of meat again after so long, and so she snatched a few of what he’d left.
“Every piece is on the board, Fischer,” Discord said, sounding very pleased with himself. “You’ve moved yours quite well. If your little translator lives up to my expectations, well… I don’t know how grateful I’ll be. I guess once I save civilization I’ll need a new hobby. Suppose someone has to rebuild the stellar highways.”
Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Luna didn’t think we had much of a chance.”
Discord shrugged. “I’m a creature of improbability, little knife. From one perspective, an event seems impossible. Flip around a few variables, and it becomes inevitable.”
Lucky Break found she could move a little—at least enough to speak. The heat was still cooking her—but not her face anymore. She still couldn’t see clearly, no more than the general outline of where everypony stood. “We… only wanted to free you,” she croaked, her lungs barely working anymore. She was cooking alive.
You couldn’t even make it fast. You want to torture me.
Then something moved—a blur so fast Lucky’s eyes couldn’t focus on it. She recognized the general outline anyway, and couldn’t help but stare. Forerunner moved with inhuman speed, he moved faster than the fastest pegasus. He moved like thought, wielding a pony sword clutched in his remaining hand like a dagger.
Princess Celestia turned to face him with impossible speed, reacting faster than any mortal pony could have. A glow spread around her, a thin bubble that flung Lightning Dust away as though she’d been catapulted.
Forerunner struck that barrier with all the force of his momentum, though Lucky had seen Olivia’s most powerful weapons stopped by Twilight Sparkle and her bubble.
Forerunner struck it, and he kept moving. His chest began to burn brilliantly red—the skin of his remaining arm melted, his jumpsuit caught fire—and he kept moving.
Lucky felt sudden agony in her chest, and a second later she crashed to the ground. Her damaged wings no longer had the lift to keep her aloft, and she lacked the coordination to flap them. She moaned, yet she couldn’t look away.
Celestia turned her horn entirely on her attacker. A wave of flame surrounded Forerunner, consuming all it touched. Yet strangely, most of it curved away from him, centered on a point of angry red light emerging from his chest.
“Now, Lucky!” Lightning Dust moaned, from where she’d landed on the other side of the room. She looked beaten, bloody, one of her wing bones exposed from the violence of the impact. “Whatever you were doing…”
“In her humility, the child asks a blessing of the wise. What is obscure from tall mountains is plain to those who live below.”
All her agony became meaningless—her half-melted wings, her burned flesh, her nearly blinded eyes. Lucky Break didn’t even get one last look at Princess Celestia before the world vanished from around her.
Lightning Dust lived in a universe of pain. Wing bones were delicate and sensitive, and she’d broken several of them. It was the kind of accident that might keep a pony grounded for months, maybe forever.
It was so hard to care about anything. Her movements came slowly, her emotions distant. They were feelings that belonged to somepony else. It was like sitting in Othar’s cafeteria and watching one of the human screens with pictures of her. She knew her wounds must be terrible, but what did they matter?
The overwhelming weight of magic around her was gone. She was heavier than she could remember—heavier than she’d been in her life.
But none of that mattered. Her daughter was safely gone now, out of Celestia’s reach at last.
She looked up, searching for the princess. She saw the incredible machinery first, each crystal frozen in place. Then she finally found Celestia.
The princess had collapsed to the ground, with something half-molten stuck to her. It was Forerunner’s body, burned away to his metal skeleton and a few bits of sludge. She could dimly make out a bit of reddish metal emerging from his chest, still glowing with crimson light.
Forerunner’s blade had found its mark in Celestia’s torso. The princess lay on her side, red seeping from the wound, and trying in vain to reach up and push the strangely melted body of Forerunner away from her.
Lightning Dust knew what she had to do then.
She rose to her hooves—her legs were not injured, but the weight of ambivalence was crushing. Even a tiny movement sent new pain through her broken wings, which hung strangely from her back.
Lightning Dust dragged herself towards where the princess of the sun had fallen. She felt darker with every step, as every drop of magic in her body was dragged down into the strange device Forerunner had concealed within himself. Even Princess Celestia was not immune to it.
But then, Lightning Dust had heard about something like this happening once before. Forerunner was not the first to try taking Celestia’s magic away. It seemed he had given his life to succeed.
“T-twist…” Celestia croaked, one eye following Lightning Dust as she walked, “th-the… void… syphon… closed.” One wing flicked towards the device in Forerunner’s chest. Lightning Dust could see what the princess was indicating—the whole thing was divided into two sections. It had been opened all the way. Through the slats in the rusty metal, Lightning Dust saw only darkness, and an endless cold that spiraled into eternity. That was the darkness she felt—the one that had made even Celestia helpless.
“Princess Luna didn’t come back,” Lightning Dust said, eyeing the hilt of the sword. Celestia’s wound did not look like it would kill her—with her magic, Alicorns were supposed to be nearly invincible. They could tear down mountains, or not be crushed by incredible weights. “I wonder if she knows… maybe she’s thinking like you always do. Terrible… sacrifices… to do the right thing.”
“You c-can’t… can’t know,” Celestia whispered, blood dribbling from her lips. “What…” yet there was recognition in those eyes. She kept glancing at the open doorway—and no one came. Not Luna, not Cadance, not even Twilight.
Lightning Dust bent down, and yanked the sword from Celestia’s chest. Blood flowed readily from the wound, dribbling onto the ground between them.
Lightning Dust’s wings might be broken, but her legs worked just fine. “You let Equestria disown me,” she said. “You locked up Flurry Heart. But your real mistake was trying to kill my daughter. I’m going to make Equestria safe from you, Celestia.”
Lightning Dust brought the sword down with both hooves, directly on Celestia’s head.
The princess of the sun, ruler of Equestria for thousands of years, gasped one last time as the blow fell true. Lightning Dust could see the heartache in her eyes as the life faded from them.
She waited until she was sure the princess would not rise before finally twisting the strange syphon closed.
Energy flooded back into her, and she watched carefully for a few more seconds, ready to open it again if something similar happened to the princess.
Something did happen. The princess melted away, her body ash in an invisible wind. The sword that had pierced her clattered to the floor, still wet with her blood.
Only then did Lightning Dust collapse.
Lucky floated in a sea that stretched beyond understanding and thought. She had no body in the void, no method by which she could interact with the unfathomable things all around her. She was a single spark, lifted upward into high spaces inside a jar.
"This one asks beyond her station," said something, though she couldn’t tell if it was sound or thought. "Consent for change of complexity is required. First from you, then from every citizen living on the surface of Equus."
The intelligence that was Lucky Break had no mouth by which to scream her answer. She had no lungs to shout. So she thought, thought with all her might—thought with a single-minded determination as she had never thought before. It was the substance of this place—it would have to be enough.
"So shall it be done," answered the voice. She could extract no sex from it, and no familiar emotions—except one. Was that regret? Resentment, perhaps? Or something else, altogether greater. "The child must understand as others before her. She must remember."
She saw through the world to the stars on either side—turned her head along an axis she had never seen, and there was Equus stretching backward in time. An age of unfathomable antiquity, when beings not entirely like ponies had arrived here, determined to create a home for themselves. She could not understand their craft, but she could admire it. The ancients had defied every filter, they had endured when so few others did.
The galaxy burned around them. In time, space became empty, except for a few last cockroaches flittering endlessly across the void, their programming altered by that same force that had burned the Stellar Highways and every great capital they connected. They would found no new civilizations.
Except one.
Her spark had come from that distant day, snatched from destruction by the power the ancients had imbued in their failsafe.
Lucky Break understood, and in that moment, she was somewhere else. Stars resolved around her, body renewed—all her burns and injuries gone. She was below now, looking up at that unfathomable place she had briefly visited. From below, it was even vaster than she had imagined.
She wasn’t alone.
Lucky’s eyes widened as she saw the pony standing beside her. She looked like the survivor of a shipwreck—fur matted, expression haunted. Magic flickered around her in halting starts, shifting from blue to green and back again.
“F-Flurry Heart?” Lucky gasped, barely able to speak.
The child turned, as though tearing against invisible bonds. Her eyes were glazed—with disbelief, confusion, and fear. Her mouth opened, but whatever she’d been about to say turned into a sob. She stumbled forward, clinging to Lucky the way Lucky had hung onto Lightning Dust.
Lucky had a good teacher—she knew what to do, even if she wasn’t quite so big as the princess. And she would’ve been lying if she claimed it hadn’t been exactly what she wanted to do too.
“Thought I… thought I’d never… see another pony again,” she whimpered. “N-not Mom, not Twilight… only the fires.” Lucky Break looked into her eyes, and saw the reflection of Equus destroyed. The ring fractured by terrible weapons, tumbling molten into the star. She saw the agony of its innumerable residents, in the few moments before their endless lives finally ended. She saw it, and felt the weight of guilt that it was her fault.
She joined Flurry Heart’s tears, holding her tighter with her wings, desperate and afraid.
And the two of them weren’t alone. There was another figure with them suddenly, her form so large it dwarfed the two of them. Her wings stretched wide, and the sun itself burned in her mane.
A pony sword pierced her head, her own cutie mark set into the metal there. She reached up with one shaking hoof, pulling it free. It tumbled away off the clouds at their hooves, vanishing from sight. “You h-have no idea… the weight I’ve carried,” Princess Celestia said. Somehow, she did not seem so large anymore, so imposing. Lucky saw her differently now—as Harmony saw her. A small, fleeting thing, barely wise enough to grasp the smallest fraction of its intention. Yet she had also dedicated herself to the protection of all life on Equus—and had given everything.
That was a pony who had watched her mother die—who had done terrible things to her fellow princesses. As she approached, Lucky could feel the weight of her agony, nearly as heavy as Harmony’s own presence. Princess Celestia had not been trapped and tortured with terrible visions. She had willingly lived with them. The vastness of time all focused on her, a single pony who had to hold up the weight of the sun.
"Our intentions are secure," Harmony said, its voice still confident despite everything. "I will briefly return you to Equestria. Then your vote will be enough."
Princess Celestia was silent for a long time. She stared at Lucky Break, seeming to see her for the first time. “No more, Harmony. I can’t go back. I can’t watch them die any more. I can’t do this to the ponies who should look up to me.” Her eyes lingered on Flurry Heart, clinging desperately to Lucky for support. “No more.”
Princess Celestia turned back to the two of them, huddled together on the clouds above creation. “I am sorry for the pain I caused you, Flurry Heart. And you, Lucky Break… I hope you understand what you’ve done. Equus suffered in ignorance, but it suffered in safety. Discord claims the universe is safe now… but if he’s wrong, everything our ancient ancestors ever achieved will be for nothing. Are you prepared to sacrifice our safety after all these years?”
Lucky glared back at the princess, defiant despite everything. No magic, no pain, nothing had broken her will. “Every life has danger. But if we die… we’ll die free. We’ll die together.”
Princess Celestia laughed, then tossed her crown off her head. It tumbled to the clouds at Lucky’s hooves. “Then you will carry the weight of that decision.” She looked away. “Harmony!”
"What is your command?" There was emotion in that desperate voice. Fear, anger, frustration… and acceptance. "You have served equus well for many years. What do you desire in return?"
“I want… to see my mother.”
Lucky opened her mouth to respond, but she didn’t get the chance. Princess Celestia melted away before them, blown in an ethereal wind.
Flurry Heart finally seemed to be recovering herself. She rose, stretched, looked around. “Where… where is this, Lucky? How did we get here?”
Lucky Break didn’t have an answer. Fortunately for her, Harmony was listening.
"Convergence. You exist neither in the physical universe on Equus's surface, nor entirely within its computational matrix. It is the space created for citizens to interact with either realm. While Equus is in isolation, assigning citizen permissions requires unanimous consent from all citizens assigned to supervise on the surface of Equus."
Lucky’s eyes widened as she realized what that meant. Celestia could’ve stayed to stop her… and she hadn’t. Even Cadance hadn’t come, despite what she’d probably been told about Lucky. I took her daughter on an adventure. Celestia locked her up to torture her with nightmares.
“What about the others?” Lucky asked. “Twilight, Luna, Cadance…”
"They have already granted their approval," said Harmony, sounding somehow resolved about it. "Only one vote remains."
“I get it,” Lucky said, interrupting whatever Flurry Heart was about to ask. “Do you mind if I’m a citizen, Flurry Heart?”
The Alicorn shrugged, subconsciously brushing back a few strands of her bright mane. “Why would I?”
"Any citizen may make binding decisions for the future of Equus and its population. The weight of failure is the end of the ancients' work. So it has been as long as we have existed in isolation, and so it shall be until the years of quarantine end and citizenship is restored to all who wish it."
Flurry Heart turned, looking Lucky over with a single desperate eye.
Lucky needn’t have worried. “She saved me. Of course she can make decisions.”
"Your vote is accepted," Harmony said. Flurry Heart started glowing, lifting slowly off the cloud.
“Wait!” Lucky raised a wing. “Don’t… don’t send her back to where she came from, please. I don’t think she wants to go back to jail.” It was too late. Flurry Heart was already gone.
"The will of the ignorant is respected."Harmony said. "The command of the ancients is obeyed."
Lucky Break felt herself lifted up into the air. She fought against the current with pure instinct, instinct her mother had trained in her through many hours of diligent practice. There was light again, more than Celestia had hit her with—yet this time, it didn’t burn. It poured into her, filling every tissue, every cell. Her mind stretched—for an immeasurable instant of time, she felt the ring as though it were herself. Every meter of soil, every drop of ocean and every city on its surface.
She landed on glass, feeling taller. She was assaulted with an entirely new sensation—another set of impressions that overlapped everything she could see. She somehow recognized she was seeing magic itself, a torus that bent and twisted through the air in front of her with the energy of something living.
The contents of the room had changed. Her mother was slumped on the side of the panel, resting beside the half-ruined body of the Forerunner. The anti-magic device Perez had salvaged poked out from the wreckage of his chest. A bloody sword rested on the ground in front of Lightning Dust, where Lucky imagined Princess Celestia had been.
"Permissions resolved. We listen."
Lightning Dust stirred, opening one eye and looking in her direction. “P-Princess?”
Lucky tilted her head to one side, and sure enough Flurry Heart was standing beside her too. Harmony had done what she asked.
But the princess only nodded to her.
Lucky took a deep breath. “Equus is in an isolation state.”
"Yes."
“End it. The reason for that isolation doesn’t exist anymore. It’s safe.”
The weight of Harmony’s attention came crashing down on Lucky again. Not just her—the sensation was apparently so intense that Flurry Heart whimpered and began to cry, retreating from the control panel with a few flaps of her wings.
In that instant, Lucky Break saw every terrible thing that had ended galactic civilization. She saw whole worlds burned—billions murdered in seconds, stars snuffed out. She saw the ambition of the powerful crumble to dust and get swallowed by the waves.
"Do you believe it is safe to end the quarantine?" asked Harmony. "Can it ever be safe?"
In that instant, Lucky Break knew how Harmony had enforced its will for so long. Its own princesses had cowered from this decision—even Selene had not been able to defy Harmony’s will and all the awful things it had seen in a universe that was dead.
But Lucky Break was not a pony, not entirely. She hadn’t been trained by the ISMU, but she didn’t need to be. Harmony itself had already admitted to her it saw the same things Discord did. What really scared it wasn’t the terrible dangers of the past. Harmony was afraid of losing the ones it loved.
“Yes,” said Dr. James Irwin. And she believed it—just as she had believed enough to commit her mind to the Pioneering Society. It was their duty to explore the universe, and fill every dead world with life.
She pointed up with one wing, up into a sky she couldn’t see. “End the quarantine.”
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Well done for coming this far, author. The trip has been most enjoyable.
Wow. Wow. Some questions remain unanswered, but this was an incredibly satisfying conclusion. Everything came together wonderfully... though there are going to be some very awkward moments in the coming denouement. "I stabbed Celestia in the head to save all of us" isn't exactly a statement that most ponies will accept at face value.
Still, incredible work. Here's to whatever's left.
...Dammit...lost a bet. I was SO sure that Melody was gonna be alicorn due to world-saving shenanigans. Oh well...ALL HAIL PRINCESS LUCKY BREAK!
The Princess is dead, long live the Princess.
*Applauds*
And so the world is forever changed.
I am so excited To see what happens.
I had most of this ending called from before the stepped off the "train" The guess I made that didn't happen was that Lightning would die... I had put money on her either dying protecting Lucky or died over Lucky's corpse. I put her being permanently crippled in unlikely but possible, we'll have to see if shattered wings can heal before I call that one.
That was...honestly? One hell of a conclusion, with a bit of epicness to boot-I'm still not sure what Forerunner did at the end, but it acted as a lovely bit of action to the story.
Plus, you just did this so well. Celestia being tired of killing her ponies and frankly just wanting to rest is something so believable. I know there's thousands of arguments that can be made about whether she's actually murdering or assisted in murdering people during her time-and I don't care if she's actually murdered or not. What she has done is hurt hundreds of millions of people, repeatedly, over centuries or thousands or millions of years (I'm not sure how long she's acted as the "guardian" of Equestria/whatever civ she happens to take part in). She's also a compassionate mare, and she's been causing pain-this sort of thing has to eat at her. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't at one point contemplate suicide only to discard it because Harmony wouldn't allow it.
The only real criticism I have for this is Harmony's dialogue. I understand completely what you're doing with the the dialogue's format to get an eldritch feel. I also found it irritating to my eyes. I had to squint and get closer to the screen to read the dialogue, and generally spend twice as long reading its dialogue as in a regular sentence.
that was satisfying.
I don't get this part. Why can Lucky endure this choice better than the Princesses? Sounds like the only reason is that they were traumatized children at their core.
8831784
na melody just didn't get the sea and land boiled away around her, that's pretty important.
I can't wait for the followup chapters though, I doubt olivia and the rest want to go back around the old fashioned way now that quarantine is over plus there's unicorn lucky that's still in the tube
and the whole immunity problem might have just saved itself since it could have been a feature of quarantine
Whoa ... what a ride! Just completed a multi-day binge of this story, and holy hell it's a doozie! I'm hoping that Lucky or Flurry Heart can heal Lightning Dust's injuries - given that Celestia resurrected several guardsponies, that shouldn't be too difficult. In a way, I'm not surprised that Celestia chose to stay dead ... she's done so many horrible things that turned out to be all for nothing, and those must weigh on her horribly. Also, were the various species of Equus descended from an earlier Forerunner probe? It certainly seems heavily implied, and pretty much confirmed to have some sort of ties to Earth. And I'm even more curious about this mysterious threat from so long ago ... they kinda remind me of the Reapers from Mass Effect, as well as several endgame crises from Stellaris, among other things. Do they have ties to Earth as well, beyond wrecking it, that is?
Still on the train, loving the work....
Waaaait a minute. So, up until now, the only way to become an alicorn was to get all the other living alicorns to approve, right? If that's the case, then Flurry Heart's existence is even more baffling. Did preggo Cadance just go "hey fam, let's make my unborn child an immortal demigod for lulz" and the other princesses saw absolutely nothing wrong with this and agreed immediately?
I wonder if "The Ancients" and the Pioneering Society are one and the same?
8831830
Maybe it was an experiment to see if raising an alicorn from birth is better than enlightening pony into ailcornhood?
In all the stories I have read, never once have I seen Celestia get killed in a way that was entirely satisfactory... until now. Simply incredible.
In brief summery, I get the impression that the two sides can be sumerised thus:
Harmony:
Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. That's when the monsters come out. There's always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides. It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you can't read minds. Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distance shriek or blunder across a body. How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, "I'm here!" The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, "I'm a friend!" What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you don't want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out. There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe.
There is no policeman.
There is no way out.
And the night never ends.
-ProjectRho.com
Lucky Break:
Putting all you eggs in one basket is not safe either. That's why we created the things that eventually became you. You call me child? You have it the wrong way round. Listen to your elders and remember your real history and legacy.
Huh.
8831813
They were raised in society with different worldview/mindset. Values change with time, and not in better/worse sense, they are just different.
Well I have to say that's one hell of a climax! Celestia dying by the hoof of one of her own kind. Lightning Dust was truly a changed mare! I do so hope she can continue living with her daughter at least in peace now after all this. And I am interested to see how the final events turn out.
8831830
Discord could have caused it.
Two questions; who controls the sun now, and what is Lucky Princess/alicorn of?
8831781
In a way they will, after getting reunited with their former incarnations,
Also i don't think Celestia is dead, i don't think harmony would allow that, she just chose to not return anymore, so since the isolation is lifted everyone could in theory contact her, if she chooses to respond.
8831813
The princesses aren't explorers though. Maybe they were too afraid of the possibility that the outside might not be safe. They prefer safety. This was certainly Celestia's view after all.
Lucky Break is the head of the pioneering society. The risk is there but if they succeed, the Universe becomes open to them. She deems it worth the risk.
8831855
Not sure how much Lighting has grown. She still thinks Celestia is the one who ruined her life.
She reminds me to Old Man Henderson and his lawn gnomes, for obvious reasons.
8831781
Quite badass if you ask me: " My goddess wrecked mine and my daughter´s lives. I wrecked her head with a sword. Any goddamn questions?"
Well, this might not be the end just yet (which I am very glad to hear), but my god. In the five-and-a-half years I've been hanging around this site, never have I gotten as much enjoyment as I have following this story from its first chapter though to its climax.
I could explain a hundred different things I've loved about this journey in a hundred different ways, especially since there's still chapters to go yet, but instead of going on for hundreds of words, I'll narrow it down for everyone's sake.
Bravo.
Bravo in-damn-well-deed.
Oh gosh. Only one or two more chapters left. That feeling when you finish a particularly satisfying book? That feeling is growing. Fulfilled that you are concluding a really wonderful story, yet at the same time sad because the journey is just about over. Thank you, Starscribe.
Edit: Also, please dont use the zalgo text, its very hard for me to read.
Well, that's one way to get that resentment for Equestria's authorities out of your system, I guess.
That's heartbreaking.
With most if not all the pieces revealed now, I suppose the reason why Celestia fought so hard and for so long against any attempts to free Equestria is because, to believe that the cosmic threat has passed forever is to admit that she had killed countless people for nothing, including her own mother.
To quote Kreia from KotoR 2: "It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it."
At last, Equestria is free. It's been one heck of a ride, and we're looking forward to see how everything gets tied up in the end. It's time to fill the universe with life again.
As a side note, has anyone else read The Equestrian Equation? This story feels like a spiritual successor to that, except in far greater detail.
8831875
Kratos logic.
My thanks and congratulations to you.
Any pity I may have felt for Celestia has evaporated into nothing. What a fucking cunt.
You know, a thought occurs to me: I'm wondering if the prion contamination was a part of the isolation protocols, and with that now lifted, they were neutralized. If not immediately, then soon enough that Forerunner might actually be able to make human biosleeves. It would be like Harmony to have a biological component to her isolation procedures to take down anything that wasn't supposed to be there from the outside.
Otherwise, if the Pioneering Society: Equus Branch gets back out into space, and finds any of the other branches, that might cause some problems on down the line.
That is a really good ending.
Admittedly, I'm pretty sure her last words mean that Celestia is actually dead now, even WITH Harmony's systems, and I feel sad about that, but breaking the Interdict and the "citizenship for all", with all that entails, are pretty much the optimal result.
(And I called it! Woohoo!)
Edit: That is REALLY hard to read, especially the later ones. I can really understand the need to eldritch voice there, but my browser is showing rows of little boxes rather than text.
They keep the resurrection systems, too, I presume. To live forever and dance among the very stars themselves. Good for them.
One last thing:
(Both because it's a (slight) paraphrase of a song, and because I say BOOP P.C., ... ) It's called Easter, with a capital E! Heh heh.
8831899
To think so many lives were lost because Celestia refused to get over her Sunk-Cost fallacy.
I hope the first thing Selene when meeting her daughter is to smack her snout
with a newspaper for several centuries or more.
Jesus, that was a satisfying climax. Like, I've rarely read a climax that felt that viscerally good.
8831830
I think Flurry Heart is just another incarnation of someone who was already a citizen. When someone dies, their mind is withdrawn back into the system, but they're still themselves. They would still have citizen status. But when someone is reborn on the surface, it's without all of their memories (until they die again and go back into the system). But it's still their mind, and in the system hierarchy, they'd still be a citizen, even if they don't remember it. Now, what makes this even more interesting is the list of living citizens. Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, and Flurry. Keep in mind, that Harmony doesn't consider someone in the system to be dead. (I mean, they're not really. Their mind still lives. But that's the core of this philosophical debate, and beside the point here.) That's why Celestia was included in the list and given a vote, despite having her melon split in two. We only know of one other citizen in what we've seen of Equus's history: Selene. And she's not in the list of citizens. That means that one of the current alicorns is a reincarnation of Selene. Obviously it's not Celestia. And mention was made of Luna before Selene died. So one of Cadence, Twilight, or Flurry is Selene's new version. I know that's not a new idea here in the comments, but this confirms it.
8831863
You have to remember, this isn't Equestria as it is in most other versions of the setting. This is an Equestria that's one giant machine-controlled habitat; where all an alicorn is is someone with higher administrator settings for those machines, and the sun is just another subsystem. The sun isn't THE SUN, magically bound to Celestia's lifeforce because it's her divine purpose. Here, what they think is the sun is just a mirror in orbit, and IF Celestia was controlling it on a daily basis, it was by way of system command. The same as you booting up Steam and checking for updates. Any of the other alicorns could just as easily do the same thing.
8831813
Because James had already accepted his mortality.
You have to remember that the princesses believed/knew that nothing ever truly dies on Equestria. As long as everything stays in it gilded cage inside "Eden" then nothing will ever truly die.
James, on the other hand, had, as most humans do, accepted their mortality. Even more so when he uploaded himself to the Pathfinder program in the beginning.
Hypothesis: Sometime in the past, disaster struck and Equestria was put into the Quarantine mode and Harmony was given, or interpreted the orders as "Make sure no one ever dies again". The problem is that if they ever leave Equestria then they won't be covered by the system and will be mortal again. So no one can ever leave.
Harmony knew that the original danger was gone long ago, but that wasn't what it was protecting ponies against. It was protecting them from the universe as a whole. From death itself.
Successful Operation; Is Successful
This was one enjoyable wild ride from beginning to (not actually) this amazing end. I would like to make lots of remarks but the other reviewers were superb at covering everything up.
One of the most intriguing, exciting, and mind blowing stories I've ever read in any kind of FanFiction website. I not only take my hat but also my pants in recognition to this epic adventure .
Godspeed. Until the next chapter.
8831987
But Melody talked with Selene. How does this fit in?
8831987
It would be extremely ironic if it was Flurry Heart. But something tells me Selene has chosen not to come back. To wait for Discord's Gambit to pay off, as it just did.
Damn, what a ride. Can barely wait for more, Star
8831953
I don't think so. Because Discord said...
Which means that Selene didn't die. Which means Celestia is literally going to see her mother.
8832081
That was a memory fragment cut off from the rest of the system.
And thus I tell you that Equestria shall open; she shall spread her wings, and her horn will light the void, and her strength will carry the gods.
...Okay, well, maybe not that exactly. I'm not getting the sense that ponies are born explorers and would be excited by the above idea like humans might. But there may very well be lots of ponies who actually would want to go outside and see what cool stuff the universe has to offer once their full memories are restored to them.
So Humans spread live across all of creation (using the Forerunners), and have it branch out in near infinite ways. After a while they connected all populated worlds with stellar highways. Some time later, something found them and proceeded to exterminate all life it could find, even going so far as reprogramming the remaining forerunners to not make anymore people. Thankfully there was an original remaining probe in Selene's possession.
Repopulating the universe and rebuilding the stellar highways can likely be done fast by sending a new software update to the other forerunners, so that they will build something like Harmony Extenders, which will allow for extreme growth.
8831813
Dr. James Irwin's mind, only recently touched, not wholly owned by Harmony is beyond the system's conditioning to command, manipulate, and trick.
This story has been... oddly unsatisfying. Don´t get me wrong, the story is expertly written and the characters are well-built, but still i haven't been able to enjoy it. The characters seem to be dragged along and very little they do feels like is an actual accomplishment, i don´t feel they earn their victories nor they make their own choices, they are just pawns in anothers game. The story constantly reminds the reader of how insignificant the humans are in comparison with the natives, yet in the end i feel their humanity contributed nothing to the story other than just being outside the system.
Usually i consider myself quite capable of dissecting a story and finding the elements that makes it work or not, but in this case i just cant quite identify why i cant like it, maybe is just that the "HUMAN" trait of the character is underused or not quite relevant to the end of this story.
8832165
More like there was some offshoot from the humans that went about destroying everything. They seeded countless worlds and adapted their race to each becoming entirely different species, including the ponies. One of these created species apparently went and started destroying everything.
8832081
To tell you the truth, I forgot about that entirely. But wasn't that a recording of her, the way Lucky saw the recording of James Gen 2? Though, if Selene is still in the system, why was she not listed? This raises questions.
This is now being favorited. Great job.
8832196
maybe the vote need citizen who lives on Equus surface ?