My faithful and beloved student,
You have my personal thanks for tending to this matter, Twilight Sparkle. I knew, even under the circumstances, that I could trust in your judgement and discretion.
The chiefest problem regarding the case against Mister Stu, of course, remains the questions of intent behind what he did and the extent of what (if any) damage his actions may have caused. While we still, unfortunately, have no answer to the former, Princess Luna and I agree that the latter is a different story. We have studied the story disks as thoroughly as we dared given the knowledge they do, and potentially still could, reveal.
Know that I must remain impartial on this matter if I am to properly judge it. The disks’ version of events should, at most, be taken as merely one possible way your adventures could have resolved. Consideration should even be given, perhaps, to the possibility that Gary Stu’s mere presence in our world could have changed things with or without his interference.
Yet even as I bear all that in mind I can’t help but feel so deeply saddened as I see what you and your friends might have become.
I saw Applejack, so steadfast and strong. Yes, perhaps sometimes a bit too much so for her own good. Yet her decisions were fueled by the deep love she holds for her family and friends, and her mistakes only served to deepen those bonds and made her strive to do better in the future.
Rainbow Dash, endlessly courageous, always pushing herself and those around her to be their very best. Brash? Naturally. Arrogant? At times, yes. But as quick to make amends as she is to do anything else and never letting her defeats hold her back.
Loving and loyal Spike, always loathe to leave his friends’ side or leave them wanting for help. A dragon who, despite his uncommon upbringing, is stronger and braver than any other Equestria has seen.
The joy and laughter Pinkie Pie spreads hardly needs to be mentioned. But even in her moments of doubt, those rare times when she had trouble finding happiness for herself, her first worry was whether or not those around her were happy. And each of those trying moments only made her bounce back brighter and more cheerful than ever.
Rarity’s kind and giving spirit, so often torn between her own desires and the wishes of those closest to her. Yet she chose to sacrifice of herself every time, and showed so many others the wonders of sharing with those around you. That such efforts are never truly wasted or unappreciated.
Gentle Fluttershy, soft-spoken as her name implies. Yet possessing such unyielding strength and desire to protect and nurture those around her, to make sure they are happy and safe. Kindness, truthfully, is not always easy and yet she never failed to make it seem as effortless as breathing.
And last, but certainly not least, my wonderful student Twilight Sparkle. A brilliant young mare, yet still consumed by curiosity about the world around her. Learning something new everyday that was spent with her wonderful friends and growing stronger, not simply in terms of her magical prowess and knowledge but in her heart as well.
I see all this in the disks, and then I see what it is Gary Stu has truly done: He’s stifled your potential, and the proof is in the adventures you’ve lived with him and especially in today’s series of letters.
Applejack so readily kowtowing to another’s suggestions? Rainbow Dash doubting her ability to have saved her friends when they most needed her? Spike believing that anyone could assist Twilight better than himself? Fluttershy actually being worried about showing another creature, especially one who’s most in need of somepony to hear and listen to his side of the story, a measure of kindness?
It’s true, Gary’s guidance has protected many of you from mistakes and embarrassments. It has also shielded all of you from your ability to learn from those same mistakes. From discovering new sides to yourselves beyond even the Elements of Harmony that bonded to each of you. With each adventure, even ones where his advice may have been disregarded at first, at the end I can see only one lesson the truly repeats itself in every report I received.
“Gary was right.”
It was a pattern I could see developing long ago, and yet how could I have done anything about it? Argued against a friend who seemed so wise, who had played a role in saving my sister and all of Equestria even as I saw him slowly crush the ponies I at the time only suspected you could have been? Like yourselves I simply accepted that Gary’s presence was a miraculous boon for Equestria and believed that intervening would only cause more problems than it could potentially solve.
Now I can only curse myself a fool for not suspecting the source of his apparent “wisdom” sooner.
Please understand, my little ponies. I am in no way disappointed in any of you. Nor am I prematurely condemning Mister Stu. The motives behind his actions are yet to be understood, as is whether or not he was aware of the potential consequences of them. Judgement on that matter and how public to make it still falls to my sister and I.
Know full well though that whatever you may feel towards Gary; Be it anger, sorrow, sympathy, confusion, or anything else, I most assuredly share all of those sentiments and more.
Your loving teacher,
Princess Celestia
P.S.
Twilight (for your eyes only),
Hurting you is the last thing I ever wished to do. Yet I hope that I have answered your question.
I hope you understand why I might not have felt you were ready for such lofty heights.
I’m sorry.
With deepest sympathies,
Celestia
Dear Princess Celestia,
It’s alright. I suspected as much.
Eagerly awaiting further news with the others.
Your still-faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle
P.S.
I know I shouldn’t have read this before I sent it. Bad habits, I’m a good dragon, I know. But Twilight’s crying again and I’m worried! What’s going on?
Spike
To: Princesses Celestia and Luna
Re: Gary Stu
Excellent news your majesties. The human known as Gary Stu has been recovered as ordered.
As Princess Luna suspected, Mister Stu had gone to the ancient castle in the Everfree Forest. We discovered him in a cavern in the ravine surrounding the ruins, digging at the base of a crystal tree.
On a personal note I have several questions about what that was about. Regrettably Mister Stu was acting rather manic, refusing to come with us and insisting that he had to “prove he was there to help”. I recommend a royal commendation is in order for Private First Class Scale Mail for his skillfully timed sleeping spell that allowed us to bring Mister Stu in unharmed.
Gary Stu is currently still sleeping, but being kept under our watch at Ponyville’s Town Hall. We await further orders.
Signed,
Acting Guard Captain Steel Hoof
P.S.
Private First Class Flash Sentry has fully recovered and was debriefed, but expressed a significant unwillingness to return to Canterlot until this case was closed. Unwillingness bordering on insubordination, I should mention. Perhaps you could offer a suggestion before I need to write up a promising young soldier?
To: Acting Guard Captain Steel Hoof
Re: Gary Stu
Keep Mister Stu under watch, and send PFC Sentry to Carousel Boutique to attend to Miss Sparkle and her friends. He may feel free to take official statements from them as well, but make it clear they are not to leave the shop.
My sister and I shall be in Ponyville presently.
Signed,
Princess Luna
Ah, going after Discord's Plunder Seeds was he? Not sure what exactly he wanted to prove there.
Interesting to see Celestia's perspective here. Very appropriate that her issues stem from concerns about him stifling their growth.
So it seems the end of the story is near.
I'm anxious to see (read) what will happen.
I really really want to know how this ends. The only thing I could think of when reading this and how Celestia was putting it was the quote: "The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions."
At least, assuming Gary's intentions were Good.
Nice. I like the whole "The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions." vibe in this chapter.
8651247 8651304
I'm confident his intentions were good, and that what he wanted to prove was that he was, in fact, trying to help them and wasn't trying to do the things he did for selfish reasons.
It's a bit hard to know, because despite everything, we are still lacking a lot of context where this all is concerned, but personally, I believe Gary is experiencing a crisis of purpose, and probably has been for some time. He gets to Equestria, somehow. Great. Now what? Why's he there? What's he supposed to do? Part of this story's purpose is to deconstruct some of the tropes associated with HiE stories, I have decided, and one of those is the human who is hyper competent and knows exactly the best way to solve problems. Here, it seems like Gary knowing how to solve all the problems has the side-effect of making everyone depend on him when they otherwise would have figured out how to solve things themselves. This puts the Crystal Empire into context, I think: Gary knew that Spike was supposed to be the hero, but by that point he'd thrown the dynamics so far off that nothing was going to play out the way it needed to.
Bonus round: If everyone had, indeed, come to depend to depend on Gary to solve everything, what happens when he runs out of foreknowledge and doesn't know how to solve anything?
8651362
Hm. You could be right, In fact, I had the same thought. 'Gary' could very well have solved the Crystal Empire debacle himself because he knew that things had 'Butterflied' enough that he could have been genuinely concerned that things might've gone the worst possible route.
And Celestia's concerns about him stifling their personal growth is certainly not unfounded.
However, It was likely he did this out of a misguided intent to protect them, certainly not an evil act in of itself, even if it had it's own consequences.
8651362
I understand what he wanted to prove, but I just don't see how what he was doing would help (assuming I interpreted his actions correctly). It would have just been more of the same thing he'd already been doing.
From my perspective, good intentions or no, I have no sympathy for Gary. His own arrogance and ignorance has screwed things up for both him and Equestria, and he's had it coming ever since he decided he had a right to dictate how their lives should play out.
I believe that Gary's intentions were pure, and I present two possible arguments as to why.
The first is the butterfly effect. Gary knew what the future held and also knew that it was meant to happen without him. Any small change in the timeline could have severe consequences to the future. Even if he stayed in the forest and didn't help with NMM, he would be affecting the wildlife of the Everfree, which could have prevented the manticore from testing Fluttershy's kindness, stopped Twilight from getting stoned, or done virtually anything to Zecora. Putting in effort to guide the mane six away from himself and towards what they were meant to do is a pretty reasonable mindset.
The second, especially if he had ever read HiEs, is that sometimes fate or destiny shifts toward an outsider naturally. Have you ever noticed that the CMC never get into trouble in with the wildlife in the Everfree Forest, yet when a human is present, they always eventually end up getting attacked by timberwolves right in time for the human to heroically save them? Sometimes in an alternate Equestria, the laws of the universe get rewritten to focus on the insert. I suggest looking into The Consequences of Unoriginality and Not the Hero for examples.
In either case, the human can end up as a Time Patroller TM.
Yeah, it sounds like Gary never set out to become the center of the story. It probably started with him just trying help and maybe getting to excited at first and jumping in. Then as he became real friends he wanted to try and protect them for the mistakes and problems they had... and things just sort of snowballed.
Had read the first chapter when I first came out a while back but didn't tag it for tracking.
Glad to have stumbled across it again! Love how you're handling all these different character aspects and how the actions of one who knew everything that was coming would have consequences.
Also like how Flash Sentry is being handled. Too many authors just dismiss him, and even if he and Twilight were never to become a couple in the series, it's much better than just forgetting him.
Hope to read more soon.
So in the very end his good will to help is what digged him in? Tough.
As Celestia mentioned, all the developments the Bearers could have taken for the better never happened now because Gary stopped them from happening in the first place.
It's like sheltering someone from the "harsh" reality. You have only good intentions and want solely to help the person in need, but in the very end you harm this person much more in than you helped. Why? Because you prevented him from one of the most important lessons of life: "Learn from your mistakes and grow wiser."
In the end Gary prevented their character development and most likely let them stay nearly the same Ponies since NNM, because he always "saved" them from making mistakes, because he cared for them.
Whelp, he fucked up. He never wanted to and never aimed for anything big, but in the end he screwed up majorly.
I feel severely sorry for Mr. Stu here. In his situation, there are no good choices. Option 1, Leave the Mane 6 alone and run as far away as possible, risk a butterfly effect leading to the downfall of Equestria. Option 2, Stay and help them, stifle their character development, and risk him not knowing the answer in a later crisis, but still being there to help. Option 3, Tell them straight-up that he knows the future, the ponies now know their own future, leading to uncertainty whether or not to follow it, and possibly still stifling their character growth and losing some unknown future crisis, or causing a butterfly effect that destroys Equestria. It's a lose/lose/lose situation, even when you have days to think about it. While scared and confused from being taken from his home, he had a short time to pick option 1. If he picked option 2 from the start, picking option 3 later would likely cause them to be angry at him, if not as bad as this. You could say that option 2 could have been handled better, but remember, he's only human. He makes mistakes. And he always meant well. In my eyes, he is an innocent, given a choice no one should be forced to make.
Lol I cant take Celestia or the bearer seriously. They piss and moan about not getting what could have been, well i hope they see the finale of season 5 and see what could have happen. To let ppl grow and make mistakes are important but when the entire world is in the balance, well I am sorry but those ppl have to learn from their mistakes somewhere else.
Especially when it start looking like he did it not because of fame and fortune but to honestly help and force a resolution the he finds to his taste. The only thing that sets his and Celestias actions apart is the crown. And to be judged because of what could be in the best of all scenarios when the future is unwritten, lol i cannot stomach that.
It will only take 1 discrepancy and all goes to shit. And our little human is stranded, not in the go happy wonderland but a nightmare. That is if he even survives. He is the only one of his kind and ppl will take notice of that, you only need to look at our planet to see that something that is one of a kind is desirable to others. Living in a strong friendly nation gives him freedom that he would not have otherwise, but what happens if the nation was falling apart or not able to stand up to privateers or foreign kingdoms.
During hostility's the first thing to go is personal freedoms, and the lonely alien, well hes done for.
Gary was in major trouble regardless of if he chose to help them or not, I mean lets say Gary stayed isolated in Everfree until say Twilight becomes an Alicorn and then they find his collection of "disc's" they would be angry at him for letting these things happen when he had knowledge of stuff like the Chrysalis, the plunder vines, and Sombra but kept it to himself.
He could easily ask "what would you have had him do instead" or "lets say Twilight gets sent back in time to nightmare moons return and cannot return to her own time and by accident does something to disrupt what happend so now there is a chance they won't go the same way, what would you have her do then, change how things were supposed to go or stand by and let horrible things happen including the villains winning.
Or her could ask Celestia "If you found these disc's before Luna became Nightmare moon and knew what would happen what would you do?"
Personally, I think Gary should have gone to Celestia from moment one. 1000 years of experience would have likely proven better suited for determining how to use the DVDs than one human.
8651713
Exactly my point. Starlight Glimner, in canon, did far worse things to the timeline for the sale of petty revenge, yet Twilight and co. forgave her instantly. Yet Gary deserves outrage and possibly time prison?
I really hope this doesn't turn out to just be Celestia coming down on Gary for 'interfering with destiny' or some similar bullcrap reason. As I believe I've mentioned in previous comments, if you had near precise knowledge of future events, including nation or world threatening events, and you knew you could use your knowledge to prevent these threats from happening or at least be resolved better than they were originally, then I think it'd be more of a crime NOT to act on this info. And he didn't tell anyone because too many changes to the timeline would cause the info to become unusable.
8651247
Considering how many times Discord has fucked over Equestria, they better forgive him.
8652504
He's not a pony and has no vagina.
Then again, Discord....
8665065
Forgiveness is almost a given, but I don't doubt this will damage their trust in him going forward. I wouldn't be surprised if their friendship never fully recovered.
8665423
They better forgive him, because he's been in a difficult position and he seems to be trying to make the best of it. Discord actively fucked with them and endangered their lives yet they buddy buddy with him frequently.
8665759
There is a bit of a difference between Discord and Gary here. It's one thing to hurt someone you don't really care about about; it's something different to hurt a friend. Whatever his reasons, Gary's decision to try and control their lives was a mistake, and it's clear from their reactions that basicallynone his friends appreciated his interference. Even if he believed he was doing the right thing, what he did was still a violation of their trust and their autonomy, and they're right to be upset with him.
If he did have good intentions, I can definitely see them forgiving him. But for them to put their trust in him again is not such a sure thing.
8665790
You seem to ignore the whole, damned if you do, damned if you don't issue. They got mad when he knew and did nothing and got mad when he did intervene. Seriously, what is he supposed to do when he knows future events? It seems he's doomed no matter what and Discord and many others have committed far worse crimes yet get friendship for FREE! But yet, he's the next villain incarnate and deserves to no longer be friends with Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, and Rarity. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack are the only ones who seem to give him the benefit of the doubt, with AJ very reluctant to do so.
Spike only is whining about his stolen glory, despite Gary apparently tried to keep canon events in order. Considering the Crystal Empire was a life or death situation, fuck Spike's glory.
8665857
As others have pointed out, he had other options. It wasn't a binary all-or-nothng situation. It was in no way a lose-lose situation. It's simply that the path he chose required him to almost perfectly micromanage events in their lives to come up with specific outcomes, and he wasn't up to the task. He chose to walk that tightrope, and he couldn't follow through.
It's not a matter of what he "deserves." Nobody is owed a relationship. If they decide that what they now know reveals him to be someone they don't want to be friends with, that's their choice. Alternatively, if they want to give him a chance to prove he's a true friend, that's their choice. Gary doesn't have a right to be their friend any more than he had a right to interfere as he did.
Man did this fic started a topic.
I’m looking forward to the conclusion but i can already see where is it going thou you may surprise me yet.
As for the whole future knowledge debacle it’s a be dammed if you do and be dammed if you don’t situation.
Gary has no proof that the Equestria he is in will follow the shows cannon, who knows maybe they all were meant to die in the Everfree and Gray prevented that, his presence alone makes a huge difference for the two possibilities to be different.
Gary from what i can tell tried to make sure that the reality he is will follow the shows cannon, but obviously that would force him to make difficult choices, he could have stopped Rarity from falling but doing so could prevent Rainbow from achieving Sonic Ranboom and becoming a Wonderbolt down the road which may result in some people getting hurt or die, or Rarity could die, no right or wrong choice here just bad ones.
Similar with the Crystal Empire Spike didn’t follow the cannon regardless if Gary presence caused it or not, Gary had a choice to make, don’t do anything and risk Sombra winning enslaving the Crystal Empire and starting a war against Equestria which would result in millions dying, or prevent this from happening at all.
In this case i say he did the right thing, there was no indication that things would correct themselves to follow the shows cannon and lives were at stake here, Spike should be ashamed to him it’s all about being a hero, he didn’t consider alternatives, heck none of the ponies considered the alternatives.
One thing that ruins this fic for me is the fact that Twilight made a DVD/BLU RAY player in a world with no knowledge of binary.
It's as if I trird to translate Chinese by myself with no help.
But even if she'd managed to read the binary data from the optical disc, how would she be able to translate it to image and sound? Binary Is just 1 and 0, on and off state, and the amount of data would be enough to fill few books, and let's not forget the data is both compressed and coded, so unless you have the key and method to decompress it all you will get is garbled mess.
Magic or not that's not possible.
If I had to make this part of this fic I'd say that Twilight was learning dream walking magic from Luna and decided to do a little spying on Gary for scientific purposes of course and would witness him dream about events from the show.