I always hate to see a good story end.

Endings are preferable to abandonment, though.

....that's it? well it's not much of an ending but at least it's something.

i choose to beleve ian lives happily with his frends and family while helping nurture equestria after this. i would have hoped he would have gotten together with celestia and become the father figure of equestia but that would be unfair on him and his marefrend. i do hope there is an epiloge where he leaves a message for the main 6 and luna though that would be wholesome

10341772
Celestia's life is quite full of Equestria. Ian will be much happier with a mare that can spend time with him and love him as fiercely as he loves her. They're a nice couple, I vote.

10341765
How was the ending, if I may ask?

"I am become death." - EPIC RAP BATTLES did justice to mr Oppy

Sad it ended already, but maybe it might open up to a squeal/spin off of sorts in the future?

10341775
Honestly, it could have been just the end of a chapter/segment/scene without the author's notes. It wasn't bad, but it felt very open-ended.

10341773
i will not argue that but him never getting to see ponies he knows of the world becasue of makes the story seem bittersweet to me. at lest me gets his happy ending

feels like we might get a sequel... if not then at least we can get your other stories faster! Can't wait!

This was a very cool read, i'm not one to read a HiE fic unless they transform into something, but this was so well written and thought out, that i just had to finish it. It definetly kept my intention, 9/10 would like and add to the library.

10341789
As well it should. He lived long before them, but set the wheels in motion to help them come into being.
10341788
It's very open ended, but also not. We know where it lands, in the far future. We do hope Ian leads a fulfilling life, and the odds are in his favor, I do say.

10341792
Thank you kindly! The patron of this story has a new story in mind and the preview of it will be posted next week (If you're a patron of any level). It will come out next month. 4k chapters!

Interesting ending. I wonder if Celestia still sees Ian as the Father of Equestria to her motherhood, a thousand years since. If Luna heard the stories about him with apprehension or kindred rapport. If the tale of the Lightning Bringer is still known and told. Maybe, who knows, Twilight grew up with a commemorative poster of him in her wall, the bookworm

To toast on cake is SO Celestia

The ending was abrupt. The big question remains unanswered in-story. Did he change the future, or is this how history always went? And there's the smaller one, about his descendants (if any) and legacy.

I know how I would deal with that, but I'm not going to tell the author what to write.

10341793

I was wondering if eventually Ian would relent and talk Celestia about the show, or at least about the Mane Six. Knowing there is a future where Luna is back would help her a lot carrying on the centuries.

10341823
That sure would explain her prophetic foresight in how things would work out. She always did seem so confident it would be alright. Her trust in fate was complete.

I want to see a sequel where ian meets twilight and finds out how his ideas affected the future

10341884
Or at least a chapter where Celestia teaches Twilight about Ian after she asks about the meaning of a strange statue.
And perhaps she makes a few small mentions of what became of him. Maybe he was raised into nobility and his line continues to this day or something like that.
He has yet to suggest the printing press. One of the most important tools for spreading knowledge and progress.

10341907
One step at a time. Trying to rush it all out could result in a backlash, violent even.

Given Lyra only picked up hints of the mythical humans, not just Ians knowlege would have been buried, but knowledge of Ian himself. Practice for the legend of Nightmare Moon?

Knowlege of horrors.

Open cycle aluminium mining.

Exclusive Zero Hours Contracts.

Offshore accounts and tax havens.

Battery Farming.

honestly say it didn't feel like a ending but just another chapter, i have had a epilogue chapter and you have ponies in MLP time going to a school of engineering or something like that named after him, show of the plumbers guild etc, show a future where ponies have surpassed his expectations, have celestia giving twilight a book and she excited to read first hand information from the lightening bringer own hand

Aww, I was hoping to see Ian and Water get married. It seems unfair that neither she nor Easy get a 'finale' so to speak, like they don't get to participate in the ending of the story.

Definitely could use an Epilogue.

While I don't completely disagree with Ian I feel that failed by not properly explaining why humanity is the way it is, he made humanity look like monsters and Celestia jumped in defense of our kind.

We do what we must for the sake of our survival, to be ready to face all possible threats of our own making or outside, lest we die out due to our stagnation or be exterminated by other forces.

Well that was certainly.... abrupt

OK, I want two epilogues for this story, then it can be completed.

First, a few years later, Ian and Water getting/are married, what Easy is up to; basically how everyone is doing.

Second, in the last years of Ians life, where he starts the prophecy of the return of Nightmare Moon by telling Celestia the prophecy as it is to be known; and the tidbits of NM will again be Luna after, she will have a student that made a dragon that will be the catalyst and new bearer of an element, and to send the student to Ponyville were she will find the other bearers. Also, that Ponyville will be founded around a century before the return. Oh, and write the book that Pinkie finds about the Elements before they go off into the Everfree.

And so it ends. Maybe not how many would like, but certainly open ended enough for a sequel or spin-off. Good work sir, and I eagerly await your next masterpiece.

10342081
Celestia requested to be scared. Ian delivered.

10342185
True, but at the same time he could teach to respect and understand the necessity.
Not scare her enough to fear progress itself.

Now there are two outcomes possible, either the ponies will use Ian lessons and in 1000 years develop into a completely different Equestria than that of the show or stagnate and barely develop mimicking the show.
Ian has already sprung them centuries ahead with understating of electricity and sanitation.

pbs.twimg.com/media/EPENCoWU0AAHnEk.jpg
You left us on a cliffhanger. That means anything goes!

...

10342309
I can't argue this without another chapter. Dang you!

10342195
Read what he said. He said they moved forward. He said they won. They rose against pony problems with pony solutions and did things in a way humans never would, and he wanted to help them get there. He can bring ideas, but he has no interest in shaping their wonderful future away from the splendidly not-human way it becomes. Ponies gotta pony!

10342404
...

10342410
That is another issue by itself, like what even is a pony solution and how is it different from human solution if the method or the result is the same?

The only thing that would qualify as pony solution is their use of magic to solve problems that we solved non magically.

10342309
best... meme...ever!!!

Now Celestia would have to make Ian Langerman section in her Forbidden Vault.

Gosh, it's over? I'd be good with a sequel or some epilogues, honestly.

I kinda hope for a continuation off this story. Maybe something in this universe after Ian has passed away.

Awwww. It’s over!? Sequel, please?! I enjoyed this story and am sorry to see it end. So many more adventures to see!

somehow the lightning bringer added 2 more titles. water bringer, and knowledge bringer.

10344272
Arguably also peace bringer.

10/10 will read again.

Honestly? I thought you ended this neatly. And far be it for me to be the only one as content.

In any case, thanks for the show. Looking forward to your next projects.

"And we ate cake."
Perfect!

if he really wanted to freak the shit of out Celestia, he would have told how of chemical and bio/chemical weapons .... good examples he could have given her was Mustard Gas, anthrax ..... or the VX-nerve gas from the movie The Rock

10345490
Horrific, surely, but they lack the simple practical gut punch of 'reduce the land to ash and make the survivors die anyway.'

10345503
True..... but there is something about the thought of a mist of death drifting toward you with no escape... knowing that just one breath of it means your death

This chapter is fantastic. It was over too soon. Well, maybe we'll get more conversations between these two eventually, and even more openness. Also, I like the quote from the atomic bomb test. I'm surprised he didn't use the more complete version.

“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One… I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.” — J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting The Bhagavad Gita

I'm something of a collector of quotes, so here are a couple more to ponder.

"In vain does the God of War growl, snarl, roar, and try to interrupt with bombards, trumpets, and his whole tarantantaran... Let us despise the barbaric neighings which echo through these noble lands, and awaken our understanding and longing for the harmonies." —Johannes Kepler

"The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest." —Ludwig von Mises

To that last point, the Mongol conquests of the 13th century resulted in the deaths of millions, by some estimates up to 5% of the world's population, which would make them the deadliest acts of mass killings in human history.

10347741
It was the snippet he, and I, remembered. Sorry!

"You are ever a youthful vision," I allowed with a little smile of my own. "Some had theorized you are entirely unaging, immortal."

Everyone seems to assume that she just naturally doesn't age because alicorn. I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. One idea is that maybe she eventually learns age-controlling spells. It was implied in Magic Duel that age spells exist but are extraordinarily difficult to cast. If any pony could master them, one might imagine it would be Celestia.

I thought of something else... Does she know that her sister will someday return? There was supposed to be a prophecy. Could Ian actually be the origin of it? That would neatly solve a mystery. (But in my own headcanon, Celestia never became Queen because she knew her sister would someday return to rule alongside her. There can only be one Queen.)