Epilogue
But Wait...There’s More!
- Epilogue -
Another Sun had set, another Moon had risen, and Princess Celestia was trying to get the last of the curls out of her mane before getting a well-deserved beauty rest. She was also examining a spot next to her left eye that was irritating her for no good reason.
There was a knock at the door. “Tia, we need to talk.”
“Come in, Sister,” said Celestia, scratching absently at the spot next to her eye with the edge of one hoof.
She took one look at Princess Luna and fell to the floor, laughing out loud. From the ground she tried to point, and fell to laughing some more. “Wh...where did you get that thing?” she finally gasped.
“A present from Pinkie Pie,” said Luna. In the middle of her forehead, right beneath the horn, was the cutest little third eye that you could possibly imagine. Its iris was the exact same shade of rose-magenta as Pinkie Pie’s mane. “I wore it to the reading of my port tax bill. It’s too bad you weren’t there to see it.”
Celestia climbed to her hooves. “You didn’t!” she exclaimed in dismay.
“I did. I made sure to mention that I had computed my figures while under the influence of Miss Scratch’s invention. Then I started doing this to random senators...”
A beam of reddish light slowly emerged from the third eye and made its way to Celestia’s forehead, winking on and off to create a dotted-line effect. At the same time, the eye itself made the following noise: “Da-na-na-na-na-na!”
Celestia fell over and began laughing again. “You...you really shouldn’t have done that!” she managed to get out. “Defying me in public like that. But still...bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Luna used her magic to pop the fake eye off of her head and levitate it to a nearby table. “I then explained the device to them and told my so-called ‘victims’ to stop trying to scrub their foreheads with bleach. Afterwards, the press asked me about the story that started this mess. I told them I had recently discovered it. As for you, sister, I told them that you don’t have time to refute every statement a foalish editor might put in your mouth. After all, wasn’t modern society more knowing in these matters than the one I left behind so long ago? The next hour saw a mad run on Trottmans and compact discs, and I hear that a whole train is being commandeered to bring more product up from Fillydelphia.” The lunar princess sighed. “Of course, it now looks like our little ponies are trying to buy Trottmans to look good in our eyes, instead of shunning them to look good in our eyes. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever succeed in this ‘free will’ business after all.”
Celestia nodded. “Those Ponyville ponies are a bad influence on you, sister.”
“Tia,” Luna protested, “I was going to expose the truth today anyway. Pinkie Pie simply provided a humorous way for me to do it.”
“And what about the prophesy?” asked Tia, one hoof wandering up on its own accord to scratch near her eye again.
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. I pushed Comet Anheuser into the Sun last night, moving the solar minimum out by three years and six months.”
Celestia looked between the raised hoof and her sister. “So that was you?”
Luna nodded.
“Do you realize what you have done?”
“I believe I just invalidated one inconvenient prophesy. Now anything can happen, and you’re free to do anything you want about Vinyl Scratch...and Prince Steadfast.”
Celestia sighed. “He has been incredibly annoying lately, hasn’t he? Oh, I know, I’ll make him our ambassador to the Northern Sea Dragon delegation. He’ll have to spend the next decade or so sailing that silly yacht of his back and forth in the icy wastes. We can let him stay in Castle by the Sea.”
“Do you think that’s safe?” Luna asked with some trepidation.
“That place has been abandoned for so long that it’s become suspicious. Some pony would have stumbled across it eventually. With Steadfast living there, there’s absolutely no chance that its secret will be revealed—that unicorn wouldn’t recognize a true mystery of the cosmos if it put extra cutie marks on both his shoulders.”
“I suppose that CD Pinkie Pie brought around earlier put the idea into your head?” asked Luna.
“Where else?” replied Celestia. “Now let’s get back on track. You don’t actually think you can overthrow a prophesy just by throwing a rock at it!”
“It’s not just a rock, it was your birthday present to me 4300 years ago! And yes, I do think you can overthrow a prophesy that easily, because it’s been done before.”
“It has?”
“What about the Hamite prophesy?” asked Luna, referring to a recently-completed and rather unfortunate piece of business from a month earlier. “That prophesy got one of the four ponies wrong.”
“That’s right!” exclaimed Celestia. “Why didn’t that ring any alarm bells at the time?”
“That’s not the only one,” Luna said, removing a scroll from her saddlebag. “I have a list of over fifty prophesies that have been altered in the last few decades. Most of the prophesies, and the changes, have been small enough for us to miss before now, but at least three were completely overturned.”
“Do you know when this started?” Celestia asked, the answer already suggesting itself to her.
“Well, the earliest I could find was in 6963.”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed. “Sister, there is only one force other than ourselves that would dare to challenge a prophesy, and put the very fate of Equestria in jeopardy on little more than a whim.”
“Who, Sister? Who would dare to do this?”
“Time Ponies.”
T H E _ E N D
- Credits -
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is copyright Hasbro, with due respects to Lauren Faust for her brilliant re-imagining of the franchise. Most of the characters in the story are borrowed from that source. Doctors Three and Four and their companions are from the program Doctor Who and are the property of the BBC. The Perturb family are pastiches of characters from the series Invader Zim, created by Jhonen Vasquez and property of Nickelodeon. Sundance, Hoyden, Abacus and part of the character of Luna come from the Progress series of fanfictions by Andrew J. Talon. Crack Shot, Check Mate, Nomde Plume and Storm Stunner are from the fanfic “In Her Majesty’s Royal Service”, by Sagebrush. Mentar is from the Mentar the Magnificent Merchant of Magical Mixtures series by Quell (which really needs to be added to FimFiction.net someday). “The Hamite Prophesy” is a reference to the fanfiction “One Last Quest”, by Vanner. The phrase “THERE’S NO TIME” is 100 % owned by the fanfic series Michael Bay Presents: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic by Cold in Gardez. The fandom pretty much owns “Trollestia”. Finally, Uncle Philo, Prince Steadfast, the Telegraph family, Oars In Wells, Blue Bubbles and the rest of the RIAT cast, Kappa Cider, Judge Keen, Kong Fun, TEDS, and sundry company and etheric show names are my creations, as are the interpretations of everybody else’s intellectual properties (meaning it’s entirely my fault if I screwed them up). The songs “Technologic” and “Derezzed” are by Daft Punk (with PMV of the latter by Mr. Yaridovich), “The Fear” is by Lily Allen. The song played by Octavia (“Avast Octavia’s Plot”) is by makkon06, and DJ Pon-3’s big number is really by Danny Elfman, from the soundtrack of the first Mission: Impossible movie. “Da-na-na-na-na-na!” references Bill Cosby’s “Go Carts” skit.
And finally, anyone who hasn’t yet should watch Nina Paley’s excellent animated film Sita Sings the Blues.
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Alright I am going to be honet:
I am confused about the whole story, maybe it's because I speed read or maybe I'm not reading it enough times to fully understand it, or maybe it's because I read stories from this website late at night.
But whatever, I still enjoyed this story and think you are awesome.
And don't ask about what I am specifically confused about because there are too many points that confuse me so bleh.
1033414
Well post the first one you remember hitting. In programming, an error at the beginning will frequently render the entire rest of the program unintelligible. Similarly, if there's an idea at the beginning of the story that I failed to explain clearly, that might make it impossible to understand anything that happens after that.
1038572
Well I guess at around the part with that prophecy thing. That just started confusing me for the most part.
Ah, OK.
In reading My Little Pony fanfiction, I frequently came across the same plot hole, over and over again. Twilight and her friends would get into big trouble, and spend the whole story fighting it. But if they had just told the Princesses, they could have used their magic to take care of it, instantly.
So I thought, "Why wouldn't the Princesses help out?"
Maybe there's something that holds them back, I thought. Maybe there's a type of magic even bigger then they are.
Like a prophesy.
Let's say that the Princesses possess a collection of prophesies predicting all of the crises that will ever happen in Equestria, with vague clues as to how these crises can be handled. For example, there would be a prophesy saying that Luna would become Nightmare Moon, and saying exactly when that would happen. She would be defeated, but not cured. Imprisoned in the Moon for a thousand years, she would then return, and be saved by six mares wielding the Elements of Harmony. Now I imagine this particular prophesy was worded really vaguely, so that neither of the Princesses were able to figure it out before it was too late for Luna.
But Princess Celestia did eventually figure out the prophesy, and once she did, she began manipulating events through the centuries to make sure it came true.
The Princesses are not bound by these prophesies. They are not forced to follow them.
But if they decide to break them, then the course of pony history becomes unknown. Any type of monster could rise to threaten Equestria, and the Princesses would have no advance warning. Or a monster that the Princesses knew would threaten Equestria would appear, but centuries or millennia earlier or later than the prophesy said.
So in a way, they are bound by these prophesies. And that's why, when a prophesy said that Vinyl Scratch had to have a miserable life before she saved the life of Princess Celestia, Princess Celestia decided that she had to allow every part of that prophesy to come true.
Over the course of this story, Princess Luna discovers that a mysterious group of ponies are deliberately causing prophesies to fail, thereby endangering all of Equestria.
Since the protections provided by the prophesies have already been overturned, Luna decides to overturn one more, fixing Vinyl Scratch's problem.
So yeah, that is a rather complicated idea, which I did a terrible job of communicating.
Did that help any?
This was a good story, although I'm kind of annoyed that Vinyl left it still thinking that the Mane 6 weren't the Elements of Harmony.
1117176
Well, she is stubborn to an almost-absurd degree. If Luna told her they were legit, I doubt Vinyl would believe her. After all, she could be in on the conspiracy!
1126503
Thanks, I worked extra-hard on that, even if the stained-glass window in "The Return of Harmony Part One" sort of contradicts it.
Oh, and the show should definitely be called "My Little Pony: Explosions Are Awesome!" Because fan names of things are always better than the official names.
That was great. Pretty confusing in some parts but I think with a few rereadings I'll pick up on all the 'hidden meanings' and whatnot.
It's completely mad that this story isn't popular. I think it's because of the description. My first impression was to ignore this story (and the prequel), because as soon as I saw the word "CD" I immediately thought of The Mysterious Mare Do Well episode, and how so many things were discontinuous with season one. So yeah. The description is a turn off and it's only because I've read some of your other works that I finally decided to read it, weeks after first seeing it.
1217098
You're pointing at the fundamental flaw of this story: it's too dense. I had about a dozen different ideas, and I decided to shove all of them in there.
If you boil this story down to its most-basic plot, it goes like this: Vinyl's business is sabotaged by a stupid lie by Prince Steadfast, placed in the lips of Princess Celestia. Vinyl does everything in her power to save her company, and fails. Finally the other goddess takes pity on her and fixes everything with an off-stage speech. The End.
It's the most obvious case of deus ex machina that you can ever find. But that's the point: I'm using this plot to explore what it means to live in a world where your goddess, your creator, is your next-door neighbor.
And then on top of that, I thought that nobody would read this if I didn't get the Mane Six in there somewhere, so you have a bunch of parodies of the series, its merchandise, and its fans, in the form of MLP: Explosions Are Awesome.
Throw in several unnecessary cameos from fanfictions I liked, plus setting up a few elements for later stories in this series.
Like I said: it's a big fat mess, it doesn't hold together very well, and it's not easy to summarize.
Too bad that stories I wrote that I like a whole lot more are direct sequels, and so require you to read this.
1217108 Oh yeah, the epilogue cleared everything up. It was just that I wasn't sure if Luna was 'evil' or at least just really apathetic to the plight of a single mortal compared to all who might be affected by the prophecy. It left me feeling really uneasy about what was going to happen next. It all makes sense now, what with how you showed that Vinyl could see clearly in space with her horn vision.
1217131
I suppose I should point any further discussion over to this blog entry, which is my definitive analysis of what this story was trying to do. I'll be happy to answer any other questions that you have, here or there.
1217152 Oh, I'd forgotten about that. Skimming through that blog post was what triggered me to start reading this fic. Gimme a few minutes and I'll read it properly this time.
1289258
...maybe.
1305749
Huh?
I'm not saying it was time ponies, but... it was time ponies. :CelestiaATsoukalos.jpg:
Well that was very interesting, and I'm seeing major hints about what's coming next (I kinda already already have a clue since I accidentally read the Vinyl Scratch in Ponyville story out of order, but still, good lead up).
1306718 It's a Pokemon reference, the police officer, pokemon clinic nurse, and shopkeeper are generally identical in every town, a lot like the Telegraph family was described as.
1389040
What's worse, the Tenth Doctor doesn't sound anything like David Tennant. His natural voice is very Scottish, and very different from his Doctor voice- I learned this from the video diaries on the series two DVDs, but it's also backed up by his talk show and Top Gear appearances, among others.
Also: Blue Bubbles is the voice actor for Shrinking Violet, among others.
I don't know why I took so long to get that joke.
1389049
I just love voice actor jokes.
1453000
I see your point and I like the ending.
but Luna did not have to actively try to sabotage Vinyls efforts. She could have just done nothing.
1453065
Yeah alright, I see your point. She is kinda on a high horse. But at the same time, she was preparing to break those prophesies (because she was nearly certain that others had already been broken), and just as she's about to do the right thing, she sees Vinyl compromising her integrity, and it ticks her off. "I'm sacrificing the safety of Equestria forever, and this peasant has the nerve to not wait like a martyr to be saved? The nerve!" Bad Luna! Blame the nerves of being surrounded by way too many party ponies if you simply must excuse her less-than-princesslike behavior.
Who knew CD's could cause mass pony craziness?
But seriously, I loved this story. I loved the RIAT stuff and just all the little details that popped out. That and the whole tax scene with Luna, Twilight, and Vinyl was just priceless. If there is one thing that I thought could be better, it would probably be that the Mane 6 just kinda pop in and out really randomly (for Pinkie Pie, that works. The other 5, not so much).
But really, that's just a drop in the hat of a funny story in an interesting series. I can't wait to read Luna and the Tree Ponies.
This has probably already been said, but music on vinyl actually sounds better than CD. You see compact disk digitally samples at 44.1khz, and well recorded analog vinyl has the waveform in the grooves, it is the closest thing to the original waveform that you can get. The kind of records normally shown in the show (aside from when Vinyl uses a modern style turntable in a few episodes) is like the 78 rpm shellack stuff used before 33 rpm vinyl was a thing. The old fashioned shellack stuff sounds awful because it was made of an abrasive natural material and was amplified with a horn, it used a steel needle that had to be replaced every time, 33 rpm vinyl (the standard since about the mid 1930's) uses a cartridge with a very light stylus (usually made from metal, the good ones have a diamond tip on the end). The stylus is listened to using an electromagnets usually. CD's don't even have that high of an audio quality, and they never did, they run at 4khz less than DAT tapes, and between 48-148khz less than DVDs.
You also didn't get the CD format quite right, you described the DAC process pretty well, but you forgot about the encoding and compression system.
2731960
I'm not sure you have your comments on the right story; it was "Javelin" where I got into way too much detail about how CDs work. This story is the sequel to that, and really doesn't go into those technical details.
Oh, and the encoding and compression steps would have been covered in the time skip between Vinyl's arrival at the library tree in the first section of Chapter 5 of "Javelin", and the successful playing of the first CD in the following section, but I thought it was too boring. I wasn't exactly writing this with the goal of instructing readers how to make their own discs, just suggesting how difficult the process was for my protagonists.
4256394 I confess there's a part of me that wants to go back and edit that comment to be less flippant and more concise but It might make your reply look odd so I'll let it sit and accept my impulsiveness causing you confusion.
To me it felt like a much less than gentle rebuke. I can empathize with Vinyl as I've had those periods in my life of feeling I somehow deserve the hardships visited on me in my life. While I agree what she did was wrong I felt that Luna's rebuke was rather harsh.
I'm happy agreeing to disagree though. I find such public things to be rather difficult to cope with.
Dense this may have been, but overall it was a fun, slice-of-lifey little read. I look forward to getting through the next few stories to see how they fit in all of the setup for Perfect Little Village. It's much like Wheller's or Jade Ring's series, how everything just builds. (Also all three aren't nearly as popular as they deserve.
)
A good story overall, though I found the first... 3/4 or so the most enjoyable. The rest didn't quite live up to the beginning IMO. Still, a good one overall, and really I echo the comments that I'm surprised it's not more popular.