Chapter 39 - Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
When I came back to consciousness, I found myself floating over the ground, carried in the magic field of the unicorn beside me – the mare who claimed to be both my former best friend and now wife. “What’s going on?” I asked, wincing as the effort made my head throb.
“Taking you to the hospital to get you checked out,” Phil replied. “You seem to be concussed. I warned you that working with Princess Twilight was hazardous, but noooooo, you still had to go check out that weird table that appeared.”
Well, she nagged like a wife at least. “Put me down and tell me what happened.”
She frowned but put me back on my hooves. I took the opportunity to switch back to stallion form and swayed momentarily. Phil steadied my wobbles and then embraced me.
“I thought that I had lost you when you were sucked up into that magic bubble thing.”
“It’s a time portal, and things have changed more than you think.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that you had better come with me to discuss this with Twilight… Where is she, by the way?”
“Twilight Sparkle refused assistance and headed for her home. She told me to bring you but I headed for the hospital instead.”
Because the map table was outside sans Castle of Friendship, I started heading for the Golden Oaks Library where I undoubtedly would find the alicorn. If what Phil had said was true, there would not be a doppelganger there this time as we had replaced our counterparts. “I’m skipping the doc. I’ve got a bit of a headache still, but it was caused by bashing my horn hard, and changing back to being a pegasus has cleared that up a lot.”
Phil came trotting up beside me looking relieved. “Good. So, you’re no longer confused?”
I sighed. “I wish I could tell you that things are back to normal, but they’re not. And you’re not going to like it. I already don’t.” How was I going to explain to this version of my best friend that I was not her husband? In every other respect, I was the person she had married. I was curious as hell to find out how this had come about, and why she was in Equestria at all.
“Sounds like a lot happened in the brief time you were gone.”
“You have no idea!”
As expected, I found Twilight in her basement laboratory. She was scrawling magic equations on her blackboards that were far too complex for a tyro like me to follow.
“What are you up to, Twi?” I asked as soon as I could get her attention.
“Trying to determine why our transit through the time vortex was so rough. I felt forces at work that weren’t present in all our previous trips.”
“What other previous trips?” Phil asked suspiciously.
Twilight frowned. “I saw you at the map table taking care of Mark. Who are you and why are you in my laboratory?”
The mare rolled her eyes and said, “Not you too!”
I said, “Twilight, this is Phil – Phillip Martine.”
“That’s Fillip Martin now, as you well know,” my supposed wife said, punching me on the shoulder.
Twilight’s eyes opened wide and she gaped. “Your best friend from Earth?”
“Yes, apparently. Don’t ask me how.”
Phil looked back and forth between us as if we had both gone crazy. “Will somepony tell me what’s going on here?”
I said, “Keep on with whatever you’re doing, Sparkles. I’ll handle this.” I turned back to my ‘wife’. “You had better sit down for this one, Phil. It’s a bit of a doozy.”
“More so than all the other craziness we’ve been through already?” the mare asked even as she complied.
“Yeah, I’m afraid so. I know you well enough that I’m sure that you’re familiar with the concepts of parallel worlds and alternate timelines.”
Phil nodded, a hint of dread on her features.
I gestured vaguely in the direction of the map table. “That magic bubble you saw was a time portal created by a powerful unicorn mare designed to screw with my and Twilight’s history. We’ve been chasing Starlight Glimmer into the past to stop her from doing this and failed so far. Each time that we’ve returned to the present, something different has confronted us from dead worlds to wars to one where Twilight has an alicorn daughter. This time, we’ve come back to a world where the best friend that I thought I would never see again not only is here too but is now female and married to me. Phil – I hate to say this, but I am not the Mark Wells that you saw leave with Twilight, or this alicorn the same one that left with your Mark for that matter.”
Phil gaped at me, tears starting to well in her eyes as she comprehended what I was telling her. “But, if you’re not my Mark… where is he?”
I glanced at Twilight but she only shrugged helplessly. I bit my lip and considered my response. “To be totally honest, I don’t know for sure. But, considering what we’ve been going through, I’m guessing that he’ll return when we set history right again.”
“Or he’ll never come back at all!” she cried.
I winced. That was what I had been thinking but hadn’t dared to say.
Suddenly Phil was up in my face. “How do I know that my Mark is not the original and you’re the alternate?! Or you are my Mark but with changed memories due to the meddling with time?”
Those were great questions. It was a pity that I didn’t have equally great answers. Hell – I couldn’t even prove the latter to myself. “I’m sorry, Phil. I don’t know.”
Phil burst into tears and leaned her head against my chest. Without even thinking about it, I brought up a forehoof to stroke her mane and neck reassuringly.
“I want my husband back, Mark. I want our future foal to have his father.”
I froze. “Say what?”
She looked up at me with cheeks sodden with tears. “I’m pregnant, Mark. I was saving that up as a surprise.”
My rear legs gave out and I sat down hard. While a different iteration of me had been the sire, the child was no less mine too. I looked up at Twilight, but she was just as shocked. I groaned and mumbled, “How on Earth did this happen?”
I hadn’t really expected an answer, but Phil heard and replied, “Because you fell into the portal, Captain Klutz.”
“And how does that explain you?” I retorted.
“I tried to catch you but instead I was pulled into the portal with you.”
“So, it didn’t happen when I was by myself?”
“Obviously not,” she replied with a little exasperation, wiping the wetness from her cheeks with a foreleg.
“And you ended up a mare? Or did you have an encounter with poison joke too?”
“No, I’ve always been a mare in Equestria.”
“How did you feel about that?” I asked, recalling my first experience with gender-swapping.
“I was fine with it.” When she noticed my skeptical expression, she added, “You know that I’ve always been bisexual.”
I blinked and stared at Twilight, searching for answers, but she looked just as surprised. No – my Phil had been cool with the idea but not inclined to it. So, the difference in universes could extend to a different version of mine as well. I turned back to Phil. “And how did we… y’know…?”
“Become mates? We were two strangers in a strange land and we supported each other as we found our hooves. One night, we both needed a little more comfort and biology happened. After we got over the awkwardness, we realized that we both felt strongly about each other and started getting serious about a relationship. After I nearly lost you when you fought Tirek, I proposed to you. It’s a good thing that the mares usually pop the question here because you might never have gotten around to it. You were definitely caught flat-footed. You still said yes though, and we finally got married.” She had started to look much more alive than before, but then she paused and her expression fell. “Because your job as Princess Twilight’s assistant gave us such security, I decided that it was time to start a family. But then… you went to investigate that weird table and… everything…” Phil sobbed, then turned and bolted up the stairs.
I stared helplessly after her. Despite the change of species and gender, she was still my best friend and I could think of nothing to do for her. We had known each other since childhood, but now I didn’t know the most intimate part of ‘our’ relationship. Even though it was this universe’s Mark Wells who actually was her mate, I felt a massive loss. I found myself beginning to despise this alternate future.
“Are you going to go after her?” Twilight asked.
“And do what?” I replied bitterly. “I’m not the Mark Wells she needs.”
“No, I suppose not, but she does raise some very perplexing questions. You originate from a different universe rather than just another timeline, so Fillip’s presence here indicates that there’s something wrong with my current theory on how Starlight’s spell is affecting reality.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been operating on the presumption that Starlight simply changes history to cause these different futures that we’ve experienced, but what if instead we have been shifted to a parallel reality rather than an alternative timeline? In this case, one where your friend Phil also stumbled into Equestria. Starlight’s spell might not be able to change history at all – I know how futile it was when I used Star Swirl’s original spell and actually ended up causing everything that I had intended to prevent. So, instead of having our present altered, we’ve jumped to the present time of a parallel universe. Back in our Equestria, the castle is still there and our friends are wondering where we are.”
“So you’re saying that Phil’s Mark has also been diverted to another timeline? Then there’s a possibility that he’ll come back?”
“If he and his Twilight Sparkle have figured out what’s going on, then yes.”
“What about the map table?”
Twilight shrugged. “As an educated guess, it’s a common anchor point for the timelines.”
“A guess? Can’t you do better than that?”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “What do you expect of me, Mark? This is all untrodden territory here with concepts barely touched upon by Star Swirl himself! Starlight had months to work on this spell and I’ve barely begun to unravel its equations and runes. I’m not sure if even she fully understood the consequences of this enchantment. Her formulas are brilliant but full of approximations, leaving open the possibility of unforeseen consequences.”
I groaned and shook my head. “Sorry, Sparkles – I should have known better. It’s just that I hate to see Phil like that, and she’s carrying our foal. Don’t tell me it’s the other Mark’s because we’re identical genetically, and I would be him if things turned out differently.”
Twilight put a reassuring hoof on my withers. “You don’t have to convince me, Mark. I’m now a mother to an alicorn foal because of all these events. I’m still wondering if I did the right thing.”
I raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I thought that you said that you were fine with that now?”
“That’s not the point, Mark. If we are in a parallel world rather than a changed one, then Nyx could have stayed with her Twilight and they would have continued their lives unaffected.”
“Then all those other futures were equally real?” I recalled the ghastly worlds we had escaped.
“The dying world and the war-ravaged Equestria could be just as real as ours and any others we may go to.”
I shuddered. “I hope you’re wrong, but if this is just a fragile timeline, then Phil would go poof when we leave. Could we bring her along like Nyx?”
Twilight sighed. “I’m afraid not. In fact, bringing Nyx is what caused all that turbulence in the time vortex.”
“Why? How could she affect it when she was safely stowed in the saddlebag?”
The alicorn waved at the equations she had written on the blackboards. It might as well have been in Sanskrit for all the good it did. I was barely in magic kindergarten while Twilight lived and breathed it. She wasn’t the Element of Magic for nothing.
Twilight said, “Now that I’ve looked more closely at the relevant equations, I’ve noticed something that I missed before. The spell specifically calls upon the matrices that are our arcane representations and Starlight’s. That’s why we remained exactly where and as we were after she changed the past – not because we were in contact with the map table or the spell scroll. It makes so much more sense now! She hates us and wanted us to suffer the consequences of her meddling with the past. But if changing history was all that happened, we would have been totally unaware of the change, thus spoiling her revenge.”
“What has that to do with Nyx though?”
“Simple – she’s not included in the spell, but we found a loophole in it by putting her in the saddlebag. However, that doesn’t completely eliminate arcano-temporal interference resulting in a destabilization of the time vortex. As a result, we will sometimes experience severe turbulence. Adding yet another pony would likely completely disrupt it and relegate us all to unrealized temporal anomalies!”
“What’s that in plain Equish?” I asked dizzily.
“We’d cease to exist!”
“Okay! Okay! I get it. So, bringing Phil back with us is a super bad idea.”
“And possibly pointless if his Mark Wells returns.”
“How sure are you of that?”
Twilight just waved at the equations again. Right – she had barely started to figure it out yet. And I still didn’t know what to do about Phil. It’s not as if she was the only one wanting her loved one back. I desperately wanted Phil back in my life too! I had a wild thought.
“Sparkles – what if I stayed while you went back? Would that reduce the turbulence?”
She looked at me sharply. “You want to replace this world’s Mark? What if my theory is wrong? What if I can’t go back without you?” She got right up into my face. “What about Trixie?”
My mouth opened but no words came out.
Twilight nodded. “I thought so.” She turned back to her equations and considered them for a long moment. Then she snorted and an eraser swiped through the chalk marks. “Enough of this. It’s time we got back to our task.”
“What about Nyx and the turbulence?”
“Maybe I could add Nyx’s matrix to the spell, but I don’t even have enough time to make a wild guess at balancing the thaumatic equations. We’re just going to have to risk it.”
I nodded. “Let’s go before I start thinking about this mess again.”
Twilight grabbed her saddlebags and headed out of the laboratory. “I couldn’t agree more.”
We headed back to where the map table still stood incongruously amidst the grassy field. Just before we got there though, I heard a familiar voice calling out to us.
“Wait! Don’t go without me!”
We looked back to see Fillip galloping in our direction. Within moments, she skidded to a halt beside us.
She glared at me defiantly. “You’re not leaving me again, Mark!”
I groaned and face-hoofed. “Phil – I… I can’t. I want to bring you, but I just can’t.”
“Says who? We made a promise to each other. For better or for worse, remember?”
It was clear that Phil could not or would not see me as being a different pony from her Mark Wells. I could hardly blame the mare because I felt much the same way about her. I wanted to be there for her. But another pony had already claimed my heart and I could not betray her. My duty was clear even if it caused me pain. I firmed my resolve and looked Fillip Martin in the eyes.
“In my reality, I am Sir Mark Wells, Knight of the Realm of Equestria, soon to be Prince and husband of Her Royal Highness Beatrix Lulamoon. My own personal preferences do not matter in this situation, and unfortunately, neither do yours, Phil. I am obligated to act in the best interest of my ponies... the ones in my reality.” I bowed my head then gave Phil a softer look. “I'm sorry, Phil, but I have to go back and fix this.”
Phil stared at me for a moment, then visibly slumped, her whole body shaking.
I moved closer to catch her eye. “Have faith in your mate. He and your Twilight Sparkle will not rest until they return to you. Trust me – I know.”
After several seconds, my best friend of forever looked at me blankly, then sadly smiled. “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
I quietly replied, “Or the one.”
Phil rushed up to embrace me and I returned it without hesitation. I felt her tears on my coat and I knew I was crying just as hard. When she pulled back, both of us had the same impulsive thought and we kissed passionately. But the kiss was not warm or joyful. Both of us knew it was a kiss goodbye.
I switched to my Marklestia form and flew to stand next to Twilight as she levitated out Starlight's scroll and positioned it above the map table. She noticed my shaking forehooves. “Are you going to be okay, Mark?”
I ground my teeth and charged my horn. “I'm not going to lie to you, Twilight. I'm pretty pissed off right now.”
She nodded wordlessly, activated the spell, and we were drawn into the maelstrom once more.
This time when we reappeared, Twilight was immediately struck by a blast from our left. I dove to catch her and barely got my shield up in time to deflect a similar blast coming my way. I set Twilight on the roadway directly below us and my horn ached as my shield absorbed another hit. I saw a triumphant Starlight Glimmer floating closer to us.
“I’m done messing with the two of you.” She glanced up and I followed her gaze. Her magic had caught Star Swirl’s scroll when Twilight had dropped it. I gasped when it erupted in flames and disappeared in a flash of smoke and ash. She sneered at me. “Goodbye, Mark Wells.” Then her horn blasts resumed.
I realized how completely screwed we were. I couldn’t leave an unconscious Twilight unprotected while I flew to dodge Starlight’s blasts. My shield was strong, but Starlight’s unicorn magic was much more powerful than mine. Cracks were already appearing on my shield spell.
That left me only one option. I removed my fetlock band.
The band served two purposes. Besides telling me how much mana my cells were holding, the band also limited how fast I could release it. My horn had been forged by channeling through it in a matter of seconds the majority of the magic of Equestria that Tirek had spewed into me. During her testing, Twilight concluded that even alicorn horns could not channel the volume of magic at the speed mine could. The drawback was that even when my cells were charged to 100% capacity, my limited reserves would only last a few seconds. I was basically a one-shot wonder.
Shining Armor had taught me how to project my physical and magical protection shield around an object and use my unfettered magic flow to rapidly reduce its size. I had spent a long afternoon with Shining attempting to protect the chair I was trying to crush, then waiting the hour or so for me to recharge. His first three attempts had resulted in a smoldering ball of wood and some nasty headaches on his part. On his fourth attempt, a completely re-written spell full of runes of reinforcement, direct connections to a half dozen ley lines, and a feedback loop drawing strength directly from my shield held up for the full three seconds.
Of course, he wanted to test the spell around himself the next time, which I flat out refused. Even with Cadance and Twilight offering to augment his shielding for extra safety, I simply wouldn’t do it. Once I had cast the spell, it would take me a half second to stop if anything went wrong. Despite his confidence, it was just too dangerous. I simply couldn’t live with myself if anything had gone wrong.
I didn’t feel that way right now.
Everything started to happen as if in slow motion. I made a shield bubble about thirty feet wide that surrounded Starlight. The unicorn’s next blast bounced off of it and struck her, causing the mare to cry out. She threw up her own shield inside mine but it broke apart into sheets of energy as mine shrunk.
She looked at me in panic as my shield bubble continued its inexorable collapse. I’m pretty sure I was screaming. Her horn glowed brighter than I had ever seen it before, casting energy in all directions, but the bubble didn’t even slow down its contraction. Just when my shield started to contort her body, there was a flash and she was gone. In her place was a marble-sized golden sphere. When I felt the last of my magic drain from my body, the marble exploded with a bang as the liquefied air inside expanded.
“That was… that was...”
Panting, I turned to see the young Rainbow Dash hovering nearby, her eyes practically glowing in excitement.
“…awesome?” I suggested.
“Even more than that. It was amazing!”
I sighed. I knew what was coming next. I grabbed Twilight around her barrel with my forelegs as I heard the familiar sound behind me.
My wings didn’t break our fall very well because I was virtually devoid of magic. I did manage to protect Twilight from the worst of it, though I twisted a rear ankle.
I looked around and was not pleased with what I saw. The Castle of Friendship was here, but much of it had been destroyed, perhaps in some cataclysmic battle. Through a large hole in the wall of the map room, I could see Ponyville, but from the level of disrepair, it seemed to be deserted. It was daytime, and the sky was overcast. That’s when I noticed it was raining.
As carefully as I could, I dragged Twilight under the cover of the map table. My attempts to rouse her were unsuccessful.
I pulled Twilight closer to me, covering her with a wing to keep her warm. I took stock of the situation. We were in another reality that so far appeared to be devoid of pony life. I couldn’t wake up Twilight. We both needed medical attention. Star Swirl’s scroll was gone. And it was raining. Only one word could sum up how I felt.
“Fuck.”
# # # # # # # # #
To find out what happens next, please donate to my Ko-fi account. When the tips total over one million Equestrian Bits, I will post chapter 40. 
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That is just wow my feels
This is going to get feelsy. Be very afraid.
Yep. That pretty much sums it up.
And what is that value in human money Goldy?
I generally see 'the needs of the many outweigh the few or the many' rhetoric as an excuse for the majority to ostracize the weak, the sick, the infirm the old, so there would be more for them to horde for themselves, or is used to guilt trip these same people to sacrifice themselves for their own survival. It is just too easy to twist and pervert this so call 'self-sacrifice' and conveniently forgets that those same words could just as easily be turned against themselves and is just a vialed attempt to pray on the weak to assure their own personal immediate survival, and pat themselves in the back afterward to appreciator their contribution.
I believe that what makes our civilization great is how we are 'all' willing to sacrifice a little of ourselves to those who are in times of need so that they can do the same when it will be our turn to be vulnerable for a while, all in mutual support for one another.
9455679
What he said, Goldfur.
9455703
Not so much when it's about "I have to chose between letting 500 die or 5,000". Those are the kind of decisions governments have to make, and that's the thing alluded on by Mark. A Sacrifice HAS to be done, no way about it, and he has to chose between sacrificing the few or the many. And as a ruler entrusted by his people, he has to chose the many over his personal priorities.
9455718
Phil is expressing the sentiment of the moment by using a geek-culture reference that Mark is very familiar with, as it is probably the most quoted line from the Star Trek motion pictures.
9455718
Yes, I am sure the Indians of WW2 appreciated that and comforted by that though they were left to fend for themselves by the British left it nearly undefended with most of their trained able bodies men to protect their dinky home islands and was swept by the inevitable Japaneses invasions, and that certainly didn't lead to an Independence moment two years after the war, and that's not even mention what they did during the Spanish Flu plague during and after WW1. And that isn't to forget what we did to the navies in our earlier days while colonizing.
OK cool, the macguffin's gone, so now Twilight has absolutely no choice but to redesign the goddamn spell herself, Starlight stays in a dead world and/or dies as a direct result of her actions, case closed.
9455718
And that was the same argument Nazi Germany followed when they didn't just intern Jews in their concentration camps but also the crippled, the infirm, mentally handicapped, and other minorities like the Gypsies because they didn't fit the mold of what is 'contributing to the society' in their own bias eyes. The moment leaders start looking at people or individual like a bunch of graphs they start to only see their output of production rather then their inherent values people and how sacred it is.
'Necessary sacrifice' has all too often been used as an excuse to get rid of group of marginalized peoples that governments used and to keep the better accommodations for the complying majorities that they represent.
9455739
9455765
I was thinking more about the lined of "I, the ruler, have this pile of money. I'm responsible for my people, and if I don't help them they'll die. So I have to use this money to save as many as I can, even if it means sacrificing the others. Because I CAN'T save everyone, and if I try all I'll get is even more dead people." or "I'm a commander, we're at war, and I have some troops. We're retreating, but if no one delays the enemy we will suffer too many casualties, so I'll order part of my troops to stay and fight to the last, for this way I can save more soldiers than otherwise." or even "We're a small hospital, the only one around, and a big accident just happened. There are more wounded than we can treat, so we have to chose and let some of them die."
See, there ARE necessary sacrifices. You mentioned atrocities and war, excuses used in extreme times, but what about the myriad of VALID examples? What about when you deny super expensive medical treatments in your public healthcare, because treating one person means sacrificing one hundred others? Isn't that the same "need of the many over the need of the few"? What about triage? What about when you cant help everyone, that's pretty much always when you look at the big picture, as a leader must?
Just because an expression has been used to justify something absurd it doesn't mean the expression itself doesn't represent something real in the world.
9455765
If life is sacred, why should anyone be expected to sacrifice theirs for anyone elses?
9455802
I find the reasoning to expect people to lay down their lives for others is a throw back to out society where people were just extensions of the family or community and not their own person and were pressured to sacrifice their life for to pay off the another, as proxies, member actions/blunders, to settled feuds. the weak were picked instead because they are a seen as a burden in that moment out of all of them, because they aren't as useful for the group as a whole. In those times it doesn't matter if you are responsible or not, or because they weren't the good graces of the leaders.
9455789
I am talking about willingly sending people to the chopping block, not random crises, in treating people as being disposable consumables, and how much of a slippery slope it becomes when you start judging them just by their graphs and make unilateral decisions on only that the person/people sent to the chopping and can all too easily turn into casuals disregard of peoples lives form then onward, you just can't casually discriminate who gets live or not outside of the heat of the moment.
And it is all to easy to use that excuse to get rid of people you just don't like and forget that they are your fellow human being in those difficult times and just competitions to get rid of.
For the hospital part, they don't act along and the government has to mobilize additional resources all around, all the nearest hospitals with send what they can an limiting all the efforts saying that it's 'not worth it' only added to the number death tolls.
For medical treatments the costs are massively inflated by pharmaceuticals because over 80% cost of a medical product new treatment, not necessarily even better then the previous ones (not research), is used to promote the products and a great many hospitals, as well as doctors, are complicit in it because they have contracts with those same pharmaceuticals to to keep their services open to the public, which create conflict of interest because they are pressured and contracted to promote their line of products. I don't care for the argument of free economy in this case, as it's essentially boils down to profiteering off the suffering of patents in actual need.
As for the army part, yes willingly treating your own citizens/friends/allies as disposable cannon is a great way to show how much they matter in their leaders eyes and that certainly won't have any consequences back home once the people find out about their children, husbands, fathers were just sent to die with not expectation of somehow surviving in someway or even allowing it to happen in the first place.
9449378
Ding! Ding! Ding! There's another one who learned a LOT from the Doctor!
The goal of the travelers is to get back to their OWN timeline--
--or at least one that's close enough.
Somehow, I don't think this timeline is close enough...
WHY
*ring**ring*
"
"
"
"
"
"Yes?
"Mr. Long? Mr. Lazarus Long?
"Speaking.
"Sir, we currently have a hostage situation. There's a timeline being held hostage and we need an immediate extraction. The target needing rescue is a fanfiction chapter.
"I'm on it! Just give me the coordinates!
♪♫
So on a scale from one to ten, how boned are we?
9456023
Cheater!
This is getting good. Next we need a story kinda like Travelers from Netflix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelers_(TV_series)
YAAAAY
9456102
Imma take a stab in the dark and say... ‘bout a 20?
9455871
I live in Brazil. Most of those inflated medical treatments have had their patents broken in order to give access to cheap treatment of quite some serious diseases for free to two hundred million people. Such as AIDS and quite some cancer treatments.
But it's a true universal public healthcare for over two hundred million (no matter how much the elite wants to destroy it). You can't pay for a more é expensive treatment when the cheaper one wasn't effective, for that means taking away the resources from other ten patients. We live in a world with limited resources (both due to nature and human feed), so you just can't save everyone. You have to choose who lives and who dies, else them all kick the bucket.
On the military it's not about treating soldiers like cannon fodder, it's about having less casualties. Either you do nothing and lose 10.000, or you send 2.000 to their deaths and save 8.000. Deaths will happen either way, you just have to choose how many you save.
Hell this is far from rare in wars. And they are not fodder, they are heroes - and many times treated as so.
I think you're mixing things. There is the cases when the need of the many are indeed greater than of the few, and there are those when that's the excuse presented to justify heinous acts. And even more complicated, when those happen at the same time.
In the hospital example, if the medics triaged according to ethnicity instead of standard procedures, it would be both.
If you denied the poor most expensive treatment paid by the state and allowed it for the rich, it's both.
In the military, if you choose the ones to stay behind based on your prejudices instead of the most appt, it's both.
All those situations require sacrifices. Who you sacrifice and why define if it's proper or not. But someone is getting screwed either way because we don't live in a world of sunshine and rainbows where friendship saves the day.
Obs: in no moment I said that this phrase wasn't used to justify atrocities, it was used and abused for that. But the expression itself remains true.
Noooo! I soooo wanted Phil (or Fillip) to be able to return with Mark.
And man, are they boned now. Well summed up Mark.
This chapter didn't go any direction I had imagined. Granted, my own ideas of time travel are that you are actually dimensional hopping rather than time travel, otherwise time paradoxes would be a major issue. So I should have thought along these lines but didn't. Great writing Goldfur.
9456023
Thumbs up for catching the Robert Heinlein reference!
This is why you keep backup copies of everything! The destruction of the scroll would be less impactful if it were duplicated...
So Nyx is now officially foalnapped? Whoops!
> notices the AN
> sends Chakat with a bag
> "I've been told a cataclysm needs to be repaired?"
So what happened with Starlight? Is she dead for good?
well crap this just turned in to a total cluster fuck.
9456587
I think she teleported away I in the last moment
Wait, if Starlight destroyed the scroll then aren't they all trapped there ?
9456803
Starlight doesn't care if she's stuck in the past. She can start her campaign against cutie marks earlier that way.
9456904
Oh yeah, forgot that how it worked for her.
I'm never a fan of these sorts of implications. My mind has a tendency to dwell on the implications for those left behind, making the whole story feel much darker.
(I've made peace with the manyworlds interpretation of causality, but having the characters I'm following actively cause harm that didn't need to be caused is different because it forces me to care about the timeline in question.)
With the scroll also gone, I'm now really worried that the next chapter will reveal this to have been a "jumped the shark and killed the great character story in pursuit of awesomeness" moment like I've seen in so many other fics over the years. (Admittedly, mostly in other fandoms over on fanfiction.net)
Did Mark Wells just become Mark Watney?
9457050
To be fair, the other Twillight led them to bring Nyx by fusing with Princess Twillight
9457272
Doesn't change the fact that the author decided that those left behind in that other universe now have to spend the rest of their lives realizing that two loved ones are gone and will never come back when, if he'd just left well enough alone, they'd have been fine.
9457274
So... you're blaming the writer....?
9457284
Everything that happens in a story is ultimately the author's decision. Our intuitive understanding of that is where the phrase "truth is stranger than fiction" comes from. We recognize that fiction is held to a stricter standard than reality because reality can be truly capricious and random while it's agreed that, as designed things created by human minds, stories have purposes and goals.
The story has already spent twice the maximum length a professional editor will allow from a first-time author (120,000 words) establishing an intuitive understanding of what kind of story this is, based on the atmosphere established and the things the story has been effectively focusing on. (Generally, that has to be done by the end of the first act or after 30,000 words, whichever is shorter.)
Now, anything which the reader sees as incompatible with their expectations for where the story was headed will be seen as detracting from the story's quality, rather than as a mere twist or tonal shift. (Unless the series is wound down and an independent series within the same setting is started... and, even then, it'll still risk being a disappointment for readers attracted by the original story.)
9457274
I'd argue that that perspective doesn't entirely apply in this case.
Nyx is moving from one place to another to make new friends there (assuming she makes it eventually). The equivalent would be your friend in the 1980s whose family had to move overseas because their dad got deployed. I set the time period back then because that was before free worldwide web-blogs, audio and video conferencing, and texting.
Librarian Twilight is a member of the Ponyville community but is known as well as you know the librarian in your town. There, friendly, but not really someone you hang out with. She has her foal and that's pretty much the focus of her world.
9457306
Well.... alright then....
9457319
That is better, but I still say that "family moving overseas"-level problems haven't been justified as necessary with the removal of "survival" as a justification and that it's not quite the same since there's that element of "this was done with the expectation that those left behind wouldn't survive to experience the consequences" to it.
Also, I'll argue that the story should have presented it better. By the time the misconception was revealed, I'd forgotten that detail as "irrelevant because everyone in that timeline had been unmade anyway" and it didn't remind me.
9457274
The author is omniscient, but the characters are not. Mark and Twilight have been thrown into a situation that threatens their existence and that of those they love, and they have had very little time and knowledge to base their assumptions upon. Under these conditions, mistakes can be and have been made. Without a means discovered to control their fate as yet, mistakes may continue to be made even as they try to do what is best for everyone.
9457928
Yes, but it's the author's job to ensure that the mistakes which are made work together as harmoniously as possible to reinforce the tone, atmosphere, and genre coherence of the story as solidified during the first act.
Characters are still, fundamentally, figments of the author's imagination with no true agency of their own.
Well this is interesting turn of events.
Worst turn ever... Killing Starlight would be the best option in view of the events
9457198
oh, you made me think of "the Maretian", where 5 equestrians wind up living with Mark Watney!
Damn... Starlight really begs to get killed by this point... And what stops her from recreate all of this ones she is defeated... I dont see how logicly and moraly one keep her alive
While a valid theory, universes also exist in parallel timelines. It gets very confusing very fast when you mix dimensions, universes, timelines, realities, what-have-you, and it’s confusing enough talking about timelines by themselves!