Celestia is lost. She needs to get home.
This story was written for the 2023 FimFic Science Fiction Contest. It placed somewhere.
Horseword maintenance and installation specialist. Mareschizo extraordinaire.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Always a pleasure to read your writing. Best of luck in the contest!
The build-up, the build-up, the build-up. I adore this setup and how smoothly it moves from scene to scene. In spite of the pony element, there's this deep dread that organically develops until it's practically choking the prose with its totally shrouding atmosphere. Really gives the sci-fi the room to sink its inky teeth in. A lot gets laid out for Celestia, but even with all the details in place, there's still no clear path forward.
There's just forward. No going back.
Excited to see this one to the end.
I'm loving this so far!! Getting some SBS-like vibes, with the whole weak!Lestia in an apocalyptic world
I like
This is definitely my favourite type of horror.
Wonderfully written, I hope you do well in the contest!
This is sad. I hope that the satellite is able to recoup more power and resources so that Twiley can afford to give Celly, Lotus, and Codex a little bit more life next life.
I can't decide if the slow decaying bleakness of the situation is the terror or if some horrific twist/revelation is going to pop up at any moment. I'll say Twiley is obviously unnerving, especially with her nonchalance for pony life, but what really strikes me as creepy is the overall crippled and seemingly forgotten state of what should be pony kind's most important mission. If they can build a station, they can build resupplies to said station. Heck, in the almost 100 years the mission has been going they should have been able to research wildly superior space technologies to upgrade said station instead of letting it decay into a barely shambling metallic corpse. It almost feels totally forgotten, but if the elements are there that seems hard to believe. The ship was also clearly built with a much larger crew in mind, all of which have been sacrificed, and now there's conveniently just 'no time' to let them communicate with home? Things decay, but the state of the ship feels much much older than ~80 years. Celestia's "pod" also feels too... organic? I can't help but wonder how long they've really been out in the black, how far they've strayed from their original mission, and if there's even anyone back home waiting for them to complete it. Hyped for more!
I'll be honest, that all looks like a very cool concept
And I think, I actually see from where inspirations come from
Can't wait to see how it will be resolved
My face when the mare I love more than anything wakes up from suspended animation only to still remember experiencing the hundreds of deaths she was forced to suffer at my own hooves.
en.meming.world/images/en/c/c9/Surprised_Shaq.jpg
It’s been a minute since I was so eager to get new chapters of a FIMfic story. Damn it, Norris, I am truly enjoying this excellent story!
Yeah, I figured our Celestia was a copy. Makes too much sense if they can already copy brain states. Why send the "real" Celestia when a duplicate will do?
Wow, this is beautiful.
I've dropped everything I was doing, read it, and did not regret it at all.
Even if Celestia will end up like that child from A Space Odyssey, but in artificial womb in depths of cosmos, I wouldn't mind it at all. Seems chaotic enough
There is still hope, then.
It's all very good. Thank you, for writing!
LETS GOOOOOO
The most ambiguous part of this ending is the fact that Celestia was carefully written to neither express memories of her time on the satellite nor lack them. I choose to believe that she remembers.
That was… perfect.
Wondrous work. It's a real use of the word refreshing to come to this conclusion while following in the wake or such a profoundly grinding start. It's just the perfect juxtaposition.
Amazing story, thank you for bringing it into the world
Depressive and hurting but in a right way ... Thanks for the great story!
holy fucking shit dude
i just
damn
words do not do
words do the cannot
y e s
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I just finished this and you said everything I was going to say.
I liked this story. Dark and somber, but always with a note of hope.
Holy shit, this was good! 🤘
Chilling.
We need more hard sci-fi fics like this.
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You should check out Cypress Zero. I helped with the prereading, and it really did scratch a hard sci-fi ponyfic urge I've felt myself for ages.
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Thanks, I'll check it out right away!
You really captured that spicy fish out of water feeling and that sense of something larger happening... looming is excellently explored.
Breathtaking. This is breathtaking.
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Author excuse is likely “they used magic based technology to send the ship to the void so they can’t do it anymore” or something. Kinda of like the fact that dalek’s precursors, a post industrialized species, never developed concept of stair.
It’s sci-fi horror and a mop fanfic. You can’t really do much without being really out there.
love this entire introductory section! really lets the reader get into Celestia’s sensorium as she tries to make sense of it all. and very reminiscent of Changeling pods!
and Celestia would know!
so very Celestia, love it
i mean, sounds like a typical day in the profession, sadly
hehe, great plot device to have Celestia learn about the setting alongside the reader
augh, love this detail. also, love ponies
ooh, the way that last line echoes “friendship is magic”, while being both benevolent and ominous at once… love it
ooh, makes the question in previous line even more pressing! physical proof that the crew we see is far more short-hooved than intended
guessing this is the onboard AI?
hehe, “little pony”, love it every time
oh, wow! the whole sequence with Lotus and Codex felt so “solid” that it should be the reality, but this is calling all that into question again. maybe Celestia is mixing up her memories and experiences from past revivals? or the Chaos Magic itself distorting what reality even means? what a delicious premise
no idea how or why you did this but i feel like it is meaningful somehow
a great Chekov’s Science Tape for a future revelation later!
just beautifully paced and absorbing! the concept of being the last member of a spaceship crew that is hibernated and revived over the eons leading to a haunting and lonely mystery is a great one, and you really set it up to its full potential here. what’s especially interesting is that Celestia is very much not the “everymare” character one expects to be the protagonist to this type of story, and that makes me especially excited to watch the mystery unfold, as you absolutely nail what she would be like here
interesting!
definitely underscores Celestia’s earlier comments on the youth of these crewmembers. considering that this is a mission of utmost importance and weight, this really adds to the mystery of the whole thing!
love my Princess
ooh, cloning?
augh, love this, and solves the mystery above. also, given Celestia’s immortality and long reign, doesn’t this make Lotus and Codex’s attitudes a difference in degree, rather than kind, as the other mortal ponies that lived their lives and died and kept Equestria running?
much like she carefully selected the future bearers of the Elements of Harmony, perhaps? really makes you think
and oof, you could really feel this in every description in the story so far!
oof. truly giving their lives for Equestria!
oh Celestia, little do you know the power of AI!
and oof, this makes me wonder if that estimate of 80 years is itself accurate…
and augh. sometimes you can’t beat the cold equations
and augh! way to make me feel the inevitable weight of time, mare!
says everything without needing to say more. really makes you think about the continuity of identity and its meaning
about what i expected, given everything so far. really taking to its natural conclusion the transformation of the Elements from the civilization-defining artifacts the show centered around to the source of villain-zapping rainbow beams.
and oof. just enough progress to make it seem like continuing to do this and suffering through the growing decay is the right course, and just too little to make it seem anything other than hopeless and horrifying. an excellent balance to strike
should i love that this is what they use instead of “feet” or hate that they don’t use the Pony Metric System? i am so torn you have no idea
hell yeah, love the absolutely inexplicable pony version of the American mid-Atlantic
burn!
and, oof! looks like this is the first real break that Celestia has had with her past selves. and there’s still the reveal that awaits on the other side of the Science Tape that could very well recontextualize everything…
the “would have” doing a lot of work here, augh. and yes, it would have been the worst! possible! thing!
oof, love this. the true feel of a dying world…
so very Luna
oh wow! augh i love this. excellent stuff!
aww, the Venus symbol!
absolutely horrifying sequence, wow. the comfort of the short lives of this crew had clearly been pared down a lot from its original parameters, but now we are seeing just how far it can go
i just know that literally no matter what is on that tape it’s going to destroy me isn’t it
and augh. you are really making me feel for these characters. though i am glad Lotus seems to have found an answer to the question of identity that is meaningful for her in this moment. and augh. that moment of getting to speak with her Twilight again that this Celestia we have been following this whole story had been waiting her entire interrupted existence for, turning into this…
aww, love it
full circle! nice touch
and a beautiful and cosmic end and not end
beautiful, beautiful stuff. the use of Celestia is brilliant in this, as reducing the guiding Princess of Equestria to a copy and a tool (by Twilight herself no less!) really adds to the weight of the desperation these ponies face, while Celestia’s personal connection to an immortal pony makes her hope of survival and communication with Equestria more meaningful, in contrast with her mortal crewmates who only really have each other left. and there are so many wonderful closed loops here, from the cyclical nature of the resurrections themselves to Celestia’s last action being to save her Equestria by using the Elements of Harmony against the remains of Discord. and throughout, the way you made the decay and its progress felt was just amazing. thank you so much!
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Depending if a copy pricess is conservative or destructive
So happy that it ended happily because if it had all been for naught and Equestria was already apocalyzed decades ago and they didn't even manage to close the Tear I might've literally never gotten over it the same way I've never gotten over The Enigma of Amigara Fault.
Fantastic story. The creativity of the premise honestly has me in awe, and the execution was immaculate. I put off reading this for so long, but I'm glad I got around to reading it. I'm glad this is one of the stories I've gotten to experience in my mortal lifetime.
We won't be seeing her again.
Called it. I kinda liked her, too.
But we all saw it coming.
Celestial in survival mode now. Let's hope nothing challenges her immortality.
The earth spins around the sun at 97513 feet per second, assuming that hooves per second and feet per second are the same value then celestia is moving about about 4x slower than she would on earth/equis.
That's such a scary concept honestly
Holy shit, I am at the loss of words. This was absolutely beautiful, and horrifying. Elaborately horrifying. I'm so sad that we didn't hear Lotus at the end though, it was such a heartbreaking moment for me
This is a masterpiece. I am so shocked right now. It's haunting. I cannot sleep now. It's the kinda story that makes you think long and hard after
I finally got to this story and it was amazing. Thank you for this wonderful story
sure, Celestia c_c lay down in the amniotic fluid and then lick it off the floor, I'm sure you'll be perfectly fine
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Forbidden lemonade