Silver Star was born for great things. He’d known it from his earliest memories, when he looked up on Moonrise in the middle of a lunar night, when the air outside the shelters got too cold to breathe.
Of course he didn’t have a vent of his own—Whites didn’t get to live in the sky-towers built after the model of the ancient Alicorns and their wisdom, but low in the caverns themselves, where the pipes were old, and the water was cold by the time it got to them. But while other creatures crowded around in a public shelter, hoarding every scrap of warmth they could, Silver had bigger ambitions.
The cavern opened to him then, and wearing an extra jacket was more than enough for him to cope. He didn’t fully understand why so many creatures made such a big deal about the cold—but he wasn’t about to ignore a gift fate just handed to him. It meant whole days when he didn’t have to worry about the guards dragging him back to break rocks and dig tunnels.
“Stop!” somepony shouted, loud enough that Silver jerked to one side. He dodged a blow reflexively, even though one never came, then slipped through half a dozen layers of insulation and out into the icy cold of the lunar night.
He pulled up his thin hood, mostly to keep his face hidden from any guards who happened to be watching him. If they didn’t see him, maybe they’d imagine that there were wings tucked under his coat, and he was the Voidseeker out on patrol, ready to cut down any creature who defied her.
He dodged a frozen puddle of something that should’ve been in the waste system, glancing briefly up at the ceiling. There an ancient tenement building was tucked in close to the wall, its underside covered with pipes. But the night had brought an end to the leaks, freezing whatever was inside into an oily brown sheen.
Silver ignored the muffled voices from inside, knowing full well that no soldier was going to waste their breath chasing a White out into Moonrise during nightfall. Maybe if he’d been anypony important, but… Silver heard no hoofsteps behind him as he dodged through the service tunnels. Apparently these winding alleys had been something else once, the streets of the city itself. But now those were enclosed, fully protected with warm air circulated by the climate system.
That meant Moonrise was his domain. Well, his and the ghosts. They didn’t feel the cold either.
He slowed a moment, nose catching something on the wind. Heat and grease—food. His horn glowed for a second, and he focused his magic. It probably wasn’t necessary to waste any magic, but he couldn’t be certain. Stealing food meant a week without rations, and no reduction in his work shifts.
He’d survived that once. He probably wouldn’t again.
The old alleys gave way to the home of the Yellows, the ponies who pretended they weren’t as worthless as he was. Easier to pretend during the day, when the warmth of Moonrise made their cozy apartments almost as nice as the Reds.
And instead of packing you all into a stupid shelter until daytime, you get to live in a warm barracks, eating warm meals, and drinking fresh water. You won’t miss this.
Silver hesitated a moment, glancing both directions in the gloom. He didn’t actually light his horn—the spell was trivial, but would’ve made his homemade notice-me-not a tad pointless. But the darkness wasn’t anything to be afraid of, even if you weren’t a bat.
He closed his eyes, and let the moon itself show him where to go. Sound formed outlines in his mind, the suggestion of a heavy air door now hanging open. No guards outside checking pins. Nopony moving at all.
He opened his eyes again, and found only darkness, thick enough that even his icy breath was invisible. The kind of darkness that pressed up against his eyes and made resisting the urge to light it himself more difficult by the moment.
Then he walked. Any moment he might learn that he’d been wrong—the sounds of the city had lied to him, and there was new excavation under his hooves. He’d fall far enough to die from the impact, and his body would be found frozen when day came.
He might keep expecting the drop, but it didn’t come. He made it to the doorway, and found it right where sound suggested. He pushed, and it swung open. The smell was so close now.
He wasn’t imagining the smell of oil, either. Real peanut oil, fresh enough that his mouth started to water. Luxuries like this were usually reserved for Blues! He couldn’t even remember the last meal that hadn’t been some flavor of watery mash.
It wasn’t coming from a regular apartment door, as he’d first thought. The smell came from below, rising as the steam from whoever was cooking took the wonderful smell of fried food up with it.
He dropped down to the floor, feeling along it with a hoof until he found the crack, then turned sideways to peer down. There was a faint flicker of orange from down there, coming from a space he imagined might be a distant kitchen. He didn’t have a spyglass to see for certain… glass was expensive.
It wasn’t too far to teleport. But if he got the distance wrong, he’d end up splattered in the wall, until the stink got bad enough that someone had to do something about it.
It won’t matter if a spell kills me if I crawl into a corner and die first.
Silver Star closed his eyes, then… teleported.
It wasn’t the rote mastered through many months of diligent study by Blues with their fancy armor and real vegetables for dinner. Silver’s magic was more primal, somehow more… natural.
His world was always so cold, that it wasn’t much of a step forward to make the whole thing freeze. Suddenly the space between the regolith didn’t seem so thin, and he walked straight down in a blink. But it didn’t last—soon the eyes began creeping in, peeking in through the rock, appearing behind and above. Every little fleck of quartz in the rock became another one, one that could see where he had gone.
One that hated him.
The space around him cracked like a sheet of ice, and he was in the air. Silver fell, nearly an entire body length before his hooves finally found the ground. He caught himself easily—a few meters wasn’t going to hurt him.
His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light. There was a single portable electric torch, resting in the center of the room and glowing with warm orange. Not enough to keep frost from condensing on every surface, or to make his breath not fog up the air.
It looked a little like an apartment, if the apartment had been built by a nervous ghost with only a vague idea of what civilization ought to look like. The floor was rough and entirely unfinished, and only naked stone was on the walls.
He could see no doors either, no ladders or obvious cavern entrances. Was that thin crack the only way down here?
If it was daytime and the apartment was lit, I never would’ve seen the glow.
Behind him was a bedroom of sorts, with sheets so fine they seemed to shine in the electric light. Silk? Stars above, no! Silver stole food all the time—but stealing valuables from the Blues? Did whoever owned this place want to get marched to the surface and shot?
He might’ve turned and fled right then, if he had the strength. But a teleport was incredibly energy-intensive, and anyway the smell of food hadn’t gone. It wasn’t leftovers he was smelling—the oil was actually bubbling and steaming now, with food still in it.
He took a few hoofsteps closer, following the smell of fresh hay and veggies. Whatever the secret thief had stolen, he would help himself to a portion and be gone before they returned.
They must be a unicorn to have an entire stove down here. Not a makeshift oil burner either, but the same kind he’d seen in the restaurant he’d helped excavate a year ago, which cooked using a near-invisible purple flame and used some kind of detachable fuel-tank.
Then somepony screamed. She spun rapidly, spreading her wings wide as she squealed.
Well, she spread one wing. The other was a mangled stump, with what seemed to his starving mind to be an actual bone protruding from gray flesh. The pony was small, shorter than he’d been the year he got his cutie mark. Her voice was high and shrill, even more than the bats he’d known. “Eeeeeee!”
He screamed too, retreating a few steps from the horribly-injured pony. “Hey!” He lifted a hoof, backing away from her. “Relax, okay? I didn’t think… If you’re that loud, one of the patrols might hear you.”
She stopped abruptly, big eyes fixing on him in the gloom. They almost glowed with the reflected electric light, far too wide for him to see the slits. Her one good wing and one mangled horror snapped to her side as though they were both equally functional, and she advanced on him. “Who the buck are you to be sneaking up on me, warmblood?”
Her accent was so thick, her words so clumsy, that he almost couldn’t make sense of them. But despite what Regent Rockshanks might say about worthless children of Whites, Silver was clever. She saw through the stealth spell without even trying. She’s not wearing a jacket. She’s so small.
She might’ve been cute if she wasn’t so horrifically injured.
“I’m, uh… Silver Star,” he said. “Who are you?”
She made a frustrated squeak, pawing at the ground. “That’s it? No… bleeding eyes? No bursting into flame? No… nightmares swallowing you alive?”
He just stood there, open-mouthed.
The pony scoffed in frustration, scooping up her fallen spatula and turning back to the stove. She had to stand on a little stool like a filly to reach the pot of oil and start fishing the hayfries out. “Just goes to show. Everything gets weaker away from Equestria, including the magic. Stupid… normal pony sneaking up on me.”
Silver’s mind raced as he put the pieces together. Some part of him still wanted to flee. He would probably be strong enough to teleport out soon, and now he knew how far the trip was. It wouldn’t be impossible.
But then she lifted a dozen hayfries from the pot, and they instantly started to hiss and contract in the cold. But they weren’t frozen yet. Hot food. There’s hot food right here.
“Why the buck is a unicorn out in the cold in the middle of the bucking night?” the bat muttered to herself as she worked, her single good wing spread beside her and twitching in her annoyance. “Too cold for warmbloods out here. Unicorns are too valuable to be out. Somepony important?”
Has this pony been alone so long that she’s talking to herself?
Silver knew the feeling. It probably wouldn’t be long before he started doing the same thing. Assuming he lived long enough.
“Hey, uh… bat? Whoever you are… could I have some of that? I’m not gonna threaten you or anything, but… you’re really small, and that’s a lot of hay for one…”
She turned, baring sharp fangs at him. “Tell me this, Silver. Who sired you that you’re out in the naked night with just a jacket? Shouldn’t you be hypothermic by now?”
He shrugged. “Probably. My brother, uh…” He looked down, a little confidence draining. “He wasn’t as good about the cold as me. There wasn’t a lot of room in the shelters, so…” He straightened, advancing on her. He was bigger, probably older, he wasn’t going to let her dig up painful memories. “Look, will you share or not? I can probably, like… help you or something! No way this thing you’ve got going is legit. Bet you could use a powerful unicorn on your side.”
The bat twitched, mouth hanging open as she stared. “Guess… only one of us needs this,” she grumbled, then pulled out another plate from a drawer. It looked like a rich pony’s dresser, with a front of real wood. But he would stop being amazed for the steaming plate she pushed towards him. “Go on then. Skinny as you are… probably gonna snap in half if you don’t eat something.”
She carried her plate over to the table, which like everything else looked like it was stolen. This one was big enough to take up a good portion of the corner of the room, its surface entirely wood. Ancient and warped, long spoiled by thousands of heatings and coolings. But more wood than he’d ever seen in one place before.
It took enormous willpower to make it to the table, but he managed. The plate still steamed in front of his face, the grease and oil turning his mind to butter. Real food, right in front of his eyes. More than he got in two days.
“You don’t have to buck it, kid. Keep staring at your plate like that, and I’ll take it back.”
He levitated a bite up towards his mouth—without a fork, since she hadn’t given him one. He didn’t really know how to use it anyway.
It tasted better than it smelled, even if the heat was rapidly bleeding away. As he chewed, steam issued from between his teeth, rising around him. I’ll be able to smell this for a week.
“Damn,” the bat said, suddenly right beside him. How had she sat down in the chair next to his without him noticing? Her eyes glowed as she stared at him, filled with… longing? “I thought you were some twisted new Nightmare experiment, but… you really are alive. You’re actually eating that.”
He was actually finishing it. He pushed the plate aside, nodding gratefully and settling his chair back. “Th-thank you for being so generous. I’ll… stop bothering you now, bat. I apologize for intruding on your… secret… whatever this is.”
“Wait!” She pushed the other plate towards his seat. “Eat this one too. I haven’t seen a pony eat in… centuries. And breathe—I know they’re all doing it, but… look at you. Is it hard? Do you forget sometimes?”
Without the promise of food, Silver’s sense of self-preservation probably would’ve been enough to make him run. He ran a hoof through short white mane, glancing back at the crack leading up. He didn’t actually have to be standing below it to teleport, though the straight line was easiest. If he didn’t look through it right before he jumped, there was a chance he’d misjudge the distance and end up in the wall.
Silver hurried forward, settling back into the chair and pulling up the other plate. He stopped before taking a bite, staring sidelong at her. “You sure? You’re pretty short yourself. Maybe you need this more than I do?”
She actually smiled at him. “I’m flattered that you’re so good at pretending not to be disgusted, but you don’t have to pretend. We both know I’m only eating it for the taste. I’m really just letting perfectly-good food go to waste. Even if the taste is the same… the reward just isn’t there, you know? Like, when you’re alive, eating feels good. You know you’re getting something you need. Or… I think it was like that. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”
In the horrifying chill of the cavern, food cooked less than five minutes ago was already cold and going stiff. But he didn’t care. He’d probably lick the oil off the plate if he didn’t have her strange eyes on him every second. “Hold on. Are you trying to say you’re… dead?”
She rolled her eyes. “Uh, yeah?” She rose from her chair, trying to hover there beside him—but with only one wing, she flopped to one side and had to catch herself awkwardly.
“Because…” He pushed the second empty plate aside. He’d eaten it too fast—he knew he’d be feeling sick before too long. But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t change her mind about letting him have her food if he’d already eaten it. “Because you’re a Voidseeker. One of the… one of the Lost Servants of the Moon. Neither living nor dead…”
“And now you see why I’m hiding,” she said settling onto her haunches and glaring up at him. “Could you imagine ponies talking to you like that all the time. ‘Oh, mythical servant of a goddess! Please, share your wisdom and don’t kill me!’” She squeaked in frustration. “At least the last part meant ponies used to run away. The one useful myth isn’t there anymore.”
“Myth?” he repeated, confused. “You are one of them. That’s how you got down here… a unicorn didn’t bring you, you traveled through the shadows with… all this stolen stuff. And that’s how you’re down here without freezing. You could probably walk up on the surface without an air shell!”
“You bet,” she said. “Free to wander for centuries through the freezing sand. Free to let the rancid ichor in my blood freeze and shatter like my poor wing.” She glanced to her left side, sighing deeply. “And free to be abandoned, because I slowed everypony down. It was pretty great, shadow-walking across the moon to try and find this place. At least you’re making yourselves easier to find these days.”
“Sorry.” He looked away. “I didn’t mean to… I don’t understand how it could be a bad thing. Never feeling cold, never feeling hungry or like you’re suffocating. Never getting tired after a day of excavation.”
“Excavation?” she repeated, indignant. “A teleporting, strange-blooded unicorn is being used to dig holes?”
He nodded. “Well, yeah. The Regent’s army doesn’t need to take chances on ponies he can’t trust. It’s all about your parents—good parents, good life. But if nobody knows, then…” He gestured with a hoof. “Seems like you know what it’s like. Living without a name. Hiding down…” He hesitated. “Wait, why are you hiding? If you’re a Voidseeker, aren’t you a Black? You don’t have to play this game.”
She glanced briefly at her wing, pawing awkwardly at the ground. “When I was last in Moonrise, the princess sat back and let…” She stuck out her hoof. “My name’s Magpie. You’re Silver Star? I could use somepony to talk to. If you’re not going to freeze to death down here.”
“Probably won’t,” he said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to turn your stove off first. I do still breathe, and I’m pretty sure you’re burning oxygen faster than it can get through the crack.”
“I have no idea what that means,” she said. “But sure. Turn it off, then maybe you can tell me what’s happened in Moonrise in the last…” She trailed off. “How long has it been since the Voidseekers left?”
He winced at the question—trivial for a pony with a proper education. He was just lucky to be able to read. “Five centuries,” he said, awed.
“Yeah.” She slid past him into the living room, curling up on the stolen couch. “That sounds about right.”
How much has time skipped?
I thinks it's about 460 years, give or take.
9977664
by 5 centurys, so 500 Years... with aproxemetly 50 to 80 Years for a Pony live and Faith as the 2. Generation on the Moon with, what? How old was she 20 years or so.... maybe.so he is in the 7 to 11 Generations at max. I think. A 400+ years timeskipe, i presume.
9977664
“How long has it been since the Voidseekers left?” - “Five centuries”
Assuming the Voidseekers leaving refers to them all (except one) leaving after Aminon's attack on Quill - at least 450 to 500 years.
Wow, now that's a time skip.
This Void Seeker sounds like they're more free than they should be. Also a full grown mare being mistaken for a foal? Man, if nothing changes they're so dead the second they return, the gravity will kill them in seconds.
Ok, you left us at a pretty important cliffhanger in the last episode and now we've time jumped nearly 400 years.
I want to know what's happened to Hope and how they got the water reclamation and so much going.
So many questions.
Something has gone horribly wrong if they're being this callous. The old regime wouldn't throw away a labourer's life just for the sake of punishment.
Oh man, isn't this the same shit that sparked the Lunar Rebellion in the first place?
Sharpen those pitchforks and drill bits, ponies. Looks like it's time for a peasant revolt.
Gotta wonder if Nightmare Moon would appreciate the irony.
9977731
Peasant rebellions don't have a good history of succeeding... And it's also possible that's part of how the princess maintains order, since the soldiers weren't too happy with the prostitutes and all that rabble. We won't know until the author explains! ;p
Well that was one heck of a timeskip. Seems a lot has changed in the meantime.
Silver is interesting. Cold resistance, a “teleport” that seems almost more like the shadow walking the Voidseekers use, and apparently rudimentary echolocation. Wonder where that came from. Descendant of Faith/Arclight (but that doesn’t square with how colors are based on one’s parents)? I’m curious if Penumbra knows who her descendants are, or if she gave up after a while, considering her relationship (or lack thereof) with Faith. I also wonder if anyone who teleports sees the eyes, or if it was just Silver and Faith.
Seems there’s a lot more social stratification than there was earlier, and it’s based on lineage instead of merit now. It appears that at least part of Moonrise has moved on from surviving to living, based on the excavation of a restaurant of all things. I guess this can explain the lack of care towards the lower classes — you can care a lot less about whether/how “cheap labor” lives when you have resources to spare. It certainly doesn’t do much to avoid breeding resentment, though. I wonder how much of this Nightmare Moon know/cares about.
It also appears than maintenance has not been a priority. And maybe part of Moonrise has moved to the surface, if “sky-towers” implies what I think it does? If that’s the case, maybe it just means that maintenance and resources are just massively under allocated for the lower classes.
Seems language has changed a bit if Magpie has an accent from Silver’s perspective. Wonder what she was talking about with bleeding eyes/bursting into flames/nightmares swallowing you alive.
This is the first Voidseeker we’ve seen any personality from besides Animon and Penumbra IIRC. She seems oddly regretful of her choice to give up life, although perhaps that’s expected after a few centuries of undeath. Wonder if the other Voidseekers are the same. Seems they had been sticking together at least, before Magpie was abandoned. Interesting that they are (still) vulnerable to cold, though. And it seems the other Voidseekers are just wandering the surface? Actually lost, or still doing something? Seems they were afraid after Nightmare Moon let Penumbra kill Aninom? Why?
9977803
Doesn't stop them from trying anyway, once things get bad enough.
Now that you mention it, I'm wondering whether that's the intended moral of this story: After a thousand years of ruling her own domain, Luna returns to Equestria not to wage war, but to apologise to Celestia after she's had to quash several rebellions of her own making, possibly killing ponies that were actually dear to her.
Who is the Regent? And is he in charge now?
Regents are there to rule in the absence or the incapacitation of the monarch. If he's in charge, where's Nightmare Moon? Has she had enough of the facade of caring and fucked off elsewhere?
9977804
I am figuring that the nightmare gave up on them with their failure and all the time that passed.
As for the time skip I am figuring the money spent on the story is running lower.
Fascinating developments... if rather distressing ones. As has heen noted, this sort of thing was what Luna tried to stop in the first place. The question is how much Nightmare knows about her Regent's policies. And how far they've come in the intervening centuries, both in terms of technological progress and spreading across the satellite. It definitely sounds like Moonrise isn't the only settlement anymore. Definitely looking forward to more of this era.
Not gonna lie, I thought this new voidseeker was penumbra for a while who just went crazy.
9977822
I suppose.
As for the second thing, I'm guessing that everyone involved with her is going to end up dead so as to match the canon. Either that, or stuck on the moon without NMM/Luna. That'd introduce a conundrum into that line of thinking, albeit, not ending it, but perhaps prompting the fit of rage seen in the opening of the show.
I can imagine Silver Star being a very fluffy, relatively tall pony.
Also what were the different classes/ranks in Moonrise again, and what did they do? I know Blacks were the VoidSeekers. Are whites the class that exist just to pleasure the other higher ones?
9977866
I hope not; it's already annoying enough with 1 cliffhanger time-skipped away.
Dat timeskip yo
I am betting Luna/Nightmare Moon is being kept out of the loop by "The Regent"
9977720
I think he's trying to get to 1,000 years in a reasonable amount of time
9977803
They probably wont and will just throw us another 400 year time skip gotta love those right guys?
9978139
Let's do some math, shall we?
If there are no major timeskips, and let's say each chapter covers roughly one year of time (which is a stretch for sure), to get through 1000 years would take 1000 chapters. At the rate of one chapter per week, and 52 weeks in a year, it would take roughly 19 years and 3 months to get through the story.
Yeah, that's definitely not going to happen. The story will never get done if there aren't any major timeskips.
9978151
I'm fine with timeskips. I just want the size of the skip to be stated at the top of the chapter.
9978151
Gotta love that instant defense of what’s ultimately a great way to kill your story. Lets talk about time skips and what they mean for readers. Lets not even mention that the time skip happened right at an important crossroad of getting enough water for everyone or anything. So far we have had two main tellers of the story, both of whom’s deaths we didnt get to see or if they even fixed this potentially life ending on moonrise problem, and the time skips have happened right at when the reader starts to see some actual character development which is bad.
I like the name Magpie. Used to see them often where I was a kid and they really did like to collect stuff.
I think this chapter was a very elegant way to deliver a time skip.
Wait, what?
...Huh. I'm just confused now. I feel like we barely got to know Faithful Gale or the impact she left on Moonrise. Not that I'm not interested to see where we are now, but I'm feeling pretty discombobulated. It felt like we had a lot more of the previous character to wrap up. As it is, she didn't really leave an impression on me? I was game for the timeskip to her adulthood, and I could be game for a four century skip once her story was over, but we just sort of jumped away near the beginning of her life, when Moonrise's early problems were still readily ongoing. It wasn't long enough for me to develop the same sense of connection I did for any of the characters in the first time period (not just Iron Quill, but Cozen and Sylvan, Permafrost and Aminon. Arclight was the only other character of lasting prominence in round 2, and even he feels unfinished.) We learned more about the Polestar, and that's about it.
I didn't mind Iron Quill dying over timeskip - we'd seen Moonrise grow through his guidance and we saw plenty of the kind of pony he was, what he was willing to do and what mattered to him. But Faithful Gale just... we started to know her, but her arc had no resolution. Or her arc had the resolution intended for it, kept going for a while longer and started to show more things happening, and cut off. She visited Vanaheimr and convinced Nightmare Moon that she could be somepony (and that Moonrise's future lie in excavation of the sacred city), timeskip to something going wrong, and then another timeskip?
I'm really interested in seeing what life is like for the Voidseekers now, especially our new friend here, and how Moonrise has developed over half the span of their imprisonment, technologically and culturally. And I expect plenty of timeskips in this story, and plenty of massive ones. But I don't feel one belonged at that moment.
This jump feels way to soon. It still felt like there was a lot left for faith.
Timeskip time again, a big one if they have 'sky-towers'.
I see that the caste system is working out swimmingly.
Who in the world is this? As described she really doesn't seem like one of the lost Voidseekers, but maybe time makes a difference.
Okay, so she is one. Time and the moon has not been kind. Edit: Oh, and apparently I wasn't taking into account that all the moon-born would be willowy stick figures so of course an Equestrian-born pony would look tiny.
Geeze, so the caste system moved from trial by talent to just straight up who your parents are. If the people in charge weren't backed by the Nightmare the system would would be ripe for a popular uprising, maybe even with her around.
Ahh, so we're halfway through the exile.
All your characters have been really engaging so far, but I have to say It's kind of hard to let myself get invested in new ones when I know another time skip can and will happen at any moment.
I'm happy that the AI didn't hijack and dominate the plot, but at the same time, Faithful Gales story doesn't feel like it concluded. It just stopped.
So our new protagonist is Silver Star, and the current societal structure is all about family lines.
...on the longest day of the thousandth year, the Stars will aid in her escape...
9979958
I fully agree with this. It just never really felt like she got her full time to shine. She was still struggling to get the resources she needed to work, and we’d only seen a tiny taste of her brand of contribution to the moon before we time-skipped so far past her that she’s probably a storybook figure at this point
9977664
Between 400 and 500 years, leaning towards 500, if not more, based on Silver saying what he did at the end.
It's kinda neat that it's implied that Silver is part of the family tree of Faith and Quill, but it's pretty strange that it seems like there's a rigid cast system where they just waste the labor of ponies that take up resources. It could be that this is a recent development but it seems to be happening long enough for them to have colors assigned as a known detriment. It's neat to see the system progression of labor tiers from a previous generation into the current caste system, but it seems off because I would guess they're doing this because of the lack of critical resources like air or water, but they're just letting all the resources for them to actually grow into ponies go to marginal waste. I wonder if this starvation cycle is more of a recent development and the laboring is a subsistence thing -- sounds like they're being forced to dig their own grave holes though since Silver is so thin.
I wonder what happened with the other generations of ponies, but I guess it's inconsequential subsistence.
I'm bias but I prefer Silver more than Faith -- she was pretty bratty to read. Kinda agree with some of the other comments of just pushing Faith out, but in fairness it's pretty easily implied they succeeded with the water treatment and with the fertilizer; it feels a bit off that the fertilizer was a major point of Faith's later characterization that was ignored for the sake of brevity, but it was probably not as interesting to read, but we do miss out on Faith being a more rounded character. I don't mind particularly.
While I can understand the complaints about the time skip. I think I understand why you did it. You meant the last chapter to be the final arc for Faith. A timeskip to her adulthood showing her married, hoping expecting a child and still having to fix the problems of Moonrise like her father did.
The problem is that you left too much unresolved in the arc. Faiths relationship with her mother showed no improvement which is a shame to me. Then there's the fact that you imply Faith is planning on another expedition to learn about water treatment which readers expected to see.
Regardless, I'll continue to read this story as I have invested interest in this tale and how this new character will impact on Moonrise here at the midway point to Nightmare Moon's return.
I also found out recently that this story may be a homage to the sci fi story The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Which is impressive.
Ok you seem to be time skipping a lot now. I want to see characters fully realised, not introduced to have something happen then abandoned :(
Really, Luna you fought for freedom and rights, and develop a society most likely worse than before. Does she just not do anything?
The story was very interesting to read. Every new Ark did feel nice and stuff