An Epic Exposé by Buck Haysing
Lies! Lies! Celestia has been feeding you a delicious smoothie of lies!
Luna never went to the moon! It was all a ploy between her and Celestia! They were trying to safeguard Equestria through a convoluted plan that involved no direct action on their part! It’s all so simple!
Buck Haysing, a manual writer for Thaumodyne, destroys lies, falsehoods, and personal space in his quest to expose the conspiracy. The smallest facts are dissected, analyzed, and twisted until they reveal the truth. Nothing escapes his notice, nothing is meaningless, and nothing is a coincidence. Wake up, sheeple! Wake up, sheeple!
(No apologies to actual sheep. If they didn’t want to be called sheep, they shouldn’t have been sheep.)
“Number one on my reading list!” —Drocsid
“I have no words.” —Princess Luna
“A most enlightening read… A fascinating glimpse into the minds of certain ponies…” —Sunbutt
“Nothing… is… fabricated… or… ignored… Exposes… vile… lies…” —Princess Twilight Sparkle
Written in honor of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. I hope you know how this honors Apollo 11, because I don’t.
I believe! Expose the lies!!!
In early-modern English it became that using the second-person plural “you” was seen as an intimate thing done with friends and family; “thou” was for everyone else. So it’s possible Nightmare Moon used “you” in a deliberate attempt to be creepily familiar with the ponies she encountered.
That or the writers hadn’t thought of the quirk yet.
Excellent.
Fun fact: faking the moon landing would have actually been harder than just going to the moon, even aside from the fact that Russia never brought up the "obvious" fakery when it had every reason to do so.
9741271
I had a feeling this was going to be a feghoot. I love it!
9741271
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zhp-FTYSGe8
The author is correct! Luna never went to the moon. She went to an alternate dimension via some magic mirror.
It perfectly explains the sudden disappearance of the sirens, some artifact that can erase short term memories, and some mysterious unicorn that was allegedly Celestia's student before Twilight Sparkle appeared.
And what does Princess Luna mean when she says, "No parking in the faculty lot?" There's no parking lot on the moon.
P.S. Equus is flat.
P.P.S. I loved this fic. You get a thumbs up and a fave.
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I know this is meant to be entirely tongue-in-cheek. I know this was all a setup for a bad pun. I know I should be amused.
I am not amused. I am, in fact, more than a little peeved.
Let me reassure you, my anger is not directed towards you, dear author. My less-than-optimal response to this story is not a sign of any deficiency in your writing skills. In point of fact, this was a near-perfect caricature of the conspiracy theorist thought process.
And that is precisely why this story angers me: because I know that real people actually think that way. Even worse, I know that there is no way to logically convince them otherwise—and believe you me, I have tried, Luna knows I've tried.
Regardless, this story deserves an upvote, if only for its tragic realism. Happy Apollo 50th, and may all moon hoaxers rot in Tartarus.
Tiny Brain: Celestia banished Luna to the moon for 1000 years.
Normal Brain: Celestia pretended to banish Luna to the moon so Luna could roam Equestria for 1000 years fighting crime.
Computer God Containment Policy Brain Bank Brain: Celestia pretended to banish Luna to the moon, so Luna could actually go to the moon and spend 1000 years building the Brain Bank Cities on the far side of the moon we never see and develop the Gangster Government T.V. Gangster Spy Cameras and the Frankenstein Radio Controls that control EVEN YOU as a Terrified Gangster Frankenstein Earphone Radio Slave, parroting puppet.
Hmmmm.... for some reason I think the Tantabus from you other fics is involved in this somehow.
Good read though I don't recommend reading it more than .5 times.
9741271
Heck, the first moonlanding conspiracy came from a disgruntled employee from Rocketdyne, a company that made rockets, whose primary job was publicizing reports. He was not involved with the project in any truly in-depth degree, and his story kept changing every time he was asked about it.
By the way you dragged this out, I figured it was a small schlep for Ram, one giant pile of sheep for Ramkind.
9741237
I like it
Yeah! We're supposed to believe that the ELEMENTS and the TREE OF HARMONY, which even DISCORD couldn't directly destroy... were destroyed by a 3rd-tier villain like Sombra who was so weak Celly and Loony used him as a TEST for Twilight, and upon his return Discord was just toying with the whole time?!
(But seriously, that was just an epically stupid episode and Sombra is back as Worst Villain.)
9741485 Alondro's brain: Celestia banished Luna to the Moon so she could set Discord free secretly and make sweet chaotic love to him without his wife knowing. And his wife was LUNA!!
So... I'M FIRST COMMENT.
More seriously tho this seems extremly funny and intersting. I'm looking forward to it.
I love how this both is and isn't a fourth wall break
And to think I thought this was written solely for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.
9741271
Exactly what I've been telling people for years.
And I AM Russian! Why don't we have a problem with that and actually appreciate that achievement, but so many people would fight tooth and nail to disprove it?
I'd totally read a story about Luna just going around fighting monsters for a thousand years
Can you make a sequel with the other villains? Like how did they plan it with Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, Twilicorn and Tirek?
9742293
Yeah! Exactly right!
9742753
If there's one thing I know about Russians, it's that they never pass up an opportunity to embarrass Americans. Russia is kind of like America's younger brother that way: Constantly annoying us, always pointing out our screw ups, and relentless in the competition to impress the girl who lives across the street (I don't know which country that is in this analogy, and it's kind of falling apart now).
If anyone's seen Treesicle, all I hear is Grant talking. I love it.
That's the story of Luna's banishment, and the conspiracy behind it!
THE STORY YOU NEVER KNEW!
9743008
It goes both ways. That's just how the politics work I guess.
9742293
the truth Has been spoken!
but seriously that episode sucked. Sombra was a prideful snob, hardly put up a fight, and I am made at how easy it was to defeat the tyrant and discords speach with the mane six was corny and embarrassing.
Seriously I can believe that Celestia wanted to retire but Luna has only been back for what two years? she does not get the she is old excuse. And they really thought that it was a good idea to just hand twilight the government without even teaching her how to run it. I mean Twi can barely can handle what is already on her plate with her school and all these monsters attacking Equestria and the map calling her willy nilly.
just that on top of a badly done sombra made me die inside.
Sequel pitch: Equestria actually orbits the sun and moon by itself!
9742753
The conspiracy theorists will probably trot out some variant of Nasa having bribed an entire country. Somehow.
9741429
Man, few things in this world get the blood boiling like Fake Moon Landing-ers, Flat Earthers and Anti-vaxxers.
I’m excited for this one.
It’s funny because ecereal isn’t a word.
This guy has about as much sense as conspiracy theorists IRL.
They might have one or two good points, but the rest is just complete bullcrap.
The ending pun made me groan, but the rest of the fic was perfect.
I’m still not thoroughly convinced Luna wasn’t banished to the moon, a d I’m sure the Mythbuckers will dispel any thoughts about this conspiracy theory.
Perfect representation of conspiracy theorists, and I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing.
9743552 That would actually be hard to accept given how we've seen the Sun and Moon move in the show multiple times now.
And then there's the thing about our planet actually being the center of the universe, but everyone was fooled by the phony moon landing staged by Walt Disney's head and the Gre-*BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!* (Alondro's bloody corpse is dragged away by The Conspiracy.)
9743742
Never underestimate a conspiracy theorist's ability to bend their whims around logic, or to just plain make stuff up on the go.
"It's all an illusion! They just cast a planet-wide spell to brighten and/or darken the sky! Discord did it!"
My only complaint is formatting, dividing a story this short into multiple chapters feels really unessicary. I think that the speaking old English thing was a quick the writers came up with later. Most likely they feared Tabitha made her sound too much like Rarity.
*stares*
"Wat...."
*stares again . Then starts clapping.*
This alone merits an upvote.
I can't help but feel that "locket science" might have been the stronger ending pun. In any case, lovely bit of blithering madness. If only it weren't art imitating life...
Still, thank you for it.
We need an epilogue or sequel with more detailed reactions from the Princesses and Discord
9743815 Discord could transport them to the Moon to prove it.
Or the Sun. I'm perfectly ok with transporting them to the Sun.
Though... huh... what IS Equestria's Sun made of?!
9743008
It’s gotta be France. What other country has the attitude of a stereotypical haughty rich girl from an 80s teen movie with multiple guys competing for her affections?
9745479
France is too obvious.
I need to think about this one.
9743552
"Sequel pitch: Equestria actually orbits the sun and moon by itself!"
Celestia and Luna don't control the sun and moon, the sun and moon control Celestia and Luna!
I think that my favorite part of the description of this story is this:
So they shot it in a studio?
Yeah I was super excited for that first double-length episode, I haven't seen the original Grogar, but from what I gleaned from EQD and Deviant Art (doing my utmost to avoid overt spoilers) he was supposed to be a super menacing evil figure, and that was played pretty straight, the summoning of past villains, so far so good, but then Sombra came along, and the voice actor and whoever wrote the script turned him from his previous evil incarnate to a storybook cheese-flavored villain, heck even Nightmare Moon who is about as storybook villain as you can get (take over the world check, crazy as all get out check, mad laughter check) was more intimidating than him, even his laugh was cheesy. I was given a moment of hope when they did that whole kidnap flurry heart thing (speaking of which how did that get past the legal department?) but sadly the cheese continued. Griping aside, I am curious to see how this plays out.
I'm Cope from Radio Free Equestria. Don't believe the lies.
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and then
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