I am Matthais Unidostres, I'm a Christian and I love FanFiction!
This story is a sequel to Upon Reflection
Twilight's experience with mirror portals to alternate universes causes her to doubt if her own choices have any meaning, or if they were even choices at all. When she voices her concerns to her faithful assistant, Spike makes a choice of his own:
To snap the neurotic mare out of the ridiculously absurd thoughts plaguing her mind.
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Didn't like the original either, did you?
I suspect it was inspired by Larry Niven's "All the Myriad Ways", which similarly has a very odd idea about choices, as if they are quantum phenomena or the roll of dice. I think your choice of a Julius Caesar quote is fitting, because Julius Caesar, at the bridge, will cross the bridge no matter how many times you replay the last few seconds, because all his previous choices and experiences lead up to his decision at this point. People are neither atoms nor dice: they have reasons for the choices they make.
IMHO, it's certainly true that in an infinite universe there will be Caesars which will not cross the Rubicon (and the river Shmo, because the Rubicon will be called the Shmo in some of those), but they will not be the same identical Caesar, because either differences in experience or differences in personality, or both, will lead to a different choice. "Infinite" universes [1] does not mean all possible scenarios, because some scenarios are not physically or logically possible (there won't be a universe where Caesar both crosses and does not cross the bridge, unless we are talking laws of physics so alien that making a comparison with our world is meaningless anyway).
Secondly, there are more and less likely outcomes. The universes in which Caesar crosses the bridge by all his atoms doing a random quantum jump to the other side of the river are _not_ going to be as common as ones where he rides a horse. If one tries to argue "they're both infinite numbers", then I must call upon Euler, who will explain that there are differently sized infinities (the infinity of whole numbers and the infinity of fractions, for instance). If one argues that there was a teeny tiny chance Caesar would make a different choice even if all things were the same, it does not mean that exactly 50% of all universes have him crossing the bridge and 50% not. Our choices are rooted in who we are and who we have been: we don't randomly decide to either let our cat live or feed it poison like the radiation source in the box with Schrodinger's cat.
Just my 2 and 2/3 (.66666 to infinity) cents.
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It doesn't look like she was snapped out of the thoughts.
I liked how the TV show Angel put it "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do." Essentially if there is no greater force assigning meaning to our choices then every choice is equally meaningful.
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I've got a second chapter in the works. I hit complete by mistake. Sorry.
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Alright! Second chapter is up!
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Thanks for the nice long comment!
You know, I'm actually hopping to turn this thing into another "Would It Matter if I Was a Changeling" kind of series, with many different authors giving their take on this scenario. You seem pretty smart, so it would be cool if you gave it a go!