Excitement = Twilight * Death^2

by Needling Haystacks

Conclusions: More Research is Needed

Extracts from "On the Properties of Alicorn Reincarnation", Sparkle, Twilight et al. Journal of the Royal Society of Canterlot, Vol 1122, pgs 410-420. Summer, 1250 *

Alicorn reincarnation, or "respawning", removes approximately 100 millithaums from the local aura. This is minimal enough that there is no effective restriction from this. Minimum respawn time is approximately 30 seconds. Respawn time is dependent not on distance from original body, as was originally hypothesized, but by familiarity with the target destination. More exact measurements of both of these quantities are, in principle, possible, but owing to limited resources other avenues have been explored.

As an incidental discovery, we have found that on ascension an Alicorn acquires A, B, and Russ** D antigens and loses the corresponding antibodies. This limits the potential for blood transfusions fueled by serial reincarnation, and further limits tissue donation. Tissue donation was already known to be limited by size differentials.

Through concentration, it is possible to respawn in another plane of reality. It remains to be seen whether one must have physically visited the plane before, or if a picture and general description is sufficient.

The largest restriction on this ability discovered is the creation of a 'chaos shadow' in the Chaotic Realm on each respawn. According to Discord Mr. Dr. Professor Discord, the most handsome and intelligent being in the multiverse, Discord stop that no I will not call you that please stop writing everything I'm saying. Why can't I erase this? Fine, if I leave this in, will you stop?

Apologies. According to Dr. Discord, as he insists on being called despite the questionable origins of his PhD, an accretion of sufficient Shadows will eventually result in a Chaos Entity similar to himself. He is capable of absorbing them to increase his own powers, but can become 'full' and unable to absorb more until he has worked off some of the chaos magic in a non-chaotic plane. Or so he claims: this researcher believes it may be possible to 'run off', as he puts it, the excess power in the Chaotic Realm, but that he does not want to. Besides this, different alicorns produce different 'flavors' when their shadows are absorbed. While the shadows of the alicorns of Sun and Moon can be absorbed without issue, those of the alicorns of Love and Friendship produce a reaction akin to dyspepsia,*** limiting absorption rate.

The shadows posess a slight 'attraction' to each other, and if left to float freely in the Chaotic Realm their accretion is inevitable. Possible uses for this phenomenon are beyond the scope of this paper, but bear further investigation.

A base-level shadow is too ephermeral to be dispersed or sacrificed**** easily. They can slip through most matter, though magically-reinforced material infused with at least 50 thaums of Equestrian magic can affect them. A full meter of ordinary lead will also work, though the reasons for this remains to be investigated. Applying 5 atmospheres of pressure via this method will result in the shadow being dispersed along the surfaces of application, at which point magic currents as light as 10 millithaums will disperse the residue. To date this method has only been used within the Chaotic Realm, where any magical backlash from this is indistinguishable from background chaos. This method of disposal is effective but inefficient.

The shadows can be banished through a 'mirror pool' at [redacted], but the energy requirement is excessive. While a duplicate made at that pool requires on the order of 10 thaums to banish, a shadow requires over 1000 thaums. We hypothesize the thaumic requirement would increase for a larger accretion of shadows, but at present it is impractical to test this.

These shadows possess some qualities of the source Alicorn, and can be merged together by applying at least 5 atmospheres of pressure at the contact point between them. A point of contact with area of 1 square centimeter is sufficient to cause a complete merger. The pressure limit applies regardless of the size of the area of contact.

A minimum accretion of 10 shadows results in a shadow solid enough to be affected by ordinary non-magical matter. Confinement or sacrifice is then simple. Sacrifice of such a shadow results in a cadaver. This cadaver rapidly decays into vapor within 5-10 minutes, releasing chaos magic in the interim. This level of chaos magic is low enough that serious effects are rare, but present. Over 30 minutes of observation of this phenomenon, we observed 12 incidents of sudden loud noises originating from nowhere, 7 incidents of ordinary light-cast shadows dancing on their own, 2 incidents of nearby paper spontaneously folding into an origami crane, and 1 incident of nearby paper bursting into rainbow-colored fire. Shadows of this accretion level show signs of intelligence equivalent to canis familiaris or other domesticated animals. We decided to cease tests with shadows of accretion value greater than 7 after these three trials for ethical reasons.

When contained on Equestria, base-level shadows can fly, though with poor wing form, and lift small objects in a manner similar to unicorn telekinesis. They will tend to remain near objects favored by the source alicorn, if available. If not, they will wander about over three dimensions, picking up and putting down random objects until a favored object is found. As the Equestrian Realm posesses normal gravity, the attractive force between them is too small to be significant. The shadows seldom pass through floors or ceilings, when those are available. We hypothesize that this is due to the inheriting of some of the source alicorn's sensibilities, but this requires further investigation. When the shadow is confined within a 2 meter cubed room, the mean lifetime for passge through floor and ceiling combined is estimated at about one hour when favored objects are not available. That for walls is estimated as one minute.

If no favored objects is found within a random time, determined by an exponential function with mean lifetime 42 minutes, the shadow will release random bursts of chaos magic in a fashion similar to the cadaver decay observed above, but with negative effects being far more likely. A fire-level event was observed about once a minute, and 2 cases of spontaneous Pony transmogrification were observed over 20 observations. One event turned researcher Twilight Sparkle H (see author list for explanation) into a changeling, while another turned researcher Fluttershy in a hare^5,6. After a mean lifetime of 5 minutes, the shadow runs out of chaos magic and disperses into vapor, in effect burning itself out.

If a favored object is available, the shadow will remain complacent apparently indefinitely so long as the object is in contact with it and intact. As of the time of writing, 5 shadows have been kept in confinement⁷ for one moon with no signs of outburst or dispersal. After remaining nearly motionless (with occasional blinking or 'weight-shifting') for a mean lifetime of 21.1 hours, a complacent shadow will attempt to wander about while holding the favored object for a mean lifetime of 22.5 minutes⁸. After this time, it will halt where it is and resume its nearly-motionless stance.

Conclusions:

Despite some restrictions, alicorn respawning has applications for blood and tissue donation, food distribution, diplomatic transportation, and history research.

For future work, we intend to further investigate the ability of an alicorn to communicate with the deceased between death and respawn. So far we have determined that the alicorn must both know the name of the individual and possess a certain amount of knowledge of them. The nature and amount of knowledge remains unknown, as does how far back one can reach. It is suggested that questions be posed to the deceased about the nature of life and death and/or the meaning of existence. The primary author considers this of secondary importance to historical and magical research.

5 Specifically Lepus Timidus*(5)*(6).

6 Dr. Discord was able to undo the changes once the shadow had burned itself out.

7 Using: in 3 cases copies of Star Swirl the Bearded's memoirs, in 1 case a copy of The Elements of Harmony, a Reference Guide, and in 1 case a copy of the Journal of Friendship.

8 This is another odd occurence of the time 22.5 minutes. For more on this phenomenon, see "Synchronicity: Unexpected occurences of 22 and a half minutes" by Gruffler, from Griffon Publishing.

*My original intent was to write this in the style of an actual scientific paper. However, I've dragged this out too long as it is so it's more of a low-quality imitation that's faster to write. The conclusion is particularly sparse as in actual papers it's largely a re-statement and that's not especially fun for me to write or to read.

**A horse breed from Sweden, also called the Gotland pony. Really!

***It means "indigestion" in fancy speak.

****'Sacrificed' is biologist-speak for 'killed' when referring to test animals.

*(5) That's an actual species of hare, also called a Mountain Hare. When I saw that I knew it had to be Fluttershy that got that side-effect.

*(6) Numbers start at 5 to indicate some of the paper is skipped.

Comments

[PiMan]

Your strikethrough in this chapter didn't work, from what I can tell

[Needling Haystacks]

10834307
Thanks. Fixed.

[Bahamuttone]

on ascension and Alicorn aquires A, B,

an, acquires

blood transfusions fueld by serial

fueled

species of hair, also

hare

[Needling Haystacks]

10837800
Fixed.

[Super Trampoline]

Mr. Dr. Professor Discord, the most handsome and intelligent being in the multiverse, Discord stop that no I will not call you that please stop writing everything I'm saying. Why can't I erase this? Fine, if I leave this in, will you stop?

This sounds like one of my rambling voice-to-text texts I send friends while driving

I like this chapter. These sort of ghost remind me of a story by magnet bolt where luster Dawn be friends sort of ghosts that are residue of the mean six that Crystalis created actually it's been awhile I should see how many new chapters are there thanks for reminding me

[Needling Haystacks]

11054021
I've not really kept up with the fics I follow. Other things going on. I've not heard of that one, though. Link?

I did follow one where the Mean 6 survived and got new names, but it seems to have petered out. https://www.fimfiction.net/story/450684/six-mean-ponies for what's there.

[Geminii]

This is another odd occurence of the time 22.5 minutes

Snerk. :)

[mortsllaf]

I wish that they had the questionable idea to create a new chaos creature to eat the friendship and love ones, but I know that no one in their right mind would.

[Needling Haystacks]

11649437
...Darn I should have had Starlight suggest that! I imagine a Chaos creature of Love would act like the Greco-Roman Eros/Cupid: randomly causing infatuation in whatever way is most amusing. Not sure about Friendship.