This is a alternate ending for Rated Ponystar's story Fallen Knowledge of that story is absolutely required to properly enjoy this one.
In dark and lonely cell, Fluttershy's resolve has been tested six times. Six friends tried and all failed. But where friends could only fail, what can a stranger do? A stranger with no conscience, or regard to human and pony life alike.
Many people liked the original story, and I am very much included on that list, however, I always felt that the motivation of the ponies were... lacking. They were so cartoonish I had trouble believing that they could believe their own reasoning. Which is fine, in a lot of cases, one of my favourite disney animation movie is Cindarella, and boy is the villain in that simple, but pitching a villain like that in a story that delves very deep into the horrors of a real war, felt... I guess it just felt wrong.
So I wondered: how would a world look like where the ponies had a very tangible reason to feel their actions were justified? And would it be better or worse?
Allright gang, acknowledgement time: First of all I want to thank Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss. Ponystar without whom this story would have never occurred to me. They also inspired to write the epilogue, originally this was only meant to be a three chapter story. (Well originally-originally it was only supposed to be a one chapter story but that's neither here or there.)
Second I want to thank my wonderful editor Mr Babroniedad. May his upgrades always merge properly and may his family only ever be as crazy as he likes it.
I'm not gonna lie, that sounds like a bad idea to me. Not everyone's going to want to read another story that isn't a sequel if they need to understand something.
I should not have read this story before going to bed. Fuck.
It’s great, don’t get me wrong, but I’m just going to pretend everything went well so I can actually get a decent sleep. Excellently written.
I didn't even finish reading this chapter before I realized how this story would end. While well-written, this story has all the makings of a "bad ending" type of thing. Well, maybe I shouldn't say "while well-written," and instead say something to the point of how I appreciate the writing but the premise was too grim in a sense. Of course, this is just my own bias because I find the idea of the bad guys, or at least my own definition of "bad guys", winning; especially in this story's sense claiming that it's very obvious that the bad guys would win. I suppose I just prefer happy endings to bad endings even when it pushes logic out the window.
Other than all my silly misgivings about this story, or at least the half chapter I read, I'm sure it's a very good story. Sorry I didn't have the brains or heart to read the rest!
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Well, obviously I can't force you to read the rest of the story, but if I can give you my two cents about it, I think you are wrong. At least partly. While I can't be sure, who you define as bad guys (although it is fairly obvious, still technically, I can't be sure) I can assure you they do not win.
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Not everyone is supposed to read everything I guess. This is a niche story, always meant to be one, but I hoped that for those who did read it, it would be enjoyable. If the like like-dislike bar is any indication, it was not. Oh well I guess, not all my stories are gonna succeed. I just wish some of the down-voters would share why they downvoted, but I reckon it's unreasonable for me to expect them to waste more time of their life on a story they already didn't like.
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Thank you, it seems like those who I know that did finish the story all liked it. Granted, it's a small sample size, but still I wonder how many downvoters actually finished the story.
Not that I blaming them, if I can't write a story that's compelling enough for people to finish it, that's definitely worthy of a downvote, but I just wonder: If those downvoters who hadn't finish the story had finished it, would they have still downvoted it?
Very interesting, enjoying it so far. Thumbs up!
Genuinely wonder why you thought pressing the publish button on this fic was a good idea.
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I mean why would anyone ever press the publish button on any story? It seems a fairly pointless question to me. I enjoyed writing it and I thought some would enjoy reading it. And I was somewhat right, It seems a handful of people who genuinely enjoyed it, if nothing else it was worth it to make their days that much better.
Unfortunately it seems like more people did not enjoy it, and I'm sorry for wasting their time but ultimately as long as there is even a chance I made at least one person happier than they would have been otherwise I'm content with my success. Obviously I'm bothered by the fact that this story does not have the more widespread (relatively speaking) success of my other writings, but I'm a human I can make mistakes.
Should you be willing to tell me what your actual problems were with the story, I could try to learn from them, but even as it stands now I think I have managed to gauge what some of the problems people may have had with it. If no one is willing to waste time on telling me why my story wasn't to their liking, (which is a very respectable position imho) than I'm gonna apply my own conclusions about my writing on my next fic.
It won't be ideal, but what else can I do? I can't force people to tell me their opinions, and they don't seem to be particularly willing. (Well, they are through the ratings system, but as I have mentioned that has its limitations.)
But don't worry I'm not gonna disable ratings so you can all downvote it to your heart's content.
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Thank you kind stranger, I hope you enjoy the rest of it too.
Gotta love it when people think they're smarter than they think they are. They say so much without saying anything of value.
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I indeed have lost the game.
10943884
Ironic.
I'm really enjoying this story so far. The characters are endearing whilst the storytelling is phenomenal. I really look forward to seeing where it all goes.
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Wait, this isn't Breathtaking Banality. My bad.
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No biggie, but please make sure you copy your comment over to that story, writers appreciate any words of encouragement.
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cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/494978787990175744/875515030366470154/unknown.png
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As long as it makes it happy, I'm fine with it. In fact if that happiness is proportional to the amount of pity it feels, I wish it could feel more pity for me.
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Pity is for the weak. To truly be great is to rise above your challenges and do the best you can without excuses.
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You're absolutely right, the hard boiled egg should rise above the its challenges and stop wasting his time by feeling pity for strangers, but since there isn't much I can do to make it do that... well I might as well wish it luck for whatever it ends up doing.
Mate, you need to make it clear this is another alt ending. You're making people think this is an original story with no way of knowing how it relates back to "Fallen." Might explain your horrendous like/dislike ratio
10952190
Thank you for the advice, but I'm not sure how much clearer can I make than literally putting this in the story's description:
BTW how did you like it?
In the NegotiationVerse, Equestrian Appears in the southern Indian Ocean, between 30 and 60 south (in different TCB-stories, Equestria appears in different places).* In the NegotiationVerse, Equestria projects the Magical Barrier north into india, west into Africa, and east into Australia (it has pseudopods). It killed a billion people, another billion converted to NewFoals to try to escape vaporization, and another billion became refugees.
* In the original TCB-Story, Equestria appears in the Atlantic Ocean, in the TCB of Chatoyance, Equestria appeared in the Pacific Ocean and the Magical Barrier Is a spherical shell which eats the Earth.
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Thanks for the heads up. It's really nice to see other people interpretations. I myself used the Pacific ocean because of it's wast size, but I can see the merit of other choices.
Anyway, did you like the story?
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About the location, in the original story, thee location was just some random place, which happened to be the Atlantic Ocean. In the stories of Chatoyance, the Pacific Ocean is the site because the Spherical Magical Barrier ate (destroyed) the Earth, thus its remote location gave humans more time to become NewFoals. In the southern Indian Ocean is where Equestria appears because Princess Celestia projects tongues of the Magical Barrier west into Africa, North into India, and East into Australia. If humans and ponies understanding that the war is wrong, did not develop Thalmann-Generators, the Magical Barrier would have destroyed all nonmagical life in another decade. As it is, the Magical Barrier killed a billion people, forced another billion to convert to NewFoals to avoid death, and forced another billion to become refugees.
As to whether I like the story, that is a complicated question because the story has an unhappy ending.
11367054
Well this is a story about how sacrificing one's values might lead to victory, in the short term, but at the same time it leads to a defeat further down the road.