Preparation
“So, wait, time is like a tree?”
Broken brought a hoof to his face, stretching his skin down in frustration. “Time could be like a tree, or it could be a series of waves, or it could be a cloud of particles, or it could be any number of different things. That’s the first thing I said.”
“Actually, the first thing you said was that time was a tree, and that you jumped across branches…”
The two ponies travelled at a leisurely pace, walking through Ponyville along one of the more main pathways. Twilight had intended the trip for Broken to get used to (somewhat) large crowds of ponies again. However, he seemed to be at ease in public, at least compared to when he was alone with her. The two had ended up walking in awkward silence for several minutes before Twilight had asked for clarification on how the timeline system worked.
“Did I? Oh yeah.” Broken shrugged. “I was lying, then. Star Swirl developed the tree model, but sometimes the different possibilities didn’t fit on an always-forwards-moving path, so they got the particle model in where every time two ‘particles’ of possibility strike each other, they create different timelines that shoot off in random directions.” He snorted. “And that one flies in the face of the Primary Line theory, which is about as integral to chronology as 2+2=4 is to mathematics, so there was a whole new argument about that…”
“But what is the ‘primary line’?”
Broken levelled a glance at Twilight. “The Primary Line is… well, it is. It’s the big one, the main deal, the be-all-end-all. The Primary Line is the timeline shaped by Faust herself.” He laughed at her widened eyes. “Everything in it was as Faust intended. Nothing went without her supervision, ensuring through the good and the bad that her ponies would survive and become better than they were before. There was no deviation from the path she had set; even accounting for the ‘free will’ of every pony, the Primary Line maintained its solidarity and integrity.”
“So what happened?” Twilight asked. Broken blinked.
“Well, they never quite figured that out. Somewhere along the Primary Line, other little lines began to peel away, and Faust never fixed them. These lines grew in length, running for the most part alongside the Primary, but with that one difference that separated them.” Two young colts ran around the corner in front of them, and Broken paused to watch them gallop past. He gave a few blinks before continuing. “But those smaller lines were more unstable than the Primary Line, and their splits happened quicker, more little lines forming from different possible paths ponies could have taken. And eventually, those lines had their own little frays, and the lines from those frays frayed themselves, until eventually every tiny little alteration created its own little timeline all to itself.” He coughed. “Chronologists gave three classifications to the splitoffs: First, the Major Lines, which are the ones that split from the Primary. Second, the Minor Lines, the ones that have split off from the Majors, and the first twenty or so splits from those. Last, the Threads, the extremely tiny timelines that cover every possible way anything in a timeline can go.”
“Every possibility? That’s rather hard to believe.”
Broken stopped and gave Twilight a glare. She leaned away from him a small bit.
“I’m not exaggerating.”
“I never said that you were, I just meant that it seems… too complicated. To cover every possible way something could go.”
“Neither nature nor Faust is bound by our silly little concepts of ‘complication’, Twilight. Do you wish to know just how many Major Lines there are estimated to be?”
“Um, sure?”
“Four hundred nineteen trillion seven hundred sixty seven billion nine hundred and three million. That’s a four, a one, a nine, a seven, a six, a seven, a nine, a zero, and a three, followed by six zeroes.” He grinned as her jaw hit the road. “Minor Lines are somewhere in the ten-to-the-googolplex range. As for Threads, well…”
Broken’s eye remained locked on Twilight. He raised his hoof and knocked it on the road three times.
“I have just created an infinite-minus-one number of different Threads, all based around the fact that I stopped here, lifted my left forehoof a certain height into the air at a certain speed, brought it down at a certain speed, tapped in a certain rhythm on a certain stone with a certain part of my hoof-”
“Okay, okay! I get that part of it.” She blunk, trying to comprehend what she had just been told. “Four- How did you even estimate that number?”
“I didn’t, the chronologists did. They just mapped out our Line through its splits back to the Primary, counted the different pathways, and gave a relative size measurement compared to the Primary. No bucking idea where the Minor number came from.”
“But… wait, if every possibility is mapped out already, then-“
Broken raised a hoof and placed it on her muzzle. Twilight gave him a confused glance.
“I know exactly what you’re going to say. And you’re wrong. What we decide to do still does matter, because the little Threads are all based on what we didn’t do. Our Lines are still affected by what we choose to do, no matter whether or not there are other Lines created for how we didn’t do them. Depending on what we do or don’t do, we could end up creating innumerable other Lines, simply because we chose to go one way over the others.” He brought his hoof down and gave a small, practiced smile, as if he had just comforted her away from some terrible revelation. “So don’t bring up all of that ‘life is meaningless because nothing we do is of our own will’ or ‘it doesn’t matter what we do because somewhere else we won’t have done it’. That kind of talk doesn’t help anypony.”
“Actually, I was going to say that your jump across timelines shouldn’t have affected anything, because this ‘Line’ would already have accounted for your interference.”
Broken gave her a confused stare, one eyebrow furrowing while the other lifted. “Wait, what? No, no no no no no. The Lines aren’t all already there, with every little detail preaccounted for; Every Line is at a certain point in time relative to the Primary Line, and nothing after the current point is developed. Sure, it could theoretically be said that you could simply use what happens in the Primary as a base, but you’d need to account for every possible difference that’s been racked up between this Line and the Primary. With how far out we are, that’s going to be pretty bucking hard.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “But when I went back in time-“
“-you did so within your own timeline. It’s a little failsafe that seems to have been built in. When you go back in time within your own timeline, you can’t affect anything enough to actually change future events; otherwise, you might never get the chance to go back, which would mean that the changes would never be made, which would mean that you’d go back and make the changes, and so on and so forth until your brain implodes.” He tapped his hoof on the ground again, and began walking. “When a pony from outside the timeline is introduced, however, his existence does not depend on past events remaining the same. I can tie this timeline into a neat little knot and I won’t be affected by it.”
The mare shook her head. “Shouldn’t all of the Lines be at the same point in time, though? Regardless of how you affect it, I can’t see any reason why you going sideways between Lines puts you at a time further back than the one in your own Line. Why is my timeline behind yours?”
Broken shrugged. “Buck if I know. Like I said, not everything fits onto the always-moving-forwards tree model. I just learned how the things worked, not why.”
Twilight nodded, slightly disappointed. “Um… what was with that whole little speech back there? About life not being meaningless?”
Broken’s eye flicked upwards. “Something the chronologists kept saying. Apparently a bunch of ponies kept getting into ‘existential crises’ or some such over the numerous Lines accounting for every possibility. They made anyone who worked with them memorise that feel good crap so that they wouldn’t go crazy.” He gave an odd laugh. “At least, not in relation to the Line thing.”
There was silence for a few minutes, the two ponies simply walking along the road. Twilight tried to digest the massive drop of information Broken had given her. A thought occurred to her, and she gave a small laugh. Broken turned his head slightly, flicking an ear back.
“What?”
“Well, I was just thinking. All of the information you’ve given me… if I turn into Dawn, then couldn’t I just use it to travel across time and ensure that Dawn takes over in other Lines? It seems rather odd for you to tell me all of this, is all.”
Broken coughed. “Two points. One, you couldn’t ‘just’ travel across the Lines: It takes a very specific spell, performed by one of a select few unicorns. Neither of us can do it.” He gained a smirk. “Secondly, you’re presuming I’m going to let you survive long enough to put this information to any actual use.”
And with that remider, Twilight’s relaxation evaporated. Her steps faltered for a second, though Broken didn’t seem to notice or care. The silence came back, louder than before. Once again, a few minutes passed before Twilight broke it again.
“Are you depressed or mad right now?”
Broken’s brow furrowed, though he didn’t turn to look at Twilight. “What do you mean?”
“Earlier, you said that you were either ‘violently mad’ or ‘maddeningly depressed’, and that I shouldn’t get used to when you were in control of yourself. But you’ve seemed remarkably… well, normal, for the most part. Like with the Cakes.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Broken gave a breath, then shrugged. “I think I’m depressed. Madness is really hard to control.” He chuckled. “Then again, I might not be in control at all.” His eye flicked upwards, then back down at the road. His residual smile melted into a grimace. “Pip is following us.”
Twilight blinked. “He is? How-“
“Rooftops. He’s been keeping watch since we left.” He gave a growling huff. “Surprised he didn’t try to kill me in the alley…”
“I’ve told him not to hurt you…” Twilight replied, giving a slight trail-off at the end. Broken blinked.
“Bad luck on him, then.”
“…and I would like it if you promised not to hurt him.” Twilight continued. This gave Broken pause, and he once again stopped walking, turning to glare at her.
“No.”
“Broken, he isn’t going to hurt you if I say not to. You’ve known him longer than us, you should know that.”
“It’s because I know him that I want him dead! You aren’t Dawn, not yet, but he is the Pip that murdered Princess Luna, killed dozens of innocent ponies, and destroyed my life! I don’t give a damn whether or not he did it at Dawn’s order, he’s still the one with the blood literally on his hooves!” Broken slammed a hoof into the road to emphasize his point, cracking a stone beneath. Two passing ponies turned to stare, going slightly wide-eyed as they took in Broken’s appearance. Twilight stepped back a bit, readying her magic to restrain him and bring them back to the library in case he lost control. Broken took a few breaths, then continued. “I’ve sworn not to harm you, and I’ve sworn to protect Equestria from you. I can keep to both, it’s just going to take some wiggling.” He gave a nod to the building they had just passed. “But I’ve sworn an oath to kill him, Twilight. And I plan to keep it.”
Very suddenly, he spun around and shot a beam of magic at the building’s roof, causing a loud crack as it broke one of the wooden slats.
The few ponies that shared the street with Twilight and Broken screamed and ran. A dark shape launched away from the building, only to be caught as another beam from Broken changed direction and struck at it. Broken and Twilight watched as the shape fell onto a nearby roof, rolling down and slipping into an alley. Broken took off towards it, Twilight frantically following.
Okay, okay, he leapt off of that house, was hit in the air, which pushed him west about the length of a building, meaning he fell into… there! Twilight rounded the corner at the same time as Broken, but teleported to the mouth of the alley instead of running. She heard Broken curse as she galloped down, headed for the misshapen lump leaned up against the wall.
“Pip!”
The mottled cream-and-brown earth pony lifted his head at her voice. A small trickle of blood led from his mouth to his chin, though it appeared to be less lung damage and more a split lip. His eye was as inexpressive as ever.
“My apologies, Milady. I did not properly anticipate a shifting attack.”
Twilight ground her teeth, turning as Broken entered the alley, horn ablaze. She yelled, creating a rapid echo. “Stop!”
“Why should I?!”
“He’s not going to harm anypony!”
“Present calm does not excuse past atrocities, Twilight!” His horn glowed brighter, and Twilight had moments to draw a shield before a large mass of magic shot down at Pip. The barrier broke, but the other magic dissipated as well. Broken growled and tried to set up another spell, only to be cut off as Twilight slammed a shield around his horn. He blinked in surprise, feeling at the miasmic barrier. His gaze shifted from Pip to Twilight (not a big movement, given the alley’s width), his jaw slightly agape.
“I need you to calm down, Broken.” Twilight said in the sternest voice she could manage, trying to mix together both her mother and Princess Celestia. Broken stared at her for a few more seconds before he began to laugh. This action surprised Twilight, though such a minor feeling was quickly forgotten as she felt herself be picked up. Looking down, she found herself caught in rose-coloured magic. “Wha-“
Then she heard the sound of something wet splattering onto a solid surface. She turned her head, craning to see Pip crumple to the ground, a pool of blood forming around the gash in his neck. Twilight’s stomach turned to ice.
“He’s not dead.” Broken blandly stated. “It’s just the body responding to something that should have killed him. Give me a few seconds and we can play volleyball with his head.”
“Broken, please…” Twilight struggled in the magic, but to no avail. She released the shield around his horn and instantly felt one slam around hers. She gave him another look, authority replaced with a try at pity. Broken simply snorted. His horn glowed, and Twilight closed her eyes, awaiting a sound similar to the fish’s head being cruelly torn away.
She did not expect to hear another voice enter the situation.
“My oh my.” Discord intoned. “This is quite an interesting development, isn’t it?”
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So wait... how did Pip get cut? Was it from Broken's seeker spell?
Plus, what picked up Twilight? I assume it wasn't Broken if his magic was being bottled by Twilight's shield.
Then again, she's still taking him to softly... I swear, if she doesn't learn to take him for the threat he is, she's libel to end up as dead as he want's her to be once he finally does snap.
I still think Celestia is a dumb-ass for allowing this at all.
I really hope Pip doesn't die.
2067877
Trust me, your grievances are being considered.
Pip was cut by Broken's magic, but not the seeker - part of the reason that Twilight was so confused was that is was Broken that picked her up.
The shield didn't work, for reasons that shall be explained later.
I wrote the last part as vaguely as I could, in order to reflect Twilight's confusion.
"She's still talking softly..." - I actually have the part written where she finally just snaps at him, but in many cases it can be dangerous to get overtly angry or aggressive towards someone with such mental problems as Broken appears to have. She's trying to show him that she isn't going to be a threat to him or Equestria, in order to lessen his violent tendencies... and I'll freely admit that it isn't working. Much.
2068277
Pip is... rather difficult to permanently injure. Killing him is no small feat, and it would take quite a bit of effort for Broken to actually do so.
Effort that I never, ever plan to allow him.
You know, I'm wondering when Twilight is going to snap. Not the 'turn into Dawn' snap but the regular kind. Let's face, up until now Broken has done little more than be a pain in the rump for her. Like in this chapter, he's about to kill Pip. Twilight can't stop him, so much is obvious...
Perhaps it's time to let somepony professional step in.
Or Discord, Discord is cool too
2069258
It's coming, don't you worry.
2069323
His aggravation-causing has a purpose, though it's not necessarily one that makes total sense.
I think Pip is a zombie, I think Dawn made her spell far more effective over time leading to Pips not being completely drone-like.
The timeline thing gets me wondering, why go after Twilight at all. In some of the timelines she isn't Dawn, and even in this one for every one time she is Dawn there's an infinite number where she does not. This brings me to believe regardless of Broken's hatred for Dawn, he can't bring himself to kill his sister; rather in order to "save" the Princesses and get his revenge he would rather kill another Twilight who he has mentally convinced himself is destined to become Dawn.
2072996
I can confirm that Pip is not undead; there is something going on with him, I'll grant, but he is alive.
As for the timeline thing, Broken's logic is that, because his Equestria already got worked over by Dawn, there's no reason to try to salvage it. Other timelines, on the other hand, are relatively Dawn-free. He knows that there are a large number of universes (the vast majority, in fact) where Dawn won't rise, but any in the branch with Dawn will have Dawn rise. He's just gone from his part of the branch (where Dawn's risen) to another (where she hasn't yet) in order to try to stop/weaken her in as many universes as he can.
2075591
But isn't that futile seeing how now he has made Dawn's rise more likely; plus as a new choice create millions of threads.
2076619
He doesn't view it as making her rise more likely, as (at least in his mind) there was absolutely no chance for her not to become Dawn. You can't increase the chances of something that is 100% guaranteed to occur.
This wasn't really brought up in the story proper (apologies) but Threads are actually so infinitesimal in their differences from their Lines that it's technically impossible to travel into one; if you were to see the timeline system as a ball of yarn, the ball would be the Primary, the string would be a Major Line, the little strings that are wound together to make the string would be the Minor Lines, and the small pieces of fuzz sticking out everywhere would be the Threads.
There would certainly be an alteration to the number of extra Minor Lines that sprout off of this one, but those will also (in Broken's mind) be far more likely to have Dawn's rise be either extremely weakened or stopped entirely. He views that ('saving' as many timelines as possible, even if the number is miniscule in the whole Line view) as better than just letting Dawn go.
2081118
So he's just insane with a vendetta against his sister in other dimension due to an irrational fear of every Twilight Sparkle becoming Dawn
2081545
Could be. He might have a point, for reasons yet unstated, but he's undoubtedly taking things too far.
2081621
Be sure to tell him, if he harms Twilight Sparkle, the wrath of the 3rd Reich (in my story at least) shall be upon you.
2081629
Emhemhem: "3rd Reich? Meet balefire."
FOOM.
2081770
Seeing as he could in no way actually have that, I have nothing to fear.
2081820
Celestia/Luna/Cadance/Faust/Elements of Harmony/Discord.
3rd Reich wishes he had balefire.
In all seriousness, the 3rd Reich could not handle fighting a 3-front war. They had enough trouble with the Russians alone, with the Allies tipping them over the edge, along with the various resistance movements. The second Celestia, or any other pony, found out just how bucked up the Nazis were (likely extending the same hostility to the troops as the leadership due to the way Equestria's military is handled plus how Hitler was supposedly the full military leader) there would be a massive push against any invading German forces. Given natural airborne military with extreme mobility, magic (just magic in general) and home field advantage (until they were pushed back through the portal), plus several actual immortal beings present at any given time (inc. Discord, who would despise the 3rd Reich system of extreme order) and Berlin would be flying Equestrian banners within the week.
No way in Tartarus would there be any form of alliance between Twilight/Equestria and the Germans, due to one simple thing.
Twilight: "So there's the unicorns, the pegasi, and the earth ponies-"
Nazi: "So which is the untermensch serving under the dominant unicorn ubermensch?"
Twilight: "...excuse me?"
....Seriously, seriously you just had to through Discord into the mix. I have a feeling this is gonna get complicated fast and in more ways then one.
2082115
Actually, I had planned for the Fluttershy scene to simply be more conflict between Broken and Pip (regarding precisely what Pip was doing in the Everfree) but then Fluttershy just had to go and prove her most Badass pony status by taming Discord. So I realized that he would actually be a valuable tool in showing a more objective outsider's perspective to Broken's antics, and his introduction wrote itself.
He's probably not going to be too major a player, but he is likely going to pop up several more times. And he has some rather interesting things to say about Broken and Pip in the next chapter.
2081939 lol
I honestly don't believe Celestia or Luna are gods or immortal, and Discord would likely just sit outside enjoying the chaos. Plus I always feel that humans may actually be slightly resistant to magic due to our planetary history with it not really existing. Plus it makes the fight more interesting.
Lastly I didn't mean an alliance, I meant literally just march in there to kill Broken then leave again lol. Seeing as my story has the Germans in it, I can use the story ones at my bidding since they aren't overpowered
See, I almost want to write fanfiction of this fanfiction, based on the necromancy stuff.
So, Twilight has forbidden tomes on powerful, ill-advised magic. Par for the course.
Now, Twilight Sparkle is not a complete numpty. She knows the limits of her magic; if she didn't know the limits of spells she wouldn't be so good at using them. So she knows she would have to be completely hollowed out by grief to even think of using necromancy for actually bringing her friends and family back. She knows that the loss of her son/little brother basically triggered her turning into something she does not want to turn into, possibly not in a posession sense but at least in a 'so wracked with grief I would do terrible things I would never want done in a normal state of mind.' sense. She knows that even through her grief, part of her would know that she hadn't really brought Spike back to life, that it was only a lie she was desperate to believe. That's why it hurt her so much when Applejack told her to fuck off, and why she jumped when Rarity said yes. Rarity affirmed her, let her cover up the grief a little bit more. Applejack bluntly told her it was bullshit, that Spike was a corpse, and she'd kill Twilight before she insulted Apple Bloom's memory by bringing her back.
But I think this just presents a gigantic puzzle to Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight Sparkle loves puzzles.
She knows (or at least thinks) that if Spike could have been revived, not just as a corpse, this wouldn't have happened. The escalation wouldn't have occurred, and if she could have revived the others, she wouldn't have had a gigantic driving force for vengeance in Ponyville backing her up.
She knows that unicorn pony magic can't just pump life back into things, not properly. On the other hand, she knows earth pony magic can pump life into things from scratch just fine.
She knows it's possible to create a copy of a creature's thoughts and memories; she saw it happen in Too Many Pinkie Pies. If it's possible to recreate them wholesale, it might be possible to magically copy the thoughts and memories of a pony, and plant them somewhere else.
She knows changelings have pods where they can keep ponies stable, presumably still healing, sleeping, growing and otherwise being in the standard unconscious states. Biological pods. Pods that (again, theoretically) could be grown just like any other plant/fungus structure.
Now I have an image of Twilight in this fic where all the possible political and future-bending stuff goes out of her minds, because she's been given a problem to work on. The problem to end all problems. Twilight is arguably one of the top four magic users in Equestria, and the other three have no real interest in solving this problem, since for two it creates a ton of potential problems and the third simply doesn't care enough. But Twilight has enough power, and she's damn smart to boot.
Sure, necromancy doesn't work. Maybe there's no possible way it can work; once someone is gone they are gone, and no pleading can bring them back. But what if she didn't need to bring them back? What if necromancy, the idea of bringing them back is essentially a dead end, but it doesn't matter because she's just seen the fork in the road? What if there was a workaround, a bypass, a way to get around the knotty Final Problem?
2084802
.....
Dude, that's bloody deep.
As of yet, Twilight has not thought about this kind of thing at all.
Dawn, on the other hand, had been doing some major experimentation with necromancy - trying to figure out a way to actually bring ponies back, completely. She'd gotten quite a bit of a ways along, but there was always this one thing that she couldn't figure out, one little niggle that stopped her from truly succeeding. This one thing also factored into several of her other plans that were "For the betterment of Equestria and all ponykind."
You may have just given her the breakthrough she needed.
(In all honesty, I had never planned to have Dawn succeed in her pursuit of immortality and true resurrection. This, though, is too excellent of an idea to ignore. I don't want to steal it out of hand, but If you'd be willing to allow me to use it, or put off writing it (or at least posting it) until after Prevention has run its course, I'd be INCREDIBLY grateful. I have, I believe, the perfect spot for it.)
2085473
In fairness, that concept is by no means my idea. The film The Sixth Day did it and ruined it with an utterly awful ending. Transmetropolitan has toyed with the concept, or at least dozens of similar concepts. It's a philisophical conundrom presented by Star Trek, since the transporters essentially destroy and then recreate whatever they are transporting.
All I did was apply it to your fic and figure out how Twilight Sparkle gone full Tony Stark would go about doing it. And if you included it in a fic, I would be honored.
If Dawn used it, there are some rat bastard devious things she could do.
For example, one day, a cold, shivering thing that looks, talks and acts like Apple Bloom appears at Applejack's war-torn hideout, begging her not to kill her. Applejack knows she's a trap of some kind and prepares with a heavy heart to kill it, but the thing that looks like Apple Bloom falls to it's knees accepts it, saying that Dawn had told her to leave, and that she would be used by a barracks of stallions and then roasted over a slow flame if any of Dawn's guard caught her. So, says the thing that looks like Apple Bloom, if you kill me it's a mercy kill. She only asks that Applejack hug her once before she does it.
Applejack hugs her, and then can't bring herself to do it. She takes the thing that looks like Apple Bloom to a holding cell, telling herself she'll get someone else to do it. She ends up talking to her. She talks to her, and finds out that the last memories the thing that looks like Apple Bloom had before waking up in a room with Dawn were of Ponyville, from months before Spike's death. She sees the thing that looks like Apple Bloom shivering, just like Apple Bloom would on a cold winter night. Without even thinking, she brings the thing that looks like Apple Bloom a blanket. When the thing gives her a weak little smile as she drapes the blanket over it, her heart breaks for her sister all over again, and she curses Dawn's soul for doing this to her, making her relive her sister's death once more. Because she can't let this thing live, that would be insane. There's not a chance in Tartarus it isn't a trap.
The thing that looks like Apple Bloom asks Applejack what happened to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, and she breaks down crying when Applejack tells her they died. Applejack loses it and grabs her in a hug, and realises that she's already stopped thinking of the thing that looks like Apple Bloom as 'it' and has started thinking of her as 'her'. Applejack asks if she can tell TTTLL Apple Bloom a bedtime story, and TTTLL Apple Bloom nods against her neck. So Applejack tells her a story, a silly story. Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey. Always a favorite. Every few weeks after Apple Bloom died, she would have a nightmare of reading her that story, looking over the book at the end, and seeing her mangled corpse in bed next to her. Somehow, she knows she won't have that nightmare ever again. When she finishes, TTTLL Apple Bloom mentions that Dawn was cold and would never read her stories, every time TTTLL Apple Bloom went to bed, Dawn would be busy doing (X) where (X) is a very confidential and fairly important bit of intel.
Now Applejack is curious. She starts asking Apple Bloom questions about her time with Dawn. AB had been there a few months, and had a pretty free run of the place until Dawn booted her out. She knows a lot. It's all probably bullshit because TTTLL Apple Bloom is almost certainly a spy, but if it checks out, it would be very useful. Certainly not enough to win this war, but enough to buy them precious time. Who knows, with enough time, they might even drag this conflict to a stalemate with Applejack and hers ending up separatists instead of total subjugation and annihilation of everyone she knows.
The next day, Applejack orders some of the intel checked out and has TTTLL Apple Bloom scanned by their best unicorns. TTTLL Apple Bloom certainly isn't a changeling or shapeshifter, and there are no bugs on her unless Dawn has developed some hideously advanced spying technology, but even that would make no sense. After all, if you did have fantastically subtle spying devices, why attach them to something that would send every red flag flying? The unicorns note that her body is wrong, as if it has been around for months rather than years. They ask Apple Bloom, and she says Dawn told her as much. She's a copy of a pony, with all that pony's thoughts and memories. But that's to everyone else. As far as TTTLL Apple Bloom is concerned, she is Apple Bloom.
The intel checks out. Oh boy does the intel check out. TTTLL Apple Bloom doesn't know it, but that one conversation has already saved the lives of four squadrons of resistance fighters and snagged enough stolen supplies to feed a hidden colony of refugees for a month. In a single day. Now Applejack can't have her killed. Applejack is an honest mare, and corrects herself. What she really means is she doesn't have to have her killed, and she knows it's insane but it fills her with such relief in any case.
They keep talking to her, and Apple Bloom is one of the most valuable intelligence assets they've ever had. Dawn might as well have given the little foal a guided tour of her base of operations, a breakdown of their armed forces doctrine and a map of all their major bases. Applejack doesn't interview her, of course. She knows that's the best way to keep everything safe, to stop herself from viewing this strange and wonderful intelligence asset as her sister. Who is dead, she has to remind herself. Not curled up in that holding cell under thick blankets. Not happily divulging every single important thing she saw from that nutcase Dawn and her forces, just because she knows it will help her sister. Not giving her those huge, sad, puppy-dog eyes when Applejack leaves her cell every night.
Every night? Yeah, it has been every night now, hasn't it. One of the prison guards finally comes up to Applejack and says look, she's a filly and we need these cells, do we really have to keep her in here? And, y'know, it's a pretty persuasive argument. So Applejack takes Apple Bloom into her quarters. No, she's not being sentimental, she's being logical. They don't have much space, Apple Bloom is most comfortable around her, and Applejack knows exactly how Apple Bloom should behave so she's the one who'll be able to tell if she's not acting normally. Just common sense.
It all falls apart from there. Applejack can't keep the pretence up. Every moment she's not working or fighting is a moment spent with Apple Bloom. Not 'the thing that looks like' Apple Bloom, not any more. Apple Bloom, the little butter-coated filly in front of her, is her sister. If 'sister' has any meaning left at all in this dark, cold world, Apple Bloom is her sister. They talk about the good old days. Play together. Argue over chores. Cook together. Fresh apples aren't easy to get hold of, but as soon as Applejack gets a few, they make a delicious apple pie together. The base is attacked, and Applejack spends every moment not fearing for herself, her comrades or even her brother, only worrying that her little sister might be dead, ripped from her once more. When they beat the mercenaries away, she finds Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom safe together, Apple Bloom standing over her first confirmed kill. Apple Bloom helps fix up the defences after the attack, and earns her cutie mark. Applejack breaks down crying on the spot, holding onto her sister and not letting go.
Applejack never told Broken Shield as such, but never made any real attempt to hide it. Broken knew a few days after Apple Bloom arrived, and knew by then it was too late. Dawn had put her perfect Xanatos Gambit into place. Whatever they did, Dawn won, getting far more out of it than the admittedly valuable intel she'd fed to Apple Bloom.
Broken makes the hard choice and kills Apple Bloom as soon as he finds out about her? It's too late by then. Applejack has already started to bond, whether she admits it or not, and she'll know that Broken killed her sister, made her relive the worst moment of her life all over again. Applejack is one of the most important figures in the resistance. If they lose her, they lose the war. Killing Apple Bloom isn't an option.
Broken does the right thing and lets Apple Bloom live? He helps Dawn spread her seductive message through the entire resistance. Because that's what this is about. It's no simple gift or taunt to Applejack; it's Moriarty's triple break-in in the Reichenbach Fall. It's a bright and shining infomercial. Look here kids, here's what Aurora Dawn can do for you! You've lost relatives, loved ones, best friends? Dawn can bring them back. For real. No tricks or traps. There's no offer attached, all Dawn is saying is that she can, if she wants to. Hay, when she gets society sorted out, she might even bring the Princesses back, as pegacorns rather than alicorns of course. And now Broken knows that too. Dawn could bring his wife back. He could see Cadance again. She wouldn't even remember her execution, or the troubles. Just a new life in a questionable utopia.
She could bring Dazzle back.
And as simple as that, with a bit of Earth Pony magic, changeling biotechnology and good old fashioned unicorn ingenuity, Dawn shatters the morale of the resistance in one graceful cut. She sets in motion a relatively bloodless victory. Her enemies come to her and kiss at the hooves of the people, and they slaughter the proverbial fatted calf and welcome them back into the fold. Dawn becomes Queen Bitch of the universe, all over one little red-maned filly (who is of course greeted by Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo the moment Applejack inevitably defects).
...cripes that's a long comment. Hope you don't mind me clogging up your monitor like that
2086007
...Dear sweet feathered subplot of Faust in Tartarus... you keep going like that, I'm going to have to give you partial writer's credit.
The only problem I can see with that is that Apple Bloom can't really be brought back like that.
If she's grown in a changeling pod, she'll have changeling DNA.
If she's constructed with magic (a-la Pinkie clones) she's easily dispelled. Plus, she couldn't be anywhere near a perfect copy, what with real Apple Bloom being several charred chunks of carbon in a pile of ashes, all of which have been buried and muddled up by dirt.
Another problem with the personality and memories is that there really isn't an effective method of copying them. The Mirror Pond copy of Pinkie was emphasized in certain aspects of personality ("FUN!FUN!FUN!"), and lacking others. Memories can't really be invented without some point of reference, and even those will be two-dimensional, lacking the actual view of the pony they're copying. Proper copying of memories takes the pony whose memories you're copying to still have a living brain, and the copied pony isn't coming out of there sane, or probably even alive.
Sure, Applejack misses her sister terribly. But sending a faked AB at her (essentially, a living lie) will just piss her off even more. AJ still has hopes that Twilight is still in Dawn somewhere, but fake!AB would prove to her that Dawn's been manipulating everything from the start, and any hopes AJ had for bringing Twilight back would be buried under the absolute hatred AJ would be overcome with. Even if she was let in, Broken would immediately cordon the 'potential hazard' off, banning Applejack from seeing her 'for fear of irrational action based on emotional ties'. He'd probably interrogate fake!AB until he thought she was useless, then kill her. Or just plain rip her mind out, magically sorting through the useful information, and using the lobotomized fake!AB as an example of how horrible Dawn is.
Neither of them would allow themselves to run the risk of seeing fake!AB as a possible replacement for real!AB due to the reason you described: Morale. Neither of them would be willing to entertain the possibility, no matter how tempting. Both of them know that Apple Bloom, Cadance, Dazzle, the Princesses, etc. are dead. Applejack wouldn't lie to herself about it, and Broken knows how risky it would be for such ideas to take root.
Sure, AJ might start crying herself to sleep again. Broken might be a little more aggressive with captives as he vents his frustration at what might be possible, a chance that carries a risk that he can't afford to take.
But both of them would know that if they gave in, they'd be dooming everything they'd fought for. And neither would allow the other to do such a thing.
AJ would kill Broken, or Broken would kill AJ. Both would make sure that the Loyalists knew that the one who gave in was a traitor, and would enforce that knowledge until there were few, if any, Loyalists sympathetic to the traitor's plight.
Dawn might count that as a victory. But she'd then be dealing with an enemy whose hatred of her was solidified to impenetrability. And they wouldn't have the moderating influence of their opposite to interfere anymore. Meaning that she'd be dealing with an extremely entrenched, protracted guerrilla war with the support of the public slowly turning away from her as her totalitarianism becomes more known (AJ), or she'd be dealing with constant, violent assaults on key areas by ponies whose dedication to her downfall would be about as great as her Risen Guards' dedication to her protection, only the enemy ponies would be worse, because they're still individually intelligent (Broken).
And that's completely ignoring the inputs of the other major Loyalist players. And the other resistance movements. And certain story elements that, admittedly, you would have no way of knowing about yet.
(Oh, and it's Rising Dawn, not Aurora.)
2086675
The limits of bioengineering, transequinism and thaumaturgy in your canon are of course yours to decide, but here's how I think it would work:
The thing grown inside the changeling pod wouldn't have changeling DNA, because the heavily-modified changeling pod is merely an incubator to allow a clone to grow inside it, and to focus earth pony growing magic to allow the thing inside it to grow faster and more equine.
Rising Dawn would need a good sample of Apple Bloom's DNA, but that's conceptually simple: time travel. Not the loopy, cross-universe stuff Broken use, just the regular, simple, It's About Time kind. She goes back a few years, takes a quick sample of the living, healthy Apple Bloom's DNA and returns. She might wipe ABs memory of her appearing and scratching her with a sample needle, or she might not even need to. The old Apple Bloom probably wouldn't even note it, just slightly-crazy Twilight being slighty-crazy. It wouldn't alter the course of history leading up to when time travel was used, so it wouldn't cause a paradox like most of the other uses of linear time travel.
The memories would be a bit trickier: Dawn couldn't use something like the mirror pool directly, she would have to study how the magic functioned, possibly study several different spells/artifacts to see how they work, and use it to create a cantrip/device that could take a snapshot of a pony's thoughts, memories and neural substrates. This would be the shakiest part, though you imply that it's at least possible to rip a pony's thoughts from their brain wholesale, and that along with other things implies an ability to simply copy those thoughts and substrates might be possible. Once Dawn acquires such a spell, she gets the information the same way she got the genetic information.
Another vital component is dream magic, allowing the 'clone farmers' to see inside the thoughts and minds of their clones as they grew and developed. They wouldn't directly implant the information, or at least not all of it. They'd grow the information right along with the clone's brain, setting up the neural pathways and brain development so that their thoughts and memories map on perfectly to the copied thoughts and memories. The dream magic would allow them to check that this information was mapping on properly. Or if dream magic isn't available, modified necromantic magic, except you're not trying to pull the thoughts back from beyond the veil, you're just temporarily bringing the thoughts and memories into the brain until the rest of the brain develops around it, then removing those particular thoughts and memories and modifying other parts until the rest grows properly, on and on, like pruning a bonsai tree, never long enough for the necromantic energies to do real damage and certainly not permenantly.
Sure, it would be a thaumaturgical challenge the likes of which have never been seen before, requiring fantastic minds and lots of resources, but Dawn has both in spades. If she could get it to work, she wouldn't be creating a copy of Apple Bloom or bringing Apple Bloom back, she'd just be creating an in-vitro identical twin of Apple Bloom. With all of Apple Bloom's thoughts and memories.
And Dawn could get even more evil with the not-Apple Blooms. Applejack kills NAB? She sends another. This one has all of the old Apple Bloom's memories, as well as all of NAB's memories up until she was kicked out, with one little difference — Dawn tortured her for six hours before sending her out again. Her coat is burnt and cut up in places, and there's a shaved spot of fur on her withers with 'next time — 24 hours' etched into the skin. As far as NAB Mk2 is concerned, she was NAB Mk1 right up until she left to go see Applejack. That's her perception of reality. And as far as she's been told, she was tortured because she did something wrong when she approached Applejack, and accidentally got herself killed. She begs Applejack to help her, so she doesn't get hurt again. Now Applejack knows it's not a simple mercy killing — she kills this thing, it gets tortured far worse than anything the resistance would be willing to do. And Applejack has a choice, it's certainly not 'kill it or be killed' or doesn't seem that way, any more than any other hard choice. She'd have to be stone cold to go through with the killing.
Maybe she is. So Rising Dawn would change tack. She'd create two clones: AB Mk3 and not-Applejack, from the same period. No torture or anything grim like that. Just the same deal. They get told to leave Dawn's enclave and travel out of their borders, lest they meet grisly fates at the hands of the Dawnguard. This time, neither has an idea that there's still an Applejack. Now the actual Applejack has to deal with her old self. She won't be able to rationalize. AJ Mk2 will tell her straight up that she's turned into a monster. As far as AJ Mk2 is concerned, the actual Applejack is the imposter, because she would never act that way. She wouldn't put anything above her own sister. AJ Mk2 would tell her she's just as low as that Dawn nutcase, and she knows it.
Of course, that's assuming AJ gets to them first. If Broken gets there first and follows correct procedure? Dawn sends twins of Cadance and Dazzle, both in unicorn form. They've been told that Broken will almost certainly kill them, but they Dawn will have them thrown in with a dozen condemned prisoners until they're both dead from exhaustion. Cady Mk2 accepts her death, because she figures out quickly that it's not really Shining in front of her any more, but she begs him, please, if there's anything of Shining Armor left inside you buried under the madness and pain, please let her daughter live. Hit him in every single feel that only Cadance could know how to hit. That would test him. Broken still remembers Dazzle when he wants to remember what happiness was like. Can he do it? Is he cold enough to cut off any chance of ever being happy or feeling love again, of getting even the tiniest sample of his old life? He calls himself Broken, but Rising Dawn thinks that's a misnomer. She thinks there's still a little of Shining in there left to break. Only when he's forced to do the very deed he swore vengeance against Dawn for, over and over and over, and sees what he has become, will he truly be his namesake.
But then, assuming — one hell of an assumption, I know — that Dawn gets this technology to work, fucking with her friend and brother isn't her endgame, it's just a bit of harmless fun. She'd do more than just that. She'd copy her old self, let Twilight Mk2 see the depths that she has fallen to, then let her 'escape' and run off to join the resistance. 'Quick, brother,' Twilight Mk2 would say, 'There's an evil copy of me taking over the world, let me join you and fight her, it'll be just like old times fighting off the changelings in Canterlot!' Broken would see the look of pain and betrayal on her face when she realises her dear old brother wants her dead just as much as her 'evil copy' does. And even then, that would be a difficult choice for Broken to make. This is Twilight without the evil — one of the most powerful unicorns in existence, an uncountably valuable asset to the resistance if she can be trusted.
Dawn could do that with the entire Elements of Harmony circa Canterlot Wedding, all running up to Broken and pledging to join him to fight this foul evil. She could create filly Luna and filly Celestia and send them off on their merry way. The details don't matter, all that matters is the message: Dawn has won. She has checkmate. The resistance are fighting against tactical nukes and drone warfare with sharpened sticks and slings.
Because at this point, the resistance don't really have an endgame. Unless they have the forces to do a Sherman's March to the Sea and burn everything in their path, guerilla warfare and terrorism won't work. So what if they bomb a building with 200 strategically vital ponies inside? They'll all be back in two months time. Their families won't grieve them, they won't have to. The phrase 'suicide mission' now means less than nothing to the Dawnguard.
All that Dawn's fuckery would do is say two things: I have won, and if you submit to me, if you come and kiss at the hooves of the people and learn about the wrongs you have committed, all will be forgiven. Even those who are war criminals, those who have truly wronged the people of Equestria. Not forgiveness of the soul as I set your bodies to the flame, but true forgiveness. I will slaughter the buttered corncob and reunite you with your families. Join us in friendship and let the world feel peace and prosperity once more.
Of course, this is probably all taking the story in a very different direction to the one you want to go, and the simplest answer of why it wouldn't happen is that Twilight never started researching it, and Dawn was too obsessed with necromancy and just tweaking it that little bit more (so that the horrible abomination she turned Spike into can be justified to herself) to go back about twenty miles down that mental garden path and trot off in an orthogonal direction.
2088137
I can see some very, very good ideas in there, my friend. Very good ideas.
The major problem is... well, it's three things:
1. Story parts that I haven't put up yet. One of them being Broken's line "I never said that I was better than her." Part of your method is assuming that Broken sees himself as morally superior to Dawn. He doesn't, and he tries to make sure that the Loyalists know that their entire duty is bringing Dawn down. If that involves bombing an orphanage (again, future story elements that in this case are [spoilers]) then so be it. Most of them would have a problem with it (such as AJ), but if they wanted to complain too strongly Broken'd just send them to one of the more kind resistance groups.
2. Dawn isn't, necessarily, evil. She wouldn't cause mental or physical torture on what she would see as 'innocent ponies', because that would be wrong. Torture and harming anypony is only allowable when the results improve life for everypony else (think Totalitarian Utilitarian). She actually does want Broken and AJ (and the other major resistance members) to join her, but she doesn't want to harm "her little ponies" doing so. In her view, the resistance movements need to be eliminated because they are opposed to making everypony happy and equal. Dawn'd rather get them to join peacefully, but she is willing to resort to force if they refuse. She's very much a Well-Intentioned Extremist type character. Which brings me to my next point...
3. Dawn isn't willing to recognize that she's capable of doing things wrong. Her view is that if one thing she does is wrong, then anything she might have done is wrong, which can't be, because she's making life better for everypony, and improving everypony's life is the right thing to do.
(No, it doesn't make sense.)
As such, it's much like the situation you posited in the last paragraph: She can't see that necromancy might not be able to improve on things enough, because she views Spike as being perfectly like his living self, just less talkative for reasons unrelated to anything she might have done. Sure, necromancy can be improved upon, but there's no reason to use other methods of resurrection/revival, because necromancy works fine.
(Again, it doesn't make sense.)
Now, Dawn is still a very, very bad pony, and (for [spoilery] reasons) should best be viewed with disgusted pity. But Broken isn't the shiniest armor in the barracks either, and he is certainly willing to overemphasize Dawn's faults in order to mess Twilight up.
2089541
Just read your whole comment chain.
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P.S. That could work.... let me go check something!
*manic grin takes over the scientist pony's face as he rushes of into a strange sphere of energy, disappearing*
Oh no.