Chapter 3
Viridios winced as his wounds twinged with pain. In particular the giant gash in his stomach was by far causing him the worst pain. He clutched at the vines and leaves wrapped around the wound like bandages with a forehoof. Using telekinesis he levitated a bottle made from clay that he had magically fired containing a medication he had concocted from the various plants and fungi he had found around the forest. As the son of Silvanus he had an innate understanding of all plants and their properties and thus could easily figure out how to create any sort of medicine he needed with them. The medication in that particular clay bottle was a painkiller to help mitigate the suffering his wounds caused him.
Taking the wooden lid off of the bottle he proceeded to down the contents. He grimaced and shuddered at the awful taste but swallowed the concoction anyway. After he had finished cooking the medication to make it an actual medication he had tried to add a bit of berry juice to the mix to make it taste better, and had only partially succeeded. It now had a hint of berry flavor to it but the taste was still quite vile. Still it took the edge off so it was better than dealing with the full force of the pain.
After taking the medication he made himself some breakfast as he waited a while for it to kick in. After eating his breakfast he stood up and walked out of the house he had made for himself out of leaves and vines the evening after his fight with Alexander. He needed to go collect some more food as well as some more ingredients for a new batch of pain medication. So since it was morning he decided to just get it out of the way before going about the rest of his day.
As he was walking he heard a noise. Curious, he walked over to investigate and saw a rabbit trapped under a dead tree struggling to get free.
“Tsk tsk tsk… Now how did you get yourself into such a situation, little one?” He inquired.
The rabbit stopped struggling for a moment and looked up at him, trembling in fear.
He considered whether or not to kill it for his dinner that night but ultimately decided against it. “Ah, there’s no need to be afraid. I won’t hurt you.” Viridios stated before using telekinesis to grab the dead tree and lift it off of the rabbit. “See? Run along now. And try not to get trapped like this again because next time I may not be there to help.”
The rabbit looked at him gratefully before hopping away.
“Father’s blessing upon you!” Viridios called after it. When it was gone he sighed. He very much wished he could actually bring himself to care about animals still. Unfortunately he was just as susceptible to Immortal Apathy as any other demigod and it had set in for him tens of thousands of years ago. So at this point the only reason he bothered interacting with animals at all was due to the natural impulses he felt as a son of the God of Nature. It was simply in his nature even if he didn’t care about them anymore. He much preferred plants and fungi over animals.
As he continued walking he eventually came across some of the medicinal plants that he needed. Using magic he helped the plant grow to the size of a bush before picking some of its leaves. It was then that he realized that he had somehow forgotten both of his baskets back at his house. Cursing he proceeded to cast another spell. Suddenly thin vines shot up out of the ground and weaved themselves together creating two new baskets. One was for the medicinal plants and fungi he needed and the other was for food. The one for food had two compartments separated by a wall, one side being for plants while the other side was for meat.
His new body may have been in the form of an equine but that didn’t mean he had to suddenly become a strict herbivore. It was completely natural to consume meat, animals did it in the wild all the time, so there was absolutely nothing wrong with him doing the same as far as he was concerned. And he had been eating meat for about a hundred thousand years, give or take, and old habits die hard.
Placing the leaves he picked into his medicine basket he decided that he was in the mood for fish and thus turned and headed for a nearby river. Catching a few fish with telekinesis he quickly killed them and placed them in his food basket. He then spent the next several hours collecting plants and fungi for food and medicine. He even collected a few plants that he could turn into a salve to apply to his wounds to mitigate the risk of infection. Granted he had already made and applied just such a salve the same night he got the wounds but it wouldn’t hurt to reapply it just to be safe since his wounds were fairly deep.
Once he got back to his house he immediately began cleaning and gutting the fish. He then set them in a clay cooking pot he had made along with a few herbs for seasoning. Finally he started a small fire in the fire pit outside of his house and set the pot on the edge to cook. After that he got to work on preparing and cooking his medicines as needed before putting them in his clay bottles.
When that was done he picked up his watering can, teleported to the river, filled it, teleported back home and began watering some of the flowers he had found in the forest and decided to plant around his house. He had never seen a few of them before and found them absolutely beautiful so he knew he was going to enjoy taking care of them.
Smelling that his fish had finished cooking he sat down and ate his lunch. Though he saved one of the fish he caught for later, planning to eat it for dinner. He then spent the rest of the day resting and enjoying his time amongst nature, far from the conflicts of his own world. He honestly vastly preferred such peace and quiet. He knew it could not last forever but for now he would enjoy it while it lasted.
[In Canterlot]
Working together Gerhardt and Pixel had finished making the device that would help Alexander get around in just a couple hours. After that Gerhardt spent the rest of the night sleeping while Pixel spent her time writing the instructions for exercising one’s magic. Having already planned out exactly what she wanted to write down, it didn't take her very long to actually write it. So when she was finished she took the stack of papers and went to go find Princess Luna since she was apparently nocturnal and was thus awake. Using her sensors she found Luna fairly easily as there were only a handful of demigods in a one mile radius thus their energy signatures stuck out like a sore thumb and Luna’s was the only one besides Pixel that was moving around.
Walking out on a balcony, Pixel found Luna standing there looking up at the night sky. “Um… Miss Luna, I don’t mean to bother you but I finished writing the instructions on maintaining magical fitness that you and Miss Celestia wanted. So I just thought I’d give them to you since you’re awake.”
“Ah, Pixel. I noticed that you and your brother’s dreams were absent earlier. Am I to assume you were both working on these instructions together? Thank you very much by the way. These instructions will be very useful.” Luna inquired, taking the stack of papers from Pixel with telekinesis.
“Mm-mm.” Pixel shook her head. “We were in our workshop working on a device to help big brother. It won’t help him see but it will help him get around. It works sort of like echo-location but concentrated on whatever his head is pointed towards because of a camera attached to the front of the device. But since we were working together we finished it really fast. So Gerhardt went to sleep for the rest of the night and I finished writing this since I don’t actually need sleep.”
“I see. Well I’m glad to hear that your brother will have an easier time getting around… Er… Well if you don’t need sleep, would you care to join me? I’m just looking at the stars for the moment.” Luna asked.
Pixel smiled and nodded. “Sure! I was going to go back to the workshop and make something but this is fine too. In fact, my brother and I sort of have a question and this seems like as good a time as any to ask.” She said as she walked over and stood next to Luna.
Luna looked at her curiously. “Oh? And what is your question?”
“Well, when we changed into these new forms we noticed that Viridios had this tree symbol on his rump. Then we noticed that a lot of other ponies do too. Then when Gerhardt was about to go to bed a while ago we noticed that we had them too. Gerhardt thought they might be symbolic of our family since ours are the main holy symbol of our mother, but we noticed that ours were two separate colors. Mine is silver while his is dark red suggesting that there’s something else to them. Since everyone seems to have one we thought that you might know what they are and what they mean?” Pixel asked.
Luna was confused for a moment not understanding what Pixel meant before she finally put two and two together in her head. “Symbols… You mean cutiemarks? They symbolize a pony’s special talent and they are almost always completely unique to the individual pony. And you say you and your brother’s are both the holy symbol of your mother?”
“Mhm.” Pixel nodded before using telekinesis to lift her robe and show the princess the symbol. “Specifically the gear symbolizes technology and the pentagram symbolizes magic. So the pentagram being inside the gear symbolizes technomancy which is the combination of magic and technology. And since mommy is the goddess of technology, technomancy is the holiest of practices among her followers.”
“Well then I believe it’s safe to assume that your cutiemarks symbolize your talent for technomancy. That being said, you claimed your brother’s was red whilst yours is silver. What do those colors generally mean, if anything?” Luna inquired.
“Um… Well dark red is pretty obvious. It’s the color of blood so it has a lot of negative meanings, mainly relating to rage, hatred, malice, violence, and bloodshed. It has a few positive meanings too but I don’t see how any of those could in any way relate to technomancy. Sooo… My brother does enjoy building weapons and he is really good at it. So maybe his cutiemark symbolizes that?” Pixel suggested uncertainly.
Princess Luna frowned at that. “Hm… And judging by what you’re saying I suppose the weapons he builds are lethal, correct?”
Pixel nodded. “Usually, yeah. They’re way more lethal than the primitive spears your Royal Guard uses… Uh… No offense… But platemail like they use is worthless against guns, grenades, bombs, rockets, and other modern weapons. Even modern body armor is worthless against higher powered weapons and they’re designed to be resistant to modern weapons. Certain bombs can even destroy entire cities twice the size of Canterlot. He’s actually built a few such bombs for the Human Kingdom’s military.”
“I… I see…” Luna said, very clearly off put by this. “And silver? Does it have a meaning?”
Pixel thought for a moment. “Hm… Well I know it’s generally considered a positive color. Um… With what we’ve determined about Gerhardt’s, I would assume mine represents my talent and affinity for medical technology. It’s what I enjoy building the most just like Gerhardt enjoys building weapons so it would make sense.”
Luna nodded and said, “Well, there you go. I suppose those are your answers… Now I suppose I have one or two questions for you if you don’t mind.”
“Okay! I’ll do my best to answer whatever I can!” Pixel said with a friendly smile.
“First, why would your kind need such powerful weapons in the first place?” Luna inquired. She was still absolutely horrified to learn that they had weapons that could destroy Canterlot twice over. She couldn’t comprehend what could possibly necessitate such powerful weapons.
“Oh. Well they were invented about a hundred years ago during a major war. Then there was an arms race with every major and some minor countries trying to develop bigger and stronger bombs so that they could remain competitive in war. It actually led to something called the ‘M.A.D. Principal’. Which is an acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction. So if such weapons are ever actually used it will lead to the planet being reduced to a barren wasteland with no survivors. There are even some designed to destroy underground shelters, bases on the ocean floor, and even sea-life in general to combat the merpeople so the bombs and their aftermath would be completely impossible to escape leading to the extinction of every sapient species and every non sapient species on the planet save for certain types of bacteria.” Pixel explained in a fairly serious tone.
Her tone then brightened slightly as she said, “Fortunately the M.A.D. principal has since become much less relevant since we have managed to colonize other planets in the solar system and have sent colony ships at sub-light speeds to other nearby solar systems to colonize them as well. So even if everyone on one planet dies there are still people alive on other planets and even other solar systems! Unfortunately this means it’s also more likely that such weapons will eventually be used at some point.”
Luna very quickly went from horrified and appalled to just plain terrified. Weapons that could cause the extinction of all life on the planet? What the buck was wrong with the leaders and militaries of Pixel’s world?! And what the buck was wrong with Gerhardt to enjoy building such devices?! To her it almost sounded like he already had Immortal Apathy considering how little he had to care for the lives of others to enjoy building such weapons, but from what Alexander had told them that should have been impossible. He had only been alive for a few years and had never been allowed to have mortal friends. So he couldn’t have experienced nearly enough loss that he would be so used to death as to not care anymore, right? Maybe he just didn’t fully understand how bad his weapons were? But, Pixel seemed to understand them perfectly well thus logically Gerhardt should too… She and Celestia would have to keep an eye on him. Luna didn’t think he was a bad colt but his affinity for weapons was very concerning.
“That is absolutely terrifying.” Luna admitted. “Such devastating technology absolutely cannot be allowed to exist here under any circumstances.”
Pixel grimaced and said, “Uh… I’m sorry but I don’t think it’s avoidable. The first weapons of mass destruction were discovered because of the invention of a new and extremely efficient power source for electricity that technomancy couldn’t compete with at the time, nuclear fission. It was originally intended to be something beneficial but ended up being turned into a weapon. That’s sort of how all technology works. Anything can be weaponized. So weapons of mass destruction will be invented one way or another. If not by you ponies then by another species. Their existence is an inevitability, it’s impossible to prevent.”
Luna sighed. “I really hope that’s not actually the case… Anyways, I’m sorry for changing the topic to something arguably just as depressing, but after dinner I couldn’t help but keep thinking about what Alexander told us about Immortal Apathy. I honestly don’t believe his approach to avoiding it is healthy. So my main question now is, are you really okay with this? Are you sure you don’t want friends at all? Wouldn’t it be better to just… take the risk? Your brothers aren’t here so you can be completely honest with me.”
“Well, I do want friends. It would be really nice if there were other immortals the same relative age as me and my brother. But even where we’re from it’s really rare for demigods to be born. The youngest demigod other than us was born four hundred years ago or so and her father was Lanius, the God of Law and Punishment. So not only is she a lot older than us but we’ve never met her and she’s not known for being particularly friendly anyways. Oh, my brother and I are friends with a couple of Fay back in our world! I’m actually really going to miss them… Oh, but I’m getting off topic. To answer your question, no I really don’t think it’s worth the risk. I want to care for mortals even if I can’t be friends with them.” Pixel explained.
Luna sighed and looked back up at the night sky. “Well, I suppose if that’s really your opinion I can’t force you to see things differently. What’s a ‘Fay’ if you don’t mind me asking?”
“A Fay is similar to a demigod but their parent is a Spirit instead of a god. So instead of half god half mortal they’re half spirit half mortal. We are or… were friends with two of them! One is a son of the Spirit of Death, his name is Grav. We met him during our father’s funeral. He was really nice to us and tried to help us feel better about our father’s death! It was a really hard time and he actually helped us a lot… We visited him fairly often after that. You want to know something interesting? The children of both the God of Death and Spirit of Death are effectively immune to Immortal Apathy because they don’t view death or mortality as a bad thing to begin with and they can temporarily separate their souls from their bodies to go visit the afterlife whenever they want meaning no one is ever truly dead to them.”
“That is interesting. That sounds like it would be a very nice ability to have… Um, would you mind explaining the difference between a Spirit and a God? I’m not sure I understand the distinction between the two. Also, who was your other friend?” Luna asked. She was actually fairly envious of the ability to visit others in the afterlife. There were quite a few ponies there that she would like to see again and apologize to. Unfortunately she would never have a chance and she knew it.
“Oh, Spirits are the living embodiments of specific concepts for a specific universe and their power only extends to that one universe. Gods, on the other hand, manage whatever concept they manage across an infinite number of universes and realities. Gods aren’t the physical embodiment of anything meaning they could exist even if the concept they manage did not whereas a Spirit’s existence is tied to their respective concept since they are quite literally that concept itself. So the Spirit of Death is death itself, the Spirit of Technology is technology itself, you get the idea. Anyways, our other friend was a daughter of the Spirit of Space. Her name is Sarah. Better yet she is actually around our age! She’s ten which means she’s only a few years older than our physical and mental age! Don’t let him know I told you this but I think Gerhardt has a crush on her.” Pixel explained.
Luna chuckled and said, “Oh don’t worry, my lips are sealed. I’ll admit I find it strange how many immortals and spirits your world seems to have, but it’s quite interesting. Perhaps it's an effect of gods actually interacting with your world while they seem to avoid ours for whatever reason.”
“They do?” Pixel asked, tilting her head in confusion. She didn’t understand why the gods would actively avoid this world. It didn’t make sense to her. Surely their influence had to be present in some sense even if they didn’t interact with mortals directly.
“Well, there have most certainly never been any reports of any real encounters with actual gods. Yes, religions do exist but there is zero evidence to validate them in fact there is quite a bit of evidence to disprove most of them. And I can personally confirm all of them I know of are complete fabrications. Remember, I do have the ability to discern truth from lies or fiction, albeit to a much more limited extent than I had in the past and that ability is slowly growing weaker as time goes on. Besides which, why would the gods have suddenly stopped visiting our world when they are very clearly continuing to visit your world? It doesn’t make sense. So yes, I believe they have either been actively avoiding us or perhaps they simply don’t care about us to begin with and that’s why they don’t visit us?” Luna explained.
Pixel shook her head. “Mm-mm… I don’t believe that. If they didn’t care then you simply wouldn’t exist to begin with because why would they make something they don’t care about? They wouldn’t. So clearly they do care. There has to be some other reason they haven’t visited you until now. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that mortals can become demigods in this universe? That was impossible in our universe so it stands to reason that there may be a link between the two. I’ll be sure to ask mommy when she comes to visit us again. Speaking of which, um… Would it be alright if we spread mommy’s religion here? I know you don’t want people knowing that we’re demigods so we don’t have to mention that she’s our mother but according to the church as her children it is our divine duty to encourage others to worship her.”
Luna raised a hoof to her chin in thought. “Hm… Perhaps… It would be better than ponies worshipping entities that don’t even exist to begin with. However, we’ll have to discuss this with my sister first. But we can discuss that in more detail later when Celestia and your brothers are awake.”
Pixel smiled at her, “Okay! Thank you.” After that they continued making small talk for the rest of the night until morning had finally come.
The first thing Pixel and Gerhardt did the next morning was ask Alexander about his “cutie mark”. Unlike theirs, his was not the holy symbol of their mother. Rather, his was an image of a loaded crossbow with basic sights and a crossbow bolt with an obsidian head which he invented in his teenage years. He didn’t invent the obsidian arrowhead, that was just the most advanced material they had at the time, but he did invent the crossbow and the primitive iron sights it utilized.
As the five of them were eating breakfast together Luna said, “Sister, I was speaking with Pixel last night and she made a rather interesting request. I know it is still quite early for you but I thought we should discuss it while all five of us are awake.”
Celestia took a sip of coffee before looking at Luna and asking, “Alright… What was this request?”
“Pixel, why don’t you explain it?” Luna said, looking at Pixel.
“Okay. Well, I just wanted to know if it would be alright if my brothers and I spread our mother’s religion. The Church of Science and Technology always told us that it was our divine duty as her children to encourage others to worship her. We don’t have to tell anyone that we’re her children.” Pixel explained.
“Personally, I think it would be fine. I mean there are so many religions worshiping deities that don’t actually exist, would it not be better for ponies to worship deities that do?” Luna commented.
Alexander nodded. “I was actually going to ask the same question myself at some point but I was waiting for a good time to bring it up. It seems Pixel beat me to it.”
“Hm… We would need to know the tenets of your religion before we could actually agree to anything.” Celestia stated.
“Tenets? There aren’t very many. Our mother doesn’t really care how mortals live their lives or what they use technology for. As long as technology is built and used and there is scientific and technological advancement she is perfectly happy. There’s only one real tenet that she made. That tenet being ‘creating immoral or unethical technology, mind controlling technology for example, is sacrilege and using such technology for immoral or unethical purposes, manipulating or enslaving others for example, is a grave sin’. Mother is not a pacifist however, so that very much does not include the creation or use of weapons. There are other tenets that were created by mortals later in history but those are rather idiotic and are thus irrelevant. We would only mention the tenet that our mother herself made as that’s the only one that truly matters.” Alexander explained.
“Mhm… Well then, I suppose that would be fine. However, if we do let you do this then you will also have to spread the knowledge and religions of the other gods you know of. It’s only fair that everypony would get to choose which gods they follow and they could only do that if they know those gods exist to begin with.” Celestia said before taking another sip of coffee.
Gerhardt frowned. “Silvanus is mom’s greatest enemy. We will not betray her by spreading his religion.” Pixel and Alexander stated their agreements.
“Hm… Fine, we won’t force you to betray your mother. However, ponies should still be allowed to know of his existence. You can preach against him if you would like. Just tell everypony that he exists.” Luna told them.
“I suppose that’s agreeable. Fine. They’ll know of him but don’t expect us to say anything even remotely positive about him. Followers of our mother view him as akin to the Devil, the Spirit of Evil, and that most certainly will not change here.” Alexander stated.
Celestia sighed and said, “I would honestly prefer a more unbiased perspective but I suppose I can’t expect anything more. Very well, we’ll give you free reign to spread your religion. Though I don’t expect that many ponies will be willing to convert, so don’t expect to gather too large of a following very fast.”
“We’re immortal. We have all the time in the universe.” Gerhardt said.
“A fair point.” Celestia conceded.
After they finished eating Alexander stood up and adjusted the device on his face before saying, “Well, would you happen to know where a library might be? My siblings and I need to go and read up on the history of this kingdom. Well, I’ll need them to read to me since I’m incapable of reading braille but the point remains.”
“Actually there’s a small library here in the castle. It’s not as large as the dedicated library in the city, but if you’re just looking to study our history it should suit your needs perfectly. I can have a servant lead the three of you there if you would like.” Celestia offered.
“Please do. We’ll be spending pretty much the rest of the day there if you need anything.” Arthur told her.
Once they were in the library, Pixel found all of the history books and spent about five minutes reading through them, her artificial brain allowing her to process the information far faster than an organic being. After she finished reading the three of them began discussing everything she read, starting with Luna becoming Nightmare Moon all the way to recent history. None of them understood how it was possible that Celestia or Luna could raise or lower the sun or moon let alone make it eternal day or night.
“It doesn’t make any sense… Even Merlin, the most powerful demigod in recorded history and being the son of the goddess of magic at that, was only capable of slowing down the rotation of the planet thus extending the day and night cycle by approximately ten hours at most. At least until the gods fixed it soon after. He most certainly couldn’t slow it down enough to force the planet to become tidally locked with the sun. At least not all at once. Maybe if he tried over the course of several days but most certainly not all at once. That’s to say nothing of forcing the moon to stay in a perfect geosynchronous orbit. Unless they are suggesting the sun orbits around this planet like the moon and they control that orbit? But that’s even more absurd!” Alexander declared.
“Hm… So, assuming this story isn’t a complete fabrication, I think it’s safe to say we are in fact in a completely separate universe with a very different set of laws of physics. So maybe the sun and moon aren’t nearly as big or far away as they would be in our universe?” Gerhardt suggested.
“I agree. But the only way we can know for sure is by building a telescope and sending it into orbit. Unfortunately we don’t have enough materials for that at the moment.” Pixel stated.
“No, we really don’t… Damn. Well, in that case we have no choice but to operate under the assumption that they really do control the sun and moon until we can build a telescope and confirm it for ourselves… Hm… I don’t like this whole ‘Nightmare Moon’ business. We’re going to need confirmation that nothing like that will ever happen again. Failing that we need a contingency to kill both of them should they become an active threat. My combat knife would work but fighting anyone head on is stupid if it can be avoided. The only reason I fought Viridios head on was because I had no other choice at the time and look where that got me… I’ll start thinking of possible weapon designs.” Alexander stated.
“I’ll help with that.” Gerhardt volunteered.
Alexander smiled at him. “I knew you would, considering your love of military technology. It reminds me of myself when I was young. I did invent the crossbow for a couple of wars that were raging at the time in order to give humanity a bit of an edge considering we were losing pretty badly until that point. It’s honestly my favorite invention! You know, the idea for it actually came to me in a dream. I believe mother may have had a hand in that.”
“We know, you’ve told us this story like twenty times… this year…” Gerhardt huffed in slight irritation.
Pixel chuckled. “I like big brother’s stories, even if some of them do get a bit repetitive from time to time.”
Alexander chuckled. “Well it’s one of my favorite stories! I mean, I have thousands upon thousands of other stories but many of them are a bit mature for children as young as you two, and a lot of them aren’t nearly as fun as that one. Granted it is a story about a war but more importantly it’s a story about primitive technology and primitive technology is always fun to talk about!”
Gerhardt shrugged as best he could in his equine form. “I guess. Anyway, what’s next on the schedule?”
“Well, we already went over history but there are other books in this library we haven’t gone over yet, yes? Well let’s see what else we can learn. Next I believe we should focus on Equestrian law so we don’t end up doing or building anything illegal by accident.” Alexander stated.
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I think you repeated a part of the chapter at around the halfway point.
11022024
Oh god that's embarrassing. I must have hit Ctrl V twice by mistake. I'm so sorry. I fixed it.
11022094
Ah, see, in the year 2021, the human civilization as we know it is around 6,000 years old. That leaves us with 194,000 years of technical progress... and yet, the mankind technology is not as advanced as in previous fic.
Are those sublight ships Pix mentioned utilise suspended animation or are they generation ships?
Or, another fun little comparison. The God-Emperor of Mankind is around 50,000 years old. Continuing this line of thought, you've basically threw the rough equivalent of GEOM and Primarchs into a medieval world.
11027321
Unless you believe in Christianity, Humanity is like 300,000 years of old IRL though it was previously believed that we were 200,000 years old. So they actually aren't more advanced than us. They are on exactly the same technological scale. Except their technology involves magic so they can build things equivalent to the hypothetical and completely non-functional EM drive via telekinesis. And they have lasers and cybernetics. Those are the only major differences. The humanity in the previous story was like one or two hundred thousand years more advanced than we are currently, so yeah they were significantly more advanced than the Humanity in this story.
The sub-light ships Pixel mentioned can only travel to near by solar systems in any "reasonable" period of time. Like they can only travel there if it is between 4 to 10 light years away and it would take 4 to 10 years for them to arrive. So I imagine it's a mix between having crucial crew members awake and having non-essential crew members in some form of suspended animation.
And they might be powerful but they aren't on the same level as the God Emperor of Mankind or the Primarchs. Rather they would only be on the level of very powerful psykers. They can't effect things on a Galactic scale like Emperor or Magnus could by causing Warpstorms. And they aren't nearly as powerful as Merlin was so they aren't even planetary level. Age =/= power. Celestia and Luna will actually be very close to as powerful as Merlin meaning they will be significantly more powerful than Alexander or the Twins despite being significantly younger than Alexander.
So if anything, MLP has the edge this time.
Source for how old Humanity truly is.
11027617
The humans, as a species, are around 200,000 years old, that is true.
However,
Human civilization as we know it, with permanent settlements, agriculture, science, engineering and all that began only around 4-3,000 B.C. 10,000 B.C. if you consider agricultural revolution and ending of nomadic hunting-gathering communes as the beginning of civilization. Large-scale industrialisation began around 1800s A.D. M, that's a lot technologyless milenia for a technology-focused demigod.
Now, Alexandr 'only gained augmentations when he was already several thousand years old when augmentations were first invented and reached a point they were at least equivalent in capabilities as their natural counterparts'. 'Several' is usually considered to be anywhere inbetween 3 and 20... And I sincerely doubt there were any augmentations around 60,000 B.C...
Also this bit from chapter 1 is a bit awkward:
I feel like 'however' is not needed here.
11028716
Yeah, I thought I should re-word that but I didn't because I didn't think it mattered that much... Alright, I’ll go back and fix that so it says, "many thousands of years" or "tens of thousands of years" or something to that effect. And thank you for pointing out that mistake. "However" was indeed completely unnecessary for that sentence.
Anyway, he didn't receive augmentations until around the modern day. So like the past four or five decades. He was born in a tribe in the stone age a very long time prior to any official civilization. So yeah their technology is roughly as advanced as real world technology except with magic incorporated into it.
11028811
First, that made me think about 'Cavemen science fiction' minicomics.
Second... like, the more I think about it the worse my headsche becomes, what was the demigod of technology doing in a world without technology?.. For, like, 80,000 years? Ugh ><
Also, the same question I asked in the previous fic, though this one is more... mechanics-related than lore-related. What magic can not do?
11029778
Technology very much did exist. All tools and things created by people is technology. A wrench is technology, a spear is technology, a bow and arrow is technology, a bowl is technology, a cup is technology, a table is technology, a tent is technology. You get the idea. And Scientia existed since before the beginning of the universe so she was around at that time anyways. I don’t know how many times I'm going to have to say this but gods ARE NOT the same as spirits they DO NOT rely on the concept they manage in order to exist otherwise they wouldn't be gods.
And what can't magic do? A normal mage can't open a portal across to the other side of the planet because the distance is too far, magic technology can with a large enough battery. A normal mage can't split atoms and cause a nuclear explosion, technology in general can even if it's just normal technology. That sort of thing.
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It's just that I have extreme difficlty believing that a goddess of technology would take interest in someone from primitive tribal community. I just... UHG. I don't understand this I don't understand how it even works. I mean, back in those simpler days, the people believed in gods of sea, earth, thunder, hunt, etc... okay there wer divines of knowledge but to my knowledge they popped up later... Okay, Imma leave this topic, because at this point it feels like I'm nitpicking, and I still feel like it were my comments that drove you off writing the previous story and I don't want this to happen again.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. The fun part of worldbuilding. Define limits of magic and technology, and then see how one can circumvent them by clever fusing of the two. And even then, there should be some limits, because if magic/tech/magitech can do literally anything it's just boring.