Battle for Equestria: Scraps and Bits

by Snicket

The ramblings of a Mad Man

Greetings fans and followers. It's been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been sitting on this for a while now and haven’t been able to give it a proper conclusion. I’ll probably mess it up somehow, but I figured you’ve waited long enough for this. So, the best I can do is give it a try. It seems a bit odd visiting this subject again. Since I haven’t watched the show for a few years now and haven’t done anything with this story in almost double that time.

Many have asked why I decided to end this series the way I did and the short answer is that life got in the way. The long answer is that my busy life got in the way. When I started this I was working part-time, while going to school. Now, I’m working full time 60+ hours a week, which doesn’t leave much time for anything else. So, rather than just pick away at this. With an unfocused mindset, I decided to end it on a high note. Or at least on a somewhat interesting one.

This synopsis of sorts was originally going to be broken up into several parts. However, after realizing that the parts were a tad lopsided in length and definition. I decided to combine them into one large run down. The first part is going to go over some of the scrapped ideas and concepts that I alluded to early on or had while I started writing, but ditched for one reason or another.

For the most part, this story would have remained unchanged, save for a few tweaks here and there as I watched more of the show. An example is that there were always going to be dragons in this story, but at the time I started it. The only dragons that had been introduced were those teenage ones. So, I had OC’s filling in roles such as the leader/king of the dragons. As well as any other important roles. Then the dragon kingdom was introduced in a later episode. Which allowed me to add already established characters to similar roles. Same with the Griffon empire; which is kind of a bummer, since I had this idea of a grand kingdom in mind. Which would have centred around a few conflicts later on.

The show’s ‘add characters to sell more toys’ format. Especially in later episodes. Forced me to scrap several ideas, because it would have gone against what was later established or ruined the tone completely. Other times, I just didn't give the idea enough forethought or ditched it because I thought it was lame. And some were reworked in some way.

A big one for me was how Sonic arrived in Equestria. The hedgehog’s sudden and abrupt appearance went through several revisions. One example is that; for whatever reason, some of his adventures were written in a series of books or comics. Similar to Daring Do. That had Twilight and/or Spike in possession of them and was an avid reader. Ala the storybook games or that Power Ponies episode, except in reverse. The former attempt a summoning spell, but messes it up and accidentally summons Sonic into the world of pastel ponies. Or is in a dangerous situation and calls for him in a moment of panic and somehow summons him as a result. Or maybe an experiment went wrong on Sonic’s end. That ended up sending him to Equestria.. Or possibly something chaos/ Robotnic related. I obviously went with the latter, but I originally didn’t intend for it to be in such a dark way.

Another one was character design. At one point I had the MLP character be anthropomorphic. But I couldn’t decide if they would have looked similar to a Mobian from Sonic’s world. Or go with something completely different. And at the time there weren’t many pictures on DA of the MLP cast in any other form. Save for them having an almost human appearance \, with them either having a large horn sticking out of their forehead or giant wings on their back. So, my unimaginative butt ditched the idea and went with how they appeared in the show. However, I did have an idea to repurpose the idea somehow later on, but all I got to was a throw-away joke in a later chapter.

An odd one was before I came up with the story I was going to the writer about. I entertained the idea of having Sonic just tagging along with the group as they go about a similar story as the show did. With things ending possibly differently. Since Sonic had been involved in some capacity. I ended up ditching this idea as well. Since it seemed lazy and uncreative. However, I later saw other writers do a similar concept with another franchise character or even Sonic. And they ended up being rather well done. The end result is not too far from what originally happened in the show.

So, that was almost the direction I went in.

In earlier concepts I had the chaos emeralds play a much bigger role in the series. For whatever reason, either an oversight on my part or just plain forgetfulness. I had Sonic in possession of them for most of the story. Since I figured he’d need to be holding on to them for the Fleetway transformation to occur. However, after going over some of the old UK Fleetway comics again. I realized that wasn’t the case. Sonic just needed to be in some sort of danger that he may not be able to get out of. I originally had them fall into the hands of hoovers in some cases to various individuals. Some bad and some not so much. With the group having to track them down. Before they were used for nefarious purposes. This also would have introduced Cadence and the Crystal Empire a lot sooner. Since they would have been kept there. Due to the cold climate and isolation. In the Fleetway comics, the chaos emeralds had to be kept in extremely cold climates when brought together. Or else they’d do the Dragon Ball thing and scatter across the world. It seemed like an interesting concept and made more sense, than having them just lie around in a pile somewhere.

The Fleetway transformation originally had more build-up to it. Rather than go full-blown crazy from the start. It would have gotten progressively more sinister with each appearance. Triggered by not just danger, but possibly by too much magic being used around him or even out of extreme bouts of rage. Plus, I had many more plans, but I didn’t want it to be too overused. And Sonic doesn’t need to go into the said state to be remarkable. But having an over the top start made more sense at the time. So, I skipped a few steps and had things go nuts from the start.

Looking back, I would have had things slowly progress over time. Instead of things going from zero to sixty at the drop of a hat.

At one point I had Sonic and company. Break out in song at a random time. Usually to the chagrin of Sonic. Who wasn’t too comfortable about how a literal orchestra would suddenly appear. And then he'd somehow know the words to a song. He has never heard of it before. What would trigger this would be the usage of a long verse in conversation. Or just occurring ‘because the situation called for it.’ This was eventually dropped early on, especially after the mixed reaction I received after having Sonic and a group of ponies. Sing Sonic Boom on Trixie’s performance stage. But to be fair, it was a goofy concept that I probably would have dropped or at the very least used very sparingly.

Also, at one point I had Sonic able to talk to animals. Much like Fluttershy does. Due to the chip, he has in his head. From his adventures in space. An event that was covered in the comics. However, the concepts seemed too weird even for this story. So, it was scrapped. Plus, I think they scrapped the idea at some point.

And finally, the mind-reading plot thread that involved Twilight inadvertently gaining various bits out of knowledge regarding our favourite blue speedster. This was something I had simply forgotten about until later in the story but didn’t know where to reintroduce it in the first arch. So, I had planned for it to come up again in a later chapter of the current arch. In fact, it would have been the very next chapter. And would have progressed from that.

I’m sure I missed a few while writing this. If I end up remembering. I’ll add them back in with some sort of update of a journal entry. But considering my prior track record. I wouldn’t put too much faith in that.

Now then, on to the next part. Originally, I had planned to write a summary of the remainder of the story. And then put in a footnotes part what things I’d have done differently. However, that would have taken too much time and it's doubtful I would have fully written that last part. At least in full. So, prevent that. I’ll have the chapter summary and then at the end a little tidbit of how I would have done it differently or just some general info or musings. Please note that I never finished the series. And that as of this writing. The last episode viewed was the first half of A Changelings in the Crystal Empire. Though I did view a few snippets of later episodes. So, keep in mind. What if there was some significant change or event in the series later on. I don’t know.

Author's Note:

Just an intro of things to come