Humanity as a race has finally fallen and Earth has been purified. Equestria is now a stronger nation thanks for all it's new inhabitants, the newfoals, formerly humans before the purification of Earth.The celestial sisters rejoiced in their thrones, because they drove humanity to a new step of happines though the ponification and assimilation of all the humans into Equestria. Or so they thought.
Led by a mysterious stallion of indomitable will and resolution, far away of equestrian frontiers, a city stood defiant against Equestria itself as the last hope of humanity, maybe not humans anymore at the surface but at heart. With the last remnants of human knowledge inside the minds of the dwellers of this thriving city, will they be able to recover their identities and freedom? Or they are going to succumb against the problems of forming a independant state from Equestria?
A/N: This is my first shot at something as complex as The Conversion Bureau universe. I'll take mainly the original premise of this universe plus some adds from here and there, so you can look at it as a personal view about it.
Don't expect frequent updates on this, since I want to think each chapter. Anyway if this little thingy manages to be liked I can think about be more swift with the chapters, but I'm a very inconstant and tend to take far too time to write.
By the way, I hope you like this story!
Special and big thanks to Jack Kellar for spotting errors and edit the story thus far to make it more readable. (Damn my lack of english vocabulary)
PD: Cover made with a screenshot from the game Anno 2070 (All rights reserved to their respective owners)
Editor: Jack Kellar
Oh my!
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A Conversion Bureau where humans have lost, but DOESN'T glorify the gentle or violent genocide with unconditional acceptance and happiness?
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You have my complete and undivided attention.
praise the void you have pleased me
pretty good. the whole loss of negative emotion seems to be a nagging feeling i've gotten after how big of a storm it got in some stories and i never really like pure god princesses since it has too many troubles. the idea of a new nation is nice. tone has amazing new elements. i hope this prospers.
"But we can force to accept us."
God I hate the CB ponies, they are a bunch of idiots. I like the Not alone version in which humanity wins and the other species know Celestia can and will transform all those she doesn't like.
but in the end there is something no one ever adresses in their CB stories.
Why?
Why did the ponies come here, invade another world, brainwash their people? What made them decide they have the right? What were they thinking? Why did they stop at this world?
...Good heavens.
The idea is brilliant. But great stretches of your writing are horrible.
I'll expand on this at a saner hour.
1301289 Those are good questions but I'm afrad that I can't answer them
and I didn't dwell on it too much since it isn't too relevent (in story terms).
1301348 I know, I try to write properly but it is hard when english isn't my mother language
1301565 You are right, on both cases. I based the goverment system in Plato's Republic, with some tweaks to have it adapted to a modern society; and yes english isn't my first language but I try to write it as good as I can. Sadly I learn on my own, mostly reading other's stories and playing videogames, so I tend to have a lot of problems to write properly.
1301173 1301082 1301047 Glad you liked the story. I hope to keep it up in the next chapters.
1301190 I don't have an answer to that my friend but now I can imagine him with that voice... damn
1301626
get an editor that will help a lot
1301687 Yeah, I need one, and seeing the comments I figure that it would be good to be better sooner than later
grandiose
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1301626
Neither is it mine.
1302288 Oh lol, I made a huge mistake there, I was trying to say "my" isntead of "your"
... or was it correct? damn now I'm pretty confused 
(Beyond the point of your reply, but helped me to correct that mistake, or maybe not)
Wow, This is interesting im quite glad you made a CB story where ponified humans arn't mindless zombies prasing Celestia. Instead we have a well rounded character who is a newfoal and despises All of Equestria.
I love it, I love every second of it. Hope to see more!
"But… but why? The princess just wants to be friends of your… nation”
Something that needs to be addressed, like I mention before. A sign of friendship is not invading another world, taking their people's identity, land, knowledge and the crowning yourself the ruler of that world. Doesn't matter how much Celestia tries to twist it as a good action, she is a tyrant and a conqueror, and Twilight is a blind idiot for following her. Luna, I always suspected that the real Luna was NMM and this loyal Luna in the CB was some sort of prototype, a brainwashed pony loyal to Celestia.
I hope they retake their world and kick the ponies out back into their world.
... Twilight... you utter fucking bitch!!!
Hmm. Interesting how you portrayed Luna and Twilight as the tyrants while Celestia's the reasonable ones.
And I love how you had the ponified Humans reject their new forms by using artificial hands or in one drastic case, self-mutilation.
Also, I have to agree, it's mostly coherent and grammatically sound but sometimes there are some odd uses of words.
Keep up the good work!
Imma gon' try and read this... Ugh... Come on brain let's give this a chance...
But it's TCB! You and I know it's full of BULLSHIT!
I know! But... Let's just give this one a chance. Besides... It's a deconstruction... Maybe it will have an acceptable pro-human ending.
Ok, I'll bite. But if they better find a way to revert the potion!
Very impressive friend.
I like where this is going, nearly lost me at the beginning with the description, but I decided to give it a chance.
Glad I did.
Very different from that horrendous TCB: The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society story. This one actually shows humanity rising up after the effects and stand against the tide.
Hopefully, whatever this Twilight does, it blows up in her face.....
Really really badly.
Yes, yes... This is relevant to my interests.
Proceeed...
1301348
What this guy said. The concept is great (if perhaps built off the story The Conversion Bureau: Still Human), but the execution was really sloppy. Get yourself a beta reader/proofreader or two, pronto - your writing will improve noticeably if you do so.
Oh my God. You know a story is worth all the features and the thumbs when the very first chapter contains Crowning Moment of Awesome after Crowning Moment of Awesome.
The concept of this, besides following a completely original premise, and one I can applaud while standing, is very complex but understandable. And the best? It feels natural. The way you're toying with the TCB's defining characteristics is genius.
Another positive point goes for Socrates. He's already an extremely solid character. Rational and cold, perfectly capable of the passive hostility that Equestria just doesn't have an answer for, but he's still a person with the few flaws that have been shown. I can only wish I can write someone like him in the future.
Now for the bad part: your writing is skilled, but not that skilled. You have several typos and syntax errors, some of which, like
can lead to wrong interpretations. You better get a beta reader; considering how good this thing is, it won't be hard.
P.S.: this is what I think should be New Athens' theme:
EDIT: No pony emoticons out of respect for the New Athenians! And the correction for the above typo, as I see it, is "But we can't force you to accept us".
EDIT 2: Changed the theme to something less purely militaristic and a little darker.
Hurm.
Your grammar leaves much to be desired (mostly grammar tags), as does your pacing (ludicrous speed) and execution (clumsy). However, as you've noted, English is not your first language, so you get a minor pass on grammar, for writing something that's actually coherent. Still something you'll want to work on, though. (Major one: You're missing so much punctuation, mostly around grammar.)
Stepping over to simple storytelling, you've omitted so many details, you've gone past "mysterious" and into "bloody confusing". A prime example is the chairs in the meeting between Socrates and the Princesses - you said they don't match their anatomy. And yet, Socrates is sitting. Everyone present is, physically, equine. So what the hell? Is Socrates' chair the only equine-model one, or is there some anthropomorphic pony bullshittery going on?
In addition, ponies shouldn't be walking on hind legs for any real stretch of time. There's a reason horses don't walk on two legs, and that's because their skeletons and body structure are literally not designed for that. You've got New Athenites walking about on their hind legs 24/7; balance issues aside, expect chiropractors to have their work cut out for themselves in like, six in-universe months.
Bringing opinions to bear, I disagree horribly with your potion's suppressing effects on violence. It's probably the cruelest serum I've ever heard of, and if there ever was a serum that would drive humans to all-out war, that would be it. A serum that allows free thought, then restrains said thoughts to be less aggressive. It's like a mental choke-chain leash. While this would be great anywhere else, I find it hard to believe that Purification just came and went without any fuss from humans, as it has been implied. No creature willingly walks into slavery, and humanity would have to be making sweet, sweet love to the Idiot Ball to not realize something's wrong from the Newfoals.
And if you're going to go the "serum is brainwashing" route, then how come the newfoals are (essentially) rebelling? Shouldn't that brainwashing be kicking in, suppressing the urge to go against the Crown and/or exclude other ponies?
Long story short, you've gone at this half-cocked, I feel. Selectively applying certain effects and not following through with consequences. Poor form.
You've had your newfoals stick to human tech where-ever possible. Great. But with the Purification wiping out all of Earth, their capacity to create most technologies should be severely handicapped, even with the best human minds helping them. Five years is not enough to rebuild infrastructure to the level you've described - they should be at a level of tech approaching mid-1990's at best, not early 2100, which is what I think of when you talk about "flying vehicles" in a city. (Don't argue they're planes. Who would use a plane to hop from one side of a town/city to the other?)
All told, I firmly believe that this is a story at draft-level, and needs a great deal of work.
Maybe it’s just me but I’m having a bad feeling about the future of New Athen. It feels like they are desperately trying to cling on to their humanity with these prosthetic arms and their attempts to always walk on their hind legs. That looks like they are in denial and refuse to accept reality. They are Ponies now and that’s not going to change anytime soon. I’m not saying that they have to be happy but they need to accept the fact and Humanity is more than just having a different body.
They could spend their energy on more productive thing but instead they are forcing everybody to wear artificial limbs 24-hours a day because everything is designed for human hands instead of hooves.
Also the whole isolation thing is understandable considering all that stuff that happened, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Especially since the leaders of New Athen have forbidden any contact with the outside world. It’s one thing if you don’t want an embassy but telling your people that it’s not allowed to talk with “evil foreigners” isn’t very democratic.
All in all it would surprise me if that city turns into a second Rapture.
Now to the ponies: Twilight, Luna and Celestia are out of character but that’s probably mandatory for an Anti-TCB fic. Thankfully they seems to act more like the “Not Alone” ponies who were still “evil” but at least had some personality and believed to do something good. That leaves room for character development. Plus you made Luna “evil”, too. I can’t thank you enough for that. I’m so sick of all these stories where Luna is the “good sisters”.
Despite the negative tone I’m still looking forward to the next chapter of the story. The idea isn’t new but you’re taking a different route. I’m wondering what Twilight is up to. Hopefully it’s not some kind of brainwashing but instead a well-meaning attempt at showing them that it’s not so bad to be a Pony. Granted it will still fail spectacular but it makes her character at least a bit more likeable.
1327151 No one in New Athens is being forced into anything by other New Athenians, yanno.
1327314
1327381 The first one is a basic necessity, not an order. About the second, I'm pretty sure it comes in the terms of agreement when the newfoal comes in.
I'm going to let the author answer more of those.
First of all... wow... and I mean WOW. I never expected my story to have such a warm welcome despite my mistakes doing it. Thanks to all of you who gave this a shot and read it. Really, thanks a lot
.
Second (and the last "general" thing) I'll try to get at least a proofreader, but I don't know when so I apologize for the 'sloppy' writing as someone said above
1323309 Let's see, I'll try to explain myself a little (the necessary but not being a total egghead since this is a work of fiction); the chairs are based in human chairs so they can sit apparently as we do (like Lyra) so it is uncomfortable but usable. Socrates didn't sit as a way to show some respect, but in a normal meetin him and the other council members will sat on their respective chairs, not during long periods of time but the necessary at least.
They try to walk as humans but they aren't forced to. Instead they receive help if they want to do so to ease the pain or to teach how to walk that way.
About the serum... I think every person who reads these stories has their own 'version' of it in mind, this is just a different angle of the same thing, more or less. Before the Purification is supposed to be a scenery of battles and resistance against ponification and Equestria, but since the story is after that there is no point to talk much about it, just some bits if necessary. About the 'rebellion', I thought the serum will be more effective on those who less will or just willing to be a pony, so it isn't like brainwashing but surpressing some tendencies, with less effectiveness on some individuals than others.
About the city will say that it's just logical that in the future the new processing and bulding systems will be far more efficient than the actual ones. It's just the logical path. I can assure you that here on Europe around 1950 an hydroelectric dam was built and put online to the electric network in a bit more than six months (working all day), so it is assumable that in seventy years we coud do far better than that. Count also the aid of magic during construction and you have an incredible construcion rate. I am with you though that vehicles are a bit too early, but heck where is a good futuristic city without your flying cars or bikes?
Glad that you took your time to read and to write such a comment, I really apreciate the backup and all of your opinions. This way I can try to go better. Thanks again for your time.
1327151 Of course they are trying to not accept the reality. Nobody wants their world turn upside down and then live happilty ever after, right? Even so they aren't walking over their hind legs or using the false hands at all times.
1327314 was right, nobody forces them to use the hands, but encourages that, at least, they have one with them in order to use some devices. Plus, having hands it's an advantage to all the pony species: The Earth Ponies and Pegasi can manipulate objects as well as any Unicorn and the last ones can use then instead of magic, not wasting their energy in mundane tasks. It's more a commodity they have for living there.
THey not forbid any contact, just any outsider with them, wich isn't the same. A citizen can go in a journey to Appleloosa, for example, to see family or friends and then came back, because they will have some kind of ID, but the outsiders can't be in the city. Also, I never said it was a pure democracy. It is more than a meritocracy with some democratic tweaks. The most important affairs will be decided in a referendum with a minimum of 60% of the approval, or else the council will decide. I hacen't explained that yet because I was going to do so in the future, but since you mentioned about the goverment ways I decided to write it now.
Thank you for your time writing the comment, I appreciate your opinions and they make me think about my own work and what I need to do better.
1327412 Glad you liked my story, and man thank you very much for all of your comments. It seems that you catched pretty well the story and well I didn't expected really this amount of support and opinions. It seems that I did something right after all, even when this was an experiment for me.
1327151
Wow, you sound just like Twilight. Allow me to enlighten you, mi amigo. First off, the ponies commited an unjust, unfiar, unrational, unnessecary, and just downright wrong genocide. Not only have they forcefully ponified every human on Earth, even though they didn't want or have need it, but they've also stolen their land from them and destoryed everything they own. Their are no words to describe how evil that is.
However, there is, ironically, a beacon of hope. The newfoals have broken away from the insidious tyrants and formed their own city for all newfoals to call their real home. It's all the human culture they have left after the ponies wrongfully destroyed it. They are trying to preserve what the ponies destoryed.
Think about it, if a another country invaded your country and forcebly replaced your culture with theirs, would you just let them do it? I would try to get out of there and preserve my country's culture. Keep the fire of my people burning. That's exactly what the Athenians are trying to do, preserve the culture of humanity, the same culture that the ponies are trying to snuff out. No matter how you slice it, the ponies are the wrong doers.
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1323309
I agree with much of what you say HOWEVER
At the end of the day this is a fan fiction which goes against the nature of most of the characters nature in MLP . Its set in a world of dragons, griffons, pastel coloured ponies and other assorted mythological stuff. Suspend your disbelief.
Anyways keep going author, this is shaping up to be one fine story!
1323309 Equestrians aren't horses. If you care to notice, they assume several positions in the show that absolutely no horse would be able to naturally. From there, walking bipedally isn't a large stretch at all.
1412782
You have to remember that this is set in the TCB universe, where characters may have completely different natures.
A majority of TCB stories feature Celestia as an uncaring tyrant.
Here, she seems to be just naive and ignorant as to why people reject her.
1303221 forcing anyone to follow your intentions (no matter how good they may be) is still an evil act.
This pleases the doctor. Continue at once!
Not to be a bother or anything, but uhh...
are you still writing more material for this? or....
or what?
1703110 Don't worry, you have the right to ask. I'm working on it right now. I had a very bad writer's block and I needed to work on another story before this one.
1706192
my my, then I have something to look forward to
Is this dead? Because it was really freaking awesome.
1766371 No, it isn't. It's just that I had to write another story at the same time plus some personal problems. RIght now I had almost completed the next one, I hope to have it ready for my editor during the next week
Please god don't die now
1806701 I'm on it, sorry if it takes me too much time
I really don't want to make people wait for the next chapter but I had less free time to write than I thought lately
1806792 So a new chapter is coming at least
1810857 Yeah, I'm doing the translation to enligsh right now, and after that I need to do the "second part" of the chapter since I decided to do it this way. With the holidays coming up soon I'll have enough time to work on it. College sucks when they flood you with homework.
This story is awesome! I can't wait for the next chapter.
Also I was wondering where you got the picture of the city from. It looks really cool.
can't wait to see more
This story is absolutely fantastic
MOAMOARMMOARMOARMAOMRAOMOARMORMAOR
MOAR
when we going to get an update?
There is some very good stuff here. I can understand them wanting nothing to do with the ponies but why isolate themselves from the diamond dogs, the griffins, zebras and dragons?
Also I'd like to say that you are a very brave person to write a fan fic in a second language and post it on a site like this
. That's just awesome.
1703110
1706192
Pssst....