When The World Bets Against You

by Tie RoamingHooves

This Bitter Earth

Earth 2037... The population of the planet has finally reached ten billion people. Mother nature has long since receded to the far corners of the lands it once covered to make way for the sprawling cities that now cover the face of the planet. In the years following The Great War, as its being called internationally, humanity has made a monumental effort to reduce pollution as landfills have grown to staggering sizes. Some countries have had to export their waste as their streets began to fill with trash.

The pollution in the air in and near cities has grown to near toxic levels but have since been reduced with the recent pushes for environmental protection. A lot of the world’s animal population is now in captivity and they’d all be considered endangered about twenty years ago.

Some say that the environment is doomed and it is far too late to go back. Global Warming was proven irrelevant as the planet's temperatures plunged into a small nose dive after ash rose from a volcanic eruption in Indonesia in the year 2023. Climates across the globe are starting to recover now but a new threat has taken the planet. An asteroid has streaked in from beyond the solar system. Its flight trajectory puts it on a collision course with Earth when it comes back around the sun leaving a 25% error margin. Its an asteroid no more than eight miles wide which is what they say is larger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. The only things that would survive is subterranean bacteria and some organisms in major deep ocean trenches.

Governments across the planet are brainstorming ways to deal with this this event and to prevent it from happening. The president of the United States, Anthony Freemont, had ordered seven Class-Five Nuclear missiles to be launched at the oncoming space rock much to the dismay of his scientific advisers. This means the Earth is going to be subject to a meteor showers that will end up not burning up entirely in the Earth’s atmosphere in the next three months as instead of deflecting the asteroid, it only caused it to kick out more space debris.

It has been known that humanity could effectively create stable wormholes that, with the right calculations, could end up anywhere. The main push was to use it to find habitable worlds to relocate the entirety of the human race, or the more realistic approach of only a small number of them, and start over.

The first bout of hope came from a world discovered in early 2036; probes were being sent out but unfortunately the star it orbited went supernova and destroyed it. The crushing feeling of that lost hope was short lived as another planet was found. This one however, was inhabited. It then became a race as to what we could do to move humanity to said planet without disrupting the population until the probes caught something. These beings seemed to possess some kind of ability that allowed them to perform extraordinary feats.., or at least the ones with horns could. It was later discovered that this species called themselves ponies and more strangely enough spoke English with the loose exception of their own conjunctions of “Everypony” and “Somepony” etc. Soon after, a probe caught two of the “Unicorns”, as they appropriately referred to ponies with horns as, talking about the use of magic.

Magic had been proven to be a reality on earth in in early 2032 after a cult leader gained audience with a popular television talk show host and performed feats of magic live. This cult is no longer considered as such but has grown exponentially since that time. It is more widely accepted as a religion but technically is not so. It has ideologies but is more suited to be called a lifestyle rather than that of a religious practice. The group know as The Order of the Fallen Oak has agreed that the safety of the earth takes precedence over anything and has agreed to allow for one of their mages to help with a project as requested by the United States.

This mage, unbeknownst the The Order, is a world away running from what she fears is going to spell her capture and subsequently the end of humanity.

Author's Note:

I Have no idea how this one will go over with you guys. If you don't like it, scream at me in the comments. Also, another short chapter. If you guys want longer chapters say, 1k words or so, let meh know, if not well... let meh know. But longer chapters mean longer waits. You guys are awesome and thanks for sticking with a sad, miserable excuse of an author such as myself.

Also, Merry Christmas you magnificent bastards.

Starting to procrastinate the act of procrastination,

--RoamingHooves--

Comments

[TypewriterError]

For me it works. Carry on!

[shirotora]

I like it

[Totallyrandomdude]

Me like.

[Volscon]

You could always add more descriptions and explanations with longer chapters. You need more descriptions and explanations.

[seeker9709]

A little back story never killed anyone. Great chapter

[TheRealDazz]

Longer chapters are welcome, doesn't matter if we'll have to wait little longer. So carry on

[Tie RoamingHooves]

1853568>>1853557 Back story and explanations will come when They fit within the story. I don't want to be like "BAM! SUDDEN BACK STORY" like this chapter. I'd like to get the characters to explain it rather than be introduce it in narration. I do need to be more descriptive. Its one of my weaknesses. I can try.

1853732 That's one vote for longer chapters.

[Treilacl]

sad, miserable excuse of an author such as myself.

No! NO! ....BAD! ...bad RoamingHooves! Bad! Don't beat yourself like that! Bad!

Now that that's out of the way... personally I would prefer longer chapters but that's really up to you. If you'd rather have shorter chapters and update more often then that's fine! I have to say I don't really mind this chapter on what's going on in earth today but just something to keep in mind is that you could have played around and kept us, the readers, guessing but that's really just a note for other stories.

It does remind me a little bit of "Project Sunflower." Just becasue of the "human becomes a pony" and the "doomsday" thing going on... and of course the world first cult thingy. But that's not really something I think you should worry about and just write as you see fit. Looking forward to your next updates!

[Raistlin]

Too many events condensated in too few words. Vote for longer, more detailed chapters.

[Tie RoamingHooves]

1858056 Okay thats two votes for longer chapters and none against. I'm going with longer chapters.

[thewookie1]

If I were the humans, I would continue pelting the asteroid with nukes, you have nothing to lose afterall. Another thing I thought of is why don't they create a wormhole that sends the asteroid to the supernova sun system?

[Tie RoamingHooves]

1858308 I haven't gotten to the point of the story that explains it but the human created side of the wormhole would be contained in a Stabilization Gate which is self explanatory. The few that exist are located on earth and would not be able to accommodate an asteroid that is eight miles wide.

[Veradon Chimera]

The problem with this chapter is that it is a list of facts which break from the narrative. If I were you, I would have incorporated this into the previous chapter and have Ashley reminisce on the back story, right before Rainbow and Spike show up.
Interesting story though. It's got my attention.