This story is a sequel to Discord in Hell (Not Literally)
In a universe where things went differently, Twilight Sparkle reports to Princess Celestia on her findings regarding the death and subsequent apparent re-emergence of Discord. This is a sequel to "Discord In Hell (Not Literally)", although really more like a prequel; that story is mature-filtered for a reason and this story will probably make little sense without it, but this story, while dark, is not explicit and therefore some people who prefer not to read mature fics might see it on their feed.
There is now a series page: Elements of Opposition
Chapters (1)
Love the concept; it's a little dark for me, but intriguing enough that I might want to read the rest. What IS the opposite of Magic?
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Order. Magic is a means of imposing the will of sentient beings on the universe to break the rules of the universe. When it is simply breaking the rules, magic is Chaos; when it is breaking the rules in a consistent and structured way that many magic users can participate in, magic is Harmony. Order, however, is science and logic and physics and the baseline rules by which the universe works; therefore Order is in opposition to Magic.
4334684 I thought that might have been it (or something like "Nature," the natural order of things), seeing as it's in Twilight's signature and all, but I wasn't sure. Thanks ^^ reading The Elements of Opposition now. Great concept.
Huh. You'd think she'd be wearing the Diadam of Order in the cover art.
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You assume I can draw. :-) I composited that from several different screenshots, and there was no way I could also have worked in the Element of Magic (though if I could have, a simple color change would turn it into an Element of Opposition; half the gem looks like the Element of Magic and the other half is colorless.)
That's a pretty ominous formulation, when you consider that Pinkie horribly murders them.
1. Criminals - Sounds okay for a moment, until one remembers that (a) Equestria probably normally either has no capital punishment or capital punishment only for incredibly-severe crimes. So, who is Pinkie killing here? Murderers? Rapists? Armed robbers? Brawlers? Tax evaders? Violators of complex safety regulations? Relevant story here is Robert Silverberg's "Caught in the Organ Draft."
2. Dissidents - Was this originally even illegal, before Celestia went mad? Is it illegal, or is Twilight Sparkle simply kidnapping and having Pinkie kill Ponies with opinions of which she disapproves? Are we talking rebel conspirators? Political critics? Annoying gossip columnists?
3. Others Who Are A Drain On Society - Very open-ended, and very sinister. The indolent? The crippled? The terminally ill? The addicted? People who Twilight Sparkle just dislikes? I see somepony as harmless as Berryshine or who has specific handicaps, such as Derpy, possibly falling into this category.
Twilight has become a logical-positivist c. 1915 Progressive monster.
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Jewel thieves, at least. (I forgot to put it in my notes, but the victim shown in EoO comes from the comics -- a jewel thief named Rough Diamond. Importantly, a non-violent, trickstery jewel thief.)
And I kinda worry about what may have happened to Flim and Flam.
I do feel like even evil Pinkie couldn't go through with murdering Derpy. But ponies she doesn't know personally, with the same condition, may be fair game. (Unlike Cupcakes Pinkie, EoO Pinkie does not harm ponies she cares about. She justifies her own acts to herself by convincing herself her victims are "mean" ponies, and if she knows otherwise because they're friends of hers, then she wouldn't kill them.) Things in this universe happened differently, so Lightning Dust may not have screwed up and endangered others, and Suri Polomare may never have had an opportunity to plagiarize from Rarity, and certainly Trixie never challenged Twilight to a magic duel (if she did, it would have been very, very short; the Diadem of Order is at least as powerful as the Alicorn Amulet if you know how to tap it properly. It doesn't actually grant Twilight any additional power, just gives her an insane amount of control over the raw forces of magic, allowing her to tap her own unicorn potential to its fullest and draw on external sources of magic. However, after a year of chaos it's unlikely that Trixie even cared about Twilight humiliating her anymore; I suspect pretty much everyone in Equestria divides their lives into Before Discord, During Discord and After Discord, where During falls into "let us never speak of this again" and Before is kind of irrelevant.) But any of them might have qualified if they did something like what they did in canon. And Gilda should probably stay out of Equestria. :-)
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Oh, crap, her? That's cruel ...
Especially since in canon they personally tick off Applejack. Twice. Though that may have been butterflied away, as both take place after Discord's first appearance on the show.
Their cutie marks imply they may be renegade Apples.
I suspect that the madness of Celestia and the Element Bearers may be creating an awful lot of dissidents, too.
Ooooh, crap. They know . . .
They know. THEY KNOW. Internal screaming and maybe some external screaming.