Everything, Including the Stars, Is Falling
Twilight Sparkle struggled to stay aloft as the freezing winds whipped around her. Not for the first time, she wished she could have pulled rank and ordered the pegasi to reschedule the snowstorm for a more convenient time, but her journey had long since taken her far afield of their jurisdiction. Indeed, the desires of an Equestrian princess counted for little in the Dragon Lands, even under the best of circumstances, and the best of circumstances had passed years ago.
To be honest, Twilight wasn’t entirely certain that it was actually snowing. It was certainly true that white powder was buffeting her from all sides, but here in the mountains, it could easily have been the wind blowing around snow that had fallen days, weeks, or perhaps years ago. If there was any silver lining, it was that she had at least heeded Rainbow Dash’s advice to bundle up before setting out from Equestria, though she was starting to wonder if turning down her friend’s offer to fly with her was wise.
Twilight shook her head rapidly as she banished the thought from her mind. Rainbow Dash, after all, wasn’t an alicorn, and she didn’t have the benefit of extended youth—and though she’d never admit it, she was no longer as spry as when she was flying with the Wonderbolts. Besides, there’d be more than enough trouble if one pony was caught in Draconian airspace, and Twilight was not about to risk a scenario where one of her friends was forced to stay in hostile territory as “collateral” for a hastily drawn-up bargain. More importantly, though, she wasn’t sure how Spike would react... assuming she could find him out here.
Of course, in these conditions, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder why she was even bothering to look for him in the first place. True, she was the one who had asked her closest advisors to come up with a potential solution to Garble’s apparent desire for conquest, but she hadn’t expected Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer to suggest anything like this. Indeed, if they hadn’t presented the idea together, Twilight almost certainly would have dismissed it as a thinly veiled attempt to trick her into revisiting one of her own friendship lessons, this time as the student. Actually, now that I think about it, they probably are hoping a friendship lesson happens.
Twilight sighed and tried to shove her friends’ unfounded optimism to the side, because she had to admit that the more practical aspects of the plan were certainly feasible enough to warrant a genuine effort. Celestia, Luna, and Cadance certainly thought so, but of course, they’d been deferring to her judgment on foreign policy for more than a decade. Still, Spike had been a well-regarded Dragon Lord before his political undoing, and there was every reason to think that he still had a support base among his former subjects, especially considering his successor’s belligerence. Even if he wasn’t thrilled to see the pony who’d hatched him (and he almost certainly wouldn’t be), surely he’d be willing to consider a plan that could return the Bloodstone Scepter to his claws, right?
As if in response to her internal monologue, a sudden updraft unbalanced the princess and sent her crashing into a snowbank on the side of one of the larger mountains. Ugh, Twilight thought to herself as she stood up. Why am I the one who’s doing this? Surely we’d get a better response if Rarity made the offer.
But then, Starlight had already considered this option during the original proposal. “Setting aside the fact that she can’t fly, if you send Rarity, Spike will probably just see that as a blatant attempt to manipulate his emotions, and I doubt he’d take kindly to that.”
And naturally, Sunset had a follow-up at the ready before Twilight could raise any other objections: “Besides, if this plan is going to work at all, we need to be certain that he won’t change his mind after he starts working with you again, because you will need to cooperate with each other. If this plan is a non-starter, it’s better to know it right from the beginning.”
The reasoning had seemed sound enough at the time, but that was before she’d gained first-hoof experience with the local weather. Twilight stretched out her wings to take off, but winced as a twinge of pain shot across her left side. Great. I must have pulled something. Right now, she needed to find a place to rest, at least until the winds calmed down. Twilight tightened the scarf around her neck and began to trudge through the snow, searching for anything that might provide her with some adequate shelter.
As her teeth chattered in the chilly air, Twilight’s thoughts turned back to her early efforts to locate Spike. She’d actually begun with a thorough search of Equestria, since there hadn’t been any reason to assume he would stay in the Dragon Lands after his abdication, and Equestria was where he’d been born and raised. With the assistance of the kingdom’s domestic intelligence services, she’d scoured every obscure corner of the land, looking for signs of the dragon. She’d canvassed the the deserts, trudged through swamps, trekked through mountains, canyons, and forests, and she’d even mapped out the subterranean network of caves beneath Equestria, searching for unexplored nooks and crannies that could comfortably fit an adult dragon, but Spike was nowhere to be found.
Neither was he located in the territory of any of Equestria’s allies—assuming, of course, that those allies had been truthful when they claimed that Spike was not within their borders. But Twilight was fairly certain that she could trust them. The yaks would have disdained Spike’s decision to relinquish power without a fight, and would probably have banished him from their realm if they really believed he was present. The griffons would have dropped vague hints that Spike’s location could be exchanged for a larger aid package, but they hadn’t bothered to pretend that it was even a remote possibility. And as for the Saddle Arabians, well, they had conceded that they didn’t know whether or not Spike might be hiding within their lands, which was why they had permitted Twilight to conduct a search herself (accompanied by a retinue of dignitaries). However, all Twilight found in Saddle Arabia was, as expected, sand and oil, which was why she had now turned her attention to the Dragon Lands themselves.
In retrospect, this had been the obvious starting point. The last place Twilight wanted to be at that moment was the Dragon Lands, which was why it was the most likely place for Spike’s hermitage. At least her current location wasn’t a complete shot in the dark: Spike was almost certainly not living near any population centers, or else there would have been more sightings of him. As it was, though, the most recent report of a dragon matching his description was several years old, and placed him in a northern volcanic mountain range, where the sub-zero temperatures mixed with the heat radiating from the active cones to create some of the nastiest weather Twilight had experienced in a very long time.
That weather wasn’t any less nasty on the ground as it was in the air, and Twilight’s search for shelter became a search for anything as the winds whipped flakes of snow off the ground and began blowing them all around her, making her feel like she was walking around with a white bucket on her head. Her teeth started chattering as she considered her options. The easy solution would be to use her unicorn magic, but Equestria’s intelligence services still hadn’t determined whether the dragons had acquired the means to detect it, so that would have to be a last resort if she wanted to keep her presence here a secret. She could try making a snow shelter, but compacting the snow here to the right consistency without magic would take far too much time. Of course, there was always the option of ignoring the pain in her wing and taking off, but that—
Twilight Sparkle’s inner musings were abruptly cut off as she tripped over a large rock beneath the snow and plunged down a crevasse that she hadn’t noticed before it was too late. She managed to beat her wings a few times before the pain in her side was joined by another pain in the back of her head as she collided with the side of the cliff. In the split second before she blacked out, one thought passed through her mind: Damn it....
———————
The first thing Twilight noticed as consciousness returned to her was the hard surface beneath her body. The second thing she realized was that the air felt much warmer than it had when she’d fallen, and more to the point, it felt like air, rather than a pile of snow. Twilight opened her eyes to get a look at her surroundings. She was in a cave of some sort, though at first, all she noticed was the light coming from the entrance, where the storm was still raging. Soon, though, she started noticing more details—stalagmites, stalactites, columns of limestone. As the walls came into focus, she saw veins of other minerals running throughout, but these were easily lost among the jagged shadows of the limestone cave features.
I don’t think I would have tumbled this far into a cave by accident, she thought to herself. Did someone bring me here?
For a few moments, she simply stared at her surroundings, until she thought to wonder what light source was actually allowing her to make everything out. Almost as soon as she began to raise her head to get a better look, she heard a smooth, resonant baritone behind her.
“You’re awake.”
“Spike?” Twilight said with obvious surprise as she scrambled to her feet and turned around. “Spike, is that you?”
He didn’t need to answer, now that she could see the large, purple dragon sitting by a roaring fire. Yet, despite all that had happened between them, Twilight couldn’t help but think of the adorable baby dragon she’d hatched decades ago, even though Spike barely resembled his youthful self. To be sure, his scales were still purple, and his spines, eyes, and underbelly were still various shades of green, though all of his hues had become slightly darker and bolder with age. His neck, however, was much longer, as was his tail, and when he hit puberty, he’d finally sprouted an impressive pair of wings, with a span wide enough to cover four stalls in the Ponyville farmers’ market before he’d finally stopped growing. He may not have been the biggest dragon Twilight had ever seen, but he’d certainly turned out to be one of the most visually striking.
It wasn’t long before Spike had left Twilight to live on his own, largely because he was too big to comfortably fit through the doors of her castle. Between that day and this one, Spike’s appearance had changed very little. Oh, to be sure, he had acquired quite a few more scuffs and scars through the years, including a prominent scar on his left eyebrow, but none of them detracted from his overall appearance. He still exuded an air of authority in his bearing that gave the impression that he was a natural leader—which is precisely what he had been before everything went sour.
“You’ve been looking for me,” Spike said with no expression visible in his face.
Twilight nodded. “Did you already know that, or was it just an educated guess?”
“A little of both,” Spike replied as he shifted his weight to lean back against the wall of the cavern. “This cave system is extensive enough for me to come in contact with packs of Diamond Dogs every now and again. I occasionally trade gems from my personal supply for information.”
Twilight followed the gesture Spike made with his claws until she noticed the modest pile of gemstones in an out-of-the-way nook. “Just gemstones? No coins or any other treasure?”
Spike’s eyelids narrowed. “No,” he said. “I have no use in my hoard for anything I can’t eat.”
Twilight’s eyes darted between the large dragon and his meager cache. “Um, are you getting enough to eat?”
“That is my concern, not yours.”
Twilight winced. “I’m sorry. It’s just, well, I still... never mind.” She didn’t want Spike to think she was trying to play with his emotions, because that probably wouldn’t work.
“So,” Spike said as he lowered his head closer to Twilight’s eye level, “why, exactly, have you been looking for me?”
“You mean you don’t already know?”
“Off the top of my head, I can think of several possible reasons why you’d be spending so much effort to find me, but I don’t really have any basis to think that any of them is more plausible than the others.”
Twilight let out a sigh. “Well... we need your help.”
Spike’s face remained impassive, though he did raise an eyebrow questioningly. “Indeed? How so?”
“Well, I’m sure you’ve heard about Garble’s buildup of forces near the Equestrian border, and everyone knows how much he despises ponies. We feel that it’s only a matter of time before he invades, and there’s no reason to think he’ll pull any punches. He doesn’t want our resources; he wants revenge for a lifetime of imagined slights, and he’s willing to destroy Equestria if that will restore his own twisted sense of ‘honor.’ Right now, we’re... well, we’re facing a very long fight that could bring Equestria to its knees.” Twilight bit her lip, hoping that she hadn’t sounded too melodramatic.
“And what would you have me do?”
“Look, we know from our own... sources that not every dragon is on board with Garble’s plan. He’s been so focused on Equestria that he’s been neglecting local issues that are actually important to his subjects. However, at the moment, there isn’t really a strong opposition leader for those who disagree with him to rally behind. If you—”
Twilight was abruptly stopped by a stream of smoke that came blasting out of Spike’s nostrils; it was only now that she realized that his expression had transformed from indifference to disgust. “I should have known,” he said with a sneer. “Of course you’d only bother finding me to help with some political machination. And here I thought you’d come to your senses.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, her ears going flat.
“Well, in my infinite naїvété, I actually thought you may have finally admitted the error of your ways.”
Twilight managed to catch herself before giving the obvious response of “What error?” She knew exactly what Spike meant by it, but now was not the time to let the discussion get derailed by his distorted recollections. It took all of Twilight’s willpower to keep the hostility out of her voice. “Spike, Garble is a genuine threat—”
“Oh, don’t give me that nonsense. I know better than most dragons what ponies are capable of, and Garble doesn’t stand a chance. Even if he does start to make some headway, the moment the Princesses decide to get directly involved, it’ll be all over for him. He isn’t a threat; he’s an inconvenience. Or ar you seriously going to claim that you haven’t formulated dozens of contingency plans already?”
Twilight let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course, we have plans, but none of them can completely avoid hundreds if not thousands of ponies suffering before it’s all over, which is why I don’t want Garble’s invasion to start in the first place!”
“Oh, right, I forgot I was talking to the new Twilight, who only gives a damn about suffering when it’s happening in her own borders.”
“There never was an old Twilight.”
Spike reared up to his full height and began shouting. “Oh, no, there was definitely an old Twilight, because the old Twilight actually understood the importance of friendship!”
With that, any remaining restraint that Twilight had in reserve vanished. “That’s way out of line! Just because you made a foolish decision—”
“It was never about me, damn it! It was about Thorax! He had a real chance to change the entire culture of the Changelings, but he failed because you weren’t willing to do the right thing!”
“Spike, we’ve been over this. Equestria had a non-aggression treaty with the Hive, and Chrysalis had done nothing that was even close to breaking the terms of that treaty. There was no reason to risk retaliation by getting involved in their internal dispute!”
“There wouldn’t have been any retaliation if Equestria had supported the dissidents! Chrysalis would have finally been defeated for good, and the whole world would be safer!”
“You don’t know that. You put the entire might of the dragons behind Thorax, and it didn’t work.”
“Dragons don’t have pony magic. We can’t control the weather, we can’t coax plants out of the ground, we can’t devise all sorts of intricate spells, and our supreme ruler doesn’t control the damned sun! But none of that mattered, because you convinced the other princesses to stay in their castles!”
“A treaty is a promise, Spike! You can’t just break a promise without a compelling reason.”
“I just gave you a compelling reason! Chrysalis is evil, and she wasn’t about to reform. She needed to be stopped. If she actually believed you were going to hold up your side of that stupid treaty, that would mean she was completely unprepared for the decisive blow that never came, thanks to you.”
“I can’t risk the lives of my ponies, Spike.”
“But you had no trouble at all risking Thorax’s life,” Spike retorted.
“You don’t know that Thorax is dead,” Twilight countered.
“Nobody has heard from him in years.”
“Nobody has heard from you in years,” Twilight said.
Apparently, Spike didn’t have a comeback prepared, because he abruptly changed the subject. “That doesn’t matter. There’s no point in trying to change the past; it’s more trouble than it’s worth. What I don’t understand is why you just can’t admit that you were wrong.”
“And what I can’t understand is why you still think I have a guilty conscience. Spike, I can’t admit that I was wrong because I wasn’t wrong. Changelings are experts at imitating ponies, which means that getting Equestria involved would have meant complete chaos, with almost no way to tell your enemies from your allies. And as for your rather flippant idea of having Celestia use her magic to ‘solve’ the problem, if she did something weird with the sun, it would have adverse effects on everyone, friend and foe alike. You want to know the real reason Equestria didn’t get involved? It’s because I thought your plan was doomed to failure from the beginning, and you’ll never convince me that the ponies could have changed that.”
Spike grew silent. As the wind continued to howl outside the entrance of the cave, Twilight tried to decode the expression on his face: narrowed eyelids, jaw clamped shut, and thin tendrils of smoke wafting out of his nostrils. Was this pensivity, or bloody-minded stubbornness?
Twilight haltingly broke the silence. “Spike, I... I don’t know why things have to be this way. Did everything need to go so wrong over something so trivial?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Twilight realized her mistake. She tried to rush out a correction: “No, wait, I didn’t—”
“You may not have meant to say it,” Spike interrupted with a snarl, “but it’s pretty damned obvious that you believe it.”
Twilight had seen Spike get angry before. The tensing of every facial muscle; the subtle flexing of the wings to increase his apparent size; the fire that burned within his emerald-green irises as his indignation rose—all these were familiar to Twilight, but until now, she had never witnessed them being directed at her. Now, however, as Spike glared at her with barely-restrained fury, she finally understood how he had managed to compel so many dragons to sign on to his idealistic crusade, and for the first time, she was afraid of him.
She froze, like a wild animal staring at the headlamp of an approaching train, completely unsure of what to do next. She wasn’t sure how long the pair held eye contact after this. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? It felt more like an eternity passed in that cavern, with nothing but the storm and the crackle of the fire providing any background noise.
Finally, Spike spoke once more: “Get out.”
Twilight hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath; now, as she slowly exhaled, it seemed like the last shred of hope she held had slipped away, leaving nothing but an empty pang in the pit of her stomach that no food could ever satiate. She stared at the ground of the cave for a few moments before looking back up at her erstwhile friend. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but closed it again before any useless words could escape. Silently, she turned around and walked towards the entrance of the cave. As the bitter wind stung her nose, she looked back over her shoulder, but Spike was already tending to his gemstones.
Twilight Sparkle let out a sigh and took to the air for her long flight home, unable to shake the feeling that she was never going to see Spike again.
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not a fan. The logic seems all kind of flawed. Spike apparently thinsk dragons needed pony help for something when right here, right now dragons are defeating ponies.
I get the feeling Twilight is supposed to be in the wrong here, but Spike can go buck himself from what I'm seeing
I hope theirs going to be a sequel or something
I have to ask, how many dragons tried to aid Thorax, exactly? And against how many changelings? Because dragons may not have pony magic, but they're still virtually forces of nature in their own right, and changelings with nothing to hide behind or feed on don't seem like they should fare that well against a significant number of firebreathing, flying tanks. Really, Twilight convincing ponies to stay out of the conflict actually did deny the changelings some of their greatest tactical strengths. You don't send a prey species in against something specialized for predating on them.
That being said, what matters is that Spike feels that the closest friend he ever had abandoned him in his time of greatest need. Now he's just returning the favor. I'm not saying he's right—honestly, I don't think anyone involved here can be said to be right—but I understand where he's coming from. The background information strains my suspension of disbelief something awful, but the emotion on display works very well.
7605595
Garble's assault hasn't started yet. Twilight's the one who's worried; Spike is convinced that ponies will easily trump dragons in the coming conflict. Seems internally consistent to me.
7605646 he's also abandoning quite a few other friends
Interesting symmetry, here.
"Hey, I know that I was unwilling to commit my people to help your friend gain political power in a revolt against a hostile nation that attacked us before that would stop a tyrant... but could you help with this revolt in a foreign country to stop a tyrant in order to save my people?"
7605646
Honestly, way more important is this:
That's pretty damning...
Beyond that, Twilight has literally caused miracles to happen because of the bonds of friendships, and she doesn't even regret that she (apparently) didn't support Thorax in his rebellion against a tyrannical nation. She didn't even try to come up with something, from how it sounds. (Although that's just speculation. What's likely is she thought it was mildly sad but not very important, and this was probably clear in a lack of real regret in any apologies.)
And now she's come to demand Spike do the thing that he wanted her to do with Thorax?
That being said, I half expected a "then later" of Spike showing up to help with the plan, if for no other reason than because the other ponies shouldn't pay for her mistake or something, and that it would be better for the dragons for Garble not to be in charge anyway.
... Basically that it would be the "right" thing to do, to stop Garble, and Spike would want to do the right thing, even if he hates the person he's helping to do it.
I'm just really annoyed at the title right now.
"Everything is falling" is grammatically correct. "The stars is falling" is not.
While "The stars" are placed between commas, as an aside like this, the "is" is more correct.[1] However I still read it as "Everything including the stars is falling" which feels wrong to me, and the commas seem to make it worse for some reason. Which begs the question; Why not "Even the Stars are Falling"?
Do not underestimate how much a wonky title irks me. Irks me good.
[1] Don't you love self-illustrative sentences?
Oh you've got to make a sequel for this!
This story feels like the middle of something epic. Where's the rest?
Sorry, but I didn't like this very much.
With so much of the setup only implied, it's a bit too simplistic, which leaves the drama feeling heavy-handed and forced. Spike is acting like a child, and Twilight barely resembles her canon character.
7605916 yeah from a single person your argument makes sense but when said person is a political leader it dosnt have a leg to stand on
L-O-V-E-D it!! It's a real shame if it ends here, but I always enjoy Grown Spike vs. Princess Twilight stories.
7606218 The story is named after a song by Training For Utopia titled "Everything, Including the Stars, Is Falling (Baby)." The band had a thing for odd song titles.
Not entirely sure about the background political scene, but I find the rift between Twilight and Spike fascinating. The show isn't that dark (or deep), but for all of it Spike has been Twilight's little brother (or even son), yet he has to grow up someday, and in this story, I'm not sure Twilight ever realized that. The implications of Twilight calling the whole thing trivial, hm. She means that Thorax didn't really matter, he was only Spike's friend not hers, that she doesn't think Spike understood the situation, implying that this is just a temper tantrum on his part rather than him feeling betrayed and abandoned. One or all of those things?
I have no idea if Spike's plan would have worked or not, but calling it trivial, belittling him like that, was the final nail in the coffin. Doesn't help that she only showed up to ask for help, though I think Sunset and Starlight probably hoped to solve two problems at once. Yeah, sending Rarity would have been an even more blatant attempt to bribe Spike, and probably would have turned out worse (not like Rarity really treated Spike as an equal).
7606515 So Twilight sighs and calls, "Discord, we tried it the emo way and it didn't work (who'd a-thunk it, right?), so I guess we'll do it your way now."
And Discord rules the mad mad mad mad world forevers!
Anyway, given that Twilight and the others already know Chrysalis can't be trusted... why would they bother with a treaty in the first place if they never expected her to abide by it?
It'd be akin to George W. Bush suddenly making a deal with Saddam Hussein. It just doesn't seem plausible.
7606926 There are good reasons to maintain peaceful relations with one's enemies, even if it's a farce. Even if one could dictate a regime change, it can be very hard to make it stick. The GWB/SH comparison is relevant here, given the state of that country over the past decade.
7606584
You seem to forget that to save friends, in the past Twilight has literally made the worst possible tactical decisions because of hostage situations, and it still worked out. She gave up all the magical power to Tirek because her friends might die, but the power of friendship saw them through.
She was willing to sacrifice the world for them. She only lucked out that the Elements of Harmony magic activated, and she had no idea they would. And then in this case she's unwilling to risk ponies in an potentially salient plan (and apparently offered no alternate plans) to help a friend save a friend and do something that Spike no doubt saw as the right thing, save the changelings from their tyrant.
And even then, I understand that if the plan was genuinely unworkable she still had to say no. If that decision wasn't a difficult ambiguous one (where Twilight could have been totally wrong in turning down Spike, or Spike could have been totally wrong in expecting Twilight to come to his aid, depending on if the plan worked or not) this story wouldn't be as impactful.
The tragedy of a situation that would have been difficult to avoid wouldn't have been there. The reason why I'm defending Spike is mostly to show that he has a decent argument and a decent reason to believe he could be right; he's not just throwing a tantrum for no reason.
I am more biased on the emotional component of the conflict, though, where Twilight apparently doesn't consider it of any consequence that Thorax and the dissidents are now all captured, killed, or anything, and that it appears she never actually revealed that she didn't think the plan was viable. Those would have been indicators of respect for Spike's desires/actions/mindset which is important in maintaining friendships.
7606848 It took me forever to decide on "trivial." Coming up with a single word that summarized Twilight's thoughts on the matter without seeming too clunky was really difficult, and I'm still not sure if I chose the best word/phrase. (Something more accurate, like "ultimately inconsequential," just didn't sound right when I read it out loud.)
So... It's over? Or are you going to make a sequel?
I'm just commenting to say, that it looks like the Harry Potter-font
I can't in good conscious thumbs up a story with such a downer ending without an appropriate buildup, which wasn't here. As you said, it seems like this story could have used any insert excuse here part to explain the ending of the friendship. It feels forced, drama wise, to contain it all in such a small word-count. There was no genuine effort to repair the friendship, so it feels like it isn't thematic to the show and character's values. There is no evolution of a relationship or a good dialogue, and certainly no cathartic turns to it at all. Perhaps the most genuine twist was Twilight calling the entire thing trivial.
People put their foot in their mouth sometimes in conversations, but here it's used as the definitive ending, so it creates a rather sour feeling reading it when I've seen other examples of people recovering from such a misstep later on, or taking a break, or sleeping on it. Here, nope, it's The End.
I just feel disappointed having read this story.
I hope there's a sequel!
I like how Spike tells Twilight the Ponies will win, in the end. Unicorns are too OP not to have a backup plan. From teleporting hearts out of chests to a cloud of tiny floating 1mm shield discs able to spin around the caster at thousands of rotations per second... They'll win. What ever it costs.
Wow, what a story. Will there be a sequel?
7607294 Yeah, that was nice. Spike keeps it real.
I love the end.
7607037 "Trivial" was the perfect choice.
7606959 But it's the same situation. The ponies have even less reason to trust Chrysalis to abide by anything than W had to believe Saddam.
Namely because changelings can shape-shift and mind-control ponies. Not to mention they lie as a way of life.
Rather hard to build any semblance of trust with such a race/species, especially when their first announcement of their existence was a violent invasion.
Given all of these relevant issues with a treaty between changelings and ponies, we need to have some idea of why it ever occurred in the first place and why the ponies apparently have are comfortable having so little influence over an enemy they clearly cannot trust in the least.
You see, we're expected to take far too much at face value in this little story. There's no foundation for most of it, and it diverts too radically from the show's course to be plausible based solely on the events we know.
7607037
It's "imminent."
Seems pretty out of character for Twilight to choose the pragmatic but morally dubious choice there. The disagreement itself might have been more compelling in situ but as it is this mostly comes across as hard to believe.
7607959 That's more or less the point I made in my original post. The story cuts a lot of corners in terms of setup, and a lot of what is there is implied. There's not enough there there for the drama to feel natural.
Regarding the changeling situation, it would ultimately have come down to peaceful terms, or conflict. Given how messy a forced regime change can be (again, look to post-war Iraq/Afghanistan for examples), I can envision them opting for a facade of peace and playing the long game. Then again, the story doesn't spend much time developing this, despite it being the crux of the drama.
Twilight pulled something? Alicorns can pull muscles? I mean, I know they're not invincible, but I really feel like we're devaluing them hard at this point. That's like if Celestia scraped her knee.
7608324 Well, to be brutally and coldly honest in a purely logical analysis, the mess in the Middle East exists only because of restraint.
In the long-ago days, the victor would have left nothing standing and most of the population would be exterminated.
If we truly wished to simply win against such foes, it would be quite a simple affair. Victories can only be permanent when they are absolute.
Now, we have seen that it more recent times, such as with Germany and Japan, a crushing material and ideological defeat followed by rebuilding can also effect a permanent change.
Celestia is very old and experienced. She would know better than to parley with liars and draft an illusory peace certain to break. If I can see how clearly fool-hardy it is, then surely she would as well.
I think this story is a good interpretation of how a break between Twilight and Spike would work. In the show Spike clearly idolizes Twilight, especially after her ascension. So he sees her failing to live up to his idealized image of her in his time of need and he feels betrayed. Twilight, on the other hand, focuses so hard on what's "important" that she ignores the feelings of others. So as a princess she ends up prioritizing Equestria's needs over everything else, including her sense of morality. Add Twilight's stubbornness and occasional insensitivity and you have dysfunctional relationship stew.
7607240
I completely agree. There's no story here. No build-up, no conflict, no stakes, etc. The entire story is pretty much contained in the preview blurb. The only thing revealed in the story is why it happened, but that's inconsequential to what's happening now. It doesn't matter why the characters came to a falling out. It's how it affected them, how they are going to cope going forward that matters. Okay, you want to go for a downer ending, that's okay too, but you have to earn it by showing how it affected them in the past and now. Neither character here seems to care all that much. The beginning of the story has it revealed that Twilight basically had to be manipulated into doing this and thinks of it as a waste of time.
If the characters in the story don't care, the readers sure as hell won't.
The author has a good premise here. It needs fleshed out to be a story.
7608437 That is a good point, but remember that these are ponies. Those are the kind of tactics they wouldn't embrace. How many second chances did they give Discord, afterall?
Any treaty they did craft would be fragile, but the point of a treaty like that isn't just to maintain peace. Being formally at peace opens the door to things like trade and immigration, which are the foundation for a more lasting peace.
7609331 Well, the second chances to Discord are a questionable affair, writing-wise, given that the reason for his reform in the first place didn't make the slightest bit of sense. This was the same Celestia who was visibly shaken by his mere appearance in the show. The same Celestia who hoped he'd remain petrified forever, who suffered through his reign and saw the misery of the other ponies he caused for his own amusement.
Why would this Celestia then randomly decide to release an enemy like that... because maaaaaaybe he'd come in handy... some day? Maybe?
With a poor plot point like that, we have to seriously question the validity of the writing involving Discord in every following instance.
7608437
You should read more history. That kind of thing did not happen nearly as often as you seem to think - most historical warfare has tried to conquer and annex populations and their infrastructure in a reasonably intact state. Partially for moral reasons, but also for practical ones; a ruined wasteland is not useful.
Like, the Mongols would sometimes exterminate their enemies, in part because as a nomadic civilisation they had radically different priorities than sedentary, city-based ones, and they were regarded as exceptionally terrifying because of it.
7610482 If I had to try and justify the decision to reform Discord, I'd point to the Changeling invasion. It very much highlighted the weakness of both Elements and Alicorns, and the pair that defeated them now reside in a different country altogether. I can see them wanting a proper ace-in-the-hole.
Alternatively, Celestia says that Discord broke free because the Elements chose new bearers. Once the current bearers pass on, he would probably break free again, and they would just have to face him again anyway. Better to attempt reform now, with bearers already "wise to his game," than to roll the dice again in another 60 years or so.
As for how risky the plan itself was, that comes down to the actual limits of Discord's power and the mechanics of the Elements of Harmony, which the show never really defines, so it could go either way.
7610551 Actually, world-wide, it was more common for destruction and/or enslavement to be the result in many areas, especially in South and Central America and the Middle East. They may not have torn down the biggest structures (as that would have taken a long time and more resources than they'd already expended), but wooden and thatch buildings were often torched.
Slaughter of all males was also common practice. It is noted not just in the Bible, but also in the stories of the Buddah, namely with regard to what happened to his home city. It was most commonly a result after a total, crushing defeat of one side's forces or after a long siege of a city.
7610565 No, Celestia noted she and Luna couldn't use the Elements because they'd chosen new Bearers. She wasn't referring to the spell.
She had merely assumed it would be permanent and was still uncertain of why it broke.
And besides, that STILL makes no sense. To stop the changelings... whom they handily defeated on their own despite being taken utterly by surprise and WITHOUT the Elements, I might add, they decide to release the SINGLE MOST POWERFUL ENEMY THEY HAD EVER FACED TO THAT POINT, one who showed exactly no traces of remorse or regret... and hope to god they could reform him or they'd be screwed.
Yeah, not exactly the highlight of strategy there.
7610655 Yeah, the slaughter (or enslavement, but enslavement is a very different prospect than extermination) of males, particularly those of a fighting age, was more widespread, but that's of a more limited scope than total extermination.
I'm not a novice when it comes to history, Alondro. I can certainly rattle off occasions where exterminations have happened - the Harrying of the North in England, various occasions by the Mongol hordes, the fates of Carthage and Corinth, but a common thread among these is that they were departures from the norm - that's part of why they've stuck around in history, because the shocking scale of the slaughter made them famous.
If you want to say things were radically different in South/Central America and the Middle East then... No, sorry, I'm going to want some examples for that.
7610665 To quote from the episode, "I thought the spell we cast would keep him contained forever. But since Luna and I are no longer connected to the Elements, the Spell has been broken."
And yes, they (Cadance and Shining Armor) defeated the Changelings. But they are now in the Crystal Empire, not Equestria proper, and they stopped that one threat only. Considering their guards, their Princess, and their Elements couldn't stop that threat, they could easily feel the need for another line of defense.
And if we take what Celestia says at face value, Discord could no longer take the Elements from them, so they could skip straight to the end if he tried anything.
7610686 Read the Old Testament?
7610690 Huh, I recalled the line differently. But it doesn't matter to my point.
They're releasing the greatest enemy. For no stated reason. Hoping he could be reformed with no evidence that he would be. Also, taking for granted that they had somehow managed to block him from stealing the Elements when their magic had proven utterly powerless against him every single time before.
It still MAKES NO SENSE.
You can make all sorts of arguments, but they're BASELESS supposition and fanon. The fact is that the ONLY 'reason' Celestia gives is some vague notion his magic could be useful someday for some completely ambiguous purpose. Then she goes off and leaves for some meeting, leaving them alone with the greatest enemy yet revealed in the show. She NEVER mentions any concern that when the Bearers are gone, he'll break free again. There is absolutely NOTHING other than the vagaries of her single line of rationale.
Could that have been the reason? Maybe in the hands of a better writer. I've seen such stories involving that, and several were BRILLIANTLY constructed and would have served the plot point of reforming Discord in a magnificent manner. But all we have is what Celestia gives for the SOLE REASON she's attempting it: his magic might be useful for good someday.
All that risk, all the potential for failure... because of a completely uncertain and ambiguous possibility of future utility.
Any typical analysis of risk-reward given the fact up to that point would stand STARKLY in favor of not bothering.
If an explanation actually existed in the minds of the show writers, then why wasn't it stated or implied? Why did the rationale behind such a risky move, a plot point which would otherwise be elaborated on in detail simply because it's such a tremendous risk that most writers would realize implicitly it demands a strong and reasonable explanation, fall completely by the wayside, never to be brought up again by even a single character?
Because that potential disaster happened to work out because of kiddie cartoon conventions DOES NOT MAKE IT STRONG WRITING. The writers could have them decide to reform Tirek and Chrysalis out of the blue too, and it could occur for as flimsy a reason as the villains 'got tired of being bad'. Simply because a fictional event is written a certain way doesn't immediately grant it intrinsic plausibility. I'm tired of people making excuses for implausible events simply because of fan wankery.
I've already been over this with Magical Mystery Cure, my ultimate victory coming when no less than M. A. Larson expressed his own feelings with the statement that Twilight didn't earn her wings in that episode. It was a hastily-written episode with massive plot holes and issues with internal consistency, all because they wanted to have an 'ending' to the series if it wasn't continued.
And the result of this irrational redemption attempt of Discord was that he betrayed them to such a devastating extent that, had Tirek actually been as ruthless as his G1 counterpart, they would all have been dead because Tirek had no reason to keep his word to Twilight once he'd gotten all the power. A REAL villain would have done a Dark Helmet, made a remark about 'evil always triumphing because good is dumb' and then vaporized them.
Again, the PLOT CONVENIENCE of them surviving Tirek was just that, slap-dash writing to cover writing themselves into a corner. Much like Chrysalis staring out the window while power-ups occurred right behind her. Austin Powers poked fun at that sort of convenient villain obliviousness multiple times.
And still, to this day, we have yet to see how Discord has really been useful. His appearances have mainly been episodic and are lessons FOR HIM.
MLP is a fun show, but it's HARDLY the hallmark of strong plotting when it comes down to the 'adventure' stories. The two best were "Return of Harmony" and "The Cutie Map", in which Discord's flippant nature supplied the means to his defeat, since he wasn't TRULY wicked in the first place. If he had been, there would have been ZERO hope of stopping him. And Starlight Glimmer was (at that time) an interesting villain with a unique ability which she used cleverly, but she was not so overwhelmingly powerful that she could not be stopped by conventional means once her lies were revealed.
As for the rest, 3 stories would have ended very differently with slightly more competent villains.
Nightmare Moon should have won. She could have killed the Mane 6 at any time, or simply collapsed the castle ruins to prevent them finding the Elements, had it not been for the conventions of a girl's show and hero victory.
Chrysalis should have won. The ponies had nothing left but a miraculous Deus Ex Machina solution from out of nowhere... which somehow blew them away with love... which was what they fed on... come on, I'm not the only person who finds that more than a little incredulous.
Tirek should have won, for the reasons already mentioned. He was so ludicrously overpowered and had them crushed so completely, all it would have taken was one hoof stomping Twilight flat and it would have been game over for all intents and purposes. As stated previously, he had no reason to keep his word to Twilight. Had she insisted on a geas or some other magical enforcement spell (the Unbreakable Vow from "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" comes to mind) to bind him to his promise, THEN I could accept it. But as he was written, he should have betrayed her as quickly as he had Discord.
Now Sombra was one of the few villains who actually had a truly legitimate loss (Starlight being the other), by a weapon which was stated from the start could defeat him. Though his character was fairly weak, how he'd captured the Empire in the first place if the Crystal Heart was already there (an important point of order, since he'd have had to overcome the Crystal Heart by some means to effect a takeover) and the placement of the Crystal Heart somewhere that should have been easily found early on (nobody ever checks the roof! Sheesh!), the core plot points did progress to a plausible loss on his part.
7605916
Why can't I like this more than once?!
7611327 I don't consider it a reliable source. Historical examples, please, not religious fiction.
7611662 Many of the battles have been found to occur. But whatever, it's not my job to convince you of the brutality of the conquests before the Roman Empire. I don't exactly keep reams of notes and references on the subject and I'm not interested enough to go look everything up again after all these years.
7611373 I'm not going to defend Keep Calm and Flutter On. I like the idea, but the whole episode is underdeveloped, and probably would have worked better as a two-parter. The only reason I brought up Discord in the first place is that it set a precedent for the characters taking big risks to give second chances to those that haven't really earned them. Thus, it's not implausible they would extend the same to Chrysalis. I'm not calling it good writing, but there is precedent.
I'm not going to defend this story either. I like the idea, and I think could have worked, but it's also too underdeveloped.
I have to agree with pretty much everything RadicalDishonesty has said. This really doesn't make much sense from when you take a look at the character's we've come to learn and love over the last six years. Not to mention the fact that this story is set in an epic that is much longer and wider in scope than this little snap shot would ever do justice.
I get that you wanted to explore the tragedy of a broken bond, and the hardest bond to repair is sometimes the bond that seemed the strong, Twilight and Spike. But you significantly need to work on the execution of this tragedy. You need to show us in more detail how exactly it came to pass. The neither party is right or wrong, that they both made mistakes, yet the inability to admit that has lead to a relationship that can never be repaired. How their flaws are the cause of it.
As it is written, Twilight is very clearly in the wrong, so this is not the tragedy you want it to be. Not to mention, I cannot see Chrylisis winning against the dragons. Combined with no mention of Ember at all, and this story... it is just not good.
the fuck i dont feel the feels im just angry like why did that happen i wanted a happy ending dammit
Yes! HELL YEAH! Finally! A story that allows Spike to talk back to Twilight! I love this feeling! Thank you Author!