It begins with several small things: A filly, a scroll, and a smartphone. However, Equestria soon finds itself catapulted into a larger world, a world where everypony else had spent the last thousand years innovating both magically and technologically. A world where smartphones and 3D printers have existed for centuries. A world where powerful wizards consider death a temporary inconvenience, and who can utilize magic on a level far beyond anything any pony had ever imagined. A world... where earth ponies use magic more masterfully than any unicorn that ever lived... or alicorn currently alive.
Equestria is now far behind the rest of the world, and will have to catch up... and quickly, because while the ponies of Equestria do find themselves with new allies, they now also have new enemies, ones who would consider the annihilation of Equestria as a stepping stone towards grander ambitions, and consider unicorns and alicorns as amusing novelties, instead of wizards and demigods...
That sounds epic. And familiar. Did you blog this once? But mostly epic.
I await with glee the Bucking Nonsense exploration of this concept.
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Indeed. The prologue is indeed something I placed on my blog as a preview. A proof of concept, as it were.
oh, that reminds me of several stories by another of my favorite authors, Estee: he invented an amusing gimmick called "Recoil": if a unicorn teleports into an occupied spot, s/he will be forcibly flung away! this can be quite painful, since the teleporter could get slammed into a wall, or the ceiling!
....curious. I feel... Inspired.
Or constipated.
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Or out the window... of a skyscraper. Perilous. Thing is, a unicorn never thinks about that, at least not so far in this setting. The spell works perfectly every time: Why would you need to test and see what happens when it fails if it never does? An earth pony or pegasus would test the f*ck out of that to see what may happen if magic ever failed to work properly. But unicorns? The majority of the unicorns in MLP:FIM we've seen, barring Twilight Sparkle, Fancy Pants, and a few other notable exceptions, are more concerned with style and appearance, rather than substance.
The best example I can think of to compare this to is in the Foundation Series, where a galactic empire is in a slow decline. Eventually, people forget, largely, how the advanced technology of the empire works, so when things like nuclear reactors finally break down to the point they can't be fixed, they have no means of replacing them. However, when one person asks what they'd do if the machinery broke down to the point that basic repairs would no longer work, he's looked at like an idiot, given said machinery has worked for centuries without a hiccup.
Wait, how did both sides never meet? No large scale aerial transportation?
It appears no one on the Clara side has had a sense of exploration.
7884591
Exactly. All aerial transport in Equestria is pegasus based, asides from hot air balloons and pedal powered bikes like Pinkie Pie's: Even "airplanes" are pulled by pegasai. This means that the distance of a flight is limited by how far a team of pegasus can haul an aircraft behind them. Two, three hours, maybe? Meanwhile, the sea features its own dangers: Sea monsters and uncontrolled weather make sailing hazardous. The ponies of Clara Terram enchanted an unmanned vessal to sail to the other side of the world, and it was in fairly bad shape even without monsters trying to climb in to eat the crew.
However, that doesn't mean that the ponies of Clara Terram have never met their distant cousins...
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Or just more pressing problems.
About bloody time someone made Equestria advance. Seriously, look at the show and you can SEE that modern medicine and the steam engine are OUTSIDE meddling\interference.
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Just seems strange no one would try to figure out a way to extend the range of flight. Like, even transportable clouds would allow for rest stops. Or interchanging teams, though this depends on a pegasus' carrying capacity.
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The problem is, most of that doesn't work once you're out over the ocean: Any sailor can tell you that weather over open water can be a lot wilder than weather over land, so I imagine that pegasai will have problems trying to control weather on the ocean. And you have to consider a sort of 'diminishing returns' aspect: The more ponies you take to make the trip, the more supplies you need to sustain them. The more supplies you need, the more weight for your cargo. The more weight for your cargo, the more ponies you need to haul it. And we're talking about a trip with no certain destination, no idea what sort of situation may be waiting for them when they arrive. Imagine how much difficulty Christopher Columbus had in convincing anyone to fund a journey to find a 'westerly route to India', which ended up being a trip far longer than he ever imagined. If anyone had known the actual distance from Europe to India going west, they'd have been a lot less likely to have been willing to go on that trip. Ponies, thanks to magic, know where various continents may be, but the distance involved, plus the various sea creatures that roam the waters farther offshore, such an expedition would be extremely difficult both in practice and in logistics. And there's no guarantee that there are not monsters capable of flight that might be roaming the skies, flying beasts that might prey on giant sea monsters the way a seagull preys on fish. When ponies write 'Here Be Monsters' on a map, it isn't because no one has been there. It's because there are freakin' monsters that eat anyone who goes past that point!
7884891 So, I guess airships just never got developed as an idea at all, then? No means of mechanical propulsion? (engines, motors, etc) No heavy AA weapons either?
: P
(Hmmm, here be monsters? I wonder if I can incorporate that idea somehow.)
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Sounds like how some sloppily-coded video games handle object collision resolution. (The good ones just move you, without inertia, to the closest non-intersecting position.)
I love the interesting premises. I cannot wait to see what comes next.
On a side note:
I believe the Unicorns probably used to speak Arab, given they used a base ten numeral system.
I also believe the Pegasi probably used to speak Latin, given they used a twenty-six letter alphabet.
All of the above is made on the assumption that the Ponies of Equestria use the same alphabet and the same numbers as us.
A great and very promising beginning, along with a nice little twist right after the prologue.
Well, yeah, it's about time Equestria does some proper technological growth. In the show it self it doesn't seem like they have advanced much in the thousand years. This is going to be a lot of fun!
7884591 I'd point out on how Europe continued to develop industrially and technologically even without really affecting the rest of the world. Of course it just happened that Europe began colonization of the New World before the industrial era so that was moot.
But our history showed that these technologies didn't spread to other parts of the world until way much later on. Even now there are still areas that are basically tribal even in the world of modern advancements. Here, Clara Terram probably didn't tried expanding but rather developed internally.
7884584 Which is what I'm afraid in the future when more automation and computer systems allow them to be self-sufficient that many humans wouldn't bother to learn how they work. Especially for the more common people who would gladly just learn what they can and deem personally or socially useful, and the people needed to work on the computers and machines became rarer. Of course it wouldn't go down to "Idiocracy" movie as everyone would be educated beyond read, write and count, especially considering the entertainment and gaming industry crunching up some good and immersive games.
Magitek best magic. Get ready for linux
A second interlude up! And our villain, ladies and gents. We'll see more of him later, but for now, we get a little backstory.
Why not just leave and let Mardigrin take the empty kingdom? Hell, I bet you could populate the place with golems and automatons right before the exodus and the bastard probably wouldn't care, so long as he was "king".
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I won't consider saying this a spoiler, since we're just talking about geography, but I will admit I was kinda planning on holding this back for a while.
Asides from the dangers of the open ocean, which include monsters both underwater and in the air, there's a significant logistical aspect: Imagine trying to evacuate a country the size of Africa. All of it. This isn't Equestria we're talking about, where a single giant centaur can stride its length and breadth in the course of a day while drain ponies of their magic: Clara Terram is big. And it has a lot of ponies in it. A departure of that size will not go unnoticed, even at the planning stage. And Madigrin wouldn't be above shooting whatever vessels they use down, just for giggles. You'll come to understand, in time, just what kind of... thing he has become. Not that he wasn't nearly as bad even before he became... what he is now.
In comparison, Equestria is very small: The entire country could easily fit within a single province within Clara Terram. And there are a lot of provinces in Clara Terram.
Food for thought.
I can only imagine what those Ponys must think of the whacky inventions coming at them.
7897820 that is interesting information. I myself think that equestria is small too. But its different from story to story and the offival map has no... maßstab. I wonder what the surroundkng nations of equestria will think of the magitek nation. I also have to imagine the size of that planet now... probably bigger than ours, right? I also think that nirn is small. Elder scrolls. Anyway, the earth shrinks the faster we travel. I await more information soon. This is interesting.
7897820 So comparing the U.K. As a single land mass to, say Canada? U.S.? Or the entirety of North America?
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Clara Terram has land mass matching Africa. Equestria is someplace in the neighborhood of... Japan, maybe, in terms of total land mass? Hard to be exact. Mind you, Equestria is just a country on a larger continent (Containing Yakyakistan and Griffinstone, amongst other places), but Equestria is still the largest and most technologically developed country on that continent.
Heck, even on most maps I've seen Equestria isn't all that big compared to the rest of the world.
orig15.deviantart.net/e73e/f/2011/335/a/4/equestria_and_beyond__rev_8_1_by_hlissner-d46wmzm.jpg
See? Not very big at all.
Part of what impacts technological development is available land mass, available resources, and culture. Equestria is small, and while resource rich for such a small nation, it still has limits. However, the culture isn't exactly progressive, no one really seems inspired to invent. I mean, there's no evidence of anyone actually suppressing innovation, but no one is going out of the way to make anything to actually really improve Equestria, asides from maybe Flim and Flam with their cider machine, and in at least one alternate timeline, that has some pretty nightmarish repercussions. I mean, Doctor Whooves/Time Turner is the closest thing to a scientific expert in Equestria (As of Episode 100), but most of his stuff is redundant because of magic, so it is more or less overlooked. Why build even a time machine when time spells are easier and less resource intensive? Nopony has ever considered approaching magic using a scientific method... at least, not in Equestria. If you start combining Science, the study and utilization of the natural laws by which the universe operates, and Magic, the art of using magic energy to alter and even outright violate those laws at will, you can come up with some really impressive stuff.
In recent culture, you could consider Equestria a lot like the island of the birds in the Angry Birds movie. "Why don't birds fly? Because why would they want to go anyplace else?" Why don't Equestrians innovate? Because they've already achieved a utopia... or so they think.
Indeed, sometimes mercy is the worse path. Judgment should not be passed by relatives, as, no matter how much they try, the familial bonds can change the result.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." In this case it's so true that it's scary.
And Equestria is about to be sucked into this conflict? Hoo boy. A much wilder ride ahead than I thought so.
Lich, shade, ghoul, Nightmare, demon, wraith, vampire, fleshwarped...
Starswirl seems to be channeling Harry Potter in the Methods of Racionality fic.
7897820
Holy cow. That makes a lot of sense. Although, you might want to add that information to this chapter. From the way Clara Terrram was described, I was led to believe it was a large city-state. I mean, a barrier the size of Africa is pretty f@cking impressive.
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Good thought. Thanks.
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tinyimg.io/i/IwqpT3n.gif
Well that certainly explains alot of why Clara Terram haven't tried to go elsewhere. It's because they're kept in place by a villainous power that sought to conquer their lands and bind its denizens to the twisted mind of the god-king.
7898100
The problem with giving something a title is that once you do so, you think you have grasped it in its entirety. When you call something a river, does that fully explain everything it encompasses? Its width, its depth, its current, its rapids? There are rivers so narrow and shallow that a man can walk across them with ease, and rivers so wide that a man can stand on one shore and have difficulty seeing the other side, and so deep that you cannot reach the bottom and come back without scuba gear. Or a lake? Is it a large pond, or something so big that, like the Great Lakes in the USA, its practically an inland sea, and has to be shown on the world map?
The point is, if one were to say that Madigrin was undead and a wizard, they may not be wrong. If they called Madigrin a lich, or something of that nature, they may not be wrong. There would then be assumptions about his appearance, his powers, and his limitations. However, and this is important, we'd be talking about an undead wizard, a lich, that exists in conflict with a society who has magic-based technology that is comparable to not just the modern age, but even future tech. He has waged a war with a civilization that spans a continent the size of Africa, and this entire highly advanced civilization lives in utter terror of him and his forces, to the point that every aspect of their civilization and culture is impacted by their fear of Madigrin. And with good reason.
When you see what Madigrin looks like, you'll be surprised, I think. But when you see what he is capable of... you will be horrified.
Ironically, the first draft of Madigrin was that he was just a high ranking Dark Lands officer, a kind of 'Dirty Tricks' brigade with a history with the Chroma. His personality was complex and it made a lasting impression on me, and I began to realize that, kinda like with Farcry 3's Vaas, anyone that I tried to put over him, anypony who might be "superior" to him... would kinda be a letdown. So, rather than just making him just a traitor, I made him THE traitor in Clara Terram, the leader of the Dark Lands, and gave him powers to match his new role.
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I was just thinking of all the bad things that could have happened to him. Honestly, I am one of those insane people that loves the diabolical villain and, no matter how many puppies he crushes underhoof, i will enjoy him all the more. Not to say the tyrant or the more miscevious villain are bad archtypes, just that truly evil villains (done well) are the best.
Liked the story, but why a smart phone exactly?
Even with magitek wouldn't that be overly complex for calling back and require a support system that just doesn't exist in Equestria? Wouldn't some kind of A.M. radio make more sense technologically, and be more reasonable to build from a scroll?
7884891 wrote : "When ponies write 'Here Be Monsters' on a map, it isn't because no one has been there. It's because there are freakin' monsters that eat anyone who goes past that point!"
Shades of Remnant, here be the Grimm.
7897992 Interesting map, but where's the Crystal Empire?
may be this is good thing this work remain only started ...because I don't think I will very much like to read yet another story where 'more advanced technologically' supergroup of (ponies, in this case) just ruled by progressively more and more asshole beings :/ (this is pattern we humans do in our history, even simply because same shitty humans have bigger and bigger means of destruction. Apparently, we can't even imagine anything different! Yes, I say this despite ch 1 where Starswirl tried to make case against such elitism...)