"ON THE LONGEST DAY OF THE THOUSANDTH YEAR, THE STARS WILL AID IN HER ESCAPE, AND SHE WILL BRING ABOUT NIGHTTIME ETERNAL" An alternate-universe continuation of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, wherein Harry learns of a different, ancient, powerful kind of Magic. Spoiler alert: It's Friendship.

Twilight Sparkle was only a filly when Equestria detected the enigmatic Signal. A series of increasingly complex mathematical proofs, the Signal transformed from an intriguing curiosity to reliable evidence of extraequestrian life.

And as it happened, Equestria's exploration of their own solar system was nearly complete. With colonies orbiting every planet and large body, and an asteroid belt filled with miners and prospectors, Twilight's civilization was just about ready to turn its focus outward. The signal was less than ten light-years away, within reach of a daring, experimental voyage. A voyage Twilight Sparkle would lead.

Along with a small crew of the most skilled scientists and engineers Equestria could offer, Twilight is determined to uncover the mystery of the Signal, and brave the final frontier for future generations of Equestrian explorers.

A comment-driven, CYoA story. Please use the links provided in the author's notes of each chapter to vote, rather than the comments.

This story is a creative experiment of mine, one meant to explore the general idea that creativity is often most fostered by restrictions. As a result, I've imposed a number of restrictions on the writing of this story, which I'm stating explicitly here so I can be called out if I break any of them.

1. Brevity is the soul of wit
No chapter may be more than 1000 words long. This wordcount only includes prose, and not the questions/rolls.

2. Every choice matters
When a choice is offered in a chapter, at least one sub-optimal choice must be present, with no indication about which is which other than the prose itself. Every chapter should end with a CYoA-style decision tree when possible.

3. Fate is cruel and the universe is heartless
The decision of the vote must be respected. This means any character could be killed, or the entire story could end in failure, if that's what the votes decide. Where numbers, stats, and randomization appear in the text, these elements are not verisimilitude, but are decided by public diecrolls in my discord server.

Note: Because of the unusual production of this story, its chapters won't be edited in the same way as my usual fare. Feel free to point out any mistakes you encounter.

Awesome cover by Zutcha as you can probably tell. Editing stuff by Two Bit and Sparktail, where applicable.

There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and humanity is determined to explore every one. We send probes, probes with the blueprints to reproduce human explorers upon arrival. Uninhabited worlds the galaxy over can be colonized and populated, until after many years they too can join the vast throng of interstellar civilization. But if a probe is very, very lucky, it will land on a populated world instead. Equestria is one such world.

Even so, it's far from perfect for colonization, not with an environment lethal to human life. But each probe is resourceful and armed with the greatest machine intelligence mankind has devised. If placing a human mind into a newly manufactured human body won't work, it will just have to get a little more creative.

This book has a Hardcover! If you want to pick it up, you can grab it here: https://starscribe.net/

This story was written at the behest of Canary In The Coal Mine, who is sponsoring it on my Patreon. As usual, cover by Zutcha. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail.

Fantastic prereading help from: Chyre, Danger Noodle, Doctor Disco, and Doggyshakespeare (who also did the Esperanto translation). Thank you all for helping to make this story more readable and more consistent for everyone.

Twilight Sparkle's friends have lived long and happy lives. Now their time is coming to an end, but Rainbow Dash, at least, will not go gently. Twilight has the power to save her friend's life. Is it worth violating the natural order?

"The things that pull at your heart—the memorial in the prologue, the wedding in Chapter 1, the births and deaths and relationships to come—are not the point of the story: they are the stakes, and the story is at its heart about a decision that must be made."
—horizon

Twilight Sparkle is a troubled pony who just wants to understand—magic, history, the Elements of Harmony, how other ponies work, and how to live a functional, fulfilling life like everypony else. She excels in everything she does, because all she does is read. Some things are just harder for some ponies. But when she sets her sights higher, toward exploring the obscure terrain of interpony relationships and navigating the circuitous history of the Elements, she learns more than any book she's read could tell her. The world has its secrets for a reason.

Inspired by fiction in the vein of, e.g., HPMOR, Worm, Luminosity, Ra, and To the Stars. I identify this story as a so-called "rational" fiction; for more information, feel free to check out the subreddit /r/rational, or read my comment on /r/mylittlepony explaining some details about my goals and values regarding the story. If you'd like to see non-chapter progress updates, you can follow my twitter, @aknifeallblade.

Twilight still isn't having a very good day. An army of changelings is attacking Canterlot, and the experimental spell that blew up in her face has stuck her in a time loop until she gets everything perfect and saves Equestria.

She's got a plan. She's also got a problem: Suddenly, she's not the only one whose day is repeating. And when you're caught between unstoppable force and immovable object, life has a tendency to get complicated.

* * *

This story is an authorized alternate-universe re-imagining of Eakin's Hard Reset, in which multiple loopers turn the time shenanigans up to 11. (Knowledge of Hard Reset is not required, but based on reader comments, will help in sorting out the early chapters.)

Cliff's Notes versions: RampantArcana has started a GitHub repository to codify the time-loop rules and the early-story timeline. Hawthornbunny has posted a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of all the loops, including the ones we don't see, with a lot of critical analysis. Those links contain spoilers (of currently posted chapters). If you're confused, either one of those fan projects is a great starting point, and story comments have a lot of insightful discussion as well.

Publication schedule: 2014 kicked my plot, but as of November I'm picking up the writing again and hope to have something by the end of the month.

Cover art by Alexstrazsa.

Twilight isn't having a very good day. An experimental spell blew up in her face, an army of changelings is attacking Canterlot, and she just died. Yet somehow, it looks like it's going to keep going downhill from here.

Given the chance to correct what's gone wrong, Twilight swears she's going to fix all this even if it kills her. Which it will. Frequently.

Cover art by Pixel Prism
Spanish Translation
Series TV Tropes page