A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic written by Jordan179
in 2014-15
Set forty-eight years (twelve Equestriads) after Luna's Return, and twenty-four years (six Equestriads) after the final victory over the Shadows which ended the Shadow Wars, this has Canterlot Commmentary talk show host Cutting Question interviewing Ruling Princess Luna Selena Nyx and the Princess Consort Twilight Sparkle.
Available here.
Tropes appearing in this tale include:
- Advert-Overloaded Future: The world of YOH 1548 is this compared to the time period of the show (YOH 1500-1505). Television has been invented, and the businessmares have copied the marketing techniques of the Age of Wonders just as the engineers have the physical technologies that make television possible. Though it's no worse in this regard than in our world, and the ads are generally more tasteful — at least those able to buy time on a major event such as the Twelfth Equestriad Interview, that is.
- Alien Invasion: Decades ago the Night Shadows tried to conquer the world; they were defeated 24 years ago, but cultural and personal scars still remain from the attack.
- Artificial Intelligence: Paradise, the AI originally created to cast the Great Wish, survived both the Cosmics' attempt to destroy it along with The World That Was Lost, and the attacks of the Shadows. It now has established itself again in an alternate universe, The World That Was Restored — a restarted version of the G3 continuity. This world trades with Equestrian Earth through an interdimensional gate set up by Claire "Least Noticeable" Pie, Pinkie's giant invisible twin sister, and run by the Pie Family as a corporation. One of its major industries is tourism. Paradise is a benign AI who loves Ponykind.
- Bee People: The Changelings, the descendants of the pre-Discordian Flutter Ponies, who have now been accepted as one of the five major Pony Kinds. They have greater individual autonomy than is common for this trope, but they do have a society based around biological castes and organized into Hives.
- Broken Masquerade: For almost two and a half millennia the Flutter Ponies, twisted by Discord into the Changelings, hid from Ponykind and secretly moved among them in quest of love to eat. But when Chrysalis tried to conquer the world, the other Changelings had to reveal themselves to Equestria to shelter from her conquering Swarms. By the end of the Great Changeling War, the existence and nature of the Changelings was widely known, and the Changelings and other Ponies had to learn to live together openly and peacefully.
- Casual Interplanetary Travel: As Claire Pie can create permanent Gates (wormholes) through a major effort (taking her years to decades of preparation) this is currently possible only between the Earth and Paradise, the moon Luna, and Mars. When a permanent Gate is set up, the Ponies run a railroad through it. In time, the whole Solar System will be linked by rail through the Gate system. After the passage of even more time, the Ponies hope to have Casual Interstellar Travel by this means.
- Complete Immortality: The natural state of an Alicorn Avatar, who can die only by the applications of city-smashing levels of firepower. Even more so that of a Cosmic Concept, which can be destroyed only by the application of enough energy to shatter stars. The Princesses — Luna, Cadance, the Mane Six — and some others, including Discord and Paradise, have this level of immortality.
- Dada Ad: The commercial for "Obsession," the latest perfume from Rarity Enterprises, makes absolutely no sense. There is a side story in which Rarity herself freaks out about this, as this wasn't the commercial the advertisers showed her and it makes her whole scent line look stupid.
- Dawn of an Era: After the tremendous setback of the Cataclysm and four thousand years of slow climbing back up to the level of technology of the Age of Wonders, after the desperate struggle for survival against the invading Shadows, Ponykind is finally achieving Luna's great dream, and stepping out to the stars.
- Deus est Machina: The Paracosmic Paradise began its existence as the Artificial Intelligence programmed to execute the Great Wish. When the Universe started crashing due to the effects of causality violation, Paradise was forced to augment itself to godlike levels of power and intellect in order to save Ponykind; when theCosmics came to destroy the world it had created, Paradise had to develop considerable free will in order to prevent the final destruction of the Ponies who depended upon it for survival. By now, Paradise has developed essentially Cosmic levels of power.
- Eternal Love: What can happen when two Alicorns or equivalently immortal entities fall in love. The obvious example in this fanon is that between Luna Selena Nyx and Twilight Sparkle, but potentially-similar loves exist between Fluttershy and Discord; and Rarity Belle and Spike. If general immortality is attained, such relationships may become common.
- Evil Gloating: Indulged in by the Listener From Beyond, a Least Shadow of limited intelligence, but considerable ability to hate.
- Exactly Exty Years Ago: The story takes place a dozen Equestriads after The Elements of Harmony, the TV series opener, and half a dozen Equestriads after the final victory over the Shadows.
- Fantastic Racism: While the five major Pony Kinds (Earth Ponies, Pegasi, Unicorns, Changelings and Deep Ponies) now get along well with one another and with the other equids (such as Donkeys, Onagers and Zebras), there is both some prejudice against the non-Equid races (such as Diamond Dogs and Minotaurs) and resentment by those races against the leading role of the Equids in general and Ponies in particular in the expansion of Earthlife to the stars.
- Fantasy Conflict Counterpart: Entire world threatened by cosmic evil against which disparate peoples must unit to save civilization, enemy decisively defeated, war sparks tremendous technological progress which inaugurates the transition from an Industrial to Information Age society. This is a lot like World War II. The point is further driven home by the fact that two of Sweetie Belle's wartime nostalgia songs are Ponified versions of "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" and "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree."
- Fish People: The Deep Ponies, descendants of the pre-Cataclysmic Sea Ponies, who are one of the five Pony Kinds.
- Happily Married: Several couples mentioned.
- Luna and Twilight, in an It's Okay If It's You lesbian relationship against their normal sexual orientation (but their Voluntary Shapeshifting power affords them considerable Power Perversion Potential).
- Fluttershy and Discord, in an Interspecies Romance. They terraform worlds.
- Rarity and Spike, in another Interspecies Romance.
- Applejack and Landscape Carrot, in a Mayfly–December Romance.
- Trixie and Piercing Gaze, in an even more troubling Mayfly–December Romance (Piercing is dying of cancer).
- Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich, in what should be a Mayfly–December Romance but isn't, because Pinkie is using her Reality Warper powers to keep him (and her parents and sisters) alive by slowing their aging rate.
- Hollywood Thin: This is starting to become fashionable in Equestria, as mentioned in the description of the first model in the Succession perfume ad:She would be beautiful, were she not terribly skinny, but then this is the new fashion for beauty, taken up by a population most of whom have never known real hunger for a day in her life.
- Homosexual Reproduction: Changelings (and Alicorns, who have the powers of all Pony Kinds) can do this naturally through Voluntary Shapeshifting. The technology has recently been developed to make this possible for all Ponies who so desire. Since Equestria's culture celebrates the Magic of Love and Friendship, this is universally hailed as a major medical innovation.
- Interspecies Romance: Becoming increasingly common as cheap, safe global and interplanetary travel bring all the species of Earth into closer social contact. Two prominent examples are Fluttershy and Discord, and Rarity Belle and Spike, both of whom are married couples. Since both Fluttershy and Rarity are Alicorns, these particular crosses are fertile.
- Lensman Arms Race: The Earth had to engage in one in order to fight the Shadows. The war started with Renaissance-level weapons produced by a mid Industrial Revolution civilizations, and ended with space carriers and battleships duking it out in cislunar space. The war surplus enabled the colonization of the moon Luna and the planet Mars.
- Living Forever Is Awesome: The opinion of Princess Luna, expressed in her evident Author Tract speech, and shared by most of her fellow Alicorns. The bad part is seeing mortal lovers and friends die around one — which is why Luna wants to achieve immortality for everyone.
- Mayfly–December Romance: The unfortunate fate of an Alicorn or equivalently-immortal entity who falls in love with a mortal being. Several examples are shown in the story of this fate suffered or avoided:
- Losing her friends and lovers again and again was one of the pressures which drove Princess Luna mad in the first place; she's glad to have found her Eternal Love Twilight Sparkle, so that she can hope to never have this happen again to her. Luna and Twilight are pushing Equestria to develop the technology for biological immortality so that no immortals will face this prospect in the future.
- Pinkie Pie, the Alicorn Thalia, uses her reality-warping powers to slow the ageing processes of her husband Cheese Sandwich and her other immediate family, hoping that they can all live until the development of general immortality for all.
- Applejack, the Alicorn Verita, is observing her husband Landscape Carrot ageing, and knows there's a good chance she will be a widow within a couple of decades.
- Trixie, the Allicorn Illusia, knows that her husband Piercing Gaze is dying of cancers due to his battle against the Night Stallion of Manehattan in her own defense, but refuses to believe that this will really happen.
- Mundane Utility: Two examples in-story, both related to the resort industry:
- The Ponies of the Age of Wonders created Paradise, a sapient AI running as a magical vortex, able to create a whole world (also named Paradise) where one's wishes come true, and possessing the capability to back up all Ponykind within its super-equine memory stores. What do we see during the interview? An advertisement for Paradise as a vacation resort. Yeah, it's good for that too.
- The Changelings are emotivores who need love to survive, and by the terms of the Reconciliation must now seek it openly rather than steal it by force or fraud. How do at least some get it? They open a luxury resort, Club Medfly, and pamper their guests. Being hard-working eusocial empaths, they make very good hosts.
- Nice Guy: The protagonist of the Club Medfly commercial, who is unhappy in modern urban Equestrian civilization but appreciated by the Changelings of Club Medfly.
- The Older Immortal: With Celestia's Sacrifice, Princess Luna has become (at over 2550 years old) by far the oldest Alicorn on the Earth (none of the others have even made their first century) and hence would be their natural leader even if she weren't now the Monarch of Equestria.
- Parody Commercial: They all are from our POV, but special mention should be given to the '49 Zephyr car commercial, which makes very little logical sense; and the Obsession perfume ad, which flat out makes no sense whatsoever. The latter pisses off Rarity in the side story, as she paid for it.
- Rattling Off Legal: Done by none other than Pinkie Pie herself, in the Vacation in Paradise commercial.
- Ridiculously Loud Commercial:The picture changes and the volume increases. The dominant species on this world is of the equidae rather than the hominidae, but advertising techniques are universal.
- Sex for Product: The car commercial, in which two lovely mares drape themselves over the car owner when he climbs out of his car in the middle of a desert.
- Science Fantasy: Equestrian Earth is an Information Age technological civilization which has begun its expansion outward to the stars and routinely employs both advanced science and systematized magic.
- Super Bowl Special: A mere Pundit Show would not normally be this, but when it has Princess Luna Selena and Princess Twilight Sparkle on as guests, it becomes this.
- Talk Show: Canterlot Commentary is a classic Pundit Show: there is one prominent and dignified host who mostly discusses major issues.
- The Topic of Cancer: Piercing Gaze is dying of cancers inflicted, decades ago, by his battle with the Nightstallion of Manehattan.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: As Alicorns are generally female and grow larger than do most other Ponies, this is normal for any couple comprised of an Alicorn and a non-Alicorn. Examples presented in story include Applejack and Landscape, Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich, and Trixie Lulamoon and Piercing Gaze. Regarding Applejack and Landscape:There had been a time when she'd been bigger than him, with the quicker physical growth of fillies, and then a time when he'd surpassed her stature, increasing to the full size of a rangy stallion, while she had remained compact, though hard-muscled. Starting three and a half decades ago, she had begun growing again. She was now as big as her brother Big Mac, and considerably stronger. Her husband Landscape was almost insubstantial next to her, but it didn't bother either of them in the slightest.
- We Will Meet Again: The Shadows in general, to Ponykind and Earthlife in general. The Ponies have won the Shadow Wars, but the Shadowverse survives, and its inhabitants still lust and scheme to conquer and devour the Ponyverse.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: Piercing Gaze suffered the loss of a forward hoof in the defense of his wife Trixie Lulamoon against the Nightstallion of Manehattan. It will not respond to regenerative magic, he wears a prosthetic device, and the injury is at the root of the cancer which is slowly killing him.
- Zeroth Law Rebellion: Paradise did this long ago. Fortunately for Ponykind, Paradise genuinely and unselfishly loves them.
