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out in the deep forests some adventuring ponies make an odd discovery, and the princess of nerds mounts and expedition to investigate.

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Podbeing

@T72B
Yeah, it’s sort of the Story that Editing Forgot. Sorry about that. I’m hoping to tie it into the stuff I posted earlier in the thread a long time ago more directly. I’m trying to get a little focus back. I’m glad you liked it though 😊

I…sort of wanted to do actual musical lyrics, but I found out i ABSOLUTELY CANNOT WRITE MUSIC TO SAVE MY LIFE, soooo…I just sort of describex it instead, and I’m really not very happy with that, but..myeah

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T72B

@Podbeing
neat little story there! thanks for posting it

Posted about a month ago Report

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Podbeing

Hi, fellow BPL fan :)

Imagine Chrysalis and Tirek going for a psychic tour through Kerensky’s mind and seeing the sheer nightmare scale of what human galactic warfare looks like. Tens of millions of soldiers and tanks and tens of thousands of ships and mechs turning each other into bloody scrap and ash and an entire world burned down to the bedrock along with everyone and everything that lived there, every last living thing, down to the last bacterium. Weapons so terrible that nothing and no one will ever breathe that air again without dying horribly, so awful that even the oceans boiled and continents were cracked down to the mantle. And then realizing that’s only one single, solitary battle in a war that’s spread out over hundreds or even thousands of worlds, and not even the largest or the bloodiest battle in that war. Nowhere near. Just one. A relatively minor skirmish, soon forgotten because it was dwarfed by a hundred more taking place at exactly the same time, and a thousand more in the months that followed. I can only imagine that it would redefine their ideas of what constitutes power and destruction and evil. Not only that, but that Kerensky was, in large part, the architect of the conflict, like an artist with a canvas…and he’s one of the no-foolin’ GOOD GUYS. You don’t want to see what the actual bad guys look like. I could see them shelving any plans they had in favor of doing everything they could to find a way to hide their world from a galaxy where that kind of mass insanity reigns supreme, because fuck that noise, or else going all out to find a way to leave the planet to try to establish life elsewhere in hopes of staving off extinction in case their world got burned too. Maybe they’d even declare a truce with the ponies to work together towards that end. One of those ends, anyway.

Cozy Glow would probably find it positively enchanting, though, and a wonderful way to relax. She’d probably want to find a way to get in on the fun. Hell, I could see her giving Amaris a run for his money for sheer dickery.

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Podbeing

Hey everyone. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?

I’ve been through some things. I’m still going through some things. It’s been kind of…well, rough. I started writing this thing a while ago. I got distracted. I stopped. I got interrupted again and again.

Anyway, I finally wrote…fuck. I dunno. I have this. I’ve fucked around on it for a bit. It’s rough. I put some more down last night. Maybe I’ll come back to this. It’s sort of HFY, so…yeah.

Anyway, have this thing. It’s not much but it’s what I have right now. Maybe I’ll do some more.

11,191 years ago:

It had been two weeks since the Night of Falling Stars. Two weeks of rumors that seemed to grow stranger and stranger with every passing day.

It had been one week since the Overlords had forced her to make a choice, her sister or her parents. One week of listening to the screams that still echoed in her head, that nothing seemed to silence. She feared it never would, and somehow feared the idea that it would even more.

It had been three days since the Z’bri’s attention had been focused on something to the East, and they had drawn down their watch slightly, distracted and preoccupied. Just enough for them to overwhelm the slave-guards and their construct minders, and even so, so many had died. Three days running through the rubble and the blasted wastelands around Paradise, with only muddy water to drink and what few withered plants still grew in the sapped, dying ground, trying to elude the Z’bri and their servants, both the willing collaborators and the unwilling slaves, compelled by spells and bindings upon their souls they couldn’t even hope to fight.

It had been one day since she had become separated from her sister when their little group’s hiding place had finally been discovered and destroyed in an orgy of blood and screaming and death. One hour since she had snapped a hind leg falling down the screen trying to elude another patrol. And a few minutes of trying to run on the broken leg, as a creature out of her wildest nightmare stalked her. Huge as a mountain, and so ugly and malformed that she could barely stand looking at it out of the corner of her eye, her mind shying away from shapes that her sanity screamed were utterly impossible in any sane universe. And now it had cornered her here, in the corner of a ruined and desecrated. It had torn what was left of the building apart to get to her pitiful hiding place, and now there was nowhere left to run, even if she still had the strength.

The gargantuan flesh colossus stared down at her with its multitude of mismatched, misshapen eyes, raw hunger shining in their empty depths. Its malformed jaws opened like a giant, fetid flower the size of a castle, saliva dripping from row after row of jagged, yellowed teeth. She could feel the misery emanating from the thousands and thousands of the damned bound together into the blasphemous thing, each screaming in a voice heard not by the ears, but by the soul, begging for salvation, for death, for an end to their agonizing pain, all slaved together to the will of the Z’bri controller. Its clawed, prehensile tentacles snapped in anticipation. Beneath the skin writhed thousands of shapes, their faces contorted and screaming in the rubbery hide.

Her mana all but exhausted, Celestia lifted a chunk of brick in her magic. It was a pathetic weapon, utterly worthless against the massive creature bearing down on her, but holding it gave her some faint comfort. She backed up against the wall, tears pouring down her face.

I’m so sorry, Luna. I wish I could talk with you one more time. Mother, father, please…forgive me for everything I did. For what they made me do.

As if drinking in her despair, the massive construct stood there for a moment, looking down at her, its clawed tentacles barely moving. And then it stepped forward, slowly bending down to rip her from the ground and incorporate her into its bulk. She threw the brick, and had the bitter satisfaction of seeing it punch right into one of its eyes, but if the monstrous thing felt it, it gave no sign. Tentacles snaked towards her, and she saw the distorted faces of the creatures bound together into one horrible gestalt within them, each screaming in agony…

…and then the creature lurched as the world filled with a sound like the loudest thunder she’d ever heard. A roar of surprised fury mingled with pain burst from the snapping jaws of the colossus, and it turned away from its meal to face its new foe. There was another crack of thunder, loud enough to deafen her, and it staggered backward, blood, gobbets of flesh and chunks of bone the size of boulders spraying from a hole in its chest. And then, for the first time, she saw what had done the damage.

In form it was most like a Minotaur, but built on a truly colossal scale, almost as massive as the flesh colossus, and made of metal, all blocks and angles like an abstract sculpture. It sprinted out of the fog, impossibly fast and agile for something so gargantuan, shaking the ground with each of its heavy footfalls. It lifted its arms, and there was a metallic scream as ghostly lances of greenish light exploded outward from them and into the torso of the Z’bri monstrosity, filling the air with the stink of rancid, burning flesh. The heavy, boxy process on its shoulder–the source of the thunder she had heard, Celestia realized–barked again, and the entire top half of the flesh colossus’s warped skull exploded into spray. Its roar of fury transformed into a yodeling scream of pain, a sound she hadn’t realized the constructs were even capable of, and it charged forward, lashing out blindly at the newcomer.

The tentacles impacted and chunks of metal plating ripped and tore, falling to the ground in a rain of steel, but the assailant merely rocked with the blow like a street fighter, blunting the momentum of the strike, and then leaned forward to direct a massive punch right at the chest of the colossus. It howled again as ribs and armored carapace broke under the impact, and the green light flashed again. This time, burning flesh and charred bone exploded from its back, as the–giant? Golem?–body-slammed it straight into the stone wall of the ruined chapel…and clean through it. When the dust cleared, she saw that it now held one of the largest tentacles in its–paw–from where it had apparently ripped it right off the colossus.

But the colossus wasn’t out of the fight yet. It regained its feet with unbelievable speed for such a massive creature, surged forward and slammed into its assailant, staggering it and forcing it backwards, its metal feet struggling for purchase on the rubble-strewn ground. Its remaining tentacles wrapped it in a bear hug, lifting the metal titan from its feet, and began to constrict, and she heard the awful sound of bending and cracking metal plate. It roared in mingled fury and pain, and its jaws gaped and snapped, biting down on the giant’s blocky head and cannon. Blinding violet light poured from around its teeth, and then a second later, a ragged stream of blue-white Balefire issued forth and engulfed the metal creature’s trapped head and upper body. Molten metal poured down the front of the thing, and it bucked in the grip of the monster…

…and the boxy cannon on its shoulder roared again and again, and she could barely hear the sound of metallic tinkling, like steel rain, over the roar of the thunder and screams of the beast, and the monster’s head exploded in half. Her ears bled from the din, her eyes watered from the acrid stink of smoke, but she saw the beast finally dropping the metal figure as it collapsed, still blindly struggling to scramble away and put some distance between itself and its foe. Literally blindly–the thing’s head and chest were a smoking, shattered ruin.

Celestia blinked in awe. The Z’bri constructs fought and fought until they were finally killed–an almost unheard of event–or ordered to stand down by their masters. They never retreated. Ever.

Even crippled, it was still fast, but as damaged as it was, the steel giant was faster still. It grasped its makeshift club appendage in both claws and SWUNG it like a hammer, battering the monster to the ground. It threw the splintered and pulped limb away and then its arms flashed green fire again and again, and the mewling, squalling colossus was driven to the ground in a twitching heap, smoking. The boxy cannon on its shoulder barked one last time, and this time something inside of the abomination’s torso exploded, tearing it apart. The howling screams of anguish of the souls of its victims were finally silenced as the controlling spirit vanished back into the netherworld from which it had been summoned, allowing them release from their pain. A moment later, there was another explosion–the metal giant’s left flank exploded outwards in a spray of metal shards and fire, and it collapsed to one knee as if in agony and froze into motionlessness, its head down. Even from where she lay many meters away, she could feel the relentless heat pouring off of the thing, like a blacksmith’s forge, the metal ticking and cracking and pinging as it cooled.

Something very like a metal bird flew low overhead with a metallic scream that shook the ground, and then three more joined it. A few seconds later, she heard the sound of more explosions in the distance.

The next thing of which Celestia was aware of was the presence kneeling beside her, the one in the silver suit and the helmet, the one who reeked of sour sweat and blood and smoke. The faceplate was pulled back, and the burned and blistered face peering at her was that of a predator, but the eyes in that alien visage were both tired and kind. The metal giant was still crouching close by, a chain ladder extending from its blackened and still-smoking head to the ground. She saw that it had been joined by three other metallic figures, each as different from the first one as night was from day–one a small chicken-legged affair with some manner of cannon beneath its chin, another one Minotaur-like, but smaller than the one which had killed the colossus, a third like the small bird-legged one, but far larger, with two blunt battering-ram-style cannons for arms and one truly gargantuan one mounted over its main body, and along with them, a handful of creatures very like the one kneeling over her. Her fractured hind leg was in a splint, the pain strangely muted, and she assumed it was the work of the ones checking them both for injuries.

One of them handed her alien

(HER alien)

a large bottle, and she gulped down half of it before handing the rest down to Celestia.

The water tasted flat and metallic, but it was ice-cold. It was the best thing Celestia had ever tasted.

It–she, she thought, it smelled like a female–was speaking, but she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears and couldn’t read the lips in that alien face. A few locks of singed blonde mane poked from the sides of the helmet, their ends curled and blackened by heat. She shook her head and gestured at her ear with a forehoof, and after a moment, the alien being nodded. By the Maker of All, she was tired. So tired, as if even breathing was too much effort. And it was the most natural thing in the world for her to close her eyes.

The last thing of which she was aware was the warm hand on her withers, gently stroking her.

There were giants in the world in those days, beings of renown.

These beings were called “humans,” she had learned.

In ages yet to come, she would learn of others that also called themselves by that name, and would reflect at length on the differences between them. She would remember that these humans seemed bizarrely optimized for warfare and hard times in a way that those later humans had never been, both physically and mentally. They didn’t live as long as those others of their kind, at least not without extensive medical help–as if they burned so bright and hot that they simply burned out. Magic touched them, but oddly, hesitantly, as if uncertain, frightened of what it sensed. They were stronger, more robust, uglier in some ways than their distant cousins, as if the forces that had shaped them cared nothing for aesthetics and valued sheer power and endurance over finesse, yet they were not entirely without grace and a grim, predatory beauty all their own. They couldn’t outrun a pony on foot, but they could walk any of her people into the ground, and then fight all day and all night if they had to, or work, or weep, or laugh and make love and celebrate until the dawn. And they could be hurt, they could be harmed, they could tremble and weep and bleed, but they would stand up afterward all the same and fight, as if unable to be truly broken, as if death itself were afraid of them. And perhaps the Pale Horse DID fear them; she had seen these people fight on until their bodies were shattered into bloody ruin and they fell down dead in their tracks, long past the point where any of the races of the World would have collapsed and died. They could be destroyed, but never broken–even at their worst, most despairing depths, they would still find it within themselves to rise and resist, as if driven by an unbreakable geas that was far more powerful than their fragile bodies could contain, one that would see them dead before they failed. They were angry yet reflective, grim yet optimistic, impatient and vicious yet empathetic, and wildly creative both at war and in play, strangely blind in some ways, yet bizarrely perceptive in others. They were moody and unpredictable both at war and in their leisure, merciless to their foes, yet kind to surrendered foes, the fallen and the innocent. War was merely another art form for them, one that they had mastered with instinctive skill and grim determination, and the battlefield was merely another canvas for them to paint. Even the meanest, crudest intellect among them seemed to become an unmatched strategic savant at times, as if violence was a sentient spirit, one they channeled imperfectly but with instinctive skill.

They claimed ignorance of sorcery, said that magic was a myth where they came from. And yet…and yet…

They had come here, tired and soul-sick, falling from one war straight into another, but a strange thing had happened. WAS happening. With every passing day, as terrible as this war was, they seemed to grow stronger and more energized, instead of less. As wounded and sick as this world was, its remaining vitality seemed to pour into them, and they drank it in. With every day that dawned, they seemed to become more potent, more real in a way that she struggled to understand.

Equally bizarrely, they seemed aware when anyone stared at them. It wasn’t uncommon for them to finish each others’ sentences, occasionally giving rise to oddly-truncated conversations that seemed weirdly abbreviated, and it seemed to surprise them when it happened as much as it did her. The curses and pneumas and spells of the Z’bri washed over them and across them without truly touching them, where a pony or a catbird or a Gempup would have been torn to pieces or sickened or warped into something hideous and contrary to their nature. But they seemed aware of it, increasingly so–when one of her people worked a spell or manipulated the natural magic of the world, they would feel it if it was nearby, shivering as if a goose had walked over their grave.

It seemed to happen more and more as the months passed.

And the Masters had begun to fear them as they feared nothing else in the world. Unable to predict their actions, unable to understand their motivations, unable to understand their very souls, they had begun to slowly retreat, to pull their forces back to better defended strongholds. Bit by bit, battle by battle, day after week after bloody month, their hold on the Land was gradually being weakened. Where their forces led, pony armies waxed and followed, training and learning an endless array of new tricks and strategies from their allies and new ways to think about themselves and the world.

Her human–HER human–was named Megan. Such a strange name, but perfect for her.

She had coughed and vomited, and ran a fever; she slipped hair and her skin dotted with bloody lesions. Most ponies passed soon after Balefire exposure, bleeding, their skin peeling away in necrotic strips, with their fur falling out and shitting their insides out in bloody fluxes until they finally, mercifully died. But the potions and treatments of the human chirurgeons seemed to forestall the worst of it, until their remarkable recuperative abilities could kick in; eventually Megan’s coughs had eased, and the sores on her skin had slowly healed. Their doctors had said that it wasn’t likely she would ever bear healthy children without help, that later in life she would probably battle the Sickness That Rots, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it, she said. But she would live, she was becoming stronger by the day and she could still fight. If anything, her resolve had been deepened by the hurt she had undergone.

During her convalescence, Megan had talked to her of many things to pass the time, when they weren’t watching vee-dee-ohs or listening to music or stories from other warriors. She had learned that the great silver colossus the human had rode into battle was called Hunchback, which was itself one of many kinds of BattleMech, great walking golems of steel and cables and armor plating harder than the hardest bronze, juggernauts powered by lightning and the elemental force of the Sun itself, capable of burning the toughest, most well-defended fortress cities to the ground in minutes or blasting the largest armies into oblivion. She was a knight that rode a steel steed into battle, a MechWarrior, as they called them. She told her of walking on worlds where the air was poison, or the sun was unrecognizable, fighting on behalf of the innocent and defenseless for the League-of-Stars in the company of other warriors of steel, and the magic of the world seemed to crystallize memory into sharp images and sounds in both of their minds, allowing her to see for herself those fantastic worlds for herself. And as it sometimes did, on rare occasions, the magic would focus itself to weave and dance through both of them in response, and express itself through song and story. The first time that had happened, Megan had been shocked, unable to understand why she suddenly had an irresistible urge to sing about the day she had been granted Glorious Shotgun Princess, her Hunchback. The lyrics had flowed out of her in an unstoppable flood of song and they danced in mutual ecstatic joy, and phantom instruments had seemed to play from nowhere as the magical weave jittered with the memories of her excitement and joy and pride on that day. Celestia had joined in, and their voices had risen in song together, and the weaving magic had even reeled in several engineers passing by outside the quarters they shared as backup singers.

When it had finally ended several minutes later, she had stood there, shaking in astonishment and residual excitement. Celestia was well familiar with the joyful, almost orgasmic feeling, but even she had been surprised by the intensity this time, and she smiled, remembering her own first Crowdsong.

“What…the crispy deep-fried FUCK was that?” Megan finally said, her voice shaky. She was breathing hard, as if she’d been running. “I…holy shit. Does that–does that happen a lot here?”

“That’s what I said,” said the mechanic, standing in the door. Her own face was red with a combination of exertion and embarrassment. Celestia giggled.

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Iron Storm

Raggedy Man

Kerensky at War would be a war of Mechs and Nuclear Weapons. Warships and orbital bombardment. Engineering to a degree that would be incomprehensible to most. The Star League sculpted worlds when desired.

Posted 6 months ago Report

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Background Pony #7C29

A Succession Wars classic.

Posted about a year ago Report

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T72B

that would make poni sad

Posted 2 years ago Report

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GadenKerensky

@T72B

Just tell them about Kentares IV.

Posted 2 years ago Report

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T72B

the sheer mind bending scale of the innersphere would be more than enough, nevermind the sheer scale of those conflicts.

Posted 2 years ago Report

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GadenKerensky

The Inner Sphere would probably horrify even the likes of Chrysalis and Tirek, and more than shake Ponies like Twilight to the core.

The Amaris Civil War and the Succession Wars would rattle them like nothing else, knowing how little friendship meant in the face of Feudalistic Stellar Nations flinging nukes at each other in response to the question, “You and what army?”

Posted 2 years ago Report

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Akamia

Veteran MechWarrior

@Podbeing
Haha. Alright, fine, let’s see what I come up with. :P When it’s ready (which could take a while, all things considered) I’ll drop you the FiMFic link in your DMs should you wish to read. ^^

Posted 3 years ago Report

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Podbeing

@Akamia
Well…have you considered just saying that you were inspired by some batshit insane moron writing crackfic on a booru? Just a thought here. ;)

Also: I’m trying to put together another installment. I won’t say it’s going smoothly, but at least it’s going. Hopefully I’ll post before the next millennium.

Posted 3 years ago Report

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Akamia

Veteran MechWarrior

@Akamia
Good catch :) Twilight isn’t so good at telling much about weapons and she was kind of overwhelmed. But Luna’s mech is actually intended to be a Catapult, since I thought that might suit her personality better. It’s loud, agile for its size and can put a shitload of explosives in one small place. I probably did a shitty job of describing it. But since you mentioned the Flashman and the Mackie, now I can’t get them out of my head, either. When they finally reach the actually stockpile, I wonder if there’s a few in there…

I’d have gone with a Madcat, but that doesn’t fit the era as well. Not without a lot of finagling.

Haha, yeah, a Timber Wolf would have been far harder to justify, as it (and most of its prerequisite techs, for that matter) wouldn’t be invented until after General Kerensky had been long dead. I thought it was either the Flashman, Mackie, or Urbie because you didn’t mention reverse-joint legs (which I incorrectly understood to be what “digitigrade” legs were, hence erroneously identifying the Crab as a Marauder) so I assumed normal, humanoid legs like Celestia’s own Atlas. But without that assumption, a Catapult would have been my first guess, yeah.

… Admittedly, Flashman legs are a bit weird looking. Some art makes them appear digitigrade or even reverse joint, others more humanoid. Which is it, BattleTech artists?!

@Podbeing

@Akamia
Oh wow…if you’ve got something, WRITE it! Let other people revel in your skull-droppings, you beautiful mutant, you!

Weeeeeell, aside from my now fully-cemented headcanon that Celestia has an almost-full lance of functioning SLDF BattleMechs hiding under Canterlot for over a millenium, I think I can squeeze out a good handful of stories based on this concept alone. Only thing is, I didn’t actually come up with it; you did, and I don’t know how to credit you should I actually buckle down and write what I have bouncing around in my head. Heh.

Posted 3 years ago Report
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T72B

@Podbeing
i can relate to that. its been one of those weeks. i basically got home today and put that drawing together.

but i am glad it could lighten your week a bit.

Posted 3 years ago Report

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Podbeing

@Akamia
Oh wow…if you’ve got something, WRITE it! Let other people revel in your skull-droppings, you beautiful mutant, you!

Posted 3 years ago Report

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Podbeing

@T72B

Let’s just say that early on, young Cellie and Luna took part in cross-species movie nights for decompressing after training. And on-the-job training. A lot of the Equestrians would have, if for no other reason than to learn about the humans who were helping to save their world.

Posted 3 years ago Report

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Podbeing

@Akamia
Good catch :) Twilight isn’t so good at telling much about weapons and she was kind of overwhelmed. But Luna’s mech is actually intended to be a Catapult, since I thought that might suit her personality better. It’s loud, agile for its size and can put a shitload of explosives in one small place. I probably did a shitty job of describing it. But since you mentioned the Flashman and the Mackie, now I can’t get them out of my head, either. When they finally reach the actually stockpile, I wonder if there’s a few in there…

I’d have gone with a Madcat, but that doesn’t fit the era as well. Not without a lot of finagling.

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Podbeing

@T72B
I have had a steady succession of shitty days, and then I saw a notification when I came back from work. And then, when I saw this, my jaw dropped and a shiver literally went down my spine and I broke out in goosebumps.

This is perfect. It’s absolutely incredible. I can practically hear the thunder of dozens or hundreds of DropShips coming in for an emergency landing because the planet looks like Earth and they’ve misjumped.

I haven’t forgotten this. Bits and pieces of the story I want to tell are burning holes in my head.

Posted 3 years ago Report
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T72B

planetfall.

Posted 3 years ago Report

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Akamia

Veteran MechWarrior

@Akamia
So, I remembered what “digitigrade” meant, and realized that was not a Marauder being described at all. It was the Crab. That bit about it looking vaguely like a crab was a more important descriptor than the bit about the cannon mount. I feel slightly dumb. lol

Posted 3 years ago Report

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Akamia

Veteran MechWarrior

It really does, doesn’t it? Maybe time doesn’t flow quite the same wherever Equestria does as it does in “our” reality, because reasons? The SLDF might have been there longer than you would reasonably expect. Long enough to engage another deadly enemy in a prolonged campaign, and then maybe even rest and recuperate with their new allies until a way home was found. Alex K. MIGHT have seen the tactical advantages of being able to escape to a hidden bolthole where time gets funny, maybe funny enough to give them a larger operating window for repairs and strategy, and where there are friendly locals with some odd abilities. He’d be canny enough to use it as a storage space and emergency shelter, but ethical enough to protect the indigenous sapients from harm by ensuring almost no one understood the method to get there but him and a tiny handful of trusted allies. “GOD GAME BRIGADOON.” Sorry. Charles Stross fan. Anyone who wanted to talk about the two or three years they spent “elsewhere” fighting actual demons was free to, but they’d laughed at as complete lunatics, and Kerensky would make sure there wasn’t much physical evidence to back it up. And most of his people were good enough and loyal enough that they wouldn’t. These were people who literally followed him into the deep unknown out of loyalty, remember? And any rumors that Kerensky was getting tactical assistance from a magic talking white horse, or a dragon and a griffon or whatever would be dismissed as the talk of drunks or mental patients.

It would be interesting if someone finally found a way in centuries later. Or dug up an old Kerensky journal no one had ever seen before, moldering away on a hard drive in a computer at an abandoned base or something and came poking.

Holy wall of text, Batman! Sorry about that. I forgot paragraphs were a thing..

Don’t worry about it!

To be honest, unless simply being on Equus (or even Equestria in particular) slows one’s aging processes at all, I would expect time to have flowed normally (accounting for such things as relativity, of course) unless the good General turned out to be somewhat younger than he looked at the time of his death. Though if you factor in the fact magic permeates the place, I suppose it’s plausible it may have that effect, among others, on decidedly non-magical humans. I dunno. lol

So… Based on your descriptions, I was able to work out that the BattleMechs in that hidden base were Celestia’s Atlas (either base Atlas or Atlas II; latter seems unlikely, though, but who knows?) and a Marauder likely piloted by someone I’m not familiar with. Megan, perhaps? So what was Luna’s ‘Mech? Based on that description, it sounded like it was either a Flashman, Mackie, or an UrbanMech, from most likely to least likely.

~~I really want a Mackie in a MechWarrior game someday. It’s not like they went extinct or anything, despite being literally the first BattleMechs ever made~~

Posted 3 years ago Report
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T72B

another fun read, thanks

“When I fire this baby up,” said her mentor, grinning like a schoolfilly, “You’re gonna see some serious shit.”

i like to think the celly picked that up from the techs

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Podbeing

@Podbeing
This… This deserves its own short story dedicated to it on FiMFic. I wish I was the one to write it!

As for where Equestria is, I suppose given the context here, it’d most likely be found in the Deep Periphery somewhere. If you accept The Thessalonica Legacy’s interpretation for the purposes of a BattleTech/My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic crossover, Equus is an alt-universe Terra.

Either way, Nicky K better keep his mitts off it. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised to find the files about the planet were deleted shortly after the SLDF departed; an effort to keep the locals safe from human-shaped outside context problems later on. That sounds like something General Kerensky might do, to me. lol

It really does, doesn’t it? Maybe time doesn’t flow quite the same wherever Equestria does as it does in “our” reality, because reasons? The SLDF might have been there longer than you would reasonably expect. Long enough to engage another deadly enemy in a prolonged campaign, and then maybe even rest and recuperate with their new allies until a way home was found. Alex K. MIGHT have seen the tactical advantages of being able to escape to a hidden bolthole where time gets funny, maybe funny enough to give them a larger operating window for repairs and strategy, and where there are friendly locals with some odd abilities. He’d be canny enough to use it as a storage space and emergency shelter, but ethical enough to protect the indigenous sapients from harm by ensuring almost no one understood the method to get there but him and a tiny handful of trusted allies. “GOD GAME BRIGADOON.” Sorry. Charles Stross fan. Anyone who wanted to talk about the two or three years they spent “elsewhere” fighting actual demons was free to, but they’d laughed at as complete lunatics, and Kerensky would make sure there wasn’t much physical evidence to back it up. And most of his people were good enough and loyal enough that they wouldn’t. These were people who literally followed him into the deep unknown out of loyalty, remember? And any rumors that Kerensky was getting tactical assistance from a magic talking white horse, or a dragon and a griffon or whatever would be dismissed as the talk of drunks or mental patients.

It would be interesting if someone finally found a way in centuries later. Or dug up an old Kerensky journal no one had ever seen before, moldering away on a hard drive in a computer at an abandoned base or something and came poking.

Holy wall of text, Batman! Sorry about that. I forgot paragraphs were a thing..

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Akamia

Veteran MechWarrior

@Podbeing
This… This deserves its own short story dedicated to it on FiMFic. I wish I was the one to write it!

As for where Equestria is, I suppose given the context here, it’d most likely be found in the Deep Periphery somewhere. If you accept The Thessalonica Legacy‘s interpretation for the purposes of a BattleTech/My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic crossover, Equus is an alt-universe Terra.

Either way, Nicky K better keep his mitts off it. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised to find the files about the planet were deleted shortly after the SLDF departed; an effort to keep the locals safe from human-shaped outside context problems later on. That sounds like something General Kerensky might do, to me. lol

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Podbeing

Clarification: Ancient Clarketech (comparatively speaking) gets kind of weird in a world of magic. Or after it’s been exposed to magic for a few thousand years. Or after it’s been modded with magic. Whatever.

I still have no idea if Equestria is somewhere in the deep periphery, near the Pentagon Worlds, in a different galaxy or in a completely different universe entirely.

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