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The Nature of Prophecy
After several minutes of staring in silence, Star Swirl pronounced the heart "moderately clever", and wandered off. That was how it went with him: he spent weeks or months tracking down some artifact or spell, then promptly lost interest nearly as soon as he began his studies. His current obsession was prophecy, and on this latest journey we had already observed a yak bone-burning ritual (“trivial”), a pegasus ornithomancer (“effective enough, but hardly prophetic”), and a unicorn astrologer (“disappointing”). He had not said why, despite these and other failures, he remained convinced that true prophetic magic was possible.
I stayed behind. There was no particular hurry - Star Swirl would spend the evening updating his notes, and the most I’d get from interrupting him was a snappish comment or two. Besides, “moderately clever” was a rare treat. I could usually figure out how the moderately clever artifacts worked, and unlike the trivial ones the puzzle tended to be worth solving.
The Crystal Heart was the most complicated artifact ever to gain the title of “moderately clever”. Tendrils of magic flowed to and from it in planar direction, far more than I could count, and mingled with each other within it in a baffling tangle. Even Star Swirl couldn’t figure out such magic so quickly; the secret must have lain elsewhere. I looked into the crystal.
She was beautiful, not like ponies are beautiful but like storms are beautiful, an amalgamation of earth and sky and aether, standing more than twice the height of the tallest pony I had ever met. Her horn glowed impossibly brightly - had I seen her in person and not merely in a vision, I think I would have been struck blind - and the world seemed to warp around her as she struck at some darkness-shrouded creature I couldn’t clearly see. She was not the most awful creature I had ever seen - the world contains many great and terrible things, and as Star Swirl’s student I had seen more than most. But those great and terrible things did not ordinarily wear my face.
I suspected then that I knew the reason for Star Swirl’s interest in prophecy; I would have given my horn to understand the vision. I spent the night studying the heart.
In the morning, we left the Crystal Kingdom, following a legend of a reindeer settlement to the north. Аs usual, Star Swirl asked me to describe the mechanism underlying the heart’s powers. I answered that I had been unable to arrive at a convincing explanation.
He gave me a disappointed look. “The Crystal Heart,” he said, “draws on, amplifies, and reflects the feelings of the ponies of the Crystal Kingdom; separately, it produces prophecies. Unify those effects.”
“You think it does the same to thoughts. Ponies predict the future in the ordinary way, and the heart combines those predictions and reflects them as prophecies.”
He nodded. “You’re not completely hopeless, at least.”
“You’re mistaken. I got a prophecy when I looked into the heart, and nopony in the kingdom has any reason to be making predictions about me.”
It wasn’t often I saw Star Swirl startle. “Describe the prophecy.”
“I saw myself as a chimera of the three major tribes, fighting an enemy I couldn’t see clearly.”
“The mechanism of the heart,” he said, “is as you’ve described. Your own experience does not contradict it.”
No matter how I pressed him from there, he refused to elaborate.
On three further occasions I saw the vision again. The details were not precisely identical, but the differences between visions were not particularly informative: I came no closer to understanding the creature I was to become or the enemy I was to encounter. After each instance Star Swirl denied that the source of the vision had any true ability to see the future, and I found I agreed.
I don’t know if there is such a thing as genuine prophecy; whatever proof Star Swirl thought he had once discovered he didn’t share with me before his disappearance, and he was never so infallible as his reputation later suggested. In any case, every prophecy I have personally encountered was a more ordinary sort of prediction, revealing nothing that a sufficiently clever pony could not figure out on her own.
I therefore know for a fact that my sister’s betrayal was perfectly foreseeable, and that the thousand years we now spend apart can only be blamed on my own incompetence.
I stayed behind. There was no particular hurry - Star Swirl would spend the evening updating his notes, and the most I’d get from interrupting him was a snappish comment or two. Besides, “moderately clever” was a rare treat. I could usually figure out how the moderately clever artifacts worked, and unlike the trivial ones the puzzle tended to be worth solving.
The Crystal Heart was the most complicated artifact ever to gain the title of “moderately clever”. Tendrils of magic flowed to and from it in planar direction, far more than I could count, and mingled with each other within it in a baffling tangle. Even Star Swirl couldn’t figure out such magic so quickly; the secret must have lain elsewhere. I looked into the crystal.
She was beautiful, not like ponies are beautiful but like storms are beautiful, an amalgamation of earth and sky and aether, standing more than twice the height of the tallest pony I had ever met. Her horn glowed impossibly brightly - had I seen her in person and not merely in a vision, I think I would have been struck blind - and the world seemed to warp around her as she struck at some darkness-shrouded creature I couldn’t clearly see. She was not the most awful creature I had ever seen - the world contains many great and terrible things, and as Star Swirl’s student I had seen more than most. But those great and terrible things did not ordinarily wear my face.
I suspected then that I knew the reason for Star Swirl’s interest in prophecy; I would have given my horn to understand the vision. I spent the night studying the heart.
In the morning, we left the Crystal Kingdom, following a legend of a reindeer settlement to the north. Аs usual, Star Swirl asked me to describe the mechanism underlying the heart’s powers. I answered that I had been unable to arrive at a convincing explanation.
He gave me a disappointed look. “The Crystal Heart,” he said, “draws on, amplifies, and reflects the feelings of the ponies of the Crystal Kingdom; separately, it produces prophecies. Unify those effects.”
“You think it does the same to thoughts. Ponies predict the future in the ordinary way, and the heart combines those predictions and reflects them as prophecies.”
He nodded. “You’re not completely hopeless, at least.”
“You’re mistaken. I got a prophecy when I looked into the heart, and nopony in the kingdom has any reason to be making predictions about me.”
It wasn’t often I saw Star Swirl startle. “Describe the prophecy.”
“I saw myself as a chimera of the three major tribes, fighting an enemy I couldn’t see clearly.”
“The mechanism of the heart,” he said, “is as you’ve described. Your own experience does not contradict it.”
No matter how I pressed him from there, he refused to elaborate.
On three further occasions I saw the vision again. The details were not precisely identical, but the differences between visions were not particularly informative: I came no closer to understanding the creature I was to become or the enemy I was to encounter. After each instance Star Swirl denied that the source of the vision had any true ability to see the future, and I found I agreed.
I don’t know if there is such a thing as genuine prophecy; whatever proof Star Swirl thought he had once discovered he didn’t share with me before his disappearance, and he was never so infallible as his reputation later suggested. In any case, every prophecy I have personally encountered was a more ordinary sort of prediction, revealing nothing that a sufficiently clever pony could not figure out on her own.
I therefore know for a fact that my sister’s betrayal was perfectly foreseeable, and that the thousand years we now spend apart can only be blamed on my own incompetence.
Pics
What a brutal last line. I felt miserable in a kicked-in-the-solar-plexus way when I read that, which is exactly as intended; you set everything up for that conclusion in a way that immediately made sense upon reading it without being obvious along the way that that was the emotional beat you were building to. Excellent work, there.
I feel like this story needs to be slightly longer; the second scene could give us a little more of Celly's thoughts/impressions/how she's figuring, but I realize you're right up at the wordlimit, and you got enough in there for everything to make sense. I just think the flow would be better, and fit the first and third sections better, if it wasn't almost pure dialogue with no internal thoughts/impressions.
But even beyond that gut punch at the end, I really enjoyed this fic. We got off to a great start with a dry-humorous glimpse of SS's critique, and even as that tone became increasingly serious, it never felt anything less than cohesive. Nice job!
I feel like this story needs to be slightly longer; the second scene could give us a little more of Celly's thoughts/impressions/how she's figuring, but I realize you're right up at the wordlimit, and you got enough in there for everything to make sense. I just think the flow would be better, and fit the first and third sections better, if it wasn't almost pure dialogue with no internal thoughts/impressions.
But even beyond that gut punch at the end, I really enjoyed this fic. We got off to a great start with a dry-humorous glimpse of SS's critique, and even as that tone became increasingly serious, it never felt anything less than cohesive. Nice job!
What >>Chris said:
This story put the idea in my head that Clover the Clever becomes Celestia, and I like that idea a lot. It clears up some points of Equestrian history that have bothered me so much, I've written a couple stories myself trying to make them make sense.
As I said in commenting on the previous piece, complete stories always get a high score from me in minific Writeoffs, and you've definitely got one here, author. When expanding it to meet the Fimfic minimum, in addition to Chris's points, I'll add that some "scene setting" would be nice: describing where our narrator is when she's examing the Crystal Heart at the beginning, adding a few visuals as they're leaving the Empire, stuff like that. But yeah, this one's pretty much there.
Mike
This story put the idea in my head that Clover the Clever becomes Celestia, and I like that idea a lot. It clears up some points of Equestrian history that have bothered me so much, I've written a couple stories myself trying to make them make sense.
As I said in commenting on the previous piece, complete stories always get a high score from me in minific Writeoffs, and you've definitely got one here, author. When expanding it to meet the Fimfic minimum, in addition to Chris's points, I'll add that some "scene setting" would be nice: describing where our narrator is when she's examing the Crystal Heart at the beginning, adding a few visuals as they're leaving the Empire, stuff like that. But yeah, this one's pretty much there.
Mike
I think my main issue with this story is that the impact of the ending hinges on Celestia being right that she could have predicted Luna going evil, and we just don't get much reason to believe that's true (Star Swirl says it is, more or less, and by convention the old wizard giving exposition is probably telling the truth, but we're forced to take him at his word) - I would have liked to have seen either some interaction with Luna that suggested the relationship wasn't working, or some better justification for why the heart is able to make the prediction it does.
The pacing of the whole second half feels very rushed, which might be a word limit thing - basically everything after leaving the Crystal Kingdom (Empire?) feels like it's trying to tick the necessary checkboxes to set up the conclusion.
I did like the Star Swirl characterization at the beginning, and the concept here is interesting, but on the whole it doesn't quite land.
The pacing of the whole second half feels very rushed, which might be a word limit thing - basically everything after leaving the Crystal Kingdom (Empire?) feels like it's trying to tick the necessary checkboxes to set up the conclusion.
I did like the Star Swirl characterization at the beginning, and the concept here is interesting, but on the whole it doesn't quite land.
Admittedly, I puzzled a bit over the way the theme of ‘prophecy’ is elaborated in this story (first being related to magic and then likened to something like artificial intelligence), but I think what you basically mean is to distinguish between something in the future which can be avoided in contrast to something which can’t.
For my taste, you don’t have to prove that C could have done something to evade her confrontation with her sister—it’s the ambiguity which is important. This is a modern twist—unlike our Greek predecessors, we take it for granted that observing a thing changes the nature of the thing.
It seems like Star Swirl is aware of this. In the middle passage he startles, and refuses to comment on his student’s further questions on the matter; in the third passage he discounts the artifact’s capacity to prophesize. It is almost as if C has become the subject of his experiment, though of course he disappears before his “proof of genuine prophecy” is ever realized.
For my taste, you don’t have to prove that C could have done something to evade her confrontation with her sister—it’s the ambiguity which is important. This is a modern twist—unlike our Greek predecessors, we take it for granted that observing a thing changes the nature of the thing.
It seems like Star Swirl is aware of this. In the middle passage he startles, and refuses to comment on his student’s further questions on the matter; in the third passage he discounts the artifact’s capacity to prophesize. It is almost as if C has become the subject of his experiment, though of course he disappears before his “proof of genuine prophecy” is ever realized.