Author: ADriftingThought
Description: Amnesia is an uncommon case in Equestria, but is known to be curable. So when an amnesiac colt is discovered in the Everfree forest, it is only natural for the ponies of Ponyville to aid him in whatever way they can. But as time progresses, the colt begins to piece together the mystery of his past. The knowledge he uncovers, along with the power he develops, soon lead him to believe that his past is far more dangerous than what his new friends make it out to be. That his mere presence could threaten those around him, and that his memories could very well act as a key to Equestria's future.The Logical Option Chapter 1
The Logical Option Chapter 2
The Logical Option Chapter 3
The Logical Option Chapter 4
The Logical Option Chapter 5
The Logical Option Chapter 6
The Logical Option Chapter 7
The Logical Option Chapter 8
The Logical Option Chapter 9
The Logical Option Chapter 10
The Logical Option Chapter 11
Additional Tags: Lengthy, OC, Amnesia, Memories, Reason
54 comments:
yay update + first
ReplyDeleteSoooo, I've read chapter 1 ... a green pony named "Sigmund" with the greek letter psi as a cutie mark heh ? I have the feeling I know who that "OC" is ! Am gonna read it entirely !
ReplyDeleteNot done with the fic yet, but one line that caught my eye was when Big Mac said, "Eeeeeeyup, ah sell apple an' apple accessories here". Gave me a good laugh to see that actually included in something.
ReplyDeleteAll I really have to say is that the story is really good through and through. I'd personally like to see more of Sigmund, in whatever things might follow, if they could be possible written about. The character is really compelling and interesting to read about for me; I like thinking about the way the mind works myself as well.
ReplyDeleteSounds good, I'll read it. *clicks link*
ReplyDeleteAlso, I love the picture.
pretty damn good
ReplyDelete6 stars
Very good story.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a interesting story and definitely worth the read.
ReplyDelete6 stars
Why always Google Docs? I mean, it's great that people get to see these stories, but why isn't there a pony site that collects them properly? 99% of 'em just need the basic three text styles and one nice font, surely we could have something slapped together for ponytales in a day or two what with the thousands of bronies out there. Or ff.net aka Awkward in a Box.
ReplyDeleteNo offense to Eq Daily, though! I was meaning a site to upload, store, and edit things in as many or few documents as the author desires. And then just set marks to split the chapters in the database.
ReplyDeletePlus no needing to upload separate files in order to share between authors.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteGoogle docs is so integrated and easy to do things with, its hard not to use it.
The chat rooms, the live editing, the easy archiving, and the mobile view. It blows FF.net and DA out of the water, and those were built for it.
*slowly claps*
ReplyDeleteThat.... was an awesome story...
@Sethisto @Anonymous
ReplyDeleteFF.net was built as an archive from the early 90s, now with a little bit of DHTML thrown in. The UI is horrible, and really, only the database is worth keeping.
If I were building it now, I'd integrate a few functions and/or get someone out of the hundred-thousand authors (who surely encompass all possible careers in modern society) to design a better UI that tells me the difference between a chapter bookmark button and a story favoriting button (and helps me FIND the one I want), among many important and useful changes.
We've learned a few lessons about good UI in the past twenty years, and expectations have changed. Google Docs shouldn't be the preferred archive site if we already have one -- but Google has a good UI. Why can't FF.net?
At least the editor's kind of nice, but it's almost a standard widget.
Inb4 He meets Steven Magnet and forms Sigmund and the Sea Monsters
ReplyDeleteI just finished reading this, pretty much one-shotted it. Wow. I don't know what to say; it was very well thought out, gripping, scary at times, and in the end it achieved the kind of bittersweet emotional response that lets you know you just read some awesome sh*t. Well done, ADriftingThought. You have skill!
ReplyDeleteYeah, no.
ReplyDelete"not worth saving"?
Up yours.
I liked this story a lot. Lots of spoilers below, so don't read this to your discretion.
ReplyDeleteTo be critical, I don't like how it looked down upon our society. The moral was missing, and it came off too much as a pretentiously smug "I'm the only genuinely good human in a world of evil people" schtick when it could've been something much more eye-opening. This anticlimax could have easily been averted if Sigmund would have been more antagonistic and gone through a larger scope of character development (like going from bad to good) rather than just always being good from the start. Sigmund could have admitted at the end that his impression of people were wrong, and the apocalypse came about because of a lack of bonds through hard times, but now he understands the value of friendship and sees he was to blame too for the destruction of mankind. As a result he would feel responsible to travel the world and destroy the weapons of mass destruction so as to allow Equestria to prosper and grow.
Other than this minor nitpick I loved this story and thought it was a great job. Nice work, loved reading it!
Author here.
ReplyDeleteI'll first start off by saying: Wow. And here I was being completely paranoid for nothing. I'm really glad you all enjoyed this.
@Anonymous
Possible spoilers below
I figured someone would have a problem with this. I knew there was still some things about that chapter that needed to be fixed or improved, but I was at loss as to what exactly needed to be changed. But if enough people have a problem with it, then I'll go back and edit it slightly to have him take back some of what he said.
4star... it wasn't bad and it wasn't great
ReplyDeleteSPOILERS
had a hard time figuring out exactly what was bugging me about this story and it dawned on me at the Manticore scene. everyone except dash twilight and Sigmund seem to be just echoing themselves (in terms of dialogue). no one really seemed to change for as far as the story went on. Beyond that the plot was readable and although i generaly dislike OC and this story is almost why. IMHO, especialy for a show like this, OC that come into regular contact with the mane cast should have some stark contrast to them so as not to end up being one of those guys who just blend in well (though amnesia kinda rules this out) then i agree entirely with the previous anons problem with sigmund... but beyond that this had a decent plot and was structured very well. you made sure it was to tell when the perspective/scene changed wich seems to be a problem for a lot of other writers out here >.>
on a technical note in the first 6 chapters there are a lot of little redundancies (ex: just had just)
on an unrelated note: the spell check on these comments is rubbish
Also a one shot on this story. I dig. Unfortunately, I thought I was above the likes of shipping (oh, who am I kidding), but the idea of an epilogue excites me.
ReplyDelete@Sethisto
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't have the one thing I care about though. A subscribe button.
I loved it.I've found the end very sad
ReplyDeleteBut really,a good read.
Good work.
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ReplyDeleteWow, that was...good. Very, very good! I'm used to seeing some great one-shots with OC's as a focus but outside of "Fallout Equestria" I'm not used to seeing multi-part stories featuring an OC and still be enjoyable. Good job, sir.
ReplyDeleteAnd, damn it, son of a mare, now I actually want to see a Fluttershy/Big Mac ship and I'm the guy who normally hates shipping stories! Augh! How dare you make an unofficial ship seem plausible!
@ADriftingThought no worries i figure they're inevitable, also good luck with future work :D
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this. 5/5. I'd like to see a sequal with Sigmund and his quest.
ReplyDeleteThis was, I must say, very good. Excellent plot, and that ending... wow. It actually gave me the same vibes as the ending of Fullmetal Alchemist (the 2003 series.) For anyone who has watched it, I think you can understand that. It was this overwhelming sadness at the separation of characters, mixed with the uplifting thought of their resolve and mental connection, with the hope that they will one day meet again.
ReplyDeleteI also felt the characters were handled really well. You really let their voices and personalities come through, down to their little quirks, like Rarity getting every new stranger to try on a myriad of clothes and Twilight's reliance on books for every aspect of life, down to even romance.
Sigmund was really a fantastic character. I'd love to see him in a continuation of this, if that's somehow possible. (As someone else mentioned, maybe an epilogue? I don't know; it almost might ruin the story.) For some reason, I also couldn't help but think of Doctor Whoof while reading this. Maybe there's a connection? :P
That said, I have a few minor nitpicks. There were some times where the wording was a little repetitive and you could have made better use of pronouns, but I'll let that slide since you've stated you haven't done much writing. Rainbow Dash saying "20% cooler" seemed a little contrived too; it just didn't feel natural, like you were trying to force the meme in there. Saying just "cooler" would probably work better.
Again, well done. 5/5
Logical fallacies eeeeeverywhere!
ReplyDeleteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeverywhere!
Cool story, though.
Okay, I'm the type that very commonly will write long winded reviews nitpicking everything that was wrong with a story and I openly admit that this is one of the few times I've found myself with very little to say.
ReplyDeleteMost of what I have to say revolves around the divulgence of Sigmund's past. Sigmund was an excellent and well thought out character, but the concept of "not worth saving" just bugs me. It seems strange that after having been so well thought out up to that point, the story would suddenly jump into "Interdimensional's" plot no-no about utterly ignoring all the good aspects of humanity. I suppose it was relatively well justified in that it was not necessarily relevant to his story and would have taken too long to explain, but it was just a little nagging and disruptive to get the "I'm the only good one in a race of jerks" thing feel like it was popping up again. Really, there was nothing WRONG but that part may have wanted to be worded a little differently. Actually right now my big problem is that I always like to give suggestions on how one can improve but I'm having a hard time coming up with anything so either this is beyond me or I'm talking outta my flank... or maybe it's the fact that it's past 2:30 am and I'm tired and I should stop reading pony fanfiction and go to bed.
I'm rambling now.
I will say this before I go though. The last chapter actually brought a tear to my eye. You have NO idea how hard it is to get me to cry at a story, and it has almost never happened in the past. If you actually got me to connecct with this on such an emotional level that I actually began crying... well you're definately doing something right.
5 stars. Excellent work.
@Anka
ReplyDeletePROPANE.
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ReplyDeleteWOW just WOW this story was GREAT loved it sad he didn't end up with Twilight though any chance of a sequel in the future i hope so
ReplyDeleteI've typed 5 different, lengthly, smart person worthy comments here, and all have proved inadequate. So I'm just gonna go ahead and say it plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteMind, Heart, Soul = BLOWN
6/5
Great story. I liked just about everything, except for your portrayal of Celestia. I really don't think she would be quite so mean and untrusting to Sigmund.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely a six star story.
ReplyDeleteI really want to see this story continue.
Celestia is such a bigoted specieist tyrant bitch in this one. That's also the only part of the story I didn't like.
ReplyDeleteWow. If you don't write an epilogue of sorts, I will be extremely upset. That was fantastic, and i love how it incorporated the whole "ponies came from humanity's downfall" story. The story was well thought out, had beautiful elements of diplomacy, interaction, etc. (I also love that Celestia actually acted like the leader of a country in this without seeming like her mission for twilight in ponyville was a joke or a trifle.)
ReplyDeleteYou are clever, and if i had a choice, i'd give this 7 stars. 7. fuck 6 stars. Whatchu know about writing fan fics, hater? (if anyone gets this, i will love you forever).
Anyway, if it weren't for the fact that it were a fanfic, I'd suggest you get it published
While I thought it was good for most of the story, I think the end seemed tacked on and rushed. The whole "last survivor of humanity" business seems rather out of place with little to tie it into the rest. I would have found it easier to buy Sigmund being a newly-manifested god than a human-turned-pony.
ReplyDeleteAside from the disappointing ending, it's still good, so I'm giving this four stars.
This was one of the few stories that can make me cry. It was so beautiful, and it further pushes me to think that an apocalypse could bring such a beautiful thing as a world free of hate and war. Greed will forever corrupt the human world...
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna say this before reading Chapter 6:
ReplyDeleteFREUD!
Ok, now to finish the story.
Dang, I was wrong.
ReplyDeleteWait
Yay, I was wrong!
Any chance of a sequel? I would love to read more about Sigmund and his quest.
This is still tagged as a 6-star story even though it has a rating of 4.6? Personally I think it has a bit too many flaws for a 6-star,
ReplyDelete***Spoiler***
mostly because it somehow became a "Mary Sue human in Equestria" story. Did he really need all this power for the story to work? It seemed way over the top.
***end Spoiler***
Also, I didn't like this interpretation of Celestia, she was quite the tyrant here and it seemed contradictory to the perfect world the story claims Equestria to be. 4/5 stars for a very enjoyable first half of the story and a mostly good realization of a somewhat flawed story.
This is still tagged as a 6-star story even though it has a rating of 4.6? Personally I think it has a bit too many flaws for a 6-star,
ReplyDelete***Spoiler***
mostly because it somehow became a "Mary Sue human in Equestria" story. Did he really need all this power for the story to work? It seemed way over the top.
***end Spoiler***
Also, I didn't like this interpretation of Celestia, she was quite the tyrant here and it seemed contradictory to the perfect world the story claims Equestria to be. 4/5 stars for a very enjoyable first half of the story and a mostly good realization of a somewhat flawed story.
My my my, if I could rate this more than 5 stars, I would!
ReplyDeleteI'm not the one that normally reads fanfic, but this was great! An amazing tale, beautiful yet sad, and made my inner picture of Equestria and its inhabitants even deeper.
Even tho I tend to dislike shipping (or quite frankly hate it), Fluttershy and Big Macintosh made it up the my small list of "sometimes acceptable shippings".
...
Ah, who'm I kidding? D'aaaaaaaaaw! They were SO CUTE!!
So I just wanna thank you for a great fanfic! Keep up the awesome work!
Science Is Bad? Really?
ReplyDeleteI cannot give this more than two stars now.
With Celestia acting like... THAT... and... just no.
I don't even want to finish reading this anymore. I Made it all the way to somewhere in the middle of chapter ten, but I don't feel any wish to read any further. So I won't.
And this "prediction science" thing? What it predicted, and that it happened, made no sense. Humanity just dying out like that? Seriously? I mean, collapsing society I can somewhat understand, but GOING EXTINCT? And the machinery working for, what, 5000 - 10000 years at the very least, with no maintenence? Just. Freaking. No.
It just makes no bucking sense and utterly breaks the story for me.
@Rosethorn Larana'Khash (AKA theuncalledfor)
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I wish now that I had gotten that sort of criticism before I submitted this story. Back when I wrote those parts, I just threw in some values and ideas off the top of my head. In the beginning, no one said anything to me about them, so I thought the story was fine and there was nothing to go back and fix.
In the past few months, I have noticed this story's flaws. They were all a result of my stupid mistakes while writing.
When post the sequel in a couple months or so, I'm going to carefully edit/revise/retcon those chapters. I think the best way of getting rid of my mistakes is changing or removing them for the better.
Not much to say.
ReplyDelete5/5
Great Story.
I eagerly await the sequel.
Sigmund was cognizant of the fact that humans were "corrupt". Sigmund was a good human. This makes him either a liar, a pretentious idiot, or a complete hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteProbably some combination of the above, reading his ridiculous savior-complex dialogue, I'd say a pretentious idiot as well as hypocrite.
He barely makes an effort to save humanity and, in the end, gives up the effort to save his own people because of his ridiculously inflated ego.
Quote
"I lost my friendships, but only because my friends knew that being friends with me meant their lives would be worse. Because of this, I lost all my ties. If I still had some, I can safely say that I would have hesitated with my decision to partake in the experiment. Yet there was nothing left for me, and now here I am today."
This character that's supposedly fitting the role of super-Jesus is quite the pretentious ****off.
Rosenthorn already mentioned the utter implausibility of that LaPlace's demon prediction ability being used in modern society as well as what it predicted, so I'm not really going to nitpick on that.
The last thing i'm going to mention is the moral dichotomy presented in your story. Humans are corrupt, ponies are good.
Despite my earlier comments I can go with this, the fact that humans are also capable of good is irrelevant, seeing as you seem to portray ponies as good all the time. In this case, it's not a matter of whether or not humans are evil or good, it's more a case of ponies being relatively better than humans.
However, princess Celestia seems to act like a human with human justifications. Which cannot be plausible given the scenario that Sigmund seems to portray.
Quote
“Yet ponykind does something... right. I can’t quite put my finge-” he cut himself off, and replaced the proper term, “I can’t quite put my hoof on it, but Equestrian Society works. Everypony is happy. Everypony accepts each others differences. There are only small, personal conflicts. No sort of large scale war. This is the society... that I wished humankind could have been."
Yet the minute Celestia, discovers even a potential threat she automatically assumes the worst and tries to have him arrested. Given your premise that pony society, as well as ponies in general, are somehow objectively morally superior to humans, I do not believe they would harbor such automatic suspicion for everything outside their society. This is something called xenophobia, which I doubt perfect pony morality should allow.
Furthermore on that point, there wouldn't really be a point of Sigmund going around to destroy human technological relics. If pony society, as well as ponies in general, are so fundamentally morally different from humanity, then what is the risk of them discovering "dangerous" technology? At best, what this point exemplifies is the opine that ponies are ignorant to the point of retardation, and that they merely do not possess the means to destroy themselves, not that they have some inherent herculean self-control which they exert, or that they have some super-dna that they commits them to an empathic relationship with other living beings which prevents them from treating them as harshly as humanity did. If these hypothetical super-nice ponies possessed weaponry, then they wouldn't murder each other, nor would they disregard every other consequence should they come across some other potentially "civilization ending" means. So either Sigmund is a dingus, and he has false belief about his belief, and, deep down inside, he believes ponies are every bit as corrupt as the humans, and that they should be shielded from what destroyed the humans in the first place, technology (which is kind of stupid, but we're assuming technology is an awful awful thing). Or he truly, truly believes that ponies are that much less morally reprehensible than humanity, and that they could never do wrong, but arrived at a false conclusion where technology would do them plausible harm, and is hence going on a worthless journey.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit long winded, and I sound a mite grouchy, but i'm not going to change it because i'd feel less honest if I did.
Toodles. (Changed into two parts, because of character limitations)
I have not read this because I'm waiting for you to update it. But I have read many of the comments. I hope this isn't too off track.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the idea that 5k-10k years is too long for any possibly-made-in-the-future machinery to last. Current tech? Yes, for sure (I didn't read yet, as I said). Make it futuristic enough and it's basically fine.
Science being bad or nonsensical would completely break a fic for me IF it is not stated for a particular reason. Basically, /science/ is an extension of creativity using objective, rational thought as its tools. Technology being bad? Ehh... but more doable. Psudoscience, like psychoanalysis, which is untestable, would be perfectly fine to say is bad, though be sure you know what you're talking about.
I loved the first chapter once I got past the first 3-4 pages (which need to be worked), which probably need something about how amnesia is uncommon in equestria.
Looking forwards to finishing reading this. :)
@axlemn
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you didn't read ahead. This is taking longer than I thought, so I've replaced the old version with the newer one on google docs. There are some edits left to be made, like with rampant grammatical/spelling errors, but I will deal with those over the course of the next few days.
@ADriftingThought
ReplyDeleteRead it before originally, and despite criticisms of other commenters I thoroughly enjoyed this (then again I am someone who is easily pleased).
But with this re-writing, how far along are you now, and would you be resubmitting it to Seth prior to the sequel?
EDIT: NEVERMIND, I actually just bothered to open up Chapter 1 and actually read the notice, aha. Looking forward to the updates regardless!
ReplyDeleteMake sure this gets in the update posts, please!
ReplyDelete