FimFiction Link - Short ID: 465427/a-simple-question-a-terrible-truth
Published: Apr '20
I find it funny that I actually read this story before, but for some reason, I still had it in my RL shelf.
Anyway, the story is amateurish. Super fast pacing, no buildup and a few forced emotional moments. A shame, because the concept is interesting, if not wholly original.
Twilight questions the nature of her world, goes to see Celestia, gets worked up, so Celestia wakes her up. It turns out Nightmare Moon won, but after banishing Celestia to the sun, she was burned alive. This also killed the sun and now the planet froze. Twilight and the rest were kept in a state of suspended animation, living a simulation while NMM uses her magic to keep them alive and keep that part of the world from freezing.
The story ends as you'd imagine, with Twilight choosing to reenter the simulation sfter finding out this is the eleventh time NMM has let her out, with one time even spending two decades trying to figure out a way of undoing what NMM did, to no avail.
Honestly, the only notable thing about this story is its idea, and even then, it's farily straightforward. I really can't think how this could've been turned in anything more than "It was a simulation all along!" other than perhaps setting it in that time Twilight stayed in the real world and tried to figure out how to undo the damage, but with each failed avenue of research she gets more and more desperate until she breaks down, gives up, and decides to return to the simulation. That way, at least you can have some emotion and character drama in it, but as it stands, this story is plain not good.