“Ever since a particularly traumatic experience as a foal, I’ve been looking for ways to make sense of the world around me. Science provides explanation of things we never thought possible!!”

I once had a good friend, wife, children, the happy life our princesses wished for every stallion and mare. If the world around me was as it should have been, then I would still have those things. To hold my straw blond darling in my hooves, to kiss my young and sweet fillies good night, tuck them in after a long day of work. THAT was how the world was suppose to go. Yet, it didn’t. It never would for me, no matter how desperately I wanted otherwise, or even attempted.

Legends, stories told through word of mouth, histories colored in romantic ideals and morals. The very foundation for any cultured civilization, even ours in Equestria. Like for instance the legend of Nightmare moon, her jealousy and rage to enshroud the world in eternal night, warning us of what dark thoughts could do to a once kind mare. Or of the stars being the maleficent things they were, demanding the blood of the living. The former legend just so happened to be true, the latter…I’ve no solid evidence to support such a theory. Not that it matters if those striped bastards believed it as truth…how unbecoming of me…if the zebras believed it.

It’s been well documented what transpired before we ponies, all of us, burned the surface of equestria to a horrible landscape known as the wasteland. It’s been my burden to understand. To know just how badly we failed, how our best intentions had killed so many. How it failed to kill me, and how I long for such a thing. But, I can not. Not until I do all that I can to fix all that we’ve broken. It just doesn’t help I’m so close to being feral.

Oh, That’s right I forgot to mention…I’m a ghoul, Long living one too. When the first balefire bombs had raged through Equestria’s population centers, I was there! And let me tell you…surviving something like that hurts…it hurts a lot. Living through such an ordeal, that…hurt even more. I don’t think many ghouls admit to this, but our nerve endings still work. So imaging your fur and skin stuck in a permanent third degree burn, yeah…it’s enough to make some ponies mad.It has, now that I think about it, The robots I helped design suffered the same problem…I wonder if i could improve the design so they were a little more normal…Then of course I would have to change how the synapses would be wired up…maybe if I altered the way they sense the environment, or reduce or remove the compulsion programing, both actual good o’ computer programing, and/or brainwashing… Sorry, I have a tendency to ramble about ideas once I get them started. My wife thought it enduring…my colleagues, on the other hoof…not so much…where was I?

Oh! The pain…it is unbearable at first, least those ghouls born from megaspells such as I, but eventually the thresh hold for pain grows to match it, that’s if you can keep your mental fortitude. Suppose my own guilt helped to keep myself, or maybe it’s just a strange quirk of fate. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. Still haven’t found the answer to it. I’ve been stuck on this chard, and poisoned land for several centuries. In my long life I have seen beacons of hope rise and fall in this corruptive nightmare our elements caused. How our divisions made by the ministries helped fuel the atrocities done by both sides of our war. We with our weapons and spells for battle. The Zebras with their mystical potion making and fetishes, especially that horrid pink mist. I did study it for a bit…nasty stuffs mind you, but how it blended both nature and necromantic magics was a thing of beauty. Truly a pity it’s only application was immediate death upon inhalation, or a miserable half life of being fused to anything touching you. (Steelhooves has my deepest sympathies. Even if the stallion want my head on a spike. I am absolutely convinced If he spotted me in the company of some unscrupulous raiders not only would he not save me, He would help them do what ever it is they do, before killing them of course. Not that he isn’t without a legitimate reason for that.)

The reason the Steel Ranger hates me, is simple…I was one of the engineers for a good portion of the ministries’ projects. I helped make the armor the steel rangers used. I helped make the half pony robots that had been driven mad and now kill everything. I helped make the device used that had made an even further abomination that calls itself “The Goddess.” I Helped develop the stables and designed some of the “Experiments” that Stable-tec had placed in them. I helped make the pip-buck usable to anypony that wasn’t a unicorn…still proud of that one…oops…for got another fun fact about me…not a unicorn, or a pegasus…just a down to earth…er…maybe not so much…but…never mind that…I’m just trying to say I’m an earth pony. My fascination with the sciences instead of magic helped make me the foremost knowledgable pony on non-unicorn application of magic (ironically, mind you, since that was never what I was after anyway…My passion was with clocks, time and machines) made my contributions pony kind indispensable. Which lead to my greatest achievement and sin. I had worked primarily with the Ministry of Peace, with a great friend of mine. Her pacifist nature had blinded me to all that could go wrong…what was wrong with what we were working on. If it hadn’t been for me, I would say it’s creation would have been nigh impossible, or, at the very least, taken so long to develop that the war could have ended before it was even at the prototype stage. I would like to think that…

No the real reason that SteelHooves would love to kill me, would do everything in his power to make my demise hurt for as long as possible, is what ended the world, make him the half living zombie he is today. I helped develop the original megaspell. I put the zebrican nations and equestria on the fast track for destruction. Turned my wife into a ghoul, killed so, so many ponies with my good intentions… burned the world into a deadly, corruptive, husk that lays before me. It’s a fact I wake up to every day of my, now, unnatural life, and I would do anything to make the past right. Sadly, all I did was make it worse…so now, I do nothing of the sort. Just aim to help one pony at a time for as long as I can, and I expect to continue to do this for quite some time.

I once had a good friend, wife, children, the happy life our princesses wished for every stallion and mare. If the world around me was as it should have been then I would still have those things. Now I only have my name, and even that I hide away shamefully. Long before the world burned I was known as Time Turner. Now? Now I just go by Doctor, a promise to myself to help in what ever way I can until my rotting body turns me feral.

Author's Note

Another Idea stuck in my head. took less then 20 minutes to write, edit, and post, so yeah...there might just be some grammatical errors. So now i have three stories to bounce between. I have been working on the second part of Borders (nearly half way typed and then the self editing.) So I'm aiming for that to be out by Saturday at the latest. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Glad to answer them