Fanfic / The Avatar of Albion

"I was David Elliot... But now I am more. I am the spirit of Arthur, returned in Britain's hour of need. I am the spirit of the sword Excalibur, defender of justice and honour. I am the vengeance of a nation, the battle cry of a world that has been raped and mutilated beyond all endurance by thine and thy mistress' evil. I am a power thou cannot halt, Element of Order. I am the Avatar of Albion."
— The Avatar of Albion.

"I'm thinking of a world that doesn't have parties. I'm thinking of a world where ponies hurt other ponies, where ponies hurt other races too. I'm thinking of a world where... where... I'm thinking of a world where no one laughs, where no one smiles, or if they do it's a smile like Mr Elliot's smile: all weird, like he's smiling because of something horrible and if he wasn't smiling he'd be crying or screaming or something. Nopony... no anyone, ever... should have to live in a world like that. If we can help them, I think we should."
— Pinkie Pie.

''The Avatar of Albion'' is a completed My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic written by the author "Jed R", the concept of which is based loosely on ''The Conversion Bureau'' mythos, most prominently The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum (which the author admits freely was a great inspiration, and subsequently contributed a short story to), mixed in with a lot of the author's own creations.

It also has an Expanded Universe Anthology in progress, featuring various different stories and characters from the background and history of the main story. An in-progress sequel can be read here, and a prequel is in progress here.

There are also a number of official AU's in progress. The first, When We Needed Him Most, can be read here. The second, Cold Regret, can be read here. The third, The Morningstar Dawns, can be read here. The fourth, The Avatar's Odyssey, can be read here. The fifth, Starlight's Strife, can be read here.

A special AU, Albion, which is effectively a retelling of the original story (or as Wordof God calls it, "the big budget CGI reboot") is in progress, and can be found here.

There is also a special crossover between Avatar of Albion and The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum called Convergence, written by Doctor Fluffy of Spectrum fame.

A group page for the series now exists here.

The main story follows David Elliot, a man imbued with the power of Excalibur, Arthur and the Light itself as the Avatar of Albion, as he is transported to canon Equestria. That is when, stuff gets bad, leading eventually to the canon Mane Six, plus canon Lyra, Derpy and an OC, arriving in a war torn version of Britain at the height of a hopeless war of genocide led by a crazed version of Celestia, now calling herself Solamina. There's swords, sorcery, brutal, bloody warfare and a lot of other crazy stuff before the end...

Tropes:

all stories.

• Darker and Edgier: A lot of the AU's especially invoke this, featuring themes of dystopia, realistic conflicts and loss, as well as more disturbing things such as body horror and necromancy.
• The Multiverse: The AU's exist partially to show off the multiverse, and there are often links between worlds.
• Physical God: Avatars - both of Darkness and Light - tend to be represented as physical gods, capable of fears beyond mere mortals.

Main Story

• The Ace:
  • Errant Flight, last survivor of the old Grey Squadron.
  • Elliot certainly qualifies, given his nature as the living embodiment of the British Isles.
  • Rainbow Dash as part of Grey Squadron.
• Affably Evil: Solamina's brief appearance in Chapter Sixteen is scary simply because of how similar to canon Celestia she is.
• And I Must Scream: Luna's corpse is brought back to life as a necromantic abomination that is implied to be at least partially conscious of what it is and is experiencing.
• Ascended Extra:
  • True Grit starts his life as a glorified extra in Chapter Three, and ends up being both a Mauve Shirt (in TCB True Grit's case) and a big player (in canonverse True Grit's case).
  • Errant Flight is a bit player in the War is Hell interlude, and only later becomes a bigger part of the story.
  • Brave Heart begins her life as the star of an Interlude, but ends up in the main story.

• Battle Trophy: Elliot's sewing the manes of the Mane Six members he's killed into the lining of his jacket, to show off at key moments.
• The Big Bad: Empress Solamina, formerly Princess Celestia.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: Solamina is pretty much evil. Humanity is... desperate, but still fighting an ultimately justifiable war.
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • The Converted. Nowhere near as bad as the Newfoals of ''The Other Side of the Spectrum'' and similar examples, but they're still perfectly cheery, almost polite folks... who are perfectly willing to murder you on command.
  • Gentle Flower in Chapter Forty seems convinced that the mutilation of several hundred human corpses was justifiable, and confused when others don't get it.
• Break the Cutie:
  • TCB Lyra seems increasingly sickened by the violence she encounters.
  • Canon Lyra, who sees her own alternative self die in front of her.
  • TCB Ditzy also counts: compare the self-sacrificing warrior to the general fanon interpretation.
  • Rainbow Dash's reaction to killing.
  • TCB Doctor Hooves' reaction to TCB Ditzy's death.
  • Even Golden Lock counts, since he's entirely inexperienced and almost naive.
  • Pinkie Pie's first taste of combat - lots of crying. "This wasn't much like a party."
  • TCB Scootaloo: Cutie Mark Crusader PTSD sufferer and Xenocidal maniac, yay!
• Britain Is Only London: Averted - though a lot of the story happens in London, there are also battles in the Midlands, Manchester, the Pennines, Hull and large swathes of the story are set in the cities of Plymouth and Leeds, the latter specifically the Royal Armoury, as well as Pontefract, a small mining town in Yorkshire (which is the author's hometown).
• The Cameo: An alternate version of Viktor M. Kraber appears here, as one of the Dead Men.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Pinkie Pie. Ninety percent of her dialogue is random wackiness. Ten percent of it is pure heartwarming awesome.
  "Pinkie Pie, on a chair!"
• Cluster F-Bomb: The multitude of swears from Hell Blazer, especially when he has to correct himself.
• Creator Provincialism: The entirety of Earth is gone apart from Britain and Ireland.
  • Not only that, but the author sets a large part of the story in his old home town.
• Crossover:
  • Hell Blazer is John Constantine (rather obviously).
  • Doctor Whooves is blatantly interpreted as the Doctor but a pony.
  • Discord makes a reference to a "French Captain" that's clearly meant to be Jean-Luc Picard, making Discord Q. ^note There's an Anthology piece called Q is for Quiet which confirms that Discord is Q in this continuity.
  • Rupert Giles from Buffy appears from Chapter Thirty Four, after having been referenced briefly in previous chapters.
  • A brief reference is made to the Bombinomicon and Merasmus from Team Fortress 2.
• Crapsack World: Britain/Earth (though TCB Equestria also counts).

• Darker and Edgier: A good contender for 'darkest Conversion Bureau War Fic'. Considering some of its contemporaries, that's an impressive accomplishment. For instance, Chapter Forty Four has the reanimated corpse of Spike chained to a wall in a cell!

• Driven to Suicide: parallel universe versions of Sol Invictus and Blessed Star in Chapter Thirty Five. Unpleasantly.
• Eldritch Location: The Heart of the World in the chapter of the same name - what it is, and quite how it works, isn't explained very much. What it does is pretty self evident.
• The Evil Empire: Solamina's Empire.
• Expy: There's a couple. Iron Gait is pretty much a pony version of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket. Bright Wonder in Grey Squadron is somewhat akin to Surprise from earlier generations of MLP (and thus is similar to Pinkie Pie - this similarity is sort of lampshades by Wonder's eventual desire to meet her).
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The disdain held for "convies" by certain natural-born ponies, seen in Chapter Thirty Two.
  • The usual TCB pony racism against humans.
• A Father to His Men: Fancy Pants could be an arguable example: he refuses to keep sending Converted militia in a suicide attack against Albion during the battle of London.
• Final Battle: The Battle of Canterlot (and, concurrently/within that battle, the fight between the Avatar and Solamina).
• Flanderization: Averted in the case of often-flanderized figures in fandom such as Blueblood or Lightning Dust, who receive more positive characterisations in this story.
• Flashback: This takes up most of entire chapters, and is a frequent device in the earlier chapters.
• Gender Is No Object: The Holy Order of Albion is made up of Knights of both genders, all of whom have the title "Sir".
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: most of Solamina's empire, from what we see, is shown to be essentially good ponies misled by a tyrant (see Golden Lock's Fight). Humanity, meanwhile, has sunk to the depths of barbarism in many ways (see Elliot's trophy taking). The net effect is that the human race and Solamina's troops - if not Solamina herself, who's still categorically evil - are pretty much morally equal in this story.
• Gorn:
  • Rainbow Dash's death (stabbed in the throat and choking on her own blood).
  • ''To Err is Human, an anthology story, has a line PER agent executed by having a bottle shoved down her throat.
  • Golden Lock's death.
  • Hell, all of the Golden Lock's Fight interlude.
  • TCB!Shining Armour's death/mutilation, to an almost OTT degree.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Errant Flight dies to save the Interdiction during the battle of Canterlot.
  • The Undead and Sir Eric Smith are both killed during the battle.
  • Desert Wind and Wallace Springfield both die during the battle against Luna's corpse and Commander Twilight Sparkle.
• Improbable Infant Survival: played straight in "Last Light". The author is on record as saying he wanted one happy ending.
• Knight Templar:
  • David Elliot/Albion.
  • The Holy Order of Albion, a cult that springs up in Britain dedicated to the ideals of the Knights of the Round Table.
  • The Dead Men, a cult that believes they are all dead already and their bodies must be made to have some purpose.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Elliot is present at London, Dover, Hull and Cornwall, and it's implied that he is one of the few things keeping the British Isles from being defeated.
  • When asking for help from canon Celestia, Elliot only asks for the Mane Six. This is explained in story as him thinking they have the potential to turn the war, but all the same.
    • Both averted and played straight in Chapters Twenty Six and Twenty Seven: Elliot isn't combat active for the raid on Leeds base, but the Mane Six are.
• Mauve Shirt: TCB True Grit definitely counts.
  • Minor characters like Harrison and Sam, who get a few lines and a bit of character, only to die, also count.
• Mooks:
  • Solamina's army, for the most part. In "Golden Lock's Fight", , though, the titular soldier is given real character.
  • Well Spring, formerly Wallace Springfield, is a mook with character. Then he gets his programming broken and becomes something else entirely...
• The Multiverse:
  • In Chapter Thirty Five, TCB Twilight Sparkle is exposed to multiple parallel versions of herself.
  • In Chapter Thirty Three, when Elliot talks with Merlin, there's already heavy implications that there's a multiverse out there with different choices to be made.
• One World Government: The British isles now technically qualify, as they are all there is in the world as far as humans are concerned.
• Orcus on His Throne: Solamina - though when she comes off of her throne, worry.
• Original Character: for ponies, there's True Grit, Errant Flight, Cloud Ranger, Desert Wind and Sapphire Steel to name but a few, and for humans there's Lockett, Dutch, Redmond, Danny and Elliot himself, again to name but a few.
• Precision F-Strike: Hell Blazer's reaction to the canon Mane Six's arrival.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Grey Squadron - both times - is shown as being this. The first Grey Squadron had Lightning Dust (shown in canon to be a sociopath with serious people issues), Royal Flush (a gambler), the Wing siblings (a hotheaded young mare and her older brother), and Ditzy Doo herself, as well as Butter Mellow, essentially the Parental Substitute for Lightning Dust. The second, meanwhile, has the Canon Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Ditzy, as well as a more cynical and world weary Errant Flight and a whole host of oddballs.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: David Elliot/the Avatar of Albion: commander of the last army, killer of Elements.
• Red Shirt: Most of the regular soldiers we meet, including most of Lockett's squad.
• Running Gag: Hell Blazer has two - his leaning in to whisper sarcastic answers in people's ears, and his swearing corrections.
  "Sorry, I meant to say s**t."
  • Pinkie Pie has one involving her party cannon.
  "Never bring a knife to a gun fight."
• Shout-Out:
  • Several to the Star Wars films:
    • Grey Squadron's sound-off procedure is an homage to the "standing by" of the films. Some ponies even say "standing by".
    • The allusions fly thick and fast whenever Grey Squadron are shown in battle.
    • Silver Spire's death has him recite almost the exact lines Red Six (Porkins) says in the original film just before his death.
  • Chapter 35 has references to Equestria Divided, ''The Other Side of the Spectrum'' (which is only fair given how many AOA references to author put into his Spectrum work), Mass Effect and various other slightly insane things.
  • One of the Knights of Albion is called "Sir Jason sans le Argonauts, a title taken from Dragon Age: Origins DLC.
  • Chapter Forty Eight has a brief appearance by Viktor Kraber of The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum Fame show up.
    • This appearance is seen from Kraber's perspective - sort of - in ''The Light Despondent'' (a chronicle of Kraber's misadventures) by Doctor Fluffy.
• Take That!: Flash Sentry briefly appears, and almost immediately gets shot in the head.
• Villainous BSoD: Sol Invictus has one upon Solamina's death - he begins repeating the Hail Mary in Latin upon realising what he has done, as does Command Sparkle.

Tales of the War

Tales of the War is an Anthology of side stories set during the years 2024 - 2030.

• A Father to His Men: Ditzy Doo as the leader of Grey Squadron seems to be rather a maternal figure.
• The Ace: Lightning Dust, amongst Grey Squadron, seems to be their best flyer.
• Affably Evil: Twilight Sparkle's brief appearance in The Great Exodus shows her being this.
• And I Must Scream: Discord in Q is for Quiet, an Anthology piece, where he is stuck in a self-imposed exile in a cell in Canterlot, perfectly aware of everything that's going on, unwilling to leave but unable to help.
• Badass Boast: Apart from the Avatar's appearance in the same short story, there's this boast from Eric Smith in Knight.
  "I am a warrior of Albion! And this beach is mine, and the man behind me is under my protection. You can send as many ponies as you like, all at once or one at a time. I don't give a shit. None shall pass."
• The Cynic: Trixie Lulamoon in The Freedom Caravan is shown to be extremely cynical and to a degree self-centred.
• Deadpan Snarker: Again, Trixie Lulamoon.
• Death of a Child: In the story To Err Is Human, a lone PER agent ponified a group of thirty children... who are then executed by their own parents.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Averted: the "main characters" of AOA barely figure in most of these stories.
• Mauve Shirt: Does the entirety of Grey Squadron count?
• Original Character: Most of Grey Squadron is made up of OC's.
  • Same can be said of Upsilon Squadron.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Upsilon Squadron includes the overly dramatic Storm Cloak, the war-weary Cloud Ranger, the former Night Guard Thestral Fell Spear and the... downright odd Pony Dave.
• Red Shirt: Orange Swirl in Grey Squadron - she has the least lines and the least characterisation, and is one of the first to die.
• Shout-Out: Grey Squadron's Last Flight is a massive one to Star Wars
  • Swift Wing has a specific bit of dialogue that any fan will recognise: "Stay on target!"

Bittersweet Victory

Bittersweet Victory follows the aftermath of the war with the Solaminan Empire, focusing on various different characters and their travails.

• The Atoner: Commander Twilight Sparkle has become this.
  • Scootaloo is also this, by joining Grey Squadron.
• The Cameo: Doctor Bowman (the author's OC Doctor) - who appears in some of his Other Side of the Spectrum work - appears in two chapters.
• Drowning My Sorrows:
  • The canonverse Mane Six in "Home: Part 1" are all seen to do this.
  • Commander Sparkle in "The Woes of Commander Sparkle".
• Self-Harm: Scootaloo cuts herself as a response to her post-war depression.
• The Quest: Sparkle's mission, aided by True Grit, is very much this to her.
• The Remnant: A Solaminan Remnant is one of the key enemies of the newfound peace.

The Conversion Bureau: Gilead

A story focusing on the fall of the United States of America and the rise of the Sanctified Republic of Gilead.

• Affectionate Nickname: Well Met and Dr Fenwick call each other "Walmart" and "Wick" respectively.
• Artifact Title: Both played straight and averted: this is one of the few AOA stories to not have "The Avatar of Albion" in the title, instead using "The Conversion Bureau".
• Continuity Porn: The entire story focuses on a moment in AOA's history.
• Take That!: Dr Well Met delivers one against the name "Newfoal" that was originally used in "straight" Conversion Bureau stories.
  "Just because some of those idiots want to talk about this potion business in religious terms doesn't mean they're literally being 'born again', they're just genetically and magically altering their existing lives and bodies. If I have to hear one more person referring to a forty year old Convie as a 'Newfoal' I'll buck something so hard I'll probably crack my hooves, to say nothing of the state of whatever I bucking kick. Even the HLF agree with us - we're not making them children."

When We Needed Him Most

In the AU When We Needed Him Most, we follow a version of AOA's history in which David Elliot died in London and the human race was exterminated. This story follows the attempts of the remaining Equestrian Resistance factions and other groups to defeat the Solaminan Empire.

• Alternate Universe: This story is an AU of the original Avatar of Albion.
• Assimilation Plot: Lyrium's plans seem to have shades of this.
• Bad Future: This entire setting is a Bad Future of the original.
• Body Horror:
  • The Anthroponies are literally abominations.
  • The Iron Men transform ponies into more Iron Men, using their bodies as raw material.
• Chewing the Scenery: Magnus loves his diet of landscape and ham.
• Driven to Suicide: Sol Invictus and Blessed Star both kill themselves - incidentally, this is the same scene from the Heart of the World chapter in the original AOA.
• Gorn: The descriptions of what happen to unfortunate victims of the Anthroponies are certainly worthy contenders.
• Necromancer: An interesting example, as the Necromancy comes from the supposed "good guys", the Midnight Guard, specifically viewpoint character Royal Duty.
  • The Solaminan Empire are still in on the act, as we see the Eternal Guard appear, as well as the corpses of Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie Pie, resurrected - by way of personality imprints - by Twilight Sparkle to act as replacements for her living friends.
• Obviously Evil: Magnus. Guy hams it up while zapping his enemies with pain spells and talking like half of RADA.
• Villain Protagonist: Arguable, but Magnus is pretty nasty.

Cold Regret

Cold Regret follows a version of David Elliot who arrives in London with fragmented memories of what has happened to him.

• Alternate Universe: Another AU of the original AOA.
• Foreshadowing: The conversation being held between two characters - one of whom is Elliot - at the start of every chapter appears to foreshadow Elliot remembering his past, and it does not go well for him.
• Identity Amnesia: Elliot doesn't remember much about his past life prior to arriving in this London, and what he does remember doesn't make sense.
• Quest for Identity: one of this Elliot's motivations is finding out exactly who he is.

The Morningstar Dawns

The Morningstar Dawns is the story of an alternative fate for Hell Blazer, where Lucifer himself comes to demand John Constantine's soul from Solamina. The result is a literal war between the Solaminan Empire and hell.

• Affably Evil: Lucifer's introduction.
  "Greetings. How is everypony?"

• The Cynic: Applejack in the prologue - brainwashed or not, she is less than thrilled about dying for pointless reasons.
• Honor Before Reason: An arguable example: Solamina refuses to release the soul of Hell Blazer to Lucifer... despite our brief (thus far) glimpse of the war with hell being... unpleasant. Of course, this could be Too Dumb to Live instead...
• Satan: Goes by "Lucifer" in this, not that it really makes a difference - he's still pretty bad for your health/country/sanity.

The Avatar's Odyssey

The Avatars Odyssey is a story by TheIdiot of The Other Side of the Spectrum fame, following an alternative version of David Elliot as he begins a course along the multiverse...

• The Multiverse: A greater focus is on the multiverse in this story than any other.

Starlight's Strife

Starlight's Strife is another story by TheIdiot, following a mare called Shining Starlight as she deals with the possibility that there is more to her than meets the eye...

• Fish out of Water: Starlight is thrown into situations she doesn't begin to understand, and doesn't want to.

Albion

Effectively a reboot of the original AOA story, retelling the tale of David Elliot coming to Equestria.

• Bad Future: David Elliot comes from an alternative future of Equestria, as Twilight discovers while being interrogated by him.
• Combat Pragmatist: Luna takes a shot at the Avatar while he's distracted by how different everything is to his own world. As commenters have pointed out, this is a bit of a cheap shot.
• Noodle Incident: Albeit a particularly explained one: Lyra and Twilight both think back to a recent visit to Ponyville made by a group of travelling Moles, who in this are something of an Expy of fantasy Dwarves.

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