The Pre-Pony Settlement of Mareland · 8:27pm Jul 6th, 2014
The Cataclysm
Before the Cataclysm, what is today the Earldom of Mareland (1) seems to have been the Capital City of the United States of Amareica. The actual physical site of the capital seems to be somewhere within the vast crater torn by one of the gigaton-range blasts that either caused or accompanied the Cataclysm; Horseshoe Bay is the rim wall of the inner crater. Presumably most of the Capital City itself was slowly redeposited over the Earth as very fine dust, after spending some time circling the stratosphere. There are very badly damaged high-technology ruins, all datable to the Cataclysm itself, all over the region which show the effects of a tremendous thermal pulse followed by hypercane-force winds.
Though it is likely that the Cataclysm would have destroyed the civilization of the Age of Wonders in any case, the instantaneous annihilation of much of the government of the strongest and most technologically-advanced nation on Earth must have contributed in some measure to the completeness of the cultural collapse.
Early Inhabitants
After the initial explosion, the crater and everything for dozens of miles around it must have been utterly-depopulated. Over centuries, plants and animals recolonized the region, and within one century of the Cataclysm there are signs of small bands of sapients. What is today Central Eastern Equestria was then primarily inhabited by non-Pony sapients -- principally Cervids, though often in alliance with or subjugation by other races. This was during the Post-Cataclysmic Thermal Maximum, and the region along the Lower Crystal River and the coast, including Mareland, would have been steaming swamps and jungles.
For centuries there was a confused patchwork of small settlements of many cultures and races, of whose history nothing has survived. Advanced archaeological techniques offer some hopes of recovering some of this prehistoric world, but it is not until the migration of more advanced Cervid tribes from the Central and Northeastern regions -- themselves under pressure from the growing Crystal Empire in the Central North -- that we can assign names to these peoples. The larger tribal nations also attracted Crystal-Imperial explorers and traders, and from the 7th century ATC (2) on we begin to have some travelers' tales which were preserved in the Great Library of the Crystal City, and have now again become accessible to Equestrian scholars.
The Cervid Tribes
The first sizable tribe to establish itself in Mareland were the Pscatticineways, who were Cervids ruled by Pscatticines, specifically the Carline Parakeets (3), who possessed a strong cultural unity and formed a caste of priestly royalty over their subject Deer. They first appeared in the area around 600 ATC, migrating down the Crystal River, driven from their original homeland by enemies themselves pressed by the expanding Crystal-Imperials. By 650, they had built strong forts on the river, and expanded around the coast of Horseshoe Bay to embrace its northern and western shores. They farmed, fished and built walled towns dominated by central mounds or pyramids.
Around 700 ATC, the Nannycooks, a tribe of matriarchal Goats who possessed food preparation techniques that let them eat things poisonous even to most other Caprid races, migrated down the coast from what is today southern Neigh Jersey to settle the northern part of the eastern peninsula of Horseshoe Bay, dominating the portage between Horseshoe Bay and the Stormy Coast. Their tribe had allied with a clan of seafaring Donkeys, and the combined tribe, the Assiteegees, migrated further south to build their own settlements in the southern peninsula, raising the town of Assiteegee proper on Assiteegee Island in 750 ATC.
Around 800 ATC, the Susquehattan, a particularly-warlike tribe of the Longhouse nation, came down from the northwestern mountains, driven out by the Longhouse Confederation with which they had been unable to compromise. The Susquehattan were Cervids, but with an especially violent culture that glorified berserk murderous rages (4). This made them fearsome in primitive battle conditions. They overran some of the northern and western Pscatticineway towns, and took over the tolls on parts of the Crystal River.
This last development was economically-significant because it increased the importance of the Old Northeast. Previously, much trade had flowed down the Crystal River from the Crystal Empire to the north, but after this the Crystal Empire turned toward the Half-Moon River. This increased the importance of the Assiteegees, who now handled much of the Imperial trade which had previously belonged to the Pscatticineways. From this point on, the Assiteegees and Nannycooks were rising powers, the Pscatticineways in decline.
The End of the Cervid World
The 9th and 10th centuries ATC saw the working out of these destinies, a process which was utterly interrupted by the Coming of the Ice in the early 11th century. This not only forced the Three Tribes out of Half Moon Bay in the far north, but also caused immense climate change all over North Amareica. Harvests failed, barbarians surged, and in 1048 ATC the Three Tribes discovered that what is now Central and Southern Equestria was becoming fertile. In the 11th-14th centuries ATC, the world of the Cervids would go down before the invasion of the Ponies, and the world of the Ponies of Equestria would begin, with the Cervids surviving as much-reduced races dwelling in the wilderness.
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(1) - Geographically, Mareland is the region around Horseshoe Bay, stretching a bit to the west along the Crystal River, most importantly including the great port city of Baltimare. It was a Principality until a rebellion during the Unification, at which case it was re-organized as an Earldom, and the Earl made responsible for supplying provisions to the Southeastern Fleet of the Equestrian Royal Navy.
(2) - ATC means "After the Cataclysm." There is a chronological problem. It was assumed until quite recently that the Cataclysm had occurred in YOM (Year of Megan) 2000 (because of a popular delusion among the Ponies of that time that the world would end in YOM 2000), and hence 4000 years before Luna's Return. This would have neatly made it possible to relate ATC years to BTH (Before the Harmony) dating by making the Cataclysm occur in the year 2500 BTH. Alas, reality was not so simple -- the Cataclysm occurred in the YOM 2024, and hence if we keep the traditional ATC system in 24 ATC. The traditional system has generally been kept, despite the obvious absurdity, and is being used here.
(3) - The Carline Parakeets were much reduced in numbers after the Coming of the Ice, reduced again during the conquest of their homes by the Three Tribes, and went entirely extinct at some time during the Age of Discord. It is not certain whether or not Discord himself destroyed them. Discord has stated that he doesn't remember doing so, but then there's a lot Discord doesn't remember -- or has chosen to forget -- about that millennium.
(4) - Usually the Susquehattan would trigger their berserk states by associating their anger with a name and ritually working themselves into a rage ... "Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch ..." would often be a key element of this mantra.
I love note #4. And since I grew up on the east coast--mostly in New Jersey, but also for a few years in Virginia Beach, right on the Chesapeake--I had to smile at all the familiar-sounding names.
I know a lot of Trixie's story is connected with Manehattan, so I'm curious how this will tie in to your narrative.
Heh, I'm glad someone got the old Abbott & Costello reference, which on researching it I found out had even older vaudevillian routes (unsurprising, since A & C came right out of old-style vaudeville).
I'm sure you noticed that this is full of puns, often with cultural details taken from the puns (such as the "Nannycooks" being matriarchal goats with advanced food preparation techniques, which is even better because some real Native American tribes prospered by figuring out how to process normally-toxic foods to edibility). Obviously, I'm assuming that the Cervids and to a lesser extent other ungulates like Caprids are here stand-ins for the Amerindians in relationship to the Western-style Equestrians.
Baltimare, actually, which is why I was thinking about the area.
Patch, "I LIVED through the destruction and rotten away of the carcass of modern civilization, and I still found that description bewildering . . . oh right . . . alternate universe . . . sorry . . . HEY! Maybe Starlight didn't get blown to atoms here when the Disaster happened!"
I'm guessing the Carline Parakeets were some manner of griffin or similar fantastic beast, because the mental image of colorful little tropical birds subjugating deer makes my imagination hurt.
As for the rest, as always, I love how much thought you've put into the history here. Especially the little details like the inconvenient timing of the Cataclysm that add to the historical verisimilitude.
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NEIGHAGRA FALLS!
2263334 Oh, Celestia.
fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/018/0/a/ask_vaudeville_78_by_questionthemajority-d5rxhb8.png
Source.
I love Ask Vaudeville. It's been a definite influence all the way through my writing.
Jordan's whole post is bringing on flashbacks of late elementary school and middle school social studies, but in a good way.
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Sapient birds, actually. And, sadly, the real ones were highly-intelligent animals, probably at least pre-sapient. And no, Discord didn't wipe out the real ones. We did it ourselves. The more so because they were intensely social birds and their response to one of their flock being in distress was to try to help their wounded friend -- which made it easier for us to kill them in large numbers.
Sometimes, humans are bastards.
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Oh, the Parakeets did so through cunning, guile and superior social organization. They were the elite caste who lived on top of the mounds. The mounds along the biggest river on the continent, are of course references to another Amerindian culture (or more properly group of cultures) who built mounds along the Mississippi River and other rivers connected to the system. A huge culture, cities sometimes in the tens of thousands, and European disease wiped it out so quickly that when one set of explorers came back to verify what the last set had seen, all that were left were the mounds, and around them the collapsing abandoned villages.
Sometimes, real life is scarier than apocalyptic science fiction. And next time, we could be the Mound Builders..
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Well, I have my Cataclysm occurring 3976 years before Luna's Return, so there's a lot more time in which things happen. And it was more destructive ...
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Patch, "Dangit."
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I actually liked Patch a lot from My Little Pony Tales -- she was nuts -- and your Patch is Made of Awesome!