World without Magic? · 12:26pm Jan 9th, 2015
So hanging out on FimFiction, seeing what made it to the Feature Box when I ran into this story titled "A World without Princesses". This was the description:
Long ago, Celestia sealed her sister into the moon. Her subjects, however, began to fear her and the elements she wielded, seeing they could be used on anypony. Heart broken, she fled her kingdom, leaving it to the ponies who inhabited it.
A thousand years later, Equestria is predominantly under the control of Earth Ponies. Industry thrives and magic is considered a thing of fantasy; Big Macintosh always thought this himself. However, his life is soon to turn around, and he will find himself on an adventure like no other.
I'm left staring at the description wondering how the hell would such a thing be possible? Unicorns AND Pegasi (They can stand on and move clouds, that's magic folks) would have to be driven out of the kingdom, the borders sealed and all magical artifacts would have to been hunted down and destroyed. You would have to take measures to prevent things like Trixie going into a pawn shop and buying an Alicorn Amulet in order for magic to be rendered fantasy.
You will also have to cleanse gene pools to prevent random births of Pegasi and Unicorns. Meaning if any are born, they are sent out of the kingdom or killed! Lastly, it would require destruction of all texts that would support magic being a real thing.
All of this would require a totalitarian dictatorship to make occur. One that knows the truth and willingly decides to remove it's most powerful WEAPON and RESOURCE through exile and/or mass genocide.
Not only that, how would such a thing occur? RealityCheck writes extensively about how Earth Ponies are, all things equal, the weakest race of the three. It doesn't matter how strong you are or how well you make plants grow. When going up against a race that can fly and control forces of the atmosphere and a race that can control the basic forces of the universe? You are boned!
But lets just say the Pegasi and the Unicorns were having a bad millennium. Lets say it all somehow manages to happen. Then what?
Equestria gets rolled over by everything.
Griffins, seeing a nation with no central government and highly weakened, invades and subjugates the Earth Ponies.
Monsters from the Everfree attack and ravage the countryside. Dragons burn down entire cities. Magical threats reak havoc across the nation.
In no story where magic is a main facet of society and nature does a society without ever do well. It also doesn't goin on to form an industrial powerhouse when all of it's residence have HOOVES! You can only do so much with that kind of gripping power. Unicorn manage helped fill in the blanks in things like that, as did imports from surrounding nations, but when you remove Unicorns and naturally close your borders to prevent the spread of information about Magic, you take those away. You do not get a superpower with an isolationist nation. Especially one that was defanged and declawed.
And before anyones says it, no I will not read this. I refuse to read this. This isn't a leap of logic, this is a leap of common sense. This isn't asking for suspension of disbelief, but suspension of common sense.
Having actually read it, I can safely say
1) Pegasi are around as second class citizens, living in ghettos.
2) They know magic exists, they aren't stupid, but they've never really seen it and have no idea what it can do.
3) It isn't working out that well for them, but they didnt collapse. They aren't a superpower, but they aren't irrelevant. So Norway instead of The United States America or The People's Republic of Chad.
2768135 What happens to the Unicorns?
2768150 They got their own seperate country now. We don't know much about how it's doing, but it seems to be very traditionalist and reliant on magical the expense of tech. So science vs magic cultural reaction from the magic using exile nation. Understandable. Beyond that, we really know nothing. It's only been brought up in passing.
We also know that the unicorns lost a lot of magical lore and artifacts when they were driven out, and are weaker than canon FiM unicorns as a result, since they are having trouble piecing together everything they even lost, let alone how t recreate it.
2768196 So then there was a mass destruction of magical artifacts. Otherwise the Unicorns would have just left with them.
Now then, about the Pegasi being 'second class citizens'. You want to tell me a race that has the ability to spawn tornadoes and thunderstorms on a whim are second class? It would make more sense that they would have steamrolled the Earth Ponies or left with the Unicorns. Or just revolted themselves and formed their own country!
2768249 Oh the flying cities did leave and make their own countries. They just don't have any farmable land and so have to trade with Equeaastria...or raid them. The flying cities are very harsh and military, and have a great dislike for 'ground born' pegasi, so they are not exactly safe havens to flee to. Also when I say second class, I mean Pre-Civil Rights North, not Jim Crow South. Unfair treatment, but not outright abused and attacked on a whim. Different schools and lesser pay, not killed and burned as entertainment for lynch mobs.
2768292 If there was just the three of them, I would buy that still. But there are still elements unresolved.
What is keeping the Pegasi from leaving to the far east and working with the Gryphons? They seem to share similar traits.
And what of the creatures of the Everfree and the surrounding area? And any other of the surrounding nations, what kept them from subjegating the divided kingdom?
2768325 Now THOSE I can't answer. I'm just a reader, not the writer, and they haven't come up.
2768342 Fair enough.
The content aside, how is the technical aspects? Well written? Grammar and spelling? Good pacing?
2768352 Yes, yes, and slow and drags at times. A lot of it is world building and character interaction, but overall the story, from an objectionist standpoint, hasn't gotten very far. It's well writen and technically sound with no glaring errors, but the pacing is not my style.
2768459 Alright, well thank you for curbing my rant.
Seems the author needs to update his description a bit. From what you said magic hasn't fallen to fiction but just fallen to the wayside.
2768485 I agree. It's a badly writen description for a decent story. It's not an amazing story, but it's not terrible. I've seen plenty of stories where the description isn't as good as it should be, or outright doesn't match up with what the story is. This is one of those cases.