Constant Rockhill (1474-), the Most Reliable and Boring Pony in Equestria · 7:17am Jan 10th, 2016
The most reliable Pony in the world. With his sister Constance, among the last survivors of the sacred-royal lineage of Lith. Constant is brave, honorable, loyal, moral and entirely lacking in anything resembling a sense of humor. Very strong and close to indestuctable, he is very emotionally flat, joying only in doing his duty, repulsed only by randomness.
He has a gray-and-brown dappled coat and grass-green mane and tail. His eyes are pale gray. He wears nothing but a dark brown leather harness, on which he hangs bags or to which he attaches equipment as equired by his tasks. He eschews all other ornamentation as worthless Vanity. When required, he also wears a miner's hard hat -- though his skull is far, far tougher than any hard hat that can be manufactured by current Equestrian technology.
His Cutie Mark is a gray hill with a white arrow bisecting it pointing upward, all on a black field. His Talent is Determined Progress; he can focus his energies on a goal and advance to it against all opposition through orderly processes.
Constant is a skilled geologist, miner, mine engineer and rock farmers. His dream is to one day tear down as many hills and mountains as possible and reduce them to rubble, quarrying them for their ores.
He has acquaintances and allies rather than real friends. He is uncomfortable with any relationship not entirely delineated by custom and duty. His only truly-affectionate bond is with his sister Constance, toward whom he feels protective. He has never really been in love: he once strongly admired Maud Pie, but now regards her as a rival, both because of their differing philosophies of life and geology, and because she romantically-rejected him in college.
Constant is highly-intelligent, with a very well-organized memory and ability to implement procedures. He is, however, quite unimaginative, and somewhat suspicious of imaginative thinkers, even though he is smart enough to avlue them. He does not appreciate art or literature, and he dislikes Maud's poetry because it is poetic, rather than for its choice of subject matter.
Though he no longer loves Maud (to the extent that he ever did) he still wants to marry her, for he imagines her the most perfect Pony he has ever known besides himself and his sister Constance. He lacks the imaginative empathy to understand why Maud would find marriage to him abhorrent. He doesn't really comprehend the concept of "romantic love."
Nor does he really understand other Ponies in general. He has models of their behavior, which he uses to keep himself out of trouble, but he doesn't consciously feel their emotions. He considers himself too intelligent and purposeful to bother with such useless sentiments.
Constant came from a rock farm near Manechester in Eastern Central Equestria. By dint of his superior intellect and determination he builds this into Royal Lithic Mines, Ltd, an enterprise which mushrooms during the war and becomes an important corporation afterward. He never gets to marry Maud, but he does wed and produce offspring, and some of his descendants play an important role in the emergence of the Rock Ponies as a Kind.
Sounds like a middle ground between low and high function sociopath. (Photo Finish seems to be high function.)
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Constant is not evil, please note. He's just not really good, either. He was born into a society which is revolted at actually hurting other Ponies, so he doesn't. He does not murder, steal, nor even lie (though he is quite capable of refusing to answer an impertinent question). Indeed, he's extremely honorable.
He is pure Lawful Neutral. Almost an atavistic rebirth of the virtues of Lith. And a good set of hints as to why that culture failed in the end, and why Luna found the Lithians deadly-boring.
And, because of the company he founds, he carries the Lithian culture out to the stars, to be reborn in the Poniternity.
Since people tend to think of themselves as being the heroes of their own stories, Constant is constantly surprised by those who see him as being boring company. Seen from the inside, he's the only sane entity in a world of madness. Seen from the outside, he looks vaguely reptilian.
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He's a Shadow Archetype to Maud Pie. Maud merely seems emotionally flat; she is actually-capable of the full spectrum of normal Pony emotions. She's just very, very reserved about expressing them, in part because she knows that her strength could be horribly destructive if she was emotionally-unrestrained.
Constant really doesn't feel any emotions very strongly.
And he never really gets why Maud is so unwilling to marry him. For starters, she doesn't love him, but then he doesn't really love her, either. He admires her, but that's not the same thing.
Some ponies look upon a mountain range and see a breathtaking natural vista. Some see only uncollected raw materials in an inefficient arrangement.
What a peculiar pony, to be so emotionally detached. The blood of Lith clearly runs strong in him. So much so that it's practically hematite.
The fact that Constant doesn't have any loved ones besides his sister, and can't really understand people in general, seems extremely lonely. I imagine that he thinks he's happy, but does Constant ever truly connect to another person?
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This is part of why Maud doesn't like him. Maud sees geology as beautiful. She doesn't write thousands of poems about it just to annoy her friends. She's appalled at the thought of demolishing mountains.
By the way, that might well be the card blurb for either him or his company or some action ("Strip Mine.").
We know that Maud is capable of softer emotions because she displays them in "Maud Pie" and in "Hearthbreakers," to Pinkie Pie and to Apple Blossom. Pinkie (who should know) right out says that Maud has normal emotions, she just doesn't express them very openly.
My Maud falls in love, with a musician named Trenderlean, who among other things turns some of her poetry into lyrics. He calls it "rock music." She highly approves of this. This whole plotline is tentative (and based on an analogy between her and Alexandra Morningstar from my "Mandate" universe, and Alexandra is herself an Expy of someone else -- but it may happen.
Trenderlean is not at all like Constant Rockhill, save in being fundamentally-honorable. Trenderlean is kind and caring, which are virtues Maud esteems in others (and actually manifests herself, just not very flamboyantly). Constant considers Trend worthless and silly, and can't understand why such a paragon of stoic virtues such as Maud would be attracted to him.
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I will eventually write some stories set in the Lost Cities, if I stay in this fandom long enough. The ordinary Lithians weren't as fanatical as Constant -- he's actively trying to keep a tradition alive in a much more chaotic civilization, and to him remember the rather peaceful and orderly culture of Equestria seems like a constant crazy block party with everyone living La Vida Loca -- but their culture was ruled by ritual and regulation to a degree that drove most other Ponies nuts. Celestia and Luna were honored guests there, beacons of hope in the great fight against the Twister -- and it drove them crazy too. Even immortals have only so much patience.
("But of couse, Sacred Sun Mare, you will want to attend the Fourth Derivation of the Sacred Viewing of the Facets of the Lawstone. It's quite a treat, we have Deep Meaning discoursing on the implications of the glint of sunlight at every single angle between 10 and 25 degrees. He doesn't rush through it in an unseemly fashion, either, you will be entertained for at least four hours!")
I view Lith, Derecho and the Heartspire as each showing just how badly a Pony culture could get out of balance if it was dominated by just one Kind of Pony to the exclusion of the others. Lith exemplifies the ritual and proprietry of the Earth Ponies (specifically the group that evolves into the Rock Ponies), Derecho of the Pegasi military glory to the exclusion of higher culture, and the Heartspire arrogant aristocratic Unicorn scheming and superiority to the point that they forgot the rest of the world existed. I think that's more or less what Cold In Gardez intended, too -- he's welcome to comment on this.
You can clearly see why Discord had a deathly allergy to this culture. :-)