Time
It begins when a foal is born. They come into this world knowing nothing but the caress of the parents. Odd, how parents will see themselves as the teachers.
A family who lives in Cloudsdale had a young child just one month ago, Princess. You wouldn't know this, but I was there. I watched over the hospital as the doctor congratulated them. They had wanted their child to come as a surprise; it was a girl. This child will be raised on dolls and pink castles, charming trinkets and the belief that she cannot do the strong work of stallions.
When she becomes nine, the parents will learn they are not the teachers, only students of a new course. When she becomes nine, new technology will have developed (you will help make it Princess) and it will be able to read a pony's chromosomes, and even, their entire genome. When she becomes eight a doctor will make a startling discovery when he uses a magic scan to check if her severe stomach ache is something worse.
It isn't, but something else will beg further questions.
One year later, coincidentally on her ninth birthday, that same doctor will send a letter to the parents and they'll talk to him while their daughter goes to school. After an hour, they will understand that her condition has been recently named "complete androgen insensitivity syndrome."
It takes them the rest of the day to realize what that means. After that twenty four hours it will take one month for them to finally decide to tell their child.
She has complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, a genetic variation that caused her to develop differently during those eleven months, or more precisely, those three hundred and thirty-seven days.
"Your cells have the XY chromosomes. They're male." the doctor will explain to her once the parents decide to tell their daughter. "But during development as an embryo your cells did not respond to the signals of male hormones."
It will be confusing during that consultation. She can't remember how long it was, only that it felt like a lifetime.
The doctor will go on to explain her anatomy. In the development of embryos with CAIS, he'll say, the proto-gonads developed into testes and the fetus produces androgens, as per normal. But without a proper response from the hormones, the male genitals do not form, and instead become female in appearance. He will explain that, despite being genetically male, she posses the female clitoris and vagina.
At this moment, her identity crisis will have lasted one second. It will not end until she discovers herself again, thirteen years from this moment.
Finally, he'll tell her that's what he found in his examination a year ago. The scan he used showed him the undescended testes, still within her body, a result of incomplete development. Of course, research had not been completed during the scan, and no pony understood what her condition was.
It is all a lot for a nine year old filly, who is no longer sure if she is a filly. It is a lot for a child who will grow up for thirteen years, a member of a growing group who do not have the simple answers to their sense of self. It is a lot for a filly who will, six years from when she is told, openly admit she is "unsure" in her gender and face looks of curiosity, acceptance, condescension, disgust, hatred, misunderstanding, all at once.
Do you know how it feels to reach such realization, thirteen years after being told? four thousand, seven hundred and forty five days after being told? one hundred and thirteen thousand, eight hundred and eighty hours after being told? four hundred and ten million seconds after being told?
There will me many more like her, though not all will share the same condition. So many factors. Sexual differentiation within the genitals happens within a few months of development, two for you reader. In the latter half of pregnancy, sexual differentiation in the brain begins. These moments of development do no share the same time, and thus do not have to share the same results.
You must wait, Princess, for these books and articles to arrive. They are in your future, I stand watching the library in which you read them. SRY genes, guevedoce, more and more discoveries over the years.
You need not wait. You, and you, and you. I am the All, timeless and ever-present, and I am with you always. I see that at your fingertips now is the power to read and know your time, your world. SRY genes, guevedoce, you will know them before the Princess.
The universe began at some point. The Big Bang, a moment of creation. Let there be light.
However we see it, ponies believe there to be a beginning to things, and an end to things. These are the epochs of our lives, defining moments. They are all changes.
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Faith
Why do we cling to our beliefs so tightly? I've asked many ponies over the centuries.
Science depends on faith. Across Equestria students read science books and believe them, because the scientific authority assures they are true. The followers of Caller Weaver were just as faithful. They, no matter what others told them, believed in the writings of Caller Weaver. His life was their path to peace and enlightenment.
Prayer and experiment.
The great mage Bright Ankh, who lived before the Two Sisters took power, conducted studies on the genes of the three pony races. He observed their traits -magic, physique, intelligence- and concluded there existed a sort of genetic superiority in the unicorn race. They had the most magic and their children learned the most. Their race was the ones who ruled Equestria with their power over the sun and moon.
There was one pony who was revered nearly as much as Caller Weaver. Caller Divine, for years, had heard nothing in his prayers. He believed the ways he was taught was flawed. He stole away with the First Works, the books written by Hammer Heart and Caller Weaver and the scrolls written by the first followers.
When the Two Sisters proved to be capable leaders, and masters of the Sun and Moon, the work of Bright Ankh was questioned. The development of new spells and magic, along with new technology, changed the study of genetics. Over years, enough evidence was compiled to prove Ankh's work was wrong. Many doubted it, unicorns especially. But their doubt drove more experiments, and they learned the truth as well. There was no superior race among the ponies.
He carried the First Works, along with three days of hay, and ventured to the same place Caller Weaver had gone to to find enlightenment. He read the memoirs of Caller Weaver, then the private diaries left by Hammer Heart. He paid special attention to the scrolls of the followers, for he believed they were the seeds of unholiness.
They call it the scientific method. A system of self-check that magicians and scientists use to determine what results are acceptable as truth. No pony believes the first or second experiment, even if the results are desired; all things must be repeated and observed. New discoveries are especially tested, there is much doubt around them. Despite this doubt, ponies still have faith in science, for it seeks truth and knowledge.
Caller Divine returned to the Crystal Empire, furious. The first followers were the most faithful and dedicated, but in Caller Weaver's own writings it was clear he was swayed by an ill tongue. Hammer Heart, a mare who never believed in Caller Weaver but still had her books consecrated by his followers, was the source of unholiness. She fed uncertainty and chaos into Caller Waver, and filled him with thoughts that clouded his mind and cut him from Harmony.
Caller Divine and hundreds of devout followers burned all but a few of Hammer Heart's diaries. Many who called themselves faithful to Hammer Heart's teachings were burned as well. Caller Divine, when questioned by a close follower, replied that he had discovered the truth, and that knowledge of true enlightenment was upon those who put faith in him. No questions were asked. Nothing changed.
No books or ponies were ever burned to correct the work of Bright Ankh. Everything changed.
Doubt, faith, and fanaticism. Pick a card.
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Trees
Six hundred years ago, a tree fell in the middle of a forest and no pony was there to hear it.
Ten years ago, a trading center was built on the same location. That single building branched out, reaching connections from Los Pegasus to Fillydelphia. The nation's businesses, like the soil which feeds the tree, fed commerce and money into the trade center.
Five hundred years ago, birds nested on the branches of that tree, they counted on it to support their nests and hide them from predators. The tree fulfilled its role, and stood fast until the birds flew away.
Five years ago, one hundred thousand employees of that Manehattan trading center fed their families with their pay roll. They paid mortgages and ordered services all through the branches of investment and commerce. That building would stand strong, and so too its business, so long as it had business.
Two years from now that trade center will be destroyed, set on fire by an business pony turned arsonist because he had lost all his money on a poor investment. A hundred and forty-six employees will die in that fire, two hundred and fifty-seven will be saved by the fire department.
In its ashes, a small park will be built by the Princess of the Sun, with an apple tree to remember the hard working ponies. The apples, the fruits of their labor.
In another world, similar to this one in some ways, a small tree sprouts over the corpses of one and a half million ponies. The zebras bombed them. No pony plants the tree, no pony gives its branches and flowers meaning. It grows and thrives and in twelve hundred years from the time it sprouted, it will be eaten by termites and collapse.
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Zero
You like mathematics, don't you, Princess?
Why do mathematicians fear zero? Ancient number systems did not even include the concept, they associated it with nothingness, emptiness, the void and death. They fear its power. Zero is the twin to infinity. It exists on the other side of the scale, balancing it, equal and opposite.
But suppose you could add up all the numbers. One and negative one, two and negative two, three and negative three, combining the equal and opposite numbers. Zero would then become more than a representation of no things, but rather the summation of all things. It becomes the largest value in the mathematical world, including the infinite amount positive and negative numbers.
Our perception is now flipped. Typically, ponies think of the number "1" as being one added to zero, or nothing. But now, zero is everything, and all other values are less than it. To turn zero into any value less than it, we must subtract something from the whole.
Suppose we removed a negative one from the whole. Zero is now no longer everything, it becomes a value that is everything but negative one. It becomes 0 - (-1) = 1.
One is still a big number, it is all positive numbers and all negative numbers, with the exception of negative one. The same holds for two, which can be made like this 0 - (-2) = 2
Two is everything, except for negative two.
Every number we once knew now represents a number being taken away from zero. A part taken from the whole. Astonishing, isn't it? All things exist because it is taken from the whole. All things are separated from the perfect balance.