I woke up from my little nap smiling to myself, feeling happy, almost excited about the future. It was like my entire worldview flipped in my head and a much brighter future was visible on the horizon.
I used to want to be a politician, but I didn’t think I had the talent to be one. Not to mention, politics seemed like they were turning much more polarized day by day, and I wasn’t interested in jumping in the ring and being hated for what I thought. But it was something I wanted to be, much more than managing a restaurant or starting a business. If Nightmare Moon was right about what she said about me, then this should’ve been a piece of cake. I wasn’t sure it would be all sunshine and roses, but I was way too interested in this now. I’d at least be looking into it.
Speaking of Nightmare Moon, I wasn’t exactly sure if she was trying to get me to do something. It seemed like she was, but she looked and sounded genuinely confused when I tried to ask her about it. I didn’t know if she was wanting me to intentionally sabotage Celestia or something, but that wasn’t how I was gonna roll. I would follow whatever rules for politics they had here if I went down that road, which was still an if. I knew though that regardless of whether I was nice and did things the right way or tried to start a coup, dealing with Celestia’s wrath would not be fun.
Would your God want you to act this way? The question played in my head again. She was so disingenuous asking that, but it was still a good question. A great question in fact, even if it wasn’t one that took very long to decide an answer on. God wouldn’t want me to be insolent and disrespectful, but if I got into politics– if– then as long as I did things the right way, I knew there wouldn’t be any issue to think of. That was the main thing though. Doing things in the right way. Being better about being so confrontational and angry, even if I was being treated poorly. Celestia was right in some ways. I could’ve been acting better.
But politics were something that was a long time away from now. For now, I wanted to help Caramel with whatever it was they did all day so I could occupy my time. I’d have literal decades to figure out how the heck I wanted to go about all of this. I wanted to be doing something productive in the meantime, and working with the pony on a farm seemed productive enough.
Or maybe I wouldn't be doing that, since when I was waking up, the world outside my window was completely dark. Well past sunset, nearly one in the morning according to the clock. My sleep schedule was going to be ruined if I didn’t get back in bed.
I got up anyway, heading downstairs to see Twilight sitting at a library table, reading a book about who knew what at this late of an hour. She looked up and opened her mouth, prepared to tell me to go back to bed before she likely remembered I just napped for what had to be eight hours.
“Before you ask,” she said, “I’m up this late because my circadian rhythm is still out of sync after that incident with Nightmare Moon. Err, Princess Luna.”
“I wasn’t going to ask about that. But do you have any books here on politics? Except in English? Err, Unicorn Script, so I can read them?”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “You can’t read regular Ponish?”
“Nope. Apparently, I can only read Unicorn Script. It’s the same as English on Earth, luckily enough. I assume there won’t be many books written in that language though, will there be?”
“Normally not, but almost all of our books on politics are written using that because almost all of them come from Canterlot, where that script is most commonly used. Honestly, it makes things a lot easier to me, but it can be hard for a lot of ponies to memorize and write out a bunch of different symbols, instead of just using Ponish. Anyway though, they’re over on… I’m not sure. Normally Spike keeps track of that. But I’d expect in either the P’s, C’s, G’s, or N’s.”
“C’s or N’s? I know P is for politics and G is probably for government…”
“C’s for Canterlot, and N’s for Nobility.”
With that knowledge, I headed headed to the C’s first since they were the closest and picked up the first book about politics I saw. It was a particularly thick one, titled ‘Canterlot’s Long Political History– A Beginner’s Guide’. It was going to take weeks to get through, looking more like a textbook than a regular book.
I grabbed it and opened it up, taking a spot across from Twilight to read. I didn’t care that it was one in the morning. I’d already slept for a good, long time. I was gonna be up the entire night with this.
I didn’t get very far into it, just past the introduction and the start of a story about how wind spirits were going to take over Equestria, when Twilight started talking to me.
“What has you interested in politics?” she asked. “If you think you’re gonna be able to get into government, you have another thing coming. It’s an extremely difficult thing to do.”
“Ah, yes, crush a young man's dreams,” I replied sarcastically. “I’m just curious,” I told her, not exactly a lie. “I used to be into politics when I was a human. Couldn’t really get into it though, as in, be a politician. I wasn’t rich enough or smart enough for all that. Plus, having people hate me didn’t seem very fun.”
“Don’t think about how depressing it is to have to say ‘when I was a human’.”
“Well, what are politics like where you’re from?” she asked. "How is your government run?"
“That’s a complicated question that could take a long while to explain, but the short version is there are three branches of government. One branch makes the laws, one enforces the laws, and one interprets the laws. Legislative, executive and judicial, respectively. People vote on the members of the first two, and the first two branches vote on members of the third. Elections are held every two, four, and six years for the first two, and the third has members appointed when someone dies or retires.”
“Huh. That seems strange to me,” she commented, putting a hoof on her chin. “Nopony chooses legislators like that in Canterlot. Well, I mean, you do have to have normal people want you to be legislator for Celestia to appoint you, but in theory you don’t. Ours is that, the Royal Guard enforces the law, Celestia approves and interprets the law, and the nobles submit laws to Celestia, who can come up with them herself as well.”
Yup. Based on that description, Celestia was a dictator. A benevolent one sure, mostly anyway, but still a dictator. I already knew that, but Twilight all but confirmed that to me now. I had no chance at all at ever doing something like being a politician if I had to work through her.
“I can’t imagine what kind of chaos would happen if ponies got to vote for their rulers,” Twilight continued. “I mean, what would happen if they chose legislators who were terrible, or a ruler who wanted to oppress them? It's a good thing all those things go through Celestia.”
“Well, that’s why you vote them out of office once their terms are up,” I explained. “Someone who’s elected has to do what the people who vote for them want to keep being elected. If they don’t, they won’t have a job. Someone who isn’t elected and rules over a country has no incentive to look out for the needs of those they rule over.”
“Princess Celestia looks out for ponies anyway,” the librarian countered. “She doesn’t have an incentive, but she makes sure everypony is safe and sound in Equestria anyway.”
Not exactly in my opinion, but she told me I can’t talk about that, so I didn’t bring it up.
“Okay, but, what if she didn't?” I asked.
“But she does.”
“But what if she didn’t? What exactly is stopping her from, say, lowering the sun and partnering up with Nightmare Moon? I mean, other than the kindness of her heart? With voting, you could just vote out the person you don’t like and replace them with someone you do.”
Twilight blinked at that idea. “Huh. I never thought of that… although, you know what you’re arguing for is considered treason, right? It’s not something little fillies should be going around saying in public.”
“I’m not arguing for anything,” I replied. “You asked about our political system, and I’m telling. Besides, if Celestia can raise the sun herself, I’m sure she can crush anypony who opposes her beneath her hooves.”
I was still thinking about how weird it was that Nightmare Moon told me this and got it in my head. Did she have some sort of other agenda she wanted me to complete on her behalf? It was extremely strange that she told me that but seemed to not understand what she was telling me or implying. I almost wouldn't believe she was that naïve if I hadn’t known everypony else here to be just as naïve, Celestia included. Everyone here operated with a weirdly trusting pattern about them, almost as if this was a children’s show.
“Well that's an interesting way to phrase that, but it is certainly something to consider. Very interesting to think about anyway, a world where ponies get to choose who rules. I wonder what a world like that would be. Maybe more messy if ponies chose to put someone other than Princess Celestia in place… wait, do you think that’s what Princess Celestia is gonna do with choosing a new ruler to take her place?”
“Knowing her, it's unlikely, but it certainly would be interesting if she did.”
Oh, there was a delicious thought right there if she did, but that thought was going to stay on the shelf for now. On the shelf, but plainly in sight, on the off chance that she really did decide to let ponies elect the next ruler. Although the chance of it was practically nonexistent, knowing the princess.
“Well, it sounds like something definitely worth experimenting with, honestly, although I’m not sure anypony in Canterlot would like that very much. I wonder what Princess Celestia would think.”
“It’s also a bit more complicated than you’re making it out to be. There are political parties and gerrymandering districts to control who people vote for and lobbyists who throw money at candidates to help them win through advertising and primary elections to determine who people even can vote for… basically, it’s a mess of stuff. But, you know, better to have the illusion of choice than no choice at all, in my opinion.”
“I’d be careful going around Ponyville saying things like that,” she said again. “It’s really not something you should even be talking about, really. But it certainly is interesting to hear about. I wonder if something like that could actually work.”
I could see the idea spinning in her head, something I didn’t intend, not entirely anyway, but also something I didn’t really mind. It wasn’t like anything was going to change right away anyway, but I knew if she told Celestia, I was gonna get another earful. I was beyond caring at this point though. I’d gotten so much from her already.
“Should I be doing this?” I asked. I was only answering her questions, not offering up the information on my own, but the whole issue of submitting to authority was playing in my head once again. Did this count as submitting to authority? Was I doing the right thing even thinking about going against her like this? There was no way I would ever no for certain.
Celestia’s words. Did she ask that intentionally? I mean, obviously she did, but did she ask that with the intention to get me to doubt myself? I wouldn't have been surprised if she did. Just knowing that made me more certain that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Besides, even if I wasn’t submitting to authority, Celestia was still acting the way she was, and that was something to stand up against. More importantly, I was just answering a question Twilight asked. There was certainly nothing wrong with that, even if it did give her ideas Celestia might not like.
“Can you just make sure not to tell this to Celestia?” I asked. “She’s just gonna yell at me some more and get all bent out of shape.”
“Sure, I won’t tell, Ashley.”
“Asher. It’s Asher until you acknowledge that I’m a man.” It was another thing I didn’t know if I was doing right, but something I wasn’t going to put thought into right now with how awful and uncomfortable it felt to hear myself be referred to as a girl. There were a lot of things I didn’t know. All I could do was try my very best and hope that it was good enough. Besides, I had a long time to figure it all out.
“I’m gonna try my best to make this world my own.”