The Final Years of the Equestrian Republic
circa 1920-2049 AW
First, it must be said that the modern Equestria possesses very few records of the time. Unfortunately, the reign of Discord - and the death and destruction that occupied it - destroyed most written accounts. Oddly, due to a strike of fate, most surviving records are not scholarly sources, but rather newspaper articles. The reason for this is not known.
While Equestria has been a Constitutional Diarchy for longer than anypony but the Royal Sisters can remember, this was not always the case. Before the reign of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, and after ponies had conquered their racism and hatred, Equestria had been organized into a Republic. Laws were made by passing bills through a two-house system, with each house made of representatives sent from all corners of the land. These were then sent to the “Premier of the Republic,” who either signed the proposed bill into law or rejected it, sending it back to the two houses to consider again. If the bill was popular enough with the houses, it would override the Premier’s decision and become law. This is, of course, oversimplifying the government of the time, as what little records we have of that era are scattered and fragmented. Records also show of a functioning legal system and even remarkably advanced technologies, centuries or even millennia beyond what is known in Equestria and the world today. Sadly, these technologies were lost to ponykind soon after the Battle of the Republic.
Regardless of whatever technologies our ancestors may or may not have had, it is clear that the Republic’s days were numbered. Several different newspaper articles from across the nation consistently reference two political parties of the time: the Spirit of the Warming, a very conservative party, and the Forward-Thinkers, very liberal one. Because of how the government was structured, the two houses failed to agree on anything from everything as minor as faction of a percentage point on taxes to as major as movement of troops and military activity to counter Discord’s alarming advances. According to other fragments, large corporations also lobbied for bills that benefited them at the cost of the taxpayers and consumers. On top of that, the richest fraction of a percent the Equestrian population continuously exploited loopholes in the laws to “earn” what would amount to hundreds of millions of bits a year, by today’s currency standards, tax free. And still on top of that, while, theoretically, the nation was egalitarian, male ponies very rarely, if ever, held any form of office, be it civilian or military. This was not due to sexism from the general public, as some claim, but rather laws passed by the houses around 1895, requiring stallions who wished to run for office pay a hefty fine and complete five separate background checks, which were expensive. Various smear campaigns ran by mares who wished to retain full control of the government did not help matters. These laws were passed without objection from the Premier of the Republic, who was a mare. Meanwhile, the military, based off of the works of the matriarchal Pre-Unification Pegasi, maintained many of the discriminating features of it, particularly against stallions. Civil unrest was alarming, and some citizens accepted or even supported Discord’s attacks upon the nation. There were more grievances against the government, but in the interest of time, we will now move on.
At any rate, despite all the bad, the Republic managed to remain in power with the popular support of the citizens for almost two millennia. This is impressive, to say the least. From the scattered records, most scholars agree that Equestria relied on an unprecedented mode of communication, allowing messages through the civil population and orders through the military to travel from one corner of the nation to the other in tenths of a second. This communication, while its name was lost, along with a way to reproduce it, is know as the “Web” or the “Net” by scholars today.
When examining the Republic’s successes and failures, one must also take into account the world politics of the time. Like everything else in this period, records are inconclusive at best. However, if one analyzes what they find and also factor in what evidence she can find in the fossil record, patterns start to emerge. Careful analysis of the newspaper articles of 1910-2000 AW show a repeated reference to a “threat” of some kind. Most ponies of the modern era may think this threat is Discord, however, the first signs of him are not seen until late 2048, when reports of the Sun and Moon requiring much more force to move and weather patterns that defied the Pegasi’s control started to appear. However, what we do know is that many ponies died in between the years of 1925-1975. Add in the fact that most of the fallen were of the Pegasi, who were by far the most militaristic of the three tribes, and the fact that some of the bodies have traces of high-powered magic, and it becomes clear: Equestria was fighting foreign invasion. While this is not enough to answer the question of who, a newspaper from 1955 says:
All ponies of … advised to … and in the case of a loved one or … acting strangely, report this to … as …
The document was torn in several places, but it is clear that the article is advising everypony to be aware of changes in behavior and to report said changes. The most logical conclusion is a changeling attack on the nation. Some bio-historians has proposed a link between changelings and the windigos, that is, changelings are directly descended from windigos. This theory makes logical sense, however, it is impossible to prove, as the windigos were extinct by 15 AW.
At any rate, be it changeling or otherwise, the government’s failure to defeat the “enemy” greatly undermined the citizen’s trust in the Republic. Some even claimed that the threat was a government conspiracy to control the masses. The war finally ended in 1975 in what seemed to be an uneasy cease-fire. However, the failure of the central government would be remembered for much of Equestria's history.
By 2048, the ponies were almost in a state of rebellion, tired of high taxes, runaway inflation, an ever-increasing gap between the rich and poor, and a deteriorating standard of living. Fragments of writings that modern histories have uncovered include descriptions of tens of thousands of bit’s worth of food consumed in one massive party thrown by four of the richest Unicorn ponies, while, meanwhile, ponies from all the Tribes barely could scrape a living. While this is almost certainly an exaggeration, the idea remains.
Finally, events came to bear when, on a fall day in 2048, an unclear number of lower and middle class Earth ponies rioted against a Unicorn landlord. Soon, many other ponies, from all Tribes joined the fray, both fighting with and against the lower classes. Finally, the military was called in to address the issue. As far as we can tell, nopony was killed in the moment, but civil war was the thought on most ponies’ minds.
In a way, Equestria was lucky that Discord invaded when he did.