totallynotabrony's totallynotastory

by totallynotabrony

Efficiency (comedy/random)

(no cover art)

Twilight notices that many Equestrian cities are old and use archaic city planning. She fixes it.

I had this idea about wastewater to generate electricity. It wasn't a very good idea.

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“Has anypony ever noticed how difficult it is to get around Canterlot?” said Twilight over lunch with her friends.

“No,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Yes,” said Rarity.

Rainbow blinked. “Oh. Roads. Ground pony problems, got it.” She went back to eating.

“It’s not just roads,” said Twilight. “It’s the system. We need to take a top-down look at tributary organization and determine how traffic flows, which will then inform our decision on how to correct it. Smaller streets need to feed into larger roads and highways. Straightening them out would also help a lot.”

“I’m all for straight roads,” said Applejack, “but what’s it going to take?”

“There are probably a lot of houses in the way,” added Fluttershy.

Twilight considered it and turned to another friend. “What do you think, Pinkie? You haven’t said anything yet.”

Pinkie grinned. “I say go for it. There ain’t no party like a road construction party because a road construction party don’t stop.”

With that settled, Twilight drew up some schematics and presented her plan to restructure Canterlot to Princess Celestia.

“This seems like it will require a lot of effort and cooperation from citizens,” said Celestia, looking at the blueprints Twlight had drawn up.

“The city is built on infrastructure literally a thousand years old,” said Twilight. “Ponies back then couldn’t have planned the city would grow into what it is today. If we make an investment now, and allow for the future, the improvements could last us well through the next millennium.”

Celestia considered it for a long moment and then nodded. “Make it so.”

Being placed in charge of transport modernization for a whole city made Twilight giddy with responsibility over budgets, labor, and above all, efficiency.

Something occurred to her, however. The roads were one thing. What about trains, the airship station, and pegasus flight lanes?

But none of that could operate without electricity, trash collection, water supply, wastewater outflow, and dozens of other factors. Twilight realized that she needed to take her plans deeper.

It took a lot of long nights, but she drew up new plans to modernize the whole city. Grinning with anticipation of how awesome a properly organized, efficient city would be, she ordered the outline made real.

The weeks passed. Twilight’s friends became concerned. They hadn’t seen her since the project had begun. Strange things were afoot in Canterlot. They decided to visit.

When they arrived, they found the city torn apart in a massive civil engineering holocaust. Pavement, wires, and pipes went everywhere. None of it seemed to make any sense.

They found Twilight in a deep underground pit consulting with a stallion who spoke with an accent about some incredibly large machines.

“Ah dunno’ if we can do that, Cap’n,” he said, Scoltish accent in his voice.

“It’s just another kind of wastewater,” said Twilight.

“If you say so.” The stallion sounded dubious.

Twilight spotted her friends and came over. “Hello girls! Sorry I haven’t been home lately. This huge industrial project has been so exciting!”

“If you say so.” Rainbow sounded dubious.

“What this thing?” Rarity asked.

Twilight turned. “It’s a system to utilize wastewater to create electricity.”

“Sounds fun!” said Pinkie. “How’s it work?”

“We can use the sewage outflow to drive turbines to create power,” said Twilight. “I’ve named it fecalelectric generation.”

It took a second, but all her friends grimaced as the meaning sank in.

“I can give you the tour,” said Twilight. “Everything is going so well. We’ve finished routing the train lines.” She pointed to a map.

Rarity squinted at the drawing. “Do they go through the retirement community?”

“They don’t go through the retirement community. I laid out the lines in the most efficient way first, and then relocated the retirement community around them. Who else wouldn’t be able to hear the noise?” said Twilight.

“Train routes are one thing,” said Rainbow. “I want to know what you did with the pegasus routes.”

“We eliminated them. All of you need space to flap your wings and it was much more efficient to pack you into public transportation like everypony else.”

Above Rainbow’s protests, Pinkie said, “Aren’t there any public meeting places anymore? Where are ponies supposed to hold parties?”

“We have designated party locations,” said Twilight, pointing them out.

“What’s this about hydroponic gardens?” Applejack asked.

“We installed them inside pegasus homes, so they could receive ideal water,” said Twilight.

“Then what are the earth ponies supposed to do?” Applejack asked.

“Mandatory marriage to pegasi.” Twilight turned to Fluttershy. “Speaking of that, you’re married to Applejack now.”

Fluttershy stammered. Twilight said, “It’s okay, we’ve set up designated breeders so they’ll be a controlled amount of children, even for same-sex couples.”

“Twilight, I think your obsession with efficiency is getting out of control,” said Rarity.

Just then, the Scoltish engineer Twilight had spoken to earlier burst in. “The wastewater generation is operating at redline!”

“Maximum efficiency, yes,” said Twilight. “We can’t let it operate at any less than capacity, now can we?”

“But the shit turbines canna’ handle it, Cap’n!”

“Why does he call you ‘captain?’” Rainbow asked.

“I don’t know, one of those weird things the Scoltish do. I’ve told him to stop because throwing an extra word in isn’t efficient,” said Twilight.

She turned to a new set of plans. “I hope you’re all hungry, because I can’t wait to show you what I’ve got planned for how to deal with biomass disposal!”

Comments

[Dirty Bit]

I remember doing something similar to this a couple of years ago in the form of blog posts

[totallynotabrony]

7810715 A lot of authors do

[totallynotabrony]

7810715 Unrelated, I see you like crossovers. Perhaps this is of interest.