“I must apologize for my sister’s outburst,” Celestia said, taking a sip of her tea. “She means well, ultimately, but this topic includes exceptionally painful memories of the Lunar Rebellions. She does not wish you to go down that path as well, Twilight. I was not joking when I said we must not be worshipped. That leads only to madness.”
Twilight nodded, drinking from her own teacup. “I understand. I was just… rather surprised at how intense Luna was about it, is all.”
“Luna is nothing if not intense. Her passion at its peak is truly something to behold. In any event, why don’t we continue the entry with me while my sister calms herself. Shall we?”
Twilight nodded, lifting up her pointing stick while the background changed to a picture of a pony watching a sunset. “Generally speaking, Equestria has, in it’s highest laws, enshrined complete freedom of religion. The government cannot recognize nor endorse any one religion. This, however, comes with an important exception.”
Celestia continued, “Worship of alicorns is strictly forbidden. All public displays of such worship are banned, including gathering for such purposes and even proselytizing. Commercial production of imagery meant to promote worship of alicorns is also banned. It is possible to be sent to jail for these infractions, and it has happened, although it is rare to spend long periods incarcerated for it.” The image changed to a jail cell containing an idol similar to the Princess’s cutie mark.
Twilight lay down on the ground, crossing her forelegs. “To be honest, I’ve only met maybe three ponies that ever ‘openly’ worshipped Celestia, and most of the time they’re fairly quiet about it. They didn’t deny it, but they didn’t yell it from the rooftops either. Generally speaking, although alicorn worship exists, I’d say it’s rather rare. Probably because of these laws. Even the Nightmare Moon Cult is said to only have a few thousand members, although I’d imagine it’s rather hard to get an accurate estimation on that.”
Celestia started to pour more hot water in her teacup. “Technically, private worship of us is also banned, but, that’s much, much more difficult to enforce. If a pony prays to us in their bedroom, how are we to know? Even if we did, acting on it would be seen as overly invasive and tyrannical. That’s something we can ill afford right now. The good news is that if a pony is only doing it in the privacy of their own home and not proselytizing it to others, the potential for damage is very minimal.”
Twilight swallowed. “I remember when I first started studying under you, you caught me praying to you in my room. I’m glad you didn’t toss me in jai—”
“Are you honestly suggesting I’d toss a filly in jail for looking up to me a little too much?” Celestia asked with a raised eyebrow and a smile.
“Ah, right…” Twilight fidgeted with her mane. “When you put it that way, it does sound kind of… well…”
“The word you are looking for is ‘ludicrous,’ Twilight. Even assuming I did enforce that law myself, foals do not suffer the same punishments as adults in the legal system for a reason. On top of that, even for adults the penalties are generally very mild and judges often use fines instead. Real hard time is reserved for those rare, repeat, and large-scale offenders. Often times, if a pony gets that ‘bad,’ I will have personal chats with them to clear their misconceptions, and that usually works. As it did with you.”
Twilight sighed. “And yet, I kept saying things like ‘thank Celestia’ even though I knew better. Everypony else does, too. And even since you talked to me about worshipping you there was always this little feeling in the back of my mind that I shouldn’t do that, but I did anyway.”
Celestia chuckled, dipping a new teabag in her hot water. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Luna and I have tried countless times to get our ponies to stop saying such things, but ultimately it’s ended in spectacular failure each time. Fortunately that particular habit of our ponies doesn’t seem to be harmful in the same way open worship is. At the very least, we haven’t noticed it in the last nine thousand years we’ve been full alicorns.”
“Then how come when I was a filly you spent that one day stealthily following around your old senechal Time Minder, popping around a corner and saying ‘you’re welcome’ whenever he said it?” Twilight smirked.
Celestia smiled. “Oh, come now, Twilight. Even I have to have a little fun sometimes. Besides, he stopped saying it after that, didn’t he?”
Twilight’s head jerked up in realized. “Okay, now I can’t tell if you were just playing a joke on him or if that was the planned outcome.”
“Ah, but who says it couldn’t be both?” Celestia winked.
“Riiiiight. Well, in any event, that concludes this entry, everyone. The voting board is back up.”
Nothing new unlocked this time.
==Pony Genetics==Stock Ponies and Draft Ponies
Tribe Hybrids
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==Magic Items==
Enchanted Objects
Cored Artifacts
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==Royal Guard Overview==
Senechals [LOCKED UNTIL: SOMETIME IN BLOCK 4]
Royal Guard [LOCKED UNTIL: SOMETIME IN BLOCK 4]
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==Equestrian Politics==
The Inner Council
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==Wings==
Wing types overview
Flight characteristics
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==Culture==
Languages
Technology Level
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==Higher Power==Pony spiritualityAlicorn worship
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3994126 Part 2 just got posted
My vote of Cored Objects still stands.
I loved the chapter Cv Once again thank you. Also I'm voting for tribe hybrids this time.
My vote for Tribal Hybrids stands as well
Hahaha that was great.
I'll go with wing types for the next one.
I'll take ==Pony Genetics== for 500 Alex.
I knew this would lead to something entertaining; as for my vote, Tribe Hybrids.
I'll be different and vote for tech.
Cored Objects please
Very funny in part 1, and great explanation in part 2...but ya gotta love the "You're welcome"
And, wings, please!
I'm sticking with Culture for now.
Also, yikes. Bad memories for Luna. Do not mock Purple Moon Horse.
Also also, going by the votes, you may need to remind some readers of how the voting process works. We're voting on categories, people, not topics. Otherwise, I'd just go for Tech Level and be done with it.
In any case, looking forward to more.
Tribe Hybrids again, for previously mentioned reasons.
==Pony Genetics==!!
Edit:
Why am I still doing this? Since my vote never changes it's starting to get to the point of being spam....
3994318
I don't think Cv minds. Especially not if you add some opinion on the current chapter(s) .
Anyway, I think my vote is going to be for 'Inner Council' this time. Just to shake things up.
cored objects, for more depth on item enchantments and, hopefully, the outlook on magic vs. tech
I'd vote for looking at the Inner Council next.
...Though considering that I think I'm literally the only one voting for it, it's probably going to be a good while before it happens
I do quite like this take on this topic, though. Very interesting with the whole freedom-of-religion-but concept.
3994416
I voted for it! And I have a feeling it might very well be the next one, honestly. And if not the Very next, at least soon.
Cool chapters but I didn't really learn anything new and I just wasn't that interested in the choice this time around, I would like to learn about magic items and wing types but since I can only vote for one I think I'll choose.
Wing Types.
Loved the "you're welcome" bit. Benevolent Trollestia is best Trollestia.
I vote for Culture.
Tribe hybrids.
Let's talk politics, I vote for the Inner Council.
I'm voting for Languages.
Tribe hybrids please. About the actual story: this is the most popular stance people take on celestia's worship that I have seen, but I makes sense.
genetics
Wings, and I'm liking these chapters.
I'll take
The RapistsYour MotherLanguages for 500 Trebek...Great chapter, and I can totally see Celestia going around and doing that. Come to think of it, I remember reading a story about that once. Anybody know the name?
Huh. I have two problems with Celestia's solution to this solution to the problem, one philosophical, one practical.
First off, thoughtcrime. Eww eww ick eww. Seriously, doing what you want in the privacy of your own mind is "technically banned"?
More practically, what better way to convince the "Cult of Whichever Princess" that they're doing something right than to point out that That Other Princess has banned the practice? I mean, obviously it's because it works and she's afraid of it, right?
Seriously, I don't see how this works better than public mockery by the princess being worshiped, followed by pointedly ignoring that particular bunch from that point on.
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Anyway, +1 vote for Culture.
My vote is for Tribe Hybrids.
Cored Artifacts.
Still voting for Tribal Hybrids. It's gotta turn up sooner or later... :-)
I vote for The Inner Council next.
Tribe Hybrids
I think the core issue is the core artifacts.
My vote is Pony Genetics- Tribe Hybrids
Culture please.
Huh, well I suppose the ban makes sense if they have 9000 years of history telling them that alicorn worship never ends well.
Now that we have alicorn worship out of the way, I'm going back to my Tribe Hybrids vote.
Languages is my vote. this one was definitely an interesting topic to say the least.
==Magic Items==
Please. I want to know about cored items, so let's get enchanted objects out of the way! (Also, would everyone voting for "cored items" please reread how this voting works? You vote for categories, not the entries in them)
With that out of the way, I just want to say that the image of Celestia stalking a pony all day just to say "you're welcome" every time he says "thank Celestia" is hilarious.
Hybrids and Wings! I'm loving these, it's a nice to fill in some of the blanks.
==Cultuuuure==
Seriously, guys... You are such great readers... We were told that we are to vote on ==C A T E G O R I E S== not Topics... It's clearly there in Chapter 5!
Though it seems that even votes for topics are acknowledged? Or I'm... ah, no. Proper vote for Higher Powers are the most numerous.
3996536
If someone votes for an individual topic I count it as a vote for that category. If they vote for two categories I only count the first one mentioned.
3996552
Ah, OK.
It still shows how people completely disregard rules. You explicitly told us "The things in “==X==“ are what you’re choosing."
could we have some Pony Genetics?
I'm curious about Princess Cadence after reading "Love and Barriers"!
Wing Types Overview
Culture, please!
==Pony Genetics==
Is it possible to skip straight to Technology Level since it's already revealed and unlocked, or would Twilight go nuts over the sequence-breaking?
3999230 You're supposed to be voting for the category, not the individual topic. So, no. No skipping.
I'd say Wings, but it'd be a throwaway vote right now...
Magic Items then. I want this set in stone.
Edit: Current count is 16.5 for Genetics, 9 for Culture, 7 for Magic Item,5.5 for Wings, 4 for Politics.
QuarterKick. You only get ONE vote. One.