Talentless
Starlight Glimmer smiled to herself, trotting through their little village of equality. It wasn’t so little anymore, these days. It wasn’t a metropolis either (and probably never would be. Even a town the size of Canterlot and Manehattan combined wouldn’t be called a metropolis with buildings like these), but it had taken quite a growth spurt lately. And that wasn’t even the best part.
A few weeks ago they had captured befriended the Elements of Harmony and Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Alicorn of Friendship herself. And while the six mares still had some… problems, accepting their philosophy, it was only a matter of time until they would see the light and join them in their happy little community. Especially with the newest addition to their circle.
She slowly unlocked the door to the quaint little house near the center of the town and peeked inside. Even after ‘equalizing’ their new guest, it was still good to remain cautious. There was no telling what the mare could still do without her cutie mark to back her up.
A brilliant white alicorn sat regally in one corner of the room, looking up to meet her gaze with an expressionless stare. Her mane had reverted to a greyish pink after the equalization and the famous sun symbol on her flank had been replaced by an equal sign. Starlight Glimmer had made very sure to keep her cutie mark somewhere safe, along with the marks of some other choice ponies.
“Welcome back, Starlight Glimmer.” The alicorn gave her a curt nod. “Have you reconsidered the situation, or do you persist in your foolish crusade for your twisted equality?”
Starlight scoffed. “Talk all you want, Princess. You are going to stay in this room until you have seen the merit of real friendship and equality and decided to join us.”
“Yes, I’m sure that is all that will be required of me.” Celestia raised an eyebrow questioningly, then shrugged. “Not that it makes a difference, seeing how nothing like that will happen. At the worst, I do have the time to simply wait you out, you realize?”
Starlight frowned, cautiously watching the alicorn. “You know, from what I heard about you I always expected you to have a warmer personality.”
Celestia stared at her for a few seconds, then glanced down at her flank where the equal sign had flashed up as it did occasionally. “You don’t say.”
Starlight opened her mouth to say something, then bit her lip and stifled a frustrated groan, turning back around. “If you don’t have anything more meaningful to say, I’ll check on you again tomorrow morning.” She slammed the door behind her just as Celestia was starting on her retort and locked it twice, feeling a sense of petty satisfaction at the act.
“Starlight Glimmer! Please, you have to come, it’s an emergency!”
The mare lowered her head and let out a low growl, then took a deep breath and turned around, adopting a bright smile as her right-hoof pony came into earshot. “Double Diamond! What can I do for you? Whatever it is, I’m sure it can’t be quite that bad.”
The white-coated earth pony stallion skidded to a halt in front of her, panting and gasping for breath as he pointed towards the west. “Sun… going down…”
Starlight looked past his hoof, seeing the sun hover just above the horizon, framed by a couple of stray clouds. “Yes, it’s a very nice sunset. Not one of the best I’ve seen but probably a nice shade of orange, I guess. Now why is that a reason to go running around like that?”
Double Diamond took one more deep breath, then looked over his shoulder at the sunset and back at her again. “I-it’s just that… T-the sunset… It’s been like this for the last fifteen minutes!”
“What is the meaning of this?!” Starlight Glimmer smashed the door into the wall, glaring down… well, technically glaring up at the Alicorn Princess. “Why isn’t the sun setting? Is this your idea of petty revenge?”
Celestia gave her a short glance, then turned her attention back to the teacup she had procured from somewhere. “I can assure you that I have been sitting here and doing nothing since the last time we saw each other, ten minutes ago. Didn’t you say that you wanted to check on me again tomorrow?”
“Stop playing dumb.” Starlight growled and ground her teeth, her patience wearing thin. “Why isn’t the sun setting? Lower it, now.”
“If you say so.” Celestia sighed and lit her horn with a bored expression. It continued to brighten for a few seconds before the equal sign on her flank flashed up and her magic fizzled out.
“Oh dear, it doesn’t seem to be working. I wonder why.” The Princess leaned back against the wall, stretching herself a little. “Is there anything else or can I go back to my passive resistance now?”
“You mean you can’t control the sun anymore?” Starlight took a step back in shock, looking back out the door towards the sunset.
“What did you think my special talent was?”
“That… that’s okay, I can still work with that. The sunset and sunrise was controlled by unicorns before, we can do it again, isn’t that right?”
Celestia shrugged and looked towards the sunset as well. “Sure, in theory. As far as I know there are four unicorn mages at the Academy in Canterlot at the moment who know the necessary spell. Unless they have taken another dozen apprentices I don’t know about, that will barely be enough to set and raise the sun for one day before they exhaust themselves.”
Starlight growled to herself for a moment before turning around and walking back out of the room. “That changes nothing. I can manage this, I just need some more time to teach enough unicorns the necessary spells…”
“Starlight Glimmer! It’s an emergency! There’s–“
“WHAT? What is it?!” She whipped her head around to glare at the group of ponies who had galloped up to her, all of them cringing back and cowering under her gaze.
One of the ponies nervously looked up, stammering. “I-it’s the Royal Guard… They’re on the way here and they say that we’ve kidnapped Princess Celestia.”
“They’ve found us already? Well then, go and gather everypony. If they don’t want to see the merits of equality, we will have to show them or drive them off again.” Starlight frowned and trotted past them, not even giving them a glance.
“B-but… couldn’t we just let them go? I-if they don’t want to join us, I mean. I-it just doesn’t seem right to force them to join us and give up their cutie marks.” The stallion shuffled his hoof nervously.
Starlight stopped and whirled back around, eyeing him intently. “Do you have a problem with our philosophy? Would you perhaps like to have your cutie mark back and lose all those friends you made?”
“N-no. I-I was just thinking… I’m sorry.” He cowered and slowly backed away into the crowd.
Starlight looked down at the rows of Royal Guards advancing across the plains, led by their former Captain and now Prince of the Crystal Empire, Shining Armor. Against them stood hundreds of equalized mares and stallions, all with weapons and armor forged in their village. Their forces were about the same, but unlike the Royal Guard, their group wouldn’t have any weak points. Every pony was equally good as the pony beside them.
The two armies clashed. Metal struck against metal, wooden shafts against armor…
About half of the weapons broke immediately. None of them were on the side of the Royal Guard.
“What… what happened? Why is our equipment turning into… scrap metal?!” Starlight stared incredulously at the battlefield, then at the few ponies who had stayed with her to observe. Double Diamond opened his mouth to say something, then looked down and nervously shifted his hoof.
Next to him Party Favor stepped forward, rubbing his neck. “Uhm, I-I think the reason for that are… some minor issues with the production.”
“Issues? What kind of issues? Why wasn’t I informed about this?!”
Party Favor looked down, taking a step back in defense. “I-it’s not my fault. Or anypony’s fault, really. The problem is that, well… we didn’t have a blacksmith. Everypony of us is equal, but, uhm… Apparently that just means that none of us was any good at forging weapons. And the stallion you appointed to the forge used to be a blacksmith, so whenever he tried to forge something, his mark, uhm… it just… I-I’m not complaining about losing my cutie mark, really, there’s just some minor side effects to it. ...At least the forge didn’t collapse again like some of the other houses we built?” He gave her a weak grin.
Starlight stared at him for a moment, then whipped back around to watch the battlefield. Some of her ponies had begun to retreat while others tried to defend themselves in hoof-to-hoof combat, injuring themselves more than they hurt any of the guards.
She barely heard one of the ponies behind her mutter, “We should’ve used my muffins instead. The last batch could’ve killed ponies.”
“It’s over, Starlight Glimmer! Surrender while you still can!” Starlight looked down to see Shining Armor standing at the front of the battlefield, holding his helmet under one foreleg and glaring up at her.
She cringed back, then growled and took a step forward again, lighting her horn. “No… No! It’s not over yet! I’m going to make you all see true equality!” Her magic flared up and beams started to shoot off towards the battlefield, hitting guards and collecting several cutie marks each. She turned her attention back to the unicorn at the front and charged another beam, aiming right at him.
“No!” Somepony jumped in front of Shining Armor before he could react, taking the beam head-on. The figure rolled across the grass, then slowly stood up and shook itself, revealing itself as a small purple dragon with green spines.
“Whoa, that felt weird…” The dragon looked himself over, rubbing his tail. “I don’t feel any different, though. Hey, I don’t think the spell works if you don’t have a cutie mark.”
Starlight’s left eye twitched and she charged her spell again, firing into the group of guards again. The guard it hit staggered a back, then shook herself and looked around, clicking her beak and swishing her lion’s tail.
“This is those dweeb’s secret weapon? You ponies are even lamer than I thought.”
Another beam shot at the guards, this time hitting a minotaur bull who didn’t even flinch and instead started to flex his muscles.
“You try to use your zap, you fall right into my trap!”
One more beam shot across the battlefield, streaking at two unicorn stallions and fizzling out only two feet away from them.
“Magic-repelling bowties? Why didn’t we think of that, brother?”
“I daresay, brother, we did.” The mustachioed one raised a foreleg to high-hoof his sibling.
Starlight took another step back, looking around. Her forces had lost or fled, she was outnumbered and surrounded with no way out. A shadow appeared above her and she looked back to see a large, dark blue alicorn standing right behind her, wings spread.
“Do you now understand the error of your ways?”
Celestia took a sip of her tea, not looking up from the newspaper as her sister entered the small dinner hall where they shared their meals. “Did you find her?”
Luna nodded, sitting down on the other side of the table and pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I did. She is still in those cavernous systems, though, so it won’t be of much use to your guards. Even if I tried to pinpoint her exact location, I could not lead them to her.” She picked up a knife and a scone. “I did enter her dreams, however, and I hope that I have given her some things to think about.”
Celestia nodded, then sighed and looked at her sister. “I’m sorry about this, Luna. I know that you don’t like bringing nightmares to anypony.”
“I think you have a worse picture of those nightmares than is usually necessary, sister.” Luna rolled her eyes, then smiled. “Though I did find a way to make the task a little more enjoyable.”
“Oh?” Celestia’s ears perked up.
“Indeed. It is something Our friend First Edition told us about. Do you remember her? She was the hobby writer I met on that gathering for the enthusiasts of the Daring Do literary series.”
“I do remember. Didn’t you ask her for tips to improve your dreams? What advice did she give you?”
“Oh, it isn’t so much to improve my dreams for other ponies, but it does make them more fun to weave.” Luna clapped her hooves happily. “They are called ‘cameos’. I think I will use them more often in the future.”
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Let me know if you think whether this story deserves the Dark and/or Comedy tag. I'm still undecided on both.
Excellent.
I wouldn't say it's dark simply based on the ending.
Comedy because its funny.
(THY TALE HATH—)
(Ahem. "Indoor voice", Luna. We talked about this.)
(Hmf. Very well. Thy tale hath amused us greatly, o humorous scribe! We approve of thine efforts.)
5831547
Smithers, fetch the hounds.
*puts fingertips together*
5831551
If it was only about the ending, we would have a lot less Sad tags.
5831560
Alright, thanks for the input.
5831571
Glad to hear that, thanks.
Ha! Yeah, that's about the fatal problem with Starlight's plan. At least... uh, at least her heart's in the right place.
Though Iron Will's cameo was the best. That rhyme!
5831604 No her heart isn't
5831615 ... she seemed pretty serious about her equality plan when she was having her mental breakdown.
5831604
Seriously, I'm surprised they were able to build such a sturdy prison cell.
That said, I'm not sure how much her heart was really in the right place. She was a pretty sneaky and manipulating cult leader.
5831665 Well here's the thing; if she removes her own cutie mark, then how will anyone else lose theirs? If she wants to make ponies equal, then she has to be the last one to be equalized unless she stumbles upon someone else with her abilities.
Yeah, I can't imagine Luna would much appreciate terrorizing her ponies dreams.
That's why I used Discord.
In any case, a very amusing deconstruction of Starlight's master plan. That's the thing about revolutions; you really need to think them through.
As for tags, I'd say Comedy is definitely in order. Dark? Not so much. I mean, the sun hasn't even set yet.
5831673
Wow, that was just... wow.
Aside from that, thank you for the praise.
5831671
That holds up until the moment she's supposed to give their cutie marks back. She might believe in her philosophy, but she's as much of a powerhungry pain in the flank as Sunset Shimmer was in the first EQG movie.
5831673 Given this world the fact that hate has form that gods walk among mortals and magic a thing and Equestria is a utopia you know dispite everything, well ypou know after suffering as cattle for the wendigo and living in Discords perfect world (which is basically hell on earth) they actually pulled it off for a thousand years that says something about them.
5831687
... huh?
5831710
In the episode, I mean. She might have just been a little delusional like the rest of them up until she was discovered. But throwing a tantrum like that and trying to run off with their cutie marks? It's pretty obvious she wasn't particularly concerned about anypony's happiness aside from her own.
5831745
That wasn't done with any philosophy in mind, that was just spite against the Mane 6.
I like this. I like this very much. I was going to call you on suddenly having all those minor character cameos (even if I love any excuse for Gilda to show up anywhere) being gratuitous and silly. Then I got to the ending and you completely stuck the landing. Well done.
5832059
It's not a River Road story without at least one bespectacled ginger filly.
Funny, but very realistic. How could Equestria even operate if everypony lost their special talents? Starlight's system, in its current form, is unworkable.
5832533
It's only unworkable because not everyone's doing it.
That's what I'm told, anyway.
5832533
1) I don't think Starlight wanted to take over Equestria. She was content to rule a small village, and wait for more ponies to join, mostly voluntarily. She only forced the Mane 6 because they were encouraging dissent.
2) I'm sure if Starlight was willing to allow herself to keep her mark to do something vital (strip other's marks), she'd allow some exceptions to perform tasks like raising the sun.
5832631 Allowing any exceptions besides Starlight herself (since she needs her magic to take the cutie marks) would sort of make the whole thing meaningless, wouldn't it? The alicorns who are needed to raise the sun and moon are the same ones who pose the biggest threat to her rule. She couldn't just leave them out. Like many ideologues, Starlight simply hasn't thought things through. That's exactly the point this story is making.
Nor am I at all certain that Starlight was content with ruling one small village. Her remarks on what it would mean for a princess (Twilight) to join them, and how Equestria would "finally see what we're trying to accomplish," suggested greater ambitions.
5832692
They don't pose a threat at all, if they voluntarily joined Starlight, or if they allow her to do her own thing (which seems to be the case. I find it hard to believe Celestia didn't know about the village).
And I didn't say she didn't have ambitions, I only said I didn't think she would try to conquer Equestria. Her comments could easily have been only about how many more ponies would voluntarily join them if a Princess had. Other than the Mane 6, we never saw her force ponies to join her society, and she had good reason to not let Twilight and Friends continue to operate freely.
5831745 It was also obvious she has some serious envy issues when Twilight copied her spell, showing that she wanted Equality for everyone... With her being more "Equal" then the rest.
Simply due to some extreme jealousy of others, so that they should become worse.
Great story. Yes, Starlight's plan was flawed in multiple ways. Having everyone be the same means that no-one is better at anything, but that also means that no-one is good at doing the things that need to be done such as building, cooking, farming, etc.
We never saw where the village got its supplies did we? Probably because the episode was more concerned with making a point, but without farming or craftsponies, where did it get its food & other materials? From outside? From ponies who do have the special talent to provide such things? Another flaw if she wanted to expand her philosophy.
It only held together as long as it was one small isolated village that she could directly control. Expanding it beyond that (And by extension, beyond her control) would result in a collapse of the whole thing in short order.
5832621
Whether that is true or not for regular communism, socialism and other -isms, I don't know. It most likely depends on the circumstances.
This is magic we're talking about, though. My story might have been an overdramatization, but going by the experiences of the Mane Six in the episode - especially Rainbow Dash and Applejack - at least some ponies were severely handicapped by the suppression of their special talent... To the point where any pony who used to do manual labor and blue-collar jobs would probably see their physical strength drop considerably, so much that an earth pony can't buck down a door and a pegasus can't keep up with any non-equalized pony anymore.
5832743
I'll admit, we did never see her force ponies to join their community (except, you know, Twilight and her friends; national heroes, last line of defense and head-of-state). From what they said in the show about nopony wanting to leave again, the problem might not even have come up before. It was, however, shown that she wouldn't let anypony leave anymore once they'd joined her, as seen with Party Favor. Considering that they already had a prison cell prepared, complete with a loudspeaker hammering their philosophy in 24/7 I do not believe that this was the first, last or only instance of that happening.
We don't know if Celestia would've let them do their thing. I doubt that she knew already about them, though, seeing how Twilight didn't even know there was a village in the first place and, as they said in the episode, nopony had ever left the village yet.
Either way, that point is rendered moot the moment Starlight Glimmer captures the Mane Six. Celestia might have let them live out their lifestyle, but she couldn't ignore something like that. Even if they let them go again, there would have to be at least some consequences. Once you foalnap an Alicorn Princess and take away her cutie mark, you're definitely on one side of the morality line, and it's the side that tends to get their love and friendship in unhealthy doses point blank to the face.
5832533
Thanks. Once I got that idea stuck in my head, I couldn't not write it.
Nothing against Starlight Glimmer as a character. I hear she's quite popular already. But her antagonist plan seems like the most stupid yet, and that's compared to plans like "drive your own food source extinct" (Chrysalis could have recalculated and made changes to their feeding at least) and "conquer anything with a high school's worth of teenagers" (not so stupid on the third look, seeing how she had demon powers and the high school was just the first convenient target, not the only one).
5834213
Glad to hear that you liked it. As for the buildings, I'll admit that was an overdramatization. Considering the barn-raisings and the constant rebuilding of Ponyville, ponies seem to be pretty good at that stuff in general.
That said, if there actually is a pony whose special talent used to be building stuff, keep him the buck away from your houses. It would be like throwing a wet sponge at the project at best, and like throwing Derpy at the project at worst.
5834361
Twilight not knowing is a poor argument for Celestia not knowing, since it's been shown before that Twilight was unaware of ponies or places that Celestia knew about.
And even if none of the ponies left the village, there'd still be one way Celestia might know, a way you acknowledged in your own story: Luna's dream walking. With the number of ponies in that village, and if ponies dream as frequently as humans (every night), I'd think it'd be highly unlikely Luna didn't know about the village.
Perhaps Celestia doesn't get to the village until after the Mane 6 have "converted", and thinks the Mane 6 really want to stay? She can't punish Starlight Glimmer if the Mane 6 are choosing to stay equalized.
5831745 What we're dealing with is someone who deep down thinks that the only way she can get and keep friends is to make them dependent on her. This makes her the antithesis of what Twilight is: someone who truly tries to treat ponies as her equals.
5835072
Considering how shoddy the village was, and how apparently young this whole scheme of Starlight's was to be in such an infantile state, I'd say it was all hastily-erected, meaning there's no way Celestia could have known. It wouldn't be on any map, and is so far out to the east and likely far less occupied end of Equestria that there wouldn't have been any reports yet or at all, and any such reports would have to have come from someone's chance sighting who thought it was odd for some/any reason and had the thought to travel across the country to let the authorities know.
It is not feasible to say Celestia knew about this and simply failed to handle the issue. She could not have known, from evidence, that the place even existed, therefore she could not have known of the issue going on there. That's what the map is for, it's giving Twilight and the girls the ability to find issues no one else who could do something about them could find out about/know about in time to lend aid.
5835319
You just completely ignored Luna.
Luna could easily have known unless the whole village was constructed in one day before the Mane 6 arrived.
5835515
We don't know the extent of her abilities or how they work. You ignored Luna's potential limitations, I didn't ignore her, she's just as much likely incapable as Celestia of knowing and therefore not her fault either.
What you think about Luna's abilities doesn't matter in the long run because we don't have enough canon evidence on the subject to make appropriate speculation, and lack a real-world counterpart to fill in for missing canon. Maybe at night she can suddenly spread out and be in everyone's dreams before sunrise comes. Or maybe she has to direct herself to specific dreams, or maybe she has a dream-walking realm that has a star-field map of Equestria and she has to travel to where she knows ponies are sleeping Or maybe a hundred other different possibilities, many of which are explored here on Fimfic and are all the realm of headcanon without any sense beyond what-ifs of their own.
The Crown is not at fault. It cannot know the current activity over every inch of its nation, and it cannot know the minds of every single subject. Blaming them is something some scared, angry citizen might do who is just looking for someone to blame so they don't feel bad about themselves. Not something an audience of analysts would do.
5835662
If you'd actually read my comments, you'd know I was specifically referring to this story, where Luna's powers are capable of finding the location of a pony through dreams. This is not a discussion of canon, it's a discussion of this story.
5835674
Well then, in this story's headcanon Luna is limited to one dream at a time. She was aware of Starlight Glimmer and specifically searching for her, and even then I tried to imply that she only had the rough location unless she put some extra extra effort into it. She might have a better chance at finding out about the village in general, but it's still slim enough and even then she might only be aware that there is a group of ponies living in that general location.
I'd also like to paraphrase a story I read a few weeks ago, that even a deity with the ability to read minds would have a hard time spotting a crime if none of the mortals actually perceive it as a crime.
In the end it still comes down to personal headcanons, though. If you don't agree with mine, I apologize and respect that but I can't do much about it.
5835247
She really didn't seem very concerned about making or keeping friends, once the mask came of. There wasn't any pity or attempts at reconciliation, she was really just, well... angry.
Still, it's a show about magic and cramming-one-hour-of-story-into-twenty-minutes-of-animation, so almost everything can be up to interpretation. I do respect and enjoy every headcanon that retroactively redeems an antagonist, I just think I'll keep looking for a different one for myself on this particular character.
5835319 Excellent point. It's pretty much certain that Celestia's response to all of this is "So.....that's what happened to that misguided and jealous pony. She must have worked fast because she just seemed to have dropped off of the face of the earth a couple of months back."
*can't stop laughing*
This was pretty funny. Especially the ending.
Ah, Starlight Glimmer didn't think her plan through and reality ensued. Pretty funny.
5836999
The FlimFlam brothers are some of the best characters to write. Nothing like an obvious personality quirk (that, and I like writing songs).
5837940
5838544
Thank you for the compliment. Glad you liked it.
*The power of cameos is strong with this one*
5839573
And they're not just normal cameos. They're lampshaded cameos. The tropes have been doubled!
5834361
While that's true, I found it curious that Double Diamond found his old skiers at the exact same location he claims to have met Starlight for the first time. That implies that she took his Cutie Mark right away. It's possible she convinced him first... or perhaps she simply forced it on him.
Brrr. There's almost a rape analogy there.
5843521
Twilight should start carrying a whistle around.
"Stranger danger. Stranger Danger!" (The depressing thing is, there is probably a pony with that name somewhere in Equestria).
5835733
Also, I think the "misunderstood" thing kind of fails a bit in comparision to the fact she tried to straight up murder/seriously injure several ponies in a fit of rage and being thwarted.
I don't usually do requests, but I haven't looked at any of your stuff for a minute! Let's check this out!
(reads)
(comes back)
Ehhhhhh? I chuckled? Once again, there's not much here for me to latch on, and my standards are pretty low! The whole "logical progression of how the worldview of Starlight would eventually lead to civilization's ruin" bit, I REALLY liked and I was hoping it would get taken to the logical conclusion and really deal Starlight's delusions a hard blow!
But alas, it gets shafted quickly for more "power battle" and Starlight beatdown. And then I yawn and check out. At least there was truth in it: how would a society equalized to dullness win wars? But I would have had that be the last thing alluded to, and barely shown at that.
...y'know, I think I'm going to just stop reading these--by which I mean, stories written in a rush before the "new episode" has time to cool off. I've gone through about a dozen Starlight fics now and this whole trend is starting to feel like what I went through with the Dazzlings, only in reverse 'cuz Starlight hurts folks's feelings and worldviews rather than stokes their libidos.
5848305
Well, I'm glad you liked part of it, at least.
I might really have done the allusioning under other circumstances, and focused more on the subtle flaws with equalizing and such, but... Well, this was a dream that had to come to a conclusion and follow it to the bitter end. It was the only way I felt confident about putting it into words, trying to play it straight would have just turned into a tangled, unrealistic mess.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, though. And say what you want about new-episode-opportunism... It gets the job done. Two hours of writing and I think I got more feedback on this story than on my last three stories combined.
lol Starlight is an idiot. What did she think would happen if she rid PRINCESS CELESTIA OF THE BUCKING SUN of her cutie mark?? These ponies are also idiots for thinking that they could commit high treason and get away with it.
One thing regarding the sunset issue. Who controlled the sun, moon and weather BEFORE Celestia and Luna came along? Unless they were created with the Earth itself, that would be up for debate. Chances are there is no canon explanation so I suppose that would be left up to each individual author.