YOH 1409 (91 years Before Luna's Return): Third-year Cadet Guidestar Flight is on sentry duty at the West Hoof asenal when he encounters an intruder! But the identity of this intruder will surprise him -- and change his life.
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- Member Since 13th Oct, 2013
- offline last seen Apr 20th, 2021
Jordan179
I'm a long time science fiction and animation fan who stumbled into My Little Pony fandom and got caught -- I guess I'm a Brony Forever now.
Jordan179
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Huh. We open the story on my birthday. A coincidence, of course, but an amusing one.
Not entirely sure where you're going with this. I suspect it involves how two of the Mane Six's ancestors met, but I'm not certain. In any case, I look forward to seeing what comes of it.
And yes, "I wish something interesting would happen" is almost as dangerous a sentiment as "What could go wrong?" Guidestar is definitely going to regret this, provided he lives long enough.
THis should be put in a dictionary. Next to the defitinion of "clunky exposition".
Come on, you usually do much better than that.
Also, entirety of the chapter is guy standing in one place.
Riveting.
On a plus side - decent attempt at English humour, that was kinda witty.
7312403
It's a description of a weapon with explanation of why they trust even half-trained cadets with it. It is one sentence, and only of moderate length at that.
And Hemingway can go hang for his insistence on the nigh-telegraphic style.
7312430
That has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the text nor influences anything ever. And there is literally no segue between "guy stands there" and "history of the weapon and military traditions of the country". So "exposition" and "clunky".
Textbook example.
7312439
Untrue. The fact that he is armed, and with a particular type of weapon, influences his tactical choices. If this were West Point 2016 I could name a real weapon, but this is West Hoof YOH 1409, an alien technoculture. This is a textbook case of why Secondary World sf requires more exposition than does Contemporary American Coastal Mundane, a.k.a. "mainstream literature."
7312486
You, within this single sentence state following things.
1. The protagonist is armed with a weapon
2. The type and description of the weapon
3. The fact that this sort of weapon is given to the first-year-cadets
4. The normal age of the first year cadets in your headcanon
5. Accident rate of use of said weapon by said cadets in said headcanon.
While first two points are indeed reasonable, third point is a stretch, but fourth and fifth while do build up your imaginary world, have nothing to do with the situation nor with anything talked before or since in the text. Neither are they well lead-into.
And yes, writing about an imaginary word DOES necessitate much more effort in worldbuilng, not in the least exactly because you have to fit the worldbuilding in a way that does not detract from the story and fits organically within the text.
Rather than "guy had a spear. Did you know that this spear in this world is used thus, which has these repercussions?"
I think these two are misspelled.
And this as well.
And for the last.
Was Speedy Hazed out of the program? I mean part of the reason for a Military Academy is to turn a civilian to a solider. I'm at the moment just waiting to see where this is going.
7313485
Fixed the typos, thank you for pointing them out.
Not so much organized hazing as a combination of Speedy's own fear, the shame resulting from his fear, and more shame resulting from ribbing from the other cadets. Speedy became convinced that he was too afraid of violence and its effects to ever serve in the Guards. He did, after all, suffer his reaction to seeing a dummy damaged, obviously because he was imagining what the combat knife would do to a real sapient being.
" no Sirish-ponies need apply" l see
7321270
Yep. To be fair, there were some good reasons for prejudice against the first-generation Catholic Irish of the early 19th century. They came from a harsher and economically-poorer culture than our own, and some of them could be pretty damned brutal. Their rough fighting tactics included eye-gouging and ear-biting; maiming was not that rare a consequence of their brawls, even weaponless. Of course, their descendants are now solid parts of the American Establishment.
7321276 Agreed, although NINA signs are pure fabrication, the "know-nothing" party was definitely a force to be reckoned with. The Italians and other assorted southern and eastern europeans also had their prejudicial problems as you well know, being from the inlet to america that those kinds of people would arrive at
Well this was an awkward first meeting. Now I wonder what they wanted with the powder reserves. Still this is a very big black mark on little miss Winds record if she doesn't start to talk quick like.
"How appropriate, you fight like a barge!"
In any case, now I see which of the Mane Six this story—and its protagonist—is related to. Didn't think to cross-reference your recent blogs until now. Certainly an awkward first meeting. While this will go well in the long term, the immediate future is uncertain, and largely hinges on just what Leona and company are doing.
7321651
Yep, these are Fluttershy's future matrilineal great-grandparents. And this is a perhaps almost too literal example of Slap Slap Kiss Kiss. Though nopony at all is in a mood to kiss during Chapter 2.
7321281
The NINA signs were real:
http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/High-school-student-disproves-professors-theory-that-No-Irish-Need-Apply-signs-never-existed.html
7321276
One of the few things Gangs of New York got right.
Jeez, That's a more than a little bit of ruthlessness to set a girl up like that. Little miss wind is lucky that Guidestar had as much control and honor as he does. Still because this little plan failed I do think some ponies are going to find themselves in trouble. I doubt that Leona is totally without friends or resources of her own.
Stall not a totally bad start for Guidestar, at least he now has a chance with someone who normally wouldn't be in his same social class.
7326940
Going by what Chengar Qordath says about them, which I obviously am considering that I've mentioned the Kicker Compound and private army, the Kickers have two basic personality types -- duty-bound and honorable, on the one hand; and don't-give-a-damn-abuse-everypony-around-them-ruthless-hellraiser.
Let's just say that Face Kicker is like his later and more infamous kinsmare, in some ways.
7326940
Oh yes. Leona Wind was a bit shocked when she realized she'd been set up, and she's not as rational as Guidestar, but she is not stupid. She realized that Guidestar showed admirable restraint, and then helped her get out of the trouble into which she'd gotten. She's grateful to him. He at least has a friend in her, if he chooses to return her friendship.
These were Fluttershy's ancestors? I hope the poor mare never learned how they met or what happened; she would probably have fainted dead away!
And 'No Irish Need Apply' -- yeah. My father was old enough (born 1928) to remember when the local Catholic neighborhoods had names like 'Shitpot Alley' and the like.
7327018
Ironically, it's her great-grandfather Guidestar Flight who displays Kindness, as you'll notice by the manner of his life and death in the blog post in which I introduced him. Her great-grandmother Leona WInd is more modeled after George Armstrong Custer -- which is to say, she's mad-aggressive, even for a Pegasus. In their dramatic first meeting, he impresses her by his restraint -- which mares in my Equestria tend to instinctively find sexy -- and she impresses him by her ability to fight him on close to even terms despite the fact that he's bigger, older and gets the drop on her. That's the story of their lives, really.
I'm not saying that Leona is entirely like Rainbow Dash, but it's certainly possible that Fluttershy heard stories of Leona growing up and -- when she met Dashie -- realized she'd found another one of similar character.
The Kickers come off as a pack of jerks here, especially the prize that ended up in the Academy. You'd think a herd that recently risen from commoner to noble status would have been a little more careful who they sent. Face Kicker sounds like he could give lessons in being a nasty scheming ass to Harry Flashman.
And the legends went back even further, to doubtful tales of all Ponykind threatened with extinction by rapacious monsters, only a few Ponies surviving in hidden castles and high valleys, and a particular Wind who was the first to grasp weapons and fight back against these horrid foes. It was said that Wind had been the boon companion of the equally mythical Megan and Firefly, and had been the deadliest Pegasus, or indeed Pony, warrior ever known.
I get the idea I should know the name of this Wind. Unfortunately Firefly is the only Pegasus I know by name from the G1 Ponies.
Ah, politics. Dangerous ground to tread for relative nobodies, but Guidestar's acquitting himself well. Apparent gormlessness is a powerful tool in the face of superior power.
Still, I have to wonder just what Leona thought she was doing. In general, sneaking into a powder magazine in the middle of the night would be seen as a bad thing. Seeing Face Kicker firsthand will probably clarify matters. He seems like a very dangerous sort of bully; the kind that can think.
I do have to ask - what is it with you and Kickers?
I mean I get it that you think that Cloud Kicker is the spawn of local version of Satan or something, because she likes to fuck and that is clearly horrible. But now you make stawmen antagonists out of old-timey Kickers on top of that?
Did one of them kick your dog or something?
Besides that, I am not entirely sure how it would be horrible if they did have sex.
Is it because of the age difference, because of status difference, because they're not in a relationship, because of the implied rape or because of him being on duty at the time? Either of those reasons would be somewhat valid, but I am confused as to which one is the case here.
Well except for latter or the rape thing, because the implication would be that it's bad for Leona (weird pony name btw, though not impossible) at least as much as for the soldier-boy.
It can't simply be the fact that they do have sex, because nobody could really expect the mixed-gender academy for teenagers to actually remain chaste, right?
ooh, and sicne I am bored and am asking dumb questions already, wouldn't it make more sense for the antagonist to be called Ass-Kicker? Face-kicker implies that his special talent would be hitting ponies to their face...
(this one is more of a unfunny joke than criticism)
7326955 IN fact now that I think of it, she was doubly lucky he was on duty when she tried to break in. If it was a less skilled pony, she might have won, but been caught latter, and if a more skilled but less restricted pony; she could have been very much ill treated. Face Kicker if he was smarter should have looked at the duty roster more carefully if he wanted his plan to work.
7328063
Cloud Kicker is one of the nastiest and vilest characters to be presented sympathetically in a series on this site -- and attract a huge fandom, mostly of people who do not even grasp that she is evil. No, it's not just her absurd sexual promiscuity -- there are sexually-promiscuous characters I find sympathetic. It's the way in which she uses sex, rather obviously and intentionally, to degrade others.
You may recall that West Hoof figures in Cloud Kicker's own biography? In fact, Chengar's stories are where I derived the name "West Hoof" as that of a prominent Equestrian military academy. So I thought I should give my original source a nod, by making this story part of the story of the Kickers as well.
I have to explain where Cloud Kicker got her copy of The Codex of Shades, now don't I? And there is a long literary tradition of evil characters who come from the nobility coming from noble families with a tradition of sin and madness. This is a staple of the Gothic horror-tale and romance, dating back to the 18th-19th centuries.
The ancient rivalry between the Kickers and the Winds is also relevant, given that Fluttershy is a Wind. This makes Cloud Kicker's attraction for her a rather warped version of "Romeo and Juliet," in all three continuities (Winningverse, Degradingverse and mainline Shadow Wars Story Verse). This also provides an explanation for why they avoided each other for years (Well, in the mainline SWSV it's because Cloud Kicker's love for Fluttershy is unrequited, and was doomed to be unrequited without Winning's mind control powers).
It's most immediately because Face Kicker's plan was to send Leona Wind in there, giving off marescent, under conditions where it was very likely that Guidestar Flight would tackle her and wind up wrestling her, thus capturing her under terms embarrassing for both of them. Leona would have been in serious trouble for trying to break into the magazine, something which could not be readily dismissed as "cadet pranks" because of the danger of fire and explosion.
The absolute best outcome from Face Kicker's POV would be if Guidestar actually lost control and mounted her . This would rather thoroughly ruin Leona's reputation, making it very difficult for her to remain at the Academy even if she wasn't expelled, and probably ruin Guidestar's as well given that he was on guard at the time and would have been outrageously abusing his prisoner. Face Kicker dislikes Guidestar -- wrecking his career too would be a cherry on the sundae of revenge against the Winds.
Beyond that, yes, he's on duty, they have no romantic relationship, she's a fourteen year old virgin who would have had to live with the shame of her first time being with a stranger, on a floor in front of a magazine and interrupted by a couple of laughing guards, and this pretty much would have made it very unlikely that Guidestar and Leona ever would have fallen in love, because it would have poisoned their friendship before it had a chance to begin. Oh, and she's a Wind, so this would have disgraced her whole family.
The 17-to-14-year-old part of it is irrelevant, as the age of consent in Equestria at that point is 10 to 14 depending on Province, anyway. West Hoof is Realm territory, so it's 14 there, just as in Canterlot.
Seriously, if they'd had sex at this point it would have had absolutely terrible consequences for both of them.
Oh, of course they have lots and lots of sex with one another in the future. They're Fluttershy's maternal great-grandparents, and have numerous children together.
7328129
Oh, so the problem wasn't so much that she was caught doing whatever it is she was attempting to do. Ok, that makes somewhat more sense.
Unlike this:
And This
Granted, I may have my own ideas of coed colleges, but really, there must be hundreds of much worse scenarios, again, given that it's hundreds of testosterone pumped teenagers in an enclosed space. Were it consensual, at worst it'd be a funny anecdote, from an outsiders perspective.
Yeah, that was what I've thought, and wondered why you're actually making Flutters and Kicker having a baby in Winningverse better through your canon.
Also, how is it warped?
Romeo and Juliet is about pointless feud and imagined love that though multiple pointless fights and murder ends in a suicide pact
Winningwerse is about a romance that starts with a mishap and though some talking and emotional pain ends with them making a family based on mutual love and respect and having a baby.
Why is the latter warped again?
Except before I believe you stated that CK was a nice pony were she not possessed by the devil.
And yes, tropes are tropes and all, but this guy is more of a straw bully than Draco Malfoy#
I kinda have to ask for examples now. What would be a character that regularily engages in healthy no-strings-attached sex that you find to be a good person?
I do believe you found the very idea that Pinkie has regular premarital sex to be a horrid slander, and she's your favourite or second-favourite character, if I'm not mistaken
7328156
You really don't see why this would have been more than slightly and temporarily humiliating?
She's an upper-class girl of the highest possible birth for her Kind, in a patriarchal subculture of a mildly matriarchial culture which is equivalent in many ways to Early Industrial Revolution America or Britain (~AD 1820). She's expected ... not to remain virgin until marriage, because Equestria's not quite as prudish as Late Georgian Britain ... but at least to yield her virginity to a stallion from whom she at least has some sort of reason to believe intends to marry her (that's the meaning of an "Intention", discussed under "Country Courtship")
Now, she goes to a mostly-male military academy at a time in Equestria while this is still quite controversial, because Suppressors are only about a century old and the cultural assumption (that mares will bring chaos into a mostly-male environment) hasn't yet faded. And what happens? Exactly the thing the conservatives warned against. Leona enters her Cycle and a stallion loses control on freaking GUARD DUTY at a CRITICAL POINT of the installation and deflowers this upper-class virgin in PUBLIC.
This scandal would last longer than Leona's stay at the Academy even if she decided to stay and tough it out. Even if she wasn't Leona Wind, unkind toungues would wag for the next four years, and she'd be known as "that girl who lost it to a random cadet because she forgot to use her suppressors." Because she is,Leona Wind, this story would hit the newspapers, and if it didn't then it would only be because Clan Wind launched a desperate and successful effort to suppress it, buying off and threatening journalists left and right.
Because she's Leona Wind, this story would probably haunt her for the rest of her freaking life. Which might not be very long, because she knows how to use her Honor Blade (which isn't the same one that Fluttershy has later, because she only inherits that a bit later when she becomes The Wind). If she didn't kill herself, then she would have reduced marital and social prospects (not "none at all," because she's a Wind, but decidedly not as good as she would have had before).
This is, of course, quite aside from the fact that she would have been caught in flagrante delicto after having been caught by Guidestar Flight trying to break into a powder magazine (*). The Academy might give her the choice to resign rather than be expelled largely to avoid drawing even more attention to the scandal.
Guidestar's career would of course be ruined. The Kickers already don't like him; the Winds would hate him after he more or less raped their fourteen year old daughter and at a minimum ended her military career. Rape itself is ... um ... kind of illegal, remember? Also dishonorable (and this is a mildly matriarchal society). If he was lucky he'd be offered the option of resignation -- otherwise, he'd be court-martialed and expelled, possibly sent to the stockade.
The school is majority-male. The officers turn a blind eye to the known fact that the (male) cadets sometimes seek out town whores, but it's more significant when there's sexual relations involving female cadets, as they will (hopefully) have long careers serving with them in the future. This is far worse when it involves loveless and possibly coerced sex with strangers. And then there's the whole bit about Leona trying to BREAK INTO THE MAGAZINE.
And yes. "From an outsider's perspective," indeed. From the perspective of Guidestar and Leona, it would be "the night our careers ended and everyone started to despise us," which is rather the point.
Storm Front, for one. Not "healthy," of course -- she's an exhibitionist, voyeuristic nymphomaniac. But she doesn't actually try to hurt other Ponies, which is why she's likeable. She entirely lacks the deep and sadistic malice that is one of Winningverse Cloud Kicker's most obvious features.
I found the idea that Pinkie Pie was an airheaded bimbo a horrid slander. I have no real problem with, say, Alara J Rogers' Pinkie, who is somewhat promiscuous, but also highly intelligent and all-loving, as in canon. I'm also very aware that Cloud Kicker is trying to torture Rainbow Dash with her statements; a lot of the interactions between CK and RD in the WInningverse are basically CK mocking RD for being foolish enough to trust her.
Revenge, of course, for the fight which originally cost CK Fluttershy in the first place. Yes, I noticed.
Hey, in the Degradingverse, I even give Cloud Kicker a reason to behave this way!
===
(*) If you don't get why this is signifcant, do you think that First Year Cadet Leona Wind, who has only been in the academy about a month or so, knows the proper safety procedures to operate inside a powder magazine? Guess what can happen if she strikes a spark at the wrong place and moment? West Hoof is big and sturdy enough that the resultant explosion would only damage rather than destroy it, but Ponies would die -- starting, of course, with poor Leona Wind herself.
7328156
Furthermore: from what sort of dystopic hell-world do you orginate, that it is hard for you to understand why an innocent fourteen year-old girl would feel horrible, and for a very long time, for having her first sexual experience be with a stranger, with no love involved on either side, and it ending with them being discovered and laughed at by others? Literally the only one I know of that bad is the underclasses of various cities -- even the Muslim rape gangs would understand why the girl would feel bad, they just kind of like the idea of making young girls feel bad for its own sweet sake.
7330351
Well, yeah, it would be pretty bad, subjectively speaking, especially depending on how they play it off.
It just would not be the horrid end of the world
Which just means that they also have homosexual intercourse, not that they forget they have penises.
I believe Hitches wrote of all-male boarding schools (of 1960s Britain) that "a handjob could be organized not just without uttering a word but without ever having an eye contact" (c).
I would assume that in a non-religious military institution with slightly older students and access to alcohol and at least some privacy, would be ever more rampant in this regard.
See, that's the problem I'm having here, with your explanations, rape thing aside.
This is a human morality thing, which is essentialy based upon (and leads to) women being first and foremost assumed to be baby factories, and therefore required to be kept hidden away and "pure" while males fuck away with whores.
This is a somewhat alternate history, and since women can and do serve in the military, and there are coed colleges , there is zero way anyone actually assumes that virginity is a great virtue. Because you would require some serious mental equilibristics to tell me, that the very said Leona Wind, going out to town with her fellow cadets could not, or would be assumed never to, grab a few tankards of hard cider and two male whore-boys and do it in every position imaginable, to the cheering of her fellow cadets witnessing it if she so chose.
Now I understand how it is reputationally and mentally different from being non-consexually sexed while B&E, but intention to marry and virginity would necessarily be orders of magnitude less important
And I can also see how the childred would see it as the Most!Horrible!Thing!, but realistically, what would happen, is that Academy would cover it up (because Leona is a high noble, and nobody wants that heat), and then the Winds with the full compliance of the officers of the West Hoof would probably insist that Giudestar pretends he was her boyfriend all along, and pass it as a "harmless sex-while-on-duty thing those wacky cadets do" (which I would be surprised if they never did) and everyone would forget it in under three months.
Well, that, and if it would be assumed that Guidestar's defense of her being in estrus was insufficient (I don't know how this works with your headcanon), and that he intentionally raped Leona, then his body would be found castrated in a ditch somewhere a year later.
What would be even more realistic, I suppose, if I'm nitpicking already, is that a critical installation that can blow everyone to smithereens would be guarder by two sentries, not one (because one may fall asleep, for example), whcih would be a standard protocol, but that is even more besides the point.
7330492
Some of them do have homosexual intercourse (which isn't even condemned in Equestria) (*). Some visit the town whores, whom I mentioned in-story. Some have actual girlfriends off-post (I didn't mention this, but of course this is the case. Some are simply chaste, whether from choice or necessity. There's a heck of a lot of masturbation. I didn't go into all of this, because this story isn't The West Hoof Sex Diaries.
But no, they are generally not having sex, at random, in the corridors. Especially not while on sentry duty. There are a number of reasons for this, one of which is that this is almost the epitome of "disorderly conduct" and would be disgraceful behavior for future serving military officers, whether gay, straight, bisexual or some very unusual minority sexual orientation.
The reason that is relevant here is the one you're forgetting about because it's xenofictional, which is that stallions don't emit marescent (gay prostitutes may daub it on or spray it artificially to excite their clients, but then these are officer cadets, which is hopefully not synonymous with "gay prostitutes.") But Leona Wind has her own little marescent emitter right between her legs, where you'd expect to find it, and if she doesn't take suppressors, it emits for 3 days in every 21.
And that's why the conservatives opposed making the school co-educational. Because they feared that something exactly like this would happen.
Equestria has a religion. The Way of the Harmony. This is simply a mostly non-theistic religion, with an emphasis on Right and Harmonious Conduct rather than bowing to deities (actually, they do bow to a deity, but she's a fairly nice one who is readily appeased by cake).
It may be parenthetically noted here that having sex with strangers in public places when on guard duty, or worse when breaking into powder magazines, would be considered neither Right nor Harmnious Conduct. Indeed, it would be seen as downright wrong and discordant conduct.
Thus, "shameful." Concepts of "guilt" and "shame" do not require theistic religions. In fact, they don't require any religions. All they require are moral codes, and as moral codes are pro-survival, they evolve even in non-religious cultures.
No, this is a high-k thing, which is essentially based upon (and leads to) mares being the only available "baby factories," and what's more factories which if they are not run during the period in which the machinery is all nice and shiny and new will not produce enough babies to exceed the death rate. This means that, if society is to survive and its population expand, the mares need to, on the average, have more than two foals each who survive to have foals of their own. This is simple mathematics, and I assure you quite within the mental capacity of a certain lovely white cake-eating demiurge, who is also smart enough to get the implications.
Mares must have foals. And those foals must have a lot of resources devoted to their raising (this is what "high-K" means). And the ones who can best be trusted with their raising, because they have the biggest incentive to care about what happens to them are their parents. Which means that the mares must recruit the stallions to not merely sire the foals, but also love the mares and the foals they have made together, so that they are daddies, not merely sperm-donors, which in non-sentimental terms means work very very hard to support their families -- something requiring a lot of love. Which also means that the stallion should be sure that he actually sired the foals he's working to support.
Virginity is not the main issue. It is simply a marker of likely morality in the case of a young mare. If a young mare readily yields her virginity without love, then she is more likely to cheat on a stallion in love, meaning that there is a good chance that the stallion foolish enough to wed her will be cuckolded, frequently, and in cnsequence will wind up expending his efforts supporting another stallion's foals. Meanwhile, his wiser brother has wed a virtuous mare, and his efforts go toward supporting his own foals.
Virginity does loom large in the thoughts of Leona Wind, who is a virgin, and Guidestar Flight, who is right at the age where he is seriously thinking about courting a mare whom he might eventually wind up marrying. This is because they are young. And no, this is not foolish of them. They are both responding to cultural imperatives which in turn evolved in response to biological imperatives, in the way which is most likely to result in Leona attracting a loyal stallion to father and help care for her children, and Guidestar to find a loyal mare who will bear his children. And if you've read my blog posts, you know essentially what happens -- this story is simply about some of the early details in the process.
The reason why, even in mildly-matriarchal early 15th-century YOH Equestria, the mares try harder than the stallions to remain "pure" (and note, in point of fact, Guidestar is mostly "pure") is the same reason why every freaking known human society works this way (and the Ponies are biologically almost identical to Humans in the key aspects here) -- mares have foals. Stallions don't.
The mares are not "kept hidden away." They keep themselves (sexually) "hidden away" (through a culture which supports pre-betrothal female chastity) until they find the stallions to whom they wish to "reveal" themselves (almost literally true, given the tail-flirting customs). This is both to avoid unwed childbirth and to force a test of sincere affection and interest upon any stallions who want to mate them. Stallions who are just fooling around need not apply. That's the point of it.
I could ask "What dysfunctional society do you come from that you don't instinctively get this," but I know. You come from a society that has 1.59 children per woman, which means that you come from a dying society. And one which is dying largely because it forgot these basic biological dynamics, and which is today having one last farcical fling with being a Great Power while the population needed to support a Great Power status is ageing and dying and not being replaced by a younger generation. Which is why Putin's bid for returned glory is doomed to fail, and you and your children (if you have any) will instead spend your lives trying to re-establish Russia as secure in her own homeland against the rising hordes from the south, who have been breeding. But that's another story entirely.
There probably are some stupid, slutty female cadets who do just that (though less than you might expect, since this is an elite school). They are essentially having more pleasure now, at the expense of being deeply despised by everyone who saw what happened, or knows what happened. That's exactly what happens today, in our more permissive culture -- it's just that there's a prejudice against openly admitting the despite. But people act on it -- they are less likely to regard a girl who does that sort of thing as marriage material. And the girls eventually realize this, too (which fuels both misandry and the suicide rates, when they finally understand that what the guys were really thinking was "Wow! You're an amazing slut! I want to fuck you! No, I don't want you showing up around me where people who matter to me might connect us ...")
Leona Wind's not one of them. She's brave and determined and has high ideals. Which is a good thing, because the mare you're describing wouldn't have much of a career, save what she could make by lifting her tail at the right moments to the right individuals (and your description implies she'd have to learn to resrict herself to the right individuals!) Leona has a brighter destiny.
Oh, and it's not the (entirely nonexistent, in Equestria) Evil Patriarchy who are forcing the poor young mares who want to be free and have lots of male-fantasy sex to instead be "pure." It is the older female kin of the young mares in question, who know how stallions think, who warn them that if they act like sluts they will not be respected by stallions. And this warning is confirmed by the occasional young mares who foolishly do gain a reputation for being "easy" and suffer the social consequences, including rejection by the lovers who cooperated with them in this. (Yes, sexual selection is this cruel -- this may have been one of the other things that horrified Darwin when he realized how evolution worked).
Parenthetically -- the whole "get drunk and have sex with lots of random males" thing is mostly a male fantasy of how females might behave, rather than a female fantasy of how they wish they could behave, in the sense that while both men and women will have masturbatory fantasies about such events, men are more likely to actually enjoy them if they happen, while women will be horrified afterward. That's also one of the problems with Winningverse Cloud Kicker, too. She's simultaneously acting out the male fantasy of a really slutty female ("wild woman") and the male fantasy of abusing lots of females (because she's a bisexual social sadist).
The more normal female fantasy is of being admired and desired by several desirable males and getting to choose the MOST desirable, who then becomes her long-term lover. Recognize it? It's basically Rarity's fantasy of Blueblood. This doesn't involve getting banged by lots of random males -- that's more a female nightmare. See Cologne, 2016.
It might involve being physically-mastered by a male in a manner which made it obvious to her that he did desire her, but said male then showing the intellect, respect and overall good moral character needed to refrain from taking advantage of her, even though he obviously could have done so. Even though he was fuddled by her marescent. Hmm, now something like that has actually happened to somepony in this story, now hasn't it?
Maybe. Keep in mind that the "on duty" part of this is the real problem from a disciplinary point of view. This is a serious military academy. And while the Winds are important and powerful, they are not omnipotent. And the Kickers would quite happily take advantage of Leona's folly.
This is Equestrian nobility a hundred years before the Show, not the Colombian drug cartels. What would happen is that, for some reason, either a very skilled relative of Leona's, or possibly VERY skilled professional duelist, would be offended by Guidestar's conduct. And he might not survive the resultant duel. Or at least not intact.
Marescent is fuddling but not completely overwhelming. Guidestar wouldn't have even gotten an erection if he hadn't been wrestling with her. What he was afraid of was accidentally entering her (something her tail prevented) or accidentally ejaculating on her (which didn't happen because he changed their positions to make it less likely).
===
(*) Most don't, because most aren't homosexual or bisexual, even under the conditions of attending a mostly-male military school. West Hoof confines them to the grounds most of the week, but there are weekend passes available most of the time, unless one has behaved badly (this is one of the reasons why demerits are meaningful; enough demerits and one is confined to the grounds for varying lengths of time). Most heterosexuals aren't willing to engage in homosexual behavior after only a few weeks or months of sexual deprivation.
7331032
I'll respond to your points slightly later, when I get to a proper computer, but for now a point - you are, of course aware that high-K and high-R strategies are not actually a thing in real life?
It's a useful simplified example, but it really has nothing to do with anything in physical reality.
7331102
The amount of care required by children is a very real thing in real life, and has a tremendous effect on both biological and cultural evolution. The simplification is assuming that there are only two possible strategies -- in reality there are an infinite number of points which may be occupied on the spectrum between pure high-K and high-R strategies. However, the existence of shades of gray do not mean that black and white are nonexistent. Instead, without black and white, there would be no "gray."
Now, biologically Humans and Ponies are both very much toward the high-K end of the spectrum of reproductive strategies. Both Humans and Ponies have on the average one child at a time, and that child takes almost a year to bring to term (9 months for Humans, 11 months for Ponies). What is more, the effort of childbearing is physically and emotionally exhausting, and the child is relatively helpless at birth and in both cases the child will need economic support from its parents for the first decade or two of its life (the development curve differs, though -- Human children can't walk for a year or more after birth, while Pony foals can walk within hours to days of birth; however young Ponies carry more neotenic traits into young adulthood than do young Humans).
This means that an unwed mother is economically disadvantaged compared to a married mother. What's more, the unwed mother is in some ways disadvantaged compared to a widow, since the unwed mother has a claim only on her own family (with whom she has lost status by having a foal out of wedlock) while the widow has a claim on both her family and her dead husband's family (with both of whom she has gained status by bearing a foal in wedlock, even if posthumously regarding the father. (I bring up widows because the 14th and early 15th centuries are a time in which life is more precarious than it is by YOH 1500).
Simply because most foals are neither coddled smothering their every waking minute (the extreme high-K strategy) nor cast into the forest to fend for themselves at birth (the extreme high-R strategy) does not mean that the continuum does not exist, nor that the Ponies of Equestria aren't pretty far toward the extreme high-K end of the range.
Now, in terms of the possible cultural space that the Ponies of Equestria inhabit, it's also an obviously high-K society. Children are treated as if their education and emotions are important; they receive support and tolerance from adults. This is vanilla canon. While Equestrian children work and move out of the house on the average earlier than do American or Western children in general, this is because America and the West are among the highest-K societies which have ever been. Equestria is a high-K society compared to most human ones, and it is likely that YOH 1500 (or even YOH 1400) is probably more high-K than, say, YOH 400-500 Equestria, when technology was lower and society less peaceful.
Early and promiscuous sexuality is, culturally, a high-R strategy, and it appears in response to precarious or perceived precarious conditions, because in such conditions waiting to have sex results in a high chance of failing to have any surviving offspring. This might happen in a culture which was -- say -- first hit by a devastating foreign war, then a devastating civil war, then rule by madmen for thirty years, in the middle of which they were invaded by another murderous madman, just for variety. The period 1914-1953 broke Russia as a culture in ways from which she has never recovered, and -- given Russia's current birth dearth and the threat to her from Central Asia -- from which she sadly may never succeed in recovering. I say 'sadly' because a lot of my own cultural heritage comes from Russia.
America hasn't been broken like that. Nor has Equestria.
Late and restricted sexuality is a high-K strategy, and it implies a sufficiently stable society that the female can reasonably expect that if she takes her time to choose, she or he won't be felled by an early death while waiting. Modern Equestria is, mostly, a safe and stable society, so Equestrian mares are able to be choosy regarding their mates, rather than enacting porno movie male fantasies.
You may not realize this because my stories focus on adventurous and brave characters, who take risks that most Equestrians don't.
Now, I do understand why you want to imagine that only absurd and outdated religious scruples stand in the way of a society that runs rather like a porno movie. You like sex.
I do too. But I don't imagine that reality is going to reconfigure itself into the shape of a sexual fantasy, with no other repercussions.
And both sociobiology, and actual cultural history, shows us the likely repercussions. Alienated youth and a crashing birthrate. That's what's happened every time the experiment's been tried. That's what will always happen when the experiment is tried, because it derives from human nature, and human nature doesn't change.
To be even more precise, the laws of sociobiology continue to operate, whether their operation is convenient to us, or not.
7331032
Now, where was I.
Right. The idea of K/r strategies in reproduction was born pretty much exclusively from when chaos theory in ecology was the brand-new shiny buzzword and everyone was doing it, but there is literally no work to show that it adequately represents or has any causal mechanism in reality.
I'll keep using those, because they are good metaphors, but keep that in mind.
If it were a thing, and you actually understood the implications of it, you would not be writing nonsense like this:
Now point by point:
a)I am not actually Russian. It's kinda cute how you assume that everybody from a alliance of nations spanning 1/6 of the globe is Russian, but that is nearly as silly as assuming everyone from the NATO nation is American.
Besides the point, but just dotting i's.
Also, ad hominem. Again. Not cool, bro. Like, totally. Even if a utter miss.
b)US had less than 1.9 TFR since 70s so... so do you, mate.
c)most importantly, that is EXACTLY the consequence of what you call "high-K" strategies. That is having less and less children, while investing more and more heavily in each. The higher the technological level of the society, the more it is pushed to the extremes of low-TFR, high-life-expectancy, high-education state that Europe is now.
That's universal and independent of particulars of culture, from Japan, to China with one-child-policy to Middle East (where birth rates halved within two generations and continue to fall) to Europe or USA - more technology, higher quality of life, lower birth rate. The extreme of K-strategy in reproduction.
You get r-strategy in poor countries, e.g. compare and contrast Dagestan and Checnya with the rest of the Russia. The birth-rates are through the roof, but what they produce is, to put it rather bluntly, low-quality material.
That's why, despite wars, famines, more wars, and then huge economic rape of the country, the birth rates in Russia (especially the relatively calm 1955-1975 were dropping like a lead brick - improvement in medicine and quality of life as compared to Tsarist Russia was nothing short of miraculous both due to general improvements in science and technology and due to easier access to them. Therefore the push towards K-strategies was correspondingly big.
That is essentially a very Marx thing - level of technology, not culture, whatever form it may take, informs human behaviour.
That's actually what Putin may be doing, since you touched upon it. War at Russia's borders, lower quality of life through sanctions, rising clericalization promotes high-r/low-K strategies. Which is kinda dumb, but may be the idea behind what is going on.
Now, K/r stuff aside, and moving to the next layer of your argument:
That's pretty much makes no difference. It's same thing only internalized or with additional intermediary attached, so... what's your point again?
That's actually not precisely true. That is the mainstream thing most societies did, but not "every freaking known". There was the sacred prostitution, there was matriarchy, communal raising of children and group-families, few different types of polyamory and homosexuality in the mix - in short there was shitload of variety in how humans organized their family and marital life.
Sure. We're barely two generations away from the point where cheap and reliable contraception became available and that's not counting the fact that we have huge sex taboos, which is actually not a norm for "every freaking society".
Now to the main point:
You may play with an idea of a society that keeps to the Victorian sex taboo, despite both seeming access to the cheap and reliable contraceptive (which is what I assume "suppressors" are) and having an absolute dictator with more-than-enlightened mores who due to immortality, could easily shift whole culture if she so chose. You can, though it is strange, insist that Celestia literally eats cake while young girls kill themselves merely because they are accused of being "tainted" and do not receive psychological help in time, and call this land the same Equestria ruled by the same Celestia we see in the show.
That is jarring and weird (to me), but at least it is somewhat self-consistent.
But you cannot then insist that at the same time it is society where young girls are put in a military position in a coed education institution, when a simple case of not taken medication might actually end up in rape (and consequent suicide), and that is increasingly normal in that society.
That is paradoxical.
Either spontaneous sex is the norm and it is accepted that it does happen, even if covered up and kept under the rug (for which there exist accepted mechanism, such as forcing the would-be-rapist into marriage, acceptance that these things are not talked about in the polite society or simply a greater license to the "follies of youth") or it is exactly the blood-curdling horrible horror of horribleness you try to set it up as, and then great pains would be taken to prevent it from happening, including separate educational institutions, but probably up to full separation of sexes until (most likely arranged) marriage, as it was done in Ancient Greece or Persia.
You cannot have both.
Society that both sets up the exact circumstances for which it then punishes in earnest may only exist in either Orwell's 1984 or as a transitional states where old mores aren't dead yet, but new circumstances already force behavioural changes.
And I believe your implication is that Equestria of your description is not hellish dystopia of 1984 and that it will keep the exact same (or similar) moral outlook for the next few hundred years.
7331221
(You accidentally cut off some of my quotes in a manner which would misrepresent what I actually said. I, realizing that you of course didn't do this on purpose, restored them. I await your fulsome gratitude for my action).
You can't make the existence of the dichotomy betwen high-K and high-R strategies go away by simply denying it. The dichotomy springs from absurdly simple economic realities, ones so simple that they even function on the pre-cultural biological level.
To wit: a mother (or couple, or family, or whatever the cultural unit is concerned in the specific case) has limited resources. Children are, when too young to care for themselves, drains on those resources. Yet if children too young to care for themselves are abandoned, they will die and thus all the resources already sunk in conceiving, developing and bearing them be wasted.
There are two general classes of solution to the problem, which form a continuum of maternal strategies. This is high-R (have lots of children but give each very little care and abandon them early), which is what we see in most rayfinned fishes; and high-K (have few children but give each a lot of care, raising them to near-adulthood) which is what we see in some mammals, most importantly for this case in the great apes (like us) and horses (though horses have much shorter childhoods than do we).
High-R goes with having large multiple births. High-K goes with having small litters or single births. Humans and horses both have single births. Biology, here, is destiny. A human or horse who tried to abandon their babies or foals like a rayfinned fish does her eggs would have no children survive to reproductive age, and hence would fail to reproduce no matter how many children she herself bore.
Marriage is a high-K reproductive strategy. The biological point of it is to recruit a second party to help raise the offspring. Every human culture includes marriage. It is on the short list of human cultural universals.
It's internalized or intermediazed because it is a GOOD STRATEGY. It WORKS and to the advantage of the mares who practice it. The elder female kin of the younger mares warn their younger kin not because they want to keep them from having fun, but because they don't want them to wind up unhappy, unwed mothers.
The driving forces here are sociobiology, mating game theory and sexual economics. Mares who are able to restrain themselves sexually until they find a seriously-interested stallion tend to make better marriages and avoid becoming unwed mothers. Mares who are not often find themselves pregnant with no fathers in sight.
It's not that anyone is conspiring to prevent the Free Love Porno Movie fantasy from happening. It does happen, sometimes. Often to the later regret of the mares involved (and sometimes, the stallions, as well, if they wind up marrying mares they didn't love because they got them pregnant).
Reality is here the Cruel Oppressive Force. Mares have foals. Stallions don't. And foals are both expensive and necessary to a lineage.
All else is from that a derivation.
False. As my (restored complete quote) shows, in every known human society female chastity is more important than male chastity because it is females rather than males who bear children. Sacred prostitution was sacred precisely because something valuable (female chastity) was being offered to the goddess -- it was a social bonding mechanism that would have been meaningless if the chastity was meaningless.
Equestria is a matriarchy.
Communal raising of children occurs, particularly in matrilineal and matrilocal societies. Equestria -- particularly Old Equestria, and the custom is strongest among the Earth Ponies, is both. Nevertheless, the communal raising is a favor done for the mother, and she is expected to reciprocate with loyalty, as she does in the old clans (like the Apples) that still sometimes do this. TANSTAAFL.
Equestria acknowledges polyamorous unions. They're less common than you might imagine, because relationship instability increases according to the factorial of the number of Ponies in the relationship. The most common form is a Morgan-Marriage (what Grey Hoof had with Starshine and Mitta) and its most common type is one mare, two stallions.
Homosexuality is accepted in Equestria, but as always (for strong biological-evolutionary reasons) it's very much a minority orientation. Which is why the male cadets were visiting town whores on weekend passes.
By far the most common organization in civilized societies (which is to say, ones in which everyone doesn't know everyone else on sight) is monogamous marriage, with female chastity and fidelity being more important than male. This is true even in theoretically polygynous cultures, such as most of the Muslim world, for economic and psychological reasons. Polyandry is extremely uncommon, and true polyamory even less as an open organization (covert or semi-covert polyamory is sometimes approached in Fast Sets).
Yes, my Fluttershy is a very odd Pegasus being polyamorous. But then, half her heritage is from a Kind in which reproductive polyandry and social polyamory is the norm -- the Changelings. Compound, a full Changeling, is polyamorous, and polyandrous when promoted to a reproductive Caste.
I didn't model Equestria ~ YOH 1400 on the Victorians. I modeled it on the pre-Victorians -- specifically the late Georgian British and the Americans of the Early Republic. YOH 1409 roughly = AD 1823 in terms of cultural correspondences here.
Granny Smith was born in YOH 1392; she's 17 at the time of this story (though it has nothing to do with her or Ponyville). Does Granny look particularly "Victorian" to you? More to the point, does young Granny?
orig01.deviantart.net/ae67/f/2014/009/d/3/young_granny_smith_vector_by_arti22-d6z149r.png
And yes, Best Pioneer Girl Pony did do a few things that would have shocked her considerably more prudish descendant, Applejack (*). But no way no how was she going into town and getting banged by random male prostitutes. Green Apple has never lacked self-respect. Or pride. She had (at least two) lovers (one of whom, Black Smith, she married -- he's "Blackie" in Barely Rescured). Not random encounters.
I know why you keep focusing on "Victorian" as a perjorative. You're trying to imply that sexual restraint was just an oddity of Britain, c. 1836-1901, and the cultures Britain influenced. This implication is untrue. In all human cultures, there are strong sexual taboos, because sex has to do with marriage and children, both very important issues for social order. And in all human cultures, female chastity is stronger than male chastity, because when a woman screws up, she bears the baby. The man doesn't.
Huge sex taboos are a Human norm. They derive directly from our K-centered reproductive strategy. And promiscuous womean are despised as long-term mates by men because they know that they are likely to be cuckolded and taken advantage of by such women. Because the aversion to marrying them comes from rational causes, this aversion will not lift, regardless of what happens to sexual taboos in general.
A woman who is promiscuous is, whether she knows it or not, communicating "Fuck me, but don't marry me." Just as a man who marries her anyway is, whether he knows it or not, communictating "I'm a sucker. Abuse me." This is sexual selection in action, and yes -- it is cruel. It is also unavoidable. It is reality.
And for "marriage" you may also read "lifetime romantic and sexual committment" whether or not any actual marriage ceremony is involved. Yep, it's that cruel.
Leona could not explain this to you. Nor, probably, could most of the older female kin who taught her how to respect herself and communicate this respect to others, especially horny colts and stallions. But she has learned the lesson well enough that she would not go into town and let random prostutites bang her.
And when she thought she was going to be raped by Guidestar, this knowledge helped her fight desperately to protect her virtue. And Guidestar noticed this, and it increased his respect for her, the more so because he never actually meant to rape her at all -- he's exactly the sort of good stallion whom Leona would want to become aware of her respectable nature.
With momentous and positive long-term consequences for both of them.
Maskers are perfumes and ungeants which "mask" the smell and relieve the swelling and itching of the cycle. They have abslutely no contraceptive effects. Nor is their masking very effective: most stallions who stand close to the masked mare are aware that she's on cycle, though they are a bit less irritated and aroused by the fact.
Suppressors are not contraceptives. They suppress the cycle, but not completely. What they do is give Pony mares semi-concealed ovulation, like Human women have naturally. Very little marescent is emitted, the labiae are not enflamed and enlarged, and the mare is less easily aroused than would be the case without the suppressors. Fertility is cut by half or more. And that's it. They can still get pregnant.
True female contraceptives existed during the Age of Wonders, and will be re-invented in the Second Age of Wonders (around the late YOH 1520's and on). They really will cut fertility by 90% or more (as The Pill does for Human women). And they will produce cultural changes. Ruling Princess Luna will know this will happen, because she saw this happen once before already, when she was Moondreamer over four millennia ago in the First Age of Wonders. And Consort Princess Twilight expects this as well, because Celestia and Luna told her about it.
Neither maskers, nor suppressors, nor even contraceptives, can do much of anything to prevent heartbreak. Nor less of reputation, if you're stupid enough to have sex publicly.
Um, what?
These are two separate things which are only coupled in that they occur in the same (continent-spanning) national empire.
Celestia likes cake, and thus eats it. This does not somehow cause young mares to kill themselves because they have had their reputations ruined; her consumption of cake has no discernable effect on the rate of female foolishness or male callousness. She has no way of knowing if particular young mares have been despised or jilted, unless she happens to be personally friendly with those young mares. Nor is it her normal role as Monarch of Equestria to leap into romantic and sexual situations and dispense spontaneous advice.
THINGS WERE GETTING PRETTY HOT AND HEAVY BETWEEN GREEN APPLE AND BIFF CALLOUS ...
images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35400000/Walt-Disney-Screencaps-Gaston-walt-disney-characters-35455292-5000-2877.jpg
(A Humanized version of Biff Callous)
BIFF: Lemme show you something you'll really like ... (*bends head down below camera range*)
GREENIE: Oh! Oh, Biff! This is heavenly! Oh yes!
BIFF: Now, sweet little Apple, lemme move up a bit so that I can really have some fun!
GREENIE: Wait ... stop ... I'm not ready ... I've never ... I don't know your intentions ...
BIFF: Ah, what difference does it make? Chudjogurt says that female chastity is just a Victorian taboo.
GREENIE: What?
BIFF (shrugs): In any case, Greenie, let's get banging! (*reaches for GREENIE*)
(*PRINCESS CELESTIA suddenly teleports into the room*)
CELESTIA: It is I, Princess Celestia, the Ruling Princess of the Realm, and personal guardian of the moral purity of every single young mare therein!
BIFF: With all due respect, Your Highness, since when?
CELESTIA: Meh ... I've been eating a lot of cake lately. Haven't had much time. Now -- ahem -- Keep your foul hooves off dear innocent Greenie, whom I met once when she was a small filly!
GREENIE: Um, thanks for the lands. And the Zap Apples.
CELESTIA: No problem! Now, should I vaporize Biff ... or exile him to some astronomical body?
BIFF (gulps):
Actually, I don't think that Celestia is personally involved in this sort of thing. If she knew a young mare personally, she might stand in the stead of the "elder kinsmare" who advised her how to ensure that stallions respected her. And that any stallion who jilted her young mare friends might find this a poor route to Celestia's own favor and good opinion. But that's about it.
Yes, of course you can have young males and females mixing together in a society which values female chastity. There are levels of "mixing" between "no mixing" and "random orgies." And there are levels of "valuing female chastity" in between "kill him or yourself if so much as your hoof is touched" and "have sex with random male whores in public, it's all right and will only make you more popular." I really wonder what sort of high schools or colleges you attended!
===
(*) Vanilla canon that Granny's less inhibited than is Applejack, as of "Hearthbreakers."
7331417
You're trying to bring in common sense into science. Science does not run on common sense.
K and r- strategy is exactly what you descried it to be. It was the "lets' make commonsensical assumptions about population behavior and put them to differential equations. Oooh, pretty picture".
That's how we got pre-Copernican astronomy, and even that was at least somewhat tied to reality though observations.
Before you use that in real life you have to prove that it reflects reality and, preferably, show the caustical mechanism as to how, through something slightly more than "well, that makes sense to me!".
Cursory wikipedia reading would reveal that
etc. More in-depth study will likewise show that this concept has not been in use in social sciences for the past thirty or so years.
Yes. Most common, not every single one, and that's before 10% or so of polygamous Muslims.
And we do live in a very single-cultural wold these days.
I do believe that the implication was they were drawn after the aestetic first american colonists, so she looks Puritan, who are even more repressed.
I'm not, I am using it to underscore the weirdness of it. An entirely different culture, with no theistic religion, different technological level, different geopolitical station, different biological species, different gender dynamics, different rulership structure etc, that arrives to an a moral code that is rather confied to a specific page of human history. It has Victorian (Georgian?) mores, but it does not have things that necessitate or follow from them, so yes, I keep using word "Victorian" to show that it's been artificially tacked on by taking historical thing and bolting it on top of something different with little to no reason.
Which part of "while" would imply causal connection? "While" in English denotes things happening simultaneously without causal link.
If I call my friend while driving it is not my phonecall that causes me to drive.
She knows, presides over, and one would assume promotes this sort of culture. Because if she did not it would be entirely within her power to change it.
Moreover since in your headcanon they have lived through high-tech civilizations, she would be assumed to know better.
7331793
Not unsurprisingly, you've taken quotes out of context on R-vs.K selection theory. Here's the actual conclusion of the article:
which is to say that the earlier version of the theory, which focused solely on reproductive packaging, has been integrated into larger theories based on entire lifetime reproductive strategies. It's very true that sociologists don't like any version of reproductive selection theories, because they are mostly some flavor of socialist, and any theory of sexual selection tends to conclusions very unflattering to any form of socialism and very dark in terms of the ability of socialism to produce better societies.
I will also note that -- and this is what is relevant for xenofiction -- biology texts (particular zoology) refer to the r-vs-k paradigm a lot, as it's a quick and easy way to distinguish between different reproductive strategies.
And sorry, science does have to make logical sense. Mathematics is just another version of "logical sense," and this includes statistics.
If we're talking about age-dependent reproductive patterns, consider the Mormon woman who defers sex until after marriage (a very high-k strategy) but then has eight children. Has she suddenly switched to a high-r strategy?
No, because k-vs-r isn't based on the sheer number of children, but the amount of CARE lavished on each one. The Mormon woman has by waiting for sex until a highly-stable marriage (she's vetted her mate during a long courtship, in which he's proved his interest in her by sticking around despite the lack of immediate sexual reward) to a man who is honest and hard-working, and hence is very likely to provide her and her offspring considerable resources, created a very good environment for child-rearing.
She spaces out her children so that each can receive the maximum possible resources consistent with multiple children; she may engage in other stratgegies such as repairs and hand-me-downs to maximize the efficiency with which she uses her resources. Her children get very good upbringings, both moral and physical, and an experience of how to make a large family run smoothly and effectively. Thus (and this is important) they are likely to themselves make good marriages and have multiple offspring who will in turn be successful.
Compare her with her slum-dwelling analogue, who has sex early and promiscuously, and has children more or less at random, with a vague sort of plan of getting welfare payments. She does not attract a good man who will stick around and work for her and their children; in numerous ways great and small she makes herself a very unattractive mate for that sort of man. She counts on notoriously-unreliable government policies for money, and when that proves insufficient accepts cash gifts from her boyfriends. She is very likely to drift into prostitution for at least some part of her career.
She is also unlikely to have as many children as the married Mormon woman, because she won't live as long in the physical health to have children. A combination of drugs, diesease and bouts of poor nutrition will leave her a raddled, prematurely-aged wreck, at the same age at which the Mormon wife is still in physical and mental good health -- possibly still fertile, and as a grandmother more able to to aid the fitness of her grandchildren. By contrast, the slum woman at this age has become little more than a burden on society, both that of her family and of the State.
What this shows is that a well-chosen strategy can increase overall fitness to the point that the k-strategy actually produces more total offspring than the r-strategy. The Mormon woman both had more children and gave each child more care; the slum woman had less children and gave each child less care.
Now fitness is to a particular environment. Imagine the Mormon woman and the slum woman in a social environment so chaotic that neither had access to a stable family growing up, nor security in person or property. Both women, as a matter of course, are introduced to sex by rape, and have their property stolen or destroyed at intervals by rampaging gangs. Even men are likely to only be around so long before they die by violence.
In that environment, the Mormon woman is at a disadvantage. Her sexual choosiness won't prevent her from being impregnated by rape; her moral expectations means she'll be psychologically-scarred by it more and if she does find a good man, he's likely to die before he can marry her or have more than one or two children with her. The slum woman may be better at rolling with the punches and finding gangsters and johns to protect her long enough to have some babies and bring them to an age where they can scrabble for survival before her inevitable early death.
Though, humans, being sapient, largely make their own environments. The Mormon woman is likely to flee the war-torn hell and find safety with other good people. And the slum woman, alas, is likely to spread anarchy and chaos where she goes, both in the form of her unruly offspring and in terms of her serving as part of the support mechanism for a gangster culture.
What this shows is that -- especially among humans (and thus, logically, Ponies) -- the issue of r-vs-k selection is more complicated than simply choosing and taking the consequences of one's strategy. One's strategy interacts with others' strategies, and one must remain alert to these interactions.
But it does not mean that the r-vs-k dimensions, or its consequences, can be wholly ignored -- even if they get in the way of the Porno Movie Sex Fantasy version of society.
Um, no. Granny and her fellow "Pilgrim Ponies" are drawn to resemble 18th-19th century American settlers -- from the period of the late Georgian to mid-Victorian era, historically. But Granny's not particularly sexually-repressed, as we see when she actually talks about it.
What she is, however, is in control of her sexuality. She respects herself. And she's wise enough to teach her grand-children to behave respectably, because she doesn't want them to be the victims of somepony else's Porno Movie Sex Fantasy version of life.
This, notably, works even in the Winningverse. Cloud Kicker only gets Big Mac once, and then Applejack's able to keep him clear of her. And Cloud doesn't get her hooks into either Applejack or Apple Bloom. Chengar simply wasn't able to imagine the Apples as participants in Cloud's little Fast Set, because it's too obviously off their established canon characters.
In the Degradingverse, even Winning is only able to have one encounter with Big Mac, and none with the other Sweet Apple Acres Siblings. (Though knowledge that Apple Bloom's getting older, and entering Cloud's zone of attractractiveness, is a strong motive for Big Mac and Applejack to finally act against her, despite their justified fear of the mind control powers of the fully-awakened Shadow Vice).
In the main SWSV, she got one go at Big Mac, but the infection didn't take; Big Mac resisted the egg implantation and is clear. Now, of course, Winning is dormant and unable to spread, thanks to the damage that Pinkie and Paradise did to it in their psychic combat (the one Pinkie loses in both the Winningverse and Degradingverse).
Basically, the Winningverse is the reality where Cloud Kicker won completely, to the point that Winning can access Pinkie's Reality Warping powers and is destroying local causality; the Degradingverse is the one where Winning won but can't control Pinkie sufficiently to do this, so Celestia still has an excellent chance of realizing what's going on before her Brothers, Sisters and Cousins show up, burn out the pocket of Paradox, and in the process accidentally crack the Universe sufficiently wide open for the Shadows to pour in. Which is the part of Winning's strategy that Winning has never told Cloud Kicker, because she wants to live in a Porno Movie Sex Fantasy world, not destroy Equestria. In the main worldlines, Winning has been cauterized but is slowly regrowing, because Pinkie and Paradise couldn't destroy it completely without killing Cloud Kicker -- and Pinkie is idealistically-good, while Paradise is a Three Laws Compliant computational system, and can't kill Ponies.
There is nothing odd about female chastity being valued over male chastity. This has appeared in every civilization because it derives directly from females having babies while men do not, and Humans being high-K animals so our babies require a lot of resources per child. A promiscuous male makes problems for other families, a promiscuous female for her own family. It's that simple.
Your apposition of "Celestia eats cake while young mares commit suicide" implies some sort of causal link, even though you're smart enough not to claim it. What's more, you missed the point that the suicide rate is probably greater in cultures which do not teach women to value their own chastity -- I was referring to sucicide rates on modern college campuses.
The reason why this happens is that the underlying causes still operate, and the promiscuous women are devalued as mates -- and when the women realize this, they become seriously depressed. The realization is more shocking because they have been told that this is not the case.
Leona, of course, is in an unusual position because she's a Wind, and hence socially-prominent whether she wants to be or not. (She'd rather win prominence in her own right on the battlefield; and later does). If she won prominence by becoming a notorious slut, rather than a heroic military officer, this would depress her greatly. She is far more likely to kill herself at such a reverse of fortune than would an ordinary Pegasus mare.
She promotes a culture in which Ponies, for the most part, respect one another as individuals rather than treating each other as animate sex toys. She promotes The Harmony, which is best served by situations in which Friendship grows into Love which results in Sex and Marriage in some order, rather than society degenerating into the Porno Movie Sex Fantasy that you apparently consider the ideal. It is very far from obvious to me that the Ponies of Equestria would be happier if they were more sexually amoral.
You're assuming that she finds promiscuity better than love. Why would she?
Understand, in my Equestria most Ponies don't have sex with a lot of different partners in their lifetime -- something like 1-4 is more normal over their lifetimes. But they do tend to fall in love, get married, and have lots and lots of sex with their spouses. They have children, and their children have children, and many Ponies get to be beloved grandparents.
This, Celestia actually prefers to the Porno Movie Sex Fantasy that the Age of Wonders actually wasn't (*) (though those Ponies were on the average somewhat more promiscuous than the Ponies of 15th-century YOH Equestria). This is because she understands that Ponies are mostly K-strategy creatures, and are happier when in a culture friendlier to such strategies.
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(*) Unless I've been watching a very heavily bowdlerized version of My Little Pony: Tales and Starlight's club was actually having orgies with their coltfriends.
First and foremost science has to model and reflect reality. If reality does not conform to common sense, common sense must necessarily give way. As quoted above, the r/K thing is simply put not empirically supported. Some of it's ideas are being reconsidered in a wider framework, but mostly it's just an intellectual game of strange attractors.
That was a weird, drawn-out straw of an argument that fails to make any sense.
That's the point of strategies in reproduction. By definition both K- and r- strategy are meant to describe a way (hence strategy) to produce maximum long-term viable offspring.
Cute idea, but not supported by facts. Biggest drop in suicide rates falls on 1950-1980 period. Which, perhaps through coincidence, also tends to fall on exactly the time of sexual revolution. Female suicide rate today is also lower than in 1950s.
Which results in slut-shaming and induced suicides in your canon. And Celestia looks and this and thinks it's a good thing.
As I said - jarring. I can see how, in your mind, it would make sense for her to introduce the chastity-before-marriage culture, but the whole suicide thing is weird.
I mean, if you like mentioned a support group, a lifeline phone or i dunno, harmonic monastery or something, which actually addresses the problem, that would at least show that the problem of honor suicides is acknowledged. As it is, it seems that there is a tacit approval by Celestia of death-cults.
Are you implying that those things are somehow mutually exclusive? For men they are definitely not.
Take Napoleon for example. Given that unwanted pregnancy is not an issue, I see no contradiction there.
THey are not even contradictory for women in the times when contraception didn't exist, since there are quite a lot of examples of women using sex to influence politics and war, even when it is known that they court and lie with multiple men - sometimes at the same time.
That actually brings me to a somewhat of a sidepoint, to mention that promiscuity does not always means non-desirability. There are plenty examples of prostitutes for whom kings payed impossible sums of money to spend the night with, and in some cultures prostitution was ritualized sufficiently to actually make woman more sexually attractive.
It would not be marriage, of course, but on the other hand that would not be necessary or even hindrant of high-quality child-rearing when Prime Minister pays 250 000 pounds to have sex with you.
In fact I'd say that fucking up the social ladder is rather more of a realistic (even though still unlikely) case than your classic Cinderella fairitale of a chaste and virgin girl marrying a prince, but that is besides the point.
Other than that, at least now I understand your position. I still think it's somewhat silly, and entirely weird for the setting, but at least I understand where you're coming from and how you argue for it.
I am willing to call it quits at this point.
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Nevertheless, one dimension along which reproductive strategies may be usefully-described is high-K versus high-R, and one of the effects of a high-K strategy is increased choosiness in mate selection, while a high-R strategy results in reduced choosiness in mate selection. This isn't even controversial in biology, and it's in all the standard texts; it's only controversial in sociology because people like you don't like the POLITICAL implications -- because they want to enjoy the Porno Movie Fantasy Culture in reality.
The existence of other dimensions along which reproductive strategies may be usefully described (such as expected length of reproductive and economic lifespans) does not negate the existence of this dimension. Reproductive strategies are complex, as I pointed out in A Robust Solution and in other threads.
The Ponies, being extremely high-K reproducers (relatively few offspring which take a long time to gestate and an even longer time to reach adulthood), will form cultures in which individuals -- especially females -- will be choosy about mate selection. This is unavoidable; cultures which attempted to breed lots of foals with little support per foal would see less foals surviving to themselves reproduce than the cultures which instead suported their foals.
This is a similar dynamic to that which creates Human courtship and marriage customs, and more than justifies modeling Pony courtship and marriage customs after real Human ones -- which is what we see in vanilla canon. Shining and Cadance get engaged, get married, and then have a baby. Carrot Cake is made uncomfortable by the possibility that his wife Cup Cake may have cuckolded him. Rarity thinks in terms of marrying first Blueblood and then Trenderhoof. Spike hopes to become Rarity's lover and then perhaps her husband. These are reccognizably similar to Human motivations in such situations.
I model Equestria after a combination of an idealized Oriental enlightened despotism (what we see in a lot of Japanese videogames and animes) and the Anglospheric Western liberal cultures because that is what we see on the Show. I specifically model my Equestrian courtship customs at the time of the Show on that of the late 19th / early 20th century West because, technologically, Equestria is a Late Industrial Age culture, with the first stirrings of the Information Revolution already underway.
In these cultures, sexual promsicuity (especially for females) reduced social status. Thus, so it does in my Equestria. I follow my model faithfully, and it produces good results in terms of Story possibilities.
Now, the exception to the rule I've just stated is for young males, because they want to establish that they can be sexually successful. And so we see (some of) the young male cadets seeking out town-whores. Guidestar is ashamed of rather than proud of this behavior because he is pursuing a longer-term sexual strategy, which would count whoring as weakness rather than strength.
Young females generally, in every single Human culture, lose status for adolescent sexual adventures, but gain it for adolescent romantic adventures. This is why the female cadets aren't seeking town-whores. Whoring isn't romantic. They are looking for colt-friends, rather than sex (though having colt-friends may indeed lead to sex, especially if the relationship builds toward marriage).
This is a fairly normal Human as well as Pony dichotomy. I seriously wonder how you have managed to function in normal Human society without noticing this. Or do you notice it, and conclude that "too many girls are frigid" or something of that sort?
It derives from very basic biology. Females bear babies, so they almost automatically have custody; their task is to recruit a husband to help raise their children. Males can impregnate and go away, but then they don't get custody or the alliance of the female's family. In matrilocal and matrilineal Equestria, males want to marry into good families, because they aren't long-term primary members of their birth-clans.
This has nothing to do with Christianity. It's not because of the success of Christianity that the modern West is a K-centered culture with sexual restraint more pronounced among females. It's because Humans are a K-centered species with a greater tendency toward sexual restrain among females that Christianity became a religion which supported such behavior. Memes adapt more to hosts than hosts do to memes.
"Slut-shaming" is communication of important information, namely which women can be trusted to be faithful in the context of a long-term love affair such as marriage. Sluts are generally more likely to cuckold their husbands. Men do not want to be cuckolded because doing so means they spend their energy raising another man's child. Slut-shaming has always been with ye and it always shall be with ye, because it serves a vital courtship function.
Slut-shaming is in the interest of everyone, male and female, save for promiscuous females. Since most people are not promiscuous females, it persists. Its analogue, cad-calling, is more common in Equestria than it was in Edwardian Human times; as long as the majority are not "sluts" or "cads" by the standards applied, it will persist.
Celestia, having lived as a Pony for millennia as Celestia and for some more millennia as other Ponies such as Epona Amaterasu, has seen many, many Pony cultures rise and fall, observing them both from inside and outside. She is not a prude. But she has absolutely no interest in destroying the institutions of courtship and marriage that have evolved in Equestria merely to make your Porno Movie Fantasy world come true, because it would create immense equine suffering.
Nor can she actually fine-tune Equestrian courtship culture, to suit you or herself or anypony else. Her influence over Equestrian culture is much subtler than you imply.
Yes, in the current system, some Ponies (of both sexes) commit suicide, for various reasons. Under your proposed replacement system, other Ponies would commit suicide, for slightly different reasons or in some cases the same reasons. Celestia can't just heavy-hoofedly yank Equestrian culture about to stamp on this or that evil social pattern without considering the alternatives that would replace it.
My guess is that you're fairly young, probably in the stage where you're angry that girls say "no" to you, and wishing that you could live in an alternate reality where girls would be less likely to say "no." You don't yet understand the forces at work. You hopefully will, eventually.
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No, what denies it is the lack of empirical observations to show that this model is indeed what is happening in real life.
But as I noted, yes, it is a useful descriptive metaphor, that I am willing to grant. But no more than that, until and unless you can actually point me to a reputable source that would claim that these thought-up commonsensical equations are indeed what is happening in real life in anything more complex than bacteria. Or heck, even in bacteria.
It's not and we don't.
WOG says that Equestria is classic medieval fairytale setting with technology introduced when it's necessary for the plot and/or screenwriters get lazy.
Which is why we have absolute monarchy and what one assumes is highly socialized capitalism in the same society or instant photos (with built-in flash) and arcade games alongside candlelight and reel-projectors.
The attempt to peg it to real-life culture and period may be laudable or laughable but it is definitely not canon.
Enope. Slut-shaming is specifically enforcing (as opposed to promoting or arguing for) of the above though negative reinforcement. There is a difference.
Shunning, social ostracism and induced suicides are not instruments of a moral society, and while in a darker fiction one may use the defense of "they don't know any better" or "it is necessary for survival of the species" neither is applicable here.
And you do claim moral society, as indeed you must, since your headcanon actually makes Celestia more powerful and wise than the canon show would imply.
Since you nevertheless try to claim the evolutionary necessity over morality - which, in general terms is an entirely valid approach, since survival necessarily stands above morality and "ought" implies "can", I then ask, what is it this external foe that Equestria must sacrifice it's morality in order to breed as much and as high quality ponies as possible to the detriment of individual choices?
The canon show claims thousand of years of peace. Even if you interpret it is what we would historically understand as peace - with "incidents" and "border skirmishes" of sorts, still, there is absolutely no doubt that in canon show there is no, nor has been, nor is possible in the future before return of Luna, any threat that would require mobilization to the level of creating a subtly totalitarian state that polices even the ways of procreation. Nor would there be a threat that can actually be better coped against with higher numbers... unlike say true friendship, which, I would assume would flourish better in highly tolerant and inclusive society, rather than uniformist and totalitarian.
Are you then implying that this is internal evolutionary struggle? But that hardly makes sense for a constructed society - and this, to my understanding, exactly a constructed society, not a natural one. Moreover if it still is every pony striving to profilerate her genes at the potential detriment of the others (which would be a ratoher strange basis for a society that should reflect the show about friendship), suicide cults would be rather detrimental to that idea. It is indubitably better (reproductively speaking) for anyone to have dozen r-strategy babies (or even no babies at all), than to kill oneself.
Such a setup would then mean that Celestia either created this society with the thought of pitting pony on pony in a repeated game of fucking up the social ladder generation by generation, tacitly approves of it, or is powerless to change it. But I find either of those propositions strange within your headcanon insofar as I understand it.
I, for one, in my turn hope that you will eventually learn not to do ad hominems and not to try to do psychoanalysis via my avatar. That's uncouth, and this being the third time - borderline annoying.
And no, I do prefer, for myself to marry a girl I fall in love with and have three nice babies who all get to be doctors and lawyers, live with her happily ever after and die on the same day. I am an old-fashioned person in my sexual preferences... well, for the most part.
I, however, do find that others may have other ideas, and that I am willing and able to withhold my judgement and not to force the choice in the name of abstract greater happiness for (actually smaller) number. Furhtermore, I doubly insist that Equestria - which I think we all agree was meant to be a utopian society, even if we may disagree on what exactly that entails - would sure as heck find a better solution than what we as a species have passed more than seventy years ago, despite being in a much worse situation.
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Okay ...
... No way is Equestria's technology "medieval." The lowest technology that we see in everyday use in present-day civilized settings is 16th century, which is to say Renaissance. The highest technologies that we see are primitive computers and various antibiotics which is to say early to mid 20th century.
The signature technologies, which we see in use in and between all cities, are steam-powered transportation (railroads, steamships, airships) and steel-framed large buildings (the skyscrapers of Manehattan and other large cities, and probably also the towers of Canterlot. These are 19th-century technologies.
Some of what we see in flashbacks is medieval. The buildings from the time when Nightmare Moon first rebelled range from High Medieval castles to medieval peasant huts. But it's fairly obvious that Equestrian technology has increased over the last thousand years -- which is what you'd expect from an enlightened autocracy that allows considerable economic and intellectual freedom.
The construction of modern Ponyville is rustic and faux-medieval, which is to say about as "medieval" as "Ye Olde Time Malte Shoppe." Those half-timbered thatched-roof houses are fitted with indoor plumbing (19th century technology) and many are wired for electricity (late 19th to early 20th century technology). The reasons for this are that (1) Ponies of the last half-century or so seem to be nostalgiac for "ye good olde dayes" and (2) Downtown Ponyville is an exurb of Canterlot.
A lot of its income obviously comes from the Canterlot tourist trade. And Ponyville touts itself as being a place of "simple ways" as opposed to the big cities. There's even a freaking episode about this. This is vanilla-canon, though some fans maybe miss the clues that downtown Ponyville is a tourist trap.
Compare with the Apples' farm, which is unashamedly 19th century rather than faux-medieval in its basic design. The Apples aren't pretending to be peasants from the Century of Disaster; they are quite modern in their traditional simplicity and they build or buy exactly the technology they need to get their jobs done -- no more, no less. Likewise, the Pies aren't putting on a phony-medieval show for anypony.
In what reality are you living?
"Slut-shaming," like shaming for violating any important moral principle is standard Human behavior, and probably standard Pony behavior as well (though they might be nicer about it, on the average). It is emergent behavior -- it comes from the natural self-interest of the individuals involved. It requires no larger organization to enforce it; it is essentially "market reporting" in the marriage marketplace.
It occurs because women want to demonstrate that they are better potential mates than their competitors, hence have an interest in informing single men seeking good women that said competitors are less moral than they seem (and the secondary function is to steer the men who just want to fool around toward the "sluts"). And men have an interest in -- if looking simply to fool around -- finding low-consequence sexual partners (the "sluts"); or -- if looking for true mates, avoiding women likely to cuckold them.
Is this cruel? Yes, it is -- like much of the operation of sexual selection.
Is this avoidable? I can't see any way of avoiding this, because it emerges from the self-intererst of all involved. The social structures needed to prevent it would cause far, far more pain and suffering and injustice than the marriage market itself and its asociated mechanisms.
In what wondrous utopia do all these practices fail to exist? Tell me, o traveller, of this magic land that we may journey thence.
Now, mind you, in classical-liberal Western societies the first two aren't very well organized, and the third more a side effect of what happens when emotionally-weak people get rejected. And I'm sure that in Equestria the Ponies try to aviod being too obvious about the first two processes, and avoid the third entirely.
But, how do you prevent free Ponies from avoiding other Ponies with bad reputations as marriage partners? Do you force them to marry other Ponies whose (justified) reputations for bad behavior are repulsive? (And note -- this isn't just about bad sexual behavior -- it could be about many different unattractive tendencies). How do you prevent various groups of Ponies from not wanting the company of other Ponies whom they fear will do bad things if they are present?
Suppose that a Pony -- call her Berry Blast -- is an alchoholic on a scale that makes Berryshine look sober. She drinks heavily whenever she has the opportunity to do so, and when she gets drunk she steals drinks from other Ponies, she curses randomly she starts knocking over furniture, she comes on to every stallion in sight, and she finishes by urinating and vomiting over the entire room before falling unconscious, usually blocking the door.
Now Berry Blast is very unlikely to get invited to respectable parties. Or even half-respectable parties. Or even, really, any party not being thrown by absolute scumbags who are looking forward to laughing at poor Berry Blast's antics, and possibly gang-banging her when she's in the horny stage.
This isn't because of a cruel judgemental Pony culture. It's because most Ponies don't want somepony who acts like this at their parties. Or in their homes. Because the behavior I've described is obnoxious.
Also Berry Blast probably has a terrible reputation. Both for obnoxious drunkenness, and for promiscuity. This isn't because Ponies are cruel and intolerant, it's because Berry Blast is an obnoxious drunk, and a slut when she's drunk.
Her bad reputation is a recognition of reality.
Now suppose we counsel Berry Blast. If I counsel her, I will say "Berry Blast, you've got to stop drinking. You can't hold your liquor, and when you get drunk you engage in obnoxious and slutty behavior that makes other Ponies dislike and despise you. If you stay sober, you're an okay Pony, and other Ponies will want to be your friend."
And if you counsel her, you'll say ... what? That her behavior is just fine, it's just that society is intolerant, and she should seek out Ponies who want roaring-drunk, insanely-promiscuous Berry Blast around. Do you suppose that Ponies fitting this description are likely to really have her best interests at heart?
Which counseling is more likely to end with Berry Blast deciding to get on the wagon, and which with her dying of exposue in a ditch some winter when she gets thrown out by "friends" who have finished making use of her and don't much care what happens to her afterward?
As to "Celestia should prevent such things from happening," even my Celestia's not that powerful. She can't see everything and be everywhere at once, and if she had a kryptoi organization on a scale that would let her make the attempt, you'd rightly name her Tyrantlestia.
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Faux-medieval is a good way to describe it.
But realistically it is plainly incosnistent, up to there existing lightbulbs but candlelight and glowbugs being the go-to source of lighting.
Which is my point, it has nothing to do with any historical period you will find in real life.
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I'm sorry, but no.
To drive a person to suicide as a first resort (and you had at least two instances where you said that a female protagonist would be likely to kill herself over something that was either not her fault or only partially her fault), requires an organized, consistent and significant social pressure.
Moreover, as you yourself said, this sort of attitude is specifically ingrained and indoctrinated.
That is for ponies in your culture, not only it is specifically said that finding a right stallion and having babies is the start-all end-all of mare's life, but also mares are aggressively, consistently, harshly and overwhelmingly judged on their marriage prospects, including in the venues which have nothing to do with their reproductive capacity - that is there is a choice between being a general and having copious amounts of sex, as you yourself inadvertently let slip, to the point where they are driven - repeatedly - to suicide.
This is not a sentiment of "poor dear, she'll never find a husband at this rate". This is persistent, purposeful hounding of a person based on their reproductive choices, aimed at social, if not physical destructions of those who do not conform to a societal standard, with no mechanism to check or correct it ever being mentioned.
If that is a norm - and I somewhat doubt it, it is an entirely and absolutely avoidable norm.
And that is of course entirely inconsistent with a society where gender equality is at least remotely a thing.
You can, if you so wish, proclaim that marriage prospects and promiscuity is connected. I find the proposition still somewhat lacking, but if you so propose - you can do so, it is after all not impossible, especially if you insist that this society and culture are naturaly-arised not constructed. But you then claim that the ruined reputation will spill out to every other perception of the person, will impede their life in areas unconnected in any way with the modes in which they prefer their fucking, up to and including total destruction of their lives.
And then you claim that this is both inevitable and good, and that is patently untrue.
I abhor using a politically charged metaphor, but let us imagine a mare who has preference for other mares, not stallions. That is she is a Kinsey-6 hard-wired lesbian.
She has, therefore no reproductive chances, neither K- nor r- nor any other, barring artificial insemination, and let's assume that is not an option. Is her life therefore over? Should she be shunned by society, avoided (or not invited at all) to any societal functuions? Should she consider using her honor-blade on herself once she realizes the horrid truth of her life not being affirmed by a stallion and dozen high-status babies?
I would pose that no, that should not be the case. It entirely could be - in a Victorian society lesbian sex was very nearly criminalized, I believe, though mostly ignored, but that would - again - be neither right nor unavoidable.
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My point is that faux-medieval is a style not a technological level. Granted that the Information Age components of Equestrian technology may be part-magical, the Industrial Age components are entirely mundane. The basic tech level of Equestria is Industrial Age -- in GURPS terms, TL/5 -- but with a higher medical and lower military technology. Medical tech level is around 6, and military around 3-4. This is obvious from the artifacts which the Equestrians have produced and deployed on a mass production scale -- such as the skyscrapers of Canterlot and Manehattan, or the railroad system.
There are some oddities caused by the inherent magical capabilities of the Kinds, and some more caused by advanced Unicorn magic. For instance, Ponykind has had long-distance communication from very early times on, due to Pegasus flight magic allowing couriers; and food production has been at every tech level superior to what one would expect, due to Earth Pony magic. And Star-Swirl the Bearded's most advanced spells allow crosstime and time travel, something far in advance of our technology.
First of all, the two specific protagonists in question (Leona and Fluttershy Wind) are of the same family -- an extremely ancient and aristocratic family, socially prominent and raised in a tradition of conspicious honor, and one with a marked tendency toward emotional and psychological extremes. This isn't an accident. These are their characters.
The third one of whom you may be thinking -- Rarity Belle -- is a manic-depressive in vanilla canon. She is most definitely emotionally-unstable, and she was more so during her early adolescence. Show has actually depicted her in near-suicidal moods at least once, though Show couldn't use the word "suicide" and played it for semi-laughs.
Secondly, they weren't being "driven to suicide." They were considering suicide based on their own internal motivations. I find your attitude toward them rather condescending. Don't they have any agency, any choice or responsiblity regarding their own actions?
Now, as for other parties who were pushing them toward despair:
Leona Wind was the only one of the three who had an actual enemy, and she never considered suicide (this is because she's externally rather than internally aggressive). I at most speculated that if she had been raped by Guidestar, discovered in flagrante delicto and generally assumed (because she was in unsuppressed estrus) to have been a slut looking for random sex while in the middle of commmitting a prank highly dangerous to others, and hence having to withdraw from the Academy, it might make her depressed enough to become suicidal.
Face Kicker -- who is generally evil, and both hates Leona as a familial enemy and despises her as a cocky little blowhard -- probably would feel a bit awed at his own manipulative powers if he did push her to suicide. Here, by the way, there is an "organized, consistent and significant social pressure" -- that of Face Kicker's clique. Vouchsafe unto me, O skilled social engineer, how thou shalt prevent the appearance of bullies who form cliques, or of vicious family politics? Celestia would like to prevent both, but cannot devise any means other than encouraging general niceness in society -- and that's not enough to stop it from happening all the time. (Notably, Luna does a worse job on this specific issue in the Lunaverse).
"Nosey" Pebbles, as his original creator Bad Horse explained in the comments on Fluttershy's Night Out, isn't a terribly malicious Pony who meant to cripple Fluttershy's already-damaged abilities to trust other Ponies. He was just a sleazy stallion on the make, and it was Fluttershy's ill luck to run into him when she chose to go out looking for friendship at age 16. He might have actually been sad to know that he hurt her so badly; but part of the point of his character is that he doesn't much care about the consequences to others.
As Bad Horse pointed out, the combination of Fluttershy's self-unacknowledged lust with her extreme innocence and friendlessness made it almost inevitable that she would run into somepony like him, and probably be seduced by somepony like him -- Nosey was just the specific Pony she happened to meet. That was what inspired me to write A Robust Solution, to explore the issue of the precise nature of Fluttershy's mistake and how she eventually learned better -- with Rarity's help.
Rush Rocks did not particularly mean to drive Rarity Belle close to suicide either, though he also didn't much care. He was a rich and upper-class teenaged colt who saw a young, beautiful filly who was fun to be with and susceptible to having her head turned by his wealth and status. He wooed her as a filly-friend, but he always knew that he could never marry somepony as low as herself, and that this was never meant to be anything more than a diversion while he was at secondary school. He saw nothing wrong with this, because she was lower-status and thus should be grateful for the attention.
When he got her pregnant, he offered her the money for an abortion, and felt that she was being ungrateful when she angrily refused it. He had no idea that she would then, out of wounded pride, try to keep going to school and work and stretch her limited funds to cover food and housing and medical care, and fail to do any of these very well. Nor did he know that Rarity would in consequence suffer a miscarriage, though the knowledge might have pleased him because it meant he didn't need to worry about some bastard coming up to him and demanding money from him in later life.
It was at that point that Rarity contemplated suicide -- when she realized that she had lost not only her virginity but (far more importantly to her) betrayed her own child to death in her pride (she should have run home to her parents for help, but she couldn't bear the humiliation). And eventually, being Rarity, she turned her self-hatred outward -- on Rush -- and cut her teeth on the social-manipulation aspect of her Talent destroying his reputation and his hope of a happy future. Which Rush of course deserved, but was still an evil thing for Rarity to do.
Being suicidal? No. The Winds are a bit suicidal in particular, both because they are crazy and because they are the expressions of a strong agonic honor tradition which is a Pegasus thing in general, but not much practiced outside the High Clans. Rainbow Dash, for instance, is not at all suicidal -- though she would be more willing to give her life to perform a heroic deed than would most Ponies -- or indeed most Pegasi. She does however express the agonic honor tradition very strongly.
Fluttershy deliberately rejected that tradition, but it still shapes her. She spends her youth and young marehood convinced that she doesn't measure up to the Pegasus ideal, and this bothers her even though she thinks some parts of the ideal are wrongly-conceived. She has other problems, too -- the dissonance between her Pegasus culture and instincts and her Changeling heritage. The Pegasi and Changelings are culturally near-opposites, though the Pegasi do have something in common with Changeling Warriors. It's the difference in mental outlook betwen, say, samurai and ninja.
Rarity is ... Rarity. Brilliant, but emotionally rather brittle, and prone to mood swings. She benefits a lot later on from Spike's calmer outlook on life -- he becomes her emotional anchor in the storms. She's never so close to suicide as she comes when she's 14.
Finally, you really don't seem to get "emergent properties." You seem to believe that systems must be planned and implemented as a whole by somone. They don't need to, and the sturdiest systems of all aren't so planned. Instead, they "emerge" from the individual, self-interested decisions of the participants. That's how marketplaces form -- including marriage marketplaces. Which is what we're talking about here.
No, I never specifically said this, nor is it true. It's important to their lives, and finding the right mare and siring foals on her is also important to the lives of stallions. This is both because this is a biological instinct (for both Humans and Ponies!) and because subcultures which do not inculcate the belief that this is important fail to reproduce themselves.
Look, the flip side of being a high-K species is that there is a strong temptation to avoid reproduction if possible, because of the burden of raising babies. But if this temptation wins, there is no next generation, at least not for the lineages of those who succumb to it. So every successful culture and most subcultures will consider having babies to be an important objective.
What really bothers Ponies personally is loneliness. They want friendship, and they want love. They want these things even more than do Humans, as they are a more gregarious species. Having a bad reputation makes it harder to get either. Hence having a good reputation is important to them.
This is how it works with Humans as well.
Mares (and stallions) have other objectives in their lives other than friendship, sex, love or marriage. These are, however, extremely important ones to most Ponies, for the obvious reasons.
... as are Pony stallions. And Human women, and Human men. Whom you marry is one of the most important and influential decisions of one's life. Whom you have sex with, or even flirt with, has a major impact on who you marry. So of course there is a lot of "judgement" involved in making such decisions -- on one's own part, on one's potential mate's part, and on the part of everypony else who observes the couple.
This is because Ponies are sapient. They think about the implications of what they observe.
Reputational effects can spill over, yes. Life cannot be lived in a series of mutually-exclusive compartments, try as one might.
No. I did not say that, overtly or covertly. What I said is that the disgrace of being caught in this sort of a compromsing position would cast a shadow over Leona's future military career, which is a very different thing. Note that "this sort of compromising positon" is "having sex on the floor of a corridor with a stranger, at age fourteen, after having been intercepted trying to break into a powder magazine." This is a bit more "compromising" than what the term normally means!
Seriously, it might get her expelled, or induced to resign to avoid the disgrace of expulsion, both to the Academy and to her family. Leona would have been on everybody's s**t list for a while. A long while.
Your extreme strawman case is not a norm. But that love, sex, marriage and babies are important ends for Ponies, and that sexual reputation is an important factor in attaining these ends -- no, that's unavoidable. I don't know of any civilization that managed to avoid them, nor why you imagine avoiding them would be a good thing.
Leona, of course, is judged by higher standards than are most Ponies, because she's of high birth and because she's a military cadet. This is also unavoidable, unless one wishes to have an entirely decadent aristocracy and non-functional military.
Seriously, I am noticing that though you claim this is "entirely and absolutely avoidable," you haven't shown how to avoid it. Certainly not by any means that wouldn't be rather rapidly subverted by the properties emerging from the behavior of marriage-marketplace participants.
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Equestria ~ YOH 1400 isn't gender-equal. It's moderately matriarchal -- but more matriarchal than it will be ~ YOH 1500 (the time of the start of the Show). Professions are traditionally gender-segregated because of the problem of cycles, marescent and male distraction. The outdoors, high-risk professions -- such as the military -- are traditionally male.
"Matriarchy" means rule by mothers. Not by horny young fillies, but by older mares who have learned from the mistakes of their youth. And who are very well aware that the interests of their lineages depend on sexually-conservative behavior on the part of their children -- both fillies and colts.
What, did you think that "matriarchy" meant Mares Gone Wild? Quite the opposite.
Marriage prospects and promiscuity are inversely correlated. The promiscuous are less likely to make good marriages, because their potential mates consider promiscuity a failing rather than a success. Females are judged more harshly than males on this failing, because they are the sex who bears babies and hence (literally) brings home the consequences.
This may be obscured by the fact that males in particular are likely to court from two different and often exclusive strategies -- looking for sex (and NOT love) vs. looking for love (and eventual sex), and that they may switch strategies in midstream if they learn something which improves or reduces their opinion of the specific female. (This also leads to some of the cruellest implications of sexual selection evolutionary theory).
Among Ponies the cliche is that stallions are less intelligent than mares because they get distracted by marescent. Consequently, stallions who are able to overcome this distraction and behave intelligently and decently are seen as more desirable (sexually and otherwise) than stallions who cannot. This is important to An Incident on Sentry Duty -- this is part of why Leona was disgusted when she noticed Guidestar's erection, and this is also why she reacted so favorably toward him when he was able to calm down and behave both morally and rationally.
Forcible rape is extremely uncommon among Modern Equestrian Ponies. The danger to Leona was in part that, given enough of an attempt on his part, she might have responded. This is especially true because of her extreme sexual inexperience; this is probably the first time that she ever had a male in that position with her. Keep in mind -- she's only fourteen.
No. I claim that, in a worst-case scenario, it might.
And then you claim that this is both inevitable and good, and that is patently untrue.
I never made this claim. What I said is that the possibility of social disaster is inevitable, and that the ... actually, when did I say that it was good? And for whom? Or compared to what?
Of course not. Because I never made the claim that the only possible goal in a Pony's life is having babies. I've also noted, more than once, that the philosophical underpinnings of Equestrian sexual morality ("Love Makes Clean") specifically celebrate love whether it is heterosexual or homosexual (as the majority of Equestrians are heterosexual, this doesn't have a signficant effect on birth rates).
On the other hand, she and her potential (female) mates come out of the same (mostly-monogamous) culture as everypony else. Consequently, if she is promiscuous, she will be seen as a less desirable mate even though the issue of dubious paternity is nonexistent in her specific case. She would still be hurting the feelings of the mares on whom she cheated, and potential mates wouldn't want to have their hearts broken.
Honor Blades and ritual suicides are uncommon. They are an ancient custom, specifically of the highest Pegasus families, which they got from the Crystal Empire via Derecho (which is why the Lady Tourmaline, a Unicorn, has an Honor Blade). Most Pegasi don't have them. Some high Unicorn nobility might keep a variant of the custom, but a suicidal high-status Unicorn would be more likely to die attempting some spectacular feat of magic, probably against her enemies. Earth Ponies aren't very suicidal at all -- they don't have that tradition, though they do have a tradition of sacrifciing their lives opposing foes or perils for the sake of those they care about.
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Besides the point. This in no way allows you to go out and say "canon show technology is like Victorian/Edwardian level IRL", because canon show is not conisstent not only with any known historical period but also within itself.
You may make it your headcanon, but it's not actually what is in the show.
Suicide is not normal for a healthy human, and I would assume doubly so for a healthy pony, them being more jovial than humans.
Even more so for females, since they have lower suicide rates.
So for someone to think "my marriage prospects are ruined, therefore I must immediately kill myself" is a line of thought that can be either born out of psychological illness or external societal pressure. Moreover, a more morally-oriented society would generally have at least some outlet in order to prevent that sort of thing, be it religious outlet (confessionals/retiring to monastery) or, more reasonably, psychological help.
It is a sign of a sick society, to the level of isolationism Japan.
So no, don't give me that "it's their own idea, and the society in no way enforces it".
Not in general no. But as I understand the whole premise of your headcanon, it is entirely based on "machinations" of sentient nigh-omnipotent beings, and in case of Celestia they are claimed to be acting morally. Again - either it is a bad thing (which is not how it's written) and Celestia, being a Power Cosmic or whatever is powerless to change or at least mitigate the current fashion of the society, which is rather strange, or it is claimed to be a good thing, which it is not.
And that pretty much answers the rest of your argument.
If you claim that this is a thing because that's how this society works for one reason or another, though it may not be a good thing, I am willing to accept it, save for noting the fact that that is not how it is written, for all the lecture-dialogues that you put in your fiction.
But you claim, repeatedly, through both the characters and out-of-fiction that this is a good, moral society, that is as good as it could possibly be.
Actually, Celestia can rather easily change both societal attitude both towards any specific individual and towards any issue she wishes. Favor of a monarch has always overweighted any social faux pas and traditions of whatever society it may be (unless it inspires a riot, which will probably not be an issue here).
So something as simple as inviting Leona to GGG and giving her some of Celestia's personal time would equally send message as to royal opinion on all that attempt at petty eugenics and probably save girl's life. Promoting someone who is capable but has a risque reputation, heck, just voicing her opinion would be very significant indicators for the society, which would inevitably take them to wit, since no "evolutionary pressure" you so like to invoke would ever give any advantage remotely similar to getting on the right side of Physical God dictator.
You kinda did. When I suggested a hypothetical of a female-cadet going to town (the same way as male-cadets do, one would assume) with whores and ale, your answer was that that would effectively immediately ruin her life.
Not her familial prospects - the entirety of her professional career, her social life and etc.]
You are aware of this new thing called "serial monogamy" right? Being promiscuous and cheating on one's partner are not in any way connected. I kinda love how you immediately make this connection, but it is a false one.
THis and the above quote lead me to think that you try to imply that people who prefer casual sex are immoral and not capable in their personal and professional capacities. FYI - no, they are not.
So why? She won't ever be married, she will not have any children.How is she different then from a mare who choses to forego her family for a career and instead has a series of short-term flings?
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The show depicts advanced steam and early electrical technology. It is not precisely the same as our own Victorian/Edwardian technology because this is a different world, which has followed different technological paths. The episodes rather consistently show a more advanced medical and less advanced military technology, which is exactly what one would expect of a civilization more humane than even the most humane Human ones. It is most definitely not "medieval," nor even "Renaissance" save in some stylistic choices in some cities, towns and structures therein. And no -- style does not trump substance, especially when world-building.
Neither Fluttershy nor Rarity were in normal situations. Nor are they normal Ponies. They are the potential avatars of Cosmic Concepts. Their psychological development was not easy.
And neither committed suicide.
No character in any of my stories -- including Fluttershy, Rarity and Leona -- think this. Fluttershy and Rarity have other reasons for their suicidal episodes. Leona's not at all suicidal -- quite the contrary, she tends to turn her aggression outward, rather than inward.
The Cosmic Concepts do not micro-manage Equestrian culture. Their Alicorn avatars are not "nigh-omnipotent." And all of them have to work within the bounds of the Laws of Nature -- including their social manifestations. Celestia cannot simply wave her horn and make Equestria a perfect society inhabited by perfect Ponies. To do that, the Ponies would have to be her mindless slaves, rather than free-willed sapient beings. She would not make them such even if she could.
Celestia can change Equestria through slow influence and suasion -- only by becoming Tyrantlestia could she change it suddenly by decree. And ruling tyrannically would produce far worse effects on society than whatever evils she hoped to cure. Furthermore, she cannot set the rules of Pony psychology or sociology -- she must work within cultures and mindsets naural to Ponies. She is powerful on the scale of a single normal Pony, but she is not omnipotent.
I model Equestria, in its various historical ages, on real historical cultures.
I have never made this claim. I claim that Equestria is mostly a good, moral society, that is about as good or better than it could be expected to be, which is a rather different metric. The Show repeatedly demonstrates that it is not perfect: that individual Ponies may be criminals or simply cruel to one another. That's part and parcel of free will -- the free-willed may choose to be bad, as well as choosing to be good.
I do make the claim that the sort of society you are describing -- one in which males and females do not take prior sexual histories into account when evaluating potential mates -- would not work among free-willed and self-interested sapient beings, nor do we see such cultures existing among humans on Earth. Sexual behavior is one of the topics on which people are the most judgemental of others.
I'm also not sure why or how such a culture would be superior. There is a reason, after all, why sexual judgmentalism has repeatedly culturally-evolved.
No, Celestia is not going to expend her political capital (which is high but not unlimited) to subvert the very code of morality which sustains family structure and personal honor, just because you think this would be a good idea. Celestia did not build and does not maintain a successful continental empire by randomly tearing down the pillars which hold it up.
What she would do, if she heard about the frame and grasped what had probably happened, is dispatch an intendant or other Royal agent to right the injustice committed, restore Leona and Guidestar to honor, and punish Face Kicker for his crimes. This is "if" because Celestia is NOT freaking omniscient. In point of fact, Celestia does not know what's going on, and I'm not going to resolve this plot by LITERAL deus ex machina, thank you very much!
Oh, and no -- she does not want to make it standard procedure that it's okay for her Guards to rut, in public, outside chambers they are supposed to be guarding. Celestia may not be as naturally oriented toward the military as is Luna, but she's not an idiot -- she sees why this would be utterly-destructive of both discipline and security!
The reason why is that female promiscuity is always seen as worse than male promiscuity. And the reason for that is that females bear and rear children. They are held to higher standards of responsibility. What's more, Equestrian matriarchy doesn't change that, because the reason for Equestrian matriarchy is the effect on males of marescent. What a female behaving that promicuously is demonstrating is that she's no more self-controlled than a marescent-addled stallion.
In other words, it would be the equivalent of a male showing cowardice in our culture.
Though I'd have to look back over a lot of posts to see if I said it would ruin everything. For ever. That's a bit much.
Of course, for Leona Wind, the consequences might be worse than for Mare Nopony. That's because people would pay more attention to what a Wind does than what a Nopony does. Higher social status also comes with higher responsibility.
Your lack of knowledge of social history surpasses "ignorance" and approaches "anti-knowledge." In earlier times, serial monogamy was more normal than it is today, because people died younger and more easily; hence marriages were usually broken by death while the survivor was young enough to readily remarry.
They are very much connected, which is why people pay attention to the sexual histories of potential mates. The more promiscuous someone is, the more likely it is that he or she will be unfaithful in marriage.
This is also why the custom of paying attention to the sexual histories of potential mates appears in most to all human cultures. If this were not relevant, it would be selected against. Instead, it is selected for.
Perhaps New Sexualist Pony can overcome it. Maybe you should talk to Starlight Glimmer about the possibilities?
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It's Wind Whistler.
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Pony Spock. With all the fighting skills.