Chapter 3a - "Then build the hospital" (unproofread)
Settlers of Equestria
Chapter 3a - “Then build the hospital”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John
The poll was over and it was... mixed. I had an actual problem because the hospital and the mine tied both with 46,4% of the votes. I couldn’t just take one over the other because I gave my vote too and my choice was one of the both.
It was a real problem. ‘Should I take another vote just for that?’
“Mr. Walker”, came Jill's voice over the Com-Band, “You have a visitor.”
I pressed the answer button and said: “Can you tell them to come back later? I have bit of work to figure out here.”
“Sir, it’s Princess Celestia”, answered Jill calm, but I could hear that she was also a bit nervous. Like everyone else she was at least a fan of the show and know who the princesses were and what they were capable of.
“In that case send her in, please”, I answered bashful. I couldn’t just send Princess Celestia away after she gave us this plot of land to settle. She was more or less our overlord, but in a good way of course.
The door slid to the side and the alabaster alicorn of the sun walked in. Thanks to the fact that the Exo-Frames had to move inside the Dome, the sealing was 3-4m high. So even pegasi ponies could fly inside the rooms an Celestia with her bit more than 2m hight had no problem to move around, while being in my office.
I stood up and came around the table to greet her: “Princess Celestia. Always a pleasure to see you.”
“Oh the pleasure's all mine, Mr. Walker”, Celestia greeted back.
“Please just John will do”, I took here offered hoof by putting my fist under her hoof and grabbed the top with my thumb and shook it slightly. A greeting that established itself after some ponies voiced a discomfort of having their entire hoof engulfed by a human hand. Hoofbumping was also a problem for humans, because their hooves bruised human fists easily.
“Then it’s only Celestia for you. We are friends after all”, she winked.
“So”, I let her hoof go and asked, “What can I do for you?”
“Oh for little me. Nothing much just a bit small talk, how things are coming along and I heard your people had their first major decision making. It’s still a bit alien to me that every single citizen can voice their vote to the government, but it seems to work for you”, she smiled as she sat down in front of my desk after she levitated a cushion over for her. I had always five chairs and five cushions ready for guest. Pony or human alike.
“Ah yes the vote. We came quickly to a solution, on most points”, I explained to her, “For one instant the normal military we had brought from earth is disbanded and reorganized. The Terra Guards, in analogy to your guards, are now in charge for military and police work. The military would only defend a country against major threats, that mostly come from the outside. The police would be a separated force only taking on minor threats on the inside. So we took your idea of the guards and mashed them together. Military grade training combined with police work.”
“Oh we have actually street guards and the Royal Guards. Street guards doing more police work and Royal Guards patrol the borders and other critical points of interest. But we exchange them regularly and retrain them, so that they won’t get bored or prone to corruption”, Celestia told me eagerly, “But your idea of a combined force is actually also interesting. It would work for smaller settlements such as yours.”
“Ponies getting corrupt?”, I asked a bit in honest disbelief, “Is that even possible?”
“The prime examples are Sombra and… Luna”, Celestia said a bit sad, “but yes, everypony can become corrupt. It’s rare, but it happens. Anything else?”
I thought for a while, how to break it to her: “There is another point.” She waited interested. “Human/Pony relationships are forbidden for one year. We have found out that humans and ponies or any other species for that matter, can’t procreate. We will put our main research focus on that for the next year and decide then if we cancel this decision or prolong it for three to five generations. We are too few to risk thinning the genpool more than necessary.”
“Genpool?” asked Celestia and I realized that this was a topic that had to be explained.
“Gens are the blueprints of our body's. Gens set where the heart goes, where legs grow, what eye color the child get. The problem is that every sentient species on this planet has exactly 72 chromosomes.
“This makes it possible for every species to procreate with another. Ponies with dragons, ponies with griffons, dragons with minotaur, diamond dogs with griffons and so on. But humans only have 46 chromosomes. They don’t match. It is not possible to have a offspring.
“How every sentient species has 72 chromosomes is still not explained and some scientist pulling the ‘it's because of magic’ card. I just hope that won’t become their favorite answer for everything now.
“Marcus is working on this matter. He thinks that magic is indeed the key to evolve humans or at least our children to new humans with 72 chromosomes. Then all this won’t be a problem. What he told me so far, is that the mother dictates the species of the child. Otherwise it would be impossible by obvious reasons. A pony can’t lay an dragon egg.”
Celestia chuckled at this: “But it would be a funny thing to witness. But yes, I understand now what you mean. I will send out word that human/pony relationships are unwise for the near future.”
Then she looked at me like she know something was still off and asked directly: “There is some more, isn’t it?”
I nod and turned the Monitor around. So she could see the numbers. Surprisingly not only the language but also our written word were the same so no problem for her to read was on the display.
I pointed at poll results and said: “This is my problem. I gave my vote as one of the firsts. Now I can’t just decide over everyone's head. For the next vote I will wait to the very end.”
“A hospital or a mine. Both are important infrastructures”, Celestia nod, “you don’t want a second poll, I assume?”
“Not really but I don’t see another option”, I answered truthfully and Celestia thought for a bit.
After a while she made a proposal: “Your problem is that, if you don’t build the mine now, with the material you have, it will be harder to make a mine and smeltery from scratch.” I nod. “Then build the hospital. Sick or dead workers won’t help in the mines. But the mine will be build too. I will send you workers and material. You will have to pay for them of course, in naturals mostly, but in the long run you will have both a mine and a hospital in no time.”
“I can’t asked that from you. You helped us already so much”, I tried to politely decline.
“To be honest you would actually do me a favor. The nobles complained that I gave you the mountains and hills for mining purpose. They wanted to build mines there all along. Not because of profits or such. No, because for the jewellery that could be made from the more precious metals and gems.
“If this mine is build and you can sell them human made jewellery. You would make a fortune and repay everything within a few month. Besides some of the mines near Canterlot have run dry and opening a new mine there would be far more work, deeper and more dangerous, than here.”
“So the workers had to resettle here?”, I asked, “ We don’t have exactly room for hundreds of workers.”
“Oh don’t worry about that”, smiled Celestia, “The Crown builds new houses for the workers nearby, encouraging them to move with a bonus on their salary for a year, gets the old buildings in return, which will be demolished to build new buildings or repurposed.”
Her smile got wider: “The repurposed buildings or the empty plot is then sold with profit to the highest bidder most of the time. I do this kind of business for a while, as you know.”
“So you even make money for building new homes, resettling needed workforce and reworking Canterlot's city image?”, I asked impressed, “I wish you could have ruled over our planet a few hundred years earlier. You would have done so much good.”
“Oh don’t praise me too much. I make mistakes too and to get to this point I’m at now, I stumbled a few times with no one to catch me. Immediately after Luna's banishment, I couldn’t make right decisions and Equestria fell. The first castle, the ‘Castle of the Two Sisters’ it is called nowadays, wasn’t that damaged during my battle with Nightmare Moon”, Celestia explained with sad, nostalgic eyes, “The riots did the most damage. And for over two hundred years Equestria was divided. It took me nearly another two hundred years to reunite every part. But the worst was the loss of so many advancements we had.
“If the history books refer to this part as ‘The Dark Age’ it wasn’t because I couldn’t control Luna's night sky at first, it is because we were thrown back in stone age times. Only 150 ago we got back to the point before Luna's banishment. And since then our progress has slowed down massively. The last big invention are primitive version of your monitor.”
I was a bit shocked. That was no knowledge that was commonly known or discussed. I figured that the show didn’t show everything and that the ponies had suffered more than we thought from losing one princess. Let alone Celestia's own feelings.
“I… I don’t know what to say. I hope we can change that”, I told her.
“I hope so too. This is the second reason that I came here. I want to speak to Marcus, about what his thoughts are about a joint research project is”, she smiled again, “I gathered as much that humans are natural curios. Ponies are not that curios. After their needs are met, they are happy and maintain status quo. I hope that a bit human curiosity rubs off onto some ponies.”
I looked at my com-band and realist the time. “This is actual perfect timing. I will accompany you to him. His new lab is on my way to a meeting with Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Roy. They want to show me the new greenhouses”, I told her while I grabbed my jacket.
After leaving my office, just a remodeled bigger storage room, we walked alongside through the corridor of the Outer Ring. The Outer Ring was the original settlertrain strippt down to the bones and build up again. Here were mainly offices built, but also workshops and labs.
Celestia draw of course much attention. And even, after everyone agreed that we should not celebrate them, the Mane 6 and other ponies known from the show, some children still couldn’t hold themself back.
Celestia didn’t mind the attention from the smaller ones at all and even let some of them ride on her back.
It was all fun and game until one girl, maybe around five years old, got nauseas from the horseback ride and we got her to an infirmary.
Their we were greeted friendly but i could see that the nurse was a bit stressed. A dozen or more younger children and their parents were around. Many complaining about stomach aches.
“You didn’t sneak around and let all this children ride on your back, or did you?”, I joked, but answered my own question before she could, “Of course not. This is bit concerning. I think your solution of building the hospital first is the best.”
“Yes this many sick children after you opened the gates are a bit unusual”, said Celestia walked over to some other young ones to lighten their day.
“I was hoping you would built the hospital. It is needed and fast. The other three infirmaries report similar situations”, the head nurse told me, “It is nothing mayor yet, but we could be easily overrun.”
“It will be done”, I assured her, “with the leftover modular material the hospital should be staying within a few days.”
The nurse nod and addressed the other ruler in the room: “Princess Celestia, if it is not too forward of me and if your schedule allows it, could you visit the other infirmaries? Your presence seemed to calm the children and parents alike.”
While Celestia talked to the head nurse and obviously agreed to the request, I called a guard to our position.
The Terra Guards were joined by former police officers and trainers, both learning from each other. But you could still immediately see what each guard was befor. This guard saluted and stood there like a stone statue, befor he asked: “Sir?”
“You know we still have no protocol for the guards. Saluting isn’t really necessary”, I told him.
“Sir, hold habits die hard and with all due respect, we shouldn’t get to relaxed. I would expect high standards and not settle on anything less. This… training from the police officers is a joke. Psychological profiling, social networking, to what the right decision is, ...?”
“While high standards are preferable,... guard, your not a ‘simple’ soldier anymore. You have also to work like a police officer and sometimes on your own. Don’t expect that you always get orders or you can request them. The idea behind the Terra Guards is that you're more police in peace times and more soldier in war times”, I explained to him. That I wasn’t fond of the Military was no secret, but I understood the necessity.
“You have to work with people, not just defend them anymore. Being emotionally detached, like most soldiers are, isn’t going to work anymore”, I told him and while he looked down on his boots to think, I catched his name with a quick side glance on his nameplate.
He looked up again and I could see that he had dismissed my explaining, “Your orders, Sir?”
“My request is that you accompany Princess Celestia to Lab 1c and later or before to the other infirmaries, as she sees fit”, I sighed and he simply saluted.
While I got back to Celestia, how was entertaining some toddlers with her magic, I got a message to Jan. Either Guards like this ex-soldier shake off their stubborn ‘I only do what I have been told’ or they had to leave. The Guards couldn’t work with this mindset.
On the other end, ex-police had to get into shape. Most of them not that much, but still a considerable few. Balance was magic. I immediately facepalmd for that though.
“Oh I have seen this gesture before”, Celestia said, as she came in my direction, “Is this some sort of greeting? Smacking yourself in the face?”
“You could say it's a natural reaction to something stupid, you or someone else did, said or thought”, I explained, “This guard will accompany you to the infirmaries or Marcus lab. Wherever you want to go first. I have to go, tight schedule.”
“I totally understand. But can I convince you a dinner this evening? I want to discuss some matters more indef”, she asked and for a blink of an eye I felt like a teenager getting asked out by his crush.
I shook myself mentally and answered: “Of course. How about…” short glance on my com-band “... 7pm?”
“Perfect. I will come to your office”, Celestia smiled and walked over to the guard. But not before she looked back once. Than she was gone and I was on my way too. But I know I would have one though for the of the day.
‘... Itsnotadate.Itsnotadate.Itsnotadate…’
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- computerneek · 23k words · 48 3 · 1.8k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.137 seconds
Total duration
1,065 users online
1,541,280 hits today, 1,996,409 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
question....should we have a human in the equestrian nobility if we are apart of equestria we should elect or have a representative in the royal courts
8153621
Maybe i did a mistake with the overlord reference. Celestia said that humans can have their own goverment, as long as it doesn't harm equestria.
The settlement and its surroundings are like a citystate now. Including the mountains and hills for mining. The 5% taxes are only for downpayment. Like alaska was bought from russian back in 19th century (I think, history wasn't this good in my school. We skipt many things and did even scratcht 1st WW)
I should clear that in 3e, but until then we have 3b to 3d to enjoy.
@all: Why this many subchapters? Because most of this will happen in one day and some at the same time. Think of it as one episode.
Excellent chapter :D
I really liked the conversation with Celestia and how you explained why Equestria didn't advance much in 1000 years.
I really like this. Also, I would like to know how many actually vote on the polls because this fic really need to get more popular. It's so unique with the polling system and the CYOA-esk feel. I wonder why no one write this type of fic, it's just such a simple but unique idea to incorporate the reader in the story.
Thisvstory is very interesting in the fact the readers can affect the story. That's AWESOM!