Discord never betrayed Equestria for Tirek, aiding in returning the magic to all the drained unicorns. As a result, Celestia deems him ready of a "small" gift: The Archduchy of the Everfree, technically making him the highest noble under the princesses.
Naturally, this shocks everypony, including Discord himself. Now of course his lands will some have some chaotic magic and strange laws in effect, but that doesn't mean he doesn't take the noble thing a little seriously. Why is anypony's guess, but it'll be entertaining to watch.
Chapters (3)
Well, this sure was interesting.
And hilarious, but that's why I love your stories
Seems interesting
You've got my attention
Well Done Author
I love me some Discord fic. This one seems a bit more subdued than most interpretations of him, but I still can't wait to see where you go with this.
I haven't laughed like i did when i read that since the last time i did something truly evil. *manic laughter*
Archduke would technically be a title above a sovereign princ/ess title making discords title above the peincesses... Heh
love it!
Not bad. Certainly an interesting concept. Although your reasoning is a bit off;
Not... exactly true. If I remember my order of precedence correctly, it is the highest title of noble below King/Queen. So, technically, Discord now outranks Celestia.
Erm - not in English history, no. Because it was a Germanic title, and they tended not to have anything much to do with English history, unless they were powerful enough that they had another title which superseded their Archduchy.
That being said, most stories that deal with titles tend to have Dukes cropping up left and right, but still being subservient to the Princesses, so it's a fairly common mistake.
8178981 they are most likely thinking of the "Celestia and Luna are queens, but present themselves as princesses scenario." So it would make sense that it could work this way. Otherwise, yes you are completely right,
8178981
Also not exactly true, because archduke was only used by Austria to make themselves seem important compared to the princes of the HRE.
8179006 Is that a thing that's actually been mentioned somewhere in the canon? Because it makes no sense - it'd be like a general in the military choosing to present themselves as a major.
Potentially, it could be a matter of multiple titles - occasionally, subjects would be permitted to use the title most relevant to them. For example, Queen Victoria became the Empress of India, and so should really be referred to as Empress.... but she isn't, because for all the other countries and colonies under her rule, she was a Queen, and so the only people that referred to her in the manner and styles of Empress were her Indian subjects, and foreigners.
But this begs the question - to whom is Celestia a sovereign greater than Princess? Or where is she queen?
8179027 Are the Austrians not a Germanic people? Was the HRE not a Germanic institution? And, with the exception of Franz Ferdinand, do they not normally get recorded in English history as "Emperor of Austria", "King of Spain", and the like?
I fail to see how my earlier statement was inaccurate.
8179050
A. It was self-appointed, it had no actual meaning except in austria or later austria-hungary
B. The emperor was quite often the archduke as well. This is why the title could be considered to have any power at all. Your statements imply that it was an actual common use thing.
C. Dukes and princes don't have a hierarchy inherently because royalty and nobility are considered 2 different things. They would have to protect the lower royalty, and most royals would have noble titles, but that's due to the power and influence of a king led family.
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To clear things up, yes, I know that in our world, Archduke is technically above a prince or princess. SCP is right, yes, I'm going off the idea that Celestia and Luna are more like queens in the grand scheme of things. The reason they stick with Princess is a matter of familiarity.
You all have to remember that they are immortal and have always been the leaders of Equestria since shortly after its founding. At one point, the nation was smaller and thus more of a principality. It got bigger, but the ponies and the alicorns were so use to "princess" that they didn't feel the need to change it.
Also, this is a world where the Crystal Empire is only one city and the tyrant over it was KING Sombra. Titles of nobility and royalty are a bit more fluid in MLP.
8179064
A. Explaining the origin of something is not an argument to discredit it. Besides which, if it had no meaning outside of Austria, then the Austrian definition is the one we have to use when defining the term today... and the Austrians said an archduke outranked a prince.
B. A title with power, and a title that exists and is recognised, are two different things. I don't doubt that there were very few archdukes who actually held power in there own right as an archduke outside of the Archduke of Austria, but the fact that literally every member of the house of Hapsburg began using it means it _was_ a relatively common title.
C. Internationally. Typically, the ruler of a principality was considered more important than the ruler of a duchy, and, as was clearly the aim when the Hapsburgs adopted the title, they wanted to claim that the ruler of an archduchy was equal to or/ more important than the ruler of a principality. Given that they then went on to be HRE until Napoleon disbanded it, I don't see the problem in accepting the order of precedence they wanted.
I feel I need to point out that there are multiple uses for the term "Prince". You can and did have non-royal, non-sovereign princes in the French tradition, ranked above duke. In the German tradition, you can and did have non-sovereign princes ranked below duke. You can also have princes who are prince by dint of being related to the ruling family even distantly, Princes who are descended from a monarch and yes, princes who were princes by dint of ruling a principality. Getting these different types of prince confused is the quickest way to making a mistake in your order of precedence.
So, can Celestia create an archduke? I still say no. As you say, the title was created by the Austrians to make themselves better than the Prince Electors of the HRE, a position which itself conferred higher status than even a duke in the HRE. This puts the Electors on par with Princes in the British tradition, which would make an Archduke, as was previously said, the highest rank under King.
Edit;
8179307 Sorry, I didn't get notice that you'd posted that. Fair enough then.
Well this has my interest
8179307 Yeah, in MLP, you could pretty much give Discord any title and pretend it's just under the Princesses.
Like "Grand High Poobah."
This is going to be a wild ride I won't ever want to get off.
Is there going to be a Serbian nationalist in this story?
8179871
Believe it or not, that was actually the site, not me- I went into the edit and it was already fixed. Resaved it without changing anything and it was fixed. Weird. Still, thanks.
I am a fan of friendshipping or to borrow a Greek word, philia (Philia means "affectionate regard, friendship," usually "between equals."), which seems wholly appropriate.
Anyone else ever thought that if Discord only went after the nobles there would have been a good chance the Princesses wouldn't have bothered to call the elements, like at all?
That actually makes an awful lot of sense...
Awesome work as always.
Hm, this is looking very interesting so far. It's still a bit too early to make a real judgement on anything at this point, but I'm definitely liking the direction you are taking this and am curious to see what you do with Trixie in particular. Also, I really hope Discord unloads on Starlight for fucking with Fluttershy since this will definitely make him much more confident about taking direct action against major problems in the future.
8179033 Using a lower title than would normally be expected has historical precedent even outside the case of multiple titles. The one that comes immediately to mind is Muammar Gaddafi who used the title colonel despite being the political head of his country, and I'm sure there are plenty of others who did a similar thing for one reason or another.
8179307 It's also worth noting that Celestia is only a princess due to executive meddling. Lauren Faust originally wanted her to be a queen, but some knucklehead decided that Disney had given queens a bad name for some reason so Celestia got a demotion.
8179309 The other piece that makes this fun is that the titles and precedence are, to a significant extent, arbitrary. Actual power and wealth can't be ignored, so you have plenty of examples of people with supposedly higher titles being functionally subservient to those who are below them on paper including commoners. In the case of MLP, the obvious example is that Princess Celestia has a lot more power and wealth at her disposal than King Sombra, so the reality of the situation is obviously the opposite of what the titles seem to convey. Since Celestia has real power and wealth she can declare anything she wants and no one will really argue with her, and I definitely don't see anyone being dumb enough to go after Discord for his position.
8179863 Maybe, but I doubt he will be very effective against this archduke.
Oh boy, what are you up to akumi... It will be odd having an archduke who has jurisdiction of a large chunk of land... and precisely one 'subject' or 'guest', depending on whether you consider her to be an actual Equestrian citizen or not...
I suspect Zecora is about to have some changes in her life.
So is he going to have to establish a home or an office or something in the forest? Is he going to be responsible for keeping the dangers of the forest away from ponies? Is he going to open a tourism department? With the forest already able to take care of itself without being controlled by ponies, is he even okay with making changes of his own when the forest already has a kind of chaos of its own? Will he abuse the heck out of his title in order to justify/get away with more chaos?
Hmm, well look at that. The number of times I have commented outside of my own stuff is probably a single digit number since I'm such an introvert, but you got me to say something this time. Feel proud.
This looks to be very interesting, with the only issues a bit of misused words and some punctuation issues. A good editor will fix those right up.
There's only one part of this entire thing I had any problems with.
...Equestria has strip clubs?
...why?
8180393 even though ponies rarely wear clothes, they clearly find the act of removing them to be somewhat private-Rarity has a changing screen, for instance, as seen in the pilot.
8180393 Because the best thing about wearing clothes is taking them off
Humm how can Twilight open the box now? Maybe and alternate encounter with Starlight?
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Some ponies have a weird fetish for clothes? I imagine tack and bridals are also fetishistic in equestria as well.
Typo in the description, 'anypoy's guess'
This bears watching.
Weighing in on the 'Princess' thing. My head canon has the title comming about due to the whole reign of Queen Platinum and their like. Some one thought a snub in calling someone higher than the usual royalty something lesser like a Princess would be fitting. Usualy Princesses only became Queens after they were married off to some one who was going to be king. The there would be two ruleing with out that marriage
It seems like something a pundit would do to snub those in charge.
The word you want is "piqued". From the same lost Latin root as "piquant" and "salsa picante", through the French "piquer", to prick or sting.
Really hate the "Discord and Celestia planned everything" in S3 and S4 headcanons. Its just obvious it never happened as well as his past with Celestia.
This is interesting...I shall track this and also give a thumbs up. Can't wait to see more.
I hope it won't turn into a Dislestia shipfic. It's a very outdated ship like FlutterMac and have no place in Discord stories especially in upcoming fluttercord focused episodes in the future.
8180855 Alternate Universe diverging at the end of Season 4 means the author can do basically what they please with the characters, so long as it's consistent with s1-4.
I like the way this paints Discord in canon. There's nothing I like more than a story that worldbuilds in a way that still works in canon.
Oooo... this is the first story I've seen making use of the possibility that Discord DIDN'T get tricked by the obviously power-mongering liar whom he, being a master of lies and trickery himself, should never have fallen for in the first place!
Now, I would also like to see the story of Discord tricking Tirek with a cunning ploy to get him to lose all the magic he'd drained after a very different layout of the initial story in which Tirek is also smarter and isn't found out until he's already too powerful for Discord to simply snap back into Tartarus.
I like smart villains and smart heroes, being a genius myself... a SUPERVILLAIN genius! MUWAH HA HA HA HA!!!
...
(Removes glasses, folds hands, sits back in his chair)
...Continue.
really nice story! I like the style and the idea.
Liked and subscribed. Please update soon.
8180839
That's your opinion and you're free to it. Regardless, AU.
Interesting, very interesting.
*chants* DISLESTIA! DISLESTIA! DISLESTIA!
oh joy, another story of yours that i like, but probably goint to have to wait a year or more for an update
Hey, Akuma...
If you need a Beta or an editor clap your hands!
I am immediately interested.
8180393
Put 'em on... to take 'em off.
Well now. This will make for a very interesting divergence point. No open chest means no map, which means Starlight gets to rule her village uninterrupted, to say nothing of the other incidents going unmediated. And without Starlight, there would be no reason to seek out Sunburst during Flurry Heart's crystalling, nor anypony to lead the charge against Chrysalis. And that's before getting into what Discord might get up to with a noble position.
You've piqued my interest. I look forward to seeing where you go with this.
Discord, lord of the everfree.
Hm, seems interesting so far. I'll be keeping an eye on this fic.
I love your approach to Discord, still funny, but with a serious(ish) undertone. Very nice start.
Aaaand now i can't get the image of Discord trying to build something in his duchy that's even gaudier than Twilights new castle and rubbing it in her face.