The Great War is over, but not all is well at home. Equestria, though victorious, was devastated by the conflict. Equestria was dragged into the modern way of life, kicking and screaming, to build the guns and machines to fight the Changelings. In peace, the ponies of Equestria struggle to find their place in a world after the war.
In a small frontier town in the south, one hired farmer comes into town for repairs for his mechanical cotton picker and sits down to talk to an out-of-work pony. They reflect on how the town changed with Equestria's industrialization. If only they could keep the land, and if only the soil would stay on the ground.
Written for the Sixth Annual Equestria At War Writing Contest, and is set in the Equestria At War universe. Equestria at war is a mod for the video game Hearts of Iron IV. https://www.fimfiction.net/group/212917/equestria-at-war/thread/517837/the-sixth-annual-equestria-at-war-writing-contest
Nice job with this one, I'm excited to see what comes next
There's some really good stuff here. I think this story came together quite nicely.
Have a review. Great first attempt.
This was really nice, it's reminiscent of WW2 for the United States, and how that effected small farmer. I really did enjoy it, hope to see what you write next (no pressure, of course. If you don't wish to write, I don't intend to pressure you to)
I liked this story! In the sense of how it was written, not in its themes or what it told. I'm not usually a fan of such "sad", for lack of a better word, stories. But this one was interesting. I enjoyed it. Keep on writing!
Post-War Equestria isn't often highlighted in Equestria at War. Good job.
Slight change. Ponies hopping the rails to head north sound like a hotbed army to be radicalized towards some Stalliongrad communism, or a Bonus Army of disaffected veterans marching on Canterlot to ask for wages. Might appreciate a mention of weather jobs also being deprioritized by the post-war government, hence the aggravation of the Dust Bowl, but it's a very small, contained storyline that doesn't overreach its bounds.
Which Princess? "The new Princess Twilight" suggests some governmental changes post-war. Celestia or Luna indicate status-quo.
You don't need to include "remembering his..." The smile after his comment is enough for readers to connect the dots.
Equestria won the war, but it's slowly losing the peace day-by-day. This is a good contained view of a larger situation, grounded by two earth ponies talking about a single broken machine and one dying town.
A solid first effort marred primarily by myriad grammatical issues (I've sent you some suggestions for fixes), but the story in itself did a good job stirring emotions. I definitely found myself caring about Cogs and Gold.
I was reminded of the building discontent which led to the Bolshevik revolutions in Tsarist Russia. Hopefully Cogs can find a trade union and hopefully the princesses can get things under control before the economic troubles boil over.
Damned good for a first attempt. It's my understanding that, unlike midwestern farms in the U.S., southern agriculture didn't mechanize until after WW2. For as many Freedmen and women and their descendants went north, plenty more stayed, which meant that there was little incentive to mechanize: why bother getting a big loan on combines and stuff when you have cheap labor?
Not sure if that was intentional or not.
Also liked the detail where the new owners/companies, not being from the area, don't seem to care that by not rotating something to replenish the soil they're well on their way to making dustbowl-like conditions. The guy who designed Central Park in NYC and a bunch of others, and kinda invented modern Landscape Architecture, visited the south during the Antebellum, and noted (among other things) that there were huge swaths of land that was dry and barren from growing only cotton, and it seemed to him that whoever owned that particular plantation just moved where they'd grow stuff.
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I actually heavily based this off of Grapes of Wrath, particularly chapters 5 and 14. It's a little weird since that is pre-war mechanization while this is post-war mechanization. The similarity to southern agriculture mechanizing is a coincidence, though not unwelcome at all. Since I did base this off of Grapes of Wrath, the primary conflict would be about small farmers losing land to big players in agribusiness and land repossessions to banks due to harvest failures or simply not being able to keep up with the big players.
Your comment is very appreciated. I didn't think anyone would read this after the contest, let alone leave a comment, so thank you!
Maybe I'm just tired, but this story was legitimately unsettling for me.
There's a pervasive sense of melancholy - or perhaps dread - to it. The imagery is top-notch, conjuring a bleak picture of oppressive poverty and rural decay. It combines ponies with the soul-crushing realities of our own world, but unlike most EaW stories there's no psychotic tyrants, no outrageous crimes against equinity: this is the sort of horror that many of us live with on the regular, and that's part of what makes it so effective. The ponies aren't just an afterthought either; the nature of them reminds us that they have value as individuals, reminds us that they deserve a better life, which makes the story all the harder to swallow.
This is excellent. I hate this.