The End of the Day! Also introducing Part 1 of the Palaververse: Ovarn. · 12:44am Sep 15th, 2015
A new story out, as some eagle-eyed readers might have noticed! (Hitting the Feature Box, to my delight, tends to help eyes in those endeavours.) The End of the Day features a younger Celestia and Luna, intrigue, a historical and decidedly different - though fundamentally similar - Equestria, and at least one punch-up in a tavern; and can be found in all semi-reputable horseword sites near you. Give it a gander if you're so inclined, and any and all feedback is appreciated.
Younger Celestia has heard of these eldritch 'comments sections', and shan't even look in their direction, thank you kindly.
In addition to that, this blog should also contain the first part of a series of posts I intend to do on the wider world of Moonlight Palaver and The Tempest, hereby known as the 'Palaververse' until someone can convince me that forcing the repetition of 'verver' in a word is anything other than a great idea. Interest for the concept was expressed in the AMA post I did (so you know to blame themaskedferret if this all goes wrong), and as half the stuff I turn over in my head's unlikely to find its way into an actual narrative, this seemed like a decent bonus for readers who liked the worldbuilding on display in those stories. And it gives me something like an excuse to blurt out the stuff I'm hardly likely to get to show off otherwise, so there's also that.
It's a series that should emerge semi-regularly, and will be powered by interest to an extent. The sheep nation of Ovarn and the Tyrant Fairy Floss were the first subject requested. If there's another particular nation or entity you'd like to see covered in a future post, request it in the comments section and I'll promise to get around to it. Some subjects may have more meat on their bones than others, and some details might be more obscured than others if there's a risk they'll spoil stories I'm working on ... but beyond that, I'll do my best to give a good run-down. And if there's a particular detail you'd like expanded on, then ask in the comments and I'll do my best to elaborate. 
No more prattle, then - or at least, have a different flavour of prattle below the page break. I hope it entertains.
Part 1 of the Palaververse: Ovarn
Grab an outsider and plant them down in Ovarn, ask them what they see, and once you’ve gotten past the initial terror and confusion and they start co-operating with the spirit of the exercise, they’ll almost certainly call it a land of contrasts.
A land where high and rugged mountains plunge down into clear and peaceful waters speckled with even more rugged islands. A land where amiable and content citizen-sheep happily elect tyrants to rule with absolute power on their behalf. Where perennial balmy sunshine meets the occasional violent seastorm. Where city-dwelling sheep wage vicious wars of words with nigh-identical city-dwelling sheep a few miles down the road, but will happily move in lockstep with the same to fend off foreign foes. Where harmony is spun out of what should be purest chaos.
Your average Ovish citizen would then probably nod contemplatively, concur with most of these sentiments, and mention how these themes were discussed by their city’s pet philosopher, Watchimaflip, in their seminal work, Observations on the Thingimabob. Then they’ll eagerly start discussing how Watchimaflip covered the issue much more cogently than whoever the bastard philosopher was in some other rubbish city, and at this point, the outsider could be forgiven for their gaze glazing over.
Take the outsider home at this point, for pity’s sake.
The nation of Ovarn is old, among the oldest on Ungula, with artefacts and the oldest settlements dating back almost three thousand years, only a few short centuries after the Fall of Antlertis. Communities of sheep sprung up across the broad peninsula of the country, over its numerous mountains and occasional grassy folds, and even on the archipelago of islands emerging from its southern coast. These communities coalesced quickly into the first known great cities, and from them, Ovish civilisation, art, philosophy - and warfare - spread out.
The great cities tended not to like each other very much, with distinct identities, forms of expression, and spheres of influence forming. In these good old days, these disagreements usually found themselves settled with sharp bronze, wielded by tight and disciplined phalanxes of sheep citizens, moving in powerful harmony thanks to the latent magic of the sheep species granting a degree of enhanced resilience, strength, and nigh-supernatural empathy for their immediate neighbours. Wars between armies with those abilities were bloody affairs, and the thousand-year history of this period could be summarised as a prolonged struggle for dominance between fluctuating alliances, with enough events to fill a hundred history books, and enough commentary and philosophy and drama and theatre based on said events to fill a million more.
And matters might have persisted as such for ages to come if, two thousand years ago, the mighty Capric Empire hadn’t arisen in the mountains to the north of Ovarn.
Its forces fell upon the peninsula with magic and cold iron, taking it piecemeal, city by city, over only a few short decades until all but the outlying islands had been subdued and the Capric armies could depart with the Peace of Capra established - a peace summarisable as ‘Pay us lots of tribute - gold, slaves, food, whichever, we’re not too fussy - and don’t make us come over there’.
This understandably somewhat upset the normal course of events in Ovarn, and bereft of their usual warmaking (except as auxiliaries fighting against the Empire’s enemies on the frontier, which was nowhere near as much fun as fighting their own neighbours), the Ovish cities settled into a long period of relative peace. Bronze lanceheads and armour were beaten into plowshares, and the Ovish arts and sciences found themselves with an unexpectedly long breathing space in which to flourish. The old Archons - the elected military rulers of the old cities - finding that battle was no longer an option for inter-city dickwaving, elected instead to encourage an intellectual arms race in the name of prestige and all the exciting opportunities for industry and profit the new sciences opened up. The roots of most modern Ungulan academic disciplines have their roots in Capric Ovarn and the city-sponsored circles of thought that emerged then.
It couldn’t last. Events elsewhere on the continent - including prolonged wars with the draconic realm, several cruel winters, the migration of the pony tribes west across the continent into the powerful new state of Equestria, and the two-decade misrule of the legendary demon known as ‘Chaos’ (amongst other titles) meant that the Capric Empire’s power severely waned. By the time of Princess Celestia assuming sole control of Equestria as a nigh-unchallengeable alicorn monarch, the Capric Empire’s forces were weak and divided enough that the Ovish cities pressed harder for greater autonomy and smaller tribute burdens. The ensuing attempted crackdown by the Empire led to counter-blow and insurrection, and eventually - egged on by popular philosophers who argued for the formation of an independent Ovish nation under Ovish rule - the fourteen great cities of Ovarn rose up in a war of secession. The fighting was bloody, but, coupled with other breakaway nations like Asinia and Bovaland and the aid of Equestria, Ovarn won its war and assumed its independence just over nine hundred years ago.
Things couldn’t go back to the old days of infighting, though - that much, the Ovish Archons agreed upon. A few changes were made. Ovish citizens in each city would continue to elect their own councils, vote for their own laws, and elect their own Archons, much as they had done before. But one of the Archons would be elected for life by their own peers to serve as a ruling Tyrant, to enforce and act as a symbol of unity and peace across the whole nation, and to command the nation’s defence in times of war.
It’s a system that’s persisted to the present day, with Ovish self-rule and democracy remaining largely unchallenged. The powers of the Tyranny down the centuries have fluctuated, with individual Tyrants finding their powers curbed during times of peace and increased during times of strife. Tyrants acquiring said power have also been reluctant to relinquish it when the strife justifying it has passed - but the other Archons have ways of solving that. Politics in the highest echelons of Ovarn, with each great city policing the attempts of the others to hold onto too much power, can be an (un)gratifyingly bloody affair.
Such matters usually go over the heads of the typical Ovish citizen, however, who are largely well-provided for by their own city councils, and who are usually left in peace to work within their own communities, to farm, craft, weave, build, and foster harmony in their own ways. Social service and working for the collective interest have strong traditions in Ovish culture, with most Ovish working on behalf of their city or local demes. The individualist traditions found in the west of Ungula - most stereotypically, the free traders of Asinia - haven’t caught on to any great degree, though large numbers can be found in the port cities and those others which are easily accessible and open to foreign traders. The arts and sciences and assorted philosophies of Ovarn remain vibrant as well, with cities still acting as patrons to favoured circles and popular artists. Its armies remain organised along traditional lines, with able-bodied rams and ewes obliged to don armour and arms by their cities in times of emergency, and its navy, while now surpassed by Asinia’s own Merchant Fleet, provides safe and stable lines of communication and transport between the mainland and outlying islands.
It is from one of these islands and the city upon it that the present Tyrant, Fairy Floss of Ariepolis, hails. Fairy Floss’s generation was among those born when Ovarn was still recovering from the great and disastrous Corvid Incursion of a century prior, a situation that undoubtedly informed her views and drove her on to the heights of political power at an early age. Elected as Ariepolis’s Archon at the age of twenty-six, and Tyrant by thirty after the inexplicable death by apparently natural causes of the previous office-holder, Fairy Floss has held the Tyranny for half a century now, and has used the existential threat of a reformed and expansionist Capra as well as the ever-present nightmare of a new invasion from Corva to centralise Ovarn yet-further, greatly expand upon the nation’s strength, and accumulate yet more powers into the hooves of the Tyranny.
As well as importing weapons from Asinia and Equestria, she has maintained the tradition of the Black Company, where the relatively small number of magic-wielding black sheep born in Ovarn are fostered and tutored under her central authority, and then offered generous wages to act as an elite guard and flexible military company. A practised group of mass magic-users with surpassing skill at teleportation has a great many uses in countering emergencies - such as magical beasts and natural disasters - and the constant and publicised exercise of the Black Company acting to those ends has won Fairy Floss many supporters among the common Ovish even as her Archons grumble.
Her Archons rightfully grumble - Fairy Floss’s expansion of powers goes beyond any other Tyrant’s in Ovarn’s history, and continues in spite of every failed assassination attempt. But Fairy Floss remains undaunted and determined to put Ovarn on a war footing. To the north, Capra under the rule of the Capricious Crown simmers for conquest, and to the east, the new Cormaer in Corva promises a bloodier repeat of last century. Although Bovaland to the north-east and Asinia and Equestria to the west stand as staunch friends, Fairy Floss remembers the aftermath of the bad old days when Ovarn was caught off-guard and its very existence as a free nation was threatened.
Whether those days come again soon for Ovarn, Fairy Floss - or her inevitable successor - will live to tell.
Awesome! I'd like to see Capra and the Asinial Republic soon.
Crown is love
Crown is life
I think you accidentally a word.
Also, I think these blogs will lead to increased demands for more stories. Just sayin'
Huh. Well these are enlightening, to say the least. certainly sheds new light on the Crown's motivation to 'make Capra whole again.
Cheerio.
3393613
Nominations for Capra and the Asinial Republic duly noted. I imagined they'd get a request or two.
3393630
Gracias. 'Fun' has been inserted into the relevant passage, and a nomination for love and life has been noted.
Increased story demand is a risk, yep. Cowering under a desk and waiting for all the delighted readers to leave remains open as an honourable course of action, if it comes to that. Or inviting people to write their own stuff based on the blogs. Or just writing lots, all day, every day. Don't let me say I lack for options.
Very nice! I'm quite looking forward to whichever nation you choose to focus on next. Would it be possible to produce maps of some sort to help pin down the relative locations between and on the various continents? Even a quick sketch would be helpful; describing it in words is all well and good, but visuals would make visualizing things much easier.
And don't let anyone convince you that Palaververse is a bad name! Such a lively verse demands a name that reflects its verve.
3393643
Hopefully, they should enlighten. There's certainly a lot of wholeness the Crown needs to achieve before it goes mad.
Any particular nomination from yourself before the cheerio-ing becomes irreversible?
3393648
Leaning towards Capra and the Crown, based on current nominations. And a map should be doable at some point, if I can work the sorcery of either Paint or scanning a drawn image.
Cheers for the name appreciation as well.
3393651
Corvo would be my nomination; failing that, I'd like to see a piece on Asina, and I'd rather see Capra's piece after those of its former territories. I'm terribly enjoying the speculation that it brings, and would much appreciate the opportunity for more, before all of my theories are shot to shit by the canon cannon.
3393757
Hmm, I suppose there's a logic to holding off on Capra until some of the others have been discussed - build up its role in the histories of others, before showing it off front and centre. I'll consider it, and nominations for Corva and Asinia likewise noted.
Fascinating, though, I am a bit confused by the time scale. Discord held power for two decades, which helped to lead to the destruction of the Capric Empire, but Ovran didn't cast off the Capric yoke until nine hundred years ago. A full hundred years after Luna's banishment.
How much time passed between Discord's reign and Luna's fall? Did his reign only kick off a slow decline in Capra that took centuries, similar to the Roman empire?
I will second and third any votes for a map, even if it's only a vague estimation of size and position.
I concur with saving Capra for last and will vote for Corva as next.
3394088
Nomination for Corva noted, as well as the seconding and thirding for a map. My drawing skills are somewhere between 'sea urchin' and 'blind chimpanzee with a frontal lobotomy', but I'm sure I can sketch out something approximate.
Discord's reign kicked off a Roman-esque slow decline. The Empire recovered, but not to its full strength and unity in the centuries that followed. As for time scales, these should give a (rough) idea of things. BEH - Before Elements of Harmony (the episode)
3000 BEH - The Ovish communities give this 'civilisation' thing a go.
2000 BEH - The Capric Empire takes a fancy to all that Ovish real estate
1500 BEH - Equestria's founded by the three pony tribes.
1200 BEH - Discord sets up shop in Equestria, and generally ruins the days of everyone on the continent.
1175 BEH - Celestia and Luna, in full alicorn form, stonify Discord. Much rejoicing ensues. The Capric Empire tries to shake off its newly acquired limp and can't help the feeling that it's about to get eclipsed on this whole 'continental dominance' business.
1000 BEH - Luna goes full Nightmare, Celestia banishes her, quashes the unrest spawned by that action, and settles down as sole monarch. The Capric Empire pokes Equestria feebly with its zimmer frame to no avail.
910 BEH - In a cascade, Ovarn, Asinia, Bovaland, and western Corva try their hand/hooves/claws/assorted extremities at secession.
900 BEH - It works out for them. The Capric Empire's reduced to the core Capric territories and a snazzy imperial title.
800 BEH - The remnant Empire falls, caught between competing warlords, an ineffectual and distant Imperial court, and the capric tribes having a go at self-determination too. The Empire's effectively dissolved, and nothing bad can surely come again from it. Ever.
I'd like to take a look at Asinia and I'd love a map.
3394375
Asinia and map nominations noted. If I do decide to leave Capra till later, it's a close thing between Asinia and Corva currently.
I also vote for Corva, and maps are cool.
3394557
Corva nomination noted. Confound these readers, they drive me to cartography.
CAPRICIOUS. FUCKING. CROWN.
Also, this seems like something I really should've picked up for myself by now, but is Ungula the name of the planet? The way it's used in this blog leads me to believe it is. If it is, I'm not sure how I missed that in your previous stories.
3394667
Vote for the Capricious Fucking Crown duly noted. I'm currently inclined to hold off on Capra and go through some of its former domains first, but it's assuredly on the list.
Ungula's the name of the most northerly continent, playing host to Equestria, Asinia, Capra, Ovarn, Bovaland, and Corva. The other known continents, Dactylia and Ceratos, exist to the south-west of it and way down in the southern hemisphere, respectively. The world doesn't yet have any name, formal or otherwise, than 'the world'.
3394696
How can ponies have globes but no name for their planet?
3394718
Because the god of their world, in this case, is a scatterbrained and clumsy type who leaves them to languish in agony without good names for various crucial things.
I'll come up with something at some point. Maybe.
3394736
You may just want to go with "Earth", since lots of human cultures seemed to independantly decide to name the planet after the ground, and it follows that the inhabitants of this world would have similar lines of thinking. Then again, if you come up with something more creative, it may also be an idea to name your continuity after the planet rather than a story, since not everything in the Palaververse is actually related to Moonlight Palaver. Speaking from experience, I'd recommend you go with something more like that.
3394766
If I can flex my creative muscles sufficiently to come up with something beyond 'Earth' or 'Sphere What Has Horses On It', I might reconsider the name. Palaververse does have some arguments in its favour - Moonlight Palaver's almost certainly the gateway drug for anyone who's paying attention to these posts, and though I did write a few stories based in the same setting before Palaver, it's the effective codifying font for the worldbuilding people associate with the 'verse. Like I say, I could reconsider if I came up with some snappy name for the whole world - but it'd have to be really, really snappy and still associated with the 'verse to fairly displace Palaver.
3394788
If you're implying we're all addicts, I'll have you know I can quit whenever I want.
If it were me, I'd call the planet "Everywhere Else". Almost everybody decided that their own nation was the special place, and the rest of the planet is not as special, so the planet itself is named for the fact that it's not that special place, but instead the world outside that special place. It's everywhere but here.
3394821
Heh. I'm reminded of the meaning behind the name for China. Zhong Hua - Middle Kingdom.
"Okay, so at the top there's heaven, which is generally perfect and awesome. And then there's us, just below that. And then ... I dunno, everywhere else. You know. The miscellaneous places."
3394886
Wow, that's a real thing? I just made that up. I didn't know that somebody actually did that in real life. This is funny to me.
3394920
China's great like that. I welcome their eventual world domination. We can all be the Middle Kingdom!
Like everyone else, I vote Capric Crown first and Corbies second, villains are always the most interesting. Are minotaurs part of Bovaland, or is that just cows and bulls?
Oh, and eventually those weird tribes of hairless apes that ambush traveling caravans near their forests by shouting advanced mathematical formulas at them.
3395590
Capricious Crown and Corbies nominations noted. And minotaurs are indeed part of Bovaland - the last chapter of The Tempest features one as Greenhorn's Royal Concubine.
I'll consider them, but I'm not sure how many interesting civilisational features the weird bipedal apes will have to discuss. I mean, what could a species like that ever really amount to? I ask you.
3395717 Not much, which is why I think it's a hilarious counterpart to all the mighty empires and confederations and such. Similar to Saddle Arabia, but more so.
3396025
"Quiet bit of road, this, running by the jungle edge. So long as we don't run into -"
"Ook! Eek!"
"Oh, stars, there they are again. No, we don't care that you're manifesting abstract thought! Don't look at these sections of bark they're holding up with the equations scribbled all over. You'll just encourage them."
3396042 "Don't you dare throw rocks or rotten food at them to drive them away. Three years ago our caravan hit one of them in the head with an apple. When we next came by this route three months later, the same ape had stripped multiple trees of their bark to make some sort of giant wall of equations, and was aggressively hooting something about Gra-vee-tee and Thayrmo-dienamicks. Sad really, in the end we had to set the dogs on him."
Here is wanting to see Crown.
Mostly for future history, namely 'What how it is destroyed'. I still hate it because of your non-canon Apocalypse story, even if I totally know it would never happen because Princesses are much better than some dumb angry dumb super dumb piece of metal
3396629
Nomination for dumb angry dumb super dumb piece of metal noted.
Bear in mind that I shan't go into detail of how the Crown eventually meets its maker, if it ever does. I'd only go through history and up to the present day - the future ain't yet written, and there's a fair number of stories I've yet to plan, let alone write.
3396766
Oh, I know. But I can long for it~
I regret nothing!
This was absolutely awesome and even better than I could've hoped for n__n Tres cool and I'll include a vote for either Capra or Asinia next.
3397015
If this chain of posts leads to the whole world going on fire or something similarly catastrophic, I shall deflect as much blame onto your shoulders as possible.
Nominations for either Capra or Asinia noted. Like others here have pointed out, it might be best if I left Capra till last - just because they're a major player in so many other histories, and it makes sense to build them up a wee bit through the histories of the countries that they used to occupy. They're definitely getting a write-up, though.
I'm interested in the Asinial Republic, since they were sort-of-protagonists of recent stories.
I'd also be interested in seeing these descriptions published as a story (along the lines of the "Rites Encyclopedia" companion to "Rites of Ascension"), as that makes them more visible than they'd be as blog entries.
Definitely reading with interest either way!
3397328
Nomination for the sort-of-protagonists noted!
I'm personally dubious about making these collected blogs a story - they might end up being a bit too encyclopedia-y to really count as stories in their own right. I'm open to persuasion on that front, though, and if they weren't published as a story, I'd still put up a box containing handy links to each one on my user page.
3397443
Good point; there might actually be a rule against that on fimfiction. "Rites" got around it by having it in the form of a "letters from the readers" session with the characters.
The most memorable implementation of that concept I've seen was "Ponies Explaining Ponies", which had Pinkie interview various ponies, asking them to talk to the (fourth) wall of the kitchen.
3397521
Ooh, that's a cunning workaround. Heavens knows how it could pan out for the cast of the Palaververse, though.
Interesting. I'm short on time at the moment, but thank you for doing these. :)
3397807
Anything in particular you'd like to see elaborated upon?
You're more than welcome.
3397693
I can think of a couple of variants that might work, but they'd still be more work and less effective than the method you've already chosen.
(Both would involve filtering any given country's propaganda/tourism information through an external party's critique.)
3397813
Hm... Nothing new that I'm thinking of at the moment. Thank you, though. :)
3397443 That sounds like a great idea! One suggestion I would have is have student!Twilight come across an encyclopedia of the disparate rulers and lands and use her as a framing device with Celestia providing some more backstory/information. That's the only way I could see you getting this story around the mods
Also, I would like to see/read info about the crazy cows of Bovaland
3404306
Nomination for Bovaland noted. And that is a good idea for a framing device.
Is it reasonable to assume that, for an Ovish Tyrant, the phrase, "natural causes of death" has a broader definition than other quadrapeds might normally assign to it?
(Dang, that was a troublesome sentence to parse.)
I mean, Fairy Floss has always given that sort of impression but reading this... I'm thinking these sheep are as ruthless as they are fluffy.
3633551
'Tripped and fallen down eighteen flights of stairs in the dead of night, twice' or 'Choked on pufferfish liver carelessly included in their meal by the kitchen staff' are entirely natural and honourable ways out for an alarming number of Tyrants, yep. Fluffiness and ruthlessness go really hoof-in-hoof in Ovarn's higher echelons.
3633831
"Carelessly included with pufferfish liver in their meal and cooked by the kitchen staff."
This could be a first turn bio for a nation in a Total War game. Gah, it's so awesome.
4389484
As a massive Total War fan, that delights me no end.