Who Are All These Ponies In The Castle?

From Dotted Line in Whom the Princesses Would Destroy... by GhostOfHeraclitus to Raven in the eponymous story by SaintChoc, MLP fanfic has given us some great looks behind the scenes of the workings of Canterlot Castle, and the comedic and dramatic encounters that occur there.

BTW, I link to a bunch of stories in this post. Every one of them in on my favorites list, and you can't go wrong with any of them!

So here is some interesting background material on what the inner workings of the teams that support a political leader are like, along with some stories and head cannon about how those roles work in MLP:

How Does the President’s Director of Scheduling Work? Slate’s Jacob Brogan talks to Gregory Lorjuste, who figures out what Barack Obama will be doing from one minute to the next.

This sounds a lot like Raven’s job with Celestia. Or Moondancer’s job for Luna in Twilight, Good Night by ZOMG. Periwinkle does part of this for Twilight in The Twilight Enigma by iisaw, though her job is more based around dealing with correspondence rather than trying to out schedule the All Team Organizer herself.

How Does the President’s Director of Speechwriting Work? Slate’s Jacob Brogan talks to Cody Keenan, who has helped prepare thousands of speeches.

By now, Celestia can likely ‘wing it’ in most public speech making; a millennia of practice will do that for you. Before her banishment, Luna likely used to be able to ‘wing it’ as well, probably with great emotion. I suspect when Luna first came back, any speeches she gave were all written for her, and that as she has acclimated to the times, Luna once again ‘wings it’ more and more successfully. Cadence likely has a speechwriter with experience with the culture of the Crystal Empire. Twilight is going to need a speechwriter as her public speaking duties grow.

How Does the Director of Presidential Correspondence Work? Slate’s Jacob Brogan talks to the person who selects letters for the president to read each night.

How Does the White House’s Public Engagement Director Work? Slate’s Jacob Brogan talks to the White House’s director of public engagement, who brings real people in to meet with the president.

Do Celestia, Luna, or Cadence have ponies who help them keep up with the issues the public cares about, or do they use their encounters with non-noble ponies in court as a window on the needs of the pony masses?

Luna has an advantage here, as her duties in safeguarding pony’s dreams give her nightly insights into the topics that the public fears. Twilight gets feedback from non-noble ponies in her day to day interactions in Ponyville.

Plus, an article on the work inside the dark side of politics is How to Hack an Election.

Finally, a link to the Interview with Yuval Levin, a former member of the White House domestic policy staff, that I quoted in You just have to be crazy to want to be a Princess of Equestria.

There is one position that is described in the TV show, The West Wing, but not covered in these podcasts: the leader’s aide-de-camp or 'body man'. This is the person responsible for making sure all of the little things get done, so the leader can concentrate on important decisions and actions. For a knight, this would be a squire. For a general, it is often a middle ranking officer. In MLP fanfic, like A Wake of Mist and Flame by heliopause, this role often seems to go to one or more of the Princesses' personal guards, possibly because they are often seen following the princesses around and are available to help with whatever small tasks need to be done.

Some interesting character ideas for future stories:

- Luna’s speechwriter from her first few years back from the moon. This must have been a fascinating and terrifying position to be in.

- Luna’s aide-de-camp from her first year’s back; likely a bat-pony in the Night Guard. I’ll bet there are already good stories about this that I have just missed.

- The officials at Canterlot Castle who decide who gets into court each day. I doubt it is just first come first served. Rarity did this job for Twilight in one of my favorite stories, The Diamond in the Stars by Distaff Pope.

- Cadence’s castle staff (scheduler, speechwriter, correspondence secretary, etc.) There's likely a tension between the way Cadence instinctively wants to organize her royal bureaucracy (probably like the one Celestia has and that Cadence grew up in) vs. the way the Crystal Ponies want to organize things (both because their standards are 1,000 years out of date, and because Sombra was their last ruler).

- And how does Shining Armor’s staff fit into the Crystal Empire royal bureaucracy? Is Shinning a member of the military? Does he hold court? Are his staff military or civilians? Equestrian expats (Flash Sentry perhaps?) or locals? Is there any tension between expats and locals? Or Cadence's staff and Shinny's?

- Twilight’s castle staff. Now all she has is Spike, her all purpose aide-de-camp. Twilight is going to need more help as her responsibilities grow. The first ponies to fulfill each of these positions will have a fascinating, terrifying, and likely frustrating time with the sometimes neurotic Princess of Friendship, who is not used to the demands of a royal schedule. And what happens the first time the staff watches their princess engage a monster from the Everfree Forest, or lead Cerberus back to Tartarus with a rubber ball?

Lots of possibilities for comedy, drama, and great slice of life stories with all of the situations these characters could get into.