RTAC #12: N-archy · 8:24pm Nov 19th, 2016
In fandom, most commonly, Equestria is called a diarchy. Because it is ruled by two princesses, and one would make it a monarchy. Which gets muddled when two princesses become three, then Crystal Empire turns up, and then Twilight grows wings and gets to be a princess too, so we go from stereo-archy all the way to quadraphonic.
Sometimes, it’s a principality, for the same reason. Occasionally, it’s a feudal… something. More often than not, it’s an empire.
So what should I settle on, assuming my general stance of taking into account as much canon as inhumanly possible?
I’ve mentioned my take on the answer to that on occasion in comments, the time has come to write it out as a well-researched blog post.
Canon is quite muddled on the subject. I have a theory, which I am using in my own stories, and it is but one possible reconstruction of a coherent picture based on fragmentary evidence. That evidence is, at least at times, contradictory, so some little bits are by necessity ignored, or interpreted in a very roundabout way. There are other combinations that fit the same fragments, I just like this one because it helps me spin a better story.
Show writers, as usual, do not concern themselves with that at all.
Here’s a picture of a grain of salt to take it with.
Sources
In no particular order, I shall list all the various canonical statements that I am taking into consideration here. This list isn’t really exhaustive, it’s just the more important bits to show how much research I have actually done while coming up with my conjecture. :)
Journal of the Two Sisters
This is our source for these statements:
- The sisters are invited to protect Equestria, for being the embodiment of pony virtues. They picked the titles because they thought they sounded “much friendlier.” As such, the titles have no bearing whatsoever on the political structure of what they ended up building. Star Swirl the Bearded acted as the envoy of various pony leaders, who jointly agreed to seek a neutral third party to keep them united.
- The journal does not mention any foundational document of Equestria. However, we can presume one exists, because a purely verbal agreement would not fly in a culture which, as per the Journal and Castle Mane-ia, already had enough written literature at the time to fill libraries.
- The duties of the sisters explicitly limit them to defending the signatories from external threats, diplomacy and foreign policy, and crisis management. They are not to interfere in the internal matters of individual signatories, and this is mentioned explicitly when they visit the Crystal Empire – which is part of this “Equestria” they built.
- Even after the formation of “Equestria,” at least some individual rulers like King Bullion of the unicorns retain their positions.
- The sisters build a castle for themselves in unsettled territory, in the middle of a wild forest, with no township around it, and that is their home and seat of power.
- When a dragon steals the Crystal Heart, the Sisters assemble a military force to take it back, and rely on individual pony leaders to do it.
This one of the more dubious sources, and at the same time, the only one which has anything coherent.
Hearth’s Warming Eve
This is our biggest source of historical information in the primary canon, but it is presented in a play for children, and as such, is not particularly reliable. For example, later on in Hearth’s Warming Tail, Twilight and Starlight talk about windigos as if they were mythical creatures. But the story given in this episode should be correct “in general.”
- The story depicted is explicitly dated to “long before” the reign of Celestia.
- Ponies initially form three independent polities. Since we also know that the Crystal Empire had to have been contemporary with them, it has to be “at least three,” rather than just three.
- The flag of Two Sisters raised in the end of the play is notably anachronistic, since the sisters do not feature as characters, and the Journal mentions that Equestria did not exist until afterwards, but in a traditional play for children – especially one devoted to a holiday that is Independence Day, Christmas and Thanksgiving rolled into one – this is an acceptable break from reality.
Notice that this is a modern flag with about 40 stars on it, which turns up in other episodes. This is important, because…
Hearthbreakers
…the gingerbread flag shown in Hearthbreakers only has five stars on it. If the number of stars wasn’t important, you would expect just a pile of random sprinkles instead. My take is that Applejack’s gingerbread flag is historical, but the one used in the play was not.
Luna Eclipsed
- Luna addresses the population as “citizens,” not “subjects.”
- Once sufficiently annoyed, Luna decrees that “Nightmare Night shall be canceled forever.”
It remains uncertain whether Luna actually is legally empowered to do this, but with the way the entire town is scared of her – being of the few living ponies to experience Nightmare Moon directly, they have every reason – nobody would object even if she was overstepping her bounds. If they had any legal means to oppose this decree, they would certainly not voice the intention to do so before Luna was far out of earshot.
The Crystal Empire
The exact nature of the relationship between Equestria and the Crystal Empire is never elaborated. But it is presented as at least partially and nominally independent both in the episodes and in supplementary media, and yet part of Equestria. Celestia stresses the importance of Twilight assisting Cadance in liberating it, rather than doing everything herself.
This is, of course, part of Twilight’s test, however, notice the importance Celestia places on Cadance’s legitimacy.
Another notable fact that needs to be mentioned is that Cadance is the only non-crystal pony who has the characteristic crystal pony hair, glossy and with a visible gradient. No other non-crystal pony sports this kind of hair, and this is one of the two traits specific to crystal ponies whether they are currently crystal or not – the other being the hexagonal glint in their eyes, which Cadance does not have. Also unlike crystal ponies, she has more individual colors in her hair than any of them.
Magical Mystery Cure
Fluttershy’s “You look just like a princess” implies that the image of a princess is closely connected with being an alicorn in the first place. Celestia’s confirmation that she is a princess and most importantly, bowing to Twilight, which is followed up by everyone else, implies that Celestia at least wants everyone to treat alicorn princesses as equal to each other.
Testing Testing, 1-2-3
Earth-Unicorn-Pegasi Guard is formed after Luna’s banishment. What Twilight ends up saying is that this is essentially a codified joint Equestrian military force, a permanent standing army, since other sources suggest at least some kind of military existed long before that. This constitutes the chronologically earliest clear departure from the situation described in the Journal.
Ticket Master
Rarity’s daydream of marrying Blueblood explicitly says that she would become a “princess” upon marrying him. Since she would clearly not become an alicorn princess, at that, this is evidence that plays into my limited-nobility interpretation.
Friendship is Magic
“Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies.”
This is the only time, ever, the term “kingdom” turns up in relation to Equestria itself.(1) The storybook, however, is problematic in a few respects.
It is narrated in Celestia’s voice and details “two sisters.” However, the very idea that Nightmare Moon exists is declared an “old pony’s tale” by Twilight and Spike just a few minutes into the episode, and everyone is surprised that Luna and Nightmare Moon are the same (physical) pony by the end of the two-parter. This makes me think that the opening narration is not the story Twilight is herself reading, at least, not verbatim, because it explicitly states that the younger sister became Nightmare Moon. If the story is available to Twilight verbatim, our book horse is an idiot, which I refuse to believe.(2)
Even if the story is available verbatim, it was, importantly, written near a thousand years ago.
In the end, Celestia utters “We were meant to rule together, little sister,” which will become important later.
FIENDship is Magic #1
- Sombra is explicitly an usurper of the Crystal Empire throne. I.e. the Crystal Empire throne exists, and its line of inheritance presumably does, too, but Sombra was never on it.
- Sombra has been brought up in an orphanage in the Crystal Empire, and as such, is most definitely legally a citizen of Crystal Empire, even if he has no rights to the throne.
- There is no army shown when Celestia and Luna fly to the Crystal Empire, which will become important later.
The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000
“We don’t care if the whole kingdom of Canterlot helps.” Notice that in this phrase, Flam does not refer to the entire Equestria, but to a presumably extant subdivision thereof. If the whole of Equestria turned up to help, Flim and Flam would have to run. :)
Party Pooped
One of Twilight’s princess duties as the junior princess of Equestria is handling diplomatic negotiations between Equestria and Yakyakistan.
My Little Pony #11-12 (Neigh Anything)
Buck Withers mentions that “my father is a congresspony,” and the usage of the phrase implies that a congresspony is a pony of influence and authority, one that could conceivably make a school prank dangerous to the perpetrator.
This is just one word, and could mean a lot of different things, however, much of the background of the parts of Equestria presented in the comics fits better with at least some form of representative government, anyway.
Princess Spike
This episode makes few solid statements, but here is my interpretation on how it is relevant:
- A Grand Equestria Pony Summit is a regular thing. Probably not annual, at that.
- At least some cities have a large enough griffon population to make a griffon a delegate. It is not entirely clear whether all the participating cities are part of Equestria proper, but a friendship statue of a pony the whole ritual culminates with suggests so.
- The number of cities sending in delegates is listed at “over 50” by Twilight.
- Cadance counts among princesses of Equestria, and crystal ponies do participate in the summit.
- Speeches and meetings are on the agenda, and every topic of a speech mentioned involves economics and money.
- A mere mention of a princess is sufficient to settle most disputes over scheduling amicably, and princesses are seen as moral, if not necessarily formal authority.
- When decision made in this manner turn out badly, the grumbling and displeasure is not at all hidden, and most delegates are angry at Twilight. Fancy Pants even openly calls the group he leads an “angry mob.”
We’re not dealing with any assembly of representative quasi-government here, like howard035 suggested, but with an economic forum held regularly to keep the joint economic space together, and inviting both government and civilian entities.(3) Which does imply that this is needed lest the economic space drift apart.
Flight to the Finish, Games Ponies Play, Equestria Games
These three episodes which deal with the whole Equestria Games phenomenon provide us with a few relevant statements:
- A Princess’ word means pretty much nothing to Harshwhinny, she is the one judging Cadance in her capacity as an Equestria Games bureaucrat, not vice versa.
- At the Games, all four princesses of Equestria are seated equally in thrones identical in shape, but differentiated by color.
- Cities have their own flags and anthems. Competition between them is as much a big deal as cooperation as seen in Princess Spike, cultural distinctiveness is a big thing.
- There’s a team of griffons at the Games, and they don’t match colors to any griffons seen before or since all the way up to season 6.
Ponyville Confidential
If there’s anything confirming there is no such thing as a lèse-majesté law in Equestria, it’s that photo of Celestia pigging out on cake. This is also strongly incompatible with any forms of openly despotic Equestria.
Trade Ya!
A princess of Equestria – any princess – is traditionally asked to serve as the arbiter of the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange. Notably, the entire exchange appears to be conducted within the bounds of contract law, and Twilight still has to work within the bounds of traditional rules.
Slice of Life
Few things of relevance happen during this episode, except for Bon-Bon’s speech to Lyra regarding SMILE, which I shall quote here verbatim:
My name isn’t Bon Bon. It’s “Special Agent Sweetie Drops”. I work for a super-secret anti-monster agency in Canterlot, or at least I did until the bugbear went missing from Tartarus a few years back. When it escaped, we had to shutter the whole agency. Every last shred of evidence of the organization’s existence was destroyed. Celestia demanded complete deniability. It was me who captured the bugbear. I had to go deep cover here in Ponyville and assume the name Bon Bon. I never thought it’d be able to track me, but now it has.
There are lots of ways to interpret this scene, because most of these statements are for various reasons problematic. However, secondary canon does assume the existence of the mentioned agency and that is where the acronym “SMILE” comes from, so my best take on it is that Bon-Bon is a secret agent, or at least was, but needed to improvise some bullshit on the spot, for whatever reason. What actually happened depends on the actual legal status of the bugbear more than anything else, and since that is the only appearance of a bugbear ever, we don’t really know that.
I did mention that I think her cutie mark is actually in sweet-talking, didn’t I?
My Little Pony #43
A “Kingdom of Abyssinia” exists and can sue the Mane 6 for actions committed in the pursuit of crisis resolution.
Notably, Twilight is a princess at the time, and there is, otherwise, no whiff of anything like an international court where they could be sued.
My Little Pony #25-26 (The Good, the Bad and the Ponies)
For all the faults of this comic, it contains a lot of interesting relevant tidbits.
- The entire comic revolves around the idea that even a Princess of Equestria cannot make a notarized form disappear, because it is illegal. If Celestia and Luna could make it disappear, Twilight never thinks of asking them to do so, but is not above asking them for other bureaucratic favors.
- Longhorn has an opportunity to get land ownership by exploiting the letter of the law.
- Twilight is constantly worried about being seen as abusing her power, and has to resort to less illegal trickery to get her way. The moment she has legal grounds – the location Longhorn was vying for is declared a historical site and he starts wrecking it in rage over his defeat – she is free to enforce the law herself, instead.
At the same time, Twilight is not free to declare the location a historical site herself, and has to defer to Celestia and Luna to do it.
Other facts with no specific source
Because they do not need one.
- Cadance has the Crystal Guard. Celestia has the Royal Guard. Twilight has no guard whatsoever.
- There is no whiff anywhere of a Night Court, and Luna is never shown involved in government on her own except when she is substituting for Celestia.
- Whenever a foreign policy or diplomatic issue turns up, one of the princesses handles it. The only exception is Friends Forever #26, where Shining Armor and Prince Blueblood are involved in diplomatic negotiations with Yakyakistan, and they are explicitly acting as envoys of the alicorn princesses.
Theory
Much of it is conjecture, of course. My best defense is that it fits and produces a coherent picture, which was the whole point.
This is not the only possible way to assemble this puzzle and it requires some relatively big aftermarket parts – but much less of them than the occasionally seen properly feudal Equestria, and no more than an imperial one. Which one you subscribe to is up to you, see that grain of salt up top? But this is my theory, and if you want, you’re free to take it in whole or in part.
Anyway.
The Journal in particular describes a rather specific setup Equestria was born with, which is called a protectorate relationship. Amending it with all the other fragments, this is what I get:
- The Sisters form a pseudo-state which consists entirely of themselves and possibly their staff. It does have territory, and Everfree Forest is essentially all of that territory.(4) The reason it is selected – beyond the central location and the fact that the Sisters simply like the place – is because it is unsettled land that nobody actually wants, it’s too dangerous and too expensive to settle on a large scale at this time in history, and there are other, better pieces still available. The sisters needed territory for the legal fiction and their toy castle, but wouldn’t want to occupy land which anybody else could profitably use.(5)
- This pseudo-state is “the Kingdom of Equestria” and retains this name at least in ancient stories. Its rulers have the title “princess,” because they always did, it never had a king or a queen, and the word “kingdom” may have a slightly different meaning in Equish.(6) Every alicorn is automatically “Princess(7) of Equestria” – because that’s how it was set up originally and they never saw fit to change it, since so few(8) alicorns ascended ever since the emergence of the arrangement.
- The relationship between Equestria and all the contributing kingdoms is codified in a document I’ve been calling Equestria Accords, because I needed a name, and this one sounds about right. Equestria protects the individual kingdoms,(9) and runs all of their foreign policy and military campaigns, but gets no say in the internal policy at all. Individual kingdoms keep their armed forces, but don’t use them without the Sisters’ authorization. The Sisters command the joint military, but need to mobilize it to do so.
- The individual kingdoms that joined Equestria retain their own rulers and noble families, their own succession laws, their own taxation and other trappings of government.
The flag of Equestria was and still is the two alicorn silhouettes in a ying-yang configuration, with a star for every signatory of the union. More stars kept getting added as more kingdoms joined. This form of the union survives through Discord’s Rampage, and remains essentially unchanged up until Luna’s banishment.
And then Equestria slowly but surely transforms.
First, the individual tribal armed forces vanish, resulting in the formation of the joint Earth-Unicorn-Pegasi Guard. Then, nobility vanishes – see one of my earlier posts on the subject – leaving only a population of princes and princesses, which cannot inherit their kingdoms, but get to keep the title in the family, and probably, a stipend of some kind from the central government, which is how the more stubborn ones were convinced to reform their polities. Then, congressponies turn up, evoking thoughts of US Congress(10) – which is perfectly natural in a federal setup, as sub-territories of Equestria would want representation before agreeing to losing more sovereignty. Individual kingdoms still exist as territorial subdivisions – there’s a “kingdom of Canterlot,” probably renamed this way after having been Unicornia for a while, or after splitting of the original Unicornia into several territorial subdivisions(11) – but there’s no trace of a king of Canterlot, because it’s no longer, technically, a kingdom.
In short, there is a reform, which takes centuries to set up and complete, and eventually unifies previously disjoint vassal polities into a federal state of some description, with at least some functions of government being handled by representative bodies. At the same time, Celestia retains executive power and foreign relations by virtue of her alicornhood. Celestia’s “We were meant to rule together” said to Luna actually implies that the plan of the reform explicitly included her, and probably wasn’t just Celestia’s idea, because originally, as per the Journal, they didn’t mean to rule at all. Luna is immediately adopted back into the power structure simply because that’s what the constitution said all along: “Executive power belongs to the alicorns,” period.
Then, the Crystal Empire reappears.
On one hand, it still retains its status as a protectorate of the “Kingdom of Equestria,” which still exists in some capacity, with Celestia and now Luna still being the alicorn Princesses of Equestria. On another, it did not sign any of the amendments everyone else did, and for the rest of Equestria, it’s technically a foreign state. When Sombra usurped the throne of the Crystal Empire, the Sisters confront him alone, rather than at the head of an army, like they are when they confront the dragon that stole the Crystal Heart. The reason for it is that they were acting as individuals, rather than suzerains of the Crystal Empire – they are not empowered to interfere in a matter of succession in a protected state in their capacity as Princesses of Equestria. All they can do is challenge him to a duel and hope he bites.
They don’t send an army to the Crystal Empire the second time around, either: to the modern Equestria, it’s a sovereign foreign state, and without a direct request for aid from the government of the Crystal Empire, it would be an act of war. But they do send the Royal Guard, because that is still a feature of the old protectorate relationship, a force that answers directly to their suzerains – in this particular case, being the force under the direct command of Cadance, who is the legal heir to Crystal Empire throne. While that contingent of the Royal Guard avoids getting on camera, we can readily assume that most of them are busy.
To bring the Crystal Empire up to speed and permit Equestria deeper involvement into its internal affairs, Cadance needs to be recognized as its legal ruler. But unless she is accepted as such by the crystal ponies, that counts for nothing, which is why it’s important that Twilight assists her, but isn’t the only hero of the day. This plan succeeds, and over time we see deeper and deeper integration of the Crystal Empire into the affairs of Equestria at large, as they get to host Equestria Games, participate in the Grand Pony Summit, and presumably, shed their protectorate status bit by bit.
I expect that the whole mess with the Crystal Empire is itself the reason why the Sisters thought such a reform was necessary, to prevent the tragedy of crystal ponies from ever repeating: with a protectorate structure, any kingdom can play a host to someone like Sombra, and there’s little that can be done to prevent the damage until it actually starts spilling out, when it might well be too late.
The correct term for the structure of modern Equestria that results is that Equestria is a theocratic federal republic:
- Theocratic – alicorns hold executive power, based on the near-religious belief that they unite in themselves the virtues of every pony tribe, and jointly perform the role of head of state. This position in the structure of Equestria rests on moral authority. They are not elected and the process of ascension is decidedly mystical and difficult to replicate. Ascension to alicornhood is automatically grounds for being included in this otherwise exclusive group, all alicorns are “Princesses of Equestria.” The division of the areas of expertise and responsibilities between them is not codified and decided internally and informally. Among other alicorns, Celestia holds the reins, but there isn’t anything that formally codifies her position, and she occasionally makes a point to push others into the limelight.
- Federal – individual subdivisions of Equestria exist and retain at least a measure of independence, and substantial cultural distinctiveness and economic independence, enough to make an economic summit a good idea if not exactly a necessity. The particulars of how they are organized internally are varied.(12) They have local heraldry and their own anthems.
- Republic – there is a Congress, and presumably, it holds legislative power, since none of the princesses ever mention the capacity to create laws, while at least Twilight, on occasion, expresses intention to adhere to it and says she is limited by law. Executive orders, however, or at least a certain threat of their existence, do turn up.
We have the least data on the judiciary system of Equestria, we just know it exists, because of the occasional appearance of ponies with gavels for their cutie marks and mentions of legality and paperwork. There is never, as such, a court of law presented on screen or in literature. But some form of at least nominally independent federal court also exists, in which a princess can indeed be sued.
While Celestia occasionally engages in arbitration of disputes, this does not necessarily assign her judiciary powers – Judge Judy doesn’t have any either, didn’t stop her from running a popular courtroom show for decades. The disputes actually brought before Celestia in canonical media are so Solomon-like in nature, that it’s natural to assume she is seen as more of a moral, rather than legal authority. Importantly, they are disputes brought to her by the people, not outright criminal cases. Nobody is ever seen brought in chains,(13) and we only see this sort of arbitration scene once, in secondary canon. She probably also has the capacity to issue royal pardons, but so do the heads of state of most federal republics.
There’s a separate question of how much actual power the congress wields, which has nothing to do with the formal structure of the government. But most likely, they have far more power on paper than they actually use. The opposition party, if they even have one, is likely to be even more loyal than the ruling party. Celestia’s social capital and accumulated popular authority are so high, that ponies at all levels of authority willingly defer to her, which we can see everywhere in canon. She might try to keep neutral, but that’s unlikely to work out very well.
In fact, Equestria appears to have multiple marginally useful organizations which are easier to explain as existing at least in part for the purpose of letting the ponies working in them feel important and exercise their passions in a controlled environment – namely, SMILE, which, if Bon-Bon’s words are to be taken verbatim, canonically gets shut down for a rather stupid reason, and the Royal Guard, which is usually presented as quite useless.(14)
I am pretty sure Celestia isn’t very happy with that, I think she was hoping it would all actually work by itself. 
This is a fairly bizarre form of government, but there’s nothing that prevents this structure from actually working well as such, especially with executives of undetermined, possibly eternal expected lifespan. Notably, there is a theocratic republic on our Earth.
It’s called Iran.
While Equestria has nearly nothing in common with it – compared to the above, it’s actually almost exactly backwards in terms of separation of concerns – the mix of theocratic and republican elements in a single government is neither impossible nor unheard of even for humans.
But if there is an official name for the nation of Equestria in this theory, it’s neither principality, nor diarchy, nor even N-archy, but some form of either “Equestrian Union” or “United Kingdoms of Equestria.”
I think I’m going to call it “United Kingdoms of Equestria,” myself, if only because I’m already using the concept of Civil Service pioneered by Ghost – a huge bureaucratic apparatus which handles all the paperwork for the executive branch and occasionally others, and answers to the Sisters. It’s a British thing.
Bonus theories
Griffonstone
I suspect that Griffonstone might be a kingdom that seceded from the federation comparatively recently, in the post-banishment period.
- Twilight refers to Griffonstone as a “kingdom in Equestria,” and yet it isn’t even on the same continent. The biggest “Equestria” can refer to is the continent itself – unless the union extends beyond that, or did at some point.
- Everyone in Griffonstone speaks the same language with no noticeable accent, which is evident by Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Gilda, and Gabby not having any communication problems. Gustave, the only griffon with speaking lines shown on screen who is not connected to Griffonstone, speaks with a pronounced Fancy accent.
- Griffons that appear in Equestria Games in particular have a much more diverse coloration than the confirmed Griffonstone griffons seen in The Fault in Our Cutie Marks, which was as diverse in color as Griffonstone griffons ever got.
It would make a lot of sense if the rediscovery of the Idol of Boreas, which probably originally belonged to an ancient independent griffon culture, caused a resurgence of nationalism in the griffons of Griffonstone, and they chose to secede from the federation, anywhere between 100 and 400 years ago, and form an independent monarchy. Ponies being ponies, they shrugged and let them go. The independence ultimately didn’t work out very well, as the idol was lost and the king died with no heirs. Now, presumably, being ruled by a regency council, griffons are too proud or too internally conflicted to ask to rejoin, and ponies didn’t particularly care to find out how they are doing. This is still not the only griffon polity that ever belonged to Equestria, and at least one other remains within the federation, accounting for certain other griffon appearances.
I’m betting the event is called “Grexit” in the history books that Twilight merrily skipped over when chasing after hard sciences and magic theory.
Maretonia
It is not impossible that certain polities chose not to sign the amendments to the Equestria Accords and retain their protectorate status.
If any did not, Maretonia has to be one of them, which would explain their presence in the Crystal Empire – at the moment of its reappearance, they are fellow protectorates of the Kingdom of Equestria, and probably have much to talk about – the snobby way the duke addresses Twilight, who is not, in his eyes, equal to the Sisters, as well as his seating at Equestria Games.
Abyssinia
One of the questions I asked when analyzing My Little Pony #43 is just what court a “Kingdom of Abyssinia” could possibly sue the Mane 6 in. Which heavily depends on what that kingdom actually is.
If “Kingdom of Abyssinia” is a territorial subdivision of Equestria, the answer is right there: Being a constituent entity of the federation, they can sue Equestrian citizens in their own, or in a federal court, and if Twilight is acting in her capacity as a princess, they could sue the executive branch as such. Anything which would cause a plaque of ursas in this location would definitely endanger the whole of Equestria, so a federal court would probably be involved.
(1) The word “nation” is used most often, otherwise.
(2) General policy: If two possible interpretations exist, one of which implies the positive, main characters are stupid, evil, or extremely inconsiderate, I usually pick the other one.
(3) They should have a World Expo…
(4) On our Earth, territory is the foundation of sovereignty, and sovereignty is a requirement to be able to participate in international law in the first place. Ponies would be hard pressed to invent anything different with their levels of technology and magic.
(5) As I mentioned in passing, this also explains why Ponyville was settled so late: Nobody wanted the forest itself, but over the thousand years, it receded a few kilometers in, as some of the natural magic keeping it wild faded, while the borders remained where they were. The territory remained personal property of the Sisters, and nobody had the guts to ask them until the Apples petitioned Celestia directly, which is when it was put up for homesteading, and presumably, transferred into the jurisdiction of the kingdom of Canterlot. This also explains why the Royal Guard mention they patrol Everfree in Micro-series #10 – because this is the Sisters’ land, of course they would be involved in managing it.
(6) See the concept of perpendicular linguistic development. As I said elsewhere, “Ponies in this story primarily speak Equish, which, by some cosmic coincidence authorial fiat unspecified reason is almost, but not totally identical to the current state of US English, but has very different etymologies and somewhat different meanings for many words, like ‘crusader’ or ‘Empire.’ Different linguistic parents, so to speak.” If you don’t subscribe to this idea, you have an even easier time by explaining this bit away with translation losses. Notice that this isn’t, strictly speaking, convergent linguistic development – give it another thousand years, and the languages could and probably will diverge again, there’s nothing keeping them so similar, this is just the point where they cross paths.
(7) Or presumably, prince, though we don’t really know that…
(8) If any, beyond Cadance and Twilight. We do not have any clear evidence that any did, except that the word “princess” appears to be closely associated with alicorns in folklore in particular, providing us with a host of potential anonymous alicorn princesses.
(9) From each other, if need be. The original justification for deferring to alicorns is that they’re free from tribalism by virtue of having the defining features and magic of each pony tribe in them.
(10) I don’t know about you, but for me, the stars on the flag are one of the biggest arguments to liken Equestria to the US. Also, the words “Equestria” and “America” have an identical rhythmic structure, and, well, “Equestria my home” is such an American patriotic song… And the phrase “She might banish you from Equestria. Or throw you in a dungeon. Or banish you and then throw you in a dungeon in the place that she banishes you to!” is the perfect description of the legal status of Guantanamo.
(11) Cutting Canterlot out of the rest of Unicornia to make it the capital for the entire federal Equestria would do it.
(12) There’s a long and funny story of political activism comedy I heard decades ago, which I can’t track down anymore, but as far as I know it’s true. One of the antics of the political activists in question was based on the idea that even though Estonia is a tiny republic, nothing in its constitution prevents a kingdom from being one of its territorial subdivisions… Individual constituents of modern Equestria can have something even weirder.
(13) At the same time, I can readily imagine that one of the methods of preventing recidivism is making the criminal write a letter: “Dear Princess Celestia, I’m very sorry…” I can see it working very well, too.
(14) Notice, however, that the whole Crystal Empire gambit makes it uniquely useful, and I wouldn’t put it past Celestia to keep around an organization that will only become necessary in a thousand years…
I like it. A lot. It's a messy enough structure that I can easily believe it'd naturally develop under the benevolent guiding hoof of a Celestia who always takes the long view instead of ever forcing ponies to actually agree
. And, it's messy enough that it can easily fit in just about anything Hasbro does now or in the future 
, even all the contradictory statements about whether things are or are not part of Equestria.
And what's more, isn't it so convenient that Twilight's castle emerged inside the original Kingdom of Equestria as well?
One thing this doesn't account for, though - just why did Twilight not realize Princess Mi Amore Cadenza was the same pony as Princess Cadance? It'd be nice if this could fold in that, too...
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As far as I remember, the sun always rises behind it, and while we know the sun rises when and where Celestia wants it to, it would probably, usually, rise in the East. And the best maps I got so far place the Everfree somewhere southeast of Ponyville.
So… Yeah. :)
4309086 I wonder, would the Equestrian Accords require the sun to rise in the East at a given time every morning? Or do they leave the heavenly duties up to the Sisters' good will?
In other words, would Nightmare Moon's plan have violated the Accords by one iota?
Hmm. Definitely interesting stuff, and a logical synthesis of all of the available information. If nothing else, I admire your dedication to using all of it; honestly, some of this stuff I just consign to very, very stupid alternate timelines. (Of course, that's my solution for everything.
)
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If they do, this is a later amendment, because the Journal ends with the Sisters taking over the celestial body duties, but starts with their coronation as Princesses of Equestria and picking out a place for their castle. It is not certain how long did it take them to get there, but one would assume at least a year or two.
The legal status of celestial bodies and the solar/lunar cycle duties is exceedingly interesting, but it’s a subject religiously avoided in canon. :)
Another thought: In the modern day, does the original Kingdom of Equestria follow the same law as everywhere else in the Equestrian Union, or do the Princesses still have special powers there? I haven't read most of the comics - are any of Twilight's spasms of concern about legalities set in Ponyville itself?
Because if the princesses do have more absolute power inside the Kingdom of Equestria (i.e. Ponyville and the Everfree), that could be another explanation for how Princess Celestia can pardon Twilight with a wave of her hoof in Lesson Zero, and why nopony there follows the Abyssinians' threat to sue the Mane Six for destroying the town multiple times in the series.
>Eruantalon
>And what's more, isn't it so convenient that Twilight's castle emerged inside the original Kingdom of Equestria as well?
No coincidence here. Celestia gave this place away as a homestead, and then sent Twilight there. She probably wasn't planning for this exact thing to happen, but she certainly didn't choose the place at random.
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Good question. To answer it correctly I would need to investigate in detail the second half of the Ponyville mayor elections storyline.
But from what I remember, Twilight sticks to the law even there, so her status does not appear to be radically different…
A well-researched piece, Oliver. I pretty much agree with all this (except on the parts I've already voiced my dissent over in previous blogs).
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The official map of Equestria places the castle northwest of Ponyville, though, and facing generally south.
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Story prompt:
Explore the political ramifications of the unicorns losing control of the sun and moon to the alicorn princesses.
So, when Twilight makes a big mistake and has to write to Celestia about what she's learned from it...
Suddenly, Twi's fear of disappointing Celestia makes a bit more sense.
A very interesting analysis. Does it make sense to try to analyze Equestria from outside the human political paradigm, or is it just not useful/interesting?
A fantastic political analysis, worthy of the Atlantic. I agree almost entirely, although I would point out that I think at this point, 99% of Equestria falls into the "Kingdom of Canterlot," or whatever subnational domestic arrangement Ponyville is in, except for the Crystal Empire and outside entities like Maretonia and Griffonstone. So what I'm saying is that legally Ponyville and Manehatten are identical. That was a key part of the great consolidation that we can infer must have occurred in the last 900+ years. After the fall of Trot, I think almost every great kingdom/city state wanted to be under the direct protection of Celestia. The Grand Pony Summit/Congress is how Celestia keeps track of the various polities that she is theoretically the direct sovereign of.
And now that we've got Flurry Heart, it's a Dolby Surroundarchy.
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First, one needs to get outside the paradigm, and I’m not really sure where that is.
Canon appears to be intent on saying that at least the basic vocabulary of politics in Equestria matches ours. The actual shape of their political system is unusual, but it’s still described in much the same words, so there are limits on just how unusual it can possibly be. Unless none of the words mean the same thing to them, but in that case, analyzing them from afar like we do is pointless.
And, well, they have a “Mount Monument” with the faces of four princesses carved into it, mimicking Mount Rushmore (Friends Forever #6) so…
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This famously works for the Japanese, a formal apology letter literally is a tool of crime prevention. Coupled with the fact that both the police and the prosecutor are empowered not to prosecute in many cases if they so choose, it tends to work, though when it breaks, the result is usually suicide rather than murder. See the concept of shame society.
We know ponies place a lot of weight on apologies, and we know that the danger of social rejection is a major factor for them.
Now imagine getting socially rejected by an all-benevolent demigoddess. For a regular pony on the street this is something they don’t worry about until they do something really naughty. But Twilight has to be aware of this constantly…
It’s a wonder she isn’t more neurotic. :)
4309711 No, we need Thorax (presuming like most bugs, a female is leading) to get full 5.1!
This is, overall, a lot to take in. Going to have to ponder on it.
My general headcanon (when I am not ripping the continent apart with changeling armies, dragons, or large cities declaring themselves independent city-states) is that Equestria is made up of mostly self-governing cities, with a constitutional "diarach." Of course, you don't just have such a figurehead without depending on them for something, in fact what Celestia (and now Luna) seem to provide is the same services the Governor General of Australia does. Appoints the leaders of the armed forces, handles situations when a government becomes deadlocked (a few times in Australia's history the Houses of Parliament have become pig-headed about something important—a budget for example—he/she declares an election, kicking the obstinate leaders out). Basically, an emergency relief valve of sorts. I will say, however, that such things rarely come up in my stories.
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So is Thorax a sub woofer? :)
In my case, that’s what led me to the Crystal Empire gambit, which both ties things together nicely and provides me with opportunities to drive ponies crazy in a dramatic fashion. It’s a rather different approach to telling stories about ponies in the first place – I start by asking myself questions about the world given all that I already know about it. Often, I end up with a choice of multiple answers.
Then I pick the answers which get me the most action per square centimeter. :)
4309737 No, thorax is the rear-left channel. Flurry Heart is the .1 subwoofer!
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…And if we get Chrysalis and Ember into the mix, we can get 7.1 :)
4309751 Aww yeah. THE AUDIENCE IS LISTENING!
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Or she obeys the laws because Twi is loath to take advantage of any exceptionalism that might be granted her. Or because she doesn't want to start using exceptionalism without a thorough reading of its niceties (and hasn't yet). Or because She certainly prefers to work within established frameworks most of the time! Breaking established rulesets seems very unlike her.
And she seems the sort to worry about precedent. (I feel like examination of Ticket Master would produce something useful here… but can't atm). Overriding an election policy is one of the more sensitive places one might throw weight around.
Unrelatedly, this walled-garden unprogrammable slab I have seems to treat the superscript characters as matching searches for their non-superscripted cousins, reversing one of my earlier complaints about being unable to use page-searching to go back and forth between footnote and its referrer.
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I.e. we don’t know for absolute certain. But we never really did, because they neither spell it out nor decide on this in the first place, and there’s enough other evidence, I think. :)
I’d much rather find an XSS exploit or some bug in escaping that lets me make an in-page hyperlink, to be honest…
What you have described is the old English system which divided the judiciary into courts at law and courts at equity.* The United States (and I'm pretty sure the United Kingdom as well) combined these systems long ago, but references to it remain. For example, the codes defining general jurisdiction always mention that courts rule on matters "at law and equity."
Ideally (practice was of course messier), courts of law derived their authority from the law itself, and applied it to settle matters, while courts of equity derived their authority from the King and applied notions of his divinely-rooted justice and mercy. Going even further back, the court of equity was the King's court itself, where the King would rule on matters applying his own notions of justice and mercy, though that got unwieldy rather quickly. Both the territorial extent of the country, and its large population, made bringing appeals before the King impractical. Alicorn princesses can, of course, teleport and fly, meaning that riding circuit is much easier for them than it was for the English kings or the judges they appointed. The rail network also makes it much easier to bring appeals to Canterlot than medieval roads would make it to bring appeals to London.
* Judge Judy aside; she, like all abritrators, is empowered by the parties to a contract to rule on matters.
4309737 4309743
The subwoofer is clearly the queen of the Diamond Dogs.
The Equestrian Opposition Party feels relevant.
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Turns out, most browsers do this. Also, ⁽¹²³⁾ and (123) match in search too, and with parentheses, you don’t get false positives when you’re looking for “(1)” – or at least, you won’t get any, unless comments also use footnotes, which is rare.
This is not ideal, but it’s still better than nothing, so I’ve coded an option to parenthesize the footnote markers, and I’m going to keep using that in the future. Alas, there are no superscript square bracket symbols in Unicode.
Sidebar boxes would be generally preferable to in-page blocks, but with the way they are rendered, it’s very easy to end up with an unreadable mess unless you manually position them, and the whole point of this exercise was not doing that…
Hm. Very interesting! Thanks for doing and posting this. :)
Hmm.
So, Equestria is essentially the Holy Roman Empire, that slowly centralised as it modernised, but the emperor(s) essentially don't come from any territory, and are decided by, essentially, divine right?
Not too sure you need the theocratic in there; the British monarchy rules by divine right, too - it only gets theocratic when religion starts guiding the country, and forming an essential part of government (as in priests appointing/being appointed government roles).
But cheers, this clears up the whole mess quite nicely.
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Maybe it’s not exactly required to call it theocratic, but I think it qualifies for a suitably mild definition of the term – with the way Celestia’s name occupies a prominent position in oaths, that goes beyond the ‘divine right’ of the British monarchy and is at least up there with the pre-1946 Japanese monarchy, where the Emperor was considered “a divinity in human form.” Celestia and Luna, with their personal power output on the scale of a small tactical nuke, rate a bit higher on the divinity scale.
That said, it does appear they are downplaying this aspect and over time the government starts behaving more secular, rather than less. Even over the course of the show itself, Equestria progressively grows less mythical bit by bit.
Heh, The Confederate States of Equestria.
I'll admit GoH influenced my opinion of the Alicorn-led government, in that Celestia is non-divine at work, and divine for raising the sun on her own personal time. Being leader of Equestria is a job. Raising the sun and moon is just a hobby.
For nine hundred or so years, Celestia was the only alicorn in Equestria. Then Cadence showed up. Then (abruptly in governmental terms) a few years later, Princess Luna showed. Then Princess Twilight ascended. And Cadence had an alicorn foal. Things are accelerating rapidly on the alicorn population scale.
I would imagine the government bureaucrats in Canterlot are bracing themselves for a new one, perhaps even making a few discrete inquiries.
"So, Lady Rarity. Have you noticed any itching around your shoulders lately? Unexplained urges to raise the sun or moon? Have you noticed if Princess Twilight has put on any weight recently? Or if your friend Fluttershy seems to be getting a lump on her forehead?"
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That’s one way to achieve separation of church and state. :)
I suspect most of the hard work they required was done in the scramble upon the discovery of Cadance, who, canonically, was a minor at the time. They had to have figured out most of the intricacies back then.
Luna turning up would bring to somepony’s mind the idea that it’s possible there will be a lot of alicorns in the near future…
I think the one that should be worrying them the most is Starlight Glimmer.
Because there’s no way in hell they’re prepared for a convicted criminal currently on parole turning into an alicorn. :)
First, I have to commend you for doing a fantastic job of compiling all that research and trying to make sense of the crap that is "canon" in the MLP universe! AWESOME JOB!
To be honest, I have no access to any of the comics, but I am aware that much of what is "canon" in them sometimes directly contradicts what is "canon" from the show. But from the show's aspect, I think a huge amount of weight should be given to the points you brought up from the episode Princess Spike as it does go a long way toward presenting a sign of some sort of organized thought from the producers regarding how Equestria's government is set up.
One point I would like to introduce: Considering how much of Greek mythology is a factual existence in the number of species in that world, I wonder if something Equestria's overall government system is more akin to how the Ancient Greek confederation was set up. Back then, each city was its own country, with their own independent government system--some were democratic, some were republics, some were autocratic dictatorships and/or hereditary dynasties, some were theocracies--but all collectively more of a lose confederation.
We have nothing like that example today in our world, but it would be much like how perhaps the US was in its very earliest years of history--less of a united federation but more than just a diverse group of allied nations. Even the intent of the Confederation of Russian States after the breakup of the Soviet Union doesn't meet this model--they don't even fall under "group of allied nations" at this point. (Just a point to make, had the US Civil War gone the other way, the CSA would most likely have ended up with just as tightly a federal government as the modern USA has today--it would NOT have been a true "confederation" had they won)
I think this idea more closely fits the picture in what little we actually get to see of the Equestrian model.
One thing I do have a cringe about the conclusion you're presenting in the Theory section: To best of my knowledge (again, without the comics on hand, I accept I might be wrong about this), there's nothing "canon" about them being a Theocracy. While they are clearly extremely long-lived and practically immortal (baring injury from accident or combat), nothing I've ever seen or heard from the show indicates anyone thinks Celestia & Luna are deities--I believe this is strictly a fanon. Clearly, they can be beaten by mortals if the power of Shining Armors love added to Chrysalis' own power was sufficient to defeat Celestia. Although, it could be argued if Chrysalis was likewise an immortal being--this is not a settled point--but even if so, given the extra juice from SA was enough to tip the scale proves Celestia is no "deity", even in the Greek sense of the word. Again, I've seen nothing in the show that hints that ponies even think of the princesses in that way.
What they do appear to be are highly respected--one would certainly have to be an idiot to piss off folks who literally set the day/night schedule. Arguably, each of them could have power equal to 1/4 of Tirek's full power level after he absorbed ALL the ponies AND Discord.
As you mentioned in your very first point of Journal of the Two Sisters above, the princesses were seen as neutral third-parties, and certainly Celestia has made considerable effort on-screen to teach that to both Twilight and Cadance, which makes their function more of a judicial nature in that they arbitrate disputes, yet they still do have some role as enforcers of the laws, so there's a considerable blurring of the lines between those functions here. They're clearly still active in Equestria's military defense as guard commanders and weapons of last resort in the cases of Discord, Sombra, and Tirek. So we can perhaps conclude they're closer to Equestria's Supreme Court with some Executive functions mixed in.
(As a side note, some of the nobles we've seen may constitute what is akin to their legislative branch, or they may be members of the local Canterlot city-state government, or a mix of both for those that have appeared on screen.)
One last thing...how the hell did you manage to get the superscripted numbers for your notes????
I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to do that 
Edit--->Apologies if much of this has already been hashed out with the responses before me...
...but my last comment remains: how the fcensoredk do you get superscripted numbers!!??
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Due to particular slant of my education, I am far more aware of Ancient Greek mythology than I am of the particulars of their government.
I guess I’ll have to rectify that eventually, because you do have a point here.
This is primarily based on the observation that the magical – and in fact, mystical, in Twilight’s particular case, rather than magic-as-science magical – act of transforming into an alicorn is grounds for the title of princess and being included in governance. Theocracy is not, by definition, “governance by god” or even “governance by priests,” but rather, “governance through direct involvement of forces beyond understanding.”
Which is why I think this qualifies. I do agree that nowhere in canon we can see a clear deification of the princesses, and in fact, even their implied power level has been steadily going down as the seasons went – but their mystical origin has not gone away. My observation is that one can’t become an alicorn just because they want to, no matter the effort or resources, it is a direct, tangible reward for
pietyharmony, and certification of moral authority.zimmerwald1915, above, mentions courts at equity. I was previously not aware they were a thing⁽¹⁾ but they sound like exactly the sort of Solomon-like arbitration that actually is depicted in the comics. So – Supreme Equity Court, while the Supreme Court of Law is a separate thing entirely, that sounds like it would be a thing in Equestria.
As far as I can tell, we haven’t seen any nobles on screen anywhere. Even in comics, hints appear so scarce that I am currently convinced they don’t exist at all. Except for Blueblood. See the previous posts in this series.
Fancy programming and hackery. To put this very short, they are not actual superscript as defined by HTML, which you really can’t get around here. They are just uncommon Unicode symbols. While in theory it is possible to write them manually if you are sufficiently crafty, I just use software to write in a sane markup language and convert it into the gibberish that FimFiction renders correctly. Since I also use a programmable text editor, the process is quite transparent and I can do that even in comments. :)
If I may be so bold, a better name might be the "Realm of Equestria." "United Kingdoms" does imply a federal constitution, but it's just a slip of the tongue away from "United Kingdom," which implies an outright Act of Union. But, "realm" is sometimes used to refer to federated kingdoms, for example, the German Realm,* or even looser arrangements like the Commonwealth Realms. Finally, "realm" has been used in dialogue - by Starswirl to refer to Equestria, but also by Discord to refer to his homey** dimension and by Luna in the phrase "dream realm."
* Happily enough, "German Realm" was the name of the state under both its imperial and republican constitutions, and continued in use right up until its surrender in the Second World War. I say "happily" because it means the word doesn't connote any system of government in particular, and as such can be used to describe any sovereign polity. Names did change in the revolution that toppled the empire, but they were constituent state names: "kingdom" or "duchy" would become "state" or "free state."
** Meaning he feels at home there and lives there, not necessarily that he originates there.
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It’s a good option. A bit late for me in particular, though, but hopefully, other readers of this post will stumble on it.
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Somehow I keep coming back to this blog. . .
The term is "Court of Chancery."
I can see Bonbon using the bugbear as a convenient excuse.
Which sounds better?
"I used to be part of a secret monster hunting organization that has since been shut down"
Or
"I'm currently a part of a clandestine governmental organization, and currently engaged in surveillance of your foalhood friend because she's incredibly neurotic and unstable and has her hoof on a nuclear button".
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Why hasn't Celestia had Twilight assassinated yet?
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Because she's too much fun to fuck with? I dunno.
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The Celestia who is supposedly responsible enough not to trust an unstable emotional wreck with power is irreconcilable with the Celestia who gets her jollies from fucking with the unstable wreck.
Pick one.
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:thinking:
Hum. Six of one, half dozen of another. Celestia is old enough to feel both ways.
I did not delved as deeply into analysis of canon and possible implications, as what breadcrumbs that were presented were clearly never intended to be taken that seriously.
Still, while republic seems very close to what Equestria represents/should represent, I opted to view it as exotic variant of semi-constitutional monarchy state, if only by virtue of Celestia being a Queen in anything but a name. I don't see Celestia being a 'Solomon-like' figure, I'd imagine her having a lot of political weight and responsibility before her people. But I admit, I might be biased. I just don't see her taking it easy all day long, she must be a very busy mare, even if her concerns are usually limited to Canterlot and a hypothetical 'central' region of Equestria.
Through the power of fanfiction, I'd like to see the state develop into something more closely resembling a republic. Or maybe something else. Creativity allows us to do anything. I wouldn't mind any advice on the matter, though, as worldbuilding of this sort is kinda new to me