Worldbuilding tidbits #1 · 2:43am May 18th, 2018
So, as I continue to work on a couple of different stories, I thought I'd share some tidbits that don't reveal the plot or spoiler the story. They're just character informative or world informative bits that I thought might be interesting. Keep in mind these are less my notes about them (Because for some of it, it's less note taking than just pantsed writing), and more my thoughts about the concepts as they'll appear in the story. The actual history won't be in the story, because it's not a huge part of the story, but more of a justification/reason for some events that will happen throughout.
Oh, and this will probably be an occasional, random interval blog going forward. Because if I can't publish the stories themselves just yet, I still want to talk about them with people that might be interested without giving away plot.
1. The Heart of Crystal Prep (Equestria Girls story, set post-Friendship Games)
History
In the not too distant past of the world, the coalition of city states that calls itself the Grand Unified Trade Coalition used to be a set of warring nations, some of which were larger and more powerful.
The nation of Canter, capital Canterlot, held sway over a wide band of land from coast to coast on a continent roughly equivalent to that of Equestria, and called both Manehattan in the east, and Los Pegasus in the west its subject states. As a diarchy, it was ruled by two semi-religious leaders who performed the rites of the Summer Sun and Winter Moon among other duties. Known as the Lords of Day and Night, or Ladies of Day and Night, for it was always two brothers or two sisters who ruled (customs and an odd quirk of genetics making the ruling line's women bear all the same gender after the first), they held sway over as much territory as Equestria does in... Equus or whatever you want to call it. Luna and Celestia would have been the latest Lady Sun and Lady Moon.
The Crystal Empire, to the north, was a constitutional monarchy for the last hundred years of its history and ruled by The Heart throughout its history, also a religious post who officiated weddings and confirmed bloodline marriages as valid and noble as part of the duties and rights inherent in their position as well as being the head, with veto powers, of a congress of other lords and ladies. Cadance would have been the fifteenth Heart had the empire continued.
Current Relevance
Aristocracy never likes to let go of its hold over power, so as a civil war was fought across two nations, the peasants rising up against perceived unjust rule to bring down the monarchy, the smarter of the aristocracy who saw the winds blowing, eventually let their peasantry be free about their work and lives, but kept much of the money. They became bankers and owners of corporations, but kept alive the traditions of the aristocracy in a social construct commonly referred to as The Society.
A Society (proper noun, so capitalized, but I know) man or woman is expected to have a certain stoicism about them, and to be above the perceived mindlessness of the lower classes in order to better make decisions on what to do and where to lead their cities. There is one main character who is Society born and bred who is not one of the principals.
Luna, Celestia, Cadance
Luna and Celestia threw away their Society bonds after... well... you know. Luna. Anywho, the site of Canterlot High is also the site of the former castle once used as the Summer Palace for the Lords and Ladies of Day and Night. In a way, Luna and Celestia still rule in their family's old home, but for the purpose of teaching rather than controlling. They were both brought up and tutored by Society teachers, and still know much of Society ways, and can navigate it better than most. They're also rather wealthy thanks to inheritance.
Cadance's home in the north is less hospitable year round, and the castle that she would have inherited is little more than a museum now, but Crystal Prep is the same building, exactly the same, as the last embassy constructed by the Empire on Celestial land, and it's remained in the hands of the aristocracy of the north ever since, even after they had to renounce their noble titles and privileges since the building was never truly owned by any one noble. The board controlling Crystal Prep has fought tooth and nail to keep it a place for the best of the best of any city.
Okay. That's enough Equestria Girls! Let's jump back to Equestria!
2. Mismatched Love (Featuring... more romance)
Economy and Weather:
Everypony knows that Cloudsdale is where you get the best clouds from. They make the best rainstorms, the best thunderstorms, and the best snow storms. If you want quality weather, you go to Cloudsdale and the city-owned Weather Factory.
Almost everypony who's lived in Cloudsdale for long has done work for or in the Weather Factory. It's the city's primary source of revenue, and boy howdy is it a money maker. Everypony needs rain, and since the weather by itself is rather unpredictable, the ponies have decided to make it more predictable where they can, so they don't have to return to their wandering, foraging ways.
Cloudsdale is a city and a service center for Equestria all at the same time. It makes a monthly circuit of Mt. Canter, where Canterlot is, and provides rain for all of Equestria by making this circuit.
Other cities pay a service fee for regular rains to support crops and such. But there's no way that the weather ponies will make a trip all the way to the outskirts of Baltimare or Manehattan every week to make it rain a little. So they've come up with a solution. Suburbs.
There are several ‘suburbs’ of Cloudsdale that house subsidiaries of the city-owned weather factory that do nothing but make rainclouds. Rainbow Dash’s house is the center of one such place, and she and the rest of the weather ponies of Ponyville get paid a monthly stipend for doing what they do. What they do is go out and gather naturally drifting clouds, or missing clouds from Cloudsdale's previous rainstorms, and bring them back to the Microfactory, a miniature version of the Weather Factory that doesn't make seasonal clouds, but only rain clouds for the local crops and surrounding villages and farmers, all of whom pay a smaller stipend to the Cloudsdale Weather Council for the services of both the Microfactory and the salaries and work of the local weather ponies.
By happenstance, the money paid to the local weather ponies also gets spent on things locally, that feed into the local economy, and help, through taxation, pay for the weather service in an agronomic economic cycle similar to the hydrosphere cycle.
Money
I touched on this briefly in Ghost of a Rose, Chapter 7 in the homemaking portion about 2/3 of the way through when Post and Rose discuss finances, but here's a more formal breakdown:
Ten buckles to a bit
Ten bits to a spade
Ten spades to a stirrup
Ten stirrups to a bridle
Bridles are worth a thousand bits apiece, and the highest denomination. Buckles are the equivalent to a penny, and bits to a dime. Spades to a dollar, and stirrups to ten. So a hundred dollar bill is the highest level of currency equivalent.
Calendars and Days
This was also discussed somewhat in Ghost of a Rose, and because Photobucket was mean and decided to eat my notes, I had to go and search my hundreds of notes on Evernote for the original notes and recreate them with a few small changes. And here they are:
Monday : Bloomday (Clear to scattered clouds)
Tuesday: Turnday (Scattered to cloudy)
Wednesday: Wetday (Light drizzle to downpour)
Thursday: Thirstday (Sunny to few clouds)
Friday: Marketday (Partly cloudy to mostly cloudy)
Saturday: Rainday (Raining half the day, drizzle or downpour)
Sunday: Sunday (Clear sky)
This may change depending on what side of Mt. Canter you're on. East and west get their rain and sun on different days of the week, leading to potential confusion for ponies travelling from one side of the nation to the other. Canterlot, being at the center, came up with a different calendar entirely, more like the human calendar. That's the days before the columns, and most larger cities go by the Canterlot standard rather than the rural hash of days all scattered about. But it does help the rural ponies remember when the rain's coming and they can plan for a day indoors instead of outdoors, or take their crops to market.
Well, that's an intriguing tease. Also, fascinating choice in giving that continent a deeper, more heavily aristocratic history than most do. The Equestria stuff is just as fascinating, but I'm a tremendous sucker for further insight into the technicolor ape dimension.
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Me too, actually. I love creating new worlds out of existing ones. Or imagining depth that wasn't there before. In making the continent more heavily aristocratic, I'm tying it somewhat more directly to the pony universe.
We have aristocrats in Equestria proper by the score, and although they seem less inclined to stratify themselves, some do it quite a lot. Also given there aren't immortal princesses who control the sun and moon, I thought this path would at least seem plausible. Less plausible is the appearance of the not immortal sisters throughout history. (They are actually mortal, they just have a really strong, dominant gene bloodline which may or may not be helped along by a bit of magic.)
I liken the timing of the uprising of the peasantry roughly with the rise of the railroad in Equestria, spreading ideas and ponies faster and leading to a general uplifting and connecting of the common pony on the power of the rail. I have this feeling that I'm going to make the two worlds tied together by more than just mirror-based proximity and have their history mirror (pun very much intended) one another rather closely.