Alicorn Biology Glossary: Swamp ponies / Anti-alicornism · 9:49pm Nov 3rd, 2020
Swamp ponies:
Perjorative though nearly-universal exonym for ponies from isolated communities that hold onto beliefs about alicorns yet to be influenced and regularized by Celestian ideology. Despite their name, most swamp ponies actually live in farming communities located on marginal land far away from the road and rail networks, with the rest living in swamps, mountains, forests, and other areas of Equestria still illegible to the Equestrian state.
The few swamp ponies who ever find themselves in a position of defending their beliefs in a coherent theological debate would hold a primitivist position: that their beliefs are true because the truth about the alicorns only survived in isolated areas uncorrupted by the reach of the Canterlot elite, who in their eyes are holding the Goddess captive to their elitist agenda with their demonic rituals of drinking foal blood. Such conspiracy theories (a recent phenomenon traceable to said isolated pony communities gaining access to the Equestrian postal network and communicating with each other) are pretty much the only beliefs held in common between these communities, which throws doubt on their claim that their beliefs descend directly from a once-common truth.
Anti-alicornism:
Also known as anti-monarchism, and considered subversive by the Equestrian state for nearly the opposite reason as "swamp ponies" are, as they question the legitimacy and naturalness of alicorn rule itself on moral and philosophical grounds.
There has been recent expansion of ponies holding this belief in the metropolises of the Equestrian east coast. Some true believers within the Equestrian security services believe the rumors that one of the Princesses is a secret anti-alicornist and is funding said groups, but no evidence of such a conspiracy has yet to come to light despite extensive probes. On the other hoof, academic consensus sees it as a natural result of urban secularization in places too far from Canterlot to feel directly connected to the legitimacy of alicorn rule.
