Patreon blog takeover: Guardians Of The Lost: the care and study of tenant species. (Pseudosapien) · 4:03pm Mar 29th, 2021
I've said in the past that if a topic is too complex, I'll just send it back and ask for another. Something which won't take several thousand words and possibly a few days of my life to answer.
How do tenants work? They’re creatures who are more intelligent than animals, able to talk at least, but are something less than a full ‘person’ in the legal sense, right? How much authority do their landlords have over them, and how much autonomy do they have outside of that relationship? How are the (inevitable) abuses regulated in and outside of Equestria? They’re one of the most interesting parts of your so-detailed universe but they’re always just lurking in the background.
You're right on the border, Pseudosapien.
Right. On. The. Border.
(For those wishing the most extensive story examinations of the tenants, they're found in A Duet For Land And Sky and Brand Loyalty. The most common tenant species are cattle, sheep, pigs, and alpaca: others exist, but don't necessarily have extensive populations in Equestria.)
Origins
As with so many other categories of science, trying to determine exactly where the species which have gained modern status as 'tenants' actually arose has been effectively impossible. It's the same problem, over and over: the Discordian Era. Official records vanish, anything which remains can't be trusted, and scholars thrust their own theories into the vacuum while hoping someone starts to treat them as fact. (Or at the absolute minimum, someone else.) Simply trying to determine when tenants entered the world encounters the same difficulty as tracking sapient evolution: when one reaches the Discordian Era, the fossils either vanish or become so warped that none can hope to rely upon them. It's possible to seek below that layer, but just about nothing has been found.
Some degree of tracking becomes possible at the start of the Diarchy. According to those records, a very few of the territories found prior to Unification had already incorporated tenants into their structure. However, due to the extraordinary difficulty of maintaining survival during the chaos, any such area tended to be among the largest, most (temporarily) stable and able to risk expending resources, and generally took in those from whom they could ask for some benefit in return. In particular, this accounts for the survival of sheep: just about every living descendant can track their ancestry back to a few barricade points who felt it was easier to have a few extra responsibilities than to risk going out into the chaos storms in order to find something which could pass for wool.
Initial post-Discordian exploration found such territories. With very few exceptions, what it did not locate were tenants who had managed to survive on their own. Early documents reveal a tucked-away pocket of cattle near ibex territory, apparently having found some degree of shelter through sheer coincidence. A small colony of pigs, at the time of its discovery, was down to nine who were almost constantly at each other's throats, battling over the dwindling resources of what had been a fecund cave system. (Modern scholars have determined this location would have supported some four hundred individuals indefinitely -- with proper resource management.)
From this point forward, however, historical first encounters with tenants often take on a similar character to the initial discovery of full sapients. There's a meeting, discovery, possible misunderstandings, the careful exchange of information, bargaining, working out exactly what the other wants, and the other typical hallmarks which indicate recognition among equals.
It usually didn't take all that long to discover that there was something wrong.
What separates a tenant species from a fully sapient one?
Every known sapient species seems to have an inherent flaw.
This is something which is almost universally recognized: the majority of exceptions come from those who refuse to acknowledge such weakness in themselves. Some of the most astute papers on the pony condition have arisen from griffons capable of outside observation, and vice-versa: the main question then becomes who's going into public denial during the presentation. But no matter how much certain members of those species might protest, both fact and flaw remain. Predatory griffons become prey to their own domination instincts. Ponies fall to herd instinct, temporarily forfeiting thought for the desires of the massmind. A yak may turn into a charging engine of destruction. It's possible for zebras to react as a group -- but all too often, they look inwards, turning away from their fellows and refusing to trust.
Are the tenants more flawed? There have been arguments made in this direction. However, while some think of tenant flaws as magnified versions of those suffered by full sapients (the zebra frailty resembling that of the porcines, ponies and cattle reflecting one another), the true key is this.
A full sapient can resist the urges imposed upon them by instinct.
A tenant cannot.
This does not mean that every full sapient possesses -- or rather, utilizes -- that capacity. Everypony will be familiar with that one individual in their settled zone who constantly goes along with the whims of the crowd, their own opinions twisting with the verbal wind simply because it's easier that way. And there are those whose only encounters with the concept of willpower comes from the covers of diet books, which they will almost assuredly never finish reading.
But to be a full sapient means having the potential to hold against the tide. Anyone has the chance to break -- and by the same token, anyone may be able to maintain themselves in a crisis. Once a flaw is identified, along with its triggers, full sapient vs. tenant is a simple matter of observing any situation where that trigger takes effect and seeing how many do not fall.
If the answer is 'none of them resist, ever,' the species is a tenant.
Assignment of this status is not immediate. In the modern day, discovery of a new species will lead into an extensive series of evaluations, overseen by a mixed-sapient council: this is maintained by the international neutral court of the Beastriality, and the species being observed will have multiple legal representatives of its own. Because tenants are considered to be incapable of managing themselves, just about no one wants to assign that status to a new species without absolute confirmation. (There have been exceptions, mostly based in either belief regarding personal superiority or a desire for territory.)
Discovery leads to evaluation -- and evaluation leads to a conclusion: the discovery of the last new tenant species was more than nine hundred years ago. Every case since then has seen the Beastriality rule for full sapience, on evidence. Unless something new evolves from the animals and stops briefly in an intermediary stage, it seems as if no fresh tenant face may ever emerge from the wild zones.
There is a reason for this, and it's a simple one.
They can't survive on their own.
Why do tenants exist?
On the most absolute level, no one truly knows. There are a number who've convinced themselves that their theories are knowledge, but there is no single definitive conclusion.
There are three major categories of theory.
* Tenants are natural inferiors, created to serve their betters. The smallest category and the least vocal, at least in public. Saying this where others can hear you generally doesn't go well.
* Tenants are an intermediary, universal stage in species development, part of the crossing from animal to sapient. This idea has the bare majority of adherents, but it requires a belief in evolution and asks the student to admit that there might have been a time when their own species qualified as a tenant. For some, that's a major sticking point.
* Tenant species were once full sapients. The Discordian Era caused damage which brought them to their current state. The 'pity' theory, and the second largest category. It also starts causing trouble for those who look at it too long, because every full sapient species has a flaw. And if you start looking at that flaw as damage...
Legal status
Internationally, tenant species are considered to be protectorates. However, not every nation is willing to directly grant those protections.
In the modern day, the three leading host nations are Equestria, Mazein, and Protocera. (The first is where the majority of tenants were initially discovered, the second offers territory and those willing to look after the burdened, and the griffon habit of taking children out of war zones wound up generationally backfiring on them.) By contrast, Prance has almost no tenants hosted at all: a country which has, based on internally-generated non-evidence, convinced itself that everyone else is inferior and not worth the trouble isn't going to deal well with those who actually are -- especially when that means taking responsibility.
Tenant rights are seen as international, and so tend to be governed by international law. (For a given country, never putting yourself in a situation where you would have to deal with that is a local decision.) A tenant species has the right to ask for territory, and some amount of it must be granted: the terrain has to be suitable, and maintenance is required. In the cases of the very few areas where tenants were discovered sheltering on their own and survived long enough to be found, there can be a limited degree of self-management, with careful supervision. These instances find tenants holding their own original territory -- but this is something which can only be done as long as full sapients help to maintain those areas. Any attempt to grant tenants full responsibility for themselves, as a group, has always failed.
Tenant areas must be supplied with the necessities for survival. (This can vary somewhat by species. Food and water are universal, but some tenant species will forsake shelter, preferring to remain outdoors in any situation other than total crisis.) Nations which serve as hosts have government agencies which regularly inspect such zones to make sure they're comfortable for everyone involved.
Many areas request that tenants give something back to their hosts. For those who cannot labor, a small stipend is granted by the government, with some part of this turned over to their landlords. Others offer their own work: cattle can turn their efforts towards the physical, and a sheep can always sell wool. (The latter is done through an intermediary, lest someone tell the sheep that their wool just isn't worth anything this year and they might as well turn it over.) It's understood that supervising tenants brings more than its fair share of migraines, and some degree of compensation for the process is often required to encourage anyone to attempt it in the first place.
A tenant may leave their host site. However, in the majority of examples, this has to be done with supervision. No one can trust a pig in a supermarket: everything will belong to the pig, and it's a question of who winds up paying for it. Sheep must travel with guardians, who stand ready to explain just why whatever they just heard isn't a new belief system.
The majority of tenant rights are similar to those possessed by children: anything local and international which is considered to apply to all, but with the understanding that the person involved is essentially a minor. A tenant generally can't sign a contract without supervision and a full sapient to cosign for them. Nations which have voting are not required to grant that right to a tenant, and it's internationally illegal to involve sheep in politics. With one exception, a tenant may not join a local military. (See below.)
However, they may still own businesses, hold bank accounts, and purchase land -- as long as someone else is looking out for them. (This representative can be assigned by a court.) The landlord typically serves in loco parentis: essentially representing the tenant's most immediate guardian. However, in complex cases, the guardian is treated as being the nation itself, and an entire country can be held responsible for abuses.
Any abuses of tenants are treated as exactly that. A tenant has the right to report ill treatment and if proven, and relocation must be granted. Taking advantage of a tenant in minor ways (excessive labor, unfair rent) is a potentially massive fine at the low end of the scale: anything over that typically results in jail time.
In order to prevent nations from narrowing granted rights in ways which would permit such abuses, just about all major tenant cases go to the Beastriality. The tenant species collectively hold three seats on the Plinth. Historically, these are representatives, with the sapient species speaking for them -- but one of those seats is currently occupied by cattle.
Landlords
Legally, landlords are treated as their tenant's first layer of guardian. This does not mean they have to grant any request, any more than a parent has to do everything their child asks. It does require them to provide everything due to someone renting a home, along with just about anything that would be granted to keep a child healthy.
(The trickiest category is education. It's very rare for someone from a tenant species to attend school with sapients. Full class integration has been attempted several times -- but something has always gone wrong. Currently, the majority of nations allow tenants to send their children to city classes if they so desire, but the majority of teaching is done by tutors who come to the tenant areas. (For sheep, this is done very carefully.) All tenants have the right to an education -- but some decide they simply don't need it.)
A landlord must be compensated for their hosting duties. As tenants are granted legal representatives in times of dispute, often at no cost, a landlord may ask for free representation: these attorneys are paid by the international court. Those landlords with eternal problem residents are advised to retain permanent legal council.
Should a tenant engage in illegal activity, the landlord can be held responsible. This is generally used if the landlord ordered the activity, whether the tenant was aware that it was illegal or not. However, this can also kick in if an action they took directly led to said activity, or if the crime arose from their own negligence. It's acknowledged that this can be a tricky category: cattle are going to stampede, and telling the landlord that they shouldn't have cried out because they jammed their hoof isn't going to go over well. Similarly, a pig stealing food is always going to claim that they weren't getting enough at home and it's the landlord's fault. There's about a 99% chance the pig is lying: sorting out the remainder occupies a lot of paperwork.
Some of those with extensive tenant presence on their territory have rather darkly compared the situation to having children -- if some of them didn't love you and were capable of telling you so, over and over again. A number of individual tenants recognize their inability to survive without assistance and are grateful for their hosts. Others rebel, make things difficult on purpose, and generally demonstrate the attitude of an adolescent who became a genius through reaching the appropriate birthday and spends their life demanding that everyone else recognize it. The success rate is about the same.
It takes a special temperament to be a host, and not everyone has it. Tenants can think. This means they can think of things they want, things they need, and reasons why their just having crashed that fence through was somehow your fault. The main benefit to hosting tenants over sapients is that a tenant is just about never late on the rent -- but whereas a pony might eventually understand why putting a giant three-level gold fountain in place of the water trough is an unnecessary expense, a pig's counter will forever be 'But I want it!' This can become frustrating, especially when the argument reaches its third year.
Prospective landlords are evaluated by the tenant representative agency, need to attend classes, and must be licensed: the process for acquiring one takes two years, and a landlord can expect frequent, random visits by government employees who are making sure that nothing bad is happening. A license can be inherited if the younger generation was part of the care process: in such cases, the evaluation takes place over three moons.
A landlord who quits must give six moons' notice to the government. The tenants will be distributed to other sites. (Families are always kept together, and an entire species cluster will generally be moved as a group, to keep the 'neighborhood' intact.) The former landlord will never be permitted to host again.
The cattle question
Tenants exist on a level just below that of a full sapient: capable of thought, but unable to resist their critical flaw. They are incapable of assuring their own long-term survival, and so need supervision to allow peaceful existence. It is generally recognized that without such aid, every tenant species might ultimately go extinct.
But the cattle flaw is other cattle.
It's rare for cattle to leave their herd -- but it happens. Cattle isolated from their own kind slip deeper into individuality. They can't be set off by the actions of cattle around them, for there are none. There's no one to mindlessly agree with, no patterns to follow, and mimicking the patterns of non-cattle just... feels wrong. They have to form their own opinions.
Several nations have cattle who qualify as full citizens. (For those born in the nation, acquiring such legal status through the appropriate paperwork and classes means they are treated as a natural-born resident in all cases where this might apply.) They may vote, join the military, serve in politics, and do anything else which a citizen might access.
They can also form unions with other such cattle. Have children. And as soon as they do so, they begin to form a herd again...
A cattle who remains isolated from their own kind for an extended period, possessing the willpower to keep from going back, qualifies as a full sapient.
So what does this mean for the species? Is it possible that cattle are evolving, developing the ability to separate themselves from the herd, and the first ones to advance are only managing through trying it all at once? Or are these the outliers, and the species as a whole won't change? What if every species has the potential for outliers, and it just hasn't been seen yet? And if every tenant species is still evolving... Or if it was damage from the Discordian Era, then are cattle healing? And if that's happening, then what about the current full sapients? Is it possible for those species to recover from their own flaws?
Some theories propose that, as goats seem to exist on the line between animal and tenant, cattle are moving onto the border which divides tenant from sapient. Some of them have managed to cross it -- but they can only remain on the new side as long as they stay away from their fellows. A life of full thought, and a life which has to be spent away from their own species in order to retain any life at all.
Still... they're out there. Those who travel extensively will meet cattle doctors, judges, and more ordinary citizens who are just trying to lead their own lives -- on several levels. For now, all the Beastriality can do is make sure the laws exist to enable the transition from tenant to citizen. And those who study tenants watch, wondering if a day will come when a new nation is founded by quadruped hooves and curving horns marching into the wild zones to carve out a place.
Many feel they're sure about what cattle are -- now. But very few are willing to say what they might become.
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...during the edit.
Hmm... For Max Sapience, they could do a thing... They breed, raise their kids, then leave ASAP, forming a nomadic culture or however it's called, so they don't have herds anymore...
----
I forget if the alicorns have been seen to have herd instincts as well... Harmony is a repairing force, sorta? Is that what it does? Undo the Flaws?
If so... All known Alicorns have Marks... Are Cutie Marks not supposed to arrive later, they're supposed to be on a pony from birth??
I think Applejack has a very silly heard of cattle, or at least the young ones. I wonder if we will soon be seeing a tenant crossing over into sapient soon in one of your stories?
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It's already happening in the background. There's a bull in Cerea's citizenship class.
wow... the world you have made out of what started as a kids show never fails to impress
The world building is great here. It’s very neat to see the whole system explained some.
Also... *snerk* Beastriality...
With that one troublesome bull she hosts, and the recent outbreak of branding, how long until Applejack is hauled in front of the Beastriality?
Interesting, unsurprisingly!
Thanks for writing, and to Pseudosapien for requesting the topic.
And, of course, while I'm not sure if he exists, in legend or otherwise, in the Continuum's world, there is that one particular example of a sheep who didn't seem to have much trouble with his species's flaw...
...huh.
Unless I have things very wrong, tenants are smarter than animals - smarter than dogs and cats and so forth. And dogs, cats, and so forth can survive on their own. They'll never be civilised citizens, sure, but if left alone they can find their own food and water and generally survive. (Well, sometimes - survival in the wild always has a bit of a questionmark over it, even more so in a world with chimeras and so forth).
Now, sheep - sheep believe anything and everything they hear. This causes immediate and predictable problems the moment that they run across anyone able to speak. But is there any reason why a family of deaf sheep couldn't survive on their own, as long as they never meet any other sapient?
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I like to think that's because of the nature of the Apples. They may not always be financially stable, but no one is ever going to go hungry or be ill treated. Which might explain why they're hosting cattle and pigs both. Especially if the pigs don't mind helping dispose of some of the apples that aren't pretty enough for retail.
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They can't form and maintain their own societies, or keep a nation going. Their flaw will always bring it down in the end. Long-term survival in wild zones will make the flaw manifest eventually, and the results can be fatal.
As for your second question:
pbs.twimg.com/media/ExqiFkuXAAQDlbQ?format=jpg&name=900x900
...you had that coming.
No. There's also believing whatever you tell yourself. (It's a very common form of insanity. Just about every human suffers from it.) And they're a prey species to start with.
Makes you wonder about the bell curve, something that must be approached with a great deal of caution and preferably a long stick to poke it several times. There are two uncomfortable truths to it:
First - There will be geniuses among the tenant population, some of whom may exceed the intelligence of the average pony.
Second - There will be idiots among the tenant population, some of whom will be indistinguishable from animals.
Is it still a crime to eat a non-sapient such as a feral goat? And by the inverse, can a pony school turn away a brilliant young lamb who seeks to understand the mystery of numbers above 'many' and just why leaves are green instead of purple or orange.
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Animals are animals. (Although Iron Will would give you a long argument on goats, and Ancestors help anyone who tells him they've eaten one.) If it can't truly think and it's in the wild with no signs of ownership -- or you raised it on a ranch -- then dinner is served.
A lamb could attend school, albeit with some confusion and a likely school board freakout -- but there would be a guardian at the next desk over, staying nearby during recess to make sure no one talked the lamb into anything.
Also, think about all the things your school taught you in the elementary years which turned out to be utter lies by the time you hit Grade 12.
Great World Building once again Estee.
Funny enough, there were some rare bull antagonists in the IDW comics, King Longhorn and his gang that robbed train in the desert. It could almost fit with your theory but with Longhorn being one who reached full sentience with isolation and managed to not regress too badly when he formed his gang with other bulls, staying the leader through his will and experience.
Cattle working.
Cattle can haul approximately as much as a horse their size. Under various names, (oxen, bullock) they've the most common draft animal in the world IRL.
Horses are used because they are a great deal faster under good conditions (such as on roads).
On MLP, most cattle are larger than most ponies + they have milk + dairy products
5485522
.....yeah, that makes sense. Long-term survival would have to be on the 'barely feral' level, and would somehow have to remain on the 'barely feral' level, neither dipping below into starvation nor above that level into 'enough to eat that we can start figuring out this Society business'.
And yeah, that Douglas Adams quote was fairly applied.
Wow. This is a great dive into the world you've built. It's a fascinating idea to dig into the ancient world of a planet where chaos manifested so literally. Like the magical elements and deity forces exerting themselves over the environment and what that influence would do to the cultures and individuals that inhabited it and how they would evolve in certain ways due to it over time...
It's interesting. Did the idea of tenants come to you at first as more of a joke or reference to the show having cows stampeding or was it something you always intended to flesh out more from the start?
Thank you for the blog. Where should I put my own request in? Go back to the other blog you made for that? Do you check those old posts or get notifications on them if we comment? Sorry about the questions I just have a lot to ask. No pressure to answer any if you don't wish to.
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I get notifications on a new comment, regardless of when the blog went up.
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Grogar is ancient though, which suggests he might be from before the discordian era which in turn leads credence to the idea that sheep might be damaged sapients.
I knew that was going to be a sticky subject, and I’m quite satisfied. Thanks for squeezing it Just. Under. The. Border! Suspect you just made a bunch of that up just now though, and that your future stories might be better for it.
It’s noteworthy there’s no such borderline species here on earth. It’s something that could easily exist but doesn’t. There are clever critters around, elephants, apes, cetaceans, and such, but nothing anywhere even close to the level of any human outside of an institution. Even the cleverest of them, with the exception of ravens, are not doing well in this Anthropocene Age we’re building and need intervention to avoid going extinct. There were various hominid cousins who were our near peers but we killed them off. It’s fascinating to use stories asking ‘what if?’ like this to explore the ethics and practicalities of it all.
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Lit. I'll go back there and do things properly with grammar and manners and such. Thanks!
5485555
Ahh. Yes, good point! Thanks!
Fascinating stuff. The crippling flaw is especially interesting because it's so hard to see one's own. We have some fairly good ideas about humanity's, but it's still hard to move past it. How would our particular flavor of in-built irrationality look to ponies, and vice versa?
And, of course, there's the question of damage or development. Great food for thought throughout. I'm very glad to see these return. Thanks for this.
In our world, I think all the tenant species we've seen would be domesticated animals. In other words, things which did not evolve naturally and who's dependence on other sapient creatures (read: us) was specifically bred into them. There it's prejudicial, here it's just true.
I bet goats are sentients, but just so damn contrary that they stubbornly refuse to cooperate at all with anyone involved and get written off as tenants because of it.
Is there any way to favorite a blog? This was a great lore peace and I know I’ll wanna reread it in the future when I have a question.
Question: where do tenants sit on the magic threshold? It's been repeatedly mentioned that in the Continuum all sapient races possess magic of some sort. Does "sapient races" include tenants in this case, or do tenant races not necessarily have access to magic?
It's also interesting to think how Fluttershy's talent plays into this. It's mentioned somewhere that, in the Continuum, Fluttershy's talent seems to uplift the animals around her over time, allowing them to develop to a higher level of thought, and that she suspects Angel might count as sapient by this point. Makes me wonder if the same effect, over a larger area and a longer timescale, could allow animal races to be uplifted to sapience. And if so, would these new races pass through the tenant stage, or would they jump to full sapience? And would it be possible to develop magic that can uplift tenants to full sapience?
And Moon's tears, but the picture you paint of what life is like for the rare sapient cattle is horrifying! Always having to choose between losing your mind and eternal isolation from your species, even the finding of a kindred spirit and mate a cause for fear... yikes.
I see from your example sheep need to be treated carefully, or they'll blindly follow the loudest ( or most persistent ) voice.
Is it wrong to think of them as being as dumb as a stick, or is that sort of thinking prejudicial?
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Tell me, was any of this influenced by reading Octavia Butler?
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Hmm... Might their Flaw and Magic be linked? We know that all pony types can work together in each type... Cross-tribe magic fusion? Herd-ness??
...
Is the real Flaw, Falling? Is Falling and Herding the same thing?
ooooo I loved reading this bit of worldbuilding! good stuff!
Sounds like a long time ago, a lot of people made a concentrated effort to keep the tenants from becoming slave races.
Which raises a question, are there any slave-holding cultures/nations on Menagerie? And I don't mean just the old United States South plantation-type slavery, but also the nordic thralls, the Indian Mumlak (an elite slave-warrior group) or the ancient Chinese (I think, it's been a while since I researched this) bureaucracy (where the people who were running the government were also the property of the government) forms of slavery?
Two questions if that's ok:
1: can you explain more details of the flaw of Zebras and Pigs?
2: what is the problem with the damage theory. That if every sapiant is damaged they will... try and fix it?
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I think the problem with the damage theory is that it suggests that everyone may be at least a little bit damaged. From an objective position, that isn’t a genuine problem, but very few people would want to admit not just “we have a critical flaw” but “that critical flaw is a lingering psychic scar, and there used to be ponies/minotaurs/catbirbs who were not damaged.”
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got it, that makes alot of sense. Thank you
Hmm, just thought of something about this. You have 3 main theories about how tenants came to be, but I just thought of a fourth theory that I think may be closer to the truth.
Theory 3 is that the tenants were fully sentient before the Discordian era and got knocked down. I propose the opposite: before the Discordian era, there were no sentients, tenant or otherwise. Or at least ponies, griffons and other familiar species. There may have been a sentient species beforehand, be it human or alien, but were wiped out by Discord.
I think this makes a lot of sense considering just how weird the world is. Multiple sentient species just don't evolve together on a planet. Considering the characteristics of magic in the verse and Sun and Moon, having the very existence of sentients being artificial feels right.