The Filly Buster · 3:26pm Aug 14th, 2021
In earth pony democratic tradition, when a minority group of council leaders, in opposition to the will of the majority, wish to stop or slow down a vote on a proposition they are opposed to (but believe will have the votes to pass), they may engage in a Filly Buster, in which opposition members of the council will continue talking once given their chance to make their statement in opposition.
The goal is to force enough of the majority to give up and leave council halls that the minority in opposition have a majority and can win the vote, or for enough ponies to leave that there is no longer a quorum and no vote can be taken. The statements made during the statement in opposition do not have to have anything to do with the motion under review; one pony famously read the entire body of Spear Shaker's work into the record.
It's called a Filly Buster because the idea is that it separates the "mares" from the "fillies"; any mare unable to stay up all night (or sleep at her desk) to preserve the quorum and the majority, or unable to keep talking endlessly to prove the depth of her opposition, is metaphorically "busted" as a "filly". (Ponies are matriarchal. Aside from pegasi, who grant rank on the completely sexually egalitarian rule of "who's the best flyer" [note that flying ability is granted by magic, skill, and physical build; stallions tend to be physically stronger with larger wingspans, but they are also heavier, so there's really no sex bias in flight strength among pegasi], ponies will tend to pick female rulers if that's an option. Historically most earth pony elected officials have been mares. Actual sex bias is illegal, and stallions can run for office, but the assumption that females are just better leaders is a hard one to overcome.)
The name has proven to be ironic; one of the more famous filly busters was in fact conducted by a filly. There's nothing in earth pony law that says that you can't run for office after you have your cutie mark, and many junior council members have technically been fillies when they were elected. (Hardly any colts. Due to the sex bias, generally a male pony needs the gravitas that being an adult grants before he can get anyone to vote for him.) Motormouth, a filly elected only two years after getting her mark, twenty-seven years before the return of Princess Luna, launched a filly buster in opposition to allowing a planned rail spur to go through an area that teen ponies used to hold parties, and entered history. She kept talking, by herself, for a record five and a half days without sleeping, eating nothing but what her friends brought her and that she could stuff in her mouth but keep talking. The court stenographers failed to keep up, so the full text of Motormouth's statement is unknown, but it seemed to largely consist of teen gossip. Although in the end she failed and the motion carried -- she was outnumbered, being the only pony in opposition on the council, and thus the opposition were able to sleep in shifts -- the townsponies were so moved by the brave struggle of this filly that they demanded the rail go somewhere else.
At several points in the history of Equestria, earth ponies and unicorn nobles have attempted to employ the Filly Buster at court. By tradition, Celestia would fully hear out the statement of a pony opposed to a law that she was in favor of. It has never worked. Firstly, alicorns can stay up a lot longer than regular ponies, and Celestia often got only two or three hours of sleep a night anyway while she was moving the moon as well as the sun. Secondly, this was a tradition, not a law, and Celestia was fully legally empowered to interrupt the pony trying this stunt and telling them, politely, to shut up or else.
Manehattan attempted to simplify the Filly Buster by simply requiring that the council pass laws by a two thirds majority. This has been a disaster that has resulted in the Manehattan council accomplishing almost literally nothing over the course of thirty years, but they can't get a two thirds majority to abolish the simplified Filly Buster or restore it to its original form.
Ponyville is a sufficiently small town that the Ponyville Council consists of essentially four ponies, plus the Mayor. Pinkie Pie once ran for council office and won, several years before the return of Nightmare Moon, and launched a filly buster on her own to demand that a planned expansion into the Everfree be canceled on the grounds that "the Everfree is spooky" and that she got a twitchy tail about the matter. She was on the second day of her filly buster when a hydra emerged from the area of planned expansion and almost ate a couple of surveyors. After this, the council changed their minds, and Pinkie resigned soon afterward, saying that being on the council wasn't nearly as much fun as planning parties and it was interfering with her ability to do that. There have been no filly busters in Ponyville since then.
Upon coming to power as the ruling princess of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle has presented indicators that she might be favorable to filly busters in her court, but if and only if they are conducted by actually presenting arguments, and ponies who insist on lengthy speeches on irrelevant matters will be escorted out. No one has yet tried it.
Adults: you can't just talk about gossip, memes, funny videos and nothing else.
Teens: observe.
Lovely bit of world building... well, the execution. The content seems nightmarish for everypony who has to sit through the actual filly buster.
I do enjoy your brand of headcanon/world-building. I've missed it this past year.
this is fucking fantastic, especially the reason for why the name is the same :D
I get the feeling the pun “Filly Buster” was the start of this little worldbuilding escapade.
It feels inevitable that in this world, there is some foal destined for politics who will be named Filly Buster, a very cool idea.
WHERE IS THE LIKE BUTTON?!?!?!?
Seriously. This is what good worldbuilding looks like. A detailed backstory explaining some small detail that will probably never actually come up in anybody's story. Ever. Thought (and possibly RW research) went into this. Even if it's a rather dry explanation of an insomnia-curing process, this bit of reading was still entertaining.
Got any more of this?
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*Takes drink. Chokes, coughs, gags, retches, turns green and almost pukes.*
"It's disgusting!"
"I'll have another."
I love each and every paragraph here. Absolutely wonderful.
Reading how Celestia being legally empowered to tell the filly buster to shut up or else cleared my acne, cured my arthritis and watered my crops. Bless.
5569197
How did you even do that? Are blank comments allowed by the software?
5569744
I have no idea - wasn't even aware I had replied. Love the ideas there tho and your fics are always a joy to read. :)
This was a fun bit of worldbuilding, thanks for sharing it
5569744
turns out if u just click the post comment button the comment shows up blank