//------------------------------// // 1: "Telegraphing Each Other All Over the Place!" // Story: But Wait...There's More! // by McPoodle //------------------------------// But Wait...There’s More! - 1: "Telegraphing Each Other All Over the Place!" - “Lies! Lies! Lies!” So proclaimed the elder unicorn as he slammed down a copy of the Fillydelphia Courier. The headline read “Do EA Trottmans Cause Ponies to Grow a Third Eye?” The line underneath read “Princess Celestia Thinks So!” The newspaper joined a host of newspapers with similar headlines on a worktable located in an office overlooking the factory floor that made Equestria Acoustics’ exclusive personal music player, the Trottman. The floor was at a standstill and the workers were all home, because orders had ground to a halt. Only the two unicorns remained. The speaker was Philo, also known as “Philo from Fillydelphia”, formerly known as “Philo the Filer from Fillydelphia”, from his former career as head mail sorter for the city. The listener was Vinyl Scratch, Equestria’s first-ever disk jockey under the alias of DJ Pon-3, and co-owner of Equestria Acoustics. The company’s only product was the Trottman, which had been a co-creation of Vinyl and her silent business partner, Twilight Sparkle. As for Philo, he was not only her uncle but also manager for Vinyl Scratch. To tell the truth, though, Vinyl managed herself—Uncle Philo’s true role was to keep other ponies from discovering Vinyl’s vision problem. Well, perhaps “vision problem” was the wrong term for it—Vinyl had no use for eyes, and she occasionally had trouble understanding why everypony else was so fond of theirs. “You know,” Vinyl Scratch flippantly remarked, “I wouldn’t mind growing a third eye, if it actually worked.” Vinyl’s income as DJ Pon-3 was the only thing keeping the factory from being liquidated by creditors. Vinyl also owned a second factory down the street that manufactured the compact discs used by the Trottman—that building had been converted back into its original function of manufacturing vinyl records. Vinyl swung her head around slowly. If she had a working sense of vision, she could be said to be taking in the empty sight of the factory below, but in fact she was taking in the empty sound of the factory below. Her silent contemplation was interrupted by the sound of knocking. “I’ll get it,” Uncle Philo said, walking over to the circular staircase that led to the ground level. “Roof door, Unc,” Vinyl gently reminded him. “Oh, right.” The old unicorn turned around and took a second circular staircase up to the roof. There he found a trio of waiting ponies: Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash and Vinyl’s childhood friend Rarity. The roads between Ponyville and Fillydelphia were a morass of mud this time of year, so Twilight and her party found it easier to travel between the two towns by using her personal hot air balloon. This also helped to keep their meetings relatively secret. Twilight had still not revealed to Vinyl the agenda that involved keeping a trove of recently-discovered Ancient artifacts secret from Princess Celestia, but apparently her “silent” partner status was part of that agenda, so Vinyl loyally remained silent about it. “I hope you’ve brought good news,” Vinyl said once welcoming hugs were exchanged. She was rather surprised that Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie didn’t accompany them—that group tended to be all six or none at all. Oh well, maybe it’ll only get half as crazy this time, she joked to herself. “Well, it’s news, anyway,” Twilight said. “I’ve tracked down the source of the fake story.” Twilight didn’t believe for one second that the Princess would ever say something so outrageous about the Trottman, this despite the fact that the student had never informed her former teacher of her personal involvement in its creation. “The original story came from the Canterlot Clarion.” “The personal newspaper of the Steadfast clan,” Uncle Philo grumbled. “I should have known!” Celestia’s distant cousin Prince Steadfast had a “hobby” of studying and then publicly destroying the reputation of any pony who his warped mind classified as an enemy—he had a display case filled with paired “before” and “after” photographs of his victims. At the moment, the hapless DJ was one of the few of his enemies that lacked an “after” photo. “I was afraid of that,” Vinyl said, sitting down on a cushion in a corner to think. “I’m sure the Princess would have gotten the truth out if was in her power to do so,” Twilight stated in a pleading tone. As the Princess’ personal representative in Ponyville, the article had made her life rather difficult, as everypony she met expected her to echo its sentiments. Vinyl frowned. Unlike Twilight, the DJ had grown up among commoners, and had heard the rumors that had circulated over the years about her goddess’ true motives whenever something bad happened, including a certain nickname that no pony dared say out loud. If it wasn’t for Twilight Sparkle’s certainty, perhaps she would have believed that “Trollestia” was deliberately sabotaging her company to hold back the course of Pony Civilization. The Trottman after all was created to play CDs, and the original CDs Vinyl and Twilight used to create it were part of that secret trove of Ancient artifacts. Like all of the other artifacts in that trove, the Ancient CDs possessed strange powers—the songs on them, whether played on a Trottman or by the magic of Vinyl’s horn, appeared to have powerful emotional effects on the listener—a power that none of the CDs that Vinyl had later manufactured possessed. “I suppose the Prince has some kind of influence over her,” she said. Or she considers family harmony more important than the truth, she added mentally. “In any case, I plan to do something about it.” “What are you going to do?” asked Rarity. “The problem, as I see it,” said Vinyl, treating this business crisis like it was a short in her acoustical equipment, “is a breakdown in Princess-to-pony communication. I can fix this in one of two ways. Either I can determine what keeps Princess Celestia from speaking the truth, and remove the obstruction, or I work to figure out what would make a normally-rational pony believe that their Princess would say something so ridiculous, and help them to overcome their mental block. The first approach involves petitioning the Princess, and Prince Steadfast, as unobtrusively as possible. For the second approach, I’m taking my case to the people of Canterlot. DJ Pon-3 will be traveling to the capital tonight for a series of engagements. I’ll use the opportunity to try to convince as many of the rich and powerful of Canterlot as possible that my invention has no harmful side effects, except possibly the uncontrollable urge to dance in the streets, and really, I consider that more of a beneficial than a harmful side effect, don’t you?” Twilight started to nod silently in agreement, before catching herself doing something that Vinyl couldn’t hear, so instead she said, “Alright. We’ll head over there as well, and take care of the Prince Steadfast part of your plan.” “Are you involved in this plan as well, Dash?” Vinyl asked incredulously. “Sure! I’m nearly as good a talker as I am a flyer!” Vinyl didn’t have to see the two pairs of eyes that were certainly rolling at that statement. “Besides, I owe you a favor after you helped me throw that javelin,” she said, referring to the part of the secret trove the pegasus had claimed for her own. “We’ll have a much better chance at convincing the Prince than you could,” Rarity explained. “After all, he doesn’t know that we have any contact with you, and so might be more inclined to listen to our arguments with an impartial ear.” “Yes,” Twilight declared, “and once that’s done, I’m sure that Celestia will straighten this whole mess out!” Vinyl wished that she shared the magical unicorn’s sense of optimism on that last point. The next Trans-Equestria Dirigible Service, or TEDS as it was known, run from Fillydelphia to Canterlot left at 9 pm, so the three visitors from Ponyville were able to help Vinyl and her uncle pack everything she would need on her trip: equipment and recordings that DJ Pon-3 would need for her gigs, and boxes of Trottmans and CDs to sell or if necessary give away to undo the effects of the bad publicity. After the cargo had been checked into the station, Uncle Philo excused himself and went home, equipped with a list of instructions to maintain Vinyl’s interests in town. Despite all that, Vinyl and her traveling companions still had time for dinner at a reasonably-priced restaurant located near the station. “You know, I just realized,” Rainbow said during a lull in the dinner table conversation. “This will be the first time I’ll be heading to Canterlot without the need to rush right back. Maybe I’ll have some time for sightseeing. The Great Hall is a given. Twilight, you’re from Canterlot, and Rarity and Vinyl, you both spend a lot of time there on business, so where else do you think I should visit?” “Oh, there’s dozens of different museums in the capitol, Rainbow,” said Twilight. “You’ll probably be interested in both the Flight Achievements Museum of Equestria and the Weather Museum.” “Fashion Row, while certainly nothing to match Manehatten’s Garment District, is renowned for their dragon-inspired creations. Definitely a ‘must-see’,” gushed Rarity. “I always try to find time for the Imaginarium every time I go,” Vinyl said absently. “Oh, I haven’t been there in ages!” exclaimed Rarity. “Is there any chance you’ll have some time free in your schedule?” “Probably around Tuesday or so.” “Then it’s a date! Rainbow, you will not regret this!” “I don’t know,” said Twilight. “All the exhibits are powered by magic; you know,” she hesitated, “the visitor’s horns. You might feel left out.” “Naw, I don’t mind—I can just watch,” Rainbow said. “That reminds me though—Canterlot really is a unicorn city, isn’t it?” “For the most part,” Vinyl said. “If you don’t count the royal guard,” added Rarity. “Or the princesses,” Twilight added with a grin. “There are more than just unicorns there, but they are the predominant residents.” Rainbow sighed. “I guess I’ll have to get used to missing out on the conversations, then.” “Oh, the inhabitants of Canterlot are pretty friendly,” Twilight assured the pegasus. “That’s not it. I mean, it’s really nice of you three unicorns to talk to each other with me around, but we all know you could be using your telepathy instead, and I expect that’s what the unicorns in Canterlot do to each other all the time.” This statement was met by a stunned silence by the three unicorns. “I should hope not!” Vinyl finally exclaimed. Twilight decided to get to the bottom of this. “Rainbow, what gave you the notion that unicorns use telepathy?” “Spark Gap, the Telegraph operator closest to Cloudsdale. He was the only unicorn I saw on a regular basis growing up, so I learned most of what I know about unicorns from him. He was always telling me what the other members of the Telegraph family were up to. He also told me his family never needed to have a family reunion despite being scattered to the four corners of Equestria, because they were all ‘telegraphing’ each other constantly.” This revelation was followed by another silence, this time of the awkward variety. “Um, Rainbow,” Rarity said as delicately as she could, “did anypony actually tell you how telegraphy works?” “What’s there to know?” the pegasus replied. “Say somepony wants to send a message from Cloudsdale to Fillydelphia, and they need it to get there now and can’t afford to pay the Dragon Messaging Service a silver chalice for every ten words. Spark Gap Telegraph at Cloudsdale thinks of Buzz Telegraph at Fillydelphia, and the message goes ‘zip’ between their brains. No problem! In fact, I don’t know why any other unicorns haven’t tried to break the Telegraph clan’s monopoly—it may be cheaper than the dragons, but it’s still a pretty big drain on the annual weather budget every time we need to coordinate cloud movements from opposite sides of the continent.” “‘No problem,’ she says!” exclaimed Vinyl incredulously. “Rainbow...” Twilight began, but then she stopped herself. “You know, on second thought, maybe you’re better off not knowing. You still have to use the telegraph as part of your job. I wouldn’t want you to get the Hebe GBs every time you have to send a message.” Dash leaned forward eagerly. “This is going to be good, isn’t it? Some deep dark unicorn secret that you’re ready to share with me, isn’t it? Well come on, tell me!” “You’re not going to like it,” Twilight warned her. “You’re going to wish we never told you...” “I’m grown up!” Dash insisted, although the squeak in her voice sought to say otherwise. “Lay it on me!” “All right...you two are witnesses that she did insist...” “Twilight!” Rainbow exclaimed, not taking “no” for an answer. “Alright. Well the fact of the matter is, unicorns can send thoughts out all right, but we’re not very good at receiving them. A thought after all isn’t just some words; it’s everything that those words mean to the pony who thought them. Just as no two ponies have the exact same definition of the color blue, so the same thought, made by two different ponies, are completely different in form.” Rainbow Dash yawned. “Twi, if you’re trying to scare me, it isn’t working.” “What I’m trying to get at,” Twilight continued, “is that to pick up somepony’s thought, you must have a similar mind to that pony. The Telegraph family has a monopoly on two-way thought transmission because they are a family. Every single Telegraph operator in Equestria is brother or sister with every other Telegraph operator in Equestria. Entire generations retire simultaneously so that the next generation can take over. Dozens of siblings are raised from birth on the family ranch, following a documented list of instructions that have been strictly followed for nearly a century. Everypony is treated exactly the same, and they all end up with nearly identical cutie marks.” This got Rainbow’s attention. “Alright, that is a little creepy. What else?” “Then there’s the act of telegraphy itself,” said Twilight. She didn’t notice that the sounds of the neigh-boring tables had died down, as everypony was listening intently to her story. “The sending and receiving unicorns precisely align their thought waves before transmitting, and each transmission has a cumulative effect. In short, every message a Telegraph brother or sister sends makes them more and more identical to each other.” “And...” Dash prompted. “That’s it,” Twilight replied. “You know, you’re taking this awfully well.” “Well I don’t know why you three were so worked up—maybe it’s a unicorn thing,” said Dash. “I mean yeah, the stuff on the ranch and the cutie marks, but what’s so weird about getting more and more...wait. Are you saying they start thinking like each other?” “Yes...” Twilight replied. “...and they start liking and disliking the same things?” “...yes...” “You forgot the physical resemblances,” Rarity chimed in. “Powerful magic has an effect on unicorn physiology.” “Oh, yes, thank you, Rarity,” said Twilight, a sinister smile on her lips. “Haven’t you ever noticed that every telegraph operator looks like every other telegraph operator? It gets so you can’t even tell which ones are colts and...” Every non-unicorn in the restaurant groaned at once and tried to cover their ears with their hooves. “Alright, I’ll stop,” Twilight announced, looking around at the other listeners in surprise. “...Why did you tell me that, Twi?” Rainbow cried out. “Why?!” “Well, I did warn you.”