This is why you should never let ponies play Terraforming Mars

by Petrichord


Chapter 0: No matter how well things start off...

Applejack and Rarity stared at each other from opposite sides of the train car’s table. It was the sort of cold, mutually evaluating gaze normally exchanged between two ponies playing poker for preposterous sums of cash, or perhaps between mob bosses negotiating an underground alliance over similarly preposterous sums of cash. It spoke volumes in silence, about impossibly high stakes and life-defining moments and the cold reduction of a pony to a fleshy bag of organic pulp and assumptions about courses of action that were calculated down to a hundredth of a percentile.

Which was impressive, since the game hadn’t even technically started.

Starlight Glimmer cleared her throat. “So are we gonna play, or…?”

“Of course we are, dear.” Rarity sniffed, straightened up in her chair and dropped her gaze down to her hoof-ful of cards. “I’m simply...considering what courses of action may be necessary throughout the game if I wish to to be victorious in my endeavors.”

“An’ I’m jes’ tryin’ to figure out what sort of competition’s the most likely to be a burr up my backside if’n I’m tryin’ to win, too.” Applejack looked over at Starlight, blinked and weakly held her cards up in the air. “I mean, besides these, too. Jes’ tryin’ to account for all factors.”

Starlight chuckled nervously. “Look, maybe we should give this a try some other time. I can understand if everypony’s a little stir-crazy — ”

“A little?” Rainbow Dash snorted. “Try mega-ultra-super stir crazy! Like, does anypony have any idea how long we’ve been on this train?”

“Nope.” Applejack looked back at her cards. “But I don’t reckon it’s gonna get any shorter if we spend all our time up here flappin’ our gums about how long we’ve been on the train for. You picked your cards yet?”

“Uh…” Rainbow Dash looked at the small pile of cards in front of her. “...Maybe?”

Starlight sighed. “Do you want me to explain the rules again?”

“Me? Pshh! Nah.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “It’s just a game. How hard can it be?”

“Famous last words.” Applejack grinned. “I think I’m ready, Starlight.”

“Likewise.” Rarity matched Applejack’s smile with a grin that could cut diamonds. “I believe that I’ll be able to make a fair amount of use with what I’ve been dealt. Are you ready, Starlight?”

“I think so. Not the greatest start that I’ve ever been dealt, but I should be able to manage.” Starlight chuckled. “So that’s all four of us, then?”

“Um.”

The quartet of ponies turned their heads in unison. Fluttershy, now the center of attention, went from staring at Starlight to trying to hide her face behind her cards in record time.

“I think I’m, um. I think I’m ready, too.” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Okay, so that’s all five of us, then.” Starlight turned back towards Rainbow Dash. “You said you wanted to go first, right?”

“Right! Uh.” Rainbow Dash grabbed at her pile of cards. “Totally! Just as soon as, uh, I get a quick reminder about something.”

Starlight arched an eyebrow. “About what, exactly?”

“Well, uh…”

Rainbow Dash looked back at her cards.

“...What are we doing again?”

Applejack and Rarity groaned in unison.

Starlight sighed. “So when you said that you didn’t need to have me explain the rules again…”

“I kind of sort of do. A lot.”

“Starting from the beginning?”

Rainbow Dash grinned sheepishly. “Basically.”

“Right.” Starlight Glimmer stretched her forelegs, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, they had all the raw charisma and aggressive salesponyship of a carnival barker, and for a brief moment it was easy to see the Starlight Glimmer that had enthralled and enslaved an entire town full of ponies half a decade ago.

“Welcome!” Starlight Glimmer boomed. “To Terraforming Mars! The exciting new board game in which you are one of several Equestrian megacorporations tasked with turning a barren planet into a lush, beautiful new world for ponies around the world to live in.”

“Megawhatsits?” Rainbow Dash interrupted.

“Very big companies, dear” Rarity replied. “Can you imagine if the Carousel Boutique had enough wealth and influence to own all of Cloudsdale? Theoretically speaking, of course.”

“So like a mayor, then?”

Rarity shook her head and grinned. “A megacorporation isn’t like owning one Cloudsdale, Rainbow Dash. Imagine owning your own private Cloudsdale over every city in Equestria, and all of the water in its rainclouds to boot. That’s the sort of power you have at your hooves in this game.”

“Ohhhhh.” Rainbow Dash looked at her cards again. “So can I attack you guys and take over your companies?”

“No.” Rarity raised a hoof to cut Rainbow Dash off as the pegasus opened her mouth again. “No, Rainbow Dash, we are not playing another game in which we wage war on each other.”

“But why not?” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“Cuz’ the last time we tried a game like that, you blew all your armies on tryin’ to attack one of my most heavily garrisoned cities and put yourself outta the game in fifteen minutes.” Applejack tipped her hat back slightly. “Which was funny until you started crying.”

“Hey, I wasn’t crying! I was just being mad at how unfair it was.” Rainbow Dash sputtered. “The dice hated me. There’s nothing wrong with being mad about dice being stupid!”

“I’m pretty sure most folks don’t break down in big, blubbery ol’ tears when they’re mad, sugarcube. Jes’ sayin’.”

In any case,” Starlight Glimmer pressed on, “in this game, the nations of Equestria have established the United National Mars-Equestrian initiative, in which they give a portion of all their tax funding to organizations in the process of turning a barren, inhospitable planet into a new one where all creatures can live in peace and harmony, as well as partial shares in ownership rights to anything personally manufactured by the company for the general public.”

“Uh. What does that mean?” Rainbow Dash replied.

“It means that instead of fighting each other to take each other’s countries, we’re competing with each other to get all the good space to build our own infrastructure on.”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “So instead of attacking other ponies, you’re fighting to own more of a planet than everypony else without being allowed to directly attack them?”

“Exactly!”

“Can I rub it in everypony else’s faces when I win?”

Starlight grinned. “If you win.”

“Well, duh, I’m Rainbow Dash. Of course I’m going to win. I was just worried that this game was going to be, y’know, boring. I kind of zoned out when you guys started talking about ‘income’ and ‘expenditures’ and ‘investments’ earlier, ‘cause you were making it sound like this was a game about nothing but money.”

The train car went quiet for a few seconds.

“...Dear, do you actually not understand what a corporation does?” Rarity replied, rubbing her head. “Or any company?”

“Well, yeah, there’s that. But you guys didn’t tell me that we were going to be owning a planet!”

“Part of a planet, technically speaking.”

“Still!” Rainbow Dash straightened up, looking noticeably more chipper. “Okay, now I want to play. Like, actually want to play. Instead of just joining ‘cause you guys needed a fourth pony.”

“A fifth pony” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. So! How do you play?”

*******************************************

“...And that’s how you play the game.” Starlight Glimmer rubbed her eyes. “Do you think you’re ready to start playing now?”

“Yeah! It should be easy enough to play now.” Rainbow Dash looked at her cards again. “It didn’t seem too hard to figure out, you know.”

Starlight shot a quick glance to her side. Rarity and Applejack appeared to be locked into yet another round of a foreleg-wrestling match. “I’m pretty sure that it took about five times longer to teach you how to play the game than it took everypony else.”

“Meh. I bet you could teach them for five times longer than however long you taught me and they’d still lose. They aren’t Rainbow Dash.” Rainbow Dash reclined in her chair, sporting an entirely undeserved and eminently punchable smug grin on her face.

Starlight Glimmer, clearly resisting the urge to teleport Rainbow Dash off of the train and into the middle of an active volcano, pressed on. “Whatever you say, Rainbow Dash. Applejack? Rarity? Are you ready?”

“Jes’ a minute, sugarcube” Applejack replied, muscles on her foreleg straining as she pushed Rarity’s hoof as hard as she could. “Jes’ gotta...prove who’s...th’ boss at this…”

“Bring it on.” Rarity gritted her teeth, face briefly contorting as she pushed back. “You’re...hff...getting tired already...hff...aren’t you?”

“Right.” Starlight Glimmer’s voice took on the sort of calm, emotionless inflection commonly adopted by serial killers and torture experts. “Now that I’ve lost all idea of how long I’ve spent explaining the rules of the game, I would very much appreciate being able to engage in some minor diversion from the length of our travels to play at least one round of this game, if all of you wouldn’t mind.”

Applejack and Rarity calmly discontinued their activity. Rainbow Dash took a more serious look at her cards. Briefly, the four of them remembered that Fluttershy existed in the first place. And, after some careful consideration and setup of their opening positions, the game began.