//------------------------------//
// Switching Horses Midstream, Chapter V 
// Story: Selections From the Canterlot Royal Academic Archives 
// by Third Wave 
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The Summer Sun Abdication

by Midnight Judge
Congressional Quarterhorse No. 3629
Royal Canterlot Publications


While the news items published in these quarterly issues are usually intended to keep the reader up to date on the goings-on of the ministries and parliament, events in Canterlot Castle do on occasion merit the coverage of a publication such as this one. The recent events surrounding Princesses Celestia and Luna and the royal succession are without a doubt one such instance, as they have already made a significant impact on the stability of the Fancy Pants regency and on the path of Equestria’s government going forward.

To chart a proper course of the events leading up to the fateful decision, we need to go back a few months to shortly after the Sombric Insurrection. Since Sombra’s attempted coup and the destruction and public reveal of the Tree of Harmony, the diarchy has been seeing a steady decrease in approval ratings from the Equestrian public. While polling shortly after Sombra’s attack gave Celestia and Luna a bump from their timely intervention in the Everfree Forest, the bump quickly faded as the ramifications of the Tree of Harmony’s existence, and what that meant for the role of the princesses and the diarchy in protecting Equestria, made themselves clear. Questions over what the diarchs actually did for national guardianship soon circulated, undermining public support for the diarchy. How much of the protection and relative peace in which Equestria had prospered for the past decades was thanks to the Princesses, and how much of it had been from this Tree of Harmony? And if the Tree was so pivotal in the protection of Equestria, then what actual role had Celestia and Luna played in the country’s protection? And how did that factor into the several attacks Equestria had suffered over the past decade? These and other questions were soon circulating by word of mouth and in the newspapers around the country, dampening the national security bump to Celestia’s and Luna’s approval ratings. In the month following the Sombric Insurrection, the Princesses’ approvals went from a height of 92% for Celestia and 86% for Luna to an average of 65% for Celestia and 69% for Luna. The drop in the polls, especially as Celestia prepared for a royal succession, presented a grave danger to the diarchy. The mood in Canterlot Castle quickly resolved that something had to be done.

Yet, even alicorn princesses have their faults and the Two Sisters were no different. While the drop in the polls due to events was of the utmost concern, another quirk of the polling stuck out for Celestia in particular. For the first time since her return, Princess Luna had a higher approval rating than her older sister. This could be chalked up to a few reasons, but after an analysis of the polling, one aspect of the difference between the sisters’ royal duties seems the likely cause. As the guardian of ponies’ dreams, Princess Luna’s job brings her into regular, more personal contact with the average ponies of Equestria. That personal connection and the more direct assistance most ponies see from Luna than from Celestia, in addition to the tale of redemption and atonement surrounding Luna’s return a decade ago, likely endeared her to ponies. Meanwhile, the more formal royal court, while also important to the day to day management of Equestria, can come across as aloof and distant according to an Equinnipiac survey of ponies’ attitudes toward the government. The royal court proceedings and more glamorous events that Celestia performs in her royal duties also only allow her regular interactions with the upper classes and nobility. These matters and the foreign policy business that Celestia conducts, while important, has led to most Equestrians only ever seeing the elder princess in photo opportunities, with the Canterlot and Manehattan aristocracy or with foreign dignitaries. That could make Celestia seem less approachable than her younger sister. So, when the polls showed that Celestia was now less popular than Luna - something which the gossip papers took great delight in reporting - the sisterly rivalry between our princesses resurfaced. Luckily for all involved, it was in a much more friendly manner than a thousand years ago, and to a much smaller degree. Despite Princess Celestia’s twinge of jealousy, our gracious elder diarch agreed that the more pressing issue at hoof was the declining approval numbers for both leaders of the principality. Canterlot Castle resolved that something must be done to reverse the decline.

The remedy that was settled on by the diarchs and the castle staff was for Celestia and Luna to take direct action and be more presently involved in solving the smaller, more immediate problems facing ordinary citizens. For Celestia, it was believed that this would get the public more acquainted with the Princess of the Sun and endear her to average ponies by showing she cared enough about her subjects to humble herself to their more basic concerns, just as Luna did when patrolling the dream realm helping ponies with their everyday anxieties and bad dreams. For Luna, meanwhile, the belief was that the strategy would give her the opportunity to take action in the physical, waking world. For as much of Luna’s royal duties had her meeting average ponies and addressing their concerns, since it was in the dream realm few ponies had the opportunity to witness the younger Princess in the flesh. This way, Luna could act the hero in helping to address ponies’ physical, material needs just as she did their mental and emotional needs as the guardian of their dreams. 

With this in mind, Celestia and Luna set on a goodwill tour of Equestria. The first stop on their itinerary was Cloudsdale. Progress on weather restoration was still behind, and with a recent outbreak of the feather flu in the city, many of the weather factory workers and storm circulation teams were still out of commission. During their stay in Cloudsdale, the Princesses stepped in where the pegasi were short staffed, primarily on some of the more physically demanding labor to help speed up cloud production and in storm distribution. The Cloudsdale trip was probably the most successful leg of the tour. It did help Cloudsdale push through some of the weather backlog and reports did show ponies appreciated the help from the Princesses. However, to many citizens it still came across as more of a photo opportunity than a sincere effort to help the average pony. In following trips, the itinerary for the Princesses was left more up to their whims, as more impromptu, individual pony-level acts of kindness would seem more sincere than a greater planned intervention like the weather factory work. The Princesses started in the northeastern Equestrian mainland in the Mareitimes. In Shadowfax, they helped dredge out the city’s harbor, helped a family of earth ponies rotate the rocks on their farm, and helped the local librarian translate an archived pre-Nightmare Moon ledger from some of the first griffon traders to the town from Imperial Peregrin to Equestrian. The sisters were preparing to move south to Manehattan when reports of a monster attack from further up the coast caught their attention. The Princesses ventured north to Mareitime Bay to find the town’s lighthouse being attacked by a large sea serpent. They were able to save the lighthouse keeper and fend off the serpent, but unfortunately the cliffside had taken too much erosion from the lashing of the serpent and the lighthouse toppled into the bay. The Princesses spent the next week helping the townsponies of Mareitime Bay rebuild the lighthouse, but the extra time spent in the Mareitimes forced them to skip the Manehattan leg of the tour.

The Princesses’ more exciting adventure in the Mareitimes guided them to their next destination. Since it seemed like they had gained genuine support after fending off the Mareitime Bay serpent, the reasoning followed that their next stop should be somewhere with likely potential for similar encounters. While Equestria has no shortage of such places, one in particular comes to mind: Ponyville. The town being situated on the edge of the Everfree Forest makes it a quite likely place for a wild creature encounter. It also could serve as a booster for all of Equestria and not just Ponyville, as the Princesses’ activity there would remind creatures across the country of the Princesses’ decisive action in beating back the Everfree Forest during the Sombirc Insurrection. In addition, Celestia and Luna would be able to act alongside Princess Twilight, which the diarchs hoped would boost her public image across Equestria as well in preparation for the royal succession. The plan seemed to go well at first, as the Princesses arrived just in time to aid Twilight Sparkle with the removal of an enormous tortoise-like creature that was devouring a local orchard. Aside from the tortoise though, Ponyville was unusually calm during the time the Princesses were there. They still helped out with more mundane tasks - replacing bridges, leading Filly Guide camp outings, and helping old mares cross the street - but there was little in the way of more spectacular noteworthy efforts by the Princesses. Even worse, polls conducted since the start of the tour showed little lasting national effect since the initial bump from the Cloudsdale events, and by the time of the Ponyville outing they’d sunk back nearly to where they were before the Princesses set out. The goodwill effort had run its course.

After the Ponyville stay wrapped up, Celestia and Luna shifted to a new tack. While it was known to royal staff that the diarchs intended to pass the Equestrian throne on to Princess Twilight Sparkle at some point in the near future, preparations for the process were still ongoing, and little had been done of presenting Princess Twilight to the public in a governing capacity. Princess Twilight had her School of Friendship of course, and had become known for her speech on the eve of the 1008 snap election, but Equestria’s youngest alicorn had not garnered much public attention in her years as Princess. Her duties managing diplomatic missions and running her school in Ponyville usually kept Twilight either in a low profile in Ponyville or saw her making herself known outside of Equestria with little in terms of domestic policy outreach toward the citizens of Equestria itself. So, in order to give Princess Twilight some exposure to the homefront duties of ruling Equestria and to give the broader public a chance to see their next royal sovereign in action, the Princesses stepped away from the throne briefly on a royal vacation of sorts. They left Princess Twilight in charge of the Royal Swanifying, a small, mostly ceremonial Canterlot social event that would put her in regular contact with Cheval Regent Fancy Pants who chaired the Royal Swanifying Committee, reacquaint her with Canterlot court procedure after being in Ponyville for so long, and would let Twilight demonstrate her leadership skills with enough national media coverage of the event to give creatures a solid impression of the Princess.

The Swanifying did not go well. Princess Twilight and her assistants entered with a controlling attitude and tried to manage the preparations entirely by themselves, and when the Cheval Regent and the planning committee offered to help or tried to make suggestions, Twilight shooed them away. It was only after the lack of adequate preparation threatened to delay the Swanifying or worse, cancel it, that Twilight relented and let the Cheval Regent and the planning committee step in and help with the organizing. One thing was made clear by the near derailment of the Swanifying. Despite her extensive foreign policy experience and managing a school for multiple years, Princess Twilight was still ill prepared to succeed Celestia and Luna in a full capacity as head of state of Equestria. The Cheval Regent’s comments about the Swanifying are a resounding testament to that. Twilight’s micromanagement and need to be involved in all steps of the process were of particular note from Fancy Pants in his reports to the diarchs after their return. It was clear that even if Celestia had mentored her desired successor from fillyhood, Twilight Sparkle had been away from Canterlot for too long and had lost what grasp she’d had of Canterlot Castle decorum and procedure and of the proper level of involvement in affairs a royal sovereign should have. Luckily, the practice run of the Royal Swanifying was only a minor ceremonial event and nothing of any real substance or consequence on Equestrian policy. However, Twilight’s mismanagement of the Swanifying did have an impact on her public image. The Swanifying debacle was a smorgasbord to the tabloids and editorial columnists looking to stir up controversy. Most ponies had no opinion or had not heard of Princess Twilight Sparkle prior to the Swanifying, but leaks of details of the planning for the event and of the Cheval Regent’s comments about Princess Twilight caused a significant shift from no opinion to disapproval of Twilight. Many more ponies also felt that Twilight was still “unready” to assume the throne than “ready” according to polls. The impact of the Swanifying was particularly felt in Canterlot, where an outright majority of ponies in multiple polls felt Twilight was unready to fill the horseshoes of the diarchs.

While Twilight did not do the transition any favors during the diarchs’ absence, Celestia and Luna taking their leave from running the country’s affairs and saddling the unprepared Twilight with such a responsibility did nothing to raise confidence either. Once again, the hardest hit to confidence in the diarchs and in the government was felt in Canterlot, particularly among the unicorn nobility and those closest to the Castle. Many in Canterlot, including a prevailing mood in parliament, saw Celestia and Luna leaving Twilight in charge more as the diarchs taking a vacation than giving their likely successor a test run in governance. Even the ponies in government started to question the true purpose of the trip. Noblesse Oblige, Deputy Leader of the Triple Crown Party and head of its unicorn reserved affiliate the Platina Party, called out the Princesses for leaving a student in charge of the country and leaving their post when Equestria had faced so many grave challenges in recent years. The Cheval Regent was more quiet in public about his feelings regarding the actions of the Princesses, particularly after the leak of some of his private statements, but his Deputy Leader was more vocal. The botched public service tour, the “vacation,” and Twilight’s behavior during the Swanifying clearly demonstrated to Noblesse Oblige that all three Princesses - Celestia, Luna, and Twilight - were perhaps taking Equestria in a dangerous direction and there should be a question of whether the current division of power and duties between the Princesses and parliament was proper given the state of things in Canterlot Castle.

The continued dip in approval ratings sent the castle into damage control mode ahead of the 1009 Summer Sun Celebration. Since Princess Luna was still the most popular of the Princesses, she took a larger role in the day-to-day affairs of the royal court and public appearances in Canterlot. Luna seemed to enjoy the more mundane affairs of hearing department reports and doing tours of government offices, and her demeanor and interest improved both employee morale in the departments and the general approval of the government. Celestia meanwhile devoted more energy to the School of Magic and raising the profile of the role of royal sovereign as head of the school to try to repair the flagging approvals among unicorns. One effort as part of this was an exhibition tour of the School of Magic’s buckball team. At first several of those involved were skeptical of whether it was the right tack so soon after the failure of the public aid tour, but soon both the buckball teams and the townsponies where the School of Magic team visited as well as Celestia herself got caught up in the hype of the sport. It helped that the focus of the exhibition matches was not on Celestia but on the School of Magic team. Princess Celestia sitting in the crowd rooting for her school struck ponies as more authentic and relatable than the swooping in to save the day from the goodwill tour had. The wing spell and magical dampeners that allowed two unicorns on the School of Magic team to play the positions of defensive wing and point bucker on a level playing field was also well received among the non-unicorn crowds where the team toured. To begin the buckball tour, Celestia finally visited Manehattan since she had been forced to skip it previously. The School of Magic triumphed 3 to 2 over a Stable Island school team, but lost to a Manehattan team 5 to 3 and a Bucklyn team 4 to 1. In the rest of the east coast cities featured on the tour, a Fillydelphia school team drew the School of Magic with 3 points each, while a Baltimare dock workers team heavily beat the School of Magic 7 to 2. Celestia was gracious in each of the School of Magic’s defeats, making sure to give the opposing players and coach her presence and congratulate them.

The highlight of the buckball tour was the Ponyville leg. This was the home of buckball and a chance for the School of Magic to make a real mark on their skill at the sport. Even after the defeats on the east coast, the team had high hopes. In Ponyville, the School of Magic played two matches, one against a team of Ponyville locals and one against the team from Princess Twilight’s School of Friendship. The first match was expected to be a rout for the School of Magic, playing against the home team that originated the sport. However, the School of Magic surprised after the east coast defeats and only lost 4 to 2 by a late brace from star Ponyville point bucker Pinkie Pie. The second match against the School of Friendship became much more anticipated after the Ponyville crowd saw how well the School of Magic held their ground. The match against the School of Friendship was even more intense with both teams trading goals back and forth, and was close right up to the final whistle. A straight and low shot from School of Magic point kicker Asteria sped past Friendship wing Summer Breeze and put the School of Magic up over the School of Friendship 5 to 4. The post-game exchange of hoof shakes and pleasantries from both Celestia and Twilight toward the players appeared in papers across Equestria over the next few days as the School of Magic moved on to matches in Appleloosa and Las Pegasus. The other two matches saw a defeat in Appleloose and a win in Las Pegasus, but the School of Friendship match was the highlight of the tour and gave both Celestia and Twilight some much needed positive media coverage along with their respective schools. As later events unfolded, it turned out the impact of the buckball tour could not have come soon enough.

The Summer Sun Celebration had always been one of the most important of Equestria’s holidays. Ponies revered Princess Celestia during the monarchical reign of the Celestial Era and then the shared reign of the Two Sisters following Luna’s return. More practically, the fact the holiday occurred in the middle of the year and marked the beginning of summer made it one of the most welcome days off of the year and an excuse for ponies to stay up late and party in anticipation of the sunrise. Even if the tradition of a town hosting the celebration had fallen by the wayside after Celestia’s brief disappearance and Nightmare Moon’s return in Ponyville nearly a decade ago, this year’s event in Canterlot still drew massive crowds awaiting the start of another glorious summer and the beauty of Celestia raising the sun. This year, however, the citizens of Equestria would receive a shock just as if not greater than the return of Princess Luna nine years ago.

As part of the preparations for Twilight Sparkle to succeed the diarchs, she was placed in charge of the organizing and planning for the celebration. Even after the difficulty handling the Royal Swanifying, Celestia and Luna placed their trust in the young princess to handle one of the biggest yearly Canterlot events. The preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration went surprisingly well, given Princess Twilight and her aides arranged the festivities. The Appleloosan catering lent a down home air to the event which, while perhaps not what the Canterlot elite attending the celebration may have been used to, gave a sense of Equestria-wide authenticity. It also played well with the wider public, which had only in the past few years been allowed to attend the Summer Sun Celebration in the castle grounds as a compensation for the event no longer being held in a different city every year. A grand fireworks show accentuated by a cloudscaping display capped off the celebration’s nightly events before the traditional raising of the sun. As the attendees looked on in anticipation, Celestia and Luna joined Princess Twilight on the center stage. With the ceremonial coronet framing the moon, it was not the Two Sisters lowering the heavenly body, but Twilight herself, flanked by the two Princesses acting merely as guides. The sun rose to replace the moon. As the crowd cheered, Princess Celestia quieted them for the now famous announcement. It was here and then that Celestia broke the news to Equestria publicly that she and her sister would be abdicating the throne of Equestria, and Princess Twilight Sparkle would be replacing them after a year long transition period. Twilight Sparkle further announced that this would be the last Summer Sun Celebration. In what some have charitably described as Princess Twilight’s first decree as monarch of Equestria, the day of the summer solstice will now be known as the Festival of the Two Sisters, honoring Celestia and Luna for their reigns.

The Summer Sun Abdication as it has become known was a shock to the entire country. As news of the impending succession traveled across Equestria, the reaction to it was swift. Twilight Sparkle was and still remains a relatively unknown quantity for many Equestrians, despite the efforts of the Princesses over the past several months to raise her recognition. And, as with the Swanifying, those attempts have met with mixed results. Twilight Sparkle may be beloved in Ponyville, but her diplomatic overtures have not gone over well in places like the Unicorn Range or parts of Manehattan. Her reputation in Canterlot took a swan dive among both the rich and poor after the trouble with the Swanifying Ceremony coupled with breaking the sanitation worker strike, but it has bounced back some among the working class and actually risen among the middle class, particularly among the civil service. The reasoning according to interviews with royal and government departmental staff has been a sense that Twilight has a similar thought process to the Canterlot bureaucrats and that she will be easy to work with on policy matters. Twilight’s shrewd decision to dedicate the Summer Sun Celebration to a new purpose and not cancel the national holiday outright also scored points in many ponies’ books as well.

However, it’s become clear that it has not been enough for some ponies. Almost immediately after the announcement of the royal succession, the Coronists threw accusations in parliament at Cheval Regent Fancy Pants asking when he knew the abdication was happening and what role he played in “encouraging” the diarchs to retire. The Coronists and Nightmarists also raised questions of what sway if any he held with Princess Twilight Sparkle. Fancy Pants plainly shared that he had become acquainted with Twilight from some of the castle gala events and the diplomatic summits she hosted or attended in Canterlot in years past, but he had no working relationship on planning or policy matters with Princess Twilight until the Swanifying. He did disclose that he had made a personal acquaintance with one of Twilight’s assistants, a fashion designer named Rarity, again from social events in Canterlot and that her boutique tailored his suits. The response, while sufficient to clear the Cheval Regent of any undue influence over the decision, did not mollify the opposition to the overall situation. Arctic Circle, the former Vernal Party pegasus MP who joined the Coronists and flipped a general riding in last year’s election, introduced a resolution of parliamentary dissent in the ensuing days objecting to Celestia’s and Luna’s decision to retire and place Twilight as their successor. While purely symbolic, a resolution of parliamentary dissent is still a powerful message that parliament can send to Canterlot Castle whenever the parliament strongly disagrees with a decision the Princesses have made that is entirely under royal purview. A dissent resolution has not passed parliament in centuries and has rarely been introduced in modern times, so its introduction is usually seen as a last gasp measure in expressing displeasure at a royal policy for matters where parliament has no jurisdiction. The mere formal introduction of the resolution is often enough to deliver the message and get a Princess to at least consult with the Cheval Regent on an issue, but this time it had to go further. Fancy Pants reluctantly allowed the resolution to go to a full vote after some key Tricrowner MPs were adamant about having a vote to express their displeasure at the abdication. The resolution of parliamentary dissent failed with 54 votes in favor and 146 votes against. It was a loud voice of support for the Princesses’ decision and for Princess Twilight, but it hid a continuation of the underlying split within the Triple Crown Party. Only 4 Tricrowners in general ridings broke ranks and voted with the Coronist and Hippocratic opposition in favor of the resolution. However, in the unicorn ridings, 9 of the 12 Platina Party members broke with the overall Tricrowner line.

The past months had put significant stress on the unified stance of the Tricornwers and its relationship with the Platina Party, but the Summer Sun Abdication would see it reach its breaking point. The full vote on the resolution of parliamentary dissent was held the week after the vote that removed Neighsay from the EEA Chancellorship, and the votes one after the other stirred the opposition from both outside and within the Triple Crown Party into a fervor. Fancy Pants throwing his and the party’s full support behind Princess Twilight’s succession to the throne turned out to be the straw that broke the workhorse’s back for the Tricornwer unicorns. Just weeks into the royal transition period, Noblesse Oblige announced that she no longer had confidence in Fancy Pants’ ability to govern as Cheval Regent. Noblesse took the declaration further, resigned as deputy party leader, and officially dissolved the affiliation of the Platina Party with the Triple Crown Party. The move shook the halls of the Horseshoe for several reasons. First and most obvious, the deputy leader of the government party with a slim majority was leaving and taking who knew how many members with her as she left. The circumstances also sent Equestrian politics as a whole into uncharted territory as far as recent partisan systems went. The Triple Crown Party and its typical support of the Princesses’ policies had its origins in unicorn politics through its development out of the early royal court. For the unicorn side of the party to disaffiliate and the Tricrowners to potentially no longer have a unicorn riding presence or affiliated party meant the party lost a large part of its founding identity. The unicorn ridings also hadn’t had an independent unaffiliated party holding seats in over a century. The pegasi and earth pony ridings had always had independent parties due to their history of being folded into Equestrian parliamentary politics and the party system. But unicorn political organizations had originated the party system and had always had little reason to view themselves as being independent of the general partisan apparatus. For a major unicorn party, and that of the Triple Crown Party no less, to be striking off on its own was a seismic shift in how politics would be perceived and conducted, as well as a heavy boost to the unicorns’ independent identity.

At first, nopony knew how the dust would settle with the Platina Party’s disaffiliation. Fancy Pants and key government figures made the rounds to the individual Platina Party MPs to try and convince as many as possible to stay in the Tricrowner fold. However, even if the unicorn members were more sympathetic to Triple Crowner policies in the Horseshoe and supported the recent decisions out of Canterlot Castle, the idea of joining the general party completely like one of the non-pony members was still a hard sell. Just two ex-Platina Party members would join the Triple Crown Party in full capacity and one would sit as an independent. Nine Platina Party members including Noblesse Oblige now sit in the unicorn ridings. It is not quite enough for Noblesse to claim support from a majority of the unicorn ridings, but combined with the Coronists and Hippocrats, the unicorn reserved contingent as a whole have become overwhelmingly anti-government. It also cut the governing majority of the Tricrowners down even further to the narrowest it has been in centuries. The Tricornwers now have just 102 members in total out of the 200 seats in the Horseshoe. As we look to the remainder of this year’s parliamentary session, Fancy Pants’ hold on the Regency seems to be slipping further and further. It is now a real question of whether the majority can hold out for the rest of the year, or if Twilight will be entering Canterlot Castle as a new monarch greeting an equally new Cheval Regent.