More empty days. More bland prison meals. More drugs and injections in the interrogation room, even when nopony showed up to actually interrogate her. More hard nights on a thin, firm mattress, more aches in her heart and soul every time she thought of Rarity, Spike, her mother. What would her mother say? What would she say about her daughter?
What would she say about her son?
Twilight had grown up with Shining Armor. They had done everything together, played ball, watched the VR movies, been to the Autodrome. He had looked out for her, guided her, shown her a path to follow, and she had followed him happily. Once they were old enough and the State wished their time for things other than school, Shining had joined the military, an easy option for a good, strong, disciplined unicorn, straight into the officers' academy, to take command of others, and guide them in the same way he had guided his sister, and to help keep Equestria safe and secure, which had always been Shining's desire. Twilight had taken a different path, branching away from her brother and pursuing a scientific career instead, for that was her speciality and her dream. Science had given Equestria so, so much- the joy-pills, the VR movies, delivery drones, spaceplanes, the microwave power grid, automats and a million other things. She wanted to make her contribution, however small it might be. Technology and the power of military might would keep Equestria safe and healthy. Science and Strength, together. Science and the Sun.
But not, curiously, Science and Magic. Magic was permitted, of course, for it was a natural function of unicorn biology, in just the same way as respiration, excretion or digestion. It could hardly be eliminated, nor would that serve society a useful purpose. But like everything else in Equestria, it was controlled and regulated, with limits on what kind of spells could be taught to what kind of unicorn. Basic magic, things that would be useful in everyday life- telekinesis, illumination spells, breathing bubbles for swimming- was taught to every unicorn in school as part of their education. Other spells, like the mass-stupidity spell Twilight had cast upon the dragon eggs, were taught based on occupation. But some spells- like the one she had learned from her brother and taught to Rarity- were limited only to military and security personnel. Anything offensive, anything that could enable a pony to go on a killing spree, or rob a bank, or commit any other serious crime. They were kept under lock and key, so to speak, away from the general public, for good and sensible reasons. They could be used as weapons. So, apparently, could words.
As Twilight sat in the interrogation chair once more, she pondered over what her brother had said before. The State, and the Sun, too, seemed intent on treating Princess Luna's name in the same manner as those military-grade spells. But why? She would know. She now had to know. She would make her brother tell her, yes, that was it. Even though she was tied up, she would make Shining tell her. Somehow.
Her brother entered the room, closing the door behind him. "Another day begins, Twilight," he smiled. "You will enjoy this one. I promise."
"Are you releasing me, then?" Twilight asked.
"Of course not," he chuckled. "Oh, Twilight...I regret that it is you, but I am glad somepony is in this chair. I have never led an investigation like this before. Not a true case of heresy. There are so few...a good thing, of course, because it means stability. But I have often hoped to be able to deal with a heretic in the appropriate fashion myself. I just never imagined it would be my own sister," he sighed regretfully, looking down at her.
"Well if you don't want to treat me like one of your heretics, then don't," Twilight replied. "Treat me like your sister. That's what I am."
"You can be both a sister and a heretic, Twilight," Shining explained. "You most definitely can. All it takes is for those thoughts to stray, for you to turn against the Sun's light..."
"But I haven't!" Twilight cried out. "I haven't, I haven't, I haven't! Shiny, look at me! You can't really believe all that stuff you're saying about me, can you?"
"Of course I can, when the evidence is clear," he nodded. "Do you deny you were in possession of those illegal letters?"
"No...but I didn't even know they were illegal!" Twilight replied. "And I found them in the observatory. I didn't make them myself!"
"I know, I know," Shining nodded again. "We've already conducted a full search of the observatory, dealt with the staff there too...they claim to know nothing, of course. I was not particularly inclined to believe them, I must say. We also found another letter, which we have burned...where exactly did you find the ones you possessed? In the archives, yes, but where?"
"I don't know, some folder or other," Twilight shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"Potentially, yes," Shining nodded. "The letter we located was in a modern storage box. Now, if it had been tucked away in some dusty old volume, some great tome or pile of notepaper, from ancient times, it might have simply been an oversight during the purge. Some inattentive pony not doing their job properly. But the fact that it was in a modern storage box...that suggests that somepony wanted that letter to survive. It suggests it was put there deliberately. It suggests that somepony transferred it into that box along with the other junk records it was full of. All old sketches of planets and stars and the like. Nothing remarkable, nothing of great interest to anypony other than astronomical scholars. Except for that letter."
Shining moved behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. "A single letter, I could accept. A mistake. An accident. Incomplete purgation. It happens, sometimes, though thankfully rarely. Some document will show up somewhere, we'll have to send a team to investigate. We'll deal with the ponies involved and that will usually close the case. After all, methods were far less thorough at the time of the first purge. In some ways that made things easier, in others it made them harder. No digitized backups to sort through, no need to examine every microfilm or magnetic tape, no databases to breach, no passwords for NetSec to hack. Nothing like that. Just paper, you see? Just paper. That's all they had back then."
He circled back in front of her. "One letter I could accept. But you had three in your possession which contained heretical material. We found another. That makes four. How many letters, Twilight?"
"I...there are four letters..." Twilight replied. "But I don't know anything about who wrote them, if they're authentic..."
"It hardly matters if they are authentic or if they are forgeries," Shining tutted. "Don't you understand? It's not the veracity of the letters themselves that is concerning. It is the contents. If they were authentic, then somepony has been trying to preserve things which should have been left to wither on the vine centuries ago. If they were forgeries, then somepony has already succeeded in preserving that past, because somepony would have to possess knowledge they should not possess in order to write them."
He leaned down to eye level with her, his unmasked, unconstrained horn contrasting with hers, locked in the protective sheath that prevented her from using her magic. "As it happens, we carbon-dated them just to be sure. They were all authentic letters. Written in the past. Three of them were written by Princess Luna herself. And you still claim not to know who she was?"
"Yes!" Twilight nodded, mentally cursing herself for missing one of the letters. She was sure she had searched every likely box, all the orbital diagrams she could find. What treasures, what secrets had been scrawled on that missing letter, now lost to history? Had she been denied her chance to learn the truth by her own brother's team and their investigation?
"You really do not know?" Shining probed. "You cannot guess, from what you have read? Go on. Make an educated guess, Twilight. I can see your mind working, trying to piece things together even now. Always inquisitive, you were. Always. A shame you stopped asking the right questions and started asking the wrong ones. But please, describe her for me. Who was Princess Luna?"
Twilight paused, looking up at him. He was right; she was still trying to work things out from the tiny, piecemeal answers she had. It was not enough, not in truth, but she could make a guess. "I don't even know for sure if she was a pony, but...alright, she was a pony. A Princess, obviously. A Princess in Equestria, judging by the correspondence she had with Equestrian institutions. But I've never heard of her before, and you said that's because we're not supposed to have heard of her, so...my guess is she was the former ruler of Equestria, and then she was overthrown by the Sun. Or maybe she wasn't a pony...maybe she was a Yak or a Griffon, and invaded Equestria."
Shining chuckled. "Valiant guesses, Twilight. You are wrong, but you are right. She was a pony. She was a Princess. She was also the greatest traitor in Equestrian history. She turned her back on the Glorious Sun, Twilight. She was a betrayer, a backstabber, a conniving witch who sought to seize the throne for herself, and do you know the most shameful fact of all?"
He knelt before her.
"She was Celestia's sister."
Twilight felt the blood drain from her face as she tried to process this new, most unexpected, piece of information. Sister...she was...the Sun's sister?
"You did not know that Celestia had any relatives, did you?" Shining stood up again. "A being so divine is born from the heavens themselves. But she had a sister, Twilight. Oh yes. I know. I was shocked when I first learned this, too. Take your time, take it in. Just think about it! Imagine being betrayed by your own flesh and blood! Your own sister, disappointing you. turning away from the path you tread. Abandoning her ideals, her promise, her future...can you imagine that, Twilight? Because I can."
Twilight looked down at the floor. "Shiny...how can you even think about comparing me to a traitor...to somepony like that...?"
"Because when I look at you now, that is what I see," he sneered. "You have been corrupted, Twilight. I am sorry to say it, but it is the truth. You have been corrupted by that name you read in those letters. That is all it takes. Reading that name is enough. That is why it is banned, Twilight."
"Then you're corrupt too!" she cried. "You're saying it, you've said her name..."
"I have," he nodded. "But that is because I have the capacity to say it without being corrupted like you. The ASU needs the tools to fight its wars, and if we cannot even read that name without being corrupted by it, what use would we be? We are conditioned into it, from birth. We have to be. As you know, everypony is conditioned to know and trust certain things. Just like you conditioned those dragon eggs to be stupid, dumb animals. Well, most of them. Imagine that tray of eggs, then imagine those eggs were ponies. Spike, the one dragon you did not cast that spell on? That would be the ASU. The ones who know and see far more than the rest. We are the ones who are entrusted with the knowledge that others cannot possess, because we are the ones who must ensure that nopony else learns it. If we did not know and could not confront that which we seek to suppress, then that name and her evil would seep through society and we would fail. Equestria would fail, as it so nearly fell before."
"The war..." Twilight muttered. "The war that destroyed the observatory...it was a civil war?"
"Yes," Shining nodded. "Princess Luna turned on her sister. Betrayal, of the worst kind. She had soldiers loyal to her, ministers loyal to her. They both did. The country was split in two, a great schism. It was light versus dark, day versus night, Sun versus Moon."
"So...she was the Moon? The Co-Orbital Body?" Twilight questioned, the threads of history beginning to unite in her brain as Shining filled her full of new information. It was all starting to make sense now.
"Yes, she was the Moon, as Celestia is the Sun," Shining replied. "The Princess of the Night, as Celestia is the Princess of the Day. I see the spark in your eyes. Now you understand, don't you Twilight?"
"Yes..." she nodded. At last, it all made sense to her. Now she knew the answers to the questions she was never meant to have asked, to the things that were supposed to have been wiped from history. Night was Even-Day, Moon was the Co-Orbital Body, and yes, Princess Luna was both of those things! She was the Night and the Moon! That was why those words were profane, why her name had been stripped from existence, her memory damned for eternity because of her blood-betrayal.
"What happened to her?" Twilight asked, the one strand left unconnected. "She lost the war?"
"She lost the war," Shining confirmed. "She lost the war, and then the purge began. It was decreed that every mention of her name should be erased, to erase the stain of her treason forever. As you now know, the purge was incomplete, for a few traces will inevitably remain. But it was thorough enough that within a few centuries, there was nothing left of her. No statues, no chapters in the history books speaking of her, nothing. Then came the renaming of the Moon and the Night, for additional security. It was made illegal to speak of her, long ago. Within a few generations there was no oral history to pass on, either."
"What happened to her followers?" Twilight asked. "You said she had ponies loyal to her."
"She did, but once the war was over they found that the situation had developed not necessarily to their advantage," Shining replied euphemistically, without going into more detail. "It was finished, done. She was gone, and that was that. An end to a sordid chapter in Equestrian history, one that must not be repeated."
"How could it be repeated? The Princess only had one sister, unless there are more you have hidden from us," Twilight asked him.
"You do not need to be a relative to commit treason," Shining pointed out. "There has always been the potential for another uprising, Twilight. Surely you can see that. The three pony races...even after the Great Unification War, there was discontent at first. The Pegasi, the Earth Ponies, they were not happy. Nor were the Degenerate Races as they were absorbed, one by one. The Griffons, the Diamond Dogs, the Yaks. All it would take was one spark, one charismatic leader, one rogue general, one upstart politician...a second civil war has always been a possibility. That is why we have stamped out that possibility."
"How?" Twilight asked. "Surely those conditions could still be met today..."
"Not at all, Twilight. Not at all," Shining smiled. "Not only has the name of the arch-traitor been erased, all evidence of her crimes, her followers and her betrayal have vanished too. Any disgruntled citizen today would have to search and search for any evidence of any former uprising against the Glorious Sun even getting off the ground, and still they would not find it. The fact that it appears no successful uprising had ever taken place before would act as something of a deterrent, don't you think?"
"Maybe, but that wouldn't be enough!" Twilight replied. "Ponies who thought like that...they wouldn't need evidence of it being attempted before. If they were angry enough, they would want to be the first to try it."
"Exactly. Which is why we make sure they never get angry enough," Shining nodded. "Think of those eggs again, Twilight, and the one egg you spared from your stupidity spell. Spike could control those others quite simply. He is a dragon, but he is a dragon that knows far more than they do. He can communicate with them, he could mould them if he so chose. A kind of Alpha-Dragon, if you will, because he has a sapient mind. If we allowed him, he could whip those dumb dragons into a frenzy of anger against ponykind. Why would he do that? Perhaps because you taught him the truth about their existence, let us pretend. Say you told him that dragons are deliberately rendered dumb and mute, unable to communicate with ponies on purpose, trained to be obedient pets and nothing more, instead of the intelligent, proud, fiercely independent creatures they used to be. Imagine if they learned the truth, assuming they could comprehend it. They would be furious, no? Furious against us."
"I suppose..." Twilight nodded along, unsure where her brother was leading her with his analogy, but not much liking the path it seemed to be taking.
"Now imagine again that those eggs are ponies. Imagine that they learned the truth. Not just about Princess Luna, not just about how some of their history has been wiped away, but about the fact that it was done so deliberately and with the sole purpose of keeping the Sun in power. Of exercising State control over their lives, every aspect of their lives, before they were even born. Keeping them docile, pacified with joy-pills and entertainment of all kinds, well-fed and watered, good living conditions, deliberately engineering them to follow orders, to do what the State wants because they cannot physically conceive of their being an alternative. Can you imagine what might happen if they found out there was an alternative, Twilight?"
"I...I suppose so, yes..." Twilight replied. She was beginning to feel a bit of that herself; Shining seemed to be telling her that everything was a lie, that she, and everypony else, did not follow the Glorious Sun because they wanted to, but because they were bred to do so.
"Anarchy! Mass hysteria, panic, riots, civil war!" Shining finished her thoughts for her. "Ponies might be filled with rage if they knew, Twilight, and that...that could let somepony else succeed where Luna failed. That might bring down the State and the Sun along with it. And as I'm sure you realise, we cannot possibly allow that to happen, can we?"
"I...no, you can't..." she nodded, her programming, unconscious, deep within her brain, coming flooding back. "The Sun rises..." she muttered.
"The Sun never sets," Shining completed the aphorism. "The Sun never sets because we will not allow it to."
"Who is we, Shiny?" Twilight asked. "The ASU? You can't be seriously trying to tell me you and your gang of thugs run the world."
"Of course not," he shook his head. "The Princess runs the world. You know this to be true. We are merely her servants. There is the ASU, but there are others, chosen and bred into their roles, like everypony else. The Council and their Chairpony know, for instance, as do some of their junior government ministers, for they must work directly with the Sun herself. Those roles entitle them to more information than the rest of the public will ever know. Some of it I have explained to you already. Some, I do not know myself. But imagine if we were to allow that knowledge slip through the cracks and it made its way into the hands of, say, the chief inspector of the microwave power net, and he became filled with rage as a result. He could shut down the grid, plunge Equestria into darkness save for those lucky enough to live near an atomic plant. Kill thousands, ruin the economy. Deprive everypony of their entertainment, make them infinitely restless. We cannot possibly let that happen, can we? Or imagine that the information was fed to the commander of an orbital battle platform. Rage, again. Nuclear missiles and kinetic bombardment weapons at his fingertips. Untold damage, tens of millions dead. We cannot possibly let that happen, can we?"
"But...surely the generals must be aware of..."
"No, Twilight! The generals are the most dangerous ponies of all, for they are the ones in control of the military," Shining pointed out. "And the military is the most powerful force besides the Sun herself. If the soldiers and their commanders knew the truth, well...their first targets would be the State and the Sun. So we keep them as docile as all the rest, because it is in their best interests, our best interests...everybody's best interests."
"So why do we even still have a military?" Twilight demanded. "What's the point of their existence? Are they just another cog in the machinery of oppression you've set up?"
"Oppression? Hardly. Enlightenment, Twilight," Shining smiled. "Do you feel oppressed? Perhaps now, because you are shackled to a chair. But in your whole life, have you ever felt oppressed before? Have you ever noticed any sign of oppression? Seen somepony beaten for begging on the street? Been confined to your home? Deprived of necessities? Kept away from your family or friends? Have you ever been denied any opportunity to better yourself?"
She had not. She could not bring herself to lie and say that she had, either.
"No, but..."
"But what, Twilight? You lived a perfect life. Everypony does. We have a military so that the world you know, the life you know, is kept safe. Not just against internal threats, but external threats, also. The Degenerate Zones are wild and lawless, and who knows? Maybe one day some other race will come from beyond the stars to kill us all."
"Aliens?" Twilight scoffed. "You expect me to believe that we have a military to stop aliens invading?"
"Of course not," Shining chuckled. "The military is partly a holdover from the Great Unification War, and partly a tool of modern security. Would you rather have old stallions with sticks and stones to stop the Degenerate Zones from spilling out into Equestria?"
"No, I want Equestria to be safe as much as you do," Twilight replied. "But...why do they need nuclear weapons? Is that really necessary now, against, what...Changelings, dragons, whatever else lurks out there? Isn't it the radiation from them that caused some of that stuff in the first place?"
"Perhaps, perhaps not. It is hard to say for certain. Not many scientists want to venture out there along with their instruments, for obvious reasons," Shining smiled. "But as to why they might be necessary again? I cannot say, for I do not truly know. But..." he turned to face the door, stepping aside. "I believe you have a visitor who does."
The door slid open, and heavy booted footfalls could be heard approaching. A figure entered the chamber. Twilight gasped out loud in astonishment.