"It's Construct, here to give you my report."
Those words accompanied the knock on the door to my study. I had spent most of the day here so far, after my talk with Lyra, out of having literally nothing better to do. Lyra had dozed off after about twenty pages of one of my books, still on the couch. Neither Blueblood nor any of the other ponies milling about my house had asked to see me either. I had mostly busied myself with meaningless busywork, planning out things like government structure, national symbols, things like that – things that wouldn't become relevant until much, much later. If, indeed, ever at all. I quietly hoped they would, though, that this whole thing wouldn't end up just falling through.
"Come in." Fortunately, Construct at least seemed to be willing to contribute, even if she was bought and paid for by the Diarchy to do so – which, now that I seriously thought about it, began to smell a little fishy. Carriages weren't much faster than I was on foot, and I knew how long it took me to get from here to Canterlot by walking – about eight days. Accounting for the speed, and for those pulling to take shifts, that would cut travel time down to about four days, or three with lucky weather, or pegasi.
That left only one or two days for Celestia to organise all this business, with Construct's company and sending Blueblood off. In other words, a considerable investment, since she was also a head of government and had an enormous amount of other duties because of it. I hoped for her sake, she took a sick day off or something to do it, or else Equestria might have ground to a halt for the duration, just for the sake of a joke. Although, I supposed, it could hardly be called a simple joke at this point...
The door creaked open, putting my train of thought on hold. Construct shuffled in, saddlebags on her back obscuring her wings. I set my papers down on the desk and turned my chair around to face her.
"One second, let me get my documentation out..." said Construct, setting her bags down and opening them with her hooves. She took a while to find what she needed, eventually pulling a folder out with her teeth. She then turned to me and thrust her head forward. "Take this, please," came a slightly muffled call.
I dutifully obeyed, opening it up immediately and pulling the first sheet out. "So what have you got for me?"
"Plan of action for general habitation," came the reply. Sure enough, the heading on the sheet said the same. I read along for the rest of the document as she spoke. "Included is housing, disease and health, food and water supply, weather control, predator pacification, and general infrastructure."
I nodded along. "And you expect this to take... only a year?" I read off. That seemed... optimistic.
"A generous estimate, admittedly. Normally a project like this, settling a new area, takes at least twice that, sometimes thrice."
That didn't exactly inspire confidence, I considered. "So why the crunch? Doesn't that imply you're gonna slapdash it to fit your time constraint?"
"No, sir," she rebuffed. "Some of the toughest work has already been done – by you." Oh, right. Of course, my crop field. It was already large enough to feed, by my reckoning, about two dozen ponies, depending on their tribe. I was worth roughly two earth ponies, who were generally the most voracious. Unicorns, oddly, were the least. The difference didn't amount to much, overall, but sometimes it could make the difference between full stomachs and a bail-out from the Diarchy. Practically all its overflow went to the still, and thus to my wallet. Those days, most likely, were going to end soon. "You've already set up a crop farm, which massively simplifies things, and predator pacification is largely redundant in this area. Housing, also, is less of a problem since your cabin already being here means we can skip some of the more tedious preparation."
I shuffled the papers, looking for those sections. Food, as she said, was short, only a page. Housing was the next biggest, at three-and-a-half. Predators, I noted, got only a single paragraph. And to think, the first time I got here, my mind was consumed by horror stories out of the Everfree. It took seven months of wandering the forest with a knife before I realised the biggest thing I'd seen in that time was a few snakes. It was nice to have confirmation, in essence, that the Everfree was more or less just an outlier.
"I see, I see," I muttered. "Alright, let's go through it step-by-step. Not like I've got anything else to do today."
"Can do," she replied, not even a trace of disappointment in her voice. Truly, a consummate professional. "Where would you like to start?"
"Let's go with weather," I said. "The concept is still... a little foreign, to me."
That was news to her. "Really?"
I nodded. "Yeah. No weather schedules here, ever since I showed up." I smirked as a memory popped up. "Let me tell you, the first time I saw a rainstorm in Canterlot show up the minute it was forecast... You just didn't get that sort of thing back home, believe you me."
"Did you not?" she asked. "Is all weather uncontrolled where you come from?"
"That's right. We do our best to keep up with it, make no mistake, but generally our forecasts go only about a week or so deep before they become too inaccurate to use. And even then, it's not a sure thing whether or not it will actually rain, or storm, or whatever, when it says it will. Though if we'd somehow have had the ability to control the weather, we probably would have done. It would have just been too useful not to do."
"I see. Well, in truth, we won't really be able to work on weather control until the settlement attracts some weather pegasi. Without them, all we can really do is weather-proof every structure we do work on, or else set up some prohibitively expensive thaumaturgical equipment to do it automatically, with less efficiency."
"Yeah, I think I'll be fine until pegasi," I dismissed. I'd been used to more-or-less random weather for practically my entire life. It wasn't really a problem. "How about disease?"
A pause came before she continued. "Disease eradication is one of the more intensive tasks. Initially, a team of unicorns will scout the area, and any nearby locations of interest, to catalogue any infectious disease that might be present nearby. Once that's done, at least one medical specialist will be invited to the settlement, with enough supplies to deal with any reasonable medical emergency that might occur for about two years. Any disease found that we've catalogued before, they'll have vaccinations ready for. Otherwise, we'll send a report back to Medical, and they'll come up with cures, treatments, and so on, for anything new we've found."
"Inviting a medical specialist? As in, permanently, to reside here?"
"Correct."
That sounded... off. "Aren't medical personnel incredibly valuable? Why would you shunt them off to some tiny hamlet when they'd be more useful back home?"
"It's a voluntary position," she explained. "Anyone who applies for it is made fully aware of what they're signing up for. In addition, once the settlement trains its own doctors, or nurses, they're free to return back to their original residence. And yes, before you ask, they are fully recompensed for it all."
Okay, that made sense at least. One more thing was on my mind, however... "This is sovereign territory, though. Of the Free State, remember? Aren't you concerned you're essentially sending Equestrian citizens abroad, and highly skilled ones at that, for an indeterminate amount of time?"
"I'm afraid that's beyond my pay rate," she said. "All I know is that it's all supposedly been taken into consideration. I'm sure you'll have final say on whether any foreign citizens are allowed to reside here."
"Damn straight." This ain't no colonial possession. Me and mine bow to no one. "Alrighty then, and what do you mean by 'general infrastructure?'"
"Transportation and resource extraction," she replied. I waited for more, but in vain.
"That's it?" I eventually asked. "Roads and mines?"
"There's more to it than that, but those are the two main points to it. Depending on the location, there would be more to consider, like seaports, fisheries, tunnels, and so on. However, since we're inland, and in a very flat area, little of that is relevant.
"Transportation covers roads, yes, but also railroads and air lanes – for pegasi and flight carriages – as well as traffic control. And resource extraction covers a wide variety of things – here, I suspect it'll mostly be agriculture and lumber. Nothing major showed up in our geological surveys."
"Agriculture? Isn't that covered by food?"
"Not if you're growing cotton," she explained. I just about smacked myself in the face. Right. Not every plant that grows can be drunk, you idiot. "Again, a lot of things are covered. Cotton, animal feed, dyes, and so on."
"This all seems terribly extensive for a tiny village," I said, confused.
"...Is that as far as you're going to take your Free State?" Her tone was pointed.
I had to admit, she had a point there. I did want my state to grow, and be powerful. How else could I start helping those who need it? How else could I take in the yearning, the poor and huddled masses? I wasn't going to be content with simply dumping them in a slum and patting myself on the back. No chance.
All the same, though, she didn't really answer my question. "And what if it is? What if it ends up that way?"
"...That's not what I was briefed for, then," she said.
Another non-answer. This one, though, told me plenty all by itself. She'd been told to make this place scalable – that is, build it with expansion in mind. I didn't know the exact extent of it, but I was pretty sure only one person could have made such an assumption. Construct's orders came straight from the top. Yet another helping hand from Mummy Dearest.
"...Right," I muttered, making a note of it. "Fine then. For completeness' sake: food?"
"Food will be easy. As I said, you've already proven it's possible, and safe. All that's necessary is to expand it for it to be capable of sustaining the population."
"Which would be?"
"Settlements are required by law to be able to sustain a minimum of one-hundred-and-twenty percent of their theoretical maximum population. For this project, the endpoint is a population of about three hundred, so a farm capable of feeding an average of three-hundred and sixty is the minimum. That comes out to about nineteen more of your... crop fields, by my estimate."
Now that was an eye-raising statement. My plot of land was by no means small; harvests were frequent, sometimes even during the winter, which definitely helped shrink it, but working on it was usually a day-long affair nevertheless. Nineteen more... that was a pretty tough workload. At least, it would be without any help, which hopefully would not end up as the case.
"Piece of cake," I snarked. "And finally, housing? I assume your tents aren't what you're going for?"
"Of course not," she retorted, offended. "We've got enough materials on hand to build... three more houses, which we'll then use as barracks for the rest of the project. For more, we'll either have to rely on shipments, or, with your permission, local resources. We've already got enough advanced components for the whole settlement, so all we really need is thatch and lumber."
"Sure," I waved. "Not like I was gonna do anything with it." Was there anything else I was missing...? Shuffling my papers revealed nothing I'd forgotten. I could've sworn... oh, yes. "Ah, what about water?"
"A central water supply will be installed for the settlement. It's usually a well, or if there's a river nearby we draw from that. Every home will need a connection."
"Naturally." Sweet. Finally I'll be able to savour the luxury of a good, long shower. No more collecting rainwater for my baths! And certainly no more jars of drinking water. "Well, that clears everything up by my count." I finally released the papers from my grasp, sticking them gently back onto my desk. "Everything looks to be in order. I guess I officially give you my permission to go ahead with it."
"Thank you, sir," she said. "We'll begin work immediately. I'll get updates to you as they come." About-facing smartly, she made her way out of the room, taking her bags with her, letting me turn back to my desk. I heard the door close behind me with a click.
I shuffled Construct's papers off to a corner, instead returning my attention to the chicken-scrawl parchments littering the front and centre of the table. Most of them contained little of note, mostly just jotting my thoughts down as they came to me, and many were about topics that were more-or-less worthless at this point of development. A few, though, were set aside as important.
The one with the biggest heading was straight on top, Population Growth. I'd been staring at this bloody piece of paper for hours by now, wracking my brain for ideas on how to actually get people to come and live here. The best two ideas I'd come up with so far were to ask ol' Celly for help, as she seemed so willing to do for me so far, or if that fails, try putting an ad in a Classified section of one of the papers. I'd come up with that mostly as a joke (Wanted: thirty ponies and an airship, for elaborate practical joke), but I soon realised it might actually have worked. Somewhat, at least.
The first option was looking increasingly distasteful, the more I thought about it. Celestia had already given me everything I was currently working with. The nation, the title, and now the infrastructure. I supposed that the next logical step for her would be to also give me the citizens, and send me on my merry way. So much for building it from scratch, I mused, with only some bitterness. Though in fairness, I couldn't reasonably have expected myself to literally build an entire nation from jack-shit, all on my own. I could barely assemble furniture, much less a two-story house.
But to literally transplant Equestrian citizens to live here... well, that'd defeat the entire point, wouldn't it? It might as well have just been called Free-State-ville, settlement of Equestria near the White Tail Woods, by that point. On the other hand, I mused, if not Equestrians, then who else? Griffons? Minotaurs? Dragons?
No, no. It was gonna be ponies. But, I resolved, I was gonna do it my way. Even if it meant something as silly as putting out ads in a newspaper.
Oh, before I forget... I made sure to write down a note to myself, reminding myself to write a letter to Celestia to give her my thanks and tell her to back off a little bit. Diplomatically, of course; no reason not to, after all, with Blueblood ostensibly acting as the bridge between us two.
Sidling the note away, I turned my attention to some of the less-critical sheets. A few weeks ago, when I first read that griffon treatise, I'd gone to the effort of identifying the government structures of all the major nations on Equus, or at least the ones which I knew about myself, and drawing up organisational charts of them. It was about half-and-half between a genuine exercise in statesmanship and organisation, and me pissing about on a cold, wet day, not having anything else to work on.
The Equestrian one was the largest, of course, since it was essentially the most functional state on the continent, and the one I knew the most about. Celestia and Luna were at the top, delegating some of their responsibility down to the various bureaus and chancelleries – mainly Affairs of the Interior, which covered most of what they didn't want to have to deal with themselves. The Captain of the Guard was the de facto commander-in-chief of the armed forces, those being the Royal Guard and bugger-all else. Foreign Affairs was... distressingly miniscule. I didn't know exactly who was in charge of them, but I supposed Blueblood was seconded to them now. Good for him, I thought – he didn't actually have any power himself, despite being a Prince. And of course, Day Court, and its nightly counterpart, provided the connection between the government and the citizenry.
The dragon lands, interestingly, were the next lot I knew the most about, though it was also the shortest: essentially, what the Dragon Lord said, went. I reckoned giant, fire-breathing lizards didn't much care for official, pen-and-paper bureaucracy.
The griffons... were a bit of a shambles. Allegedly, their big bad king went missing a few hundred years back, along with some magical macguffin, and they'd been in the shitter ever since. Ever since then, there'd been a metric ton of regencies, emergency councils, provisional governments, etc. etc. None of them ever stuck around for longer than fifteen years. It was, in essence, a failed state. Interestingly, though, the griffons themselves didn't seem to mind too much. It was my suspicion that either they had inured themselves to their horrid state of affairs, or else had simply elected to ignore the central government of the hour in favour of village communes, or some such thing. I'd never been, myself, so I couldn't tell.
Minoa, home of the minotaurs, was... less clear cut. Very little about them was known, save for their alleged legendary craftsmanship. I had just about figured out that they ran some sort of elective monarchy system, and that was it. I hadn't ever even seen one in person, not even in Canterlot.
I neglected to draw up charts for the zebras, or any other species, because I didn't even know the first thing about any of them.
And then, after all that was done, I decided to try drawing up some of my own. (The rain still hadn't let up, even into the following morning, so I continued to have nothing else to do.) I had tried a few different systems; feudalism, parliamentary republic, dictatorship, direct democracy, and so on. None of them were terribly good, in my opinion. I'd mostly zoned out by that point anyway.
But now, they had taken on a disconcerting importance. After all, if this whole shebang was gonna pan out, I was going to need to enforce some kind of rule, beyond 'just do as I say.' I didn't much feel like being a tyrant, to be honest; not just because of my own personal sense of morality and justice and shit, but also because running a country single-handedly sounded like way too much work to handle. Delegation was an invaluable skill to have.
So, with that in mind, I'd drawn up a provisional government organisational outline for the Free State. Provisional, mind you, since it was going to be a long time before I'd even need to implement it, which at least gave me some wiggle room to change things if they wouldn't work. Not to mention that it wasn't strictly finished yet. For now, of course, I'd be perfectly fine relying on both having technically received my title from the Crown, and the 'I got here first' mentality.
Right now, it was a very strange mix, best summed up as 'elective presidential bureaucracy.' I couldn't stand being called Supreme Overlord with all seriousness, so instead I had changed it to a far more benign 'First Minister.' It might not have struck fear into the hearts of my enemies, but it was functional and descriptive, and didn't carry nearly as many undertones of tyrannical evil. The deputy, of course, was Second Minister, chosen by appointment. The only de facto role they had was government continuation.
Then, right below that, was a whole bunch of – you guessed it – ministries. The big four were Domestic Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Treasury, and Defense, which all had a whole bunch of under-secretaries seconded to them with more specific roles, like transport, healthcare, justice etc. for Domestic. As a matter of fact, they were the only four 'ministries' I thought up – everything else I came up with fit neatly into at least one of them, or else was too niche or entirely pointless to make into a full ministry. Each would be headed by their own ministers.
I would really have preferred a more straight-forward parliamentary democracy, in the style of the Commonwealth nations back home, but I didn't think a population of a few hundred would warrant one. This system was the best I could come up with in the meantime.
It was all terribly simplistic, compared to what it would have been like back home, and certainly simpler than Equestria's Diarchy system. Even as terminally bored as I was those few weeks ago, I couldn't bring myself to draft an entire constitution whole-cloth. Most likely, though, I was going to have to at some point. No civilisation got by for long without a criminal code, after all.
The rest of what I had worked on was miscellaneous national composition. The name was the first thing I wanted to change – Awesome Humanity was far too stupid to keep, as badly as I might have wanted to. Honestly, I was just fine with simply 'The Free State,' short and snappy. Maybe tack on 'of the White Tail Woods' at the end, since that was what the vast majority of its territory consisted of. The flag would stay the same red-white-red, too – the very same one that had actually kicked this whole thing off. Language, meh. English – or Ponish, as these idiots called it – was just fine by me. Culture...
That was largely going to depend on who actually bothered to settle down here.
Personally, I was just fine with allowing whoever, as long as they didn't make any trouble here. Especially those who didn't have anywhere else to go, or were on the run or persecuted or what have you – classic beacon of liberty shtick. Ponies, griffins, minotaurs, dragons, diamond dogs... meh. As long as they were willing to live in peace.
One final sheet of paper caught my eye, stuffed under a shaggy-looking coat of arms design and a map of the area. I gingerly picked it out from under all the debris, transfixed. It was divided into two columns, lengthways. The first column was titled What I Want.
The question forced itself into my mind. What do I want out of this? It was one I hadn't really, seriously considered yet; the column still stood empty. I had accepted Lyra and Blueblood, and Construct, more or less on a whim, though altruistic the reasons for the former may have been. Now, I had essentially just taken my first steps to making this nation a reality... and the question of 'what for' just wouldn't leave. What do I want out of this?
The first answer that came to mind was I want to help people. Nebulous, perhaps, but still a starting point.
Which? the voice in my mind continued. Who exactly are you going to help?
The answer was pretty obvious, thought I. Precisely everyone who needed help, and who wanted it. That was who.
And how are you going to tell who needs and wants help?
...I'm sure I'll figure it out?
And how many will you, hmm? In fact, let's go one step further: how many can you help, before you deplete yourself?
Evidently, I hadn't exactly thought this through.
The question that still hadn't been asked, I noticed, was how. Worrying about how many, and when, and which, was pointless, unless I knew exactly what I was working with in the first place. The second column now dominated my attention: What I Have.
To my name, as matters stood now, I had a house, an enormous chunk of land, a worthless title, two thousand and three hundred bits, and a liqueur collection that was worth, at best, maybe twice that.
Right at this moment, I could give a few ponies a place to stay, and maybe twenty ponies food, and that was it. In fact, I'd already made a start of it, with Lyra. Enough of a proof of concept, I supposed... and then, of course, Construct came to mind. Of course. I snatched her report out from... wherever I'd stuffed it. Christ, but I needed to tidy my study every now and then.
Housing: end goal of a hundred houses, each with a maximum occupancy of four, two adults and two foals. Further expansion at settlement discretion. That's four hundred ponies without homes I can accommodate... eventually. More, even, once I get some builders...
Food: enough for three hundred and sixty ponies, minimum; facilitate further expansion regardless of majority pony tribe. Oh good, we can even pull in pegasi to work the fields. Three hundred sixty ponies going hungry no longer.
General infrastructure: resources. Mainly lumber, soil quality to be determined, assumed average – permitting cotton, hay, antimony bush, crimson rose, fool's lion, witch's ear. Minimal mineral resources, composition: nickel, tin, sulphur. Don't bother sending pone to go mine, grow some flowers instead. Note to self; find out what the fuck those wack plants are, ASAP.
Health: general medical specialist. Local area qualities permit on-site medicine procurement – wait, seriously? We... can grow our own bandages, or morphine, or something? I really should have read this before Construct walked out... - minimal off-site supply required. Medical specialist to remain until local replacement is procured, by training replacement or alternate means. Give us your sick, and we will care for them. Just... an indeterminate number of 'them.'
So, that was it. Having reached the end of the document, I tossed it back onto the desk. That's... well, we'll be able to house four hundred, and feed three hundred sixty... before we run out of resources. The realisation struck me like a bolt of lightning. Of course! With that many ponies here, we'll suddenly have a workforce on our hands! A few transplants are bound to have some skill in construction, or farming, or... or not...? What'd those kinds of people be doing coming to me?
Ignorance really was bliss. With one burning question answered, eleven more took their place, each more red-hot than the last, and each more difficult to answer. How would I attract skilled workers who are also downtrodden? How could I teach those who aren't, and don't have it as a talent? How can I convince those kinds of people to cooperate with me, and not just suck me dry until nothing's left? How can I trust anyone I let in to not abuse that trust? How... how... how...?
How?
...Fuck it. I'm overthinking this all. I shoved all my papers and parchments off my desk, shunting them off into drawers (though taking enough time to organise them sensibly), and abruptly stood up from my chair, sending it clattering to the ground. In the end, my most workable strategy was the same as it always had been, and always would be: to take things as they came to me, and if anything unexpected came up, improvise. It got me though school, through college, through work, and through a dimensional anomaly. It'd get me through this too.
And apparently, I decided to clock out at precisely the right time, as the door to my living room opened before I could even reach for the knob, revealing Lyra.
"Oh, hello, sire." I shook my head at her, disappointed, which she quickly took note of with a bob of her head. "Ah, my apologies... Adam."
"Better," I allowed with a smirk. "Did you want something?"
"I was going to ask you if you wished to join me for dinner," she said. I had to check the clock on the wall: 6:27.
"Oh, yeah," I mumbled. "Wow, I must have spent longer in there than I thought. Yeah, I'm starving."
And just like that, all my thoughts, my worries about the future, my growing misgivings about something I couldn't yet pin down, even the twinges in my back from sitting down all day, it all disappeared behind a veil of food.
Take things as they came to me – that's practically my calling in life. How hard could it possibly be?