//------------------------------// // 6. The Seats of Power (And What Goes in Them) // Story: Natural Light: A SolarPunk Story // by The Hat Man //------------------------------// On the outskirts of the city, beyond its dirt and cobblestone streets, beyond the gaslit street lamps, beyond its industrial districts and their smoke-belching chimneys, beyond the poor earther slums, and even beyond the fancier homes on terraces lined with trees and bordered by parks, there was a slow-rising hill.  And atop that hill was the Mayor’s manor, a two-story house with immaculate hedges and a fountain across its spacious lawn, tall gothic windows, and a pair of double doors with intricately carved patterns showing the city’s official seal. The inside of the manor was every bit as luxurious, with its hallways adorned with paintings personally commissioned by the Lord Mayor himself, its chandeliers, and its dining room stocked with the finest porcelain dishes and fine silverware. It was little wonder, then, that the Lord Mayor chose to spend so much of his time here or engaged in hunts or sport than at City Hall. It had been many months since a meeting of the Town Council had been held, which was little surprise as everypony knew there was no need for a public meeting except when an official law or a new tax needed to be discussed and officially put on the books. The real business of government, as ponies well knew, was held behind closed doors in offices and carriages and on fox hunts. And especially, as in the current case, in the Lord Mayor’s parlor. A low, crackling fire cast its glow from the fireplace as the Lord Mayor and his guests: the local unicorn lords from around the county, Legatus Stormbringer of the 6th Pegasus Legion, and Colonel Cannonade of the 9th Imperial Brigade. The Colonel and Legatus stood stiffly as the former delivered his latest report while the Lord Mayor and the others sat in their high-backed chairs and listened. “...and so, despite the arrests and other recent measures, we’ve seen no decrease in Shiner activity in the town, my lords,” Colonel Cannonade said, lowering the document held by his magic before neatly folding it and placing it in front of the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor, Sir Trotzig, nodded to the Colonel before sitting back in his chair. He was balding and wore a pair of round spectacles, and his mutton-chop beard curved around his jowls to meet up with his prodigious mustache. The lines of this facial hair contorted and moved to emphasize his consternation as he mulled over this latest news, his jaw working up and down as though he were literally ruminating the information like so much cud. “Mmm,” he murmured. “Thank you for your report, Colonel. But you say that there has been no decrease in Shiner activity so far… do you suppose that there may be a delayed reaction, and we may see it begin to wane in the coming weeks or months?” The Colonel and Legatus Stormbringer exchanged a look. “There is no indication of that, Your Honor.” “Well then,” spoke up another of the lords, a caramel-colored unicorn with a notable overbite, “what do you think will occur, Colonel? In your expert opinion, that is.” “That would be pure speculation on my part, Lord Toffee Nose,” the Colonel replied. “Oh do spare us the humility, Colonel,” Toffee Nose snorted with a dismissive wave of his hoof. He paused to take a sip of brandy that made a sharp thhhkk! sound through his teeth. “You did not rise to your rank without just cause. We would be ever so pleased if you could provide us with your thoughts on the matter.” Colonel Cannonade narrowed his eyes. “I think they’re getting more brazen. Not only will we not see a decrease in Shiner activity, I anticipate that it will continue to rise sharply.” “Oh,” said Toffee Nose. “How dreadful.” A gray mare with a pink mane levitated a cigarette in an ivory holder up to her lips. She took a drag and expelled a cloud of smoke to punctuate an exasperated sigh. “This isn’t merely dreadful, Lord Toffee Nose,” said the mare, a middle-aged heiress named Primrose Petticoat. “It’s tedious. I truly don’t see why we’re being bothered with it.” “This concerns us all, Lady Primrose,” Mayor Trotzig said. “I believe having all our input would be invaluable. If we are to put this rebellious faction down, we must have a coordinated effort!” “Well, I don’t see what’s so difficult about it all!” Primrose huffed. “Just hunt down these ruffians, kill them all, and stop regaling us with all this horrid business of violence and death.” Legatus Stormbringer grit his teeth. “If it were that simple, my lady, then—” “It is simple!” Primrose snapped, tossing her hooves in the air. “Just beat it out of the ones you capture, or shake down the ghettos until somepony confesses! Send the legionnaires down every hole in the city until you find something! And don’t bother us again until you’ve found their leader, whoever he is, and had him executed! I swear, this is all so tiresome!” There was a punctuated chuckle from a white unicorn with a slicked-over mane and thin mustache. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Something you care to say, Lord Caraway?” Primrose asked, narrowing her eyes at the young lord. Lord Caraway wasn’t born in the county. The youngest of the lords by ten years, he’d come from a small estate to the east and had seemed poised from birth to live the quiet life of a minor aristocrat clinging to the humble claims of his household. Instead, he’d immersed himself in studying economic and political theories and traveled to far-flung lands like Griffonstone and the Kingdom of Minos, only to return home and pour his family fortune into a slew of burgeoning startup companies. His timing couldn’t have been better: Equestria’s industrial revolution surged onward, and he rode it like the crest of a tidal wave. Not content with one industry, he had his hooves in everything from textile manufacture to mining to the growing railroad business that was crisscrossing the nation. And after a recession five years ago, a few donations and loans to the right ponies on his part led to commendations from the Crown and a slew of new honors and grants.  The Lord Mayor’s council of advisors had once been larger, but when the recession came, it even hit the aristocrats. It was then that Caraway had come along, seemingly out of nowhere, and approached three of the minor lords who sat on the council with generous offers. Pride made them hesitant, but ultimately each one caved, and their estates were gobbled up one by one. And now Caraway was the second richest lord in the county, owned the largest factory in the city, and wielded such influence that excluding him from the Mayor’s meetings became impossible, no matter how much the older lords grumbled.  It was all the more infuriating to the other lords that he seemed wholly devoted to differentiating himself from his peers. He spoke quickly in contrast to the others’ almost laborious intonations; he wore a green jacket with a gold-colored tie and black vest in contrast to the drab, formal colors the others wore; and he cared almost nothing for the traditional pastimes of privilege like carriage rides, golf, or fancy balls, preferring instead to take direct charge of his enterprises around the city and hobnob with everypony he met regardless of station in the pursuit of greater and greater wealth. And for his seemingly egalitarian sensibilities and warmth, he’d become one of the most beloved ponies in the county… and the other lords absolutely hated him for it. “Well, I’ve got several things to say, Lady Primrose,” Caraway replied, “but for the moment, I’ll point out that nopony forced you to be here. Every time His Honor calls for one of these meetings, you deign to show up only to carry on about how bored you are by the proceedings. If you’re so bored, then just leave!” “I beg your pardon?! I have a right to be here!” “So you demand to be part of the action, then do nothing but complain about the bother of it all? Forgive me, Lady Primrose, but your complaints about how ‘tiresome’ these proceedings are is the only thing I happen to find tiresome about them.” Caraway caught the ghost of a smile tugging at the edges of Legatus Stormbringer’s mouth as Lady Primrose began to sputter indignantly. The other lords didn’t seem to be in a hurry to rise to Primrose’s defense. “Oh, calm down, Lady Primrose,” Caraway chuckled. “Have a drink, have a smoke, and we’ll finish this talk soon enough. Then you can announce your latest garden party, which I know is the main reason you bother coming to these things in the first place.” Primrose’s cheeks flushed. “Well! As it happens, I do have another planned! But you shan’t receive an invitation to it, you upstart!” “That’s fine,” Caraway said with a shrug. “When is your party? I’ll hold one on the same day, and we’ll see how many ponies bother to show up to yours once they know I’m holding one.” “Please, Lady Primrose, Lord Caraway!” Mayor Trotzig cried. “This bickering is getting us nowhere!” “My apologies, Your Honor,” Lord Caraway said with a small bow of his head. “I only meant to steer these proceedings in a more productive direction, and I think our poor, beleaguered armed forces could use more helpful support than just ‘crawl down every hole until you find them!’ If it were that simple, I’m certain we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” “While that might be so,” said another of the lords, “I do believe Lady Primrose is correct in suggesting more intense measures.” The pony who had spoken was Baron von Schornstein, owner of the largest coal mine in the county and numerous others around Equestria. His features were old and wrinkled, and his sunken eyes were ringed with dark circles, but there was a sharpness there and vitality in his voice despite the rasp it had gained with age. “These Shiners are rabble-rousers and malcontents, and if we are to have any hope of crushing them, we must make it clear to their earth pony supporters that cooperating with them will only bring trouble. So, yes, I agree that we should sweep through the ghettoes and leave no stone unturned to flush their collaborators out of hiding. With enough pressure, I’m certain that some of them will turn on their ‘benefactors.’” “That could be done,” Colonel Cannonade said. “We’d need to coordinate a simultaneous effort and cordon off the district to make sure we caught as many earth ponies as possible in the sweep, but that is an option.” “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Lord Caraway said, swirling his glass of brandy casually in his hoof. “Not unless you want to make the problem much, much worse.” Von Schornstein glared at him, the crackling fire illuminating the deep lines of his features. “You should really watch your tone, Lord Caraway. Your youth may make you brazen, but you’d do well to remember your place. You are yet new to this table.” Caraway chuckled. “It’s not my newness that riles you so, von Schornstein. It’s my money’s newness, as always. But I have a seat here just as you, and I’ll speak my mind as I wish… with Your Honor’s permission, of course.” Lord Mayor Trotzig hesitated, glancing from von Schornstein and then back to Caraway. “Y-yes, proceed, Lord Caraway,” he said. “First off, let’s remember what this is all about: equity. Or, rather, the lack of it. Earth ponies have been in the Third Stable for centuries with only the rarest incidents of peasant uprisings in all that time. But times have changed. The discovery of steam power and our nation’s great push toward industrialization have created a staggering amount of wealth for us all, both due to new production and the boon it gave to our military. More and more ponies across all three Stables have become city-dwellers. And yet, for all that new wealth, the average earther has less and less of it in his hoof. And those earth ponies are no longer tenant farmers or ignorant villagers, oh no; they are increasingly educated, increasingly skilled, and increasingly aware of the wealth that is all around them. They can see how poorly they have it.” “Balderdash!” Toffee Nose spat. “Why, they get food and shelter, steady jobs, and a ready supply of pubs serving them swill to keep themselves content! They have enough! They ought to be grateful!” “If they truly had enough,” Caraway retorted, “then why is Lord Pepperpot’s bank giving out three times as many loans to earth ponies now than they were a decade ago?” Lord Pepperpot paused mid-sip of his brandy. “I… I don’t know what you mean, Lord Caraway. I’m not sure where you even heard such a thing!” “Let’s just say it filtered up to me,” Caraway said. He elected not to mention that the information had first leaked out in local pubs when some of the bank workers and loan officers came to drink their guilt away after foreclosing on yet another earth pony family’s home, confessing their sins to the ponies on the neighboring barstool like an ale-sodden confessional. “Ponies in debt up their eyeballs doesn’t sound like them having ‘enough.’ By nature, most ponies across all the Stables are prone to content themselves with their lot in life and not take dangerous risks unless pushed. That they are turning to violent criminals for aid and even joining them is a clear sign that they are indeed so pushed. The average pony doesn’t choose violence as a first option; he chooses it as his last option. He chooses it when he has little else to lose but a wretched life, especially when the potential rewards are great enough. And they are. “Which is precisely why a brutal lockdown of the ghettoes will most likely result in little information being gained and far more ponies joining the Shiners out of either spite or simple desperation. We don’t need to waste time and effort on extreme tactics when the results will only worsen the situation.” “Well then, Lord Caraway,” von Schornstein growled, “perhaps you’d care to make a suggestion of your own for a change, rather than naysaying everypony else’s propositions.” “Quite simple. For starters, acquiesce to some of the Shiners’ demands.” There was an uproar of protest from the other lords. Caraway took the time to refill his glass of brandy as the others shouted. But then a single voice shouted over them all, and that voice was Legatus Stormbringer’s. “You want us to capitulate to those murderous bastards?!” he demanded, his voice loud enough to shake the walls as he hovered directly over Caraway, his muzzle inches away. “Legatus, if you please—” “No! I won’t calm down! I’ve lost dozens of legionnaires to these terrorists! I have to pen a letter to each one’s family and explain why their son or daughter was killed in the line of action when we aren’t even at war!” “Legatus,” Cannonade said, his voice firm as he placed a hoof on Stormbringer’s shoulder. “I… forgive me, my lord,” Stormbringer said, practically choking on the apology as he gradually came back to the ground and folded his wings against himself. “No apologies necessary, Legatus,” Caraway said. “And I understand what you mean: we do not wish to validate the Shiners’ actions by openly giving in to their demands. But we should consider gradually easing restrictions on the earth ponies in the city. Fewer curfews, extensions on loans, rent control, boost the wages of ponies in all our respective enterprises… that sort of thing. Make earthers’ lives a bit cozier, and they’ll have more to lose by associating with the Shiners. Do it bit by bit, with no credit given to the extremists, and we shall appear all the more magnanimous as the Shiners seem all the more extreme.” Mayor Trotzig’s jaw worked as he mulled over the suggestion. “Mmm… I hate the thought of caving in to a bunch of uppity earthers. But do you really think this will solve the problem?” “I think it’s a start,” Caraway said. “And after that?” Caraway took a deep breath. “I would send a petition to Canterlot urging them to ease the restrictions on the use of solaether.” Another round of protest exploded from the joined lords. “How dare you suggest such a thing!” Primrose shrieked. “Those horrid devices drain Her Majesty’s very life force!” “Oh come now, Lady Primrose, that’s a load of horse apples and you know it!” There was a stunned silence at that and Colonel Cannonade cleared his throat. “My lord,” he said, meeting Caraway’s eyes, “that is the official stance of the Crown. Publicly opposing an official edict would be… unwise.” Caraway regarded him for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “It would be unwise to say so… ‘publicly.’” He looked around at all the faces staring back at him. “But this meeting is not public, is it? What we discuss here is often unfit to be heard by the public. Let us speak candidly with each other, shall we?” The others continued to eye him and each other with unease, but nopony spoke up in protest. “Let me be clear: I wish no harm upon Her Majesty. Nor do I have any particular grievances with our system of government. After all, I am a beneficiary of that power.  “But solaether is the new way of things. It’s clean, it’s cheap, and it is unbelievably versatile. The Shiners have already proven its capacity to render the distinction between the races meaningless. The seed of that idea has been planted. It has taken root. And it will grow, tended to by earth pony hooves. Deny it if you like, but I believe we should accept that change is coming. It is inevitable, but we could be at the forefront of this new change if we embrace it.” “You’d tear up the foundations of our society just to make a few bits, eh?” scoffed von Schornstein. “Don’t bother to act superior,” Caraway chuckled. “We both know you only oppose the technology because it threatens your coal empire. That’s the real reason you want the ghettoes stormed, isn’t it? To destroy all the solaether heaters the Shiners have been providing the poor so they have to go back to giving you their bits?” “Why you arrogant, upstart, snot-nosed little son of a—” “Gentlecolts, please!” Mayor Trotzig shouted, holding up his hooves. “Ugh… it’s too hot in here…” They all waited patiently as the Lord Mayor wiped his brow. “Lord Caraway, your earlier proposals have some merit. Depriving the Shiners of more recruits is wise. Colonel, Legatus, I urge you not to proceed with any crackdowns of the earth pony ghettoes. And the rest of us may want to consider ways to subtly improve the lives of the earthers without overtly making it seem like we’re doing it to appease the terrorists. “But we are not going to entertain any ideas about solaether or its applications.” “Your Honor—” “Lord Caraway, I’ve said all I am going to say about it!” Mayor Trotzig shouted. Caraway heaved a sigh and sat back in his chair. “As you wish, Your Honor. But if that’s the case, then I beg you to consider the plight of the soldiers tasked with fighting these terrorists. Shiner weaponry is advancing quickly, and traditional tactics aren’t keeping up. By not utilizing solaether ourselves, we’re putting our forces at a disadvantage.” “We can manage without that trash,” Cannonade scoffed. “Agreed,” said von Schornstein, “but perhaps Lord Caraway is correct about one thing: we need something to level the playing field.” Mayor Trotzig and the two military ponies leaned in with interest. “Anything in mind, Lord von Schornstein?” Trotzig asked. Von Schornstein smiled. He reached into his coat’s inner pocket and drew out a tiny glass vial. Inside it was a purple liquid that glowed softly. He saw the scowl on Lord Caraway’s face and his own smile grew proportionately. “I have some ideas…”