//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Equestria: World War II // by The Unseen //------------------------------// -------------------------------------------------------------------MANEHATTAN------------------------------------------------------------------------ It was around 3:10pm in Equestria, which meant it was around 4:40pm in Britain. Ambassador Wood was most definitely pleased. First contact and the diplomatic summit had gone well, and they had even gotten a tour of their city, Manehattan, by one of the princesses themselves! The fact they had allowed an unknown naval fleet to sail into their city and accepted the invitation for a meeting at the League of Nations was also pretty amazing as well. Everything went better than they had planned, as they originally thought they were to spend at least six months translating their language, and another three months initiating diplomatic relations, but now the Equestrians were allowing the opening of diplomatic relations in just one day! That was really something to behold. Wood still had multiple questions though. How could a whole continent suddenly be transported from a planet far away to Earth in a flash, that too, from a storm? It was just unheard of, except in the half ton of novels and films he had read and watched. He felt it was most likely either by some advanced technology beyond human dreams, or maybe divine intervention, which meant that God probably existed. He felt that scientists would probably spend 1,000 years solving this problem. Also, how did the Equestrians' city look so much like New York City, and why were still they having an absolute monarchy as a form of government? Wood put those questions aside for now, as their current task was to make a quick stop at their ships, report back to the American President and the British Prime Minister, and then begin their tour of Manehattan. It was around 3:20pm when they arrived back at their ships. Wood and Rockmond climbed aboard the Colorado, where the phone line was already running. "Wood, Rockmond, how did it go over there?" came the voice of Prime Minister Chamberlain from the phone. "Very well, Prime Minister. The Equestrians are willing to start up diplomatic relations with our nations, and even better, Princess Celestia accepted an invitation to the League of Nations meeting in two days, so we're gonna need you to send a plane to take them there." "I can provide that. My personal Boeing 307 Stratoliner is currently sitting on the tarmac at RAF Gatwick, and can land on primitive dirt runways. If you can convince the Equestrians to build a quick primitive runway, I can send the plane down there to get you to Geneva. I will fly to Geneva with Chamberlain here." came the voice of President Roosevelt. "Sure thing, Mr. Roosevelt. We can show them the marvel of air travel this way. Anyways, they are giving us a tour of their city now, so we need to freshen up quickly and leave. We will also be having dinner with the princesses tonight, so we won't be back in our ships till around 9:00pm here, which is around 10:30pm there, so this might be the last update from us today. You should hear from us tomorrow morning." "Alright, over and out, Wood and Rockmond. Have a good time out there." "You too, Mr. Roosevelt." said Wood as the call ended. "Alright, Dennis, let's go freshen up, we gotta leave again within another ten minutes." "Sure thing, I needed to grab some coffee anyways." said Rockmond, as he left the Nelson, and got on board the Colorado to prepare for the tour of Manehattan. Ten minutes later, at exactly 3:30pm, Wood and Rockmond, as well as a select retinue of about 50 scientists and cultural anthropologists, and around 8 soldiers, met up with Twilight, Luna, and their Royal Guards, ready for the tour. "Alright, Mr. Rockmond, Mr. Wood, are you and your men ready to see more of Manehattan?" "Yes, of course, we are more than excited to see your beautiful city, your Highness." answered Rockmond. "No need to call me such a formal title. Just call me Luna." "That's fine, Your-, I mean Luna." "Alright, let us start then." They all began walking through Manehattan, when Luna asked Rockmond a question. "Mr. Rockmond, could I ask you some questions?" "Yes, you may ask me questions. It's not illegal to do so." "Alright, can you tell me how your country's government works, and what kind of government did your country adopt? Also, can you tell me about the United States' origins?" Rockmond quickly thought of a way to explain the United States and its government in a simple and informative way, like a school teacher would. Thankfully, he was used to such questions from his kids. "Well, the United States of America, also known as the U.S.A. or U.S., is a country on the continent of North America. Our government is a federal presidential constitutional republic, and it consists of 48 states, which even I can't name, so please don't ask me what the states are." "That's alright, can you tell me more about your government?" "Okay, uhh, the Federal Government of the USA is composed of three main branches: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary, whose powers are vested by the Constitution of the US in the Congress, the President, and the Federal Courts. There are elections held, where the people vote to choose the next President. The origins of the US are a little negative, actually. Britain originally had thirteen colonies in our country, which wanted independence. It led to a war called the American Revolution, which lasted from 1765 to 1791, or in simpler terms, it happened 148 years ago. Nowadays, our relationships with Britain are actually pretty good." "Oh, it's nice to see that your two countries, which were formerly enemies, are now allies! So your country is based on a form of democracy. But how could it last almost 150 years? Most of the democracies in Equis' history didn't last more than thirty years, you see." "Wait, what? You've had democracies on your planet as well?" "Yes, actually. You see, around 60 years ago, a group of around 50,000 Equestrians, known as the Autonomists wanted to split off from mainline Equestria, and create their own nation, with their own system of governance. This system was one where the citizens chose their rulers by elections. We let them split off, and they created their own nation. However, the unstability of their government lead to the Autonomists' nation collapsing less than twenty-five years later. There were some more attempts before that, but those nations didn't even last ten years." said Twilight. "Our country also follows a democracy, you see. We have a king, and a royal family, too, but they do not hold much actual power anymore; basically they are just figureheads. Most of the actual power is held by the democracy, you see." said Wood. "Huh." Twilight and Luna were both presently surprised. The humans had made democracies successfully work, while they hadn't succeeded in Equestria. How had it worked? "How did you make democracy work in your countries?" asked Luna. "Well, the thing is, most people on our planet don't want to live under a monarchy, as most monarchs on our world were cruel tyrants, you see, and didn't really care about their people. Therefore, the people got tired of it, overthrew their monarchs, and started democratic rule in their countries. A few countries don't follow democracy, some follow other forms of government. I don't want to bore you with an explanation of it right now, so I won't go into it right now." "I see. Well, we, despite being a monarchy, have lasted for over 2,500 years. Anyways, we have reached the Manehattan Library, please take a look inside, there are multiple books about us in here, please do not damage anything." There were a couple of Royal Guards outside the main entrance who were a little scared on seeing the humans, but Luna reassured them that they were friendly, and the Royal Guards allowed them to go inside the library. Everyone was shocked on seeing it. It could have swallowed the Library of Congress back in Washington D.C. and not even burped, with 30 kilometers worth of shelves, and around 400 million items inside. The scientists and cultural anthropologists in the group instantly starting acting like kids in toy shops, ran towards the shelves, started grabbing books, and began to read them. A few minutes in, Bryan Rogers, the head of the American cultural expert team, asked a question. "Luna, it says here that you and your sister have ruled Equestria since the last 2,000 years. But that's not possible, is it? No living being can live that long." "Actually, yes. Me and my sister are over 2,000 years old, having started ruling Equestria since we were 18 years old. In fact, we alicorns, unlike other ponies, are immune to aging and death. My niece, Cadance, is around 600 years old. Most ponies can live up to a maximum age of 180 years, maybe around 200 if they are lucky." "Oh my god. Most humans can only live to an average of around 63-65 years. If we are lucky, we can live up to 80 or 90 years. The oldest person on Earth died very recently in France, at the age of around 122 years." "Huh. That's strange, you can only live around a third of our lifespan. Hopefully, after diplomatic relations are fully established, we can begin joint scientific missions to help expand your lifespans." said Twilight, levitating a book and writing notes. "Another thing to ask... how do you do that?" "Oh, I just used my telekinesis to lift this." "We know you have some sort of magic powers, it's just that we don't have magic on our world, or even believe it exists, for that matter." "We know your world doesn't have magic on it, but you don't even believe that it exists somewhere out there?! So your world is based only on science?!" said a shocked Twilight. "Yes, it is based only on science. And as for magic, it's just that most mentions of magic and other such things are in old myths and legends, but there is no proof that they ever existed on our world. In fact, they also contain stories of pegasi and unicorns as well, but again, there is no evidence they ever existed on Earth." "Hmmm, interesting. There are actually mentions of bipeds like you in our stories, but, just like yours, there is no evidence they actually lived on Equis. Also, this is not the first time we have come into contact with a magicless species. On Equis, of the 6 dominant species on Equis, only 2 were able to use magic." "Huh. Does this mean, that maybe, at some point in time, maybe a few thousand years ago, our worlds may have been in contact with each other?" "Maybe. If we do some more research, we can figure out if Earth was in contact with our civilization before!" shrieked an excited Twilight. "Alright, Twilight, go cool down for some time, don't overexcite yourself. In the meantime, Mr. Rogers, can we ask, what are humans' dietary requirements? We need to arrange our dinner for tonight, you see, and we need to make sure our dishes fit your physiology." asked Luna. "Alright. Uh, we humans can't survive on vegetables alone. We need a decent amount of meat as well. Also, there are some things that you eat, which our bodies cannot digest, such as hay and grass." "I see. We don't usually keep meat around, as we don't believe in harming other living beings for food, but there is some for when the Gryphons used to come visit our land, as they were meat-eaters. As for the fact that you cannot eat hay or grass, that will be a welcome challenge for our chefs. I will inform them right away." said Luna, as she wrote a letter, addressed to a posh restaurant in Manehattan, and teleported it, amazing all the humans once again. -----------------------------------------------------------------------CANTERLOT------------------------------------------------------------------------ Discord was happy. Everything was going according to plan. In fact, for some reason, the statue had started cracking even faster now, probably due to all the chaos on Earth, he was already around 40% free, and he would be free just a few hours before Celestia's League of Nations visit. Now, he needed to think about the next part of his plan to put Earth into chaos for some time to come. Not just days, not weeks, not months, no, years to come. With all the political unrest now between Earthly nations, he decided he'd start a war. Not just any war, one that would cripple this world for years to come. It wouldn't be some dispute between just one or two countries. It would be a large war, one involving the entire world. It would be a.... World War, for lack of words to call it.