Dear Princess Celestia,
It’s been a long time since I’ve written one of these letters. A span of two hundred years is hardly consequential in the grand scheme of the world, but our small existences are harsh things, and time has most certainly not stood still.
Where should I begin? The technologies and sciences are, of course, my forte, but I know you always preferred the social matters. Perhaps I should begin with the ponies who set things in motion those centuries ago.
Yes… let’s start with my friends.
Applejack is perhaps the least changed; a sad, but fitting, truth. I’m certain you recall Granny Smith’s funeral with as much terrible clarity as I do, and I’m sure you saw what Applejack was like afterwards. But her brother's fall was far more shocking to us all. Granny was, sadly but truthfully, an amazingly old mare when she passed away in her sleep, but Macintosh was in his golden years when that corrupted dragon stormed out of the Everfree.
I still recall the awful feeling I had when the news reached me in Canterlot. I flashed there as fast as I could, but by then the battle had long since ended. The dragon was slain, surrounded by ash and felled trees, but only Applejack and her sister stood before it. I never discovered what exactly happened to Macintosh, and I have far too much respect for him to speculate, but Applejack and Apple Bloom wouldn’t leave each other’s company for several weeks.
Tragedy. It’s not something we thought about much, was it, Princess? Our lives were uncomplicated, and the only conflicts we faced were either manageable things or events so massive that the Elements were our first—and sometimes only—option. But this happened so suddenly that we could never have prepared for it. I think Apple Bloom blamed me, for a time, but we spoke with one another at the funeral, and amidst her tears as I held her in my arms I believe she forgave me. It had just never left her head that the Princesses were infallible, even after what happened to you.
After Mac’s death, she changed far more than Applejack did. She left the farm behind, refused to visit it when she came back to Ponyville. She’s told me that even the thought of her old home gives her nightmares. I think Applejack may have been the same way at first, but she returned and rebuilt the farm with the help of Braeburn and a good number of his wing of the family, returned from the frontier in the wake of the treaties we signed with the buffalo.
Apple Bloom turned to building things of a more eclectic kind. She opened a tiny shop in Manehattan, and began what has been called “The Equestrian Technological Revolution”, a movement away from magical power and towards the “natural” forces: steam, coal, and the like. She invented the first steam engine and created a system for utilizing the flow of electrons—or perhaps I should quote the headlines: “Earth-Pony Inventress Harnesses Lightning Bolt!” I scoffed, admittedly, when I first heard, but then I paid a visit to her laboratory and discovered that not only was it Apple Bloom who had created these things, but that they were both credible and far more incredible than even the most sensational stories.
I immediately offered her a position in the government—with all the funding and resources she could possibly desire—but she declined outright. She claimed that she wished to work free from bureaucracy and politics, a sentiment I quietly echoed back to her at the time. We stayed on good terms, and as time progressed I came to greatly respect her. She is brilliant, in a way that surpasses mere skill. There is a childish energy backing her actions that has scarcely faded over the course of two centuries… but I digress.
A good while after Apple Bloom’s “Appletech” had really begun to take off, the daughter of that lovely mailmare from Ponyville—perhaps you would remember her as Ditzy Doo, or more likely by her affectionate nickname, Derpy—started her own business. At the time, Appletech had hired Flim and Flam—they, in the typical irony of the times, being the charlatans who’d tried to take away the Apple’s business—to work on developing a non-magical flying machine. The two brothers did a marvelous job; you have to give them credit for cleaning up their act and putting their engineering skills to a better use than robbing working ponies of their business. They had a craft that glided using air pressure and a thin silk curtain stretched over a wooden frame, but unfortunately they couldn’t fly it far, much less use it for anything practical. Hired pegasi remained the best way to travel by air.
Then Dinky Doo opened up Derpytech and designed a harness that was a hundred times more efficient at utilizing pegasus magic to move airborne objects. An airbus that formerly would have taken four flyers to pull could now be comfortably controlled by a single pony.
Obviously, this put a damper on non-pegasus flight projects, though the brothers did eventually go on to design a few more practical aircraft that went into use by a few small groups. I must say I am extremely proud to have purchased one for myself. The sensation of flight is nothing new, but the raw power of these craft is intoxicating, if occasionally overwhelming.
Apple Bloom took Dinky's design as a personal challenge. For years the two mares smoldered at each other, until both Appletech and Derpytech near-simultaneously unveiled the first “thinking machines.”
I have attended the Equestrian Technology Exposition since it was established one hundred and eighty-two years ago. I have never, in all that time, seen two grown mares become so angry at each other. Their booths were adjacent, and the curtains came off at almost the exact same time. If I had not known he was with Fluttershy in Ponyville at the time, I would have marked it as Discord’s handiwork.
In design the two machines were radically different. Apple Bloom’s machine was sleek and streamlined, and ironically it was the first Appletech device to use magic. The Derpysoft machine was a massive, sluggish beast, but its workings were entirely mundane.
I think it was this reversal that made things boil over. Apple Bloom was jealous of the fact that Dinky had managed to succeed where she had failed in avoiding magical components. I’d spoken to her many times on this subject, actually, and my continued advice had been to give in and allow the arcane sciences to take a place in her workshop. She was almost shockingly resistant, but in the end I suppose she gave in.
The Smith One was her masterpiece, and Derpytech’s device sundered it. Likewise, I think Dinky was immensely offended by the fact that her primary competitor had designed something so similar to her own magnum opus. The fight came to blows before I could intervene, leaving Bloom with a broken nose and poor Dinky with two black eyes and a fractured jaw. The two accused each other of industrial espionage in a series of lawsuits that dragged on for years. It finally petered out after a frankly embarrassing incident in which Appletech sued Derpytech with the petty accusation that the latter had stolen the former’s name.
This, of course, led to Dinky simply changing the name. Derpytech became Derpy Software and Advanced Machinery Development, often shortened to simply Derpysoft. It’s been well over a century since then, and though they do not always see eye to eye, the two mares now deal with one another on far more civilized terms. Just recently, in fact, Apple Bloom announced that she was collaborating with Ditzy on a new project. I have yet to learn the details, but I'm quite hopeful for whatever this new collaboration might bring.
I’m sorry; I just realized that I’ve completely neglected Applejack’s story. I suppose I’ve never shaken my old habits of digression, have I? Some things never change, and that is by far for the best.
But Applejack did change, even though less than the others. The farm is, even now, still much as it was back in our younger days. Applejack and her sister never saw eye to eye about many things, particularly the one time that Apple Bloom tried to convince her sister to accept a gift of several mechanical farming tools, which she made the mistake of telling her sister had been co-designed by the Flim Flam Brothers.
I was present at the time at Apple Bloom’s request (Apparently she thought I would have some luck convincing her sister, thought that predictably was not the case.) so I can give you Applejack’s own words on the matter: “I didn’t let those brothers’ machines take my job back then, and I ain’t rolling over now. Besides, I can buck apples a thousand times better than those hunks of junk can.”
Of course you can guess what happened next. Suffice it to say that yes, Applejack can buck all those apples, and though perhaps a thousand times faster is somewhat hyperbolic, she was absolutely faster than the machines. At the very least, her skills in that regard never changed.
But she gained a new set of skills. Once it became clear to everypony what my, shall we say, ascension meant for Equestria, and the implications it held for my friends, I think she saw it as her duty to become more involved in the affairs of the nation, and eventually the Empire.
She approached me one bright winter day and asked me if I could tell what place there was for Honesty in the government. I think I almost laughed, for at the time the nobility had been running me in circles. “There are no Honest ponies in this government, Applejack,” I told her, “Just one hopeless princess and a thousand sharks nipping at her hooves in hopes of dragging her under and taking her place.”
Soon after that, she brought me her plan for the Equestrian Supreme Court. I’m sure you remember what the Royal Courts were like, and I must admit that at first I struggled greatly to control them. Corruption spread like a virus, and more nobles were realizing it by the day. A pony in Canterlot could rob a store in broad daylight and face no more than a prison sentence of a single night, if they knew who to pass a share of their ill-gotten funds to.
Applejack did away with them altogether, under my authority. She organized a court of seven judges, with her at the head. Each pony on the court was nominated by myself, and approved by her. I was slightly disturbed at her insistence that she have this privilege, considering that I had yet to come to terms with what being an Element Bearer entailed. I asked her who would take her place when she wanted to move on, and she told me she would choose her own replacement.
Thinking back, that conversation haunts me. She knew and understood, even back then. You were both merciful and cruel, Princess, for not telling us what was to come. But that is the nature of this gift. The Elements are beautiful things, but their side effects are cruel in their kindness. Likewise, their generosity is selfish and their loyalty is so firm that it becomes almost suffocating. Their honesty is a thin veil, for being inanimate things they lie eternally by omission, and there is little laughter to be had once you understand what they truly are.
At least they stay true to their final component, but that is a small comfort. After all, what is Magic without the five to give it substance?
I’m sorry. It’s been a long time and I have never confided so much at once. I will bring this letter to an end soon, as it already reads long.
Applejack controls the court magnificently. I do not know if it is a symptom of her Element or just a growing maturity of her own, but she has become almost eerily able to detect deception. Of the first six judges I sent her, she denied one with the accusation that he was a spy loyal to Blueblood’s party, and another with a claim that she took bribes from Canterlot’s criminal underground. Upon investigation, both statements were found to be true, and indeed the latter case was one of the first tried in her court.
Though I believe she does deserve one, Applejack has not cultivated a reputation for fairness. Instead, she has cultivated a reputation for absolute accuracy. Not once has a pony she deemed guilty ever asked for a retrial, and in many cases I have sat in and witnessed ponies begging her—not the plaintiffs—for forgiveness. In the first case she took, the plaintiff—whose entire case Applejack rejected almost casually and answered with alarmingly precise probes about his motivations—called her a “lie-detecting monster” and tried to flee the courtroom before being detained by Canterlot guards. I do not agree with some of her methods, namely her utter reliance on her uncanny skill, but the fact is she’s always right. I suspect the rogue elements of ponykind fear her far more than myself, because at least when dealing with me they have a chance, however slim, of slipping by.
It’s strange, actually knowing her. In the court she is a towering figure on her judge’s stand, watching the proceedings with her eagle’s eyes, but outside of that she is much the same as she has always been; amiable, dedicated, and both able and willing to shoulder her duties and her own personal goals with equal amounts of respect and skill.
She and Braeburn continued running the farm for many years until eventually he too passed away—peacefully, this time. She took it well, accepted that his life had been as full and wonderful as he claimed on his deathbed, and moved on. I suspect she still fears the day that her sister’s time comes, but I believe she will endure, just as you did for so long, Princess.
Yes, she will outlive her sister. I know this now, just as you must have known when you allowed her—allowed all of us—to take up the Elements of Harmony. You truly did curse us with this mandate, but I understand why you did it. Ours is a crucial duty to Equestria and to the world beyond, even if it is a bitter one.
No pony truly wants to live forever when they finally get their chance. I can’t say whether you did it for yourself, or for your dear sister, but I understand why it was necessary to pass them on. Someday, perhaps a hundred years from now, perhaps a thousand, they will be given to new bearers, and we too will vanish into history.
But I think that that is simply how it must be. The Elements are represented by a circle, and like a circle, the point of beginnings must come again, and again, and again, until time itself runs to a stop.
I’m sorry. I didn’t intend my first letter in two centuries to be quite so grim.
But then I never expected to live forever, either.
—Princess Twilight Sparkle