I think upon this, I should finally get into the pegasi boiling point that I previously mentioned. Also, as an aside, how high do you think the temperature needs to be to get a pegasi’s body to start to boil? 1000 degrees? Maybe higher? Just curious.
What I meant to discuss was the “Pegasi Spring”. I know that pegasi revolting isn’t exactly something new or exciting, but hear me out. It’ll have relevance yet.
As you know, ever since the end of the Civil War, I’ve been building up the whole pegasi nationalism idea. An idea that would come to a head towards the beginning of the new millennium, before Nightmare Moon’s return, but during Celestia’s early grooming of Twilight Sparkle.
So you might ask, why am I only covering this now? Why not cover history in its chronological order?
WHACK!
Well as I said, the aftermath of the Pegasi Spring would be coinciding with another significant event that occurred after the first return of Discord, so think of this as just being a backstory for that. And this fulfills all that pegasi tension foreshadowing that’s been building up in the past few chapters. Too much tension and no release can be pretty painful for most guys, I’m sure.
To understand the Pegasi Spring and how the pegasi reached such an ultimate point, one must first look at the background behind it. Yes, a backstory to a backstory. I’m fully aware of how ridiculous this sounds right now.
Most agree that it all really began in the last quarter of the Booming Century, which as you know, was characterized along with the rest of the age with the advent of the train system and technological advancements. Alongside these advancements came rapid industrialization, which would provoke a great change throughout Equestria as well.[513] The last quarter of the Booming Century also had the opening of Celestia’s School of Inept, Stupid, and Untalented Unicorns, but that is neither here nor there right now. Well, I suppose it was kind of a reason for the Spring in its own way as well, but not as much as the whole industrialization thing.
For industrialization would have its own aftereffects, a shockwave if you would, that impacted all of Equestria even to this day. With industrialization came nationalization, as certain key industries, such as organized mining, became absorbed into the government.[514] This was most likely so Celestia could keep control over such significant systems; iron and other metals were needed to continue to lay down Equestrian railroad lines, which was certainly a growing necessity.[515] And with the advent of new machinery and a fledgling factory system to help support supply, this was a great boon towards the Nationalized Rail’s success.
But of course, once Celestia grabs a hold of something and feels up its power (like literally grabbing it by the balls), she always has difficulty letting go. Like the unicorn tramp she always was. If any of you have been touched in a way or in a place by Celestia that made you feel uncomfortable, I can recommend a great support system for you. It’s called “Buy Ten Copies of My Book: An Abhorrent Offense: Princess Luna and the Invasion of Privacy and see if you feel better”.
Celestia’s excuse for taking over these systems was said to “reduce the monopolization and privatization of key industries, and to avoid corporate greed. With nationalization, corporate bureaucracy could be stripped down and a leaner, more efficient system could be put into place”.[516] And I do agree with Celes-BLARGHHHHH
I do agree with somepony that corporate greed was starting to set in its ugly claws like it does for all corrupt corporations.[517] However, let’s face it, this was all just a front, an excuse for Celestia to take more power. This would give Celestia free rein to take control of any industry she wanted, and rule over it with an iron hoof. It was also probably just a way for Celestia to try to prove the efficiency of her government, something she probably felt she had to make up for after centuries of inactivity and absence during the Stagnation. Think of it like a petulant child screaming, “I’m still relevant”! Celestia, you’re like an early 90’s rap artist in the new millennium. Your time is done, return back to the sea of pop culture triviality where you belong. And anyways, it seems that I wasn’t exactly the only one who didn’t like the government’s taking of more power.
For an industry that was described as key was the sphere of weather control, with Celestia promising a complete nationalization of weather towards the end of the 20th century.[518] This understandably got pegasi pretty angry; they were given this role by Celestia back since the Classical Era (even though that was pretty much just a formality to appease them) and now it seemed as though Celestia wanted to take it back from them.
During the Classical Era, while still obeying Celestia’s orders to some extent when it came to weather management, as a whole, the pegasi could control the weather by their own means. Of course, they would obey the natural laws, placing rain clouds in areas that needed them, etc.[519] But with Celestia’s planned nationalization and bureaucratization of the process, it not only seemed that Celestia didn’t trust them with their jobs, but that she was trying to take a part of their culture from them, pissing them off even further. They had already had begun a slow, general distaste of Celestia’s actions since the Stagnation, and this was to be the breaking point.
Especially with the fact that the vote moving towards weather nationalization occurred in her mostly unicorn parliament (it was Canterlot after all), with little pegasi representation.[520] I mean there were a scant few pegasi scattered in there, but everypony knew that they were probably hypnotized or forced into silent subservience by Celestia. It’s like an unspoken rule at this point. So even the pegasi knew it was all a sham.
And of course, that was exactly what Celestia was trying to pull. Or at least the unicorn aristocracy, who themselves were growing wary over how much they could trust the pegasi. Holding in some past wounds over the whole civil war thing, huh? So the unicorn aristocracy secretly demanded Celestia re-take control from them (which Celestia surely conceded), causing this nationalization crisis.
This removal of their own private control over the weather, and being forced to now have their millennial-old jobs performed under the watchful eye of Celestia seemed to be the last straw in the year 1997. The concept of pegasi exceptionalism was always high in their society; their belief that their way of doing things was unique or even superior than other ponies’,[521] so it was understandable that they wouldn’t take this action lying down.[522] There began to be greater murmurs among the populace of a possible pegasi uprising, or at least an all-encompassing general strike, beginning in Cloudsdale.[523]
Such a rash action from the pegasi would not only be a huge threat to Celestia’s regime and her unicorn power base, but potentially ruin a young Cloudsdale citizen of grave importance to her plan, Rainbow Dash. For Rainbow Dash was fiercely proud of her hometown, and these whispers of revolution could potentially corrupt her mind and lay waste to all the effort Celestia put in to keep her (for lack of a better term) loyal to her eventual role as Twilight’s friend.[524] For if she even had the slightest bit of doubt in the princess, her role as one of the future holders of the Elements could escalate into catastrophe.
As for Fluttershy, eh, who cares? I know she lived in Cloudsdale for a brief time too, but she was spending more time on the ground at that point, and I doubt she cared enough about Cloudsdale politics/pride to really get involved. Also I kinda forgot about her in this theory so we’ll just pretend she was a non-issue at this point.
Finally, the pegasi were ready for a revolt, which meant Celestia would have to act quickly to ensure the success of her future plans. Rainbow Dash was luckily shielded from the mounting revolutionary talk due to the efforts of The Echelon and some surely convenient hijinks that ensued, such as Rainbow Dash just missing their radical public speeches due to a handy unscheduled parade that just happened to be passing right through. But The Echelon knew they could not keep this up forever, especially once the pegasi began to march on the streets to start their protests.
Therefore, they quickly devised a way to move Rainbow Dash out of Cloudsdale (on her birthday no less, from what I heard. They must truly hold some despicable power in society to be able to accomplish such a feat) before things truly got out of control. Of course, Rainbow Dash wasn’t meant to end up at Ponyville so soon; Celestia had plans for the six to converge at Ponyville at a later time, but in the face of this pegasi crisis, she was forced to move her there earlier than planned out of pure desperation. And it makes sense too. Why would such a fiercely pro-Cloudsdale pony move to Ponyville? If she wanted to join the Wonderbolts, why not stay in the skies? Celestia’s mechanisms I tell you!
As for the pegasi, as an external way of calming them (for if things with the pegasi truly did get out of hand, all of Equestria would be hearing about their revolt eventually), she introduced major benefits that came with industrialization and demonstrated how much more efficient the weather process would become in an attempt to appease their anger.
As I said, nationalization and industrialization came hand-in-hand, and Celestia surely saw the benefit in mixing them together. Celestia was like a tricky salespony, telling them that all the benefits of industrializing weather was a package deal with nationalization. And industrialization was ensured to make the process easier, introducing elements to streamline the weather making process, such as the infamous Rainbow Factories of Cloudsdale.[525]
She then added the new rain production system, in which pegasi would lift large bodies of water to pegasi towns for the creation of rainclouds.[526] Of course, this wasn’t a natural or necessary process; evaporation was doing this job for millennia prior. But this was just to make an excuse for the earth-living pegasi to participate in their own towns, to give the sense of unity amongst their race, and to serve as a point of pride for them. And we all know how easily pegasi can be fooled once you get their pride in the way.
As an added precaution, she had the process guarded by members of the Wonderbolts, [527] to not only make them seem relevant (because trust me, they weren’t and aren’t), but to provide a Celestia-loyal supervisor just in case such a mass pegasi gathering could prove detrimental to her plans.
This seemed to work in the short-term; the pegasi ended their planned protests and soon would take on these new jobs provided by the industrial weather factories.[528] But even Celestia knew this peace wouldn’t last for long; they may have been convinced that nationalizing weather was a benefit to them, but the pegasi still demanded political concessions. They saw the problems behind the crisis emerging in the first place as a result of the lack of fuller pegasi representation in the Equestrian government.
With this, in essence, the Pegasi Spring was anything but over; newer protests would surely start again before long. And the longer Celestia took to answer these new demands, the more the pegasi nationalism movement would grow out of hand.
Of course, historians say that Celestia was all for joint-representation, especially as pegasi and earth ponies already held positions in the political sphere.[529] But historians pin the blame mostly on the unicorn aristocracy, who prevented the pegasi and earth ponies from taking a greater political role, and ensured that they would always be kept in the political minority.[530] I’m glad those historians and I can reach some sort of agreement some of the time at least.
But I feel as though historians won’t exactly agree with me on the next part.[531] Celestia could not grant these concessions (because she’s a shitty leader and also) because she needed to hold on to her unicorn support. As I said, the tenants of her regime were built upon racial superiority, and therefore, she needed to keep the unicorns high upon a pedestal and satisfied. What, do you unicorns want us to help you wipe your asses too?
In lieu of this, Celestia instead chose to enact her secret plan B to ensure the long-term pegasi “shutting of ups”[532]. Project CADENCE Alicorn.
What did it stand for?
Candy Ass Dictator of Evil’s Namby-Pamby Clone’s Emergence as an Alicorn
Or to put it frankly, Celestia would create the means to ascend a pegasi clone of herself to alicorn status to fulfill the desired pegasi representation.
As you know, Celestia had been experimenting with clones and doppelgangers for many years prior to the new millennium. The successful non-mirror pool made usable clones, Luna and Donut Joe, had demonstrated that not only could they integrate into society, their clone status undetected (marginally. Luna and Donut Joe were still very awkward and scruffy-looking respectfully), but that Celestia could pull off such a magical feat. It’s a good thing I’m always suspicious of those who are different from me/those I don’t like. It’s this trait of mine that helps me catch Celestia’s tricks.
I mean sure, this whole Pegasi Spring/Cadence scenario “technically” occurred during the experiment’s hiatus in 1997, which was way before these clones’ creation in 2010-2011. But let’s just say Celestia saw a glimpse of the future during the time she still held the Elements and therefore knew about doppelganger Luna and Donut Joe’s eventual creation, so I can quickly move on from this topic. You don’t think the fallacy police noticed anything, did you?
So all-in-all, Cadence was created as a result of further clone experiments (which explains why she kinda has that Celestia-alicorn like body structure, because she’s a semi-clone of Celestia), but as a pegasus in infant form. Of course, like always, the clone was flawed in many ways when it came to personality and power, and most significantly, she was pink and not white. But Celestia probably saw this color difference as a benefit anyways; less people would notice the resemblance if they were different colored. And this way Celestia could re-sell all those incorrectly-colored pink Celestia toys she had commissioned for idol worship and what not[533] by repackaging them under Cadence’s name. As evil as you are, at least you’re environmentally aware. Except for the whole polonium poisoning situation you have going on below our hooves.
And how do I know Cadence was a clone of Celestia? After all, most alicorns share the same body structure (probably because there’s only like four of them in known existence). Well, let’s examine this closely. Apparently Cadence has the innate ability to spread love wherever she goes, using a love spell to "help couples remember how much they love each other".[534] So pretty much she manipulates the minds and hearts of all the ponies she encounters to suit her own fancy. You may not look like Celestia, but you're Celestia through and through. An Apple to the core. A Celestia to the jelly filling. I'm implying Celestia's a donut here.[535]
And besides, didn't we just condemn Discord for all his love potion maneuverings? Both in bringing down Equinus and the mane six in his first return? Why is it that Cadence can do the same shit and get off scot free? Subverting the law and performing the same actions that you condemned past villains for because of your title and position? If you’re not a Celestia clone, I don’t know what else you could be.
Anyways, with the pink pegasus infant Celestia clone completed (that’s not a phrase you’ll hear in many academic works), Celestia took her back in time using those infamous time spells, into the year 1985 before the nationalization crisis even began.
The present past (of 1997) Celestia would explain it all[536] to past past Celestia (of 1985) in order to properly put the preparations in place. In fact, maybe Starswirl popped up too to give a few pointers. Considering all this time travel crap, it’s only reasonable.
So Cadence was the product of another 1997’s timeline; she was never made in our current timeline and was born from a timeline that has been replaced with ours (and for clarity’s sake, ours is a timeline that now has Cadence existing since 1985, if we assume the theory of a splittable timeline to be true). Now Celestia’s choice to deliver present past Cadence to the year 1985 is important, but I’ll get to that in the next chapter.
For now, let’s just get into Cadence’s supposed backstory. Or more accurately, let’s break it down as the bullshit it really is.
Cadence was said to originally have been a pegasus, mysteriously found alone in forest and raised from infancy by earth ponies.[537] Oh god, sometimes Celestia makes it so obvious I don't even have to try. It seemed as though Celestia got a little too greedy in her set up; trying to satisfy both pegasi and earth ponies by practically shouting, “Hey look! I’m ascending this pegasus(HINT HINT!) who was raised by earth ponies!(HINT HINT!) So now both you folks have alicorn/political representation!” I mean yes, the earth ponies, while a few centuries behind the pegasi in radical thinking, also began to have their seeds of revolution begin to sprout after seeing the Pegasi Spring, but trying to appease them both at once by making Cadence a product of both races is just lazy.
Once Cadence became of suitable age closer to 1997, Celestia then created a crisis in the earth pony village she grew up in, regarding some jealous loser named Prismia, and had Cadence confront her and teach her how to open her heart and love. And upon Prismia’s redemption, as per the official story, Cadence was immediately ascended to alicorn status.[538]
Are you for real? Befriending some lonely prick makes you an alicorn? I mean, I know Celestia just needed to rush an excuse to ascend Cadence before the Pegasi Spring really started getting going, but come on. We all know you suck, but at least put a little more effort into your ascension excuses than that. At least try to make it seem convincing.
So at the very height of the revolution in late 1997, when it seemed that pegasi nationalism would break from its floodgates and let loose its torrents of dissent and anger, Celestia suddenly announced that this random pegasus had ascended to an alicorn, was officially adopted as her royal niece, and would be made a princess.[539]
The pegasi should have been suspicious of such a thing, as this random pegasus nopony’s ever heard of suddenly popped into existence through weird time logic (ask Starswirl the logistics of the whole thing), was apparently living in an earth pony town the whole time without any pegasi knowing, and her backstory just kinda appeared out of nowhere. But again, pegasi are pretty dumb, so they didn’t exactly question it. All they knew was that now one of their own was an alicorn princess, and they were completely satisfied with that.
In fact, Cadence didn’t even need to do anything in particular for the pegasi. Not use her new political powers to alleviate any of the “oppression” they felt they faced, not offer them greater freedoms, no nothing. It seemed that the whole purpose of the spring was just to get one of their own in power, to make it seem that they play a big role in the Equestrian political system. And with this now achieved, the pegasi couldn’t have been happier with the results.
In fact, there was a big coronation ceremony for Princess Cadence, a big ol’ waste on the ol’ taxpayers’ money. Of course, Celestia probably saw of it as a good price to pay to stop the likelihood of a pegasi revolution. Pegasi from all over Equestria came to watch Cadence’s officially princess-ing (is that a word? Well, it is now.[540]) and the Pegasi Spring finally came to its wimpy ass conclusion.[541]
Both sides had achieved what they wanted; Celestia had nationalized the weather (practically placing it under her complete control, or at least more complete than it was back in the Classical Era) and appeased the anger of the pegasi for many years to come, and the pegasi finally felt they had the political recognition they deserved, as one of their own was “spontaneously” made into an alicorn princess and would serve pegasi interests.
But of course the latter part of that wouldn’t be true; Cadence was made specifically upon Celestia’s orders. As such, Celestia probably implanted a hypnosis chip into her head, so she could take control of Cadence if necessary.[542] Most importantly, Celestia molded Cadence into the perfect little mare, one who would never cause any trouble and act as a cutesy yet completely benign princess, at the loss of any interesting character traits. Like everything with Celestia, Cadence held a false appearance; Celestia was in control of this cloned body all along, even without Cadence’s knowledge. It’s all a fascade. Is it ever not with Celestia?
So the pegasi were satisfied by this “representation” (again, they're literally the easiest to trick), but earth ponies weren't as much (because we're smarter; and that “Cadence raised by earth ponies" shtick wasn’t exactly satisfying), but for the moment at least, it seemed to appease racial issues.
After the fiasco that had occurred when she had attempted the nationalization of weather, Celestia halted her plans of further nationalization of key industries, lest she have another crisis on her hands. But she definitely still had it up her sleeves. Many specialists have predicted the next one to be integrated would be the food industry; after all, it was practically already nationalized since the Three Point Plan of the Classical Era and the structure for it was already in place.[543] And the claws of industry have already started to be sunk into agriculture; have you seen those new industrial cherry factories?
However, if she chose to do it now, she could have the earth pony equivalent of the Pegasi Spring to deal with, so soon after the Pegasi Spring had already occurred.
If I had to give a name to this future event, I’d call it, the “earth pony version of the Pegasi Spring”. So anyways, Celestia would have to hold off of that for now.
Nonetheless, earth pony anti Celestia-sentiment would one day certainly explode in the future. I don’t know how long until then, probably a couple of decades until they even reach the same breaking point as the pegasi, but I’m crossing my hooves for that moment. So long as, y’know, Celestia doesn’t time-travel again and ascend an earth pony this time to appease them like she did with the pegasi. Thoughifyouascendmeiwouldnthaveaproblemwiththat say what?