//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Pacific Takeover 
// Story: The Great Dictator: Times of Swift Rise 
// by Time Reaper 
//------------------------------//

A Little reminder:

Recording Quartz (RQ): Historian/Sociologist
*Firm Marble (FM): Journalist 
Flame Ruby (FR): Political activist/Maid
Jewel Joy (JJ): Civilian
Crimson Cut (CC): Officer
Lasting Marble (LM): Teacher

I am also a bit of a perfectionist so I'm always making some changes here and there in the previous chapters to make sure that they're not contradicting the new chapters, I'll try to make sure this doesn't happens too often.

Also if you watch green text, it's a link to listen music to give ambience.





The distant past





Up in the mountains, close to the Crystal Kingdom, there was a large pack of Diamond dogs. They've been living in there for a time, carving the gems they could find to strengthen themselves and also trading them with other species for goods that couldn't be obtained otherwise. They owe this way of living to King Sombra, whom they bowed their loyalty, and, thus, they allowed him to live among them until he could get his kingdom back. According to him, the usurper was planning to attack them and destroying the new life that the Diamond Dogs were having, since they subjected themselves to Sombra they would always get enough food to survive. The pack was starting to grow slowly but steadily now that the dogs could live 2 more years before dying in the mines and it was easier to allow at least 3 pups to survive.

And inside the caves of his loyal dogs, Sombra was now planning what to do with that traitor. He already got rid of Pure Diamond thanks to his followers, but Swift Rise was still a problem. Sombra wasn't sure how, but that traitor managed to overthrow him, break his horn and now was the new king. How he managed to do that when he never showed that level of political skill or influence among his soldiers? Sombra would never figure it out. To make it all worse, whatever he was doing in the kingdom was getting results, somehow, by giving the citizens more power, he managed to focus more on getting rid of his followers both outside and inside the kingdom. But that didn't mattered, soon he would have the means to recover the throne and make sure that the traitor would regret for the rest of his life the betrayal of the true king of the Crystal Kingdom but, for now, he would try to recover the kingdom with the help of his followers.


Meanwhile


There are 2 ponies outside the throne room:

One was Golden Strike, he wasn't very sure of what was going on or how to feel about it. While he was angry for Pure Diamond's murder and really wanted to get the ones behind it, the Crystal Guard couldn't leave the borders defenseless. He was glad that Swift Rise proclaimed himself King to bring stability, but he wasn't sure if he could do it or if it actually was a good idea and that's not even speaking of his political decisions. Why create a parliament? Why give power to the civilians? How is that going to solve the problem with Sombra's followers inside the  Kingdom? He wasn't sure, but Swift Rise has proven multiple times that he knew what he was doing, both when he convinced Pure Diamond of overthrowing Sombra and when he adviced to create better infrastructure for the citizens of the Kingdom (it made the ponies very happy and accepted them very quickly). In the end, he would have to accept this and obey, such was the life of the military.

The other one was a pink Unicorn with a pink mane, violet eyes and a heart shaped cutie mark, she was the new Speaker Mi Amor Candente and she was mad right now. The kingdom her father worked so hard to save was in a dire state and this pony was crowning himself as a king and forming some weird elections or whatever they were. She would have sent a diplomatic mission (with a guard division as protectors of the diplomatic mission of course) to try to solve this with talking and, if it didn't worked out, then it would be war. And she would try to keep the kingdom stable from the get-go. But no, the new king was too busy organizing some "elections" to make a court whose specific job would be making laws. Ok, they would have other duties, but between that parliament and a Supreme Court of Justice (why making a court to apply the law? the king should be the one making the law and enforcing it while helping the citizens by saying who was right on their problems) the Speaker was looking at this new king as someone incapable of doing his job, heck, he was going to send another general to defend the kingdom instead of going himself, if anything, she didn't had too much hopes for this new king.

Swift Rise was inside the throne room, he was about to create a new type of guards to defend the kingdom. This new division would have the specific job to protect the kingdom from any type of criminal or terrorist inside the kingdom. And right now he was interviewing the potential new leader of this new division. Golden Strike and Mi Amor Candente were doubtful of this pony, but they didn't had much say on the matter.

"Hey!" - Started the monochromatic officer. Once the pink unicorn realized that somepony was speaking to her, she decided to address him. - "Um, yes?" - Golden Strike looked doubtful, like if he didn't know how to express himself, an anomaly for the extroverted pegasus. - "What do you think of this?" - "Uhm, could you be more specific please? There are too many things in my mind right now," - at this, Strike decided to explain himself a bit more, - "I mean all of this. General Swift Rise has always shown signs of knowing what he was talking about or what to do, heck, it was his idea to dethrone Sombra. But, right now, this new idea of his sound too weird, I don't even know if they'll work."

At this, the pink unicorn started to feel a rising unpleasantness. - "In all honesty, I don't like it. I grew up thinking that a King or Queen had to be able to take the Kingdom on its own shoulders and send it forward. This decisions may go against what I know and grew up learning, but in practice they sound good and I have to accept that if it weren't for him, Sombra would still be in charge right now and I really don't want to know how that would be." - At hearing this, Golden strike felt a punch of guilt. General Pure Diamond was among the ponies who wanted to put Amor Candente on the throne again, but Rise denied this by stating that she had no experience on ruling and that she could, not only, make everything worse but create a political turmoil. In the end, they both agreed on giving her amnesty and allow her to be a mayor so she could start having experience on the matter. It was one of the few times that Pure Diamond and Swift Rise ever had a discussion so heated up, but it didn't looked like a good time to tell her, and it probably would never be.

After a very awkward silence, Golden Strike decided to change the subject once again: "Well, at least you're not the only one who thinks that... and what do you think of him?" - At this, the angered unicorn had to stop fuming and tried to remember her first encounter with the earth pony. He was cold and distant, but always managed to remain tactful, respectful and somehow complimented her, he was very weird to begin with. - "Him? Well, I'm grateful to him for saving the kingdom and trying to protect it from Sombra, but I would rather have him as my general in the borders, protecting us from Sombra rather that being a king." - While this was true, she had to accept that the 3 times that she have talked to him so far, he always looked like knowing what he was talking about, whether it was about economics, politics or pony rights. Sometimes it even looked like if he knew more than he let be shown; the now chancellor was astounded how this guard showed signs of being cultured and smart when the Crystal Guard was known for being filled with brutes or ponies that only cared of how to make a sword shiny. He was a total mystery.

Golden Strike couldn't miss what she meant - "So you do want to be the ruler?" - He wasn't angered at this or surprised, after all, she was the princess once. Mi Amor Candente felt discovered and was afraid of any type of repression, but after looking at his eyes, filled with curiosity and care, she felt safe and decided to explain herself. - "Yeah, I mean, I was the princess, I was supposed to be the next one on the line. But that right was taken away from me before I could even attempt to rule, now I'll never know if I could have saved my kingdom." - Her ears then started to go down and her face started to show signs of sadness.

After seeing the sadness on her face, and still feeling guilty for not saying anything when the time came, he decided to help her feel better. - "Don't worry speaker Candente, I'm pretty sure that he chose you to have your current position as speaker so you could do something like that. You can help the king, that's something, right?" - At this thought, her eyes lighted up a bit. - "Yeah, I suppose." - Seeing an advance, the overconfident pegasus decided that it was time to tease her a bit. - "And don't worry, you're not the only one wanting to save this kingdom. You got me, the Crystal guard, the citizens of the Kingdom and the King, who you'll be having a lot of time to meet personally and help to run this kingdom," - sadly for him, the tease failed to be understood, - "thanks," - she said, not realizing that she was already paired up with the strangest earth pony she has ever met.

In that moment the door opened. Swift Rise and the other pony came out. He was an unicorn with a black mane with a  pearl white coat and his eyes were black but had a shine that remembered the onyx, as a cutie mark he had a golden star surrounded by shackles and his face was showing a smugness that rubbed off as wrong to both Strike and Candente. He walked until he was about to exit the room, turned around, looked at the king (who was at the entrance of the throne room) and said:

"My King, I am honored for being accepted as the leader of this division created by you. I assure you that I will pass your test, find the one responsible for the murder of the general Pure Diamond and send the criminal to the justice it deserves. But I have also decided to accept the challenge you want to impose on me".

At this point, both Strike and Candente were curious about this, apparently, something else was going on here, but they didn't saw Swift Rise starting to slightly smile at this words, the Unicorn in front of him would have notice his slight change in his lips, but he was too far to notice it.

"In 2 years, I will have made such work in this kingdom, such efficiency of security and safety, that the citizens will be able to sleep with their doors open".





The Present





Everybody was relaxing from the movie, or, at least, was trying to. They were all trying to digest all the information that was just given to them by the documentary and, if the movie wasn't stopped, they wouldn't be able to take any more information.

"Well, that was enlightening." - Nobody could see who said that, but another voice followed soon after. - "Indeed, who would've believed that the myths from the Golden Wings could actually be true?" - This time, Twilight managed to find the speaker, a brown griffon with the head of an Eagle, he was speaking with two other griffons on a closed section of the room. Of the other griffons, one was male with white feathers with black spots on the wings and an owl head, while the other one was female, dark blue feathers and the feathers of her head made it look like she had a crown, almost like a queen, she then decided to proceed the conversation. - "Indeed, my mother will be surprised to know that our clan might have some evidence about the legitimacy of our claims as the true rulers of the Griffon Kingdom."

At this statement, Twilight couldn't resist and decided to jump into the conversation with a very kind and soft, - "excuse me," - when the griffons turned, they looked dismissive (as if they didn't wanted someone else listening) but, once they realized that the one speaking to them was a Princess of Equestria, they decided to salute her. - "Hello there, Princess Twilight Sparkle." - Said the female griffon with an air of smugness. - "I suppose that this kind of conversations won't be private if you have them in a room full of potential listeners, but it's alright, this isn't as private as I would like to believe. In what can I, the great Princess Anna Romanov, help you with?" - Twilight wasn't sure of what kind of princess this griffon was, but if that air of smugness and ego was close to Rainbow Dash's then she had an idea of how to get the information she wanted.

"Well, I accidentally listened how you were mentioning some myths about an old clan of your Kingdom so I hope you could-" - in that moment the griffon princess interrupted Twilight Sparkle, - "sorry but before you keep speaking nonsense I have to interrupt you, but fear not that I will give you the information you seek. The Golden Wings weren't some old griffon clan, they were the founders of the Griffon Kingdom 800 years ago. They were among the wisest griffon clans of their time and, as such, they had the highest teachings of war and civility ever conceived, even for today's standards. Teachings that allowed them to submit all the other clans after a 100 years of ceaseless war. They also gave us many of our myths that tried to explain how they came to have such knowledge, one of these myths were of what today is known as the Crystal Empire." - At this moment, Twilight's interest started to rise and listened closer to her speaker of equal royal position. - "They were told that there was once a Kingdom made out of Gemstones that shone as bright as the Sun and filled with knowledge and wisdom so high that even the poorest and uneducated civilian were capable of talking of philosophy on the same level of Equestria's wisest mages. The  Golden Wings always told us of how they used to be subjects of these kingdom and that, after its disappearance, they explored the northern lands and the ice mountains for decades until they settled on, what is today, the capital of our Kingdom." - And, in that moment, the griffon's eyes started to shine as she started to speak about what she loved the most. - "Eventually, desiring to regain that glory they once had when they were subjects of The Crystal Empire, they decided to start the annexation of the other griffon clans and territories (whether it was through diplomacy or war, since they had the knowledge of both) until all the clans were their subjects. Over the course of the centuries, what used to be an Empire of clans, ended up transforming into a Kingdom of just one unified clan and multiple families, and my family, the Romanov family, is descendant of the Golden Wings." - In that moment, she finally took a breather of all that long explanation and, looking back at Princess Twilight, she asked. - "Is all of that information enough for you, Princess of Friendship?".

Twilight wasn't sure what was more surprising, the amount of information given or how much the Harpy looked like she enjoyed hearing her own voice. But that would be a conversation with her friends for another time, for now, she would treat them with the respect her title deserved. - "Yes, thank you, I am also going to guess that the reason you're enjoying this record is because it looks like it could bring authenticity to the stories of your ancestors right?" - At this the dark blue griffon started to smile and looked at Twilight like if a child just figured a very easy test and started to talk in a very condescendant tone. - "Exactly! You certainly are a very bright mare, Princess Twilight Sparkle, I suppose that the rumors of your knowledge aren't false as I presumed," - at this point, Twilight wasn't really liking her but, before she could say something else, they were interrupted.

"Alright folks, the rest is over, time to go back to the film, I hope you found these moments good enough to digest the information given to you." - Both princesses decided to split and go back to their spots with, on one side, Twilight starting to plan on how could she get a comeback against the smug princess. Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, the other griffons were starting to nag their young and egotistical princess for the way she treated the equestrian princess. "Your family will be very disappointed for the way you acted in front of Equestrian royalty," - at this, the griffonian princess just shrugged it off. - "Please, like if she knew something of what is to be a noble or a royal. She never had to learn how to administer a whole city and bring justice to your citizens at the age of 5 or studying 800 hundred years of history in 1 year while searching for a new way to improve your kingdom without taking into account that I'm negotiating how to rule with your future husband." - The Griffon diplomats lowered their tone, understanding a bit of her temper, but they remained still with their position. - "Still, as long as you're here, you're representing your family and kingdom, and what do you expect their opinion of us will be if you act like one of those so called nobles who just talks but  had never done anything productive with their lives? Do you think the equestrian royalty will support you if you decide to regain the throne after you mistreated one of them?" - At this, the 17 years old princess decided to think and, after some quick reflection, she said on a resignated tone. - "Fine, but I won't give her my respect until she shows that she deserves it." - The other griffons looked at her with some disapproval, but at least this was some improvements compared to other years. The age certainly has improved her character.

Now, while this conversation happened between Twilight and Anna, there were other conversations worth picking up.

On the other side of the room. 3 alicorns, 2 unicorns (a mare and a stallion), 2 Earth Ponies, 2 pegasus and a dragon were speaking of what they've just seen:

"Well, that was certainly something." - Said the lunar alicorn. - "I never expected that the Crystal Empire had such chaotic environment even when Discord wasn't attacking it." - "Indeed my sister. I thought that, with us trying to engage Discord, that the rest of the planet would be safe, but it saddens me to see how wrong we were." - Celestia, not capable of holding up the sadness, started to lower her ears. Applejack, not wanting her princess to be so sad, decided to join the conversation. - "Aw, don be so hard on ya'self princesses. It ain't like ya knew that was happening." - And this statement was supported by Rarity. - "She is right princesses, there wasn't anything you could have done to stop it and, in the end, if it weren't for you, maybe it would have been even worse for everypony. Since Discord would've been causing damage across the whole land." - And Rainbow Dash then decided to give her own piece on this conversation. - "Yeah, and in the end it wasn't so bad, that Swift Rise managed to get rid of Sombra, granted, I or my friends wouldn't have needed any type of help, but not everypony is as awesome as us." - And, after finally gaining some courage for herself, Fluttershy decided to intervene. - "Yes, I will add how amazing it was that an earth pony managed to do all that, but I don't mean that earth ponies can't do something like that, is just that I'm very surprised, that's all..." - at this point Pinkie Pie decided to try to cheer her friends. - "Don't worry Fluttershy, you're right, it's super duper amazing how that pony managed to defeat that meanie pants of Sombra and while I can't figure out what is wrong with him I do know that I would make a lot of parties to celebrate." - "My little ponies." - Interrupted Celestia. - "While I appreciate that you're trying to cheer us, please remember that this victory against Sombra was short lived, after all, both Luna and I had to deal with him again which means that he somehow managed to regain the throne." - At this little reminder, many of the ponies started to flatten their faces and trying to change the conversation.

Cadance decided to enter the conversation at this point, wanting to give her own piece regarding what she understood so far. - "While is true that Sombra managed to come back, I'm still surprised to see that another pony managed to take over through the military, after all, they were supposed to be very loyal to him." - "Dear, I think I can explain that." - Said Shining Armor. - "When I started to drill the guard, I managed to find a script that, for its design and state, it looked like it was very recent and it said For we are the Crystal Guard, we're not loyal to the Royalty or Nobles, we are loyal to the citizens of the Kingdom and we'll do anything in our hoofs to protect them from any type of harm, whether it comes from the outside or the inside of the Kingdom, we will never fail our citizens nor let them fall into certain doom, for that is our oath, who wrote that was a mystery to me since all I could find was a 'P' and a 'D', but now I realize that it must have been the General Pure Diamond who decided to make an oath to protect the citizens short after expelling Sombra." - At this revelation, the Princesses, ponies and Dragon were surprised and, finally, Spike decided to ask. - "Ok, all of this is cool, but how was that Swift Rise going to make it work with a Constri-, constitoo-, const-" - as Spike was trying to articulate the word, a newcomer decided to make itself known. - "Constitutional monarchy." - Everypony turned and saw one of the Minotaurs getting close to them. - "Sorry for the interruption but, as of now, I have been listening to your conversation since my friends over there." - In a corner of the room could be seen 2 more minotaurs talking with the other 6 pony researchers and it looked like they were in a very hot conversation. - "Since my friends have that conversation owned, I preferred to listen to the other conversations on this room to see if there was something else worth talking about and I couldn't stop myself from hearing your question young drake, and I am going to answer." - Spike's eyes were filled with happiness at the idea of someone deciding to not only listen to him, but who also thought that he had a very good question but before he could get his answer they were interrupted.

"Alright folks, the rest is over, time to go back to the film." - At this, Spike got sad, but the Minotaur decided to cheer him by saying. - "Don't worry young drake, perhaps after seeing the next part, you might get a glimpse of how does this type of government works." - They went to their places and Spike got very curious with Twilight, since she looked like someone had said something very mean to her, but her face was gone when Pinkie gave her a cupcake, at first she was surprised at the sudden cupcake but, after seeing who was giving it to her, she decided to eat it happily. And then, the movie proceeded.





Movie


A large group of crystal ponies appears in front of the Crystal Palace, with Amor Candente speaking to them.

"While the idea of having a King again was nice, the ponies were very reluctant to accept another General as a King or to accept the changes he was bringing to the Kingdom, nonetheless, Mi Amor Candente managed to calm them to avoid a social explosion."

RQ: "That's how it was Candente." - The old stallion said with enthusiasm, - "she always knew what to say to the ponies so they could calm down".

FM: "She was very knowledgeable and wise, both her and the king knew that a social explosion was what Sombra wanted, so Candente would try to keep the population calm while Swift Rise was restructuring everything else."

A newspaper front line appears with the headline 'Workers strike avoided, the new speaker proves herself' followed by another newspaper that said 'Ponies will choose who will represent them on the kingdom'.

"With a calmed down population, now the new King has the time to make the necessary reforms the kingdom needs to survive in this complex times, he decides to create a Supreme Court of Justice so the justice would be sentenced by an unbiased system of judges and a Parliament to take care of the creation of the laws for the kingdom. Just one more thing and he would have more time to get rid of the invaders."

RQ: "Normally, a king appoints the ministers or generals by himself, but to make sure that the ponies wouldn't be too angry, he decided to grant them the power to choose them."

FM: "The ponies became shocked at the idea of letting their voice be heard like that, it has never happened before in our history".

LM: the old teacher looked undisturbed. - "It was a smart move, I'll admit that. Now, if there was a problem with the government, it would be our fault since we chose them, but nonetheless, after the shock, all the ponies wanted to elect themselves or elect their friends".

JJ: "I remember my mother saying now it will be our fault if something goes wrong, but at least we can have a true voice, I'm starting to like this new king," - then, she started to giggle, - "my dad got jealous of him, but it didn't lasted too long".

FR: "Now, that we had our chance of voicing our opinion, everypony was starting to say who had to be what, even the nobles got caught in it, but before it could become a chaos, the King made a new announcement".

Swift Rise appeared in front of the Crystal Palace with Golden Strike, Amor Candente and a mysterious unicorn pony and he started to give a speech:

"In a few months, the first elections ever held in the history of this world will be made, but to make it easier for you to choose, we will make some rules, first, the need of a political group that represents-" 

The scene is covered by a note that said 'Political Parties have been created, the King decides to create their own called The Independent Front and will represent him in the elections'.

"With the announcement of the parties, the nobles started to create them like crazy, each noble would create their own political party and use their resources to promote themselves to the kingdom."

FR: "I still remember how Safe Care would create his party, the Ponies Matter party and say that 'each one of us had the power to change this kingdom now', he always had a natural charm".

FM: "With the political parties, the nobles now had an easier way to gain control of the kingdom, if their political party was on the parliament, or Crystal Congress, then they could make the laws they desired".

"But in their emotional craze and dreams of power, nopony noticed the other 2 announcements the king made that day."

CC: "Nobody noticed how Golden Strike was being sent to deal with the invaders." - Said in a very bitter tone, then he closed his eyes and said in a much more sinister tone. - "Or the naming of the leader of new guard division," - he shuddered, - "that stallion always gave me the creeps".

"With a trusty commander being sent to the front to defend the exterior of the kingdom, the interior will be defended by a new unicorn that has just entered into the political stage, Stray Stone."

CC: "Nopony knows from where did the king found him or where he came from, but in the moment my eyes crossed his, I knew something was going to happen, I just wasn't sure of what at the time."

FR: "Those shining eyes would always melt my legs, it was how he could look at you with such a confidence and when he talked to you, you would just lost yourself in him, more than once he would manage to convince me to help him in some errand".

"Stray Stone was going to be the leader of the new Division of guards to help with the security of the kingdom, the Kingdom Protection Division, or KP."

Stray Stone is shown in front of a dozens of earth, pegasus and earth ponies wearing tuxedo. The pegasus and earth ponies were wearing gemstones on their necks (a shield shaped gem) and forelegs (a sword shaped gem hold with a ring surrounding the forelegs of the ponies).

"As their first task, the king ordered them to find the responsible of the murderer of the General Pure Diamond, if they succeeded, they would become the official law enforcers of the kingdom."

CC: "Nopony believed any of those guys would be capable of doing anything, for me, and many others, this looked like a way to calm everypony until the elections could begin."

FM: "And while the ponies did started to forget about the recent events, the king decided that it wasn't enough".

A factory is displayed receiving gems and then transforming the gems into various types of objects.

"With the gems being mined, the king decided that it was time to gain more bits by creating the Crystal Mining Operations and Gem Manufacturers or CMOGM, for the extractions of gems, a company that worked exclusively for the government. With that done, the King started to create the many type of tools to improve the life of his subjects, such as the laser projector for pegasus and earth ponies."

A shield shaped gem along with a big ring (big enough to fit into a foreleg) with a sword shaped gem attached to it were being delivered to the KP.

"And the voice projector that is quickly used to bring entertainment to his subjects."

One of this large gems were being shown, they looked like a box but with multicolored buttons and it was voicing a fascinated group of ponies a song.

"And now I'm coming to ask you to not punish me for loving you with all my soul"

The earth pony stallion, with a yellow mane, a white coat and blue eyes and a musical note as a cutie mark appears singing the song, name: Pitch Perfect; job: singer.

Pitch Perfect (PP): "I want you to have mercy even from the ingrate that for my little sin, my soul destroyed." - He stopped singing and added. - "For that song I won the first award." - He started to look up trying to remember. - "In the Elite magazine and it was chose by the citizens, the public voted by sending a letter to Crystal Voice respectively."

JJ: "Everyday at 5pm we had to turn up the speaker to dance everything that was new."

Many ponies dancing, singing and moving various musical instruments would appear.

"It looked like, everything that was happening in the kingdom was on the Crystal Speaker, it was it's golden time, the most popular voices of the Crystal Kingdom, new singers, foreign artist, and the musicians that comes with the sound of the mountains."

More Ponies were shown dancing and touching their music.

"What isn't talked about, it's politics. The king has ordered that, until the preparations of the elections are ready, no more politics would be talked, and the citizens didn't minded this, it looked like all they needed was to work to have a peaceful life, the King was taking care of their safety."

Ponies are shown working on the construction of houses and other buildings.

"The new working conditions not only to promote immigration from the farms to the capitol of the kingdom, but one from even farther away."

A large amount of ponies are shown coming to the kingdom from Equestria, while from the mountains were coming griffons and minotaurs.

"Its the forced harvest of a chaotic time and the wars on the periphery, now that they were far away from Discord or, they step into this new land of opportunities, once they cross the gates of the capitol, they start to search for a new job."

"It was a decision from my clan." - Said a Golden griffon, all of his feathers were yellow gold and they were glowing majestically. Name: Golden Claw. Job: Prince of the Fast Flight clan; Immigrant. 

GC: "We were going to what the elders called 'pony lands', for them, all that was after the mountains was 'Pony Land'."

"We managed to cross Equestria and reached the capitol at 5am," - said a middle aged pink earth pony stallion, he was totally pink and with green eyes. Name: Special Ore. Job: Mineral Appreciation.

SO: "And after that we got a nice house at 3pm." - He started to smile with nostalgia at that moment. - "I came because of the new laws of immigration that the king at the moment, Swift Rise, made and because I was searching for a job at the new Mining company they had".

GC: "We moved because it was safer to live there and our soldiers were being either recruited into the kingdom's army since war was all they knew, meanwhile, me and my other nest brothers were going to attend to their new education system and learn all there was to learn."

SO: "When I was hired I started to study the gems, the rocks, anything I was given and had to analyze what it was and what was worth, it was taxing at first with all this knowledge of minerals that not even I knew, but after a few months, I managed to even start to train other ponies to study mineralogy".

"The immigrants, like the crystal ponies, don't get involved into politics, they only want to have a nice and peaceful life, out of Discord or the wars of the other territories, both things that the new king was providing them, they get integrated and enjoy their new life in these peaceful times."

LM: "I still remember those first days teaching griffons, minotaurs and equestrians, not only I had to teach them about the history of our Kingdom, but to promote them to teach the history of their homeland, not even counting calculus, language and the many, many things that the king installed as the new education system in the kingdom".

RQ: "It was very simple, the professors would promote our kingdom's history and teach the new methods of calculus, chemistry, language, etc. But the new teachings would come from books wrote by Swift Rise himself, he would not indoctrinate them, but he would make sure that they had no attachments to their homelands, they would be proud of living in this new kingdom, and the motto for this new school method was-".

JJ: "Zero Ignorance." - She said in a nostalgic and happy voice.

LM: "Zero Immorality." - She said in a very angry voice.

CC: "Enter into the new education to gain." - He said in a voice that betrayed no emotion.

FM: "Maximum Knowledge." - He said in a cold voice.

RQ: "The best morality lessons." - He said in a creeped out voice.

FR: "And become a part of the new ideal kingdom." - She said in a very nervous voice.





Audience


Once again, shock was surrounding everybody in the conference room, and again, for different reasons.

Celestia had a lot to digest from this: on one hoof it was the happiness of knowing what happened to her ponies while she and Luna were fighting Discord. But she couldn't shrug off the feeling that while it looked like what this king was improving the life of his citizens, he was starting to do something else; she felt conflicted over the idea of giving the ponies that kind of power with the elections, if the Sombrist somehow managed to take over or the nobles had more egotistical goals in their heads, then it would be a disaster, but she couldn't suppress the possibility that there was something else that this king was planning, after all if he managed to dethrone Sombra, then he would have a plan to balance the power in the kingdom.

Luna on the other hand, was thinking of how innovative some of this ideas looked like, a Court of Justice made of unbiased judges to decide who was right and who was wrong? a Congress to create the laws? How much free time could her or her sister have with something like that? And create a second division of guards to protect the interior of the kingdom while the other division to protect the borders. If She and her sister could apply that to their Lunar and Solar guard, how much safer would Equestria be? Perhaps, she would have to talk about this with her sister during the next break.

The Griffons were surprise of seeing the appearance of the founder of the Golden Wings clan, all they could find in their history searches would be, at minimum, some worn out paintings in leather of him. But this, this was full evidence of his existence, the kingdom will not believe this, but they had the evidence right in front of them, and to the princess Anna, all that was left to prove now was her relation to the great clan that founded her kingdom.

The historians were looking with a very interested face. Some were grinning, others were trying to digest the information being thrown at them, after all, perhaps, they were watching firsthoof the origins of how Equestria managed to obtain such a boost in their education, when Discord came, the education, economy and politics of Equestria got destroyed so, although the Princesses were the reason of their political stability, they never understood how could the education and knowledge has survived such chaotic times. All of this could've been explained if the ponies fled to the Crystal Empire while they were having such education reforms, that means that after the Crystal Empire disappeared, the ponies must have fled again to Equestria and provide all that knowledge to Equestria, to say that they were happy of solving one of the many mysteries of Equestria was an understatement.

Cadance was at this point taking notes of how she could improve the kingdom, all of this ideas were looking nice, granted, they would have to be studied thoroughly to make sure that they could be implemented well, but if this could work, then not only the Crystal Empire would thrive, but her (and her husband's) job would become much easier. Shining Armor was almost on the same page as his wife, the main difference was that he was focusing on the military aspect and under the idea of including other species to diversify his soldiers, there were other species living in the Empire, so it would be nice if they could get more benefits of living in it.

Twilight was already making a checklist of all the things she would have to study when she came back to Ponyville, it would be a matter of time, but Equestria just couldn't stay back. There were just too many good ideas to be ignored, granted, she would have to talk about it with Celestia, Luna and Cadance but, for now, this was going to be the beginning of a new age, although she couldn't ignore that there was something wrong with all of this. It was the same story for her friends, except Spike who was trying to guess how many books Twilight was going to ask him to search for.





Movie


"Inside this new system being created by the king, everybody was happy; good news were always coming, the invaders had been stopped for the moment, the Sombrist has hidden to avoid the Kingdom Protection, everybody was getting a better education, everybody had a job, and to make everything even better, the Kingdom Protection has found a lead to the murder of Pure Diamond."

A dark green pegasus with an inked feather was being taken by the ponies in tuxedo.

"Now, after a few months of stabilizing the kingdom, Swift Rise decides that now is a good time to start the elections, he makes the announcements and explaining how it would work the new Congress."

RQ: "Basically there would be 100 seats for the Representatives and 25 for the Senators, the senators would be the defenders of the civil rights of the citizens while the representatives would be the ones in charge of the legal rights of the laws, the law would be approved if both sides of the Congress accepted the law".

"This riles up the nobles, who start to make many political speeches in front of groups of civilians while making feasts and inviting everypony in them to try to win them out. Meanwhile, the IF, the Political Party of the king, not only was doing this, but they were also promoting themselves through the Crystal Voicer, giving ideas of multiple new laws that could be approved once they were installed, like the Law of Tramps and Robbers that would make sure that the streets could become even safer or the Law to conscript the Sombrist. To cap it all off, unlike the other nobles, who were working alone, the king managed to choose who would be seating in all of the 125 positions of the Congress, he still had to gain most of the votes on the elections but this didn't stopped him, he would always find something to improve his Political Party's image."

A worn out Golden Strike shows up in front of Swift Rise, he looks disappointed and depressed, but the king put his foreleg in his shoulder and smiles at him.

CC: "I still remember the day that Golden Strike came back. He was sad because while he managed to repel the invaders, it was at a big cost, I was there watching how he was apologizing to the General when the General said 'Don't  worry about it, our enemies are gone for now, you gave us the needed time to prepare for a counter strike and when they come back, we will defeat them. Now come, relax and get ready for a promotion in a few days'." - He started to looked pleasantly happy. - "And as promised, Golden Strike got promoted to Colonel and was sent to the new Science department to see the tests of the new weapons that were being developed".

"Before anyone could realize, the election days were there. Everypony went to vote, excited over the idea of their voice being listened. The Nobles are excited over the idea of having the power of controlling the law. Sure, they would have to learn to speak among themselves so the Congress wasn't paralyzed but they were sure that pretty soon, they would regain the power that Swift Rise has taken from them."

RQ: "Brilliant Amethyst, a very unlikable pony and aiming for the senate,  told me that day, before the results were in, 'I wanna see the face of that uneducated guard when he realizes that he will have to deal against 125 nobles' but, in the end, he was the one being surprised." - at this, he started to laugh.

FR: "In retrospective, we should have seen the results coming, Swift Rise always had an ace under his sleeve or a way to win in whatever plan he laid out".

"What nobody took on account, was that there were over 125 independent nobles competing against each other and one political party, and while each noble won around 50 to 100 votes, the Independent Front was made up of Military (controlled by Swift Rise and loyal to him), and each guard voted for the IF, making it around over 50.000 votes plus all the immigrants that Swift Rise allowed to vote for this special occasion."

FM: "We all forgot that the crystal guard was made up of soldiers loyal to Swift Rise and that they also had the power to vote, we underestimated them, but in the end, they made a big difference".

CC: "I will admit that I voted for his party, but only because I never liked the noble elite, if it weren't for them, Sombra would have never happened".

An Emerald Crystal Pony is showing the results after counting all the votes and when the nobles sees the results, they all drop their mouths to the ground while Swift Rise was the only one looking confident and was smiling on his clear victory.

"The Supreme Court of Justice was going be installed by the new Congress (which was  made up of followers of Swift Rise), they would be checking if the ponies had the credentials of be attorneys, judges or magistrates of the defense and, to cap it all off, the king Swift Rise himself would be the one giving the final approval to every single one of the magistrates applying for the Court. In the end, all the spaces in the Congress and Supreme Court were filled with followers of the new king, even though he was completely unopposed to rule the kingdom, he now had more power than ever."

The king scream the word APPROVED for the final magistrate and once he finished the words, all the Ponies in the Congress start stomping their hooves at the words of approval made by the king while victoriously smiling with all the confidence they could muster. The king himself, starts smiling with true happiness and starts hugging a shocked Colonel Golden Strike and a shocked Speaker Amor Candente who, not only, were shocked by the crushing victory of the king, but also for the physical contact he was giving them.

"We have entered into the times of Swift Rise."