//------------------------------// // Mayor “Honest” Mare // Story: The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum, Side-story: Home Front: St. Louis County, Minnesota // by Dances With Unicorns //------------------------------// “Often, the greatest of evil is done by people or ponies that believe that what they are doing is the greatest of good.” - Mayor Mare Third Interview Name: Mayor “Honest” Mare Birth date: September Fifth, 965 ANM (After Nightmare Moon) Ethnic / Nationality / Political Party: Earth Pony and naturalized United States citizen, Democratic Farmer Labor party Status: Alive, holding elected office as the Mayor of Duluth, Minnesota Education: Bachelor of Political Science, Department of Political Science of Manehattan Abilities: Level 6 Earth Pony / Known Earth pony abilities, along with those that were discovered or perhaps rediscovered during the war Favorite sporting activity: Weight lifting in the Police Department’s gym Name one thing you love from Earth that is not related to your job: My friend, who would like to remain anonymous, is making me a suit of Kevlar and steel plate body armor, reinforced with magical, Lake Superior Agates. “I hope that during your daytime travels Princess Celestia’s sunlight warms your body, illuminating the path before your hooves, while guiding you to friendship and happiness; while sleeping at night Princess Luna guides you to sweet dreams,” I can’t believe that I once that wrote that drivel to conclude my private letters. Well, allow me to backup a bit and explain what I said. As Ponyville’s Mayor, I had routine contact with my once benign, cordial, and friendly Princess Celestia. We often worked together, wrote each other letters, and sometimes talked about the ups and downs of being career politicians. Several times, I got to glimpse her playful side, when she let out her inner filly. Once, during a rare day off from her official duties, she and I sneaked off to an expensive and exclusive Canterlot spa to relax and unwind. That was one of the best days in all my life, seeing my Princess as just an ordinary pony with common desires and needs. Princess Celestia, not that kaleidoscopic-maned serpent that pretends to be my Princess, attended my first mayoral swearing-in ceremony. She talked to me as an ally and as a friend. At the end of our conservation she hugged me with her foreleg. I felt her warmth, not just in body heat, but in her love. She whispered in my ear: “Star Swirl the Bearded told me this and now I’m passing his wisdom onto you. ‘In every situation, look for opportunity. Tell the truth, believe in yourself, believe in your friends, believe in friendship, and every problem will work out at the end of the day.’” Whatever that Solar Tyrant is now, she isn’t my kindhearted Princess Celestia. With dismay and denial within my mind, I saw her change from warm and good - to cold and cruel even before we ponies made contact with the human world. That oppressive creature has even hypnotized the Equestrian criminal courts into putting innocent ponies in jail, when she herself should be in jail for breaking Equestrian laws. I’m no attorney, but I can name ten Equestrian felony laws that the Tyrant has broken. What would I do to the brutal fiend who wears the face of my warm-hearted princess? After a fair and impartial trial, I would send that Solar Tyrant to Tartarus where all the rest of Equus's most evil of criminals and monsters are kept. - Mayor Mare <><><><> What motivated me to choose to reside in Duluth, Minnesota and then become this city’s first pony mayor? In August of 2018, human and Earth pony scientists of the University of Minnesota’s Duluth campus had announced that they had created a new type of hay with apple genes. A few weeks later, some of that special hay was transported to Ponyville. When I ate some of that genetically-modified hay, I knew that it could make Ponyville farms Equus's Champagne region for growing hay. On June 29, (2019) I and my natural-born stallion assistants were in Duluth, finishing up a trade agreement with the University to import that special hay. I had obtained exclusive rights on all of Equus for Ponyville to grow that special hay and thus I was very happy! Then, during the next day (June 30), the Solar Tyrant declared her war against all of humanity. It took one minute for me and my pony assistants to decide what we needed to do. We denounced that immoral and malevolent Queen for breaking Equestrian laws that the founding six ponies of Equestria had a hoof in creating. And then we pledged our loyalty to each other to defend humanity. The day after that (July 1), was the day of an infamous attack on the Minnesota State Capitol complex. The Solar Tyrant’s human thugs known as the PER turned the Governor, most Minnesota state legislators, the Minnesota Supreme Court, and many senior state administrators into her mindless drones. Ponyville’s bees are more individual than those… things that look like ponies. Thank Luna that five hundred Minnesota State Guard soldiers were training at the nearby Cedar Street Armory. These brave guards contained and then killed the PER humans and all the newfoals before they could take over downtown St. Paul. But, it was one brave guard that turned a PER victory into a defeat. Emily Davison, a Burnsville, Minnesota firefighter and Guard Staff Sergeant drove a tanker truck filled with gasoline into a nearby parking ramp, drove into the improvised PER field headquarters, and then detonated fifty kilograms of explosives in the passenger seat. The resulting blast, fire, and collapsed structure destroyed the PER’s entire potion stockpile and killed most of their human leaders. Sergeant Davison was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for her service that day. By the way, I saw on television Marcus Renee, along with the relatives of five other soldiers accepting posthumously the Medal of Honor for their dead family members, despite Jacob and the other fives service members still in theory being “alive” as drones of the Tyrant. I can’t imagine what it was like for Marcus to accept that metal from the American President. Because of the Tyrant’s unspeakable war of aggression against all of humanity, I and my assistants decided to remain in Duluth. For three days, I didn’t know what I would be doing in Duluth. Until the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota now Governor appointed Duluth’s Mayor Pamela Ashdown to be a Minnesota state legislator. The war needs to be won, and Minnesota needed a functional state government to do that. In my hotel room, while I was eating a beet pulp, flaxseed, and molasses omelet, I heard on the television that there would be a special election to find a new mayor for Duluth. I stood up on my hind legs, waved my forehooves above my head, and proclaimed that if my new hometown needed a new mayor, then I’d take up that challenge, become an American citizen, and then become Duluth’s greatest mayor. If Sergeant Davison can fight against the Tyrant’s PER terrorists, then I will as well. My assistants applauded my impromptu speech, telling me that they would support me. Yes, I admit that was my most energetic, Rainbow Dash moment. But that moment was one of my best moments of my life. My Duluth home is an apartment in the old St. Louis County Jail. I walk to the Mayor’s Office using an underground tunnel under West Second Street. I got permission from the Duluth City Council to enclose all the government buildings in the Duluth Civic Center with walls of reinforced concrete, six feet thick. Those concrete walls might be ugly compared to the polished stone of the original walls, but so far, not one terrorist has dared to attack those buildings. One good thing about being Mayor of Duluth is that northern Minnesota is under the radar for the PER and HLF terrorists. I suppose that my fellow citizens and I are fortunate that a PER ponification attack on a girl’s high school hockey game at Duluth’s Amsoil Arena does not provide the same bang for the buck as a potion attack on a Minnesota Vikings home game at the U.S. Bank Stadium. Also, the HLF would rather truck bomb a PHL branch office located in a once abandoned Twin Cities supermarket. However, the HLF didn’t read the newspapers or watch television, as the PHL Twin Cities offices that had rented office space within that building had relocated to a more secure location three weeks before their attack. Security cameras captured the moment when the HLF truck bomb prematurely detonated as three HLF criminals attempted to set the countdown timer on their bomb. I find ironic humor in the fact that the office workers that were renting the former PHL offices were advertising themselves as a beer and wine importer. But, that was a false front business for the PER! Within the ruined offices, the FBI discovered plans to import potion vials inside cans of beer and boxes of wine. As an American pony citizen, I love it when the HLF and PER manage to kill each other off without harming anyone or anypony else. Also, the FBI found a money laundering scheme to turn Equestrian gemstones and gold into the local currency for that one insurgent cell. St. Louis County’s only known terrorist activity happened when the infamous “Lead and Fire” HLF duo were captured by an anonymous telephone tip from a concerned citizen about strange activity within a rented Duluth home. In the recorded call, a concerned citizen saw these two twenty-something year old men drinking and smoking what looked like weed, while watching horrific HLF recruitment videos on a large plasma TV with their house curtains open. Lead killed with an AK-47 Kalashnikov and Fire killed with a homemade flamethrower. Lead and Fire managed to murder twenty-eight innocent humans in isolated, rural homesteads and then looting them of anything valuable in Iowa and then Wisconsin before being caught by a Duluth SWAT team. Here’s a tip for the bad guys. When you are being arrested by the police, even if you are drunk and stoned, don’t call each other by your street aliases. When Duluth Police Detectives asked Lead and Fire why they never murdered any ponies; they replied that all the ponies that they saw were escorted by two or three humans armed with rifles and shotguns. They were afraid of attacking one community center, because it had a working replica Civil War Gatling gun on the second floor, overlooking the main entrance. Lead told the detectives, “It was more fun to kill up unarmed people and take their stuff; then starting a fight with several armed ponies and humans, who had an unknown number of nearby friends.” Fire told the detectives, “We were about to ambush an Earth pony stallion and his two human escorts in a rural village; when those there five Iowa National Guard Humvees pulled up to them. Some black women Captain got out of her vehicle and then told those three that the streets were not safe. She offered them a lift home, which the stallion and his two human guards accepted. If we had attacked a few seconds sooner, we would have fought at least a couple dozen armored soldiers armed with assault rifles, plus a heavy machinegun in a Humvee turret. Coming that close to being a target for two dozen soldiers kind of soured my opinion about shooting at the ponies.” As a government official, I have access to an unlimited supply of gasoline for my chauffeur driven Limousine. However, riding in my city Limousine makes me feel guilty after I see dozens of people lined up at many city bus stops to board too few city buses. I believe that the biggest threat for the war effort in northern Minnesota comes not from terrorist attacks, but from the pilfering of vital war supplies by black market thieves. These delinquents are doing as much damage to the war economy as the PER and HLF combined. Every drop of fuel, every loaf of bread, and every bullet that is diverted to the black market is not going to fight the war and that’s bad news for every freedom loving human and pony. When I was Ponyville’s Mayor, there were thieving ponies stealing war supplies during the war with King Sombra’s Crystal Empire. Now, with all the cargo going through the roads, railroads, and the Port of Duluth stopping Black Market thieves had become an even harder problem to contain. During World War Two, about one-third of all allied cargo shipping through the Port of Naples was stolen. While there is not much of a market for iron ore, we still have a problem of people stealing everything from gain to machineguns. A group of misfit dock workers swiped a light tank and put it up for sale. I’m happy that tank didn’t fall into the hands of the PER or the HLF. Many Duluth golf and outdoor enthusiasts blame me for turning all of Duluth’s golf links, parks, and forested areas into farmland. But, I am complying with a U.S. Department of Agriculture order to turn all available urban lands into croplands. More urban farms mean more food is available to eat and a shorter distance to get that urban food to markets. And, that means more space on our American transport network for military cargo and troop movements. The Duluth Police Department has purchased military equipment to discourage terrorist attacks. It is fortunate for my citizens that a young Japanese woman named Sayuri Tanuma is selling to the city military-grade weapons and vehicles. In the past three years, this mysterious woman has sold to the city military rifles, body armor, and camouflage NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) suits, with gas masks. Miss Tanuma has also sold to the city two quick-firing, French 75 mm field guns, plus hundreds of rounds of anti-personnel ammunition, and one Churchill Crocodile, all of these in factory-fresh condition. I have no idea where she gets old military equipment that looks like it was just rolled off an assembly line. Yet, she has time and time again delivered quality weapons at a reasonable cost to city taxpayers, and that’s something that I care about. There have been some small silver linings within these whopping storm clouds of war. Becoming one of the first pony-American citizens and then to be elected by the majority of human Duluth citizens the first pony Mayor of an American city is very good. That, and appetizing vegetarian cheeseburgers, with the meat completely made from plants. To the west of Minnesota in Seattle, Washington voters elected Braintree a unicorn stallion Mayor. And, to the east of Minnesota in Newark, New Jersey voters elected Bluebell a Pegasus mare Mayor. Do people need to live in a port city to elect a pony mayor? Do I know of any hidden Earth pony magical talents? When Earth ponies become steam locomotive engineers, their engines can run for days, even a week or more sometimes, on one load of water and fuel. I suppose that is the reason why there are so few water towers and coaling towers constructed by the Equestrian railroads. Come to think of it, under human care steam locomotives need to stop for labor-intensive maintenance, grease and oil, every 100 to 150 miles. But, under pony care, the same steam locomotives can run for days without maintenance. In fact, the major American and Canadian railroads are now building new versions of the Union Pacific Big Boy locomotives for their pony crews to operate. Also, trains and other vehicles under the control of Earth ponies have remarkably fast starting and stopping power far beyond what they should have, without injuring any passengers or damaging any cargo. We Earth ponies didn’t realize the ability to maintain and operate our machines was a magical talent. I suppose back in Equestria, we Earth ponies didn’t have humans to compare ourselves to, while very few ponies with wings or horns were hired by the railroads. I hope that the city universities can both give an explanation of and expand upon our Earth pony powers. What is the most dangerous tactic I can envisage, devised by the Solar Tyrant? Almost every week, as an ordinary citizen and then the Mayor of Ponyville, I’ve dealt with many invasions of creatures from the Everfree Forest. The Solar Tyrant mind-controls newfoals and natural-born ponies; thus she could mind-control the creatures of the Everfree Forest. Imagine the Alliance battling Earth pony Royal Guards riding into battle on hydra, timberwolves, manticore, Ursa Minor, and Ursa Major. Human and pony biologists have both written that a species needs about three thousands adult pairs to keep a species alive and healthy. That means that there must be at least six thousand of each species of these dangerous creatures living in the Everfree Forest. How will I know that the Solar Tyrant has been tried, convicted, and then sentenced to Tartarus? That will happen when I can spend more of my city’s tax money on schools rather than on extra police, police intelligence gathering, and reinforcing all vital buildings from PER and HLF terrorist attacks. That will happen when I see high school and college age youths, human and pony, returning to school. That will happen when the city’s arts and humanities programs are no longer chronically
 underfunded. That will happen when city and county high schools and college campuses can stop being emergency civilian apartments, National Guard barracks, and home armament workshops, to return to being centers of academic learning. I will know that we won this war when, following the examples of American war heroes that were then elected president, my fellow Democrats and I can persuade Marcus Renee to run to be president as a Democrat. Yet, my loyal assistants and I have decided to never return to my former Equestria. We want to help in rebuilding the human world, setting things right here. There are tens of thousands of newfoals living in boxy, reinforced concrete Bauhaus inspired apartments and there are the rows of massive airship hangars where airship crews are trained to murder by potion. There are the huge mines that have leveled mountains and filled up valleys - polluted the nearby lakes and streams with toxic mining waste, thus making these unfit for anypony to use. And then there are the even more massive factories that create air pollution that turn the skies gray and the snowfalls blue have made Ponyville and most of Equestria into something dark and ugly. While we are talking about the Equestrian environment, did you see the podcast that Tree Hugger made to describe how the Equestrian war economy is ruining my former nation? Tree Hugger is the chief editor of an environmentalist underground newspaper that both inspires resistance to the Solar Tyrant and makes fools of the Royal Guard in their many unsuccessful attempts to capture her and her secret staff. Do I have any plans to get married and start my own family? If I ever have any foals of my own, I’ll have them in America. My future foals will be natural-born, Pony-Americans citizen. I don’t want my foals to see what Ponyville has become under the Tyrant’s brutal rule. Besides, there are UN accountants already at work totaling the trillions of dollars my former homeland will pay in war reparations to the people of many nations on Earth and on Equus. I don’t want my foals to be working all their lives to pay in the rebuilding of all that the Solar Tyrant has destroyed. I’ve read on PHL Internet blogs that Ponyville’s current mayor is some newfoal named Lavender Dreams. However, the real political power is held by some memorized Royal Pegasus Guard named Scepter, a classic yes-mare who reports to the Tyrant’s equally memorized Canterlot military administrators. I’m reading a book of beautiful poems written by PHL humans and ponies about fighting the war with the Solar Tyrant’s armies. I love a poem written by a pony that ends with, “I wish to be remembered that I died protecting my good friends, friendship, harmony, and freedom. And when my soul reaches the green pastures of the Elysian Fields, I’ll tell the gatekeeper, ‘One more PHL pony reporting, Scribe. I've served my time in Tartarus!’” These interviews were published in the December 2023 issue of Minnesota History Magazine. While most literary critics praised these well-researched and thought-provoking articles, a handful of outspoken Minnesota Republicans, Green Party activists, and independent citizens have criticized Paxton Randolph because his interviews have featured mostly DFL aligned humans and our allies from Equus. Mr. Randolph replies that he was not biased in how he interviewed for this magazine article; but argues that DFL aligned humans, ponies, and other intelligent beings are the most willing to talk to him.