“… something about Pegasus culture and society. I’m really curious how they compare to Earth Ponies.”
I expected that a bit earlier to be honest. Pegasi often inspire other pony’s imagination, they have a certain aura of mysticism and freedom to them. And yet they appear utterly alien, with the ability to fly, cities made of clouds and all that. It’s kind of natural that you want to know more about them.
Anyway, let’s get this show on the road.
Accessing database storage epsilon 2.19.03 to 2.19.04 … Access granted.
Compiling information … procedure concluded.
…
First and foremost, please be aware that the individual Pegasus can deviate from the following descriptions. As I said in regards to Earth Ponies before, these are averages, some of which are several millennia old. Modern life, as well as social change that came to be since the earliest times of pony civilization has tempered the flame that burns in the heart of most Pegasi, so to speak. It is safe to say that the Pegasi living today have little in common with their ancestors. When compared with Unicorns and Earth Ponies they might in fact have changed the most over the last couple thousand years.
Ok, I think we should start with a look at Pegasi today. In modern equestrian society a Pegasus is most likely to be either employed in weather management, striving for a sports career, enlisted in the military or performs a task that requires high speed and agility in general.
All of these occupations have in common that they offer a great deal of physical activity. Pegasi prefer such tasks because they are driven by an instinct to constantly stay in motion. They have a basic psychological need to be active and keep moving. This is likely based on the fact that, if you are an herbivorous species in an environment that provides almost no cover to hide from predators, all that’s keeping you alive is your speed and agility.
“What predators are you talking about? I’ve never heard of any predators that hunted Pegasi.”
Ponies are herbivores, even though limited consummation of meat is possible, the bulk of a pony’s diet consists of plants. All known herbivorous species, that are not self-aware, serve as pray to predatory species of their native ecosystem. Even species that have developed a defense mechanism that makes them almost invulnerable to natural predators still serve as pray to those predators if said defense is compromised. There is no indication that pre-historic ponies where an exception of that.
For example, a Timberwolf will attack any pony he comes across because he views them as pray. A Pegasus can fly away, an Earth Pony is unlikely to be alone and can therefore fight the attacker off in a group and a Unicorn has its magic to defend itself. But a Pegasus with an injured wing could not escape, to a single Earth Pony it would be near suicide to fight against a Timberwolf and if a Unicorn is unable to use its magic it’s practically defenseless. All three cases would lead to the pony becoming pray to the Timberwolf.
Based on these observations it is widely accepted ponies, at some point in their evolution, served as prey. Naturally there is no historical evidence but we have the legends of the individual tribes to draw from. Because legends often preserve knowledge for extensive periods of time we can use them to make guesses about times long before ponies even had a language.
Most commonly known among Pegasi is the legend of ‘the Living Flames’ which talks about creatures that are made of fire. They spread it wherever they went; the living flames were huge creatures that soared through the sky as lumbering giants. But nothing could stop them, whatever crossed their path was doomed to burn and the fire inside their chests was so hot that even their very breath became a torrent of flames.
“Dragons?”
Most likely, yes. Other popular legends are ‘the Scream of Death’ and ‘the Spears of Light’. The former most likely refers to Griffons, because of their blood chilling screams when they attack, while the latter talks about how certain areas are forbidden because of spears made of light that shoot in the sky and kill Pegasi that stray too far from home. Ponylogists and historians assume that ‘the Spears of Light’ were actually primitive spells from Unicorns who mistook the Pegasi for airborne predators and shot them down when they came near their hideout.
“Wouldn’t the unicorns have found the body of the dead Pegasus after they shot him down? I mean they would have seen that these were ponies too, wouldn’t they?”
We are currently talking in the realms of legend. These originate from times when ponies lived in caves or wandered the lands as nomads; they might be several 10000 years old. At those times there was no formal education for Unicorns that taught them how to use their magic. It is likely that a Unicorn simply gathered as much magic as it could and blasted it at whatever was threatening it. It’s unlikely that anything hit by such a raw magic blast left enough remains to identify its species.
“Holy sh…”
Indeed.
Anyway, from an evolutionary point of view it makes sense that the ancestors of the Pegasi left the ground almost entirely when their natural magic evolved to enable them to fly. Flying predators are more dangerous than their earthbound counterparts, but they are extremely limited in numbers and Pegasi continued to evolve and adapted perfectly to a life in the sky.
Even on the ground Pegasi are fast and extremely nimble, the fact that those qualities are even more important in the sky led to further improvement of those skills, since only the fastest and most agile flyers survived. Slow and clumsy specimen sooner or later got picked off by predators.
Based on this Pegasi are naturally adapted to high speeds, can tolerate extreme g-forces without technical assistance and feel uneasy when they stay still, their minds and bodies are all about movement. Some Pegasi might be known for taking long naps on clouds and such, but that’s not all that common when we take the entire population into consideration. Some Pegasi seem to have evolved past their unease when at rest.
But their overall desire to stay in motion is still reflected in their culture today, you will find few Pegasi who are comfortable with office jobs or something alike.
The next important thing about Pegasi culture is its tendency to encourage competition. In ancient times Pegasi essentially raced against predators and other Pegasi alike. If you were faster than the others, you lived. If not … well, you didn’t.
Throughout history Pegasi always displayed a higher than average drive to compete. In times before the tribes united the social standing of a Pegasus was directly related to his martial prowess. The better you could fly and fight the higher was your social status. This naturally led to a more individualistic society. The average social circle of a Pegasus is not more than ten ponies. The bonds inside this social circle however are extremely tight, comparable to family, sometimes even beyond family.
Before the unification Pegasi were trained in single and squad based combat. These small quads were led by the strongest member and essentially operated independently of other squads. Squad members always tried to surpass each other and rise to leadership themselves. The individual squads competed against each other for glory and recognition. All squads of a city more or less followed the orders of the leader of the best squad. And the leaders the cities then decided which of them was in charge of all Pegasi in ritual single combat. This was supposed to guarantee that the Pegasi always had the strongest leader possible.
Because of that competition is almost a second nature to most Pegasi. It drives them to join the military and compete with their fellow soldiers to be recognized as the best. Same go for careers in various sports. A Pegasus has a natural drive to be the best … and a need to prove it.
The Wonderbolts are a great example for that. They started out as a squad of elite flyers of the equestrian army. They were supposed to gather the best Pegasi, form the most elite flying and fighting squad imaginable and, along the way see which of them was the very best. Today they are only in name part of the military. Even though technically all members of the Wonderbolts are soldiers, they are permanently exempted from their duties in favor of their flight shows. Now the Wonderbolts are an ideal, something for young Pegasi to strife for. Every few decades some general or prince or whatever suggests decommissioning and disbanding the Wonderbolts. Analysis of natural social dynamics however suggests that this would lead to the Pegasi directing their competitive nature towards something else, which, in turn, could lead to wide spread tension among ponies. Every suggestion to disband the Wonderbolts was therefore rejected by royal decree.
Like princess Celestia said in her speech at the 2000th anniversary of Cloudsdales founding:
“Pegasi always strife to get better, to push past the boundaries and obstacles the world puts in front of them. It gives me unparalleled joy to see my little ponies try to better themselves, especially when so many of them succeed. But we always have to remember that rivalry can as easily lead to two ponies driving each other forward as it can to them despising each other. The flame that burns in the heart of the Pegasi has to be tempered. When you all can control your inner fire, it will drive you to achieve things that are considered impossible, but if left unchecked that very same fire will consume every stallion, mare and foal that ever soared through the skies of Equestria.”
It stands to reason that this view on the nature of Pegasi is what led Princess Celestia to expanding the Wonderbolts to their current size and structure. I mean, each city with a significant Pegasus population has a field office, while every cloud city has full-fledged training grounds, often entire stadiums, dedicated to them. Wonderbolt Academy might be the most popular of the training facilities, but it is in fact only one of dozens of similar installations. That has to have a reason don’t you think?
“Yeah, that would be quite a lot of money and resources just to fund a team of stunt flyers.”
Well, let’s move forward. We discussed two of the most basic things about Pegasi and their society. Now let me tell you how they changed over the centuries.
In pre-Equestrian times the Pegasi were a society trained and geared for war like no other. Records in Cloudsdale state that the Pegasi internal politics was dominated by rivaling city states that fought for dominion over the other cities. External politics however always displayed an image of unity and strength. Even though internal conflict more than once brought them to the brink of civil war, Pegasi always tried to prevent outsiders from recognizing this fact. To provide internal conflicts with a more reasonable outlet than civil war a regular competition between all Pegasi city states was established.
Commander Hurricane claimed that the Battles for the Sky, the forerunner of the modern Equestria Games, were already held for more than thousand years in the skies of their old home when Equestria was founded. Princess Platinum and Chancellor Pudding Head agreed on continuing this tradition, though they demanded to rename them to Equestria Games.
By the way, large Pegasus communities, like Cloudsdale, dominate the Equestria Games to this day, a testament to the physical prowess of Pegasi in and of itself.
After the first founding of Equestria the Pegasi suddenly found themselves in a rather peaceful environment. They held onto their tradition of excessive training in the armed forces, which lead to some tensions in the early days after the unification. Later the Pegasi made up the veteran corps of Equestria’s armed forces, with the Unicorns providing powerful battle mages and Earth Ponies providing regular ground forces. It took some time but the harmony and peace of the first unification finally caught up with Pegasus society and managed to cool their hot blood down quite a bit.
After Princess Celestia und Princess Luna took over they reformed Equestria’s armed forces into the royal- and night guard. Pegasi, even today, make up a significant portion of the professional military, with relatively small parts of Earth Ponies and Unicorns in active service.
“Mind me asking how the guard is actually composed?”
Not at all, latest records speak of around fifty-five percent Pegasi in the guard. Unicorns account for about thirty percent and earth ponies only provide fifteen percent of the regular armed forces. All the while the royal guard is only allowed to number a maximum of ten thousand Soldiers at any given time.
“Wow, next to no earth Ponies in the guard.”
Considering the fact that the Princesses are Alicorns it is advantageous to be able to visit all equestrian cities with your guard. Earth Ponies however are unable to enter cloud cities without Unicorns to provide a cloud walking spell. Furthermore the rather small scale of the royal guard demands a fast method of deployment to be effective, which can only be provided by flight or teleportation.
I should also state that the listed reserve forces shift the overall percentages and numbers of the guard quite a bit. If I consider the reservists the total of Equestria’s army consists of sixty percent Earth Ponies, twenty-one percent Pegasi and nineteen percent Unicorns. Which would add up to a total of forty thousand soldiers.
“That’s a rather extreme shift. How comes?”
Earth Ponies most of the time prefer their family business over a military career, so they only enlist for the basic military training and enter reserves after that. Powerful unicorn spell casters often enter the guard if their research can be beneficial for the military, but leave as soon as their project is finished, which also effectively makes them reservists. Pegasi however are virtually nonexistent in the reserve. They prefer active service instead and only join the reserve after they have to drop out of service due to age or injury.
But according to the unified equestrian battle doctrines Earth Ponies have to make up the majority of the army in case of a war since massive ground forces are needed and Pegasi are simple not as effective as Earth Ponies when they’re grounded. Unicorn battle mages can work far more effective if they are well protected by front line fighters and can concentrate on their spells instead of keeping an eye open for attackers. Furthermore, a phalanx of charging Earth Ponies is a terrible sight to behold and incredibly powerful, but even this unstoppable wave of muscles and steel is even more devastating when constant air attack of Pegasi special forces prevent the enemy from forming a defensive perimeter. And then there are the Pegasi themselves. Granted, a well-trained Pegasus can outmaneuver nearly everything flying creature, but with Unicorns that provide massed AA fire, it suddenly becomes far easier to achieve air superiority.
“That sounds terrifying.”
According to captured enemies it is.
But let me get back to topic. Over the millennia under the princesses’ rule Pegasi became much less aggressive and managed to direct their natural competitive spirit to more productive means. Today a Pegasus coworker is still likely to try and surpass his peers, but he will do so in more of a friendly competition and place more emphasis on the bonds of comradery than gloating about his superiority.
Furthermore the Pegasi established a centralized weather management that plans and schedules the weather for all of Equestria. They also prevent random thunderstorms, blizzard or tornados and therefore play a large role in Equestria’s continued prosperity.
“If they can prevent them, why do the Pegasi schedule thunderstorms, blizzards and alike regardless?”
That’s because they can’t prevent such events indefinitely. The atmosphere has its own ebbs and flows; energy constantly shifts and changes. If a thunderstorm is prevented that leads to the energy remaining in the upper atmosphere. If the stored energy becomes too much the Pegasi won’t be able to control it anymore, which could lead to a devastating storm if enough energy is stored. Weather phenomena can only be delayed, not prevented.
“Interesting, you never learn something like that in school.”
The full extent of weather management and manipulation is quite complex and is mainly taught at Cloudsdale university. Every Pegasus can kick a cloud to make it rain, or shoot a single lightning bolt, but only certified specialists can read and understand the currents of the atmosphere to an extend that enables them to plan weather schedules for entire villages or towns.
Overall Pegasi are much more than single minded brutes and featherbrains. They have a proud history of honorable warriors that faced danger head on, even if that meant certain death. Some of the brightest minds in Equestria are Pegasi and they spend every ounce of brainpower they have so that the rest of us can enjoy a sunny day. And most of ponies might, at some point, find themselves in a friendly rivalry with a Pegasus that encourages both of them to give their best.
…
And they throw the best after work parties you can imagine. These guys really know how to let loose after they done their job. The feasts of ancient times, after the win of great battles, are the stuff legends are made off.
After the first peace treaty between Equestria and the Gryphon Kingdom was signed there were seven moonless nights. And even though some legends say it was to honor the seventy thousand dead soldiers that died on both sides, truth is that Princess Luna had celebrated with the Pegasi after the war was over and had a seven day hangover which prevented her from raising the moon.
“You’re kidding?! I always thought the princesses can’t get drunk.”
Why should they be unable to get drunk?
“Well … they’re Alicorns! Doesn’t that mean they can’t get intoxicated and such?”
Granted, it takes much more to make a princess drunk, but it’s possible. Their inert magic, which scales far beyond any other living being, makes them quite resilient to all forms of damage, be it poisonous or physical. On the other hand, Princess Luna always had a reputation for being able to let loose and have fun.
But this is all I have for you now.
…
Terminating connection to database storage epsilon 2.19.03 to 2.19.04 … procedure concluded.
Recommended topics from here on are:
- Pre unification Unicorn culture
- Basic weather manipulation
- Substitution and support of Pegasi in weather management
- Equestrian unified culture a.k.a. how three tribes became one people
- Pegasi battle doctrines
- Pegasus magic
- Pegasus biology
- The long winter
- The great exodus
- Pegasi and airborne predators
- Truths and Theories about Alicorns
“Spike? I didn’t ask for another recommendation of topics.”
I know, I skipped the part where I asked if you wanted one and simply compiled a quick list.
“Just to be curios, what would’ve you done if I decided to quit instead of continuing?”
Rough estimations show that there is only a 12,736% chance of you terminating the connection after the last topics, so I decided that it was worth the risk of wasting processing time on an unnecessary task.
Besides, I myself have a processing power of roughly 750 ExaFLOPS and have unrestricted access to the Royal Archives main cluster, which can provide up to 10.000 YottaFLOPS.
“Are you aware that I have no idea what those numbers mean?”
…
I should’ve expected that.
FLOPS is short for floating point operations per second, which is a method of measureing the processing capacity of computers. One FLOP would mean that the computer in question is able to execute one floating point operation per second.
I have a maximum capacity of 750 ExaFLOPS which translates to 750 times 10 to the 18th power of FLOPS. In other word I can run 750 Quintillion floating point operations per second. It took me about 0.00000000000015 second to compile the list I’ve shown you.
For comparison: The archive’s main cluster can run up to 10000 YottaFLOPS, which means it can process 10 Octillion Floating Point Operations per Second, that is 10 times 10 to the 27th power. That beast is more than 13 million times faster than I.
“What do the archives use this much processing power for?”
It serves as Canterlot’s mainframe, runs several high security servers for the government, performs constant threat and virus scans on all system that it’s connected to and houses Solaria and Selena, the two AI assistants of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.
“Mother of…”
And even with all that this monster of a computer still has spare capacity of about 55%. This, by the way, can be purchased by independent parties for just 1 Bit per hour or used to speed up high priority research projects.
“One Bit to get an hour of processing time on this thing?”
As laid down in the ‘royal decree about support of private and government research for the continued prosperity of Equestria’ by the princesses Celestia, Luna, Mi Amora Cadenza and Twilight Sparkle. It is supposed to ensure that even small companies can afford processing power on Equestria’s most powerful super computer. The only restriction is that a council of scientist, engineers and the princesses has to review and grant the request for processing time.
“That makes surprisingly much sense to be honest.”
I think so too. But where were we … ah yes. As you’ve seen, I can spare the effort to compile lists like this on a hunch. So, which should be the next topic?
“Well, we’ve derailed quite a bit. Anyway, let’s continue with…”