Hey everypony. Just wanted to leave a public note here about the community and how it's been going so far.

A huge thanks to everybody who's put their time and effort into the universe so far. Some amazing stories are being created right now, I know I'm really loving much of what I'm reading (as of right now, I'm current on all of them). However, I've been listening to everybody's comments and I'd like to weigh in on the issue of violence, evil, and general inhumanity that's been happening in some of them.

I'm not going to tell other authors what to write. I want everybody to write what moves them most. But I'd also like to put out there the world as I imagine it. Unfortunately, the scope of "Last Pony of Earth" is really, really narrow, so we don't get to see how things are going in many other places. Survivors are so rare that there just hasn't been very many subjects for comparison.

I guess what I'd like to say is a reflection about what I believe about humanity itself. That when things go really bad, it doesn't seem like we descend into an orgy of violence and murder. There are some who do, but that seems by far the exception rather than the rule. Take Hurricane Katrina here in the united states as an example. From the wikipidia article:

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was characterized by extensive reporting of looting, violence, shooting against rescuers, murder and rape. While some criminal acts did occur, such as the emptying of an entire Wal Mart,[42] many reports were also exaggerated, inflated, or simply fabricated. Several news organizations went on to issue retractions. There were reports of snipers taking potshots at rescue helicopters; these were false. Reports of gangs roving the city shooting police officers and survivors were also false, as only one policeman was shot in the aftermath of Katrina and no indictments were brought forward against the supposed gang members.

(emphasis added)

Some initial reports of mass chaos, particularly in stories about the Superdome, were later found to be exaggerated or rumor. In the Superdome for example, the New Orleans sex crimes unit investigated every report of rape or atrocity and found only two verifiable incidents, both of sexual assault. The department head told reporters, "I think it was urban myth. Any time you put 25,000 people under one roof, with no running water, no electricity and no information, stories get told." Based on these reports, government officials expected hundreds of dead to be found in the Superdome, but instead found only 6 dead (of which there were 4 natural deaths, one drug overdose and one suicide). In a case of reported sniper fire, the "sniper" turned out to be the relief valve of a gas tank popping every few minutes.

I'm not saying there won't be violence, murder, or evil in side stories. Those things all happen in a post-disaster world. However, the evidence seems to suggest that, at least when everything broke down in the United States, relationships of service and communities of common interest arise with crime and violence in the vast minority.

Take this into the world of Ponies After People, where the population is so low that resource crises will either never happen or are many years away, and add in that most of the transformations were into ponies, creatures shown in the canon of MLP to be (if anything) gentler and kinder than the humans we've already seen to be pretty peaceful in disasters.

I guess what I'm saying here is I expect violence and evil to be the exception in the post-human world depicted in this story, not the rule, at least among transformed humans. I'm sure more than few are going to lose their sanity under the pressure of being a pony. Even then, statistics seem to show that violent, murderous insanity is not one of the more common types.

Don't be afraid to have evil and violence in your stories. These are a real part of our world, and they're even more a part of any disaster. Just don't assume that everyone or even large numbers of the extremely rare survivors are going to get violent with each other, particularly at the early stages. Remember, these are ponies we're talking about. They're fairly peaceful creatures, and since they can pretty much grazer anywhere, they're unlikely to be driven to violence by the fact that so often influences humans to crime, starvation.

Anyone who inflicts all sorts of evil on the world after everybody vanished probably was doing it just as much before. This isn't The Conversion Bureau, and becoming a pony doesn't make you incapable of violence or sanitize your violent thoughts. Evil before will be evil after. But given true human evil (rather than crime driven by genuine need) is so rare, and survivors themselves are so rare, I don't see it happening that often. I'm sure most survivors are just trying to get by.

Don't take this statement as canonizing or un-canonizing anything. I just wanted to say what I've been thinking about the world, lest anyone see what should be incredibly rare depravity in some story or another and get the wrong idea.

incredibly rare depravity in some story or another

*Whistles suspiciously*

This is exactly why I stopped reading First Unicorn on Earth. Just slightly more than two weeks in and the current body count was three dead ponies with just two left alive, one of which is emotionally devastated from having killed the mother of the other, with the second being emotionally devastated from having a dead mother.

Edit: Spoiler text applied just in case.

I'mma use a nuke.

4462931 Not three anymore.

If I were ever to make one of these (really big if there), I'd probably focus a lot more on the environmental hazards of ponies after people. Just think about what will happen once all those chemical plants and train cars full of toxic gases begin to leak...

Being a European I hadn't though about a Katrina comparison but your article excerpts are a very nice reminder of how most news outlets operate: the only really good news is bad news.
Assuming the worst and believing in the associated stories is probably a evolutionary trait that was once really important to overcome potentially deadly curiosity.
I generally like MLP stories that explore violent parts of a society... but the Last Pony setting doesn't have much of a society and therefore certainly operates under different rules (with rare exceptions). I think the usual approach of violent remnants of society stems from Fallout and Mad Max. Was my first thought as well until you convinced me otherwise. Intelligent murderous dogs are bad enough really, even if they don't kill because they're evil but because they're hungry.

You might be pointing a finger at my fic as well, so I shall state this: Night Scrolls suffered a huge mental break when he saw Aeon lying on their bed bleeding out with her guts splayed out beside her, This is the only time I shall explain any part of my story this blatantly.

4463653
Oh, I totally don't want to point fingers at any one story. Like I said, I don't want to force people to conform to a certain creative mold. That's boring and lame. I don't think Night Scrolls's desire to defend his mate was totally reasonable under the circumstances. One of the reasons I wrote this little article was not about him, more the pony that hurt Aeon in the first place. I was trying to explain that ponies like them were the exception and not the rule. Not even that such people haven't existed or don't now, because neither of those statements would be true.

4463624
And it's not that there can't be violence and criminals and all of that. I just don't imagine a fallout-esque dystopia arising after the dust finally settles. There are almost certainly bad people like the ones we see in those universes you mentioned.

I'd have expected more deaths to be cause by wild animals or starvation. Killing for supplies doesn't seem reasonable unless it scales up from a tug of war over a unique item or they're drunk. Within the first few week, the chances are, if you're in a place where there is other survivors there's likely lots of available supplies.

To be fair, a lot of the "Bad People" in the Fallout series probably originated from Vaulttech Experimental Societies. The Vaults were designed as test populations for spaceships; specifically, every vault had a "What would happen if this happened" mindset in its design, leading to various engineered societies. Combine that with all the crazed mutants and the war-built robots wandering around...

'Bad people' is a lazy trope.
It is way too easy to simply put in cardboard cutouts to add dramatic tension, but if there isn't really good reason
for bad people to be actively picked, or some other good reason (Zombies is rarely a good reason unless done unusually well), it's questionable.

For example, you're just next to a maximum security prison, and it so happens that the Rapture in the bible turns out to be true, just not mentioning that everyone who gets left gets ponified is evil, morally corrupt, or has some aspect of their personality that is unacceptable.

Or, establish that a mother killing for food is seriously mentally ill, and was coming from a supervised visit with her son at a mental hospital.

Also 'my uterus' - surgeon simulator is not real life.

4462840

*Chuckles nervously* I had plans for my MC in the one soon to be published having to deal with a changeling queen

I'm sure that at least one of the colonies a couple decades in the future would attempt to go on a conquest

http://www.fimfiction.net/group/207757/ponies-after-people/thread/191956/colonial-development

Instead of stories driven by evil and violence, what about stories driven by the need to teach the most powerful magic of all, the magic of friendship to the returnees. Also, there should be a team that is attempting to find six returnees who can be the bearers of alternative Elements of Harmony. In addition, what about returnees and their descendants that want to rebuild the United States against those who believe that they can create an even better nation under a new name?