The Rejuvenationverse 49 members · 25 stories
Comments ( 6 )
  • Viewing 1 - 50 of 6
Purple Patch
Group Admin

"There is but one truth, one answer, one fundamental law. The world is as it is. The magic we have does not need to be tampered with. The knowledge we have does not need to be reconsidered. The social structures we have need not be disturbed and those in power need not be replaced. The positions that earth pony, pegasus and unicorn occupy in our society are as they should be and the places of commoner and royalty are likewise as they should be. There is no need for any meddling when the risks could be so great. Therefore, our purpose, as scholars and masters of craft, is to keep the world the way it is, by any means necessary"
~ Pompencirque M. Stance, Royal Equestrian Archmage and Chronicler
"You know nothing, Pompencirque! That's the only reason you have risen thus far and by my hoof, it shall be the reason you fall!"
~ Star-Swirl, Expelled Scholar and Public Dissident

All of Equestria knows of Star-Swirl, at least those who study in the same scholarly arts as he once did himself and contributed highly to in his long and accomplished life.
But comparatively few know of his predecessor as Archmage of Equestria and last Chronicler of Hycarion.
This position was occupied by an unremarkable yet notorious individual named Pompencirque Monotonous Stance.

A third son of the noble Stance family, who occupied one of the highest positions in the court of Old Hycarion, Pompencirque was not considered a very scholarly individual. His parents had sent him to the Royal Academy mainly as a means to give him some form of reputation and, when the Stance family required immediate influence with their enemies in court growing stronger, by filling the deciding council with friends and distant relations they had him made Archmage and, by extension, Chronicler.

Meeting with the heads of his family and their partners, he was told to minimalize the reforms Rememberly was putting forward as much as possible. The reforms would set up a meritocracy in Canterlot, promoting able and accomplished individuals to key positions of power, eliminating the hereditary structure most of those positions held. This would inevitably damage the houses of power the Stance family and others like it had secured.

As Archmage, Pompencirque could advise the reigning Princess, veto the motions of arguing courtiers and, without her immediate knowledge, monitor and censor information coming to the Princess. With such a position, Pompencirque worked to convince Rememberly that her reforms were unnecessary and that the ponies of Equestria were content with the way things were, a massive drift between rich and poor and harsh boundaries to keep it as such.

Pompencirque's greatest danger however, did not come from Rememberly (At least not immediately) but from his Royal Academy, namely from one young, outspoken and very charismatic student named Star-Swirl.

The two contrasted entirely in mind-set. Star-Swirl encouraged the study of mysteries and forgotten knowledge, how magic worked and from whence it came, what lay outside of Equestria and the known continents and how best to govern a society that forever fought with friendship and tolerance against conflict and fear of the unknown. In the opposite case, Pompencirque was adamant that everything society needed to know had already been discovered, that there was no need to venture outside of Equestria or let in outside elements and that the purpose of the world's study was to work to keep it exactly the way it was. It was said that in the Archmage's eyes, the 'what' was all that mattered and ponies had no business investigating the 'how' and 'why'.

Star-Swirl described his schooldays in his chronicles with dismal recollection and had no good words to say about his Archmage.

"The most humiliating years of my life. We would spend our days copying dusty tomes set before us until the days end, where we would pile our recitations together, leave them on our desks and find them gone the next morning. Day after day, we would recite passages from books and instructions of craft but would we ever practice it? No. Never. Such a thing, they said, was unseemly, too advanced for scholars and too trivial for masters. The higher tier students, the Distinguished Set they called themselves, never dared question the point or purpose behind such basic endeavours and thus found favour with their pompous tutors. I suppose that was to be expected, considering what sort of ponies they were. Dull-witted noble foals led on by their smothering parents or peasant colts and fillies whose minds were easily satisfied by knowledge of their next meal. I doubt any them had an imagination greater than the average cucumber. None of them were here to learn.
On and on it went, ever more degrading as they attempted to dull our minds and slow our wit, turning us into blank-eyed, blindly-obedient cretins that could be swayed back into servitude so as to forget the lessons our Princess told us upon her ascension.
They had us sat around a room, mumbling over a crystal, wondering how it could be made to conduct magic, never actually putting it into practice, and were supposed to admit to our own limitations. To win our mages cloak, they would have us lose our curiosity. We were studying without learning and were simply passing down old knowledge with no addition. We were not being taught at all. We were being contained. They knew the Princess's words had touched the bright and curious, the next generation of ponies in the capital and they wished to stamp it out, even if it meant turning the future of scholarship into a society of cloak-wearing cabbages.

He is recorded to have described his headmaster thusly.

The wise mage seeks answers to questions he knows he has. The charlatan, Pompencirque, sought questions to answers he didn't know he did not have. He would endlessly prowl the streets in his hat and cloak, waiting for someone to ask their Archmage a question that pondered them. And no matter what the question was, whether the answer was known to him or not, Pompencirque's answer was always the same.
'It would be pointless telling you. You are not an Archmage like me'

Star-Swirl's contempt for Pompencirque's rigid dogmatism was scathing. Publically protesting his discouragement of imagination and curiosity in the grounds of the Academy, Star-Swirl gathered a large following, working in secret to study the vast quantity of arts and sciences that had been forbidden, dubbing themselves 'Rememberly's Army'.

A season before Rememberly's Great Betrayal, young Star-Swirl at last succeeded in accomplishing a feat never-before-seen;
Hatching a Dragon's Egg, a mighty thing near as big as a table, blue-grey with dark-orange streaks, giving way to an enormous hatchling.
Star-Swirl named it Torch.

The dragon hatchling was, unfortunately, hard to control, a wild species of Great Mountain Dragon (Draconis Magnomontis), and swiftly broke out of Rememberly's Army's secret hideout and rampaged across the Royal Academy, causing considerable damage to the place.

All members of Rememberly's Army were expelled on the spot by an irate Pompencirque and Star-Swirl himself was brought to Rememberly to confess his crimes, charged with heretical practices among other things, the hatchling, Torch, presented in a cage as evidence and due to be put down for the safety of others.
Rememberly let Star-Swirl explain why he had sought after so much knowledge whereupon the young unicorn told her of the state of the Academy and how poor the qualities of learning were and the damage this would do to society.
The Princess weighed his words and decided to have him work off the damage he'd caused to the Royal Academy...as her Royal Tutor, effectively a Minister of Education.

Rememberly was more impressed than anything that this young scholar had succeeded in hatching a dragon and ordered him granted a twilight-patterned cloak and hat to signify his mastery over the unknown arts. This was a position, it was said, that practically outweighed Pompencirque in his cloth-of-gold cloak and hat, as Star-Swirl was consulted on how to run the Academy and later the realm, while the official Archmage was ordered to simply sit at his desk and catalogued their proposed reforms, his advice squandered in favour of the new Royal Tutor and his fascinating hatchling.
Star-Swirl is recorded to have found the irony of their roles pretty much switching round as deliciously ironic.

The Stance family were among the several head conspirators that attempted to murder Rememberly and her inner-circle and so Pompemcirque was told to mind the Academy and ensure that a treatise justifying their actions would be made for all to see. Unfortunately for him, he returned to find the Academy burning, the students taking action against their master's treason, flocking to Star-Swirl's banner as he led them out the city.

Pompencirque's fate is obscure. He was either killed in the Fall of Hycarion, the Stance household wiped out in the chaos, or retreated to the petty states of his family's rivals and died penniless. An ignoble end but perhaps kinder than other fates that could have befallen him.

Pompencirque is vilified in most of Star-Swirl's works and the works of his students demonise him, declaring him the Enemy of Knowledge and Wisdom.

A scripture by a graduate named Shadestar Ebonhart D'Arkplace Lee demonises him to such a ridiculous extent that even Mimic, Star-Swirl's successor as Archmage, wouldn't permit it to be filed as historical literature (The scripture 'My Alicorn' portrays 'Pumpinserc m Stuntz' as a foul-mouthed serial molester who attempts, multiple times across the story, to have his way with a young Celestia and Luna, who are portrayed as colts for some reason)

By contrast, Vorpal Blade, a philosopher and critic, sees Pompencirque M. Stance more as a victim of circumstance than anything else, largely played by his grasping family and fed orders, oblivious to his role in the power games and just wishing to enjoy fame and luxury while doing as little work as possible. Not an admirable stallion by any means but to call him an outright 'evil' individual, Vorpal claims, is unfair. Star-Swirl did admit in some of his later works that he felt he'd been overly aggressive against his old nemesis.

For a time, the scholars of the Royal Academy, renovated after the founding of Canterlot, partook in a festival which culminated with burning an effigy of Pomencirque M. Stance in celebration of his downfall. This was later deemed excessively vindictive by Princess Celestia and was replaced by an effigy of the infamous buffoon, Dvinius, who was guilty of much the same crimes against knowledge and its pursuit as Pompencirque M. Stance.

Bronycommander
Group Contributor

Very fascinating and interesting

Purple Patch
Group Admin

6052941
Thanks. Do you get the references?
Star-Swirl is essentially Harry Potter.
And 'My Alicorn' is the equivalent of the legendarily awful fanfic 'My Immortal'.

Bronycommander
Group Contributor

6053027
Yes I did and I see.

Cherry-Lei
Group Contributor

Wow, I feel like I'm reading Twilight's academic essay. Very informative, it even addresses the biases and the indictment of famous individuals get from history.

Purple Patch
Group Admin

6054007
Thank you very much.
Keepin' it real.:rainbowdetermined2:

  • Viewing 1 - 50 of 6