Especially in GrassandCloud's "Carrot Top Season" where they sincerely believed that they had an almost sacred mission granted to them by Princess Luna to become as big and powerful a business as possible.

The first time I read that story I found it fascinating but unrealistic (not a bad thing in a magical setting like ours, of course!) but after learning about Rockefeller and the Standard Oil trust it seems that the first real life billionaire had a similar mindset:

He looked on his mission to expand Standard as almost a divine calling. In his mind, he was making the oil market more efficient and costs lower. He treated employees well and rewarded those who took his buyouts, but if they resisted he bankrupted them without mercy.

I seem to remember we've moved away from using the canon mane 6 as antagonists, (and the lunaverse 6 have bigger problems these days anyway), but I think this kind of antagonist who does not see herself as a bad guy because of her world view is fascinating! Also, this specific kind of economic antagonist will feel very relevant and real so long as capitalism exists!

I thought the Apple Trust was more of a bit lending bank?

No, it's AJ's farm.

A more modern analogy would be Bill Gates and Microsoft

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That was the idea of the Apple Trust. Given that the Lunaverse is pegged to around the 1880s in tech and culture level, it would make sense that business monopolies are cropping up, and the Apples seemed like a natural fit to that. Of course most monopolies were industrial-based, but it’s fun to have it be apple-based instead, and it’s not like there weren’t agriculture-based business that did some shady things. For one thing it’s almost literally how America got control of Hawaii.

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Thanks for the clarification, RDD! I was afraid I might be misremembering or something, since its been far too long since I read some of these stories!

Far too long since I’ve been engaged with the Lunaverse as a whole, in fact. I hope to change that soon, but my job has eaten my life. Its been ages since I found the time to read anything for fun, let alone draw anything. :(

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It's not just AJ's farm. Her farm is still Sweet Apple Acres. The Apple Trust is the collective of every farm owned by any member of the family across all of Equestria, and maybe even beyond, as well as their cooperate offices in major cities like Manehattan.

I also wouldn't really equate it to Microsoft or Bill Gates either. They aren't nearly that big or dominant. They've might have a defacto monopoly on Apples specifically, but not food production in general. Also there's no single ultra wealthy pony that owns the whole thing. It's more like a giant network of family businesses, with the wealth spread out across all of its members.

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I should like to note that whole "divine" mission angle was never supposed to be representative of how most members of the trust think. Heck, it's not even normally how AJ is supposed to think. In that particular story she was just having an unusual bout of paranoia brought on by a mixture of stress and sleep deprivation. Not to mention that in her muddled state of mind she was only half remembering the family's founding myth, but Granny Smith set the record mostly straight by the end.

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I should like to note that whole "divine" mission angle was never supposed to be representative of how most members of the trust think.

Thats an important clarification to make emeral, thanks!

To be honest the divine mission angle was only one of the fascinating things to me about the way the Apple Trust was depicted back then. I’m just currently fascinated by antagonists who think what they’re doing is simply good business-sense, and enlightened self-interest.

Maybe they aren’t even breaking any laws, and in fact see what they’re doing as helping the community prosper, making them the rare Lawful Good antagonist! A “Paladin of the Invisible Hand”, if you will haha!

After all, even Scrooge from A Christmas Carol noted that his taxes were helping pay for poor houses, orphanages etc. And even the Onceler from the original Lorax cartoon noted that he was creating jobs and helping grow the economy!

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Granny Smith set the record mostly straight by the end.

Which led to its own set of implications for the Lunaverse.