A Bird in the Hoof
“I might be a sociopath,” I said.
Twilight looked up from her reading. “Well, I didn’t want to say anything but…you are kind of self-serving. Also not very moral.”
“So do you think it’s a bad idea for me to go over to Sugarcube Corner to meet Princess Celestia?”
“Yes. Don’t even think about it. There’s no way the guards will let you in.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“No way.
“Way.”
I sighed. “I just…feel this burning need for democracy, you know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m going over there.” I turned to walk out the door. A heavy textbook knocked me flat.
I woke up on the couch. It was dark outside. Celestia must be long gone by now. Sitting up, I wondered exactly how much damage my skull could take. Thinking back on it, the only kind of injuries I had suffered in this dream had been to the head. I should tell Twilight that. She’d probably say that it explained so much.
Speaking of Twilight… Oh, it was on now. There wasn’t any way to double-murder somebody, but I could at least add “with extreme prejudice”.
Speaking of Twilight, she walked through the door. “I see you’re awake. I’m so sorry that I had to do that. I’ve never hurt anypony before, but I couldn’t let you talk to the Princess like you were going to.” She paused, putting on a noble air. “I mean, I feel that it was my duty as Celestia’s best student, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Speaking of Twilight, and the Princess,” said Spike, coming out of the back room. “I’ve got a letter here for Twilight from the Princess. She’s looking for her bird.”
I quietly slipped out the door before I got stuck in an endless loop. It was getting late, but I saw the lights were on at Rarity’s place, so I went over to see if she’d gotten my airship sewn up yet.
She hadn’t, but the material was there. She sadly informed me that it would be an extremely long process. The fabric hadn’t come with the special gas-proof coating on it, so it would need to be applied and given time to dry.
With a couple days to kill, I decided to build another robot. This one would be smaller, closer to my original goal of exoskeletal armor. I’d figured out how to miniaturize some of the components.
To save weight on non-structural items, I decided to use wood. I headed over to Fluttershy’s to see if I could enlist the aid of her beaver.
I had only seen said beaver once or twice when she had showed it to me. It had teeth, big sharp ones. Also, she did not enjoy the sexual double entendres I made about it.
When I got to Fluttershy’s house, she was having problems with an ugly bird that was missing most of its feathers. It was apparently the Princess’s bird, Philomeena.
Having recent experience with hostage situations, I immediately concocted a plan to get myself a discussion with the Princess. I’ll give you the bird when you give me five minutes with Celestia!
Fluttershy was saying something about caring for the sick animal. I was dreaming about using the bird’s health problems as leverage.
Twilight came in. “Hi, Fluttershy! I just wanted to drop by and say thank you so very much for making such a good impression on the princess today...” She gasped. “What is Celestia's pet doing here?!”
“All right, now we’ve got another accomplice,” I said. I glanced at Twilight. “Unwilling, to be sure, but you’re in on the conspiracy now whether you like it or not.”
“But... but... she doesn't belong to you!” Twilight stammered.
“I had to do something,” said Fluttershy.
“You were behind this?”
“She was,” I said. “But now I’m running the show. I’m going to get some of Celestia’s time one way or another, and the bird is going to be a bargaining point.”
“This is crazy.”
“Actually, it’s Equestria. I’m crazy.”
There came a knocking on the door. Twilight opened it to reveal two Royal Guards. They were looking for the bird.
“Really? You don't say!” answered Twilight. “Thank you ever so much for keeping me in the loop. Bye!”
She slammed the door shut.
I slow-clopped. “Nice. Very nice. I knew you’d come through for us.”
“I…I don’t know why I did that.”
“Because you’re a great friend, but a terrible pony. You didn’t want us to get into trouble, and you were willing to lie to protect us. More importantly, though, you could have gotten in trouble just for being here. You also were protecting yourself.”
“I…” She began to cry.
I facehoofed. “Just calm down, okay? Aren’t you supposed to be more mentally resilient? I can’t believe I was able to drag you down to my level so easily.”
Twilight’s expression instantly changed. “You did that on purpose? You…you terrible pony!” It wasn’t much of an insult, but she screamed it at the top of her lungs.
“All right, I feel guilty. Are you happy now? Why don’t you take the bird back, oh wait, you can’t because you lied to the Royal Guards.”
“I made a mistake, I was trying—”
“Um,” Fluttershy’s tiny voice somehow broke in. “Philomeena escaped.”
We looked around. The bird was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, the three of us organized to search the area.
After a long chase, we eventually cornered the bird on top the fountain statue in Ponyville Square. The Royal Guards showed up at about the same time.
“Philomeena, come down from there! You'll hurt yourself!” pleaded Fluttershy.
Instead, the bird keeled over and died. Fluttershy ran to catch the body as it fell off the statue, only to have it burst into flames mid-air. A small pile of ash landed in her hooves.
“Oh,” I said dismissively. “It’s just a phoenix.” At least I learned something from all those fantasy children’s books.
Princess Celestia came walking up. “What is going on here?”
“I was going to help Fluttershy and Twilight kidnap your sick bird in order to bargain for a minute of your time, but then she spontaneously combusted so there went our plan.” I shrugged.
“Well, at least you’re honest,” said Celestia. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Your monarchial rule has no place in the modern world! The citizens want change, they want—”
Celestia laughed. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. My sister and I rule together. It’s not a monarchy, it’s a diarchy.”
Just then, Philomeena came back to life and all the ponies promptly forgot about what I had to say. I guess it beat getting thrown in the Royal Jail. Celestia left Ponyville shortly after.
Later that night, Twilight was still glaring daggers at me. "I'm honestly not sorry," I said. "Call it mental illness, call it burning desire for political change, but this is how I feel."
She sighed. "Look, I know this is something you're very passionate about, but frankly I can't understand why."
"You haven't taken the time to listen. I thought you were all about learning."
"Are you trying to indoctrinate me?"
I shrugged. "If you know that's why I'm trying to do, won't that make you immune?"
"I guess. What did you have in mind?"
"How about this: I tell you what I envision for Equestria's future. You can embrace it, deny it, or whatever. Maybe if I can demonstrate that I'm not just making this up as I go along, you'll finally believe what I have to say." This would be a little difficult. I was totally making it up as I went along.
"What will you be talking about?"
"I want to tell you how I think a government and a country should be run."
She sighed, long and deep. "All right. Start talking."
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nice one keep it up
damn you
!!!!
And so Twilight Sparkle takes the first step to the dark side. Join us Twilight, we have ELECTIONS!
We The People - Megadeth
As much as I don't want to advertise for crazy-political-Obama's-a-secret-Muslim Dave Mustaine, this is pretty relevant.
I have no morals.
Politics happened, then Equestria Burned.
Trollestia strikes again!
“It’s not a monarchy, it’s a diarchy.”
It's not a monarchy, its a Diarchy
2.bp.blogspot.com/-WU-EKwZzjfA/T41edgRdyCI/AAAAAAAACHc/bK-upZTFlUw/s1600/terminator-poster.JPG
I'll be back...
t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ58OrqUAlIkG5E_VbygT6Cvjf68Uzqh_uGeRnWJmY7jI5y-zr7
Cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort. Suffocation, no breathing. ........ Cut my arm bleeding. Losing my sight, losing my mind.... tell me I'm fine. Nothing, to lose.......
Imma use this... 'cause I loled and almost peed
The one major problem with democracy is that it only works if EVERYONE is willing to play along, which is kinda hard with a mulit-million member society. Thats why it worked so well in ancient Greece with its small city states.
The best thing that works is the republic model. One or two defecato rules running in election cycles (I hope that makes sense) with an army of bureaucrats backup (also known as a senate). However, this is not a democracy anymore as the senate members, who are supposed to represent a certain amount of people, are usually working for their own goals and only aid their voters if it means to get re-elected for the next cycle. They aren't better then monarchs this way. Basicly, the entire system is a Constitutional Multi-archy (yeah, I made that up).
4100127 Actually, the BEST thing is a true Benevolent Dictator.
Look it up sometime.
Celestia actually is one.
4284852
4284852
That's the only way an absolute monarchy/diarchy could work in the long term--if the ruler(s) was/were wise, benevolent, immortal and incorruptible.
Magical ponies might pull that off, but we never will. The wisest ruler and most glorious ancient king among all humankind is said to have been Solomon, and in his later years he fell to corruption. His kingdom was split into two factions that spent most of their history at war with each other. That's how human history goes.
4100127 the issue isn't everybody playing along, the issue is that in direct democracies the voters have to have similar backgrounds, ideas, and positions otherwise you end up with 100s of different opinions and nothing happens, republics sort of fix that but look where the US is now, the most right liberal is far left of the most left Republican and vise versa
Coming from the pony who is causing him a head injury just because he wants to talk to the princess?
I mean... technically you have a burning need for a republic. Canada is a democracy.