The Mare in the High Castle

by ponichaeism

Chapter 5

He was haunting her. No matter how fast she ran she couldn't outpace him. He stalked her behind the backdrop, moving silently among the cosmic stagehands, while she was stuck onstage, in the limelight, with the machinery propelling the universe concealed from view. He knew all the shortcuts around the reality through which she moved. The empty, soulless medium. No wonder he could intrude on it so easily. If it had no soul, then the nearest soul energy would be drawn in as the universe attempted to reach equilibrium. It was simple physics.

She couldn't remember the way out. The aisles twisted and turned, still daunting and alien despite years of her shopping there. This place was so enormous, because if ponies needed it they had to have it. Everything except a way out. Why bother? A pony could spend their whole life in this maze and never need to leave. Everything they needed, under this roof. The supermarket was all.

But she had to get out. Faster and faster she ran, away from the soulless market and its lost soul. She broke into a gallop, straining herself against the shopping cart weighing her down. She cast another glance over her shoulder, at the towering shelves all around her--

Twilight abruptly stopped running, and wasn't sure why.

Her hooves weren't even on the ground anymore. Her first panicked thought was that the ghostly pony had snagged her and carried her away. But then she hit the polished floor and grunted from the impact. The shopping cart upended itself and spilled her groceries everywhere. Lying limply on her side, she fumbled with the harness until she got it loose and tossed the straps aside. Getting to her knees, still shaken and dizzy, she looked around for the phantom who had attacked her.

But it was just an earth pony, a little yellow one, who'd gotten in her way. Twilight's lips curled up in an instinctive sneer. What good are they?! she thought instinctively. The desire to clout the filly came over her, but assaulting a corporation's stock was a major faux pas. Driving down their productivity could land her in trouble if they filed a formal complaint.

Groaning, the filly in the green apron looked up. When she saw Twilight's glare, she jumped to her hooves and dropped her wide, staring eyes to the floor.

“Look what you did,” Twilight snapped as she dusted herself off. She gestured to her groceries lying on the floor. "You spilled my cart."

“Yes, ma'am, Ah'm sorry, ma'am,” the earth pony mumbled.

Twilight ignited her horn and magically took hold of the filly's earmark. She dragged it closer, making its owner keep pace to keep her ear from being torn apart. Twilight made a note of her serial number. “Put all this stuff back in my cart, PG-164-65, and maybe I won't tell your manager about it.”

"A'course, ma'am." The earth pony scampered to the overturned cart, righted it with a mighty heave, and eagerly piled the cans and boxes back in, nearly tripping over herself to get it done in haste. “Absolutely, ma'am.”

Twilight turned in a circle, taking in the towering labyrinth of the supermarket, and demanded to know, “Where's your bathroom?”

The filly immediately pointed down one aisle, her whole body as tense and stiff as a signpost.

Twilight kept her chin in the air and lightly trotted in that direction. She kept her eyes peeled until she saw an enormous restroom sign on the far wall. Quickening her pace, she burst through the door and locked it behind her. Safe now, she thought, slumping against the locked door. Safe from the enormous, terrifying supermarket. It was much too big for her, a monolithic edifice that utterly dwarfed her. It wanted to swallow her whole. Consume her.

Like the sun in her dreams.

Twilight was so small, so insignificant. All these things wanted to devour her and rip her to pieces. She shuddered and shook, feeling the terrible weight dragging her down. That terrible weight she could no longer bear. All she wanted was to be left alone. Give up her burden. No more pain swelling up inside her until she couldn't contain it anymore. Tears burst from her eyes like a dam breaking. She sank to the floor, ignoring the dirt and filth on the tiles.

She hated the supermarket. But if she hated it, that meant she also hated civilization. What was a supermarket but the very spirit of her princess's civilization? This wasn't just a building, it symbolized the Land of the Eternal Moon and its bounty. A cornucopia. Everything a pony could ever want was here, under this one roof, in the Super-Duper Market. That was the promise the princess's world offered.

Then why did she hate it so much? Why did it feel like she couldn't find what she wanted, no, needed?

Twilight pounded the back of her head against the door, as if she could drive the evil thoughts out by force. Jolt herself out of her frame of mind and back into the right one. This is a test, she told herself. I'm being tested. If I come through this, I'll know how strong my love for civilization is.

But she was dangerously close to breaking. She couldn't go on like this much longer. Why did the test have to keep going? Wouldn't whatever was testing her know the answer by now? Or did it want her to break? Did it want her to submit and admit she was irrevocably degenerate? Would the Midnight Guard, the same organization her brother gave his life for, come knocking on her door and drag her away? Or would they turn a blind eye and let her suffer in this agonizing silence?

She couldn't say which was worse.

Why does life hurt so much? she thought.

She'd been keeping the tears dammed up for so long. When they ran down her cheeks, bit by bit her misery went with them, flushing itself out of her system. When they were all gone, she was left an empty shell of a pony in a dingy supermarket bathroom. She dabbed at her eyes, wiping away the last few droplets clinging to her lashes, then got up and inspected herself in the mirror.

Her eyes were still red, but that would fade in time. Everything did, save the eternal night.

To such ponies yonder, of stoic eyne,

As they think on these words and deeds of mine,

Wrappéd in this fine cloak of acting craft,

Tell me, Clover, the design their minds draft?

Those lines, those divine lines, sprang into her head like a radio transmission. The brilliance lit up Twilight's mind: Starswirl lectured his apprentice, Clover, in rhyme, because such words caught the eye and ear most sublime.

“Starswirl,” she whispered to her reflection, “plainly you know as well as I/that an answer cannot be by your lips/too long contained. So tell me now without/your verbal art, what you seek to instruct?”

What have I done to deserve a filly,

Whose mind is as dull and witless as this?

But listen now, I will recount most plain

My meaning, for your help I need anon:

The thinking faculty, our high reason,

Is by some virtue known to each alone,

Sealéd inside our skull like treasure keep

With map stowed safely out of others' reach.

We oft parade those bangles that we love,

And so it is with thoughts that spring to mind.

But baubles dull, and all the thoughts unwise,

Are kept down deep to stay the scorner's wit.

So speak you now, of what is real or not,

If this lesson you have unart'flee got.

As we all trot across the worldly stage,

Or turn our eyne to words of bygone age,

Tell me, is it the mare whose thoughts are guessed

Who is soothfast, or one with thoughts expressed?

The irony of that passage never failed to amuse Twilight. Here was a play written about the greatest sorcerer of all time, and yet he could only be known through what was written by him or about him. How much was the truth? Was any of it true? Even when it came to his own writings, she wondered what secret thoughts lurked in his brain, hidden between the lines, forever unwritten. Secret thoughts about how evil the sun tyrant was? Thoughts doomed to be forever unexpressed because Solara's armies would round him up as a heretic? Whatever Starswirl really felt on the inside hadn't survived. Those thoughts died with him. Now, unicorns like her argued over whether he should be proscribed as a savage chained to an outdated and unnatural philosophy or whether his ideas could be salvaged as the product of their time.

More words, those arguments. Words about words. An ever-increasing mountain of them, all stored in the Canterlot Archives deep inside Mount Canterlot. A mountain inside a mountain.

It was language that made ponies more than animals, allowed them to grasp complex and abstract concepts and share them with others, with their foals, with all of pony history yet to happen. Written or remembered language allowed them to survive death itself. All of civilization, its history and principles and legends, were nothing but books full of words, written by or about somepony. Even art depended on language. Every piece of artwork needed a name affixed, so the artist could shine on in the minds of ponies. Language allowed ponies to communicate aesthetics, to exchange supplies and materials, to gather together in movements and art circles, to put into communal words the emotions that worked in them so strongly.

What were ponies, then, but the words they left behind after their death?

Civilization needs to survive, she thought, or we're nothing more than animals.

"It's not civilization that's the problem," she whispered. "It's them."

The revelation blossomed inside her mind, lending her a comforting feeling of safety and security. She had heard the theory of degeneracy, of course, but her encounter with the little earth filly who had tripped her up had lent it a certain weight for her. Shoved it into her face, almost. It was a small instance of a larger pattern, repeated ad infinitum throughout history, that she only now began to perceive in its entirety. For a millennium, earth ponies had been sabotaging Equestria by making sure the Empire of the Moon was underfed. That was why their muzzles had to be put to the grindstone, so they would do their duty. And now, after the start of the industrial age, when they had migrated to Canterlot en masse to work in the firms and corporations the unicorns had built from the ground up, they carried that laziness and contempt for civilization with them.

Though The Empyrean Herd was written in 958, it said nothing about the degeneracy of earth ponies. If fact, it said nothing about racial degeneracy at all. It was full of sneering contempt for Griffon civilization and championed the virtues of Equestria, the eponymous herd, but it was not contextualized as an actual racial distinction, merely a weakness of spirit and values. That came later, when the book entered widespread circulation, and even then, equine degeneracy was still a fringe belief. After all, if the earth ponies farmed the food, they must still be governed by natural law. Part of the herd, at their rightful place in the fields. But the racialist application of degeneracy had shepherded Equestria through the war with the Griffons, holding ponydom together as the fate of their nascent Empire was put in peril by the degenerates on their border. And after the Golden Roost fell and the Empire emerged victorious, the book took on a new role as a guiding light, demonstrating how and why Canterlot was the pinnacle of civilization.

It was only when those earth pony agitators started bucking against the High Castle and the natural order that they were labeled 'degenerate'. And the idea certainly made theoretical sense: in the fifteen years after the war, Canterlot enjoyed a golden age of prosperity. What other reason could there be for hating it? Their desire to upend natural law was irrational in the extreme. There must be a defect in them, everypony assumed. And when those agitators formed secret revolutionary gangs like the Winter Brigade, plunging the entirety of Canterlot into peril, it only proved the theory absolutely correct.

But to the best of her knowledge, no serious scholar had ever labeled the pegasus race 'degenerate'. Their duty was to be led by unicorns, their managers in civilian life and their officers in military life, yet that had never been contextualized as a racial deficit. Yet the more Twilight mulled it over, the more the shape of it made sense. Pegasus ponies had wings, and so did Griffons, suggesting the two had interbred in ancient history, just like earth ponies. Like Griffons, pegasi were unfit to rule themselves; the Griffons had lost the war, whereas the pegasi led by unicorns had won it. And like Griffons, pegasi were crude and boorish, and overly aggressive without refinement.

Like that Shadowbolt Directorate. She couldn't say if she ever believed the rumormongers who whispered they had murdered her brother. But they were the only agency not managed by unicorns. Wild and untamed. Were they, too, a degenerate race bucking against the natural order? It was so obvious, now that she saw it. The unicorns were the stewards of the other pony races because they and they alone were untainted by a degenerate body. The whole of history was ripe for reexamination.

Was that what her brother's ghost wanted to warn her about? That he had been murdered by the guardians of society?

Perhaps she would write a book. A new Empyrean Herd for a new age. Yes, she thought, tingling with delight. She would write a book of her own, laying out exactly how this world was going wrong. Of course, the pegasus ponies were the backbone of security and defense. Had other ponies recognized this and not mentioned it out of politeness? And who would make the pegasi do their duty, if they rebelled against their unicorns?

Ah, well, she had plenty of time to figure out how to set this world right and write it down. She hadn't felt this hopeful during the entire six months it had been since her brother's death.

By now, the redness in Twilight's eyes had faded. Armed and armored with this new knowledge, she left the bathroom and entered the supermarket once again. She saw it with fresh eyes now. Not as an indomitable edifice, but as a mighty structure rotting from within. The product of earth ponies failing to do their duty, and pegasus ponies failing to do their own duty to make earth ponies do their duty. The product of a world where righteous unicorns struggled to uplift the degenerate races trying to drag them back down to the ground.

When she returned to shopping cart, she found that little earth pony had neatly stacked her all groceries inside it. Yet Twilight felt the filly's degenerate impulse to sabotage everything she represented seething behind the filly's smile. She bowed as Twilight harnessed herself to the cart again.

“Lead me to the check-out line,” Twilight demanded. She had to be firm if the earth pony was to know her place.

The earth pony deepened her bow, then jumped to her hooves. Her place was to serve, and she did so eagerly. She darted down the aisle, leading the way forward for her worldly master. Twilight followed at her leisure, until the path led her down the hard cider aisle. She slowed her pace and stared at row after row of those sweet brown bottles. They whispered that only they could give her the courage to face this new world she had discovered and to steel herself against the indignities of the degenerates. Twilight gave a quick glance around the store, to see if anypony was watching, then swiped a bottle and stuck it in her saddlebag. If nopony knew it was stolen, if nopony could connect the deed to her name and legacy, then she figured it was the same as a thought unexpressed. Lost in time, forever.

Besides, she thought, this place was rotted from the inside and it had tried to swallow her whole. It was a symbol of the princess's noble work being corrupted by degenerate instincts. It was only fair that she, whose duty it was to reverse that decay, deserved a bottle for herself.

Now where had that little earth pony gotten to?

Ah hate ya, ya stuck-up unicorn, Apple Bloom thought. You and yer whole rotten kind.

But when the unicorn ambled out of the aisle, pompous and preening, Apple Bloom slapped a smile on her face. That was expected of her. An earth pony quickly learns to smile and tell unicorns what they want to hear or she doesn't make it very far. But her thoughts were her own, and she filled them with curses and jeers. Sarcastically, she thought, Take yer time, why don't ya? But it was part of her prank, having led the lost unicorn to the exact opposite side of the checkout lanes from the only one occupied by a cashier.

“That register aaaall the way down there is open, ma'am,” she said, pointing to the far end. "Happy ta be a'service!"

The unicorn stuck her muzzle in the air and strode away without so much as a 'thank you'. Apple Bloom was tempted to take a can off the shelf and chuck it at the unicorn's head, watch it bash against her stupid skull and burst all over her. Apple Bloom's fake smile slowly became a real one as she imagined the unicorn's long, unshaven mane doused with soup or Lorca-brand Canned Watermelon.

Then she was gone, and Apple Bloom had to get back to the business of stocking shelves. It was almost five o'clock. She wondered how her sister dealt with the humiliation. Big Mac had his plans and Granny Smith was too old to think right anymore, but her big sister just sulked and kept to herself all the time. How did she deal with this life without exploding?

Apple Bloom's legs and back ached fiercely from eight solid hours of work, but she was an earth pony. Her kind were strong, stronger than unicorns and even pegasi; she could deal with it. 'Earth ponies always get by,' her parents had once written. She had read all their papers and pamphlets from the Winter Brigade. 'They are like the earth itself: the hegemony can move it, throw it, beat it, and burn it, but they cannot destroy it. Not ever. The hegemony can break an earth pony's back all they want, but they need the earth pony race, for without it they don't have a ground to stand on. So we earth ponies scrape by and endure their indignities, one day at a time, and work in secret towards the brighter future that we know lays ahead. And it will not be found in their moon or in their World to Come. It will be found in the first rays of the rising sun.'

Or so Apple Bloom told herself. But in truth she would've loved nothing more than to collapse onto the floor and fallen asleep right then and there. It was about as soft and comforting as her worn-out bed at home.

When she returned to the intersection with her spilled trolley, she found her unicorn manager, Cost Cutter, standing over it and the pile of cans on the linoleum. When he turned to face her, the red tie dangling in front of his starched white dress shirt whipped around before settling back down. His balding head gleamed in the lights.

"What do you call this?" he asked sternly.

"It wasn't mah fault, Mister Cost Cutter, sir! There was a unicorn, see, an' she ran into me, an' Ah--"

"Alright, alright," he said, holding a forehoof up to silence her. "Just get it all cleaned up and on the shelves."

"Yes, sir! Thank ya, sir!"

When the whistle blew, Applejack dropped her crowbar and wiped the sweat from her brow. Five o'clock. Another eight solid hours of work done. The other earth ponies sagged and exhaled heavily, but there was only so many times in the day she could sigh, and while work might be over for them, her night was just beginning. She shut her machines down, punched her timecard, then trudged over to the rapidly forming line of earth ponies snaking out of the boss's office, waiting for their paychecks. Time whiled away while she waited. Her stomach tightened a little more with every passing second as she thought of what came next.

Don't think about it, AJ, she told herself.

Now that the furor of the machinery had died down, she could hear the radio playing in the office. "....artificial limbs, dentures, glass eyes, whatever you need to be whole again. I'm Doctor Eldritch, and for the past twenty years me and my partner Doctor Hoofer have been working with unicorns after major traumas. We've helped hundreds with our prosthetics, custom-made from cutting-edge materials on a pony-by-pony basis, to ensure they fit you. If you haven't been feeling yourself lately, we're here to help. Hoofer/Eldritch-brand Prosthetics. Lifetime guaranteed. Ask about our affordable payment plan. Don't let the stigmata of disfigurement follow you around. Come see us today."

And fer us earth ponies, she thought bitterly, soon as we get a leg in the gears, the Bureau a'Harmony comes right 'round an' puts us down fer bein' unfit ta work.

The commercial ended and a snippet of music, a high-pitched rat-a-tat-tat that gave way to booming and self-important brass, came from the tinny speaker. "Aaaand welcome back to Yako Financial News! This is Yakking About Business, and we're your hosts, Lee Reynard...."

"And Kit Soon, and for those of you just tuning in, we're joined today by a great guest, great entrepreneur, all-around great mare, Vixien Volpony! So, Vix, before the break, we were talking about the loan market. You know, you got these, uh, these banks...."

"....giving loans to earth ponies," Lee Reynard added. "And the High Castle gives them tax breaks to do it!"

And fer us earth ponies, Applejack thought again, soon as we go an' criticize the hegemony, the Midnight Guard comes right 'round ta put us down fer bein' unfit ta work.

"The banks try and spin it as helping avoid another crash like the one in 986," Reynard continued. "But that's ridiculous."

"Yeah, everypony who has half a moonbeam in their mind knows the economic crash had nothing to do with the Winter Rising. That was just an excuse the Brigade peddled to run wild."

And fer us earth ponies, Applejack thought for a third time, soon as we make ourselves a bid fer freedom, the Shadowbolts come right 'round ta put us down fer bein' unfit ta work.

"Absolutely. So we have all these banks giving earth ponies hoof-outs, but that isn't going to help them, it's going to hurt all of us. If you don't give them a reason to work harder, nothing is going to get done. In fact, leave them idle for too long, they get rebellious. That's a fact. Look at what's happening out in Las Pegasus right now. Lots of earth pony agitation and unrest after General Horsepower's plan to build a factory fell through. Vix, what do you think?"

"Well, you know, my family has been running the imperial pens for over ten years," Volpony said. "After the one-two kick of the economic crash and the Winter Rising, when the High Castle reinstated the Edict of 674 and made earth ponies wards of the state again, there was this big question of, 'What now? How do we do this?' The government was busy fighting the war and didn't have the money. So my family came along and petitioned the High Castle to privatize the whole thing, and the High Castle agreed. I've spent ten years running my fair share of earth pony labor farms, and I've come into contact with a lot of them. And I found out that the only kind of hoof-out an earth pony really needs is one holding a cat o'nine-tails."

The three of them laughed over the radio, making Applejack's blood boil. She scoffed angrily, but the burning blush that spread across her face threatened to turn her fury into tears. She tried to tune it out, but it was hard with those jeering voices cutting her to the core.

"If only things were that easy here in the city," Kit Soon quipped. "No bank loans. No hoof-outs."

"If only. I have a dog," Volpony said, dwelling with pride at the mention of her luxury pet, "and I love him, but every so often he'll come to the table and look up at me, his eyes begging me for table scraps. And that's what earth ponies and hoof-outs remind me of, you know? Soon as they smell 'em, they come over and start sniffing around, and sometimes you just gotta roll up the newspaper and smack 'em in the snout and say, 'No! No hoof-outs for you.'"

"Exactly. If you want to eat in this city, you have to earn it with hard work."

Applejack was close to the office now, with only a hoofful of ponies separating her from the door. A commotion caught her attention, and she gladly focused on it. Leaning around the line, she saw a stallion inside the office arguing with the unicorn boss, Mister Billows.

"Hey, what is this?!" the earth pony asked, waving his paycheck in the boss's face. "Where's the rest of my wages?"

Mister Billows looked up from his ledger. "Your employers have a pressing need to combat this company's flagging productivity." His flat and unempathetic tone picked up slightly, casting blame at Applejack and her kind. "To that end, they have deducted a small portion of your wages towards the invention and implementation of a F&F-brand mechanical feeding device, which will allow you to eat while you work."

"They've already cut our lunch breaks from ten minutes to five," the stallion said. "Now they want to cut them entirely?!"

"Look on the bright side: you'll be paid for eating your lunch now. And the food pellets for use with the device have already been certified with the Bureau of Harmony's Rationing Division and will be available for purchase directly from Flim & Flam at very, very affordable rates."

The stallion slammed his hooves on Mister Billows' desk and shouted, "This is ridiculous!"

A pegasus overseer detached himself from the wall and strode over to the stallion, scowling with barely-restrained menace. The stallion looked like he was going to stand up for himself, but only for a moment. Then he hung his head, his fetlock tightening around his paycheck, and slunk away from the boss.

Even though AJ was a ward of the High Castle, like all her kin, they wanted her to be glad they had kept the wage system going. A slice of civilization, they called it, that separated Equestria from the other degenerate races. But that didn't fool her for a second. It had been in place since before the Edict of 674 was reinstated, and the High Castle kept it going because they had nothing to lose. The money just went to the unicorns anyway, after they conned earth ponies with utility bills and overpriced rationed food and mandatory inspections by the Bureau of Harmony to prove they were fit for work. And when their wages couldn't cover it, the banks were all too happy to loan a few bits. The unicorn bank officers waited in their little kiosks in the pawn shops and decrepit little convenience stores that sprang up all around the ghetto, with smiles full of daggered teeth and pegasus security guards hovering nearby, for an earth pony at the end of her or his rope to wander in and sit down and beg for a few coins to keep them going through the eternal night.

Applejack's teeth ground together. They're all up there on the radio, complainin' away 'bout banks lendin' us money at twenty-five percent interest? Banks that just want ta get us all into a whole mess of debt and take us fer all we're worth?

But when her turn came and she stepped up to Mister Billows' desk, she took her paycheck and left the factory without a word. Complaining was no use when the unicorns held the reins, and she needed to save her breath. It was a long way back to the ghetto. Back home, at least the stores would cash her check and sell her whatever food her ration status would cover, and mayhap a little more for the right price. But only because the Bureau of Harmony gave them tax breaks to operate there. When 'respectable' unicorns stuck to their principles and refused to serve her, the less scrupulous moved in to gouge her and her kind for all they were worth. The princess sure does provide fer her city, she thought sarcastically as she passed a sign hanging in a small store front that read, 'ABSOLUTELY NO UNATTENDED EARTH PONIES INSIDE THE PREMISES!'

As Apple Bloom's trolley emptied and the stock went up on the shelves, the supermarket slowly filled up with customers. The unicorns and pegasus ponies always needed directions to this or that, because even though the store was meant for them they could never find their way around it. Whenever she came across the occasional earth pony assistant, towed along by her or his unicorn, a secret smile always passed between them. The earth ponies had to be smarter than those they served, just to survive. They were the ones who knew the supermarket like the back of their pasterns.

Once the last box had been put on the shelf, she made her way to Cost Cutter's office and he grudgingly let her go home for the day. Apple Bloom took a pencil in her mouth and signed her hours in the log book, then collected last week's meager paycheck from the boss. She hung her apron inside her locker and pulled her saddlebag out. After she buckled it around her middle, she put her paycheck inside and checked to make sure her passport was in there, in case she ran into a checkpoint.

There was almost always one at the ghetto's entrances, but these days it seemed like the Shadowbolts were more interested in Changelings than earth ponies. All the roadblocks were in the city center, where some new musical was opening. As for Apple Bloom, she didn't care whether it was the EPLF or the Changelings, so long as one of them blew up the unicorns soon.

She found her passport booklet and flipped it open to check the ration card taped inside. The holes were nearly punched out, and a new card wouldn't arrive until the first of next month. Meanwhile, her stomach was rumbling, but that was alright. She knew a place to get some food where she didn't need a ration card. She left the Super-Duper Market by the back door. On the sidewalk, the air was thick with smog. Autocarriages zoomed past in the mist. A neon sign of a spinning vinyl record beckoned to her across the street, but she resisted going to it. Not only would a record from a store here eat up most, if not all, of her paycheck, any record that made it past the Midnight Guard's censors held no interest for her. She also knew a place to get much better records. They might not sound as good, but what they had to say more than made up for it.

“No, no, no,” Rarity said, pushing the report away. She stared into the full-length mirror in the corner of her penthouse's living room and continued accessorizing herself with her beautiful new black dress. “I want to cancel the proposed factory in Las Pegasus, and refurbish the General Horsepower factory in Detrot.”

Golden Hoofshake ignited his horn and magically levitated the folder onto the glass coffee table. “I understand what you want, but the Governor of Las Pegasus had assurances from the High Castle itself that the factory would proceed before General Horsepower declared bankruptcy. They'll be expecting you to honor that.”

Absently, Rarity said, “It's my money to spend, and my business to run. Not the High Castle's. When the Griffon war started, they said free enterprise and private initiative is what separates Equestria from the enemy, remember?”

“And look where such a soft hoof got us: the Winter Rising. Now, the High Castle protects your enterprise, remember? The Civil Force? The Midnight Guard? The court system? They safeguard our society, and if anything should threaten it...." His voice darkened and turned malevolent, surely recalling the destruction of his business by earth ponies during the Rising. "....they put a stop to it. Don't make yourself into a threat, Rarity."

She magically lifted a pair of black earrings to her ears, but they were too dull and looked more grayish when compared with the deep black of her dress. And they were too angular and not curving enough to go with its looping stitches. Distantly, she said, “Well, I'm sure we can make an arrangement that'll make both Las Pegasus and the High Castle happy.”

“I don't think so. Haven't you been listening to the radio recently?”

“Only Thorny Bends.”

In the mirror, she saw him tilt his head. He asked, “Who?”

Rarity levitated another pair of earrings to her ears. “Oh, she has this show, Thorny Bends and Her Lovely Friends. One of those radio personality-driven shows. She does have a tendency to ramble, but I find what she says most refreshing, so I don't mind.”

“Well, if you'd been listening to the EBC or Yako Financial, you'd know Las Pegasus has been having some, er, setbacks with their livestock. They want the new factory to put the earth ponies to work before they start rioting.”

“Do we have anything in Las Pegasus?” Rarity asked. She made an excited squeal when she found the perfect pair of round obsidian earrings. “Rarefaction, I mean.”

“A few exclusive boutiques. Nothing industrial.”

“It would be much more cost effective if we opened a Rarefaction factory instead. We could employ just as many earth ponies, and without the overhead and infrastructure development we'd need for autocarriage manufacturing.” Rarity smiled to herself as she brushed a few stray hairs back into her mane. Just think, Rarity: your flair for fabulousness, spreading across Equestria from sea to shining sea. Sharing your gift with all the lucky young fillies and colts. And keeping those poor earth ponies from suffering because of a few bad apples who refuse to do their fair share of the work. And your name will forever be known as the captain of industry who rescued the city from a dreadful economic slump. They might even build a statue in your honor!

Yes, expanding Rarefaction is a most generous gesture.

Golden Hoofshake shrugged. “If you think they'll go for it....”

“Let me worry about that, darling. It's my company.” Rarity finished brushing her hair and gave it a liberal spraying of hair spray, then stepped back and surveyed her work. “I'm the one whose neck is on the line, after all.”

The bedroom door creaked open. A set of heavy hooves stomped down the tiered wooden floor. “Are you ready?”

When Rarity turned and laid eyes on Blueblood, she gasped. Trotting quickly across the living room, she yelled, “Oh, no, no, no! What are you doing?!”

Taken aback and deeply confused, he shied back and asked, “What? What is it?!”

“You can't wear that!” she snapped, waving a hoof at his double-breasted velvet shirt. “You wore that to the opera last week!”

Defensively, he said, “I had it cleaned!”

“But ponies will be watching! Taking pictures! Of us! Think of what they'll say if a premiere fashion designer's boyfriend is sporting the same outfit he wore last week!”

"But I like this outfit!" His eyebrows drew together as his forehead creased. “D-do you think I should wear something new?”

Rarity wanted to kick him in his idiotic face, but she reined herself in and maintained a sense of decorum. Her voice was strained as she said, “I think that would be wise.”

“I'll go find something new,” he said before leaving in a hurry.

He makes me so mad, she thought, turning to the window dominating the wall of her apartment. Skyscrapers glowed like pillars of light, making the thick smog glow golden. What did I do to deserve such an idiot? He's from old money and he's not unpleasing on the eye, and the ponies adore him, so....

On a little table in the corner lay an ice box. She hesitated briefly, then decided that a night out with Blueblood would try her patience abominably. Using her magic, she poured a nip of cider into a glass and sipped it while she waited. The liquid burned sourly-sweet on its way down her throat, but when it kindled that fire in her stomach, the kind that slowly spread through her body and made her tingle, she really didn't mind. She offered a glass to Golden Hoofshake, but he declined and took the opportunity to make his goodbyes and wish her a good night at the show. When he was gone, Rarity turned back to the window.

I wonder how big Sweetie Belle has gotten since I last saw her, she thought.

It couldn't have been more than four or five months ago, since the school year started, but it felt like ages. It pained her to send Sweetie off to boarding school, but her hooves were far too full. She simply didn't have the time to raise her sister properly. She barely had enough time to raise Rarefaction properly. The academy in Manehattan had come with excellent recommendations, and for how much money it had cost her over the past seven years, she expected her sister's education to be top of the line. Of course, that didn't stop ponies from coming up with all kinds of stories about Sweetie Belle. Trying to wheedle money from the family fortune. She didn't involve herself much with all that. She had plenty of baseless gossip in her own life. No, that was a matter best left for her publicists. The price of fame and fortune was that everypony else wanted a piece of it. That was the universal solution to her problems, it seemed: just throw money at it to make it go away.

“Oh, Coco!” she called.

Her personal assistant came trotting over. “Yes, Rarity?”

Rarity glanced at the clock. “We're meeting Sweetie Belle at the theater, correct?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Coco said. "In the lobby."

Distantly, Rarity murmured, “I do so hope she's not delayed.”

Below the Auriga Cloudraker's nosecone, just barely visible through the windshield, was a dense swirling smog. “Better get on the horn to CAC,” the pilot said, his forehooves stuck through the holes in the control wheel, keeping the rocket plane steady as it blasted through the starlit sky. "Make sure they have us on radar."

Next to him, the co-pilot lay on his stomach on his own moulded acceleration couch, its straps holding him down tightly and keeping his wings pinned to his flank. He leaned forward, over the instrument panel, to peer through the swirling, impenetrable haze, looking for the telltale glow of Canterlot. But the roiling ocean of cloud cover, mixed with the smoke and fumes coming from the factories clustered on the mountain shelf, offered him a vast expanse of nothing.

“Where's the warning beacon?” he asked.

The pilot scanned the horizon before pointing to a tiny red dot. The warning lights of the EBC radio mast at the peak of the mountain, standing just high enough to stick out of the smog. A faint golden glow blossomed in the heavy cloud cover, just barely visible from the rocket plane's cruising height of 70,000 feet.

“There she is,” the pilot said.

The co-pilot reached overhead, to the radio box, and hit a switch to open a channel to the communications center at the foot of the radio mast, overlooking the landing strips that hung off the side of the mountain. Into his headset, he said, “Canterlot Air Control, this is Raptor Airways Flight 662 inbound. Authorization code 3221AB-2. Requesting clearance to land.”

The radio crackled. “Copy, Raptor 662. You're cleared to land on strip three. Be careful, though. The Civil Force are in the middle of some maneuvers not far from you, and the visibility out there is for s--” Static crackled over the headset. “--and may our princess's moon guide you down safe.”

“Thanks, Canterlot. We'll try not to set any records for most daredevil landing. We wouldn't want you colts and fillies to have a heart attack worrying about us.”

“Heh, copy that,” the tower said.

"We'll call you when we start our approach."

The moon was in view through the windshield. On a whim, the co-pilot kissed his hoof and touched it to the windshield right where it shone over them. That old gesture of good luck from his days in the Equestrian Air Force. The pilot's wings bristled at his side as he gave his co-pilot a sidelong glare. They'd been flying together long enough that the co-pilot could sense what he meant plain enough: 'How dare you think we need luck while I'm flying this plane.'

“Haven't seen the cloud cover this bad for a long time,” the pilot said.

“It's passing right now,” the co-pilot replied. “You can tell from the way it's swirling around down there. All this smog may look imposing, but it'll blow away pretty quick. Trust me, during the Griffon war I went on bombing runs a lot hairier than this.”

As they headed towards the red dot on the horizon, the co-pilot thought back to those days in the air force. He had been barely older than a colt when he climbed into his baby, the HK2, as it waited on the airbase runway for him. Strapped himself down on his stomach in the cockpit at the forward end of the sleek rounded fuselage. Felt the powerful Auriga jet engines blast him down the runway and lift him into the sky over the islands of the Pegaponnese archipelago, on the fateful day General Able Archer ordered the invasion of Khymerzj to commence.

As the HK2 screamed through the sky, bound northwards, he saw the moon to his left. That radiant orb was all the way down on the horizon, so far away now. He put his hoof over it, longing for home. Yet he was dutybound to be out here, with the sun pounding the cockpit from the opposite end of the world, where the degenerates lived. The sun was the source, the High Castle said. That blazing, raging inferno just over the curve of the earth warped everything living in its light. He had been terrified of becoming like the pegasus ponies still living in the Pegaponnese, passive and weak and unwilling to fight the hordes living on their doorstep. Degenerate, just like the Griffon race. A shiver of terror struck him every time the sunlight warmed his coat.

His fighter jet carried him over the grassy plains where General Archer was readying to march on the border and begin the invasion of Khymerzj, disguised as a routine war game in the idyllic Pegaponnese archipelago. The pegasus ponies came from here, he thought to steel himself. The noble warrior spirit of his ancestors gave him the strength to go on, to fly through the sky on that fateful day. To finally reach the city of Khymerzj, a brutish city of dingy bricks and squat, ugly towers. There was no denying it had been made by degenerate minds. He watched the tiny dots of Griffons standing below stare upward, until he and his wing released their bombs and started pounding the city, blowing the primitive defenses to dust and ash. The stone walls couldn't protect them from Equestria's technological ingenuity, a product of the moon's higher rationality, nor could the walls protect them from Able Archer's forces. The army struck like lightning and felled Khymerzj in no time at all.

Despite the Griffons' pretenses at martial spirit, aimed at ejecting the ponies from their newly reclaimed homelands, the degenerate Griffon mind and body was no match for the full might of Equestria. For eight years, the Air Force pounded Gynnhazja Bakal, 'the Golden Roost', with air strikes while the ground forces made their slow advance through the treacherous deserts, snowy forests, and daunting mountains, heading for the palace of the Griffon King. It was nestled in the mountain peaks, made of pale golden oval-shaped buildings inside a fortified wall, like a nest. The Griffons had superior numbers on their side, and the horde harried the Equestrians the whole way there with their primitive catapults and black powder explosives.

In their desperation to halt the air wings, the Griffons had taken to facing the fighter jets unarmored. They would fly in waves out of the sun, which grew higher on the horizon the further east they went. Swallowing down his rising panic, he dodged and weaved through the downpour of slow-moving Griffons. They swiped at his plane's fuselage with swords and spears before he screamed past, all while he desperately tried to swat them out of the sky with his blazing machine guns. He remembered all too well the screams of his wingponies over the radio every time a lucky Griffon hurled a spear, a rock, a sword, or even a leg or head into his or her engine intake and made the plane blow up under them. The downed jets crashed in fiery streaks into the snowy drifts on the side of the mountains.

Towards the end, the Griffons managed to cobble together their own aircraft by studying the recovered wreckage of Equestrian fighter jets. But those pathetic wooden things were no match for the EAF. The Griffons had neither the technical know-how nor the developed industrial base to make proper airplanes. Industrialization was the hallmark of civilization, and the degenerate's instinct is to shun and corrupt civilization. All the Griffons could make were inferior copies because they themselves were inferior copies of ponies. He, on the other hoof, had the might of the Equestrian nation behind him, powering him, giving him wings. When the ground forces finally reached the Golden Roost, with the degenerate sun high in the sky, the Griffons had been too exhausted to continue fighting their natural superiors. They declared unconditional surrender then and there. He had gone into the war little more than a colt. Eight years later, he had gone home a stallion, no longer afraid of the sun. He had stared right into it and the degenerates it spawned, and emerged victorious. Its degeneration couldn't touch him.

The pilot was saying something to him, rousing him from his remembrance. "Huh?"

“I said, you should go tell our passenger to buckle down."

"Right," the co-pilot said.

He pulled off his headset and unbuckled the straps across his back that held him to his acceleration couch. He buttoned up his dress shirt, tightened his tie, and donned his peaked cap. The more professional he looked, the better, he supposed. Then he slipped on his mirrored shades, another holdover from the EAF, and maneuvered carefully through the tight cockpit crammed with instruments. He opened the door, allowing him into the rocket plane's passenger section. He ducked under the bulkhead, and it was well he did because an empty glass came flying at him. It shattered against the wall. Pieces rained down on the thick carpet. The loud noise and flying projectile triggered some deep instinct to take flight, and his wings fluttered open slightly. As if he could fly anywhere in this cramped metal tube.

'Being brave isn't about not wanting to fly far away from the battle.' An ancient memory came back to him. His wing commander lecturing all of them in that cramped little briefing room in the Pegaponnese airbase. 'It's about defying that instinct. The higher calling we fight for are what make ponies more than degenerates, like the ones we're about to drop this ordinance on.'

Likewise, being brave wasn't marching up to the little brat who'd thrown the glass and throttling her, but bucking up and acting courteous to her. He bit his tongue and put that fake public relations smile on his face with what he considered admirable restraint. “Is there a problem?” he asked. “Something I can help you with?”

The filly's personal servant stood in the aisle running between the rows of couches. The light brown stallion beamed at the co-pilot and, in a country drawl, said, “Not a thing, sir, not a thing.”

“Shut up, you dirt-eater!” Sweetie Belle screamed, standing on top of her safety couch.

She lifted up her in-flight pillow by her teeth and threw it. It hit the fuselage with a soft thump. Thank the princess that she and her entourage are the only passengers on this flight, the co-pilot thought. If I had to deal with a hundred passengers complaining about her, I'd blow the emergency door open and fly back to Canterlot by myself. Luckily, Raptor Airways had long ago learned to schedule all her flights as impromptu chartered flights. Her family was certainly wealthy enough to afford it.

“Now, now, Sweetie Belle,” the earth pony said. His shorn mane revealed a bald spot that gleamed in the electric lights. “Why don't we do as the nice pegasus says?”

“Because I don't want to!”

Urgently, he leaned forward until he was almost groveling and asked, “Then what do you want?”

Heaving for breath, Sweetie Belle gave her servant a glare of death. “I want Rarity to meet me at the airport!”

The co-pilot's wife fawned over trashy gossip magazines, full of pictures of Sweetie Belle being a perfect little angel while modeling her sister's dresses and attending galas in Manehattan. But from the rumors he'd heard, Rarefaction paid out plenty of hush money whenever Sweetie Belle threw one of these tantrums, enough to make it worth anypony's while to put up with her and not give her any bad press. He wondered if he could afford a hovercarriage after this run was over.

“I told you,” her servant said, “we'll be meeting her at the theater. There'll be a hovercarriage waiting at the airstrip and everything! W-won't that be nice?”

“I don't want a hovercarriage,” Sweetie Belle shrieked, her voice rising sharply, “I want Rarity.”

The earth pony dabbed a bead of sweat from his brow. “But Sweetie....”

“That's Sweetie Belle to you, and don't you forget it.” Her face turned red as she raged. “Don't you forget what you are! Just 'cause you had that earmark taken off, don't you forget the High Castle just gives you dirt-eaters away. There's a thousand more exactly like you, cheap to hire....and cheaper to get rid of.”

When the earth pony breathed in, it sounded like a whimper. His knees started to buckle and sweat dotted his brow.

Sorry, buddy, the co-pilot thought, them's the breaks. Stepping forward, he firmly stated, “Miss Belle, we're about to start our descent into Canterlot. I'm afraid you'll have to buckle yourself into the safety couch.”

“I don't want to!” she screamed.

“That's apparent, ma'am. But it's for your own safety, so I really do have to insist.”

“You can't make me do anything, I'm a unicorn! You're a pegasus, so you have to do what I say!”

Slick as oil, the co-pilot said, “We're also in charge of protecting and transporting you unicorns, and I can tell you right now that these are top-of-the-line Auriga-brand XK102 rockets propelling this plane. In order to stop on the runway before we fall off the other side, we're going to have to fire retro rockets. And when those babies light up, if you're not buckled into your couch, you'll shoot forward and hit that bulkhead--" He pointed to the cockpit door behind him. "--so fast you'll become a very flat filly.”

Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared. “You wouldn't dare.”

Quickly, efficiently, coldly, he stated, “If we don't dare, then we keep circling until the plane runs out of fuel. These rocket engines propel us through the air at an average speed of 1,500 miles per hour and burn through fuel like there's no tomorrow. As soon as we run out, we plummet to the ground in a spectacular wreck. This plane is going down either way, so I suggest you strap yourself in.”

Faced with his unflappable demeanor, the filly admitted defeat and laid on her safety couch. To her assistant, she screeched, “Strap me in, Filthy!”

“Certainly, Miss Belle, certainly!” he cried as he rushed over.

The co-pilot headed back to the cockpit, dreaming about the hovercarriage he wanted. Maybe a General Horsepower? He could probably get one cheap, since they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Then he remembered there was talk of Rarefaction Industries buying the firm out. He didn't feel like taking his money and giving it right back to Sweetie Belle.

“Still in one piece, I see,” the pilot said.

The co-pilot shut the door and laid down on the acceleration couch. He strapped himself back down. “You just got to let these unicorns know who's the boss.”

“There was talk about her sister buying shares in Raptor Airways, meaning she might technically be our boss soon.”

“She can be boss of the company, sure. But not of this plane. As long as it's in the air, we're the bosses.”

The pilot sighed. “So maybe we should just keep flying, then. What's stopping us?”

Trying to forget about that looming divorce, hmm? the co-pilot thought. “Fuel, mostly. But responsibility has something to do with it, probably. It's like...." He stared at the radio mast on the horizon and marshaled his thoughts. "Being the boss means a pony takes responsibility for the plane, fulfilling their duty to whomever entrusted them with it. If they're not responsible, everypony crashes and dies.”

“Touche,” the pilot said. He reached up and opened a radio channel. “Tower, what's the status on those Civil Force maneuvers?”

The co-pilot put his headset back on and heard the tower say, “Uh, what we got from their office says they'll mostly be staying west of the city, near Cloudsdale Air Base, and up out of hovercarriage range. They're doing some kind of war game, with the Air Force playing the baddies.”

“Isn't that kind of dangerous?” the pilot asked.

“Hey, we don't like it either, but General Mace is the chair of the Defense Council. Even after we brought him today's weather report, he still gave it the go-ahead. He thought that if it took place in Canterlot airspace it would seem more real for his pilots. And you know how he is; tell him he can't do something, he calls you a degenerate who's stabbing the nation in the back.”

“What about the princess? Doesn't the High Castle have anything to say about this?”

“Not that we've heard, Raptor 662.”

Incredulous, the co-pilot asked, “Who even has an air force besides us, anyway?”

The tower replied: “Mace is two steps away from going out and giving the Changelings one, just so he has somepony to protect the city from. Anyway, we've got the fighters on radar right now, and they're not that close. As long as they stay within the bounds of their area of operation, they shouldn't come anywhere near you. There's an air corridor you can cruise right through. Just align yourself with a vector of....three-two-five and you'll be fine.”

"Alright, tower." The pilot pressed a switch on the console, and the co-pilot heard his voice echo from behind the cabin door. "This is your captain speaking. We're firing the retro rockets in thirty seconds, so make sure you're strapped in tight and all loose objects are stowed in the compartment under your seat."

The co-pilot took off his shades and peaked cap and stowed them in a bin besides his couch.

The pilot spent the thirty seconds muttering to himself and shaking his head, then when the count had elapsed he turned to his co-pilot and announced, "Light 'em up."

"You got it."

The co-pilot laid his fetlock over the retro rocket throttle and started to push it forward while the pilot cut back on the main thrusters. There was a mighty boom as twin lances of fire shot from the small engines mounted on either side of the Cloudraker's front. The two pilots were instantly thrown forward and would have smashed their faces to a bloody pulp on the instrument panels were it not for their acceleration couches. Shockwaves ran along the whole fuselage and a high-pitched whine filled their ears, but gradually the shaking abated and the almighty hoof of inertia pulling them forward slowly let go. The pilot pushed the control wheel forward. The nosecone dipped and aimed itself at the glowing cloud cover over the golden glow of Canterlot. The rocket plane descended and pierced the veil of smoke and mist.

As the Cloudraker plowed through the murk, slowing down due to the retro rockets, the obscured blot of light brightened and spread out in the wall of cloud cover. Then, suddenly, the illuminated skyscrapers rising from the shelf carved into the mountain swam into view. They cast golden rays that created an ocean of pale gold out of the clouds. The pilot nodded at the illuminated strips out past the industrial zones. They jutted out perpendicular to the mountainside, supported by enormous metal girders. The drop at far end of each airstrip was just barely visible at the edge of their vision. What lay beyond was not.

“There's the landing field. Taking her down.” He angled the Cloudraker towards strip three's landing lights.

As the rocket plane descended, the High Castle grew larger in the windshield. No matter how much the co-pilot tried to focus on flying, every time he made the Canterlot-Manehattan run he was always conscious of the fortress looming larger-than-life over him. It always made him acutely aware of what a technological marvel the Cloudraker was. Auriga Heavy Industries would never have built it if not for the High Castle. They were fervent about new technology, calling on ponies to press boldly onward into the future, their imagination and ingenuity the only limit. On the princess's wings, the dreams of Equestria were carried.

Canterlot Air Control broke into his moment of admiration. “Uh, Raptor 662, just a head's up. I'm looking at the radar here, and it seems an air force fighter has left the training area. It may, repeat, may be in your vicinity. Wait....looks like a few Civil Force fighters have broken off in pursuit.”

The co-pilot's foreleg muscles tensed on the instruments. “How many are 'a few'?”

“Four. We're trying to get them on the radio now.”

The co-pilot craned his neck and swept his eyes across the windshield, trying to see any shapes moving in the smog. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He turned to the pilot, who gave him a grimace, while keeping his forelegs as rock-solid as ever, holding the control wheel steady and the rocket plane on course.

Suddenly, a Skystriker fighter jet whined overhead, its exhaust close enough to make the Cloudraker shudder.

“Geez!” the pilot yelped, but still his hooves stayed steady.

The fighter jet left a noxious black vapor trail in the golden clouds. Four GH-41s then screamed past in perfect formation, dogging the Skystriker as it arced through the sky over the city. They effortlessly fell into a single file line as their prey slipped between two Civil Force dirigibles floating out past the city, kept as aerial observation platforms after rocket technology rendered them obsolete. The five planes zoomed out of sight, lost in the ocean of smog, leaving only the two airships puttering along slowly like flying whales.

“Good news, Raptor 662,” the tower said. “Looks like those jets are leaving your airspace now.”

“Yeah,” the co-pilot said, wiping sweat from his brow. “That's some great news.”

The pilot nodded in sarcastic agreement, then said, “We're on final approach, tower. We're coming in.”

Comments

[ponichaeism]

4597304

It's well-thought out reasoning like this that makes me appreciate you as an author.

As a writer, I'm of the opinion (though I probably got it from PKD in the first place) that if you construct a society well enough, especially the power relationships and economic factors and clashing ideologies, and embody each one of them in a viewpoint character, then the story pretty much writes itself.

[Midnight Maniac]

4599290
BTW, this is why I failed to enjoy FoE. The entire thing is just feel much more like post-apoc. theme park, rather than a believable world.
The original Fallout dilogy was a late 90s take on how people of 50-60s would imagine future, which is also potentially messy background for a story, but due to different nature of RP video-game medium, compared to literature, and healthy amount of humour (including self-ironical), it worked fine.

[ponichaeism]

4599606

Ironically, the Fallout game series itself is inspired by another Philip K Dick novel, The Peniultimate Truth, which pretty much was an early '60s story about what the future would look like, and it involved people living in underground tanks while a nuclear war is fought above ground. And though I haven't yet read it, Dick did have a penchant for bleak, black, and ironic humor.

[Ravemastaj]

4599290
Sweet. I'll keep that in mind as I write.

Also, reading this chapter gives me the distinct feeling that it's springtime for ponies, and Equestria.

I'm almost betting that Aryanne is going to pop out of the woodwork somewhere as a character.

[ponichaeism]

4599804

reading this chapter gives me the distinct feeling that it's springtime for ponies, and Equestria

It's funny you mention that, given that both Rarity and now Fluttershy are heading to a musical....

[PiMan]

Mane six except Pinkie accounted for. Main CMC accounted for, although I don't really expect Babs to pop up anywhere.

One thing I'm getting a hunch of, is that this Equestria is being run by an unofficial regency. Luna has been missing/AWOL for an unknown period of time, but to avoid panicking the public, the de facto leaders have tried to keep society going without admitting Luna is gone. It's even not out of the question that she'd been missing the entire time, i.e. since the beginning of the eternal night.

[Ravemastaj]

4599826
Everypony loves a good musical. I wonder which one it will be...any hints?

Also, on the topic of references, which series of books are alluded to by Pony Joe in the first chapter? I'm guessing Ayn Rand, but The Wealth of Nations could be another contender.

[PaladinOfChaos]

4601807
If only for the irony, I have to agree with you.

[ponichaeism]

4601807

Naw, Luna's still up there in the High Castle after all these years. But you're partly right; the Empire of the Moon is basically running itself by this point, with no need for her direct control.

And Babs is actually coming up soon. Pinkie Pie....not so soon.

4602094

It's called The River Runs Wild. It's not based off of any Broadway show in particular, just a kind of big budget showstopper.

The Wealth of the Wellspring was indeed an Ayn Rand reference. Adam Smith, not so much.

[Graycoin]

Damn, this is bleak. Well put together! But bleak. ._.

[Tetrominon]

The scene began with Twilight arriving to check the food situation, and ended when she ran into Apple Bloom on her way out. I just can't get over that.

[cuddlykittehs]

Oh no. Ohhh No. Twilight....no!

This could be a good thing in the end, though. Not for the unicorn supremacy, but if another fight breaks out and the unicorns get on the bad side of the pegasi...well, pissing off the army is how you get a successful revolution. The unicorns can't use battle magic anymore(good job establishing that)It won't be clean, and everyone we care about will probably die for being unicorn(if the race angle gets played up) and/or part of the 'high society'(standard anti-elite revolution), but at the end the society will have the opportunity to start....fresh-er.

That, or this gets the attention of the Princess. While she is likely set in her ways regarding the moon and food production, she could be swayed to be lenient on earth ponies, and she can't afford to be cruel to the pegasi.

We know that she let the society change DESPITE the war for it failing and pissing her off, though she still turned on the poor earth ponies. She might let it change again if this model proves poor by having another major race war. That might teach her to STOP PLAYING THE RACE GAME.