Twelfth Equestriad Interview

by Jordan179

Chapter 3: Second Segment

"And we're going back on three, two one ... now!"

Cutting Question turned to face his audience in closeup.

"This is Cutting Question. I'm here with our two most distinguished guests Their Royal Highnesses the Ruling Princess Luna Selena Nyx and the Princess Consort Twilight Sparkle, and welcome back to Canterlot Comments."

The shot switched to show the whole center of the set, revealing the two alicorns sitting side-by-side on their big settee. Luna and Twilight smiled and nodded at the audience.

"Your Highnesses," Cutting said, "You have emphasized the great progress made by Equestria over the years since the Return. But with all due respect, there are those in the Earth Federation who argue that it has been progress made only by Equestria, for the benefit only of Ponies, while the Earth is inhabited by many intelligent species. How would you respond to those critics?"

"Technological progress benefits all," said Princess Luna. "The Information Revolution, just like the Industrial Revolution before it, began first in Equestria, so it is but in the way of things that Equestria has gained from it first, and hence most. But it has spread and is continuing to spread worldwide. When Equestrian artisans can craft more cheaply, this is to the gain of beings all over the world who can get those goods, not only the Ponies who own the factories. And as the arts spread worldwide, more and more they can be practiced by other races -- by Dragons, Griffons, even Minotaurs."

Princess Twilight's eye twitched almost imperceptibly at that formulation, but of course she said nothing to embarrass her consort.

"Equestria is powerful and peaceful," Luna continued, oblivious to her error, "and we want all the peoples of the world to prosper. When we put down pirates and keep the air and sea lanes open, when we build railroads and highways, airports and spaceports, we help the trade of all nations. Famine is a thing of the past, diseases that once ravaged whole continents are now rapidly contained and cured. Even the pollution of the early industrial days is abating, as power comes from clean atomic energy, and more advanced machines make less waste. Eventually, we will move heavy industries offworld, and the Earth will become a garden, as beautiful in its own more energetic way as is Paradise." She nodded at Cutting.

"Do you have anything to add, Princess Twilight?" Cutting asked.

"Only that Equestria is friendly and respectful to all the sapients with whom we have contact," Twilight quickly added, "including those who are presently underdeveloped, whom we take great pains to assist in every manner. Scientists believe that as the Information Revolution continues, the easy availability of cheap nuclear batteries and programmable fabricators will make all those in the Earth Federation, regardless of their current economic status, wealthy beyond anything that has been known before. Through peaceful trade and enlightened cooperation, we may all benefit. A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say."

"Very well put," commented Cutting, "by both Your Highnesses." He put his hooves gently together. "My next question comes from other critics, who argue that Equestria is wasting too much of her tax bits on the space program. They say that ... and this is with all due respect ... these funds could be better spent back here on Earth, to help solve mundane problems such as poverty or drug addiction." He looked inquiringly at Princess Luna.

"Some ponies," Luna replied with an edge in her voice, "do not grasp what my beloved Consort said earlier, that the Earth is but one little planet in a far greater Universe. Or, perhaps, they do not understand the deeper meaning of this. There is not 'the Earth' on the one side and 'the Heavens' on the other, with the former for Ponies and the latter only for Cosmic forces. There is one continuous Universe, in which the Earth is a tiny part, and now that Ponies have the machines and magic to go beyond that planet, it is plain that in the future Ponies shall spread forth to inhabit many worlds.

"One day, the Ponies of Earth will be but one tiny portion of the Ponies of the Universe. And though I hope that the Earth remains special to Ponykind, as the planet of their original evolution and the cradle of their oldest civilizations, still it will only remain one planet. I have lived longer in this incarnation than any Pony now alive, and I tell you that though the future be distant, it will be real, and that it is important to build now the institutions that will secure for us a bright one."

Luna stopped, and nodded to Twilight.

"My consort is completely correct," Twilight said, "and besides it is easy to demonstrate that even Ponies here on Earth and alive today benefit economically from the Equestrian space program. The costs of the program are quite low, compared to defense or social welfare spending, and we get a lot for our money. Thanks to the assistance of the Pie Sisters, we can conduct crewed exploration of other planets, even in other star systems, at very little cost, and the scientific knowledge we bring back often has direct applications in dealing with Earthly environmental problems.

"We've also opened permanent Gates to the Moon and Mars, which enables large-scale colonization of those planets quite cheaply, as Ponies can simply walk through them. Imagine if we were limited to rocketships, as were the Ponies of the First Age of Wonders! Asteroidal colonization is eased by the extensive terraforming already accomplished by Princess Fluttershy and her family. If it weren't for them, we would have to colonize much more slowly. Since we've run railroads through the Gates, we can import considerable quantities of minerals from these new colonies, including resources rare on our Earth.

"I urge everypony who is interested in the issue to go to www.easa.gov and type 'Riches From Space' into the search window. I especially advise educators to include this information in their lesson plans. It is important that the generations growing up today be aware of that the space program helps them in some very material ways."

"Let's get that address and name up on the screen, Princess Twilight," said Cutting Question, "so that the audience at home can write it down." There was a brief pause, and then the information appeared, courtesy of someone sitting in the control booth typing on a keyboard.

"Now, getting back to Earth," continued Cutting, a question that I'm sure is very much on everypony's mind. "What is your position on the developing crisis in Myzeqa, and in particular, does Equestria have any plans to do anything about it?"

Luna blinked. "As I am sure you are aware, Cutting, if we had any immediate plans to intervene we would not announce them on your show and endanger our forces in the region. However, I can tell you that it is my belief that the Myzeqan crisis is the responsibility of the Old Worlds Union, and if they wish to do anything about it, Equestria does not mean to oppose them in whatever course they take -- or choose not to take. At the same time, other Powers should also remain clear of this crisis, as it is purely an OWU internal matter."

"What do you say, Princess Luna, to those who would argue that Equestria should intervene to prevent a potential loss of sapient life?" Cutting persisted. "Perhaps as a peacekeeping mission?"

"If we jump into the Myzequan War, on either side, then we will have to fight the other side, and that will mean a loss of sapient life. And this is neither our territory nor our responsibility. It is up to the Old Worlds Union," Luna replied, speaking slowly and with a slightly-irritated tone. "Death is in the nature of war."

"I think what my Consort is emphasizing," Twilight added, "is that no matter our motives for landing troops in Myzequa, it's going to get us involved in the war. There's no way to avoid that, and we don't want to get into a war in which no Equestrian interests are at stake. At the same time, we will not let outside Powers interfere either, because we do not want this war widening." She looked at the elder Alicorn for confirmation.

Luna nodded. "Equestria is strong," she said, "but we are still just one Power within the Earth Defense Federation. We do not want or pretend to rule the whole planet. Other nations are free to run their own affairs."

Cutting nodded. "And we have to break for another commercial. Stay tuned for the concluding segment of our interview."

Author's Note:

Yep, postwar Equestria pretty much dominates its Earth, even more so than does modern America ours. And Luna's concept of "diplomacy," while not entirely centered anymore on her Midnight Chariot, is still rather blunt. Luna has problems even conceiving of any non-hostile reasons why anyone else on the planet would have any honest problems with the situation. Luckily for the rest of the world, Luna also doesn't care much what foreigners do, as long as they don't attack her little Ponies. Twilight is more sympathetic in this regard, but also more of a meddler. Between them, they are making problems for themselves way down the road.

On Twilight's points about cheap space exploration, Claire "Least Noticeable" Pie can easily open temporary Gates, and with a lot of assistance and some difficulty more permanent ones. Claire's range is theoretically coterminous with the entire Universe, but she is in practice limited by the need to know where to put the other end: a Gate to a random location in another galactic cluster would probably open up onto deep interstellar space, and be of limited utility. Such Gates are also limited by her own body size -- and while she's big, she's not big enough to open a Gate wide enough to admit any but a small spacecraft. Claire contracts for these services through The Pie Sisters, Inc., the coordinating company which also handles tourism to Paradise. The old rock farm is still running, but it's no longer even remotely the main source of income for the family.

Between them, the Alicorn Fluttershy and her family can terraform fairly large swathes of terrain with absurd rapidity compared to the ablility and completeness of machines. They are limited primarily by the fact that they are only a few entities and by the fact that Discord is seriously lazy. Fluttershy sees absolutely no need to push him too hard -- it's a labor of love for them, anyway. Most of their work is done in sub-surface bubbles in asteroids, as pushing a whole Moon or Mars-sized planet into surface habitability would take a very sustained effort, even by the standards of the immortal incarnations of two Cosmic Concepts.

Twilight says "... and her family" because she does not want to use Discord's preferred formal mode of address (a random, absurd and preferably non-repeating appellation) on international television, and still less does she want to risk accidentally summoning him into the studio (she knows he randomly watches her from time to time, and looks for excuses to mess with her life). Anyway, she doesn't really like him very much, even after all they've been through together. Some Ponies are just unappreciative of performance art, I guess ...)

Twilight is speaking based on advice she got from her friend Rarity, who understands both economics and public relations to a degree unmatched by any other Ponies.

"Show them how it helps their pocketbags, Darling," Rarity said.

And that's what Twilight is trying to do.

Though she probably shouldn't have kept emphasizing how Ponies are colonizing other worlds, as that's feeding a whole other set of non-Pony fears. In her own way that was a worse gaffe than Luna talking about "even Minotaurs" progressing.

Yep, they're building interplanetary railroads, just like in Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth space opera series. Why? Because they can, because it's efficient, and because it's cool.

Steam trains to the stars! Woo hoo! Board the Galaxy Express!

And we see that the end of the Shadow War has not brought universal and eternal peace.

Comments

[Mister Morden]

As soon as you said railway lines through gates... Yep, that is probably a reference to the Commonwealth series!

Nice and interesting so far. Curious what the next set of questions will be.

[Redric Carrun]

"Even" minotaurs? "Even" minotaurs? We minotaurs prefer to be referred to as odd, thank you very much.

Luna continued, oblivious to her error. "and we want all the peoples of the world to prosper.

*either "error, 'and ...'" or "error. 'And ...'"

Competing with Paradise for tourists, eh? That's an amusing situation. Gotta bring your A game with competition like that.

"Hey, Princess-who-used-to-be-Moondreamer, I know it's kind of your pet project and all, but I think we should cancel the space program. Again. After thousands of years and many separate lives of waiting. You're okay with that, right? That's not a sore spot with you, is it?"
"The space program... will last... FOREVER!"

Though she probably

... This sentence in the Author's Note just cuts off here. What were you going to say? The people must know! (jk lol).

Serious war makes me sad face. The more realistic, the sad-facier. I prefer my fictional life-or-death struggles with giant robots which have super lasers/superpowers that involve super lasers/weaponized pies. Also with super lasers.
But that's just what I like to read, not what makes a good story.

I'm in a silly mood today. Can you tell?

[Jordan179]

4046359

A lot of Ponies have visited Paradise out of curiosity and tourism. The ones who would want to live there permanently versus the ones who would want to colonize other worlds are two sets with only a minor intersection. Quite a lot of Ponies would like to visit both Paradise and other worlds, though. Paradise itself is colonizing its own dimension, as it restores itself more and more completely -- it once occupied much of its own Solar System, and wishes to at least do that again. Paradise is not as driven to expand as are Luna and Twilight, though.

On that -- yes, the space program is one of Luna's main priorities. One of the reasons why Equestria is expanding so rapidly into space is that between them Luna and Twilight are essentially running the government, and both of them are in favor of this policy. This is actually the subject that first brought them together, before Twilight even knew that they were in the Shadow Wars. Their attitude on this is not likely to change; insofar as there is a rift between them on this it's that Luna cares more about colonization and Twilight about exploration: normally, however, they can achieve both ends with similar means.

Myzeqa is a really backwater place in the Old Worlds, essentially the equivalent of Albania -- a harsh mountain country inhabited by even harsher beings, fond of endless, violent clan warfare, which has been getting worse lately with the addition of lots of war-surplus weapons floating around after the Last Battle. Equestria has absolutely no desire to own the place, which is in the primary spheres of interest of other Powers anyway, and Luna and Twilight mostly want to avoid any serious military involvement..

[ForSpite]

... Wait, Fluttershy's an alicorn in the future? I feel like I've missed something. And yes, I did read pretty much all your stories at this point. Well, Nightmares, Adrift, A Meeting, Fluttershy is Free, Least Noticeable, and Extended Performance plus part of All the Way Back.

[Jordan179]

4166374

Yes, well I kind of skipped way ahead when I wrote this story. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I wanted to show something of my mid-term future. This has to be viewed as only an alternate possibility, since it's very vulnerable to jossing.

[ultra1437]

4166834
Ah. That explains why I'm wondering what the hell happened to Celestia and why Luna and Twilight won't discuss it, and why Flutters is an alicorn. I can tell you're being deliberately vague with Celestia, is she dead or just missing, a little of both even? I read 'Celestia's Sacrifice' in chapter two, but that could mean any number of things.

I don't mind (minor) spoilers to help clear up a little bit on those points, but if you're going to clarify that in this story, or in the future with another, I can wait.

Edit - Wow. This makes story number six of yours I've faved. Welp, I normally follow after three, so I've been slacking, and that's been fixed!

[FanOfMostEverything]

I'm unfamiliar with the Commonwealth series, but the mental image of railroad running through portals is several kinds of hilarious.
Also, interesting to see that more of Celestia's potato crop is coming in.

A fascinating look at a possible future. A good end, but not the best. Makes me want to see if they can do better in another playthrough.,,

Looking forward to more.

[PostPony]

4319336 it's interesting to think about six hundreds worlds all connected by wormholes where you have massive trains running everywhere. very fun stories.

[scoots2]

Just got around to reading this. I don't think I would have understood it if I hadn't read most of your other stories, which fortunately I have. As a result, I enjoyed it.

Twilight is speaking based on advice she got from her friend Rarity, who understands both economics and public relations to a degree unmatched by any other Ponies.
"Show them how it helps their pocketbags, Darling," Rarity said.

In ANY universe, darlings, including the EG one I write. Rarity hasn't received much attention in Looking Glass World, but if there is a sequel, she will. And already she's giving indications of her business savvy and acumen.

Hmm. Paradise becomes a tourist destination. I know you wrote this before Cheese Sandwich was a thing, so I'm wondering how he'd fit into this scenario. Because, of course, I always do.

[Jordan179]

4937734

Rarity is awesome. "Generosity" is the Virtue that conveys mastery of social systems -- it is the Virtue that has enabled Celestia to forge a nation out of three originally-hostile Tribes. It embraces the understanding of positive-sum exchange and other activity which actually grows a society and its economy. It is a lantern lighting the way upward for Civilization.

I give Rarity some fairly dark backstory (the darkest of any of the Mane Six), but her life as a whole is meant to be inspirational -- to show how she rises above an early tragedy and becomes a true heroine. Besides, it makes philosophical sense that the Alicorn of The World should have at least one hoof in the mire, as the rest of her rises above it to show Ponykind the path to greatness.

When and if I write it explicitly, I'm also going to show how she was tempted as her abilities emerged to use them destructively, to take revenge on Society in general for her pain -- and how she rose above this temptation. Social manipulation is a talent that can be used for great good -- or for terrible evil. Something Rarity knows.

There's a reason why when we actually will meet Rush Rocks in person -- which will be right before my version of Nightmare Rarity -- he will be a secondary school dropout rejected by his former friends and family -- and wanting revenge on Rarity. One of the first things she did when she came out of the crucible of her miscarriage was destroy his school career -- and without ever getting her own hooves dirty. As I said, Rarity's talent can be used for evil.

Fortunately for the world, Rarity pulled back from the precipice. The general good cheer of Ponyville had a lot to do with healing her.

[Jordan179]

4937734

Hmm. Paradise becomes a tourist destination. I know you wrote this before Cheese Sandwich was a thing, so I'm wondering how he'd fit into this scenario. Because, of course, I always do.

It has occurred to me that he rather than Pinkie could have done the legal disclaimer, and he could have provided musical accompaniment to his disclaimer as well ...

[Ariel Schnee]

But, what of the human world now?

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

"Spending the money on space". They make it sound like you open an airlock door & shovel the money out. Dude, every bit is spent on the ground somewhere. Even wages are spent somewhere groundside.

Most of the economic return comes from satellites. Still, being able to repair satellites means they need a lot fewer redundant features (& are thus a lot cheaper). Plus, the best orbits have limited space. Being able to remove broken satellites reduces the risk of collision.