Unity
Chapter Ten
Ponyville. With the ravenous predators chased away, the populace had emerged into the streets to celebrate. Pinkie had produced a working party cannon and filled the sky with streamers and confetti, much to the amusement of the humans present. Well, three of them anyway. Carl Harner wasn't sure what he thought.
On the one hand, these were still aliens with bizarre mental powers. On the other hand, they seemed genuinely grateful for the help. On the one hand, he could never trust such beings. On the other hand, he was starting to question their culpability in bringing Fallow Meadows here. On the one hand, he supposed he could manage to tolerate them, so long as they kept their distance. On the other hand...
"Absolutely." Bert Gumbal was saying. "At this point, I think both of our peoples will have less issue with merging the towns together."
"There'll be nervous ponies." Fluttershy said. "And nervous humans too, I'm sure... But it's the smart thing to do."
Rarity agreed. "Indeed. None of us needs to be so vulnerable again."
"And there goes keeping their distance..." Carl thought to himself, a sour expression coming over his features.
Noticing the look, not knowing the issues Carl was having, a grey pegasus approached him. "Is something wrong sir?" Derpy asked.
"Everything's wrong."
"Oh... Well, can I help?"
Carl shook his head. "No... Just..." He needed to get away for a minute to think, "Is there a restroom around here somewhere?"
"Oh sure, right inside the Hayloft Cafe!" Derpy answered, pointing to a building a short way down the street. Nodding, Carl headed that way.
Meanwhile, Bert and Twilight were discussing where the structures from Ponyville could be incorporated into Fallow Meadows. They had agreed that the room in the town park, along with some open space around the school could be repurposed, when Twilight's ears suddenly twitched up. "Do you hear that?" She asked.
"I don't hear... No wait, yeah... Is someone playing music?" Deputy Jackson asked.
"Whoever it is, they're coming this way." Pinkie said. "Maybe it's music for the party!"
"Doesn't sound like party music to me."
"I'll take a look." Fluttershy said. Flapping her wings, she flew up just far enough to get a look, then returned. "You're not going to believe this girls..." She said, but before she could tell them the source of the tune came into sight around the corner.
First, there appeared two ponies, one playing a flute, the other a lyre. Behind them came two more, brandishing spears, and behind them a group of four. The four were carrying a large wooden platform with a hastily-constructed chair atop it. And seated in the chair...
"Prince Blueblood!" Rarity spat out in shock.
Twilight glance to her side at Trixie. "This is what you've been trying to warn me about isn't it?"
"Eeyup."
"You had to put up with Blueblood?" Rarity asked.
"Illusionist bodyguard for awhile." Trixie answered.
To the showmare's surprise, Rarity hugged her. "Anypony who's so determined to make a new start that they put up with the likes of him has got to be serious. All is forgiven."
"Heh... Thanks..."
The procession pulled to a stop before the crowd of ponies, the lyre player announcing "Presenting his Royal Spendiferousness King Blueblood the First!"
"King!?" The entire crowd exclaimed...
xx
Carl Harner exited the Hayloft Cafe, still not sure how he was feeling about things. Looking back towards the crowd, he saw that they were gathered around a pony he didn't recognize. Curious, he crept closer, into earshot, peering around the corner of a home. "Your King, the Inconquerable Blueblood, has come to you!" The new pony announced. "And you shall serve me as loyal vassals!" The King noticed the three humans in the crowd. "Oh, and what are these? Locals to subjugate for the glory of your Sovereign? Excellent..."
Carl spun around, back against the wall, out of sight. "I knew it!" He thought. "I was right all along!" Eager to warn Fallow Meadows, he raced away towards the human town...
xx
"Is this guy for real?" Tim Jackson whispered.
"Only in his own deluded mind." Rarity answered.
Twilight stomped forward. "Blueblood! What in Tartarus do you think you're doing!?"
The self-proclaimed king looked down to her. "You will address me by my full and proper title as your Most Glorious And Perfect Lord High King, Magnanimous Everlasting Grand Potentate And Magnificent And Beloved God-Emperor Of Ponykind Blueblood The First and Only."
Twilight favored Blueblood with a flat expression and replied, deadpan, "No. I won't."
"Oh please?"
"And neither will anypony else!" Twilight shouted, her raised voice answered back by numerous shouts of agreement. She continued "Prince or not, Blueblood, you are still a citizen of Equestria. That means Equestrian law applies to you no matter where you are! What you are doing is high treason against the Diarchy!"
Blueblood's guards and porters exchanged wary looks at this, but held their ground as the royal didn't budge. "So what? You'll arrest me? I highly doubt that."
Pushing in next to Twilight, Applejack whispered "He's probably right Twilight. I doubt the guard will be willing to arrest royalty, not without a direct order from the Princesses anyways."
"Yes. And where would we put him?" Mayor Mare asked from Twilight's other side. "I'd rather not spend our time here by keeping somepony in jail permanently."
"And we can't kill him." Rarity said, before mumbling under her breath "Unfortunately."
"But we can't just give in to him either!" Twilight said. Looking back to Blueblood, she said "Here's the deal: You are not a king and you never will be. Now, we're moving Ponyville for defensive reasons. If you want to come along, you're welcome to be a normal, productive part of society. If you insist upon making a flank of yourself though, you're welcome to leave."
"Hear hear!" Rarity exclaimed.
"Well I never..." Blueblood spat out, insulted.
The Mayor said "The offer is also open, independently, to anypony working for the Prince."
Blueblood let out a yelp as two of his porters and one of his guards, the one holding the left-front corner of his platform, instantly deserted, dropping the platform and the Prince to the ground. Picking himself up, Blueblood shouted "This is a royal proclamation from your King! Nopony is leaving this town! You will stay, and build me a worthy royal palace!"
As the fool who would be king began to go into temper tantrum mode the crowd waved him off and dispersed. As she trotted past, Rarity said "Don't take it too hard dear... We're leaving the Town Hall, you can have it for your palace..."
XXXX
Back in Fallow Meadows another celebration was underway. The townfolk were cheering on each other and their pony friends for a job well done in securing the town from the attack. Of course, not everyone was able to celebrate. For one thing, the crew tasked with building the wall was now working twenty four seven until it was done. And friends and family of those injured or killed were obviously also not joining in. But all in all the death toll had been remarkably light.
"A cause for breaking out the good stuff!" Herbert exclaimed, producing a bottle. "You ponies drink?"
"You mean alcohol?" Sword Breaker asked. "Occasionally. Though, we're on duty so..."
"Say no more, I was a Marine for a long time. What about you Rainbow? You're not actually a Guard are you?"
"Hey yeah!" Rainbow smiled. "Guess I'll try a little. I gotta warn you though, that stuff'll have to be pretty bucking awesome to beat Big Mac's special cider..."
"Eeyup."
"Well here you go, enjoy!" Herbert pushed a shot glass, less than half full, in front of the pegasus.
"How about me?" Bethany wondered.
"Come back in three years kiddo."
"Oh come on! We're not even where the laws apply!"
"Don't worry, I'll slip you some cider when the season comes in." Rainbow said. "Besides, I can't imagine how this little is gonna do anything at all..." She swallowed the liquor in one gulp, then gasped as her eyes bugged out in shock. "Holy Faust what's in that!?" She exclaimed, coughing.
"Authentic Japanese rice-wine Sake my dear." Herbert answered, laughing. "Got a taste for it when I was deployed there. Hardest-hittin' stuff on Earth."
"I should hope so! I'd hate to see something even harder!" Rainbow answered.
Suddenly from across the room there came a loud thud as the front door swung open and Carl Harner barged in. "We're all in danger!" He exclaimed. "The pony things are evil!"
"Now Carl not this again!" Florence said. "We've been through it before enough!"
"Yeah! What's your problem with us anyway!?" Rainbow demanded.
Only just noticing the ponies in the room, Carl sneered. "Oh, I know all about you! I overheard your King, talking about how you were gonna subjugate us all!"
"Don't got a king." Macintosh said. "Jus' the Princesses, an' they'd never subjugate anyone."
"I heard King Blueblood-" Carl was cut off by uproarious laughter.
"Blueblood!?!?" Rainbow laughed so hard she fell over and rolled around on her back shaking. "Blueblood's not a king he's an idiot!"
"As a representative of the Royal Equestrian Guard," Midnight said, "I cannot officially agree with Miss Dash's assessment of Prince Blueblood. Unofficially, 'idiot' is giving him far too much credit..."
"Eeyup."
"Totally. Even the other nobility won't let him have any actual responsibility. He could turn crossing guard duty into the apocalypse."
"You're all buying this aren't you!?" Carl shouted at his fellow humans.
"I've yet to see or hear anything that would make me think you're right Carl." Roger said. "Calm down man, seriously. We've got enough real threats to worry about."
"Real threats like them!" Carl shouted back. "Anyone who's still thinkin' straight, come with me!" He barged out the door, and to the dismay of both humans and ponies, a small group followed.
"Great. He's got disciples now." Roger muttered.
"This is not a good development." Nigel agreed. "But what can we do?"
"Little to nothing I suppose..."
XXXX
Over the next twenty-four hours word spread of the decision, on both sides, to go ahead with the town merger. Among both species, reactions ranged from pleased to incensed, annoyed to afraid. A meeting was scheduled, all citizens of both towns welcome, to discuss plans and concerns. The High School auditorium would be the venue, as it was the only place both indoors and large enough to accomodate the large crowds expected to show.
"So what happened with the Prince?" Bert asked Twilight.
Chuckling, she replied "Believe it or not, he took Rarity's suggestion and has holed up in Town Hall, claiming it as his royal palace." Her expression became more serious as she added "I still can't believe he got anypony to follow him, but most of his staff stayed loyal and he picked up a few of the town's wealthier families too."
"You mean they're gonna stay with him out there!?" Bert exclaimed. "That's practically suicide!"
"I know... What about Mister Harner? I know he can't be too happy about this either."
"Take a look." Bert answered, pointing across the chamber to where a small group of humans was gathered, Carl at their head. They were brandishing signs with statements like 'Pony Go Home,' 'Better Dead Than Mister Ed,' and the especially hateful 'Take Me To Your Glue Factory.'
"What!?" Twilight grumbled.
"Try to let it go." Bert said. "People like that, it'll just encourage them if they know they've gotten a rise out of you." He glanced down at his wristwatch. "Time to start, I'd better get up there."
Climbing to the stage, Bert joined the other members of the provisional council. "Can we all come to order?" He spoke through the microphone, and gradually the crowd quieted down. Looking out over the assembled, standing-room-only crowd of humans and ponies he said "Thank you all for coming... I'll turn this over to Sheriff Tucker now."
Taking the mike, Tucker began "As you all know, there had been some discussion regarding the possibility of relocating Ponyville to be inside our fortifications. This had been dismissed originally, but in the aftermath of a wild animal attack, beaten back only through cooperation from both towns, the leadership of both our peoples has agreed that it is for the best to proceed."
The crowd roared into life, questions, and accusations flying back and forth, no sense of order and no way to tell what anyone was saying. Tucker beat his hand on the mike, trying to get attention back, but it took several minutes before the crowd calmed enough to speak over. "Now listen up!" He exclaimed when he could finally be heard again, "Lets do this one step at a time... First, I want one, and only one, human and one pony with complaints about the plan to come on up here..."
As expected, Carl was the human who came forward, while his followers chanted 'Pony Go Home' over and over. From the pony side, a yellow unicorn stallion named 'Loyal Vassal' stepped forth.
"All you ponies are in rebellion against his lordship King Blueblood!" the unicorn announced. "Return to the fold and he will be merciful!"
"There! You see!" Carl shouted, pointing to Vassal, "Their king wants to enslave us all!"
"He's not our king!" Rainbow shouted back.
"Our rulers are the Princesses." Applejack said from behind Carl. "Why would we lie about that?"
"Yeah! Why would you lie?" Carl spat... "I dunno, maybe it's like how you lied about only unicorns having magic! But what did we see in Ponyville? Huh? What did we see!?" He pointed at Pinkie Pie. "We saw that one doing all sorts of crazy magic stuff!"
As the humans in the crowd began to mumble again, Carl looked Bert in the eyes. "Are you gonna lie for them?"
Bert shook his head. "No. We did see it happen... And it does bother me... No offense Twilight, but it does raise some questions..."
"It raises the question!" Someone from Carl's group shouted. "Why should we trust them if they lied about this!?"
Louder and louder the human part of the crowd grew, throwing accusations at the ponies around them. Luckily no one on either side was throwing punches yet, but it was quickly building in that direction. "Should I put a shield between them?" Twilight asked.
Tucker shook his head no. "That could just incite things even worse... Bert?"
Knowing what the Sheriff wanted, Bert nodded, stepped to the mike, turned the volume all the way up, and pulled out the same airhorn he had used the last time the crowds had threatened to go out of hand.
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMP!!!!!!!!!!
All across the auditorium humans and ponies clutched their ears, shaking, and as the sound stopped someone was yelling "-mn it Bert I'm gonna shove that thing so far up your #@&#..."
"It worked didn't it?" Bert answered back. "Pinkie, come on up here for a minute."
The Pink mare trotted up to the stage. "Let's give them a chance to answer the question..." Bert said. He held out the mike, which Twilight took in a magic aura and pulled to herself.
Twilight began "First, we never said that only unicorns have magic. Pegasai use magic to fly and manipulate the weather. Earth Ponies concentrate magic in their hooves to make plants grow faster and stay healthier. Unicorns are just the only ponies who can control magic in ways that allow us to generate constructed spells with it."
"That's true, they did tell us that the first day we could talk to each other." Roger added.
"Okay okay, technicality." Carl shouted. "It still doesn't explain her! Pink here pulled solid objects out of nowhere! Explain that if you aren't lying!"
"Well, I can't really-" Twilight was interrupted when Pinkie grabbed the mike out of her aura.
Seeming uncharacteristically subdued, mane and tail deflated, the pink mare said "I'm sorry if what I can do is scary. I don't even understand it really, I've just always had this funny power to do impossible things... But, it's just me. Other ponies can't do what I can do... So please don't be afraid and ruin everything just because of me..." A single tear gleamed in her left eye.
Taking the mike, Macintosh looked out over the crowd and said "I know y'all are scared of us. But we're more than a little scare a' you too."
"You're scared of us!?" Someone from the crowd shouted incredulously.
"Well yeah... See, we've got magic, sure. But you're bigger than us... And there's more of you, and you've got the better machines and the better weapons..."
Pinky and Mac's words had a powerful effect. Some people seemed less standoffish but still uncertain. Others were convinced by Pinky's sincerity, or Mac's honest admission, and still others still believed it was all an act. Carl Harner's anti-pony party lost a couple of members, and gained a few more.
Disturbed by all they had seen, there were even a few ponies who went to Loyal Vassal, seeking to join Blueblood's group.
By and large though, the majority were willing to be rational and give each other a fair chance. It was nearly time to begin discussions on where the structures of Ponyville could be transplanted to, once just one more issue was left to be sorted out: "We're not taking this!" Carl exclaimed, "Are we!?"
His followers cheered in agreement, and began waving their signs and chanting again. "You can have this foolishness if you want!" Carl addressed the crowd, "But we're leaving!"
"And going where!?" Reginald demanded. "You'll get yourselves killed out there alone!"
The chanters switched to 'Better Dead Than Mister Ed.' Carl grinned. "What they say. We'll take our chances." Still chanting, the group paraded out the doors, and continued their chant until they were out of earshot.
"Good riddance." Rainbow grumbled.
"Yes, well..." Sheriff Tucker took the mike again. "Let's discuss how we can integrate the towns shall we?" As a map of Fallow Meadows appeared on the screen behind him, the Sheriff handed the microphone off to Roger, who began using the map to illustrate how the towns could fit together. The center of Fallow Meadows held a large public park, directly adjacent to both the High School on one side and the Library and Town Hall on the other. Combining the park with the open spaces all around the school left plenty of room for Ponyville's residential buildings. The commercial buildings were more of a problem. It was eventually decided that they could be situated beginning two blocks away, in the large parking lots of a pair of strip malls, seeing as how there wouldn't be much call for parking spaces.
"Any questions?" Roger asked as he finished.
"Just one." Pinkie shouted.
"Yes?"
"Who exactly is Mister Ed...?"
Lawl first.
Love the story!
Damn it Blueblood, why do you do this?
This is getting quite bad. Now we have the ponies, the humans, Blueblood's group, Carl's group, and Alpha.
I'm not fond of Pinkie being so straightforward with her own impossibility. Usually she's depicted as being completely oblivious to just how wrong whatever she is doing is. That fits her character better, I think, than this contrite "I can't not do what I do" sort of thing. Also, sad Pinkie make need punch Carl in face.
Blueblood has completely descended into caricature. Overblown ego, delusions of grandeur, general incompetency, those are all fine, but this has gone straight to sad little king of a sad little hill, and ponies are following him. That almost works, people in stressful situations do weird things, but people in lethal situations tend to herd together around whoever can protect them best. You've made the local wildlife too lethal for his subplot to make much sense.
Other than that, glad to see the wildlife scenes over and some more integrating of the two towns. It's by far my favorite part of your narrative.
I give the 'Loyalist' ponies a month, Max, before they're ready to toss Blueblood to the Predators. If they can even find him the next time the monsters attack.
Carl is going to get a lot of stupid, scared people killed. Darwinism at its finest.
Loving the story, and I hate to be 'that guy', but...There's a bit of a plothole in this chapter. Carl can hear what Blueblood says, that's logical, but understanding what he said is a different matter entirely. The spell Twilight made gives a near-complete comprehensive knowledge of the humans' language to any the spell is cast on. This spell has not been said to have a vice versa to cast on the humans, and nor has the spell I originally talked about been cast on Blueblood or any of his party(and I doubt anyone in Blueblood's party would allow for any spells to be cast on themselves without warning. Or at all, since they're introducing their 'king', and then their 'king' starts talking.). Thus, this is kind of a major plothole, since you're attempting to create an entire other faction from a misunderstanding that isn't able to happen. This plothole can be fixed in several different ways. One way is showing that the other humans that were in the town at the time don't know what Blueblood is saying, and some time after in the story, come up with the explanation that the spell that Twilight first tried to use on Carl was the vice versa of the spell she's otherwise used in the story,but since she had to leave the magic for the spell on it's own, it had to finish the spell by itself over time. Another way it can be fixed is that, earlier in the story, Twilight could have cast the spell from the center of Ponyville to the outer parameters, and once she felt back on her hooves, cast a spell on the outer ring of town so that any struggling ponies who came in automatically had the spell cast on them. There are still more ways to fix this, but I'll let you brainstorm on your own for a bit. I know you can do it
5830919
Sometime in the next few days I'll be making some slight edits to the earlier chapters to clear this up, because I know I wasn't as precise on it as I should have been. But basically the blanket translation spell Twilight discussed has been cast, and cast both ways, meaning that humans and ponies can both understand each other's languages.
5831055 I'm glad to hear that. The specifics can be hard to actually put in the story, and I hope that you find a way to show them in the story in a way that many have struggled with.
5830578
In an earlier comment that I posted I compared him to Starscream. Yes he is a fool but a fool like this does not last long.
So who where the stupid ponds who stayed behind? I bet DT and SS are among the ones who stayed behind.
I've heard that rice-wine and Sake are two different things. Mind you, I heard that on Q.I., the show that claims Earth has more than one moon...
Oh, and who is Mister Ed? I don't actually know...
5832124 This goes beyond foolishness, though. Blueblood's plans are no less than delusion and suicide. That kind of behavior does actually happen in actual people, but it's vanishingly rare and usually the sign of something wrong in the brain.
The fact that he has followers is harder to justify. He doesn't occupy a position of power or respect in Ponyville, any such authority is an intellectual issue from the political hierarchy of their civilization. Every pony following him has made a deliberate choice to follow him. The instinctual "this person is in charge" follower behavior, the sort of unthinking decision making you see in scared, panicky types, will latch on to Twilight, Mayor Mare, or more personal figures such as family members or close friends. So how do thinking, unpanicky ponies decide that Blueblood has any value as a leader when his insanity is so exaggerated?
5832156 I feel so old right now.
5832223
It's okay. I feel the same way when I explain who Rocky and Bullwinkle are...
5832261 You realize that just makes me feel older, right?
I console myself that it's mostly illusion. I've had to remind people older than me what 5.25" disks were and that there was a time that file size was measured in kilobytes.
I had hoped this story wouldn't have anti human and anti pony groups, but I guess that trope is too represented in real life to just ignore. Now a lot of foolish ponies and humans are going to die for stupid ideals and the ringleaders will be directly responsible, but probably escape repercussions for their actions.
For instance, say Carl has a change of heart and returns. Everyone that died under his urgings will be on his head.
I feel even worse for those who follow Blueblood, because it's the humans who spooked them into making that irrational decision.
Which soon became known as the dungeon of the Purple One
Seriously though, this story has been great! And the concept is pretty unique - I don't think I have ever seen one where a town from both worlds gets transplanted to some place that is alien to both (it's always an earth city in Equestria or the other way around), so props for that, it's a refreshing take on the "genre".
And I'm excited to see how the merger of the towns (I guess that's where "unity" comes in, the name of the new town?) go and all the problems it will solve and the problems it will bring. Seeing different people trying to cooperate in weird circumstances for mutual survival is always fun and brings about neat things.
And yeah, it makes sense that human side would have a fair number of suspicious people - we have all kinda of wonky and nasty alien fiction (much more than positive one) that's probably left some impression on the more paranoid (or religious) people, and it doesn't help that we are the only clearly sapient creatures on the planet. For us, meeting an alien species is a genuine WTF moment. For ponies, who are already used to sharing their world with various species with different looks and abilities, it's probably less immediately world-shaking.
Still, there is a difference between being cautious and being paranoid to the degree where you would piss away the chance at cooperation. I'll be very surprised if Carl and his bunch actually manage to last out there if they do leave town - a bunch of stragglers in the forest (given what inhabits the forests) should be synonymous to "Lunch".
Oh, and Blueblood is indeed an idiot - fins out that he has been transplanted to another world with but a single town of his people, and his first thought is to subjugate (ha) the populace and build himself a castle? Yeah, he and his "followers" probably deserve to get eaten by the spiderbat things. I wonder how long the fool will last with no infrastructure to support his town hall.
And I'm glad Twilight stepped up to tell him off - probably gives the town some confidence to see Celestia's star pupil tell the prince to go take a hike (I wonder if Celestia has told her previously she doesn't have to take any orders from Blueblood). If anything, in the absence of the princesses, Twilight could claim some sort of official leadership role as the closest thing Celestia has to a liaison/right hoof mare or something (she might not like it, but the town already looks up to her for guidance anyway, which is important for morale, and she has been largely the one handling the negotiations with the humans all the time already).
All in all, this has been very fun so far and I can't wait to see more of this.
Some additional thoughts on how to combat the spider-bat-wolf thing menace, aside from explosive bullets:
Cutting off their legs seems to work pretty well, so drill that as a standard tactic for the unicorn guards. A levitating sword should make short work of their legs and then it's just an angry meatball you can set on fire or something at your leisure.
Flamethrowers for everyone! Or not ... don't want to burn the town down I guess, or set the forest on fire ... that would be pretty disastrous.
And have Twilight cast a shield over the town. If Shining can manage Canterlot, even if shields are his special talent, surely Twilight (aka the strongest unicorn Celestia has seen) can manage the much smaller one needed for the small town? At least until the walls are up ... and until you are sure there aren't any car-sized killer birds about to swoop down over your walls and help themselves to the buffet.
Wut?
Undiluted sake contains 18%–20% ABV (although this is often lowered to about 15% by diluting with water prior to bottling).
There is stuff like Absinthe (45–74% ABV / 90–148 U.S. proof) but I met 80% variant too.
I'm raising the bologna flag on this one. Sake is not even remotely close to particularly 'hard-hitting'. A MARINE would know that well more than most others.
So I guess there are three settlements now - Carl's, Blueblood's, and the integrated city which is probably about to get renamed "Unity" if the story title has anything to say about it.
I gotta say, one thing I've noticed about this story overall is that almost every line of Fluttershy's sounds less like Fluttershy herself speaking and more like someone else trying to justify why she isn't acting like herself.
Also, humans are obligate omnivores. Which has not come up, for some reason--and would seem to me to be likelier to be at the very least unsettling to a herbivorous species.
"What's that?"
"A corn dog."
"What's it made of?"
"Uh..."
Best pony steals half the chapter
6132591
I'm not sure what would disturb the ponies more: finding out, or not being able to answer for certain.
Rarity, gets so much yes!
hehehehe
Awesome chapter!
Great great greatness... Carl, Blueblood, and the Co-Species town, this will end well I'm sure.
Blueblood. He's gonna get ponies killed.
Carl. He's gonna get people killed.
... Maybe they're both being controlled by a third party?
No, they're just a couple of inexcusably spoiled, xenophobic, paranoid, self-important, delusional, thick-skulled, deaf-to-all-truth morons.
I'll let you people decide which trait belongs to who.
Then they form a glorious company! Of xenophobic hunt...oh wait they dead.
6231744 I kinda imagined my self going Rick-Mode from walking dead and sticking a .44 in Carl's mouth and pulling the trigger.
5830919 From what I remember, the spell allowed both parties to speak the others language, sonly they could be speaking Equestrian or Equs or whatever.
First Boltguns, now God-Emperor! What's next, Rhino Transports? Lascannons? A Chaos Incursion?
Hmm, am I the only one who finds the slogan 'ponies go home' particularly stupid considering neither humans not ponies are anywhere near their Homeworld? We don't even know if they're in the same galaxy or even universe for that matter...
The loyalists (blueblood) the republic (unity) and the seperatists (carl)
Holy shit this is Star Wars
And that's where alicorn-Twilight could have come in handy...
If Carl doesn't name his settlement "Carlton", there is no justice left in the world.
Idiocy, always crops up even when its the worst time for it.
I just can’t take this part of the story seriously. He’s not just paranoid, he’s a loon. How does someone with obvious mental health issues get into the sheriffs department?
8853756
Well fear of the unknown is pretty relevant throughout history also for the mental instability that's usually a gradual process.
9211814
This was pretty much my thought process. There's not just 100% sane and 100% crackers. Lots of people are able to function well, so long as everything is nice and stable the way they expect the world to be. Carl was able to pass the psych exams just fine because when he took them he was okay. (And yes, the seed of his losing it must have been in him all along. This isn't the kind of thing they test for though.) Still, if I had it to do over, I would try to write him a little better.
Thanks for nothing, Blueblood.
Can something just eat him already?
Sake isn’t really “hard hitting” though. If he gave them whiskey or some other hard liquor then yeah sure but sake is wine. That’s like saying “I’m gonna get blitzed on a tylenol!” Like yeah it’s a drug but it’s barely even that.
11197795
Yeah, I had actually replied to someone else's comment on this somewhere else, long story short, I'm not a drinker at all, never have been even as a teenager, and as such was relying on third-party info from someone I once knew who had described sake in such a way. I suppose I could edit it (I DID change it to Everclear in the sequel) but dunno. Maybe someday.
I really like how you gave both sides a common enemy, both outside their own, and within their own.