The New Mare's News
I awoke, drenched in cold sweat and shivering in fright of the... dream? Details of the nightmare faded as I tried to recollect it: A field… a tree dancing in the wind… something about a statue? I couldn’t recall now, my memory failing me.
No, there was one thing that did stick in my mind, the horrible feeling of loneliness.
I rubbed my forehead gingerly as a wave of fear chilled down along my spine. Never had I really felt this sort of dread over being alone. It got lonely at my apartment at the Capes at times and I did begin to feel homesick, but never truly afraid of having nopony to keep me company.
I haven’t felt this scared since I was… what, four?
Shrugging off the bed covers to leap out of them, I went through my morning routines in the lavatory. Minutes later I came out, donning a towel that dried away the last patches of moist hair, and took a look at myself in the large gold-framed mirror.
Besides the cream-colored towel rubbing away at the back of my neck nothing looked out of place: My dark cyan coat and white mane showed little sign of wetness and my golden eyes, despite the rough awakening, looked pristine and bore no look of exhaustion.
And yet, something was amiss: I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it…
Ah! The morning light looked odd. That’s what it was.
Not much more light basked the room when I had parted the velvet curtains, and in the distant horizon it was clear that the sun was just beginning to dawn, as the sky was colored red by the rising disk. Just how didn’t I notice how dark it was when I got up? I decided to chalk it up as temporary disorientation, mostly from being in a new environment, since something of the sorts did happen when I first came to the Capes.
It was a few hours before my parents would even wake, and common sense dictated that I should recover the lost sleep. However I did not feel the least bit drowsy so against my good judgment I decided to go to get a drink by the swimming pools. After putting on my neck tie I left the room.
A stillness hung in the hallways of the Lush Hotel as only some of the hotel staff and early birds quietly went about their morning business. The restaurant area was a lavish hall, complete with a buffet table (now lacking in food items) and with a carpet with the most intricate of designs tying the whole room together. Just beyond were the doors to the outdoors pools. The dining hall was almost completely empty, save for a unicorn and earth pony enjoying themselves a warm drink by the radio. Only the calming sound of classical music echoed in the room, with the occasional whisper between the two ponies. A taupe pony softly snored behind the counter of the bar.
I approached the counter, careful not to make too much noise, and nudged him gently.
He stirred and blinked heavily. Recognizing that I was a customer he snapped to attention and put on his best smile.
“Good morning sir. Sorry, didn’t get a chance to sleep well tonight. What will it be?”
I smiled softly. “Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who didn’t sleep well.” I looked behind him to see what was in stock. “Some green tea if you please—warm if possible.”
With a nod the bartender began to prepare the drink. “You can take a seat in the dining room while I get your drink sir, I’ll bring it over to you.”
“I’ll be outside by the swimming pools.”
Before I could turn to leave he gave me a surprised look. “Are you sure sir? The early morning temperatures are below the forties this season. It’s awfully cold outside.”
I looked to the world outside and did indeed notice some of the dew on the windows seemed to be frost. With the bartender’s warning compounding the natural signs I reconsidered my earlier decision. It did look cold now that he did mention it…
“Guess that I’ll sit by the radio then,” I conceded.
The bartender nodded. “I’ll be right with you sir.”
Making my way to the main dining room I found myself a place by the radio, close to the dark pink unicorn. I let my thoughts drift as the tin-quality yet suave piano piece emanating from the wooden box. Taking a closer look at the ponies in the room with me I noticed that the dark pink mare was overlooking a mess of papers and notes upon her table. The light tan earth pony by her gave a small nod acknowledging my presence.
I murmured a ‘hello’ and went back to enjoying the music.
Soon afterwards the bartender appeared with my drink. While I thanked him for the drink, his appearance had caught the attention of the unicorn. She gave me an odd look, as if she were mulling over something. After the bartender left she approached tentatively.
Taking notice of her looming presence I addressed the unicorn. “May I help you?”
She recoiled slightly, not expecting a reaction from me. “I’m sorry,” she began apologetically, “but are you Crystal Clear?”
My eyebrow rose: Had I seen this mare somewhere before? “Have we met?”
The pink pony gave a small smirk. “Not personally, no. But I remember seeing your name and picture in some of your articles on the PRPI’s scholastic papers.”
“Ah, a fellow Perlino student?” I asked, quite pleasantly surprised.
“Yes, but I don’t think we were in the same faculty: I’m in Sustainable Agricultural and Land Management.”
“That’s why your face wasn’t familiar to me,” I replied. “If you’re in the agriculture department, then we wouldn’t even have been in the same campus.”
“Right, you were in sociology?” the student solicited uncertainly, looking to me for confirmation.
“That’s right,” I nodded, feeling a sense of pride growing in me. Then, realizing that I still didn’t know the unicorn’s name, I shook my head and laughed awkwardly: “I’m sorry, but I haven’t learned your name yet.”
“Ah, right, how careless of me.” She offered a hoof, “the name’s Eco Dev.”
I took the hoofshake while taking a note of her name. It was clearly human inspired, using abbreviations and words that didn’t exist in the Equestriani vocabulary a few generations back.
“Here on holiday?” I prodded, hoping to get a conversation going whilst I waited for morning to roll by.
“Yes, for a few weeks.” Eco sighed as she looked over her table of notes. “It’s just that it hasn’t felt like vacation yet.”
“Ah,” I nodded knowingly, “the dreaded exams eh?”
“And this is just the first year! At this rate I won’t even be able to leave my dormitory during my uni holidays.”
“You’re lucky,” I pointed out in a chiding tone, “I couldn’t even leave Pinto the first year.”
Eco stared. “I take it that sociology is ninety percent written?”
“Just thereabouts. Theory got intensive fast.”
“For three years?” After I nodded she blew a low whistle. “And now I’m relieved that my course involves a lot of technical classes.”
“Yeah, the only good thing I got out of those three years of Tartarus besides my degree was a warm meal almost every day.”
We both chuckled at that. Soon afterwards though, while I was sipping my tea, the agriculture student pouted slightly. “It’s too bad that they’ve begun charging four bits per food item; I miss having free vegetable soup every weekday.”
The mood immediately turned somber. “Yes, food prices have been on the rise as of late.”
“That’s part of the reason why I decided to do agriculture,” Eco mumbled, her eyes having a sense of longing about them. “I want to do my part to help rid the food crises that are rampant outside of Equestria and its sphere of influence. It’s sickening to know that ponies back in Canterlot can expect to have lavish dinners while there are foals in Buckswana who can’t even graze.”
I agreed vehemently; just thinking that there was somepony who was starving right now…
“If only the barrier could discriminate…”
The mare looked over at me, bearing an inquisitive gaze. “What do you mean?”
I gave her an incredulous look. “Didn’t they teach you? Before the barrier began to expand humans had an enormous agricultural infrastructure that would’ve spared us of this global food shortage. The human population was nearly eight billion before we started up the Conversion Bureaus.”
She stared. “They could grow enough food to feed billions?”
“Uh, not that I recall. They had to resort to fishing and domesticating animals such as…” I gulped, “…cows and other animals for food.”
Eco visibly paled. “They ate sapient creatures?”
I shook my head. “N-no, the cows of their world weren’t the same as those from ours. They couldn’t even understand words. Still, it’s uncanny. Even though humans mostly made it a point to not eat other animals that could at the very least understand them, it still bothers me when I read that humans ate cows, chickens, sh-sheep...”
I stopped: the uncomfortable feeling was growing too quickly for me to stomach and, judging by Eco’s look on her face, she was feeling the same way. It was difficult enough for Equestrianis to get over the human’s omnivore diet when they had actually seen the less intelligent animals; for ponies who came after the extinction of those human animals, it was difficult to remain emotionally neutral when the only comparison were the more sapient animals native to Equestria.
“That’s barbaric!” the mare exclaimed.
My gaze fell to the floor as I tried to keep my emotions in check. “Intellectually I can see the logic to it,” I stated, “there was a large demand for food, so the humans sought every possible way to meet that demand—including harvesting animals.” I looked insistently into Eco’s eyes. “It is a cold, cruel reasoning that some of the humans admitted that it was a necessary evil. A-and even then, humans still were unable to feed everyone.”
The dark pink unicorn was positively floored. “Sweet Luna… it’s no wonder that I wasn’t informed on this.”
“But that’s what strikes me as odd,” I interjected, “if you’re in a land development course, you should’ve been taught, if briefly, what’s been causing this food shortage.”
“All that they’ve told us was that the population boom was too large for the agricultural infrastructure of Equestria, and that trying to expand it has been problematic mostly because we didn’t really understand the size of this world.” Eco pouted pensively as she went over some of the notes on the table. She pointed to one in particular. “We have populations in every continent and it’s difficult for the food in Equestria to reach every single one of the continents. Even with the advent of airplanes, the world hasn’t gotten any smaller.”
Looking over I could see that her notes did in fact detail what she had just explained, albeit in a more complete manner. Eco continued, “Our professors haven’t really gone over the socio-political impact of the food crisis—heck, they practically glossed over the growing dissent in the Neighpon region.”
As if on cue, the classical music cut to the steady voice of a news anchor. “Good morning Equestria!” he greeted enthusiastically, “you’re listening to Radio Equestria, and welcome to our six-‘o-clock Early Bird News. I am your host, Analog Hook.
“In Shanghay, the series of mysterious radiation sickness-related illnesses has been confirmed to originate from contaminated irrigation waters. An estimated twelve-thousand hectares of newly cultivated land was reported to have been tainted by the irradiated water. The cause of this appears to be a new hydroelectric dam that had inadvertently diverted the Young Tze river into fallout zones. Locals were outraged of the neglect from government officials.”
“How could they build a dam if they didn’t know where the river would go?” a new voice, laden with a distinct Eastern accent and frustration. “They know that there are contaminated zones around here! Those new farms were just beginning to feed everypony, and now we’re back right where we started! Seven years of hard work ruined by those bènhuò! Where is Celestia when we need her?”
“Tensions between Crown officials and local political parties have reignited at the prospect of future hardships, as protesters took to the streets of Shanghay,” Analog continued, detailing the events. “So far there have been no reports of violence or arrests, but with the local populace facing a new food shortage, it is likely that riots may start up again. The local mayor, Tangmian, had this to say:”
“This lack of communication between civil construction and governmental authorities has to stop,” the mare spoke, a resounding echo of voices from a crowd drowning her voice to barely audible levels. “All services must first declare their intentions to the appropriate channels before they take any actions, so we can avoid incidents like these. Without a strong government presence here, this practice of doing whatever each sector pleases will not phase out. Even though those held accountable will be dealt with, others will take their place and create another disaster. If the Equestriani Crown remains in Equestria, then we should look to ourselves to govern.” To that, a booming cheer erupted, as hooves stomped and ponies cried in applause.
Analog Hook came back on. “As of yet no comment has yet been made by Equestriani authorities on the developing situation in Shanghay.”
Eco seemed taken aback. “They didn’t say anything? Why would they—”
The grey pony nearby shushed her, trying to focus on the next bit of news.
“Still looking in the East,” the radio host continued, the noise of shuffling papers audible over his voice, “a shipment of food heading for Foal Chi Mihn has been raided by pirates based in Neighpon. This is the sixth attack of the last three months, with four more casualties, including a Royal Guard.”
“This latest confrontation between the Royal Guard and Neighponese pirates has put into question the effectiveness of the escort system that had been implemented a month back. Authorities have requisitioned two new planes for patrol purposes, as a means to locate the elusive pirate hideout. However, guards on site such as the local pegasus commander remain unconvinced.”
“I can’t say much, since I’m just soldier,” a mare admitted, sounding relatively gruff, “but we’ve flown at least twenty missions to try to find the pirate hideouts, and have nothing to show for it. Maybe we’ve just been unlucky and the planes are what we’ve been missing since the start, but I can’t say I’m enthusiastic about finding those elusive pirates. Maybe we’ll get lucky this time.”
Hook’s voice returned to narrate the news: “This pirate raid followed after a food riot in Foal Chi Mihn. It is believed that pirates used this to their advantage while attention was focused away from the sea routes. Local politicians have come to expect these attacks.”
“I’ve pretty much given up hope on the government’s capacity to stop the pirates,” a tin-quality quality voice of a mare said vehemently. “There’s been a growing sentiment here since the start of the food riots, the mínzúzhǔyìqíngxù, to separate ourselves from Equestria. Ponies outside of the Eastern regions might see this as treason, but hunger can make a pony do crazy things. Extreme situations call for extreme measures.”
By then my mind phased out the radio as Hook went into the news of flooding in Whoazambique; this stream of bad news, while disheartening, had come to be no surprise. It had been a year of constant problems, complications and disasters for Equestria—good news from the world were few and far between, and, often times, forgotten within a week.
It was saddening to say the least. Some said that life in Equestria before the Arrival was far more idyllic than what people here have gotten used to: No pirates, no thievery, no hunger, no unrest, no violence, no natural disasters…
Such a world seemed something fictional to most who grew up here, myself included.
I noticed the dark pink unicorn shaking her head. “How could ponies even think of severance from the Crown?” she questioned in disbelief.
I shrugged. “It’s like that politician said, when one is driven to hunger he can do the unthinkable.”
“No, it can’t be just that,” Eco insisted, mulling over something. Her eyes lit up: “I bet the humans’ influence has to do with this political dissent!”
Eco’s speculation was both interesting and baffling. While I wasn’t an expert on human political thinking I definitely knew more than most. The details escaped me, but I could name most of the form of governance and describe them to some extent. Humans had a plethora of political systems, including the monarchies that everypony was aware of, as well as some more curious ones.
Some of the human monarchies had a royal family that did not actually rule the country, but rather by a group of ministers elected by the populace. Some didn’t even involve a royal family; sometimes the people had a say with the passing of laws—democracy they called it. A stranger one, called communism, functioned under the idea that everything belonged to everyone and that there was no need for a state. Each one of them were an interesting piece of political philosophy, and deserved to be studied more.
There was no question that the various governmental systems had some influence to what was happening around the world; as far as I was aware some of the protesters in Shanghay had been calling for a rule of the people—a republic as it was called. A few years ago in Rio de Maneiro there had been a coup by the local military commander, who claimed that he was disgusted at the living conditions and wanted to establish a new city state. While he had support from some of the poor and the needy, he had neither the numbers nor the experience to resist the brutal reaction from the Crown. The rebellion was short-lived and had led to a near-military rule of the city.
None of this would have happened if we had never met humanity.
I shrugged once more. “Maybe,” I mumbled, I had no intention to continue that line of discussion.
Eco pressed on: “I swear, humans continue to be problems even after they’re gone.”
“That’s not fair on them though,” I interjected, without really thinking.
She cocked her eyebrow. “Why? They tried to kick us out this world!”
I leaned back on my cushion, my usual pose for thinking. Then, looking at the radio, an idea came to me. “Well, we were just using a human invention just now. And we have planes, movies, self-propelled ships, automate—”
“You’re just rattling off names of machines,” she accused, interrupting my list. “We would have eventually come up with them, we are inventors too.”
“What about the university and college system?” I rebutted sharply, “before them, we only had the elementary and academy system: Either too basic or too specialized. Seeing as we’re both products of their educational system we ought to give them credit for where we are now.”
Eco opened her mouth, but then shut it close. Whatever was her thought, she wasn’t going to make it known any time soon.
With that, a jingle from the radio caught our attention. Analog Hook spoke once more, this time with some sense of hurry in his voice. “I’ve just been handed some breaking news: Following suspicions and rumors of Prince Shining Armor’s health, the Crown has finally come out with his status. We’re patching you to a live feed of Canterlot spokespony.”
The radio faded to a chorus of whispers. Suddenly a series of clicks, of which I assumed were photographs being taken. Feedback from a microphone squealed through the speakers. Once it quieted down, a stallion spoke.
“We have received a report from the Royal Hospital of Canterlot, with regards of Prince Shining Armor.” He took in a steady breath before continuing. “The Prince, as of three-o’-clock this morning, has been declared dead by medical officials.”
A collective gasp erupted, both from the radio and the dining hall. The whispers started up again as the speaker resumed. “Ever since his stay in the Inuyuma region fifty-seven years ago, he had been suffering from the milder effects of radiation poisoning. These effects have built up over the course of his life, and had begun to worsen a few months back. The Prince’s health got to a critical level a week back, and was interned into the RHC. In spite of the best efforts from doctors, Shining Armor did not make it past the night.
“A public funeral has been planned to take place within the week in the capitol, a more concrete date to be released later.”
There was no further comment, leading to a tide of voices demanding more information. But none came; only a booming voice, likely from a guard, threatening to clear the room if the journalists didn’t silence themselves. The feed cut off abruptly.
“Er,” Analog hesitated, caught off guard as well. “It seems that we’re experiencing some technical difficulties. We will try to return to the Canterlot feed as soon as possible.”
Once more Hook returned to announce other headlines, but none of us were listening. Even the bartender had heard of the Prince’s death. We all were devastated. I shook my head.
Just another tragedy of this world.
Stats
Page generated in 0.037 seconds
Total duration
910 users online
528,610 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
After
nine years of developmenttwo months of rewrites and life hounding me, here is the fourth chapter. We have ourselves a new friend! Play nice now.A special thanks to Warwolf for prereading this chapter.
Feedback is mighty appreciated.
So Shining is dead and Eco is blaming everything on humanity. Well lets see what happens in the next chapter.
Seems Celestia underestimated the difficulties of ruling a worldwide state. The distances result in the development of different cultures, so what works in one region could be catastrophic in another. This also results in propoganda working less and less. She also can't overawe everybody anymore, there are to many ponies.
*claims to be superior to and above humans*
*acts exactly like humans*
*blames their problems on humans*
Must. Not. Make. Political. Statement.
go Democracy!
cant wait for the next and overthrow the tyrannical monarchy! A government for the people and by the people 
1066812
To be fair Eco never stated to be above humans. She just blames 'em for their problems.
Which, ironically enough, is a very human thing to do.
1066857
I meant the ponies in general. I mean, Lyra was pretty much banished from everything forever for saying "Woah, wait a minute. Maybe the whole 'genocide' idea isn't a good one after all."
1066867
Fair enough.
If you ask me I liked this chapter, it shows that even when Humanity is extinct, we still leave a trace on the Equestrianis. Love the world building too.
Not cool Eco, not cool at all.
Really great world building and a very good illustration of just how difficult it's going to be for Equestria's system and government to be able to support that sudden influx of millions upon billions of new residents, as well as the expanded state, the many different ways of thinking, and how even though the serum may have altered their minds somewhat, the newfoals' still had something to affect Equestrian society.
I can't wait to see more interactions between Crystal and Lyra too! You have talent dude!
1066857
I'm enjoying this a lot so far, I just hope you don't go all Ayn Rand on us. Please tell me you're writing a story and not a polemic, right? I like how your ponies are so human, but ease up on hammering home the moral, okay?
1072252
It's good that you're enjoying the story midnight, and don't worry; this is still a story. Even though I enjoy taking part in polemics thus some of the messages may be hammered a tad too hard, this is primarily a story.
1072359
Great! I love a good story, and I have no issues with polemics, you just write far too well to stoop to preaching to the choir. This is shaping up to be a marvellous piece of socio-political intrigue.
Post-conversion Earth is worse than human Earth. That's what you get for being luddites, ponies.
Excellent. So, kill us off, and then slowly become us. Although I do feel sorry for Shining Armor.
Communism is number one and Im not saying that because our glorious leader is telling me too.
Well, Democratic Socialism using direct democracy and high local autonomy (things that don't affect regions larger than towns are left to the towns to decide) would be close to ideal. Stalinist central planning nonsense is worse than capitalist democracy. And I refuse to talk further on this subject, because it's a rathole at best.
No real concrit on the story itself. I am looking forward to the next chapter, though.
1072359
So.... anyone gonna realize how celestia screwed them over with her policies?
1206277
You'll have to wait and see.
Sigh, and the ponies wiped out the species who had just been living in this world for the past thousand odd years, in which we went about mastering our enviroment and bettering ourselves. Who thinks that a lot could have been avoided had they not wiped out all of humanity? So many tragedies avoided, so much technology that could have been made, so much innovation and life. . . but now, now it is gone, the chance has been lost. . .
Shining's death is actually pretty close to one method of vengeance I can see some being used by the worst of humanity. Certain radioactive ores like Cobalt 60 being buried in very human-made vaults just underneath the ground. As the Shield advances, it destroys the vault allowing the ore to start saturating the surrounding area. Leave these little bundles of joy near cities and towns and your vengeance will be satisfied.....you sick, twisted monster.
Well that was a pretty boring chapter in all honesty save for the twist at the end. Also each of the pony puns gave me a migraine.
1208857 i think that the following music is very apropiate for your comment and this story in general so i going to put it here
1068155 my little fallout:cancer is magic
So, the Equestrian Monarchy is suffering from Alexander-Syndrome? Or in laymen's terms, they conquered too much, too fast. They literally have a state far larger than they know how to run...
Irony!
Take that Ponies, you end Humanity, we end your harmony!
Aren't many races in Equestria carnivores or omnivores, including intelligent ones, such as the Griffins? I don't think eating meat would shock Ponies, that much.
I wonder how things are in France? They rely almost entirely on nuclear energy.
Why are there still radiation hotspots? It's clearly been 60+ years since the reactors left, and unless the ponies are catastrophically bad at dealing with environmental hazards (though I am seeing bureaucratic tendencies, so they might be), they would have had to introduce any new source of radiation themselves. Sure, irradiated zones would still remain, but we've seen how any human-processed product is destroyed- that pistol, while made of metal from the earth, was destroyed. Uranium is processed just as much, so shouldn't the field have destroyed the source of their current problems?
That said, the impact of humanity upon the environment is a very neat touch that works well with the plot, so... no real issues.
celestia the idyllic world is falling apart
Marquis de La Fayette
When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.
You can rule a nation Celestia, but can't rule a planet, this is only the beginning of the results of your hubris
EXCUSE YOU!!
Its our world, not yours you hypocrite!
You invaded us!!
1066062