Stained Glass
Chapter 1
Admiral Biscuit
The six Element bearers and Spike admired the stained glass window that bore Spike’s visage. He stood triumphant, one claw reaching for the Crystal Heart: a moment of victory that would not soon be forgotten—the salvation of the Crystal Empire plainly placed in the Hall of Heroes for everypony to see.
“Oh, Spikey-wikey has his very own memorial window now,” Rarity gushed, running a hoof across his crest. “Such a brave little dragon!”
Rainbow muttered something and turned away from the mushy garbage Rarity was spouting. Sure, Spike had a stained glass window, but she was in, like, three of them. Or was it four? She began counting the windows. There was one for defeating Nightmare Moon, one for re-imprisoning Discord, and of course, the changeling invasion. There should have been one for her sonic rainboom. Why, she probably had more windows than Commander Hurricane!
She began flying down the hallway, looking intently at the windows, studying them carefully. Not all of the images were entirely clear—especially to a pegasus who'd napped through most of her history classes—which was why there were brass plaques underneath each, naming the heroes and the event.
Finally reaching the end of the hall, she discovered no windows featuring Commander Hurricane. With a slightly sour look on her face, she flew back to rejoin the group.
“How come there aren’t more windows?”
“Ah shucks, don’t ya think your ego’s big enough already?”
Ignoring the barb, she turned to Twilight. Surely the egghead would know the answer. Of course, her eyes were kind of distant—she was looking at the window but not really seeing it. Rainbow waved a hoof in front of her face, yet elicited no response. “Hey, Twilight—how come there aren’t more stained glass windows?”
Ten Years Ago
“How are your classes?”
Twilight gently set the teacup on its saucer, priding herself as always at not sloshing the tea. “Um. . . “ She hated it when Celestia asked that. It always felt like a test to make sure she was keeping up with her studies, and she was. She’d read ahead in all her books, and was already practicing spells that were several levels above her peers. The only sour note was gym class: while she’d found books with all sorts of helpful tips, they were of little use in actually conveying the psychomotor skills needed to successfully score a point in hoofball. It didn’t help that it was against the rules to use magic, and Twilight kept forgetting, especially when the ball came towards her face. On the other hoof, she was getting really good at casting shield spells on the fly.
Celestia was still regarding her with a curious look. Twilight blushed, realizing she hadn’t answered the question. “Um, well, Literature class is good. We’re reading Withering Heights, and I’ve already written a scroll on the symbolism of the protagonist’s struggle against the dominant mare. Trigonometry is a breeze, so I started doing calculus for fun. We’re doing advanced telekinesis in casting class, and I can already move the biggest stone on the field a few inches. Then there’s gym and lunch follows which is really good, they had alfredo pasta today but I didn’t have any because I didn’t want to get any sauce on my book so I just had whole-grain toast instead. After lunch I have a free hour which I spent in the library, then another casting class, and then history. I read ahead in the book a little bit, to where the Canterlot castle was built. It said that there was a stained glass window which commemorated Commander Hurricane installed in the hall leading up to the throne room, and later it said that more windows were added and it was called the Hall of Heroes. I looked, though, and I couldn’t find the window, and the book didn’t say what had happened to it.”
Celestia chuckled softly. “History books don’t always tell the whole story, Twilight.” She looked down at the unicorn gently. “I could meet you at the main gate tomorrow after school and show you. Would you like that?”
“Would I?” Twilight would have leapt from her seat in excitement if she hadn’t already suffered through a semester of etiquette class. “Of course I would!”
The Present
“Hey, Twilight. Hey! Twilight!”
She snapped her head around, the memory fading. “What, Rainbow?”
Rainbow took a step backwards, surprised by the harshness of Twilight’s voice. “Er. Twilight?”
“Sorry.” Twilight smiled disarmingly. “I was thinking.”
“I could tell,” Dash muttered. “Hey, Twilight, how come there aren’t more stained glass windows? There aren’t any with Commander Hurricane, and she was, like, the greatest pegasus ever.”
“Oh!” Twilight brightened. “Right! There are, but they’re not all in the Hall of Heroes. They wouldn’t all fit!”
“I guess that makes sense.” Rainbow looked up and down the walls. “So, what, is there a stained glass window library or something?”
“No,” Twilight said soberly. “Not a library, but a museum.”
Ten Years Ago
True to her word, Celestia met Twilight at the front gate of her School for Gifted Unicorns. She was surrounded by a small gaggle of teachers, all pressing her for questions, but they moved aside when Twilight approached.
“Are we going to the Stained Glass Museum?” Twilight asked eagerly.
A small smile crossed the Princess’ lips. “We are indeed, my faithful student. Tell me, how long did it take you to find what it was called?”
“Almost all of my lunch break,” she said. She’d rushed there as soon as gym class was over, eagerly browsing through books about Canterlot. It had taken her most of the hour to realize that a tourist’s guidebook would be her most helpful resource. There were so many fascinating places in the city, she wondered if she’d ever have time to visit them all; even the castle still held surprises.
“We ought to stop by Donut Joe’s on the way,” Celestia said. “I think you’ll like it.”
• • •
One strawberry-frosted donut and cup of cocoa later, Twilight and the Princess soon found themselves in front of the Stained Glass Museum. It was tucked back a little way off the street, with a tidy garden in the front, but aside from the small sign in front of the building, it could have been almost anything.
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to see it all in one day, Twilight. But of course you can come back whenever you wish. The museum is open to all citizens of Equestria.”
As they were walking up the marble steps, Twilight looked up at her mentor. “Why haven’t you kept all the windows in the castle? It’s bigger than the museum; surely they all would have fit somewhere.”
Celestia chuckled. “I think it’s better for ponies to focus on the more-recent past, so I have reserved the Hall of Heroes only for those ponies who have done brave deeds in living memory. I—it’s complicated to explain, but it would be unfair to those ponies who work in the castle, or those who come there looking to the future, were it to be a stale monument to the past.
“At the same time, it is important that we remember where we’ve been, and honor those brave ponies who brought us where we are today, and this museum does that.” She lit her horn and opened the front doors for Twilight.
Twilight looked around the lobby eagerly. The room was a simple open chamber, with a small information desk in the center, and a bored-looking curator examining her hooves seated behind it. She jerked to attention as soon as she saw the Princess.
From reading the guidebook, Twilight knew that the museum was made up of a series of large interconnected hallways surrounding an open courtyard. She also knew that the more central halls held the oldest windows, and that the outermost ring was incomplete. To her frustration, she hadn’t managed to finish the book before lunch ended, and had had no opportunity after that.
She’d been thinking about it all the way over. Should she ask to be led around the oldest ring—where the windows dated back to the very founding of Equestria—or the outer ring, where the more contemporary windows were placed? Or should she pick a middle hallway? More importantly, what would the Princess think of whatever choice she made?
“Perhaps you’d like to see entry to the Hall of Unicorns?” Celestia prompted. “There are several nice windows dedicated to Starswirl the Bearded there.”
“Yes!” Twilight closed her eyes, trying to remember which wing contained the Hall of Unicorns. It was on the left . . . was it the second or third corridor?
When she opened her eyes again, she realized that the Princess was across the room already. Twilight galloped after her, frustrated by her short legs. Next year, she’d learn the spell to teleport—she’d already tried to study it on her own, but it was far too complicated for her to wrap her head around. There were so many difficult variables that went into the casting of the spell, and if it was done wrong, it just sucked up a lot of magical energy without accomplishing anything.
At the sound of galloping hooves, the Princess paused, waiting for Twilight to catch up. As she led the filly into the first room, she began explaining. “Most of the halls have an entry chamber, and they’re generally just decorative windows which feature appropriate themes.”
Twilight looked at the windows in wonder. Over the years, she’d grown accustomed to the ones in the Hall of Heroes, but that chamber was big enough that they fit in properly. Here, in a narrower corridor, the windows seemed to reach impossibly tall, and she realized that she’d have to back up to fully appreciate them.
The book had told her that all of the windows in the main part of the museum were fitted with light-crystals so that they would glow pleasantly regardless of outside conditions.
“That window dates back to pre-unification,” Celestia began. “It shows a tribe of earth ponies giving tribute to the unicorns, in return for the unicorn council raising the sun.” She pointed to a hole near the top. “It was broken in the siege of Fillydelphia, and never repaired—at the time, the unicorns didn’t know how to make colored glass. That was an earth pony skill.
“They kept it in their council chambers for nearly a generation before I ordered that they remove it. It sent the wrong message, I felt—it was not about unity and harmony, but about slavery.”
“Why is it here? If it sends a bad message, wouldn’t it be wisest to destroy it?”
“No, Twilight. We cannot change the past, as much as we might like to. It is better to serve as a reminder of why the old way of doing things had to change than to hide it and pretend that it never happened.” She paused for a moment and pointed towards the next window. “Now, this one is a tribute to scrollwork in general. The spell which is shown on the glass is said to bring good luck to the caster, and many a generation of student has cast that very same spell on herself before an examination.”
Twilight hastily skimmed the words. They nagged at her mind; she’d seen a similar spell before—but something was missing from this one. “Princess, I don’t think this spell could work. There’s no effect, just a target. If a mare were to cast it, all it would do is make her horn glow before the spell fizzled.”
Celestia smiled. “Most unicorns aren’t as studious as you, and never noticed that.”
Rather than continue to hallway of unicorns, Twilight headed back towards the main foyer. “Can we look at the others? Before I have to choose?”
“Of course.”
• • •
They went next to the pegasus entryway. Both sides were flanked with portraits of Commander Hurricane. In the first, he was standing proudly atop a cloud, with an entire pegasus hipparchy arrayed behind him. Twilight moved in close, taking in the details of the image—the artisan had painted fine details on the stained glass, and even though time had faded the image somewhat, it was still easy enough for her to imagine what the window had looked like in its heyday.
Across the hallway, the image was still martial. This time, neat ranks of earth ponies dressed in heavy armor were lined up on the ground, while soaring above them was Commander Hurricane.
“The Hearth’s Warming Pageant is not entirely accurate,” Princess Celestia said quietly. “Simply a foal’s tale, although the moral is worth knowing.”
“There wasn’t an endless winter?”
“Oh, there was, and the tribes feuding did empower the Windigos. But they did not resolve their differences in a cave, but rather on a battlefield.” She pointed to the first window. “It wasn’t until long after unification that the first pegasus got her cutie mark in glassmaking. So both of these were made by earth pony craftsmares, in honor of the peace treaty between the pegasi and earth ponies. You see, the pegasi needed a source of food, and the earth ponies were tired of fending off their raids. I do not know who first proposed an alliance against the unicorns, but that was a turning point, as there were now two tribes guarding the diminishing food sources.”
Twilight considered that. She’d never really thought too much about where her food came from, but now that she was thinking about it, she could see how the earth ponies and the pegasi had a clear symbiotic relationship. “Are all their windows about war?”
“Not all of them, but the pegasi do glorify great deeds, and most of their windows reflect that.” Celestia nuzzled her student. “Do you wish to see the earth pony entryway before you make up your mind?”
Twilight shook her head.
“You do not?”
“I’ve already made up my mind—I want to see the earth pony hallway.” Twilight took a breath. “They invented stained glass, right? So that means that everything else in the museum comes from that, and I think I’ll understand it best if I start from the beginning.”
She lead the way back to the main foyer, then looked up and down the halls, trying to orient herself. She hadn't had time to fully examine the tourist guide, but she thought she could remember the map. The earth pony hallway was all the way on the left.
Just to be safe though, she let Celestia lead her down the hallway. In case she was wrong.
The teacher and her student stopped in front of a small alcove. It was flanked on either side by tall stained glass windows, both depicting earth ponies working the land. Twilight knew by their clothes and the farm buildings in the background that the scene depicted was post-unification. That struck her as odd: her logical mind would have put the oldest windows at the front, yet she knew that the earth ponies had been crafting stained glass windows for centuries before the unification. Some of them, she knew, had been given to the unicorns as tribute.
She didn't mean to mention it, but she couldn't help herself:Twilight was a curious pony. "Why aren't the oldest windows first?"
Celestia chuckled. "As the head curator of the museum says, they aren't as 'aesthetically pleasing,' but I will let you be the judge of that." She pointed a hoof towards the window on the left. "This one depicts the harvesting of an alfalfa field, and was made in honor of Lucerne Sprout, who founded the River’s Bend settlement. And right beside it, the first pear harvest in Sunny Meadows. Maquette and Flashed Glass were always such rivals, and tried to outdo each other with their windows.”
Twilight studied the windows. She wasn't very familiar with farming; the palace had plenty of gardens, but she was aware those weren’t the same as farms. Sometimes, on a particularly clear day, she could look out a palace window and see some distant fields checkerboarding the landscape, although they were much too far away to make out any details.
She also was not a student of botany; however, even a neophyte like her could tell that the plants represented were all distinct species. It struck her as an interesting insight into the mindset of earth ponies: that they would put such minute detail into the stained glass window. "Were the two windows made at the same time?"
Princess Celestia shook her head. "No. The window on the left was made first, by ponies in River’s Bend, and upon hearing of it, the ponies of Sunny Meadows decided to send a representative to see it and then make a better window." She pointed a hoof at the small brass plaque underneath the window. "The whole story is there."
Twilight looked at the plaque, and thought about reading it. Then she thought about the Princess standing next to her, and thought about how easily she could spend the day or more reading about the windows. She would have liked to, but deep inside she felt that the opportunity to visit at least some of the museum in the company of her mentor was an opportunity not to be squandered. She could learn about the windows from somepony who had been there when they were made, who perhaps knew things about them that the history books would never say.
In a rare moment of wisdom for such a young filly, Twilight shook her head. "I can come back and read it later, Princess."
Princess Celestia beamed at her, and let her through the archway. "This is the oldest known stained glass window."
Twilight looked at it. It was what her art teacher might've called ‘primitive.’ The design looked like something a foal might make. The colors were garishly bright, and the form was abstract. If it was meant to represent anything, Twilight couldn't figure out what.
"That window is older than I am," Princess Celestia said.
Twilight looked at it with newfound respect. It might be ugly, but it was very, very old.
"It decorated a granary in the pre-unification lands. The tribe gave it to us as a gift after we took the throne."
The next window was easier to understand. It depicted an earth pony family tending their fields, and Twilight started to wonder if all the stained glass windows were going to be of earth ponies caring for their lands.
As they went on, however, the windows depicted other scenes. Other ponies. Heroic warriors. Leaders. Explorers. And, on one occasion, just an ear of corn.
Throughout it all, Princess Celestia gave a small summary of the window, who it had been made for—if that was known—and when it had been given to the Crown.
In most cases, she even knew the artisan who had created it.
Twilight took it all in, absorbing the history like a sponge. She’d never really thought about just how old Equestria was. She’d never really thought about how old the Princess was.
There were some ponies she knew already—every foal knew the names of Chancellor Puddinghead and Smart Cookie—but there were so many names she’d never heard; so many ponies who had been important enough to warrant a stained glass window in their honor and yet would be otherwise forgotten.
When they finally reached the end of the hall, the Princess leaned down and nuzzled her. "I think we've seen enough of the museum for one day. I have my royal duties to attend to, and I wouldn't want to make your mother upset by keeping you past your dinner time."
She had been feeling a little bit of hunger, but she’d pushed that to the back of her mind. A learning opportunity like this was more important than dinner. “Can we come back?"
"Yes, my faithful student. Shall we meet here again in one week's time?"
Twilight nodded.
Good Lord, Biscuit! Are you suuuuuuuuuuuuure you didn't participate in One-Shot-ober?
You say this is a pony planet story. Do you mean it's part of the Onto The Pony Planet timeline, or is it just a one-shot?
7686797
It's part of the bigger world, like The Pony Pull, or Apple Honey's Perfectly Ordinary Day.
7686844 Alright then. It's rather late though, so I'll likely have to read it tomorrow. Bookmarking for now.
Love your world-building stories. I really like the idea of stained glass being used to record history. Did you get the idea from somewhere or was the plethora of stained glass windows in Canterlot Castle enough inspiration?
It does make me wonder about other methods people used to record history over the ages. The written word may be common now but when only the select few can read it is limited in its usefulness. When thinking of other methods the first things that come to mind are paintings and oral traditions. Sculptures are perhaps the closest thing to the pony windows that I can think of. I don't know of many old stained glass works of art, outside of churches that is. I wonder why it isn't more common, too fragile or too expensive I wonder? Why did it work so well for ancient ponies that it caught on, maybe it had something to do with the sunlight shining through and Celestia connotations.
I wonder if the museum ever has late night opening where ponies shine lights through the windows and light up the place. It sounds like it would be very pretty. Regardless it is good to see that Twilight has the proper appreciation for Museums. It was to be expected of course, but it is still nice to see in action. Since this is a Pony Planet Story I hope we will one day get to see her in some human museums. The ones on the National Mall are some of the best ones I have ever been to and I can only imagine how they would make her swoon.
The parentheses is pointed the wrong way.
She’d been thinking about it all the way over. Should she ask to be led around the oldest ring—where the windows dated back to the very founding of Equestria—or the outer ring, where the more contemporary windows were placed? Or should she pick a middle hallway? More importantly, what would the Princess think of whatever choice she made?
If they were from the founding of Equestria, guess the windows had to have been moved from the old castle in the Everfree, eh?
Got to read it after all. Very well done.:D
Wonderful... I love historical world building. Twilight's filly characterization is spot on as well.
Oh the humanity/equinity. A little thing to brighten my day.
The biggest question, given a window older than Celestia, and the Unicorn Council raising the sun, and Celestia and Luna defeating Discord, is,
Was the system Heliocentric when the equines etc were not, or barely sapient, and it was when Discord decided to Uplift them, and for long enough, that they gained enough capability to defeat him, but by that time or as a last throw he made the system geocentric or whichever model is used?
Will any of the windows show the creation, or discovery of The Elements, or Tree, given the Castle in Everfree was built Over it? and will the Tree be a side effect of the Centric Shift and implimentation of Saturated Magic Enviroment?
If only the windows in living memory are stored, it means the 1800s are now slotted away where few people get to see the heros. No Shakespear, Brunel, Babbage?
the opening quotation mark is missing.
Is Rainbow bad at histoy or did you hesitate as to wich gender you wanted to give to Hurricane? 'Cause later on he is a he...
So you are really planning to publish some subsequent chapters?
Because it feel like an ending and yet it can easily be followed...
ps: pretty sure it make 100 by now, congrats!
Oh boy, a museum story!
Hope she means one of the curators. If a director is setting exhibition policy there's already something wrong.
I like this. I like this very much.
*who it had
This was gorgeous to read. I look forward to more. I happen to have a fascination with stained glass.
7687473
Maybe Hurricanes gender is in question historically and Rainbow prefers the idea that she's female.
Given we're told the Heartwarming tale isn't quite correct Hurricane might be an aggregate of several real life ponies rather than an individual.
7687473
7688699
It's not a typo. That should be elaborated on further down the line.
7687648
Maybe the director agrees with whoever is responsible for that policy, and just happens to be the one who stuck in Celestia's mind?
7688251
In that case, have you read the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson? It's not a huge part of the story, but stained glass does show up a fair bit (especially in the original trilogy), and I remember quite liking some of the parts in question.
And wow, I can't believe I only just realized that I actually (finally) could dig out my old stained glass supplies again and try getting back into that. Thanks for the (obviously intentional) reminder!
7686887 I don't know about the author's inspiration, but this was actually a common method of making history available to the masses in the Middle Ages. Because most people couldn't read, the stories were put in the windows so that they could see it, like a picture book for little children. The reason it was mostly done in churches is because A) They were more likely to have the money, because they didn't have to fund the wars that the nobles did, and B) Their stories were deemed more important. To the nobles, there was no reason for commoners to know the nation's history. More often than not, that would be detrimental to the ruling family's claim to the throne. The churches, on the other hand, wanted everybody to know about what the Scriptures taught. Well, what they deemed to be the important parts, anyway. That's why most stained glass windows are religious in topic.
I get really excited when there's a historical question that I know the answer to. It doesn't happen often. And I' favoriting this story. It's an absolutely brilliant premise
I'm kinda surprised there wasn't a small end point of Twilight explaining it to Dash and showing her the museum.
I came here for the easy joke about how Commander Hurricane was hopelessly overdramatic and ended up busting all his Historical Commemorative Stained Glass Windows with his Dramatic Entrances, but received a nice oneshot about history and worldbuilding.
I am certainly not disappointed.
7686775
Nope! I mean, unless you count SGJ chapters as individual stories, in which case, yes.
7686887
Well, it was kind of a mix of things. I've always liked stained glass since it's pretty, and I've been to the stained glass museum on Navy Pier in Chicago. Then in the episode where Spike got his window, I thought about how if every noble deed rated a window or two, than the whole castle would have nothing but, unless they moved them somewhere else, and the idea was born mostly from there. At the very end, I'll have a blog post explaining all the details.
Besides what 7689025 said (which, as far as I know, is true), I think one downside to stained glass windows is that they're about the hardest thing to move when compared to books, tapestries, sculptures, etc. So I think that would have been a factor which would also have somewhat limited their really widespread use as a teaching tool, at least on Earth. On the other hand, a woodcut in a book can't really compare to the light shining through a stained glass window.
Well, the sunlight connection certainly wouldn't have hurt; after all, Celestia is the one bringing the glass to life. And it's also a good showcase for skill, too, which I think would be a reason ponies would do it.
That would give it a whole different look, wouldn't it? Or the windows being lit by unicorn auras; that might really change how they looked, too.
Twilight is one of those ponies where introducing her to so many things that are new to her all at once might cause her brain to explode as she tries to process it all at once.
7686993
Do you mean the quotation mark? If so, it looks okay on my end.
7686994
Yup. Some of them would have had to have come from there.
7687013
Thank you!
7687353
It's always the little things that make life great.
7691892 No prob.^^
7687442
I think that the sun worked the same way then as it does now, but it was just other natural processes that Discord broke. However, I don't believe that we have any good answer in canon, so I suppose it's possible that everything worked the normal way until Discord messed it up, in which case those unicorns who were raising the sun back in tribal times were doing it in defiance of Discord.
Probably yes in to the first; as for the second, maybe. I think that some things in Equestria probably happen just due to extra magic scattered here and there.
Well, the museum is open to anypony who wants to see, and certainly is going to have every significant piece of glass that isn't still in the palace. And of course ponies would also have other historical records, like books.
7687473
Thank you!
That's on purpose. And in canon, she can't even remember the names of famous historical Wonderbolts.
Yes. This is not yet complete.
It does! Thank you!
7687648
That's fair. I'll change it.
7687707
Thank you!
Correction made; thank you!
7688251
Thank you! I also love stained glass.
Wouldn't writing a story where ponies are making it be something? Hmm....
7688699
Or Rainbow just assumed.
7689025
My own headcanon is that near-universal literacy for the ponies is a very recent thing; the Mane 6 are the first generation where nearly everypony knows how to read or write. So for the ponies, it's still a good reason for doing it.
Man, that feeling when you've got the right knowledge for the moment.
Thank you!
7690088
Twilight and Dash visiting the museum will be the next chapter.
7690124
Oh, man, if I'd wanted to go the comedy route, that would have been brilliant.
"Rainbow, how many windows do you have in your house now?"
"Well I used to have four, but I broke them all. Why?"
7689025
Thanks for the information! It makes sense that the church would be primary responsible. They always have such a sense of opulence in the old days, especially the Catholics.
7691886
Big and fragile are fairly significant downsides when it comes to looking at the practicality of a work of art/teaching material. Makes it harder to move/hide and more likely to break when hard times come. While woodcuts cannot compare in an aesthetic sense they do have the added benefit of being easier to make and produce. They're not designed for the same function. Stained Glass is meant to awe and inspire (at least in a church), while the woodcut is for more widespread distribution. I think that's a good thing too, would stained glass be so impressive if it was everywhere and widespread? I'm not certain.
True, but trying to drip feed her information little by little is likely to frustrate her just as much. She just has to know everything! It's similar that Phil Collins song in Disney's Tarzan, without the romantic undertones (I think. The purple pony loves her books). Her brain may explode, but deep down it is what she really wants.
7691958
Glee!
7691933
...and her name will be Lead Came.
Very nice!
I just remembered another story about the stained glass windows by Titanium Dragon: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/229065/1/forever-and-again-and-again/of-eternal-magic
Lot of storys on glass to be told.
This is a stained glass window. All craftsponyship is of the highest quality. On the item is an image of ponies and apples. The ponies are laboring. The apples are being eaten by the ponies. The apples are screaming. The image relates to the founding of Ponyville by the Apple family in CE 1146.
Ooh, very nice way of commemorating all the great ponies who can't fit in the Expository Hall. Definitely looking forward to Dash's reaction.
7825089
The Apples are just lucky that they founded Ponyville by a river with no carp in it...
Will there be more?
9515745
Yes, eventually. Don’t wanna make any firm promises, but I do have most of the second (and final) chapter written, I’ve just never found quite the right ending for it.
Revisiting this gem in 2020 after an OTPP update, just enjoying being able to swim around in the delicious worldbuilding potential that is Equestrian history. Kudos once again, Admiral.
Also rather bittersweet to read this at the current point in human history, where my country is experiencing violent convulsions that are rooted in our past (and also involve our historical monuments). We're struggling to find that balance of honoring the honorable things while renouncing the dishonorable, but not forgetting how we came to be, which is of course a complicated story. Some people seem ready to just smash the sordid reminders of less enlightened times and be done with it, which might be well-intentioned, but is also worryingly simplistic. Stained glass doesn't grow back.
Really love Celestia's take on it:
Would that such wisdom prevailed among us humans with our painfully-short attention spans...
10286824
Thank you!
Your country may also be my country (or perhaps not)--either way, you’re right, it’s complicated. As you’d imagine of late, that’s been a topic of interest in the community here and the community at large. For my part, some of my ancestors fought and died for a less-than-honorable cause and while I can’t pretend that didn’t happen, I also can’t accept that they made the right choice simply because they ultimately produced me (I’m speaking actual biological ancestors, rather than figurative) . . . I think in the case of my family, at least, we understand that this was a thing that happened in the past; that there is an heirloom which has been passed down through the ages, and that it has value as a family heirloom but it’s not who we are now.
That passage was written long before the current debates, discussions, civic unrest, etc, and yet . . .
There are clearly things which ought to be shoved into the dustbin of the past, maybe learned about briefly in a history class and then forgotten. There are other things which should be honored, which should be proudly displayed as a monument to the hopes and dreams of the people. And than there’s the broadest class of things which fall into a grey area which changes with time and place and current philosophy that perhaps should be destroyed or perhaps should be kept or maybe ideally kept but with context. What fits where is hard to say sometimes, and really can be complicated by a bunch of factors, not the least of which is our modern interpretation of what it means.
Man, this one can generate a bit of drama right now.
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I know. Assuming I get off my lazy butt and post the second chapter sometime soonish, new readers are going to think that it was written in response to current events, when in reality it was literally years ago. (In fact, the story as a whole dates back to 2012.)