156 - Food For Thought
“Please, I’m begging you! I just need you to do this once, and that’s all! I’ll never ask you for anything again after this, I swear!”
House Call fidgeted uncomfortably as he listened to Aisle’s pleading. He’d already said no to the other pony’s request, but apparently Aisle wasn’t ready to take no for an answer. “Look, I’m sorry, but I just can’t. If I lie to Lex and he finds out about it…” He trailed off, a shudder going down his spine at the thought. After seeing what had happened to Fencer or Garden Gate or whatever her name was, House Call didn’t know what Lex would do to a pony that deliberately deceived him, and he had no intention of ever finding out.
Unfortunately, Aisle was also worried about somepony facing Lex's wrath. “Please!” He looked up from where he had knelt down, pressing his forehooves together. “If Lex finds out that Cozy didn’t help treat any patients last night, then I won’t be able to stop him from punishing her!”
House Call glanced around nervously, worried that somepony would overhear what they were talking about. The central portion of the field hospital, where they were now, was nothing more than several of the larger tents that had been sewn together in the middle of last night’s flurry of activity. Thankfully, a few of C. Shells’ crew were adept at tailoring – another skill that was useful during long voyages at sea, as it turned out – and they’d managed to skillfully stitch the tents into a rough approximation of a larger tent that was subdivided into multiple interior spaces. A few skillfully-applied hanging sheets had helped to create various niches where House Call and the other medical ponies could treat patients individually. Even so, the thin fabric made it frighteningly easy to overhear what others were saying. “I know, but-”
“You just have to tell Lex that she helped heal a few patients last night,” continued Aisle. “That’s all. It’s not like he’d ever know.”
“Are you kidding me? Of course he’d know!” House Call could feel sweat running down the back of his neck. He’d never been the bravest of ponies, and he knew it. When it came to treating injured ponies, he could be as cool, calm, and collected as they came. But even the thought of facing actual violence was enough to make him nervous. He still couldn’t believe that he’d gone out and fought a bunch of monsters just a few nights ago; to him, that entire ordeal felt like some sort of bad dream, and although the memories were enough to make him tremble, at least he knew that it was over now. But the thought of Lex finding out that he’d lied to him was just as frightening. “We have to keep medical records, you know. Even out here, we still have to write down what treatments we’re giving our patients. If he looks through them and doesn’t find any references to Cozy, the jig will be up!”
Aisle refused to let this go. “Then just write some fake records!” he pleaded, wishing for the hundredth time that Cozy had simply done what Lex had told her. Thanks to all of the time they’d spent together before Lex had found them, he knew that she only had a few spells; she could have expended them all in under five minutes, and then Lex would have been satisfied. No, he silently rebuked himself. It’s not fair to blame her.
Ever since she’d cried on his shoulder, Cozy had been extremely depressed, expressing very little interest in anything except standing vigil over her husband’s body. Just getting her to say more than a few words was a struggle; it had taken several hours of gentle coaxing before she’d admitted that she still had something she wanted to do, which had turned out to be bringing Pillowcase back to the Crystal Empire in hope that Princess Cadance could resurrect him. Aisle had no idea if such a thing could be done or not, but so long as Cozy had something that was keeping her going, he wasn’t about to question it.
Unfortunately, everything outside of that had lost all power to motivate her. When he’d realized that she wasn’t going to use her healing magic at Lex’s command, Aisle had been beside himself, trying to impress upon her that Lex would almost certainly not let her inaction go unpunished. When that failed to move her, he’d managed to calm down enough to try a different tact: letting her know that, regardless of how she felt about Lex, there were hurt ponies that needed her help. But even that had failed to rouse her, and she’d simply given him a sullen look before turning her back to him and muttering that she wanted to be left alone. He’d barely slept a wink, hoping against hope that she’d come to her senses before sunrise.
But she hadn’t, and now he was here trying to save her from the consequences of her decision. “It can’t be that hard, right? Just write one or two sentences, and that should be good enough for Lex!”
House Call shook his head. “What if he wants to follow-up with the patients she supposedly helped? If he starts looking for corroboration, there’s no way we’d be able to keep our stories straight!”
Aisle grit his teeth, his exhaustion, anxiety, and frustration starting to turn into anger. “Cozy saved all of our lives when we were fighting those monsters! Now she needs our help, and you can’t even do this one small thing for her?!”
House Call’s ears folded back, looking away in shame, and for a moment Aisle thought he might have convinced the other stallion to help out. But House Call shook his head a moment later. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and before Aisle could reply he pushed past him, trotting away.
For a moment, Aisle just stayed there, staring vacantly into space as he tried to process just how completely he’d failed. Slowly, mechanically, he climbed to his hooves and stumbled towards the door, desperately trying to think of what he could do now. Lex said that he was going to ask the doctors if Cozy showed up, he thought to himself as he thrust aside a tent flap to head outside. So if I-
Lex was waiting on the other side of the flap. “There you are.”
Aisle couldn’t help but let out a yelp, immediately reversing course and almost falling over as he threw himself backward. “L-Lex!”
“Come with me,” ordered the dour unicorn, turning and walking away without looking back.
He knows. Aisle felt like he was going to throw up, a wave of panic-induced vertigo washing over him as he stumbled to his hooves. It was over. Lex must have spoken to one of the other doctors already, and now he knew that Cozy hadn’t done as he’d instructed her. Cozy, I’m sorry, Aisle wailed mournfully in his thoughts. The idea that Lex was going to punish her, to make her life even more miserable, was too unfair for words. It was enough to make tears of frustration gather in his eyes as he stepped out of the tent and moved to follow Lex.
But a moment later he realized that they were headed in the wrong direction.
They should have been circling around, headed towards the far side of the large amalgamation of tents that made up the field hospital, where the supplies and various medical miscellanies had been placed, Pillowcase’s body among them. That was where Cozy had spent all of her time since they’d gotten there, and Aisle had no reason to believe that she wasn’t there right now. But Lex was leading him away from there, instead taking him deeper into the camp. A desperate hope growing in his chest, Aisle quickly wiped his eyes as he trotted behind Lex. His curiosity rose with every step, but he dared not open his mouth, worried that if he asked what they were doing he wouldn’t like the answer.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a minute or two, Lex abruptly stopped, almost causing Aisle to barrel into him. But Lex didn’t notice, instead looking towards a particular group of mangy-looking ponies clustered around a small campfire a few dozen feet away. With a quick glance behind him to make sure that Aisle was still there, he strode towards the group, with Aisle – now completely mystified – following him.
The trio of ponies, two pegasi stallions and an earth mare, looked up as Lex approached, all of their faces tensing as they saw who was headed toward them. All three climbed to their hooves, casting nervous looked at each other before eyeing Lex uncertainly. Aisle saw them glance down towards Lex’s hooves, and belatedly noticed that his shadow was directly underneath him, where everyone else’s was stretching out due to the sun’s low angle. He briefly wondered if that meant anything in particular, and it occurred to him then just how little he really knew about the pony that had saved all of their lives more than once.
“Good m-morning,” stuttered the mare, trying to smile, a gesture Lex didn’t bother to return. “I’m Mi-”
“What are you eating?” spoke Lex. The question made Aisle blink in confusion, and it was only a moment later that he noticed that there were flames flickering in the fire pit in front of them, a dirty frying pan carefully balanced on some rocks above the fire. Inside it was…something black and shriveled, through Aisle couldn’t even begin to guess what it was.
The three ponies shared an uncomfortable look at the question, and the mare, Mi-something, spoke up again. “Breakfast…?”
Lex narrowed his eyes. “Do not be coy with me.” The mare bit her lip and looked away while her two companions edged back, as though preparing to run, but none of them spoke up again. After several seconds, Lex looked at Aisle. “Identify that foodstuff.”
Aisle blinked. “Huh?”
“Tell me what they were planning on eating,” repeated Lex.
For a moment Aisle was utterly baffled. Lex had brought him here for that? Why? He could just taste it himself if he wanted to know what they were cooking. But the weight of Lex’s glare made pointing that out seem like a bad idea, and Aisle instead looked around, grabbing a discarded piece of cardboard and wrapping it around the handle of the frying pan, taking it off of the fire. After letting it cool for a minute, he tentatively leaned over and took a bite of the burnt-looking substance inside. The unknown food had barely touched his tongue before he gave a disgusted groan and spit the stuff out, coughing. That was foul!
“Well?” asked Lex impatiently.
Aisle spit a few times, trying to get the horrible taste out of his mouth, before answering. “I think…that it was lettuce, but,” he paused to rub a leg over his mouth, “but it was rotten. Completely bad.”
One of the pegasi stallions spoke up then, his voice miserable. “We thought it’d be a little better if we cooked it.”
Aisle was about to tell them how ridiculous, not to mention dangerous, that was, but Lex spoke up first. “Where did you get that lettuce?” The trio collectively winced, as though the question was painful for them to hear, and again none of them volunteered an answer. But this time Lex wasn’t willing to tolerate their silence, his eyes narrowing. “Answer me.”
“We…we found it,” muttered the mare, looking like she wished she was anywhere else right now.
Aisle’s brow furrowed at that, her answer conflicting with what his years as a grocer in Vanhoover had taught him. “Found it where? The nearest lettuce farm is miles from here.”
“She means we took it with us when we left Vanhoover, after the flooding,” ventured one of the pegasi. “We found it there, when we were leaving.”
Aisle shook his head, even more confused. “But if you had it since then, why did you wait until it went bad to eat it? Even if you had a bunch of food saved up, you should have given the excess provisions to other ponies before it went bad. It’s useless otherw-”
“I’ve heard enough,” announced Lex, turning to leave.
“You…what?” Aisle blinked, glancing at the other ponies and seeing his own surprise mirrored on their faces. What had all that been about?
At least he didn't ask about Cozy...for now. Aisle bit his lip, knowing that the reprieve was most likely temporary. Desperate times call for desperate measures, he decided. If the doctors couldn't help him, maybe there was somepony else who could.
Lex’s thoughts swirled darkly as he marched back towards the field hospital.
He had known, as soon as he’d seen the sheer number of ponies living in this camp, that they had to be receiving food from somewhere. No matter how intimidating Block Party might have been, or however he’d manipulated them into staying close to the wreck that was Vanhoover, there was no way to keep everypony here if there was nothing for them to eat. For this camp to have been here since the floodwaters had receded, they needed to have food coming to them from somewhere, otherwise everypony would either have starved or abandoned the place by now.
Of course, Lex had instantly come up with a theory, but he’d needed Produce Aisle – a Vanhoover resident whose cutie mark, a scale weighing a cabbage, had made it clear that being a grocer was his special talent – to help him confirm it. And he’d done exactly that, not only when he’d pointed out how irrational their story about having “found” that lettuce was, but also when he’d let it slip that there was a lettuce farm several miles from here. That had told Lex everything he needed to know.
The ponies of this camp were raiding nearby farms in order to steal food.
It was the only possible explanation, Lex knew. There was no chance that they were buying food legally, not when the ponies here barely had adequate shelter, let alone bits to make regular purchases. And he only had to look around to know that there was no real effort underway to grow anything here at the camp, doubtlessly due to a lack of adequate materials to make such a venture even remotely feasible. Since the trio of ponies would have said if the ponies from nearby farms were donating the food to them voluntarily, stealing was the only remaining answer.
But that’s not even the worst of it, Lex knew. After all, it would have been one thing if they had been cooking fresh food. But the lettuce they’d been preparing to eat had been rotten, and that painted a much darker picture.
Vanhoover, like all cities, was fundamentally unable to feed itself, Lex knew. Squeezing thousands of ponies into a dense urban area required that food be brought in from elsewhere. But while central Equestria was the breadbasket that fed the entire continent thanks to the rich variety of grains that grew there, the northwestern area immediately north of Vanhoover had a few hundred square miles of arable land tucked between the Frozen North, the western ocean, the Unicorn Mountains to the east, and the marshlands to the south. It was common knowledge that the area was famous for its vegetable farms, most – though not all – of which specialized in subsurface vegetables.
But unlike the grains grown in central Equestria, tubers and similar vegetables didn’t store well. They had a tendency to rot in a matter of days, and even proper preservation could only stretch their shelf-life out to a few weeks at most, requiring a constant cycle of planting and harvesting. That, in turn, meant that the farmers who grew them needed to sell each harvest quickly, turning their crops into profit before they rotted and became worthless. And since this was the region that specialized in those vegetables, that meant shipping them across Equestria, using the railroad lines that blanketed the continent.
But Block Party had shut down the train service after he’d taken over.
Of course, that was only for this city. The rail line that came here from Canterlot took a sharp northeast turn after reaching Vanhoover, hugging the Unicorn Mountains before slipping through the valley that was nestled between their northernmost peaks and the southernmost edge of the Frozen North, continuing all the way to the Crystal Empire before sharply banking south and returning to Canterlot, making a giant loop. It was extremely implausible that Block Party could have stopped the rail service to the entirety of the northwestern region. But then again…he’d never determined the full extent of what Block Party could do.
And if he had somehow made it so that none of the farms in the area could ship their produce out across Equestria…that would explain why those ponies had been eating rotten food. The lack of train service would mean a buildup of produce that couldn’t be moved, and with no other food products being imported, the farmers in the area would be reduced to eating what they grew, leaving the excess vegetables to rot. And if the ponies in the camp had been stealing food for some time, then the farmers would know to protect the edible food first, leaving the starving and weakened camp ponies to go for the less-protected rotten food. Why else would they have brought back food they couldn’t eat, after all? Why not just go and steal fresher food? The only answer had to be that they couldn’t, because there simply wasn’t any that could be easily taken.
And with every harvest they had to let go spoiled and unsold, the entire region would grow that much poorer. While that wouldn’t be as cataclysmic as what had happened to Vanhoover, Lex knew that it could still inflict severe long-term damage to the quality of life of everypony living in the area. A decline in the local economy didn’t have the same immediacy as a plague of ghouls, but it could still cause massive hardship that could take a long time to recover from.
The rest of Equestria won't even notice it happening until it's too late, Lex knew. With how long it takes to ship goods, local retailers are probably only now noticing that their supplies are growing thin. And with how useless the princesses are, they won't be able to do anything to stop the region's downturn. Although his expression didn’t change, Lex felt a shudder go down his spine. If he was right…if Block Party had somehow found a way to interfere with the train service across the area…then he had been planning something much larger than what Lex had initially thought. But the reason for it, beyond simply spreading misery, remained inscrutable.
The emergence of so many new problems was daunting to consider. But for now, Lex knew he had more immediate issues where food was concerned. Word was already spreading that he'd have more food to distribute, he knew, and time was running out...
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A classic trope in Lawful Evil societies is that even small mistakes are punished quite harshly. That's part of what leads to the endemic corruption we see in them, as illustrated by Aisle here. Individuals will go to increasingly elaborate lengths to cover up their mistakes, spurred on by the fear of their punishment. This necessitates conspiracies, and more and more individuals compromise themselves, so that other forms of corruption become possible (like bribery and embezzlement) from honest but fearful individuals who are in a position to be blackmailed. This time House Call refused to aid Aisle in his fraud, because he fears Lex's wrath for getting caught more than anything. But over time he'll realize he could make a mistake at any time too. If's he's really right to fear Lex that much, then he needs fellow conspirators to conceal his misdeeds. He'll regret not working with Aisle to forge an alliance of mutual protection.
Of course, all of that is predicated on Lex actually being a harsh evil overlord, which we know he isn't (much). But perception is already beginning to set the ground rules of this society...
Food! It brought some rotten typos with it.
at most.
This spells trouble:
T R O U B L E
Huh, I generally assumed Block Party could conjure food like Lex could because of his use of Everglow magic though if someone like Lex couldn't feed so many ponies with his magic, then I doubt Block could have done it either, even if it was rationed. The food situation here seems similar to Vanhoover though they can't raid the city for supplies due to the quarantine so raiding the farms was their only alternative. Given their proximity to the city, they likely raided only the farms closest to them so far though I wonder if all of them are still standing.
If the scenario Lex painted out is true then the situation throughout the region could be quite dire. Should the ghouls escape the city, they'll likely roam the farmlands, picking off the isolated communities one by one until the entire region is overrun. Still, I wonder how Block could have cut off the entire region without raising suspicion? Or if he had done it alone? Or it could be like the situation in Tall Tale and something else from the Everglow appeared along the tracks.
At least Aisle seems to be in the clear for now though leaving Cozy unattended is quite worrying. I just hope someone like Cloudbank or Drafty finds Cozy before it's too late(while also providing a means to burst Drafty's mental image of Lex). Of course, that won't stop Lex from actually checking in on the doctors later since he's quite meticulous when it comes to his duties, no matter the drama going on around him.
Though I think the doctors may have overestimated how thorough Lex can be given how many problems he has to deal with. Then again, this is Lex we're talking about...
8507340 Typo has been sterilized.
8507309 A very insightful analysis of the situation! You've very adroitly pointed out how Lex's insistence on punishment, rather than forgiveness, for criminal activity is having an unforeseen (to him) effect on the ponies under his rule. The irony here, of course, is that Lex leveled the penalties that he did against Garden Gate because she committed murder, but that fact seems to be lost on most ponies, something Lex would no doubt gnash his teeth over. To everypony else, however, it's self-evident that you don't hurt ponies - especially when they're repentant - unless you're in imminent danger. They simply can't wrap their head around such harsh punishments being justified, let alone when the perpetrator is repentant. This clash of values between Lex and everypony else is now starting to cause secondary problems, in that ponies are starting to go out of their way to proactively avoid Lex's perceived wrath, even if that means committing further offenses in doing so.
I suspect that this is a glimpse of what would happen if Lex were to try ruling without Sonata's aid, since this happened during the one major instance when he didn't let her speak for him. All the more reason for him to quickly allow her to act as his spokespony again, but with them currently fighting, things look like they'll get worse before they get better...again.
8507589 The thing where food is concerned is that the create food and water spell only creates "food and water to sustain three humans or one horse/level for 24 hours." While it's amusing that the spell differentiates between horses and humans, creating some humorous confusion for where the ponies would be, I'm treating them as per humans in terms of how much food they require. So in other words, the spell allows you to feed three people per caster level. Given that the game rules tend to presume your caster level will top out at 20 (and can be pushed a little higher if you really try), that means that it's virtually impossible for any single individual to cast this spell enough to feed a thousand people each and every day.
Insofar as raiding goes, one thing I wanted - but wasn't able - to raise in this chapter was that scavenging for food inside the city was a no-go. Not only would it have violated the quarantine, but between the survivors doing that already, there simply wouldn't be much to find. Throw in that a lot of food was spoiled by the flooding (and simply being left abandoned in the weeks since then), and Vanhoover has very little edible food left inside it. Hence why Garden Gate's group were already raiding when they met Lex.
You're correct to note that the situation is made worse by the possibility of the ghouls spreading outward from Vanhoover...a situation that you may remember Block Party anticipating, and not without eagerness. He wanted that exact scenario to happen. But this still doesn't say why, or how he would have been able to engineer (pun intended) the train service being shut down for so long over so wide an area. Surely you can't cut off an entire region for weeks at a time, right? It's not like Vanhoover was incommunicado while...oh wait...
As for Cozy, it seems like Lex has forgotten about her, for now at least, but I suspect that it's more a case of him dealing with a larger issue first. Once he's done with the immediate food crisis, it wouldn't surprise me if he then turns around and checks on Cozy's progress. Aisle had better do whatever he's going to do fast.
8507804
Exactly.
Sonata explaining things would definitely have ameliorated this problem. Using Sonata to finesse perception is a great plan, but the Sonata spokespony plan has some flaws too. Sonata is a pretty chaotic individual (I believe CN), with wildly divergent values from Lex. In a lot of ways she ignores her own beliefs because she loves Lex and believes him to be much smarter to her, and she has in a sense pledged her personal service to Lex. That means even if she doesn't totally agree with Lex's decisions, she still does her job of putting those decisions in the best possible light and
humanizing-equinizing-Lex. But certain extremely lawful actions that Lex has taken, like the harsh punishment of Garden Gate or even the focused questioning of Nosey, are actions that Sonata seems to fundamentally disagree with the substance of. At some point Sonata is going to feel like she is defending the indefensible if she has to keep explaining away post facto Lex's decisions.The best way forward for Lex is to treat Sonata not just as a mouthpiece, but as an actual advisor that he is willing to at least somewhat modify the substance of his plans on.
Oh, and I can't wait for the sermon from the junior cleric of the Night Mare. I feel like it will be extremely important, and could either save this society or damn it.
Ripping farms up is something Im annoyed at myself for missing because I live in a heavily mixed landscape. In a given square mile you can have a massive factory and the hundreds of houses needed to suppy it, on the edge of town, and the back wall of the factory will be the boundary of a mixed crop and animal farm at least party supplying local shops. Escpecially if the factory is a pie factory turning local farm animals into local farm animal pies. then feeding leftoever back to local animals. Though the wheat for the flour is tricky, there are cereal crops possible.
Destroying a farm though. is very quick. Recovering it takes a long while, and theres a collapse point where you think you are making it, then all of a sudden the amount available is less than that needed, and you need to start reducing population, which means you dont have the population to drive the low quality farms, and things keep dropping.
8508493 Lex has a talent for being able to draw large conclusions from small bits of data, which is what he's doing here with regards to the fact that A) this camp needs to have sustained itself somehow up until now, and B) those ponies were eating rotten food. To that end, he can put the information together to determine that they must be taking their food from somewhere, and that it's rotten must mean that there's a problem with the normal import/export food supply. After all, nobody steals rotten food unless there's nothing else to take; and if the food is rotten because they'd previously taken fresh food that has since gone bad, then they should have gone back for more by now. So clearly, there are much larger problems going on.
The issue, of course, is how that could possibly be; cutting a city off from the rest of the world is hard. Cutting an entire region off is much, much harder. In fact, Lex is still thinking through the possibilities, but there would be other ramifications for Equestria if the scenario he's thinking of is correct.
8508420 Another great post from you!
One thing that I feel is important to note, is that alignment is not destiny; that's a shorthand I have for the fact that alignment isn't the perfect indicator of behavior that a lot of people think it is. You're right that Sonata is Chaotic Neutral, but it's important to place that within the context of her character. As a Siren who lives to be adored, Sonata's take on "chaotic" is "go with the flow." She's plenty happy to just do what she's doing, listening to whatever urge happens to float through her mind; even among her sisters, she was the least proactive among them, happy to do little more than follow Adagio's direction. Even Aria hinted that she wanted to be in charge, after all. In that regard, Sonata's a fairly good match for Lex, who is extremely driven. She has opinions and things she does and doesn't like - and will take action if there's sufficient motivation - but she finds asserting herself to be, not necessarily unpleasant, but cumbersome. It's just easier to let someone else make the decisions, so long as she gets to have people shower her with adulation. She'll still speak her mind, of course, but if whoever's calling the shots decides something that she doesn't like, oh well.
Of course, we've seen that she has limits. I won't say that you're wrong about her disliking the extreme lawfulness of how Lex handled Garden Gate (though that was more with his public image than how he'd treated her; remember, she didn't like Garden's callousness either) and now Nosey, but I'll admit I hadn't thought of that in terms of an alignment conflict. It does make sense that way, though to my thinking the issue with Nosey was more an issue of "feelings" (Sonata) versus "process" (Lex). Sonata has strong social acumen, but isn't very smart, and Lex is the opposite, so when they approach a high-pressure situation, they're going to do so from completely opposite directions (i.e. feeling vs. thinking).
That said, you're right on the money when you said that what Lex needed to do was treat her more like an advisor than just a mouthpiece. I'm actually quite glad you picked up on that, because that's what I've been hinting at ever since this fic began. Remember, Lex was originally going to try and overthrow Celestia and Luna by force; it was Sonata who talked him out of doing so, and even he later admitted (albeit only to himself) that she was right. While he relies on her to make his decisions more publicly palatable, he also needs to modify his thinking to where her take on a situation should be part of the data that he processes, rather than just working public relations.
Unfortunately, Lex seems to have forgotten that particular lesson...which isn't surprising, really. As much as he's trying to stand up to it, he's still in a high-pressure situation. He's used to that, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't affect his judgment. His inclination is to clamp down and try to think his way through things, discarding feelings and intuition since his own are already so bad. Not letting Sonata compensate for that on his behalf has not, so far, served him very well.
And yeah, Cloudbank's sermon is coming soon!
8508716 I totally agree with your assessment of Sonata's personality. Part of why she agreed to be a spokespony in the first place is that she like to go with the flow. I agree with you on the feelings versus process as the main arc of disagreement. I've just always take that to be a core part of the Lawful/Chaotic dynamic, with more lawful individuals wanting their to be a process for everything, and chaotic individuals following their feelings more.
To be fair to Lex, his plan makes perfect sense as a way to slowly build a governing administration. However, the situation they're in is more like a military situation, with constant danger abounding (even now). When you're fighting for everyone's life, it's a lot harder to defer to your spokespony. Garden's trial was a lot like a Drumhead Trial. In the absence of monster attacks and the urgent privation threats created by Block Party, Lex would probably have had a more gradual, thorough justice process that would have given Sonata plenty of time to weigh in.
8508729 I should admit, part of the reason why I wasn't looking at Lex and Sonata's interactions through an alignment lens is because - in addition to being wary of how mutable the interpretations of those supposedly-objective forces are - I've also been going back and reading up on the (pre-)history of D&D, including the alignment system. It's notable that the earliest forms of the game (that is, Original D&D, as well as the various incarnations of Basic D&D) only included the Lawful-Neutral-Chaos axis, and not the Good-Neutral-Evil axis.
That's because the material that inspired D&D's use of alignments was based heavily off of how Law, Neutrality, and Chaos were portrayed in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (1961), and was later used (and made much more famous) by Michael Moorcock in his novels about his character Elric (that is, if we ignore the underlying metaphysical-philosophical ideas that had been around for centuries by that point). In those stories, the three alignments are cosmic principles; each represents a mode by which the universe can exist, where "Law" represents a stable and orderly universe (e.g. civilization, a scientifically-grounded world, and - in Anderson's stories - God) and "Chaos" represented faerie creatures and magic. Humans were made to be lawful, though they could "sell out" to chaos, in which case they gained magical powers but also some of the associated vulnerabilities, such as being susceptible to holy powers, etc. (for humans with strong lawful connections, they had religious abilities rather than magic, hence why the hero of the story was the archetype for the D&D paladin).
Simply put, I find that idea more attractive than the current alignment system, which attempts to redefine the system as one of personal disposition (particularly with its addition of the Good-Neutral-Evil axis) rather than their allegiance to cosmic principles...largely because the game still tries to suggest that they're also cosmic principles at the same time, as represented by planar alignment traits and alignment-based spell effects! In other words, the alignment system is trying to pull double-duty, being both a measurement of subjective personal attitudes and objective universal forces at the same time, and in trying to do both I question how well it's doing either.
With regards to how Lex is currently administrating the situation he's in, I agree with your take on the situation, save for one thing: what Lex did to Garden Gate wasn't a drumhead trial simply because it wasn't a trial at all. Even those situations (which were often kangaroo courts) at least made some sort of vague nod in the direction of due process, even if it was purely as a farce. Lex didn't bother with that, because - as he openly stated - this wasn't an investigation regarding her guilt or innocence. To paraphrase a recent film, her guilt had already been determined; that was merely a sentencing.
That admittedly sounds rather despotic, but remember: Lex is setting himself up to be an absolute monarch, wherein all authority rests entirely with him. This, of course, makes him no different from Celestia and the other alicorns (notwithstanding the entirely theoretical - and questionably accurate - idea that they act as a check on each other's political power; short of a full-on Nightmare Moon-style attempt at a coup, the idea that they have some sort of detente between them is something I'm skeptical of), who also claim to be the absolute rulers of Equestria. They simply don't bother to exercise the prerogatives that technically come with that status (which Lex despises them for). Even before them, we saw in the Hearth's Warming Eve play that the three pony tribes each had kings and princesses of their own. To put it another way, the ponies have ALWAYS been ruled by autocrats: Lex is simply using that status to actually DO something. In the case of Garden, he had personally witnessed her crimes and heard her boldly admit to others, and so no further investigation was needed. HE knew she was guilty, and that was all that his government needed to know.
Of course, the implementation left something to be desired, as he hasn't made it nearly as clear as he thinks why that level of punishment was just and necessary. While he's under the impression that it's self-evident (particularly in light of the monster attacks they'd endured), nopony else thinks that way. Ironically, at least part of the reason he felt so assured about everypony understanding why he did what he did was because he'd just had so much success in talking to them at that impromptu party they held...of course, that itself was because of Sonata, who recognized that Lex hadn't accomplished nearly as much as he thought he had.
8508825 I feel like alignment as a shorthand to explain characters attitudes gets kind of dumped on a lot, even though a large number of authors and readers still use the 9 grid axis. LE or CG doesn't tell us everything about a character's personality, but it does tell us something, and that can be quite useful.
That's true, I have heard that about the old alignment system used to be basically Lawful Good, Neutral, Chaotic Evil based on the Michael Moorcock series. It's particularly evident in things like the Keep on the Borderlands, where the monsters explicitly live in the "caves of chaos."
Another great old D&D adventure that pays homage to this concept is the Rod of Seven Parts, with the Wind Dukes of Aaqua versus the Queen of Chaos. Good times!
Cozy
i am reminded of a old family saying it is time to shit or get off the pot.
8510728 Er, what? Are you saying she should kill herself?
8510476 I agree that alignment as a shorthand is still useful, it's just that no one can quite articulate what it's a shorthand for; or rather, when they articulate it, there's always someone who disagrees.
And yeah, those are some great old adventures. Though my personal favorites are quite different.
8510997
no it is a more along the line of it is time to get your life moving before some one moves you.
8511015 Her husband has been dead for less than twenty-four hours. That seems a little soon to expect her to be ready to move on with her life.
8511020
this is vary true and i was thinking more along 48 hours but all in all still true.