A/N: At least you can't call this plague ridiculously violent, seeing as it doesn't do anything physical. At all. But what comes next will be much worse, for both Equestria and Celestia's mental health.
Chapter VI: The Curse of Babel
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
- Genesis 11:7
Manehattan, Equestria
Manehattan was silent. There were still some meagre stocks of food left untouched by the locusts, and long bread queues had been formed. In any case, the ponies were scared. First the rain of fire had come, then this, the endless swarm of locusts and the famine it sent.
Some ponies had come to the conclusion that the newfoals were responsible for the events, and had started forming gangs to attack them. That such attacks on newfoals always failed (due to strange, inexplicable coincidences) was not a concern of theirs, and their ability to spot a newfoal was shaky at best, so the attacks that succeeded ended up hurting native Equestrians only.
The woman walked into the central square of Manehattan coolly and surveyed the damage, waiting for the ponies to congregate around her.
'I bring the sixth judgement the LORD has sent to smite you,' she said. 'Let your tongues be divided and your language confounded, for you could have spoken out against Celestia and did not care enough to tell her she was wrong!'
She struck her staff on the ground and all over Equestria, communication ceased. Where ponies had heard their own language being spoken, now their ears found only gibberish. Where their eyes had seen writing, now they beheld random, illegible symbols.
~*~
Canterlot
Princess Celestia was definitely not amused. She had asked her mages what was happening now, and they had responded in total gibberish. Worse, the writing in the damage reports being sent from all over Equestria was the same nonsense. She couldn't tell what was happening, couldn't even guess at the extent of what was happening. This was definitely worse than Discord, at least he hadn't abolished language, even at the height of the sick games he played before Celestia vanquished him.
Celestia knew she would never give in to whatever was causing this upon her. It would have to unleash much worse than whatever was happening now before she even began to consider it. She reigned over Equestria, nothing and no-one would take that right from.
~*~
Los Angeles, California
The Los Angeles Conversion Bureau, one of the few not destroyed by terrorists, was being closed. Forcibly. The receptionist, a blonde-haired human woman, was handcuffed and led into a police van. She was followed by several other people, those humans who had been involved in making the serum, under heavy guard. The same scene was taking place in Berlin and Lyon, the people who had worked for the Purification jeered at and insulted as they were led away.
Several Equestrian-supremacist human groups (including one sick enough to forcibly 'Purify' children in a terrorist attack disguised as a party) were being arrested en masse in sting operations. Take PETA. Once it had been the 'moderate' wing of the animal rights movement - after Equestria arrived, it had turned into another organ of Celestia's pro-Equestria propaganda machine, and now...it was gone. Members were being processed by the justice system even now.
A curious thing had developed on the internet as well. Fiction had been written - but this stuff was misanthropic pony-supremacism thinly veiled as fiction. It had been tolerated, but now that the world's governments wanted to give the strongest possible statement to Celestia the sites and blogs where it had accumulated had been wiped completely off the internet. Not even archives remained.
~*~
Appleoosa, Equestria
Ponies were pouring in to Applejack's farm, hoping it would be a refuge. Most were turned away by Luna as they were just hoping for safety but some managed to be admitted. Most of these ponies admitted were dissidents against Celestia, having turned against her because she couldn't seem to help them or herself. Some were newfoals, but the majority were native-born Equestrians.
Outside the farm, confusion reigned over all Equestria. And those observant enough began to wonder what would come next. If this was a breather, what new horror would come down on Equestria after?
Wow... this is just Exodus re-written in pony version... a really... really bad version... I think I am going to stop reading this now.
721603 I for one worship our new chaotic overlord with great glee.
724833
Really, it's horrible how the TCB people turned 'friendship is magic' to 'ponies are superior to us plains apes and can thus genocide humanity free of guilt or possibility of wrongdoing'. It's a total perversion of everything the actual show stands for, and that is why JDR's stuff is fundamentally abhorrent (or should be, anyway) to anybody who professes to like MLP:FiM.
724985
Yeah, you Do Not want to mess with OT God or His people. Ask Nimrod. Or Pharoah. Or Sennacherib. Or Belshazzar.
725237
That's the spirit!
725295 Thanks. I'm really loving this as I'm Christian and I always wanted to see how God would measure up to Celestia. Keep up the good work.
I find the inclusion of pro-TCB writers to be a peculiar idea, as it doesn't seem to advance plot in any real way
Also, targeting Chatoyance's stories specifically seems particularly immature to me
728784 Oh let him do what he want's just wait till he descends to our level of crazy and starts writing these 'Pro-TCB' fanfics.
why do i imagine Lucifer having a bit of fun in this
728784 Chatoyances goons strike again.
2184902
God visits Hell, "I have a job for you son."
2275169
Agreed.
And let Celestia Freeze in Hell.
(Dante's Inferno says that the innermost circle of Hell is bitterly cold, and I'm using Dante's version because I think it would be a perfect punishment for Celestia.)
725134
Agreed.
I've never liked the Conversion Bureau; Fictional Totalitarian Dystyopias depress me.
It also ruins the characters and ruins the message of the very show that we all love.
And while I fully admit to being semi-Agnostic, and of an Astronomy/Cosmology background, I still utterly enjoy your story due to Divine Punishment coming upon a very-deserving TCB Universe.
5185734 no just conversion assholes
I suggest not working to make a serum to reverse the change, instead, create or find a way to analyze the change to find commonalities and use that to determine who (genetically and mentally) the person had been before the change. Then make a new serum that doesn't change you back into your old self but into your old self.
Basically, instead of human -> pony <- back to human, you would go human -> pony -> human.
After all, if you can't reverse it, don't bother, just go forward. Reminds me of my theory of the time line. It might be that in time, events cannot be prevented or undone but they can be made irrelevant.
For example, instead of eat -> time travel -> prevent eating, becoming, not eat, it would be eat -> time travel -> prevent eating -> didn't eat.
Which means that, if we go back in time far enough after making a change, we'd find a point in time that is a "what would have been".
Peta, gone. yes!
So...communism?
725134
yeah true,
God is like a father,
You bully his children he'll come to your neighborhood.
8970155
☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭
8970155
BUCK COMMUNISM!