The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum, Side-story: Home Front: St. Louis County, Minnesota

by Dances With Unicorns

Aednat “Skyscraper” Rocco

“I was born in London in England in 1934. I went through, as a child, the horrors of World War II, through a time when food was rationed and we learned to be very careful, and we never had more to eat than what we needed to eat. There was no waste. Everything was used.”
- Jane Goodall

“Never before have humans and our allies from Equus fought against an enemy that murders both body and soul. Never before has anyone on the side of the Alliance seen such total genocide of entire intelligent species that created unique architecture, literature, and music. We will stop the Tyrant’s advance and then counterattack until all traces of her dishonorable designs are erased from both of our worlds.”
- Colonel Marcus Renee

“Have you seen the motivational poster featuring Cheerilee with the caption, ‘This pony is our FRIEND! The PHL fights for our FREEDOMS.’? Last September, Cheerilee presented my entire mining shift an award for mining the most iron ore in one day. I don’t envy that pony, as holding together the Alliance must be the world’s toughest job, much harder than anything I deal with.”
- Aednat Rocco

Second interview

Name: Aednat “Skyscraper” Rocco
Birth date: February 22, 979 ANM (After Nightmare Moon)
Ethnic / Nationality / Political Party: Unicorn and naturalized United States citizen, Democratic Farmer Labor party
Status: Alive and working as a Mining Engineering at Northern Minnesota Mining
Education: Mining Engineering, Bachelor of Science Degree, Manehattan University School for Mining
Abilities: Level 8 Unicorn (Finding metallic ore, shield of protection, and drilling blasting holes into hard rock well above average. Can unicorns use this rock drilling spell as a weapon?)
Favorite sporting activity: Curling (she started playing this sport as a foal with her parents in Whinnyapolis)
Name one thing you love from Earth that is not Charles: Touring Minnesota museums, such as the Minnesota Discovery Center

What do I miss the most from the prewar world? To be able to purchase food and drinks - especially apple cider, as well as clothing and metals to make my jewelry without worrying about running out of my government-issued electronic ration credits. To be able to buy whipped cream in an aerosol can, because right now the Alliance military needs the metal that these cans are made out of. To not stand upon my weary legs in long checkout lines, because most of the sales clerks are now wearing a military uniform or laboring in the wartime industries.

Also, most of the package portion sizes of packaged foods have decreased to 1950’s sizes. I’m not happy that I spend more money and get less food for each dollar. Fortunately for me, my Charles cooks up the best ever vegetable casserole made from our garden vegetables.

Also, I’m unhappy that I missed out on attending the “La Tomatina” tomato festival in the Valencian town of Buñol, in the East of Spain. It will take years before anyone on Earth can afford to waste many tons of good food like that in a food fight.

Unlike my human partner, being a pony has a few advantages. I can buy and then eat all the hay I want, hip-hip hurray for me. While I’m happy that delicious Minnesota grown hay isn’t yet on the list of rationed items; I get tired of eating it with every meal.

Like all other essential commodities, civilian clothing is rationed. And buy clothing I must, as Northern Minnesota Mining requires that I wear work clothing, with reflective stripes, to labor in the mines - especially in the dark of Minnesota winters. That is why I wear a full ensemble of a hardhat with a clear face shield, safety goggles, denim overalls, mane and tail bouffant caps, and work boots.

Even after wearing all of that, I still manage to spend about ten minutes at the end of every workday in a shower. I’m washing all the machine lubrication grease, sticky mud, iron ore tinted road grime, and body sweat from my mane, tail, and coat. I must have lost ten pounds of body fat and gained twenty pounds of muscle.

I’ve heard that Boston is protected by a line of towed and self-propelled artillery that is wheel to wheel in a line that is one mile long. That’s similar to how the Russian Army fought the German Army during World War Two. And, if the metals I’ve found have made even one of those cannons, then all of my hard work was worth the effort.

Charles loves my magic at finding mineral wealth. I can also cast a “come to life spell” on his van’s engine, making it run without gasoline. With gasoline being rationed at three gallons per week per adult driver, having my unicorn magic as an alternative to gasoline has saved us from using the overcrowded buses or the mismatched passenger trains cobbled together from tourist railroads, railroad museums, private collectors, and railroad management inspection trains.

Charles has a sister named Julie Moynihan. She assists in running the Kennecott copper smelter near Magna, Utah. I think no mine would be complete without a Moynihan working on the staff.

In the summer of 2018, Julie bought a European electric car for fifty thousand dollars. Now, with Federal law rationing gasoline for all civilians, wealthy individuals have offered her five and once six times what she paid for her car. Each time, she has refused those offers.

Queen Genocide says that humans are one millimeter above the pond scum that they evolved from. Well, with the assistance of freedom loving ponies and other intelligent species of Equus, the Alliance will defeat her and all the evil she has created on both of our worlds. After the war has been won, it may take the Alliance decades or centuries to rebuild both of our worlds. But, we will rebuild it for my future human children and/or pony foals. My children will never have first-hand or first-hoof experience fighting this, the most terrible of all wars.

Did this war bring about anything positive to my life? That is an interesting question to ask me. Without this war, I would have never found a first-class friend in Charles Moynihan. I never would have discovered that I can work a twelve hour shift for six days each week.

I never would have been featured in a new version of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" documentaries. “Why We Fight” Director Ken Burns wanted to interview the biggest pony miner in America, and that pony happens to be me.

I never would have discovered the Minnesota treat created by Mr. and Mrs. Cake - special apple flavored hay, cheese, and vegetable pasties. Don't knock Earth pony chefs for not being front-line soldiers, as their meals keep me working to topple Queen Genocide.

You may not know this, but the Cakes’ foals, Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake, are some of the first ponies born in America and therefore are some of the first native born, Pony-Americans.

What am I most concerned about in the fight to win this war? That the Alliance forgets that long ago, three ordinary ponies, using the power of their inherent harmony of friendship, saved their species in an ice-covered cave. If the Alliance casts aside friendship and harmony to win this war, then Queen Genocide will win this war.

How will my life change for the better, once the war has been won? When there are no more messages in every media I see and hear asking consumers to obey the rationing of goods, avoid the black market, and be more self-reliant, such as growing your own food and repairing what you have, instead of buying new things.

The war will be over when I’m not tempted to buy black market apples, bananas, or oranges for one dollar each. The war will be over when I can return to making my beautiful jewelry, and then selling these once more at Milky Way conventions. And finally, I’ll be able to ask my parents what secret project they were working on for the Alliance military.

One last thing, pony engineers, unicorn magic, and the digging of Diamond Dogs has made possible our ability to mine with efficacy deep pockets of iron ore and other minerals that were a few years ago too deep to mine at a profit. For example, the former Soudan Underground Mine State Park is now reopened as an active iron ore mine because of what us pony and Diamond Dogs miners can do.