Missing Pages & Scrawled Footnotes

by Ice Star

History is Written by the Victors [Cancelled] [Outline] [Notes] [Hopefully Something Interesting]

Author's Note:

I usually don't share ideas that I've scrapped before they even meet my keyboard or notebooks, but this felt interesting enough and is technically still canon to the 'verse that I feel I should share it. Also, I technically did write this down in a notebook so it didn't die that fast.

Anyway, here's some difficult to tag shit that might actually interest you folks!

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Goddamned Title is at the Top

Tags|Go|Here|Idiot

I honestly can't think of a good summary for a story-thing that's in this state.

Just what ponies know about history in the 'verse is surprisingly little in reality. Why? Historians, the horse equiv. of an anthropologist, and other scholars of that sort wouldn't be plentiful or without having to operate under restrictions. Why? First, because the past is largely lost. To seek out the land that the Tribes once lived in is a grueling quest that basically no one - not even ponies or other creatures outside of Equestria would want to do and because the place where the Tribes lived is now a frozen deathtrap that's very far away, windigo-infested, buried under more snow than, like, twelve Canadas and completely unlike all terrain in the rest of the world now to the point where it'd probably have some glaciers to go with those windigos. Seriously, fuck windigos. This means that attempting to research anything in a just-barely-qualified-as-a-civilization-but-you-tried graveyard (there'd be mass graves up to whazoo if anyone did find anything) that couldn't even build a wooden chair to last is in very big trouble since very little would be preserved and the ponies or whatever creature that decided to go there is now just performing overly elaborate suicide.

The only creatures that would stand a chance against windigos would be an Alicorn, a demon, or a draconequus - all which are technically endangered in a very literal sense.

This means that the sole source of history over pretty much all of Equestia's existence has been Celestia.

Now it's not surprising ponies don't know too much that doesn't just get washed into legends and fairy tales if it's anything before her solo reign. Only lands outside of Equestria would have any thriving historical knowledge - mostly Aquastria because it survived the Collapse and doesn't have a ruler who'd limit what knowledge gets out so drastically.

This is where the story idea came from - the phrase that was the working title and just how stupid Equestrians would actually be if you took a good long look at the history texts that they would have had. Or at least the primary ones.

And it would have been in the form of Celestia's memoirs.

You'd think that would be pretty informative, wouldn't you? Not really. She's covered up the truth in almost anything and everything. Since there'd be things like how Luna was written out of history, it'd almost look as though Celestia is writing historical fanfiction compared to what actually happened. From these kinds of books, Equestria's historians would have written what they considered accurate history texts - the ones that filly Twilight would have studied from her earliest years - and history would be based around the goddess Celestia. She'd be the primary source that all textbooks would be based off of, with only a little research elsewhere. Whether knowingly or not, researchers and historical scholars would be finding evidence to support the skewed claims of Celestia, even if it was unintentional or subtle as they were completely oblivious to the ripple effect of mass ignorance they were creating. Even going to another country wouldn't help that much since Celestia would have kept things compatible enough that no major divergences would be known. Lack of communication with all southern nations at the time of Equestria's founding would have left things like Luna's existence surrounded in myth and many mysteries to the point where she'd have been a hushed 'maybe' in the few scholarly circles that debated her and other things, suspecting that Celestia might not be telling the truth.

A more in-depth example would be this: Luna's existence would have been recorded pre-NMM but not as heavily as Celestia herself. She was a largely reclusive figure and often referred to as Celestia's shadow. She wouldn't have left the kingdom often, but might have been seen in battles on borders or in the wilds. Her dream-walking was non-existent at the time, so the only confirmation of her existence at the time of post-NMM would have come from the mere footnotes of possible records that gave her passing mentions pre-NMM that would have been smuggled out of Equestria. There would also be legends of battle and such, but other than those legends and notes, nothing at all. All this would lead to large debates within niche historical groups about who she was, if she existed at all. Luna, to these ponies, would have been something like a William Tell (fake/folk hero/possibly based on something real) or Pocahontas-like figure (real but life is largely just folk myth at this point, etc.). Even then, Nightmare Moon still would have been more popular in myth than her. Where Luna would be reduced to a few papers and dusty pamphlets of debates, Nightmare Moon would have been a pop culture icon compared to what would be known of Luna.

So this story would have been written as though it were one of those memoirs and posted here. It would highlight all the deviations, alterations, and outright fabrications that Celestia made when she literally re-wrote history after Luna was banished. Some of it would even read like a moral fable at times since no matter how fake the text is, Equestrian history does have mythological undertones no matter how seriously or professionally a re-telling is written.

Each part would have been written in about 600-ish word chunks from the point of view of the sole Princess Celestia.

Here's the parts that were going to be wedged in:

-Celestia says very little about the Collapse. While nopony, not even the southern nations, would know exactly what happened to the Old World and the Alicorns, the south would be more educated on Alicorns (knowing there had been more and such) than Equestria, who despite not outright denying this, would be willfully ignorant in their Celestia-centric devotion and society. They'd have no idea about the Old World or old technologies since anything they'd have from before Old Equestria (Luna and Tia before NMM) and First Equestria (the unified Tribal Triarchy) would have been from the Tribal Era itself. Nopony would really think about anything before that, and anything that an older incarnation of Equestria might have been given in trade from the south (Old World influenced tech and such) would have just been dubbed a 'southern way' or part of southern culture.

-Instead of writing the Tribesponies as they were - vicious, brutal, backwards, ignorant, and heavily prejudiced to the point of everyday dysfunction - Celestia wrote the Tribes as they appear in things like Hearth's Warming plays (who would have gotten their 'facts' from the very texts the Princess wrote) where they only appear as a bit stubborn, foalish, unfriendly, and simply unwilling to follow a 'friendship is magic' dogma so they'd come across as very tame and outright babyish in compared to what they really were: a destructive clump of three dystopian societies sharing the same living space in a post-Collapse world, closed off in every way.

-Equestrian ponies would never learn that they were technically living in a post-apocalyptic world so that any little pieces of ruin or who-knows-what that might have been discovered when building things (not that any might remain now, it'd just be so unlikely) would have just been dismissed as something along the lines of an old castle and destroyed. Thus, Celestia's word would have indirectly led to a lot of Old World evidence being 'cleaned up' in order to support her claims of there never being one.

-Her rise to power and the prejudice of the Tribes would have been altered significantly. Instead of being an almost-slave who became a ruthless (but not murderous or anything duh) politician who weaseled her way to a crown for her and Luna and enough favor to keep them from getting usurped when the time came she would have written herself as helpful stranger type, wandering and teaching ponies about friendship and living a humble life as a young mare. Things like that.

-The personalities of Starswirl and all the Founders would have been rewritten entirely, and so would their roles in the Founding, which would have been way more like an accident and magical surge put together and not much more (right place, right time sorta deal), would have been made into moral symbols. Only Starswirl, who left basically no record would be mostly unchanged, but that would only be because of how almost-anonymous he is. The other Founders would be described vaguely - their personality would most be wrought from collective and wholly inaccurate legends that popped up - all based on Celestia's words.

-Discord is very much a fairy tale in Celestia's history books and his legend is altered significantly to exclude Luna. She may have appeared on things like the stained glass windows in Canterlot, but she'd just be brushed off as a symbol of some kind.

-Sombra, when he appears, would be written off as a graphic epitome of evil and the battle against him in Spare Him His Life would have been written as a Glory-to-Celestia kind of siege, where Celestia, the brave and gallant hero-queen figure leads her good, pure, noble ponies against him. While she wouldn't have written herself as being accompanied by a full-blown army, she'd write a few troops (no more than 100 ponies) with her as they go on a knight's errand to save the crystal ponies. The ponies would be the replacement for Luna, who was able to take the place of legions in fights. In later editions of Celestia's history books, the Crystal Empire and Sombra would be written out entirely, discarded and edited from history as the interest in a glorious paladin queen faded and time moved on. Thus, few remember either empire or Sombra.

-Nightmare Moon is nothing more than a bedtime story, and Celestia herself would write that.

-Celestia would write that she fought a young version of Tirek alone* while writing Scorpan and Starswirl as friends and herself as a gallant hero who prevails. Luna isn't present.

*The book that has Luna in it during season four would be very, very rare. Any books that still featured her and any legends of her would stop being made in Equestria after a few centuries of Celestia's rule, making such things priceless or custom, foreign made texts shipped to sneaky illegal collectors. She'd be reduced to legends and fairy tales where she popped up at all, but that wouldn't stop things like all such books being locked away in obscure royal archives so that few ponies (read: trusted confidants to Celestia and Twilight/other Faithful Students) could access anything like Predictions, from the season one opener. Everything else would have been burned... but not when anypony was around. Anything else - the one or two copies that did survive - would have to have been handed down through generations, and very, very lucky - like in Golden Oaks - but mostly, those kinds of books would have been burned by Celestia in private.

Comments

[NorrisThePony]

Are you incapable of or simply unwilling to write a positive depiction of Celestia?