The
CONVERSION
►Bureau
Tales Of Los Pegasus
──────
2. The City In Green
By Chatoyance
Los Angeles has always been brown and gray, he thought. The desert hills, the endless plascrete, the thick blanket of smog so heavy that the sun is a pale red polka-dot you can just stare at with no harm done.
But not so Los Pegasus! Manny Delgado smiled, his brown skin shining in the bright sunlight. That's the deal with earthponies, they can't leave gray alone. Even before the name change, while the pegasai were just starting to try to clean the sky, earthponies were out making gardens. On rooftops, in abandoned parking lots, all the way through the favelas. One day, you could be walking down Figueroa, stepping over the garbage and the broken 'crete, and the sleeping homeless, and the next day, somehow, all the plascrete was arranged into little gardens, and the dirt under the city that hadn't seen daylight in a century was already covered in shoots.
When the Bureaus first opened, the Newfoals weren't wanted. They weren't right. They weren't normal. They were freaks, all those unicorns and pegasusesus - nobody knew what to call them, then. Manuel stopped, to sniff a large patch of flowers. They had been grown where there once had been a sidewalk. Everyone used the roads now, for walking. There wasn't much car traffic now. Sidewalks were useless. It wasn't even properly a city anymore. It was more like an endless series of little independent communities, little villages, all packed close.
Maybe Los Angeles hadn't changed that much after all, Manny chuckled.
It was definitely the earthponies that had made the difference. They had made ponies accepted in the city. You don't say no to good food. That was what Manny's Nana had told him. Abuela Juanita had been right. As always. Everyone loves good food, and that is what the earthponies do. Where they trot, there is green instead of gray, and tomatoes and peppers and beans and rice instead of parking meters and plascrete and blacktop.
The earthponies made the Newfoals respectable. They made them desirable to have around. The worldgovernment, it provided free food and water to every citizen of Earth. Out of the goodness of their hearts, and not at all to make up for killing the planet. But whatever the reason, for the first time in history, everyone was fed, just not well. Government ration was boring. It kept the body alive, but killed the soul.
The first time Manny had tasted real enchiladas was when Nana had made them from the things the earthponies had been growing. The corn came from Westlake, the onion and the tomatoes from Downtown. Little caravans traveled now between the sections of the city, carrying real food, not nanoconstruct, but real, living food to all the small markets that had filled the hole left by the end of the global Megamarts.
Nana had cried the whole time she had been cooking. She said the smell, the taste of the ingredients, they all made her so happy she thought she would die. It had scared Manny a little, actually, but she had waved him off, lovingly, with the big knife she used to chop vegetables. Nobody argues with Nana in the kitchen. That was probably true for everyone with a Nana. Apparently, real food was a very emotional thing.
When Manny had tasted what she had made, cheese enchiladas, full of flavor in the way that nanostruct food could never have, he had trouble at first. It was so intense. This had bothered his Nana, so he worked at it, gradually becoming accustomed to what 'flavor' actually meant. Nana said that the ingredients were better than in her childhood, when things still grew, and that the ponies were curandero, all of them, and that their magic made the food better. From that day forward, Nana wouldn't let anyone say anything bad about the ponies. It was that way with a lot of people.
Manny stopped next to the Rancho de Anguiano. That's what people called it. It wasn't a ranch, it was a farm, but because it always had ponies on it working the land, the name sort of fit. The Anguiano's were ponies now, of course, and they had performed a miracle. Where once had been a big parking lot and a burned out megamarket from the riots, now there was a beautiful barn and a huge working farm. They grew a little of everything and they had chickens too, brought from Equestria. Ponies liked eggs, humans liked eggs. Eggs were good.
The Anguiano boy, Gualterio, he was playing his six-string and, as usual, making it sound like several guitars, three maybe, all playing at the same time. He had become a unicorn, and he had once described how the magic from his horn went into the strings, so that he felt them as a part of himself. He could sense the way they moved and the merest thought would pluck them at any point or several, on each string. He could play now, as fast as he could think, and he was not a slow boy. The street was filled with music, bright and wild, straight from his mind and his soul to the strings with nothing in between.
Manuel stopped to listen, for a bit. Nana was expecting him, but she would understand. Music was special, and one stopped for music, especially such magnificent playing as this.
The community had really changed. Once it had been dangerous to walk the street. If you weren't robbed, a Banger might get you for crossing his turf. But now, it was like a proper village. Everyone worked together. They had feasts sometimes. Nana loved the feasts, and she always made something good to share. Everywhere Manny looked, the city was more and more lush. The earthponies could make things grow very fast.
There were orchards down the street, and more in Chinatown. The trees grew up while you watched, stretching and reaching for the sky. Sometimes visitors from Equestria would arrive. They said the closeness of the bubble made the magic strong, so all the earthponies could do things just like in Equestria itself. Los Angeles had turned from a concrete jungle to a pastoral garden. In some places, the buildings almost seemed like rocky cliffs and mountains draped with vines and flowers as the rooftops spilled over in waterfalls of growing things.
More and more people had gotten converted, once it became clear that conversion meant that real food could be grown again. Pretty soon, teams of pegasai were stripping the smog away so that the roof gardens could get more sunlight and better quality rain. The pegasai were able to bring rain clouds from far away, greening the city, and that in turn meant more really good food. Of course, with the smog gone, it was possible to see the big bubble clearly for the first time.
Manny looked up to where the big bubble filled the sky, as he made his way to his Nana's house. Half of the sky was a shining, shimmering dome. Right now, it was nighttime in there, and Manny could see the moon, the Equestrian moon, against a backdrop of stars. Outside the bubble, it was almost noon. Inside, behind that impossibly large curve, it was night. The bubble had touched land several months ago. It had first touched the continent somewhere near Lompoc, and soon the circular curve had taken San Luis Obispo and then began to cover Santa Barbara. It was at the edge of the city now. Ventura and Oxnard were slowly being absorbed.
Nana had a holoset with a big screen. She loved her soaps, her little dramas. All her friends would gather to watch together and share. Sometimes Manny would try to join, it made Nana happy, but he couldn't get into it. So much fuss going on and all of it could be fixed in an instant if someone, anyone, would just tell the truth. How could she still like such things? Apparently, becoming a pony didn't change liking things like that.
Almost everyone was a pony now. The Bubble was coming. Nana was a unicorn, silver and gold, and she used her levitation to cook with. Her magia she called it. She was a curandera now too. She could heal scrapes and bruises with the glow she made from her horn. Everyone loved Nana Juanita.
It was on her holoset that they had watched the images of Santa Barbara having its 'Inclusion Day'. That's what they called it now. They used to call it destruction, now it was inclusion. But then, for ponies, Equestria was home. That was something the converted said they could just feel in their bones. Even just pictures of Equestria made them smile. Home was coming to them. Soon the city, Los Pegasus they called it now, would be Included. And then they would all be home, in Equestria.
The princess had done something when the bubble had first reached land. Originally, the big bubble led to a desert on the other side, and boats would take Newfoals who wanted to go to Equestria out to a floating dock. The bubble was small on the Equestrian side, apparently, no matter how big it was on the Earth side. But when it finally touched land, the princess made a change.
There had been a big ceremony, one of the native pegasai had said. They had built up a big town called 'Welcome Town' on the other side of the bubble, and that had to be taken down. There were speeches and awards. And then the princess had done something, something súper mágico and changed things. The little bubble in the desert in Equestria went away. Now there was a wall, a big wall at the edge of the entire universe over there, in what was called the Exponential Lands. The wall was the other side of the bubble on earth. And it was done so that what was on Earth could be kept, after a fashion, in Equestria. As the big bubble expanded, the Otherside Wall in the Exponential Lands of Equestria receded, and as it did so, Equestria got larger and larger. Exponentially.
They had all gathered around Nana's big screen. The Quiñones' who were now all earthponies, except for little Maribel who turned out a pegasus. The Bautista's every one of them unicorns. Even the whole Quejano clan from the next street over, they had one of every. They all watched together the inclusion of Santa Barbara.
"Oh, look at that!" Nana had been so excited, this was just after she had gotten back from the Bureau, so she was excited about everything. She was a little strange, then, because she still acted like she was old, even though as a pony she was young. It took her several weeks to finally get used to not being old anymore. So she would sit and move carefully, as if her bones still ached, even though they didn't.
The image in the holo was of where West Carrillo met Highway 101. There was a big overpass there, a huge fairy-bridge of pre-Collapse concrete shored up with plascreet and blackfiber beams. Large warehouse-like buildings surrounded the overpass. Most had been empty for many decades, some were hardly there at all, the materials of their construction having been 'liberated' to be used in the favelas. A short way from the overpass was just such a community, a large, complex jumble of hand-made buildings stacked perilously atop one another, vine-like jungles of wires and cables, and countless rooftop gardens overflowing everywhere.
As the Infotainment Ministry aerostat hovered above, several pegasai flew up towards it from the favela below. Some bore gift baskets of fruit and baked goods. Apparently they had been expecting to be on the news.
"Oh, isn't that nice of them!" Nana always liked a good gift basket. All the time Manny had known his Nana, she had been ready at a moment's notice to take something nice over to a neighbor. 'Community is everything, Manuel! Remember that!' she had often said. And it was true - with all the jobs gone, with The Last Harvest having done away with wheat, and the government ration and the Austerity War, it was community that had allowed anyone to survive at all, to make it until the arrival of Equestria.
There were some shots of the bubble itself. 'The Great Barrier of Equestria' the news anchors called it. The Barrier was a shimmering soap-bubble 2800 miles across, almost three thousand. An image from a communications satellite showed the great bubble rising high above the curvature of the planet. Focusing now on the ground below the Infotainment airship, the scene zoomed in on where the edge of the Barrier was slowly moving across a building.
On the Earth side of the division, one of the warehouse-like structures sat amidst a stretch of rubble and abandoned vehicles. Broken concrete and newer plascreet covered the ground - this was not an area the local earthpony Newfoals had gotten to yet. Manny leaned closer to the holoscreen to watch. Mrs. Quiñone smiled up at him and wiggled an ear. Her little filly was fascinated by the scene on the screen.
The Barrier began to sweep across the building, very slowly but inexorably. In close up, the bubble no longer looked round, it was just a big rippling wall looking something like water. Beyond the shimmer lay green fields and rolling hills covered with multicolored flowers. Manny could see lakes there too, deep and pure and blue. The Barrier passed through an old wooden electric pole that had somehow survived the Collapse and the favela builders.
As the liquid wall swallowed the old creosote-stained pole, a tree began to emerge on the Equestrian side. For a moment, just a moment, one side was dead, gray, resin-impregnated shaft, and the other side was lush branches and leaves. The Barrier somehow recognized that the pole had once been a living thing, and when the electrics pole passed through, it was returned to life once more. Now, behind the shimmering curtain stood a healthy, tall tree, green and beautiful.
Everyone in the room cheered at that, some clopping their hooves on the floor, others clapping them together as they once would have their hands. Manny looked around. He was the only person in the room that wasn't a pony. He suddenly felt strange, alien. He was the outsider, now. These were his people, all around him, but he was the exception, the freak now. They'd never treat him as an outsider, of course. But he couldn't help feeling that way. He didn't look like them anymore, and he was almost useless in their new world.
He had one big thing he could do for them. He could fiddle with the electronics. Unicorns couldn't, because magic made electrical things fail and even break. Nana needed him to keep her bigscreen going. She couldn't even change the channel, unless it was set on voice activation. Manny had run a secret cable out to the Worldgovernment lines that fed the public kiosks, so she could reach the hypernet. But the fact was, other than for her dramas, and for things like this, he wasn't useful anymore.
Ponies didn't do things the way humans did things. Humans would use tools to break the concrete, and till the soil. Ponies used tools, sometimes, but they didn't need them the same way. A few hard earthpony bucks and stomps, and the concrete was dust. Unicorns could lift the rocks away by the hundreds in a moment. Pegasai were individual helicopters lifting and carrying supplies and seeds and cuttings where they were needed. An old bit of metal sheet, folded into a 'V' shape, could be levitated to sweep through the revealed soil making rows in minutes. Seeds could be planted in seconds by a unicorn, or dropped from above by pegasai, but it all came down to the earthponies in the end.
They would walk down the rows, singing, laughing, talking to the plants, and the plants responded. They would sprout and rise towards the sky in minutes, and the earthponies left greenery behind them as they walked. Back and forth they would amble, the plants growing higher with every step, fruiting with every song. By the end of the day another vast crop of corn, or beans, or rice, or celery or peppers was ready for harvest.
Manny looked at his hands. He couldn't pick the food fast enough. Hands were useless in a pony world. An entire field could be harvested in half an hour with a unicorn or three doing it. It was so easy, the ponies made games of it. They took their time because they didn't have to worry about time. Eventually, the unicorns were asked not to help as much, so the community could enjoy picking things with each other. It was just more fun. They could talk and play and the foals could run around. They made harvesting into picnics and socials. Magic made everything easier than hands.
Hands were for a world where things and stuff instead of people and fun mattered. Where every little object had to be individually manipulated. In a world where a single unicorn could pick all the fruit off of ten trees at once, hands were primitive. Now the unicorns did construction. They worked with the pegasai to lift beams and place walls and hover bricks into place. Already Manny's favela was looking more and more like the lovely cottages in Equestria - well, as best as could be done with earth materials.
Manny's hands were good for only one thing anymore. Changing the channels on Nana's holoscreen. He had become suspicious about how often the device 'somehow' ended up set on manual instead of voice activation. "It must be loco!" Nana would helpfully offer. Nana was probably finding ways for her favorite to feel useful. She loved him. She'd do such a thing, to make him feel better.
On the holoscreen, the building was vanishing through the Barrier. "Will you look at that!" Eugenio Quejano - no, now he was Hechicería Carmesí, Crimson Sorcery, fast and precise with his horn. "It's becoming barns! It's many barns, a whole farm!" It was true, the one building had been tasted by the magical wall and found to be a structure. Where a broken warehouse stood on the Earth side of the Barrier, on the Equestrian side land stretched out much faster than it was being taken in, and from the one warehouse was dribbling barns and cottages and fences and plowed fields.
"I guess a warehouse is a barn in Equestia, eh ¿mi amigo?" Crimson had turned to his best friend Alberto - now Cerul Azimuth, Pegasus Of Daring. Or at least insensatez considering the foolish stunts he liked to pull off. "Nopony will lack for housing or land I think."
It seemed that for every foot of land the Barrier swallowed up, hundreds rushed out on the other side. It was strange watching the Great Barrier move across the earth - on one side it moved so slowly, but on the other it looked like it was racing, fast as the wind, fast as Cerul playing at racing between the buildings, barely making dangerous turns.
The view on the screen was replaced by one of the anchors. There were two hosting the program, one was a stallion, the other a human woman. The woman was interviewing one of the pegasai who had flown up to the Infotainment Ministry aerostat with a basket of pies.
"We're here on deck with one of the citizens of Santa Barbara below!" The human woman had to sweep her blond hair out of her eyes. Manny wondered if all women on the news had to be blond. It certainly seemed that way sometimes. "Tell us your name, and what you are doing today!"
The pegasus from Santa Barbara was a stallion, dark brown in color, like velvet. His mane was black as could be. He must be especially handsome by pony standards Manny thought - he heard one of the Quiñone mares oohing over the fellow.
"I'm Windswept!"
The woman anchor laughed at this "You sure are!" Many of the people in the room laughed too, because it was true - the pegasus had some serious flight-mane going on. Windswept finally got the joke himself, and his ears revealed his realization.
"Um, anyway, we wanted to fly up and say hello to everypony from the ponies of Santa Barbara! Hello everypony!" Windswept had a big, goofy grin on his muzzle and he waved a hoof.
Nana and many of the formerly older mares in the room waved back "Hello Windswept!" they said almost in unison. Manny shook his head. He wasn't sure if they didn't do that just to annoy him. They clearly all knew that the holo was only one-way. Manny noticed his Nana winking at him. ¡Demonio! it was just as he thought!
"You brought us some big baskets of goodies today!" The cheerful anchor was followed to where some of the airship crew was already tucking into pies. "It certainly all looks delicious!"
"We thought maybe you might like a treat." Windswept seemed slightly embarrassed. "We're all kind of excited... to be on the news."
The anchor laughed. "So, how do you feel about the Inclusion, Windswept?"
"We're all really thrilled about it down there. We're all going home, and we can really feel it. It's like the air is all tingly as Equestria gets closer. We were a little worried though, so we took precautions." Windswept smiled as the crew clearly enjoyed the pies.
"Worried? What kind of precautions, Windswept?" The news anchor was eager for something potentially exciting.
"Well, we'd heard stories of ponies being separated, sometimes by miles when the barrier passed over." Windswept looked into the lenses. "It gets really big, really fast on the Equestrian side, so you can't count on being in the same village even if you are right next door when the Barrier changes everything. So we all decided to tie ourselves together in one spot, so that when Equestria arrives, we'll all be together and won't have to go looking for each other."
"The whole town tied themselves together?" The anchor looked fairly astonished.
"No..." Laughed Windswept "Just our community. Other groups did the same thing. Our group has about a hundred and forty in it, but I know one neighborhood that tied almost three hundred together!"
"So what happens after the Barrier passes?" The wind had caught the anchor's blond curls again, and she was busy sweeping them from her eyes.
"Once things settle down, we'll try to figure out which village we want to claim and go pick out cottages and farms and stuff. I'm hoping I get to live in the top of a silo, if I can make it work. I guess I'll just have to see." Windswept thought for a moment "I think making a house in a silo would be awesome. Any pegasus can live in a cloud house. I'm going for a silo!"
"Well, I hope you get it. Thank you very much, Windswept, and all the rest of your friends, and thank you for the treats, too! Back to you, Newsflash!"
The scene changed to the control center of the aerostat where the other anchor, a gray stallion, began to describe the history of Santa Barbara. As he did so, additional scenes of the Barrier creating more Equestria played, gray plascrete ruins and small lots covered in rubble streaming out like a river on the other side to become newly manufactured miles of grass and rolling hills and shining, crystal lakes.
"Hey, Calaca, would you come here to your Nana for a moment?" Abuela Juanita hadn't called Manny that in years, not since he was a very skinny young boy. The tone in her voice was strange. Manny stood up and went over to her and crouched down.
"Yes, Nana?"
"Manuel, it will be here soon. Maybe two weeks. When that happens, the holo will not work anymore. There will be no need to change the channel any longer." Nana's unicorn face was young and vital, her eyes bright and wide, but somehow, inside that youthful face was an entire human life, years and years of experience and wisdom.
Manny looked down at his hands on his knees, where he crouched beside the couch where Juanita lay. 'Deliciosoa' Delicious. Just Delicious. Like the food she made. Nana Delicious. She planned on opening a restaurant or an inn when Equestria arrived. She would keep the spirit of her food alive in the new world.
Useless hands. They had been useless for a long time now. He could not carry as much as a pony. He could not pick as fast as a pony. He could not push a cloud for rain, or shape molten metal in the air with his mind to make a tool. He could not make a tree grow in a day. He could not even plant seeds as well as a pony. He could change the channels on an electronic machine, because he had no magic and would not ruin it.
"I promise, Nana. Tonight, after everyone..." He thought for a moment. "...Everypony goes home."
Nana Delicious gave her favorite grandson a nuzzle. "You know what is not back east?" Manny had been claiming for a long time now that he might, one day, move to the Eastern Northamerizone, past the Great Lakes, to escape the Barrier. He had never made any serious effort to actually arrange for such a journey. He had never made any effort at all toward such a journey.
"What Nana?" She wore a different face, but she was still abuela. Still Nana, no matter what.
"Community." The word was heavy in the air, powerful, real. Manny nodded, his tongue silent. He had been stubborn. His family was here, and family was everything. His life was here, and life was the most precious thing. The world was coming to an end, but there was an answer. He would be more useful to everyone, even to himself, with hooves instead of hands.
When night came, the stars shone down, but they were hard to see because it was day inside the Barrier. It was noon in Equestria. The days and nights passed differently there, according to the whims of the princesses. The immense curve that filled the sky lit up the buildings and gleamed off the glassite of the skyscrapers. Perhaps this was how it had been when Los Pegasus was Los Angeles, before the Collapse, when electric lights ran all night long. The light from Equestria was bright and rich and strange and beautiful in the night.
The sky was like two great rooms, one dark, and the other light.
Manny went to his dresser and opened the bottom drawer. He carefully lifted out the spare pants and the shirts and the hat he never wore and those socks with the toes in them that he got from aunt Imelda. Under the socks and the pants was a box, an old cigar box from long ago.
He stood up with the box. It was taped shut. He sat down on his bed and dug around in his pocket for his knife. Manny opened the pocketknife and carefully applied the blade to the edge of the lid, cutting the tape. He folded the knife and put it back in his pocket. Sighing, he set the box on the bed.
With a finger, Manny opened the lid. The ancient, slightly rotted cardboard flopped back. Inside was cloth, wrapped around something. Carefully, delicately, Manny unrolled the object wrapped in the cloth. In the twilight of Equestrian day and Earthly night, the vial glowed soft purple. The light from it made his fingers look violet where it shone. The tips of his fingers felt hot and tingly, almost itchy as he held it. It would burn them, if he held it too long.
Manny placed the vial carefully back into the box, on top of the cloth, while he got up from the bed. He began to undress, first his shirt, then his socks and his pants. Lastly he took off his boxers. He stood naked in his room, his body bathed in the light of two worlds.
Once more, Manuel Delgado examined his hands. A man's power is in his hands. A man's strength, his fortune, these were in his hands. But that was only true in a world where there were men and no magic, where work meant hardship and every day was a struggle rather than an excuse to savor each moment.
He wouldn't be able to change the channel for his Nana anymore. Manuel laughed. His big job in the world, his reason to live each day while the others grew the most wonderful things and made the most delicious meals and built things by floating them in the air.
Manny crawled onto his bed, next to the box with the softly glowing vial inside. Nana said she would check on him in a bit, once he started changing. She would sit with him and be there when he awoke. She would be his Nana in Equestria, just as she had been on Earth. Nana was Nana, always.
The vial was warm in his fingers now. Manny unlatched the safety seal and opened the lid. A faint scent of artificial grape hit his nostrils, like some cheap soda pop or a very bad brand of candy. He held it for some time, even though his fingers began to ache, like he was holding something very hot.
These were his familia, his gente. La Raza. La Raza de la Poni.
Manny would be an outsider no longer.
I kinda feel bad for thinking something would go horribly wrong while reading through this. I guess I'm sort of jaded that way about most TCB fics. Still this was a very nice Daaaawww chapter.
Question though: So did Manny get the potion from a bureau and just keep it or did he get it through other means?
807352 "Would you really want to give your right- nay, your ability to free will and thought?"
If you actually read my stories, you wouldn't keep making this error. And it is an error.
What changes in the brain, in my fictional transformation is the following and ONLY the following:
► Adjustment of internal 'body map' and proprioception system
► Development of magic control and extrasensory regions
► Increased compassion and motivation to help others
► Expansion of the 'Monkeysphere' the number of unique individuals that can be remembered and seen as 'people'
► Increased empathy and concern for the feelings of others
► Elimination of the capacity for murderous rage
► Increased stability of cognition and mood
► Elevated mood
► Increased social awareness and social responsibility
► Enhanced 'mirror neurons' that permit theory of mind
► Herd instinct, including an innate drive to cooperate and work for mutual benefit
► Repair of all mental illness, neurological damage, or other injury or sickness.
► Total loss of the ability to kill, torture, maim, betray or revel in the suffering of others (byproduct of the above)
And that's all.
To understand what this means, consider two famous tests of human morality and responsibility, the Milgram experiment and the Prisoner's Dilemma.
The test results would be dramatically different: in the Milgram experiment a Newfoal would not submit even to the authority of princess Celestia herself if asked to harm another being, because the Newfoal would feel kinship and share in its suffering too much to do so, unlike humans.
In the Prisoner's Dilemma, no Newfoal would ever defect, it would be unthinkable, because they would have too much empathy and trust in their companion in the test.
So the only thing that is 'lost' is the capacity for self-serving betrayal and murderous cruelty, whether banal or impassioned.
If the loss of these things is what you consider a loss of free will and thought, if this is what you consider too valuable, too precious and too desirable to give up in exchange for a 150-300 year lifespan in perfect health with magical abilities in a paradisaical land of beauty and kindness, then frankly, I would prefer you never read my stories, leave me completely alone from now on, and never comment to me, write to me, or bother me ever again.
I don't want any person who would consider the capacity for selfish betrayal or the ability to torture and murder to be desirable and important parts of their brain anywhere in my life. I don't want people like that to even exist at all, ever.
I definitely don't want such a person bothering me here, in this place.
So decide: do you truly support murder and torture, or will you stop making the error of imagining that my fictional ponification process takes anything valuable away from human beings?
Because those are the two choices. I have made it clear what my fictional process does. And that is all it does.
I just got done with the second chapter and absolutely loved it
804751
I think she gets the playful side of your comments - at least I hope so. I'm all for play-acting in the comments, I can also totally understand not wanting the government to decide things like your life for you, and I can understand seeing the Chatoyance-version of the potion being someone's very own private version of hell. I can't understand those who do not know where fantasy and world-building end. Thankfully, you seem to.
Let's sit down and have a drink and talk it over. Grape soda, anyone?
807584
Question: A person who has been 'Ponified', can such a person enjoy violent videos games for example? Would they still enjoy a round of Call of Duty, and would slaying Dragons in Skyrim still hold appeal? How about movies that contain violence? The new Avengers film for example? How about the movie Avatar?
On another note, the removal of technology is a big no-no for me. The removal of scientific and human progress seems silly and wholly unnecessary. Frankly, for a lot of people (including myself) It would also be a world that would royally suck. No Internet? No Computers? No Television? Gadzooks! A longer life-span would be nice though.
I've been feeling burned out on TCB. Not because it's the same old story, but because of all the neigh-sayers. I thought about removing my TCB stories, deleting them, making them invisible. Vanishing them, unpublishing.
And then I read this. For the want of a better explanation, I am unsure how to hold all these feels. It is painfully wonderful.
Maybe I won't delete everything. Maybe I will write again.
807823 Yes please Midnight, don't stop writing
And another good chapter Chatoyance, really liking the slice of life angle you have going for this story
Since I'm needy for any attention I can get, I respond to my own comment in this new chapter. My point stands now even more than it did yesterday.
In my honest opinion, Chatoyance isn't even really trying here. There's that.
Poor Manny should try to make it as a tightrope walker. Or a scuba diver! Humans will never be useless; I'd love to see a pony pole vaulting or traversing the jungle with lianas. And hands are very effective at frisbee throwing as well! He could write a book: "The One Million Things You'd Need A Human For But Were Too Polite To Ask"!
"This tree needs climbing, get me Manny!"
Lovely chapter as always Chatoyance.
Edit: And then the HLF raided them and MANNY COULDN'T DO A THING
The second chapter... eh. Strangely enough, it makes me think of Starship Troopers. Remember me bringing that up a couple weeks ago, Chat? Specifically, it reminds me of the discussion Mr. Dubois and Rico have over the concept of value. While it's a topic generally overshadowed by the more obvious themes in your works, a consistent nagging feeling of why I do not like your Equestria is because it's just way too convenient. Everything is so... easy.
"You! I've just awarded you the prize for the hundred-meter dash. Does it make you happy?"
"Uh, I suppose it would."
"No dodging, please. You have the prize — here, I'll write it out: 'Grand prize for the championship, one hundred-meter sprint.' " He had actually come back to my seat and pinned it on my chest. "There! Are you happy? You value it — or don't you?"
I was sore. First that dirty crack about rich kids — a typical sneer of those who haven't got it — and now this farce. I ripped it off and chucked it at him.
Mr. Dubois had looked surprised. "It doesn't make you happy?"
"You know darn well I placed fourth!"
"Exactly! The prize for first place is worthless to you . . . because you haven't earned it. But you enjoy a modest satisfaction in placing fourth; you earned it."
I mean there's no one thing that sets this reaction off; it's a combination of tons of little things. A telephone pole going in one end and coming out the other a living tree? A warehouse becoming a fully functional barn just waiting to be used? The maladjusted instantly happy, the lonely instantly loved and befriended... it's just too simple for me. When something is that easy, I think, you can't help but wonder if what you have is really yours, or just something handed to you. And if it was just handed to you, then is it really worth anything? Isn't it just a false happiness?
Anyway, I'm getting a tad off topic; I usually try to keep my comments strictly related to the chapter or story at hand, and I'm straying into broader philosophies here: apologies for that. It was just the bit about the warehouse barn that got my attention focused on this matter again.
I'm loving these kind of short stories your doing.
807584
"And that's all."
Would you be amenable to presented with a list of any points in your stories that appear to contradict these? Because - I admit this is only second hand for now, as I haven't read any of your stories yet - I've heard several other things. For example, that they always end up believing that an absolute monarchy (with - of course - Celestia on the throne) is the best system of government, regardless of their prior political beliefs. Other claims include people who formerly loved certain genres of video games immediately hating them, etc. Neither, if true, is really justified by what you've just listed. Someone else pointed out that there doesn't seem to be any political dissent at all within Equestria even on anything so minor as what color to paint a metaphorical bike shed.
807863
"My understanding is that the bans weren't from the disagreement but because there were individuals in a group specifically dedicated to downvoting all TCB stories with prejudice."
The description of the group in question does not mention downvoting. It mainly seems to be about posting fics that are related to.... if you prefer to think of it as, an alternate version of TCB... where the transformation _does_ remove free will and for example instills personal loyalty to Celestia, done by an evil and/or well-intentioned-extremist version of Celestia. Which of course isn't what happens in these fics (as Chatoyance just stated on record), but that doesn't mean it's not possible to imagine a universe where it does happen.
807352
> The more I learn about Chat, the more pity, anger, and scared I feel about her. It's quite fascinating seeing the polarizing effects on a readership based on the delusional message of what amounts nothing more than a fanfiction. I mean, doesn't anyone besides Chatoyance here feel somewhat frightened to be turned into a pony? Not into a pony based on the show mind you, but into the author's image of one (ie. the converts in Chat's TCB Universe). Would you really want to give your right- nay, your ability to free will and thought? If anyone agreed to do this change then my faith in humanity will have fallen a notch.
This.
Get turned into a show-accurate pony? If it was forced on me, then I'd be very annoyed.
Get turned into a Chatoyance-brand pony? I'd not be annoyed at all. I'd be all happy and grateful and never looking back.
And that horrifies me. It's the stuff Lovecraft's horror stories want to be when they grow up.
> And touching on the aspect of forcibly changing a patient with Alzheimer's, I wanted to say that it was a horrible treatment at first, but now in retrospect I am not in the position to say whether or not it's morally correct or not. Were the serum simply a catalyst to heal the physical and mental ailments (diseases and any injuries) and leave the person's mental capacity as it was before, then I would probably agree with treating her with the serum. As it is now though? It's too gray for me to say for certain. If I had to choose for the patient whether to leave her as she was, euthanize her or make her a pony, I'd probably be considering euthanasia more than anything else, but I would not want that sort of decision fall on me.
You could make a similar argument as for organ donation. If the patient is dead (personality-dead, on account of the illness having destroyed their mind completely), but the body is still viable, then you might as well get a pony out of it.
809192
> The solution for the Gattaca dilemma is to enforce the change, […]
An alternative solution is to prohibit the change. It is just as unacceptable ethically as enforcing it, and for exactly the same reasons.
807863
> My understanding is that the bans weren't from the disagreement but because there were individuals in a group specifically dedicated to downvoting all TCB stories with prejudice.
Really? It wasn't when I joined it. I'll have to check it again, I guess.
809416
"Really? It wasn't when I joined it. I'll have to check it again, I guess."
I get the impression that he read the group name and didn't read any further.
EDIT: Why do I always get a >>number instead of >>name when I hit reply? How do I change this?
809488
It happens if the comment that you're replying to is in another page. It still shows the comment if you click or hover the link.
809416
>An alternative solution is to prohibit the change. It is just as unacceptable ethically as enforcing it, and for exactly the same reasons.
I meant that in the sense that if you want any transhumanism change, that's the only viable option. Should've worded it better, sorry.
809488
The Name appears only if the quoted comment is on the same comments page, also I believe there are some external Javascript requirements. FiMFiction appears to have some really dodgy code, in the comment system at least.
809510
> I meant that in the sense that if you want any transhumanism change, that's the only viable option. Should've worded it better, sorry.
Nothing to be sorry about. I just tend to be prone to nitpicking. In my job it's a survival trait, computers are the worst kind of passive–agressive rules lawyers…
807584 While I agree that the reduced/eliminated drive to do violence is an admirable trait in Conversion, many people would be unhappy with losing their ability to do violence in their own defense or the defense of others. Also, if Celestia wants humans to survive so badly, why doesn't she throw her support behind space colonization? Unicorn scientists could be put to great use locating a suitable planet for human habitation, and could work with the humans towards building a craft capable of keeping them alive long enough to get there. I've noticed a few CB writers who have explored this alternate scenario, and most have done so quite well. While I do find your fiction to be at turns funny, wacky, poignant, dramatic, and always captivating, your portrayals of the Equestrians as trying to justify the coerced transformation of humans, rather than trying to find as many choices as possible to save them, detracts from their noble stature and instead makes them seem to be herding humanity along to (technical) extinction. I'll still read because good, but that's just my two bits in.
First of all, I’m sorry that this turned into another debate about the morals of TCB stories, that wasn’t my intention. So this is probably my last post in the comment section of this story. If anybody wants to response to my comment please send me a PM, instead of spaming the comment secton of this story.
804763
Yes we’re all Fans of FiM, that why we are on this beautiful little site. But not ever Fan likes the same kind of stories.
Some Fans may prefer funny stories about the daily life in Ponyville. Others want to read stories in which the Mane Six fighting against threatening villains to prevent the destruction of Equestria. Another group of Fans loves sad stories in which the Ponies have to deal with stuff like death or childhood traumas. And some of us like cute, sappy or saucy love stories.
All those people like different things, but they are all Fans of FiM. Yes even the people who write the “Pony A kills Pony B in a rather gruesome way” type of stories.
It’s only natural that not everybody likes every type of story. You believe that the Ponies are more infesting if they are better, nicer, more magical, more wonderful and all around more celebrity-wow than anything else in the world and that’s your good right. Others, like me, don’t like perfect characters. We prefer Ponies who aren’t perfect, Ponies who have flaws, Ponies who make mistakes.
809416 "Get turned into a show-accurate pony? If it was forced on me, then I'd be very annoyed.
Get turned into a Chatoyance-brand pony? I'd not be annoyed at all. I'd be all happy and grateful and never looking back.
And that horrifies me. It's the stuff Lovecraft's horror stories want to be when they grow up."
THANK YOU! Thank you, thank you, you intelligent, observant, brilliant person you. Yes, oh sweet Celestia, yes.
You understand. You 'get' it. I believe the evolution of horror, the apex of horror, is when the reader yearns for the nightmare. Lovecraft could describe this happening, but my goal is to make the reader actually experience it to the point that the nightmare becomes the sweetest dream for real.
You alone 'get' what I am doing.
Thank you.
809945
Okay, then make me 'get' what you're trying to do here. One moment you write that changing into ponies is natural step in humanity's evolution, the next you're saying that it is supposed to be a horrific nightmare for any human being.
Make up your mind: it's either one or the other, you can't have both. Or are you just trying to backtrack here?
807122 What.
How do you know they didn't downvote it without reason?
807584
A question. What about political loyalty? Would a hardcore anti-monarchist remain such, or would they start chanting "Hail Celestia"? If a member of the HLF, who had consciously decided better to die than to go pony, where to have gotten force converted in a surprise ambush by the PER, would that Newfoal attempt to off themselves as they had previously sworn to do?
If it's just pony physiology upping compassion and causing a much stronger disinclination towards violence, that's perfectly acceptable. The only moral issues come about with forced conversion against a person's will, with the process itself being morally neutral tending towards white. If its more than that, if Ponified!Emma Goldman is a monarchist, then Emma Goldman died and something else, a totally innocent something else mind you, took her place. That would be a process of necrogenesis, only ethically permissible when death, either of body or personality, would be happening regardless.
I really want to believe the best, since I loved both Unicorn Jelly and To Save Her, but I keep hearing things so I have to ask.
810276
That's an issue with the overall TCB universe, not specifically Chat's. It is present but not as prominently as in others, one of the only things that I can safely say that I'm somewhat pleased with Chat's writing.
810276
Those are excellent questions... and they vary completely from story to story. Sometimes a converted anarchist will turn pro-Celestia because they meet her in their Conversion Dream and begin to appreciate that they were wrong, that she truly is almighty and benevolent and worth worshiping. Sometimes they go pony and completely retain the belief their core beliefs, in this case that royals are not to be trusted. And sometimes they go pony and become mindless smiling lobotomized drones. Even most TCB authors themselves seem unsure of which answer to go with and tend to skirt the issue, working off implications rather than anything concretely stated.
Same with HLF turned pony, it all depends who you ask and most seem to prefer not to approach the topic at all - which is ironic since it's so central to all the arguments! Sometimes they wake up screaming in horror, sometimes they just have big goofy grins on their faces. Chatoyance clearly takes the latter view - refer to Operation HLF Life to see it in action.
My own personal take, in my TCB story that has been kicking around in my head for at least a month now but I'll probably never actually write, is that most HLF members talk awfully tough about how they'd rather die than go pony... but when it actually happens to them, they tend to find their survival instincts and desire for social acceptance outweighs that conviction. Not pony brainwashing, just the same instinctive drive that all sentient life feels to go on living. Anybody can talk tough when there's nothing on the line - actually putting a pistol in your mouth is another matter.
809945
he is not alone in 'getting' it. he is just the first to articulate the words we've all been struggling to string together. the thought is there, the words that make the thought an idea however.. some of us cannot seem to string the words together the right way.
i speak for myself of course in this regard.
807792
I'll answer your questions from my own POV (Yeah, that makes me a buttinsky. So what?)
1) I personally cannot play any video game where I have to commit violence on another being. It simply sickens me. Even though I am fully aware that no other beings were hurt in the playing of the game, I still feel hurt, which I can't ignore. Even in TV or movies, I cannot stand gratuitous violence. Don't get me wrong, bad things happen, and sometimes that needs to and should be portrayed in the movie, and I don't object to that. But sometimes (like the movie "Inglorious Bastards" for example) all it is is revenge pornography and I cannot enjoy it.
NONE of this takes away my free will, but it does inform the choices I make, and I would see that as a plus for anyone to lose this thirst for the suffering of others, even those that are evil. Violence and revenge are not rights, they are animal responses. They don't add anything to a person, all they do is limit how a person can respond to the world around them. GOOD RIDDANCE! By this reasoning, the ponified are not slaves to being good, they are liberated from what drives individuals to being bad.
2) I don't see the MLPFIM universe as anti technology. But the presence of magic from each individual citizen completely changes the energy economy and how machines are built. But I do agree that personally I would much prefer living in a world with electronics and the universal flow of information and culture that is the internet. But then I'm also old enough to remember that life before the internet wasn't that bad either. Life is what you make of it!
The essence of my stories is this: There is a better world.
And this is fantasy, and it is joy, and it is horror, and it is yearning, and it is pain.
My future history - The great economic Collapse, the Japan Exclusion Zone, the Austerity War, the Last Harvest, and finally the Worldgovernment - these things are what is happening now, set twenty minutes into the future. You can see them all starting around you now, and it's scary. We're going to have to live in that world, because we are living in the beginnings of it right now.
Only there isn't going to be an Equestria. That isn't going to come and save us. Neither is there going to be a Return Of Jesus and a Rapture and everything going all 'Kingdom Of Heaven' which is exactly the same story as mine, only mine has ponies in it. That isn't going to happen. And that is really scary, because it would be great to just... escape.
And the real horror in my stories is that I paint a beautiful world. It isn't perfect, because perfection isn't acceptable. But it is close. It is perfect enough to desire, yet filled with enough little disappointments and sorrows to be real. It can be believed in, with little effort. And true horror is realizing that, if it were real, a part of you would be willing to give up everything - humanity, identity, anything - to finally be happy. To know that such happiness could never be taken away again.
And that, if you didn't know, is why you are actually upset with me, and my stories. I don't think a lot of you grasp that. I am writing very disturbing horror novels, in one sense. In another sense, I am writing very seductive fantasy stories of perfect beauty, flawed just enough to be believable. They are the same thing.
To yearn for what you can never have hurts. To desire after the impossible is a kind of torture. And that is what I write. I write the exquisite torture of something so beautiful, that you can never, ever have. Worse, I have set it in an extension of the present day, a future that is not far different from what you will have - except that it is slightly nicer.
You aren't really here to tell me anything, other than that you feel upset. All your little points and counterpoints are deflection, denial, a desperate attempt to suppress what you really feel, as you try to make your way through the real world. You want to be happy. You want to be children again. We all do. It is the basis of all religion, all fantasy and all art. Big Father (or Mother) in the Sky looking after us. Everything happy.
Maybe it only happened once in your whole life, maybe it was a handful of years, but at some point, in your childhood, you felt safe. Cared for. Loved. Perfectly content. You felt that the world made sense, and that everything was for a reason and that good things would always win out in the end. That wishing could make it so. That the birds were singing just for you.
My Equestria has been carefully created to be just that. And it hurts. It hurts me, while I write it, because I want to go there. If my vision of the Bureaus opened tomorrow, I would do anything, anything to be there. I would give up my humanity without a second thought, with joy in my heart. If the process only permitted one single year of life after, I would do it. To run, to gambol in peace and kindness and joy! To know youth and beauty and love, to literally be beauty and love and kindness. To have all the darkness swept from my mind, and to look upon the world and everypony in it as friends. To lose fear, forever.
That is the lure, that is the yearning, that is the horror. Lovecraft imagined cultists spooging over squidgy things from other worlds but gave us no reason to feel the same. It was just 'madness'. No. Not enough. I want to give you the yearning yourself. I want you to feel what I do, every moment of every day - understanding of what Mankind could have done with life, but never did. The endless, aching yearning for better, for a good we will never know and never enjoy, but which our magnificent brains can imagine so perfectly that we can almost taste and smell it.
It is cruel, but it is also kind. Yes, it hurts, but it hurts beautifully, sweetly - bittersweetly. We want it so badly, all of us, that Something Better, and it is somehow even more painful to try to turn our back on it than it is to suffer wanting it. At least in imagining it, we have a taste.
Every fandom is ultimately this. Trekkies all want, secretly, to be officers on starships. Of course they do, and the ones that deny it the most are the most obvious. The cartoon fans deep down would trade anything to get to be a Tiny Toon for real, or to live in Ooo and have Adventure Time for real. That is the core of the human condition, and has been since the first primate imagined... anything. Anything Better.
Sometimes that drive can make humanity achieve things. Physical things. Inventions are just an expression of a yearning for something that takes physical form. So it is with art. Art is yearning for the impossible, made solid.
So it is with my Bureau Stories.
Some say the Bureau is wish-fulfillment. So is Star Trek or James Bond or Adventure Time or Spiderman. We all want Something Better. For some it is power, because they feel powerless. For some it is exploration, because they are restless. For some, it is saving the world, because they feel unimportant.
Welcome to my yearning. I don't want power, or importance or the exploration of frontiers. I want a world where everyone is friends. Where kindness is always the rule and cruelty isn't even a concept. I yearn for a world where every being is innately compelled to be ethical, and biologically driven to feel for each other. I want a world of friendship.
I want a world where friendship is literally magic.
The Lovecraftian horror is that I will never know this world. You will never know this world. And it is fair to say that describing it casts what really exists in a bad light by direct comparison. Humans want to believe they are Good, but when a vision of what real Goodness actually would look like is presented, it becomes obvious just how far humanity is from the goal. I grasp that this might hurt some people.
But that doesn't mean that savoring the impossible joy of a true Good isn't worthwhile.
Yes, we can reject it, throw tantrums over how we will never get what we want, pick at the author for daring to show us Something Better, claim it Isn't Better At All, and countless other fusses... but there is another option.
We could choose... to try to be just a little bit more like that Good. We could decide to try to embody a little of it, display a little bit of it, try to live up to it. Oh, it's impossible to succeed, but that is not the issue. The issue is that we can strive for Better at all.
And that is what I wish my stories engendered, instead of all this mean-spirited fuss.
In my dreams is a comment section full of people trying to be better to each other with every story, trying to be kinder, more pony-like, more gentle, more loving. Maybe we can't trade hands for hooves, but perhaps we can trade being bullying apes for the effort to express the pony spirit of mutual respect and cooperation.
Maybe we can trade fists for hooves in our minds, in our personalities.
Maybe we can let a little of the exquisite torture of Something Better live within us, and make us better towards each other as a result.
How would that look?
It would look like a bunch of good friends celebrating each others stories in kindness and concern for each others feelings. It would look like pleasant posts and gentle discussions and helpful suggestions and camaraderie.
It would look like a celebration of what was good and kind. It would look like everyone being nice to each other because they genuinely cared about being nice.
And there would be not a single call to justify anything, or punish, or dissuade or complain or convince.
It would just be fun. Just kindly fun.
Just... kindness... as fun.
Dear Chattty,
Great chapter! This morning before heading out I was composing a response to some of the comments to chapter 1 essentially going on about how the TCB stories reflected the "yearning for community of the human social animal looking for genuine contact and belonging" in a world that had become cold, depersonalized and deeply isolating. By the time I got back you had published chapter 2 that said all of that much better. Sigh.
And thanks for another little gem.
807746 no I only drink cherry.
how did you type that if you left the computer?
Dear Chatoyance
I hope you haven't taken to heart all those bozos that have been posting so much negativity to your stories of late. It would appear that you have become a lightning rod for every TCB hater out there and thus a target for their rants.
Just keep in mind that most people who read your fics see them as the beautiful, well written stories about a future that could be better, should mankind develop a bit more in the wisdom department. They remind us that we can be good and why it is important that we strive to that end.
You write these stories because you care about humanity, not because you hate it. I know that, and the vast majority of your readers know that. We are both grateful and fortunate that you do it so well.
Keep on trucking', Chatty.
809121
Thank you! FIXED! Those two spellings... so confusing, sometimes.
808528
Uh, no it doesn't. She specifically stated she only banned the people from the group that down voted the story solely because of the author's reputation and the universe Chat writes her story in.
812520
Also - if they want to downvote it because of the universe it's set in, isn't that their decision? Why are votes and the reason for them suddenly everyone's business, and why aren't they made public with a reason field you can type in, if they are?
812782
You must be reading a different Chatoyance... or else you are going on hearsay and not reading my work at all.
In my TCB future, even though the ecology is ruined, and some parts of the world are pretty devastated - which is all based on current trends, true enough, the fact is that:
► There is no war
► Every human being, all nineteen billion of them, are guaranteed basic rations of food and water. No human goes hungry, ever.
► Life extension is real
► Cybernetic implants and enhanced senses are real
► Artificial Intelligence is real
► Nanotechnology manufactures all goods efficiently and powerfully
► The entire planet is bound together in one mutual, open hypernet
► National differences have been resolved allowing a single planetary government
► The elite of the world actually, really care about the fate of humanity as a whole
► Although most humans live in favelas, they take care of each other and value community
► The worldgovernment has made sure infotainment kiosks exist everywhere on the planet
► Cancer can be stopped with a common medication, and cured in a hospital with no side effects
► Did I mention that every human being has food and water. EVERY HUMAN BEING?
Do you actually believe that the real world will achieve these wonderful things anytime soon? EVER? I don't. But I write like I do.
810276
She keeps saying it, but so many don't listen. I'm not really sure why. In her stories, becoming a pony makes you into the person you like to believe you are. We all like to believe (I hope) that we are nice, friendly people who would help others at the drop of a hat, who have compassion not only for individuals but the plight of many. We all like to believe that, deep down, we're wonderful warm, intelligent people.
It doesn't give you a lobotomy, it doesn't take away your free will, it doesn't turn you into a drooling idiot or some sheep or insect blindly following the queen. It does make you nicer, by making you care about others. You become more compassionate, kinder and gentler (going by the show, we can see ponies are quite capable of being butts, but we don't see them knifing each other for wearing the wrong colour headscarf, do we?)
In effect, the only people who would hate to become a pony are not those who value the ability to defend oneself, or to fight for what you believe in, but those who do value the ability to injure, maim or kill without reason or remorse. Those who stand to lose personal power (not fingers, not strength, not wisdom, but power over others), those who stand to lose their way of life when it was borne not of cooperation or compassion but off the backs of others.
These stories are viewed with suspicion simply for the reason that the world teaches us that if it looks too good to be true, it usually is. Equestria, going by the show, isn't. Read all the studies you can, you'll find that it is generally accepted that a benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government. The worst is a non-benevolent one. In Chat's stories, Celestia is an immortal, utterly compassionate but utterly dedicated ruler. She is quite capable of (as kindly as possible) removing threats to the happiness of others. Just like our societies, only with less bloodshed. There are, in Chat's universe, no "extraordinary rendition flights" (aka kidnappings), no "extreme interrogation methods" (aka torture), no assassinations, no murders, no oppression - as far as we can tell, there are no jails and no police. Sure, she has a military force, but it would seem to be in case of dangers from dragons, timberwolves, trolls, hellspawn or other incredibly dangerous creatures. Not for those who would create a song and dance troupe calling for the examination of the downfall of the monarchy itself.
If you wouldn't want to be kinder, nicer and gentler, and live in a land of plenty, then what would you want? Apparently, those people that see Chat's Equestria as a bad thing are advocates of complete and total anarchy. Nothing else makes sense. It's an admirable goal to call for a techno anarchic utopia, but generally the lack of morals or ethics, the lack of a police force, the lack of compassion and kindness are seen as a bad thing.
Another thing is this idea of a genocide. Genocide (xenocide, actually) usually involves a lot more death than none. In these stories, the bubble has appeared for whatever reason, and is (for whatever reason) expanding to engulf the planet. That's part of the story universe, it forms part of the milieu. Nobody is forced to become a pony by the ponies themselves, but it is arguably an immense tragedy that those who do not can expect eventual death unless an alternative can be found.
The ponies don't force ponification on anyone (other than PER, and the princess does not stand with them). Earthgov might, in the same way people have been forcibly relocated from their homes or placed into specific reservations, but then you'd need to argue that humans wouldn't do that to humans. Pro tip: yes they would.
It's an immensely complex world - many of the strange things in it shouldn't need to be explained like this directly, but those who just don't get it keep presenting not only their interpretations (which is a valid thing to have - that negative viewpoint is necessary in these stories for there to be conflict within the stories) but their viewpoints as verbatim facts.
It's hard to explain, it seems, but author fiat trumps opinion. From the mouth of the author, ponification does not kill. The opinion that it is a kind of death, or worse than death, is only that. The opinion that "being happier" is somehow an awful, lovecraftian hell is only that - yes it very much is part of the story world, but really... "bam, you're happy!" "oh no! I'm happy! How awful!" ? Yeah, didn't think so. So - despite reservations externally (not internally to the stories) - Celestia really is entirely benevolent of a capacity only attributable to various invisible sky-daddies on this side of the barrier, Equestria really is a wonderful, happy, gentle place of plenty. Life really is that easy (even those who fall by the wayside are living in a land where they can eat all the grass they want and shelter under the trees and avoid rain just by asking). The fact this idea is "too good to be true" needs to be a theme in the stories, but it's part of the setting. It really is a sugarbowl world.
Now, exploring the fact that that sort of body horror scares the fuck out of you is a great way to be creative, and I'm glad to see that the anti-tcb crowd (a group I left because of some outstandingly fucking dumb comments from a very, very small minority - which I joined because I dislike being talked about without being able to respond) are moving towards that. I would much rather it were civil discourse, but that seems unlikely. It's as heated as atheism versus theism for much the same reasons.
Anyway, I can only say "read them before listening to everyone else". The words are right there, they're free.
812717
What was said was the downvotes by a specific group that will downvote just because were banned. It's nothing to do with TCB, it's everything to do with not being a dick. Many things will get you banned - plagiarism, posting chain letters, death threats, vote bombing (up OR down). The mods step in when they see people acting like douchenozzles, and I remind you they have access to the database. They can see everything if they feel they need to (minus encrypted things for privacy reasons). They won't ban a group's members just for being in a group. They will ban a group's members if those members are being abusive.
812994
You'd have to ask the admins, but a mass downvote from many members of a group at the same time is something which will stick out in the logs like a sore thumb, and is indicative of douchbaggery.
I'm still not sure who was banned, and if you don't know either then we can only assume that it was either a) nobody or b) people (accounts) who deserved it.
Poultron and Knighty are both very dilligent in being fair about users on this site. Again, it's nothing to do with TCB, it's everything to do with not being a dick.