Diplomatic Overtures

by Dave Bryant

A frank exchange

I sat at the foot of the table, facing Celestia at the head. Luna once again sat at her sister’s right, with Cadance facing her. Twilight was between Luna and me; Sunset between Cadance and me. The seating of the princesses, and Sunset, by seniority was exactly as I expected, though for such a small meeting it hardly seemed worthwhile. I had a sneaking suspicion at least half the room shared that sentiment, though of course no one breathed a word of it out loud. For all I could tell, it might have been for my comfort, fitting diplomatic expectations, rather than out of any strong desire on the princesses’ part.

“First of all, I would like to apologize to Princess Cadance for being unable to provide sufficient copies of my letter.” Might as well grasp the bull by the horns.

Cadance giggled. Undeniably. Then she cleared her throat and adopted a more serious expression. “No apology is necessary, Mister Cook. I understand. It’s not like you drafted and prepared the letters personally, after all, and I’m sure everyone expected you to meet with me later, not today. Auntie or Twi can give me access to their copies if I need it, and I can rule their accreditation applies in my territory as well, as an associated state. It’s part of the reason I’m here.”

Without comment, Twilight promptly levitated her foreign minister’s copy to Cadance, who read it with the same careful attention her adopted aunts and sister-in-law had applied. In the idle moment I mused how, here as in my own world, so much of royalty ran on family ties, by blood, marriage, or adoption—though at least here it seemed far less stiff and hidebound.

“It looks fine to me,” Cadance said in a verbal shrug. “Mister Cookie Pusher, I accept the accreditation extended to you by Equestria as chargé d’affaires en pied, representing your nation to mine as an associated state.”

Two for the price of one. Well. At least I’d accomplished that much. “On behalf of my nation, I thank you all for your accreditation. I also apologize they have sent a chargé rather than a full ambassador, but older and wiser heads decided, first, I was too young and inexperienced to be elevated to that position and, second, it was impractical to send a permanent resident mission. No insult was intended.”

Celestia and Cadance smiled, Luna looked cool but accepting, and Twilight looked faintly troubled. The white eminence looked at her juniors, then turned back to me. “Mister Cook, I believe I can speak for all of us when I say no insult was construed. You and your superiors are quite correct about the impracticalities involved, on both sides of the portal. Under the conditions that obtain, sending a chargé was entirely proper. For similar reasons we cannot send our own mission at all, and I hope you will convey our apologies for not reciprocating at this time.”

“I certainly shall, ma’am,” I assured her. I did not miss the significance of her qualification “at this time.”

Twilight leaned forward. “They thought you weren’t experienced enough to be an ambassador, but they sent you anyway—and all alone, without any advisors?” She seemed more outraged on my behalf than over any potential insult to her nation.

“Well . . .” Put that way, it did seem less than ideal, but then the situation was less than ideal.

“My dear Twilight,” Celestia interrupted with a tone of gentle rebuke. “They are in a difficult position. Without spreading knowledge of the portal farther than either they or we would wish, what are they to do?” She looked back at me with a maternal air. “And it speaks well of their faith in this young fellow, when one thinks about it.”

Twilight sat back, still looking troubled. “Well . . .” There was, I reflected, a lot of that going around.

“I may be provided a staff in the future, but for this initial contact, the decision was to limit potential complications as much as possible.” I decided to risk a little levity. “After all, not everyone is ready to step through a weird magical portal that throws you around like a toboggan ride and turns you into a talking pony.”

Twilight choked. Cadance snickered. Luna’s brows went up. Celestia smiled again and glanced at her student-turned-junior. Sunset looked like she was on the verge of diving under the table.

“An accurate, if rather pithy, observation, Mister Cook,” Celestia said serenely. I had no doubt she’d divined the source of my comment, though I wasn’t as sure about Luna or Cadance. At any rate, nopony chose to make an issue of my cheekiness. Thank goodness.

Celestia continued, “I surmise from your office of chargé and your statement about the impracticality of a resident mission you will be fulfilling your duties from the other side of the portal—as well as keeping an eye on our dear Sunset.”

Sunset sat bolt upright, clearly surprised, and not pleasantly so, to be brought front and center in the discussion.

“Yes indeed,” I replied steadily. “I have been relocated to a residence and an office space in the same metropolitan area, not too distant from the portal’s location.”

A small thoughtful frown manifested on the ancient face. “One residence among many poses no difficulties, but finding a sufficiently discreet office must have been a challenge.”

“It’s part of an existing facility in the city, and usually I can work from home—which I always do for sensitive matters. I presume Her Highness has briefed you on the technology available to enable that?”

“She has.” Celestia bestowed another affectionate smile on the youngest princess, who shifted in her seat. “She also has informed me our technology resembles your world’s as of nearly a century and a half in the past, though I would hazard a guess we may not achieve similar advancements for roughly twice that time. We do not have the same incentives pressing us to do so.” What a polite way to point out how much warfare drives technology—and that ponies apparently regarded technology in a woefully lackadaisical fashion. Still, it also was eminently nonjudgmental of both societies, more than was strictly necessary for diplomatic purposes.

“As you say, ma’am, though it brings up a point I wish to address, not as part of my mission but simply as a representative and observer.” I thought for a moment, but decided being blunt was best. “History has taught us when two cultures with dissimilar levels of technology come into contact, the results tend to be dire for the culture with the less advanced technology. In several ways this is a special case, of course, which may alter the dynamics, but my conscience will not allow me to keep silent on the matter.”

All the princesses exchanged glances, then Luna spoke. “My sister and I have discussed this matter extensively, and we agree in principle. It is one reason we are amenable to maintaining distant, if friendly, relations.”

“You may not be the only one who feels that way, Mister Cook,” Cadance put in shrewdly. “And the effects might not go all one way. After all, here we have more experience with magic, which could affect your world just as disastrously. It almost has.”

“That’s . . . a good point,” I replied. “I suppose I was so concerned with our own lessons of history I hadn’t considered that fully.”

Celestia took up the thread. “Your concern does you great credit, the more so because airing it goes beyond the letter of your duties. And you can hardly be blamed for not considering fully a problem for which you do not have complete information and to which you are not accustomed.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said with utmost sincerity. It was not hard to see why her little ponies regarded her with such reverence.

“And now to business,” she said briskly.

Author's Note:

As a mere chargé d’affaires en pied, Cook ranks lower than an ambassador. One of the differences is in the protocol of presenting one’s letter of credence: An ambassador meets directly with the head of state, while a chargé meets instead with the foreign minister. When researching this protocol I was struck by the quaint peculiarity that the diplomat is expected not to make a speech; the letter of credence should do the speaking for him, I suppose. The bit about duplicate copies, sealed for the head of state and unsealed for the minister, is the same for both diplomatic ranks, though.
   Cook was warned ahead of time Celestia and Luna had decided to short-circuit this particular nicety and meet with him directly. That did make him twitchy, but only a little because of the merry hob it played with protocol; mostly he wasn’t expecting to face two mighty rulers, one of them more than a millennium old and the other perhaps centuries old, if one subtracts the time Luna was frozen in stasis during her banishment. Meeting a little less formally with Twilight, whom he’d come to know at least a little, would have been far less intimidating.
   And why did the royal sisters make this decision? Partly it simply was to speed things up, and partly it was to extend due courtesy to the nation Cook represents. Everyone involved recognizes the portal creates a special situation, and if it weren’t for those considerations, a full ambassador would have been sent instead.

Comments

[lavender]

Equestria's level of technology is only generally a century behind. There is a plastic industry, we have seen computers of sorts with hospital equipment and arcade machines and suggestions of space travel from a particular Nightmare Night costume being the first things that spring to mind.
I think it's less they don't have the technology but more a lack of need to implement it en masse.
It is also possible that mass production is a rarity, with most things being hand-made that would slow down production time and size by a fairly large margin.

[Dave Bryant]

8223508
I always base my portrayal of Equestria and its world on Ms. Faust’s original design, which hewed closely to what society and technology looked like around 1860–1880—without the anachronisms imposed by Hasbro’s edict that the series show things familiar to a very young, even preschool, audience. I can understand why the edict came down, but I do feel it compromised the world-building terribly.
   There are tremendous problems with mixing technology levels willy-nilly. The existence of a plastics industry, for instance, requires an advanced understanding of chemistry and materials that would have ramifications all across science, technology, and society. Digital computing, especially, reshapes everything! If those ramifications don’t show up, the world-building quickly falls apart for any serious storytelling.

[Bugsydor]

While I agree that certain techs require others to build off of, I can't say I approve of the notion of a unified tech level that's a set number of years behind. That would imply that technology development always follows the same set path, and that unique factors, such as advanced magical theory and abundant mana, have no impact on said development. One way that the ponies are clearly ahead of the humans, thanks to more advanced and abundant magic, is in weather engineering. After all, they make their weather on purpose, and in a factory no less.

You did touch on Equestria being more magically advanced, but I don't see why magical and mundane tech should be considered any more separate than chemical and electronic tech.

Even ignoring magic, there are still random chance and people's decisions that decide which things get researched. One example (I think Admiral Biscuit brought it up in a blogpost) would be if we'd decided to explore Mars with humans first instead of robots, or kept the Moon landing program running, we may have developed more human-enhancement tech instead of better robots. Or maybe things would be different if HDDVD had better marketing than Blu-ray Disc.

And then there's how ponies have different needs than humans. It's unlikely, for instance, that they would invent human-style nail clippers, while humans are less likely to invent, say, a glove that you could walk on without tearing while maintaining the ability to grip through it (however grippy hooves work). That'll push tech development down divergent paths, as well.

TL;DR: The notion of a tech level that's X years behind ours is a gross oversimplification that cuts out a lot of interesting possibilities for world-building, though fleshing out these possibilities would be a lot more work.

Pet peeve rant over. Back to enjoying your fic.

[Dave Bryant]

8612649
It’s a matter of having to start somewhere. You may notice I’m purposely vague about specifics, both in terms of time and technology, to provide some leeway for minor variations; elsewhere I do have Sunset mention one such difference. I avoid messing with technology in major ways partly to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies and partly to hew more closely to Ms. Faust’s original vision as described—admittedly loosely—in various interviews with and comments from show staff. Her description made it sound like she planned to stick pretty close to historical period technology. Moreover, I honestly am convinced screwing around with technological development too much leads to house-of-cards worldbuilding.

[A.P.O.N.I.]

I'd just like to point out that even at their existing technological level, they could still have casein plastics. This can be done at home, with milk, vinegar, and a heat source.

[Super Trampoline]

I forgot to mention last chapter that this is no longer canon given that we now have the show’s take on Sunset and Celestia’s reuniting