Diplomatic Overtures

by Dave Bryant

Brass tacks

Diplomacy is boring.

Maybe it’s more accurate to say diplomacy is not a spectator sport. For a participant it combines the slow-moving suspense of a chess game with the sharp guesswork and bargaining of poker. Even then it can cause drooping eyelids; I wasn’t surprised when Luna and later Cadance succumbed to the tedium. Luna’s bedtime was approaching, after all, and Cadance was in a constant state of mild sleep deprivation thanks to her infant daughter. They stayed long enough to satisfy honor and to ensure Equestria’s sovereignty wouldn’t be bargained away for a handful of beads, but eventually first one and then the other excused herself.

Contrariwise, the eternal Celestia seemed unaffected and Twilight positively energized by the minutiae and proliferating details. Sunset hung on doggedly with an air of confusion, likely wondering why she was there at all, while the three of us negotiated the relationship our nations would enjoy. (Yes, that’s the right word; it means something rather different than it would in ordinary conversation. All too often it’s an exercise in irony.) Her patience was rewarded once we’d established certain ground rules about the movement of our citizens or subjects through the portal.

“And now, it gives me great pleasure to present this.” I leaned down to fetch another item by mouth from the panniers sitting beside my seat. After placing it on the table, I slid it toward Sunset with a hoof. She peered down at it a little blearily, then her eyes widened and she gaped.

“So?” Twilight craned her neck eagerly. “What is it?”

“It’s . . . it’s a visa,” Sunset breathed, incredulous.

I beamed, absurdly pleased by her reaction, as if I’d given her the best Hearth’s-Warming present ever, to use her native idiom. “It is indeed. To be specific, it is a courtesy visa conferring long-term residency status on a non-diplomatic representative of a foreign government. Sunset Shimmer has official standing to remain as long as she wishes in the land she now calls home, and not just as a private individual.”

Sunset was speechless. Twilight looked like she was about to burst. Celestia smiled as broadly as I yet had seen, but unlike the younger mares’ unbridled joy, her demeanor showed she plainly understood the subtext. “The Crown of Equestria offers deep and heartfelt thanks to your nation for its enlightened magnanimity.” She turned her attention to her former student. “Sunset. It is a gift of surpassing generosity—and practicality—but do be aware it is not, and quite understandably cannot be, unlimited in its scope.”

Both mares looked up at her, and she explained. “As Mister Cook has intimated, it offers no diplomatic immunity. I do not expect that to pose any difficulty in the future, but I do remind you to remain on your best behavior while you are a guest in his country.” She favored me with a searching look. “And I believe it is no accident he arranged to present it under these circumstances, with Twilight and myself as witnesses.”

I inclined my head courteously. “It is not. Doing so allowed the Crown of Equestria to take official cognizance of it immediately, which is the pragmatic reason.” I was still grinning like a fool when I raised my head. “And on a personal level, I couldn’t imagine a better time to do so. For all three of you.”

Sunset bounced off her stool and threw her arms around me. She squeezed surprisingly hard, and I wheezed, caught off-guard and suddenly breathless. She even gave me a chaste little peck on the cheek before returning to her seat.

I was warm all over. It really did feel like making a favorite niece the happiest person in the world. Twilight giggled.

“Cook,” Celestia said quietly. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Celestia,” I replied just as quietly. Dropping the honorific told me she was serious, and deeply touched. It also told me she understood full well I was the one who pushed through the visa. I vowed then never, ever to play chess, poker, or sun and moon with her.

Sunset slid the visa back. “Cook, would you keep this safe for me while we’re here? I . . . don’t have any place to put it, and I don’t want to damage it by shoving it in a pocket.”

“Gladly.” I recovered the small but fancy folio booklet and swept it gently back into my pannier.

Twilight spoke up with a tone of epiphany. “Celestia, shouldn’t we issue Sunset a passport?”

“Yes. Yes we should.” She bestowed another smile on us all. “I suggest we repair to a more pleasant venue for a working lunch, during which I shall set those wheels in motion.”

This we did. Our peregrination through the halls resembled the previous journey, but squared and cubed. Midday, the palace bustled even more than earlier, and the tall form at the head of our little party garnered smiles and bows and murmured greetings. She found time to respond to each and every one, even if it was only a word or two. Somehow, somewhere, she managed to convey her intentions, and by the time we found ourselves on a balcony hanging over empty air, cantilevered from an onion-domed tower, we found a round table set for four, with a simple but generous and perfectly fresh luncheon spread across it.

Celestia sat at the outer place and nodded to us, letting us find our own seats as we wished. Perhaps not surprisingly I ended up facing her, with her former students on either side. It gave me a panoramic view of the far side of the axe-cleft pass that cradled Canterlot, steep and startling. The meal itself was informal, all of us serving ourselves and sometimes each other family-style. I was provided utensils, and fine ones, to circumvent my lack of proficiency with levitation.

After a few minutes another unicorn mare appeared—levitating a laden clipboard, a fountain pen, and a dry seal—and trotted straight to Celestia with an air of competent efficiency. Her coat was nearly as white as her mistress’, though without the faint glow. Her dark brown mane and tail were bound up in matching buns with red ribbons, and her collar and cravat strongly resembled mine, though in white and red rather than charcoal gray and dark blue. Spectacles rimmed with blued steel framed her bronze eyes. I judged her to be within a few years of my own age of thirty-one. She was quite pretty and I suspect I stared a bit more than was strictly polite. I was at that moment a stallion, after all, and besides, grace, wit, and pleasant features and conformation transcend species.

“Ah, Raven,” Celestia greeted her with a pleased smile. I was beginning to realize she had a smile for almost every occasion, and spent a great deal of time doing so. Many of those smiles were politic, I was sure, but a surprising amount of the time they seemed genuine. I suppose, when one has seen as much as she has, the choice is to enjoy life or go mad. “Mister Cookie Pusher, this is my majordomo, Raven Inkwell. Raven, this fine young stallion prefers to go by Cook; he is visiting from the other side of the portal and has been accredited as chargé d’affaires en pied from the nation hosting the portal’s other terminus.”

Raven scrutinized me as thoroughly as a three-dee laser scanner—not rudely, but appraisingly and as if committing my appearance to memory. While she didn’t smile, her expression was cordial. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mister Cook. Will you be staying long?”

“Alas, no, Ms. Inkwell,” I replied, and was surprised to find the “alas” was sincere. “This is merely a preliminary conference to present my credentials and to resolve the most basic and urgent questions that arise between two nations opening relations for the first time.”

“Perhaps you will have more opportunity to visit our fair country at a later time, then,” she replied with hospitable courtesy.

“I think I’d like that.”

She did smile then, if briefly, before turning back to Celestia attentively. That worthy began to issue orders, couched as polite requests, and Raven nodded occasionally. She took no notes but, when the stream of commands ended, repeated back the essential points flawlessly. Before departing to carry them out, she deposited the clipboard and pen on the table beside Celestia’s place setting.

Celestia took up the pen and began writing. “I doubt the palace press room will be able to produce a permanent document before you and Mister Cook return through the portal tonight, Sunset, but I can issue a provisional writ that will do for the nonce. Mister Cook, I shall entrust the writ to your temporary keeping for the same reasons Sunset requested you to hold onto her visa.”

“I’d be happy to,” I assured her.

Without looking up from her writing, Celestia added, “I seem to recall also this is a school day, is it not, Sunset?”

“Oh!” Sunset looked stricken for a moment. “Yes it is. Principal Celestia gave me a day pass.” Levitation glows surrounded first one pocket, then another, until finally a folded slip of paper emerged to make its way to the table beside the clipboard.

A minute or so later the fountain pen came to rest on the clipboard’s other side, and Celestia picked up and unfolded the slip. The computer-printed form on mass-produced ink-jet paper looked incongruous among the industrial-age impedimentia and paraphernalia around it. “Ah, so it’s your fault, Mister Cook. I cannot say that comes as a surprise.” Her mock-severe tone was undermined by her twinkling eyes. “Very good; my counterpart stresses Sunset’s friends have been tasked with providing her notes and homework assignments as needed.”

Sunset groaned, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it; I guessed her protest was pro forma, upholding the tradition of griping cherished by students and military enlistees from time immemorial—on both sides of the portal, apparently. Celestia’s new smile showed her understanding of this nuance.

“I’m sure you’ll make up the time with your customary energy and dispatch,” she told her former student teasingly. I was sure of it too; I kept tabs on the whole group’s grades and academic performance. Despite coming to a post-industrial school system late and having to learn a whole new world and national history—not to mention an extra century and a half of science and technology—on the run, Sunset still managed to place consistently in the top five percent of students nationwide. It was only those handicaps that kept her out of the top one percent, where the girl everyone nicknamed Sci-Twi placed despite her transfer from Crystal Prep Academy. Nobody who knew Sunset’s background held that comparatively “low” standing against her.

Sunset face-planted on the table and mumbled something. Twilight tried heroically, but ultimately failed to suppress her laughter. Sunset rolled her head just enough to give her friend a gimlet eye and grunted. Only my diplomatic training allowed me to maintain a determinedly grave expression. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’d be happy to help you study,” I offered in an elaborately helpful if not downright unctuous tone.

She turned the same baleful one-eyed look on me and I desisted. A few times I’d been drafted to assist in the group’s study sessions, with mixed results. I was sure she was recalling some of the less salubrious occasions. That she felt easy enough with me to react so informally delighted me, and I grinned teasingly at her in return.

Celestia finished the writ, signing it with a flourish and using the seal die to stamp it rather loudly. “There you are.” She levitated the stiff, fine sheet to me, and I looked it over. It was, as I fully expected, complete and correct, and I nodded. Without bringing it back toward herself, she folded it, slipped it into an envelope, and, once I opened my pannier, lowered it in. After the glow around it vanished, I nudged it with a hoof to be sure it sat neatly in the bag and wouldn’t end up wrinkled.

And then we continued with the meal, which was occupied mostly with more boring diplomatic details that don’t bear repetition.

Author's Note:

When in the course of my research I encountered the concept of the courtesy visa I absolutely had to put it in—it’s so perfectly tailor-made for Sunset’s situation! And yes, Cook is the one who had the brainstorm to submit and push through the application.
   Originally I was going to leave Cook’s vow just at chess and poker, but then I realized it was a perfect opportunity to plug sun and moon, the strategy game I designed specifically to be a synthetic cultural artifact reflecting Equestria’s, rather than the real world’s, history. I make no apology.

Comments

[Skydrake]

7775085

Cookie Pusher is introduced in the most recent installment of my immediately preceding entry, Lectern’s New and Used Books, under the title “Striped Pants”. In it he provides the girls a brief explanation, which boils down to “someone noticed some weird Youtube videos and social-media posts, someone else noticed odd satellite images, another agency investigated to put pieces together, and, well, here I am.”

I see. That did prompt me to go and read that little series (and it's highly entertaining - I always enjoy discussion about the cultural and social differences and similarities between Earth and Equestria when they are being explored in due depth), which has left me marginally more satisfied. Might I suggest you add a link/note in this story's description detailing it as a spin-off/continuation of "Striped Pants" ? I imagine that could head off more confusions such as mine

Though I still hope that we will get to see how things progressed from "Cook gets the full story from Sunset" to "Cook (and by extension the government) goes to Equestria for a meeting". Twilight had to be involved no doubt, and I imagine it would be all sorts of entertaining to see her reaction to Sunset informing her (or I assume that's how she would find out) that the government knows and that they have - politely - requested a meeting to discuss avenues of further and more official contact. Cook's and Twilight's first meeting should be all kinds of fun

Keep in mind that “princess” is a rank, not a position. I grant the distinction is subtle, but it is important. Cook knows full well Twilight ranks as a princess, and repeatedly refers to her as such throughout the story. He also knows—based on such things as the events in “Party Pooped”—Twilight at least sometimes fulfills duties normally assigned to the position of foreign minister, and in her case ambassador at large. Note that he even differentiates between rank and position explicity: “The third, unsealed, copy went directly to Twilight, acting not only as a royal in her own right but as the de facto foreign minister.”

Hm, so it basically is Cook going off by his own (still fairly limited, I imagine) understanding and observation of how Equestria functions, and adding familiar (to himself) labels to things in order to better make sense of it all. Same with the "Diplomatic credentials letter" I guess - he's seeing and doing things from human perspective and procedure, and I guess the princesses are respectfully humoring him since the practice seems important to him/his government, while not necessarily existing in Equestria to begin with.
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So far so good, and I find myself rather liking this Cook guy (probably why he was selected as the ambassador ... and an easy sacrifice if things go wrong, haha!) - it was surprisingly honest and forthright of him to point out how interactions between "uneven" societies can go (probably wouldn't earn him brownie points from his own government, heh).

And you also get brownie points for Cadence's rebuke that this isn't necessarily the case here and that Cook might be missing the obvious. It's indeed the case in history that less technologically advanced cultures have fared poorly when meeting more advanced ones, but that's within the context of Earth, where general level of technological advancement tended to speak (broadly speaking) of how advanced the society was socially and culturally and their general understanding of the world as a whole, thus making them easy to impress and dazzle with things they didn't comprehend (see how the locals thought Spanish conquistadors on horseback as being akin to gods, and so on).

That's not quite so cut and dry here - what Equestria lacks in technological prowess (I do believe you are overstating the 150-year gap and it doesn't quite line up with what is seen in the show, but I'm not going to nag this point much, as it obviously serves the plot's purposes), they make up for having a whole another field of science that Humans haven't even heard of until recently and are probably well past whatever "world awareness threshold" and cultural/social advancement measurement that is required to not easily succumb to human culture and "viles" - not any more than humans would be succumbing to Equestrian culture when things finally go public at any rate, I would think. And a millenia old ruler that's more ancient that most modern day countries - there's that, too.

It's actually a lot more even of a meeting compared to a hypothetical Equestria on exactly the same tech level as present day Earth - because then one side would still have magic, and the other would have diddly squat to show for themselves in turn, so them being slightly behind technologically actually evens things out, interestingly enough.

--
On another note, you get more bonus points for having everyone slowly succumbing to diplomatic-talks fatigue (sans Celestia, of course) while Twilight seems to be getting only more energized by it - I can actually see that happening. Give her a few more years of experience and she will bore most bureaucrats to tears and have them begging mercy, without ever realizing she's actually doing it Equestria's greatest diplomatic weapon in the making - one Twilight Sparkle, eternally enthusiastic and giddy no matter the drollness, length and minute details of the subject!

So far so good, looking towards more.

[Dave Bryant]

7778282
Numbering points so I can keep them straight in my tiny but active mind. . . .

1. I put in a brief addendum with links to “Striped Pants” and Lectern’s New and Used Books after your previous comment, because it is indeed a good idea. My initial posting was a bit hasty, and I didn’t take full account of new readers who hadn’t encountered my previous works.

2. I don’t know if I’ll write a “prequel”. If I do, it would be after finishing this. A lot of the bureaucratic procedures involved would happen “off-stage” and would be even more boring than the diplomatic details Cook is busy glossing over in the current story. Also I’d have to do a ton of research and commit to a specific nation’s methods of doing things, which I’ve avoided assiduously so far. However, if I’m able to find a storyline that keeps the focus on Cook, Twilight, Sunset, and company, I might take a swing at it.

3. I’m assuming diplomatic practices are roughly similar in both worlds, including the differentiation in rank between a full ambassador and a mere chargé, but the princesses elected to short-circuit the usual ministerial-level meeting for a chargé because the portal presents such a unique and difficult situation for both sides. Otherwise Cook would have met exclusively with Twilight to present his letter of credence, she would have conveyed his sealed copies, and it all would have moved much more slowly. He does know some of Twilight’s background, including her stint with the yaks in “Party Pooped”, which probably showed up in at least one of the newspapers sent to Sunset, much to Twi’s embarrassment.

4. Cook is intended to be a very likeable fellow, and I’m glad that comes across—and yes, his junior status makes him a convenient scapegoat in the event things go wrong. He’s not unaware of that, though he may not understand the whole extent of it. He’s as capable as the next diplomat of all the tricks and strategems involved in negotiation, but at the same time, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if mere contact with his world damaged Equestria and he contributed by failing to act. The reactions of his superiors probably would vary all over the map: Some of them would applaud him; others would excoriate him. I’m betting he won’t mention it in his report.

5. I explain elsewhere my reasoning for delimiting the technology gap, and the actual figure (based on the 2010s as the starting point) is closer to 130 or 140 years. Calling it “nearly a century and a half” is a convenient conversational or narrative shorthand, but does overstate it slightly.

6. One of the great Rubicons of history is the scientific method—any society that approaches the world in scientific terms (including Equestria) is much more difficult to hoodwink than one that doesn’t. Cook hasn’t internalized that completely, which is why Cadance’s observations catch him off-guard. And yes indeed, Celestia is a tremendously effective sea anchor for Equestrian society, something else Cook is slowly coming to realize.

7. I’m doing my darnedest to keep everyone in character and to stay true to the franchise’s storytelling tone even when addressing more adult topics and ideas, and I confess I’m enjoying the story immensely.

[Starlight Nova]

Why isn't there an Equestria Girls tag?

[Dave Bryant]

7778584
The bulk of the story takes place in Equestria; only the opening and—maybe—the closing take place on the other side of the portal. Per the guidelines posted for tag use, that isn’t enough to justify the Equestria Girls tag:

Equestria Girls
Stories that take place in the Equestria Girls universe. Only for stories where it plays a significant part. If the story primarily takes place in Equestria, such as a “Sunset Shimmer returns to Equestria” plot, that’d get the Sunset Shimmer tag but not the Equestria Girls tag.

[Greatazuredragon]

Without looking up from her writing, Celestia added, “I seem to recall also this is a school day, is it not, Sunset?”
“Oh!” Sunset looked stricken for a moment. “Yes it is. Principal Celestia gave me a day pass.”

Now that would be an interesting pass: excusing a student for an interdimensional diplomatic meeting.

[DualKitsune]

Just sitting here thinking about officials from the other side of the portal trying to get one over on the Princesses. And laughing. So hard.

[livinthelife]

I vowed then never, ever to play chess, poker, or sun and moon with her.

Though I reckon a game of Diplomacy with her would be – at the very least – educational.

[Dave Bryant]

8226605
The mind boggles!

[Bugsydor]

I wonder if anypony will ever teach Cook how to use basic telekinesis.

[Dave Bryant]

8612832
He does learn it, albeit slowly. I imagine it’s rather like trying to learn a language as an adult, and the more difficult thereby.

[Snowdrifter]

7778282
And if Diplomat Twilight starts to get a little tired, she has access to a princess-sized coffee maker...

[Super Trampoline]

I suppose, when one has seen as much as she has, the choice is to enjoy life or go mad.

I rather liked this line.

[Antiquarian]

Celestia really shines in this story. No pun intended.

I also enjoy the uncle/niece relationship that Sunset and Cook share. "Chaste little peck" was a great way of describing that kiss on the cheek in such a way as to anchor it firmly in the familial department and ward off the present generation's *cough* unfortunate tendency to interpret things the wrong way. I'll likely end up stealing being inspired by that turn of phrase.