Same World, Different Realities

by Mocha Star

Frontier Nears

Thank Platinum the Matriarch, I’m finally here. I’m looking at the edge of the realm and it’s so beautiful. Just a mile separates me from the edge of certain death by the ‘cloud of death,’ Ruthenium laughed to herself quietly remembering the story from her fillyhood that a cloud of evil lived in the vast forests beyond the barrier that kept them safe from the wars, Windigoes, and plagues that ravaged unihorn kind in ages past.

She stood outside her hotel and inhaled the scent of artificially cleaned floors and walls. Carpeting was fresh, enchanted to never get dirty and was still cleaned, freshened just as she deserved. Being a low noble still meant she was due to be treated better than a commoner. She held her head high as she walked to the desk and checked in, letting a service stallion take her bag.

She tipped him a dozen units and when she was alone she giggled and galloped into the suite she was allotted. The size of her apartment she took a fairly fun run to the bedroom and leapt, flopping onto the bed. “Finally, I’ve arrived.”

She relaxed for half an hour before she got up to write a list of her to-do’s. “Let’s see. It’s still early in the day but I’m not hungry. I can do the tour of the edge, but I’ll do that after noontime. Perhaps I can go shopping,” she grinned and let her mind narrow down what she wanted to bring home to decorate her apartment.

She left her room and hotel asking for the location of the mall as she went, and flagged a taxi to take her. Shopping was fun when alone, but not so much as when she’d have a friend. She was frustrated she’d forgotten to hire one to help choose outfits, socks, boots, jewelry, and souvenirs.

“So many snow globes to choose from! I need this one, and this…” she gasped and replaced the ones she’d chosen grabbing the one she desired. “A globe of the canyon, this’ amazing. I need this, it only costs,” she sagged at the price tag, “oh. No, I’m buying this because I need it for my collection,” she determined as she took her shopping cart full of tokens of her trip to the counter and laid her treasure gem on the counter. “Charge it all!”

The mare looked blankly at the gem and to Ruthenium. “Yeah, like, whatever,” she took the gem and it glowed as energy was taken from it. “Ma’am, your paid in full but you’re running like, low. I’m required to inform you that if you run out you’ll be indebted to the crown,” she droned as she magicked the gem back to Ruthenium.

“I’m on vacation, I have an excuse,” Ruthenium grinned as she pocketed her money.

“Yeah, never heard that before,” the mare mumbled with a roll of her eyes, “have a nice vacation.”

“Thanks! You too,” Ruthenium chirped and left the store before she realized what she’d said. “Well, can’t go back in there ever again,” she smiled to herself.

Next she went to a movie and got a cup of mealworm gel to treat herself, even though the movie was not what she expected, followed by lunch for a delicious salad with nuts from the western farms. She left the restaurant happily. “Ahh, the next thing on my list is,” she thought about the single item on her list she already checked off,” a tour of the canyon!

“Tomorrow I’m going on a hike down to the bottom of the canyon and,” she giggled to herself, “walk funny again.”

She made her way to the street before taking her cart from her pocket and enchanting it to normal size and cruising to the edge of the world.

...

“And to the right, past the canyon, we see the forest,”the tour guide cheerily informed the large group, “only lowly mud stompers are allowed to go out and forage for their food when they want to support a herd of their own. Most mudders are sent out into the forest for disposal when they reach a certain age, for medical reasons, or because they are overpopulating. The fact they never return is further proof that the forest side of the land is all consuming and we are glad they’ve led prosperous lives at our hooves as we’re certain they feel the same.

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the stables where the mud ponies are held blissfully unaware of their fates. As you know they are retarded from birth and unable to care for themselves beyond consuming food and breathing, so they are completely dependant on our wisdom to guide them.”

A filly sparked her horn. “Is the problem with them because they don’t gotta horn?”

The adults offered her quiet praise as the guide nodded. “Yes, little one. Any pony born without a horn is guaranteed a life in the stables or fields because horns connect us to the aether, the source of everything. Without that connection,” she hesitated, “if any one of us were to lose our horns, we’d become little more than those that are born without them.”

The filly moved closer to her mother as the guide resumed the tour. “Those of you with green bands on your horns are in luck to watch a mud stomper be released into the forest! It’s not too late to purchase your own band for seventeen stamps before the opportunity passes.”

Ruthenium looked from the tour guide and leaned her head over the railing to see the earth ponies below. She pouted, knowing she wasn’t going to see them from where she was, but there was a very dangerous looking walking bridge that spanned the canyon between where the edge of their known world ended and the unknown was just at the treeline.

She cantered quickly to catch up to the group and lit her horn. “Ma’am, I’d like to buy a band!” she called over the ponies between herself and the tour guide.

“Thank you, there is a booth up ahead you may purchase them at…” the mare continued her history lesson and facts as she walked backwards and smiled to the ponies on tour.

Ruthenium made her way down the stairs with the other banded mares and two stallions she couldn’t help but look at when she could to the base of the area they were allowed to access. She chatted with the others as they descended flight after flight about how there should be an elevator, at least, to get to the bottom.

Once there they were led into a large room lined with windows that showed the forest side of the canyon with the bridge just below them. A droning voice began a pre-recorded message.

“Here you will get to see a mud stomper released into the wilds where they begin a new life. They have several small settlements farther out that we, being noble unihorns, have created for them. They simply must follow the path to one of these places of refuge and live out their days. In a few moments you will see one of them pass below you and you will be witness to its joyous release back into the wilds from which they hail.”

The ponies in the room fell silent as they felt grinding below their hooves and moments later a group of five earth ponies walked into view. Noises of revulsion filled the room, Ruthenium faired none the better as she watched the emaciated, bridled, various mares and a single stallion leave a trail of feces behind them as it fell from their legs.

A younger mare pulled at her mother with her magic. “Momma, lookit, their tails are full of icky!”

The room filled with comments at the state of the five as they sulked their way to the bridge and began to cross it. It looked solid and maintained, yet swayed slightly in the wind to an uncomfortable level. Ruthenium was the first one to notice a mare start to slip as she crossed the bridge.

Silence befell the room as the mud pony mare scrambled to grab anything but failed as she slipped over the edge and vanished from sight.

The voice began to speak again into the room. “There are times when a pony crossing doesn’t wish to leave. At such times they are often prone to poor judgement based actions but don’t fear. Below the bridge there is a safety net to catch falling mud ponies and we’ll assist them to cross in a few hours. Thank you for viewing the release of the mudders and if you have any questions please direct them to your tour guide or local attendants.”

There was a ding just as the windows dimmed and blocked out the view ahead and an elevator door opened to their right.

Happy that everything was actually going to be okay for the mud pony, the ponies filed into the elevator and spoke lively about what they were going to have to eat and how soon they would bathe once they got back to their hotels. Ruthenium commented sadly on the state of how the ponies crossing looked and how they could let themselves become that bad.

“Oh, darling, it’s because they’re mud ponies. They’re born with one quarter of a working brain and can’t use magic. They’ve always been servants to unihorns,” a large girthed mare chuckled, “what else could they do besides serve us? Act our equals?!”

There was a round of hearty laughter that lasted until they got to the top floor and exited to a panicked group of ponies passing by. “What’s happening? What’s going on?!” Ruthenium shouted as she hopped ahead and out of the elevator, stopping at a stallion that was crying under a desk. “What’s going on here?!”

“There’s something coming from beyond the barrier! The alarms just sounded and the guard are preparing to defend us. Platinum,” he implored loudly, “keep me safe! Please,” he began mumbling prayers between sobs, “it’s the demons from beyond. It has to be, they’re real and going to feast on our cooked bodies after they burn our cities to the ground,” he blubbered into his tail to himself.

Ruthenium looked back at the few other ponies that stayed with her and shrugged. “So,” she faced them, every one of them looking anxious, “wanna go see what this thing is?”

They looked between each other and nodded excitedly. She grinned and pranced ahead of them, leading them out the sliding doors where they trotted around the building expecting to see nothing worth note, just another crazy stallion sneaking salts. She stumbled and landed on her chest with others following as they looked at seven airships hovering in a line at a distance over the forest.

She got to her hooves and looked around at nearly two hundred ponies that were standing alert and staring at the ships. Finally one mare shouted from somewhere to her right and the panic began. Mayhem ensued as ponies galloped away from the canyon and back to their various transports to get to known safe-zones that were certainly upkept by the ruling government.

Ruthenium watched and waited, as did several dozen others, until the panicked had left or hidden before she walked slowly away, watching the ships. Merely the size of peas in the distance she knew old style airships as well as any unihorn that passed fourth grade but she didn’t know what it was that was flying around and between them like birds.

Her heart began to race as the prospect of flying ponies crossed her mind.

Stiff wings like a glider. Beaks to eat like birds. Tiny eyes to spot-see dangers so they could escape or food to hunt because they’d certainly be partly omnivorous to maintain the energy needed to fly.

She formed the image in her mind as she began to grin like a fool at the chance of seeing one up close and not only rubbing the truth in her brother’s face, but Trumpet would be proven right, finally, and she’d have another reason to gloat about her vote.

She turned and began to gallop, pulling the cart from her chest pocket and tossing it in front of her with a spell to enlarge it again. With energetic vigor she hopped into the cart and her hooves adhered to the floor of it as she willed it faster than she ever had before as a giddiness drove her to get back to her hotel room and publish her facts on the aethernet for the world to see.

Comments

[Crescent Glaive]

Well well... next few chapters will be very intriguing

[kildeez]

Awesomeness, but as far as I can tell these ponies have a pretty serious tech edge over Equestria. Is there something I'm missing?

Excellent story so far, keep up the amazing work!

[Mocha Star]

8588418
Hense the title. 👌
But tech edge only goes so far when a society sees themselves as the peak of excellence without competition you expand their defenses/offences.

It's gonna get real soon. 😃 At least for a bit.

[kildeez]

8588547
Granted, though as it stands I see Equestria possibly even having to go on the defensive with this level of tech

[Mocha Star]

8588596
Ooo... I like that thought...
We'll see.

[kildeez]

8588625
it's your story mang...kinda like Equestria's harmony giving them a HUGE edge tho, as it stands it looks like these earth pony-hating assholes might have been right, given they had such a huge advantage.

[kildeez]

8588625
But now I'm just letting my personal wants interfere with commentary.

Good stuff! Keep it up!

[Batling]

8588596

The unicornia does seem to have a general technology advantage at least in some fields (though we don't know to what degree they confer a direct military advantage), but there are many other factors that could still likely tilt things in Equestria's favor (And we all know how the story ultimately ends, heh).

It's quite possible Eqestria has more advanced and diverse magic in general, which can be one hell of an equalizer. Equestria would likely also find itself in the position of being the more militarily experienced nation (dang rare in fiction ) - Equestria has been forced to deal with a number of crisis and invasions in the recent decades (and probably over the millenia as well), while it seems like unicornia has been sitting behind the barrier that was mentioned in this chapter and has had no outside contact with anyone, hostile or otherwise. Their military readiness is probably low and doctrine ought to be pretty much nonexistent.

And then there is the issue of numbers - it was mentioned in the oneshot that the unicorns numbered three million total in terms of population. Which is pretty dang tiny as far as nations go, which makes sense if they are the remnants of a breakaway part of the old unicorn nation from the era of the tribes, while Equestria was founded by the amalgamation of all three. We don't precisely know Equestria's population numbers, but if likely they outnumber the unicornians a dozen times over - even potentially a hundred times over, if we imagine Equestria having a similar population to the modern day US. If push came to shove, Equestria ought to be able to field more military personnel than unicornia has population altogether. A WW2 era Soviet army would overrun modern day Germany like nobody's business, for example, despite tech advantages.

Throw in things like Discord and the alicorns, and well ... unicornia might have superior technology, but it's quite possible that Equestria comes out well ahead if one compares the immediately available assets, overall capabilities and strategic depth.
---

And yeah, I'm very much looking towards the incoming contact between the two cultures - the mutual revulsion and the events that will eventually result in what we saw in the oneshot!

[Mocha Star]

8589827
A unicorn society thousands of years separated from all other cultures by thousands of miles of dense forest after surviving the Windigos and fearing their return long before the three tribes joined in a new land, and these ponies have to be at the same tech level as Equestria?

Well, thanks for getting this far. 👍

[Mocha Star]

8589839
Actually the end might be different from the 1 shot...
At least in part.

[Batling]

8589953

Now I don't know whether to be worried or excited

An unknown destination adds its own excitement of course (yay!), but the oneshot described a situation that felt so awesomely alien and bizarrely morbid that I couldn't wait to see how things unfolded to turn out as they did. And now I'm worried the story might turn in to something more mundane and less unique in the process if the oneshot is going to be altered, as those specifics are what drew me to this universe in the first place

[Mocha Star]

8589993
Ha, mundane? There shouldn't be anything typical about the end of this story.
Some names have been changed but the end is not gonna be flowers and rainbows. Well, maybe the epilogue, but I'm not there yet.