The Best of All Possible Worlds
Chapter 33
The Griffish Relief Expedition of 6764 was winding to a close.
The situation with the griffon nobility, if not resolved, was at least contained. Those griffons that chose to stay had been housed, and a system for maintaining them for a decade in a diminished version of “the manner in which they were accustomed” had been established. Those griffons who were willing to try their luck with the Griffon Republic departed for the border with Citizen Perrygore, who seemed even more nervous than he had been when he thought they were his enemies. As for the ones in the middle, those who wished to invade Griffonia with pony support, they were quickly becoming aware that there just wasn’t enough pony support in light of the Bakery revelations for any such invasion to be practical, and so this group gradually melted away.
A training academy was set up in Stalliongrad for future members of the Royal Guard, one of what would eventually be three such academies. The graduates from these institutions would not just be servants of the Princess, but also were highly sought after by local law enforcement and the local border patrol. After all, the situation with the griffons and the dragons was far from permanently settled, and an invasion was always a possibility.
The economies of the two provinces had been vastly improved, with Canterlot investment money being applied to a host of lagging businesses.
And the royal government of Equestria had been broadened to embrace the other two pony breeds. A new Minister of Earth Pony Affairs was appointed—the corresponding pegasus position still theoretically held by Pensive Thought was held open for Butterbold Wheatstraw as soon as she had completed her term as mayor of Trottingham. Additional positions were opened up for Weather, Transportation, Agriculture and Mining, with local experts on all but Agriculture appointed. The Princess gave a stern lecture to the “generalist” ministers that they were henceforth to serve not only their own breed but also the other two, and Blue Belle was made Minister of Unicorn Affairs.
All in all, thought Voltaire, the mission had been a complete success, and a shining example to the ages of how to address a monumental crisis. The human dreamed that if his own kind faced a crisis of this magnitude that it would respond with something even a tenth this amount of hope, of understanding, and of genuine compromise. Or at the very least, that the authorities wouldn’t start burning Jews and heretics at the stake to cover up for their massive incompetence.
Translator’s Note: Ouch.
~ ~ ~
Voltaire, as chancellor, tended to get pulled into every decision being made by the Princess and her council, no matter how little he might be qualified for it.
And so it was that he was drawn into an argument about the rules of hoofball.
Captain Hardheart had decided that the game would be an excellent way for the three breeds in his expanded troop to begin to get to know each other.
The trouble was, the game had three completely different sets of rules for the three breeds, with no expectation that they would ever play directly against one another or beside each other.
Voltaire’s suggestions in this matter were no better or worse than those of any of the ponies the Captain consulted, although the one about incorporating Steelteeth’s floating ring into the game was gleefully accepted...especially as Steelteeth was free to assault anypony foolish enough to try to actually touch it. Finally, when the group was debating the best way of determining which team should be first “at play”, he suggested flipping a coin.
Captain Hardheart looked down at his hooves. “And how, pray tell, do you expect an earth pony or pegasus to be able to flip a coin?”
Voltaire pulled his Reichsthaler out of his pocket and roughly threw it into the air. “Something like that, I would suppose,” he said with a smile. He watched as the coin flipped over and over through the air and landed with a “poof!” in the dirt of the field.
“Hooves!” the Captain declared playfully, looking down at the coin.
“‘Hooves’?” Voltaire said, a growing feeling of nameless dread growing in his gut, as he looked down as well.
The side of the Prussian coin facing upwards was engraved with a large horseshoe instead of the portrait of the royal donkey he remembered. To him, the U-shape resembled nothing so much as a holy symbol.
More Updates! I Need More!
ANOTHER ONE! Thats 5 chapters in like, an hour! Pace yourself, please! 2 a day, anything, just hold off for a bit, eh?
And now, things get interesting.
and because he had left the universe, he was unaffected by reality changes. cornflour was indeed added to the water of this fic
Well, this certainly kept me awake a mite longer than I had planned. Thanks for the update!
Wait, I'm confused. What's this about a royal donkey? By that I mean, I'm trying to figure out...was he affected by the reality change? That's what it sounds like.
It'd really help to see what the original looked like, as I'm trying to figure it out. Did Voltaire's memories all change without him knowing? Then wouldn't he have mentioned something. Like 'oh, we're ruled by a donkey, ourselves' at some point?
So...huh...
Good chapter.
5 chapters at once... Well, I'm not going to complain.
1686706
It sounds like HE was affected by the change, but not the hardware he brought with him.
1687091
That makes sense, which leaves the question of why he didn't mention it...or remember mentioning it? I'm just thinking that that'd be a detail he would have brought up. Not sure, it is a bit confusing...do all his memories retroactively change to fit the new reality? If so, is what we're reading what actually happened the first time? Or, is there a chapter where it changed that we can see, or...
Or did the donkey somehow become ruler without changing a single other detail of history? Feels like we've somehow managed to hit into time-travel paradoxes WITHOUT actually having any time travel.
1686706 I suspect the Weeping Angels have something to do with this... I mean, they're getting thrown in everywhere no matter how often they contradict everything established by previous Doctor Who episode canon! Heck, they've even managed to completely violate the rules governing their own actions repeatedly! Which is clearly legitimate and not at all the product of really lazy writing!
(Alondro is rather... displeased with "Angels Take Manhatten". And by 'displeased', and I mean he feels like taking Moffat out to his backyard, tying him to a post, and beating him with a bamboo cane while screaming out all the things that made no sense about that episode.)
Yay! Multiple chapters! This was lots of fun! Hehehe rules of hoofball...
The coin kabooms like a honk the chicken clockwise*.
*Translator's Note: Confusion grenade.
"Through" should be "threw" here.
1686706
Well, let's trace this coin through the story:
From the Introduction:
So it starts out by showing King Friedrich.
From Chapter 10:
So it's unchanged at that point (because it's nine chapters before Genevieve became queen).
From Chapter 20:
He was looking at the coin oddly because it had Genevieve's portrait on it.
...and Chapter 33:
This confirms that he's already been "processed" by the prior change in history, when Genevieve became his queen. Now the coin has changed a second time, but he hasn't.
1687542 1687981 1688076
All fixed.
1687988
So you're saying you didn't get the Translator's Note?
Shortly after the events of this story, Voltaire was profoundly disappointed by Portugal's handling of the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. This was the event that gave birth to his masterpiece, Candide.
And yes, they did burn Jews and heretics at the stake to cover up for their own incompetence.
Humans are funny like that.
"Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul."
-Joseph Brodsky
5 chapters in one day? Somebody get me a fresh pair of pants, cause I just came.
My word. Origins of much of the Mane Six and the Princesses, Chekhov's guns being loaded, and now this...
The plot has thickened nearly to the point of solidification. I look forward to more, though I certainly don't expect you to always match today's prolific production.
Unfortunately, and due in large part to Voltaire's insatiable curiosity, the royal donkey is now a Royal Donkey. A queen, to be precise.
1688475
Fantastic response! I thought I got the Translator's Note, but it turned out, I did not.
Although what I meant was that I do not understand the implications of the coin. I was just being eccentric saying it the way I did.
1689988
This was answered in a comment above yours, by the author. Basically, it's Voltaire reacting to the change in history caused by Genevieve becoming worshipped as a god due to use of the magic pencil. Note how Voltaire is puzzled by the coin having a horseshoe instead of a portrait of the "royal donkey." The coin is mentioned earlier in the story, and has no such portrait, instead having a portrait of the original (human) ruler. This shows that 1) Voltaire's memories and coin were altered along with everyone else's by Genevieve becoming Queen of Prussia, and 2) His memories did not change to process Genevieve becoming a God.
1689988
1688383
And here's the comment by the author I was referring to.
1688383
I don't get it. Why would the coin change the second time, but not Voltaire? Surely, if Genevieve has altered history so that she was a god at the time of the thaler's minting, Voltaire would believe Jenny had been a god for at least as long as that thaler had been in existence.
...
Eh, it's too late to puzzle out problems involving causality. I trust this will be explained at some point in the future?
1690808
Yeah, next chapter will explain it.
1688475
"The human dreamed that if his own kind faced a crisis of this magnitude that it would respond with something even a tenth this amount of hope, of understanding, and of genuine compromise. Or at the very least, that the authorities wouldn’t start burning Jews and heretics at the stake to cover up for their massive incompetence.
Translator’s Note: Ouch."
This sums up, in one paragraph, the amazing potential of this crossover for snark and feels Well done.
Why do I have a strange feeling this will be a planet of the apes thing and Voltaire will return to earth where everyone is a donkey or something except him. The concept just came into my head but it would be crazy if that's where this goes.
So much going on. I do like that this was split into many smaller chapters though. Stylistically, it's much better than one big mega chapter, especially since they all seem to cover separate issues.
1688475 The translators note could, since the story was written several hundred years after Voltaire, been a reference to another Jew-and-heretic killing that took place in the 1940's because the government wanted someone to blame, assuming there had been another human in Equestria after that particular event... Otherwise the one you had planned would work too.
1700733 I'm talking about it in terms of a direct comparison to OUR legal system. You know, the 'I had a bad childhood' defense? Which actually worked for a while until juries started to realize that it was utter BS.
A cutie mark which implied that some manner of crime was the pony's special talent, on the other hoof, could certainly influence the jury, as it's a physical mark upon the individual. Defense lawyers and psychologists would have a field day with such a thing.
1700733 Picture of a cutiemark: A pony with a fork eating a piece of another pony who's clearly dead and dismembered.
Hannibal Lecter pony?
1703721
...or somepony who has the niche ability to disguise any food to make it look like a dead pony.
1704224 AND THERE'S A SPEECH BUBBLE THAT SAYS "YES THIS IS A DEAD PONY AND THIS OTHER PONY IS EATING HIM"!!!
SO THERE!!!
1705324
I'm sure there's a rule against speech bubbles in the Guide to Designing Cutie Marks (Appendix C to the Pony Handler's Guide by M.L.P & G.G.P, 2nd Edition). Let me check...
1705567 It's spelled out with hieroglyphics, which are pictograms, so they're a loophole!
1705946
Well!
I remember back in the old days when I actually had some semblance of control over this new-fashioned commentarium thingum-bob, but that's apparently long past!
So I'll just settle back in this comfy hand-basket, and bark out the orders to my driver:
"TO TARTARUS, JEEVES!"
A hoof holy symbol..... this may be possibly a bad thing.
A "U-shape resembling a holy symbol", eh? The thing that leapt into my mind was....
wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/b/b1/Ultramarines_Symbol.png
COURAGE AND HONOR! FOR ULTRAMAR AND THE EMPEROR!
1751386
1. They don't contradict anything but headcanon.
2. Rejecting actual show canon when discussing the show is what's truly "subversive and contradictory".
1754902 There was a story about that I heard a long, long time ago. It was a legend, I believe, but I can't remember which culture it was from. A man was immortal but kept aging.
There's also the "Death Becomes Her" immortality, where you don't age and can't die... but your body still takes damage and the flesh can decay.
I won't spoil it if you haven't seen the movie, and I recommend it. It's a wonderful example of dark comedy.
1754993
"Immortal but still aging": That was Tithonos, mortal lover of Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn. Eos asked Zeus to grant Tithonus immortality, but forgot to ask for agelessness. He ended up in such a pathetic state, his voice reduced to a chittering babble, that he was transformed into the first cicada.
1755141 Ah yes! I was thinking the guy turned into a cricket, but that didn't sound right.
1756934
Meh. I have a tendency to go down rabbit holes and come out with neither large ears or a fluffy tail, but I see your point.
1755707
I should have known that someone else had already written that one....
*than
1705324 Then clearly that pony is an author of horror comics.
2546425
Fixed.
Uh oh...
it is "How is a Raven is like a writing desk?" not "Why is a Raven is like a writing desk?"
The Magic Pencil has struck once again! That thing is getting entirely out of control. If it's not stopped soon, there will be a second Princess monarchy system going on Earth. I really don't want to think what would happen if that were to happen.
5555196 it's 'why'. the ones that say how are mistranslations
5555196
My favorite answer regardless is; "Because Poe wrote on both."