Today NASA finally insisted on the damn inventory, so we spent the day counting pretty much everything, inside and out.
Starlight’s new arm- right foreleg- patch is much better than the emergency job that failed after almost two hundred sols. Dragonfly spat up three different layers of material at various points during the suit refurbishing task day before yesterday, with the result that the new patch is both more durable and more flexible. It’s still not perfect, though. We discussed adding a Hab canvas patch as a protective overlayer, but Dragonfly finally said it would get in the way if and when a new patch needed to be made.
One of the things NASA was worried about in particular was the disposable CO2 filters. They wanted to make sure, with all the EVAs I was doing, that I wasn’t running out. Well, the good thing is, when the suit life support isn’t running, the air flow to the filters is shut off cold, so that the absorption power of the filter isn’t used up while riding in the rover or while in the Hab where other systems will take care of things. Also, any time the Hab’s air tanks get a bit low, the ponies just vent their home-grown air into the Hab, and the atmospheric regulator sucks up the excess gas, splits it into its components, and stores it.
So I’ve had the luxury of leaving filters in my suit until they’re saturated, then bleeding CO2-laden air out and letting the suit backfill with good air for the rest of whatever EVA it is when the alarms go off. And, of course, I very seldom go anywhere in the rover (which also uses those filters) without at least one pony to provide suit environmental systems. I think I’ve only swapped filters in Rover 2 five times total since Sol 6.
As a result, I have, as of today, exactly 200 filters remaining, not counting the ones currently in the suits and the rovers. That’s 1600 hours of EVA time without bloodletting the air. If I used one filter per sol for EVAs, that’s two hundred sols worth of EVAs… and one way or another, we have only two hundred sixty-one sols remaining on this rock. So barring some truly lethal circumstances, I’ve got more than enough filters for the rest of the mission.
Most of the other news from the inventory is good. We’ve only cheated a little bit on the food packs, to the point that I can go back on a full food pack diet (well, two-thirds ration) around Sol 430. And believe you me, I am counting the days. I’ve even picked out my celebration meal for Sol 430: the last bacon breakfast pack, and one of the four remaining spaghetti with meat sauce dinner packs.
During a much less pleasant lunch than spaghetti, we finished Fellowship of the Ring today. Discussion time was… interesting. Dragonfly argued, and argued well, that Boromir was doing what he thought was right when he tried to get Frodo to bring the Ring to Gondor. The ponies, of course, argued right back that Boromir was wrong, that he was under the influence of the Ring. And then Dragonfly won the argument by pointing out that Boromir’s sense of duty to Gondor- his pride and love for his country- was what made it possible for the Ring to take hold in the first place. That, after all, was what Gandalf and Galadriel had been afraid of- that the Ring would twist what was best about themselves and use that to betray them.
And she ended with a bit of wisdom which I don’t think the ponies had heard before: “Everybody is the hero of their own story, in their own mind.” The conversation shifted into pony-language for a bit as they discussed their baddies, but Dragonfly was able to defend her position pretty well. The ponies weren’t happy about it, but they were definitely thinking about it. At the end only Starlight Glimmer argued the point to say that there was one pony who didn’t think themselves a hero- herself.
At that the subject quickly changed to Frodo on the Hill of Sight, which everyone agreed was a fucking dumb thing to do.
Anyway, we should finish the inventory tonight, after which Starlight is going to help Dragonfly roll up an original character for the new campaign. We need a fighter; I’m playing a bard and Fireball is playing a monk, with Spitfire as an elven cleric and Cherry Berry as a druid. That’s a party that’s just crying out for a tank. But we’ll see what Dragonfly wants to do…
“A paladin??” Starlight gasped.
“Paladin,” Dragonfly replied. “Lawful good. Smiting evil. Smiting the insufficiently good. Smiting the indifferent. Smite makes right.”
Starlight Glimmer put her face into her hoof. “Do we really look like that to you?” she asked.
“You mean you ponies? Psh! Of course not!” Dragonfly said. “You ponies would all be clerics with vows of nonviolence except for the princesses and Twilight Sparkle’s friends! Nah,” she continued, grinning, “I just want an excuse to bash things.”
“Have you ever played Ogres and Oubliettes? Or this Dungeons and Dragons?” Starlight asked. “Trust me, you’re not going to need an excuse.”
“Bash all the things,” Dragonfly said. “But in a lawful good way. For the glory of Insert Deity Here.”
Starlight sighed, mentally consigning her tale of intricate balancing of shades of political grey in a fallen kingdom to the scrap heap.
Hackfest? I can do that, bug. Bring it.
And that day, Starlight Glimmer, the Killer DM of Mars, was born.
Author's Note: Yeah.
So, today I played tech support for my aunt and uncle- driving to Houston and back (110 miles each way to the place I went) to get a new computer for them. And I spent two hours at their house trying to set it up, only to have the same NMI memory error blue-screen the refurbished computer three times. So tomorrow I go down there again...
... anyway, I got home for good a bit after 6 PM, by which time my office/bedroom was warm. The AC doesn't keep up with the Texas heat in here, so it ranges between 82 and 85 at the computer even with the thermostat set to 75. I'm seriously thinking about moving my office to another part of the house, part of it that's on the central air system.
But the heat, plus other issues, makes it difficult to concentrate, which is why you're getting this filler that's strongly inspired by the comments on yesterday's chapter. (Also, I really did spent some hours going through the entire story to date and doing a reasonably conservative estimate of EVA hours Mark has conducted (and filters used up), because I was beginning to worry, what with all the activity he's had the past hundred sols, he might be getting low. Turns out nope, he's good for the rest of the story.)
Anyway... Chrysalis and the changelings, as they exist in Changeling Space Program and, by inference, The Maretian. One commenter compared them to North Korea, whereas my thoughts turned more to South Africa or Rwanda (or other places- there's a lot of parallels). And the key point is: why is there no justice for Chrysalis, if not for all the changelings?
Justice is damn important to us human beings. We want it done, and we want to see it done. Of course, what we see ourselves as justice, others might see as revenge or even persecution. (Or, in some cases, abuse of law for purposes of enslavement; for-profit American prisons have much evil to answer for, to say nothing of the long history of prisoner work gangs and forced labor.) For a species that craves justice so much, we're not very good at either defining it or carrying it out.
So let's drop the word justice and aim for simple punishment. Chrysalis and her changelings have done a lot of evil, most of which doesn't get brought up in this story or in the cartoon because it's too bad for a Y7 rating. Murder is possible, but not clearly confirmed. Kidnapping, theft, fraud, confidence scheming, assault, endangerment, burglary, and levying of war against the crown of Equestria? Yep, all guilty. And even the changelings who stay behind in the hive (if any- in CSP there's lots, but no details are given in the cartoon) are complicit, both by aiding and abetting the warriors and infiltrators and by receiving the benefits of the crime (accessories after the fact).
For justice to happen, each and every last changeling would have to be locked up and put on trial. From the pony point of view, they're all guilty and deserve to be punished.
The changelings, of course, would disagree. The nicer (or more clever-tongued) among them would argue that what they did to ponies was distasteful but necessary for their survival. (The less nice, of course, enjoyed every bit of it.) But even though it's an attempt to excuse evil, it's not wrong. The conflict between changelings and ponies is not the same as human group A versus human group B; changelings, at least pre-reform, are utterly dependent on stealing love from ponies for their very survival. And the rules all break down when survival is on the line.
But now let's separate Chrysalis. The main difference between CSP Chrysalis and canon Chrysalis is that the Chryssy I write is much more cautious than the one in the cartoon. The one in the cartoon, to be blunt, loves her some crackpot schemes. CSP Chrysalis hates risk and hedges her bets. But either version of Chrysalis is a psychopath. The closest either can come to love is a form of possessive pride. Both lust to hold power over others- the more the better. And both believe it is morally wrong for anyone to oppose her, because she, Chrysalis, is not to be opposed.
In short, a horrible person- not totally incapable of being reformed, but it will take a lot of doing by a clever show writer to make it plausible at this point.
You can argue (and I do) that the average changeling is not innately evil- merely banal. Changelings go along with all the bad stuff because they don't see any alternative and because they've been taught- and have persuaded themselves- that it's how things should be. (The cartoon agrees with me, considering how quickly and thoroughly the changelings took Thorax's option in "To Where and Back Again". Given other circumstances and other options, changelings become just folks... in much the same way certain ponies, in circumstances, become monsters.
But Chrysalis is different. She is bad and revels in it. And in a perfect world, she should get some true cosmic justice. In CSP I have a couple of plans in that regard, but Maretian is eating all the writing time I can scrounge, so we haven't got to the payoffs yet. Suffice to say that, even if you argue that changeling drones deserve a pass for the Bad Old Days, Chrysalis indisputably does not.
But now consider the practical aspects of seeing justice done to Chrysalis. Remember, she is not merely a criminal, nor even a gang leader. She has a tiny nation, an unknown number (I use the number thirty thousand in CSP) of generally loyal subjects, all of whom are potential warriors. She lies outside the reach of standard law. It would require a war to bring her to justice in any absolute sense, and the waste involved in that war would probably not be worth it.
Could you cut off interaction with her? Yes- and this would hurt her not at all. In most cases, for example, where the US has cut off diplomatic and trade ties to a nation, the result has been to strengthen, not weaken, the regime in question. The dictators use the measure as an excuse to their people for everything bad- and a justification for the bad actions of the dictatorship. And when you finally lift the pressure, Chrysalis would still be there.
Celestia has decided, in CSP, to take an approach of reconciliation. Rather than choose justice, which would either trigger a war or make peace more difficult, she has decided to act as if she takes Chrysalis at her word when she claims to seek peace. Of course she doesn't really trust Chrysalis, but she's content to tangle Chryssy in her own diplomacy in order to inhibit whatever her real scheme is. And, all the while, she does everything she can to make it easier for the changeling drones to integrate into Equestrian society.
A year later (where CSP's story currently lies languishing), if Celestia threatened to jail Chrysalis for her crimes, the changelings would still rush to the defense of the queen... but, at the same time, the changelings are much happier with the new detente than with how things were before. They don't have to be afraid. They're eating better than ever before. They're enjoying the full benefits of civilization, rather than the cast-offs and stolen trinkets (and, in one case, the junk mail).
So, if Chrysalis said at this point that the peace was off and the changelings were going back to their old ways... it's a very open question how many would continue to follow her. And the CSP Chryssy (unlike the canon Chryssy) is cautious and smart enough to realize this is an issue. She can see that, for all her petty abuses of power from time to time, she's slowly losing her grip on her subjects, and that she has two choices; fulfill their wishes, or provide such an instant and overwhelming victory that they'll accept it.
How she resolves that problem is the main spoiler that makes me regret every single Equestrian-based scene I write for this story, no matter how indispensable it is... but at least in CSP, we can see that Chrysalis is being slowly shifted from being a ruling queen to a reigning queen. Maybe, for a controlling, abusive personality like hers, that's justice enough.
TL;DR - Justice is really bucking hard.
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I think your Authors note is as long as the chapter. Also that sucks about your relatives computer and having to go back and try again.
On the subject of justice and whatnot, you also get into the question of "So what?" As in "What would they do to repay their crimes?" Is it fair to nail the current drones for the actions of drones before? Or for acting on Chrysalis' orders, when she straight up is "the queen of the hive?"
Personally, you can't think of it as a "trial on individual basis" the way so many seem to be doing. Chrysalis and her drones are a nation. And so "crime and punishment" are more on the geopolitical scale than anything else. Which is a completely different ball game (and something a lot of Fimfic readers I know from personal experience draw a complete blank on, used only to Hollywood-style "direct 'justice'"). EDIT: For starters, Changelings saw nothing wrong with their breaking of laws of other countries. Not their "country." Like I said, complicated.
Crud, on that level, the CSP has outdone and invested more of itself than any other nation, and it has been sharing it. Is that enough for the rulers of other nations?
Geopolitics are a bit more complicated than "They're bad; death penalty."
That's pretty much the quintessence of the classical paladin. Damn I missed the bug
Great Update!
8992038
In the name of Sun and Moon, REPENT MOTHERBUCKER!
Have you tried new RAM sticks?
"But Chrysalis is different. She is bad and revels in it."
Now I want to write a story where *everything* Chryssie does turns out *good* in the best possible way for others.
She kidnaps a politician. The resulting investigation turns up corruption on an epic scale. The politician begs to be kept in the hive and not turned back.
She blows up a dam. The environmentalists rejoice that the Lesser Stream Squiggly can now migrate freely. The industrialist who owns the dam is happy because he doesn't have to demolish it in order to rebuild it with LSS migration gates, saving him a goodly chunk of change.
Celestia declares Queen Chrysalis Day. Foals get balloons. Chryssie fumes.
I disagree. Humans just like justice as a concept; that when people do bad things, they get punished for it in a way that balances out. That’s the key to it: Balance. When things are balanced, they make sense. And have you ever noticed that it’s always much more important that laws are written down than that they make sense? Humans don’t really care about justice, or even about balance.
What we like, want, crave, and need for basic social function is Order.
We have laws because they allow us to establish Order. We don’t have courts and trials to carry out justice; we have them to enforce Order. The mission of any police force is to maintain Order.
Humans will flock to a leader that promises Order over almost any other thing.
There are a shocking number of societies throughout history and even today that get by reasonably well despite being obviously unjust because they are well-organized.
If humans are to function in daily life, that life doesn’t need to be fair; it just needs to be predictable.
...
Starlight, if you are truly set upon this path, then you NEED this warning. First figure out who the roleplayer of the group is. Second, figure out what their berserk button is. Finally, NEVER press it unless you want to lose any control you have over the story.
MUCKLE DARNED KULT! AYER YE NABLIES BE CEEPIN ME WEE MEN?
It's also pretty irrelevant to the pony mindset. When's the last time a pony pursued Justice? It's not part of the the Elements of Harmony, and the way ponies treat it, it's almost like they think it's the antithesis of it.
Nevermind the major villians who might make Justice difficult. Trixie had no legal punishment after the alicorn amulet. Dash wrecks some likely expensive equipment in an attempt to stop the government from doing it's job (bring winter) with no repruccsions. Flim and Flam are known scam artists but it doesn't look like the mane six have so much as tried to report them.
Now look at the main villians. Discord had already lost, but Celestia risked bringing him back rather than allowing him to remain in stone because she saw a possiblity of reform. Chrysalis swears revenge and flees and not only does no pony make a move to stop her, they welcome the new Changelings as friends and allies without a word said about the past. (Heck, before Thorax there was Kevin, the Changeling at Cranky and Matilda's wedding.) Tierk is the only one to receive 'punishment' and even then, with all this other context, it seems less like they want to punish him and more like his power and unrepentant nature forces them to lock him away for other's protection.
From the way the show has presented them, ponies seem entirely unconcerned with pursuing justice in any cases. Finding ways to integrate is much more important.
8992046 Not yet. My attitude is this: this is a guaranteed refurbished machine, moreover one which I just bought TODAY, and furthermore one for which I spent the extra $40 for a one-year service plan. The error is a hardware fault. Therefore, let the people I bought the machine from go to all the trouble and headache of making it right.
8992049 And I will take great pleasure in reading it.
8992049
Now that's a story I would love to read!
Если я правильно понял, как минимум ещё 2-3 новых расказа в этой вселенной будут?
8992066
Good point. Then again, I did not know that when I wrote my comment.
8992091 I have no plans for this setting beyond this and finishing CSP.
In regards to your AC problems, my parents AC finally decided to crap out after 22 years. Unfortunately, it happened in the evening Friday night, and rather than having a very large repair bill, they need to wait until Monday to replace it, with a slightly less large bill. Tis rather warm in their house. Also unfortunately, it happens to be the 2 weeks of the College World Series in Omaha, so they can't do the sensible thing and get a hotel room for the weekend, since there are literally no available hotel rooms anywhere in the city.
Dragonfly sure got caught up with the Tolkien quickly to go from “What’s a hobbit?” when she left the cocoon on Sol 287 to cogently discussing the events leading to the breaking of the fellowship on Sol 290...
(Sorry if this causes narrative issues: It kinda raised an eyebrow for me. For The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring combined, it comes out to about 30 hours of audiobook.)
I wonder if some well-meaning schmuck at NASA will try to inflict The Silmarillion on the poor ponies once they finish The Return of the King. (I’m a bit of a Tolkien geek, but I do remember that it took me 5 attempts, giving up at various points in the Ainulindale or Valaquenta, before I was able to make it to the Quenta Silmarillion proper. I can easily imagine Fireball and Cherry getting frustrated with all the names.)
I wonder if Jim Butcher will have managed to finish the Dresden files by 2035...
Sounds like a DM my parents knew from back in the day; John Cohane i think they said his name was... the entire group called him 'the Kill Master.'
Dragonfly seems like the person most likely to break out an "Old Man Henderson" style character to break evil DM's.
8991993
That's a point. Well, maybe she was too stunned to think about it.
"bloodletting"? That's an odd choice of word.
Dragonfly possesses truly sharp mind that effortlessly cuts straight to the core of an issue
Woop woop! Paladins ftw!
8992049
I didn't know that this is something I wanted...
When we convert to the geopolitical scale, I always like to point out to people that Nations are wild animals that operate on instinct, and judging them as anything intelligent is folly. Trying to implement the idea of justice at this scale becomes an exercise in futility.
Just look at the behavior of real-world nations. Sure, we get a lot of crowing from The People to feed starving children in Africa, or make nice with long time rivals in Russia, while trying to put the brakes on the 'this is mine, that is mine, this is ALL MINE!' of China. But at the end of the day, if you look at the actions of the United States, under the hood, the government is always trying to take action that benefits the US first. Trade agreements, military action, and all kinds of intel and subterfuge. The people shout at congress to be nice, but nice doesn't feed the people, protect their interests, or provide work for them.
So I'm sternly in the category that when you get to the political level, 'Justice!' becomes a fantasy for people who don't understand how the Big Picture works.
The other thing to remember is that Justice is a social construct that is determined by the morality of the people who create it in the first place. Claiming the changlings need to be brought to 'justice' for their actions against ponies completely ignores that one is interpreting justice from a pony or human perspective. Anyone who's taken a college Ethics course can point out that you have to step back and compare the moral code of two societies and not assume one is more 'right' than the other. That's the bias of the moral code you adhere to talking, not you.
When you do that, you realize that you just CAN'T punish the changelings in a manner that is actually 'fair and just' for any past crimes. Not even Chrysalis. Their society and morality is based on a different set of principles than Pony (or human) social interaction. To judge Chrysalis and try to enact punishments on her based on pony/human morality would be like trying to judge wolves from the perspective of sheep because the wolves eat meat.
What you do instead is analyze and think. You need to acknowledge that there is a different moral system at work with changelings, and you then need to consider if there is a way to make things work between your cultures that can benefit you, and also benefit them. If you have to dismiss previous transgressions, you do so. The idea is to bridge the moral systems, then pull them together for the overall benefit of both sides. With the CSP changelings, that's less about Crime and Punishment, and more about slowly getting changelings to consider their moral ways as less beneficial than pony ways.
And this doesn't just work with the rank and file changeling, but with Chrysalis as well. With the right application of benefits, even she can be given a niche where her 'evil and wicked' personality doesn't actually clash with the overall morals of pony society. The trick is keeping her from enacting any outright hostility or major abuses while setting that niche up. With CSP, I would again point out that Chrissy accidentally threw herself right into that Niche while going for a power scheme. And you have to consider, she really is pretty close to the right kind of character to run a Space program. Possessive and authoritarian with a no-nonsense attitude during business hours. If you can KEEP her there because she likes the position, you have her niche. She can be possessive about her position, and authoritarian about how the program is run because you NEED to have an absolute central authority figure heading space program operations.
What would jumping to past mistakes and arresting her to throw her into a court room really bring? You end up not just deposing her as a changeling queen, you remove a now expert space pilot and program operator with the presence that keeps everything on track. Just so you can lock her in a cage somewhere because she made you cry years ago.
Keep in mind that the human idea of Crime and Punishment is a retaliatory justice system. It is state-sanctioned revenge that is meant to deter future criminal activity while keeping some measure of control on the People so they don't go overboard when they are wronged by a criminal actor. It doesn't undo the crime, and it doesn't negate the damages. It merely transfers them. Calls to bring Chrysalis to justice for her past crimes end up being calls for a measured form of revenge. But blindly going for revenge blindly ignores more clever and devious ways of getting a more positive outcome out of the situation.
If the goal is ultimately to bring benefits to pony and changeling alike, 'bringing Chrysalis to justice' is actually the least desirable option to take. As Kris pointed out, Celestia's restraining her actions and letting Chrysalis do her thing, so long as harm isn't being brought to her ponies. And this is an action that actually works better. Chrysalis has RELEASED prisoners, cooperated with 'hated enemies', and advanced society and technology in months while bolstering the economy. She also brought discipline very quickly to a dangerous field of exploration that likely would have ended in deaths in a very short time. There is even a section in CSP where Twilight's program, trying to operate with their 'friendship'-styled congress in mission control almost killed Rainbow Dash. And they realized that the cold and impartial operations of the CSP were the superior system.
To 'take state sanctioned revenge' (bring Chrysalis to 'justice') at this point would actually be an injustice, as such an action would hurt the space program, and through it, pony society.
So, to restate from my last long post in the previous chapter, Chrysalis may seem untouchable, but she's punished herself and locked herself in a gilded cage. Celestia has noticed this, and has capitalized on the action instead of trying to strike them down at a net loss to everyone. She's wary that Chrysalis' cage is a cage of the mind, and if the queen snaps, she can still take dangerous action. But she realizes that Chrysalis does not in fact need to be jumped on so long as she sticks to her current script. Instead, let the Queen pay her penance in frustrations while providing the pony nation with social, economic, and technological benefits. Everyone wins. That is how a wise leader makes their moves.
8992049
So basically this
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1d4chan.org/images/thumb/b/b1/Old_Man_Henderson.jpg/300px-Old_Man_Henderson.jpg
8992049
There's an old greentext I remember about a DM annoying edgelord players with that, with the addition of silver-age levels of camp.
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It's actually the most apt word available. Bloodletting is draining a person's blood gradually as a means of removing disease from the body. Historically, it didn't work very well.
Letting the EVA suit leak to remove excess carbon dioxide is equivalent, and suitably effective.
“For the glory of Nomen Deitatis, HAVE AT THEE!”
thumbs.gfycat.com/MelodicHighAardvark-size_restricted.gif
Ballad of Edgardo? Ballad of Edgardo.
i.imgur.com/IOjKWUs.png
8992049
Like Mephistopheles? "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”
please make dragonfly a paladin of bahamut, it would be too perfect!
Again Dragonfly proves herself to be second best bug (after Chryssie).
Nah, Chryssie is great in any verse. And the only thing the cartoon shows is that changelings know how to exploit ponies' forgiving nature and scapegoat their queen.
Campaign going off the rails in 3... 2... 1...
Fascinating discussion of Justice, don't have much to add except that I approve of Celestia's approach and think it should be used more in real world diplomacy. As you say, cutting off contact just strengthens the enemies and gives them an excuse.
Starlight Starlight....Paladins are PERFECT for political intrigues with shades of grey. Not even kidding. The tension there is brilliant for roleplaying, as long as they aren't Lawful Stupid about it. Of course, since Dragonfly just wants to smash stuff, you should oblige her. But you can be a killer GM AND do it in a setting that enables the roleplaying.
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Dudley Do Right rides again!
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Starlight can't even claim that making Ancient Eldritch Horrors cry for their mommies is unrealistic...
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8992046
I thought RAM was like, really expensive.
I really wouldn't mind if you indirectly allude to the conclusion of CSP in the Equestrian scenes in The Maretian. I already know a lot about the story from this story, your notes, and other secondary sources on the internet.
8992437
Or they could save all that trouble and just replace every pony in the domain. After all, originally changeling pop star is not that different from originally pony pop star replaced by changeling.
So, I was watching The Martian (again) when I noticed this little gem:
i.redd.it/zyx0go9isq411.png
Clearly, if you look at the bottom left, it looks as though they might have considered doing the "Hab is now a bomb" scare from the book at some point.
Also, for completely unrelated reasons, I looked up JPL's Wikipedia page, and found this to be interesting:
I agree with the whole justice thing in the autors note, having people eventually realize that they did something wrong and let it sink in, sometimes is Justice enough.
As a country Equestria could be considered Pacifistic, in a way that they maintain their military and so on but are more or less incapable of being the aggressor in a war. So if they see a peaceful solution to their conflict with the Changelings by realizing that both sides have a common peaceful goal that they would like to share with each other, they will go long ways to make this work, insisting on punishment or 'justice' is not exactly the pony way anymore, at the times where the pillars where around , punishment seemed to be their first goal when dealing with threats/criminals but over the time they seemed to have changed their priority to resocialization strategies first, punishment second.
Being able to understand the Changelings and opening a way to spread Equestrian culture and general influence to them is such a huge benefit for Equestria that they just traded the whole justice and punishment thing for a chance of a lasting Peace.
Murphy, clean up on planet 4.
Looks like Dragonfly is going to go by The Book Of Carrot.
Its a Very Thick Book.
And she is going to throw it at them.
I don’t like it when fanfics get bogged down around the idea of pursuing justice. It might be something the populations in the setting would cry out for, but it never fails to seem sanctimonious in a story. I’d point out that the story behind it all is called Changeling Space Program - it’s from the perspective of those that ponies would consider villains. And we wouldn’t be reading it if we weren’t ok with that, perhaps even enjoying it.
How many chuckles have you got from Chrysalis’ lines in this story, compared to from Twilight’s? Chrysalis may have historically been a negative force in ponies’ lives, but she’s a very positive force in the story. She steals the scene time and time again. Of the three most memorable lines in the story, two come from her (the princess declaring this _____ open, and the stick for the cocoon. The third line is Spitfire wanting fish, of course). So to the audience, she’s a good thing. And punishing her therefore seems wrong.
That she could be considered what TV Tropes would name a Karma Houdini I think is part of her charm.
Not to mention that, if there’s one area where the value of your expertise outweighs your past transgressions with tyranny, it’s the space programme.
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"Venkat, what's this item in next year's budget proposal?"
"Let me see here… Oh, three tons of peanuts. That's clearly an error, Teddy."
"I should think so!"
"That line should be for thirty tons of peanuts."
"What!?"
"Well, between Bruce's Pathfinder, Iris, and Sirius tandem rover teams at JPL, Mission Control here in Houston, the astronaut corp, SpaceX contractors, and the growing number of veteran space correspondents being pulled out of retirement for the press pool, demand has absolutely skyrocketed — so to speak. We've already had to submit four waivers for this year's expenditures alone!"
"Fine, fine, I get it; I'll see what I can do. But you may have to compromise on the beans and cornbread down the road."
“How can you compromise on the beans and cornbread!? The beans and cornbread are sacred!“
"It could be worse. It could be corned-beef sandwiches."
"Stay out of this, Mitch."
Annie rolled her eyes. "I don't want to know. I really don't want to know."
I don't feel like you get enough good comments about this story in any depth. I wanted to thank you for posting this so regularly and keeping the quality so high.
I don't read this story for the science, the magic, or even the journey. I read it for the characters, who are in desperate, unfamiliar circumstances, and work through each challenge, piece by piece, together. And you show every step of that – the despair, the struggle to maintain composure, the guilt each person feels when they're not pulling their weight, the desperation to help everyone else, the ingenuity and tenacity that pulls them through – with every step of the story. Thank you for that.
Regarding justice, you and just about every commenter here seems to have forgotten the original meaning of the term. We associate it with 'punishment', but justice means harmony. If whatever you do has a good result, making things better for everyone, then it is just. What you guys are arguing is what kind of punishment you think is balanced, and the reason that's hard is because it's arbitrary. Punishment exists for a reason; it isn't an end, it's a means to an end. Unless you believe there is innate value in retribution, and want to argue from that, you're doomed to this morasse of confusion, simply because retribution is what you make of it.
What the ponies are doing is justice. You can tell because it makes the world better.
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DO EEEEET!!!!
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DO THIS. (please)
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Specifically, people are obsessed with Retributive Justice... Which I point out is little more than State Sanctioned Revenge.
Party A wrongs party B.
Party B gets the government (Party C) Involved.
Party C , which has the monopoly of force to force all other parties to play its game by its rules, judges the actions of party A against Party B and determines the severity of the wrong that was done.
Party C levies a wrong (punishment) against party A equal, but different than what Party A did to party B.
Everyone shuts the door on the incident and moves on.
Note, at no point is the wrong against party B actually corrected. And the wrong used to deal with Party A does not do anything aside from try and deter party A from repeating the wrong they committed. Balance is achieved, but it is a negative total balance. Nobody has 'won'. Even Party C loses time and money overseeing these proceedings.
People fixate on this form of justice because we've been socially conditioned to think like this. Our justice system operates mostly on Retributive Justice and nearly all our fiction applies Retributive Justice to the villain one way or another through the narrative. The villain is 'bad' and therefor will get their 'comeuppance' in the end. A lot of fiction likes to throw an irony in to put a cherry on top of the sundae. So in situations like with CSP, where people have already been taught by canon that Chrissy and the changelings are bad, the retribution they were taught would be delivered goes missing, and that sticks out. So they call for it themselves.
I personally don't blame anyone or hold anything against them for holding to R.J. An Ethics course is a combination of a philosophy class, and an analysis class at the college level. It even has sections that point out that most people don't even try to break down an examine their ethical philosophies with a critical eye until later in life. Most people don't even get this course due to just not going to college. Even more will think its a load of bologna until well after they've forgotten the material.
Very good to have Dragonfly back, both practically and emotionally.
Also, I misread "Insert Deity Here" as "Insect Deity Here" at first. Now I want to see a changeling paladin smiting maulwurfs and other Badlands nasties.