Ponyville: the city of ponies. Not long after landing, Sundance spotted a griffon, and upon seeing said griffon, immediately wondered how that griffon felt about either inhabiting or visiting a city intended for ponies. Equine-centric names were common; Baltimare, Fillydelphia, Las Pegasus; and for the first time in his life, Sundance wondered if this was, perhaps, possibly, maybe a problem.
At least the Sunfire Barony didn’t have this problem.
No, the problem they had was that they needed a township name due to regulations.
Things like postal service and such, and all of the things that would connect them to civilisation couldn’t happen until they had a name—and Sundance was at a total loss for ideas. When he’d suggested Rotten Egglünd—a serious, sincere suggestion—Corduroy threw a pawful of hot, buttered peas at him and told him to go soak his head. Then, she mentioned something about hearing umlauts, which baffled him.
“Wow, Mister… you smell!” A small blue filly waved her wing at him, not as a hello, but clearly to fend off the stink, and when this failed to have any effect, she turned tail and galloped away with a cry of, “Head for the hills! The Great Stinkening has returned to Ponyville!”
“I don’t smell anything,” Sundance said in a sullen tone.
Did he just spend several hours in an office with several ponies who pretended that nothing was wrong? He stood there considering this very thought, and it was then he knew that he’d dealt with consummate professionals. They’d all sat at some distance away from him; in far corners, near the window, each of them sitting as far away as the small office would allow. Not a word was said, not one nose crinkled.
One thought rose to the top of the others.
He would never find his future baroness if he smelt like this.
It was hard being the Lord of Rotten Egglünd.
The cottage was quite interesting, but the mare was far more so. At the moment, she was nursing a panther—a large, scary critter—who had a bad encounter with a porcupine from the looks of things. A young unicorn, a filly, acted as Fluttershy’s assistant, and followed the concerned mare’s careful instructions on what to do. Sundance watched, waited, and dared not interrupt. This was no doubt a wild panther, a ferocious critter, so this was a rare chance to see something ferocious up close.
One of the quills was coaxed out, and an eyeblink later, a stream of foul yellowish pus oozed from the swollen hole. The panther moaned with pain, but did nothing to harm its caretakers. Armed with pliers, the unicorn filly got ahold of another porcupine quill, and went to work dislodging it from the panther’s muzzle.
“How many times have I told you to leave the porcupines alone?” Fluttershy’s demeanour was one of intense disappointment and disapproval, and something about her reminded Sundance of his mother. “You must stop doing this. Do you want me to scold you? Are you a naughty kitty?”
Much to Sundance’s shock and surprise, the panther cringed in shame.
“If you keep this up, I’ll have no choice but to be cross with you—”
When these words were said, the panther whimpered.
“—and I might even raise my voice at you. Is that what you want, Mister Panther? Is it? Do you want that to happen?” She stomped her hoof against the dirt and her ears pitched forwards at an aggressive angle. “Because that’s what is going to happen the next time you come scratching at my door in the middle of the night.”
The unicorn filly coaxed out another quill; this, along with Fluttershy’s stern words, proved too much for the poor panther, and it collapsed in a quivering heap. As it turned out, the predatory feline was just a big crybaby really, and while it made the most awful sounds (cries that Sundance could not possibly describe, other than the fact that they were heartbreaking) Fluttershy offered very little much-needed comfort for the stricken panther.
“I don’t care if the porcupines do taunt you,” she said in a stern tone. “There’s no way that you can eat them. You must stop being so foolish. I thought cats were supposed to be smart.”
At this, the panther reowled, its tail twitched, and then he went still.
“Tender Mercy, if you would please finish up the job, that would be so very nice of you.” Fluttershy turned to look at Sundance. “I am going to speak to our guest. Thank you so much for your help, Tender Mercy. One day, you’ll be the bestest veterinarian, I just know it.”
Sundance stood perfectly still while Fluttershy studied him. She walked around him in a circle, examining him, and after a full circuit, she spent several long moments reading his face as if it were a book. He said nothing, because she said nothing, but he did look at her, and even maintained eye contact when she initiated it. Her face was beautiful, wise, and somehow untouched by age. She was clearly older, that much was obvious, but try as he might, Sundance could not see age on her face. Her eyes were clear, bright, and somehow comforting.
“Twilight Velvet said you would come,” she said at last. “Sundance.”
“I am,” he replied.
“And I’m Fluttershy.” She raised her head a little higher, broke eye contact, and he felt her eyes upon his neck. “Oh, you poor dear. You’ve been mauled. That’s awful.”
He felt a light touch of feathers against his throat.
“Those scars have healed well. Why, they’re barely noticeable at all. You must have an excellent caretaker.” She moved in closer to have a better look at his back. “I can’t believe an owlbear would do this. They’re so shy and reclusive. It must have been desperate… in a bad way. They’re smart, owlbears, and they know that we ponies will respond badly if they hunt us.”
She brought her head around to look into Sundance’s eye on his left side. “There’s a reason for this, even if we don’t understand what it is yet. The environment must have changed in some way, or the ecosystem has been disrupted. You must try to figure out what happened, so that we ponies and those precious, big, cuddly owlbears can live in peace.”
He considered her words and didn’t dismiss them outright. Perhaps something was wrong; she might be right. And whatever was wrong might very well put his barony in danger. Perhaps more time in the air was necessary; long patrols over the unknown places in search of owlbears and other megafauna. Maybe if there was a problem, and the root cause was dealt with somehow, the owlbears might leave his barony alone.
“It’s very nice of you to at least think about it,” Fluttershy said as her attention returned to the scars that ran the length of his back. “Owlbears are vicious brutes, but they’re also quite shy and solitary. This shouldn’t have happened. It’s a sign that something is wrong. At least, I’m pretty sure it is. I suppose an owlbear might have a bad day, but that seems unlikely. I know these creatures. Some of them live in the Everfree. They leave me in peace because I do my best to respect them.”
“I came to collect an orphan—”
“No! No! Don’t call him that!”
Sundance cringed, and feared that he’d blown it.
The smaller mare was right up in his face now, and he stood perfectly still while she stared up at him. He saw anger, though he suspected that the anger wasn’t directed at him—though it might be. Hard to tell. Her eyes were mesmerising though, and he found that he really did want to look into them, to peer into them and explore their depths. Something tugged on his brain from the inside, and sensation in his limbs dulled. All he wanted to do was gaze into those perfect eyes—
With a blink, the spell was broken, and he tried to recover his senses.
“He’s napping. I think. He likes to nap in the middle of the day.”
“Well,” Sundance said, “what’s his name?”
“Oh.” Fluttershy drew in her wings and held them tight against her body. “Promise me that you won’t laugh. Promise.”
“Uh, I promise I won’t laugh?”
“That was distinctly a question,” a voice said from somewhere and nowhere. “You did a lousy job of hiding that question mark. Try again, friend. Or else owlbears will be the least of your worries.”
Sundance glanced around, he tried to find the source of the voice, but he saw no one. Fluttershy looked up at him, she waited with great patience, and after a second look around, when Sundance found nothing, he returned his attention to her. It was probably for the best to pretend that whatever had just happened didn’t actually happen.
“How bad could it be? I promise, I won’t laugh.”
“He’s a burro,” Fluttershy began, “and his caretaker attempted to take that into consideration when he was finally named.” Her face soured. “She didn’t do a very good job. From what I was told, she knew only a few burro-words, and while she had good intentions…” Her words trailed off with a weary sigh.
“Ponies and their intentions,” the unseen voice said. “Almost as bad as my own.”
“She wanted to give him a connection to his culture. I can’t fault her for that.” Fluttershy’s face crinkled somewhat as grumpiness marred her timeless countenance. “His name is Tarantula Sombrero.”
Sundance blinked, but his face did not betray him.
“What did Twilight Velvet tell you?” asked Fluttershy.
“That he was abused. Neglected.” Sundance felt his throat grow tight as anger manifested like a burning brand within his breast. “Mrs. Oddbody said it wasn’t physical abuse, just neglect.”
Fluttershy’s eyes grew pained, distant. “She was not a cruel caretaker… not like some. No… she just… well, she just didn’t know how to deal with the burro. That’s the problem. She saw him as a burro, not as a foal. During the trial, she said that she just didn’t know how to reach out to him, or what to do with him. She—” The frustrated sunny yellow pegasus chomped down on her lip and went silent.
Without knowing why, Sundance suddenly felt guilty.
“It’s a shame, what happened. She fed him, cared for him, but she didn’t reach out to him. Didn’t speak to him much. He wasn’t supervised or watched over like the others in her care. Now, he has trust issues. He’s quiet, and not in a good way. I’ve never heard him laugh… or even cry for that matter. He didn’t even respond when I tried to tickle him. Poor little guy, he just pulled away and whimpered. Doesn’t like to be touched. I’ve done my best to restore his trust, and I tell him every single day that there are good ponies.”
“Well, fu—”
Fluttershy blinked, and Sundance’s danger sense told him that he was in mortal peril.
“—dge.”
She blinked again, and her stern gaze turned suspicious.
“I have strong feelings,” he said to her with the hopes of explaining his behaviour.
“I once said that I was”—her voice turned into a quiet, subdued squeak—“peeved. In public no less. Rainbow Dash heard me and everything. It’s alright if you’re angry. Perhaps you want to talk about it?”
Before he could even think of what he was saying, he blurted out, “My best friend is a diamond dog, and I almost ruined the most perfect, most wonderful friendship because I almost acted on the awful things my mother taught me growing up and I—” He covered his mouth with his wing to cut off the flow before the really awful things were said.
“Oh, you poor dear.” She looked up at him with sincere hurt in her eyes. “That makes my heart ache… oh, it must be so hard for you. It’s fine to cry, if you need to. You can cry it out and then we can talk about it.”
“No, I’m fine,” he said while he pulled his wing away from his mouth—though he did feel a curious need to cry about it. But that need was dealt with and cast aside. A single sniffle did escape, and when it did, he saw Fluttershy’s eyes widen with concern. “I’m fine, really. But I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I was a bigot. I didn’t mean to be… I didn’t try to be. It’s not like I went out of my way to make the lives of other creatures miserable. My mother taught me things, and I believed them, and movies, and books, and stuff like that kind of influenced my thoughts. I had a head full of garbage, and I recently had to clean it all out. But I’m fine, really.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I am.” He ignored the hot sting in the corners of his eyes.
“Holding it all in doesn’t help.”
“Yes it does,” he replied while he resisted the urge to sniffle.
“It’s hard to make difficult friends,” Fluttershy said to Sunance as she sat down in the grass and then pulled him down beside her. “Once, a long time ago, I decided to put Twilight’s ideas about friendship into practice.” She settled on the grass, got comfortable, slipped a wing around Sundance’s back, and scooted closer to him.
“There was a creature that had no friends… only enemies. Ponies thought it was horrible… ugly… twisted and distorted by evil. Many judged him on how he looked… because he didn’t look like the rest of us. I made a decision to try and be his friend, and let me tell you, this caused me some strain in my other friendships… my other relationships. They were quick to judge, and given this creature’s past, it is hard to blame them.”
From somewhere and nowhere, there came a faint, muffled sniffle.
“In becoming friends with this twisted creature that didn’t look like us, I had to deal with the bigotry of my friends. And myself, too. I can’t leave that part out. I had to look into my own heart, and let me tell you, Sundance, I didn’t like what I saw there. I had to go against everything I was raised to believe, I had to deal with what my friends thought, and everypony else around me.
“And during a moment of loneliness, when everything felt impossible, when it felt like my friends were distant, that moment of loneliness gave me some insight into my new friend, and I had an idea of how he must of felt. It was awful. No, it was worse than awful. It hurt me. All my friends told me I was wrong, and I was depressed, and downhearted, and everything felt so impossible, and all I could think of was that my new friend had it so much worse.”
The sniffles turned to blubbering, and Fluttershy paused to look around.
“Discord, this is serious. Stop that.”
“No, I’m sad. Everything you’ve just said is so touching.”
“Discord… don’t do this. Not right now. I’m trying to heal another creature.”
The sniffling ceased with sudden abruptness and Sundance joined Fluttershy in looking about. He saw nothing, no source, no cause—but he did see a somewhat annoyed Fluttershy sitting right beside him. Tender Mercy was still pulling quills out of a mewling panther, and chickens pecked at bugs in the grass.
“I really am sad, you know,” the disembodied voice said. “Hearing you say all that. I only misbehaved because I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I know,” Fluttershy said with great forbearance. “Where are you?”
“Over here,” the voice replied. “Right now, I’m a cricket.”
“Discord, why are you a cricket?”
“Well,” Discord began in a creaky voice that was indeed sad, “Twilight Sparkle stole yet another book from some other dimension, and this book was about a sociopathic, kleptomaniac puppet that wanted to be real. He had a cricket assigned to be his conscience. And after reading the book to a group of foals during story hour, I decided that I would be a cricket, so I too, could be somepony’s conscience, but no one has assigned me a sociopathic, kleptomaniac puppet pony to look after.”
“Discord…” Fluttershy rubbed her temple with the joint of her wing.
“You were friends with me when nopony else would be,” Discord said, his voice even more strained now than ever. “Once I had one friend, I decided that I wanted others. I made a lot of mistakes, sure, and I might not be the very bestest friend, but I do try really hard. Everything you taught me, I used it to make my own friends, and now, I am almost socially well-adjusted. Just ask my friend!”
There was a muted snap from somewhere…
A startled Sumac Apple appeared, and he stood there, confused and blinking. He wore an apron of black rubber, and his mane was covered in a kerchief. A scalpel hovered in the air beside him, along with a notebook, a pen, and some kind of weird metal object that Sundance couldn’t identify. It looked like something used for torture though, and the sight of it made him shiver.
“Nice apron, Sumac,” Discord said. “Cooking something?”
“I was preparing a corpse for viewing,” Sumac replied while he squinted with annoyance.
“Are we friends, Sumac?” asked Discord.
Twirling his scalpel, Sumac replied, “At the moment—”
“Say no more!”
There was a second snap, and then Sumac vanished just as suddenly as he appeared.
“Discord, what have I told you about abducting your friends?”
“How are my random abductions any different than Pinkie Pie’s surprise parties?” he asked in return.
In response, Fluttershy sighed, rubbed her temple a bit more, and then shook her head. “Difficult friends are the best friends you can have,” the exasperated yellow pegasus with flared nostrils said. “They teach you so much about yourself. Every creature needs a friend. We can choose easy friendships, but hard friendships are so much more rewarding. Even when it doesn’t feel like they are.”
The willowy flustered mare drew in a deep breath, gave Sundance a reassuring squeeze, and then raised her head to look up at him. “Tarantula will be a difficult friend, but I think you have what it takes. Be patient. Be gentle. Be calm. I’ve done most of the hard work, and now, he needs to learn that he can trust others. That’s going to be tough for him, and I’m worried about him. I’ve done all I can though, and now the rest is up to you.”
At a loss for words, Sundance didn’t know what to say.
“I’m going to go and check on him, if you don’t mind.” Fluttershy stood up, brushed herself off with her wings, and swished her tail to be rid of any stray bits of grass. “Maybe chat with Discord for a while. I’ll be back soon.”
With that, Fluttershy left, and Sundance was all alone with an all-powerful cricket…
All hail the all-powerful cricket!
After how many copyright violation
I think Sundance probably has some strings on him.
9878295
By Jiminy! :D
Will they be returned within the owners lifetime
Did Twilight leave a properly notarized ticket explaining who checked out said books so that those places will have it on record?
What other barrowed books do you have?
Don't ask. . .
Is her nose growing?
9878522
"I've never heard of a publisher called 'Jester'"...
"Harlequin, actually. The translation spell isn't exactly perfect."
"Oh, okay. Guess I'll read one, they must be comedies, right?"
"Oopsnopesorrygottagetthisonebacktowhereitcamefromnotimetoreaditsorry!"
sure they are Twi sure they are.
so a burro this is going to be interesting as a burro is just a fancy name for a donkey.
as i have worked with a few donkeys in the past i can say Sunflower has his work cut out.
9878712
Burros are a distinct culture in the Weedverse, as referenced by other stories.
9878506
Good question.
Tarantula is actually a pretty badass first name.
effect
Hopefully she picked someplace with a large time differential to avoid late fees...
9878725
aww ok i am still working my way threw the weed story line.
I don't really consider peoples' feelings towards Discord as being bigotry. I don't remember, but I don't think anyone ever used his appearance as a reason to look poorly on him. It may have been a never-said thing that was just a matter of personal preference/revulsion which is fair so long as it's not the reason one judges another on.
But I would figure it'd be more his track record, such as being a tyrant, constant thorn in the side of their dearly-loved princesses, the troubles he's caused them, the problems in the world he's no doubt somewhat responsible for. That's a very sane and valid reason to not trust or like him - ever, really, but especially at first.
9878229
I am unsure if you can even be a good person if you are always under scrutiny, that is something which breeds conformity instead. You learn the rules and apply them to yourself and slowly come to accept them as natural and normal. This has been used in prisons and mental hospitals in the past with some effect, but i am not certain it would be a good thing to apply to your rulers. Can they make the decisions they need to make when they are being watched?
And it is tied to a ranking system, so likely it will incorporate many of the problems which is present in social media nowdays and inject those directly to the new generation of leaders on extreme level. They are monitored all the time, they know it and these value judgements from the seemingly faceless Group of people is the ones they need to impress, Ponies have different psychology as humans which has been reinforced several times, and that quite likely would be that they are more herd-minded.
Personally i fear that the effects of this monitoring will be quite toxic in the long run, not the least since it appears that the topics are widely and openly discussed among the people who are doing the monitoring, and likely some of the people who are doing it might be related to people who are being monitored.
Let us take question that Twilight for example, how can she be monitored well and in balanced manner when her mother Twilight Velvet seems to be aware of the results of the monitoring, and might even discuss the results openly with other monitors as we see with Sundance. The people who do the monitoring will have their own politics and preferences, as we can see in this chapter they even discuss them openly. This will reflect to the leader score which in turn affects the perception of the monitored leaders who are now on the stage all the time and them competing against others for the favor of the monitors…
Not to mention how this can be spun to the common folk by the political opponents, the Celestia's new barons need 24/7 surveilance to not become corrupt, and how all their reforms are just pointless moral posturing to claim good boy points on the scale. It likely would be very nice way for Twilights corporate enemies to invalidate some of her efforts by spinning it to her perfectionist personality and the good point system. "She is just OCD mare trying to win the scale, one law passed, one point more upwards! Good girl Twilight mommy Celestia will be proud of you eventually!" If well executed it might really pull wind from her sails, hurt her personally, make her overthink things even more and possibly causing some nasty spirals of self-doubth.
Both Twilight and Luna are being naughty with other dimensions literature
9879270
I really hate revealing this, for obvious reasons, but here goes.
First off, monitoring is not 24/7. It is more of an occasional thing done by the Observers. It is, in fact, a very small part of the score. Minuscule. It is the idea that someone might be watching that encourages goodness. Most of the leader board score comes from other factors; local economy, living standards, productivity, health and happiness, population growth rates, and a whole variety of factors, almost all of which have nothing to do with direct monitoring.
Being watched isn't what moves you up and down the leader board, but rather, good stewardship and results.
There's too few Observers and far too many baronies to have them all watched and under constant surveillance. But see, when I have to explain this, it spoils some of the magic, don't it? Ruins the illusion. Kills the mystery. See, I know these things, because they're major story elements and there are events that happen later. I have this whole story planned, including the end. I know what's causing the owlbears to misbehave. I know what threatens the barony. I know who the Observers are. I know that there is a secret, hidden resident right now that is keeping watch over the barony, an unseen guard, and that Sundance will soon be friends with her. She's been there for quite some time, watching, and keeping to herself.
Luna is the Observer in chief and most of the observers are changeling volunteers who move about the baronies, either in disguise or invisible. There. I stated the obvious, something that anybody could have figured out with a bit of thought. In other baronies that have more of a connection to the outside world, the folk who live there write reports, letters, etc, of what their local noble does, and how they act, and this too is a large part of the observation system. It's not yet implemented where Sundance lives, for obvious reasons.
9879447
Thank you and i am sorry if you felt pushed to reveal more than you wanted to. But amount of surveilance per day is not what matters here. This has infact been studied quite a bit and is an effect called panopticon. The amount of surveilance might not matter but as long a there is a danger of it it means that the subjects of it will start comforming with the rules or morals set by the society. As long as subjects know that thet can be monitored but are not aware when they are monitored then they will start conforming.
In the fact it has been proven that even placing an picture of an eye near the Workstation of an employee will reduce loitering and increase effiency. The thought that you can be secretly monitored at any moment of time will have massive effects of humans, and likely ponies. It is quite different from monitoring of inputs and outputs of a barony or monitoring its inhabitants every now and then. Now that Sundance is aware of possibility of monitoring he will always have that knowledge that he CAN be watched at any moment while he is unaware, how will it affect him?Based on what i know about him this WILL affect how he behaves. But you as an author know these things and i am merely speculating based on what i have surmised from the character actions. To feel the effect of it consider yourself being subject of this kind of monitoring, would you feel comfortable showering or changing clothes, or as mentioned earlier scratching your rump in the privacy of your house.
How the effects of the scrying to leaderboard is small is somewhat a good thing but it will still have the mentioned effects to the subjects of it, and as seen in the chapter the people who are doing it seem to be quite open about discussing about what was found out with their peers. And based on how Sundance was not even aware of that he is being monitored i do not have high confidence that he is aware of the mentioned fact that he not under constant surveilance.
But i think, based on your response, that i should not have made these comments. They seem not to be something which are net-positive and are not something you wish to see. Thank you for writing the story, i really do enjoy it but some things really REALLY push some of my buttons in some aspects of
somemany stories.9879556
Buttons must be pushed. Responses are vital. I rather want it to be an uncomfortable situation that is morally ambiguous. Do the benefits outweigh the discomfort? Do the needs of the many require the surveillance of the few?
The leader board system plays on game theory. It turns good governance into a game of sorts, and plays upon the need to compete. Local leaders outdo one another with acts of generousity and kindness. Now, they will have different motivations for doing this, some good, some maybe kinda bad when it comes to things like fame and glory. But, does it matter if enough residents benefit? If lives are improved?
These are good questions.
What Twilight will do later, (Soonish, in fact) will be quite a controversial act I suspect. But it will be very much in Twilight's character. A massive experiment with far-reaching consequences. But I don't want people to feel too comfortable with what she's doing. I'd rather have them question. Maybe even be a little mad. Just so long as they're thinking.
It's hard to gauge reader reaction sometimes though. Which is why I occasionally make an attempt to explain stuff that is going on.
It's not just you... there's quite a few people in private messages with some real concerns, and making a response to you allows me to address all of these concerns at once, in the open, where people might drop in and possibly read them.
Late fees? No on your life . . . I'll just return them before I barrowed them!
9879569
One of the questions is who is part of the game theory and why. Personally i might voice a question that Princessess are not part of the said Project willingly or not, and another question in my mind would be that who is watching the watchers. If they are subjecting the new rulers to the said gaze they should be sunject of the same thing themselves. Let us take Twilight Velvet, surely she would be in position which might require some inspection, aswell as everyone in the equal position. One might make a really good case that people in power in wheels of the paper monster would be even more prone to corruption and indugence.
Let us say Luna is supporting all this (well she is), she should be subject to the same scrutiny. Maybe she would indeed need many people watching over her duties in dreams, and if the privacy of Sundances subjects is secondary then surely privacy of Luna's subjects are secondary aswell, WHO knows what she is upto during her nights or days?
It is all good and well to have such institutions if you truly believe it is for the best why would you not make yourself subject of the same rules. There is a power dynamic hidden underneath the discomfort what people might feel in situations like this. It seems horribly uneven and truly it is.
Some of it might be mitigated if the wheels underneath was to be revealed, maybe in due time, but how this all was presented in the story is horrible (not bad writing, but really charged me at the least against the situation). The first contact for example me about the said monitoring was "Oh hey Sundance come by my Office i have something for you. Also we been monitoring you for several months now without your knowledge so we know you been rolling in grass so clean yourself a bit first and your Aunt tells us you are a yespony who can be bullied to do things and we should do it to make you grow a backbone."
To me it is VERY natural that some readers might have some very strong questions about details of this. It has some REALLY ugly implications if you would look at the situation from even neutral point of view and the reader was not paranoid person. Some people who are more prone about matters of honor might see this as Celestia, the club he joined in good faith and Twilight Velvet spitting in his face when he was doing his best to be a good ruler. And surely Velvet casually telling him that she is one of the people who owns his debt could not be seen as her asserting her power over the situation, creating even more of a power imbalance.
Edit:
Also good, let me know if my posts get annoying on any level. I really like to read into stories a bit too much. It is a bit of a hobby of mine nowdays but might have negative side to it aswell.
9879870
This doesn't make any sense. I can't parse this sentence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
9880154
The main core of that sentence is that game theory in this case is a tool of power, and the powers that be push it as idealistic solution while not subjecting themselves to the rules of the game they wish their lessers to play.
This undermines much of what can positively archieved from the said system and breeds corruption in the higher levels where the game is not played. This is not really a problem, but if this is the case the "game" which is played here is just a cynical tool of power and is on the whim of the monarch to have the lesser nobility play in this manner.
In essence when applied to real life it is, i think, who makes the games and who is subjected to the said games (and who is not) is at the least equally important to how the games actually work. They are part of a larger "game" of governance and it might very well suit the needs of the powers that be to craft smaller games like this. And like said earlier how this game was revealed and implemented raises several red flags to me at the least.
9880525
Everything is a game. Life. Survival. Competition.
I am not sure that you understand game theory. Which is fine, really. It is an immensely complicated subject.
But... we can actually use game theory to make life (almost) fair. We can incentivise altruism and reward good deeds. It starts young, when we give a kid a hunk of chocolate for being nice to his sister. From that moment on, the game is played. Earn reward.
This theory governs all manner of things, from how flocks of birds all move as one, to how herd animals interact, how and why dogs are so loyal, and a whole spread of sociological factors.
You think the princesses made this game. They didn't. The game already existed. It has always existed. It will always exist. This game exists in our world. Anywhere there is life, this game exists. No, what the princesses did here is, they changed the rules of said game so that more participants win. Society does this. Civilisation does this. The virtue of social contracts does this. If you say, open public schools and give free education, you radically alter how the game is played and how the participants interact. More people win. Big success. Social contracts are the rules we agree on. You don't club me over the head, I don't club you over the head. Fair game.
These aren't red flags, or warning signs, or portents of danger. This is a leveling of the playing field and an implementation of rules. Everybody prospers.
9880525
Keep in mind you're basing your ideas off of human science for and by humans. Equines are engineered. They were made, or at least entirely remolded from their original source.
They have more considerations than we know about, and more minute differences than we can begin to parse. What may affect us poorly due to our own psychological normality can mean less than nothing, or even something positive to them. Or even worse, in some cases.
Also keep in mind the people behind this are those who are on his side and want to see him succeed. They wouldn't be doing things that harm him unnecessarily.
Hi, I love this story. When you mentioned hexes a few chapters back I thought what about a hex on hexes. But, then you mentioned what hexes actually were and I couldn't help but wonder if that's where Discord came from. You know with chaos as the source.
Wow! I love this!
9883224
Well said.
....... EVENTUALLY!!!!!!
I had to look up "umlout":
noun
plural noun: umlauts
verb
3rd person present: umlauts
"the color of prothetic vowels, unless umlauted by the next syllable, was that of the laryngeal which was vocalized"
9885376
Corduroy can hear them when they happen.
9880553
Correct. Competition is natural. Everything that is alive today came from a long line of creatures that were successful in the competition for survival. By setting the criteria for how the baronies compete, it’s possible to push their leaders into making better decisions.