Robbery, He Dreamed
Wild Garden paced back and forth over and over and over. This was it. By this time tomorrow, he and the ponies he worked with would be stinking rich, once their robbery was through. “So,” he said to the four other ponies in the room, “let’s go over this one more time.”
“Again?” protested Luster. “We’ve been over this so many times, you’ll be reviewing it in your sleep.”
“Which will mean,” Garden said, his wings flaring, “that we’ll know it all perfectly, so we won’t be able to forget it!”
“Ufh. Fine,” Luster said, rolling her eyes. She gave her white, diamond-collared cat one last pat and stood up. “Just before noon tomorrow, we’ll go to the First Canterlot Bank. I’ll get in line and threaten the clerks.” A few sparks flew from her horn.
“Right, right,” said Garden. “Safe Deposit?”
Safe Deposit smirked and twirled his mustache. “At the same time, you and I will round up the customers as hostages. It will be easy. They will be weak, cowards, trembling before us. Our will shall be their law, our whims their actions!” His threw back his head and cackled, delivering some killer bass.
“Cool your megalomania, that’s not good if the guards manage to surround us. And Wheel Well?”
“I’ll be sitting outside with the carriage, waiting for you to come out so we can leg it,” said Wheel Well in a tired voice from her place on the ceiling. “Look, I know I’m just sitting there, can we please skip my-”
“Excellent, excellent. Luster?”
“I’ll get the key from…”
They went down the list, one item at a time. Garden was pleased at it all, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was a little bit off. Oh, well. Probably just nerves. They’d go away once he was actually robbing the place. “And, finally, Wheel Well?”
“I’ll be sitting outside with the carriage, so that once you pile in, we can leg it,” said Wheel Well in a voice so bored it was practically a tunnel. “Or I can leg it, since I’m the one pulling the stupid-”
“And we’re done!” Garden said with a grin. “So, now that- Hold on. I’m sorry, what were you supposed to do, again?” he asked of the fifth pony in the room. The starry alicorn hadn’t said anything yet and kept scribbling stuff down on her sheet of paper.
“Hmm?” said the alicorn, looking up. “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just an artificially-created dream construct made to spread good dreams listening in on your dreamed-up conversation to learn your plans and keep you from robbing the bank while tweaking your subconscious to keep you from becoming lucid. Not important. Nope. Move along. Nothing to see here.”
Seemed legit. “Excellent,” Garden said, rubbing his hooves together. “We all know our parts, and-”
The alicorn spoke up. “Well, actually, quick question. Sorry, dude, but could you repeat that? Like, all of it? I’m recording this for posterity, and giving a step-by-step plan of your robbery would be really helpful.” She tapped the paper with her pencil meaningfully.
“Absolutely, Stranger I Don’t Recognize!” said Garden cheerfully. “From the top! Luster?”
“Again?” protested Luster. “We’ve been over this so many times, you’ll be reviewing it in your sleep.”
“Which will mean,” Garden said, his wings flaring, “that we’ll know it all perfectly, so we won’t be able to forget it!”
“Ufh. Fine,” Luster said, rolling her eyes. She gave her white, diamond-collared cat one last pat and stood up. “Just before noon tomorrow, we’ll go to the First Canterlot Bank. I’ll get in line and threaten the clerks.” A few sparks flew from her horn.
“Right, right,” said Garden. “Safe Deposit?”
Safe Deposit smirked and twirled his mustache. “At the same time, you and I will-”
“Wait, this is like super inefficient,” interrupted the alicorn. “Why don’t you just show me?” She pushed down all the walls like they were on hinges. The group was left standing in the middle of an empty Canterlot street. In front of them stood the First Canterlot Bank, all white and gleaming and shiny and very, very, rich. A stagehoof adjusted the sun for maximum glint-off-lamppost-ness and said, “You’re on in one, ponies!” The alicorn pulled up a smooshy armchair not far from the entrance and watched them with interest.
“Oooo, good idea,” Garden said to nopony in particular. “Why didn’t we think of a rehearsal?”
“Oh, yes,” muttered Wheel Well, “because standing in one place strapped to a carriage is soooo haaaard.” She started gnawing on the carriage harness in frustration.
But as the rest of his group walked up to the bank, the feeling that something was wrong came back to Garden. It crept up his spine and down his ribs. It did a little tapdance on his neck. And when he opened the door to find almost a dozen photographers taking pictures of him, he realized just what was going on. Garden’s eyes widened as he turned to the starry alicorn in horror.
“Oh! Your costumes! Here.” The alicorn tossed over their masks, black-and-white striped shirts, and burlap sacks marked with the bit sign on them. Garden sighed in relief. Nothing was wrong anymore.
Staff Sergeant Iron Phalanx suddenly knew he was dreaming because, as much as he liked to think otherwise, there was no way he could survive punching out a two-ton dragon while the two of them were plummeting from a Manehattan skyscraper.
“Cream is for chumps!” the dragon screeched again, and swiped at him.
“Cream is for those with self-confidence!” Phalanx yelled again. He dodged the swipe and dropkicked the dragon into a busy office building, where it plowed through several stories. But they were full of lawyers, so that was okay.
Phalanx looked down at the rapidly-approaching street. He could’ve opened his wings and flown away, he knew, but part of him wanted to see how this would play out. He couldn’t remember any falling dreams of his own. He’d wake up before he hit the ground, right?
Technically. He simply transitioned from “falling” to “standing on the ground” with no in-between state. He pulled his wings tight and stood up straight. He wasn’t usually lucid, so Luna must want him for something. What sort of something? He had no idea. But he’d heard that she sometimes contacted guards in their sleep when she wanted them for something important without making a scene. Or maybe he was just making stuff up. Probably the latter.
Unfortunately, the alicorn that slipped out of space and onto the pavement in front of him was not Luna. It was too small, too androgynous, too hole-in-the-air-looking. Phalanx’s jaw tightened. He’d heard the stories going around the castle, and while he was glad Luna had some assistance in what had once been a lonely, underappreciated task, he’d hoped to never have to interact with some… body that erratic.
Moondog shook itself down and turned to him. “Um, uh, hi, sir.” It waved. “You know who I am, right?”
“Yes,” Phalanx said tautly. “Moondog. Luna’s… tulpa.” Getting interrupted from beating up a dragon wasn’t doing wonders for his temper.
“Okay. Alright, so, uh…” It clopped its hooves together and grinned nervously. “Do I, uh, qualify as royalty? I mean, Cadance is royalty and I’m more Luna’s kid than she is and I’ve kinda got an order I want to give you but I don’t wanna give it if I don’t have any authority, sooooooo…”
“Let’s suppose you do,” said Phalanx. “What would that order be?” He tried to keep his voice level, but given Moondog’s reputation, he wasn’t looking forward to whatever order it might give.
“Bring over a squad of plainclothes guards and be at the First Canterlot Bank over your lunch break. You’ll catch a group of would-be bank robbers led by a guy named Wild Garden.”
Phalanx waited. Moondog didn’t continue. “…And?...”
“And what?” Moondog flapped its wings. “That’s it. Bank robbery. First Canterlot Bank. You stop it. Feather in your helm. What more do you want? Me to do a song and dance routine explaining it?” It twirled its cane and adjusted its top hat. “ ’Cause, I mean, I can, but those’re hard and it’ll take a few seconds to set up.”
Phalanx blinked. That… wasn’t unreasonable. If Luna had been the one giving it, he’d have followed it in a heartbeat. “Well,” he said, filling the space as he thought, “I was, um, just… surprised that…”
“You thought I was gonna order you to do something like dance through Thymes Square in roller skates, a rainbow wig, and a shirt that says ‘You’re With Stupid’, right?”
“Ehm…” Phalanx tried looking away, only to find Moondog was already there. “I… just…”
Moondog snorted in amusement. “Look, I’m not that fickle. If I’m royalty, I’m never gonna give you an order without a good, solid reason. I mean, I can control dreams and I can’t see the physical world. If I order you to do something, either it’d be faster for me to just do it myself-” (Behind it, a duplicate of Phalanx with said wig and said shirt skated by, shrieking, “You are my candy giiiiirl!”) “-or I wouldn’t see the results. And if I do, just complain about it to Mom and she’ll set me straight. No, seriously. No offense to Mom, but she wasn’t all that interested in things like ‘tact’ and ‘social skills’ when she filled this up-” It tapped the side of its head. “-’cause I wasn’t supposed to be sapient, so I’ve got a buttload of stuff to learn.”
“Uh-huh,” Phalanx said vaguely, nodding. Generally speaking, individuals taking insults in stride was a good sign. He held his breath and probed the waters. “So… bank robbery?”
“Oh, I swear to Mom, yeeeeees,” Moondog said with a groan, “bank robbery, First Canterlot Bank, that’s what I said, like, twice already. Right here.” It yanked down a map of Canterlot from thin air and jabbed a hoof at the point labelled First Canterlot Bank, Idiot. “Look, if it’ll help you remember, the song and dance is still open-”
“And you just… happened to find this from a pony’s dream?” Phalanx squinted at Moondog. “Are you spying on ponies?”
“I’m not usually,” Moondog said, gesturing vaguely, “but there was this one pony who was having anxiety dreams, then it turned out his anxiety dreams were because he’s robbing a bank tomorrow, so I kinda dug through his head to find his plans so the Guard could foil them, and-” It shook its head. “Look, that’s not important. Bank robbery. You stop it. That’s important. M’kay?”
“I…” Phalanx could feel his brain attempting to shift out of the gung-ho “I JUST BEAT UP A MOTHER-DUCKING DRAGON” state and into the “I have a job I need to do” one. It didn’t help that he was casually chatting with a hole in the sky that was smaller than him and sounded not dissimilar to his daughter. He cleared his throat, pulled his wings tight, and stood up straight. “If you have any other inte- information,” he said, “that would be much appre-”
“Well, the leader was dreaming of their last meeting, and I’ve got the transcript.” Moondog reached out and scooped a scroll from nothingness. “You want the transcript?”
Phalanx had never, ever, ever dreamed of getting any information this easily (until now, anyway). His wings quivered as decorum deserted him and he leapt forward with a, “Gimme!” He snatched the parchment and unrolled it in his magic, levitating it inches from his muzzle. He began skimming the scroll, reading the names of the robbers, their plans, their-
He had magic? He gingerly poked at the area above his forehead and twitched when he felt a horn. His horn, which hadn’t been there moments ago. He blinked and raised an eyebrow at Moondog.
“What?” Moondog shrugged. “It’s easier for you this way.”
“Well, I- Thank you.” Phalanx shielded his face behind the scroll. “And thanks for the warning.” He was partly feeling ashamed of himself, but who could’ve guessed that a being made of fluff and good vibes had any sort of sense of civic duty, let alone the proactivity to do anything with it?
“Sure thing. Now, I need to get going, but you want anything else?” asked Moondog, lightly nudging the scroll aside. “And I mean absolutely literally anything else? Deep-sea swimming off your personal yacht? Sipping maregaritas on your own private island? Rule over Equestria? Bagels and coffee with cream and sugar?”
“No thank you,” said Phalanx quickly. “I really should just read this without any distractions.” Like he’d ever hear the end of it if he fudged a personal assignment from Princess Luna’s… daughter because he wanted to go mountain climbing. “Although,” he added, “if I can make a suggestion, you might want to work on your entrance.”
But Moondog just laughed. “Big entrances are for ponies who’d leave no impression otherwise. You don’t want to turn heads because you’re making smashes and crashes and big flashy flashes. You want to turn heads because you’re you.”
Phalanx moved the scroll aside and raised an eyebrow. “…Are you just saying that because you need to work on your entrance?”
The entire world shook as Moondog got in his face and thundered, “NO.”
“Of course you’re not,” Phalanx said vaguely. “Also, you’re in my way.”
“Right, right,” scowled Moondog. It took a step back, but didn’t stop glaring at Phalanx.
“But you know,” Phalanx said as he went back to the scroll, “Princess Luna turns heads because she’s Princess Luna and she’s good at-”
Moondog’s voice sounded like a woodchipper. “Gotta get going good luck adios amigo.” It saluted and vanished. Phalanx didn’t look up.
“What a strange fellow,” said the lightning-warhammer-wielding dragon behind Phalanx. “You look busy. Should I come back tomorrow?”
“Probably,” said Phalanx. “This’ll take a while and I don’t want to be distracted.” Conveniently, pictures of each robber were included next to their names.
“Fine. I’ll be at Pequod’s when you need me. Taking my coffee without sugar, wuss.”
“Heathen!” Phalanx yelled as he committed the robbers’ descriptions to memory.
Some part of pop-culture investigative journalist Coranto’s mind recognized she shouldn’t be interviewing Blueblood in a greasy spoon staffed by monsters in space. The rest of her didn’t care. She couldn’t remember any of the questions she’d asked, or any of the answers she’d gotten, only that it’d been a good interview. She clicked her tongue and bounced the pen on the tabletop. “And I think that’s it,” she said, flipping her notebook shut. “Thank you for your time.”
“I hate you with the fiery intensity of a thousand of Aunt Celly’s butts,” glowered Blueblood.
Coranto nodded. “Understandable. So, what did you think of the place?”
“Horrid,” said Blueblood, his nose in the air. “The room reeks of fats, the food is prepared in a rush, it’s not even good when it arrives, the decor is trite, and I swear, if I hadn’t tipped our waiter, he would’ve eaten my head off. You saw those teeth on that timberwolf, yes?”
“And such a loss that would’ve been,” Coranto said sympathetically. It really would’ve; Blueblood stories made up over a quarter of her output during his more well-behaved months.
“I suppose it could be worse,” said Blueblood, staring at a stain on the table. “You could be interviewing my cousin the Tantabus. You’ve met them, yes? Such a smart, pretty, clever, funny, and all-around awesome tulpa, don’t you think? So much cooler than me.”
Coranto blinked. Coughed. It looked like Blueblood was sitting in front of her, but when he was saying things like that… “Um… Tantabus?”
Blueblood looked up with a grin that, most uncharacteristically of him, had something in the vein of charisma. “Ooo, only thirty seconds to know it was me. Nice,” said Blueblood. Said the Tantabus. “Faster than anypony else yet. Except for Mom, but, well, yeah. Oh, and just FYI, the name’s Moondog, now.”
Coranto sighed. Not again. “Look. I didn’t do it. I don’t know what you think I did, but I didn’t do it.”
“You ain’t really helping your case that way, y’know,” the Tantabus — Moondog? — said with a smirk. It kept using Blueblood’s body and voice, and Coranto’s brain churned as it tried to match those informal words with that formal pony, even though she knew it was actually that informal… dream… thing… pony… thing.
“Well, I didn’t!” yelled Coranto as she banged her hooves on the table. “I stayed away from Luna, just like you said, and I wasn’t thinking of sta-”
Just like that, the words had stopped coming out of her mouth. She stopped and tried yelling again. “Why can’t I say anything?!” No noise. She dropped back onto her chair and glared. Moondog smirked again. Stupid dream controllers.
The smirk, or at least the smugness, dropped from Moondog’s (Blueblood’s?) face. “Seriously, though,” it said in a lower voice. “I know you didn’t do anything. I’m not here for that. I’m here to give you something you’ll actually like, okay?” It waved a hydra over for pancakes.
Coranto rolled her eyes. “I find that ha- I still can’t say anything,” she said.
“Whup! Sorry,” said Moondog, cringing. It didn’t move and its horn didn’t glow. “There you go. You should be good.”
“But you didn’t do anything!” protested Coranto. “You j-” She stopped and blinked. “Testing,” she said. “Testing. 1, 2, 3.”
“4, 5, 6,” said Moondog, grinning, “7, 8, 9, 10-”
“How are you doing that?” asked Coranto. “Changing dreams without using magic, I mean.”
Moondog coughed exaggeratedly. “Besides this being, y’know, a dream, there’s the itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny matter of me not being a pony and not bound by your rules. I do use magic, just not the same way ponies do.” Over the course of a blink, Blueblood was replaced by Whatshisface, Discord. “Would you prefer this as a not-pony reminder?” Moondog asked in Discord’s voice. Another blink and Moondog was a huge minotaur with a tiny necktie. “Or this?”
Coranto flinched and pushed herself back in her seat. Shapeshifting of any sort freaked her out. The idea of someone not being at all who they looked like was… ugh. “C-can you just be… the you you were when I met you? Th-that’d be enough.”
Minotaurs were not supposed to pout like that, especially not when they had biceps bigger than their heads. “Awwww. You’re no fun.” Moondog wiped down its body with a napkin, erasing it like it was a drawing on an invisible three-dimensional chalkboard and revealing the old small star-bodied alicorn beneath. “This better?”
Still shivering a little, Coranto swallowed and said, “Good.”
Moondog nodded. “Alright. Listen. For real this time. Go to the First Canterlot Bank tomorrow at just before noon, okay? Stuff’s gonna go down, and it’s gonna be great for a story.”
Any shapeshifter-induced anxiety was drowned beneath the flood of a good story. “Yeah?” Coranto asked, smiling. “Such as…?”
“Oh, you know. Stuff.” Moondog smirked. “Specifically, n onax eboorel. Come on, I can’t spoil it, now, can I?”
“You…” Coranto wanted to be infuriated, but now she was just surprised she hadn’t seen this coming sooner. She swallowed. “P-please?” she forced out. “It would he-”
“Nope! Oh, cool it with looking like you ate a bug.” Moondog snatched some Prench toast from a passing maulwurf and devoured it in an instant. “Really, I promise you. It’s gonna be totally sweet and the surprise’s gonna make it better. Besides, what’ve you got to lose besides a lunch break?”
“You don’t know how valuable lunch breaks are! They’re my only me time in my work day!”
“C’mon, it’s ooooone lunch break,” wheedled Moondog. “It’s only a few blocks from your office, and it’ll be fun! You’ll be surprised and the only ponies getting their faces plastered all over your anomic papers are the ones who deserve it.”
Moondog’s smile was surprisingly disarming, earnest and friendly. If it’d been a real pony, Coranto would’ve believed them in a heartbeat. “Well, I- I need a moment to think.”
“Sure.” Moondog pulled a chocolate milkshake from the air, leaned back in the booth, and started slurping it down. “Take your time,” it said, gazing at the diner’s clientele.
One lunch break. Just one. That couldn’t be that valuable, right? It wouldn’t even take any other time out of Coranto’s day besides her lunch break. Ten minutes’ walk from her building to the bank, and she knew a nice cafe right outside it. Part of Coranto wanted to say that Moondog was still stringing her on about the whole Luna thing, but making her take a walk during her lunch break for no reason was such a laughably petty revenge that even Coranto wouldn’t be caught doing something like that.
Deep breath. Okay. “Fine. I’ll be there.”
“Great!” Moondog tossed its milkshake away. “Really, you won’t regret it. It’ll be awesome.”
“So, uh,” said Coranto, “why are you doing this? I mean, yeah, thanks, but…”
Moondog rubbed the back of its neck and looked away. “Weeeeellllllllll, I… kinda went overboard when we met. I’m supposed to make good dreams, and that wasn’t a good dream, so I felt guilty and told Mom about it, and she… gave me a bit of a dressing-down.” It folded its ears back, and Coranto knew she’d never see such a regal alicorn looking this sheepish again. “Yeah, you, uh, needed to know I was real so you’d stop pestering Mom, but there were better ways of doing that than going skydiving when you hate heights. So I’m sorry, and you can consider this a belated ‘Sorry Our First Impression Involved Me Antagonizing You Too Much’ present.”
“I might need to borrow that idea.”
“Might? Borrow? You definitely need to buy that idea.” Moondog leaned over the table and snarled, “But don’t think it lets you off the hook about Mom.”
But Coranto had adjusted to the dream and didn’t flinch. “You could dull your teeth a little. When they’re that sharp, it looks like you’re trying too hard.”
“Does it?” Moondog pulled down the shades of the window, which had turned into a mirror. As Coranto pondered why she had a killer mohawk, Moondog examined its teeth. “Huh. Kinda, yeah.” It peeled the sharpness from its teeth and flicked the mirror back up. “Still-”
“I won’t bother Luna again,” Coranto recited like a tired student. “Yes, I know that.”
“Must you drain all the fun from melodrama?”
“Considering it’s always at my expense, yes.”
Moondog rolled its eyes. “Anyway, that’s the sitch, so: later, hater.” It saluted-
Coranto stood up. “Wait, what’s that supposed to-”
-and vanished into a cloud of purple smoke.
“-mean?” Coranto sighed and collapsed back into her chair. “Ooooof course.”
“What did you expect?” asked her chimera waiter. “Just because someone does something nice for you doesn’t mean they like you.”
Twelve hours later and wide awake (she’d pinched herself to be sure), Coranto drummed her hoof on the cafe table, staring at the facade of the First Canterlot Bank as a carriage pulled up. “Five to,” she whispered into her recording gem, “and no sign of anything unusual. I still have my doubts on… Moondog, I’ll admit. She- It- She’s unpredictable and too… flighty.”
She tapped out a brief drumline as she watched several ponies walk around the carriage and file into the bank. “But for someone that shouldn’t exist, she’s… she’s surprisingly straightforward. Maybe even honest. There weren’t any coy evasions except for the hook. And, well, you have to have the hook. She told me why she was doing what she was doing. And she even apologized.” She finished her drumline and paused. “Perhaps I should apologize to Luna.” Getting on ponies’ nerves was considerably less satisfying if the facts couldn’t be twisted to make it look like they did the things she was getting on their nerves for.
Coranto’s gaze didn’t move from the bank. Silence reigned and the clock tick, tick, ticked away. Coranto rolled ideas back and forth in her mind and came to a conclusion. “Note to self,” she said. “Apologize to Luna, in person, if Moondog’s tip is accurate.”
A burst of magic exploded inside the bank and an earth stallion rocketed through one of the windows. A pegasus mare, in plain clothes but rather bulky for a civilian, jumped out after him and fell on him with an elbow drop.
“And there we go,” Coranto whispered, grinning.
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I see that Moondog just dragon dropped herself into Phalanx's dream.
Oooh! Nice!
I thought that we'd see the resolution in dreams, but we went out and followed Coranto!
Moondog sounds like a good name now. And they've been active for a while, so good?
Clearly, Phalanx patronizes Queequeg’s.
Does Moondog get lonely for another of it's kind? Androgenous or not, that's going to be a shipping itch I'll need to scratch at some point.
Like Wintermute and Neuromancer or Puppetmaster and The Major, discrete magical/information entities can reproduce in a biological mating-analogue.
Nice! I totally forgot this wasn't a one-shot.
9501730
I'd say it would probably take a while to 'grow up' for the urges to reproduce to really manifest. Now getting a bit lonely and asking Mom to make it a sibling..
Oh! Awesome! You finally got back to this one!
Now you've got me thinking of all the other ways Moondog can abuse her powers.
"Excuse me, umm... Starlight, was it?"
"Yup, that's me. What's the matter?"
"Well, there's this one filly going to your school named Cozy Glow..."
"Uh-huh."
"...And I just looked inside her dreams, and... well..."
"Go on."
"Well... um... she was dreaming about dethroning the princesses and taking over Equestria."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"Yeah, you might want to talk to her about that."
Just gotta say I'm loving Phalanx dreaming about a philosophical debate about how to take your coffee with a dragon. And yes, city-shattering brawls are how dragons do philosophical debates.
investigative?
Yes.
At least he's civil about it though.
Got it memorized?
Hmm It would be interesting to see Moondog meeting Discord...
This was a great chapter and it shows that information gained from dreams can be very usefull sometimes. It reminds of a story where Luna learned about a coup that was being planned through a dream. Although there it was mentioned by the author that Luna obtained the information that way and it's not part of the story.
Wait, is this legal?
9501948
Only by virtue of being not illegal.
9501948
In Equestria yes.
You have no idea how happy I am to see this update. Moondog is totally awesome. If you ever find a way to make a real one, let me know.
9501948
I mean, they are discussing criminal plans. Granted, it's all in his head, but if he does go through with it... sucks to be him. If not, then Moondog has some moon on their face.
>Robbery, He Dreamed
Ohhh, I see what you did there! =D
Oh, this was so much fun!
Another great update.^^
9501948
It's not admissable. That doesn't stop them from using it to catch the ponies in the act.
9501948
No more than any normal-duty dreamwalking would be I imagine. Tantabus only dug up the details of the plan after stumbling onto it by accident, which is something law enforcement does pretty often in more mundane circumstances. She didn't pressure the robber into following through either, so not entrapment.
Worst case, the robber gets cold hooves, an honest tip to the cops goes nowhere, and a tabloid reporter is mildly annoyed.
9501948
9501968
I mean, considering the list of people who can do it is usually one, and that one has vaguely defined monarchical powers, it probably doesn't come up much.
That said, it's a bit of a scary slippery slope, and I can see why there's usually dreamer/Luna confidentiality systems in fics.
I don't recall many where Luna uses dream blackmail on people either.
No wonder crime rate is so low in Equestria
Well done, Moondog. Slightly morally dubious, but still, well done.
9501948
I'll make it legal
9502691
Yeah I think if our police were allowed magic blasts and elbow drops that might act as an actual deterrent.
Moondog's doing good in the world. Evildoers beware. Or don't. Bewaring means you're more likely to draw her attention. Huh. This might lead to the criminal class being limited to those who feel absolutely no remorse for their deeds...
9501892
If Skyrim taught us anything, most things dragons do are debates. Or at least pirate insult fencing.
I need more Moondog, please?
9502880
Analogy...
Oh, hey. It's Coranto, the mare from the prequel of this fanfic. Nice to see her again.
Bless Moondog and her theatrics, and you are fantastic for putting Blueblood in here, even if it was Moondog for most of it. So awesome.
9501948 Equestrian citizens don't have a right to privacy over the thoughts in their head, obviously. I'm sure it's perfectly legal.
I am curious what happens once Coranto publishes an article announcing that the government now spies on your dreams in case you commit crimes. (The "I just stumbled into your dreams and happened to find out you were planning to commit a crime" is a figleaf no one will fall for).
Will many ponies try to start sleeping in a magic circle that blocks outsiders, or only prospective criminals? A smart police force would watch the library to see who starts checking out books on dream privacy so they can put those ponies under surveillance.
9509640
And arrest perfectly innocent citizens who are understandably terrified they're being spied on?
9509676
I assume in Equestria the innocent have nothing to hide.
9509701
That's the sort of thinking that leads to looking at everyone as guilty of something.
9509721 Look, once you have self-declared Princess looking into pony's dreams and then reporting them to the authorities to entrap them, you're pretty deep into the police state already. Compared to spying on someone's thoughts, spying on their library records is nothing.
9509743
Twilight probably does that already
9509746
That is very likely.
9518368
Because then you'd be a manager not an engineer. Some do go that way but for me and many other engineers that sounds like a job that we really would rather not have.
9509743
From what we see, Luna doesn't use her powers to spy on the populace, or use it to report the actions of the guilty (a big difference between thinking about something and doing it). Since if she did use her powers to break into the minds of others, and seize "evidence", it would lead to a large amount of fear mongering and public outcries (since she would have at that time have no reason to hold back).
Not to mention we see plenty of evil, atrocities, or even minor villainy. And she is as clueless about it as everyone else (Chrysalis; Sombra's return (until told about it); Tirek; Starlight Glimmer (and who knows how many years of ripping out Cutie Marks from others); The victims of Starlight Glimmer's Cutie Mark theft; all the Changelings in the world (pre-vomit transformation); etc.).
But Moondog wasn't made with those same restrictions in place. Moondog was built simply to give good dream, with no thought of what'd happen if it turned sentient. So the same restrictions that keep Luna from reporting all the ill deeds she sees (or acting on them). Moondog doesn't have.
9509746
Did you mean their actual library records, or the figurative ones?
Cause Twilight's sharp as a sword, but dense as a rock. And when it comes to anything not book related, she's kinda clueless. But actual records, I'm pretty sure she background checks everyone's reading history from the time their born, just so she can nerd out and talk to them about literature.
9518399
Sweet!
And that's cool. I can, almost see it working out like that for Moondog's thought process (and thank you for sharing that ^_^). Also thank you for the scene you did in A Daughter And Her Dragon, that was such an awesome scene ^_^.
Tantabus V 2.3
>Run Tantabus V 2.3
Tantabus V2.3 running
>Start data log
Starting data log.
9501948
Alien magical world. Our law structure doesn't mean anything to them.
9566399
Huh. Well, for the record, I didn't notice anything which would be invalid syntax in JavaScript.
This may be another "learning experience" for Moondog... and theoretically even harsher than the one in the last chapter. Sending a civilian into a situation with ponies who PLANNED on taking hostages without a heads-up is not the most responsible thing.
It turned out okay though. I guess ranged weapons being uncommon helps.
Meanwhile, in Ponyville.
Lyra: I wish Tantabus would give me another spy adventure with my sexy Bonbon.
Bonbon: Lyraaa... for the last time... don't include me in your kinky fantasies.
Fun!
Moondog: Hey Coranto we're friends now, right?
Coranto: F*** off.
Moondog: The best.