"I must protest in the strongest possible manner!" the Klugetown ambassador exclaimed. He was a large rubbery amphibian of indeterminate genus, but the richly brocaded vest proclaimed him as a creature of some wealth and importance.
"Very well," Queen Twilight said, in a deceptively soft voice. "Go ahead, Ambassador Ghlurgh. I'm listening." She settled onto the cushion that the mayor had placed down for her.
"You have denied the pony due process! He is our citizen, and he must be extradited to face our justice from the Council of Kluge! As is his right!"
"There is no due process here," Twilight replied, her voice still soft. "We are a nation without laws."
This was perfectly true—the town was lawless in the literal sense of the word. It didn't have a set body of legislation that became increasingly more complex as clever creatures found loopholes and work-arounds that needed to be addressed and amended. It didn't have a set of rules that, through mechanistic application, dispensed punishment tenuously correlated with justice.
But if peace and stability were the desired outcome, a lack of laws seemed to be working remarkably well. Technically, Twilight Town was the most crime-free city in the world, which annoyed statisticians to no end.
What it had instead of a dense body of legal code, was a single, simple to understand guideline: Work out your problems in a peaceful and reasonable way, or the Dark Goddess will settle things for you. That was all the explanation any sensible creature needed as to why lawlessness worked so well for the Twilight Folk.
The final clause of the guideline was being enacted in the Town Hall that day.
"And that is why you must let me take the stallion back to be tried under a system he is accustomed to!" Ambassador Ghlurgh continued.
"This one wonders if you would argue so passionately for a Kludgetowner who was not so very wealthy." The white eastern kirin who floated just above and behind Twilight's left shoulder fixed the ambassador with a focused stare that the Ambassador was unwilling to match.
A slight smile tugged at Twilight's lips as she replied. "That's of no real concern, Ao. I will make the decision, and I am notorious for fairness—no matter a creature's status or condition."
The small group of witnesses quietly shuffled, and one suppressed a cough. While they would all have hurried to agree that their Queen's statement was demonstrably true, "fair" was not the first word that would have occurred to any of them to describe her judgements.
"Then, how is it fair to expect a foreigner to abide by your system of non-laws, as if he were well-versed in the local cultural norms?" It sounded very much like a reasonable question, but it was not, and every creature present knew it.
Someone tossed a folded bit of paper at the ambassador's feet. It was a colorful pamphlet with the title How to Not Commit Suicide in Twilight Town written on the top in a cheerful, friendly font. Everyone in the room recognised it.
Some years before, a mischievous pony had printed up a stack of the pamphlets as a prank, and passed them out to the disembarking passengers of the first scheduled passenger airship flight from Equestria. Most of the newcomers had been puzzled, and some offended, but a few were delighted. The pamphlet contained a very good (if slightly exaggerated) summary of the customs, culture, and dangers of the kingdom, as well as a fairly accurate guide to the town, and the first print run of the pamphlets soon became a collector's item.
By royal command, the pamphlet had been slightly redesigned, reprinted in bulk, and made aggressively available at all points of entry into the kingdom.
Even with such a helpful guide, foreigners sometimes misunderstood how things worked in the city-state, but the Twilight Folk were understanding, and could be counted on to explain the situation with whatever degree of emphasis was required. In the current case, a rare consensus had been reached that being beaten to death would be sufficient explanation for the Klugetowner.
It was at that point that Mayor Buzzy had called for Twilight to intervene.
"You have no proof that he read that—that joke!" the ambassador sputtered, kicking at the paper on the floor. "To punish him for this so-called crime, that is not even specifically prohibited by—"
Twilight held up a wing to silence him. "Some nations allow this evil by ignoring it or pretending it does not occur, but none openly condone it. Not even your own, ambassador Ghlurgh." She glanced aside for a moment, taking a deep breath to calm herself, and then continued. "You must forgive me for bringing up an irrelevancy, because the laws and customs of other nations do not apply here."
"So you will decide his fate by simple decree? That is the action of a tyrant! Most civilized—"
There was a blur of motion and the kirin was at his shoulder, a long curved blade held just under where his chin would have been if he'd had one. "You have been here nearly a year, and yet you are so foolish?"[1] Ao hissed into where his ear should have been.
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[1] Rule #1 in How to Not Commit Suicide in Twilight Town was, "Never speak ill of Her Majesty if you’ve seen a white kirin any time in the last quarter hour."
After a brief pause that felt like an eternity to the terrified amphibian, Twilight said quietly, "Don't kill him, Ao."
The kirin immediately returned her sword to its sheath with a smooth motion and resumed her position behind the queen's shoulder.
"If I am wasting my time advocating for my citizen, why am I here?" He flicked a glance at the glowering kirin and added, "Your Majesty."
"You are here as a witness," the dark alicorn said. Pre-empting any reply, she turned to the waiting guard and ordered, "Bring in the prisoner."
A sleek, well-fed stallion was led into the room. He was fairly disheveled, thanks to his earlier encounter with the mob of outraged subjects, but still gave the appearance of a prosperous individual. He immediately knelt before Twilight and said in a rush, "I am so sorry, Your Majesty! I know I shouldn't have… I know I should be punished, but I couldn't help myself, and I—"
"I have no interest in punishing you," Twilight said in a level voice.
The stallion looked up from his bow, half puzzled, half relieved.
"I have one question for you."
"Anything, Majesty!"
"Will you give me your permission to alter your mind so that you will never do this again?"
"M-mind magic? But I swear I will never, ever—"
"You are lying," Twilight said, in a tone that caused the Twilight Folk to edge slightly away from her. "Possibly to yourself, but certainly to me. I ask you again, will you submit to having your personality altered?"
"I… I won't be me anymore!"
"That is quite correct." The alicorn stood up.
"I… Please think of another way of punishing me! Please, Your Majesty, I beg you!"
"This is not about punishment. To imagine that punishment would correct the compulsion that you harbor is foolishness, and punishment is worthless and hypocritical when it is merely state-sanctioned revenge. This is about prevention. One way or another, you will never abuse a foal again."
The ambassador realized what was about to happen, and despite his earlier protests to the contrary, he also knew the character of the stallion he was trying to defend. "Your Majesty! Please hear me out! If you transform this stallion to stone, will that satisfy—" The look that Twilight gave him killed the words in his throat and he found himself pressed against the far wall without consciously deciding to back away from her gaze.
"And kick this problem a thousand years down the road? No. That’s not how I operate." She turned back to the shivering stallion. "For the third and last time, I ask you. Will you submit to being cleansed of this foul appetite?"
"But it will change who I am! No, I might as well be dead! I—"
Twilight's horn flickered and the stallion instantly collapsed into a heap of gray ash. "Mayor Buzzy, please record his choice in the town ledger. Good day, Ambassador," she said, before abruptly teleporting away.
Ambassador Ghlurgh swallowed heavily and decided to retire.
Mayor Buzzy sighed and said, "We will gather up his ashes to return to his family. All expenses will be paid by the Crown, but can you arrange for the shipping, Mr. Ambassador?"
"I will accompany them personally," he replied, trying not to let his voice shake. He hoped to be able to work up a plausible excuse to mollify the stallion's powerful family during the journey home. Blaming it all on the dangerous and possibly insane monarch seemed like a good plan.
After the ambassador and most of the others had left, Ao opened the window shutters and leaned out. Below, in the town's central square, a large crowd waited expectantly. Ao pitched her voice to carry and added a tiny boost of the Royal Voice spell. Normally she would have never presumed to do so, but she was making a semi-official announcement. "Her Most Perfect Majesty has resolved the issue," she intoned.
There was a murmur from the crowd. They had expected no less, but they wanted details.
Ao knew this, but she preferred to emphasize her point with a touch of drama. She paused just long enough for the murmur to grow louder and take on an edge of disappointment, then she extended her right foreleg out of the window and spread her toes. A fine gray ash swirled out of her grasp and blew away on the wind.
Inside her office, Mayor Buzzy heard the cheering and leaned back for a short moment to enjoy it before going back to her work. She was filling out a generous bank transfer for Zashira's forgetfulness potion. The mganga had refused payment for her services, but the filly's family had threatened to throw a gold bar through the zebra's front window if that was the only way to get her to accept something for her help, and Buzzy didn't need any more headaches that week.
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Hah. Reminds me of that bit from one of the Vorkosigan novels wherein Miles' minions had subdued and tied up one of his creditors, and were stuffing his pockets with what he was owed, because it was the only way to get him to accept payment instead of the default conditions.
Damn. Nice. Sequel to akyla pseudonym soon?
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Reverse robberies are sometimes useful!
There is so much we can all learn from ponies.
That is one reasonable government in my opinion.
Seems like a fair judgement to me.
Ah, Twilight Town. Never change. The last refuge of the unrepentant put-pocket.
Eminently fair I think.
I laughed. Out loud.
Also, can we get a copy of that pamphlet? Please??
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How to Not Commit Suicide in Twilight Town, Rule #27: Refrain from imitating EweTube videos.
We need to create new laws from time-to-time, but usually do not bother to strike down outdated old laws no longer serving a purpose. This leads to a voluminous inconsistent lawcode none can comprehend. A simple solution is requiring that for every less < than 2 new laws added to the legal code, one must strike down more > than 1 obsolete law. This would make the lawcode much smaller and vastly more self-consistant.
I believe that you mean "alicorn".
I suppose that ponies are different than humans because the foal-molestor did not want to be cured:
I, as an intactivist, had an hypothesis that sexually nontherapeutically mutilating the genitals of nonconsenting minors would increase the odds that the would become rapists and child-molestors. ¿Why should they respect the bodily autonomy of others when none respected their bodily autonomy? Basically, if we teach our children by example, we have only ourselves to blame for how they behave.
I fired up TOR and went onto the Dark Web. I found chatrooms for pædophiles. —— ¡do not click on anything in those chatrooms becaus it is either malware or kiddyporn! Some Some child-molestors who could control their urges decided to give into them precisely because they are victims of nontherapeudic nonconsensual sexual genital mutilation. Basically, they pay it forward.
Most, if they could be changed so as to feel attraction only towards adults and disgust at the thought of sex with children, would jump at the chance.
By they way, I find nothing wrong with your story. Indeed, I prefer stories with the ponies having very different minds and cultures. I like stories with ponies as sapient aliens, with the emphasis on alien. This is just a comment about how humans and ponies are different.
Having re-read The Skyla Pseudonum last week and currently making good progress in The Twilight Enigma, this just reminds me again that I not only love your version of Twilight, but that, for some reason, I really want more of her in her 'monster suit.' Something about her rather nice character clashes wonderfully with looking like a harbinger of the end-times.
It's very hard to have crime when there's no legal code to violate
Twilit justice is harsh, but indisputably fair. Yes, we know you're very sorry and you're never going to do it again. That's the point of the trial. The question is how you'll never do it again.
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Precisely! (On both counts)
I suppose the trick is getting the enlightened monarch to start with...
That really squicks me out the more and more I think about it. Ugh...
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Indeed. When you have a good king, monarchy is the best form of government. When you have a bad king, monarchy is the worst form of government. If we had a reliable way of selecting good kings, monarchies would be a lot more popular.
Twilight Town mostly gets around this issue by starting with a good queen and then never needing another one because the queen is immortal. As long as the queen remains enlightened and sane, Twilight Town will be a wonderful place to live.
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Yes, they were made by the state owned distillery. However, they were mostly used because more effective anti tank weapons were not available. There were only small amounts of anti tank guns and the Finnish made anti tank rifle was accepted too late for production to make any real effect. Luckily the Soviet purged their own officers in the 30s, so the cooperation between infantry and tanks was really bad at the start of the Winter War. This combined with the terrain and well trained soldiers made it possible to use things like molotov cocktails successfully.
But this might be going slightly off topic, so I think I'll stop here.
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The only problem is that Twilight regularly gets into fights against creatures at or above her own weight class to defend the world. It's entirely possible that one day she won't come back. I assume that part of her extensive education curriculum includes political science and sociology that way if she can't rule anymore for some reason the citizens of Twilight Town will have the knowledge to build a new government on sound principles.
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No, it's a fascinating subject! I'm just finishing a book on the Winter War right now, and I've got another that's broader in scope that I hope to start soon. In a slight aside of my own, I'm pretty astonished by how many battles/wars throughout history were lost because one side or the other had a political purge of their army just before engagement.
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More importantly, she's created a very strong culture in the city-state which guides its subjects to instinctively* deal with problems in the ways she thinks are best, and value the same concepts she does. Culture trumps legality every time, and cultural shifts are slow.** It would take many generations for them to drift away from their founding principals.
If Twilight disappeared, the Twilight Folk wouldn't need to build a new government because Twilight avoids ruling directly as much as possible. The day-to-day stuff is handled by the mayor and councilcreatures. This trial was a statement/reinforcement of basic principles, but it would have turned out the same way if the Folk had dealt with it themselves.
Like I said... best form of government! I need a bumpersticker... [Immortal Nerd Sorceress 2020]
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* Trained and conditioned instincts, but instincts nevertheless.
** At least, that is the historical case for civilizations lacking mass media.
Mentioning Kludgetown will of course get people thinking about the Storm King in this universe. I have a standard post about that:
Was he run through by Captain Blackmane in pursuit of his magical treasures perhaps? What happened to Tempest?
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That's a pretty good analysis of the situation!
The Storm King very definitely exists in this universe.
Given that Twilight/Blackmane is a de facto pirate (much like Celano and her crew), and that her main impetus to continue in that guise after the breaking of Rawboned Mari and the Western Fleets is to gather up dangerous magical artifacts that might be misused, and given that the Crystal Heart is an incredibly powerful magical artifact that the Storm King would love to get his paws on...
You've pretty much got the setup for The Cadance Conundrum.
I might even write it someday...
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Tempting, I can talk quite a bit about the Winter War...
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Take it to PM if you want to! I've just read the one source, so I'm sure you have a lot more detailed information. Are you a Finn or a Fan?
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It'll be interesting to see how the town and the world deals with it if Twilight gets possessed by the Nightmare or something. When the "enlightened and sane" part goes down the tubes.
It should have been obvious that that was a legitimate alternative in Twilight's eyes, yet he was still dumb enough to use this type of linguistic construct.
More please. You have created such a unique culture.
I loved these chapters so much. more please!!
I just finished The Skyla Pseudonym and read through this little piece in short order. I really enjoyed this series and I look forward to "The Cadence Conundrum" and more chapters in the life of Twilight Town where all the mares are strong, all the stallions good looking, and all the foals above average.
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Glad you liked them! Working on more. (Loved the PHC ref, BTW!)
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I was rather pleased with myself on that reference
Just re-reading this and I saw it was marked as complete. =(
Guess I just need to wait for the Cadence Conundrum.
Stay awesome, friend!