Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies

by The Guy Who Writes

Rehabilitation 11.5: Consulting Willpower

"I take it ya haven't figured out the answer to yer last question yet?" asked Merlin.

"I have," Riddle replied. He had just asked, in a general way, about Mirror entrapment, and specifically what will happen to Equestria in the event that the trap is truly ended, not just bypassed. "I wanted to hear your own opinion. Is this realm stable enough that the trap will have no effect on it?"

Merlin shrugged. "It's been here for thousands of years. It'll be here for thousands more, I'd wager. The Mirror doesn't destroy its own realms, and it's keen on keeping them from being destroyed, as far as I can tell. You worried about what'll happen to us if ya get outta the Mirror?"

"It's not that exactly," he said. "Or not just that. I am mostly worried I'll be barred from returning."

"Are ya?" asked Merlin. "Tell me somethin', lad. Is it likely that this-" he gestured a scale-less paw between the two of them "-was accidental? By which I mean us turnin' into these non-human creatures and whatnot."

"I suppose it must not have been… hold. Let me think this through." He paused in thought, and Merlin didn't press him to think faster. "The Atlanteans made the Mirror," he said, deciding to lay it out sequentially. "Some trapped themselves within and became Equestrians, others did not and sired the ancestors of modern wizardkind back on Earth. The Atlanteans may have trapped their whole city as well, since objects can be stored in the Mirror."

"Good so far. But why did they do it?" asked Merlin. "Think of their motives."

Riddle shrugged. "Any number of reasons. A Dark Lord could have done it."

"True, true," Merlin nodded. "But suppose it wasn't a Dark Lord. Suppose you were one of the Mirror's creators. What reason might you decide to up and trap yourself?"

"Impending disaster," Riddle answered immediately. "To myself or the world, which I would avoid by escaping into the indestructible... and now that you mention it, avoidance of doom is supposedly the reason it was being made in the first place, assuming those ancient tablets were accurate."

"Right," said Merlin. "Now this is all just theory, remember. I haven't touched the Mirror in a while, and I don't plan to go near it again just in case. But if I had to guess, there's probably some sorta switch that lets you come and go as you please. If a coming tsunami season was the reason, they'd need a normal way to get back once the world was done weathering the storm."

Riddle considered the thesis. "Would that function not also return the departed to humanity?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Remember that the Mirror is supposed to grant wishes. Some might not wish to turn back when they go back." Merlin shrugged. "Only one way to find out." The great dragon yawned. "Looks like it's time for my nap. Unless there's something else?"

Riddle almost replied to the negative, but then he tilted his head. "One thing has been on my mind lately."

"Oh yeah?"

"Property rights. In particular, intellectual property rights. What is your opinion on them?"

"Complete manure," said Merlin without hesitation.

Riddle blinked. "Truly? Celestia and Luna believe otherwise."

Merlin snorted. "Think about it, lad. Intellectual property goes like this. You come up with an idea. You want that idea to be yours, so you say it's your property. Well now all of a sudden you're putting a restriction on what everybody else in the entire world does with their minds, their thoughts, their property, even people on the other side of the planet who don't know you and came up with the same idea on their own."

"I doubt a person on the other side of the planet who doesn't know me could ever come up with the novel I'm writing." Or drafting, really. It's extremely slow going, especially since he's attempting to write it in a way that 'ordinary' people would be able to follow and enjoy. But it's the first counter example that came to mind. "The statistical likelihood of that is so small as to be practically impossible. The more so if I use the human world as a setting, and somepony in Equestria 'coincidentally' comes up with the same story and names. Or for that matter, the same language."

Merlin nodded slowly, sitting a bit straighter. "Alright, alright. Granted. Books are a good place to take this. They're where I could never stand by my stance without sounding just a tad goofy. But let's go with it anyway, 'cause I still like the challenge. Let's say you write your book, write some copies, and sell it to other ponies. If that book is your 'intellectual property', does that mean no one else can write those exact words onto a blank book in the privacy of their own homes?"

Riddle considered it, then shook his head. "No. It simply means they can't claim to have written it themselves, and they can't sell the copy they've made in such a way that it interferes with my ability to profit from my own book."

Merlin nodded. "That's Celestia's stance, alright. To make the example even more extreme, let's say you submit it to a publisher. The publisher makes up a fake author, fake pen name, the whole nine yards. They publish the book, to heck with you, and pocket the profits. Any reasonable pony would say the submitter's work was stolen by the publisher, and I can't bring myself to say that's a wrong way of looking at it. And in order for the term 'stealing' to apply, that means some kind of property was taken."

"Yet you still think intellectual property does not exist?"

"Correct," said Merlin. "Not in the same way physical property exists, anyway. When I steal your apple, you're down an apple. If I steal your idea, you're not down that idea. You've still got it. You can still use it." He shook his head. "When you claim an idea as your own property, you're saying that literally every other being on the planet isn't allowed to use that idea. And I just can't support the policy of telling other ponies they can't use their own property how they see fit. You shouldn't be able to tell others what they can't think, what they can't write, and what they can't make. That's about as anti-Free Will as you can get."

Riddle considered that as well. "I think the main issue lies in using a false claim for personal gain at the expense of another. I believe that's called fraud, yes?"

"Depends on the field," shrugged Merlin. "Plagiarism in academia, fraud if it involves impersonation, scams in the market, lies in personal relationships, or just plain theft if you really do only have a single physical copy of your book and someone steals it. That last one is easy to call theft because it involves a physical object, and you do kinda lose your ideas in the process, or at least your records of them. But once a story's available to the public…"

"Personally, this kind of complication is part of the reason why I never respected property rights in the first place. It's simpler that way."

Merlin reeled as if slapped. "Ya what?!"

Riddle smiled at the reaction. "I do now. Well, more than I used to. But yes, I've stolen a number of things. I particularly liked to steal from thieves and layabouts. You are familiar with the Goblet of Fire, yes?"

"Used it a few times," Merlin confirmed. "After it was against me that first time. History recorded that too, eh?"

Riddle nodded, then adopted a lecturing cadence. "After your time, the greatest magical school in the world used the Goblet to safely contract Dark Wizards into teaching Battle Magic to children. This truce only ended when a student abused the contract's wording in order to murder a certain Dark Lady. Before then, the truce worked without major incident. For the last few hundred years, the Goblet of Fire oversaw ridiculous international tournaments between schools, in which at most five students would participate. For the last few decades, it sat in a trophy room, jointly owned by various magical governments of the world who could not agree on a use for it."

"Governments owned it?" Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose. "And that's human governments, too. Wonderful. So ya stole it from 'em, eh?"

"Easily."

"You a Dark Wizard or just a budding anarchist?"

"Dark Wizard, upon a time. Not anymore, I think. I am certainly not an anarchist."

"That's a shame," Merlin sighed. "And here I thought you were just a little broken like everybody else. Ya willing to talk about it?"

"If you sign a magical contract-"

"Nope," Merlin cut him off. "Not gonna happen. Nobody's binding this Free Will, thank you very much. No way, no where, no how."

"Then no, I'm not willing to talk about it."

"Fair enough," Merlin shrugged. "Had ta ask."

Riddle thought of something. "Perhaps if you teach me a bit of true magic…"

Merlin laughed. "Not gonna be that easy, kid."

Riddle shrugged. "Had to ask," he parroted. Then, honestly dishonest, he said, "I can't bring myself to feel like I mean it, for I can hardly bring myself to feel gratitude in general, but I should thank you for the conversation."

"You're absolutely welcome," said Merlin. "Why were ya interested in idea ownership the first place, if ya don't mind me askin'?"

"It's come up a few times recently," he said. His ritual ideas, the Stone, Silver's work… "Primarily in the realm of academic plagiarism. A university professor did not wish to grant my student due credit for a major magical discovery and tried to pass it off as his own."

"Pompous ass," Merlin snorted. "A scholar should know better."

"Crass, but correct."

"What discovery?"

"This." Riddle kicked the air behind him with a single hoof, loud enough to make a loud noise and a large breeze, though he remained firmly in place with the Changeling ability to cling to surfaces. "And so on."

Merlin gave a low whistle once the wind died down. "Never seen that one before."

"Neither had the unicorns in the university, though that didn't stop them from trying to pretend they knew about it all along. My student's expectations of their behaviour steered him well clear of the institution."

Merlin sighed. "I don't blame him. They can get like that if they're not kept in check every once in a while."

"You're familiar with them?"

"Tia sends her scholars here from time to time. Helps keep my wits sharp. I always like the looks on their faces when a big, dumb dragon puts their arguments right up where the sun don't shine, 'cuz that's where they came from anyway."

Riddle genuinely laughed at that.

"Had a number of debates about intellectual property in particular," Merlin continued in a musing tone. "They finally nailed me with the book publishing argument a long while back. Don't get me wrong, I've always thought plagiarism is wrong, but the solution is public shame, ridicule, and a loss of trust, not fines or prison or any other legal punishment. Tia was really sure she was right about intellectual property, so she kept sending ponies. I'm pretty sure she personally trained a few of 'em in debate, told 'em all the arguments I've made, and then one day one of 'em finally said something smart. And ever since then, Equestria has officially recognized intellectual property as property."

"You sound bitter about that," Riddle pointed out.

"I'm just a cranky old dragon who doesn't like it when ponies come to him for advice and then do the opposite." Merlin shrugged. "She is right about it to some extent. And it has been good for inventors."

"And government paper pushers," Riddle remarked.

But Merlin shook his head. "Much as I like where yer head's at, no. Tia's programs don't bloat to pointless corruption and bureaucracy like you'd expect. Especially her pet projects. I'll put it this way. I wouldn't trust anybody else to do IP right, but Tia will keep my warnings in mind. She gets hooves-on in the grey areas, and she stays hooves-on 'till she's sure most ponies won't abuse it. And she revisits a policy if she does discover abuse."

"She was personally involved in my student's case," Riddle observed.

"There ya have it. Tia keeps my warnings about overreach in mind when she makes policy, so I'm not that bitter about the whole thing. Just a little bitter." Merlin gave a great yawn. "It's really time fer my nap. Thanks fer keepin' this old geezer company. Yer always welcome back."

Riddle grinned. "Even a few minutes from now?"

"Ehh… yer welcome when I'm awake, ya whippersnapper. Now this place'll be filled with magical smoke in a few, so ya might wanna get outa the cave if ya like yer lungs."

"So long as you're not telling me to get off your lawn," Riddle said on his way out.

"Eh?" said Merlin with a vaguely hand-shaped paw to his ear. "Ah, forget it."

---

He told Luna of the conversation afterwards, and after a bit of digging, she finally found the root cause of his interest in the topic.

"Do you have any truly stolen property from Earth?"

Riddle blinked, then furrowed his eyebrows in thought. "Only one thing comes to mind," he said eventually after a quick process of elimination. Mr. Potter's collection of science books had been bought with his teaching salary, and he'd enchanted all of his magical items himself. He's holding onto Mr. Potter's and Ms. Granger's pouchfuls of property only because they were left behind, and he has every intention of returning everything upon his release, even the Cloak. The Wand he can't return, so he will earn it in the way it has been earned throughout history: by defeating its previous owner. In this case that means cementing his defeat of Dumbledore by escaping the Mirror.

The only thing that isn't his…

He withdrew a vial of blood and a container of hair from his cloak. "I've collected blood and hair samples from a number of individuals. Not enough to make them suspect anything amiss, and their bodies would have replenished what I've taken by now."

She just stared at him for a while.

"What?" she asked at last.

"Need I repeat myself?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She took a deep breath. "Why, then. Why did you do that?"

"Some dark reasons, some positive reasons, some neutral reasons," he said. "Mostly to keep my future plotting options open. But that's all irrelevant now, so I have a large supply lying around. I'm not sure how well your 'slavery' argument applies to this. So long as they haven't been sacrificed to a dark ritual, a single strand of hair and a few drops of blood will naturally be recovered over time, no?"

"You enslaved them for the time and energy it took their bodies to regrow the hair and restore the blood. And yes, that sounds ridiculous, so more importantly you violated their privacy, which is another pillar of modern Equestria."

"But not a pillar of your own moral philosophy," he pointed out. "Given your special talent."

"You'd be surprised."

"I would?" he asked. "You do remember that I'm the one who stopped you from violating the privacy of your own citizens, yes?"

Luna sighed sadly. "Yes. I know. And that was precisely why I knew I should hire you, given time to think. Ever since my fillyhood I've known it is significantly more enjoyable to 'have' morals and ethics and principles than it is to actually live them. Truthfully, the conditions for your employment were the buck in the rear I needed to finally and fully align my moral philosophy about privacy into my practical actions-"

"Yet you still violate the privacy of foals."

"-without abandoning my duties," she finished. She had paused earlier, and so Riddle had assumed she was finished speaking, but apparently not. "The protection of foals from nightmares and the circumstances that cause them shall always outweigh the need for privacy."

"The classic trade of privacy for security," he remarked. After studying the rise of so many lords, muggle and magical alike, he knew that offering security in exchange for privacy, rights, and even property was the second oldest trick in the book for strong leaders rising to power. The oldest trick is genocide of enemies.

"Not quite," Luna pushed back. "Remember that my talent is not the same as public policy. 'Tis more like targeted intervention in the absolute worst cases, so long as I do not fall into the habit of using it far more often than I should. When it comes to exchanging security for privacy... well, in general, the minds of foals who have regular nightmares are violated in much worse ways by the adults around them than my dream-walking could ever hope to reach. They have no privacy in the first place, nor security, which is why I am needed. And foals do not quite have all the rights they shall when they grow older. Few argue that foals must have the right to drink alcohol, and for good reason. But for adults you were completely correct. The right to privacy trumps intervention. It is far too late by then anyway; their minds are fully formed and they are who they are, for good or for ill. As you helpfully pointed out, I should not interfere at that point. Not with my Special Talent, anyway. Unless they give me explicit consent, of course, or Harmony says otherwise."

"So many exceptions," he observed.

"'Tis what happens when the moral meets the practical," she replied. "But we are getting off topic. Or was that a deliberate distraction?"

He shrugged. "Not deliberate. Perhaps subconscious. Is this the part where you tell me I've been a bad pony?"

"I know you are partially joking, but I do try to refrain from the worst of what you would call moralizing. I also try to refrain from telling others what to do, though I will say this much: when a pony acknowledges that they were in the wrong, the typical action required to give their words genuine weight is to offer recompense – enough to satisfy the victims for the violation but not overjoy them, lest victimhood is incentivized."

His first instinct was to object.

His second instinct was to consider.

His third instinct was to laugh.

"Very well," he said. "That could be an enjoyable use of my time."

Luna sighed. "If you are going to do it at all, it will only have meaning if it is done face to face. If you leave gold beneath their pillow and a note saying 'thanks for the blood' or something like that, you will only make it worse. One does not apologize for violating another's privacy by doing it again, which means a direct apology - which if you recall is a promise to not do it again - is necessary."

He was no longer smiling.

"Though I am not sure if that would be the best way to go about it tactically, at least in this case," she added. "Especially if your many identities become known as belonging to you. This is the problem with coming to me after so much wrong has already been done. Not that you could have come any sooner. Again, I am best at prevention, not cure."

As is typical in conversations like this, he was at least gratified that Luna is not stupid despite her morals.

"Now would you mind explaining," Luna continued, "what you meant when you said that the hair and blood could be used for 'dark reasons'?"

After weighing the risks, he decided her intelligence and wisdom has earned her the answer. Her Vow would prevent her from acting in any case.

He explained Polyjuice.

He explained the function, though not the full requirements, of a few dark curses.

He also mentioned that blood is a requirement in two separate resurrection rituals, one of which he can now perform with only blood.

A few seconds later he was in possession of a sample of Luna's blood. Voluntarily, willingly, and even a bit forcefully insisted upon him. And Luna said she shall ask her sister, Twilight, Cadence, and Shining Armor for samples as well.

He accepted Luna's sample, but explained that he could do little with it unless she also has a horcrux.

But didn't he say there were two resurrection rituals for which he could use the blood? Even if one requires a horcrux, shouldn't the other…?

The other resurrection ritual involves blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. Mr. Silver qualified as his prophetic enemy until recently, and might actually still qualify, conditional on his intentions when he escaped. So unless she has the blood of some great and lasting enemy, she shouldn't expect that ritual to work for her.

Supposing she could find such blood…

It also requires bone of the father, unknowingly bequeathed, from the place of first burial, taken during the ritual and not before. Does she know the place where her father was buried? Are his bones still intact after a thousand years?

Yes, in fact. Tradition of that era required preservation spells to be used on corpses. She even took him to her father's grave.

That was when he named the final requirement. Flesh of her most powerful servant – probably himself, in this case, due to his employment contract. And he is unwilling to permanently chop off an arm for her in such a way that even the Stone might not be able to restore. (Though if the Stone can restore blood lost to Fiendfyre, it can likely restore flesh sacrificed for revival.)

With all that in mind, does she want her blood back, given that he can't resurrect her with them, and given what she now knows he could theoretically do with it?

She shook her head, saying she already knew the risks of giving those pieces of herself to him. "But thank you for asking," she said with a smile.

Comments

[keybounce]

He also mentioned that blood is a requirement in two separate resurrection rituals, one of which he can now perform with only blood.

Ok, so ... confusion? If he can perform a resurrection with just blood, why is he saying that it's not enough to just have blood?

[Booster Spice]

I cant remember the Actual most idiotic example of IP claims, but I thought it went something like, in the right country with the right extreme generalised patent laws, that someone tried to patent the lettre E, because noone else had done so already in that coutnry and that patent office, and so they claim rights of First Claim?

A lot of examples came from clicking mouse buttons to select. The forum post I remember was a guy who worked in the courtroom taking in his 1987 very much non PC machine. If the judge knew their computer history, Doug Engleberts Select with click mouse trackball and useage combination chording keyboard is from the 1960s.

Now, Im off working on a cross between neural nets, block chain, and non abelian anyones, to see what the minimum requirements of a self archiving textural object might look like.

[Fireeaters]

Nice chapter

[keybounce]

11590148
I don't know about the letter E, but I do recall hearing about "patenting the wheel", I think it was Australia.

Google, help me ...
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia/

So an Ig Nobel prize was awarded for this.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/07/09/2155206/a-brief-history-of-patenting-the-wheel-what-goes-around-comes-around#:~:text=The%20patent%20office%20had%20awarded,Nobel%20Prize%2C%20in%202001.%22

[The Guy Who Writes]

11590134
The ritual he can do with ‘only’ blood, which we see at the end of HPMoR (“Blood, blood, blood so wisely hidden”) requires a Horcrux and the Stone of Permanence. Luna doesn’t have a Horcrux, even if Riddle was willing to provide his services as the ritualist. The second resurrection ritual he can do with blood as a component (blood of enemy, flesh of servant, bone of father) doesn’t require the person-to-be-resurrected’s blood, it requires the enemy’s blood. In either case, Luna’s blood alone isn’t sufficient to revive her, and the same is true for anybody aside from Riddle himself.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

11597257
Many years ago over on Poniverse
"....the stars will aid in her escape &
she will bring about nighttime eternal. "

OK assume that Luna has several titles including some poetic but meaningless ones like "the eternal night" (Nox Aeterna could be translated several ways, perhaps).
1) Look at Twilight's Cutie Mark
2) Remember that a great many "hers" escaped -including Luna (and Mayor Mare).
3) then the "she" obviously refers to Twilght & the prophecy is 100% accurate.

[Black--Soul]

Another nice chapter, though it's philosophy is everywhere