Friendship One

by BRBrony9

Aftermath

Celestia's message had ended with a fade to a pale blue screen and a rousing blast of the Equestrian national anthem, Sun And Moon United. In the streets of Equestria, ponies stood in confusion, exchanging deep and knowing glances with complete strangers they had never met before and might never meet again. There was no doubt in the minds of the vast majority of listeners that Celestia spoke the truth- she was their Princess, their protector and their leader, the Sun Goddess they worshipped. She would not lie to them. She would not twist the truth or conceal things from them. She would not have- had not- sugarcoated the reality, however grim it may be, but she would help her subjects accept the future with peace and calm.

This was bad. Very, very bad. But the Princess, it seemed, had a plan. That gave some comfort to the trembling masses who now knew they were faced with their own mortality in a very direct way. Their planet had an expiry date, and so did each of them. Provided they lived long enough, they would die in fire in five years time.

Not everybody listening had the same deep respect for the Princess, however. To the Griffon King, it was just further evidence that Celestia had gone insane, and for whatever reason, her sister and her ministers were going along with it. Something not entirely dissimilar had happened in Griffon history once, long ago. An ancient King, Garland the Great, suffering from dementia or some similar disease, had given increasingly outlandish orders to his generals and ministers- build this enormous wall protecting the kingdom from nothing, arrest that maid because she uttered the name of my predecessor, burn down the town of Griffonham because they were infested with giant worms that only the King could see- as a kind of sad litany that illustrated his decline. By the end, everybody around him was just nodding and carrying out the orders he gave only when he was there to witness them in person. Pretending that the other things he commanded had been done. Too afraid to overthrow him, yet too loyal to tell the King of his own failing faculties. Even his son, the princeling who was to take the throne after Garland, could not summon the courage to tell his father the truth. Eventually, Garland ordered his own son executed in a blind, paranoiac delusion, convinced of an imaginary plot against him. Only then did the plot become reality, as his son and his generals finally did the mad King a favour and put him out of his misery.

The parallels, so far as King Grissom were concerned, were obvious. Celestia, never his favourite creature in any case, had succumbed to the arrogance which was in her nature- the nature of all ponies, in truth- and believed herself to be some kind of saviour figure to the entire world. She delusionally claimed to be able to predict the end of the world through some event that, conveniently, only she could sense, only she could know of. Her delusions, according to his intelligence officers, had now taken physical form in the shape of this huge orbital craft she was forcing her minions to construct. Grissom had laughed when he had heard her speech, reminded not just of old King Garland, but again of the cautionary pony tale of the unicorn wizard and his tower. Hurling himself from it, convinced he would fly- a conviction at first shared by the slaves who had toiled to build the tower- only to be met by the realities of physics. Only then did the scales fall from the eyes of his slaves as they realised they had wasted their lives labouring to build the pointless, hubristic edifice. The same, Grissom was sure, would happen with Celestia's spaceship.

As evening gave way to night, police and Royal Guard forces prepared for civil unrest, riots, looting, panic buying in stores. Hospitals were ordered to brace for an influx of patients, either from the riots or from a sudden epidemic of attempted suicides. But none of that happened. Not yet, at least. The night was quiet, still, solemn. Squads of riot cops stood around in the parking lots of their stations, waiting for orders that never came. There were no riots. On another day, perhaps there would be. But not tonight. Tonight, Equestria was a nation in mourning for a future that would never come.

Celestia and Luna stood together on the high balcony of the palace, overlooking Canterlot, its gently twinkling lights an artificial parallel of the heavens that watched over the city from above. Distant stars, thousands or millions of lightyears away, a window into the distant past. Light emitted from some of them before Equis had even formed from the primordial clouds of dust and gas was only now reaching the planet, such were the distances involved. Anything farther from them than the estimated age of the universe- about 14 billion years, thus 14 billion light years- could never be observed, for the simple fact that the light from such stars had not yet had time to reach Equis. Only Celestia could know anything of stellar objects so distant.

Luna rested her head upon her sister's shoulder as the city silently wept below them. Her sister's speech had been perfectly weighted and measured, her delivery impeccable. That might, at least, have soothed a few nerves amongst her audience. The storm of questions hurled at her by panicked reporters at the end of her speech would not have.

Your Highness, are we all going to die?

What chance do you think we have, Your Highness?

Your Highness, what about the line of succession?

Your Highness, is there any hope?

None of the questions had easy answers. Some of them had no answer at all, and so the Princess had declined to comment further, the reporters being ushered out of the room by Royal Guard. More information, they were told, would follow. There would be technical briefings by the scientists on the nature of the gamma ray burst threat, on Friendship One, on the statistical probabilities involved. There would be briefings by the military on the bunker programme, on crew selection for the colony ship, on maintaining order and civil protection functions. There would, no doubt, be more speeches and press conferences by the Princess herself. But no amount of talking could disguise what she had just told every creature on the planet. Barring a miracle, they were all likely to be dead in five years' time.

The riots came later, the following year. Oddly enough, and unusually for riots, they occurred in late autumn, rather than the height of summer. They were triggered by a spike in gasoline prices. The Griffons, controllers of a large amount of the oil supply, were tired of Equestria guzzling up most of their surplus. Celestia had ordered stockpiles of gasoline to be established in case of future disruption- caused by war, supply chain failure, or indeed the gamma ray burst, should any kind of functioning civilization survive- and the national and military reserves had been heavily bolstered. Now, however, with the Griffons jacking up the price to extortionate levels, the price for ponies wanting to fill their tanks was reaching almost comical levels. The Griffons were having a great time of the end of the world, making hay while the sun shone and practically extorting the Equestrians who seemed so desperate to buy up their oil.

Let them panic, was the official directive from King Grissom. Let them panic, and let us benefit.

Griffonia maintained a position that they would simply allow the ponies to continued in their mass delusion. The world was not ending in five years, but if Equestria wanted to believe that it was, Griffonia, biding its time, would sweep in and seize whatever remained of their old foe. The foundations of the pony nation were already creaking- why wouldn't they? If everypony believed they were to die in five years, why should anypony bother turning up for work? Why should anypony bother paying their mortgages? Why not just kick back in the sun with a cold glass of something and enjoy your last few years, or else go nuts and do the things you've always dreamed of doing.

For some ponies, it seemed, one of those things was to take part in a real, honest-to-Celestia riot, for the numbers who turned out were quite astonishing. It started in Manehattan, a city notorious for having few enough gas stations at the best of times, a precious commodity for those who- despite impending doom- still had to work to make ends meet. As the queues grew at one particular station, and the price began to, quite literally, rise before the very eyes of those waiting in line in their cars, somepony broke a window, climbed through, shouting and swearing at the clerk inside. He hit the panic button as two more ponies climbed through the window, scooping up armfuls of candy bars and snacks without paying. Ponies at the pumps began to simply drive away once it became clear the staff were busy with the intruders. Several ponies ran into the street, shouting and pointing.

Free gas over here!

Somepony made a sign with a bit of discarded cardboard, holding it up. Free gas, then an arrow. Cars began to pull in from left and right, descending like a swarm of Parasprites on the gas station. Among them were two police cars, drawn in by a radio report of an armed robbery in progress. When they tried to restore order, the officers were set upon, trash and bricks hurled at them as some ponies tried to keep the flow of free gas coming, directing cars to the pumps as though they were cops directing traffic. One officer was run over, one of her hind legs crushed by the wheels of a heavy van. Backup was called, backup arrived. At some point somewhere, shots were fired. A blast of magic demolished half of the station canopy, bringing it tumbling down upon the pumps and the desperate gas-thieves.

Some ponies decided not to limit it to just gas, and looted a nearby clothing store. Might as well look fine and fancy at the end of days, they reasoned. The looting spread, first through the street, then through the neighbourhood, then the city, and then all of Equestria. Ponies suddenly decided it would be nice to bask in the luxury of a new stolen sports car or widescreen tv or fashionable hoofbag in the time they had left, and who was going to bother going around tracking each rioter down after it was done?

By the end of the week, when the police and army had restored order, two cops, eighteen civilians, and thirty rioters were dead, thousands had been arrested, and several billion bits-worth of damage had been caused. It was, perhaps, an inevitability. Ponies reacted differently to bad news and hardship, but in the face of impending disaster, some commentators had tried to play it off as simply 'letting off steam,' like it was a giant end-of-the-world party instead of an orgy of violence and thievery.

Celestia had a different view. In a public announcement, she declared that anypony charged with rioting from now on would serve a minimum of four years in prison- in other words, a life sentence. That, perhaps unsurprisingly, cooled things down rather rapidly. No hoofbag was worth life in prison and a chance to die screaming as fire and radiation consumed your cell. Rioters and looters quickly faded away from the streets, patrolled now by teams of baton and stun magic-wielding cops and squads of grim-faced soldiers in full combat gear. Order returned, though the gasoline prices continued to rise. The supply was rationed from then on, reserved first of all for the military, police and government agencies. Gasoline, however, was not the only thing running out.

Time was running out, too.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

So much effort when they could be turning the crops into ethanol, then drinking the fuel instead?