The Sun Rises, The Sun Never Sets

by BRBrony9

Sense Of Self

Twilight blinked away some of the tears. "What the hell are you talking about? Shiny...you just heard what she said! You just repeated it yourself! She sentenced me to death!"

"Or did she?" Shining chuckled. "I'll say it again. What would you say if I told you Princess Celestia was dead?"

"I'd say you're a babbling fool, Shiny!" Twilight sighed, still trembling with fear from Celestia's words. "Why are you doing this? Just...take me and shoot me if that's what she wants."

"A fool? A fool I may be, perhaps, but that does not mean I am a liar," he wiped away her tears with his hand, making her snatch herself away from him by instinct, lest he slap her again. "The Princess is dead, Twilight."

"Don't be ridiculous! She was here! You saw her," Twilight spat. "Stop playing these madpony's games with me, Shiny! Please..."

"No games, Twilight. Just the truth." Shining patted her on the shoulder again. There was another sharp stab in her neck as Shining injected her with something. She still didn't know what they kept giving her. Maybe some kind of sedative...though she still felt alert, and her mind was febrile with thoughts of death and fear.

"How can it be the truth? The Princess is not dead! She cannot die! The Sun Never Sets!"

"She cannot be killed by mortal means, no. Age cannot wither her, nor bullets pierce her. No fire can touch her."

"But she just said...the nuclear weapons, she said..."

"Yes, Twilight. Yes, she did seem to say that. But Twilight, she was not certain, was she? After all, nuclear weapons had not been invented hundreds of years ago."

"But they have been now...so...Shiny, I don't understand..."

"Nothing we make could harm her, Twilight," Shining explained. "No guns, no bombs, no lasers, nothing like that. But magic? Oh, magic is something very different indeed. Magic, powerful enough, can destroy anything. Including the Sun."

"But...nopony has magic like that!" Twilight shouted. "How, Shiny, how, how? What are you talking about? She's alive!"

"No, Twilight. Luna killed her."

"But...no! There's no way..." Twilight shook her head vehemently. "That's impossible. She was just here! How can she be dead? Luna...Luna lost the war!"

"She did. But she killed Celestia first," Shining replied. "They killed each other in that battle, Twilight. In the palace. If I could be allowed to take you there, I could show you the exact spot where each of them died. I can't, of course. No ordinaries allowed inside the palace, even unicorns. Did you know there's not actually anything in there anyway? Of course you didn't. It's a sham, Twilight. An empty shell, a facade for the city. Canterlot sleeps under the watchful eye of the palace and the benevolent Sun who dwells within its walls. Except nopony lives there. Nopony has lived there for a long, long time."

"What are you saying...?" Twilight blinked repeatedly, her eyes still red from her tears. "How could they have killed each other? Celestia was here...she was right here, Shiny..."

"Was she?" Shining asked. "Are you certain?"

"Of course I'm fucking certain!" Twilight shouted, profaning the silent vault of the interrogation room. Why not? We've already spoken all of the blasphemous words aloud here. Might as well swear, too.

"No, Twilight. You think. You believe. But you do not know," Shining retorted sharply. "Just like everything else you have ever believed."

"She was standing right there!" Twilight wailed. "You saw her, you talked to her, you..."

"I did not talk to her, Twilight. Cast your mind back, think. Did you see me interact with her? No," Shining replied. "I bowed my head to an invisible goddess that only you could see, and then I was gone. Twilight, you're confused. I see you, sinking back into the pit of questions from whence you came. But you don't need to be confused. You have all the answers now, don't you? You know so much more than all your friends. So much more than everypony out there in the streets..." He knelt before her once more. "You've learned all those things you wished to learn, all those things you were not meant to know. Do you feel any more enlightened for it? Do you feel...better? Or do you wish you could just go back to a time when you were happy in your ignorance?"

"I don't know!" she cried. "I don't understand anything anymore!" She strained at her cuffs, tugged at the chains that bound her. "Let me go, Shiny, please! Let me go, let me go...please...let me go..." She slumped forward and found his warm embrace greeting her, holding her tightly and close to his chest, like when they were foals, so long ago, back when everything was simple.

"It's alright Twilight. It's alright. It won't be long until you're free, I promise," he whispered. "Not long."

She sobbed into his jacket, letting her emotions run free and wild, all the grief from Rarity's death, the confusion, the fear and anger and disbelief, all pouring out in salty rivers, soaking into the fabric. At least for a moment, here was the brother she once knew, here to comfort her again, like he used to. Always used to. Always.

Then all at once it was over, and she was dragged back to the present. He pushed her away, stood. "You are still confused, aren't you?" he chided. "A confused pony is not good, because a confused pony can ask awkward questions. Don't you think you've asked enough by now, Twilight? Don't you think you should go back to being calm and rational, and understanding your place?"

"But I don't understand that anymore," Twilight snuffled. "I don't understand...what is real and what isn't."

"It's simple, Twilight," Shining replied. "Luna killed Celestia, and Celestia killed Luna. The followers of the Sun were stronger, and they won the war. It was the collective decision of the leaders of the new government to perpetuate the myth that Celestia lived, for they feared another uprising or a war with other powers. If the Griffons or the Zebras had learned of her death, they would have seen a prime opportunity to invade. Followers of the Moon might have tried to install their own leaders, rebel against the weak government since they no longer had the might of the Sun herself backing them. No, it had to be kept quiet. The facade was erected to shield ponies from the truth. That their goddesses, both of them, were no longer with them. One was a traitor, banished forever from history. The other died a hero, to save her followers and the whole world from eternal night."

"But her voice...the vid-recordings, the speeches..." Twilight blinked away her slowly drying tears. "She is everywhere..."

"And nowhere," Shining clasped his hands firmly together. "How would anypony today know the difference? She died centuries ago, Twilight. No creature alive today ever met her. Do you know anypony who has met her in the flesh? Of course you don't. You know her through her deeds, through her words. You know her through her portraits and the synth-voice recordings. It's quite amazing what computer graphics can do these days. So real...any artifacts around the image or blurred edges, well, flaws in the viewscreen. Interference, technical problems with the network. Easily explainable."

"So...you're telling me she's just a...a simulacrum?" Twilight asked, disbelievingly. "A manufactured entity? She's truly...not here?"

"She is not manufactured," Shining retorted. "She is very much real, Twilight. Very much real. Though she may be dead, she is still our goddess, our leader, our Glorious Sun. Her will must be obeyed, and you, despite your obstinacy, know this."

"But you don't know what her will is if she's dead!" Twilight cried.

"Her will was always for her subjects to be happy, safe, secure. For Equestria to be prosperous. Is that not what we have achieved?" her brother asked.

"Maybe...but why not just tell ponies the truth from the start? Why not raise them to know and understand instead of...of...twisting their souls to believe what you want them to believe?" she demanded. "You don't let them live. It's not natural for them to be fed a falsehood from before they're even born!"

"Not natural..." Shining chuckled. "Of course it's natural. In every society, at every point in history, ponies, Zebras, Changelings, whoever you wish to cite as an example, have been indoctrinated in their culture from the moment of their birth. Zebras shamans would wave bones over the foal to ward off curses, Griffons would gift each child with colourful stitched blankets, unicorns of old would bring the child to a window and let them see a magic flash-firework bursting in the sky above to signal their birth. All of those things were indoctrinating the foal into a specific culture. This is no different. Besides, if we did not do this, we would not achieve Celestia's dream. We would not have a safe, happy and prosperous Equestria. We would have the same old division, the same conflict between species, the same friction, the same anger and hatred and violence as we had in the past. Why? Because we would lack the guiding hand of the Glorious Sun, for she is the only thing that unites us all. The only similarity we all possess. Belief in the Sun, Twilight. That is all that holds us together."

"It sounds like you've made all of Equestria live a lie..." Twilight replied, looking up at him.

"Perhaps we have. But is it immoral to lie to shield somepony from a greater harm?" Shining smiled. "If somepony was about to hang themselves in despair, would you lie to save them? Tell them their life had great value, even if it did not?"

"I...I'm not the one in charge of a country!" Twilight responded. "It's not my job to..."

"it's not your job to ask questions, either, yet you did."

"Yes, but..."

"But nothing, Twilight!" Shining snapped. "Equestria has prospered behind its shield of comforting lies, has it not? You need only look around when you are next outside. You will see it. Skyscrapers of glass and steel, clean energy, endless water and food, bountiful harvests, entertainment of all kinds at your fingertips. If all that is not enough for you, the blissful escape of a joy-pill or two, to let you take a mental break high in the clouds. Ponies are happy, Twilight. There is peace, there is plenty. What more could anypony want, Twilight? If it took a lie to maintain that dream, or to build it in the first place, would you dare be the one to turn their dreams into nightmares?"

Twilight knew he spoke total sense. No...she thought he did. Only thought it, and only then because that was what she had been raised to believe. But now that she knew what lay behind the curtain...did that really change her mind? Or did she still feel the same way as she always had?

No, it's just the conditioning! They wanted me to think this way!

I've always thought this way...because I've been forced to think this way!

Twilight had always wanted to make a difference, though through science and not through revolution. This could be her chance, if she could only escape somehow, or be freed...change ponies' minds! Tell them the truth! Their Princess was dead, it was all a lie! She could be a hero to the masses, the one who broke through the fourth wall of this false reality and grabbed the audience by the scruff of the neck, screaming at them, shaking them from their illusion.

It's a lie! She's dead! They make you love her! They make you all love each other! Listen to me, I know the truth now! I have seen the light, and the light no longer comes from the Sun!

But she couldn't. She wouldn't. Even if Shining released her from her bonds and sent her home right now, she could not. He was right. This truth, this disturbing, concerning, painful truth? It was not the answer.

These ponies were happy. Everypony was happy. They were forced to be happy, unconsciously; they did not know why, and they did not know the reality of it all. They did not know about the Princess, yet they lent their unthinking obedience and love to a goddess whose dusty bones lay in some unmarked, unknown grave, buried long ago but kept alive in a collective mental life-support machine, hundreds of millions of ponies all lending their souls to power it. Keeping her name circulating like blood, keeping her voice and her words filling the air like breath, keeping her truth and her teachings burning like synapses in the brain, and she in turn lent them strength, wisdom, determination, courage. All the virtues she embodied in life, and now embraced in death.

Her body may have been cold in the ground, but her spirit flared brighter than ever, through the vision that her followers had achieved despite her absence. Equestria was safe, happy, prosperous. That was what she wanted for her subjects. That was what they had done, in her holy name. If it took a lie, a monumental lie, to keep that truth intact, it was worth it. It had to be. The alternative was the brief light of understanding and knowledge, followed by a long, cold darkness as everything began to fall apart, unravel. If the truth came out, there would be riots, uprisings, probably a civil war. Earth Ponies and Pegasi, who made up the bulk of the armed forces and police, would soon come to resent their apparent domination by the Unicorn elite if their mental conditioning was broken. The Degenerate Races would quickly have the blinkers removed from their eyes to witness their own oppression at the hands of ponykind. Even if some of the army remained loyal, pulling units from the borders with the Degenerate Zones would open up the possibility, unthinkable for generations, of an outside invasion, perhaps by Changelings or Dragons, however many of those there were left alive out there. And the examples Shining had used, of power grid failure or nuclear attack from orbit, well, it was hardly outside of the realms of possibility that they could come to pass too. Anger and resentment, especially against something that had once given you deep and everlasting comfort, were powerful emotions. Happiness, however artificial a construct it might have been, was the only thing keeping the whole shaky, creaking edifice of Equestria from collapsing. Twilight could see that now. In fact, it was the clearest thing in her mind, singing out like a clarion call. Now she understood. Now she understood.

"No," Twilight said, at long last, her single word echoing around the small chamber like a gunshot.

"No, I couldn't do that."

"Good girl," Shining smiled. "Now you see. Imagine living with that burden every day. Knowing you could reveal the truth, even by accident, and destroy everything. Now imagine somepony coming across that truth by mistake. Unburned letters, perhaps. A lost drawing, a scribbled note. Imagine. Now you know why we have to act the way we do, Twilight. Now you know why we have you here, chained up to that chair."

Twilight nodded slowly. "I understand, Shiny..."

"It does not matter which truth or which lie you believe, so long as you believe in the Sun, and only the Sun. That is the only constant we have in life, the only reality, Twilight. The Sun controls us, shapes us, guides us. Some ponies are raised to believe the truth, others are raised to believe a lie, because that is the way things must be done, but so long as you follow and trust in the Sun, which version of that reality you believe in does not matter. Do you understand that, too?" he asked.

"Yes..." she nodded again.

"Then we are done here," he replied. "I shall see you again in three days."

"Why? What happens then?" Twilight asked. Her brother's reply turned her blood to ice once more.

"In three days? Your execution."

"What...? But...but she...the Princess...she's not real, you said! She can't..."

"She didn't," Shining explained. "The State ordered it, Twilight, and the ASU signed it. For the crimes of heresy and treason."

"But Shiny! No...y-you said only the Sun can sign an order of...of...e-execution..."

"That is true," he replied. "In the Sun's name, Twilight, the order must be signed, and with no Princess, it must be signed by the State instead." He produced a scroll from his jacket's breast pocket, the corner of the document stained from Twilight's tears where they had soaked through the fabric. "Would you like to read it?"

"Shiny...!" Twilight began to shake with fear again. "Please...t-tear it up...!"

"Oh, I can hardly do that now, can I? It hasn't even been signed yet. See?" He showed her the document, complete with royal seal. There was an empty space at the bottom for a signature.

"No, no, no...let me go!" she screamed. "Let me go, Shiny! Please! Tear it up! You said only the Sun can sign it! Only the Sun can order it!"

Shining produced a pen from another pocket and began to scribble his name at the bottom of the scroll.

"For this brief moment, Twilight? I am the Sun."

He stepped out of the room, and the door slammed shut behind him.

Comments

[TheCommunistDog]

So that's why the world went to hell.

[Mister Morden]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions... if you could even call the winners of that civil war as having 'good' intentions.

And now... well, I don't expect Twilight to be executed. It might still happen. But I expect her to be given a choice to 'redeem' herself.

[Frazikar]

Welcome to paranoia, where they are out to get you ...

[RTStephens]

11205936
I think you're right. I think her execution is all just a way to work her up for something else. Perhaps the "execution" is the official word to the masses, but what will really happen is that she's recruited by the ASU. The public will think she's dead but she'll be working behind the scenes like Shining does. Why else would they go to these lengths and reveal so much just to kill her?

[BirdsBooksBrownies]

I foolishly let myself hope that this "revelation" would be that Shining while a law-abiding citizen by all appearances, really had the best interests of Twilight at heart. That maybe, just maybe, he'd whisper in her ear a secret plan to I don't know...bring the Sun back, or maybe a secret escape, but no, he's looked to the sun and is now blind as are all in this twisted mockery of Equestria. Celestia wanted peace for certes, but to what cost? I argue that the cost is one of free-will. While it is true that this isn't exactly your standard beat-em-up police state that brutalizes compliance, The State has a definite stranglehold on the minds, the spirits of the populace. Anyone who even THINKS about questioning the status quo is taken care of with extreme zeal be it "re-education" or worse. While it is also true that old Equestria wasn't without problems, and things that should be good like freedom of speech could be abused and misused, Celestia wanted her subjects to love and learn and grow because they chose to, because they wanted to, not because of a government-sanctioned "hallucination" saying so.

She would be saddened and sickened by those who purport to be her most fervent supporters, a cult that through pretty images and drugs keeps the "lesser beings" in their rightful place. Is this really any different that the Unicorn Kingdom of yore? The earth ponies and non-ponies get the drudge work, the Pegasi are but a small flap above with careers in sports, military, maybe some middle manufacturing/businesses, and ONLY the Unicorns get the biggest jobs, the fanciest houses, the best restaurants, the best medicine, et cetera ad infinitum.

[TasermonsPartner]

You need only look around when you are next outside. You will see it. Skyscrapers of glass and steel, clean energy, endless water and food, bountiful harvests, entertainment of all kinds at your fingertips.

This part here, assuming it's not a typo, would indicate that Shining does intend to let Twilight go somehow or for some reason.

[Nuramor]

So, who or what did Twilight see when she talked to to Celestia?

[spoonlol]

Sooo, is shining being a good brother an signing something that will make it seem like an exactions but she instead gets a new life…. Or is he truly this heartless bastard that will kill his sister In the sun’s name. At this point it could go either way