Anno Equestria: A Brief History of the Pony Nation

by Insert Pen Name

New Canterlot

Anno Equestria
A Brief History of the Pony Nation
A FiM fic by (Insert Pen Name)

New Canterlot
AE1010-1300

The Nightmare Moon Crisis marked the end of an age for Equestria. The loss of both Canterlot and Princess Luna shook the nation, and for many months Equestria must have seemed on the brink of collapse. More than ever now, the ponies of Equestria found themselves relying on the strength and vision of their Princess to guide them through the proverbial darkness.

Two days after the end of the Crisis, Princess Celestia gathered those refugees who had not yet fled the area, and led them to a sheltered glen at the base of the Canterhorn. A refugee camp was soon erected, and at dusk the Princess stood before her tired subjects and announced her intent to found a new capital that would forever stand as a beacon for all Equestria. The Princess's proclamation was met with no small amount of skepticism, and over the next few days, hundreds of ponies quietly packed up and set out in search of greener pastures. Those that remained, however, immediately set about preparing the camp for the long term.

While the refugees worked, Princess Celestia quietly gathered to herself a small band of able-bodied ponies and led them up the Canterhorn to a large plateau that jutted out from the mountainside (allegedly the same place where Celestia and Luna had fought Discord centuries before). There, the Princess searched about with her magic until she suddenly stopped and ordered her followers to start digging. Soon after, they struck groundwater. By nightfall, the well had been dug out and lined, and the founding of New Canterlot was declared.

For many weeks afterwards, architects, artisans, and tradesponies of all kinds flocked to the Canterhorn. A plan was finalised within the first month, and construction proper began less than a week after. Princess Celestia herself actively participated in the construction effort. Much of the city’s architecture is attributed to her input and design, and popular legend describes the Princess hoisting loads of stone and mortar to gleeful crews. Such an ambitious project did present difficulties, however. The plateau upon which the city was situated sat atop a near-unbroken stretch of sheer cliff, which made transportation between the city and the plains below exceedingly difficult. It took months to widen and level the mountain trail into a usable roadway, and even then, access to the city was strictly from the north side of the mountain. Trade caravans might have found the way discouraging, but a stroke of good fortune had provided the city with a very desirable resource: gemstones.

In the summer of AE1011, work crews excavating foundations for the planned Royal Palace uncovered a network of caverns leading down into the mountain. Survey crews sent in to explore discovered enormous gemstone deposits throughout the cave, and within days, miners were hauling up loads of garnets and amethysts, even as construction on the Palace continued up above. Canterlot gems quickly became the talk of Equestria, and Princess Celestia took full advantage of this to boost her coffers and build her city in luxurious fashion. Bronze and marble became the mainstays of Canterlot architecture, and the mountain road was frequently packed with the heavy-laden trade carts.

New Canterlot was officially completed in AE1018, after seven years of construction. Princess Celestia’s first act was to convene Pony Parliament amidst a massive celebration in the city’s upper district. In doing so, Celestia clearly sought to shift power back to the democratic body, and ease what had surely become a burdensome workload for herself. Unfortunately, Equestria had, if anything, become even more reliant on the righteous will and energy of its lone Princess, and Parliament made no effort to return to its former dynamism.

Starting in early AE1011, Princess Celestia ordered numerous salvage operations to Old Canterlot to recover the city’s reserves of silver and gold bullion, as well as a number of important documents and records. The libraries of Canterlot Abbey and the city’s colleges were recovered almost in their entirety, but the royal castle was left severely alone. As the years passed, Old Canterlot was engulfed more and more by the Everfree Forest, which seemed to double its pace in the wake of the city’s abandonment. By AE1029, most of the city’s important items had been relocated to New Canterlot, and official salvage missions ceased, though private treasure hunters continued to comb the ruins long after. The earthquake of 1289, though only slightly damaging in New Canterlot, finally leveled the remains of the city. Today, Old Canterlot lies deep within the Everfree Forest, and even then, little remains to be seen.

Eventually, New Canterlot eventually came to be known simply as Canterlot, and the old city was almost completely forgotten. In fact, all of Equestria seemed to undergo a minor period of historical amnesia. As stated in the previous chapter, Princess Luna was eventually stricken from the records and forgotten, and Princess Celestia came to be regarded as the one true ruler of Equestria. This trend eventually culminated in the founding of the modern Summer Sun Celebration in AE1279. While the celebration of the summer solstice had long been a joyous tradition among ponies, it was now extravagantly elevated from a traditional festival to a massive state holiday. By all accounts, the first Summer Sun Celebration was a huge success, except in Manehatten, where it triggered a rather excessive response from the local populace.*

While Princess Celestia in no way encouraged her rising reputation, she spared no effort in living up to it. Taking after her sister, Celestia became a great patron of the arts, and under her encouragement, Canterlot returned to the artistic splendour of its predecessor. More important to posterity were Celestia’s numerous revisions to the antiquated Codex Equestria, the legal code of the pony nation. Among Celestia’s reforms were the guaranteed right of all ponies to legal trial by jury and an impartial judge, and the removal of certain laws against unwed couples and same-sex unions. Celestia also reformed electoral law to extend the vote to all landed ponies.** Most important however, was her promulgation of the Great Charter in AE1215. The Charter stated, in no uncertain terms, that nopony was above the law, including the Princess***, an unprecedented move by a monarch so beloved by her subjects.

Canterlot continued to grow well into the fourteenth century. The proliferation of the standard gold bit in the late 1200s ensured that Canterlot was the centre of wealth and fiscal power in Equestria, even as the gemstone mines were eventually depleted and closed up. Wealth flowed freely throughout the city, and even the poorest did not want for much. However, as we shall soon see, it would the nobility who gained the most from the prosperity of New Canterlot.

* The resulting Burning of Manehatten has since become a Summer Sun tradition for Manehatten, although today, the city is burned in effigy instead.

** This did not include spouses and tenants, however. As such, the female majority continued to dominate the electoral process until AE1917, when the Electoral Act granted the vote to all ponies of legal age.

*** The Great Charter did not, however, overturn the Constitutional statement that the Princess is the law. This has led to some rather ironic legal interpretations over the centuries.

Comments

[BenRG]

I can imagine that given Celstia's somewhat... peculiar... sense of humour, being the living avatar of the law probably has led to some very, very strange decrees when the whim (or sufficient irritation at some unfortunate pony) has provoked her.

So... I suspect that poor Discord had been sitting there, alone, for a millennia and must have been quite surprised when Celly and her followers arrived and promptly planted an ornamental garden with him as its centrepiece. He probably wasn't sure whether to be insulted or flattered at being singled out in such a way.