7. Back in Ponyville
Making clouds the old-fashioned way was something that was still done in many smaller townships throughout Equestria, mostly the communities that didn’t center on farming. Ponyville did center on farming, however, and further was not small by any means, with the full expanse of the town and its environs taking up more than a sixth of the entire North Everfree province. Raindrops, and indeed the entire weather patrol, had been clocking a lot of overtime as a result of the need to make clouds without the benefit of Cloudsdale’s weather factory, and that was even with more a than a third of the town’s non-weather patrol pegasi volunteering to help.
It was a four-stage process being conducted at the Ponyville highland reservoir, which lay near the train tracks that connected Ponyville to the outside world. First, a team of pegasi would dive down into the reservoir, soaking themselves thoroughly before shooting hundreds of feet into the air. Their natural magic would seep from their feathers and hooves into the water droplets before they cascaded off of the pegasi. A second team waited below, flying in circles and beating their wings, sending the falling water droplets upwards whenever they tried to fall, until eventually the droplets dissolved into magic-charged vapor fog that would rise towards the sky. This vapor was collected by a third team of pegasi floating a thousand feet in the air, who used their hooves and wings to condense the fog into cumulus clouds, before passing them off to the final team of pegasi, who would cart the clouds off to the cloud silo in town, there to be stored until needed.
It was long, slow, trying job making even a single decently-sized cloud, let alone the hundreds the silo needed to be filled. The vapor-maker job was undoubtedly the worst, though, as it required constant flying, often upside-down in order to create the updrafts necessary to buoy the droplets as they fell from the diving team. It was also inefficient, as hundreds of drops of water would fall back into the reservoir anyway for every one that was successfully transformed into vapor. Raindrops – a vapor-maker along with most of the actual weather-patrol, leaving the easier jobs of diver and sculptor to the inexperienced volunteers – estimated that they were only making one cumulus cloud per hour, at best, and that was with dozens of pegasi working on diving, vapor-making, and cloud-sculpting each. Some part of Raindrops felt a sense of tribal pride stirring at doing things the old-fashioned way alongside her fellow pegasi, but for the most part she was just tired and really hoping that a goodly portion of what little emergency funds the town had would be used to acquire new clouds from Cloudsdale, the weather factory there able to churn out a half-dozen clouds in the same time with not nearly as much effort expended.
The whistle of a train coming in from Canterlot, the four-thirty, at last made a just-as-tired-looking Rainbow Dash – who had been moving between all three jobs, filling in where she was needed – call it a day for the weather patrol and volunteers. Almost as one, the pegasi let themselves fall to the ground, some – including Raindrops – going as far as to actually dive into the reservoir itself to cool off. By the time Raindrops emerged, setting down on the side of the reservoir, the train was steaming on by the reservoir. It looked surprisingly full – Ponyville hadn’t been visited very often over the past week, for the obvious reasons. This train, however, was literally crawling with ponies, several of them in uniforms standing atop an armored cart in the middle of the train, wearing official-looking uniforms and with sheathed but obvious weapons, mostly short truncheons, though there were also crossbows.
Raindrops frowned deeply at the sight – what now? What could possibly be happening to Ponyville now? Despite her aching wings, she took to the sky, along with many of the other pegasi, and followed the train from the reservoir into town, keeping a respectful distance from the armored car lest the guards with crossbows decide they might be needed. By the time the train pulled into the station, several pegasi had broken off from the team to spread the word, though as Raindrops alighted atop the train platform she found herself joined by a small crowd of other ponies that had seen the cloud of pegasi following the train into town and wanted to know what was going on.
As soon as the train came to a complete stop, the car immediately in front of the armored one opened, and Trixie – bedecked in her hat and cape, of course – trotted out. She waved to her friend, but took a few moments to say something in a low voice to the armored car’s guards before heading over to her. “I’m back,” Trixie announced, loudly so that the small crowd of ponies who had gathered at the train station, and the pegasi who were still in the air, could hear.
“You’ve brought friends,” Raindrops noted, eyeing the guards. They didn’t notice, working on undoing the locks of the armored car. “They look…unfriendly.”
Trixie’s smile widened a little. “Don’t worry, they’re just here to protect what’s in the car.”
“Why? What’s in there?”
Trixie’s smile grew several inches at that, as though Raindrops had asked just the right question, and the unicorn flourished one hoof. As if on cue – or, in all likelihood given that Trixie had been talking in hushed tones with the guards ahead of time, precisely on cue – two of the guards unclasped the door to the armored train cart and opened it, revealing several long, secure chests, each stamped with the seal of the Royal Bank of Equestria and the REMM.
Trixie’s smile grew even wider as one of the chests was brought out by ponies inside the car, who unlocked it with four different keys and opened it to reveal inside large, neat stacks of coins. “My dear Raindrops,” Trixie said, still loud enough so that everypony in the crowd could hear her, “one does not transport three hundred thousand silver bits without an escort.”
---
Once more, an impromptu town meeting was held in the farmer’s market, with Trixie and the rest of the town council on stage, and hundreds of Ponyvillians sitting before it. Unlike last time, however, there was not defeat and shock in the eyes of the assembled ponies. Instead, there was genuine hope, though it was hope that was being kept closely guarded lest it be snatched away from them.
“Now, even for the Night Court,” Trixie said to the gathered ponies, “just shy of nine hundred thousand bits is a lot of money to gather all at once. So, the REMM is giving Ponyville relief money in three parts – a shipment of three hundred thousand bits this week and next week, and then a week after that the remaining two-hundred eighty-five thousand. It’s all coming in cash and is being stored at the town hall. The Equestrian Royal Bank has insisted on keeping guards on it at all times, for the obvious reasons.”
“Cash?” Berry Punch asked, tapping her hooves together as she looked to Cheerilee. “Why cash?”
“It’ll make things easier for us,” Cheerilee pointed out. “Being able to offer real bits up front, bits straight from the bank, will probably get contractors in a bidding war for us…might make the repairs cheaper and faster.”
Berry Punch nodded at that in understanding. She stood up from where she had been sitting, raising a hoof, and received a nod from Trixie. “How’s the money going to be spent?” she asked. Cheerilee stood as well, though only to put a re-assuring hoof over her sister’s shoulder, as she too looked at Trixie.
Trixie winced, though only slightly. “That’s the…inconvenient part,” she admitted. “By law the money has to first go to ‘places vital to the governance and maintenance of Equestria.’ That means that we need to budget out how much money is going to the town hall, the courthouse, weather station, the post office and train station, all those places first. Once we have a budget hammered out – we don’t need to actually have fixed those places, just submit to the REMM how the money is going to be spent – then money can be handed out to private citizens, starting with the highest priorities and working downwards.”
Berry Punch shifted at that, and Cheerilee felt a pang of worry for her sister. Her livelihood was all but ruined, but she couldn’t honestly claim that a bar and soda shop could be considered a ‘high priority,’ not when she would be competing with apothecaries, farms, and grocery stores for relief money. Nearby, Cheerilee spotted Lyra giving Bon Bon a similar hug.
“How long will ‘working downwards’ take?” Cheerilee asked. There was a slight edge that she couldn’t keep from her voice, even though she knew for a fact that Trixie was only being a messenger here, and that this news was good news, just not as amazingly good as she wanted it to be.
Trixie’s smile returned a at the question. “I’ve spoken to the Princess,” she said. “On Monday, there’s going to be basically an army of accountants and claims experts coming to town. They’ll be conducting interviews and assessing the damages. The Princess wants this whole thing to be resolved as quickly as possible, so they’ll be working overtime and should be done by Wednesday at the latest. After that, they’ll start organizing priority and dolling out cash to private citizens by Friday, and from there it’s being left up to you how best to spend your relief money. Best guess is that by this time next week, even if everypony hasn’t received cash yet, they’ll at least have an idea of when it will arrive. And it definitely will be in your hooves no more than a day, maybe two, after the last shipment arrives.”
The crowd of ponies broke out into discussion at that, looking between each other, talking amongst themselves, wondering where their livelihoods would be placed on the ‘priority’ scale, and whether the Night Court, which had come close to abandoning them already, would be able to keep to the schedule that Trixie had promised. The conversations began to rise slightly in volume over the next minute, and Trixie’s smile dropped at the sound as her eyes darted across the crowd in worry.
“That’s great, though!” A voice called out, above the rest. Cheerilee looked, and saw Carrot Top making her way through the crowd, to the front of the stage. She looked dog-tired, had probably been working well past sunset and well before sunrise every day trying to fix her farm and start growing carrots again. As she climbed up onto the stage, however, her exhaustion was replaced by a look of determination. “This time a few days ago,” Carrot Top said once she was on stage and facing the Ponyvillians, “we didn’t think we had any money coming our way. Thanks to Trixie, we have every last bit we asked for from Canterlot coming!”
“I agree!” Cheerilee called out, as she made sure to give Berry Punch a re-assuring hug before joining Carrot Top and Trixie on the stage. “We all knew we’d have to be sticking together and helping each other out, right? We’re still doing that now – but now there’s an end in sight. A good end!”
“Why’d it take so long in the first place?” One pony, Flitter, called from the crowd. “I think that needs to be answered. Canterlot was going to abandon us! And what’s all this help gonna cost us?”
Carrot Top and Cheerilee both looked to Trixie at that, who was standing still, considering. “There are no strings attached,” she said at length, “no expectations apart from the ones I already mentioned. The money is Ponyville’s, every last jangle. But we can’t just have it in a pile for anypony to grab. It needs to be organized and hoofed out responsibly, and it’ll take a few days to figure out how to do that.”
The murmurs started up again at that, but this time everypony seemed to come into agreement that Trixie had a point. Ivory Scroll, who had been talking quietly with the rest of the town council, stood as the murmurs began dying down, and walked over to Trixie. “Representative Trixie, you’ll forgive us for being…guarded,” she said. “We’ve been to the sun and back over this past week, and I think we’re letting it show. The simple fact is, though, that two days ago, it had looked like Canterlot, the Night Court, and the Princess herself had abandoned us. Then you went to Canterlot, and have returned with everything we needed, everything we asked for. So, from the bottom of all our hearts, on behalf of all of Ponyville: thank-you, Representative.” Ivory Scroll bowed her head, even as the rest of the council stood from their table and did likewise.
Cheerilee looked back out to the crowd, who at last seemed to be taking in what Cheerilee and Carrot Top had said, that even if right now they were in the same spot, there was now a hope spot, a reason to think that Ponyville could make it through this bad time and become a flourishing town again. “You heard the mayor!” she said. “Come on, Trixie deserves at least one cheer! Hip-hip – ”
“Hooray!” About a third the ponies in the crowd called out disjointedly, not expecting the cheer. Somepony in the crowd must not have liked how empty is sounded, because a moment later there was another rallying call.
“Hip-hip – ”
“Hooray!”
“Hip-hip!”
“Hooray!”
The last was either everypony in the crowd, or so close as to be no difference. Following that came hoof-stomps, whistles, and other exultations, enough to rattle the earth and the makeshift stage that the town council and Trixie and her friends stood upon.
Cheerilee looked to Trixie, expecting to see her friend drinking in the cheers with a smug grin – that was how she usually took in applause whenever she put on a magic show, after all. Instead, however, Trixie was looking out at the crowd with something that resembled shock, her eyes wide and watery. Cheerilee and Carrot Top were both beside her in a moment, hooves on Trixie’s withers as the unicorn took off her wizard’s cap and used it to hide her face from the crowd. Despite her tears, though, she was smiling behind the hat.
“Trixie?” Cheerilee asked over the din. “Are you alright?”
Trixie nodded, closing her eyes and sniffing slightly. “I needed this,” she responded. “You have no idea…”
Trixie wiped her eyes, put her hat back on her head, and looked out at the crowd, a subtle shift coming over her features as she stepped forward and threw her hooves wide, horn glowing. From behind the stage, a series of illusory fireworks launched into the sky, exploding into a cacophony of colors and shapes and nearly deafening sounds. That only made the crowd cheer even louder. When the last firework went off, Trixie bowed deeply to Ponyville, and quietly – so quietly that even Cheerilee, who was only a few feet away, barely heard her – asked, “was there ever any doubt?” It wasn’t asked as a rhetorical, hubristic question, however – more like the mantra of a pony re-assuring herself that she was actually worth a damn.
Cheerilee trotted over to Trixie’s side, once more putting a hoof on her withers. “Never,” she assured her.
---
“You didn’t answer Flitter’s other question,” Lyra noted later, at Trixie’s home. Her living room was basically intact from the zebra-induced riot, at least structurally, with the window only having a few spiderweb cracks. More notable was the tears to all the furniture and the previously overturned bookcase, which Trixie had put all the books back into without organizing them (not that this actually changed much from the bookcase’s state before the riot). Lyra, Trixie, and their other friends were all gathered, eager to hear about what had happened in Canterlot.
Normally, Trixie would have been providing a wide assortment of beverages with various levels of alcohol in them for her friends to relax the remainder of the night with, but she was both out of said beverages, and neither Lyra nor anypony else in the room much felt like risking alcohol quite yet anyway. Instead, the gathered ponies stuck with glasses of water, not trusting the juice in Trixie’s icebox to have not been spiked at some point during the riot.
Trixie grimaced at Lyra’s point, looking down at her glass. “I know,” she said. “There were…problems.”
Lyra frowned at that, looking to everypony else first before pressing on. Carrot Top and Raindrops both looked like they were fighting the urge to just nod off, both exhausted from the work they’d had to do over the past few days. Cheerilee and Ditzy both looked frazzled, meanwhile; the former worried for her sister’s bar, and the latter worried about her own home. Money was usually tight enough for Ditzy under the best of circumstances; the gray pegasus was visibly thrilled to hear that their relief money would be coming after all. Lying on the most intact part of the nearest couch was Dinky, having arrived with her mother full of smiles and joy to see Trixie returned, but having then swiftly lost a battle with exhaustion from helping her mother clean up their home.
When Trixie didn’t elaborate other than to continue contemplating her glass, Lyra spoke up again. “Night Court problems?”
Trixie flinched at the question, looking to everypony else in the room. “Okay,” she said, “when I arrived two days ago, when I got off the train, I ran into a little welcoming committee..”
Trixie kept talking for some time after that – about how her every move through Canterlot was blocked by the manipulations and cronies of Blueblood, Greengrass, and Fisher – the last being a new name for Lyra, at least insofar as ‘Trixie’s political enemies’ were concerned – how she had finally resorted to breaking into Night Light’s office to talk to him; how he had outlined to her how he blamed her for his daughter’s disappearance and how he viewed Trixie as nothing more than another vainglorious, petty noble-in-training seeking to climb into the Night Court for her own gratification. She needed to pause a moment after relating his ultimatum for leaving her alone, and when she continued…
Lyra’s eyes grew steadily wider as she listened to Luna’s words through Trixie’s mouth, about the cycles of history that Luna saw, her knowledge of the corruption in the Night Court and her unwillingness to truly step up and change things. When Trixie had finished, she was once more visibly shaken, and Carrot Top was at her side immediately, a hoof on her withers to calm the unicorn.
“That’s…” Cheerilee said, keeping her voice down for Dinky’s sake, “that’s just irresponsible of Luna.”
“I don’t think so,” Lyra said, tapping a hoof to her mouth as she thought over her history which, as a bard, she was quite well-versed in. “I mean…well, Luna has a point with that whole history thing. Nations do go through cycles like that. Either that or some outside power strikes them down when they’re weak. Equestria’s an exception, especially considering how old it is…and maybe it’s an exception because of what the Princess does.”
“Which is the bare minimum that she can?” Raindrops countered, also struggling to keep her voice down. “There’s following the law and then there’s hiding behind it. I know there’s more she can do, can legally do. She’s the Princess! If she honestly thinks that this noble or that noble is corrupt, she could call them out in the Night Court, or something. What’s she so afraid of?”
Lyra saw Ditzy blink a few times at that, as the pegasus looked down to her sleeping daughter. “Plenty,” she said, as she draped a wing over Dinky. One of Ditzy’s eyes looked out to her friends. “I think…I think the Princess is always afraid. At least since Corona.” She gently squeezed Dinky with one wing, and the filly shifted a little, leaning closer to her mother in her sleep. “She’s got tons to be afraid of…”
Trixie nodded. “That’s the impression I got. And I guess I can understand why…but she’s taken it too far. Sometimes Luna has to get personally involved in things, actually use her power. That wouldn’t make her a tyrant.” Trixie looked to each of her friends, a look of determination overcoming her features. “And the Night Court? I think it needs a good, solid buck in the flank.”
Lyra raised one eyebrow as she looked at Trixie. “Uh-oh…” she intoned. “I know that look. That’s your 'I have a plan' look.”
Trixie nodded as she looked between her friends. “Yeah. I do. And part of it Luna knows about already, she’s approved of it and is helping me with it.” She took off her hat, placed it on the floor brim-down, and mumbled a few magic words. A moment later, she pulled her hat off the floor, and dozens – scores, even – of deep blue envelopes poured out from the hat.
The other five ponies in the room stared at the envelopes. They looked very familiar – identical, in fact, to a sextet of envelopes each of them had received a few months ago. “Are those…?” Cheerilee asked.
Trixie nodded. “Grand Galloping Gala tickets,” she confirmed, as her horn glowed and she began organizing the envelopes into neat stacks. “A hundred of them. Eight of them are for the town council. Luna wants to personally apologize to them at the Gala and work out any kind of help she can. But as for the rest…” Trixie considered for a few moments before shrugging. “I was thinking some kind of raffle, tomorrow morning.”
Lyra picked up a few envelopes herself, looking them over. “The Princess just added another hundred guests to the Gala? Just like that?”
Trixie shrugged again. “Every member of the Night Court receives an invitation and a plus-one, plus all sorts of other VIPs and their plus-ones. There’s already going to be something like seven hundred ponies; adding on two hundred or so more isn’t that hard, especially since Luna can just relax the dress code and throw as many bits as she wants to catering services in Canterlot to supply more food and drink. The only real change is the venue; it’s going to be moved to the courtyard rather than the grand hall.” Trixie offered a grin. “Luna is planning to say something about how Canterlot should have acted much faster to help Ponyville, that the ponies have all been invited as her personal guests as part of an apology to Ponyville, basically she’s going to try and make the nobles feel ashamed.”
Raindrops considered. “Okay…” she said. “Good plan, I guess. But you said that this is the part that Luna knows about already. So I’m guessing that you’ve got something else planned, too.”
Trixie grimaced at that, her grin dropping. “Yeah,” she said. “Like I said…the Night Court is rotten, and we need to expose that, expose Greengrass and Blueblood and Fisher and Night Light. So…so I’ve got another plan, too, and I’ll need your help to pull it off, and some help from some other ponies I trust…and one or two that I don’t trust at all.”
Trixie tapped her hooves together. “It’ll be illegal. But these attacks against us – trying to separate us, pull us apart, move us around, threaten our livelihoods, all this junk that’s happened to us since we became the Elements, and now using an entire town as a pressure point, letting hundreds of ponies suffer just to get at one mare…it needs to stop, and it’s only going to stop if Luna ponies up…and if the Night Court realizes that we aren’t just pieces to be moved around on a board. That we’re our own ponies. That we can strike back.
“Like I said, it’ll be illegal. Very illegal. But I think we’ll be doing something that’s, on paper, wrong, so that we can do something that we know is morally right. But I’m not going to try and sell this, or play it up, or argue for it. If even one of you is against it, then we won’t do it, and just hope for the best.”
Trixie paused for another moment, before beginning to talk again, outlining her plan. She didn’t pretty it up for them, just stated everything she intended to do, and planned to have them do, who would be involved, and what she hoped would be the result. And she was right: it was certainly illegal. Indeed, it bordered on outright treason.
But in the end, wasn’t everything the Night Court had been doing the same? Lyra thought to her own brushes with it. Greengrass had tried to use her mentor, Octavia, to manipulate her away from Ponyville, to drive a wedge between her and Trixie…and then later, he had tried to get Octavia banished far away, tried to manipulate Luna herself into doing his own dirty work. And Octavia had been attacked by thugs from another Night Court noble as well, even if there was no solid proof linking that…
There was long silence after Trixie finished talking, as everypony thought over her plan. “I’m in,” Lyra said at length, the first to speak up. “The Night Court needs to be bucked in the flank, so that it can’t hurt anypony anymore.”
“Me too,” Carrot Top said. “Ponyville can’t get caught up like this again. It’s not fair to us, to hit us while we're down the way the Night Court did.”
“That was just one pony,” Raindrops pointed out after a moment, crossing her hooves in front of her. “But…but that one pony was one of the most powerful in Equestria, and he nearly got away with it. Yeah…yeah. I’m in too.”
Cheerilee sighed. “I wish we didn’t have to,” she said. “But I’m in too…but not because of what’s already happened. That’s bad, and I know it’s bad…but even worse is that Corona is out there, somewhere. We can’t wait years and years for Luna to fix everything like she plans to…we need to kick her into gear, or else Corona’s going to come knocking at the worst time, and then everypony suffers.”
Ditzy considered, once again squeezing Dinky close. “How long until Dinky becomes a target?” she asked softly. “Somepony already tried to kidnap her once…yeah, the Night Court wasn’t really involved in that, but how long until some noble gets impatient? Gets stupid? Doesn’t care about hurting her, or any of you…” at length, Ditzy nodded. “Okay. I’ll help.”
Trixie nodded herself. “Okay,” she said. “Okay…zut. I was actually kind of hoping you’d back out.”
“What?” Lyra asked. “Why?”
Trixie grimaced. “Because now I have to go and do something I’ve been avoiding for years…”
---
It was the day of the Gala, about 1:30 PM, and a certain viscount in Canterlot had only just finished his breakfast and was getting ready to perform a few quick duties before beginning his final preparations for his attendance at the Gala, when he was interrupted by a page announcing that he had a visitor. Scowling, the viscount left his office, and found himself looking at a blue unicorn with a silver mane, wearing a star-studded, purple wizard’s cape and hat. When he entered, the unicorn took off her hat, holding it in her hooves, and swallowed, before looking him in the eye.
“Viscount Prince Blueblood,” Trixie said, “would you like to accompany me to the Grand Galloping Gala?”
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Oh shit.
Oh shit.
So Blueblood is Trixie's date? This will be interesting.
One thing...
I think that 'a' needs to go.
Okay... a serious question that needs answered. The money. Will anything be happening to it/the other two shipments? Still, about goddamned TIME something positive happens!
The constant negativity/good guys getting stomped was wearing so thin.
And yeah... I got a bad feeling about Trixie and Blueblood. How's she gonna get screwed over this time?
Yay, update!!
I like the detail going into the pegasi's cloud work. And I might be corrupted by Babylon 5, but I love a sneaky political scheme, when the good guys do it and it comes off right. Here's hoping that Trixie is up to the level of John Sheridan and co.
To the gala!
1892585
Given that this is Trixie seeking Blueblood out as part of some plan, there's a good chance that Blueblood won't be doing the screwing.
1892606 Well, to be honest, in this fic I have come to expect the worst outcome for Trixie. I have some hope that maybe things have turned around with this chapter, but it's slim.
1892623
This makes me sad, but oh well.
Oh, as to your other point:
I'm not opposed to someone writing a tie-in fic that has some unscrupulous ponies trying to rob the train, 'cause that'd be cool. But no, I'm not planning on writing anything to that effect. Besides, even if something did, it's only Ponyville's responsibility after it's unloaded from the train; prior to that, it's the REMM's responsibility, so even if a train was robbed or overturned or something, the REMM would be obligated to replace the money.
Blueblood is gonna regret not having chosen
instead of 
, like A LOT.
I really liked this, Trixie has gone through hell so far and she really needs people to appreciate what she's done.
Its interesting, I see this story as Trixie growing up to an extent. She was rasied in the Court but more of less saw it from a child's or adolesent perspective, Black and White. This has now forced her to grow up and see shades of grey, that there are no truely good people just more or less bad ones, even Luna isn't perfect. She's still got something of a rebellious zeal to her though which still leads me to think her little plan will involve quite a bit of Truth is a Scourge.
The last bit suprised me though, going to the Gala with Blueblood, have you no pride filly? He better keep his hooves to himself.
Still I guess their's a purpose to it.
Ah, ye olde unspoken plan guarantee. Making the certain the less you hear about it the more likely it is to work.
...Seven chapters in and it feels like you've only just finished the prologue.
Hmn, I'm still just hoping we get out of this without Twilight's father being ruined.
1892652
Well...not quite black and white.
As someone pointed out earlier, if Trixie had been created as a noble prior to this story, she'd totally have abused her power...but to get things like discounts on vacations, free pizza, excuses to be lazy, minor things that don't actually cause anyone any meaningful harm. Indeed, I think she'd probably still do that. Little corruptions, like the same things that famous people like actors can get, that she sees as basically being perks of being a noble. But, at the end of the day, she was educated in politics and sociology by Luna, and so believes that ponies in positions of power are supposed to help other ponies; after all, the entire reason why Luna took her as a student in the first place wasn't because her special talent was magic, but because it was specifically doing magic for others. It's perfectly okay to live a life of privilege and luxury, but not if it has to come at the expense of others.
1892681
Sort of. I think of it more as a Part I (chapters 1-6) and Part II (chapters 7-12)
Really liked the whole section on crafting clouds. That was well done and a great bit of worldbuilding.
The money scene was neat, and a nice bit of catharsis for the village. I liked the reaction of the random folks; Ivory Scroll and Berry Punch and such. Trixie's reaction also seemed mostly good. The logistics of money dispersement were a great little touch that really fleshed things out nicely.
The one odd bit was at the end, where she was crying and taking pride in the ponies applauding for her. This didn't make sense to me, since she didn't actually accomplish anything at the Court. The same outcome would have happened had she stayed home and helped with the rebuilding process. So she's taking credit for something she had nothing to do with, and while that's in character for her (and I doubt she'd actually tell all the ponies that it was ultimately Luna who fixed things), I wouldn't expect her to be nearly as moved by their cheers; they're applauding her based on actions she knows she didn't do. If anything, I think she'd feel a bit ashamed that in the end Luna had to fix things and that she herself wasn't able to do so, even after getting past Team Greengrass' blockade.
I liked how Trixie told her friends everything that happened. (It occurs to me, incidentally, that at least one of them might already be familiar with Fisher. Carrot Top is now closely associated with a new business enterprise, the Farmer's Union, and if Fisher Industries sells agricultural stuff like plows or tractors or whatnot, CT is probably at least familiar with the name, and possibly even the pony himself if FI tried to sell to the PFU.)
Also:
Gotta say... Trixie hasn't done much to challenge this belief. She hasn't done anything political in the season, and we've certainly see her be very petty noble-in-training like (in the beginning of LNLD, backstory of Oaten, her initial response in M&D when she tried manipulating Lyra instead of speaking honestly to her, etc), so I'd argue that Night Light is perhaps justified in this belief. (This is why I'd like to see Trixie's reaction to this being 'challenge it, by doing good political things like opposing the bad ponies legally' rather than what she's planning on doing).
If she acts outside the law, it does in fact make her a tyrant by definition, however benevolent she is. And if Luna feels that the laws and inadequate for that purpose, she should campaign to have those laws changed.
I'm a big believer in the idea that government is derived from consent of the governed (and that, if the Lunaverse is supposed to be in a fundamentally good universe, that it follows this pattern -- we're not writing a dystopia). The governed presumably helped set up/agree to the laws stating what Luna can and cannot do, and if she ignores them, relying on her position and her sheer power to get away with it, she's doing what the other Courtiers are doing too. It doesn't matter that it's for a good reason (or, if it does, then it would need to matter that some of the lawbreaking Courtiers think they're acting for good reasons. For instance, going by the FitD characterization, Fisher is afraid that Trixie's laziness, particularly regarding exercise and magic training, will get everyone slaughtered by Corona, and only made up quotes to get her under his control so that he could immediately force her to get physical/magical/military training so she could handle herself if Corona attacked with an army. 'Avoiding mass slaughter' is the end that he thinks justifies what he did to Trixie.)
(And this might even be an interesting place to take things; having Trixie realize that her 'ends justify the means' approach here is identical to Fisher's, and, albeit with much worse means, Corona's. And further that he'd probably like what she's doing here -- he seems to hate the corrupt Courtiers as much as anyone, only working with them because he finds Corona to be a more imminent threat, but he'd probably be thrilled to see the unrighteousness, venal, grafting Courtiers out on their ears. And he thinks all his actions are for the greater good, so he might not even mind enumerating them if the corrupt ponies had to enumerate theirs too. Maybe that would convince Trixie to find another, legal way, so she doesn't wind up doing something that a 'bad guy' would like. {A darker way that still acknowledges that what she's doing is illegal and Bad, even if it's the best of many Bad options is to have her realize this and try to bring Fisher onboard, both to take down the greedy Courtiers and to convince him that she's clever/magically skilled/etc so he stops harassing her to get trained}. This is still quite dark, as it concedes that the only option available to Trixie here is treason, but at least it acknowledges that she's doing something that is morally iffy to say the least, to the point where one of her enemies approves of it, which is much preferable to pretending that what she's doing is morally glowing).
I do like the idea of the citizens going to the Gala; as I said earlier, I think one thing the anti-corruption arc needs is to have the nobles be in front of the citizenry, rather than their friends and peers.
These aren't the only options. "Do nothing" and "Treason" aren't (or shouldn't, in the Lunaverse) be the only choices. And it's taking the universe to a very dark place to say that they are. There should be legal ways she could goad or tempt Greengrass and/or others into taking the Scourge or revealing themselves in other ways which don't involve her commiting crimes in an effort to punish Courtiers who commit crimes for reasons she disapproves of.
If she's arrested for treason, she'll probably never see Dinky again. And the event is under huge security (Trixie found this out, and I assume she conveyed it to them) because of the Gala and Corona's return. Getting arrested should be a major concern for all of them at this point if they go forward. I would think Ditzy especially would, before agreeing to this, want to consider any other options -- holding protests, legal ways of getting the bad ponies to drink Scourge, etc.
Oh, Blueblood. Only you would be stupid enough to accept a date from a pony you bragged about screwing over a few hours ago. :-)
Overall, liked the chapter, writing, etc, but am still a bit concerned as to where the story is going.
1892694: I seem to recall her threatening to withhold Carrot Top's tax relief form at the beginning of LNLD, largely because she wanted there to be carrots available to eat at the ceremony. And Carrot Top treated this like it might well break the back of her struggling farm, so she was basically forced into doing what Trixie wanted.
I mean, Trixie was never as bad as Greengrass or the others, but she seemed quite willing to manipulate/force ponies into rough situations to get what she wanted. So I don't think Night Light's really as unjustified in that belief that Trixie is a bad noble in training, esp. as he hasn't been in Ponyville and doesn't know of her character development.
Obviously, that does not excuse what he did, or him blaming Trixie for Twilight's disaster. But it does lend some credence, I think, to him telling her that he won't stand for her on the Court. He's not corrupt and doesn't want another corrupt pony to add to the mix.
1892910
Luna's actually hiding behind the law, however. Now, without actually writing out Equestria's legal code, we can't know how much power she actually has, but Trixie and Raindrops, at least, certainly seem to think that she's using only a small fraction of what she's legally entitled to do, because she's afraid that if she uses her full legal authority she'll be seen as, and become, a tyrant.
very nice, I really look forward to the gala itself.
1892985: But that would mean that the problem can be solved legally, which means that Trixie is solving it illegally not out of necessity but for some other reason.
(Is what you're saying is that Luna can solve it legally, but chooses not to, and the Elements can't, so they have to break the law? But in that case, the legal/best option for Trixie and co. is either to try to convince Luna to get off her butt and fix it, or if she's concerned about being a tyrant, convincing her to delegate some of that legal power to ponies who aren't her but will act responsibly with it.)
More. Now. Or I'll find you and make you.
Kidding. I really love this story. Especially the characters you've made me love to hate.
I can only hope they get the retribution that's coming to them...
1893022
you try convincing a very old, very wise, very powerful physical goddess that she's wrong. As far as Trixie and Co are concerned, they've crossed the Godzilla Theshold
They're doing this because a line has been crossed. They could put up with the rest of the crap, because it was just them.Now the Night Court, much less what is supposed to be an upstanding member of said court, has done something which is forcing the Elements hoof.
Few things:
Holy Crap Trixie, the fact you're willing to date that slimeball much mean how serious this is.....and don't drink anything he gives you. ever.
.....I am so hoping Scootaloo gets a ticket and Pulls a Scootalong on some nobles who deserve it.
And also, inviting alot of ponies from Ponyville? Brilliant. Trixie must want an audience for this.
And I love the fact that the Elements are basically doingan alignment shift from Lawful Good to Chaotic Good...well, Trixie may have been closer to Neutral Good at first, but you get the idea.
1893135: But it's resorting to similar tactics. That's the problem; Trixie wants to oppose what the nobles are doing... by breaking the law for her own reasons, just as they are. It's hypocritical, and it makes any future investigations screwed up from the start because they'll be based on a crime to begin with.
The nobles should lose because what they do is wrong and can be beaten by ponies doing what they are supposed to do, not because someone else can do what they do better than them.
(Dunno if you saw it, but there's a long debate in Chapter 6 comments along these lines).
1893223
...I listed the wrong alignment. It was supposed to be Lawful Good to Chaotic Good.
1893253: But she's doing it to protest unlawfulness. It's hypocritical, and if the anti-corruption investigations are based on a crime to begin with, they'll be hypocritical as well.
Besides, I think it's too dark to assert that there's no legal answer and that Trixie must commit treason here.
1893295
Like I said, Godzilla Threshold. The Night Court has shown itself to be willing to target uninvolved civilians.
And she's not protesting. If anything, Trixie is goong the amarchist route. Sometimes, it's easier to destroy and rebuild then to fix.
1892985
Which is something that Ditzy seems to have been made aware of back during Early Reunion; she might not be the keenest political mind but she understands fear pretty well.
1893316: Then it's protagonist centered morality (it is wrong for the bad nobles to break the law in pursuit of what they see as worthy goals, but it's okay for Trixie to do that). I think we want to avoid that. There's also the issue of there being innocents at the Gala too that could get Scourged, that she hasn't really tested the Truth Scourge on more than one pony and it might hurt her targets, etc.
Also, 'burn it down' doesn't really work when Trixie herself wants to be one of those nobles. It's one thing to say that the government should be torn down, but quite another to say that the government should remain (so Trixie can join its ranks) but that Trixie should just be immune to having to follow its rules (so she can commit treason 'righteously').
Meanwhile, below Town Hall, a group of Diamond Dogs carefully began to dig to the surface....
1893769
Diamond Dogs like gems not coin if I remember correctly.
1893847 Ponies have boxes they guard, must have gems. We take back to den, figure out how to open there, darned locks.
1893769: Might be a cool 'back in Ponyville' story while the L6 and co are at the Gala. The second stringers must fight off the Dogs!
1893870
*once they get the chest open:*
Thing is that she doesn't really have to use Scourge on anypony; Blueblood's need to redeem his family name will be an excellent substitute for mass mind control if she uses the right trigger words. Words like "Saviour of the Nation" and "Hero of the Age" and the like.
1893386
I don't think it protaganist centered morality. If anything, I'd equate this more to "To be Lawful, or to be Good"
Also, I owe alot of this to the fact that Luna is immortal. She's going to enact her clean up plan on her time scale, which is unfortunately much longer than it needs to be. If anything, I'd say the Elements are just making Luna realize that the threshold has already been crossed a long time ago.
1893992: There is the problem that Blueblood is heavily implicated in that stuff himself. Such as sending Zizanie to mess with Trixie in Ponyville, hiring mercenaries to detain and (mentally) assault Octavia, etc. Anything he confesses to would likely still result in him getting in big trouble.
If Trixie were going to try to convince a noble to flip, her best bet would probably be Fisher, particularly if she could make a good case that the disruption to the nation caused by outing the corrupt Courtiers would be outweighed by the benefit in booting them, and/or if she agreed to give him what he wants and get some sort of physical/magical/tactical training (which he might even pay for).
Not a huge fan of the idea, although I do like it more than 'mass poison.' My personal favorite idea is still her using her showmare skills and 'charm' to basically goad one of the nobles, likely Greengrass, into taking the potion willingly (perhaps also using her magic skill and stage personality to trick him into thinking it works more like a traditional truth serum -- you can't lie, but you can refuse to answer, answer in a foreign language, answer with something irrelevent or meaningless, etc.) Then he confesses and implicates everyone else, so he has to flee the angry mob of commoners/resign his seat/return to Caneighda permanently, and the other nobles are implicated so Luna can investigate them -- all without Trixie breaking laws/being corrupt herself.
1894076: But this action isn't good. She's drugging everyone and forcing them to speak their minds (with, again, a potion that has only been tested on her. She doesn't know if it's safe for other tribes, for the old/sick/infirm, for ponies with preexisting medical conditions or spells on them, etc. She should be worried about hurting someone at this point).
It's for a good cause, but that doesn't mean that her breaking the law to poison the Gala is a 'good' act.
If they think Luna is taking too long, the right thing to do is to convince her otherwise (and they haven't even tried at this point). Now that the town has its money, there's no longer a time constraint, so they don't need to rush and break laws for a fast result.
You and me both, Trixie.
And finally, we're past the overly-long prologue and into the actual story itself!
As for the chapter...it was okay, I suppose. It's still a lot more winding down from before, but a joyous moment is what this story really needed after beating us upside the head for six chapters in a row. The wonders of government bureaucracy are once again on display, making the first half of the chapter a lot of fun. But on the downside, the part about cloud production and the lengthy discussion of why Trixie is doing what she's doing did drag a little, kind of like what happened last chapter with the breakdown of the cleansing cycles. Still, I do like the idea of Ponyville ponies marching to the Gala themselves as a sort-of protest.
As for the upcoming purging...well, it has to happen. I know I shouldn't go back into this considering the bad blood it'll spill, but we have a chapter to work with, and RDD's pretty much lined it out as best he can. Luna is afraid to act out too much, lest she become another Corona. The law is fundamentally broken, with the Night Court utterly wretched and twisted this time around. All the good ponies we've seen are either complacent with the system or unqualified for the position. And we have neither the time nor the capacity to show a centuries-long series of busts, especially with the Corona arc coming up soon.
This is not just because I don't like the Night Court. It's because every story we've seen so far has shown it to be rotten and twisted, with the only ponies on display being corrupt bastards in every possible way, utterly incompetent, or just not giving a crap. If we had something that showed the Night Court's good side, then maybe it wouldn't have come to this, but at this point in time the bridges have been burnt, the cards have been put on the table, and it's time to face the music.
SNAP. Someone gon get covered in cake.
1894258: Sure, but if Trixie attacks the Court by commiting a crime, she'll just be adding to the corruption. Much better if she attacks it without doing that, and preferably by making use of the skills/talents she has developed over the season.
Oh, one other note: if I remember correctly, the foals destroyed Trixie's window when they were fleeing from her after stealing her bourbon. It wasn't cracked; it was completely broken for the umpteenth time.
Maybe Windowpane fixed it first, though, as part of a frequent customer special? :-)
1894423 Coming back and reading over the comments, I think I have completely agree with G&C2's concerns. It'll be a pretty astonishing display of favoritism on Luna's part if Trixie & the bearers end up getting off scott free for doing something that could be considered treason and other members of the Night Court do not.
1894149
Cheerilee specifically mentioned why they - and Equestria, for that matter - can't afford to play the waiting game.
Not necessarily. It's only as dark as we present it to be. Case and point, Disney's Robin Hood is about a guy going around committing high treason, but it's hardly dark.
Did they leave through the living room? Because the joke's been that it's been Trixie's front (office) window that keeps breaking, not the living room window.
1894461
Much as I was complaining to IAH and Emeral earlier about how not once did I say that the Gala was going to be about the wondrous Gala itself, I feel I now have to point out that not once have I ever suggested that this story is going to have any kind of moral or Aesop.
1894479: Unless they have evidence that the corruption is getting in the way of the war effort, Cheerilee's argument doesn't hold much water. (Additionally, in the short term, the chaos and panic caused by a simulated zebra attack on the Gala followed by upending the Court would be more likely to inhibit the war effort than anything. "Why can't we requisition rations for the troops?" "The guy in charge of that was arrested last week for taking bribes, and the new guy doesn't know what he's doing yet.")
I'm sympathetic to the argument, and there's probably something to it -- and it's probably the argument Fisher would make if he knew about this (and he'd probably approve of it, provided he wasn't among the poisoned {or even if he was; he might not believe he's got anything to hide as all he's done has been for the greater good}) -- but it's not nearly ironclad enough to make this a 'necessary' act from their perspective.
The Robin Hood thing, the problem is, there Robin Hood et al lived as outlaws. Like with the American Revolution example before, it's one thing to chastise a government as corrupt and attack it as a vigilante/outlaw -- that can be light, even using theft/banditry/whatnot, if the crimes are portrayed in a comic/jokesey manner and no one gets hurt. But it's another to do the same while also availing oneself of its political power and protections. If somepony robbed Trixie's house, we have every reason to think that she would invoke the law to recover her property and arrest the criminal, and we know she wants to gain power in the Court, because she just told Night Light that. She wants political power and security, but she also wants to be able to disregard the law. That makes her a corrupt hypocrite, and asserting that her moral degredation is necessary is a very dark turn of events.
Also, crimes here haven't been portrayed in the kind of comic jokesey manner that make Robin Hood work as a comedy. When Luna said 'dungeons and exiles for the lot,' it wasn't for some whimsical cartoon prison where the prisoners exchange banter with the guards. Dungeons in the Lunaverse are probably legitimately unpleasant to spend time in, and exile too. Whereas the last scene of Robin Hood's villains, IIRC, is of them breaking rocks in a brightly lit, merry chain gang -- sweating, but not in the kind of depressed pain that one might expect from a prison in a more realistic situation.
I don't recall exactly which window, although I had intended it to be the one that always broke. It's possible I bungled that.
In-universe, Trixie is trying to deliver a moral along the lines of "corruption is bad. Don't do it." She has no other motivation at this point for her actions besides stopping corruption due to her moral objection to it and its effects. And that moral completely falls apart if she herself violates laws and hurt potentially innocent ponies to bring it about.
If Trixie gets away with treason, then the corruption stretches all the way to the top. And any future story involving Luna will need to take that into account; that she plays favorites, that justice is not blind in Canterlot, etc. Even if there's no intended moral, that darkens the whole 'verse.
(It's like in the recent attempted Wonder Woman TV show, which has Wonder Woman breaking all manner of laws to hunt down, beat up, and arrest criminals.The show was panned for being a paean to authoritarianism. Just because the show didn't intend to argue that privacy laws/warrants/etc are superfluous and a danger to fighting crime doesn't mean it didn't give that aesop).
1894479 I don't care if the story has a moral or Aesop, I'm just hoping that Luna doesn't behave in a way that makes her a complete hypocrite. I'm already having a hard time not seeing her as a pretty terrible ruler as a result of the how the Night Court works, this would just seal the deal for me.
1894564
About this war thing.
Since when has Equestria been at war?
While the country is preparing as best it can for Corona's inevitable big attack, I don't think it's really in anything remotely resembling a war-footing, nor has it really formally declared war on Corona, etc.
She does not, however, want to have anything to do with the current incarnation of the Night Court. But she has no way to legally fight it beyond recourse to Luna, and Luna has made it clear that she is unwilling to pony up. So what's Trixie supposed to do? Just tough it out? Wait for the next attack on her or one of her friends? Accept that this is the course of things? Can she really stand by, to, when she knows that this is happening to dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of other ponies across Equestria?
Trixie's argument isn't with the law of Equestria itself, her problem is with the ponies at the top who are abusing that law. Unfortunately, those same ponies are also the ponies who make the law.
It's a bad situation with no right answer, is the point.
Oh, and as to an earlier point...
That is not how Equestria is governed at a federal level, nor has it ever been, and that's been the case from the get-go. The Night Court is made up of nobles who inherit the ability to attend the Night Court by right of blood lineage and approval of Luna. Their specific seats are gained through merit and appointment via other members of the Night Court. While fex urbis lex orbis applies in Equestria as it does to every nation, it is in a peripheral way, because Luna's government has more in common with a feudal oligarchy than anything the people actually have a say in.
But, maybe that's the problem.
1894638: I'd say they were at war ever since Corona abducted their princess and tried to nuke Canterlot. That it's something of a cold war doesn't make it less deadly. Also, if they aren't at war, it kind of knocks out Cheerilee's argument that they have to hurry because, well, war.
See, this is the thing. This does not need to be true. This shouldn't be true. In an AU of MLP that tries to maintain the original's fundamentally optimistic look on things, its charm and happy nature, this statement here should not be the case.
And it doesn't need to be. We are the writers. We can have there be other legal methods. I've mentioned a few, and I think others have as well.
If it were proscribed to be the case that Trixie's options are literally 'Do nothing' and 'Commit treason', she might have more justification. But that is an incredibly dark version of the world we're creating. In MLP, there should be legal methods for good ponies to see that justice is done. It shouldn't happen where the only options are fighting fire with fire or going home. That's what happens in a dystopian world, not Equestria.
This is why I'm saying that the way you're proposing taking this story is taking us on very, very dark paths. We should not canonize this idea that the system is that broken. LIke I said before, the Court as it was before this fic was a System that had some corrupt ponies in it, not a corrupt system -- and this was evidenced every time the corrupt Courtiers scrambled to hide their tracks, fearing that the system would expose them and subject them to prosecution. Doing that would be a much lighter way for the exact same ends (Greengrass permanently expelled from the Court/kicked out of city/back in Caneighda, and the other bad Courtiers staring down a barrel of indictments). It would fit the tone of the Lunaverse much better, which, while more mature than the main series, has never been that dark.
Besides, it'd be much better thematically for Trixie to be able to show Luna, "Yes, there are in fact legal ways to fight the baddies without becoming tyrants!" thereby showing LUna her own skill/growth/maturity/whatever, rather than have her skip right to treason.
As for Equestrian government, I get that it's not a democracy, but it still shouldn't be a literal dictatorship. Luna just said in the previous chapter that the difference between her and her sister is that she is bound by the law -- the law which, presumably, the Court helped set up. If she just violates that and acts as a total dictator, above and beyond the law, then it canonizes the 'Tyrant Alicorn' meme that's been floating around the M-verse for ages, and that's a dark place. Ponies should be fundamentally good enough that they do not need a literal dictator overruling them and issuing, well, dictates.
1894610: I think Luna's been a good ruler so far; if this is the absolute worst Equestria has ever gotten, it's still miles above the worse (or even medium levels of badness) of any human nation. That it took her 2 days or so to stop one very powerful pony from abusing his power is a lot better than would happen in most real-world cases. But yes, if she says that it's okay for Trixie to break the law because Trixie is just that special, she's a hypocrite and dictator, and rapidly approaching the same path Corona took.
(I mean,Corona's first act to seize everything was to disband the Day Court, as I recall. Luna setting herself above the Court by violating the law is coming dangerous close to that).
Here's the thing. I get that it can be satisfying, on a visceral level, to have Trixie beat up a bunch of bad ponies. Good pony wins, bad guys lose, yay. But in the universe we've set up, simply having her do it outside the law brings too much bad stuff in and throws out too much good stuff once a few seconds of thought is applied. There's better ways to go about this.
1894941
Then in all honesty, you should have never written the Night Court the way you did. Or someone should have stepped in and said this wasn't the right direction to go earlier than now. It was stories like "Greengrass' Night," "Symphony for the Moon and Sun," and this one that ramped up the darkness of the Night Court until something like this was necessary, and RDD was only following the example you set forth. That's why I kept saying you needed to show good ponies behaving competently in the court. That's why you needed to tell those stories, rather than just focus on Greengrass and his ilk. I don't want to sound nasty, but this...this is what happens when you leave us with nothing but negative impressions to go on. You kept denying information that you planned for the redemption stories for so long that we had no other possibilities to go on other than the Night Court being that corrupt.
No matter what happens, no matter what Trixie does, it won't make anyone happy. She nukes the Night Court? She's a traitor. (You know, just like almost every revolutionary who's ever lived ever.) She merely targets the ponies who've been actively screwing them over and dragging the Night Court with them? She's a monster. She arranges a ridiculous protest and takes out Greengrass only? She hasn't done anything about the others, thereby forcing us to eat up even more time next season dealing with them rather than focusing on Corona. Either way, Trixie will not be coming out looking like a noble hero. Meanwhile, Luna will have one of her only two faults excised, flattening her out even more in a contrived, non-character building way, while also erasing any need she may have for Celestia - despite the two needing each other as a balance being confirmed as canon for both universes.
I'm sorry, but the boat has sailed. And if you're two seconds away from crashing into jagged rocks, it's far too late to start turning the wheel to change course.
So, now about a hundred or so citizens of Ponville are also going to the Gala... hmm, not really sure what to make of that yet. Also, I'm not sure the logic behind making the entire REMM relief funding pay out in cash actually makes all the much sense. Certainly some of it does, and there's no doubt that Trixie riding in on a whole train full of money makes for an impressive display, but it would seem more efficient if certain applications (such as funding to purchase rain water from Cloudsdale) were put directly to work. On top of that, much like the first chapter, I'd kind have preferred to skip the town meeting; it's a rather big downer on an otherwise fairly up beat chapter to be reminded that ponies like Berry Punch and BonBon could still lose their lively hoods (even if after CT's uplifting speech about the whole town standing together I don't think it will actually come to that).
Anyway, this chapter wasn't quite everything I could have hoped for, but it was still good enough I suppose. More so just a bridging chapter than anything else though. It's functional enough at moving us from the setup and on into the main event, such as it were, but doesn't really do much to make me anymore invested than I already was after the previous two chapters.
Just to be clear, I'm still pretty psyched for the story as a whole, just not so much for this chapter in and of itself. It's not that I'm disappointed either, just a little underwhelmed, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
1894076
This.
1894258
This too.
1894479
...and of course this as well.
1895105: See, in those stories, the ponies doing corrupt stuff were the bad guys. But to go further in the way proposed, now the ponies doing corrupt and illegal and harmful stuff will include the L6 and Luna. That's a huge problem.
(honestly, at this point I'm tempted to just write a story about good Court ponies exposing a corrupt one and taking him down legally, and set it as a tie-in sometime before the Gala story, because I'm getting kind of exasperated at people saying it's completely impossible).
If Trixie takes out Greengrass by getting him to take Truth Scourge (willingly, legally), he spills his guts on what he knows of all the other corrupt nobles. That still provides a basis for a whole raft of investigations, and it does so without Trixie jumping over any moral event horizons. And if it's legal, then she remains firmly on the side of good and right, apart from the corrupt Courtiers who break the law and manipulate the government for their own ends. And Luna also doesn't become a tyrant who disregards the law when it's her favored student who's up for punishment, but remains a fair and just ruler.
It is a much better story for Trixie to resist the urge to sink to the level of the corrupt Courtiers and instead beat them the 'right' way, following the law, than it is for Trixie to play just like they do and beat them because she's strong/has friends in high places.The first is a theme that works with MLP. The second really, really doesn't. (I think 'One Bad Apple' was somewhat about that, actually...)
1895152
It's not that it's impossible, it's that it wasn't shown when it was needed to be shown, and now we're at the season finale and it's too late and would only feel like it's been tacked on at the last minute to give justification to some other excuse. The last thing we need now is another Night Court story, good or bad - not for a good long while yet, anyway.
Again, we don't actually know what Luna's legal limits are.
For example, Elizabeth II's power in England is, legally speaking, limitless, or nearly so. She can declare war, dissolve parliament, sack a prime minister, break a treaty, and so on. Legally the only things she cannot do is raise an army on her behalf, raise taxes on her behalf, and outright create new laws. The parliament only meets at her pleasure (it simply "pleases" her to call it to session on a regular schedule every year), all the ministers serve at her pleasure, and all land in England actually belongs to the Crown. While the law implies that her power extends only so far as she uses it responsibly and in concert with her ministers, from a strictly legal standpoint if tomorrow Elizabeth decided to proclaim herself the absolute monarch of England, the English technically have no legal recourse. However, she does not utilize her vast power due to centuries of tradition, and the fact that no one in England would listen to her anyway if she did make the attempt.
In Luna's case, it's entirely possible that, in fact, she can legally dismiss any and every pony in the Night Court for any reason or no reason at all, and simply does not out of a combination of centuries of tradition and a fear that, by doing so, she would be seen as a tyrant. Instead, she works to make sure that when she dismisses a pony at all, it's only after they have been legally investigated and charged. While this may give her the legal and moral high ground, however, it is startlingly inefficient.
To quote Babylon 5, "these things happen in a monarchy."
Trixie's plan may be to simply create a situation wherein Luna has to make use of her full legal power, at least insofar as sacking a member or members of the Night Court on the spot is concerned. Or, it might be something more insidious. At this point I'm actually being deliberately vague as to her plan, as I think it's neater to see it unfold instead of just being told it ahead of time.
1895152
The right way? Here's the thing. She's been playing by the rules since the beginning. And now she's sick of it all. She said as much in the previous two chapters of the story. And honestly, if the rules do not do what they are supposed to do (in which case help the ponies of Equestria) than you know what? The rules are wrong. There are times when you have to toss out the rulebook and do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
Night Light torturing the town of Ponyville was what finally made Trixie throw out the rulebook.
1895228: But the entire argument for what Trixie is doing is that it's completely impossible to fight the corrupt Courtiers any other way. And it's very frustrating because, well, it's not. It has never been shown or even implied to be impossible. That Trixie doesn't want to bother because she's angry doesn't mean it cannot be done. (Wasn't the justice system originally going to be what Wallflower, a kind and scrupulously just Courtier, managed anyway? And I know that Fancy Pants and Fleur were specifically said to be investigating the Duke, which implied that he's going to be charged at some point.)
My point is that it's a good thing for the AU that Luna operates, broadly speaking, in this way -- that is, constrained by courts and modern standards of evidence and such. If she were just dismissing ponies left and right for no adequately investigated reason, it would become more of a dystopia, which is not what we want. That the ruler follows those rules is part of what makes the AU work, and throwing that out puts us in a dark place.
Even if she intends to use the power for good, Luna passing sole judgement on all the nobles, allowing ponies to commit high crimes with her blessing, etc, won't take us anywhere we want to go.
1895260: In the real world, sure. That shouldn't be necessary in Equestria.
Besides -- again -- there has been no evidence in any canon story that the laws make it impossible to take down corrupt Courtiers legally. (And again, I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't just write a story in which that happens, because this is getting ridiculous. We control the rules. We can make it possible to beat the bad ponies in a moral manner if we so chose).
1895286
Ah, but beating them without the rules is SO much more effective, symbolic, and cathartic.
And yeah, eventually the court could probably be taken down "fairly"
EVENTUALLY being the key word there.