(01) Act 1 - Four Years
"Just give me some time to sleep!" Sweetie Belle covered her ears and shrieked. The sheer sound of the Royal Guard's patriotic march had broken her to insanity.
In the middle of Ponyville's plaza, a large fleet of ponies from the Royal Guard marched across the town under the red sky, bearing Equestria's flag, alongside a few who bore musical instruments, mostly bass drums and trumpets. Ever since the Cold War started, the Equestrian parliament was determined that, if the pony population wasn't constantly reminded of which element they followed, most would flock over to their rivals, the Human Provinces. As such, every morning a branch of the Royal Guard would march through one of the Equestrian cities bearing their flag while playing the instrumental to the Equestrian National Anthem and shouting nationalistic phrases.
"Equestria under faulty technology... would YOU enjoy being attacked by your own apparatus? Enlist in the Equestrian Army today!" shouted the leading mare gleefully.
Sweetie had enough. Looking for a breach in the crowd of ponies, she walked out quietly to avoid attracting the attention of the army. After finally making it out of the living cloud of observers, she sighed in relief, darting into a nearby alleyway. Now free from the sight of the Royal Guard, she proceeded to head toward her home.
Unfortunately, she forgot that the Royal Army also enlists pegasi.
"Fugitive spotted south of District 9!" shouted a pegasus, blowing a whistle violently.
"Roger, swooping down for attack!" replied another pegasus, calling in for land-based guards to follow them.
Sweetie swallowed dry. She didn't even bother to run; not only she wasn't a good athlete, it was common knowledge that a flying pegasus would outrun all but the fittest earth pony. Rather, she just screamed. However, when the pegasi actually striked her, her vision was blacked out and she felt like she was being wrapped in a soft bag.
"--AAAAAAAAAEERRGHHHHhh-huh?" When she recovered her vision, she noticed two things. One, the 'bag' the pegasi guards wrapped her in to abduct her was actually a mattress; Two, the place she was 'abducted' to was her room. "Oh, a dream... how original," she commented. The snide remark was half-interrupted by the sound of loud thumping in the staircase. Surely enough, Rarity opened the door and looked at her in panic.
"Sweetie, is everything alright? Just to make sure," asked Rarity, now much calmer.
"Yes, sis, just the standard procedure," replied Sweetie. Rarity huffed.
"That nightmare again? That's the third time this week, I already told you that the princesses would never implement a dictature; this isn't North Sciuridae, and it will never be," she replied. Sweetie merely rolled her eyes at that, and proceeded to get out of bed. "Well, I'll be down there if you need me," said Rarity as she trotted downstairs.
Sweetie's morning went by normal routine; getting her bed tidy, do the obligatory morning shower as her sister so insisted and brush her teeth before finally heading downstairs for breakfast. When she finished cleaning out her mouth, she took a last look at the mirror, and mentally cringed at the sight of her hip. Or, for that matter, her bare hips.
"Still a 'blank flank'..." she muttered. Despite this being a touchy subject for her, she couldn't refrain from thinking about it whenever she saw herself in the mirror; her two friends, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, had acquired their cutie marks much faster than she could ever hope to, making her possibly the oldest pony without a cutie mark. The three still remained friends, and her cutie-marked friends would always jump to the defense whenever somebody made fun of Sweetie's bare hips, but no matter how good their intentions were, it was still a very deep scorch mark for her.
Finally managing to rip herself back to reality, Sweetie shook her head and headed downstairs. Rarity was reading her newspaper while sipping tea - a tradition she seems to sternly follow - but couldn't help but notice one of the pages featuring a comic of Captain Equestria, the extremely beefy superhero whose creators portray any type of technology in the series as 'evil'. Sweetie huffed at the sight, causing Rarity to snicker.
"Always rooting for humanity, aren't you, Sweetie?" said Rarity, taking another sip of her tea. Sweetie merely rolled her eyes.
"I'm not a human sympathizer, sis. I just find this rivalry between magic and technology to be petty, especially when it procudes excessive propaganda," she said.
"I know, I know, I'm just messing with you," replied Rarity, winking. Sweetie rolled her eyes and smiled. Though she was... silly at times, Sweetie knew Rarity would be the only pony who actively respected her views and wishes for an end to the petty propaganda. After snapping out of her thoughts, she finished up the standard morning routine, preparing and eating her breakfast. Finishing that, she wore her scarf and boots, and headed out.
"Remember, Sweetie, just be careful with your opinions about the war, not everypony out there would take kindly to it," Rarity sternly reminded her.
"I know, sis," replied Sweetie, closing the boutique's door.
Even if Sweetie's nightmares of Equestria being a totalitarian dictatorship were just nightmares, it couldn't be denied that the nation was very nationalistic.
Though not to the extent of every wall in existence being completely covered by patriotic posters and banners, they were still common enough to be difficult to not run into one. Sweetie remembered how, for the first days of the Cold War, she tried to take new courses to try and avoid running into these posters, but it was futile; even through the alleyways some ponies have placed their nationalistic banners. She huffed at the memory of that. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had eventually convinced her to just give up on that.
Speaking of the two...
"Hey, Sweetie!" called out Scootaloo, alongside Apple Bloom, from a nearby crossroad. Quickly, Sweetie hurried towards them, almost shoving another pony in the process - elicting a quiet "sorry" from her.
"Hi Scootaloo, hey Apple Bloom," replied Sweetie. "How you're doing?"
"Oh, I'm doin' fine, although Scoots here is... unshushable ta say the least," answered Apple Bloom, glaring at her orange friend through the corner of her eyes. Scootaloo, however, didn't seem to acknowledge that.
"Last night, I had been refining my skills with my drum kit, and it was awesome! I managed to replicate the instrumental of a music I liked to the point that it felt like I was literally drumming alongside the rest of the band!" said Scootaloo, her smile wider than any other. "I'm telling you, Apple Bloom, you're missing out on the fun of drumming. Not only my cutie mark looks plain awesome, but -" Before Scootaloo could finish her phrase, Apple Bloom interrupted her, nudging her foreleg and pointing towards Sweetie Belle, who was saddeningly staring at the floor, while dragging fallen leaves around with her hoof. "Oh... sorry, Sweetie, I forgot about that," she said.
Sweetie looked up to Scootaloo, and gave a weak smile.
"No worries, Scootaloo," she half-lied. She knew that her friends meant no harm and that they only do this by accident, but Sweetie's lack of a cutie mark was definitely a sore spot for her, already starting her adolescence years and still not knowing what's her special talent. Because her friends often do this, it ends up stinging her far deeper than any insult from Diamond Tiara ever could, despite them not doing it to offend her. "Let's just head to school, we certainly don't need to get there late; today's history class, and Ms. Silent Step can be fairly rigid," she added. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom nodded, and the three headed toward school.
Sweetie took the liberty of the fact that Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were busy talking with each other to recall the latest events. A couple of days after Tirek's rampage was finally put to an end, Apple Bloom had volunteered to help repairing the damage left by Tirek - despite Applejack's protests - and, despite being a bad builder herself, she actually was an excellent supervisor to constructions, providing instructions to each constructor and otherwise pointing out more efficient or safer ways of getting the work done. The resulting cutie mark was that of a black silhouette of a pony speaking through a megaphone.
Some time passed, and eventually a griffon rock band reached Ponyville as part of their world tour. Needless to say, Scootaloo found herself at a liking for the band, and began searching for more of their music. But, to her, listening wasn't enough. She wanted to know how to play their music herself. Due to this, she started frequently practicing her musical skills using a drum kit - neither Sweetie Belle or Apple Bloom knew where she got one - and surprisingly got the hang of it easily, gaining her own cutie mark. It was a flaming bass drum with a stick, which was, according to Scootaloo herself, "really cool".
Sweetie herself, however, didn't know what could be her special talent. Not having many good experiences with most things Rarity usually did or suggested for her to try, she was left without a clue on what could possibly be her own talent. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom tried their hardest to suggest something she could be good at, but at the end, everything sent them back to square one. After a long period of trying and failing, Sweetie just gave up on it - despite her friends' protests - while citing that middle school approached, and, unlike the elementary school they had grown used to, featured harsher subjects and homework.
And, indeed, it was. Not only their school period had been relocated from the afternoon to morning on the sixth grade and gained independent teachers for each subject, their new teachers were far stricter than their fifth grade teachers. However, Silent Step, their history teacher from the eighth grade, took the cake. Like her name indicated, Silent was mostly neutral and serious, and while she wasn't the stereoptical evil teacher that terrorized school just for fun, she didn't tolerate failures and strictly expected all students to give their best. This went to such extremes that even Snips and Snails, who were notorious during elementary school for making homework in the worst manners possible - or, in Snips' case, forgetting to do it at all - were completely reformed in less than a month. Sweetie couldn't help but wonder how somepony like Silent Step could end up as a best friend of Cheerilee.
"SWEETIE BELLE! We already arrived at school!" shouted Scootaloo. Sweetie jumped twice her height upward, before regaining her posture and smiling sheepishly. The other two ex-crusaders chuckled, before the trio headed inside.
The Ponyville Education Institute was a good deal larger than it's elementary sibling, the Schoolhouse. Since it featured both a middle school section and a junior high school one, it had also attained a larger ammount of students and teachers, although they were mostly divided in half, as the earlier middle school years take place in the afternoon while the late middle school and high school were in the morning.
"Don't you miss the times when the school subjects were only Equestrian and Mathematics?" commented Scootaloo. "Now we got all sort of things like Geography, History and Science, it makes my head go crazy."
"An' it will only get worse in the next year," replied Apple Bloom. "I heard from some older students that, later on, we will start ta study Chemistry, Physics, an' even Griffonic!" she added.
"Griffonic?" asked Sweetie Belle. "That language has a lot of different spelling and pronounciating rules, not to mention some new unique letters and accents. Are you sure it's going to be in the next year? It shouldn't be taught until we're at around high school."
"...I admit, I think they have been exaggeratin' a li'l as well," she admitted.
The three entered their classroom. Once again, Sweetie was taken over by memories regarding the previous years. Their current classroom was vastly different than the one they attended back in the Ponyville Schoolhouse; it was mostly a dull, bright white with two medium windows to the left of the room. The chairs, which were made of bare wood on the schoolhouse, were now mostly made of reinforced, painted wood, with metal being used as support beams instead of hardened plastic. Even the blackboard had been replaced with a whiteboard. The addictional lack of the colored paintings and letters just helped to give the new classroom a 'foalhood is over, welcome to adulthood' feeling.
The ex-crusaders put their saddlebags on the chairs to the right-most part of the class, next to the door. As is a common occurence, Sweetie sighed at the sight of a familiar fiend, her daily rival; a big, purple poster plastered against the wall, next to the whiteboard.
"IS THIS THE FUTURE... EQUESTRIAN MAGIC BEING SUBJUGATED BY FAULTY, UNSTABLE, EVIL TECHNOLOGY?"
Below the header, there was a large picture of Trottingham, the only Equestrian city sharing a direct border with the Human Provinces, burning to the ground, with a massive robot in the background tearing down a barrier of Equestrian buildings in order to reach a lone pegasus standing in a pile of rubble.
"YOU CAN PREVENT THIS! REPORT ANY TECHNOLOGIC BLOC SPY TO THE EQUESTRIAN AUTHORITIES AND SAVE OUR MAGIC!"
Scootaloo rolled her eyes at her friend's reaction.
"Seriously, Sweetie, don't you get tired of doing this every school day?" she asked, Apple Bloom nodding as well.
"Sorry, Scootaloo... it's just that this conflict is just silly and unneeded in my opinion," replied Sweetie. "I mean, sure, their technology apparently isn't always reliable, but it isn't a reason to start a worldwide conflict due to that."
"I'd watch my back before blindly supporting the fools from the west, blanky," said another pony. It didn't take a genius to figure out who said that, and Sweetie glared at Diamond Tiara while Scootaloo and Apple Bloom shared a nervous look between each other. Ever since going to middle school, Diamond - and, to that extent, Silver Spoon - had no choice but to cease the insults upon witnessing a sample of Silent Step's extents to get rid of misbehaving ponies. Unfortunately for Sweetie, Diamond naturally found a breach within the system and came with the 'affectionate' nickname blanky, which was better than being outright insulted, she supposed, but was nevertheless annoying. She tried to get Silent Step's help, but apparently even strict teachers were inneficient at mild bullying, as she simply told Sweetie to ignore it.
"Oh, yeah? And why I can't share my own thoughts about the conflict? Is this a dictature or something?" snapped Sweetie. Diamond looked upward while scratching her chin.
"Fair point, but remember this is a government vehemently opposed to technology, and would throughoutly punish anypony who shows support toward the other side... if they even would support." Sweetie was about to reply to the last comment, but Apple Bloom interrupted her before she could say a word.
"Well, I think I understand why humans came up with technology, considerin' their own world has never seen magic, an' was so hostile against 'em, but they shoulda given magic a chance," she said, trying to get Sweetie's attention away from Diamond. The two didn't need an argument now of all times. "I mean, just keepin' a passive point of view here," she added.
"Although I can understand your point, Apple Bloom, I must ask; do any of you know the actual, non-adapted version of the humans' arrival in our world, from a neutral point of view?" asked Sweetie. The two ex-crusaders were visibly taken aback by the question, Apple Bloom opening her mouth but not finding the words to respond. Scootaloo was about to reply, but was interrupted by the arrival of their teacher. Immediately, the trio sat down in their respective chairs and watched as how the loud chatter between the other ponies died down to a complete silence. The gray unicorn headed to her desk.
"Good morning, class," she said, setting down her saddlebags on the desk.
"Good morning, Miss Silent Step!" replied the entire class in unison. Silent nodded her head in answer.
"As you all know, Autumn's almost over, and before we know it, we'll already be busy cleaning snow on winter. With winter comes winter holidays and the end of the year. Some of you passed with flying colors, while the rest will have to work their manes out during December if they don't want to see my face again" - she gave a stink eye to the left-most part of the class, who squirmed in their seats upon meeting her gaze - "nevertheless, today we'll be checking on Unit 7 of the history book. We didn't get too deep on that section as it mostly includes subjects from the next grade, but it's a good idea to prepare everypony her- er, everybody -" she looked toward the sole human sitting in the back of the class, who simply nodded in acknowledgement "- everybody here to what's about to come. So, hurry up and get your books at the correct pages."
Everybody in class quickly opened their books at the named section. Shortly afterwards, Silent guided the students through the book, nobody distracting away due to the fear of Silent spotting and punishing them on the spot. Nobody except Sweetie, at least. Her teacher's words seemed distant and muffled to her as she stared at her archnemesis, the purple poster. There it stood, mocking her gleefully with its' propaganda wording.
"You'll never find out the actual reason magic and technology hate each other! I'd just give up on it and join the hate bandwagon if I were you!" it screamed. Sweetie scowled.
Minutes felt like hours to her, and soon enough, Sweetie discovered she lost track of the flow of time. It wasn't a big shock for her, though; she was still locked onto her target, albeit still losing the battle as she placed her head over the chair's desk, later on putting her hooves over her head as well. All the while, she kept thinking the same thing.
"What's behind all of this? What had actually caused the entire world-scale rivalry between magic and technology?" she thought. "It seems as if everybody from both sides are, for some reason, making a huge deal out of a little thing..."
"Sweetie Belle!" A shout pulled Sweetie out of her own imagination. To her dismay, the author of the voice was Silent, gazing angrily toward her. She gulped. "Please, continue directly from where Rumble was reading."
"Well... uh.." Silent caught her good. Due to her tendency to get distracted, she wasn't even sure at which page the others were in, let alone which paragraph. Sighing in defeat, she responded, "Sorry, Miss Step, I got too distracted with that poster over there." She pointed toward her tormentor, the purple poster. Silent's previously angry expression had disappeared, giving way to one of intrigue.
"Ah, planning to enlist in the 'Techno Scare' program? That's the spirit; Equestria should have more citizens like you," she said. Eerily, it seemed that all the anger that was previously within Silent had just disappeared. Sweetie shook her head in response.
"No, Miss Step, I was actually thinking the contrary," she replied. Silent's smile disappeared. "For around one year, we bearers of magic have been vehemently opposing the bearers of technology, despite the fact that, just before the actual conflict broke out, magic and technology seemed to be doing fine. And then, suddently, we're on war against them? This sounds like a cheap reason, doesn't it? And we don't get a good reason to that besides 'Technology is unstable, therefore it is evil and must be defeated', and everybody buys it despite magic itself being unstable."
Her speech caused a commotion in class. A handful of students agreed with her point, remembering the incident involving Smarty Pants, and too being curious for a more detailed explaining of the war. Others were against them, stating that magic was only unreliable depending on its' wielder, while technology always had a chance of failing on the spot. The rest merely tried to end the conflict by calming down both sides. Silent Step used her own way to stop the argument, however.
"Enough!" she yelled, stomping the ground hard enough to make most chairs shudder at the impact. After managing to silence the rest of the students, she directed her angry gaze toward the pony who started the ruckus. Sweetie mentally facehoofed at her behavior; not only she had blatantly ignored Rarity's warning, she had forgotten that Silent was also a dedicated follower of magic. "I should report such rebellious behavior to the principal," she said, with disgust in her voice. Sweetie was crushed upon hearing that. She heard stories from 7th graders about the principal before, and it was obvious that he wasn't a pony to be messed with. Just a single trip to his office due to a small misbehavior could result in a severe punishment, let alone what she had done right now. It would be a permanent dent to her clean profile, something she worked hard to keep.
"But I appreciate your method of thinking." Surprised, she looked upward, and found that Silent was now smirking. "Don't look to me like that, you know what I mean. Out-of-the-box thinkers are a waning breed, and though your mentality is out of the line to say the least, I'm not going to punish you for having your own thoughts," she said. Before Sweetie could wipe her forehead, however, her teacher interrupted her again. "But don't think I'm going to pull a Deus ex Machina to save your flank again; if I catch you doing this, I'll haul your sorry flank to the principal's office, got it, missy?" She nodded. Silent muttered a 'hmph' in response, and headed back to her desk, but she herself was interrupted by the school bell, indicating the first shift of teachers.
"Good luck to everybody who passed to the ninth grade, and for those who have to attend winter school, I believe the recent happening serves as a method of inducing you to study," she said, walking out of class afterward.
Nobody bothered to say a word after Silent left. Rather, most had been staring at Sweetie, for various reasons. Some because they were amazed to how she openly spoke against Silent and got away with it, while others eyed her with hate, accusing her of being sided with the western nations. Either way, Sweetie once again put her hooves over her head, stressed. Fortunately for her, she was rescued by the arrival of the class' favourite, the math teacher Silver Wing. Just like his name said, his wings were tinted gray, in contrast to the rest of his body, coloured blue.
"Hey there, class!" he exclaimed. The class immediatly responded with joy, after being released from Silver's strict rules. Not Sweetie, however; she was far too bothered with the fact that she risked being punished for stating her neutral opinions, but still didn't know the actual reason behind the rivalry between magic and technology.
"Sweetie? Are ya okay?" asked Apple Bloom.
"Sorry, Apple Bloom, I'm getting too carried over my thoughts," replied Sweetie. Deciding that she had enough experience frying her mind over the subject, she dropped her imaginary tinfoil hat and, using her magic, switched her history book with her math book.
After some hours, the final school bell rang, indicating the end of the current school shift. With the lectures of their Equestrian Linguistics teacher, Lyric Song, out of the way, the three ex-crusaders were now on their way back home. The incident in Silent's class, however, was still very fresh on their minds.
"Seriously, Sweetie, why are you making such a fuss out of this?" asked Scootaloo. "I mean, you spent so much time questioning the war that your old personality's completely gone!"
"I have ta agree with Scoots, Sweetie," said Apple Bloom. "Prior ta the war, ya used ta be more cheerful an' creative. Now, ya are serious an' snarky. It's like ya ain't the same Sweetie we knew." As much as Sweetie tried to find an argument against that, she ended up in a dead end. Her two friends were right; she spent so much time focusing in the silliness of the war and deprecating herself due to her lack of a cutie mark that she got unusually serious. She sighed.
"Sorry... I admit, I got a little- er, a lot carried out due to this silly conflict, but no matter how much I try to deviate my attention, it always comes back to me," replied Sweetie. "I... I guess I need some time to think," she added. With that, she galloped away from her friends toward the outskirts of Ponyville. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo shared a worried look together.