The Music Consortium reigns supreme in Equestria, and dictates all music in the country from their stronghold, the Conservatory in Canterlot. Octavia, born in Canterlot, raised at the Conservatory, an excellent celloist and faithful representative of the Consortium, is called in and interrogated by the Consortium's secret police regarding her love affair with Vinyl Scratch, a banned dissident. Rather than being executed, Octavia is ordered to turn Vinyl Scratch in. Now she must choose between her loyalty to her masters, or the love of her life, who has shown her that the Consortium is not as pure as she thought it was, and that it stamps out true peace and love that music is supposed to promote.