Dear Princess Discord,
Sorry, force of habit. I normally start these things "Dear Princess Celestia", but maybe I should have changed that for you. I don't think even you can manage the mental gymnastics for us to address each other as "dear" unironically. Even after last time.
Which was rather what I wanted to thank you for, but that's not the way I write these things, so you'll have to wait for that. I know how patient you are.
What I normally write is about something that happened to me and my friends, with the serial numbers filed off to make it generally applicable, like I'm trying to put together an expert system for friendship. I'm writing to you because I don't think what I learned is friendship-related, and I thought you might have some ideas, because of what you said last time.
Today I realised that sometimes, when a pony helps another pony, the pony doing the helping can benefit just as much as the one being helped. This was in-line with my previous friendship reports and not really worth writing about on its own. Another thing I realised was that if you jump in and solve somepony's problems before they have a chance to try themselves, they might miss out on a chance to grow as a pony. My friend was having some trouble with cultists; it doesn't really matter what the trouble was; I know some magic tricks, and I could have picked them up with my mind. I ... didn't.
I know that you already know about this way of being somepony's ~~acquaintance who is concerned about their personal growth~~friend, because you told me so yourself after that business with the seeds. "Rob you of a valuable lesson of being a princess?" you said. I didn't believe you then; that was wrong of me and I'm sorry. It feels much more like the way Princess Celestia treats me than the sort of friendship I have with my Ponyville friends; the Princess always lets us try on our own, even if we're off to confront an immortal* nigh-omnipotent spirit of chaos. Letting ponies try and maybe giving them some words of encouragement rather than dealing with the problem yourself feels more like the the work of a mentor.
I found it terrifying. Who [am I/are you/are we] to decide that [my friend/your whatever I am to you... streightmare?]'s lessons are more important than solving whatever the problem is? Anyhow, I'd appreciate your thoughts, specifically those that are applicable to somepony bumbling her way through apotheosis, rather than those with only apply to a nigh-omnipotent spirit of chaos.
Your reluctant but not completely unteachable student,
TS
P.S Thought you'd like this bit: letting RD try on her own lead to the demolition of an ancient temple. As it turns out, she didn't need my help with that at all>.
* I know that you're going to shove the words along in defiance of physics so that you've got space to add "devilishly handsome". Stop it.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Bridle
It was a nice day in Ponyville. Mr Tortoise, who was there to visit his friend Tank and to engage in some applied meta-cognition with Rainbow Dash, fleetest of wing of all mortals, glared at the opening sentence for being information-poor: it is axiomatic that days in Ponyville are nice, so saying that something is both nice and a day in Ponyville offended his artistic sensibilities.
...
"One of the most fascinating aspects of true intelligence is that, while it can ploddingly, mechanically, tie itself to some rule and apply it, rapidly and without conscious effort, it can also break out of those same bonds in ways which are not included in the rule. There are few computer-playing chess programs that get angry, punch out their opponent and rummage through their pockets for coppers, but the meanest of Pony or Tortoise players, even if not familiar with the gambit, will be well capable of recognizing it in practice."
"That's how I always play! I am completely awesome!"
"Witness your friend Twilight. She is more given to getting trapped in a thought pattern than most, but still capable of leaping out to a higher level of thought to look at things from another angle."
"I was promised awesome pranks."
"Witness." Mr Tortoise rapped loudly on library's silver knocker and held up a sign, which read, in small print " 'Produces falsehood when preceded by its own quotation' Produces falsehood when proceeded by its own quotation*" to the unicorn who answered the door.
"Oh! its a logic problem! Those are so fun!"
"Huh, what's so great about a sign?"
"Well, lets see, the phrase "produces falsehood when proceeded by its own quotation" could be either true or false. If its preceded by any other statement, it's true, but if it's preceded by itself then it's false, but it's the statement itself telling me that its false, and the statement is wrong, so it's true. But if the statement is true, then I have to believe it when it tells me that its false."
Twilight took a deep breath, while Mr Tortoise asked Spike to find him a copy of "Gidran, Friesian, Barb: a Recital Told in Neigh" by Egbert B. Goldsaddler.
"But if its false, then we can't believe it when it says its false, so we should treat it as true."
"Okay, the prank is awesome, but can we fix her now please? This is beginning to feel a bit like pranking Fluttershy."
"But if its true, it says it is false and if it's false it's wrong when it says it's false."
"She's getting faster. If she took half as long each time, she'd do an infinite number of iterations before you could catch up with me."
*Those peering very closely, would see that the the letters of the first iteration were made of many tinier letters, spelling, over and over "This statement is false", these words were in turn made of still tinier letters, spelling over and over, "this statement is true", and so on and so forth, all the way down to the Planck length. The second iteration was the same, but the order of "true" and "false" were reversed.
Author's Note
NEXT: Tortoise and Rainbow Dash demonstrate Zeno's arrow paradox.**
**in this context, "NEXT" may mean "asymptotically approaching completion"
It became necessary to destroy the empire in order to save it
"Changlings feed off of love, and ever since Flurryheart's crystallising, the Crystal empire has been filled with more love than anywhere in Equestria."
"So, we have issued a couple of edicts telling people to report anything suspicious. You know? `If you see Someling, say something'? That sort of thing, and now the Empire is filled with people denouncing their neighbours to the State. The amount of paranoia in the Empire has increased by six hundred percent, and we've awoken buried traumas from Sombra's regime in nearly five percent of our citizens, bringing a huge range of negative emotions to the surface."
"I'm pretty sure the Changelings are leaving in disgust."
