Shadow over TCB Aftermath: Friendly Neighborhood Bueraucrat.
Celestia raced through the empty corridors of Canterlot castle as fast as she could gallop, eyes focused beyond the ceiling. Emerging into a courtyard she looked upward, her horn igniting as she cast a simple spell to enhance her long distance vision so she could focus on the rappidly descending figure.
Her eyes flicked back and forth, scanning the rest of the sky, searching for more figures, for some sort of human air vehicles, for something besides the fuzzy dark shape visible against the clouds in the sky. Her eyes came back to the plummeting human form with puzzlement. 'Why only one? They can't think I'd die so easily.'
The curved board attached to the human's two feet suddenly lit up as the figure's decent abruptly halted a dozen feet above the garden. Celestia looked up to the figure's helmet covered face, her mind going over all the defensive and offensive magic she knew.
"Ah, Ahooy!" the human called down, raising a hand in what she recalled was a friendly gesture of greeting. "I was hoping to talk with you, is this a good time, or if not could we schedule a better one?"
Celestia stared, completely unsure what to do for several moments. "I ... I can talk to you right now," she said quietly.
"Splendid!" The human responded as his board floated down to just above the garden's surface. "Hopefully this shouldn't take too much of your time," he added while hopping off the board onto the garden path. With a quick motion he leaned down to grab the board and swing it onto his back where it clicked into place. He then made a quick gesture with his hands and the helmet of his outfit suddenly came apart and was pulled into the rest of the garment.
Celestia looked uncertainly at the figure, mentally searching for some basis for making sense of what was happening. "Um, can I offer you some tea?" She asked, mentally calculating the location of the kitchen, and the closest appropriate room for sharing tea with guests.
"No need, hopefully it won't take that long to resolve things, and then you can return to your business." He raised one hand, a series of rectangles of light appearing floating above it. "First off, I need to double check some of the information I've got. For some reason this town only has one database dedicated to it, and there's signs of possible data corruption. So are you correctly listed as Celestus A Princess, sole resident of the town of Canterors Lot?"
Celestia stared, not sure how to respond. Then she clenched her teeth as she felt laughter building inside, trying desperately to hold back the rising flood.
As Celestia's attempts to hold back her laughter failed with greater and greater volume, the human raised a hand to scratch the back of his head. "Aheh, I hope severe offense isn't part of the humor. I don't go planetside much so I'm not that familiar with current Pony slang."
Celestia finally got her laughter under control and raised a hoof to wipe the tears from her eyes. "No, no there was no offensive slang in that name."
The human sighed. "That's a relief. Would you like to file a correction? There is a form with some data to fill out but it's a very short one and I can fill out just about everything at your direction." He extended a hand toward one of the light rectangles in front of him, and with a quick gesture it expanded into a cube.
"No need, Celestus Princess is actually a fun sounding name." Celestia replied with a smile.
"Well, you can change your mind at any time, Miss Princess." The human responded, looking slightly uncomfortable at the giggle Celestia let slip.
"If we've agreed on my name, what is yours? And are you really here just to check on a few names?"
"Ah! No I am not. My name is Daren Secretariat, and I'm a Sub-Deputy with the Over-Earth General Auditor department."
"Oh. . ."
"Right, you ponies don't have much central government, do you," Daren looked up toward the shadows covering so much of the sky. "Over-Earth on the other hand has tons of interdependencies and a huge population density forcing layer after layer of bureaucratic oversight. The Auditors have the job of constantly looking over all the other bureaucratic divisions with the goals of constantly improving them for the people who depend on them."
"Really, have you improved the system?" Celestia asked, looking Daren over.
"We integrated all the databases, simplified all the forms and have overseen the coordination of the AI integration." Daren declared with a touch of pride.
"I meant you specifically, Daren Secretariat."
"Oh, well I oversaw a project that's cut the overhead on the package-net by roughly 35%!" he responded with a big grin that turned sheepish as he saw Celestia's puzzled expression. "Ah, that's system we've got combining hub teleporters and a series of tubes . . ."
"I suspect I'd need to see it myself to really understand," Celestia commented with a small shake of her head. "I was more curious about you than your job. You certainly seem quite pleased with your life."
"Well yes, it's a pretty good life all in all. Ah, but that actually comes back to the reason I'm here, and that's about the quality of your life, Miss Princess."
"My life?" Celestia responded with a slightly guarded expression.
Daren raised a hand, pointing up at the huge cluster of dark colored shapes in the sky far overhead. "I was double checking the paperwork proposing adding on another township module, and when checking the standard survey analyzing the impact of the construction on life on earth below, I found an old legal clause excepting the region of this town from those surveys." He shook his head. "That's why you've got such a significant orbital presence overhead.
"I'm here to try and investigate why this anomaly exists, and if I can't find a decent justification, start the process of looking to make up any hardship caused by intercepted sunlight or the like."
Celestia closed her eyes and let her head hang slightly. "Justification, yes."
"Yes, the way this area's singled out is highly unusual, and the unusual is often an indicator of problems that can be solved. As for the origin, the wording of the statute has suffered some data degradation, but it clearly dates back to the whole conversion atrocity all those centuries back."
Celestia blinked at the word centuries, then thought about her life alone in Canterlot and realized that it had indeed stretched out that long.
"What do you know about the ... Atrocity?" Celestia asked quietly.
"Hm? Oh you know, when the pocket universe they had lived in collapsed, ponies came saying they wanted peace and friendship," With a few gestures he materialized a cube of light within which appeared a graphic of colored lines speeding by as he continued his explanation. "Of course the disruptive spell matrix they maintained their lifestyle with was fatal to about 60% of earth's ecosystem, especially humanity, and instead of changing their lifestyle the pony leadership decided to forcibly convert all humans into somewhat brainwashed ponies while spreading that matrix along with the magic energy that remained from their original universe over the earth."
With a gesture Daren made a cube of light appear, full of several lab coat clad human figures. "But prior to going for force, they had made attempts at putting on a show of friendship, during which time they had provided enough information for scientists to figure out the basic physics underlying magic and anti-magic reactions. This let them to establish several well hidden strongholds, which ponies avoided because anti-magic measures made them seem to be matrix disruptive Forever-Free zones ..."
"Everfree," Celestia interjected quietly. When Daren paused to look questioningly at her, Celestia continued, "Places where the clouds moved without being pushed by pegasi, and animals and plants could live and grow without pony oversight were called Everfree."
"Ah, I did not know that. Well the human survivors made massive strides in both magic, and the physics they'd had to tap to master it. After a bit of work they figured out how to use the Human Genome Project data as the focus of a spell targeting every pony with human heritage and offering the reversion dream, with full reversion coming to any who wanted it."
With a small gesture Daren changed the imagery in the cube to a variety of images from space. "With parallel development of the Inertialess Drive, as well as that early work on FTL systems, they ultimately launched the cornerstones of Upper-Earth, and with most of their presence outside of the magic field from Equestria, they had the leverage to tell the Sun Tyrant to shut up and back off.
"Then of course humanity built Upper-Earth, founded the mining colonies throughout the solar system, built the first true interstellar ships and began exploring other solar systems, building colonies, yada yada yada, thousands of solar systems explored, hundreds of colonies founded, all the good stuff."
Celestia looked up toward the sky. In her mind she recalled that long ago confrontation with the armor clad human who had once been deputy commander of the palace guard. 'You didn't just steal our world, you stole the universe from us. And we're going to take it back.' "The lure of other worlds," She commented quietly.
Daren looked toward Celestia's wistful expression and suddenly looked sheepish. "Oh! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought that up."
"Why not?" Celestia asked.
"You know, how ponies can't survive without the magic field, which means you're trapped on one tiny planet ... Ah, sorry again."
Celestia smiled comfortingly to Daren. "Don't be sorry, that's just a fact of reality. And it's possibly the strongest incentive driving reversion."
"True," Daren responded with a nod of his head. He looked upward, then sighed slightly and looked back toward Celestia.
"Still, this does get away from the original point of my being here. As the only listed resident of this town, it's your call for me to start an audit on whether or not the area's been unfairly singled out."
Celestia looked from Daren to the great shadow in the sky. "Thank you, Daren Secretariat. You're incredibly kind to indulge an old mare like this. But I really don't see any point to asking for an audit."
Daren blinked in surprise. "Really?" He looked around at what had been the great capital city of Equestria. "It's a pretty nice little town, could be something special if we moved it to a less shadowed location."
"If you'll be kind enough to indulge me a little more, can I ask if your books record the ultimate fate of the... Sun Tyrant?"
"Hmm, let me think... Ah! ... No wait that was a movie..."
Celestia felt a feeling of warmth and looked up to confirm that it was because the sun she couldn't sense had moved unaided past the edge of the great satellite city overhead. For a moment she closed her eyes recalling everything she'd heard and never really understood or completely believed about how this beyond gigantic universe worked. Worked with no need for one supposedly special little pony trapped on one little planet.
"If you'd be so kind, I'd like to tell you what did happen," Celestia said with a tired sigh. "When The Reversion first came to light in Equestria, humanity seized the high ground in orbit, and decided to delay retaliation against ... the Sun Tyrant till after they'd solidified their claim to the solar system. At the same time, the Sun Tyrant Princess Celestia retreated to her capital city and ordered all the other ponies to leave while she prepared to face the coming human vengeance alone."
Celestia sighed letting her head drop. "But apparently she so paled before the grandeur of the universe that humanity forgot to ever look back. Instead of facing blazing vengeance, the old mare who was stupid enough to start the Conversion Bureau's in the first place was ignored and forgotten, waiting for an attack that no one cared enough to make."
Daren looked at Celestia, his eyes going from puzzled to knowing. "Oh! That does explain a lot."
Author's Note
Ok, basically the idea started with a glance at some of the anti-CB stories, mixed with recalling god's punishment of the Devils in Demon the Fallen, and then tossed in some thought I'd had for how to maybe do a post CB version of Shadow over Insmouth.
Anyways, I hope you find it worth reading.