The Conversion Bureau - Aftermath of Miscalculations
Nocturne
by Dan's Comments
DISCLAIMER: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.
The ponies won. Humanity was exterminated and erased. Balloons and parties for everyone.
Except. They really didn't understand what they'd done. Some of the terrible things humans did, sometimes to each other, were completely justified, as any pony trying to settle in the once-human lands found out. And, ponies weren't the saints they and their adherents told each other they were. They were bullies, speciesist, classist, and a bunch of other -ists I don't have words for. Alicorns on top, unicorns next with proximity to the crown rigidly determining stratification, then pegasi with rank in the weather corps or membership in elite flying units stratifying them almost as solidly, earth ponies at the bottom with money firmly stratifying them. The worse of Social Darwinism, communism, and the Hindu/Confucian caste system all rolled into one unappealing package. Nonponies below them based on the stratification criteria.
Newfoals dead last. Even the lowest earth pony can pick on the richest and most successful Newfoal, without fear of repercussions, usually.
That's where I have my fun. I can't get mad, and I suddenly wanted friends around, so I found a couple of folks just like me, and we go around having fun. A little payback here and there to balance things out. If the ponies get upset, they should be glad they still have that capacity. I don't, and I'd resent the lack if I could.
Laying out the plastic sheeting is important. Staining the floor would give away how I do what I do. The royal guard investigators are inept and oblivious. If they can't solve the crime in the first half-hour, the crime usually never gets solved. I've done this a half-dozen times and gotten away Scot-free every time. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have had the guts to do it here. Here will be our masterpiece. Something to really wake the ponies up.
The first step is the easiest, even easier than when I did this with humans. But humans were a predatory species, they had instincts that 'civilized' people fought to suppress. Instincts they had for a reason, danger is meant to repel, instead it attracted them. Ponies are a herd creature and easily panicked. However, Newfoals creeped all of them out, so any instinct they have about me they put down to my being a Newfoal. It's a huge advantage with step two.
Step two, is get them used to you. Ponyville Library is a public library after all, and the librarian was one of the biggest bibliophiles as well as being one of the Elements of Harmony. Establishing a pattern of checking out certain books instantly attracted her attention. Being able to politely discuss the subjects also helped. Most ponies are uneducated and happy about it, they only need a narrow band of knowledge. Even more are simply stupid. Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever. Twilight was one of the stupidest creatures I've met, and I have encountered a huge number of really stupid humans in my time, both males and females. People who should have known better, or perhaps did, but wanted to be edgy. I wouldn't have been so successful if they hadn't been so stupid. And 'Personal student of Princess Celestia' Twilight Sparkle is the prize of the lot.
Step three, is follow the plan. I lay out the tools of my 'trade' with care. The last thing I need is to make a mistake. The tools are perfection, solid metal so they won't catch on anything, and can be easily cleaned and sterilized. Only a bad workman blames his tools, and these are the best that can be had anywhere. This one has to be perfect. It is as much entertainment as it is a political statement. I wish I could do one higher, but the Tyrant Sun has more greedy sycophants around her than I could stomach, and she doesn't care about any of them, only herself and maybe her inner circle. So tonight we dance with her inner circle. This is as high as I go. It will be enough.
Ponies eliminated the human ability to feel anger, to 'save' us, but more likely to prevent us from being able to rail against the inherent injustice of their system. Nothing like billions of helpless victims for the master race to abuse. I'm not angry about it, I can't be. I use it. It's the fun of the whole thing. Them looking down their muzzle at you the whole time, never once guessing that you'd already won.
But I never felt angry when I did this back on Earth. It was just fun. Some people got a sexual thrill out of it. I never did. It was them waking up to the realization of what had happened that was the best part for me. It's a shame I can't do that here. You see, to get this right, I had to drug Twilight and Spike's tea while we had a long conversation about art. Actually I drugged the sugar, they shoveled so much into their tea they'd never taste the drug. So they both were asleep when I got to work. Taking Twilight to the tub to wash her thoroughly before I started was an indulgence, but I want this one to stand out. And 'elbow length' hoof gloves prevented any transfer. Painting the message on the door was the second thing. It'll mean I have to be much more careful later, but I've gotten a good feel about how things space out. I still wonder if anyone explained to the Guards or the Princesses what 'Kill Dah Wabbit' means.
The other part of this is that the ponification made me more willing to work with others. I'd been a loner most of my life, for obvious reasons. I've never been alone, always moths dancing around my flame, but they really weren't 'people', they were my next target. Now I work with a team. I think the Equestrians would be horrified if they understood the unintended consequences of all their 'improvements.' There are certain 'teams' only possible in fiction, or among Newfoals in Equestria.
The potion was supposed to eliminate all the 'evil' from us. But the definition of evil they used was what you'd expect from a university sociology department: having European ancestors, capitalist mores, Protestant work ethic, and having a penis were chief among them. I never had any of those to begin with. Take that away, make everypony willing to have sex with everypony else, and make us all part of the hive and the world suddenly is all smiling flowers and dancing rainbows. Except as I mentioned, ponies are all too often bullying, elitist, xenophobic bigots who panic at the slightest change to their routine. Bigotry is different from chauvinism. Chauvinism is where you think your group is inherently superior. Bigotry is where you think other groups are inherently inferior and act on that assumption. Big difference. Me, I'm a human chauvinist, the ponies talk a good game about being 'better', but they never faced the trials the human race did, and their 'crimes against the environment' beggar anything the human race ever did. They also don't live up to their own rhetoric of friendship, harmony and 'niceness'. And they completely ignore the pony tendency for insanity. Humans understood, that's why the ponies found me and my new partners all together in one place. And why the others in that place were all terrified of us.
I go to the bathroom to take a leak, before I start the real work. 'I'm in Twilight Sparkle's bathroom', I can almost hear the first wave of Newfoals squeal. I still have to avoid grinning at their absolute awe over the Elements and the Princesses. They never understand how deeply disturbing that kind of hero-worship is. Although Celestia seems to enjoy it, but she's kind of creepy herself. I look over at Twilight and wonder what she thinks of it. Considering how readily she accepted me when I didn't act all fangirlish and actually seemed shy, the adoration probably creeped her out.
I rinse the tub, driving what's left down the drain and ensure there's no drips. Then I lug the load over to the plastic and set it down. Now as my partner says, this is the fiddly bit: where to start. But where you start depends on where you want to finish, and I want to finish with the two flaps to look like rabbit ears. So the first job is the legs. For a human, it would be the back or belly, but then they'd wake up and see it, and completely freak out. Which is the whole fun of doing it. I don't think Twilight will freak out, but others will. So it balances out letting the victims see, versus letting everypony else see.
The first time I did this back on Earth, I made a complete botch of the job. The victim died before I was through, and I had to dispose of the evidence. I took time off to study, so the next time I did it, I did a workman like job and my victim lived through it. The same thing happened here. I made a botch of the job. The pony was sedated, but I knew it was a botch. So I built a big fire in her fire place and burned up the physical evidence. Although the smell hung around the neighborhood for days, distressing everypony. Much to my delight.
The idiot guards put the death of a prominent PER member down as suicide. I didn't know whether I should have been overjoyed or offended. I settled on overjoyed when I realized they'd do the same idiotically, incompetent job investigating whatever else I did. They also clamped a news blackout on it, so nopony was ever warned about my games. Even Twilight, my current subject wasn't warned. How stupid is that? Typical 'top-down' mentality. If the regular people are warned, they take precautions and are on the look out. Makes my job harder. But then people might look at other things the 'Queen' doesn't want them to.
The next time I did it, the victim woke up, took one look at what I'd done, and I don't think he's finished screaming yet. My team all dyed our coats, manes and tails for that one to look like other prominent PER members. So one dead, two permanently traumatized, one suicide after arrest and two rotting in prison for the deeds, and me and my team free to move to the next. It was even better than Earth where I had to dispose of my subjects after I was done. Here I let them live on, displaying my work to all who care to see. Like I said, great fun. Any time I'm supposed to laugh at something, I just think of that and giggle and guffaw like a good, little Newfoal.
Unicorns are different, you really have to sedate them or they fire off magical bursts while you work. Ironically, they do the same thing during sex. A really good orgasm and it's a shower of magical sparks everywhere. Which says something really perverted about ponies if they do that while I'm working. I almost wish I could have seen Twilight's sparklettes, but no. Since it ruins the effect and at the wrong time, you might damage or kill them, we sedate them. We've lost a couple from overdosing them. Them dying also ruins the effect, so you have to make sure you post your work prominently, so others can appreciate it.
I step back from Twilight, change gloves and look at the work I've done. It truly is perfection. All my practice on others, all my studying, getting the right tools, it all comes down to this. And I did it.
I briefly consider photographing this work of art, but discard the idea. It's really perverted to fall in love with something you created. It was the whole idea that 'God who created us, loves us' and could be jealous about us that made me an atheist, Celestia the God Queen nailed the lid on that idea hard. But it is beautiful. And now I must make sure others can share in it. Her fur is soft, and unlike so many others, it isn't stained all over by the time I'm done. Kosher butchering: you hang them up, slit their throat, and let their heart bleed them out. An innovation from one of my partners. One I normally avoid, but regrettably necessary in this case.
I never have figured out why these are called thumbtacks, I mean in Equestria where none of the master races have thumbs and they 'ponify' everything, even humans. But the folds are correct and proper, the earlier words are highlighted. I grin, an honest, happy grin, not the sick thing all Newfoals wear as a uniform, but satisfaction for a job well done.
I pack up the rest of the meat in the plastic. And Twilight's hide, looking like a rabbit skin, tacked to the door around the message 'Kill Dah Wabbit' in her blood. All that's left, is to dispose of the rest. I really wish I could have left her alive to see this. She might have appreciated the skill after a while. But that's crying over spilt milk.
I see one of my partners leaving Rarity's place. She gives me a hooves up and I respond. I don't want to think what she did to Sweetie Belle before she 'removed her husk'. That woman scares even me. That's why the three of us were in prison. She carries her own, smaller package. We load it, and head out to the Everfree. The timberwolves will get rid of the evidence. Except the gloves, we'll burn those at Fluttershy's. At least she'll still be alive to appreciate the work after we disappear and change our colors back to our natural ones. I kind of hope my third partner only had to drug the animals. They never did anything to us.
The scream from town as the timberwolves devour the 'bodies' of evidence tells us that our work is being appreciated.
The Conversion Bureau - Aftermath of Miscalculations
Celebration
by Dan's Comments
DISCLAIMER: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.
'The potion is the best thing to ever happen to anypony.' A misquote, but an apt one. There have been endless questions about why Celestia launched her attack on a planet that never did her or her ponies any harm. The simplest answer is she was a god and could do as she wished. That a devout atheist spouted that garbage was telling about the effect the potion had on their minds. I've always been a scientist and an engineer, so that made no logical sense. The sudden influx put a huge burden on their infrastructure, many starved, and some starved to death in the first few years. Then there was the drought of cutie marks, magic being stretched thin among so many new users. But if you accept not what they said, but what they did as their true selves, then it all fell into place.
I was an early 'experiment'. The adoration of Celestia was not as great as in later, more successful marks. But I was stripped of my ability to feel anger, and I was stripped of my ability to say 'no'. Think about that one for a moment. As long as some one, sorry, somepony demanded my submission in the name of Celestia, and had a halfway decent justification, I literally couldn't refuse them.
Which explains why I was sent to the Canterlot police headquarters, not as a scientist, but as a comfort stallion. I was intelligent enough to understand what they were saying and make appropriately witty conversation, but after a hard day of beating up the ever-shrinking number of dissident, and hiding the sometimes over-the-top abuse of Newfoals who couldn't fight back, they have to have a session, with another Newfoal who couldn't fight back. For a race who nearly exterminated each other on their own hatreds, having something to finally vent their baser instincts on without the danger of summoning the Windingos was a gift from their god. And Hell on Equus for the rest of us.
Yes, that's the big reason for the destruction of our people, our culture, our homes and everything we were, the ponies needed a chew toy. Expecting an end of their bullying nature was too much for even a thousand years of socialization to take care of. That they continually rubbed our noses in how terrible we were, while being worse to us should have been infuriating, if we could have become angry. But we couldn't, so we soldiered on. It was that or die in our billions. Had we known, there would have been far more suicides upon ponification. It was that realization that inspired me.
Getting out of the Canterlot police merely took arriving in geisha mindset to a party where Princess Luna was hosting. I doubt Princess Celestia would have cared, but Luna was still smarting from her attempt to exterminate this world. She still had a sliver of a conscience, and she also realized how much of the treasuries money was going to government officials keeping 'pets' like me.
I doubt the investigation went anywhere, but I did get anonymously shipped off to Baltimare, where I got a job as a chemist in a perfume factory. Now I know what you're thinking: poisons/explosives. Yes, I could have made those, but I'd never be able to use them. My conditioning was too strong. So I used that conditioning.
One of the reasons I didn't embarrass my colleagues earlier was I had gone looking for something, and as a police scientist I had rights to go places that civilians could not, and as their play-toy, I could always say that I couldn't reveal who sent me to go looking. Newfoals can't really lie either, but I wasn't about to tell them that I sent myself, so it wasn't a lie either. In all the 'failed' versions of the potion, was a secret one that worked on ponies, they all did that, although most ponies don't know/believe that, but this one worked on them slowly. Not days or weeks, but minutes instead of seconds. Since they were already equinoids, all that changed was their mind.
Imagine feeling your will, your entire self, being consumed slowly, and a horrible parody of it being overwritten in its place. All the darker drives that give you ambition and independence being sucked away and replaced with the recent-convert's muddle-headed, fuzzy devotion. Now imagine it happening not too fast for it to register or too slowly to chart the change, but just right, so you are aware of each step along the way. Not driving to the local store in a fast car, but walking there step by step.
The lab in the perfume factory let me synthesize this potion. Perfumes use all kinds of wild ingredients, so no one looked at my requests askance, and I did test some of those materials in blends. Some gave surprisingly useful results, so nopony objected to my 'puttering around with weird stuff'.
It took a few months, but I had a dose. And I had a target, one of the leading PER members lived in Baltimare. I was still a desirable stallion, so when I was sent 'as a gift' to her penthouse apartment, the doorpony just winked and let me in. Before we 'started', I slipped some potion in her champagne. The effect was everything I'd hoped for. She went crazy as her mind was stripped away.
When she demanded to know why I did this, I told her, 'The potion is the best thing to ever happen to anypony.' I left her, after telling her all she could expect as a Newfoal, once everyone figured out that she was. And that there would be nothing all her money, hero status, or contacts could do to save her.
She had a bottle of sleeping pills in her cabinet, I got them out and left them on her table as I slipped out. Her mind and will was still degrading when I left, but I knew she had a little willpower left. And considering she was feeling it, I knew I had a winner.
The next morning confirmed it. She'd taken the pills and overdosed. Part of me, the part grafted on by the potion was utterly horrified. A pony taking her own life? After being exposed to the potion? Despite literally knowing the whys and hows, that part of me could not believe anyone could do it.
The police ruled it a suicide and dropped the investigation. I had some vacation time, so I traveled to a nearby city of Fillydelphia, and looked up a prominent member of the PER. And dosed them. This time, I was careful that my visit was known only to my recipient, I cannot think of them as my victim, despite as much as handing them the gun and watching them shoot themselves. This time though, I stayed around to ask him questions. If he enjoyed his new status as a Newfoal, if he thought he'd fit in with his circle of friends once they found out, and if he thought the humans he'd done this to really were out of line by being horrified by having this happen to them. I left the home without answers, but reading about another suicide in the papers told me what I needed to know. That while ponies might talk about the wonders of ponification, and the Newfoals were programmed to think it wonderful, when a thinking, sentient, sapient creature was subjected to it, they were horrified and when possible took their own life as their last act as a free being.
Even true believers did, when faced with it happening to them. It's always okay when it happens to the other guy, but when it happens to you, it stops being so wonderful.
Over the next couple months, I hit random, proudly pontificating PER ponies. Soldiers and spokesponies, terrorists and propagandists. Six targets, six suicides. I decided to kick it up a notch. The Grand Galloping Gala next year would bring all the PER members for an awards ceremony, as well as the Element Bearers and the viceroys of the Crystal Empire. I had nearly a year to get ready.
Every town would be part of the planning and set up committee, to highlight each city's participation in the xenocidal campaign. Getting on to Baltimare's was a cinch. Getting a high-access position was equally easy. It's amazing what ponies will let you do, as long as you let them claim credit for all your hard work. They'd let you into the holy-of-holies, as long as they got to keep the high priest's robes, title and salary for themselves.
There would be a canopy of balloons that would rain down in the honorees at the beginning of the Gala, or that was the plan. To clean up the resulting mess, a heat flash spell, provided by another city, would burst them all. Filling the balloons with a gaseous version of the potion was child's play. And took this particular child only eight months to master and create. The best part is that until the heat flash, it would be essentially safe to handle. None of the ponies who filled those thousands of balloons would be affected, unless they walked through an oven before they washed up.
I was supervising the breaking of the set up camp when the Gala started. Very pony music and songs drifted through the air. At the moment the balloon deluge started, I heard nothing. I calmed myself, reminded by the fact that no plan survived contact with reality, and if nothing happened, there would be no way to trace it back to me. Several moments later, the music faltered, and the screaming began. I turned like every other pony and stared at the chaos in the Great Hall. I gasped in shock, with every other pony as somepony threw herself out of a window onto the wrought iron fencing around the garden. I reminded them that we had orders from Celestia herself to get the camp packed up. And the Newfoals returned to their tasks, hearts brimming with love for Celestia and firm purpose that this task would bring her honor and glory. The ponies continued to stare in horror as dozens brutally took their own lives.
I had no problem with the disturbed expression at the continuing screams of despair coming from the palace. They didn't know, so they worried. I knew, yet part of me couldn't believe that a pony being potioned wouldn't rejoice at the change. It eventually became quiet, even the screaming laments had faded. I doubt we would have heard Celestia's laughter or whimpers, so I don't know what her reaction was, but I knew that the reality had descended on those who hadn't been effected. Those without the courage to survive would be swept under the rug. Those who'd survived would probably be disappeared as well, so others would not learn that a potion to destroy ponies existed. And that by inference, so did one that would strike at every other race on Equus.
The flames coming from the palace were the first clue that at least one other had been affected. I don't know if Philomena mourned Celestia, or the other way around, but one of them decided to turn the building into a funeral pyre. That column of smoke and fire would be hard explain away. I grinned at the thought of it all. For the first time in a long time, I looked forward to the future.
