On the verge of destruction
For months, tension had been escalating between the principality of Equestria and the Griffons’ Republic of Ornipagoi. Officially, the controversy had focussed on a disputed strip of land, all but barren and uninhabited. Everypony, however, knew this was just a charade. The real reason behind the simmering conflict had nothing to do with territorial claims. It was of a political nature: the griffon leaders abhorred the Equestrian princesses.
A century ago, during a bloodthirsty revolution, Ornipagoi had deposed its royal family, the coup bringing to the fore a council of revolutionaries – they called themselves “droogs” – who not only had dispossessed all the old aristocratical families (many of whom had fled to Equestria lest they be summarily beheaded by the new regime) but also had confiscated most private properties: houses and their curtilages, farms, cultivated lands, forests… had all been seized and placed under “collective” ownership. And thus, after centuries of unlawful domination and oppression, the new Supreme council had pontificated, Ornipagoi was at last to become a land of total equality, where every citizen would be treated on the same footing, be they scions of noble or humble families. Everygriffon would forever be freed from the pangs of hunger, from the ukases of a wicked and despised tyrant, and live in freedom and happiness ever after.
Hundred years after, however, the reality was quite different. Since the revolution, Ornipagoi’s economy had been mired in a deep slump, and poverty had inexorably swept across the land. While griffon peasants had been able to eke out a living from the meagre pittance the state allowed them and from the stunted vegetables they were able to grow in the skimpy patches that had been left for them to cultivate, in the cities the situation was critical: citizens were starving, most shops were usually out of food, and when, by chance, an outlet had received a delivery, everygriffon had to queue up for hours, praying to an unknown god that the rarity they hankered after would not sell out before their turn came. Wide cracks were marring almost every façade, the buildings running down for lack of care. More and more often, no water would flow out of the taps, and every now and then the shaky appliances, manufactured in large plants whose chimneys belched torrents of soot that blotted out the Sun, would falter for want of electricity.
But, the state-controlled radio droned on and on, Ornipagoi was a paradise.
And so, increasingly aware of their egregious failure, the heads of the griffon Supreme council had turned their eyes toward their nearest neighbour, Equestria, with mounting hatred and envy. For what did they see but a rich, fertile and merry land, thriving under the mellow rule of a couple of enlightened sovereigns? It was as if fate had erected, just on the border of their country, a giant mirror which ruthlessly reflected the image of their own disarray.
It had become untenable. The only solution was the total obliteration of their purported rival.
Rumour had it that the griffon government had secretly mandated their best scientists to develop a weapon of an entirely new kind, one that no griffon nor pony could ever fend off. Spies on Celestia’s secret service had whispered words of unknown dark magic and hidden menace, and even the benevolent princesses had shifted uneasily in concern. They had in turn entrusted the best mages in Equestria with the mission to create a protection device impervious to all attacks; at least, that’s what the newspapers had reported. The Princess of friendship herself, Twilight Sparkle, had mysteriously disappeared more than two months ago, hastily departing from Ponyville without even hinting at what urgent errand she had been charged with.
Thus, it was with little or no surprise that, on the eve of summer, the Ornipagoi’s special envoy delivered to the princesses the dreaded declaration of war.
The day after, as the newspapers all blustered on the imminent attack of the griffons, speculating about the nature of those mysterious weapons whose existence was only murmured and adumbrated, every family in Equestria stiffened itself in anticipation of tearful farewells, the stallions readying themselves to join their local battalion while their wives and children prepared to leave their homes for the uncertain and precarious comfort of the pokey subterranean bunkers, accompanied by the dire realisation that they may never see their husband or father again.
As the day went by, everypony awaited the orders with bated breath.
However, when they eventually came, they were not what was expected at all. Instead of the heartbreaking partings, everypony was instructed to take shelter in the bunkers, where they would be given gas masks; each of these gas masks was to be carefully adjusted to its recipient and worn until further notice; the war, the official message claimed, would need no army and last no more than a few hours. It was presented as a mere minor inconvenience.
Therefore, all over Equestria, lines of bewildered but obedient ponies, earth, unicorns and pegasi alike, slowly descended into the dank gloom of those uncharted burrows like sluggish and twisty pied centipedes, entreating the thick stratum of soil to safeguard them from the unfathomable scourge which would no doubt ravage the blessed country where they had, up to now, lived in bliss and nonchalance.
Thousands of kilometres away, on the other side of the border, the griffons did the same.
It was not until the last ponies in Equestria eventually reached the entrance of their assigned bunker, not until all the hefty metallic doors were painfully closed and all the locks had jangled, that droves of rockets, each one loaded with its toll of death, slowly took off from secret bases scattered all over both countries. And, although nopony but the princesses and the griffon Supreme council’s members were out to behold it, the glory of the Sun was briefly eclipsed by the light of the blazing flames that poured out of the bottom of those elegant portents as they leaped into the sky.
Thus began the countdown both in Equestria and in Ornipagoi. And far above the ground, in the emptiness of space, garish shoals of flying pipes hurtled toward an improbable rendezvous, briefly crossed each other in a deadly embrace before carrying on along their way. And as they closed on their respective quarries, huge telescopes spotted them, and everywhere in Equestria and in Ornipagoi unheeded sirens vainly blared over ghost towns to warn of the impending doom. A large bubble of magic energy was conjured around Canterlot’s castle, and, similarly, a vast dome of hardened glass sprang from the ground and wrapped itself around the building of the griffon Supreme counsel, like a terrified oyster closing its shell around its precious pearl.
As the minutes dragged on, even the naked eyes of the few observers could finally make out tiny dots moving against the backdrop of the sky, dots that soon became blotches; and those blotches in turn grew into ominous spindly shapes. In Canterlot and Griffingrad – the capital of the griffon Republic – princesses and droogs hunkered down in anticipation of the fatal impact.
But it did not come; instead, as the missiles were swooping down on the cities of both countries, they suddenly exploded in mid-air, disintegrating in an impromptu and deafening firework that once again blemished the light of the Sun; and deep underground, within the thronged bunkers, the muffled echoes of the hovering detonations faintly resounded, causing everypony to shudder and pray to Celestia for mercy.
However, no incandescent shrapnel, no razor-sharp edged shard fell from the heavens; nothing except a strange, dense white cloud of impalpable gas that gradually spread out over all cities, swaddling the buildings in unreal milky mist, so tiny and fluid that it invaded all the abodes. It sidled through chinks and opened windows; it slunk effortlessly through the magical bubble Shining Armour had set up around Canterlot’s castle, and through the multiple cracks of the griffons’ glass dome; it traipsed lazily along the tunnels leading to the bunkers, loitered for a while in front of the massive doors, before oozing though the lock holes; and soon, all the shelters were full of that white, ghostly vapour. It suffused the atmosphere, filled up all the spaces, and, under the horrified glances of ponies and griffons alike, blithely defeated the masks’ rugged rubber seals that were supposed to insulate their wearers from the surrounding air; from there, it snuck easily into the lungs of the panicked victims, then passed through their alveoli into their bloodstream.
There were unending seconds of desperate angst, as everypony waited for the gruesome throes of death to begin.
But nothing happened. No pain, no suffocation, no vertigo, not even the slightest nausea. Everypony, everygriffon, was feeling perfectly sound, inexplicably unscathed by that ghastly gas. And, shyly, in every bunker of both countries, ponies and griffons of all ages took their pointless masks off, inhaled deeply, and looked at each other though the diffused milkiness, their faces ashen, scrunched in a hodgepodge of relief and incomprehension. But quickly surprise and dismay gave way to mirth: first a single pony, then two, three, ten, hundred, then all the poor citizens crammed into those cramped chambers burst into intemperate fits of laughter and patted each other on the back; the doors were opened with elation, and soon they emerged from the narrow warrens to discover their beloved cities unharmed and welcoming.
In Canterlot, Celestia removed her mask with a stately gesture; Luna, Cadance and Twilight Sparkle followed her. She exhaled audibly, and looked at the other princesses with weary eyes. At last, “I think it’s time for us to retire,” she declared; all other alicorns silently nodded in agreement. “Our ponies have grown up. It’s up to them to decide their fate now. This war with the griffons was pointless from the start, how could we have been that blind? I —” She broke off as a faint rumour mounted from beyond the walls of the castle. “Listen!” she exclaimed in excitement. A hurried clop quickly covered the muffled fracas, and a breathless guard appeared in the doorway.
“Princesses!” he brayed, and almost spat out the word. “Folks are coming. They claim power, they claim democracy! Revolution at last! The tide of revolution is ebbing and nopony will stop it! The reign of the immortal tyrants has ended! We will fight for equality, to death if necessary!” He suddenly spun around and flung himself into the stairs, shouting “Woe! Woe! Woe betide the nobility! The day of wrath has arrived!”
Celestia giggled. “Come on! I think it’s about time to announce our collective abdication. My last speech from the ex-royal balcony! What a day to celebrate!” she lilted to the other alicorns. And with these words, she gaily trotted off.
Far away, deep under the headquarters of the griffons’ Supreme council, the leader of the council – the first droog Tavanazov – harshly ripped his mask off from his head, immediately imitated by all his peers. He was guffawing, too. “What a bunch of fools we have been!” he boomed in his deep voice. “Collectivisation? Poppycock! Time to be realistic! That will never work!” He hesitated, then turned towards the Council secretary. “Tovarich!” and he yucked at that name, “Is the great grandson of the last tzar still confined in his dacha?” The secretary nodded. “Then go get him on the double! We’ll need a leader to negotiate peace with Equestria! War is over! Let’s chuck that painful experience and move on to enlightened monarchy, guys!” They all whooped with laughter.
❦
The persuading gas: that’s how it had been christened by both parties. The “ultimate” weapon: no more wanton destruction, no more bloodshed, no more grief, no more pain. Just a single, tiny molecule, so minute it was able to make its way through the narrowest crannies, to percolate even through the most compact crystalline structures of metals. A molecule that, once breathed, would reach the brain, and alter – oh, ever-so-slightly – the synapses in several key loci. The result was an almost instant and completely painless reorientation of the thought patterns of the victim, under the influence of the 3D-conformation of the isomer: monarchism, republicanism, socialism, anarchism, universalism, jingoism, federalism, centralism… the possibilities were infinite: every opinion, every conviction or combination thereof could be surreptitiously instilled. The indoctrination was total and irreversible.
Thus, when the delegates of both countries met, several days later, in a remote town near the border, they first indulged in passionate hugs, toasts, and vibrant speeches on how stupid they both had been not to recognise the moral superiority of the others.
But when the serious talks resumed, a chilling hush fell over the table of negotiations.
And, with political points of view swapped, the tension escalated once more.
