Archaeology

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn

to stand and walk and run and climb and dance;

one cannot fly into flying.

0 A.C.

Let me reflect, for just an hour ago I have reached the western border of Equestria. From where I rest now, I can see the beginning of the great wild plains, edge of the known world. Lying north of our peaceable land are jagged mountains, home of the Gryffon clans. Beyond their ranges lie an arctic wasteland, home to none. The blizzards become impenetrable the farther north one goes so there is uncharted territory there, though Gryffondom has a legend about that space, something about how life once originated there. East and south of Equestria are other nations of other races, yet the stories go much the same as in the north. Only to the west is there considered to be ‘empty space’, though there are the wild people who live there.

Shaggy and massive, these are the cousins of those buffalo who do live within our equine nation. A few years ago, tales of one of the tribes inside of Equestria spread rapidly after the Elements of Harmony resolved a dispute between them and some citizens near this border I write from. It was during the first year of Appleoosa’s settlement, I believe. In typical Equestrian fashion, we sent pioneers to the frontier of Equestria to build a new settlement and naturally, they did not think about informing the local ‘savages’ about planting an entire orchard on traditional stampeding grounds. Bloodshed was barely averted - the ponies and buffalos managed to come to an agreement to resolve the issue peacefully. But the underlying cause of the conflict was never addressed: the idea that ponies have a right to take whatever land they deem suitable.

Luckily for the Appleoosans, that particular tribe forgave the encroachment, willing to be friendly to the newcomers. The more assimilated tribes still tend to live near the frontier, and though they maintain some ties to wilderness, they also appreciate trading with our kind. Undoubtedly, out in those uncharted lands lies a tribe who would certainly go on the War March if we tried expanding that far, the way we have, on a small scale, done recently.

Once upon a time, much of the land on which I currently stand was part of that wild kingdom. Only slowly have we carved out their space, but who really knows how much of it there is? Certainly it cannot go on forever, which is why our society must be stopped. Let me explain this a little better.

When we store huge amounts of food, fit for much greater populations than we have, it is only natural that our living population goes up. And so we must find more sources of food. How? By planting new fields. And so this positive feedback loop continues- Suppose we have 1000 ponies and enough food for 1500. Soon enough we’ll have 1500 ponies all working and producing enough food for 2500 ponies. And so on, until there’s no more fields left to plant. So we expand a little farther, planting more seeds and eventually we have 5000 ponies. You can see how it might progress. Eventually, the land must run out (either of minerals and nutrients, or simply being at full capacity). So our expansion is exponential in scale...

From the first moments I reached the outskirts of Equestria, I was shocked.

True wilderness.

It touched me in a way that is hard to explain to those who live in a sculpted landscape. Even in the midst of the Everfree forest, one knows that all around them are cultivated acres, ponies humming as they go about their efficient livelihoods. Despite being in that small tangle of wild, one is not isolated the way that it is felt on the outskirts of ‘civilization’.

Surely landscape affects people. When ours is cropped and ordered, everything where it ‘ought’ to be, I feel that it reflects a great insecurity within ourselves. Fifty years without us on the surface and none of this would be important land, it would be desolate and wasted as we’ve driven away everything but ourselves and that which feeds our own food.

I journeyed towards the outskirts of Equestria, through widely spaced farms, each surrounded by great fields of whichever crop they were harvesting. As I followed the road over the lip of a hill, I was suddenly in a different world. Before me stretched an endless ocean of hills, covered with sage and prairie grass in shades of silver, subtle browns and oranges, pale yellows dominating the scene. Above all this stretched the most enormous sky I have ever seen. Nothing in all my life had prepared me for this scene of utter emptiness which had sprang upon me without warning.

I am not sure where I am going with this, yet I felt that it was worth recording.

Much of what I put down here is hard for me to communicate; I have not fully condensed my own ideas of what ‘ought to be’ within my own mind, let alone be able to articulate them fully on this sheet of parchment.

Anyways, I thought I had peeled them off, those pesky lenses of cultural perception. How much wronger I could have been, I cannot conceive!

Relative to my fellow Equestrians, my glasses are broken and cracked; shattered but still obfuscating my vision and still very well attached to my nose. And I cannot see without them!

Up to this point, all I’ve really been able to do is say ‘Sweet Celestia, this is clearly wrong!’ Yet, on the few occasions I manage to make this point to others and have it acknowledged, I’ve had nowhere to go after that. My great feat of disillusionment has merely been the easiest step towards a path I see as righteous and worth fighting for. And that’s the thing, I can only see the first meter of this path, for it is winding and lonely, overgrown from few people treading it down.

I want to broaden this analogy: Think of a great forest, with all of creation outside and somewhere at the center there is a great place that is told of, where everypony in the world can be happy or fit in, one way or another. At various places, different thinkers have bravely cut paths into that forest, following the terrain from their starting point and either reaching the center or being led astray as they lead their followers. Rarely, if ever in recent times, has there been someone to follow down the path that I am starting to see. If I look towards the other inroads, I see millions of ponies following each other at a rapid pace, charging headfirst into, for all they know, a meat grinder at the bottom of a pit. And the only reason they go? Because everypony else is.

Coltaire once said, “Our species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road”. Is there a way to know which paths lead to destruction? Is it just blind luck? I don’t know, though I must struggle to find the best and fastest way into the center.

One of my problems, I am realizing in hindsight, is that I misunderstood the root cause of the larger issues at stake. The source of, for lack of a better phrase, badness in the world comes not from Celestia’s power and her monopoly on it. It comes from the organization of the society based around it, the society that is expanding unstoppably and exponentially.

I reiterate: my glasses were cracked, but not torn off.

It is time for a history lesson, I am thinking. Talking to anypony off the street, they don’t really know about the world outside Equestria. Mostly they’re just like “Outside of Equestria? Isn’t Equestria like, all of the important world?”. They don’t necessarily say it like that, but it’s implied.

The Equestrian tale begins like this:

Once upon a time, there was an empty planet. It had formed out of star-stuff. For a long time it was hot, but finally it started cooling, and was covered mostly in water. Somewhere, somehow, in that water, microorganisms took shape and started evolving. Slowly, life grew more and more complex until finally some pioneer struggled from the murky depths into crisp air. And so life started to evolve on land as well as in the water. Fast forward a few million or billion years and our Terra started looking much more like it does now, for--

    (We can see the writing slide off the page, the ink trailing strangely as if hastily abandoned. After a margin of space, the writing continues)

This is AMAZING!

Two days have passed since I stopped in the middle of that sentence, and I have much to record.

I will start from my moment of great surprise:

As I recorded my thoughts on this ledger, I felt a tingling in my fur, a sense of somepony watching me. I knew that I was near the border, so my precautionary sense were working extra hard. Hard, yet I should have died had not my accosters been peaceful.

Without realizing it, I had been encircled. A scent wafted into my nose, powerful, overwhelming, but not unpleasant. It was an earthy smell for it implied wide spaces, open sky beating upon boulders surrounded by swirling dust. It smelled like the true world.

I dropped my quill off the parchment and noticed a dark mass approaching from all directions, bringing the smell with it.

The first faces revealed themselves as they approached my campfire. Long brown strands formed their shaggy beards and coats, some braided in elaborate patterns around polished rocks, or shells, or feathers. Others wore their fur loose, dirty strands hanging under the weight of wild living, framing the twisted ivory that curled out from their skulls, obscuring their black eyes that glittered with the intensity of the night sky.

Yet, even as the beasts towered over me, surrounding my every avenue of escape, fear remained absent. I felt a hard hoof on my shoulder- harder than any little pony’s that I had met. Turning slowly, I was face to face with the darkest buffalo I had ever seen. He was 4 times my size, at least, his hide the color of burnt pitch. His were the most elaborate decorations and swaying atop his head was a crown of great eagle feathers.

Resonating from some dark cavity within his chest, his voice was strange and deep, as if Equine was a foreign language, rarely used, “Little pony, what are you doing so far from home?”

His eyes were narrowed in suspicion at me; pony-folk were not known to care for camping trips, for we are very urban creatures. And perhaps there was also some idea that I might be a frontrunner, a precursory scout for more settlers. I certainly wouldn’t have been setting a precedent if that were the case.

I replied cautiously to the inquiry, though my heart was racing with excitement. I had barely just reached the Equestrian border, nor had I found the nerve to cross it, yet here before me stood, perhaps, the object of my quest - some of the peoples whom I had set out to meet.

“I am a wanderer, seeking only knowledge”. I waited for his reply.

“What kind of knowledge?”

“Knowledge of how to live, the only kind that is useful.”

His eyes were appraising, and perhaps somewhere within them was a hint of a smile, though he remained stone faced. Without another word, that great one before me let out a large huff and turned west, his back to me. His tribe gathered around him and they set off at a slow walk, as I gawked.

A voice behind me startled me out of my daze, inquring, “coming?” Followed by a light giggle. The equivalent of one of their foals dashed past me, joining her relations and leaving the invitation hanging.

Apparently I had answered satisfactorily.

Apparently, I was going to meet the buffalo.