!

Sweet Apple Cider Season is starting, where the Apple Family begin making cider before winter hits. Which Rainbow Dash has been waiting all year for this, and she's determined to get some cider before they run out, as happens every cider season going back for years - and especially to beat Pinkie to the punch, as she's always the first in line, and buys multiple mugs full. Despite Rainbow arriving at dawn, Pinkie is at the head of a long line of ponies who camped out, so it plays out the same as every year: Pinkie gets her several mugs, and the Apples sell the last barrel just before Rainbow reaches the counter, with other ponies still in line who are none too pleased about the situation. Rainbow Dash riles up the crowd to berate the Apples for never having enough cider.

Cue the Flim Flam sisters rolling into Ponyville. They charm and schmooze their way into the town's good graces and introduce, The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, which they claim can make enough cider to satisfy all of Ponyville in a fraction of the time the Apples can even make their daily batch! The Apples maintain their position that quality is more important than speed, but the sisters quickly prove that their machine can make very good cider, thanks to its built-in quality check system that only uses the best apples and automatically discards the rotten or bruised ones. The sisters offer a "partnership," but when the Apples refuse their blatantly lopsided deal, is when Sunset made herself known.

“Ok, I see that this is just like the Zap apples thing,” Sunset said stepping up into the scene. “The cider machine makes good cider at a rate that you Apples can't as like before there’s only 4 of you actually doing the cider making. So that there’s only a limited supply.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said as she’s lucky to drink a mug of cider once a year.

“So instead of doing the whole show and dance, I’m cutting to the chase. Apples you provide the apples and give it to the Flim Flam sisters so that they can make enough cider where the barrels can be shipped out for sale on the market. Flim and Flam we work out a deal for the cost of the cider your machine will be making. And depending on the outcome, I might have some other projects for the two of you,” Sunset said.

“What?” Applejack asked.

“Remember your family don’t own the farm, I do and I want to make a profit. Besides Crappyjack, the town hall repair bill still needs to be paid off,” Sunset said.

“Oh, yeah,” Applejack said.

Mayor Mare is still working the grain mill, making flour to sell on the market. Sunset on the other hand has been busy working at fixing the mismanagement of the treasury of Ponyvile. Like how the money taken for taxes on the sale of the Zap apple harvest was all spent to cover a survey to decide what to do with the money... which had already been spent on the survey. Ponyvile has tons of officials whose only job is to collect fees and taxes, which the money is spent on paying their salaries or for surveys that use up all the money that was collected. (1)

Sunset taking over the Ponyvile government fired most of the officials and only kept the ones whose jobs are actually needed. Everyone else was either doing nothing or were incompetent at their job. Sunset cut tons of jobs and projects that just wasted money and is thinking of bringing in accountants from Canterlot to help her fix the mess that Mayor Mare and the officials made. For the officials she fired, she put them to work in the grain mill, to work off the debt for all the money Sunset spent on fixing their mistakes.

“I want Ponyvile be a profitable farming town, not a farming town that needs me paying to fix things,” Sunset said as while she is rich, it doesn’t mean she should be the one paying to fix things around here.

“Music to me and my sister’s ears,” Flim said.

“Right sister, a contact with the royal family be very profitable,” Flam said.

“We make a contact and we can start selling cider,” Sunset said with big plans.

!

The next day -

With the Apples and the cows bringing in barrels of apples that they’re paid for by weight, the barrels are taken to a warehouse that has been convert into a makeshift cider mill. The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 is the center piece, being powered by the magic of unicorns, making the cider from the good apples. The bad apples are tossed into the waste bin where they be used to feed farm animals or be made into fertilizer.

After the juices had been extracted from the apples, the leftover pressings which are variously known as "math", "cake", "powz", "mure" or simply "pommage”. It might either be watered and pressed again to produce a weak cider known as, or sold to ponies and others who will eat them. In the human world the leftovers can be used as animal feed or made into compost, or if the cores are cut out before hand, be eaten as well by humans. (2)

There are now plenty of cider barrels both for Ponyvile and to be shipped out for the open market. Rainbow Dash herself having brought herself two barrels of cider which she’s keeping all to herself. Finally having enough cider to drink herself sick, which is why Fluttershy is using a wheelbarrow to wheel Rainbow Dash to the doctors.

!

Inside the Apple Mill office -

Sunset is looking over the sale reports from the sells, on the desk are piles of bits that have been counted. Which she places into a large wooden chest of finished counted bits, there are other money chests that have been brought in to be counted. Sunset is making sure that the bits are counted and there’s no mismanagement in the bits, like under Mayor Mare. Which the bits will be going into the Ponyvile bank and the workers will be getting their payment by checks. That way all the taxes can be collected before the money is given to the workers.

“If the sales stay good, the debt should be paid off and I get my money back and than some,” Sunset said.

“And the payment?” Applejack asked who is in the room with Sunset along with the Flim Flam sisters.

“You all be getting your checks by mail at the end of the week. The money collected is just from today’s sales the weeks lump sum of your payments will be given to you then,” Sunset said.

“How much did we make today?” Flim asked.

“Still counting but it’s far more than what the Apples were bringing in with their old fashion ways,” Sunset said.

“And what about other projects you will be paying us for?” Flam asked.

“You two can start by thinking up some other machines to either help with farming or making food items. I have some ideas from the human world that you two can use,” Sunset said as modernizing Ponyvile is an on going projects she’s been working on.

!

Author's Note

1 - I’m going with Ponyvile having tons of useless people in the government who do next to nothing and do things like spending tons on money on figuring out what to do with said money that was already spent. To explain why Mayor Mare needing Applejack to win money to fix the town hall.

2 - Seeing how the ponies are still ponies they can still eat the leftover crushed apples after they’re made into cider.