The Midnight Palace, The Midnight Court Federal District, The Lunar Domain, Universe 01
9:43 A.M. - April 2, 3028
“...For the heavens surely move under harmonious law.”
A young stallion, a tan earth pony clothed in only a bowtie that mocked the expected business suit, glanced up from his book at an old-fashioned analog clock.
9:43 A.M. Two minutes.
After carefully marking the page in his copy of Ancient Equestrian Mythology: The Definitive 3026 Edition, the pony closed the paper book and placed it on the chair to his left. Looking around the room, it seemed he had been the odd one out - everyone in the room was running around like they’d gone mad. Officers of the Lunar Guard were constantly talking to others over the comms to ensure the area’s security was maintained, while secretaries were either comming with the press or Ministry personnel.
This gave the pony a twinge of guilt - he’d dedicated the past three years to campaigning for a duty that required him to do everything these people were doing and more every moment of the day, and yet here he was reading about ancient mythology like there wasn’t anything more important to do.
Granted, that ancient mythology was a part of the history that had led up to this moment on a warm spring morning. Of course, it could be argued that this particular mythology was not only a respectable factor in the policy of the ancient Heavenly Dominion, but had helped drive a great deal of pre-Triumvirate history.
That wasn’t a small feat either - the Triumvirate...
“Prime Minister Phalanx Spear.” The pony’s thought process short-circuited, and he looked to see that the person who was in some ways the reason why he was sitting here now. Hell, he was the reason - it’d been his reaction to the LIA raid a couple years back that’d directly started this. The middle-aged human who’d been forced into seniorhood over the past six years stood a meter away, looking upon his successor with intrigue and relief.
The stallion made a modest smile. “Please, Prime Minister Gregorius, it’s Corporal. I haven’t taken my oath yet.” Corporal Spear started to rise from the chair only for Prime Minister Gregorius to shake his head.
“I need to sit anyways.” The man took a seat in the chair to Spear’s right. “It’s a shame that today’s the first opportunity we’ve had to meet.”
“I can’t blame you, Prime Minister. You’ve more important things to do than speak with me, and I do mean that seriously.”
“I believe that.” Gregorius thought of the friend he’d invited to the Residence a couple years back, and all but begging him to run for the Democracist Prime Ministerial candidacy as some form of penance for his six-year sentence. Now that friend was the Vice Minister of Gregorius’ successor, though he understood why. On the last day of his imprisonment, Gregorius felt an obligation to warn his inheritor. “You’ve got a long six years ahead of you, you know.”
“Of course. The job demands everything and more. No one is ever the same person, on a personal basis, going in as they are when they leave.”
“A personal basis?”
“There are people who stick to their ideals, keep their promises - they don’t completely betray the person that the people elected to the person of political pragmatism. Sure, they must compromise some points, after all, that is what is necessary if you really are trying to lead the people, but they never give into doing what is easy over what is right.”
Cynical questions over how long Spear would retain this attitude crossed Gregorius’ mind, and though he banished the thoughts from his mind quickly, it wasn’t quick enough to let one of them slip out. “You think you can live up to that?”
The stallion turned to look Gregorius straight in the eyes. “Prime Minister Gregorius, I wouldn’t have run if I didn’t know I would do so. To run with that kind of doubt would be disingenuous, to say the very least.”
Gregorius couldn’t help but wonder whether Spear’s attitude came as the result of some form of youthful bravado, or genuine resolve. The answer wasn’t due to be heard at the moment though, for a Lieutenant of the Lunar Guard - a Sangheili by the name of Fiue ‘Nurag - unexpectedly cut in.
“Prime Minister Gregorius, Corporal Spear, the inauguration is due to start in a moment.”
Corporal Spear nodded an acknowledgement, and Prime Minister Gregorius was quick to follow; he hoped that the day of his liberation wouldn’t be the first day of Corporal Spear’s imprisonment.
It was strange enough watching your own inauguration on a television screen plastered on the side of a hallway, but for Corporal Phalanx Spear it was even more strange watching the choir of Olsen Memorial High School singing the national anthem below the platform he would soon stand on. He’d graduated from the school barely three years prior, and there were people he remembered being freshmen that he knew were being watched by millions of people.
Lieutenant ‘Nurag watched the soon-to-be Prime Minister with a certain degree of amusement. She’d been assigned to his security detail two years prior, and ever since then the two had built up a friendship of sorts. After all, she was one of five people who could actually give the earth pony a bit of friendly teasing without garnering a more dignified response (the other four being his family).
“On a scale of one to ten, how correct am I saying the ever-sage Corporal Spear is contemplating the meaning of his existence whilst watching national television?” ‘Nurag quipped.
Spear didn’t need to turn around for the Lunar Guard to feel the earth pony irritatedly roll his eyes and almost silently sigh. “Five point seven, Fiue, I’m thinking, just not about that particular subject.”
“What a shocking surprise.”
The earth pony surreptitiously scraped the back of his front left hoof on the ground, a gesture roughly equivalent to a human raising their middle finger.
“How rude,” ‘Nurag feigned indignance with a Trottish accent. “I dare say, this country is doomed if we’ve such ill-mannered youth running it.”
“Aren’t you the older one making sarcastic questions?”
“Let’s not focus on that, this day is about you.”
Corporal Spear shook his head, and triumph surged through ‘Nurag - she knew the pony had the smallest of grins.
“If you’re done being juvenile, I think things are getting started.”
As ‘Nurag took her chance to return a covert rude gesture, a voice emanated both from the screen and from down the hallway.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause for the Olsen Memorial High School choir’s rendition of our national anthem!” Corporal Spear, watched the Manehattan Symphony Orchestra next to the choir join in the applause, and remembered the announcer’s voice belonged to Robby O’Sullivan, and felt a bit of the sort of childish excitement or pride that comes when a child is acknowledged by an idol of theirs. Before he’d decided on becoming a Marine in the eighth grade, Phalanx Spear had for the longest time wanted nothing more than to be a famous news anchor like Robby O’Sullivan was for the Manehattan Archive.
Alas, Corporal Spear soon regained focus on the task at hand. The inauguration was hosted and planned out by Princess Luna, and the fact that Robby was announcing was nothing more than a happy coincidence. There were far more important things to dwell on today than a childhood idol.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the forty-fourth Prime Minister of the Lunar Domain, Tzik and Misses Mantle Flame!” Corporal Spear smiled at hearing the name, and quietly joined in on the applause that was audible even this far down the hall. Like many others, the pony held a respect for the first (and so far only) Changeling Prime Minister, though Spear held a certain respect for her ambition and determination to get her job done right, even when it had been nearly impossible.
After the two elderly mares had made a fair amount of their way down towards their seats behind the platform, all the while receiving a massive amount of applause, Robby spoke again. “Ladies and gentlemen, the forty-eighth Prime Minister of the Lunar Domain, Silent Feather and Misses Jade Dash!”
More applause, but not nearly the same amount that Tzik had received, though Corporal Spear figured even Silent Feather could understand that.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the forty-ninth Prime Minister of the Lunar Domain, Lin Quirke!”
Corporal Phalanx Spear took a few steps towards the distant hallway exit, where the bright outside shone in like an overused cliche.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the fiftieth Prime Minister of the Lunar Domain, Tracy Marlen!”
The earth pony gazed forward towards the man he was to succeed in a few moments. Adelmar Gregorius noticed Corporal Spear, and made a smile that the pony quickly returned.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the fifty-first Prime Minister of the Lunar Domain, Adelmar Gregorius and Mister Benjamin Gregorius, accompanied by Vice Minister Laelia Cassia!”
The sizable applause that had accompanied the entrance of three of his predecessors diminished by at least a third. It wasn’t a secret that Adelmar Gregorius’ Prime Ministry hadn’t been terribly popular - it was commonly said at this point he was the most inept Prime Minister the nation had in its history - and Corporal Spear found himself cynically wondering how much of that applause wasn’t for Gregorius himself, but for the fact his Ministry was about to end.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Princess of the Lunar Domain, Luna!” Spear glanced at a screen to his right, and watched as one of the two remaining alicorns in existence made her way out onto the platform, receiving a fair bit more applause than Gregorius had. Corporal Spear wasn’t surprised, as a lot of people respected her, even if they weren’t Royalist. The long standing rumor had been that the Princess didn’t even care for the party that touted the expansion of her office as a major part of their party platform.
The alicorn walked up onto the platform, which Spear noticed had a tiled floor in Classical Equestrian style. The pony cracked a smile, remembering footage of Prime Minister Apple’s inauguration, where the platform had been a hastily-built wooden structure. How far had this nation come, when time could be dedicated to such aesthetics.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Luna spoke. The millennia-old alicorn’s start was the signal for Spear to start down the hallway. Normally, the elected Vice Minister, in his case Voro ‘Toyuk, would have been in front of him, but Toyuk’s last duties at the Lunar Parliament superseded the inauguration.
“Welcome to the seventy-second Prime Ministerial inauguration. Citizens of this New Lunar Republic, please welcome the elected Prime Minister of the Lunar Domain, Corporal Phalanx Spear.”
The moment Spear took the first step outside, everything clicked into place. The Manehattan Symphony Orchestra began the leitmotif they’d composed - it’d been a tradition for a couple of centuries that the Orchestra would create a specific piece for each Prime Minister - while the weight of a hundred million eyes cascaded upon the young stallion, daring him to collapse.
The memory of a cold Stalliongradi December night three years prior bolstered him - he’d made it through that, and he damn sure wouldn’t do change the response he’d made then for the important things now. Oddly, as he walked down to the platform, smiling and giving a wave, his ears could hear applause, and his eyes saw it, but it felt as though he couldn’t actually perceive that it was occurring.
After what felt like an instant, the earth pony stood beside the alicorn princess, awaiting the Orchestra to finish their piece. A moment later, a lone instrument blew the piece’s last tone, and Spear joined in the applause given. Seconds passed, and as the courtyard fell silent, Luna began speaking the words that Spear three years prior had never considered might be directed at him.
“Corporal Phalanx Spear,” Luna stated. “You have been elected by the people of the Lunar Domain to serve as their fifty-second Prime Minister. I ask of you, what have you to say?”
Maybe it was because boot camp had drilled into him never to wait to respond to something, but the whole feeling of time standing still that he might have seen in a novel was completely absent. No, a mere half-second passed, and Corporal Phalanx Spear replied.
“I, Corporal Phalanx Spear, do solemnly swear, that I shall truthfully execute my duties as the Prime Minister of the Lunar Domain, that I shall to the best of my ability defend, preserve, and protect the life, liberty, and prosperity of the peoples of the Lunar Domain and its New Lunar Republic.”
The alicorn nodded with a slight smile upon her face. “Then so it shall be, Prime Minister Phalanx Spear.”
This time, Prime Minister Phalanx Spear felt the rumbling applause across the court, and Luna stepped back from the platform whilst Spear stepped towards the podium at its front. The speech that Spear had written several days prior laid there in front of him, and for a moment, the neurons in his brain sent the impulses that ordered his vocal cords to move.
Something compelled him to forgo the written speech, and instead of glancing down at the paper, he looked behind him, at the Prime Ministers that came before him, and then out at the hundreds of people present, and many more across the country.
“Prime Minister Tzik, Prime Minister Feather, Prime Minister Quirke, Prime Minister Marlen, Prime Minister Gregorius, Vice Minister Cassia, Princess Luna, and above all, my fellow citizens of our Lunar Domain and its New Lunar Republic:
“On a morning far distant from this one, four hundred and twenty-six years ago to the day, our nation’s first Prime Minister, Jackie Susan Apple, swore the oath that fifty and one more have taken over the past four centuries. In that time, the nation that had formed out of bloody anarchy has changed in ways that could not have been foreseen.
“This country, our Lunar Domain, has seen the rivalries that for so many millennia led to the collapse of the greatest civilizations, and yet rather than be torn asunder as in the times passed, we have endured. In the lands of Rhipaea, the two nations of Griffonia and Zebrica, long bound into ancient feud, now join hands as the two greatest contributors in the effort to aid the lands of T’rahk Enox, an even more ancient mutual enemy.”
A small part of the young earth pony knew that somebody, likely the Daily, would find some way to use that against him, but he strangely felt little concern over that. “In Faal Himdah do Kiindahro Sos, the homeland of Faal Kahliir Junaar, the two species of pony and dov now live by way of the olive branch, and not the sword as it had been since the very dawn of this world’s civilizations.
“In the halls of the Lunar Parliament, the Paladin Party, the Democracists, the Republicans and the Royalists, the four factions that caused so much bloodshed in the past in a fight for total control, now work together in the knowledge that no singular ideology shall truly benefit all peoples.”
He had little doubt that last comment would be the subject of criticism by various parties’ hardliners, but he didn’t really worry himself over that at the moment. He hadn’t gotten this far by sitting on the sidelines, and not letting his voice be heard.
“We face unexpected challenges as well. In the aftermath of the Six Years’ Anarchy, it seemed our imposed isolation would be a prolonged, perhaps even eternal, matter. Now it has been broken by the discovery of a million worlds like our own, and we now face the challenge that nations before our own did as well. What is our role in these brave new worlds we have discovered? If we are to stay true to the principles our New Lunar Republic was founded upon, we must constantly seek peace, and only bring on the foul specter of war if the lives of the innocent, whoever they may be, become the targets of conflict. If we are to be pragmatic, we must seek to preserve ourselves above all others, and to make war when it is in our interests. I intend the former to be this nation’s path.
“We face the challenges of ethics, posed by the dilemma of the Cloudsdale Weather Manufacturing Corporation. We must decide whether or not we should let our national government continue to subsidize the company that has provided weather for this world for so long, in the interests to aid those who cannot afford it. We must decide whether the principles of free enterprise are being deprecated by what has been deemed a government-sponsored monopoly. There is no simple answer to this dilemma, and the Lunar Parliament is currently seeking to come to an agreement over the future of our government’s involvement with Cloudsdale Weather Manufacturing. The only viable solution to this dilemma is through the involvement of all interested parties, which is why I hereby call upon all heads of state governments, alongside the Executive Representative of the Lunar Parliament, the Ministerial Heads, the Chief Administrators of the Federal Territories, the Chief Executive Officer of Cloudsdale Weather Manufacturing Corporation, the Chairman of the National Federation for Free Enterprise, the Chairman of the National Association for Agricultural Growth, and Mister Cirrus Crafter to meet at the Prime Ministerial Residence in order to discuss this issue.” A thought crossed his mind, and he decided it would probably hurt him politically to add on what he was thinking of saying. “In addition, I would also like to an extend an invitation to this ceremony’s host, the Princess of the Lunar Domain, to attend this meeting in the interest of helping to represent those whom a federal law might harm.”
If he hadn’t already pissed off a few million people at this point, he could now practically feel the bombs going off now. It was why many others wouldn’t have made such a bold statement, and the very reason Spear didn’t care for “politics” that was about keeping all the politicians nice and happy. That wasn’t his job, much less theirs - it was to do what in the interest of the seven hundred and fifty million people that lived in the country.
On the bright side, Spear silently snarked, It’ll make the Royalists happy.
“Perhaps the greatest challenge our Lunar Domain faces, however, is the continuing conflict within the Changeling Territories, which has caused the deaths of 317,962 people since 2871, and the irreparable damage to the livelihood of millions more. This conflict, make no mistake, is not the mere result of speciesism, though it certainly plays a part. It is the result of conflicts of nations long gone, the poverty that plagues the land, and a fight for control not unlike the Anarchy from which our nation arose. We must not merely increase the size of our forces currently deployed in the Changeling Territories, or even the strength of our soldiers; they are well-trained, and well-equipped for the conflict at hand. What we must do is increase the focus of our forces, put them on the acting side rather than the reacting, and improve their intelligence capability through local cooperation. Most importantly, we must continue to provide aid for the Changeling Territories, through essential supplies, through education, through jobs, and through healthcare.
“Let us never forget, though, that we cannot, even for a moment of comforting security, give up our principles to combat our challenges. the words of a man whose words, though a thousand years old, still hold their truth for our nation. Let us remember the words of Mister Boris Yeltsin: ‘Liberty sets the mind free, fosters independence and unorthodox thinking and ideas. But it does not offer instant prosperity or happiness and wealth to everyone.’ Let us preserve the ideals our society has given life to, and not leave them to die, so that we may follow an easy path.
“No, let us choose the hard path, so that we may learn its lessons, and ultimately come to greater reward. Let our Lunar Domain make it so that all peoples may hold life, liberty, and prosperity. My fellow Lunar Citizens, may all that has passed serve as preface for the future that is today. Thank you.”
Words from a millennium and a half prior, sounds spoken in a rebellious cause that could have ended all life on that world, found themselves vibrating within Prime Minister Phalanx Spear’s throat. “Vivas noctus!”
As thunderous applause roared all around the young earth pony, he couldn’t help but wonder what the pony who’d spoken those in insanity all those years ago would look like when he turned around.
