The Great Equestrian Economic Assistance Program

by biasedeyes

Rating: everyone
Tags: Thriller
Length: 353

“Of course, if you have a time machine, you don’t need to kill Hitler.... Just go back 10 [more] years and start working on the German economy.” -Anonymous

[size=2em]Dramatis Ponaae[/size]
Villains
[size=1.25em]Starlight Glimmer[/size], an ambitious unicorn who feels cheated by the establishment, aided by -
[size=1.25em]?[/size] - A shadowy figure whose very name is unknown, but who may very well be the most competent administrator Equestria has seen in ages. They certainly manage some of the ponies highest in bureaucracy, including,
[size=1.25em]Spitfire[/size], compromised due to her motherhood of -
[size=1.25em]The Professor[/size], a triplet hivemind with genius intellect and no moral code.
& of course [size=1.5em]Trixie[/size]. How could she resist becoming the most powerful unicorn of all when she casts “The Great Equestrian Economic Assistance Spell”, turning the majority of pegasi & unicorns into earth ponies?
Hero(s)
[size=1.25em]Rainbow Dash[/size], duh. She’s the main character and is a mare of action. She’s so important to the story that when she has to make a hard choice, it splits.
[size=1.25em]Twilight Sparkle[/size]? She’s the one who sent Spike back in time and messed things up. She doesn’t even have wings anymore.
And [size=1.25em]Applejack[/size]. She’s there too I guess, helping out. Not doing as much as Rainbow, but we can’t all be super heroic, I guess.
Missing
Where are the rest of the elements? For that matter, where is Spike? He should be back by now, right?

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2016-02-15 08:58:54 UTC

Prologue

The Cosmic Matriarch paced across the void beyond the stars at the edge of the universe. Her auburn hair fell over her green eyes, reaching almost to her mild, knowing smile. Her white coat shone in the lack of light. She remembered fondly the days when the universe was small, when she could smile over everything and take it all in at a glance. As your worlds grew, though, a good creator had to step back and interfere less and less. Invariably, one ended up in the void beyond stars or what have you, helping other universes along until another one came that you could really get into.

The temptation was always strong, since you could always look back, to simply dive back in, tweak something here or there. Madness lay in that, though, and there was a cautionary tale in the one creator who thought moving a few galaxies and millennia away from his start was sufficient. Textbook example of a creator gone rogue, incompetent if not totally evil.

No, it was best to simply look back for a few simple things, to see how one’s favorite entities or places were doing (all creators had favorites, though they might not admit it), and spend most of one’s time searching the shadow between things for one’s next project.

She was doing just that when the universe shook. She frowned as timelines streamed away from one another, fanning out the universe like it was so many sheets of four-dimensional filo dough. Somepony was playing with time paradoxes. Perhaps she shouldn't have put quite so much magic into this one, but hindsight was 20/20. She didn't even mind the inconvenience of having to look at all the layers of reality at once, having to see the inevitable sheets burned by separation. The worst was being spread so very thin across this new multiverse. If any of the more intrepid of her ponies made their way to the edge of their universe now, they would have trouble picking her out from the void.

She turned back to said emptiness. No time like the present.