“An army of brainwashed teenagers?”
Sunset Shimmer rolled her eyes, but kept a smile on her face. “Well, I suppose it seems silly in retrospect, Twilight.”
The human Twilight Sparkle took another bite of her sandwich, then turned and resumed the conversation. “I just can’t imagine you doing something like that. It seems so… petty and haphazard. You’re much smarter than that.”
Sunset stared down at her plate. “I assure you, ‘petty’ used to define me perfectly. And while I know now how foolish it was, the context I came into this world with made it seem perfectly logical to me.”
“You mean… the magic pony world?” Twilight’s eyes lit up.
“Yeah.” Sunset nodded, morosely pushing a carrot around her plate with her fork.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned back to face her conversation partner. Opening her eyes again, she began. “When I came to this world, I’d lived in what I suppose a human might call magical pony paradise. I was dumb in that way some smart people are.”
It was Twilight’s turn to look down at her plate, but Sunset grabbed her chin and gently turned Twilight’s head back towards her. A reassuring smile from Sunset brightened Twilight again.
“I began by treating my being stranded in a seemingly magic-less world as another problem to solve. I’ve always been proud, person or pony, and I believed I could handle anything. I could read and speak the local language, no problem, thanks to some translation spell on the portal. Just as helpful, I’d popped out right by a school that could teach me all about this new world.”
“How old were you at the time? Just for information’s sake.” Twilight blushed. “Not so I can picture you in my head or anything.”
“She was twelve, darling. Back then, she was cute, but angry.” Rarity took her seat at the table, setting her lunch box down and taking out a napkin. “We had no idea what we were getting into. No offense. Hehe.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow at Rarity, then smiled. “I beat myself up over the whole thing far more than you guys ever could. But I feel like it’s really over now, and I don’t mind if you joke about it.” She smirked. “Unless you become unreasonable about it.”
“Well, that’s good to hear.” Rarity began to set up her lunch.
“I was telling Twilight about how I ended up with the whole… teenage mind controlled zombies thing.”
Rarity turned her full attention to Sunset. “Well, in retrospect it does seem like a very odd plan. Rather brutish and… oh, that reminds me, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack will not be joining us for lunch today. They must clean up the damage they did to their chemistry classroom.”
Sunset nodded. “I got the text. I assume they learned a valuable lesson and nobody got hurt?”
“Quite. Fluttershy is bringing them some food so they won’t do without lunch entirely.” The fashionista returned the gesture of affirmation. “In any case, I must admit I am indeed curious as to the thought process that led to your plot.”
“I don’t even know what the plot was.”
Sunset turned to look at her newest friend, and recalled the implications of one of those words. “Alright, first I have to lay the scene out for Twilight, since she doesn’t know too much about my background. Rarity, you were there that first year I was here, in my world history class.”
“Yesss….” Rarity looked down at her lunch. “I’m afraid I don’t remember you very well from that era. You sat at the back of the class and seemed persistently nervous.”
Sunset took a sip of juice. “Yeah. There was a reason I was nervous. That was twentieth century history, and I’m from a place where my species hasn’t had a major war against itself in living memory.”
“Didn’t you once say that your mentor was a near-immortal who was over a millennium old?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Rarity blinked twice. “I can see how that would be a contrast.”
“The world wars. The firebombing, the destruction of whole cities. Nuclear stockpiles. Mutually assured destruction. I was convinced that I’d wandered into a world of bloodthirsty monsters whose universal special talent was violence and destruction.”
Twilight put her hand to her mouth. “It’s not all that bad. I promise.”
Sunset smiled wanly. “I know. But that knowledge affected me. I remember shortly after that wandering into a video game store and seeing Call of Warfare 1 on the demo consoles. The idea that humans are so OK with killing that they enjoy it.
“It made me think humans were monsters.” Sunset looked down at her mouth and quirked her eyebrow. “I mean monsters.” A pause. “Darn.”
Grimacing in annoyance, Sunset looked up once again and turned her eyes towards Twilight. “So, the portal gives you an automatic translation spell between your native language and whatever is spoken on the other side. At least, we think that’s what it does. In the Equestrian language, there are two words for monsters.
“The first is monsters, which refers to… rgggh!” Sunset smacked her palm against the edge of the table. “Uh, the first is ‘dumb monsters’ which refers to anything that will eat a pony and is not sapient. The second is ‘smart monsters’ which are sapient, but are able and willing to eat you.
“Smart monsters are a major controversy among ethicists of Equestria. Some argue that since they consistently choose to do evil – IE, eat us – they are inherently evil and thus of less moral worth than a ‘full’ moral actor like a pony.”
“So,” Twilight leaned in, “they were considered lesser intelligent creatures?”
“I can tell you’re a little disturbed by that. Princess Celestia didn’t like that idea either. Her theory was that while things between ponies and, say, chimaeras were bad now, the chimaeras could eventually be brought around to the idea of being friends rather than trying to eat us. Heck, during her rule griffons and minotaurs were removed from the ‘smart monster’ list.
“Anyway, we’ve strayed from the topic. I don’t want to blame what I saw or read or learned for my behavior. I was already a piece of work when I left my homeland. But I believed that to survive, I had to become tougher and meaner than the humans around me. And I did. I blackmailed and intimidated my way through the next few years of school. I made one try at returning through the mirror briefly, but Celestia had moved it into a more guarded location and I popped back through before too long. All I was able to gather was that Celestia had a new student named ‘Twilight Sparkle’ and she was grooming her to get everything I felt had been denied to me.
“I wanted revenge against both of them for the crimes I imagined they’d committed. And, unlike the Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, Celestia had let down some of her enigmas around me. I knew about the Elements of Harmony, more than any mortal pony. I knew that if Twilight could use them to win against Nightmare Moon, I could misuse them.”
“How’d you know that?” the human Twilight broke in.
“It was simple. Princess Celestia herself misused them when she banished her sister by using them alone. I can’t go over details of now-irrelevant arcane theory in one lunch break, but based on her experience I knew that the Elements could be misused, and I knew based on the fact that the portal worked that a powerful magic item could retain magic over here. So I’d steal the Element, use it to reactivate my magic, and then invade Equestria with an army of brainwashed humans in order to make myself a princess by force.”
“Why would you want to be a princess anyway?” Twilight looked over quizically.
Sunset shrugged. “Why do people spend years on doctoral dissertations? It’s the top of the path that being Her personal student puts you on. I’d seen Cadance become a princess, and her becoming one out of nowhere ate me up inside.”
Twilight nodded. “I guess that makes sense. You seem like a person who wouldn’t settle for not doing your best, and if you were… bad then I can see that making you a person who wouldn’t settle for second no matter what.” She looked away. “I used to see them everywhere at Crystal Prep.”
“Equestria has plenty of those as well, unfortunately. Celestia’s holding a lid on all their ambitions, and mine as well.
“Now, right away, I have to answer the question of why I chose teenagers. And I did choose them, it wasn’t just a matter of what was available. This will require another digression. Ponies each possess two types of magic. One is overt and shaped by their tribe: a unicorn’s mastery of spells, a pegasus’ mastery of flight, an earth pony’s mastery of plants and minerals. The other is called coincidental magic, and is far subtler. It allows considerable feats, but only under special circumstances.”
“This is reminding me of a game I once played.” Rarity broke into the conversation once again, putting away her fork.
“You mean Wizard: The Awakening? I read up on that when I still thought the human world had hidden, non-friendship magic.”
“Hrmph.” Rarity raised her nose and narrowed her eyes in disgust. “I am referring to Wizard: The Ascension thank you very much. None of that ‘Atlantis’ nonsense.”
Twilight let out a deep sigh and slumped forward. “You remind me of my brother.”
“You’ll forgive me, Rarity, but Ascension was out of publication when I arrived here. Also, where the heck did you find time to play Ascension as an elementary schooler?”
“I have very sophisticated cousins.” Rarity resumed her normal smile. “But enough about that. You were explaining to Twilight something about magic.” A quick glance over revealed that Twilight had scooted the lunch off to the side and placed a notebook in front of herself, writing in it furiously.
“....and caught up!” Twilight lifted her pencil from the paper.
Sunset gulped. Twilight was committing the details of magic to paper. “I was about to say that you might not want to leave a written record of this–” Twilight’s face fell as her writing hand slackened, making the pencil droop almost parallel to the paper. “–but it’s likely anyone reading it would think it was for a game system or something.” Twilight immediately sprang back into readiness to write.
“OK. So, coincidental magic is a controversial subject in magical research, and some will even claim it doesn’t exist. The reason why is simple: they’re unicorns. Generally there’s an inverse relationship between how much overt magic you have and how much coincidental magic. Unicorns, especially the ones inclined to magical research, generally lean very heavily on their overt magic.”
“So it’s a case of observer bias?”
“Yep. It’s almost hilarious how common it is despite its total incorrectness. I remember berating ponies about that just to make myself feel superior to them.” Sunset immediately froze up, and clutched the side of her head.
“There there, dear. That’s all in the past.” Rarity leaned across the table to pat Sunset on the head. After a few deep breaths Sunset lowered her arms and faced Twilight once more.
“Yeah I wasn’t the greatest person. Pony. Either one. It was awful. But I did it, and I have to acknowledge that.
“Anyway, coincidental magic is magic that isn’t visibly triggered, but is instead set up by circumstances.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Yes, I know the perfect example. Once, when I was still her student, Celestia took me to a goof-off between–”
“A goof-off, darling? What in the world is that?”
“Oh. Yeah, you don’t have those here. A goof-off is a competition of entertainers, to perform outrageous feats to make ponies happy.”
“Hmph. I was going to say that that sounds like certain television shows, but most of those make people angry instead.” Rarity retrieved a fruit and granola bar from her lunch box. “I feel as if pony society is somewhat more empathetic than our own.”
“Perhaps. But anyway, this goof-off was between an older party pony named Fake Out(1) and a new up-and-comer named Cheese Sandwich. They set up with two big tents on either side of a field, and the audience halfway between them. They originally were going to give Celestia a special platform, but she insisted they use it for the foals of the area, as her own legs were more than sufficient to give her a good view. And I sat on her… back… to… watch.” Tears dripped down Sunset’s face.
Rarity stood up to once again pat her friend when Sunset suddenly shook her head violently, then glared at her.
“I… don’t know what to think about her. I miss her. Part of me wants to see her again, but part of me doesn’t want her to see me again.”
Sunset startled as she felt a pressure on her back. With her attention on Rarity, Twilight had gotten up, walked around the table, and hugged her without her noticing. “Thank you,” Sunset whispered.
Sunset pushed against Twilight’s arms, signaling her to let go. Suppressing further tears and sniffling once, Sunset brushed her eyes and took a deep breath. The clock indicated lunch period was about halfway over, so she had better resume the tale.
“I’d never seen a goof-off before. We watched as each performer brought out more and more elaborate props for their routines. Fake Out’s always started off looking a certain way, but then they’d do something that betrayed their apparent nature. One of them was this gilded carriage that he pulled in a circle around the field. He had this really snooty-looking trot that he did for it. After the third lap, it suddenly fell open to reveal a jug band, but his snooty trot didn’t change. After another three laps the sides went back up and the music stopped abruptly, he did one more lap and then took it back inside his tent.”
“Hmmph. A juxtaposition of peoples’, err, ponies’, class expectations and the reality? I could see that.” Rarity smiled and took out her phone. Sunset could tell, based on the angle of her fingers, that she was opening her notes app.
I really hope she doesn’t try anything inspired by that. “Cheese Sandwich was a more traditional type, despite being the young up-and-comer. The one thing that stuck in my mind was when he had this big artillery-type cannon, and it launched butterscotch into the crowd…” Sunset realized that her audience looked confused. She sighed and slumped. “That pun absolutely does not translate. Oh!” Her face brightened and she sat up straighter. “This one does, though. He pulled a cart with a set of mirrors hanging from it using only his hind legs, while he held a piece of paper with his forelegs and used a pencil to draw what he saw in the mirrors. It was a pony-drawn, pony-drawn cart.”
Twilight giggled a little while Rarity sighed dramatically. “Puns are the lowest form of humor, darling.”
“I guess the crowd thought so too, because Fake Out took it by a landslide. Cheese didn’t seem upset, and Fake Out was gracious in victory. They did the traditional ending to a goof off, where they bow to one another and collapse the tents they were taking their props out of.”
“What?” Twilight broke in, her hands on the table supporting her as she leaned forward. “They dropped the tents on their helpers and props?”
“No,” Sunset smirked, “that’s the beauty of it. The tents were totally empty. That’s coincidental magic. The tents could have contained any or all of those things, but the coincidental magic was all they needed.”
“I… think I understand.” Twilight jotted down more notes. “But how does this relate to why you wanted teenagers for taking over Equestria?”
“Yeah. I… kind of thought I was going easy on them that way.” Sunset scratched her head as she looked away from Twilight and Rarity. “Remember, I made this plan based on false assumptions about how the world worked. Equestria is still in the early stages of what you would call ‘industrialization’ but we wouldn’t have a word for yet. It’s rare to see anything that resembles a factory, and industrial efficiency isn’t really a concept that ponies thought about. So when I read about the rapid expansion of the armed forces during World War 2, I thought it was essentially a massive surge of coincidental magic. If you recall, I thought humans had a universal special talent for violence.
“A pony’s magic doesn’t really reach full strength until they’re an adult, barring magical surges, for both overt and coincidental magic, so I figured the same would probably be true for humans as well. I didn’t want to damage the cities I was taking too much, so I figured I’d use the high school I was already at to get a relatively weak batch of humans for wave one.”
“That somewhat makes sense darling, although I can’t help but wonder how you planned to deal with the portal stranding you.” Sunset turned back towards Rarity. “Of course the whole plan was based on a rather flawed understanding of human society, but I’m sure you had an accurate understanding of the portal at least.”
“Uh, yeah…” Sunset turned her head again, looking away from Rarity. “I figured that the Element of Magic would let me hold the portal open, and if not I’d still have a decent-sized army. Equestria has virtually no standing army, and since I thought humans could conjure weapons, I was expecting to be able to run over them in no time.”
“No offense, Sunset,” Twilight said as she wrote furiously, “but I’m surprised you didn’t learn more about how the world really works in your first almost six years here.”
“None taken.” Sunset smiled a bit too broadly as she turned back to Twilight. “It took a lot of effort to be popular.”
“Indeed darling.” Rarity had begun to put away her lunch. “All things that one seeks to become a master of, one must put their all into.”
“I was so busy keeping myself popular and intimidating that I never really had time to just look around this world. And then after the Fall Formal, I’ve had a great deal of time to do so. The Equestrian Twilight makes me send reports to her every so often about this world’s society.”
Twilight leaned back and stretched. “I’m curious what you choose to report on. There’s so much to say, after all.”
“It’s mostly technical stuff.” Sunset waved dismissively. “I give Twilight information on cultural movements and movies and such, but electronics is where it’s at. Ponies can just barely make a transistor.”
“I thought you said they had barely any factories.”
“Yeah…” Sunset rubbed the back of her neck. “Technology and history can’t be separated entirely. Magic means that a lot of things humans need or tried their hardest at, weren’t priorities for us. Also, our culture doesn’t place as much emphasis on the acquisition of wealth beyond one’s needs.”
Twilight nodded, and looked down at her remaining lunch. “I can see why that might restrict growth, competition is a powerful motivator.” She picked up a chocolate chip cookie and took a bite.
Sunset looked down at her lunch, then picked up her last remaining celery stick and chomped it down. “Eh, maybe. But lunch period is almost over.” She pushed her chair out and stood up.
“Yeah. Thanks for telling me about your past, though.” Twilight stood up as well, then leaned in over the table. “It’s nice to know where you came from, that you could go from that person to where you are now. I kinda…” Twilight looked away. “...look up to you.” She then dashed off.
“Look up to me…” Sunset stood stock still, staring straight ahead. The idea that she was serving as a role model frightened her.
She might never become a princess, but in that moment she felt like one. She didn’t like it.
Author's Note
(1) Fake Out is pony Andy Kaufman.
I'd always wondered about the disconnect between Sunset's "plan" (calling it such is a bit generous) in EQG and her characterization otherwise. The idea that Sunset just didn't understand humans seemed to be the best fit (unless you wish to make Demon Sunset a separate character and/or mental illness).
From there, the idea that at least a portion of Sunset's "mean girl" personality was performative linked from that to explaining Sunset's rapid turnaround. Then in Forgotten Friendship, when all of Sunset's memories of CHS are erased, we essentially see a replay of how Sunset felt and acted when she entered the world, and it made it seem more likely that her "mean girl" act was in fact an act. Certainly quite a difference from the way the comics portray her entrance.
