Everyone's ancestors died sooner or later, but sometimes yours are the reason theirs died sooner.
Twilight shook her head. “I’m sorry, Pinkie, but history isn’t that simple. You can’t just say that the reason that most of the nobility is unicorns is-”
“Crossbows!”
“Right. That’s wrong.” Twilight nodded, as Pinkie Pie polished her party cannon. “History is far too complicated for that.” She paused. “Why are we talking about this again?”
“Because you think the answer isn’t crossbows.” Pinkie paused her polishing to look perplexed. “So why do you think it is?”
Twilight hesitated. She didn’t know. “Actually, why don’t we go to the library to find out? I have plenty of history books. We can see what they have to say!”
“Okay!” Pinkie jumped up. “I bet you they’re going to say it’s crossbows!”
It was crossbows.
“Well, this is just one book.” Twilight hesitated. “They can’t all say it was just because of crossbows?”
“Why not?” Pinkie asked, reading over her shoulder, “Because, wow, sure does look like a lot of the nobles took their stuff by force.”
“The entire structure of modern Equestria can’t just be because my ancestors could shoot your ancestors, but yours couldn’t shoot back?”
“Why not?” Pinkie asked again, pointing to an illustrated diagram of a noble taking an earth pony’s land by force. “It looks like they were really good at it.”
“Because... Well, let’s go read some more books,” Twilight whumped the book shut, and put it to the side, “They can’t all say it was because of crossbows.”
Twilight stared at the tower of history books beside her. Twelve books, each as thick as a phone book.
“I can’t believe they all say it was crossbows.”
“I mean, it makes sense to me.” Pinkie put another tray of fresh cookies and milk next to Twilight, who took an absent minded bite. Thinking always gave her a sweet tooth. “Rich ponies are rich because they own stuff, right? So how did they get that stuff in the first place?”
“Pinkie, just because thirteen history books have all said the same thing-”
“It’s crossbows!”
It was crossbows.
“I don’t understand.” Twilight kept pulling books down from the pile, rereading passages, hoping they’d changed since she last looked. “I thought the pegasus were more significant for their role as military...”
“Yeah, it’s weird isn’t it? Like, who would win in a fight - you, or Rainbow Dash, or Applejack? Like, life or death?”
“Ah...” Twilight paused. “Me, I guess? If it was life or death.”
“Right. Then who?”
“Rainbow Dash, I guess.”
“Right!” Pinkie nodded and folded her arms, like that explained everything.
“What do you mean, right?”
“What do you mean, what do you mean right?” Pinkie spluttered. “Obviously! Unicorns hire guards that can beat up pegasi and earth ponies.”
Twilight opened her mouth to say "But what about the Royal Guard", but Pinkie was faster.
“Otherwise, like, why is the Royal Guard like, a bazillion pegasi and then your brother, who could eat everyone else for breakfast?”
"But he's highly trained! He's... special, I guess. Not every unicorn can get that strong."
"So you'd need something like a really complicated thing only unicorns can use, so even unicorns like Rarity could beat Rainbow Dash in a fight?"
"Yeah, like-"
"Like a crossbow?"
Twilight thumped her book against the table. “Okay? What about this! Earth ponies were originally the banking class. That’s usually associated with wealth, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Pinkie said. “I mean, most bank clerks are still earth ponies.”
Twilight ran to the shelves, looking for -“Ah!” she shouted. “A History of Banking!”
Earth ponies had invented banking. It was an agrarian technology, after all: insurance for bad harvests, storekeeping for grain silos. The invention of lending at interest had come from farmers.
Twilight flicked through the book, Pinkie chewing cookies behind her, being careful not to get crumbs all over Twilight again.
Pinkie stuck her hoof on the page. “Ooh! This part, read this part.”
“The Compte Rendu au Princesse,” Twilight read. “This is about the first time Equestria’s finances were made public. Pinkie, what do you know about accounting history?”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Pinkie waved the question away with a ‘pfft’. “This is stuff you have to know if you grow up on a rock farm.”
Twilight kept reading. Not everything had been made public. The military expenses and the national debt were blatant lies, and Equestria had been deep in the red. The earth pony bankers tried to collect on the defaulted loans. Which would have been fine, except...
“Pinkie, where did you get popcorn?”
“Keep reading, this is the good bit!”
The unicorn military had held the bankers at crossbow point, taken all their stuff, and now all their descendants all had Baronies or something, like Blueblood.
Twilight slammed the book shut. “Really? Crossbows?!”
“Yeah!”
“Why didn’t the Princess tell me about any of this?”
“I dunno.” Pinkie shrugged. “Would you?”
Twilight put all the books back on the shelf. “So, farmers are poor even though they work hard and everyone needs food because...”
“Because crossbows.”
“And the nobility is rich even though all they seem to do is spend money because...”
“Because crossbows,” Pinkie repeated.
Twilight’s head fell against the reading desk hard enough to jostle the cookies. The leaning tower of history books threatened to fall on her. “Why do you make this sound so obvious.”
Pinkie giggle-snorted. “Everypony who knows the Hearths’ Warming story’s just for kids knows this stuff.”
Twilight paused, and lifted her head off the table. “I didn’t know it.”
“Well, yeah.” Pinkie went back to mixing the batter. “You’re a unicorn. Why would you? It’d just make you feel bad. I bet you’re super mopey right now!”
“I am,” Twilight agreed, flopping bonelessly against her desk. “I am ‘super mopey’ right now, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“That’s easy.” Pinkie shrugged, sliding the plate of cookies back under Twilight’s nose, “You don’t have to do anything. You didn’t shoot anypony, did you?”
“Well-”
“Evil villains don’t count.”
“Then no.” Twilight got off the table and started putting all the books away, using her magic. “The entire structure of the modern world,” Twilight grumbled, “should not just be because my ancestors could shoot my friends' ancestors!”
Pinkie shrugged. “Nopony gets to pick their parents.”
“Okay, so even if it is true-” Twilight stormed up to the shelves and glared at them, “What do I do about it? I went to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns! I was her personal student, just because I was born right?” She whipped back to look at Pinkie, her fringe fraying as she fussed with it. “Does that make me a bad pony? Does that make Celestia a bad pony? Because I never heard of a school for gifted earth ponies!”
Pinkie raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, I have, but they were all charities and wow does that make it sound so much worse.”
Pinkie nodded, with all the wisdom she could muster. “Just do your best. Be happy you’ve had a really lucky life, and try to make it so everybody else can have one just as good.” Pinkie wiped the last of the milk and cookie crumbs from her lips. “Some problems are too big for anyone, even a Princess.”
Twilight nodded, and tried to manage a smile. “I’ll try.”
“I know you will! You’re a good pony, Twilight.”
Twilight smile dropped. “Wait, if you knew it was crossbows, then why did you bring it up?”
“Oh! Don’t you remember what we were talking about?” Pinkie disappeared, then rolled her party cannon into the library a second later. “You were asking me what gave me the idea for this!”
Twilight stared at it. “It doesn’t just-”
“It doesn’t just shoot confetti!” Pinkie beamed, patting its side with a mother’s love. “I wouldn’t worry about it, though, Twilight. I know you’re one of the good ones!”
Author's Note
This was actually a very serious story in the Socratic style about the mechanisms of primitive accumulation. Prank'd into reading theory.
