Of Ethics and Tea

Twilight shuffled in her seat. The lab coat she wore was wrinkled, and the couch she sat on smelt of paperwork. Her mane was unkept. The grandfather clock on her right side continued to tick.

To say that the tension was killing her would be an understatement.

The Ethics Committee Liaison was standing by the kettle, the faint smell of Canterlotian Tea could clearly be sniffed up in the office’s closed atomsphere.

Doctor Kelvin Burns stoic face remained on the kettle, glasses perched on his flat face. He wore a white top and a black below covered his human body, as it was standard wear for the Ethics Committee. His hair was balding, easily giving off his age.

He hadn’t say much since she entered the office, only asking for her to wait a moment as he set up for some tea. Twilight bit her lip in anticipation as the kettle let out a whistle.

“So, Reseacher, how do you think of Canterlotian Tea?” Said Kelvin as he lifted the kettle and poured it’s contents into two cups in front of him.

“Well... I don’t really like it p-per say, I would rather have Caramel Tea,” she replied. Twilight used a hoof to wipe the beads of sweat beginning to form on her forehead.

With each passing moment the tension in the room began to rise higher and higher, well for Twilight at least. Kelvin’s face conveyed no emotion, apart from the small grin he had.

The Ethics Committee Liaison placed the cups on the coffee table in front of Twilight, he took a seat on an armchair just to the left of her.

“Then you and I are in agreement, Canterlotian Tea is terrible, too posh, but this is the only type of tea I have left unfortunately,” chuckled Kelvin, adjusting the glasses on his nose.

Twilight did also chuckle along, albeit nervously as she still didn’t know why she was here.

“So, now onto why you’re here, Ms Sparkle. I’ve gotten a report saying that you... had an incident recently, did you not?”

Twilight nodded, “Yes, yes, I-i assure i’m Still perfectly capable of doing my job, it won’t-“

“Why did it happen exactly, Ms Sparkle?” Asked Dr. Burns, whilst taking a sip from his tea. “People don’t simply collapse into a frenzy on the fly, well unless of course memetics are involved,”

“I... I assure you it’s all fine,”

Kelvin arched an eyebrow, “Really? Your fellow researchers said that you didn’t up for work for two days, and you spent those two days locked in your room, where some people could hear you crying. Tell me, is that normal behavior?”

Twilight gulped, “No, no, it isn’t,”

“Then tell me oh why, Ms Sparkle did you have that incident in the first place?”

At first, Twilight Said nothing, looking down at the tea. The Ethics Committee Liaison looked st her quietly, waiting for her to response.

“D-Class extermination... I didn’t know we did that to them...” Twilight said quietly. “It’s, it’s inequine of us to do that to them, we promised them freedom at the end of their month’s service... by Faust we slaughtered them during the breach... why? Why did such a horrible thing-g?”

Twilight’s voice rose from a soft whisper to a plea for reasoning from Doctor Burns, who took a sip of tea and returned a look of calm at her.

“All over D-Class?” Kelvin scoffed. “By god the rumors were true, you truly are a fresh face. I want you to ponder this now, why is there a Ethics Committee?”

“To ensure ethical procedure is done properly in the Foundation,” said Twilight quickly, “though, some of my friends say that the committee is just a rubber stamp committee that has no power over anything in the Foundation,”

The two were silent for a moment, the smell of tea filled the room and Twilight took a sip from a cup. Twilight’s levitation grip on the cup shook as she waited a reply from the doctor.

“I see how you think that the Committee seems useless, but the truth is we do quite a lot. For example, as the Ethics Committee we ensure the ethical procedure of, well, everything in the Foundation as you said. This means we must know everything the Foundation has done in order to decide wherter or not it is ethical,”

Twilight looked up from a cup and at the doctor, “So you know... everything the Foundation does?”

“The Committee does, Ms. Sparkle. I just know most things that occur here, including the things above your level 2 clearance,” he said, finsihing his tea. He placed his cup on the table and faced Twilight, “By deciding wherter or not something is ethical, we’re establishing that there is a greater good, and a lesser good,”

“But shouldn’t we always seek to preserve good in all cases?” Asked Twilight, tilting her head.

Young, idealistic, were the two things Doctor Kelvin would say the mare Twilight Sparkle was.

“Would you still fight for that good if it led to more bad than good, Ms. Sparkle?”

Twilight shook her head, “No, no, of course not!”

“But what if it invloves taking a life?” Kelvin inquired, poking a hole into Twilight’s idealistic theory.

“Then it’s better off having the bad happening then taking a life!”

“But what if you didn’t take that the life and because of that more lives are taken? What about then, Ms. Sparkle?”

“I... I...” Kelvin allowed a smile to escape pass his stotic facade, he just perfectly poked enough holes into Twilight’s ethics for it all to collapse. It was regretabble that he needed to destory such innocence, but she now worked for the Foundation. She had to mature now or never.

“The world is a dangerous place,” he said, in a soft tone. Shifting a bit closer to the researcher, who looked at him with a desire to know. “No matter what type of good we try to fight for, it always tried to destroy it. The Foundation wishes to protect the good, and contain the bad, but if it is unchecked, itself will become the bad. That’s why there is a Ethics Committee, we establish the line we do not cross. And we watch it,”

Kelvin removed his glasses, and rubbed his sinuses. “What’ve you seen here is not the worst that the Foundation has done,”

“It isn’t?”

“Ms. Sparkle, you truly are naive. We’re a clandestine Multiversal organization that contains anomalies, did you think shooting a few death row inmates despite our promises to them was the worst thing imaginable?”

Twilight Sparkle sat down in her dorm, her mind was addled with the realization of the organization that she worked for had many secrets. Secrets of evil, all done for the greater good.

Add on top of that it was all overseen by a committee that had to say “this is fine” to lesser violations of ethics. Well, her ethics at least.

The very thought of which made her sick.

Twilight looked at her hooves, if she were to continue working her, would she too eventually commit such atrocities? Betray the very ethics she lived by, that was engrained to her by her parents and mentor?

But... if such things weren’t done, wouldn’t the very world she set out to make collapse before she had the chance?

Twilight sighed and opened a cabinet next to her bed. She pulled out a wine bottle. It was a welcoming gift from Doctor Rainfall. He jokingly said that she would need it in the future when the existential crisis hit.

She didn’t believe him. But accepted it regardless.

And he was right.

“Fuck me...” She opened up the bottle and took a sip. This was going to be a long night...