Fallout Equestria - For a Sparkle Cola

Fallout Equestria - For a Sparkle Cola

Chapter 8 - Fall of High Society

Smalls looked at Mint Julip and tried to understand what it was that she had said. He sat down on his haunches and studied her for a moment, “What are the workers doing?”

She sighed, “Oh, they are saying that we’re being unreasonable,” she nickered, “Unreasonable indeed. We’re simply following the rules laid down by Stable-Tec itself. They get to have forty percent of all resources, and the rest of them are sent to us.”

She sniffed, “In truth, we might have been a little bad in sending a few of them some extra food, but honestly, a pony can only eat those tasteless fruits for so long,” she said, “But where are my manners, since you are an official representative of Stable-Tec I need to take you to the Overmare’s office.”

With that Mint Julip began to trot off, and everypony else had to follow her. As they walked Smalls noticed how different this stable was to his own. Of course Stable 124 had entire sections that had been occupied only by robots, and no actual pony had been in them for ages. For a pony that was interested in exploring, adventure, and discovering more it was practically a paradise. Of course the Stable Elders hadn’t thought that. As he followed her one thing became incredibly clear. There didn’t seem to be any places like that in this stable.

It was clean, which was expected, but the halls, the doors, and the various corners all showed signs of life. The ponies he was seeing mostly were dressed in Stable-Tec barding, but there were more than a few that dressed in exceptionally fancy jackets, ties, long sleeve shirts, dresses, and more than a few floral hats. They walked as though nothing bothered them, and all of them seemed to greet one another pleasantly, but it felt off.

The more he studied it the more it seemed that these ponies were going through their lives without living them. None of them looked really happy, or excited. Instead they looked bored, and their actions seemed to be ones of resignation instead of joy. They made their way to the Overmare’s office, and the door opened, inside there was a mare with a soft blue coat, her mane and tail were a deep purple, and her soft yellow eyes seemed interested. She stood, and moved toward them.

“Welcome, I’m Maple Delight, the Overmare here,” she said, “I know that our first Overmare sent out word to Stable-Tec ages ago about closing the doors and setting up the exhibit as a functioning Stable,” she said, “I’m honestly surprised that it took them so long to send someone.”

He studied her for a moment, “Ummm, Yeah, actually I’m from Stable 124,” he said, “Although I do have an official Stable-Tec title.”

She smiled, “That should be good enough then,” she said, “Now, since you are here perhaps you can help us with our problem. We have an entire generation of workers that are on the brink of revolting. We need them to calm down, grow the food, repair the stable, keep the generators going, and stop complaining.”

He looked at her, “Ummm, May I see the directives sat up by Stable-Tec?”

She studied him, “Of course,” she said, “Just over here and on the terminal. It should have the directives for the Overmare. Simply study those. Perhaps if they hear it from an official Stable-Tec Employee they’ll come to their senses.”

Smalls nodded, moved forward, and looked at the terminal. He accessed it, finding it unlocked, and began to look at the files. Most of it was logs detailing the various gallas, stable beautification projects, and local gossip, but after a few lines of these he found a file that stated for Overmare. Opening it he saw the first two files were unlocked, but oddly enough one of them was locked. He opened the other two first. The first one was a memo from the first Overmare.

‘To all Overmares, since this was originally a Stable-Tec promotional exhibit I never really expected there to be any direct orders from Stable-Tec. I was wrong, there are orders, and I’m purposefully locking them away. I mean really, they expect us to play nice with a group of uneducated, ill mannered, and disgusting country rubes? I was an employee of the park in name only. In truth I am as close to nobility as a pony can come. Even though my father never claimed me, I am still of the line of Prince Blueblood. So, instead of having a stable that treats everypony as equals I’ve altered the directors. This is to be followed. The group of us that have the proper breeding will remain in charge. The others will remain as nothing more than workers. As such I believe that the bulk of the supplies should remain with us. We can better decide on how to distribute it among the rabble. I suggest that we allow the rabble have forty percent of the supplies, and the rest will come to us.

We may distribute more depending on the situation.’

Smalls looked at it, uncertain of how to express what he read. The ponies that did this buried the real orders from Stable-Tec. He looked at the locked file, and he set upon it. It was difficult, the password was sixteen characters long, and he had to back out of the file four times before it finally opened. There before him was an audio file. He clicked on it, and the sound of a mare’s voice filled the small room.

“Hi, my name is Scootaloo. You may remember me from my performance in Last Year’s Gallops, as the founder of Red Racer Scooters, or as one of the founders of Stable-Tec. If you’re listening to this then it means that the worst has happened. Unfortunately this isn’t a normal Stable. As such we built it as close to a normal Stable as we could while maintaining the aspect of being an exhibit for demonstrating the longevity and strength of Stable-Tec’s impressive work. This also means that with the exception of the employees the rest of the Stable inhabitants will be whichever park goers happen to be in the Lunar Zone’s area. The Stable is designed to hold a thousand residents. But surviving isn’t the only goal. We need to make things better, to fix ponies before sending them back out. As such this stable has a very important experiment. There will be no power structure. Everypony in the stable will learn every job. It will be a stable that prioritizes the ponies over the classes they belonged to.

Even you, as Overmare, will work alongside even the lowest of the low. But if for some reason this causes the potential for loss of life then abandon the experiment and attempt to run the stable as best as you possibly can. Understand that you may be one of the few hopes we have of survival.”

The Overmare stood behind him, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open. She shivered, “We… We weren’t supposed to be… I thought that the first memo was just the original Overmare stating the mission of the Stable in her own words.”

She sat down hard, “I didn’t know, but I doubt that there’s a true change of fixing it either. We have become adjusted to a lifestyle that is far different from that of the workers, and they have a lifestyle that is too difficult for us to even attempt to follow. Not to mention I believe none of them would be able to effectively lead. It is the best option to maintain the status quo.”

Poetic Pen snorted, “No, the best option is to make things fair for everypony, but then that changes your lives, and none of you want that.”

There was silence, and Cosmic sighed. Poetic Pen was right, but of course he simply stated it without any tact. It wasn’t that she wanted to be overly nice to these ponies either. Their actions, the way they treated ponies that were supposed to be living the exact same of them, it rubbed her wrong, but she understood that the best way of fixing their problem would be to convince them of the virtue of attempting to be decent. It was likely that Poetic had ended all hope of that by attacking the fact that they were willing to be ignorant of their fellow ponies’ proposed status, and instead lived as if the message had never been recorded.

Clouded, upon hearing the message, thought of two different things. The first was that she had actually heard the sound of the very first Dashite. Well actually she would have been the second Dashite. Rainbow Dash had been the first Dashite. She had abandoned the Pegasi, exclaiming that they were willingly leaving everypony on the ground to their deaths. The issue was that going back to the ground was exposing all of them to the terrors that were erupting below. Those terrors had only grown in the two hundred years of separation. It wasn’t until the cloud curtain had been rolled back that it allowed every Pegasus to see what had happened to their land bound counterparts.

It was humbling beyond words, but more than that it was a chance to change who they had become. The same was being presented to the ponies here. They had a chance, a real one, to change, and to make the lives of the others better, but they were acting like some of the Enclave. She listened, and it made her heart ache. Small Fry had offered them something that they likely would never had the chance to have before. He had presented to them the reason, need, and idea for change. All of which had been tied into the original Stable-Tec orders, but it seemed that the idea of actually doing what the orders had said, of everypony doing the same work as the others went against their views and values.

It made her feel so terribly disappointed in them. She watched as the Overmare looked at the floor. There was an honest look of guilt on her face. It seemed that she truly felt ashamed of what had happened. There was a moment of silence, and then finally she looked toward them.

“I am unsure if we will be able to learn the jobs the worker ponies have done,” she said, “After all, our place has been as the ruling class, and we’ve liquidated those unwilling to follow the way of the stable.”

Smalls looked at her, “What does that mean?”

She sniffed, “If a pony is unable, or unwilling, to do their job then they are given a final job. One as nutrient rich mulch to assist the growth of our vast orchards.”

He looked at her in shock, “You kill ponies!”

She looked away, “They were mostly workers, ponies that barely existed at all. It wasn’t as if their lives were equal to our own,” she sniffed, “Occasionally one would be far more clever than the rest, and they would be assigned as an engineer, doctor, or forepony. Most of them though are just warm bodies that do the maintenance on the stable.”

Smalls looked at her and shook his head. What they were doing was wrong, what they had done was wrong. He could see the mare trying to come up with reasons why what they had done was what was needed. He could see her trying to explain it away, and for a moment he thought about Stable 124. The Elders had reasons for kicking him out, for keeping the stable going like it was, but it didn’t make sense. Often when he thought of Stable 124 he felt kind of happy and home sick. There had been entire sections of the stable that he had explored that no one could really get to anymore.

Sections that only rarely saw a robot going into it to perform some maintenance, and then would be left alone for ages until it needed maintenance again. He’d walked through those sections, seen the generator room, the armory, the small and almost non-existent hydroponics lab, and of course the factory section that was used to upkeep the protectron ponies and make new bottles of Sparkle Cola along with new Fancy Buck Cakes. He had great memories of those places, of seeing those things, but he didn’t have a lot of great memories of the other ponies. His mother and father passed away fairly early.

The other ponies either were stuffing their muzzles or complaining that he wasn’t doing the same. If they would have stopped, changed, then they could have done so much more. They could have set up trade with the wasteland, or at least seen if they wanted to. Instead they just followed what they had believed was the Stable-Tec orders. These ponies were doing the same, and he looked at the overmare.

“No,” he said his voice sounding stern, “You need to do follow the original orders. You need to give them a chance. Train some of them to do the stuff up here, go down there and learn how to do some of their work. Get to know one another, maybe you’ll find that they’re funny, or maybe they’ll be more accepting.”

She shook her head, “But what about the life we have?”

It was Clouded that neared her, “It’s over,” she said her voice sounding gentle and caring, “I know what that’s like. We Pegasi had our lives changed. Everything about our lives changed, and there was no going back. It’s been better though. We’ve learned that there’s good ponies on the ground that will help us, and that’s made it easier for us to want to help.”

The Overmare looked defeated, “I’m not sure that everypony will go along with this. It is likely we will have some rebellion.”

Smalls grinned at her, “But if they see how much better things are, maybe they’ll be okay with it?”

Poetic sighed, “Smalls, I doubt it.”

The days began to pass as the changes were made. The Overmare had been right. There were ponies that were exceptionally upset about having to learn how to do a worker pony’s job, but slowly the realization that with everyone being equal there was less chance of the stable collapsing made it bearable. On top of that they had found Sparkler’s mother. Both she, and Sparkler’s little sister, had managed to make it inside of the stable.

Because they weren’t official Stable-Tec representatives they were forced to live with the Workers, but they had been treated well. Both were healthy, hungry of course, but healthy. After a week inside of the stable it looked as if the society would be well in hand. Sparkler’s mother, who told them that her name was Star Dust, decided that she wanted to stay inside of the stable. It was honestly one of the first places she felt safe enough to bring up her daughters. And since she was a decent cook she was teaching some of the former elite ponies how to prepare some basic wasteland food.

One of them acted like they were going to be sick when she showed them how to cook what looked like a giant bug. She saw one gagging and shook her head.

“Here now,” she said, “Roasted Rad Roach is good eatin!”

They collected the Lunar Cores, which were all in the security office, and then once again opened the door. There were more cores to fine before the park would be ready, but at least it was a great first step. They had the bag that held the two they had already gotten from the Assault on Astroid Nine, the three Star Dust had given them, and the six they had gotten from the stable. All together there were eleven cores already, and they knew that there were another two in the theater besides the ones that were supposed to be there. The obvious choice was to go back to the Assault on Astroid Nine ride, get the last two there, and then move on. That way they’d at least be close to half way done.

*You’ve unlocked Highborne! With this perk you are able to have special dialogue options with all NPCs that are considered Elite. You can also pass for an Elite member of High Society after cleaning up. This perk gives a +2 to Charisma.*