The Conversion Bureau: The Big Lie

The Conversion Bureau: The Big Lie

A Story by Talonmach5

Prologue: An introduction to the Question. What If?

"The great masses will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one"
-Adolf Hitler

Smoke and ash. That’s the entirety of what the broken and humbled mare saw for miles in every direction. It was never supposed to be like this. Looking down, the mare who was once beloved by all sheds tears of regret over what had happened to everypony. All of them were gone now. Either captured and being changed by the invader’s secret weapon, or having abandoned her when once they learned the truth. ‘The truth, what a bitter pill to swallow,’ she thought ruefully to herself, thinking of the irony that such a simple thing was responsible for the total ruination of all she held dear. But what other choice did she have? She couldn’t stand by as those who trusted her were destroyed by these wrathful invaders.

She could feel it. She didn’t even need to look up to know that it was time now. So intimately did she know the position of the sun overhead, that she could tell anypony who asked the precise time down to the second. But that didn’t matter now, nothing did. Everything was gone now. The land she had strived so hard to protect was now blight. The ponies she had worked tirelessly to protect from the evils of the invader’s world, had tasted a full measure of their wrath. And now like the others before her, she would have to face her accusers. Standing up from the cold metal floor of her cell, she stood ready. Her mane which once flowed like luxurious silk now hung limp and unkempt. Her hooves once shod in gold, now lay cracked and bare. Once she wore a solid gold peytral bearing the seal of her authority, but now she only wore the unyielding steel chains of her captors around her neck. No longer did the once proud ruler carry a crown upon her head, instead her broken and shattered horn were the only remnants of her former glory and power.

When she heard the heavy footsteps of her captors approaching her cell, she felt a slight shiver of fear course through her. Lowering her head, she prepared herself to face them as the sunlight filtered down on her through the heavily polluted sky. She saw the brutes staring at her through the bars of her cell, treating her like some dumb animal in a menagerie. Looking at her captors, she saw that there were six in number each of which had their cruel weapons trained on her. The largest one stepped forward, unlocked the door, and slid it open. Motioning at her with his weapon, the jailor silently ordered her to step forward. Looking up at the ash filled sky, part of her wanted to escape to take flight and leave this place behind. Tensing her muscles, the unyielding metal manacles clamped tightly around her wings quickly rid her of any wishful thoughts of escaping. The head jailor satisfied that his prisoner would be compliant, took hold of the metal chain around her neck and led her down the broken road to face her judge, jury, and by the looks of it executioner.

The silent walk towards where the victorious invaders had made their base of operations was nearly stifling. Somehow, she thought that receiving jeers, insults, and shouts of disdain getting hurled at her would have made facing their anger more tolerable. But unlike any other victorious army, all she received was uncaring glances followed by deafening silence. Overhead she saw a few birds flying, and heard the buzzing of insects in the background. Looking up at the mountains, she saw in the distance the once proud and majestic city of Canterlot now in ruins. The invaders, not content with just her capture had laid waste to the city so that the majority of it had broken free from the mountain side and slid down onto the valley below.

Walking through their camp, she saw the broken and shattered remnants of Ponyville. She remembered the few times that she had visited the town previously, it had been treated with such care by its residents. Now it was nearly unrecognizable, the invaders had been particularly vicious towards this unassuming town. Not a single structure was left standing. She noticed that they had taken especial care to destroy or deface as much of the city as possible. Sweet Apple Acres, the nationwide famous orchard was now merely a charred memory with every apple tree having been torched. The Carousel Boutique a clothiers shop was now a hollowed out broken building, which judging by the smell was being used as a latrine. Passing by the town bakery Sugarcube Corner, all she saw was a few pink pieces of its trim beneath the bulk of one of the metal monsters the invaders employed. Finally they approached the one place she didn’t want to see. Closing her eyes she tried avoiding looking at it, but felt a sharp painful shock on her flanks as one of the monsters escorting her jabbed one of his pulsating weapons into her side. Opening her eyes in pain, she saw what she hoped not to. The town’s center of learning, the Books and Branches Library was now a gutted and charred husk. They had torched the library and all the books inside, and were now using the site as a refuse dump.

Soon they would be there. Tilting her ears back she felt dread and fear enter her as never before, as she hoped beyond hope they had been spared. Looking up at the ponies in the numerous cages, she saw by their unresponsive hollow eyes that they hadn’t. The prisoner lowered her head despondently. Somehow she had naively hoped that they would have been spared after she had surrendered herself. Looking at them in sorrow, she saw them staring dumbly back not recognizing her or anything of their surroundings. Closing her eyes, she wept as she saw what had become of her faithful student. Once one of the greatest minds to have ever been born in centuries, now she was nothing more than a dumb animal staring back at her teacher unblinkingly. Looking at her students companions, she saw they had fared no better. In cages besides the purple unicorn were five others who had suffered similar fates. The blue Pegasus, who once dreamed of joining the Wonderbolts and dazzling audiences with her skill and bravery, sat cowering in a corner confused and afraid of her surroundings. The pink mare, once the most cheerful of all her citizens sat on her haunches with an empty look of apathy not even bothering to look at her surroundings. The white unicorn, who was a flower of loveliness and beauty, was a mess. Her once pristine coat and immaculately styled mane was covered in filth and mud, while her head was buried into the feed box that had been provided for her. The yellow Pegasus, a kind and gentle soul who loved all animals, was covered in ticks and fleas. Helplessly she mewled, as the monsters ignored her discomfort before hosing her down with a stream of water. The orange farmer, who once ran the orchard with care and dedication, now slowly ate a few rotten apples that her captors had so graciously gifted her with.

With a heart full of despair and sorrow, the prisoner didn’t think she could bear to see anymore until she saw her sister. She saw that they had tied her beloved younger sister’s legs to posts, and forced a muzzle over her mouth. When she saw the look of abject humiliation on her face, the prisoner wished that she could crawl into some black pit and fade into oblivion. Try as she might, she couldn’t look away and saw her sister giving her a look of outrage that screamed ‘How could you have done this to us, to our people, to me?’ She had no answer, instead hung her head in shame as she walked past.

Try as she might, the prisoner couldn’t bring herself to hate her captors even though they had taken away everything she had held dear. In truth, they were as much a victim of circumstance as her poor people in all this. As she approached the place of her trial, and presumable execution she wondered, ‘Did it really have to come to this? They were wronged, but didn’t we try to make it right? Perhaps if we had shared the truth with them to begin with, this whole ordeal could have been avoided.’ The prisoner pushed aside these thoughts as she stood before the one who had broken her.

The great metal giant stood in front of her, like a colossus of doom. Had anypony had told her a scant few years prior that such a being could exist, she would have thought them madponies. The very idea that machines imbued with the souls of the living could exist was beyond the realm of science, and even on the fringe of the fantastic. Until now, none of her escort had uttered a word, nor made a sound beyond that of their moving metal bodies. Each of them was unique in some fashion yet frighteningly similar in purpose, weapons of war. Some flew as fast as pegasi, others were capable of feats like invisibility that some of her greatest mages would be hard pressed to duplicate. Some of them were as vicious as diamond dogs and as sturdy as earth ponies, and even a few had power that dwarfed that of the dragons! Of all their number, none frightened her more than the one standing in front of her. In all her many dealing with their home realm, she had only head tales of what these great metal monsters were capable of. Of those, she had heard scant rumors told of the mightiest one of all, Tinman.

Among the newfoals she had asked when she learned of the invasion of these men made metal, all she received in return were looks of shock and then fear. It wasn’t until the utter destruction of Manehattan did she understand why they feared them so. Within the space of under an hour, they descended upon the city like a hydra to carrion leaving behind only collapsed buildings and the broken bodies of her people. How could a city as large and great as Manehattan fall in under an hour? How could so many have been snuffed out as easily as a candle? How could they be so ruthless, so merciless? How could they? The answer to these questions the prisoner didn’t know, all she knew was that the blood of so many ponies weighed down on her head like a great weight begging to be released.

“Celestia…” the great machine rumbled, its voice reflecting no emotion beyond the fact of the simple statement. “Do you know why you are here?”

“I do…” Celestia said, hanging her head low to the Earth attempting to hide her tears of sorrow for what she had seen.

“You stand charged of crimes against humanity by the World Government of Earth,” the machine said, its array generating a holographic field displaying the Earth rotating above her head and bearing the seal of the World Government. “How do you answer these charges?”

Celestia desperately wanted to denounce these charges as blatant falsehoods and pure fabrication, but knew it would do no good. As far as Tinman’s masters were concerned she was guilty, and this trial was only for show to assuage their masses clamoring for vengeance. “I… I have no answer,” she said, not wanting to dignify this farce of a trial with an admission of guilt or humiliating herself further in begging for mercy.

The machine known only as Tinman said nothing. Lowering itself towards her with its six mighty legs, it leaned forward until it towered over her. The sight of such a massive creature blotting out the sky over her sent shivers of fear down her spine, yet she didn’t waver and remained silent.

With his array directly in front of her face, Tinman spoke through his speakers, “Perhaps refreshing your memory on the series of event that led us to where we are now, would inculcate you to your guilt in this matter,” he said, as the holographic images changed to a picture of an earlier Earth, one before all this had happened. An Earth before the singularity opened up in the Pacific. An Earth before Equestria.

*****

"There is nothing wrong with your monitor." a disembodied voice says. "Do not attempt to adjust browser. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the horizontal, and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand stories, or expand one single thought to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive. We will control all that you see and read."

“Respectfully submitted for your approval…” the voice continues, before its owner steps out of the shadows and into the light revealing the narrator. The narrator is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. His body consists entirely of an odd conglomeration of animals parts, each different form the other yet blending together to form the perfect mixture of chaos and order. “The place Equestria, the time a future not so far removed from your own, and a journey into the question. What if?”

The narrator, dressed in a conservative black suit and holding a glass of chocolate milk in his hand takes a small sip causing the glass to slowly dissolve leaving behind the milk. Looking directly at you, the narrator blithely continues, “Meet Celestia, once a Princess of Equestria, now only a prisoner of war. An alicorn that could once set the course sun and command millions, yet now cannot free even herself from her own shackles.”

“Tinman, an HWS chosen to lead the armies of the World Government of Earth in their invasion of Equestria,” the narrator continues, looking at you with his yellow eyes that seem to pierce the depths of your soul. “An HWS, or Human Weapons System, is the most perfect weapon of war ever conceived of by man’s genius. A colossus of titanium, steel, and composite materials, the HWS is that which is called for when men wish to wage total war. Not just a machine, each HWS holds within it a braincase holding the mind of a human who willingly gave up their flesh to become instruments of destruction.”

“Tinman, the HWS in question,” the narrator says, speaking in steady even tones, “has been tasked with the responsibility of bringing the great monarch of the Equestrian nation to justice, for her supposed crimes against humanity. Whether her crimes are of ones of premeditation, recklessness, or just happenstance, they can only be answered here in the space between reality and fiction. The hidden realm hidden somewhere between mankind’s waking world and the land of his dreams, lying betwixt the pit of humanities greatest fears and summation of all their knowledge, crossing through the threshold of that hidden door which we call ‘The Twilight of our Outer Limits’.”

Author's notes:

Thank you for reading gentlereader my latest experiment in thought The Conversion Bureau: The Big Lie. As always comments, critiques, and genteel conversation related to the story is always appreciated. If the content of the story offends you please post why you felt so. Additionally please refrain from attacking each other over minutia. You can disagree with each other without being disagreeable.

I thought a subversion of the 'The Conversion Bureau' setting might be an interesting way to wrap my mind around Tinman's before wading back into The Conversion Bureau: The Reluctant Cyborg, would help me remember how I wrote him previously. After rereading that story I realized I was in no condition to do it or you the proper justice it deserved without preparing my mind first. Therefore in that attempt I submit to you gentlereader, a little excursion into the realm of what if. Much like the television serials The Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits I took my inspiration for this story format from. I plan on using this story to explore how mankind might react if they discovered a way around the barrier slowly consuming the Earth, and that Equestria wasn't harmful to humans at all. Once again gentlereader thank you for patience with me, I hope that this little experiment is as fun for you to read as it is for me to write.