Episode 18: Dr. Whooves on the Daily Show

The pony known as Dr. Whooves was always considered to be a dangerously intelligent individual who never did anything just for the sake of it. He was analytical and always had a purpose, but at the same time was also known to be somewhat unpredictable.

As someone who knew him on a personal and professional level, the best way Zenith liked to explain it was he operated on a train of thought that only made sense to him and him alone. He had his own rationality that operated at a pace no one could keep up with. This made him unpredictable, as was the case when he revealed why he decided, after several decades, to return to his own time.

“Clausus?” Zenith asked. “You mean that neurological disease that affects the magicatory system?”

“Why do you want to know about that, Whooves?” Ginger asked.

“Ooooh just asking for a friend of a friend,” Whooves figured, now turning his attention on Zenith. “I assume you know a thing or two about it, Zenith?”

Exchanging odd looks both Ginger and Zenith then immediately poured themselves another helping of tea. They weren’t sure why he was asking about this seemingly random topic but they both knew enough to not question it too much.

“Might I ask why your friend is inquiring about a disease that hasn’t existed in almost half a century?” Zenith asked with a smirk on his face.

“The disease is dead?” Whooves asked knowing full well that that was the case. “Please Zenith... do tell.” He knew about the disease and its history almost more than Zenith himself. He also knew he had to dance with him on the issue to butter him up first.

“Well Whooves... as you may or may not know Clausus is a rare neurological disease. It affects only magic users, which vary from species to species, but is commonly known as the ‘Unicorn killer’ since they are the primary victims,” Zenith explained. “If a Unicorn is exposed to high levels of magic, long term or otherwise, there is a slight chance the magic will enter their magictory system and eventually spread to the brain where it slowly kills them from the inside out by poisoning their entire body and, depending on how much magic they absorb, determines how slowly they die.”

“But how can a Unicorn, or any other magical creature, be poisoned by magic if they themselves control that kind of power?” Whooves asked.

“The best comparison is if you or I get exposed to blood that either not our own type or is infected. There are different types of magic but you’re right, Unicorns are very tolerant of it since they are constantly exposed to it. But in some cases a Unicorn will be exposed to a dangerous amount of magic that isn’t the same as their own and when that happens it becomes toxic to them,” Zenith continued to explain. “This usually happens to soldiers who fight other Unicorns and get hurt during battle, but there have been scenarios where the innocent get exposed too. Matter of fact there was one interesting case where the wife of this Unicorn couple had unexpectedly caused the death of her husband.”

Ginger noted that only Zenith could talk so lively about dying Unicorns while at the same time calling them interesting.

“You see, this wife was a nurse so she knew all kinds of healing spells and her husband suffered from daily headaches caused by his stressful job. So for twenty years every day whenever he’d come home the first thing she’d do was use magic directly on his frontal cortex to cure him,” Zenith continued. “Of course this wasn’t enough to do any damage but since she did it everyday he eventually contracted Clausus very late in life. The irony was that she was curing him of his headache but at the same time slowly poisoning him... see things like this are why I never got married.”

“Hmph. That’s the only reason.” Ginger pouted under her breath which made Whooves chuckle.

“You say something, long neck?” Zenith snapped.

“No nothing,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “Please continue.”

“Anyway... the point is this disease had the properties of affecting any Unicorn whether it be on a long term basis of magic exposure or from absorbing an ungodly amount of opposing magic in one session,” Zenith explained. “But eventually a cure was found and circulated to the general public.”

“It’s true, when I was younger and in college the nurses department had a whole case of them and we students got free treatments as part of our tuition,” Ginger added. “Even if you weren’t sick if you could optionally still benefit from taking the antidote.”

“Exactly, because this was no ordinary cure, once a Unicorn took this medicine they soon found they could no longer fall victim to Clausus ever again,” Zenith continued. “And because of the wonder that is micro-evolution this immunity was then passed on to the next generation of ponies and now the disease is no more.”

“If this illness was so dangerous, and able to affect any Unicorn regardless of their class, why did it take until recently to come up with a cure?” Whooves asked, again already knowing the answer.

“Well first off I wouldn’t exactly call fifty years ago recent,” Zenith chuckled. “But to answer your question it’s because although it was very deadly it rarely ever happened. That and it only affected magic users so as cynical as it sounded ponies weren’t in a rush to waste their money curing a disease that almost never occurred. On average there’d be one reported case a year, maybe two.”

“Did no pony ever try to cure it?” Whooves asked.

“Another reason why it took this long... you see, there were some attempts but no pony ever came close. Not a single individual could come up with an answer for how to combat it let alone isolate the component necessary to study it,” Zenith explained. “Basically, it was almost impossible to cure a disease that rarely ever happened… so money and effort was focused on winning battles.”

“Okay then... since this was a magic based illness that usually only affected Unicorns, I’m going to guess it was the Castle that came up with a cure?” Whooves assumed just to annoy his teacher. “After all, they have the funding to undertake such a project, right?”

Were he anyone else Zenith might have thrown a fit and forced them out for suggesting such a thing, but for Whooves it was different, he could never fault him for anything he’d say.

“BAH! The Castle using their vast wealth to actually do something worthwhile and productive!? Don’t make me laugh! The amount of bits needed to cure any kind of disease would probably be used by them to hire entertainment or buy decorations for one of their fancy ballroom gallas they hold just to show off how cultured they are!” Zenith smeared in a condescending voice. “No of course the Castle didn’t cure the disease!”

“But they did try,” Ginger said in defense of her former employers.

“Yes... yes they did but it always ended miserably! In true incompetent fashion those working in the Castle were convinced that since the disease was caused by magic that only magic could be the solution. Hmph, irresponsible if you ask me,” Zenith added. “You don’t fight fire with fire you use water, comparatively you don’t solve a magic problem with magic you use science which is the only solution worth using!”

“Why Zenith!” Whooves gasped. “Are you actually implying that magic has no purpose in life?”

Adjusting himself in his seat Zenith poured himself another cup with Ginger following close behind.

“Do not get me wrong, although it may still serve some practical function, and at one point was the dominate form of ingenuity,” Zenith explained. “Magic is--”

“Magic is no match for the power of science,” both Whooves and Ginger added.

“Hm. I see I’ve taught you two well,” Zenith observed as his two friends giggled to each other. “Now then... as I was saying, the Castle was irresponsible with this issue and approached it in the wrong way. If they weren’t failing to address the problem and pretending it didn’t exist they were using unsafe procedures that never worked. I could count at least five instances where they killed an innocent Unicorn by trying to cure them through risky and unstable spells.”

“Four instances,” Whooves corrected.

“What?” Zenith asked.

“Oh nothing, continue.”

“Anyway... the pony who cured the deadly disease known as Clausus was a scientist,” Zenith revealed. “An Earthpony scientist at that.”

“You do not see a lot of those,” Whooves quipped which made everyone in the room chuckle.

“It’s even more impressive when you consider this was done fifty years ago... around the same time I returned to Canterlot and brought with me a new revolution based on science and independent thinking,” Zenith bragged as he got up from his seat. “I actually know this scientist... brilliant pony who really helped the movement when he showed the world that an Earthpony could do in one afternoon what a whole monarchy of Unicorns couldn’t do for several hundred years.”

“One afternoon you say?” Whooves repeated as Zenith made his way to the right side of the room, limping on his bad leg.

“Why yes... this brilliant scientist developed the cure in but a few hours,” Zenith continued as he finally arrived at his work desk. “In fact legend says that this Earthpony came up with the idea by going to his local zoo, there he observed an exhibit of parasprites.”

Pausing to search for something, Ginger took this time to shake her head and sigh before sipping her tea.

“According to him he was fascinated by how a mindless creature like the parasprite could instantly know only to eat food. Even though their digestive system can process anything from steel to plastic they only ate proper edibles because it was easier for them,” he said as he found what he was looking for, the key to his wall-cabinet. “This clever Earthpony was then inspired to create an antidote that could do that same... that once injected would know to only eat invasive magic like white blood cells attacking a deadly pathogen. On that day he created the curing drug and released his notes on how to make it to the world so anypony could use it. He didn’t want to profit from it in any way thus showing the world that Earthponies were as smart and kind hearted as anypony else.”

“Gosh golly gee willikers this pony sounds like such a stand up guy!” Whooves said while making over the top gestures with his hoof. “I wonder who this smart, benevolent, and handsome pony is!”

“Why my dear boy!” Zenith laughed as he produced a vial of green liquid from his medicine cabinet. “Who do you think!”