Serious Political Commentary

Once the celebrations had died down, the new princess, Twilight Sparkle, was eager to take on her role as a ruler of ponies... but she came to realize she had no clue how it was done. She knew precious little of how Princess Celestia ruled, in fact it hardly seemed like the glorious princess of the sun ruled at all. She knew none of her friends had any experience with politics or leadership... she briefly considered Mayor Mare, but assumed that the senile old bat would just confuse her. So she turned to her library, to her ever trustworthy books.

"Political science," she murmured to herself, as she went through the shelves of the Ponyville Library, "Maybe the dummy's guide to being royal," she grumbled, "Anything will do..." but all she found was nothing. It was a conspicuous absence in the otherwise all-encompassing library(or almost all-encompassing, Fluttershy and Rarity regularly emptied the library of romance novels and Rainbow Dash had seventeen outstanding fines for the Daring Do books).

She hadn't wanted to ask Princess Celestia, she had wanted to impress her mentor by somehow mastering the art of rulership on her own, but now this was a mystery that was beyond her. With her new wings, a trip to Canterlot was made in practically the blink of an eye, and soon she was trotting into Celestia's throne room.

Judging by her posture, Celestia had been expecting her. Could it be that Celestia had known she would take this route of enlightenment? That she would be stumped and seek her advice? Swallowing the fear that was growing in her chest, Twilight approached her mentor...

"You wish to know how to rule?" Celestia asked Twilight, after she had explained her dilemma, "The royal library contains many books on the issue of rulership... politics... economics... but be warned," Celestia said, as she lead Twilight towards the library, "There is a reason you will not find these texts in any other library in Equestria. There are books here that you will find disturbing, unsettling, and perhaps even tempting. But I trust you, my most valued student, to know which tell the truth."

And with that, Celestia left Twilight alone in the massive library of Canterlot to spend her time in study, and study she did. Twilight dove into the books with a new joy, for now she wasn't reading simply for the fun of it, for the enjoyment of learning, she was reading for a purpose. At first, she simply gorged herself on every book she came across: Marechiavelli's "The Princess," "The Dummy's Guide To Monarchies" and every other basic tome, but soon she became directed.

She wanted to know how Celestia ruled, she sought out the philosophy that guided the one she had always looked up to and sought to learn from. But the more she read, the more her mind was filled with disturbing thoughts. The library held black and terrifying texts like collected writings of Ron Foal, the barbarous thoughts within "Atlas Galloped."

Coming to the end of her initial studies, she thought: Had she ever seen Celestia interfere in her realm except in the direst of emergencies? Did Celestia maintain any public services beyond the army? Twilight had never even seen a police officer, and clearly even those barely capable of functioning in public, like Fluttershy, had to drag themselves out and engage in duties that they felt were terrifying and beyond their ability. Ponyville and the provinces of Equestria were left entirely to themselves, to be free, to remain ungoverned and, perhaps most importantly, practically untaxed.

It was clear: Princess Celestia was an objectivist.

"It all makes sense!" Twilight, wild-eyed, reported to her friends as she arrived back in Ponyville, still sweating from the exertion of the rapid flight, "The way she seems to always consider our troubles our own! She always expects us to deal with them ourselves! She could have settled everything, but that would be," Twilight spat the word sarcastically, "State intervention."

"Well, Ah gotta 'dmit," Applejack had just finished reading The Foaltainhead, "This stuff seems mighty famil'ar," she frowned, "So yer sayin' th' princess don't give a hoot 'bout us?"

Twilight nodded feverishly, "Look, it makes sense, it... it all makes sense... we're her propaganda."

Rarity raised an eyebrow at Twilight, "Her propaganda, darling? How would we be her propaganda?"

"Well, maybe not all of you but," Twilight sighed, "I am. I'm the posterchild for her dark philosophy. Don't you get it? I support her claim that anyone, if they just 'really work for it', can rise to the top and become what they want to be. Even a princess."

"Ugh," Rainbow Dash slumped down, "What can we even do about it, anyway? It's not like we can vote her out of office, and all the rich stallions in Manehattan would just buy support for her anyway. They've got everything they need."

"Um, and," Fluttershy meekly injected, "What would we even replace it with? It sounds awful now you tell us about it, but maybe there isn't anything better?"

A fire, dark and red, seemed to rise in Twilight's Sparkle's eyes, "Comrades," the word slipped out, unbidden, and no one even seemed to question it, "What we need is a workers' revolution."

"I was kind of skeptical at first," Rarity admitted, as the First Cadre of the Equestrian Socialist Ponies' Revolutionary Republic met for the second time at her store, "But you really CAN make red work with a lot of things! I'm not quite sure about the banners, though... just red with a hammer and sickle?"

"Gotta keep it simple, sug'rcube," Applejack said, as she sowed another, "Otherwise we ain't no different from the Manehattan capitalists that benefit from Celestia's evil regime."

Rarity nodded sadly, admitting that Applejack had a point, as Pinkie Pie bounced in, carrying a hoofload of balloons.

"Balloons, Pinkie?" Rarity didn't want to interrupt her work, she was designing their uniforms, but this got her interest.

"Well Twilight said we were starting a Communist PARTY, right? You can't have a party without balloons! And look, they're all red!"

Rarity and Applejack looked at each other and shook their heads, they weren't quite sure if Pinkie was getting the idea at all. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash seemed to have caught on instantly, Fluttershy had empathized with the plight of the downtrodden worker as soon as Twilight had explained that it was like rich ponies crushing poor innocent forest animals, and Rainbow Dash had hated the idea of fatcat rich unicorns in Manehattan profiting off the work of earnest pegasi in Cloudsdale. Both were off organizing new chapters of the protest movement already, though no one was quite sure how much help Fluttershy's chapter in the Everfree forest was going to be.

The next week, Twilight was away, she said she had an important ally of their movement to meet, and so the other five were meeting in Pinkie's room above Sugarcube Corner when there was a thunderous knocking on the front door.

"That's odd," Rarity said, "It's almost midnight, whoever could be wanting a cake at this time of day?"

"This is the Equestrian Army!" Barked a gruff voice from outside, "We know you're in there! Come out with your hooves in the air and no one has to be hurt!"

The five ponies looked at each other and were about to try to argue about what to do when the knocking on the door became louder and more aggressive. Someone was trying to break it down!

"If only Twilight was here," Fluttershy whimpered and hid under Pinkie's bed, "She'd know what to do..."

"Ah guess we just gotta fight 'em," Applejack prepared to buck the hell out of any jackbooted fascist thug coming through the door, and Rainbow Dash stood besides her, "Yeah! They can't oppress us any longer! We've got rights and stuff! We're workers!"

"...sugar, y'ain't ever doin' much work when Ah see yah."

"Hey, I'm not rich, so I'm a wo-"

Rainbow Dash didn't get any farther as the door was smashed down by a herd of angry, armoured earthponies. Quite a few of them got black eyes from brawling with Applejack and Rainbow Dash(and several more when they made the mistake of tearing one of Rarity's red socialist dresses while trying to wrestle Pinkie Pie to the floor to stop her singing protest songs).

"You five are going to have a long stay in the Canterlot dungeons," snarled the sergeant in charge, "The princess has had her eye on you for a long time..."

"I just don't get how they found us out," sulked Rainbow Dash in the dank, capitalist cells under Canterlot, "I didn't tell anyone!"

"Me neither, sugar," sighed Applejack, bruised from fighting The Stallion, "An Ah'm th' element o' Honesty, so y'know Ah mean that."

"I only sung my songs around other party members!" Pinkie Pie insisted.

"...I told a couple of beavers, um," Fluttershy admitted, "But I don't guess Celestia talks much to animals."

Rarity was too depressed over the destruction of her uniforms to stay anything. It was the saddest day of her life. Perhaps even The Worst Thing Ever. Well, possibly not as bad as the fact that the neighbouring cells were full of communist pegasi from Cloudsdale, other socialists from Ponyville and all the bears that Fluttershy had convinced they were being denied their rights by Celestia's so-called "government."

"But look on the bright side!" Pinkie said, cheerfully, "Twilight's still out there somewhere! She'll save us!"

But Twilight wasn't coming, it seemed like. The only princesses who were visiting the five miserable Elements of Socialism were Luna and Celestia. And at least one question was soon answered.

"You what?!" Rainbow Dash's eyes were wide with surprise as Luna told her.

"We saw your dreams of rebellion," Luna said, smugly, "Your little thoughts of crushing the state. At first we sought to discourage you with nightmares of the suffering that would occur once your system was in place... do you even understand it? Ponies deserving of success would be forced to be equal with others! With the masses! There would be leeches and welfare mares everywhere!"

"But that didn't work," sighed Celestia, "And so, we had to resort to other means. Do you know where Twilight Sparkle is?"

"If'n we did," Applejack grumbled, "We wouldn' be tellin' ya. Princesses, harumph, y'all're jus' corrupt royalists!"

"Maybe you should just look at HER dreams, hm?" Sniffed Rarity, "Just like you invaded our privacy! Fascists!"

"We cannot see Twilight Sparkle's dreams," admitted Luna, "...for she has none. Socialism, the so-called 'greater good,' has entirely consumed her. Now she dreams only of equality, an ocean of red, of communism, and the blood of the ponies who oppose her."

"Baaaaa-loney!" Giggled Pinkie Pie, "She's just more powerful than you, I bet! And you can't see her dreams and use them to find out where she is! The Communist PARTY is going to go on forever! And everyone will have cupcakes! Viva la Revolucion!"

Twilight Sparkle was far away, and she had found her ideal society. She had found a civilization that had already discovered enlightenment, and even as her friends were languishing in Princess Celestia's dungeons, Twilight Sparkle was making new friends. With the Changelings.

Their hive-like society was admirable, they all served the greater good of their society without fear or quabbles. Their leader sought sustenance for all their society, not just for herself and capitalist fatcats. She was always there, always acting, always plotting, never some remote figurehead expecting her poor citizens to simply survive on their own in the vagaries of a harsh Equestria!

Queen Chrysalis had never realized that she was a communist before, she was self-taught, not a mare of books, but now that Twilight explained it to her, the infectious thought of communal action seeped into her insectoid brain, and it became as though she had believed it all along. Without realizing it, her thoughts spread through the changeling hives, and soon they were no longer changeling hives, but Comrade Hives.

And there was another discovery... Twilight Sparkle truly loved communism, like it was a strong, studly stallion that she wanted to make love to. A thick, throbbing and sometimes chunky love that almost made Chrysalis gag with its sweetness... and love was Chrysalis' power. With this power, they could march on Canterlot effortlessly.

In the cells below Canterlot, the sounds of fighting grew closer by the minute. Through the tiny windows they had, they could see the capitalists scurrying to abandon their stores and businesses, carrying as much of value as they could, but thinking to rescue any of their workers or customers. Clearly, the Elements of Socialism reasoned, this was a sign of how they had chosen the right side. Now that Twilight was on her way, they assumed it was Twilight who was leading the Socialist Legions to victory, the capitalists were revealing their true, selfish selves!

But their grins and smiles soon became frowns of worry as they saw the black shapes flooding into the city's streets: Changelings. Now there was something that was all too similar to the capitalists, the Elements agreed: Just mindless drones existing to consume. This was when they'd need Twilight Sparkle the most, someone who had the power and wisdom to defeat the Changelings, unlike Celestia who-

Just then, Twilight Sparkle opened the door to their cell. Her Cutie Mark had been replaced by a hammer and sickle, and a thick black moustache grew on the tip of her muzzle.

"Comrades!" Twilight Sparkle declared, "I am here to save you from the corrupt capitalists with the help of my socialist changeling legions!"

"Er, Twi," Applejack looked at the black-chitined creatures milling around the throne room with some fear, "Are y'all sure this is a good idea? Ah mean... they're changelings 'n all..."

"Do not fear the changelings, my comrades," Twilight Sparkle assured the other revolutionaries, "They have perfected collectivism and we will be learning from them. Soon we will all eradicate all greed and ambition. Ponies will hence be driven only by their urge to serve the state and the greater good."

The other ponies looked at each other, "Even us?" Rarity raised a concerned eyebrow, "After all, we're your friends, would you really eradicate our personalities with your communist magic?"

Twilight grinned, "Of course not! You are the foremost of my revolutionaries! You will be the first among equals in the new state! You shall be ministers! Pinkie shall be Party Chairman! Rarity shall lead the Fashion Police! And you will be richly rewarded!"

The others heaved a sigh of relief. For a moment there they thought Twilight actually had principles, rather than being a corrupt "socialist" dictator. It was a good thing their long-term gamble of collectivism being an unstable philosophy had paid off.

And so, all joy, except for that of the corrupt party members, fled Equestria, along with its former rulers who constructed an undersea colony to praise their fallen principles of social darwinism.

It didn't work out.

And that's why trickle-down economics work and you should never believe anything Karl Marx wrote.