18 - My Fellow Citizens
"Citizens of the planet Earth." Twilight occupied every and all screens. No matter what channel one switched to, or what webpage one might try browsing to, she was there, in all her equine glory, wings spread wide to drive home her alien majesty. "I come bearing news. I apologize that some of you are not seeing this. Your technology is far too fractured and scattered to be sure you see it, but you can be certain that those who do will share it with you soon enough."
Twilight folded her wings to her sides as she looked around at the humans watching her with bated breath, delighting in their eagerness as she began to speak again. "Some of you see a brighter future for yourselves, in your own hands, or in the hooves or wings or some other being. I do not claim to be your angel." She ruffled her wings lightly. "Consider me more of a judge. I will begin addressing the imbalances that I see. My help comes with a cost. Not a monetary one, but one that asks you to ask yourselves how you ended up here, and how you can comport yourself moving forward."
She leaned in. "Let us begin."
Cindy flopped back in her seat. "AJ?"
"Yeah?" Applejack looked almost as surprised. "Ah wasn't expectin' that neither!"
"Glad to hear that." Cindy sat up, turning off the television. "You know who she was then?"
Applejack grinned as she fanned her hoof over the tabletop. "That there was Princess Twilight Sparkle. She's the smartest pony of all of 'em. She's also, technically, higher rank than ah am. Ah was captain of the ship." She pointed upwards. "Twilight's a princess of ponies, which includes that ship."
"Huh." Cindy dug out her phone. "Going to make a call before they call us. " Her phone began chiming before she could hit the call button. "Never mind."
President Wilson rubbed the sides of his head as a broadcast of Twilight's message played in a corner for all to see as it repeated. "This is not a situation that has come up before. Aliens have come from untold distances away, just to tell us how to live."
One of the many people crowded into the Oval Office rolled a hand. "But, she has more power than a random person on the corner. Can we afford to try to shrug her off? People are already flooding our inboxes with concerns about what she's said and what we're going to do."
"And what can we do?" The President stared at them all in turn. "The one thing we have going for us is that we're free to think and act as we like. We can fire missiles at her, hope to knock that spaceship out of the air. I don't think our chances are good. I'm increasingly certain it would just annoy them." He pinched the bridge of his nose as he groaned. "Our entire understanding of physics and astronomy have been challenged. What was supposed to be beyond us is right here, speaking to us through a translator so flawless it's like she was born here!"
A woman raised a hand. "It's worse. She broadcast globally, and our allies are all reporting she was speaking their language. Every person that witnessed her saw her speaking their native tongue. Even the North Koreans."
"Right." President Wilson turned his head up to the ceiling. "Any more good news for us?"
"How about this? People seem to be listening to her. We can stand against her, or we can be leaders." The man stood up, bringing fist against palm. "This is old enough to be a tired joke, but I, for one, welcome our equine overlords. Let them see America as an ally to be worked with and through, and we may survive this."
The President studied him closely. "Just like that? Give up the pretense of being a free country?" He smiled without humor. "I'd rather try and fight them first." He gave his head a quick shake. "Still, you may have a point." He sank, head caught between his hands. "We are facing an opponent that outclasses us in every means, other than manpower, and I don't think they care."
A different man stood up. "Sir, that's my biggest concern right now. She said she was going to help some people, but she didn't specify who. The question on everyone's mind is, how much force can we use to stop her?"
Wilson fixed that man with a look. "If she wants the human experiment to end, I have little doubt she has a toolbox of means available that don't have to risk any of her forces. Her technological level has already been shown to lap ours several times, and this little ship we call Earth is not well protected. A few timely meteors or a bath of radiation would do the job nicely."
The man frowned at that, but he had no counter to offer as he sat down again, brooding on his President's words.
"More, that is a worst-case scenario." The president pointed at the screen where Twilight was talking. "She didn't declare herself ruler of the world. That'd be ridiculous. If they wanted an Earth-like planet, the galaxy has plenty to pick from. She's an adult looking over the fence, seeing the children playing next door, and has decided to act." He sat up. "And we are those children."
President Wilson lowered his head. "We must get ahead of this before she causes too much damage to us." He looked at one of his secret service agents. "Prepare for a live broadcast. We're doing this."
"My fellow Americans." Wilson's grip on his podium tightened. "If you're seeing this, you saw the message sent to us literally from on high. The question many of you are asking yourselves right now is 'how will our government respond?'" He breathed deeply, letting it out slowly as he got a second wind. "In the short term, I will not be calling for any strikes against our visitors, nor any attempts to block them from entering our airspace."
He took a soft breath. "Now is the time to come together as one people, humans all, and ask ourselves how we are doing, how we have done, and what we can do in the future." He held up a hand to the screen. "As you know, one of the aliens has already been born here, on American soil, from an American woman, with an immigrant, one of the aliens no less, bringing with them a new member to our ever-expanding family."
His gaze fell on the screen. "Many have seen them as an angel, descended from above, their hoof the instrument of the lord, touching our very hearts with the peace and goodwill that only an angel can bring." He paused there, knowing his exact next words would shape the future for decades to come. "But this angel is more than that, she is our judge."
The president closed his eyes a moment. "She has pointed out to us what she believes we are doing wrong. As our judge, I have no doubt she will sentence us as she sees fit. Will that sentence be harsh, or fair? We can only hope for the latter." He looked up at the camera with a thin smile. "But we are in a dire straight, with little other option. The time for human differences has fled us. I will be visiting the United Nations, personally, to put forward a plea that was unthinkable a month ago, that all humans come together under one banner."
He tightened his hands on the podium. "We are many nations and peoples, but we are still human. If our planet is to have a voice, it must be unified. She spoke of her hoof helping, but I have no doubt she can also use the sharp edge of that hoof if she feels it needed." He stood up tall. "America will be the face, if it has to, of a united people. Our differences are vast and ancient, but their time is coming to an end. We can orchestrate that ourselves, or let someone else do it for us. I would rather seize the future than let it be seized from me."
"There will be many questions to ask yourself in the days to come, but this I know for certain. Today, we enter a new age for mankind, one where we are not alone, and whether we are found wanting by our heavenly neighbor, that will be for us all to decide." President Wilson stepped back from the podium and departed the stage without another word, the cameras lingering on his image as he vanished into the depths of the White House.
Elsewhere, Applejack whistled gently as she looked up from the tablet with Cindy. "That was a mighty speech." She poked at it again, enlarging it with a single hoof swipe. "Fer all yer faults, ya got some powerful speakers. Not many 'sides Celestia ah 'xpect to come out and belt one like that out. Hm, maybe Twilight too, come to think."
Cindy sighed gently as she slipped a hand around Applejack's side to hold her partner in place, leaning her head on her shoulder. "You might have forgotten this, but our kind isn't exactly immortal. While Twilight is really hard to kill, we still die from old age."
Applejack perked an ear at that. "What? Ya thought ah was immortal or somethin'? We got some fancy medicines, sure, but eventually, yer gonna get it. They can't undo an accident bad enough, and the universe's got plenty of 'em waitin' fer anyone."
"Right, right." Cindy squinted at the screen in front of her. "So how old is Twilight?"
Applejack waggled a hoof at her. "You know I can't rightly say." She hopped from the couch to her own hooves. "Angel?"
"Yeah momma?" Angel looked up from the table where he was drawing.
Applejack smiled gently at him. "Do you know how old Twilight is?"
"Yeah!" Angel was all smiles. "She's really old!"
Applejack snorted at that with a smile. "Probably the best answer we're gettin'." She went to nuzzle and hug Angel from behind. "Whatcha drawin' there?"
"This!" Angel held up a drawing of his family, depicted in crayon. "And this!" The second drawing was more stylized, with his parents looking like they did in the media, surrounded by lines and shapes. "What does it look like to you?"
Applejack turned her head aside, tail swishing lightly. "Looks like a drawin' mah colt made, so ah'm a bit biased." She nuzzled the back of his head. "But tell me what yer thinkin'. Love to hear."
Angel tapped the piece of paper with a hoof as he drew his other hoof along it, leaving little rainbow streaks on the paper, guided by hoof. "This one is you! See, you've got a bow tie around your neck, and there's apples!"
Applejack rubbed a hoof along Angel's back as she studied the picture. "Aw, rather interestin' there. Why'd you put the ribbon 'round mah neck?" She lifted her tail. "Ain't it back there?"
"Because you have something there that needs a ribbon." Angel nuzzled up into Applejack's side. "I don't know what it is, but it has to be special." He held his hoof out over the crayon figure of himself.
Applejack snorted softly at that. "Ya got a right powerful 'magination. Love it." She trotted towards the kitchen. "Now lemme see 'bout how dinner's comin' 'long. World may be changin', but we need food either way."
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I've been resisting the urge to make that comment! Just the other day, I posted "I, for one, welcome our new pink, fluffy overlord." on a Fluffle Puff story.
China may not like that. 🐼
I've been wondering that since her line about "thousands of years" in an earlier chapter.
Typo, second paragraph: "comport."
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https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comport
I am quite enjoying this take on the circumstances.
This has been a very well done approach to most things you have expressed.
Now I wonder how many are going to be paying attention to the details, or just jump right to blanket assumptions already refuted by what the chapter said.
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The loss of a decent vocabulary has come a long way because of texting and the internet.
In the past few decades, the average person went from around an average of 20,000 words in regular use, down to around 800-1000 on average.
Think about the degree of degradation we have experienced in supposedly educated society.
Let me put that in perspective with a simple percentage difference.
Today, the average student entering college has a vocabulary of just 0.05% in contrast to someone in the 70's.
To say nothing of a century ago.
Yet almost everyone is convinced humanity is only advancing...?
Twilight: Rainbow, find us a place to land. As near Applejack's location as you can without damaging anything EXCEPT the ground. We have been in space long enough.
Well, to me, this chapter didn't do much. All I got was Twilight speaking her mind, but what was it? Of course, America will try to usurp the lead, as Americans are supposed to the face of freedom and the principles of the Western hemisphere society. Who else would? Great Britain? France? Sweden? Mexico? Canada?
Heavy, heavy thinking here. Sure, we as Humans do want something else out there to help us, but the way we are as a species, that would be doubtful, in the very least.
I guess that this story will become nothing else but a parable, a parable of our failing.
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Didn't do much?
I mean, that already feels kinda like a major event(or two)
At least she only used existing screens. Imagine the response if she had just gone for the audio method. Vogon style. Her ship is floating in space exactly like a brick doesnt?
I wonder if her spells include radiation detection, tracking, isolation and containment? Some intresting results from the electromagnetic tractor beam research about that. But we need multi gigaewatt orbital solar power stations with resultant microwave power links to be able to clean up places like Chernobyl etc.
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Perhaps I didn't say it the way I meant. To me, I have been expecting a total landslide of events that would "wow" me. Maybe I am just grousing because you did not specifically state what Twilight's intentions are in her speech, which also was not delivered to us as readers.
Okay. I might be a bit seeking more of a rush here. If that bothers, sorry for that. (I've also been reading another long fic which is nearly page after page of action, that being @iisaw's fine series of their "Alicorn Books".)
You tale is unfolding like an onion, leaf by leaf. In short. just shrug me off. I have a habit of reading several stories at the same time.
Judge Twilight. Will she be addressing the unequal distribution of wealth, power and resources, or just the environmental disasters? Will her judgements be commands or just suggestions?
Wilson sounds like a typical arrogant American President. The UN should find a better more inclusive representative for the voice of humanity, preferably someone who is not White.
Does Twilight have any magical spells that are effective against nuclear weapons? She may need them.
I hope she doesn't neglect the other sapient species such as Whales, Dolphins, Elephants and Great Apes. Latest discovery, Sperm whales have language.
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Applejack spoke with a whale, even if the whale didn't hear that reply.
Stray thought - next chapter, will some country whose military has the capability launch a missile at our Friendly Equine Overlords ?
If so, I doubt it will be China, given their earlier acceptance and mutual offer of co-habitation.
EDIT:
Huh. What do you know?
Missile goes BOOM!! (of course, there is no sound in space...)
It's nostalgic to see the Kent Brockman line referenced.
Interested to see where the concept of Twilight as an apparent sort of judge of morality.
Also interested in Angel's imagination. It's definitely a surprise that he figures Applejack needs a ribbon around her neck even if he can't quite place why.