Part 13 of the Palaververse: Zebrica · 1:56am Dec 9th, 2015
Let's continue the jaunt away from familiar Ungulan pastures and get properly stuck into another continent. This week, the zebras of Zebrica get their time in the sun! Though a position in the tropics would tend to make a lot of your time that anyway. Or something. I forget what I was doing with this paragraph. Er, moving swiftly onwards.
As always, if you have a nomination for any nation or entity you'd like to see covered next week, or any follow-up question, pop it in the comments and I'll be sure to take note. Various Christmas and birthday-related business later in the week (I can only assume becoming a 22-year-old lets me do even more dangerous stuff legally than any of those previous age brackets) might keep me occupied for long stretches, but I'll be sure to get round to everything. Also, praise themaskedferret, for verily she asserts coherency and compels necessary elaborations for things what need coherency and elaboration.
Past the picture, zebras!
Much like Ungula, the vast and tropical continent of Dactylia is split between savage wilderness and inhabited civilisation. The uninhabited Dactylian Interior, playing host to all the thick jungle, exotic terrors, arcane mysteries, and dangerous beasts a being could(n’t) wish for, is split off from the rest of the continent by the natural barrier of the Stormshield Mountains. Battered constantly by wyld storms blowing eastwards from across the Black Ocean, these mountains have sheltered the sapient beings and emerging civilisations of Dactylia for all of their long existence. Rivers course down from them, nourishing the hot lands of the continent and providing natural networks for travel and trade.
One such river, the incomparably vast and long Neighle, flows down from the Stormshield highlands and towards the northern deserts of Dactylia, offering up unending sustenance to that parched land. Bands of jungles and fertile land run along its banks and along its network of distributaries and tributaries, green veins amidst vastnesses of sand. For the zebras — the age-old inhabitants of northern Dactylia — the Neighle has always been their lifeline and foundation. And by its sustenance, the bounty it offers, and by the labour and ingenuity of the zebras, Zebrica ranks among the foremost powers of Dactylia, and is a force to be reckoned with in the wider world.
Zebra civilisation has existed in the lands of Zebrica for as long as recorded history exists, with archaeological findings indicating a slow migration of early zebra tribes down the banks of the Neighle as far back as the end of the Antlertian era. Such findings accord with the foundation myths of the zebras themselves, who largely believe in an origin rooted in the source of the Neighle and its life-giving waters. These early tribes gradually pushed onwards along the river-jungles and fields, taking advantage of the river’s yield and settling as they did so. The earliest post-Antlertian settlements in the world lie in Zebrica, and though civilisation certainly independently developed elsewhere after the Fall of Antlertis, it cannot be denied that it developed there first.
Part of this may be due to the unique gifts of the zebras. Thier natural strength and hardiness undoubtedly helped them. These qualities were shared by the Ungulan ponies, whose undoubtedly close kinship to zebrakind in spite of the span of distance between them has never been satisfyingly resolved by any historical account that doesn’t involve Antlertis dicking around for no apparent reason. However, the magic of the zebras expressed itself yet further in their talent to draw forth, manipulate, and contain the natural magic latent within the world to their own purposes, far in advance of the natural talents of other species. Alchemy, the art of working with the magical properties within certain plants and animal components to produce potions, is the most direct and famous zebra manifestation of this talent.
With what were effectively spells contained in flasks, the early zebras were able to safeguard themselves and exploit the world for their own benefit. With the range of possible recipes and concoctions that could be derived from the natural bounty around them, the expert zebra witch doctors devised forms of notation, including the first numerical system and alphabet, to pass on these secrets to their apprentices. With these potions, the zebras could double the strength of their warriors and labourers, preserve their food, heal their wounds, sharpen the senses of their scouts, and create rudimentary fertilisers and explosives with which to clear the jungle and battle those magical beasts dwelling there. And the waters of the Neighle allowed the early zebra cultures to contact one another and travel swiftly, engage in trade, mingle, and thus achieve an interconnectedness that wouldn’t be seen elsewhere in the world for centuries to come.
As the zebras settled and spread, the tribal chieftains became kings, ruling from stone settlements and bartering with their peers up and down the river for resources. Stone and metal from the highlands mingled with produce and alchemical reagents from the coast and jungles, and one settlement in particular, Marephis, became a great centre of trade. Its kings grew wealthy beyond compare, and their sphere of influence in the lands of Zebrica expanded down the centuries as lesser kings and chieftains grew dependent on their favour and resources. And finally, two-and-a-half thousand years ago, King Zeb of Marephis formally bound them under his rule. He anointed himself as the first Pharoah, king of all zebras and wearer of the Black Crown, and declared Marephis as the capital of a united Zebrican realm, covering all the lands touched by the Neighle from highland to shore.
Zeb’s authority and that of his immediate heirs gradually tightened down the years, and the bureaucracy of Marephis’s palace and courts expanded to meet the needs of the new realm. Revised systems of taxation brought wealth to the capital, and the Pharoahs and their government reinvested part of that wealth into hospitals, fountains, public services, and, most spectacularly, the Collegium - a great institute of higher learning made to collect and impart all the lore of zebrakind to those students found to be both noble and worthy. The offspring of the Pharoahs and lords flocked there, and soon found themselves engaging in research as well, expanding on Zebrica’s knowledge as well as merely collecting and learning it. The world’s first university had been founded, almost by accident, and exists to this day with archives containing papyrus scrolls dating back millennia … those that have managed to survive the regular fires and explosions caused by each generation of keen new alchemists, that is.
The rule of the first Pharoahs wasn’t accepted by all zebras, however, and their authority was nigh-nonexistent on the edge of their realm. The tribes and small kingdoms of the southerly highlands in particular resented the intrusion of northerly laws and taxation, and frequently declined to comply with either. Any attempt to forcibly retrieve the Pharoah’s dues inevitably ended in failure as the offending tribe simply melted into the highland jungle away from whatever troops were sent up by ship, and many Pharoahs simply begrudgingly ignored the problem in favour of focusing on the compliant north. Non-compliance came coupled with non-integration as well, however, with many tribal chieftains regarding the new Collegium with deep suspicion and as a mere means of placing their offspring under the nose — and at the mercy — of the Pharoahs. Their offspring, as well as most of the foals of each tribe, continued to be educated by the tribe’s own witch doctor. Each witch doctor taught their own self-acquired lore of alchemy and other arts, and dozens of discrete and separate alchemical traditions and schools flourished across the highlands.
This developing distinction between the interconnected north and tribal south came to a head more than two thousand years ago. One ambitious Pharoah, Zig Zag, cast covetous eyes southwards and decided to bring the tribes to heel and their knowledge to the Collegium. She gathered together a great fleet and an army assembled from the levies of her subject nobles, armed them with bronze weaponry and all the potions the Collegium could provide, and set sail up the Neighle in a great procession that was intended to intimidate the tribes into submission with minimal bloodshed.
The tribes had ample time to hear about Zig Zag’s fleet, and believed it to be intent on violent subjugation. In desperation, many chieftains and witch doctors came together and devised a great and terrible piece of alchemy, believed by many modern scholars to have been somehow infused with dark magic. As the fleet neared the highlands, a potion was poured into the waters of the Neighle that ignited the river’s surface. Flames coursed downriver to meet Zig Zag and her fleet, burning the Pharoah, many of her nobles, and her entire army to ash. The flames kept going all the way to the docks of Marephis, and by the time they cleared, the Neighle was grey with ash.
Zig Zag’s Pyre, as the incident came to be known, threw the north and south into several centuries of mutual hostility and fear. The Pharoah-ruled north, which came to be known as Lower Zebrica, was unable to send another great force up the river for fear of a repeat of the Pyre, and settled instead for constant and low-key raiding. The highland tribes, now de facto independent in what was known as Upper Zebrica, withdrew further and further from southern contact, withholding much of their metal, stone, and the alchemical reagents available only in the high jungle. The division between the two realms sent both into a period of bitter stagnation, both bereft of the resources of the other and shoring up their defences against suspected — and rarely-manifesting — invasion.
The long war between Upper and Lower Zebrica may have persisted to this day, or been resolved through annihilation or total subjugation of one side or the other, if not for the greatest calamity and greatest blessing to have ever befallen Zebrica. Seventeen-hundred years ago, Apophis rose from the Neighle and single-handedly managed to eclipse every single other problem the zebras had.
To this day, nopony knows where Apophis, the Night Serpent, exactly arose from. Some unimaginative scholars peg him as yet another offshoot of Antlertean meddling, while others yet believe that he was born in the primal magic at the heart of the world and slithered up through cracks and tunnels in search of prey. Whatever the case, one moonless night, he struck up from the Neighle’s depths like a slice of hell made manifest. A serpent half-a-mile long, armoured over with obsidian-black scales and with cunning and sadism beyond the scope of any surface-dweller, he tore through settlement after settlement along the banks of the Neighle in Lower Zebrica like tissue paper, dragging screaming zebras below the river’s surface and only withdrawing when the new day dawned. Shell-shocked, the remaining zebras in the struck settlements struggled to rebuild and sent pleas for aid to the Pharoah. The following night, Apophis struck again, this time in Upper Zebrica.
The Night Serpent’s reign of terror lasted for more than a year, and saw countless Neighle-side villages and towns devastated in Upper and Lower Zebrica alike. Many communities desperately withdrew from the river’s side and scraped out an existence in the desert, salvaging and farming what they could from the abandoned riverbank during the daylight hours and fleeing back for the desert when dusk fell. No number of soldiers proved sufficient to overcome Apophis, and nearly every ship the Pharoah possessed was destroyed in the first few months. In desperation, the tribal chieftains of Upper Zebrica, loosely led by their Queen Zenith, and Pharoah Dazzle of Lower Zebrica came together to reach out to the only possible allies they had — each other.
Both sides brought their witch doctors and Collegium-trained scholars, who pooled their resources and cunning in a desperate attempt to destroy Apophis before he inevitably destroyed all zebrakind and moved on to the outside world. Dusty flasks of the substance used in the Pyre were dug out and broken down, pieced back together, and painstakingly refined into something greater. Even then, with all the combined efforts of every alchemical expert and every substance zebrakind knew of being brought to the mixing tables, most were still able to look at the substance's projected power and were pessimistic about the results. Their last roll of the dice seemed doomed before it even started.
The refined substance, dubbed balefire, was still brought to Zenith and Dazzle upon its completion, and both presented themselves as bait to Apophis, who had targeted them previously in an effort to sap the morale of their subjects. And so, to ensure his interest, they sailed out upon the Neighle one night, and when Apophis came for them out of the dark waters, they introduced him to what zebra alchemy could contrive.
The balefire worked beyond the dreams of even its most optimistic makers, destroying Apophis in a fiery storm of magic that seemed to be empowered beyond every prediction — an effect attributed by Equestrian historians to the friendship and unity involved in its production. The Neighle washed the flames and the Night Serpent’s ashes out to sea, and as the new day dawned, even Zenith and Dazzle re-emerged from the waters, from where they’d been feared to be consumed by the balefire as well.
Dazzle and Zenith getting married that same dawn, in order to secure the unity and peace between their peoples, was just the dramatic icing on the cake to the night’s efforts, all things considered.
The peace forged by zebrakind’s pooled efforts and the royal marriage held, and as Lower and Upper Zebrica rebuilt, a new golden age fell upon Zebrakind. Rulership of the two realms fell upon Dazzle and Zenith’s eldest daughter, Zehra, who joined them both together as a unified Zebrica. She wore the new Black-and-White crown, representing both halves of the realm being joined as one. Although most of the old differences in culture between Upper and Lower Zebrica persisted, the spirit of unity was enough to allow no acrimony to arise as a result. Many Collegium scholars travelled to the highlands to apprentice with the witch doctors, while witch doctors increasingly came to the Collegium to learn, research in learned company, and give the odd lecture. Their own studies became part of zebrakind’s recorded collective lore. Furthermore, all future Pharoahs were expected to have their upbringing and education split between the Collegium and with the witch doctors, so that they could know and fairly represent and rule over all parts of their kingdom.
This age of innovation saw Zebrica casting its gaze abroad. Sleek and alchemically-hardened sailing ships set forth from coastal cities to explore the high seas, with some even making it as far as Ungula and making contact with the Capric Empire. Other zebras set out across the desert that had long formed Zebrica’s southern border and established friendly contact and a few trading routes with Pachydermia and the numerous small species and nations that would go on to form Gazellen. This long and prosperous peace also allowed the Pharoahs and Zebrica at large to set themselves to ever-advancing research and pushing at the boundaries of what was possible. Even the reign of Discord in Equestria some twelve-hundred years ago, which saw chaotic ripples across the world, failed to interrupt the normal functioning of Zebrica.
One pipe dream of many Pharoahs down these centuries was using alchemy to overcome death itself. And through countless research articles, awful concoction after awful concoction, and dubiously-acquired corpse after corpse, the Collegium’s scholars and witch doctors finally achieved something resembling success, with the first eager beneficiary of their efforts being the recently-passed Pharaoh Idube. Through the systematic and mixed application of mummification, embalming, certain alchemical powders, and the wholesale replacement of select organs and brain portions, Idube’s body was reanimated.
Although the immediate results of this were mixed (Idube attempting to consume the brains of his privy council was something of a let-down) the scholars involved, after arguing their way out of being executed and/or fed to their Pharaoh by the surviving and furious privy council members, were able to glean countless insights from the process, and came up with multiple variations of the procedure to modify post-reanimation brain function and impulses. Although it was eventually determined that true personality and self-direction couldn’t be entirely preserved, preventing the dead from being legally considered their previous selves or being full members of Zebrican society, many scholars and members of the nobility arranged to have themselves reanimated after death so that they could continue to advise and/or boss around their students and descendants. Many Zebrican noble houses to this day keep their ancestors pottering around in the family manor in case they need some varyingly-useful historical insight. Others arranged the same for their favourite servants, and soon enough, disputes over who got to inherit their great-grandparent’s nanny for the education of their own foals became quite common amongst the Zebrican upper classes.
As the process was refined and streamlined down the centuries and some alchemical businesses learned to make it something of an assembly-line procedure, it became available to the emerging middle and lower classes as well. Those who couldn’t afford to keep their dead for themselves were able to benefit from renting them for work in the developing factories and to other forms of simple labour. Pharoahs and generals realised the potential military application of the process as well, and soon shuffling and somewhat odiferous regiments of the recently-dead commanded by living officers were a common sight, with payments promised to the families of those who volunteered their own bodies after they’d ceased using them. The desert was put to use in housing and preserving these Deathly Regiments, with barracks-pyramids built to house them until war threatened.
Opinions from the outside world on all this, then and now, range from horror to appalled curiosity, and the first widespread interaction between Zebrica and the outside world in the form of the arriving traders of Asinia could be safely said to have contained a fair amount of culture shock. Nevertheless, the treasures of Zebrica were able to keep the outside world’s attention, and as new technologies and means of travel came to the port cities, zebras soon eagerly joined the ranks of the world’s traders, and their own ships — triremes crewed by ranks of undead rowers — were soon common sights on the high seas. The influx of exciting new alchemical reagents from the outside world have kept Zebrica’s research ticking along nicely, and new potion after new potion continued to be devised.
Life for Zebricans of most social classes and parts of the country has remained relatively stable and comfortable in the wake of these various upheavals, with society in Lower Zebrica still very much divided between the various classes, with little intermingling permitted in polite society. The widespread use of undead labour has shifted the lower class into those slightly more mentally-demanding and involved labouring tasks, such as farmwork in the river-side fields and transporting the produce along the river networks, with younger zebras typically falling into the trade of their parents. Their communities, whether rural or urban, are fairly close-knit and social, with all manner of recreational potion-brewing and distilling going on under the noses of their overlords with whatever local reagents may exist. The thin band of middle classes work as artisans and merchants, may possess an undead relative or two for sentimental purposes, and dream of sending their offspring to study in the Collegium. The upper classes, who retain their old seniority in matters of governance and military command and invariably know all their peers through a common education in the Collegium, reside in their traditional manors on the outskirts of the larger cities, away from the common bustle. The tribes of Upper Zebrica remain somewhat more egalitarian in their civil structure and outlook, in spite of their gradual settlement down the centuries, with witch doctors commonly educating all foals within their tribes and social class divisions largely consisting of the division between the chieftain and witch doctor’s families and everyzebra else. A great deal of shared prosperity and the deliberate redirection of some of said prosperity to the poorest in society via social programs and services by the Pharaohs has kept the internal pressure for reform in Zebrica to a minimum, and Zebrica society remains mostly similar to its form for the last couple of thousand years.
This isn’t to say the last millennium hasn’t come without its share of new challenges for Zebrica, many of which still persist and which find their ranks regularly renewed. One of these ongoing problems, arising over three hundred years ago, was the grand alliance between Pharaoh Zero and Shahanshah Greyhide of Pachydermia. Their joint war against the petty nations in the centre of Dactylia, in an attempt to divide the continent between the two young warrior kings, saw the nations unify against them, just as Lower and Upper Zebrica had done in the face of Apophis. Zero and Greyhide led their armies to a final and decisive defeat in which they both perished, and the petty nations unified into the Serene Confederation of Gazellen, a new and powerful player on the Dactylian continent with unpredictable and varying ambitions.
Another problem has arisen from Ungula in the form of the increasingly aggressive and predatory trade practises of the Asinial Republic, and the aristocratic corsairs it spawned in Dactylian waters. Both parties have menaced the shipping and coastline of Zebrica, and will continue to do so unless brought to heel in dramatic fashion. The emerging scholastic institutions and technological progress of both Equestria and Asinia have also managed to eclipse the Collegium on the world stage, for all that it may remain mighty and respected. Some designs have been copied to a limited degree, such as the new airships, but are generally slow to catch on and distrusted compared to whatever good old Zebrican bubbling cauldrons and beakers can produce.
The most dramatic in recent years, however, would be the War of the Zebrican Inheritance, a civil war fought between the twin sons of the old Pharoah, Punda and Milia, to determine who would secure the throne. The Black-and-White Crown, the age-old symbol of the authority of the Pharoahs and a united Zebrica, was divided and each half incessantly sought after by the brothers. Although the prolonged fighting was mostly conducted with elements of the nobility and their Deathly Regiments, leaving most average Zebrican citizens untouched, the war throttled Zebrican prosperity and sowed new resentments and division in society between those who supported either brother. Rumours abound of a younger sister to the two brothers, who fled the nation from her studies among the tribes in fear of getting embroiled in the conflict and who hid somewhere remote in Equestria. Such rumours have received little backing from either brother or whatever elements of the royal household remain.
That particular war has since ended, mercifully, after a peace treaty in the wake of Discord’s return that left the two brothers administering either half of Zebrica, a throwback to a considerably more divided time two thousand years ago. Despite that, the promise of future reunification through the offspring of the two brothers remains open, and Zebrica’s survival remains in little doubt … inasmuch as it was ever doubted at all.
Three thousand years of history is as reasonable a foundation as any for assuming future survival. And with the lessons, scholarship, and occasional corpse from said history guiding them on, Zebrica looks set to be as undying as the river it flowed from.
like Balefire balefire?
A very neat take on necropolitian society. Fun to see.
On a different note, what's your explanation for the rhyming dialogue of the one canon Zebra? do all zebras speak in some form of rhythmic pattern or is it just the highborn/Collegium alums or is it Upper Zebrican witch doctors? Oh, and my vote is for the Gazelles
References to G1 and Fallout: Equestria? Well, it makes sense. An Egypt analogue should be heavily steeped in the past, though preferably not so saturated in it as to forget the future. (Looking at you, Djelibeybi.) Zebrica does seem to be facing some issues in the near future, but nothing insurmountable. Of course, I'm saying that without knowing the nature of anyone else on the continent. For all I know, that lost princess may need to be called in after her brothers do something monumentally stupid. Good thing she's got friends in high places in her new home, to say nothing of all of the novel reagents she's picked up.
In any case, my vote's for Pachydermia.
3603955
Glad you approve! Necropolicies are always good fun to see and tinker around with.
3603971
Nomination for Gazellen noted! And the balefire's not the exact same substance as the one in Fallout: Equestria, but about as equally conducive to life and limb.
As for Zecora's speech pattern, I'm rolling with it being a peculiarity of the Upper Zebrican witch doctor she studied under after finishing her studies at the Collegium and who she learned Equestrian from. Even after settling down in the Everfree and getting better exposure to Equestrians, she keeps up the practise - partly out of habit, partly out of sentiment, partly for amusement's sake, and partly to test herself and keep her grasp of Equestrian sharp. After all, if we forced ourselves to come up with a rhyming couplet a split second after saying something like, "I'd quite like an orange," chances are we'd have to get very, very good at this whole English business very quickly.
3603974
The issues facing Zebrica on its home continent should get elaboration in the other nations' own posts. Hopefully, the two brothers don't bollocks things up so badly that said princess has to get herself and her array of powerful friends involved. Hopefully.
Nomination for Pachydermia noted! Glad the range of references came through.
3604055
of course, you being a Scot, English still is out of your reach
.Don't take too much offense, l'm from eastern Montana and modern English still is out there in the rest of the world
i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/130/993/Zecora_CoolStoryBro.png
EDIT: And vote for Pachydermia.
The fact that the Season Finale revealed that Zecora is an excellent leader and capable General when circumstances warrant it will probably have no relevance to your future stories
3604095
Ye telling me ma native lingo isnae authentic Queen's English? Fit why nae? Pure havers, like.
3604135
Nomination for Pachydermia noted!
3604165
Probably no relevance at all, you're right. None at all. Can't imagine any situations where those skills may have to come in handy.
Is balefire more a parallel to Greek fire, then? Which I guess begs the question -- has the knowledge of how to make it been preserved, or lost like that of our own universe?
Zecora is a Zebrican princess!
Awesome installment, probably my favorite yet.
3604361
I read this instance of Balefire to be akin to one common concept of hellfire, where the flame clings like tar and consumes the entirety of anything it touches with malevolent bloody mindedness; the smallest tongue of flame that spawns on an object would ignore the rules of oxidation and grow ravenously, ignoring all other nearby independant objects the current flames touch until the heat of exposure or surface contact with he base of the tarry napalm-like base of the fire also induces another object to catch fire; hellfire.
Awesome work as ever.
I do love the rather epic story of the Night Serpent; that would make and a great fic. I vote for Gazellen.
Wunderbar. I vote Gazellan next, and I loved the aside about Zecora. Zebrica is an interesting take on what Egypt would've been like had it not been conquered by outside forces... with a bit of Golden Age Islam and Byzantine influence, perhaps?
"The earliest settlements in the world lie in Zebrica"
...This, to me, raises significantly further questions about Antlertis. Interesting. :)
"Rumours abound of a younger sister to the two brothers, who fled the nation from her studies among the tribes in fear of getting embroiled in the conflict and who hid somewhere remote in Equestria. Such rumours have received little backing from either brother or whatever elements of the royal household remain."
...Well, that is also interesting. :)
And another very nice bit of worldbuilding. :)
Finally, Zecora's origins explained in a very satisfactory way.
Also: balefire. Let's just hope that Capra (or pretty much anyone really) doesn't one day lay hoof or whatever applicable anatomy on that. See FO:E.
And I can also see much better now why Celestia is increasingly irritated by Asinia's ruthless behaviour abroad. It's not just inharmonious and goes against her nature. She does not need a war between a nation that is acting in self-defence against one of her allies. The Crown is amused (and soon fanning the flames, somehow, I guess).
Having been to the region where the Blue Nile starts, the Ethiopian Highlands, I must say that upper Zebrica fits the bill to a t. Lastly, I love how you turned something like the Zebra zombies into an almost completely everyday and benign thing that is only viewed with horror from the outside.
Oooh, nice! I'm a big, big fan of Zecora and, by extension, other zebras, so I've been waiting this one with great interest. It did not disappoint!
I like the Egyptian flavor of your Zebrica, yet it's not just a ponified (zebrafied?) version of the real-world culture. Their history and society are very cool, and those alchemical zombies add a nice dose of values dissonance and exotic creepiness. (I wonder how Equestrians feel about them? And whether Pinkie Pie, or possibly Rainbow Dash, has ever asked Zecora if she could animate a zombie for the Nightmare Night...
)
Also, I'm putting in a vote for Gazellen next.
Ahh, witty remarks fail me on this blog! Curses, curses, uhh...look! It's cake!
Also nominate the Nightmares.
3604361
Balefire's indeed akin to Greek fire, mixed well with steroids and nightmares. Knowledge of how to make it's been preserved in the Collegium, but is kept under exceedingly close wraps and known only to the most senior and loyal of scholars and the Pharoahs themselves.
3604526
Glad you approve! You can't have too many secret princesses, if fiction has taught me anything.
3604531
A good approximation for its workings, yep. It's properly horrible and destructive stuff.
3604544
Nomination for Gazellen noted! The Night Serpent backstory was fun to devise, and I'm glad you like it.
3604599
Nomination for Gazellen noted! Much of it's very much Egypt-derived, though a fair amount of Golden Age Islam got in there as well, as well as a touch of Ethiopia.
3604624
Glad you like it! I might tweak the first quoted bit to read 'first post-Antlertian settlements', though. Antlertis still came first.
3604646
Glad the mix of Zecora origins and alchemical zombies entertained, and you're spot-on about the potential problems that could arise both from balefire being leaked to the outside world and Celestia's aggravation at Asinia's aggression.
I've been to Egypt once, when I was young, but I've never been to Ethiopia. The highlands there look stunning - I'll even begrudgingly concede they're almost on a par, beauty-wise, with Scotland's own.
3604701
Nomination for Gazellen noted! And that reanimation scheme for Nightmare Night could indeed end entertainingly ... or some sort of 'ly', at least.
3604743
Nomination for the Nightmares noted! And cake and/or witty remarks always go appreciated.
I nominate The Moon next!
Unless you already covered it inside of another blahg post?
Pachydermia needs some love!
3604895
Nomination for the as-yet uncovered moon noted! I've not developed much interesting headcanon for it so far, alas, so it might be better covered as part of some broader topic.
3605071
Nomination for Pachydermia noted!
3605371
What?
You mean you don't have ancient aliums in the palavarverse?
I forgot if your Luna was on,in,or part of the moon during banishment.
Heck if nothing else the moon is a great place for time travel tests or historical observation by far future EQUUS scientists; just keep track of which crater you did the last bunch in to avoid overlapping your test subject's light cones.
3605421
Nothing else out there ... at least, nothing that the modern world's had the misfortune of encountering, or that anypony in the know might be inclined to divulge.
I personally roll with a mix of being banished right into the moon itself becoming part of the moon itself. A nice and cosy place to while away the centuries, at least.
3604872
Now I want to read The Night AJs Parents Were Zombies
Oh, this was all kinds of interesting. Household necromancy and exiled princesses and all manner of things.
I guess we keep going anti-clockwise down the southern continents, then? (gazellen)
3604872
In my imagination, balefire is something like jellied chlorine trifluoride, burning with a very vivid green flame.
Also, loved that snippet of the Nightmare Night prank gone wrong. Got to admire Rainbow's quick thinking there!
3604872
Ah, thanks for the clarification.
3605620
Nomination for Gazellen noted! Glad you found it interesting.
3605730
It's certainly up there with said compound in terms of general incompatibility with life and happiness and suchlike things.
3605978
Nae bother.
Great to hit a second continent!
I love how to Equestria, of course the equivalent of nuclear weapons was jacked up by the power of friendship.
"What....happened? That targeted balefire bomb was supposed to destroy the enemy compound, not the neighboring orphanage as well!"
"Oh god, it's all my fault, I mixed it up with the other researcher this morning, but failed to factor in that we had gone out for drinks last night and really bonded as friends!"
How badly does the Capric Crown want the secret to Deathly Regiments? How many Cervixes with their antlers shaved off and painted in stripes show up at the Collegium every year pretending to be Zebra students?
I vote for Pachidermia!
3606341
Nomination for Pachydermia noted! The Equestrian's theories aren't entirely accepted by the Zebrican scholars, but one can only imagine (and shudder at) the consequences if they were.
The Crown certainly lacks the same misgivings its subjects has about reanimation, and it's made several attempts to replicate the procedure in Capra's secret laboratories - using kidnapped zebras where natural caprid alchemical talents lack. So far, nothing's sophisticated or capable of being unleashed on a large scale has really come about, but the Crown's confident that progress can be made with enough raw material.
3606387 Hehehehe, if it wasn't NSFW, I would totally link to those old Trojan Man commercials where they intersperse the condoms with giant explosions.
Now I wonder about love potions, and if they're some sort of run-away chain reaction potential in there...
3606486 Want Balefire. Need Balefire. LOVE Balefire.
A magnificent chapter as always, Marquis! I quite enjoyed the references to Fallout Equestria (been rereading lately, and occasionally gets my canons mixed up...), couldn't help but feel that the Palarvaverse is heading in the same direction, what with the Crown allying with the Cormaer. I also love the idea of a society that has undead just walking about everywhere. I can't imagine how the nations reacted to it the first time (the Crown was probably fascinated, and Celestia appalled...).
As for the next chapter, I would cast my vote for Gazellen or Pachydermia, whichever YOU feel like writing. I fell like these three have some common history, so I'm not fussed about the order I get find out about them. Also, my boyfriend has read Moonlight Palaver after I threatened him with no cuddles for a week, and found it good, if slightly incomprehensible (he doesn't get the references to the show...). He did say that I was the gayest guy he ever met, and that any attempt to make him watch it would end in tears (mine), but hey; can't win 'em all :)
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I can't imagine it making too much sense without show knowledge - though at least it only relies on the first two episodes.
Nomination for either Gazellen or Pachydermia noted! There's definitely a lot of shared history for the Dactylians, just as there was for the Ungulans. Glad that Palaver's also being inflicted on loved ones.
Whew, I'm late getting to this one. But nice work as always. Lots of interesting tidbits in this one.
I know which way the wind's blowing, but in the spirit of defiance, I vote for Pachydermia.
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Defiant nomination for Pachydermia noted!
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oi68.tinypic.com/2n82ahe.jpg
NOT YET, CARABAS. IT'S NOT OVER YET.
3606387 "Well let's see, if a mommy Zebra and a daddy zebra like each other very much.."
"NOT THOSE KINDS OF QUESTIONS!"
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"Oh, beg pardon, I should have realised. You've probably not done this sort of thing much. Well, when you get the prophylactics out of their packaging, you'll have to get them out of their individual wrappers using the tearable edges. Once it's out, you roll it on -"
"NOT THOSE QUESTIONS EITHER! And I've done this sort of thing to a satisfying degree already, thank you very much!"
"Oh, well done. I'll leave you both to it then!"
"SON OF A -"
members of the nobility
Put a comma before "and their own ships"
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Fixed!
Day 13: Zebrica
- Can anypony do alchemy or just the zebras?
- Did Zig Zag have a habit of not walking or running in straight lines?
- Zebras know about dark magic? What would Celestia do if she knew this considering her past with dark magic? Also, how does Celestia feel about the mummies? Not very well I would think.
- Calamities and blessings. The best paradox the world has to offer.
- Surprised you used Apophis actually name, but then again it would be hard to ponify it.
- If Equestrians are to be believed, friendship and harmony are the source of all power. Understandable considering the fact that they have the elements of harmony.
- What happens if a necromancer was able to turn the zebra's undead army against them? Can this even happen?
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- Anyone can do alchemy, yep. The zebras have an especial knack, though, and get much more bang for their buck when whipping things up.
- The court historians maintain a tactful silence on the matter.
- Celestia knows about it, but is unlikely to do anything about it unless the Zebrican government start doing awful things with it. Who knows, there might come another Night Serpent in need of being dealt with. She doesn't like the idea of the zombies much either, but she plasters over that squeamishness for the sake of international courtesy.
- Ain't it just?
- A sneaky mythology insert here and there's good fun to indulge.
- Events so far haven't proved them wrong, in all fairness.
- 'Necromancy' in the setting consists largely of either Zebrican zombie-making or Antlertean soulforging, which is pretty much unknown in the present day. Goodness knows how the latter could interact with the former, but it could only produce good things.
Do you know, I think there might be more than just the one reason why historians on Theia appear universally grumpy?
Anyway, as others have said. I'm in love with the worldbuilding.
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Glad you like it!