It isn't enough that Princess Celestia has to deal with politics, courtiers, and continual threats against her kingdom: now she must deal with an internal threat—specifically, the Pony Rights Administrative Tribunal, who summoned her in response to a complaint filed against her by one of her subjects.
How could she have ever signed something so ludicrous into law?
Follow the goddess of the sun and her inexperienced attorney in this gripping courtroom tribunalroom drama, fun for all the family!
Chapters (12)
Yes.
Yes I like this.
I await the PRATfall.
Call me curious.
...Judge, Judy, and executioner. :)
Words I have learned from this 'fic' so far: longanamity, gravamen.
I confess this rather removes the legal battle tension component. Of course, this still leaves quite open what it will do to the Princess in the "court of public opinion"…
…I guess the law doesn't really matter, then. Should've guessed as this was a tribunal.
Of course, this isn't probably going to go into study of the other races' ways of magic, and how magic in general may be the same, but it's one direction it could've gone.
Did chapter V just get unpublished while I was in the middle of reading it?
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Yeah, sorry 'bout that, I was editing it, then I accidentally pushed the "publish" button instead of the "edit" button. My apologies for getting your hopes up! I hope the wait will be worth it.
8096575 Don't worry, that's happened to me more than once. It sucks, but it happens.
Might be a good idea to publish a quick additional chapter to alert people that a new chapter is up, because sometimes they won't get the memo if your current chapter has been published once before (eve on accident).
Good to hear another one's coming, and May God go with you
8096575 When you put it back up, you'll probably want to tag the story in a blog post to let the readers know it's up.
I'm not sure if republishing the same chapter will generate a new notification for the readers.
Poor Celestia. You feel like she's suffering through an inanity so great she's three seconds away from choking a bitch to get some answers, and she hasn't even gotten to see PRAT yet
Interesting that there's still only been barely a mention of what the case is about. Celestia apparently cares so little about it she doesn't even think what the trial is actually about in her stream of thought.
Sounds about par for the course for some of the real-world human rights tribunals.
Due Process' rambling at the start of the chapter was physically painful to read with his anxiety shining through.
Res seems like a real southern belle with her accent.
That said, the proceedings read exactly like real-life human rights tribunals. It's infuriating how accurate it is.
Perhaps Celestia should take up her dean's line about turning the complainant into an alicorn
Yep, I can definitely tell you're mocking the Canadian HRTs now with this chapter, given the stinging rebuke of Quebec in this chapter.
Poor Due Process. Looks like the night just broke him. Now he's...a real lawyer!
Not sure if Chekov's gun or red herring.
Congratulations, you just shot yourself in the hoof.
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Fairly typical. Make-believe heroes battling make-believe evils of social justice, caring nothing for—or even seeing—the damage they cause in the process.
Good to see Due start standing for himself and trying to take command of the situation. things continue to turn.
Lmao sic em, cow pony!
Oh, Celestia... THIS is why you said you wanted to settle. You didn't actually want to settle; you just wanted to help your lawyer to be a better person. She's scary good at this.
Does Prince Blueblood appear in this story?
I love this chapter so very, very much.
I think I’m in love with Due Process. I like how competent he genuinely tries to be and how this ultimately clashes with his anxiety and lack of experience (not to mention lack of crookedness).
I also smell a tinge of Ayn Rand in this. Especially when it comes to adjectives and how you show (and don’t tell) the story to us.
I feel like two things are a bit detrimental for the fic's enjoyment. One, the tone sometimes jumps about. Secondly, the sheer amount of unusual, rare, complicated words and phrases feels a little self-indulgent at times. Brevity and wit and all that.
Oh, and Res Judicata made a grave error in her reasoning. He wasn't rejected based on race, he was rejected based on tribe. Moreover, as Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns has an entrance exam, one tuned for measuring spellcasting abilities, he had no chance of getting into the school anyway.
I see lots of non-pegasus ponies taking cloud service providers to court in the future...
Plot twist: The kid actually is a pawn in a game of politics and really doesn't want to go.
It's a shame that these were closing statements, because this is an entire counteroffensive in and of itself. Altering the entire curriculum to adapt to earth ponies would negatively impact the education of the unicorns, which means that the very demand to adapt to earth ponies is just replacing one form of discrimination for another.
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Sure, no disagreements there. And Equestria does have schools like that, as we see in Ponyville where such schools and curriculums already exist. Celestia's unicorn school is simply one that specializes in nurturing unicorn magic, just as Flight Camp specializes in nurturing pegasi magic. Heck, pegasi even have the advantage of having a super special air unit dedicated to them and only them. Trying to make either of those workable for earth ponies or unicorns would work just as terribly as making the unicorn school available for earth ponies or pegasi.
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There is definitely potential in that, but if teaching it differs too much I'd say it's probably better to start a separate curriculum with its own staff rather than radically alter the existing one. If someone with a staff can cast spells just like a unicorn... well, like Due Process notes, the school as it is would welcome them with open arms.
And so that's it. Everything Due Process has worked for was for nothing. His career and future are ruined, and Princess Celestia doesn't care. She never cared about any of this. Not even Luna really cared, beyond possibly a petty attempt to force her sister to pay attention to anyone else. The tribunal will continue, nothing will change, and the ones in power just don't care.
Pff...Celestia knows whats really going on and the checkmate comes after the tribunal.
Did the child just possibly admit that his mother is using this as a money scheme? How did they afford such a famous and successful lawyer for a not terribly short case if not having any money is a frequent occurrence to this foal?
I'm not a lawyer but I'm really not sure how any court can in its statement admit the defense was right but chose to find the defendant guilty anyway. Is there like a high court they can take this to cause this sounds like utter nonsense to me.
I'm suddenly taken back to the repeal of the Human Rights Act, and suddenly see this fic in a new light.
This is my second favorite pony courtroon drama I've ever seen /read. I still like the Phoenix Wright one a little more, but this was still excellent and a fun read. Great job!
Wonderful! And a good ending for it too. Fitting.
Much to think, though.
Thank you.
I often find these sort of stories a difficult read - simply because I find it cuts a little to close to home for my entertainment, when I am trying not to stoke my building ire at the world around me.
The final chapter put it over the top, though, when I finally understood what you were going for. While I agree with the sentiment, I'm afraid my outlook is somewhat more... bleak.
Though I would trust a benevolent leader who has ruled for longer than many human nations was existed (bare minimum) with sufficient competance to not have to be concerned, personally. I'd trust Celestia on her worst day over any current or former human leader.
...
Actually, I'd trust the robot overlords out of stuff like the Matrix or Terminatot or something over any current or former human leader at this point, myself.
(Actually, this is one area where - albiet through impliction, rather than outright statement - the show perhaps is closer than pretty much anything else outside of Princess Celestia hates tea, in regard to how such a figure would actually affect society...)
Great story! 10/10. I love how thorough and at least seemingly realistic the tribunal scenes are. The comedy is strong but not overdone. Excessive zaniness doesn't crowd out the mature humor of the piece. I really felt like Due Process was a character with depth and I was never quite sure what he would do, which is a whole lot better than a lot of characters that exist to produce one-liners and nothing else.
This story truly deserves much more attention than it has received.
Due Process has been pushed and shoved around to the point of suffering battered horse-husband syndrome, it's not surprising that he's pretty much started to crack and do stuff like what he just did to Luna. Well, Luna and Celestia's personalities are also quite off-putting, so it's not like I can feel sympathetic for Luna either. Maybe Dewy can rope her into showing up at PRAT and stomping and snorting and scaring everypony else there and getting the tribunal canceled.
Yeah, that Prime Minister's speech just about does sound like a Justin Trudeau speech. A lot of nice-sounding words with no actual substance behind it
. Of course, in real life Due Process' words would never change the minds of anybody from Quebec, but in-story it's a little bit humorous. That, or the yak drink really was that potent that it made Idée Fixe's mind extremely suggestible to Dewy's words.
I could probably sum up Celestia's frustrations more easily: ponies are like children, and she's one babysitter for the millions and millions of them.
Ugh, the language the commissioners use is exactly like real world human rights tribunals. It's mildly infuriating, which means you've done a good job writing them. Still, even though Due Process has been set back, it also sounds like he's on a roll. Not that I really care. Not one character in this entire story feels sympathetic, except for maybe Fine Print.
I actually know exactly what you're talking about in not using the term 'chief' anymore. Welp.
Time for Due Process to use his unpleasant lawyerly ways to lay the verbal smackdown (only to lose the case anyways because the commissioners don't have a wit of legal training between the three of them).
The real easy way out would be a mandate from the tribunal requiring an equivalent school for pegasus and Earth ponies each be opened. But that probably wouldn't happen. Yes, there's a Wonderbolt Academy, but that's certainly not for fillies and colts.
Still, Due Process gave his speech, and he got a raucous amount of applause. It's definitely turned into a hostile environment for the commissioners who have thus far railroaded the whole process for their own desired outcome.
If Celestia cared enough to have a sliver of spite in her body over this case, she could appeal the case to a real court and easily win there. Or if the laws don't let her appeal it, make a law that she can appeal it to a real court with a real judge. They'll smack that down pretty quick. Too bad she probably doesn't care enough.
So a sort-of happy ending. Due Process' relationship with Fine Print never really got wrapped up, but that's kind of minor as far as plot threads go. PRAT is an obvious parody of real-life human rights tribunals, which reading their judgements can be mildly infuriating. All that's really required is for Luna to add her signature as well to the dissolution of PRAT.
What's really the meat and potatoes of this fic is Celestia's own internal thoughts (and what she later articulates to Due Process) on her philosophy of rulership. Such things as her being the body of the law, her making the laws and upholding them, attempting reformation of the legal system, how she's seen much of reform attempts basically repeat themselves in a constant cycle, etc. That would work a lot more spun-off in its own fic that doesn't have such a blatant , ridiculous villain like PRAT here.
Courts? Rights? Democratic process?
Nah.
All-Union Communist Party.
I actually understand a lot of this lawyerspeak.
I am doomed.
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Who needs laws or courts for that matter? We already have a monarchy, just tell the PRAT to fuck off and if they don't like that toss them all off the roof and incinerate them for good measure.