Becoming a citizen of Equestria was an experience and a half itself. Not due to the aforementioned pomp and circumstance, really..... but due to the paperwork.

"Really, your Highnesses," I protested, "This---" I waved my hand at the vast room filled with filing cabinets, card catalogs, and pony clerks-- "Why in heaven's name do you afflict yourselves with this? It's one of the worst tragedies to befall Man, why emulate it?"

Celestia shook her head.  A privacy bubble appeared around us "Because it's an unpleasant necessity," she sighed.

"Surely you don't really need all this bureaucracy to run your country---"

"Who said I actually used it?" Celestia said to me. " You misunderstand; this is more of a ..... pressure valve, as it were." At my raised eyebrow she said "surely you have noticed in your own species that there are always a certain percentage of...."

"Useless people?" I said.

".... Ponies who only feel fulfilled when they are in the middle of things... er, overseeing processes and keeping things recorded and..."

"Obstructing progress," Luna said flatly.

"....Yes. That," Celestia said, defeated.  "I have come to blame it on the 'surplus of Order' you have noted, Sir Arcturus. Certain ponies become overwhelmed with a necessity for checklists, files, forms, office memos...."

"They don't care what you do, so long as you've filled out the proper forms in triplicate," Luna said. "And done it through them, so they can make sure it's done properly."

"Nothing here holds weight of law," Celestia said. "in fact I make sure that they have no idea who does and who does not have their 'paperwork in order.' " She glanced around. "I invented this branch of government service to give the poor dears something to do," Celestia continued. "Nearly everything done here is pointless busy work... I have them fill out forms and check lists and lists checks and index everything..... I never even use the files, I just have them archived--- and then put them to work sorting and resorting the archives."

"And give other ponies the job of UN- sorting the files from time to time too, I imagine," I said, amused. I was appalled to see her eyes light up at the idea. "Ohh, that is a good one!" she said. "I'll have to implement it some time in the future..."

"It soundeth a terrible waste, I know, good Arthur," Luna said sympathetically. "But imagine were these pedantic ponies to gain access to the actual workings of governance. They would bog things to a halt with their incessant demands for forms, files, checks and lists."

"Or worse, they'd get actual power," Celestia shuddered. "Imagine an officious obsessive pedant, an entire bureaucracy of them, a dozen bureaucracies of them, unelected, unfirable, unaccountable to anyone, simply making up rules with the same force as the word of law."

I didn't have to. I was an American. "So what do you do with the ponies who want to start such a bureaucracy?"

"Simple, I smile, nod, then give them an office here in Royal Records with the name of their proposed bureaucracy on the door... and tell other ponies in Royal Records to send their paperwork to that office. And for the new office to send its paperwork to them...."

I realized what she was saying. "You mean these poor bastards spend most of their working lives filling out each other's forms? Dear Lord, you've invented tax collector's Hell."

The corner of Celestia's mouth quirked. "Do keep in mind, most of them are quite happy here. So long as they are unaware of the actual triviality of their work," she added pointedly. When an alicorn says something pointedly, she often does so literally. I winced and rubbed the spot on my chest where the tip of her horn had jabbed me. "Ah. Understood...."

"So, um, why am I going through this again?" I asked uncertainly.

"You are a bit high profile for Royal Records to overlook, no matter how high their in box is filled," Celestia said drolly. "It's only a matter of time before somepony notices we don't have any paperwork with "human" in the subtitle circling in this--- I believe the human term is Chinese fire drill."

I grimaced. The beast, it seemed, must needs be fed. "Oh, don't look like that," Celestia teased. "It will only take an hour or two at most, and then you will be done with this place for good. Well, unless you actually wish to file something or heaven forfend, go trawling through the files for some bit of errata." She dismissed the privacy bubble. "Now if you'll just go up to the window and ask for the citizenship forms....I'm afraid I must return to court, but Luna will be right here if you hit any snags or have any questions." I could see the indigo alicorn settling down on one of the nearby sofas, and nodded. With a wink and a smile, Celestia vanished.

I turned with fatalistic dread to the service counter before me. I was subsequently directed to a desk off in one corner where A green unicorn with an ice-blue mane and a dress tie in a windsor knot sat at the desk. He smiled at me soullessly. I sighed, and sat down before him. "I require a Paper of Citizenship," I informed him. Without saying a word he reached under his desk and pulled out a single form. A positive sign! I pulled the paper to me, extracted a quill from the available inkwell....

....And ran into a difficulty on the first page. Under "name" there were approximately fifteen slots. I got up and went to where Luna reclined.  "What the deuce is this?" I said, pointing.

"The spaces for your names, of course. Birth name, pre cutie mark name, post cutie mark name, current name, and names past and potential future, if any," Luna clarified.

"...So you're saying a pony's name can change over the course of their life?"

"At least once,  after their cutie mark comes in," Luna said. "After all, twould not make much sense to go through life with a name like "Cherry Blossom" and a picture of a socket wrench on your flank."

I nodded. "So potential future names...?"

"Every pony receives at least four or five spare names from their parents at birth," she said. "They pick the one that suits them best at their Cuteacenara or Cute Mitzvah." I pondered this and shrugging, went back to the desk. I filled out all the slots with my own name and moved on.

And hit another snag. Under "race" there was Earth Pony, Pegasus, Unicorn, Sea Pony (hah! I knew it!) Flutterpony (oho!) Crystal Pony (?) minotaur, gryphon, sea serpent, dragon, donkey, cow, sheep.... there was even a checkbox for "draconequus" but, naturally, no checkbox for "Human."

"Ahhhh...." I pointed out the absence to Dotted Line (for that was what his name plaque said) who had returned to shuffling papers in his booth. "Addition of any further categories of race or species requires form J-545- ERS," he said in a monotone, slapping another paper down on top of the stack. Grumbling, I started on that paper instead.

"File Reclassification: Name new species, Define/describe new species, categorize new species by Kingdom, Phylum, class, order..."

I went back to Luna.

 

---

 

Things began rapidly deteriorating as we went. The Equestrian bureaucracy had centuries ago fallen into the fatal fallacy of paperwork: ONE: if a category was not listed on the paper, it did not exist; therefore whatever item did not fit into the categories listed, it must either not exist or be fitted into a preexisting category. TWO: if something was placed into a particular category, it must fulfill that category to the nth degree or face the penalty. If you classified, for lack of option, fish as fowl, then that fish damn well better sprout feathers or there'd be hell to pay.

I, of course, was so far off the list of categories that I was clear off the page.

My prior address, as it was in another damned universe, did not appear on any map or any portion of a map, and therefore did not exist. My current address was a room in Canterlot Castle.... which, as I was neither Luna nor Celestia, was automatically listed as patently false. I had no permanent address. My main source of revenue was as a lab rat for a government agency so new that they didn't even have a moniker yet, and was, of course, not listed with the bureaucracy, and was a stipend for services rendered to the Throne... which were not quite top secret, but not to be discussed and therefore did not qualify for either public or secret service documentation. My previous jobs did not exist, either.... and every hitch resulted in the almost magical (perhaps I should say infernal) appearance of yet another form to be filled with yet another list of instructions....

Even with Luna standing (then sitting, then lying fast asleep) RIGHT THERE, nothing could smooth out the rumples and wrinkles the damnable Dotted Line threw in my path to filling out this one, lone, benighted form. It was at about the four hour mark, as Dotted Line was sending an intern to fetch yet another phonebook-thick manual on how to precisely calculate.... who knew what.... that I finally snapped. "Give me a fresh form," I said.

Dotted Line scowled suspiciously. "It's a little early for that," he said. "You should finish the other paperwork, and use this as the rough draft, then we can get all new copies and make a nice clean--- Gaaak!"

The truncation of his suggestion was a bit rude sounding; of course it was to be expected as I now had his nice striped tie in my grip and was pulling the Windsor knot as tight as it would go. "Give me a fresh copy of the Paper of Citizenship form," I said, my voice eerily calm even in my own ears, "Or by Celestia, Luna, and Discord I shall pull this tie until your head snaps off." Eyes bulging, he complied, sliding the paper over to me with a free hoof. I released his white-collar worker's noose from my trembling grip. While he gasped with relief and struggled to loosen his tie, I calmly commenced with filling out the form.

I was done in five minutes. I slid the form over to him. He took it from me warily; apparently my doughy build had led him into misjudging the speed of my reflexes, and he was loath to accidentally provoke them again. He scanned over the paper. Frowned. Scanned it again.

He gave me the most deadpan look I have ever seen, even on something as lifeless as a government bureaucrat. "Name, Arthur Arcturus. Age, 41. Species....Draconequus." He looked at me.

"Humans are a sub-breed," I said.

"Seriously??"

"Feel free to prove otherwise."

"Former address.. Everfree Forest."

"EEyup. Feel free to send someone to check the address." That earned me a glare.

 

"Permanent address... Foggy Bottom Bog??" His face scrunched up. "a hydra-infested bog...."

"Yup. Got my hydra farm there."

"Hydra farm."

"Yup. I sell hydra milk. Says so right there on line 14: primary source of income."

"Hydras don't make milk!"

"Never said it was a good income..."

In case it isn't obvious how this was going, In my frustration I had succumbed to the unethical decision to use the unspoken, two-edged sword of bureaucracy against them: while the law of bureaucracy insists that anything they don't have a check-box for doesn't exist, the flipside is that, if they have a check box or any combination of check boxes for it, it must therefore be true, no matter how much it is obvious utter balderdash. An islamic fanaticist hasn't got a touch, my friends, on a government bureaucrat for believing in whatever is written on their personal collection of sacred papers.

You think I lie? One couple living in the middle of the Arizona desert had the EPA classify their property as wetlands.  Another man lost control of his own land in Washington State due to an environmentalist filing a form that classified it as a preserve for, among other things on the checklist, Bigfoot. Someone wrote it, someone else filed it, someone else went out and enforced it. If you gave a bureaucrat a sawhorse and a federal document calling it Secretariat, they would dutifully enter it in the Kentucky Derby.

In my case, they had a checkbox for "farmer", for every imaginable species including hydra under "livestock," and under produce they had, of course, "milk."  It wouldn't have mattered if I'd claimed to grow donut trees on the moon--- confound it, I should have gone with that, Luna might have actually helped me plant 'em--- because it was on the paper, Dotted Line must believe it, whether sanity or common sense said otherwise. (1)

 

The rest of the paper was, of course, filled with similar tripe, each line more outlandish than the last, but all of it dutifully picked out from the bureaucracies' own meticulous list of options and guaranteed to be too time consuming, difficult, or (in the case of Foggy Bottom Bog) too hazardous to check.  He read down through it, face puckering more and more with every line, but unable--- or perhaps afraid--- to raise any more objections. "Well, I.... suppose it's...." he choked a little, "...all in order...." He dutifully made a copy of my form 'for my own records,' then pulled out the coveted Paper of Citizenship, copied it, signed it, and hovered over it with a royal seal, biting his lip painfully. I reached across the desk, grabbed his hoof and banged the rubber stamp down on the form. "Thank you," I said, snatching the paper away from him and tossing the fee in bits on his desk.

I snapped up my cane and, disregarding the pain in my knees, marched briskly across the enormous office space to where Luna lay snoozing, her head resting on a stack of documents that had somehow made its way to her couch. She awoke as I approached, stretched and yawned. "Ah, Sir Arcturus," she said, "Art thou finished already?"

I leaned over to her and muttered. "Yes, but we'd best depart quickly before my victim figures out he can object." She looked puzzled, but obliged; we disappeared in a flash of light.

And that, my children, is how I became the first Draconequus citizen of Equestria.

 

---

 

1)the added advantage was that it was all so ridiculous that I would never have to try and remember it all. A subtle lie you have to remember. A complex but believable lie, you will have to keep all the details straight. An outrageous lie, people will come up to you and tell you the details for you: "Did you REALLY say....?" or "Is it REALLY TRUE that one time you actually....?"