Ponies do not deal in absolutes.

‘A busy campus is a happy campus!’ Luna mused as she walked down one of the primary walkways with her books and notes floating beside her. Since most of her classes were in the evening, she took this moment to enjoy her sister’s sun. It was then that she spotted Long Path walking into the outdoor amphitheater with a group of students following ranging from changelings to zebras. All of the major races appeared to be present in his class. The one thing that caught her attention is that while Path was known to take his classes outside when the weather was fine, his facial expressions were off – he was strangely serious. She slowly turned to follow the group as he walked down into the center of the theater. His magitek horn lit up for a few moments and a large board appeared for him to write on.

“As you know, in this class we talk about the hard questions. It’s to be expected with a title called “Advanced Topics in Morals and Ethics”. I know that we just started – hell, this is only our second meeting, but I’m throwing you into the deep end. Today we are talking about the massive gray area that is called Moral Relativism. Hopefully, by the end of this class I will have spurred you on to think critically about things that are taken for granted on a day-to-day basis. We are going to be talking about things that are uncomfortable, but sometimes life has to be.”

He sat down on his rump and smiled at Luna before he continued to address the class. “Is there such a thing as absolute good? Is there such a thing as absolute evil?”

A Blue Changeling raised his hand “Of course there is such a thing as good and evil!”

“Oh? Can you give me an example of a Universal Good?”

“Well you are a universal good. Look at all you have done!” the young ’ling replied.

“Oh, using me as an example? Ah, I was not expecting you to reach that point so quickly, and the examples I have will cut deep, metaphorically. But depending on who you ask, I can be the one sole unifying force in Equestria, or an unstoppable monster.”

“What do you mean?” the ’ling asked

“I'll let all of you in on a horrible not-so secret. I have committed genocide,” Path said simply as the students gasped, some of them confused, others physically pained.

“W-what?” one of the dragons in the class stuttered out.

“It was over a century ago when House Path was still rallying the forces of the world against the antecedent hive. The Mad Queen raised the stakes by silently taking over a country; your country actually.” He pointed at an Arabian Stallion.

“House Path learned of this and it was decided that the antecedent hive had to be destroyed. Not just fought against, but wiped from the face of Equus. Now was this a good or bad thing?” He waited, and then after some deliberation between the students, two hooves went up – the Saddle Arabian stallion and a Crystal Pony mare.

“Ah, good. Let’s hear your answer and your reasoning?” Path pointed to the stallion first.

He stood up. “It was a good thing. If you hadn’t have acted when you did, my country would have been completely consumed and I would not be here today. The hive knew what they were doing and they knew that if they were found out again, especially after the Crystal Siege, there would be consequences. That hive and those that allied themselves with that hive must accept the consequences for their actions!” A few of the student clapped their talons or stomped their hooves.

Path nodded.“Now put yourself in the shoes of the liberated, like the king that had the charm spell lifted and found out that a foreign force had just wiped out an opposing force that threatened everything, and now this foreign force is here, offering you help with your infrastructure and unlimited water. What would you think?”

The stallion blinked. “I would think you were a new Aspect sent to pull us from our lowest point and into a new era.”

“Okay, remember that point of view everyone and remember what he said. Now – what is your answer?” Path pointed at the mare.

The Crystal Pony stood up, adjusting her glasses. “So... for this point of view, remember that I don’t believe this, but I’m trying to put myself in a different perspective.”

Path smiled and nodded. “You are one of the best debaters in your class year, Vectored Facet; let’s hear it.”

“It was a bad thing. By acting the way you did, both in the Crystal Siege as well as the raid in Marhan, you are fulfilling a destiny that nobody asked you to do.Who are you to decide which civilization lives, and which one dies? You are not an Aspect; you are a mortal pony trying to be one! And because of that you have tipped the balance of Clawinism artificially.” The Crystal Pony stood tall and firm in her opinion. Some students were stunned, as was Luna. Path however was still grinning.

“Now put yourself in the shoes of the defeated. You are just a low-rank harvester, following orders from your queen. Next thing you know, there is a painful screech across the network, you hear screams, cries, and then silence. A moment ago you were humming within the song of over 250,000 other drones, and then silence. You look back toward your hive only to see and hear massive explosions ring out, and beams of energy raining down from the sky on it. You see your mother emerge from the rubble only to be rent limb from limb by a combination of lancing mana beams. What do you think?”

The Crystal Pony started to weep. “I would think that it was truly the end of times. After my family tried to carve out a home for itself after being taken to the brink of extinction, for that force to come again just as we were starting to become okay once more... I wouldn’t see you as some kind of Aspect uplifting us from our predicament. You would be nothing short of an Agent of Death. To see your face would be to realize the end was an imminent, unavoidable conclusion. I would try to preserve something, some record, something to let others know that we were here... that we existed.”

Path nodded a few times. “Class, I want to share with you the most important relic we have of the entire strike. Those with empathic abilities may not want to get close to it. This is of course a replica but it was imbued with a weaker form of the imprint the original has.”

He pulled out a strange blood-tinged sandstone rock, one side was blank, but when he turned it around the class was able to see a few lines of changeling script scribed onto the rock. Half was carved out with chitin, the other was painted on by blood. It said two simple words.

‘I'm sorry.’

Vectored Facet and a few others in the class burst out into tears. The sheer amount of emotion that was pouring out of the rock wasn’t anger or hate, but sadness unending. It was the last words of a pawn that knew nothing of what was really going on being caught up in the war and losing their life in the crossfire.

“We had a few hive princesses and queens glean what they could from the stone. Strong enough emotions can leave strong impressions of the one having them. Let me share with you the final thoughts of Drone #213,997...”

The class leaned in, some of them still weeping.

“She was a nursery drone, moving one of the newly hatched nymphs from the egg room to the nursery. She was happy that this one was growing stronger than the ones before it, a few clutches ago most of the nymphs were not surviving to be strong enough to break open their egg, and she was elated that the stillbirths were at least easing up. Then there is fear and shock. We assume because this was when the explosions went off. It shifted to terror as we suspect she was no longer able to feel anyone else in the network.The terror turned to panic, then pain. She was found with her mid-section crushed by falling rock, but somehow she wasn’t yet killed immediately. There was a massive outpouring of love. We have determined that this was due to her pushing everything she had into the nymph. A feeling of resignation... and then nothing.”

Path had kept stone-faced during all of this, but the same could not be said for his entire class. Even the Arabian stallion was crying.

“As you go on your careers, you may choose to stay with House Path, as a teacher or as a peacekeeper. You may be given orders one way or another. The point of this class is to teach you to consider each order critically and not to blindly follow for ‘the greater good’ because it is my opinion that there is no such thing as an absolute greater good. For my two volunteers that gave their groups opinion, I present to you the idea that you are both right, and you are both wrong. While there is no such thing as an absolute good there is such a thing as ‘Societal Good’. That something is good based on a relative society, but while that society perceives it as good, to other societies that are different in evolution, both biological and social, your good may be their societal evil. Thus you have the duality of Path the Liberator and Path the Destroyer.”

He stood up and shook his head slightly. “Your homework for the week is twofold – remember a situation in which you acted in a way that was good for you, but if you were in somebody else’s hooves it could be considered bad. Then I want you to go to the library and find a situation in which your civilization has done something that could be considered by it to be good, but considered by others to be bad. And I’m not going to make it easy. Ponies, griffons – you cannot use the griffon-pony war as an example, so get creative!”

There were collective groans from the class.

“Next week we will tackle the idea of individualism versus collectivism and how it’s an issue even in today’s world. Class dismissed!”

The class started to leave as Path put the stone back in the bag Luna walked down to the earth pony.

“It never gets easier, does it?”

“No. No, it doesn't, but it’s worth it if I can teach a generation that no being is infallible, not even me. Can we go home?” Path was still dealing with remembering those events.

“Of course. When we get back – cuddles and cake. Princess’s orders.”

Path smiled and in one flash they were gone, leaving behind an empty marble amphitheater.

First in a series written by AlaskaIsCold and edited by me.