The House of Fisher, rulers of the Duchy of Rushia since time immemorial was illustrious, rich, and powerful. But no Fisher heir ever began their career that way. The House of Fisher, after all, had no need of inept heirs who were only good at spending the wealth and squandering the power their forefathers had accrued. In order to gain access to the resources, the titles, and the seat of the House of Fisher, every Fisher son and daughter had to prove their abilities without any of them. And Bobbing Fisher had been no exception.

He’d been eager when it came time to take part in the trials, when his father, Duke Sailing Fisher, had finally summoned him to his office in his country estate and told him to prepare. It was time, he said, for Fisher to prove himself – to go forth into Rushia with nothing but the clothes on his back and a day’s wages in his saddlebags, and to show what he could do. There were several small towns and villages struggling, each one in dire need of proper leadership – a mayor, a council member, a politically astute businesspony – and Bobbing Fisher’s father had wanted to know which one his son would choose. Whichever it was, Fisher would be given the most minor of government positions in that town, and expected to turn them around within four years.

“None of those,” Fisher had said. “I want to go to Stalliongrad.”

Stalliongrad? Fisher’s father had raised an eyebrow. Stalliongrad was already prosperous. Its factories supplied the Equestrian government with everything from ink and paper to spears and armor. It was one of the strongest cities in Rushia, and for that matter, the nation. How could Fisher hope to improve what was already near the top?

“I can do more,” Fisher had responded, “Than haranguing farmers into saving up some money and buying modern plows, and forcing out a corrupt council member or two. I can take the greatest industrial powerhouse in Equestria and can make it better. I can serve the nation to a degree that this family hasn’t seen in centuries. Let me prove it.”

His father had.

And so Fisher had gone to Stalliongrad, as a clerk to a clerk to a clerk to the Undersecretary of Auxiliary Sanitation. He saw little ambition and less skill around him; sanitation in Stalliongrad worked so well that the clerks had little to do, and most of them spent their work hours playing cards and rolling dice. Fisher had shrugged off all offers of companionship. He found work to do, in his own department and others, and studied the city’s sanitation plans as if it was a graduate thesis project. By the end of three months, he had come up with a plan to renovate the city’s sewer system, water pipes, and street rubbish services that would reduce water consumption by twenty percent, pay for itself in two years and put to work the former employees of a factory that had just gone bankrupt. By the end of four months, he was in charge of the department.

Once he’d done all he could in Sanitation, Fisher got himself transferred to Civil Affairs, where he spent three months fighting with intransigent officials in a battle to rework the city’s ancient road network. Stalliongrad was old enough that the roads were crumbling in places, and the city’s sprawl had rendered some roads unnecessary and cried out for others that did not yet exist. Fisher came up with a set of plans to solve the problem. Nopony liked them. The repaving would require taxes, which offended some fiscally restrained clerks (nevermind that the increased efficiency would pay for itself within three years). The new roads would cut through parks and natural areas, which enraged the environmental set (nevermind that parks were of course superfluous in an industrial city). And, of course, one of the roads being decommissioned served an old factory produced little but had been around forever, largely because the owner of the factory had a seat on the Civil Affairs Board. It took three long months, months in which Fisher stayed up late learning arcane bureaucratic loopholes to cut out this or that official, or manipulating his opponents with some very boring cocktail parties and bar crawls, but in the end he got his way. The transportation network of Stalliongrad was redesigned. And when it was done, the city ran all the smoother.

Fisher was lauded, largely by the same bureaucrats who had spent three months fighting him. He had ignored their empty praises. He had done a good job and helped Stalliongrad to run more efficiently and produce more goods that Equestrians needed. That was the only reward he needed.

Fisher spent three months in Firefighting and Emergency Services, and two more working with the Weather Affairs Division. All of those he improved. He was brilliant, and tireless when it came to his affairs. He didn’t go out at night except when he needed to deal with a colleague; otherwise, he just stayed in his office, working away at whatever problem crossed his desk. Small wonder that he outperformed his peers, when they put in eight-hour days and he habitually worked for eighteen. He even let his one hobby, chess, slide while he focused on the work of his trials. No matter where he was sent, he naturally rose to a leadership position.

On his one year anniversary of beginning his trials, the Lord of Stalliongrad summoned Fisher and complimented him. He was a skilled worker, the Lord had said, and he could have any position in the city’s administration he wanted.

“I want to work in Industrial Affairs,” Fisher had said. “I want to be able to influence the factories and—“

The Lord had cut him off. “That is a very difficult office. The factories produce enough that they are almost entirely immune to governmental influence. Most ponies in that office find they can’t get anything done.”

“You let me worry about that.”

Fisher had been given an office in the Industrial Affairs department, but he hadn’t spent much time in it. Under aliases, he had begun to take jobs in factories around the city, learning how they worked and where they could improve. He would do any work the factories had; he served as a janitor, and a secretary, and a cinder sweeper, and as an assembler of some stupid toy that foals played with. He never stayed in one factory for very long, but his foreponies and bosses were always sorry to see him go; he worked so hard, and so well, that even the managers who habitually ignored their factory staff took an interest in him. But Fisher couldn’t stay, no matter what they offered him, for he had to learn all he could about the city’s factories. Only then could he figure out how he could best improve them, a problem which still eluded him. He could make minor suggestions, he knew, suggest ways to optimize how the employees worked, make lists of employees to promote and to fire, but that just seemed so… small. Surely there was more he could do.

He found his answer when he at last took the one job in Stalliongrad that he truly loved. Fisher spent a month working in a research think tank, an old building on the edge of the city that was funded by a perpetual government grant so old that nopony quite knew how to repeal it. Every day he would go in and spend time with research scientists, discussing the latest in magic theory, before going with a team to a collection of parts and trying to build something. They worked on machines that could turn apples to oranges, and plows that pushed themselves, and an automatic cider squeezer, and much more besides. Fisher did not understand why, but that sort of work filled him with a joy he rarely felt; when he went home each day, he felt a sense of loss, and an eagerness for the night to end and to return the next morning. He even earned his cutie mark at last, after casting a powerful spell on his monocle that allowed it to focus at such a distance that he could see a griffin before a griffin saw him. That night was the one and only time in Stalliongrad that he set his work aside for an evening and went out to party. And later that night, he knew what he had to do to improve Stalliongrad.

The next day, he approached the head of the research lab. “I have a way to make this lab the greatest company in the city.”

“I don’t care about business,” the stallion had said. “I want to do pure research without worrying about commercial applications.”

So Fisher had approached the Lord of Stalliongrad. “I can double the industrial output of this city, but there’s a pony in my way,” he said. And, as if by magic, the head of the research lab was transferred to a sister institution in Prance, and the new head of the lab was strangely agreeable to all of Fisher’s ideas.

The research lab began to develop spells to enhance industry equipment. Magic to allow conveyor belts to move themselves and never wear out, drill bits to drill for a year and remain sharp, spectacles to focus on details down to the tiniest resolution anypony would need, and more. Fisher knew exactly what the factories needed and where the bottlenecks were. He targeted research towards those areas, conducted much of it himself, and they proceeded to revolutionize Stalliongrad industry.

“The armor factory has increased production by an order of magnitude!” Fisher’s secretary told him. “They’ve cut manufacturing costs, and by selling in bulk they’ve cut shipping costs too – the Equestrian military is going to make them their sole supplier!”

“I heard,” a researcher told Fisher, “That the new enchanted fertilizer is doing better than the Trottingham stuff!”

“Worker accidents are down twenty percent since we sold Swords and Spears Inc. our new safety spells!” said the salespony Fisher had been forced to hire, since he could no longer keep up with the demand for orders by himself.

Fisher grew rich and powerful. In time, a few factories did fail – those who refused to deal with his enchanted equipment and could no longer keep up. He took them over, refurbished them, and began to run them. Soon he had his own industrial base to back up his research division.

In this way, the remaining three years of his trial passed very quickly. By the time he was within six months of completion, industrial production in the city was up by a staggering fifty percent. Fisher had told himself that he had done it, that he had passed the trials, to a far greater degree than any Fisher heir in centuries. He had proven himself. He could assume the Fisher title now with his head held high.

It was then that he learned of corruption in the armor factories.

Fisher kept a very close eye on his own products, but he couldn’t watch everything produced by other factories. It was the courage of a single secretary that alerted him to the problem; she had burst into his office, terrified out of her mind, and slammed a stack of reports onto his desk. The newest iteration of plate armor was not only as cheap as peanut brittle, but about as good at protecting ponies too, at least relating to a specific type of magical attack. Should a real war come, if the enemy was good with electric spells, the armor would be useless

“Well,” said the manager of the factory, “We’re not at war. That stuff is replaced every five years anyway. None of Equestria’s enemies wield lightning, right? Nopony’ll notice if nopony says anything.”

“But,” said the Minister of Industrial Safety, “It’s not really that dangerous. I mean, that armor passed every test in the factory. Do we need to start a panic over such an unlikely occurrence as an enemy army with electric spells?”

“I,” said the Undersecretary to the Lord of Stalliongrad, “Estimate that notifying the public or the army about this could cause a crisis of confidence. Stalliongrad would be badly affected. Why, a loss in profits of ten, maybe fifteen percent would easily be within the realm of possibility. It could undo everything you’ve done here, and more!”

“Look,” said the Lord of Stalliongrad. “I appreciate that you’re concerned, but I’m not going to risk my city on this. We’ll find a solution, and if we have to send out some specialists a couple weeks after the armor goes out to quietly adjust the spells, so be it. Besides, I myself own that factory under an alias, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to... annoy me. Leave it alone. I'll make it worth your while.” And he'd named a very considerable sum.

Fisher had gone back to his apartment and thought. He knew that telling ponies could ruin his own career, could hurt his family, could undo everything he had built up in the city. And he knew that Equestria needed its soldiers to have the best armor it could. At the very least, it had to know of flaws in the armor, so the generals could adjust their own battle plans. That was more important than his family, his career, or himself. Fishers served the nation, that lesson had been taught to him since birth, and he wouldn’t sacrifice the nation to serve his own career.

Fisher had taken a long pull of vodka to steel himself, and then had written to the Office of Quartermasters in the army, explaining the problem. He included the studies the secretary had given him, and a set of armor he had smuggled out of the factory. He boxed his papers and the armor, sent them off, and waited for the end. By day he worked on the armor, trying to find a way to fix the spells and rendered them resistant to electricity. By night he sat, and played chess against himself, and wondered what he would do next. If he failed his trials, if he was disinherited and thrown out into the world once again with nothing at all, what could he do? How could he serve the nation?

Did I do the right thing? he had wondered. To give up so much? Did I really do the right thing, or did I just want to be a martyr? Maybe I shouldn’t have told… maybe I should have just worked to solve the problem in secret, and had the armor fixed later. Maybe I made a mistake.

And then Bobbing Fisher learned that his actions had been noticed by, of all ponies, Luna Equestris Herself. And she had been so impressed, not just with the genius economic abilities, but also with the integrity, courage, and self-sacrifice of the heir to the House of Fisher, that the Duchy of Rushia was now an Archduchy. His father also contacted him, writing two sentences: “I am more proud of you than I have ever dreamed. Well done.”

Since that date, Bobbing Fisher had never deviated from a course of action that he thought was right. He had gained more factories, he had gained his father's seat and title, he had become the head of the Ministry of War -- during wartime, no less -- but through it all, he always stuck true to his own convictions. Wealth and power didn't change him, and he was as incorruptible as the day he revealed the corruption in Stalliongrad.

He had done what he thought was right when he learned that a group of managers were selling off factory assets to pad their own pockets. The ringleader was distantly related to Vicereine Puissance, a mare of unimaginable wealth and power, and so he thought himself untouchable. Fisher hadn’t cared. He had laid off all the corrupt workers and dared Puissance to object. She hadn’t. Production had improved, and the ponies of Equestria were the better for it.

He had done what he thought was right when he became aware of a paper peddling the lies that he was mistreating and underpaying his workers. He paid his workers precisely what they were worth, and a competent pony could do very well under Archduke Fisher. But he knew that, if he let the paper continue to peddle such lies, it could cause problems with his staff. He purchased the paper at three times its value to ensure that he could acquire it without difficulty, laid off the troublesome writers, and folded the offices and equipment into Fisher Printing. Production was not impacted, and the ponies of Equestria were the better for it.

And he had done what he thought was right when dealing with Fisher Hay & Oats. FHAO had never worked out; they just couldn’t get a foothold in the market. Fisher had wanted to shut the factory down, but he couldn’t; it would be a public relations disaster if he just closed it and fired everypony, and he was trying to get several important bills through the Court at that exact moment. The bills could be derailed if commoners united in some uninformed campaign against him. So Fisher quietly moved all the equipment out of the factory, and then snuck in one night, made sure it was empty, and burned it down. He didn’t need to fund the factory anymore, nopony ever blamed him for what was surely a freak accident, and he was able to pump the resources into some other factories that could truly use the boost. On the whole, within six months, his factories produced more than ever… and the ponies of Equestria were the better for it.