When thinking about the danger of the Wastelands, ponies think about the numerous raiders, the radiation, the contract killers and slavers or even the regular monsters that live in the wastes. What ponies don’t realise is that the most dangerous thing in the Wastelands are the different governments that popped up everywhere, and the neighsayers that came with them. There is nothing more dangerous than a big, incompetent, government and the people in it.

In Neighvarro, the capital city of the Grand Pegasus Enclave, a military parade was taking place once again. The city was celebrating the mission for the liberation of the surface that was supposed to happen later the same week. Unfortunately, there was one place where unrest was still prominent. In the house of assembly, where the highest democratically elected leaders of the Enclave reunited every day. There, utter chaos dominated.

Insults were thrown, a fight had even erupted earlier, injuring one of the small party representatives. As various objects still flew across the room, Checks, the president of the assembly, was banging his cloud hammer furiously on the desk while shouting, "SILENCE! SILENCE!" to no avail.

The chaos was caused mostly because of the strong reactions of the Wing twins to Front Burner’s proposition. Well, ‘proposition’ was maybe a bit of an understatement; the military being in control of the country mostly meant that he was rather… notifying them of their plans. As a high-ranking general, he was in no way asking for permission.

You see, Front Burner had just told the assembly of the military’s operation to invade the surface for the Enclave. As always, the ponies in the assembly were the last to learn about it. Some had their suspicions when they flew to the house of assembly this morning and a military parade was taking place, but they didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

After the very short speech from the black military pegasus, the Wing twins, Left and Right, started arguing about forced conscription to the military and how many people they should mobilize for the operation. Obviously, all these details were already taken care of by the army; the assembly was only here to keep the façade of democracy.

Quickly however, the argument escalated into a fight when Left Wing threw a pencil at Right Wing. The present chaos seemed to be impossible to calm. Front Burner, however, sat up and, with his best commanding voice, ordered "WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP‽" The room fell silent, only the distant sound of the ambulance in the distance remained.

“As I was saying; in three days, our military forces will execute Operation Cauterise and liberate the surface of Equestria for the glory of the Enclave. Any questions?" asked Front Burner.

The Wings twins were about to speak up at the same time when Checks stopped them before another argument started. "You two better stop being such brats. In my time we had real politiciens, not children who got lucky with their rich parents. If you can’t keep quiet for more than a few minutes I suggest you both leave!" reprimanded the president of the assembly. The twins sat back down, pouting while attempting to seem unbothered.

Dark Horse sat up and asked, "President Checks, may I?" to which the latter nodded, letting the senator talk. "I know some of you look down at me for being young and from a relatively new and small party, but I believe that it is time for change in this government. Did you all know that, technically, we don’t have any power? According to our constitution, written two-hundred years ago, the military can bypass any of our laws and ruling. I believe it is time to change all of this, and not let them carry out dangerous and onerous plans without our approval!"

As his speech continued, many senators rolled their eyes and fake-snored to express their boredom. Next to Front Burner sat Salad Mander, a bootlicker for the military. The black pegasus glanced at his red friend, "Tell me again, Salad, how did this joke manage to become a senator? Aren’t you supposed to do your ‘gerrymandering’ magic to stop clowns like him and Trial Balloon to pass?"

"Don’t blame me Burner, blame Filly Buster, the damn featherbrain shouldn’t have gotten involved in that scandal," countered Salad Mander.

"Eh, at least now we know where he got his name from," joked Front Burner.

"Tasteless, even for you old bird."

The two returned their attention to the end of the speech. "And that is why we must establish a new republic controlled by the people and not the military!" concluded Dark Horse. "Any questions?"

Front Burner stepped up and spoke up: "Yes, how many stallions will your district send us for the operation?" he asked, gaining a few laughs from his party’s members.

Dark Horse fumed at the question. "I'll not allow a forced conscription on our ponies, it will put innocent lives at risk. Have you not heard the reports from Thunderhead? The surface might even have a deadly disease that makes you a cannibal!"

"Let it be known that no proof of such disease actually exist, senator Dark Horse. And, in the hypothetical case that it did exist, there would also be no proof that it affects pegasi," argumented Front Burner. "You're just fake news. You should know that we would never endanger our troops. There is not a single reason why we would lose against the small barbarians tribes on the surface."

"Reports of a ‘Sonic Radboom’ are all over the news," reported Left Wing to the assembly. "It looks like our military underestimated the surface's dweller’ strength."

"You mean your useless spies were useless once again?" called Right Wing out from the other side of the room.

"Oh? Excuse me if all our spies were taken by you for most of this year since you just had to get re-elected again," Left Wing retorted.

"Can you repeat that part with the spies young lads?" asked an old red mare with a small computer in front of her.

"Oh yes, Red Tape, please note that Left Wing is sticking his tongue at his brother as well," sarcastically remarqued Front Burner.

"Of course mister Burner," responded the sweet old mare who didn't understand sarcasm, while typing the details down.

"Senator Burner! Senator Mander! You guaranteed that the casualties would be minimal for our side, yet in only two hours, we lost a third of our invading force to some zombie dashite who fell fast enough?" Reprimanded Dark Horse, angry.

"Calm down bro, we like, destroyed their capital already, pretty sure the rest will fall sooner or later, yo. Those military dudes have it all figured it out, just relax and enjoy the promotion," said Trial Balloon in a much too relaxed voice.

"Though, to be fair, only noponies lived there and there wasn't any defence…" said Right Wing, trying to undermine the Blue Party’s senator.

"And, like, we still have all that tech we got from those steel ranger dudes anyway," added Trial Balloon.

"Oh yeah, we still have some stuff we got from that stable we found last year," said Salad Mander, thinking out loud. "Remember that memory erasing gun?"

"No, what was that about?" asked a genuinely curious Front Burner.

"Exactly. Just gotta remember where we put it though…"

Front Burner grunted, he was too old to care about this anyway. "Your small party friend is right, senator Dark Horse, I think we can safely say the worst is behind us and there is no way the Grand Pegasus Enclave will lose this war."

Suddenly, Checks, the president of the assembly, who had been conspicuous in his absence since this morning, entered the room, a big pile of documents on his back. The old stallion took his hammer with a wing, banged it against his desk a few times to get the assembly's attention, then spoke up with a deep voice, filled with terror. "So, we might have lost the Wonderbolts."

Chaos erupted in the room. More hammer banging occurred until silence arrived once again. The president spoke up once more. "They have a dragon."

For the first time in years, the house of assembly was not flying above the cloud cover. As everything seemed lost, and chaos was raging in the Enclave, they touched a new low when sonic rainbooms burst from every S.P.P. tower in sight, destroying the cloud cover and most of the buildings of the grand pegasus flying cities. The house of assembly drifted slowly in the air, still protecting the incompetent senators, as well as some refugees—mostly aforementioned politicians’ mistresses.

A sad silence was now reigning on what was left of the Enclave. They knew there was no way for their nation to survive this crisis. Everypony was left contemplating the remains of their once powerful empire.

From his seat, Front Burner watched, somewhat sad. He couldn't believe it. "There's no way they just won," was the last thing this neighsayer said that day.

Author's Notes:

Topic: Enclave By SnakeEye

Hello everyone, I've been writing again!

This time, political stuff! I participated in the Enclave ABC project and got the letter N. I decided to go with "Neighsayers" and write a political story about the chaos of Enclave politics.

The end result is a funny short story, with lots of reference to political terms and vocabulary. The research and writing process for this little project was really fun and I'm glad to have participated in it.

You can find the story there: Fallout Equestria Enclave ABC