The God Particle

Chapter 7: Twilight's Sparkle's New Student

"Here we are," Twilight said as she stopped in front of the place where she lived.

James looked at it, then looked back at her strangely. "You live ... in a tree?"

"Don't knock it until you have tried it," she giggled and opened the door, going inside and motioning for James to follow her.

He stopped as soon as he was far enough inside of the door for it to close, looking around again. Other than the fact that it was a library, he also noticed a couple of science stations, and a telescope observatory on the upper level.

"You live in a library? And a science lab? ... And I thought I was a nerd," he shook his head a bit.

"Oh come on. It's great. You will love it here," she smiled and let him look around a bit.

He walked over to one of the bookshelves and took one of the books off, opening it and sighing at the strange script when he did not recognize it at all. Then he put it back on the shelf and turned to look at Twilight again. "Now I know I'm in academic hell," he stated in a dry tone.

"Why do you say that?" she asked quizzically.

"Because here I am, locked in a library full of literature from another world-volumes and volumes of literature and knowledge that has never been seen by anyone from my world before ... And I can't read any of it because it's written in a script I don't understand. This has to be what hell is like for an academic."

Twilight snickered and shook her head. "First, I'm not gonna lock you in here. You are free to come and go as you please as long as you don't go running off. Second, as far as you not being able to read the script? Well, we are going to work on remedying that. Starting today actually." She started looking through her bookshelves for an appropriate book he could start with as she continued talking. "If you are out at dusk or after dark though, do stay away from the edge of the forest. There are nasty creatures in there that are most active at night. And you might end up drawing one of them out."

"Uh huh. Thanks for the safety tip. So what makes you so sure I won't sneak off in the middle of the night?" he grinned, testing her.

"Oh I'm not worried about that, James. Where would you go if you did sneak off? You wouldn't be able to survive on your own in the forest. And it's not like you could blend in no matter which city you went to. The Royal Guard would pick you up pretty quickly once they found out where you are. And if you betrayed Princess Celestia's trust like that, you'd end up back in a dungeon cell. I don't think she would be quite so willing to let you go as she was the first time."

He nodded. "Fair enough. I just wanted to see how you would respond. I'm not actually planning to run off or anything ... So anyway, those stallions that pulled the chariot. Isn't that a little ... If you will excuse the term, exploitative? Like the aristocrats making ... well, lower class members of society pull chariots for them?"

"Not at all. Only the fastest and strongest athletes are offered the chance to pull a royal chariot. It's considered a great honor actually. Many athletic stallions practice for years in the hopes of getting selected for that. Also, they're more than just fast runners. They're also highly trained in defensive combat tactics. Just in case a royal convoy would ever come under attack."

"Ah. So best of the best, secret service type stuff. I get it now. I'll make a note not to piss them off," he chuckled.

"Secret service?"

"Those are the people where I am from that protect the president of the country."

"It sounds like a good analogy," she finally pulled a book off of the shelf with her magic. "This should be a good book to start with. Uh ... the subject matter may not be all that intellectually stimulating for you because it's well below your level. It's a children's book. But it's an easy read, and it has pictures and drawings to help reinforce learning the words."

James took the book as it floated over to him and started paging through it. Judging by the maps and pictures in it, he thought it was most likely a geography book.

"Geography huh? Well, that should be interesting even if it is written for children. Considering I know almost nothing about this land yet."

"I tried to find something that would be at least somewhat interesting for you, as well as help you learn more about where you are,", the unicorn pointed with her horn at a set of cushions on the floor in a corner. "Have a seat over there."

He went over to the cushions she had pointed at and sat down on them, opening the book again to the first page as Twilight sat down on her haunches next to him.

"So, James. What kind of writing system do you use where you are from? Is it an alphabet? Or is it based on symbols or glyphs?" the unicorn looked excited and had that child in the candy shop look again.

"We use an alphabet. Well, the country where I am from does. Some other countries still use symbols and glyphs. A lot of ancient cultures did as well." That look she had unnerved him slightly. Although it seemed she just really enjoyed academic discussions, and possibly teaching others.

Twilight smiled. "That will make things easier. We use an alphabet, although there are some ancient glyph based writing systems around. Nopony in Equestria uses them anymore though. Where to start ... The modern Equestrian alphabet uses forty-four characters, not including numbers. Each character represents a distinct sound. That way there is no confusion with characters having different sounds depending on where or how they are used. Fewer grammar rules to memorize at the expense of having to memorize some extra characters ... Turn to page eight."

James nodded. Of course, he had to count the pages as he turned to page eight since he could not yet read the page numbers. He made sure to make a note of the numbers on the bottom of the page and what they looked like though.

On page eight, was a pull out map of Equestria that unfolded into something about the size of road maps that he was familiar with.

"This is a good place to start," Twilight said as she used her horn to point at one of the dots on the map. "That's Ponyville, where we are right now," she pointed to a star on the map Northeast of Ponyville. "And that is Canterlot, where we came from. You can probably figure out what the characters in the city names sound like just by looking at them now."

James nodded and looked at the word, matching each character to one of the sounds in the name of the city and starting to memorize them. Twilight spent the next two hours working with him, pointing out different cities and regions on the map as James became more familiar with the alphabet. Given it was a phonetic alphabet with a separate character for each sound, it was easier to learn than he thought it would have been. But it was still strange to him to have that many characters. He was gradually becoming familiar with the characters and their sounds, and by the end of their two hour session, he could read very simple sentences—albeit rather slowly and he often he had to ask Twilight for help with certain words. It would take a while to master the writing system of course, but he had definitely made good progress for only two hours of work. And writing the language, he realized, would be a lot harder than reading it since he wouldn't have any visual queues to remind him what the characters looked like or how to arrange them. He closed the book after a while.

"Well, that's probably enough geography and alphabet for the day. I'm impressed at how much progress you made in just a couple of hours," the unicorn smiled at him. "You want to move onto something else? Obviously, we need to talk about culture and history so you know ... well ... why things are the way around here."

"Culture ... Right ... This should be the interesting part where we get into a lot of arguments," he deadpanned.

"Oh come on, it will be fun discussing it with you," she smiled at him despite herself. His expression was so emotionless that she could not tell if what he had said was sarcasm, pessimism, or a combination of both.  She used her horn to magically put the geography book back in place. Then she pulled another book down off of a different part of the bookshelf and paged through it for a few seconds before stopping on the page she wanted.

James looked at the page she had stopped on, It contained a drawing of several different colored gems of some sort arranged in a pentagon shape around another larger gem in the in the center. He looked at it for a moment before Twilight continued.

"These represent the Elements of Harmony. They are ... Well, originally they are what I was sent to Ponyville to learn about. For together, the five elements on the outside combine to create the sixth element at the center, which is magic."

James nodded and tried to maintain a poker face. It all sounded very superstitious to him. As if it were some type of primitive pre-scientific almost religious like belief system. He was inwardly surprised that a pony who seemed as academically and scientifically minded as Twilight would actually believe any of this. Nevertheless, he kept it to himself for now and listened as she continued.

"The first, is the Element of Honesty. It is especially important among friends in order to build solid relationships based on trust. The second is the Element of Kindness. Kindness is important even to someone you perceive to be your enemy. Kindness can often bring even the most powerful adversary over to your side. The third is the Element of Laughter. Because laughter can defuse even the most tense situations. The fourth, is the Element of Generosity. Give generously of what you have. After all, you never know when you will be the one in need of generosity. The fifth is the Element of Loyalty. Loyalty to your friends, to the Princesses, and to Equestria and its ideals and values. The sixth element is revealed when the other five are in balance. Those five combined are what give ... the spark for the sixth element, which is magic," she stopped and gazed at James again.

"So that's it huh? That's all there is too it?" he said skeptically. "All you have to do is be honest, kind, laugh, give to charity, an be loyal to friends, rulers, and country ... and that's where magic comes from?"

"... You don't sound very convinced," she frowned.

He shook his head. "It all sounds very nice and Utopian. But it just doesn't work that way in reality. I mean the only one that really makes any sense is laughter. The rest of them ... In reality, dishonest people walk all over the honest ones, people take advantage of your generosity and kindness, and they betray your loyalty. In reality, the only way to advance and succeed in life is to do it on your own."

The unicorn titled her head towards the ground, frowning deeper. "What sad words, James. It does work for us here in Equestria. Why doesn't the system work where you are from?"

He shrugged. "Because it sounds too socialistic in nature. And socialism only works if everyone is willing to play by the rules. I mean, these Elements of Harmony. If even a few decide they don't want to follow these ... guidelines of honesty, loyalty, kindness, and generosity, those few can take advantage of and exploit the honesty, loyalty, kindness, and generosity of the others that to decide to accept the guidelines. Game theory models can mathematically prove that."

"But what if everyone does want to follow the code?" asked Twilight.

"It's been tried where I am from, Twilight. It's never worked for very long. Too much of society is based on self-image. Keeping up with the Jones's as they call it. If the neighbors get a new car, you have to get a new car that is better than theirs. It's a never ending cycle of trying to outdo everyone else. To rise to the top of a system that rewards greed."

"The system has worked for us for over a thousand years, James. Because almost all ponies strive to follow it and realize that it creates a better society and better life for everypony. It's been our experience that most of the ones that do not want to follow it and prefer to be selfish will usually change their ways and be brought into harmony, if we only show them how much harmony improves the lives of everypony by living it on a daily basis."

There was that phrase again. 'Brought into'. Again, James didn't like what he was hearing. And again, he thought the whole system here was sounding more and more like it was based on forcing everyone to believe and behave a certain way. "And what of the few that won't change their ways? What happens to them?" he asked, trying to trip her up into saying something that would confirm his suspicions.

"Nopony can be forced to change if they don't want to," she lowered her head to the ground sadly. "There are some who will remain self-centered. But what you said isn't true James. They will not take advantage of the rest of us. Just because we follow the principles of the Elements of Harmony doesn't mean we will allow ourselves to be taken advantage of when it becomes obvious that's all somepony is trying to do. We still love and tolerate them. But we will not be taken advantage of."

He frowned as he noticed her sadness. "You can't change or help everyone Twilight. So you have to help the few people you can and be content with it," and hope those people don't stab you in the back later he mentally added, but did not say out loud.

She smiled a little bit again, "Well, I can help you at least."

"I don't know. I'm a tough nut to crack," he snickered. "And so as part of loyalty, you mentioned loyalty to the princesses. Is that how you convince everyone to follow this system of harmony? By using the monarchy? Because you have all powerful rulers that can tell the ponies what they should and should not believe? And how they should and should not behave?"

Twilight narrowed her eyes a bit at what was obviously a thinly veiled insult. "We don't have a monarchy. Technically we have a diarchy. There are two princesses. They are sisters. You've only met the elder sister, Princess Celestia so far. But the two of them share power. As the elder princess, Celestia is the highest authority and has final say if conflict arises. But for the most part, they share power," she tapped her fore-hoof on the floor once, flicked her tail rapidly up and down once. James wasn't exactly good at reading equine body language, but he got the impression she was annoyed with him. She continued. "And what type of government exists where you are from? It would seem it has its fair share of problems if most are only living for themselves and it rewards greed."

"We have a representative democracy. The people elect representatives that they want to govern based on the will of the people. We don't much care for absolute monarchies ... or even diarchies where I am from because absolute power tends to breed absolute corruption. For the reasons I mentioned previously."

"I've studied this type of government system in theory", the unicorn answered. "It leads to grid lock. Nothing ever gets done because you have too many individuals making decisions. And all of them are serving their own interests, or the interests of some special group. None of them are doing what is best for the nation as a whole."

"The system is intentionally designed to be difficult to change so that no single individual or group can gain too much power and usurp the government," he retorted as the two of them continued to butt heads.

"And because of that, progress grinds to a halt and the nation remains stagnant. A strong leader like Princess Celestia inspires the entire nation to work towards common goals, for the good of Equestria as a whole."

"Hitler inspired the majority of a nation to work towards common goals as well," he deadpanned.

"Who's Hitler?"

"He was the leader of a nation where I am from at one point. He believed he could create utopia by committing genocide against certain races and classes of people. He convinced a large portion of the country he lead to work towards that goal. And over eight million people died because of it."

"That's awful! You really have leaders that corrupt where you are from?"

James looked at her again, she seemed startled, disgusted, and baffled all at the same time. As if the concept of such barbaric, unbridled cruelty was so foreign to her that she couldn't even grasp the idea.

"Yes. It is. And yes, we do. And now you have a real-world example of why we don't like systems where one or two individuals wield absolute power where I am from. Because that's what can happen when one individual or small group of individuals is allowed to become too powerful."

"Not all leaders are corrupt like that James. In fact, I admit I'm having a hard time even contemplating the idea of a leader that corrupt. I assure you our princesses are not like that and would never do anything like that," She stomped her fore-hoof harder now, lashing her tail once again. yeah, definitely angry, James thought.

"It might be true that not all leaders are corrupt like that. But is it worth the risk? Is there any system or set of procedures for removing a ruler here? If they should become corrupt?"

Twilight blinked. "Removing the Princess from power? The very idea is treason," she responded indignantly.

James gazed at Twilight again. He knew she was young, although he didn't know her actual age. He was certain she was younger than him though. Once again, it seems the concept of removing a corrupt ruler from power was so completely foreign to the young unicorn, that she could not even grasp it. Did she truly believe her rulers were infallible? Incapable of making mistakes? Incapable of any kind of corruption at all?

"What's her name?" he asked finally, changing the subject to avoid upsetting her further.

"Her name? Who?" she finally looked up from the floor and back at him.

"The younger princess. I don't know her name yet."

"Princess Luna," she responded impassively. The anger seemed to be mostly gone now, but there was still a tension between the two.

So these Elements of Harmony ... Are they actual physical elements? Like in the drawing? Or are they just symbolic?"

"A little bit of both. The elements are real physical objects. But they are really just representative of the power that is inside of us. And it's inside of you as well James. It may take you awhile to accept that. Maybe you will never accept it. But I hope you will," she managed to smile at him again.

He nodded and tried to keep a poker face, not wanting to betray his obvious skepticism. It was clear that Twilight saw through it though. She chose to ignore it for now. Arguing with him about it would not convince him. He would have to come to his own conclusions, she decided.

Twilight spent the next few hours teaching James more about Equestrian laws, customs, and history, as well as more about the geography and various cities and towns in Equestria. James listened intently and occasionally asked questions. The local geography was the topic that seemed easiest for her to teach him. After all, it's the one topic he really couldn't argue with her about on a philosophical level. Customs and laws were the hardest topics. As an academic, James was 'debative' by nature, although Twilight sometimes thought a stronger word like 'combative' might be better suited. Often, her attempts at teaching him would end up in a debate about the merits, or lack there of some particular law or custom. She decided to end on a high-note, teaching him some of the history of the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns—leaving out the magical aspects for now so as not to overwhelm him.

"I think that's probably enough for one day," she smiled. "Later this week I've got an object lesson in astronomy for you. I hope you are up for an all nighter, because you get to help me out with some star cataloging."

"That sounds like fun. Although I must admit, I haven't done an all nighter since cramming for exams during my college days," he chuckled.

She smiled. "Also, I should warn you that sometime soon, Pinkie Pie will be having a welcoming party for you. You haven't really met her yet. But parties ... Well, it's kind of what she does. Especially anytime somepony uh ... or someone new shows up in Ponyville."

"I'm uh... Not much of a party person really," he responded a bit dryly.

"Well, you won't really have a choice. Because when she does throw the party, it will be when you least expect it," she grinned. "Anyway, I need to run out for a couple hours and take care of some things. I need to talk to some of the other ponies and such. You are welcome to come along if you like, otherwise you can stay here."

"I think I'll stay here. There will be plenty of time for socializing tomorrow. And besides, I still don't have anything decent to wear around town. I'll wait for Rarity to finish those clothes."

Twilight nodded "I'll be back shortly then," she said as she headed out.

Once she left, James started looking around the various bookshelves and pulling out various books to page through. He still couldn't read most of them of course given he'd only been studying the Equestrian alphabet for a few hours. He picked a few that looked well illustrated and that he thought he would at least be able to learn something from. He then took the stack of books and headed off to the guest room Twilight had pointed out to him earlier. He laid down and started to look through the books-mostly relying on the illustrations for now, although he was able to read some of the text, albeit very slowly.

Twilight arrived back at the library a couple of hours later, noticing it was rather quiet. She looked around and didn't see James anywhere until she peered into the guest room. He had fallen asleep while reading, and there were two open books resting on his chest. She smiled a little bit and stepped in the room quietly, careful not to wake him, using her magic to take the books off of him. Then she picked up a light blanket and covered him up with it, looking at him for a moment and sighing. He's just like I was before I came to Ponyville, she thought to herself before turning and leaving to head off to her own bed up in the loft. Soon. Twilight was asleep as well.