When Rarity sat at her desk for the evening, she didn’t have high expectations. She was no great magical scholar, and creating a truly new spell was a feat that even prodigies like Twilight would be blessed to accomplish twice in their careers. By all rights, it promised to be a waste of an evening. And yet, she carried on.

Her magical reference books were laid out before her. Her more elegant glasses rested over her muzzle. Candles were lit. She’d had one glass of wine already and left another on her desk to sip. Briefly, she reflected on the fact that the proper conditions for magical study and the proper conditions for traditional romance were strikingly similar.

Her reasons for that attempt were complicated. Part of it was simple vanity—Rarity often had a high opinion of herself. Part of it was humble expectations, for the spell she sought to create was quite simple in its function. Part of it was curiosity about what the attempt would be like, and a desire to brush off magical training she hadn’t used since her school filly days.

But a part of it was something deeper. It was cultural tradition. It was identity. Some unicorns are great sages, and some unicorns are dentists or dressmakers, but every unicorn thinks they’re a wizard. Research knew no nobility, and anypony with a curious mind had the potential to discover something great. One never knew where the next great discovery might come from.

Far into her research, as the candles burned low, Rarity paused. She squinted at the page.

Her eyes went wide.

“TWILIGHT!” Hours later, rarity pounded on the castle doors, shouting up at the windows far above. It was well past midnight, and the stars were out. Rarity’s voice echoed far through Ponyville’s silent streets, and a few lights even came on in its wake. “Twilight, you open this door right now!”

“Okay, okay!” From inside the castle’s entranceway, Twilight yanked the double doors open with her magic, pulling Rarity inside in the same motion. Her mane was a mess, her face creased and her eyes bloodshot. “Is something wrong?” she asked, squinting through the haze. “Is Ponyville under attack?”

“No, Twilight. I’ve discovered something.” Rarity stood breathless and panting, gesturing wildly with a foreleg as she spoke. “I was researching a new spell, and I think I found something wondrous! I need to use your library.”

“You woke me up at 3:30 in the morning because you were doing magical research and it just… couldn’t wait?” Twilight scrunched up her face. “I have really mixed feelings about this.”

“Yes yes. You’re an adorable bookworm. But seriously, Twilight, look at this.” Rarity held up a giant mass of loose paper and parchment in front of her. Twilight could only assume it was her notes. “You know the old philosophy problem of color. Is my color red the same as your color red. That old thing?”

“Sure.” Twilight sighed. She took a moment to rub her eyes, trying to work some of the sleep stuff out of them. “It’s an illustrative question about the subjective nature of perception.”

“Well, I was working on a spell to help me more elegantly blend colors for my fall dresses, and…” Rarity took a deep breath. Her whole body tensed up. “I solved it!”

“You… solved it?” Twilight frowned.

“Yes!” Rarity let out a loud squeak of joy. “I realized that our existing collection of color-altering spells only make sense if color is an objective quantity in the universe, and that you can measure to what extent an individual's personal perceptions align with that reading! Not only can we measure if your red is the same as my red, we can determine how close each of us is to real red!”

Twilight stared. She laughed. Her hoof went to her face. “Okay… Rarity. It’s not a solvable problem. Like, not it isn’t solvable because it’s hard. It isn’t solvable because it doesn’t even make sense to say you solved it. The point of the problem is that perception is subjective, so you can’t measure-”

“Oh for goodness sake!” Rarity grabbed Twilight with one leg, and held her notes with the other. She pulled the two together, until Twilight was face to face with her scribbles. “Read.”

“Ow! Rarity! Okay, this has…” Twilight trailed off as one of Rarity’s diagrams caught her eye. “Wait. Why would you…” She separated some of the pages. She stared. She read. “Oh, that’s… clever. That’s…”

Finally, Twilight let out a soft: “Huh.”



And so it came to pass that color was objectively verifiable. With nothing more than a color wheel and a guide to basic spellcasting, any competent unicorn could measure a pony’s chromatic perception. It became a quite popular parlor trick, and many a pony enjoyed learning precisely how well their notion of color corresponded with that of their neighbors.

As it became more popular however, other discoveries followed. Those who were gifted in the visual arts nearly always had perceptions that closely aligned with objective reality, while those whose perceptions deviated were far more likely to purchase salmon wallpaper or unironically dress in neon. The facts were clear, and because the ponies who compiled those facts had excellent perception, the facts were also arrayed in visually pleasing color-coordinated graph and charts. Something had to be done.

And so, Twilight invented a technique for enchanting lenses, that they could correct color like normal lenses corrected focus. All a pony had to do was slip on a pair, and they would know with certainty that their perception of reality aligned with the truth, and that their fears of unknowingly being a tasteless clod were at best only partially justified. They became so popular that schools started giving them away to fillies and colts before art class, and red-and-black hair dye became an endangered species. It was a glorious time.

Then, Cadance got involved. She was part unicorn too, after all.

The color-correcting glasses craze had reached the Crystal Empire, and Cadance’s subjects could finally confirm what they’d always known—that their sense of color coordination was amazing and that Equestria didn’t have nothin’ on them. But the very idea of objectively measuring what was once a subject of perception tickled Cadance’s fancy, and she set to work at her own desk, with her own candles, and with her own two glasses of wine. And she made something.

It measured love. Or, more accurately, the potential for love. Cadance had been able to do it for years, so it was just a matter of replicating her natural powers into a simple enchanted object. One pony held one end of a wire, and the other pony held the other end of the wire, and the meter in the middle went “foop” and “bing.” Then, a card came out of the slot in the top.

Cadance tested it with Shining Armor, and the card read: “True Love.” Then, she tested it with Flash Sentry, and it read: “Not that into you, but will pretend to be in the hope of a threesome with your husband.” That was when she knew she had a winner.

The romamoeter, or “love meter” for the masses, was an instant hit in Equestria. Speed dating had never been speeder or more accurate. No longer did ponies have to go through the complex back and forth of dating, courtship, ritual. They could just sit across a table, each grab a wire, read the resulting card, and thank their lucky stars they dodged that disaster. It was such a simple, practical device.

Some ponies thought the concept could go even further.

“Twilight!” Applejack roared. Her hoof hit Twilight’s door and took it clear off its hinges, sending the two shattered halves of the gateway back into the castle foyer. As she stormed inside, Twilight appeared up the hall and gaped.

“Applejack,” she called. Her eyes were wide. “You broke down my door!?”

“I knocked.” Applejack growled. “It’s the traditional way earth ponies knock on castle doors,” she got into Twilight’s face, muzzle to muzzle, “when they are extremely angry with the unicorns living inside.”

“Well technically I’m an alicorn…” Twilight squeaked. Applejack growled. Twilight broke out in a cold sweat. “But you know, point made. What’s bothering you, very good friend of mine who would never do violence to another good friend?”

“This.” Applejack pulled a piece of paper from her saddlebags, shoving it towards Twilight. Twilight took in from her, studying her.

“Applebloom’s… report card?” She frowned. “What does this have to do with me?”

“Because it’s not a report card for her. It’s a report card about her. Specifically, about how good a job I’m doing raising her!” Applejack tapped her chest with a hoof, her voice rising from a humble shout to a full-throated bellow. “They say that you discovered that a happy childhood is objectively measureable from brainwaves, and so now all the kids are getting their heads scanned so their parents can learn what they’re doing wrong!”

“Oh. Um… gosh.” Twilight’s eyes flicked back and forth between Applejack and the paper. “It looks like they gave you a B-. I mean, that’s pretty-”

Applejack took a step forward, until her muzzle pressed into Twilight’s. “They said I was raising her to be resistant to change. Can you believe that!? They told me to try being more open to new things, Twilight!”

“Oh, uh…” Twilight croaked. “I mean, that’s obviously wrong…”

“Yer gul-darn right it is!” Her hoof hit the floor hard enough to leave cracks. “My great grandpappy was open to change, and my grandpappy was open to change, and my pa was open to change, and that means I’m open to change, and darned if I’m going to hear some fancy machine tell me otherwise!”

“Yes. Yes. You know. That’s a very good point.” Twilight nodded quickly. “I will talk to the school and get this sorted out right away.”

“You do that! I’m telling you, Twilight. This craze has gone too far. Ponies won’t stand for it no more! You get that sorted right now, or I swear I’m gonna go sort it for you.” She snorted and stormed away, pausing only briefly on her way out to repair Twilight’s door in full. It was just neighborly.

Twilight needed a few minutes to breathe after the encounter. Then, she hurried outside and into the street of Ponyville. It was a long walk to the schoolhouse, and she saw things on the way there.

She saw red slips affixed to doors. While beauty did take many forms, it was objectively measureable, and so the city had done away with its complicated zoning laws. Instead, they passed a simpler law, that ponies homes could not be more than 20% ugly by mass. The assessment was made by automated pulchriograph, and notices left for the offenders.

She saw a bookstore owner putting up a new sign in his window. “90% of everything is terrible,” it said, “and we now carry just the other 10%! All books now biblometer filtered. Guaranteed compelling and well-written! Plus textbooks.” A giant pile of books filled the dumpster behind the shop. Mostly self-help books and fantasy novels with sultry mares on the cover.

She saw a pony comparing apples and oranges. He didn’t have a fancy machine to do it or anything. It was actually pretty straightforward. And in retrospect, it always had been.

Then, she saw that Barnyard Bargains was having a 2:1 sale on pitchforks, torches, and looting sacks. Ponies had formed a long line that stretched around the block, and were chatting amicably as they waited. Parents had brought their foals to try things out before they bought them.

She sighed. “Ah, ponyfeathers.”



The riot burned itself out eventually. Mostly because Ponyville had run out of things to burn and/or steal. The townsponies thought it was a great time. Everypony got lots of exercise, worked some aggression out of the system, and little Dinky Do got to run around wearing her neon-pink “Anarchy Now” mask. She even sprinted around the square lighting the most objectively beautiful buildings on fire, and screamed “No gods, no masters!” so high her voice cracked, which everypony agreed was adorable.

Of course, the pulchriograph was the first thing to be burned, along with the little red notices. Then the biblometers went, and the machines that detected if children were happy, and the little dating device that went “foop” and “bing.” Then went the town hall that contained laws about beauty, and the school that thought it could send snippy letters to parents. And finally went the glasses that corrected color, and the fumes from their chemical flames formed a beautiful rainbow that stretched high into the sky.

Twilight’s castle was spared. Partially because it was non-flammable, and partially because of Spike’s shocking and unexpected aptitude for street brawling. And so it came in time to pass that Twilight and Rarity sat on the castle porch, and together watched the sun rise over the smoking and blacked remains of Ponyville.

“Thank you again for letting me use your guest room,” Rarity said. The Carousel Boutique was currently a vaguely circular pile of timbers and burnt fabric. “I’m… sorry. I got this whole thing started.”

“Oh, it’s… nothing.” Twilight waved her off. “And, don’t be. You just made the discovery. I was the one who started with a practical application.”

“Somepony else would have thought of it if you didn’t.” Rarity said. Twilight shrugged, and the two lapsed into a long silence as they watched the town.

“Did we just go too quickly?” Twilight finally asked. “Could this have worked if we’d been more patient? Or do ponies just not want to hear the truth? Maybe we just prefer to believe it’s all subjective?”

“Ponyville isn’t the whole world, Twilight -- much as it often feels that way. The craze is still going strong in Canterlot. So I wouldn’t make judgements as to the character of the whole pony race just yet.”

“Yeah, but…” Twilight gestured out at the town. “You know what I mean. In a sense, isn’t this… moving backwards? Embracing our worst nature?”

“I’m not sure much changed, actually.” Rarity sat back, drawing in a deep breath. “Take fashion, for instance. Oh, we didn’t measure it with machines, but it was never really that subjective. There was and is such a thing as good and bad taste. But even if I could somehow get away with it, I wouldn’t tell every customer in the boutique what they have to wear. Because it’s not just about objective beauty. It’s about…”

She gestured high into the air, and let her hoof fall back to her side. “Self expression. It’s not about what clothes are best. It’s about what the clothes say. And sure, maybe sometimes what they say is that the wearer is colorblind, but isn’t that just admitting something true about ourselves?”

“So what are you saying?” Twilight asked. “That the quantified, objectively perfect town is the real lie? That this is the honest Ponyville?”

Rarity shrugged. “Take a look for yourself. They’re already rebuilding the town -- rebuilding it the way they want it to look. It’s a rare moment of mass, pure creative expression, and the new town will, I think, reflect the true desires of its inhabitants.”

Twilight sat up in her chair. She squinted down at some of the new buildings, already under construction.

Finally, she came to a realization. “They look awful.”

“Like the south end of a mule going north,” Rarity agreed.

“Gosh, that’s just an eye-sore.” Twilight flinched. “Hey, if you’re going to be my guest for a few days anyway, you want to just take a trip to Canterlot until this all blows over? I heard the palace now has the most objectively comfortable beds ever constructed.”

“Oh, certainly!” Rarity said. She refilled her and Twilight’s glasses of wine, and they clinked the two together. “That sounds way better than self-expression. Cheers!”

And it really was.