Quotes taken from An Age of Discord – A Short History of Equestria During the Cold War, With Pictures, Ima Pseudonym, Nonexistent Press 2011.

“Princess Celestia herself issued a warning to Washington that something great and terrible was soon to be born on US soil a week before the first test. Later, she was reportedly most annoyed that the US had not kept her in the loop on the Manhattan Project.”

“Equestria proved a painful headache for political and economic theorists on both sides of the Iron curtain. A nation which had achieved second industrial revolution technology decades before humans had, but which had nothing recognizable as a “proletariat.” A race of city-building “people” who somehow coexisted with several other intelligent species in an often overlapping space, mostly peaceably ignoring each other like animals occupying different ecological niches in the same environment. A vigorously capitalist society which was also culturally – indeed, almost automatically – redistributionist [1]. A largely agricultural society which was almost post-scarcity and which had not seen serious hunger in centuries. A society in which well-established local democracy coexisted with a decadent nobility based in the capital and a literal God-Queen. A society in which most people did not drift in and out of careers but were apparently pre-destined for a specialty at birth. And, of course, how did magic – which seemed to start with violating the conservation of energy and get weirder from there – fit into any rational system of economics? Neither the US nor the Soviet Union ever managed to develop a coherent ideological model into which Equestria could be placed.”

“Ponies, of course, could be frightened. Herd animals with a tendency to stampede in the case of common threat, Equestrians were not immune from a Red Scare of their own, but it little resembled those in the human nations. For one thing, there were few cases of Ponies being denounced for Communist views, given that Socialist philosophy had never really caught on to any extent in prosperous Equestria (also, the impact of any human ideas was always lessened by the firm popular view in Equestria that most humans were a bit cracked). The notion of “Reds Under the Beds” took a more literal form, with many Ponies fearing the infiltration of Equestria by magically transformed humans, and others imagining secret Soviet bases established on Equestrian soil and resupplied by rockets or some other strange human technology.”

“After the development of the Soviet atomic bomb after 1949, fears of human invasion and the destruction of Equestria peaked, leading to such popular movies as “Invasion Manehattan” and “When the Red Apes Rule.”” [2] However, no Mc Carthy-type figure arose to politically profit from these fears, mostly likely because Celestia generally nipped such things in the bud (it’s good to be God-King). In any event, while accusation of being pro-Soviet or disloyal ruined many careers in the US, in Equestria such things usually just led to hurt feelings, most often followed by a make-up party.”

“The Equestrian efforts to avert the cold war and internationalize atomic power were unsuccessful, and were not helped by a human perception that Equestria was attempting to save “non-harmonious” and somehow morally inferior humans from themselves. Nobody likes someone who assumes their own superiority, and although in retrospect Equestrian protests re the danger and folly of a nuclear arms race were quite accurate, the proud and powerful leaders of the US and the Soviet Union resented being lectured to by talking ponies…”

“US-Equestrian relations grew increasingly shaky during the 1950s. Equestrian refusals to allow the use of their space-lift capacities within the 500-mile radius of their magical zone to aid the US military to reach orbit rankled, as did Equestrian hostility towards US efforts to overthrow insufficiently anti-Communist third world governments.”

“Equestria became another useful scarecrow for the fear-mongering politicians of the Mc Carthy era. Nonhuman, possessed of alien and incomprehensible powers, including their ability to influence minds; critical of US actions abroad; even their cuteness and friendliness and non-violent nature was offensive to many US males, who seemed to find the mare-dominated Equestrian society in some ways a threat to their manhood. Equestria, it was said, was a corrupting influence, weakening US moral fiber and ability to fight, softening us up for the Communists…the notorious “Stalinestia” editorial cartoon…”

"The well-intentioned effort by the staff of the Equestrian embassy to introduce Joe Mc Carthy to the magic of friendship and the value of kindness did not go well. Besides his not appreciating Pony party games, the Ponies were unaware of Mc Carthy’s ignorance of the side effects of overconsumption of Zap Apple hard cider."

“A total breakdown in US- Equestrian relations was avoided thanks to the good sense of President Eisenhower – plus the political influence of a number of elderly, rich Americans aware that Pony medical magic and herbal potions could do things for them no American-trained physician could.”

“Another source of contention during the Cold War years was the protectionist nature of the Pony economy: Equestria had put tariffs in place by the late 1800s to protect local craftsponies after US mass production began to flood markets with cheap crap, and this continued after the war as “green sprouts” of new industry were protected from US competition…Equestrians complained that new-minted US ally Japan had markets almost as difficult to penetrate, but there was a vast difference in US minds between what was essentially a US client state and mysterious, in some ways weak but in others bizarrely powerful Equestria.”

“Pony non-magical technology, superior in various ways to that of human beings at the time of contact, began to fall behind in the second half of the 19th century as the industrial-scientific revolution spread across the human world. Until WWI, the edge given by magic had blinded many to the significance of this: Equestria had been generally happy to pick and choose what kinds of human innovations to introduce into their lifestyle, and both the Royal Sisters and the Pony Parliament had mostly been concerned with avoiding severe disruptions in Pony society. The sheer scale of industrial warfare 1914-1918 both alarmed and horrified everypony, and spurred an increased interest in keeping technologically abreast of humans, but it was not until WWII that Celestia and Luna reluctantly moved to an expensive, large-scale program of heavy industrial development and high technology, and Ponies learned to grumble about high taxes.”

“In 1965 Celestia announced to her people that Equestria would never see the detonation of a nuclear weapon. It took some time for human scientists in the borderlands to realize exactly how literal this statement had been.”

“The Equestrian Space Program had its beginnings in the levitation of observation platforms to orbital heights during the second world war. Although not spaceships in any meaningful manner, these served not only as a means of spying out Japanese fleets, but also as a base for study of vacuum conditions, cosmic radiation, and other phenomena by human and Pony scientists [3]. Although the project was discontinued after the war – there had been a high burnout rate in the wizard teams working to keep the platforms aloft – the experience had created a consuming interest in terrestrial space among the Pony scholarly community, and not long after Sputnik voices began calling for an Equestrian position in space.”

“Pony space flights used a combination of magic and non-magical technology: magic to achieve escape velocity within the 500-mile radius of Equestrian Tau-space, regular technology to maneuver and survive the dangers of space beyond it, and magic again to come in for a landing…the US and Soviet architects of their respective national programs reacted poorly to the Equestrians putting into orbit payloads beyond anything they had been able to achieve with pink, powder blue, and gold rockets covered with doodads and curlicues and apparently propelled by rainbows, but were somewhat mollified by the slowness of Equestria to develop a manned program: Ponies are not in the habit of sacrificing others of their kind for reasons of national grandeur, and followed a highly conservative development path while mastering human-designed life support and rocket technology…the first Equestrian astronauts were usually Pegasi, which although bound to the Earth by a lack of magic, could easily maneuver in zero gravity…”

“The counter-culture of the 1960s and early 70s to some extent fetishized Equestria, as can be seen from the abundance of psychedelic art featuring Unicorns and Pegasi…as a non-violent, vegetarian, and magic-powered society, Equestria was seen by many as an example and reproach to the human society of the Cold War, Vietnam and Civil Rights era. Many young and restless Americans illegally entered Equestria looking for enlightenment, peace, magic, or in some cases free room and board… In spite of the best efforts of the Equestrian border patrols, some who ended up in untamed wilderness areas had short and unpleasant encounters with Cockatrice, Hydras, Dragons, Manticores…There were some genuinely successful collaborations between Ponies and human idealists in this era, artistic, philosophical and cultural…overall, however, the experience of the so-called “Hippy Invasion” simply led Ponies to re-affirm what they had already believed: most humans were basically cracked in the head (although some were more harmlessly – even amusingly - nuts than others).

“The Soviets, unable to find Pony agents in Equestria save among the seriously idiotic and/or demented, made efforts to establish contacts and stir up trouble among other species, as did Chinese agents after the Sino-Soviet split. Adult Dragons, being solitary creatures by nature, were utterly uninterested in the problems of the Proletariat, and given that jewels of every type known to man (and some unknown) grow like truffles in the rich Equestrian earth, were far too expensive to bribe. Donkeys and Bison were cool to Soviet contacts, Cows were even more peaceable and violence-shy than Ponies, and the arrogant and aristocratic Griffins, it was widely rumored, had actually eaten a couple of Red provocateurs. Some success was achieved with contacts in the Diamond Dog society, but the proposed Uprising For Those Rights The Ponies Have Been Depriving Us Of, Whatever They Are was easily detected and bloodlessly nipped in the bud by Celestia’s agents using a complex plan involving pies, polka music and outdoor theatre.”

“The Cold War came to its long-predicted culmination in 1983, when a combination of US military maneuvers, an off-the-cuff bloodthirsty statement by an aged ex-actor [4], and a radar machine assembled by a technician pretending to work while his government pretended to pay him brought about what has been vulgarly termed the “Almost Apocalypse”… as the world stood on the brink of atomic annihilation, Princess Celestia temporarily expanded Equestrian space across half the world, allowing her to telepathically communicate to the US and Soviet military leaders the actual facts of the situation and, not incidentally, transmute the deadly warheads of the missiles already in flight into delicious milk chocolate.”

“The effort of so massive an expansion of Tau-Space nearly killed Celestia, who remained in a coma for three months while her sister Luna governed a terrified Equestrian population on her own. It was two years before Celestia fully recovered – at least according to Equestrian reports, about which some of the more paranoid human governments expressed doubts…”

“Most historians trace the beginning of the end of the cold war to the events of that summer: although it would be a while before the Iron Curtain came down, the mood had fundamentally changed, and nothing could be the same afterwards…”

“…a number of scientists and politicians had humorously suggested than nothing short of an alien menace could unify the feuding nations of the Cold War era and bring an end to the suicidal nuclear arms race. None of them had ever predicted the threat would be Ponies.”

Bruce

[1] Ponies long thought reports of the homeless and beggars starving to death in human cities were just myths, like reports that Zebras were all into Black Magic or Camels were addicted to weird sex.

[2] The film-makers generally failed to see why humans should be offended by essentially calling an apple an apple.

[3] There is some popular, and even professional, confusion about the difference between Pony “scientists” and Pony “wizards.” Perhaps the simplest way to put it is that every Pony wizard is a scientist, but not all scientists are wizards.

[4] Any resemblance to actual individuals is probably coincidental.

Okay, those alternate history pieces are amazing. Seriously - who writes those? They're fantastic!