The tribe of knowledge (Patreon)

The Great Migration was a grueling experience for most zebra.  Most days were spent simply moving from place to place, setting up camps, finding good food and clean water, and getting ready for the next leg of the migration.  If spare time was available, it was generally consumed by day to day incidentals.  Rarely was thought put beyond lore and legend.

But as Propoli villages and roads began to facilitate the migration, some tribes found themselves with an astonishing amount of free time on their hooves.  And, inevitably, those idle hooves found the perfect thing to do with this free time: get drunk.  And as alcohol was wont to inspire, boozy zebras began to ask things like why the sky is blue and not green, or why when the grape juice went bad it turned into yummy wine, but when it went even badder, it turned into vinegar?  And eventually there was a disagreement in the reasons, and some likely inebriated zebra said 'Oh yeah, I'll prove I'm right!'  That unknown, unnamed, unsober zebra was the first Logos.

Unlike most tribes, the logos weren't a cultural block but more like a phenomenon of thought that bubbled through zebra kind.  Logos means 'To ponder', and before the Logos most knowledge was gained through story mythology or shamans querying spirits.  Rarely were these explanations consistent.  And so the Logos, aided and abetted by inebrients and stimulants, sought out consistent answers.

Fortunately for these proto-Logos, the Propoli happily created spaces for Logos inclined zebras to postulate and philosophize about problems, and watching Logos debate while getting more and more drunk was a popular past time.  Often arguments would conclude 'In inpactum' in which the loser would grab a stick and thump their opponent.  But the true birth of the tribe came in the debate of the shape of the world.  Androphenus was certain the world was flat, and Mykospha argued it was round.  Rather than get drunk, Mykospha used two sticks and some math and demonstrated the spherosity of Eqqus.  Androphenus, contrary to the chants of the crowd, did not grab the stick, but instead declared that Mykospha's argument was the better for having evidence, and the pair got drunk and married afterward.  But the conclusion of a Logos debate inspired other Logos that truth was found in evidence, not just rhetoric or reason.

This realization was timely, as the Starkatteri were in the process of raising their grand city.  It was the questioning of the Logos and their poking and proding that uncovered the consequences of pulling down a star and the harm the Eater could do if restored.  The summoning failed, and thus were the Logos enshrined as a tribe, inspite of having no land, no territory, no common bloodline, or even common language.  The then smallest tribe, the Logos would enter the First Empire awkwardly and unsure of its place.

Over the next centuries, the Logos' biggest challenge was the Zencori, who often resented mythology relegated to fiction in place of Logos facts and evidence.  The Zencori frequently smeared the Logos as unfeeling, amoral, or even insane.  Early Zencori texts would often call the Logos 'people' instead of 'tribe', and even attempted to get the early Logos stripped of that designation.

However, the Logos had one advantage: their methods worked.  Any proposal had to be made with evidence.  That evidence would have to stand up to scrutiny.  If an idea failed, it was examined why it failed.  And every idea had to withstand scrutiny.  That meant a Logos had to go on a stage before other Logos, argue their point, and other Logos would step up and attempt to tear down the idea.  Some of these Provings became so impassioned and heated it moved Zencori and Achu alike.

But as with most tribes, the Logos' hardest time came with the rise of Nightmare Moon and the long night.  Many people turned to the Logos for answers, but they could only speculate.  Many Logos forums were burned and Logos themselves driven out for the 'failure' not to have instant tested answers.  When the sun returned, the Logos would be forever changed.

Instead of living in Propoli cities, most Logos banded together into actual Logos settlements.  It was around this time that the Logos also began to experiment more and more with mathematics.  Logos pixilated stripes began to denote the tribe as an ethnic line rather than a social phenomenon.  Logos use of mathematics became applied throughout the tribe, expressed in art and music.  Logos codified the use of octives and writing music so it could be replayed.  This trend of blending mathematics remains to this day.  Ratios of 5:3 are applied frequently, and names often reflect numbers or formula.

It was around this time that the Logos also began codifying and distributing knowledge from their villages.  Logos would go out to a Propoli house of wisdom to open a school and engage others to teach ideas and knowledge.  Logos scholars were in great demand in the early second empire.  Propoli engineers relied on Logos schools to teach fundamentals and would take that knowledge to apply to their constructions.  However, other tribes were decidedly cooler in sharing knowledge.  The Mendi in particular saw little reason to extend knowledge of medicine to the Logos, and the Carnillians would rather just farm for a Logos village than teach the intricacies of their agriculture.

Many particularities of the tribe manifested here.  The Logos tend to favor materialism over spiritualism, respecting spirits but not accepting their help as short cuts.  Logos dress and art is always mathematical, with fractal or mathematical shapes sought out.  The Fibonacci sequence is used whenever possible, as well as polyhedra and hypercubes.  Logos cuisine is efficient and proportional, but unexceptional.  Logos architecture favors concentric circles, though hexagonal or triangular design is tolerated as well.  Logos music is largely experimental, with complex arrangements based off of mathematics than how it sounds to the ear.

Sex and family with the Logos are almost accidental.  The Logos rarely have families, and any arrangement will do so long as it is stable.  Many Logos are bisexual and asexual, and the tribe expresses passion and affection on an individual basis.  The only exception are with Starkatteri, due to their curse.  Logos relationships occasionally disturb other zebras as they often ignore other tribal taboos.  Whatever makes babies happen.  Many Logos enter into relationships with other tribes looking for stable partners, though it is somewhat difficult when the Logos partner tries to rationalize the relationship, or ends it abruptly because it interferes with their research.  Some Logos, however, are deeply committed to their children and their families, treating and perfecting it as they would an equation for hydrological flow.

As the Second Empire advanced, however, the Logos found their research and knowledge applied increasingly towards business, profit, and warfare.  Some Logos maintained the position that knowledge was purely amoral, and thus they had no obligation to limit its application.  If someone wanted to make a factory or dam, that decision and its consequences was on them, not the person who made the calculations or research to make it possible.  Others attempted to guide knowledge towards 'purer' or 'ethical' research.

All this culminated in the pedagogy wars.  While the Zencori craft a story of nerds quibbling over minutae, the reality of the fighting was far more vicious.  Experiments were sabotaged, libraries burned, and scholars murdered in a desperate attempt to control how and to whom the tribe would share knowledge.  Romanticists wanted to share everything with everyone.  Pragmatists wanted to sell to the highest bidder.  Traditionalists wanted only pre-approved knowledge taught, while Progressives wanted only knowledge that benefitted the species as a whole exchanged.  Some abandoned houses of knowledge all together, becoming roaming teachers sharing what they knew.  Others became proditor, going off into the wilderness to live as hermits, abandoning all knowledge.  Most of the other tribes were unaware of the deep divisions in the tribe or the cause behind the strife.

The Pedagogy wars ended with the pragmatists and progressives as the winners as the former reached out to allies in other tribes while the latter promoted ideas of public education across all tribes.  With unrestricted education, zebra knowledge rapidly expanded with little to no control.  Tribes like the Propoli were quick to invest in and exploit discoveries, and any accidents or mishaps were ignored in the beat of industrial progress. Losers became tutors, withdrew to villages or hermitages, or sought other employ.  However, in this renaissance, two discoveries were made: the ability to quickly and easily make talismans with Equestria Gems and the balefire egg.  The former necessitated trade with Equestria.  The latter waited quietly on a shelf.

When the election of the last Caesar came up, the Logos found itself aligned with the Zencori and Sahaani in an isolationist mood.  Too much trade with Equestria had 'muddled' zebra thinking and arts and as such they backed the Zencori candidate.  While the tribe has no bias against equestrian thinking so long as it was rigorously proven, at the time many Logos felt Equestrian accomplishments were infiltrating too fast for the good of the Empire.  When they lost, the Logos shrugged and went back to work, assuming it would simply be more of the same.

They couldn't be more wrong.  While some in the tribe silently felt victory with the 'conflict', they were certain that it wouldn't spread.  Meanwhile the pragmatists demonstrated their worth to the Empire, researching new and creative means of warfare.  What few traditionalists and romantics remained remained silent, while reformers lied to themselves that only good would come of this.  When Princess Luna stepped to power, any chance for the Logos to remain independant was lost.  Many rallied to the Caesar, seeing this as the opportunity to make up for their failure at the end of the first Empire.  Even reformers fell into line behind the pragmatists, with some turning to zealotry in a misguided fever to 'prove zebra thought' better.  Logos pumped out psudeo-scientific research used by Zencori propogandists to try and 'prove' pony inferiority.

Yet the pace of the war, and pony technological achievement, worried the tribe greatly.  Pony magic allowed a multitude of short cuts and efficiencies that zebras couldn't match.  The tribe rapidly found itself more often reverse engineering pony technology than innovating their own.  When megaspell arrays were discovered and performed by Fluttershy at shattered hoof, the tribe silently urged the Caesar to attempt to find a diplomatic solution.  They were rebuffed.

When Megaspells fell into their hooves, any relief they felt was soon lost with the knowledge that pony magic would simply be able to create magic that zebra technology couldn't overcome.  Some Logos somewhere remembered work done on that dusty egg, and it was dusted off.  The first Balefire bomb tests in the Eastern Empty seemed to be just the weapon they needed, and soon hidden factories were making hundreds of them every month.  Propoli rockets designed and targeted by Logos mathematicians were readied.

When Roam burned to a megaspell, a day later, the fruit of Logos knowledge was unleashed on the world.  While some coolly accepted the results, most of the tribe was horrified by what their knowledge and research had wrought.  And as the Empire collapsed around them in the fighting that followed, most Logos packed up their laboratories, burned their research, and went back to their villages.  While the Logos were smart enough to avoid the worse, the Tribe was profoundly scarred by the war.

Many fought to try to understand it and what it meant.  Some sought solace in mathematics, believing all the world was just a mathematical calculation and if it could be solved, some peace or revelation could be obtained.  Others just tried to improve their own little corners of Zebrinica.  Others sought refuge with the Green legion, the Exchange, or in Bastion where their skills and knowledge earned privilege.  Some took the red and went to go live and die in the wilderness, convinced their search for knowledge was folly from the beginning.

Today, the Logos are much reduced, but ironically, better off than most tribes.  Most have turned inward, looking out for their family and villages than the race as a whole.  While most Logos tinker and research, others simply are content to pursue personal research.  The days of debating on stage and the loser wacking the winner with a stick are long gone, and most simply try to make a better oven, or find the best insulation for their hut.  And on dark and lonely nights, try to calculate pi for fun.