The story tellers... (Patreon)

Once upon a time is how all stories begin, for all stories must begin somewhere.  The Zencori begin with the little Filly Zencora.  Like many of the zebras migrating around the continent, Zencora was used to the long days of walking and the many duties children were expected to perform once their parents decide they can be useful.  Zencora, like most fillies, was put in charge of the foals while the adults worked, and so she spent her time talking to them.  She made up stories that kept them out of trouble, pulling things seen during the migration and making up strange and bizarre tales.  Zencora's stories were so amusing that even the adults stopped to listen to her, as she made up more and more tales.  Eventually word spread, and other clans and families gave hers food and goods just to hear the tales of the Boulder people, or the Magical Cloak of Tippenyaki.  So many were moved that when she grew up, she wandered from tribe to tribe, spreading her tales till eventually others took them up and spread them as well.  And so the Zencori were born.

Once upon a time, there was a zebra named Zen.  He was a drifter, a gambler, and above all, a liar.  He would claim to be a refugee whos family was wiped out by bandits.  Claim to be a prince deposed by his jealous uncle.  Claim to be a spirit trapped in mortal form.  He would build lie upon lie and tale upon tale, until finally someone would learn the truth and a mob would chase him out with sticks.  One day he met a strange zebra with a pot full of delicious mushroom soup, and so he spun a tale about being lost and searching for this family.  The strange zebra listened and gave him the pot, claiming it was magic.  The next day they came across a family, and Zen reluctantly shared the delicious food.  He spun a tale about being a singer who lose his voice.  The next day, they met a sphynx that was willing to trade her voice for a taste of the delicious stew.  He told the sphynx he was a wealthy merchant, and the next day, he met a noble zebra with great riches pining for good food.  Zen sold him the pot for a fortune, but soon learned that none of the stories he told came true.  He lost his fortune to his own wastrel ways and wandered zebrinica as a beggar spinning tales for the rest of his days.

Once upon a time, there was a glade with a spirit named Curious.  When zebra came, curious asked them where they came from, and if they entertained her with their stories, she'd curse them with fortune.  One day a zebra came from the east but instead of ever more daring tales, he brought only news.  The unvarnished truth so captivated the spirit that they transformed into a zebra so they could leave their glade and find out more for themselves.  That zebra was called 'the Wanderer', and has observed every momentus event since it began its searching.

There are many, many other tales for the origin of the Zencori, myth mixed with history, drama mixed with reality.  What is known is that when the Starkatteri began to excavate the cursed city, zebras called zenkas roamed between the villages and along the Old Road to spread news.  They succeeded at warning zebras of the Starkatteri's ambitions before the diviners could ensnare more unwary villages.  For their work, when the Starkatteri were cursed, zenkas (and others claiming to be zenkas) were named as a tribe of the first Empire.

It is fortunate in this chaotic period that the first leader of the Tribe was a humorless mare named Xipatha.  Xipatha organized the tribe, created titles, and furiously browbeat dissenters into following her vision of what the Zencori were to become: news reporters.  Xipatha wanted the tribe to find and disseminate information with as little embellishment as possible.  She pushed to set up places in villages where a Zenka could gather and read the information of the day, created a system of messengers to move information around the first empire, and made a hierarchy of management to control the spread of information.  When Xipatha lay on her deathbed, she predicting the fall of the Zencori wouldn't happen from some act by the Emperor or some other tribe, but from some bored idiot making up a story.

Her body wasn't even cold before her prediction came true.  In the village of Red Bridge, a young Zenka named Tabo was tired of endless days of nothing interesting to share.  Thus, one day, to impress a mare, he shared news of a battle.  A manticore had attacked a trader!   The villagers were alarmed, but not to worry, assured Tabo, because a hero name Obat had come forth to vanquish the monster!  Unfortunately, news of this spread and Tabo began to invent other monsters for Obat to overcome.  Soon Obat was responsible for near weekly adventures... then one day the Emperor himself came to Red Bridge with his entire entourage, and the flummoxed new elder of the tribe, to honor Obat.  Tabo tried desperately to hide the fact, but was ultimately exposed.  The Emperor forgave him, but also stripped him of his Zenka status.

It is certain that Tabo, Obat, and Red Bridge never existed, but the tale is often quoted as an example of problems the early tribe had in maintaining fidelity to the tribe's information.  While zenkas could threaten or bribe, in reality there simply wasn't the technology to keep information accurate and unmodified by 'creative impulse.'  It wasn't the stories that was the problem.  Every tribe had stories.  It was that the Zenka were supposed to be telling the truth, and often the truth was nothing interesting or noteworthy was happening!  Given many zenka relied on people needing their news to support their livelihoods, the urge to create and fabricate was irrepressible.

Thus, some Zenka began the practice of telling stories on the side.  It was believed that, so long as the stories were clearly stories, that the zenkas could share them without trouble.  This worked until the Long Night.  When people came to the Zenkas for information, some were unable to halt their speculations.  Then, when news of Nightmare Moon came out and the fall of the First Empire, confusion and misinformation turned confusion to chaos.  Indeed, much of the reformation into the second Empire was to bring the Zenka into order.  Some wanted to disband the tribe completely, but the Zencori elders pointed out that wouldn't actually fix the problem.

Thus, with the second Empire, the Zencori underwent a massive reformation of the entire tribe.  It would be split into a historical, factual half and a creative and dramatic half.  A third branch, the Librarians, would oversee the accuracy of the two.  The Zencori also expanded the hierarchy of the tribe, and made certain that accountability would be able to be traced to the individual that started it.  For a time it worked well.  The dramaticists were unshackled to take the extensive wealth of stories they'd built up and create plays, poems, and songs based on the creativity of the tribe.  The historians were able to parley their authority into prestige, giving factual news.  And the Librarians focused on the overall health of the tribe.

Then the 65th Caesar came to power.  The 65th Caesar is one of the many notorious 'mad Caesars'.  Galdropis was a narcissist that was elected in a time of political instability.  Many of the Caesars worst abuses were so heinous that the historians felt they simply had to be fictional, and so they were never reported.  By contrast, Galdropis's competitors were rigorously scrutinized.  In addition, the dramatists played up the Caesar as a buffoon, foolish and mockable but not dangerous.  However, once made Caesar, Galdropis unleashed the full width and breath of their lust and megalomania on the empire.  Again, the Zencori failed to adequately address his abuses, churning out so much sensationalism that branches of the tribe paralyzed themselves with bickering over facts rather than coherent information.  Thousands were died and hundreds of thousands brutalized by the Caesar before the tribes removed him from his position.  Yet the fallout did not end as historians vied with dramatists over what really happened.

This came to a head in the canon wars.  The dramatists wished to release a major theatrical production that depicted the Caesar as tormented by supernatural forces.  The Historians feared release of this dramatic work would taint the actual history of events which they were still recording.  Worse, many 'obviously fictional' depravities were actually factually worse than what was shown.  This made many historians fearful that it would open the door for another, even worse Caesar to take power.  The historians gathered in a mob and marched on the village where the production was being staged and actually laid siege to the village.  A trebuchet was set up and boxes of historical books and official complaints were lobbed into the village as a symbolic protest.  One dramatist elder was crushed in this 'display.'

The Librarians did manage to quell the canon wars, but they'd flare up in times where either historians were tempted to employ dramatic embellishment or when dramatists were writing stories contemporaneously.  This was complicated by competing media controlled by other tribes that disliked the many 'interpretations' done by the Zencori.  Many of the stereotypes of each tribe was reinforced by Zencori tales and reports.  In the war for more attention, many tribes turned to sensationalism to try to draw 'fair and balanced' coverage.  The zencori became increasingly used comparatively to these other outlets, and the zencori became gatekeepers, editors, and critics.

During the second empire, history and stories flourished, inspite of the internal 'spats' that few outside the tribe understood the seriousness of.  The Zencori presented a unified front to other tribes who rarely understood the fundamental divide.  Only seven of the one hundred and sixty eight ceasars have been from the Zencori due to these internal pressures.  The Zencori thus tend to try to act more like kingmakers, creating blocks to get sympathetic caesars elected.  More than seventy percent of all Caesars elected were elected with the Zencori vote, and the Zencori were not shy about parlaying this reputation.

The Zencori also practiced censorship, despite all protestations to the contrary.  Historians and dramatists alike came to favor certain narratives over others, and rarely changed their positions even when contravening evidence presented itself.  Though the Librarians often tried to maintain fidelity, the internal politics and external favor marketing ensured 'the right kind' of story would always be favored.

Thus it was ironic that when the last caesar was being elected, the Zencori fielded their own candidate to protest various crackdowns in artistic expression by an Equestrian friendly government.  The plot, as usual, would be to run and then throw behind whichever candidate promised them the most.  However, a curious thing occured: no candidate solicitated the Zencori block.  The Romani block was certain the other blocks would break first.  The Atoli block, felt that the Zencori block would split with the Zencori and Sahaani joining them.  The Achu block refused to on principle.  Thus the vote came up split 3,3,3,3 with the Starkatteri casting the deciding vote.  Instead of refusing it and going to another round of negotiation, the Roamani candidate accepted their vote and became Caesar.

To say the Zencori were salty about the outcome would be an understatement.  The new Caesar had no obligations to show the tribe any favoritism, and thus the elders of the tribe sought a campaign of 'hard truths' criticizing the last Caesar, questioning his fitness and playing up his Starkatteri openness.  The censor even dug up 'proof' that the Caesar's ancestors were favored by the Starkatteri back in the ancient times.  Thus, when the Atoli acted to embarass the Emperor, the Zencori did all they could to make the humiliation sting deeper than ever, running headlines about electing Celestia as the next Caesar.

This harassment changed notably once war actually started.  Sedition laws made criticizing the empire difficult, and so they tried to do it through satire and embarrassing, mocking plays.  However the populace at large tended not to like these mockeries and the tribe's fortunes suffered.  By the time of Luna's ascendancy, the Zencori had concluded they needed to change their tune and support the Caesar.  While the tribe maintains the Caesar forced censorship, the reality was that the elders were all too willing to share news that supported imperial propaganda and promote dramas that played up the worst Equestrian stereotypes.

However, never did the Zencori believe a day of doom was possible.  The tribe always assumed that some kind of resolution would end the escalation.  Questioning the war and the Caesar was unthinkable, breaking the narrative that the Zencori maintained that the conflict was turning a corner, that any moment the Equestrians would give in, that it just took a little more sacrifice.  Meanwhile, stories about the ecological damage, the Eskashiks being rounded up and disappearing, the spiritual havoc, were canned.  Even as younger Zencori voices objected and other tribes openly questioned peace, the Zencori were the voice of the Empire and always, always told the Truth.  The truest Truth.

When Roam was hit by a megaspell, the word spread like wildfire.  Multiple tribes called for immediate end to hostilities.  Others demanded balefire retaliation.  The Zencori did neither.  At the point communication was needed most, the elders froze, choking, saying as little as possible and asking none of the hard questions.  Worse, they refused to confirm the attack had even happened, which convinced many equestrians that the attack on the capitol was a fabrication.  Balefire missiles flew and bombs detonated while the continent was scoured by megaspells.  Only one Zencori paper in sanctuary printed anything that day.  'Victory.'

The day of doom all but killed the Zencori.  Lexica, the Zencori's greatest library, was almost washed away by a water megaspell.  Print all but stopped.  Broadcasters went silent save for a few survivors.  Only a few dozen grim historians continued to document the fall into anarchy, the rise of legions, the failure to elect a new Caesar, and the damage of the megaspells.  A few dramatists focused on the classical plays, or the practice of embodying heroes to try and keep some semblance of order.  Librarians saved as many books as they could.

In spite of all this, the Zencori rebounded better than many other tribes.  Lexica was restored to a ghost of itself, the tribe maintained oral stories and even some legitimate history.  More over, they relied more heavily on other tribes.  While the Censor still refused to admit the war was wrong, they at least admitted that maybe it hadn't been good.  the network of hierarchy helped maintain some order and communication, and though little new stories were recorded, older ones weren't lost.  After two centuries, the tribe was one of the few going through the motions of being its traditional roots: seeking news and stories and spreading them around whenever they could.

Zencori as a tribe were assimilists.  When in a Propoli city, they took on Propoli habits and norms.  When they travelled to Equestria or other lands, they tried their best to fit in wherever they lived and observed.  Thus the tribe itself has very little distinct culture that is its own.  Zencori was more a job and outlook than a cultural identity.  One didn't have to be born into it to act or be Zencori.  As a result, the tribe itself lacks much of the architecture and cultural aspects as others.  The most blatant Zencori cultural trait was to align ones self with the historians, the dramatists, to the librarians.  While one could study history or write stories, never would one do both.

And yes, Zecora was a Zencori historian, studying Equestria and Equestrians.