Alchemical Empire
is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction by NotActuallyThings (known here as Communist Beans).
It begins after the events of Season 3's finale with Celestia remembering someone or several someones they lost a long time ago, while Twilight goes on about golems and a strange airship makes its way for Equestria.
Alchemical Empire contains examples of:
- Artificial Human: Golems are essentially this; they are created artificially, but have free will... it's just that standard golem ponies are docile and generally willing to follow orders. Equinculi are psychologically more like normal beings.
- Empty Eyes: Golems have this, at least in a sense: they have colored irises, but no pupil. Besides not having an actual coat, this is one of the most visible signs that a pony is a golem. Empress Aleph, on the other hand, has Dull Eyes of Unhappiness with flat black pupils. Why this is has not yet been explained.
- Golem: Introduces and explores the concept in the FIM universe, with two varieties: regular golems and more advanced versions called Equinculi.
- My Greatest Failure: Celestia regards the Nightmare Moon incident as this, but an earlier incident involving golems (strongly implied to be around the time of Discord's first defeat) seems to come a close second.
- The Quiet One: Could be said to be the hat of standard golems; it's not so much that they rarely speak as it is their having extremely muted emotions. Equinculi have fairly normal emotional ranges, but somehow seem a little off.
