On the History of Equestria · 4:47am Dec 23rd, 2013
Whew.
So I've been busy. Between autumn finals at university, picking up a new editing project, keeping up with the project I already have, reading a couple of lovely books, writing the skeleton to a TV Tropes page, recovering from surgery, and the impending holidays, I feel like I've barely even had time to breathe these last couple weeks. It's been good, though. I've felt pretty productive. Now it's time, however, to continue down the blog path and discuss my opinions on Equestria's history.
Though I'll be using as much canon as I can to back up my claims, there just isn't enough information to connect all the dots on this subject. As such, prepare for some more headcanon.
To my knowledge (as of e406), there are only four major historical events that we're aware of: the exodus from the Old Kingdoms, the defeat of Discord by Luna and Celestia, the defeat of Sombra and the sealing of the Crystal Empire, and the defeat of Nightmare Moon. As with the chronology of the episodes, there's a certain chronology to these four events. The exodus has to happen first, though how long ago is up for debate. The defeat of Discord at the hooves of Celestia and Luna is most likely to come second, as the Royal Sisters discovered the Elements of Harmony in their quest to stop Discord's reign of chaos. Once again, though, when exactly this happened is largely up for debate. The other two events—Sombre’s and Nightmare Moon’s defeat—happened approximately a thousand years ago. In the case of Nightmare Moon, we know (or can be reasonably certain) that it took place one thousand years before the return of Nightmare Moon, based on the legend Twilight recites very near the beginning of the first episode.
Mare, mare... aha! The Mare in the Moon, myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal!
Now it’s possible that this legend could be slightly off base, but it’s unlikely that Equestria would misplace the millennial celebration of the defeat of Nightmare Moon, which is what the Summer Sun Celebration was originally founded for, as we learned in e401/402, The Tree of Harmony. The problem here is that the defeat of Sombre also happened quote unquote "a thousand years ago," involved Luna in some respect, and the return of the Crystal Empire happens after the return of Nightmare Moon—likely more than a year later—but the exact timing of the return of the Crystal Empire is vague compared the return of Nightmare Moon. There’s no legend based around the Crystal Empire. It wasn't even expected to return, at least not on any definitive date.
So here’s the first of my assumptions—when Celestia says that the Crystal Empire disappeared “a thousand years ago,” she means more than a thousand years ago. It happens a lot in colloquial speech. When someone means eight days ago, they’ll often replace that with the nearest unit of measurement—a week ago. Thirty-four days ago? A month ago. Thirteen months ago? A year ago. I know Celestia doesn’t say “a millenia ago,” but the logic carries on. People round, especially to divisibles of ten. I think the most likely explanation is that the defeat of Sombre triggered Luna’s turning to Nightmare Moon. He did seem to have quite a few dark magics at his disposal. Magics that would twist and warp one’s perceptions, potentially exposing Luna to the control of Nightmare. As to why the Crystal Empire returned so shortly after Luna did? Magic is as magic does.
So we have three events if we assume the fall of the Crystal Empire and the defeat of Nightmare Moon happened sequentially and in close proximity. The exodus happened first in order to put ponies in Equestria and near the Everfree Forest and the Tree of Harmony. The defeat of Discord happened next with the help of the Elements. Finally, the Elements fail and Luna turns to the Nightmare. The question now is how long passed between these events, and this is where my headcanon starts to take root.
I’m going to call the defeat of Discord year one of some new, common era. It’s unclear how long Discord’s reign of chaos lasted, but considering he could wrest control of the sun, the moon, the seasons, even the basic laws of physics and magic with a snap of his claw, if it was any more than a couple of months, it would be easier for Celestia and Luna to simply “reset” things, rather than try to resync them. I suspect that it was several months, or longer, given the fact that Celestia and Luna were seeking the Elements of Harmony during Discord’s reign. They didn’t have them ready beforehand, and I’m sure Discord did what came naturally to him and stood in their way at every possible impasse. After a while, it would be difficult to tell if it had been days, months, or even years. It’s easier to start from scratch, and the defeat of Discord saw the rise of the Sisters as leaders of Equestria. The dawn of a new age, if you will.
What makes me think that? Because they built a castle over the site of the Tree of Harmony. It’s possible that the Sisters ruled Equestria prior to Discord’s reign, but that’s a moot point. Still, I suspect the Sister’s came to political power in Equestria upon defeating Discord, or at least greater political power, and constructed their castle to represent their reign of order over the site of the Tree of Harmony, the source of their victory. It doesn’t make sense to me that the castle would be present before Discord’s defeat and the discovery of the Tree of Harmony. Otherwise, Luna and Celestia wouldn’t have been looking for the Tree in the first place.
Now, this is probably the single most arbitrary point of this post, but I have to bridge the gap between the defeat of Discord and the defeat of Nightmare Moon somehow. That gap can be filled with the construction of the castle (which I would wager takes somewhere between ten and fifteen years, leaning toward fifteen what with Celestia’s propensity for mechanical devices, as evident in e403, Castle-mania), communicating with the Crystal Empire in their plea for help against Sombre, defeating him, and finally Luna’s transformation into Nightmare Moon. That’s not to mention their standard day-to-day and night-to-night affairs, seeing their kingdom through. Here’s the arbitrary part—it really doesn’t matter how much time passed here, so I threw a metaphorical dart at a board and picked twenty-two years. This makes Luna’s banishment occur in the twenty-third year of the common era, and in turn makes the start of the Friendship is Magic series the thousandth and twenty-third year of the common era. That’s 1023 CE, for you numeral types. To continue turning, that makes the season four premier (based on the suppositions I made in my previous blog posts) June 31st, 1025 CE.
What about the exodus? Well, that doesn’t really matter, either. It could have been thirty years or three hundred years before the coming of Discord, and it really wouldn’t make a difference. I’m of the opinion that the exact date is largely lost, as are a lot of historical records from before the reign of Discord. He was Equestria’s Dark Ages, where nothing made sense, magic barely worked, and the sun and the moon ran wild. After he was defeated, a new era began as ponies picked up the pieces.
World leaders can do that sort of thing, I’ve heard.
I like this! I have a very similar idea about the history of Equestria.
(Also, you already know some of my ideas about the Exodus).