My Little Parasite: Friendship is Symbiotic · 11:56pm May 10th, 2014
Now, the conclusion of this episode was a bit weak - Twilight's problem of lacking direction in life was miraculously resolved by her realizing her destiny was to spread the Magic of Friendship (TM).
But where did this come from? It didn't really come from the episode. Sure, the episode showed the value of friends, and it is true that they got their keys by showing others important lessons about harmony... but... why did she decide that her job is to spread friendship? Indeed, how does one go about doing that? It is pretty arbitrary.
Or is it? The Elements of Harmony and the Tree of Harmony are terrifically powerful, and those who accept its power, and feed power back into it (in the form of the keys), are rewarded. Its power is even greater than that of everyone else in Equestria combined. But where does that power come from?
Equestria is a very nice place. And that tree is smack dab in the middle of it. Perhaps it absorbs harmony from the land around it.
Now, natural selection would favor something which was self-sustaining, and indeed, as we see from humans, altering your own environment to better suit yourself and your own needs is very powerful.
But how could a tree do that?
Well, what if those who accept its power and use it are compelled to be friendlier and make the world a nicer and more harmonious place?
This is hardly unknown in the real world. Numerous parasites have influence over the behavior of their hosts; Cordyceps actually compels ants to climb stalks of grass before dying in order to spread its spores more widely, and Toxoplasmosis removes the fear of cat urine from rats, encouraging them to get eaten by cats (and also encouraging humans who contract the disease to like cats - useless to the parasite, but an odd side effect, and certainly good for the cats, which are its primary host).
Perhaps the elements mess with the minds of those who have been "infected" with harmony. They've used it, they benefit from it, and they spread it, thus giving the Tree of Harmony more to feed on. It need not be sinister; the organisms in this case appear to have a symbiotic relationship with it. The ponies, after all, are nice folk, and seem to live around where the tree lives; not too close, but close enough. And the tree protects them, its food source, giving back to them even as they give back to it. And indeed, being harmonious (and having the firepower to back it up) is a very positive character trait for a population to have, and being punished by losing the power harmony grants you if you fail to be harmonious is a pretty strong selective power for altruism. Look at the dragons and chimera; they lack harmony, and as such must live alone, and can be driven out of their homes by ponies.
A crackpot theory? Perhaps. But it is worth noting that the Tree of Harmony is not the only thing of its type we've seen. The Crystal Heart of the Crystal Empire is much the same; it provides an area around the city which is vastly nicer than the climate around it, allowing a pretty, crystalline city full of grass and beautiful spires to exist in an arctic wasteland. It would have been hard for crystal ponies to leave, before the railroads existed, and because it is such a nice place, why would they want to? But by being there, and feeding the Crystal Heart energy, they sustain it as well. They see themselves as using the Crystal Heart for their own ends... but perhaps the Crystal Heart is using them, just as the Tree of Harmony is using Equestria.
Clearly, the show was misnamed.
Apparently I was not following you!
Anyway, I still find this idea extremely creepy.
This idea reminds me of Eakin's You Can Fight Fate, even if the concept isn't quite the same. I hope someone crafts a story around this.
I, for one, welcome our new inanimate overlords
Weirdly plausible.
How would the Elements of Harmony fit in with this?
2099001
There's a few possibilities there.
They may simply be a part of the Tree of Harmony. Many types of fruit exist for the purpose of being eaten by animals so that they would spread its seeds; perhaps they are akin to that. Given it was dying without them, though, perhaps they are more alien, simply another way for the Tree of Harmony to exert its influence - they can be removed for some time, but must be returned periodically for recharging.
Or perhaps, they were designed long ago by someone who wanted to promote harmony in the land. Maybe they did it on purpose, after the whole incident with the monsters which fed on discord and disharmony.
Or maybe it was an experiment that someone was working on, trying to create crystalized or living Harmony. And once they made it, they kept making more. It wasn't malicious; if anything, it was making them a better pony. It wasn't a gigantic shove. It was just a little push in the right direction. Maybe just a nudge. What's wrong with a nudge towards Harmony? It was silly not to think about upscaling it. Pushing it further. Making it more.
It isn't warping their thoughts or anything;they're happier since they started doing it. They're friendlier, and everyone seems to like them more, and treat them more charitably. Making the world a little better, that's not bad, right?Its not like this project could really mess with people's behavior in subtle ways; it is just thatthe research they're doing into Harmony is making them more personable, and they're coming to see more of the goodness in others. Clearly, it was inside all along. The elements? The tree? They just help keep us safeand guide us.Of course, they could also be a very efficient means of seeding the world or galaxy with races which will behave altruistically in the future. Send out a bunch of strange, self-sustaining things - symbiotes/parasites - to various planets. Those who behave in accord with the principles of harmony are rewarded with power; those who do not will fall victim to those who do, and any who seek to exploit the power of harmony for their own ends instead falls under its sway. Over time, "natural" selection will select for the most altruistic, harmonious individuals, and by the time they bloom into fully developed advanced races, they will be nice, well-behaved civilizations which are all about being nice to each other. Could be easier to take advantage of... or it could just be safer that way, making sure none of those upstart civilizations are evil or try to overthrow the existing order.
Or it could be an alien or godly experiment. See what happens if you actually make it so that altruism is actually, actively rewarded and look at what sort of civilization or civilizations develop as a result.
2099001
2098588
Someone on Ponychan actually figured this out. I'm paraphrasing here.
The Elements of Harmony are flowers; they attract pollenators (the bearers) who take them out into the world and collect pollen (harmony) as they go around. When they return to the tree with the elements (the flowers), they fertilize the tree, and the tree produces a seed (the box). The box, when given enough fertilizer (the keys), then launches itself from its parent and embeds itself into the ground a good distance away, where it sprouts up into another tree (Twilight's new castle) and encourages the bearers to spend more time in it (giving it further fertilizer).
The Tree of Harmony is right underneath the Castle of the Two Pony Sisters. Twilight's tree house is another place where the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony are meant to reside, and the new tree actually changes itself to better accommodate those who will bring it more fertilizer (harmony), manipulating their behavior for its own ends.
This is all totally canon.
2100048 New head-canon accepted!
Challenge: Now explain alicorns.
Symbiosis is not parasitism.
And there's a problem there. The Tree of Harmony isn't in the middle of Equestria, it's the middle of the Everfree Forest, the most inclement place in Equestria. You can't compare the Tree to the Crystal Heart; for one thing, the Crystal Heart is not surrounded by inclemency, and another, the Crystal "Empire" is depicted more like a city, while Equestria is a massive country.
^^^
Parasitism is a subtype of symbiosis. [The others are commensalism and mutualism.]
you've got a typo in your title there: symbiotic.
4848463
Hi! Going through my old blog entries?
Thanks for the typo correction. I even spelled it right in the tags...
4848465
I think I got here from a Bad Horse? blog on fantasy=deontology and how the S4 finale really did mean friendship is magic. It's a little fuzzy, hyperlink tab explosion happened.
4848494
Ah, fair enough! Bad Horse blogs are a good way to find interesting things on FIMFiction.