• Member Since 10th Aug, 2011
  • offline last seen March 20th

Daetrin


More Blog Posts156

  • 26 weeks
    Apotheverse now available in print!

    Hello everyone! I'd like to announce that thanks to the hard work of RBDash47, my works are now available in print over at Ponyfeather Publishing.

    Read More

    5 comments · 307 views
  • 279 weeks
    Cartography art!

    A cover-type image, by Ruirik.

    I may be replacing the current title image with this one in the near future!

    3 comments · 644 views
  • 293 weeks
    Drabble

    Pegasi had a belief. It gave way to tradition, then superstition, and finally to aphorism, but it grain of truth in it persists. That you can tell all you need about someone by the sound of their wings.

    Read More

    3 comments · 805 views
  • 296 weeks
    Why is there no Changeling story called...

    "All Love Is Unrequited?"

    Anyway, it's been a while since I made a blog post for...various life reasons. This is mostly to check in and prove that I am not actually dead. Also that I have written some 25k words of original sci-fi in a month. I am hoping I can keep this up! And give you all a story with jovial insect aliens, sassy AIs, and a mystery.

    12 comments · 606 views
  • 329 weeks
    Christmas Kree!? (Gift art)

    Ruirik did a lovely and adorable Christmasy Kree for no adequately explored reason and it's incredibly awesome!

    0 comments · 531 views
Sep
23rd
2014

On Artifacts · 5:18pm Sep 23rd, 2014

I'll be honest, I don't much like 'em. Kind of a silly thing to say when the first three seasons of MLP had the Elements of Harmony hanging around in the background, but it's still true. Now, this more applies in specific than in general. A single Item Of Power can be a useful narrative tool, and in fact often is. It's usually a MacGuffin but they have a long and noble history. But when you start introducing many of them, that's when I have issues.

First of all, the more objects of power you have the more you're taking away from your characters. You're offloading their agency onto inanimate objects, their value onto something that exists independent of a person's drive and interests. What makes a person special should be their personhood, not that they happen to possess an Infinity Gem. Not that you can't actually write something where that's true, it's just as you introduce more and more it gets harder and harder.

The other thing is that the more objects of power you put into the setting, the closer it slides to Lovecraft. When you have many, many objects and items that are incredibly powerful, you're starting to build a world where there are far too many threats for it to be at all stable. Now, I like Ask The Night Guards as much as the next guy, but that's exactly the kind of world that bothers me. Even played for comedy, you're edging into territory where ordinary people are no more than victims.

Again, it works with a single instance, because that's a story where the issues are resolved. But as you construct a universe where there's this constant low-level background horror of innumerable instances of artifacts of doom, you're making a place where things can never be resolved.

Report Daetrin · 632 views ·
Comments ( 20 )

The SCP universe would be a good example of this. It's basically a world filled with artifacts and cosmic horrors, with a organization backed by various governments scrambling to contain or destroy them.

Does it work the same way with the magic ponies possess? A simple everyday thing that everyone has, which has an unlimited amount of potential. Couldn't magic itself be classified as an artifact? In which case, even without having things like the Elements of Harmony or the Alicorn Amulet, the world could never be resolved. I feel like it's kinda moot.

what about less powerful artifacts? There could be tons of little charms strewn throughout the world with minor abilities. a ring that makes you tire less quickly, a cloak that causes those around you to simply view you as less significant to their lives, or, in cases where you're directly taking from D&D, a belt that confers the strength of a giant? None of these are remarkably dangerous in their own right, and all could count as magical artifacts. Considering the number of unicorn wizards there's been throughout equestria's history, there's probably thousands of artifacts from their work and experimentation that, on their own, are only moderately powerful at best.

I totally get where you're coming from, talking about items of obscene levels of power, but somewhere out there may well be an enchanted bell from Starswirl's own hat, the only purpose of which is to keep the hat from getting dirty. that right there would be a minor, uninvasive, yet somewhat interesting magical and historical artifact.

By 'artifacts' are you meaning world-ending MacGuffins of DOOM? I agree that when you have closets full of Infinity Gems, Infinity Gauntlets, Cosmic Cubes, Ultimate Nullifiers, Caskets of Ancient Winters, and so forth, logic is trained beyond breaking as to how the world survived every two-bit villain getting their hooves on these things every week. Now if by 'artifacts' you mean merely powerful magical items, that's another story. The Alicorn Amulet, for instance, didn't seem that OP, especially since we've seen in canon an actual alicorn gunned down by a love-drunk stinkbug. With the AA, though, even if it's too powerful to leave lying about, it can still make for a bevy of good stories if, for example, we see it from the AA's perspective as it tries to find ever-more-worthy hosts. The problem might be less with the presence of artifacts, their power, or their quantity, but with the author's handling of them.

What makes a person special should be their personhood, not that they happen to possess an Infinity Gem.

Again, it may depend on the author's treatment in-story: done competently, we can see the user's personhood and specialness demonstrated in how and why they use (or avoid using) the artifact. Thanos with the Mind Gem would be very different from Reed Richards with the Mind Gem, would be very different from a random H.Y.D.R.A. mook. As you said, it's not impossible to write, it's just more difficult when the author expands them beyond reason.

2477366 Ask The Night Guard is quite literally a ponification of the SCP universe

2477369 Magic can be a bit muddled, but in this case I think it's no different than someone who can play baseball really well or (in fantasy) someone really good with wielding a sword. An intrinsic skill, whether inborn or practiced, is something that is part of the character.


2477379 D&D +1 swords are mostly offensive from a balance-versus-narrative point of view. Anything that's a common tool is just that. Still, I prefer tools that are force-multipliers rather than granting new abilities. There's a difference between a really amazing compound bow, and a bow that seeks its target.

2477388 The AA is definitely an item I have issue with, since it gave Trixie the ability to do really, really crazy things. It works as a one-off item, sure. But it wasn't limited like the EoH and the Crystal Heart, which both are restricted to positive effects under extreme duress. And as we've seen that kind of power exercised without an artifact, it even makes sense that neither of them actually hold power themselves, merely focus it. I don't like things that are both object and threat simultaneously. It runs too close of Evil Aligned for my tastes.

If a black market vendor had access to something like the alicorn amulet wouldn't it be fair to say that there are other magic goodies around like it?

Even played for comedy, you're edging into territory where ordinary people are no more than victims.

Is... Is that not Equestria? Well, I suppose it depends on whether or not you're dumb enough to go near the dragons, Everfree, or horrible digging eels. Or just happen to be around when Discord, Sombra, or whoever attacks.

Also, this Ask the Night Guard sounds interesting.
2477476
Not necessarily. We don't know that guy's story. For all we know he's an evil spirit in disguise or runs some kind of cursed shop that attracts all the unique horrible things to it (did he also sell Spike those comics?).

2477434
I can imagine a world where every time a too-powerful artifact like the AA was used, it was very noticeable. That would bring the Princesses rushing in to confiscate or destroy it, so that even if there were once a hoard of such items (even positive ones), they've dwindled in number because the Princesses hold a worldview like yours: items like AA are bad in part because they take away ponies' sense of stability and agency in the world.

One thing about the AA, though: it never let Trixie do things that were impossible altogether, just things that were beyond her normal level of ability. Twilight says the age spell could be cast by a "high-level unicorn", and Shining Armor could cast a shield far larger than Trixie with the AA could. it might be "evil aligned" but it may instead be like Tolkein's Ring: it's not evil per se but magnifies the user's inclinations and temptations, so much so that even Galadriel said the Ring would make her "great and terrible" despite (or because of) her good intentions.

2477498

It's that mysterious curio shop that isn't there when you go back to visit it again. He drops in from the Discworld periodically, and the guard is trying to catch him so he can be issued the proper license and have his stock investigated for Class-Z artifacts.

Unfortunately, he's never there for the follow-up visit.

I have nothing against Artifacts, so long as the writer realizes their implications.

A well-realized Artifact does not stand alone. Someone by definition MADE IT (that's what the word "artifact" means -- a made object). That means that someone came from a culture which was capable of making such things. And somehow this thing showed up in present-day Equestria, which apparently cannot make such things.

So, somewhere out there is or was a culture magically or technologically (I find the difference between "magic" and "technology" mainly a matter of perspective) more advanced than is modern Equestria. What was that culture like? When or where did it or does it exist? Can that culture interact with Equestria in some way other than by this specific artifact? Does it pose dangers? Opportunities? Will they be enemies? Friends? How might the capabilities of this artifact change society?

These are all questions that anypony intelligent and curious -- say, somepony like Twilight Sparkle -- would be asking when she discovered the existence of this artifact. And these are questions that the writer should be able to answer.

Sadly, usually the point of the artifact is either a MacGuffin -- something that the characters pursue but whose capabilities are never realized; or it is a one-shot story device ("The Mane Six stumble into a mysterious stone circle that has them speaking Serbian! How will they reverse the curse? And what happens when a Bosnian death squad joins the party?") whose origins and implications are never explored.

The show itself is guilty of this -- remember the Mirror Pool? Someone in the past made a pool that (somehow) creates instant duplicates of a person, animated by something that is clearly not a complete soul, and it was used solely to tell a story about how Pinkie Pie is deeper than she seems. Which is a sentiment with which I agree -- I view the little pink party pony as a tough, determined and seriously-caring heroine -- but there was a distinct lack of curiosity in-episode about how the damned Pool worked or who made it.

As for the Lovecraftian implications -- well, my Shadow Wars is about an Equestria which is going to have to win a Lensman Arms Race, and fairly fast (within two and a half decades) taking it from a mid Industrial Age society to a culture which can field interplanetary battle fleets. Just read the description:

The machinations of the Cosmic Concepts have shaped the history of the Ponies for ten thousand years. But now their mistakes have cracked the Cosmos, and the Shadows seep through to claim our own Universe for their dark and predatory purposes. If they can gain a bridgehead on Equestria's Earth, this will be but the first step in a war of extermination against our continuum, a war which will end in the destruction of all life in our own Universe.

Can Celestia lead the defense of the Earth and save, not only her little Ponies, but all Earthlife, from utter annihilation? Can Luna be redeemed from the Shadows and return to her former greatness? Will Discord prove a powerful ally, or betray them all to damnation? Can a new generation of powerful beings aid them enough to bring victory? Or will the Earth die, drained of its vitality by the sinister Shadows?

So yeah, it's Lovecraftian. If Lumley-Lovecraftian.
.

2477533 That's another thing. Why on earth do ancient, ancient civilizations have somehow more advanced technology than the modern age?

I'm guilty of doing that once, with the Sirrush civilization. Of course, it may not be that the silver ships are beyond the capabilities of Equestria, just beyond their interests. Also, the Sirrush did their mucking about with stuff prior to most gods...gods that change the literal physics of the world. I'm sure Twilight could make sense of it.

2477559

In the Shadow Wars universe there are specific reasons for ancient artifacts -- the Ponies were created from ancestral equine stock by two Precursor races in succession -- the G'marr gave them sapience and the Eldren split them into the Five Kinds. Then, Pony civilization rose and fell several times, most notably to the heights of the Age of Wonders four thousand years ago. I did this in part because I wanted an archaeologically "deep" world in which I could introduce artifacts or lost lore and have a place for it in my continuity.

Artifacts? Why no. No. None. Well. Hardly any. Oh, little things. You know. Curios. Mementos. That sort of thing. Oh, the government has none of them, naturally. No point. Wa—warehouse? Uh. Um. What warehouse? Oh that warehouse. No, that's for, uh, office supplies. Yeah. You can never have too many. Guarded? Well, no. Not particularly. Oh those are just military drills. Yeah. Well, of course the were here last year. The army needs a lot of drilling.

:pinkiehappy:

More seriously, you can have more artifacts if you have explanations for (a) where they came from (b) why aren't they used all the time and/or replicated if they are so awesome (c) how come they haven't eaten the world. Point (a) is a perfect place for worldbuilding[1], point (b) requires you to dial down the awesome and introduce Awful Consequences™, and point (c) is soluble by hinting—or more than hinting—that there is an organization somewhere, possibly with a large warehouse, that has top ponies working on the problem of things like the Alicorn Amulet.

[1] The Alicorn Amulet? Work of an alchemist in the Classical era whose name is lost due to a sentence of damnatio memoriae passed at the time. In a period between the ascension and the apotheosis of the two sisters, he or she became obsessed with ascension and the promise of immortality. Working on incomplete notes written second-hoof about Starswirl, they came to the conclusion that it was a matter of magical power plain and simple and that they simply needed more. To this end, they undertook to remove magical power from members of all three tribes by crude extraction of thaumoosteocytes. These—obtained at the cost of the subject's life—would be embedded in an amulet meant to mimic the ascension process. The alchemist produced sixteen trial versions of the amulet, but before the masterwork could be completed they were seized by the authorities of the Equestrian Empire and executed. The whereabouts of fourteen amulets are now known, and all but one have been destroyed by the Equestrian Office of Antiquities. The alchemist's notes have never been recovered, and are presumed to be lost.

See? It writes itself.

2477605 Sadly, most of the fiction I see is people seduced by the lure of the Cool Thing, without thought given to how it affects everything else.

2477676
That's a common failing that goes beyond artifacts, actually. It's why so many invented worlds have bits that don't join up properly at all, or shouldn't work in the way the author insists that they do. Dystopias, especially, seem to be prone to this where they balance on the kinfe's edge of awful without ever collapsing into chaos and ruin as they ought within the first five minutes.

In fact, wanting your Cool Stuff without paying for it can be seen as the root cause of the Mary Sue as a phenomenon. It's not about power level so much as it is about wanting a cool character without paying for it. Without explaining how the character came to be that way—in implication, if not in fact—why they don't fix all the problems since they are so awesome, and why there aren't more like them running everything.

2477739 I would do a blog post on how to have your Cool Stuff Cake and eat it too, but really the only insight I have is: Everything is subordinate to the narrative except the characters, who are symbiotic with it.

MLP seems to use what I call "lazy" world building: they only create as much of the world as needed to show in the current plot, leaving the rest open. You can see this by the almost complete lack of foreshadowing; apart from whatever is used in the big plot of the season, there is almost nothing foreshadowed.

Though at least they seem to (mostly) respect what has been already laid down.

2477434
I wouldn't tag the EoH as restricted to positive effects under duress. They were used to shuffle cutie marks around (and restore them), to turn a being to stone and back (and summon him in the middle of his bath), to banish another being to the moon and later remove the negative influence from her, and... whatever it was it did in EQG — which apparently includes turning a pony-turned-human, and two humans, into a demon, as well as mindcontrolling a large number of kids — if you choose to consider that part of the canon.

The EoH seemed like a generic magic amplifier that could do a few impressive effects on its own, and trying to understand why they weren't used more was stretching believability.

I was quite happy to see them go. Heck, I guess the writers were too; they had to create an excuse for the elements not being used in the season 2 ending, and purposefully ignored them in the season 3 opening (I guess they thought not mentioning them would create a smaller plot hole than the one the elements could make burning through the story).

2477605
For (c), you mean like Zecora? She is the new guardian of the Alicorn Amulet, and currently might be the de-facto guardian of the Tree of Harmony, including the elements inside, due to more or less having it in her backyard :trollestia:

Hum, Zebras in Black. The color scheme is already right :scootangel:

2477765
This reminds me of D&D. Everything cool typically had a full story, including answers to why the cool stuff wasn't duplicated or used more, and how come the NPCs didn't get to turn the world into a blob of primal goo with it yet (even if, in some cases, the answer was basically that the gods would curbstomp whoever abused the power). I guess the need for rules — and for making them sturdy enough to withstand power-hungry players bent of wolfing down every scrap of power they could get — forced the writers into balancing their artifacts better.

I guess the best way to prevent those issues with the artifacts is to focus on the downsides. What if it's misused? If the enemy has it? Can it fail? Did it fail previously (having a big crater named after your cool artifact where once stood a bustling city is a very good deterrent)? Give as much importance, or more importance, to finding why the characters don't want to use the artifact as to finding why they want to use it; after all, finding reasons to use the McGuffin is the easy part.

For the Elements of Harmony, for example, one way that was hinted at, but unfortunately not used, is their tie with the Tree of Harmony's health, and how the Tree of Harmony regulates the Everfree Forest. If that connection was explored in the plot — Perhaps even making the forest growing around the old castle the result of how much energy was spent banishing Nightmare Moon to the moon — suddenly you would have a very big incentive to not use the Elements except for real emergencies.

2478100
The difference 'twixt you and I
in white and black, as we should
is that while for 'cool' you might try
'tis surely I who make this look good.

(with apologies to Men in Black)

Your reasons that a world full of artifacts is difficult for the writer are the same reasons a world full of super-powered villains and alicorns is difficult for the writer. :trollestia:

2478375 I agree absolutely, which is why I gave my super powerfuls very, very strict limits. Sequestered them off into their own place. Of course the difference between an artifact and an alicorn is that an alicorn can choose, whereas an artifact cannot. The difference between actor and object is immense, IMO.

Login or register to comment