Writer's workshop: a ramble on some of the implications of Equestrian weather control · 1:23pm Nov 14th, 2014
A couple of weeks ago,I went to an outdoor craft fair -- on a pretty bad day for doing just that. Clear, moderately temperate, and wind gusts which probably didn't go over 50mph. Most of the paying vendors were represented by empty spaces, while those who'd actually taken the risk had tied their merchandise down, blocked off the wind in any way they could (which generally just led to more things catching the wind), and occasionally chasing things across the field. Which included their tents. There's nothing quite like seeing a very large roof flying over your head, unless it's getting out of the way before it finishes coming back down again. And any number of advance-scheduled outside events are going to deal with this sort of thing --
-- except in Equestria.
Look at the town square market in Ponyville. That market has never been rained out. Tents are for decoration and privacy, awnings because some things look better in the shade, and neither is ever anchored against the wind because there isn't going to be anything more than a pleasant breeze. If your local version of the Weather Bureau is even remotely competent, any day with a scheduled outdoor event will either be clear and pleasant or have a safe zone designated around the event itself. It can be pouring all over the settled zone, but the regional fair and closing parade? Sunny and dry.
Do your local sports have rainout rules? Weather conditions under which games are suspended, cancelled, or postponed? Equestrian sports don't, because there's no need. Human athletes have to handle performing in all sorts of inclement conditions (unless they're Dome Warriors): ponies don't. They play in perfect conditions. Every time.
(This can get a little bit fun when you take it outside the borders. If a foreign country has a significant pony population, it's almost guaranteed that at some point, an expatriate fan attending a game said "We're getting clobbered. Time to wipe this off the map," and headed for the suddenly-darkening clouds. Perfectly legal until they passed a rule against it the next day...)
Now, we know that the show's version of the Weather Bureau messes up the schedule on occasion: miss a drizzle, make it up with a downpour. And with me, it's possible for a natural storm to blow in from the Everfree and not be completely defused in time. But for those who stay in the settled zones -- especially the major cities -- it's almost an absolute truth that there is no such thing as a weather forecast. It's a calendar. You're going to get these conditions on that day, period. It's not a welcome event to get snow on Hearth's Warming Eve: it's tradition. You can always plan your activities, wardrobe (for those who use such), and events in complete certainty that the sky will cooperate. The only pony areas which have to contend with the uncertainly of natural weather events are the new settlements like Appleloosa, which doesn't have a local pegasus in sight. This may be part of why new settlers have to be a little hardier than the average pony, because the typical citizen of Equestria deals with wind gusts by appointment. Does that make most ponies soft? Maybe not... but when it suddenly rains just because rain happens, a number will be shook up. After a lifetime of weather by committee, it can be easy to see why a pony venturing beyond the borders would see the real stuff as unnatural.
Virtually no pony has any idea what a four-foot snowdrift looks like. Heatstroke is on a level with smallpox: both virtually extinct and if a case comes up, something's gone majorly wrong. (Considering how horses can overheat...) It's just about the same for frostbite.
Let's talk about the more minor budget aspects. Equestria almost never messes up an order on snow-clearing equipment, under or over. The inevitable damage which natural conditions do to roads and buildings can be moderated. Any small cost your local municipality may face due to meteorology may not even exist. That's going to free up cash for other things, and it adds up quickly. And speaking of money... how much do you spend on bad weather gear? Wouldn't you like to know exactly how much you're going to need there every season? Ponies do. Just about every time.
Now push this further. My version of Equestria barely has agronomy as a science because the farming solution is 'earth pony magic'. What about meteorology? There are likely pegasi who have weather forecasting as their mark talent, and getting a feel for what's naturally coming may be a trick of magic for others. But how many ponies outside the pegasi have any idea of how weather works at all, let alone interest? It's something which is part of the background, minor details somepony else handles. It's like sunrise: you personally have nothing to do with it, but it's going to happen and everything is under control. What percentage of ponies could identify a barometer? Did anypony even bother to invent one? Do farmers know how to deal with low water table conditions? Drought? Excess rainfall? Early freeze? Crop-killing heat wave? If they do, it's only for those who venture out to establish the new, because nopony else has to deal with them at all.
The other nations are more likely to have their ground level in both sciences: they need them. But even then...
At one point for my own view of Equestria, I said that the thrones try to keep the taxes light, relying more on services sold -- including to the other nations. Locally, I don't have enough pegasi to even fully control the weather for the continent: they moderate what's out there and keep it from intruding on the settled zones. But that doesn't mean Equestria doesn't supply weather teams to the other nations -- especially in an emergency.
How much would you pay to make sure your coastal nation never suffered a hurricane? Ever? Tornadoes... those are trickier: they come up more quickly and you won't always reach that area in time. But hurricanes take days to get going. Rent a scout team from Equestria, they check the ocean, look for the telltale signs -- and then take it apart before it reaches any category at all. Compare that cost to the ones associated with rebuilding. Or those which stem from fatalities. Most countries are going to pay without hesitation: most of the rest will fold upon the approach of a second disaster. Purchase services from Equestria and there is no such thing as blizzards, sandstorms, drought... That'll put bits into Equestria's coffers, and lots of them. How many nations are pony-dependent to save themselves from weather problems? How many still remember how to deal with things without them?
Weather control as the show has established it gives the fanfic writer a lot to work with. Most of it is positive. But it also says something about control -- and what happens when it's removed.
My version of the Weather Bureau is a little bit -- self-involved. Egotistical. Out of touch. The central headquarters works under two rules: Nothing Is Ever Our Fault and Did You See Rule One? They make mistakes -- but none are ever admitted, and finding the right fallpony is an art.
I kind of want to have the market suffer a windout. Just once. If only to see how they try to excuse it away...
What can you perceive weather control as doing for and to the societies, pony and other? And where are the downsides?
I can never think of this topic without immediately jumping to Horizon's short "Breaking the News."
How evil do you want the weather bureau to be?
If it was run by humans, I could imagine it being run as a protection racket. They use tornados to move water (evaporation not efficient enough?). Techniques that have to be practiced and controlled. Whose border those techniques get practiced on, and how much damage occours before its stopped could be determined by bribes...
What happens when the princesses find out?
On the other side of the coin, that's a system open to incompetence. Too much of a good thing, and you wind up with the (natural or magical) forces tipping things into enviromental disaster. What happens when that temperate pocket the bureau exists in (you mentioned in Escort Service) can no longer be sustained? What would decades (centuries?) of climate controlled perfection look like when it fails? Who gets fired?
What would the princesses do when they find out?
I also imagine that the other nations could make back some cash offering Equestria disaster relief when the system breaks down. I know that Australia and California trade fire fighters back and forth during our respective brush fire seasons.
And I can just picture a particular trio having a fainting spell at an unexpected stiff breeze. Or a kite regatta grounded due to a lack of wind. Either could signal the end of days to those three...
I think they may know what frostbite is, though.
Baron Engel points out that just because ponies control the weather does not mean all you can expect is pleasant times. Thunderstorms fulfil necessary functions and all that. One thing he points explicitly to "Deep Freeze", which would be a period of incredibly cold weather to ensure things like pond ice reaching a safe thickness and mountain snowpacks remaining viable. Naturally, this is well scheduled before hand (hoof?) and last only about 48 hours, but it's a nice reminder that although sunny days year round sounds nice, it's probably going to have adverse effects quite quickly.
I'm not sure if any natural cycles require super-high heat during the summer or long drought conditions, so those might not appear at all. Occasional extreme weather may be necessary to bleed off excess energy in the system (where do you think those lightning storms and hurricanes are coming from?) but instead of being a disaster, ponies probably just make them into holidays from work.
Risa.
Specifically, an episode in Deep Space Nine.
Okay, context. Risa is the stereotypical vacation planet, beaches, massages, and here come Dax and Worf... only, right now the Federation is at war with the Dominion, and some people think Risa should get off its lazy arse and actually do something MATURE for once, like get a militia or at least make weapons. So they're demonstrating. And eventually, they get their hands on the weather control system.
Cue rain. Cue monsoon. Cue, at the last moment, the protester's leader thinking 'Okey doke we gotta make a point' and trying to trigger a minor earthquake.
So, yeah, weather control as a political statement from a rogue settlement or whatever. "LOWER THE TAXES OR THESE ROADS WILL REMAIN WET!" "THE BUREAU HAS GONE TOO FAR! EAT SNOW!" "DOWN WITH THE NOBILITY! THEY WANT SUNNY DAYS, THEY CAN HAVE A HEAT WAVE!"
I have some fun with weather being used to augment holidays. The first snow is always on the winter solstice (conveniently just a few days before Hearth's Warming, so it has time to accumulate for a proper winter wonderland.) The Summer Sun Celebration is always... well, sunny. Even if the local head of the weather team has to clear the sky ten seconds before the fact.
There are also military considerations. "Never invade Russia in the winter" becomes "Never invade Equestria if there's a cloud in the sky." The same tricks that go into giving a sports team an advantage can make an army utterly miserable.
As for the effects of being accustomed to controlled weather... well, we've seen it in the show. It's unnatural to the point of seeming almost Lovecraftian. That's not to say a sudden cloudburst will have ponies foaming at the mouth and spouting "Iä"s, but it does give me a new sense of respect for the mental fortitude of settlers.
I do think some meteorological developments have been made, either as convenient tools for those with subpar intuition or simply because someone's interested in everything. Weather may be a utility in Equestria, but that doesn't mean that nopony's ever wondered about it. Barometers may be curiosities for the most part, but they probably exist. Anemometers certainly do, and they're not just called "pegasus speedometers," so they're probably used for their usual function.
You've given me a lot to think about. Thank you.
Every EarthPony is Norman Borlaug.
This is why weather control devices are the stuff of world domination schemes.
Except in Equestria, where, well, y'know...
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This is something I never really think about much, except to explain why it isn't working at the moment. I love a major storm as a plot focus, so phrases like "one of the dangers of living next to the Everfree" get used a lot.
I've always liked the idea that Rainbow Dash is a consummate bureaucrat, spends half her shift filling out paperwork for her daily activities and asking her team for TPS reports, sleeps or goofs around most of the other half when she goes out to the field and then does her job at the last possible minute. Ponyville is lucky she's actually very good at it.
The worst part about the parasprite infestation was the 5 15-page forms, filed in triplicate, she had to fill out to justify an unscheduled tornado.
Well, I'm not so good at thinking about topics like this (and I'm even worse at writing about them) but... Reading this makes me wonder if Equestria/other settled-zone countries would be able to handle even a lone pegasus going rogue.
Sure, they'd have their own pegasi to block any weaponized tornados and storms but if they can control the weather then they've probably never done any back-burning and they probably don't take things like sea level or being uphill of a dense, never-control-burned forest when building their towns...
All you'd need is one idiotic/nasty Pegasus with a cloud and a few days of slightly too dry weather/a town built just below sea-level for everything to go to tartarus (especially around the new settlements, where the weather isn't completely stabilized yet).
Would ponies even know how difficult large fires are to put out or how flooding can contaminate the drinking supply..? Also, wouldn't any area not managed by pegasi have horrifically violent weather patterns due to Equestria/other nations destabilizing everything? Has Equestria or any group of pegasi in another nation deliberately taken advantage of this to force other countries into buying their weather controlling services, and do they still do so?
It would help to explain why almost all non-Equestrians seen seem to resent ponies (who they probably see as interchangeable) and why Changelings and Dragons, who have emotion/mineral based diets and strength obsessed societies, are more openly hostile/derisive of ponies, who are 'too wussy to take an unexpected sun-shower but arrogant enough to think we won't mind when they drop a rogue cyclone on our heads'.
Not sure any of that's useful for any ideas spinning around in your head but well, I tried and it was fun~ X3
Huh, that's something I hadn't given much thoughts to before. I imagine that griffon might provide competition on that front, but otherwise, it's a good market for Equestria.
Though, I wonder, what about the fields and all the space in-between cities? Do the pegasi bother with keeping the roads and the rest of the country regulated or is that too much effort for too little reward?
Keep in mind that Gilda could sit on clouds, suggesting that Griffons have some sort of Weather Magic. And I imagine, unlike Equestria, they've developed more hostile uses. Which brings me to the topic of Martial Weather. While I headcanon that Equestria has had no or few wars(if only because no one is stupid enough to risk disrupting the Sun and Moon), but they may have to deal with monsters, and nothing says "Go Home!" quite like a blizzard or tornado to the face, not to mention what the more aggressive Griffons might do with it...
I haven't thought so much about just the weather itself, but it ties in with the whole magical environmental control scheme. Personally I think that this kind of environmental magic isn't unique to ponies. I'm guessing everything, and every living creature in Equestria, has magic of some sort in them, not only ponies. Griffons, and any other intelligent flying creature larger than a breezie, can probably do weather control as well as pegasi. Likewise, presumably earth ponies aren't the only creatures capable of growing food in the entire world.
Somewhere in the timeline for my Star Swirl & Clover stories, the pony nations were stuck in a prolonged period of political instability at a time when the griffons were ascendant. Griffons who wanted to add the pony territories to the Empire argued precisely that it was reckless and irresponsible to leave something so important as control of the sun and moon to the then-impoverished ponies, and that the griffons, in their magnanimous superiority, should take over by force if need be. No, the griffons didn't actually have telekinetic magical powers, but they had diversity, technological ingenuity, and a willingness to learn from their newly-conquered subjects, and were confident they could come up with a way. Thanks to Star Swirl, this theory was never tested out, but I wonder what they would have come up with.
2594485 Estee has sort of covered this.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/142420/1/stupid-directionface/a-meeting-of-the-egos
In Stupid Direction-Face, the weather team basically freezes the town to kill the parasites. Everypony hides out for the day, covered with blankets.
I'm amusing myself with the thought that outside Equestria, the weather is handed by... other agencies.
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I think they might also have a somewhat sophisticated science of meteorology, but they've come at it from quite a different direction: learning not by observing the weather as it is, but by keeping track of past mistakes and their consequences. Like, they learned a long time ago that no matter how much ponies on the ground complain, mild sunny days all the time doesn't work out great for the crops.
Relevant to crops, something I've learned from my mother's garden: many fruit trees and other plant crops -- including apples -- require a certain amount of "chill hours" per year to produce (which makes some fruit trees impractical in this part of California, not enough chill). Just one example of why inclement weather is part of the schedule.
And last random thought; I brought this up in a forum not long ago, but think it might get more active discussion here: given that the pegasi control the weather and Celestia the sun, why do you suppose they've arranged it to be colder in the north and warmer in the south?
2594475
Well, before the first Hearth's Warming, the pegasi basically did run a weather protection racket. "That's a nice town you have there... it would be a shame if a storm blew off your roofs. By the way, here's the list of the produce we want this month!"
2594981
Well, the pegasi gave the earth ponies the weather they needed to grow food, and in return they got the food they needed. I think the real extortion came from the unicorns.
If the earth ponies didn't get the sunlight they needed, they could withhold food from the pegasi and unicorns. If the pegasi didn't get the food they needed, they could let the weather go wild and only control it over their own cities. So the earth ponies and pegasi could enter a fair trade to benefit both parties. But if the unicorns didn't get food or good weather, they could do... what, exactly? Commit suicide by leaving the sun down? Of course they wouldn't do that - no sane creature would. So the earth ponies and pegasi would know that helping the unicorns would get them basically nothing in return, since the sun would rise each morning anyway.
So what's a poor starving rain-sodden unicorn to do when your only point of leverage is to usher in an apocalypse that everyone knows you'd have to be crazy to do? You invent the Madmare Doctrine, of course, and then you send Clover the Clever to speak to Smart Cookie and Private Pansy and have her say, "look, I know these demands are incredibly harsh, but Princess Platinum is completely batshit insane and if we don't give her what she asks for she's actually going to destroy the world. That's what happens when you have an inbred hereditary monarchy, I guess."
And then you get all the food and good weather you need in exchange for doing nothing you wouldn't have done anyway
It all depends on whether there are enough pegasi to control all the weather all the time everywhere and forever.
If yes, then the world is an utopia. Utopias' may be interesting thought experiments but ultimately they make for boring stories: Today was a perfect day. Just like any other day. The End.
But what if pegasi are a limited resource? If there are so few of them that only some areas can benefit? Now, things get really interesting. Who decides which area gets protection and which is left to fend for itself? Are only wealthy areas protected or do you ration it out in some supposedly egalitarian manner or according to need? Is the Weather Service reserved only for the needs of Equestrians, are other nations allowed to bid for the services of pegasi? And what about those poor nations who can't afford it: are they completely at the mercy of the elements or are they spared the worst disasters due to some sense of noblesse oblige? And as with any limited resource there will be those who strive to seize it, to deny it to others.
If in a galaxy far away and long ago, the spice must flow, then in Equestria the wind must blow!
A yet more interesting question is what happens if the Weather Service is disrupted - how would a society totally dependent on it survive?
2595051
The Cold War showed us that mutually assured destruction was an option for all sides as a first-strike preventative measure, but obviously it was narrowly averted. In the case of pegasi and earth ponies, enacting such a first-strike scenario might at least give them all time to damage each other without committing mutual suicide. Except that pegasi could still direct any weather - including critical rainfall and critical sunlight - onto or away from earth pony farmlands as needed. Not to mention the ability to rain things other than rain down on earth pony civilization: Move your city, drown out the farmlands, use it as an example to others when you move on and extort food from them, or at least force earth ponies into a lop-sided agreement.
And those crazy unicorns? All hiding behind the scenes, stirring things up, ready to provide consultation and magic services like defense to the pegasi, and far-reaching weapons to the earth ponies.
Funny how the literal pony Cold War ended in a stalemate that only resolved when they worked together against a common enemy (mostly themselves)...
2594506 Anybody stupid enough to invade Equestria would be marching every day in pouring rain with random lightning strikes all around the camp at night, interupted by the occasional 70mph microburst followed by a foot of snow and hailstones. Then they'd have to contend with the other two races of ponies.
"Hello, Princess Celestia. We brought General Mayhem to talk with you." (points to a furious griffon, wrapped in enough rope that only his beak and red eyes can be seen) "Can we see the sun now? Please?"
Nicely thought-provoking post. I love this sort of unpacking of the show's unspoken premises.
2594468
Well, if you want the weather board to let something horrible happen, then give them someone to blame. Nothing says 'we have permission to pout! All forces, commence the assault' like not getting your way.
"I'm sorry, we could of sent a team to stop the storm, but we had our budget cut."
"For administrator wages. By 2%. Hundreds are homeless! Thousands hurt!"
"Out of our hooves. Budget cut."
And I can think of at least a few people in real life who would do this if they had the power. About half of them wouldn't even think of suffering any reputations for it either.(I would also nominate them for the 'A train coming at me will stop because I am so important, wait why isn't it slowing down' award mind you.)
That's a very good point, I love it when you take a detail of a show like this and start applying economics/sociology to it. I would point out that Griffons can probably control the weather too, since they can sit on clouds, although probably not as well as Pegasi.
One thing, with the whole "miss a drizzle and make up for it with a downpour," I'm not sure if weather services are easily exportable. I think you generally have to have controlled weather or wild weather, you can't really do it half-way, or whenever you let go of control droughts and wild storms appear. It also seems like a significant percentage of the Pegasi population in Equestria are involved in the weather industry, I would guess over 50%, clearly it is a very labor-intensive field.
With those considerations, I doubt foreign nations import weather directly, except for clear skies on important national ceremonies and to stave off category 5 hurricanes and the like. However, other nations do import Pegasi weather control indirectly, because pegasi weather is big part of how Earth ponies are able to grow such enormous amounts of food, and I would bet that Equestria is the breadbasket of the world, exporting cereals and fruits to everywhere except the Griffon Empire, and chicken and pigs to them. A big part of that food surplus is due to the Weather Factory.
As for the Weather Bureau itself, we rarely see apathetic Pegasi. What we often see is competitive Pegasi. It can be healthy, like when Rainbow Dash pushes everyone to get the most water to Cloudsdale, or unhealthy, like when Spitfire betrays a comrade to get a slight edge in a qualifying round at the Equestrian Games. I bet the Weather Bureau is very competitive, between different departments, and the weather teams of the various settled zones they serve. This can be positive effects, and... less positive effects.
One important thing to think about is this. Even assuming there are no other pony nations, that following the tradition of D&D there is only one major nation for each race (obviously not always true, but still) that doesn't mean that no other nation has ponies. I see them as the eqivilent of humans, well sort of, in that they're everywhere. Which means everywhere, or almost everywhere has it's own weather bureau. Some other winged species can even affect the weather. In fact in the east the local dragons control the weather. However not everyone is the same, some species might be better at certain things, or just be worse in general in terms o fthe magic needed to control the weather, so they still have to deal with issues becasue for them the storms are often bigger or smaller than planned, or the wind doesn't move things along as fast as intended, or lots of other things that non-pegasi have trouble with. Of course the final thing is what about when one nation decides to make more sunny days by sending thunderstorms over the border.
2594939 The obvious answer is Equestria is weird and someone else is in charge of heat and/or cold. This also explains why the seasons have to occour at regular times. Certain areas get colder or hotter at certain times, and while the being in charge could change when, it's been agreed to do it that way for whatever reason. Also of note is if the sun actually orbits the planet like it seems to in the show, since otherwise Celestia really controls the spin of the planet, which would be odd based on her cutie mark, then the planet being tilted wouldn't matter much. Though I guess she could alter it's orbit to change the angle the sunlight hits the planet.
2600966
Someone else... Ooh! I got it! It's cold in the north because that's where the Windigo live!
Makes you wonder what would happen if the weather bureau decided to go on strike.
Sounds like an interesting concept, but I feel it's somewhat unworkable. I don't buy that ponies are perfect, so in my mind there are going to be at least enough unexpected and sometimes hazardous weather due to failures of imperfection at various levels that ponies are quite aware of what it could be and very happy that it's kept tidy most of the time. I also tend to lean on the side of managing than controlling weather, since I think it would take an ridiculous number of pegasi to retain total control. I feel like Ponyville's nice weather is geographic good luck and constant vigilance on the Everfree Forest. In other words, Rainbow Dash doesn't have to work very hard most of the time to keep the sky clear or whatever it's scheduled to be.
The obvious downside, if the weather is very wild or absent by itself, is that a serious failure or laxity of this weather bureau (or bribes...) could spell disaster or at least minor catastrophes.
2600966
It could be that Equestria always get more sun/moon and so it needs more weather regulation to keep the effects of that from burning/freezing out the ponies.
2595051
The point may be that they'd die anyway and so extorting the others is viable because it is a credible threat and they have nothing to lose. It's when they start using that leverage for more than just survival and the cycles of sun/moon as a way to leverage better trade (i.e. they make sure the day/night will be favorable to one or more parties) that it gets out of hand and heads toward madness.
2608230
On the flip side, maybe the only reason pegasi have total control over weather patterns is because the weather otherwise doesn't happen at all -- there IS no weather without them. No natural rainfall, no season changes, nothing. They have to micromanage EVERYTHING -- arguably much more difficult than simply manipulating existing weather patterns. It would be like having to consciously use your brain to manage your body -- you'd have to WILL your heart to pump blood 24-7, WILL your liver to process toxins, etc.
2608604
Curious thought that, I suppose Discord could have caused that in the past which would be a handy excuse for it and explain some degree of localization of that sort of problem. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense since variances in weather are critical for growing crops.
Hmm. So I meant to comment on this a week ago (and it's been an open tab since then, even after a computer re-location and a power outage).
I agree with you in principle about the weather generally being better (and I've used that in multiple stories) unless the pegasi somehow mess up (used that, too).
Tactically, I can see the weather being used as a pony weapon, especially if no other species can manipulate it.
It's plausibly canon that unicorns can, although there's no reason they'd generally specialize in it. Plausible that they once did, or tried to, back when the three pony tribes were fighting.
As for the agriculture/plants, etc., it's possible that ponies or some other entity has controlled the weather for so long that the plants have evolved to deal with this. If someone has been running things for millions of years, or if the whole system is artificial anyway (which would explain a lot), the 'natural' order may not be able to exist without the pony guidance. Could be that the birds don't know how to make nests, or how to fly south for the winter. In that case, no ponies, and the whole system collapses.
2614835 In canon, the Everfree Forest may be the only place that can get by on its own without pony assistance, a trait that marks it as eldritch to the ponies.
Unicorns probably can manipulate weather, judging by the tiny thundercloud Trixie made in her debut episode. But they're limited by, among things, the fact that they can't fly or walk on clouds (barring use of a rather fragile spell that only ponies of Twilight's caliber seem to be able to cast). And it's definitely not as easy for them as it is for pegasi -- even a young pegasus like Scootaloo can manipulate a cloud (as seen in the Hearts and Hooves episode).
All three of the pony tribes had means to extort the others back in the days before Celestia and Luna. The pegasi could refuse to create good weather, the Earth ponies could refuse to tend the land and grow crops, and the unicorns could mess around with the day/night cycle. Which goes a long way towards explaining why disagreements and warfare between the three tribes had such disastrous consequences.
The role of the Alicorns, ponies who embody all three while being separate from them, in this fic's continuity and in canon according to the Journal of the Two Sisters , seems to be keeping the three tribes in check as glorified babysitters.