RTAC #8: Historical chronology · 11:02pm Mar 27th, 2016
My regular Random Thoughts About Canon series is back with a somewhat controversial statement:
Ponies have arrived to Equestria no earlier than about 1200 years ago.
I’ve been trying to twist it every which way, and can’t make a plausible chronology that fits all statements that is much longer than that. You can make it longer only if you discount something.
I suppose I should set up a citing convention and follow it, shouldn’t I… Primary canon sources (TV series) will be listed in bold, secondary canon sources, like comics and books, in italic.
Source statements
- Friendship is Magic states that the first coming of Nightmare Moon has occurred 1000 years ago. Twilight can probably be trusted to know the date properly regardless of what happened to the calendar in the meantime, if anything, because she also has to exactly calculate it.
- Journal of the Two Sisters states that the Crystal Empire was founded due to the fortuitous discovery of the Crystal Heart, by its first ruler, princess Amore, a unicorn, who remained a unicorn. It goes on to state that Crystal Empire is a signatory to the Two Sisters treaty,(1) and has been from the start.(2) Princess Amore has been at least ~8 years old at the moment the Crystal Heart was discovered,(3) and this happened before the coronation of the Sisters.(4)
- FIENDship is Magic #1 gives us the story of King Sombra, presented as a primary source: Cadance and Twilight are reading his diary. It details the life of Sombra from foalhood to early adulthood, and ends with the loss of Princess Amore,(5) clearly implying that Sombra’s first defeat happened pretty soon afterwards – certainly not years. It also depicts Luna and Celestia flying to battle Sombra together, which places this event before the Nightmare.
- Crystal Empire, as well as every subsequent episode, states that the Empire remained inaccessible “for a thousand years” and nopony ever offers any variations on this value.
- Hearth’s Warming Eve depicts the six pony leaders who lead the colonization of Equestria as the ponies who were there when the exodus was decided. Journal features them as the primary characters after the coronation of the Sisters and the treaty. Therefore, the colonization was started and completed within their lifetimes.
- Friendship is Magic #11-12, the “Neigh Anything” arc, places Shining Armor at no more than ten years older than Twilight – he is still in what looks and behaves like high school, while Twilight still does not have her cutie mark. The Mane 6 are generally thought to be somewhere in their early 20s.
- Magic Duel has Twilight say “But… how could you do an age spell? That’s only for the highest level unicorns!” – implying that they’re a thing, if not a widely accessible one. Journal likewise mentions they exist.(6)
- The Crystalling has everypony refer to the crystalling of a princess as an event that has previously occurred at least once, emphasizing how different it is from a crystalling of a regular crystal pony foal. Which means that, however long Amore herself actually lived, she had descendants.(7)
Logic chain
The story of Princess Amore, which starts with the birth of Crystal Empire and ends with its disappearance, limits the total possible length of Equestria’s history to 1000 years, plus the maximum possible age of Amore herself, plus however long you can stretch by saying that Crystal Empire disappeared “a thousand years ago” with a straight face when it actually happened 1100 years ago or more.
So what’s the maximum possible age of Princess Amore? It is clear that she is to be considered “the highest level unicorn,” with having access to a powerful magical artifact, so presumably she has access to age magic. However, she also had at least one descendant. If she were able and willing to extend her age indefinitely, childbirth would either not be seen as much of a national celebration,(8) or just wouldn’t happen. Therefore, we probably should limit it to double the age of a regular unicorn. We know she probably lived at least thirty years, because at least one descendant has to exist and ~25-30 appears to be the appropriate age to have children for ponies, looking at Shining Armor. We don’t really know the average expected age for a unicorn, but whichever way we guess from there, I’d say she was no older than 140 years when Sombra happened to her, and probably, no more than 100, seeing how youthful she looked at the time.
Because The Crystalling casts a certain doubt on alicorns being immortal in the first place,(9) the longer you wish to extend the history of Equestria by extending the period during which she ruled Crystal Empire, the more age magic you will have to offer Amore, and the less likely it is that Celestia and Luna are immortal – if a unicorn princess can live for hundreds of years, what’s to stop Celestia, with her near-mythical status, from doing the same?
How much can you add by fudging and placing the disappearance of the Empire a long time before the Nightmare while saying it happened “a thousand years ago?” I’ve already mentioned that before: FIENDship is Magic #5 has Spike hang a lampshade on it. “1000 years ago? Must have been one heck of a year.” While this is ironic, it is irony for us, but much less so for ponies, because Twilight follows up with the description of another event, saying “It was not 1000 years ago.”(10) It seems to me that ponies aren’t very predisposed to fudge numbers in that way. You wouldn’t say “a thousand years” when you actually mean “a thousand and a hundred,” you would say “over a thousand years,” and yet this never happens.
So you probably can’t add more than an extra hundred years this way, and once you try to say that the colonization of Equestria happened somewhere like 1500 years ago, it starts sounding really silly.
How old are Celestia and Luna, then? Journal goes on to say that the Sisters are “much older than everyone else” near the coronation, but doesn’t say by how much, so we can’t really tell. However, it’s probably not by orders of magnitude, and most importantly, there’s nothing of interest happening to ponies while they skulk around Equestria alone, because of the statements in Hearth’s Warming Eve.
Conjecture
The Journal describes a very peculiar political structure for Equestria, with multiple independent pony nations electing the Sisters to run their foreign policy, which is at best a confederation.
It seems that immediately post-Nightmare, Celestia started centralizing it, judging by the story of the EUP Guard told in Testing Testing, 1-2-3. Pre-unification pony kingdoms, like Timbucktu and Trot, (FIENDship is Magic #5) had their own military and distinct separate economy, when modern cities are described far more like, well, modern cities. Somewhere along the way, Equestria probably went through a phase that worked kind of like the British Commonwealth, but whether this was before or after the Nightmare, we can’t really tell. Crystal Empire is, through and through, a relic, which became a protectorate of modern Equestria while everything else has been integrated long ago.
It is also worth noting that the pre-Nightmare period appears to be as densely packed with events as the post-Nightmare-Return period – during that time, Star Swirl and the Sirens turn the musical culture of Equestria on its ears, (FIENDship is Magic #3) the changelings appear and eat at least one pony nation, Discord happens, Tirek happens, and then, once Nightmare is gone, it goes comparatively much more quiet, even though at least one invasion-from-beyond incident is on record sometime in the last 60-80 years. (Micro-series #8)
…Why, did they say, Luna became Nightmare Moon, again? Because ponies didn’t like her night? Far from suggesting Tyranlestia yet again, it may turn out to be, that the centralization and whatever caused Luna to give in to the Nightmare are in fact related events, though which would be the cause and which is the effect remains murky.
Addendum
I wrote this post quite a while ago.
Imagine my surprise when my guess was suddenly confirmed in canon with the episode Horse Play in which a certain date is celebrated: 1111 years since the first raising of the Sun by Celestia. The story told in this episode explicitly reuses certain bits of the Journal, as well, even when the rest of the canon tries to joss it.
While ponies have arrived to Equestria at least some time prior to hoisting the sun on Celestia, and Celestia claims to be “already much older than anyone else” by the moment of her coronation, my original guess of ~1200 years since the Exodus remains probably the closest guess presented in fandom up until this point.
(1) Which is a word I introduce here to be a sane way to call the actual position of Celestia and Luna according to the Journal – they were elected and crowned to hold suzerainty over numerous pony nations, which become their protectorates, but otherwise remain independent. Technically, the Sisters seem more like an independent state than anything else at this point in history.
(2) Crystal Empire is mentioned as one of the countries of the agreement they toured immediately after the coronation.
(3) Because that action got her the cutie mark.
(4) It’s interesting that it isn’t clear where did the crystal ponies come from exactly, but this still places their appearance in the same timeframe as all other signatories of the Two Sisters treaty.
(5) Technically, she isn’t “dead” dead. She is transmuted into a crystal and shattered, and Friendship is Magic #34-37, the “Siege of the Crystal Empire” arc, ends with the reformed Sombra setting out together with Radiant Hope to restore the shards.
(6) And also mentions the Alicorn Amulet. It is a silly book, I know. :)
(7) And it’s likely Cadance is a rightful heir, but that’s another story…
(8) What’s the point if there’s going to be a hundred of those crystal princesses eventually?
(9) See the annoyingly fuzzy statement on alicorns having never been born “in Equestria”. If there weren’t statements in the Journal saying that the Sisters flew around Canterlot as fillies, I’d say this is proof positive that they aren’t from this world in the first place. As it is, it’s fuzzy. :)
(10) And let’s not forget that the disappearance of Crystal Empire is explicitly one of the events that happened “a thousand years ago” that Spike refers to.
On the term "1000 years ago":
My thought on this is that it is the Equestrian equivalent of "once upon a time" or "long. long ago". That said, Spike does use the term "Once upon a time" in Hearth's Warming Eve.
Even if this is not the case, the term need not mean "exactly 1000 years ago" - especially when dealing events that may have covered a significant period of time.
On Hearth's Warming Eve:
I am always very wary of interpreting the Hearth's Warming Eve play as literal history. The way it is presented screams "Pantomime" to me - and although there are pantomimes that refer to historical characters ("Dick Wittington and His Cat" is one of them), the panto is not historically based in the slightest.
It is also possible that the six founders are a little like King Arthur and his Knights - the end product of a long series of different legends updated and merged over time.
(My view on this is rather strengthened by the recent rejig of "A Christmas Carol" - I don't think anyone is seriously going to suggest that the events of "A Hearth's Warming Tail" are supposed to be historical.)
3983935
This is an argument used often, and my objections to it were already listed elsewhere:
* FIENDship is Magic #5, detailing the story of Queen Chrysalis, explicitly lampshades it with "...it was not 1000 years ago"
* Twilight starts the series off with calculating the exact day of Nightmare Moon's return, which is impossible unless "1000 years" means a fixed period of time, however long it actually is. Since she does, there's no reason not to take her at her word, because if we can't trust Twilight to know things, who can we trust to know anything at all?
The dialog between Twilight and Starlight in A Heart's Warming Tail kind of implies that the characters are historical, but windigoes are mythical - see my post on the episode and the ensuing discussion. I.e. the story is a pantomime, but the founders of Equestria are seen as historical ponies.
The events of the Tail itself are clearly exactly as much fiction to ponies as the Christmas Carol is for us, no contest there.
To be fair, it could also refer to the crystalling of Princess Amore herself. I mean, I know she'd be a little old for it by the time she discovered the Crystal Heart, but it could happen. Christenings in the real world are for children, but adults are still baptised sometimes. And I think it's a pretty neat idea that Amore may have started the tradition after discovering the Heart and getting her cutie mark from it.
4100110
It could, but it shortens the history rather than elongates it.
Given how the comics already violate the canon timeline six ways to Sunday, I'm hesitant to accept a chain of logic pulling together this many potentially dubious sources. Especially the Journal of the Two Sisters. That thing seems about as shaky as a Jello mold on a subwoofer.
4135546
It's either that or we just don't have anything to go on, and time might as well not exist. Which it still might - based solely on primary canon, the lower bound on the length of a "moon" is about 3.5 days.
Just re-read this blog post because you recently linked back to it, and I realized something: Blueblood is commonly referred to as "Blueblood the 54th" in Fanfiction, based off some comment Faust made on Twitter long ago that he could be like the 54th Blueblood descended from a mortal sibling of Celestia or something. I don't remember the exact providence, but the key is: Ponies pass on names. Twilight Sparkle is technically Twilight Jr, and I would bet half the Apples are too.
Isn't it more likely that last Princess Amore is the descendent of the first Princess Amore, and she just doesn't use her full title "Princess Amore the 22nd" or whatever? I say "more likely" because the alternative is that dark ages to medieval ponies built up a major city within the adult lifetime of a single pony, since Amore presumably found/created the Crystal Heart as an adult, and we see a fully-developed city back when Sombra was a kid.
If there are multiple Amores, that gives enough time between the discovery of the Crystal Heart and Sombra to have a city built up. It also fits better with the Crystalling, since ponies seem to have a lot of preconceived notions of what a Royal Crystalling is like. Technically, Cadance herself is a "Princess Amore," so it certainly seems like the Royal Line of the Crystal Empire passes down that name the way Twilight's family passes down "Twilight."
4135821
Interestingly, I object to your arguments, but not the conclusion. :)
* Word of god has been progressively devalued over time. Faust simply trolls us these days. :)
* Ponies have some really bizarre name inheritance patterns.
* It's been pretty explicit that Amore got her cutie mark for discovering the Heart.
* Ponies did build Appleloosa in a single year.
At the same time, we don't really have a source that would permit us to explicitly identify the original Amore who discovered the Heart with the Amore that Sombra destroyed, because we don't know what the cutie mark looked on the former, so a few generations of Princess Amore are perfectly possible and would probably make a lot of sense.
I don't think this would add more than about ~500 years to the whole equation, though, and in general I don't see the appeal of adding empty years to the chronology, not unless you have something very specific to fill them with. :)
4136401
You're right, word of god is pretty worthless, it was just what had inspired me to think about it.
Pony names are screwy, but we do know that ponies getting family names passed down does happen sometimes, I was just illustrating it as a possibility.
The Princess Amore in the comics has a snowflake for a cutie mark. Maybe that could represent the Crystal Heart on a metaphorical level, but it seems unlikely.
Appleloosa was built by modern settlers able to bring in supplies by rail, and it was made of wood. The Crystal Empire seems to be either shaped or carved from stone (my guess is grown by earth pony magic). Either way, I think it would take a lot longer to build the Crystal Empire than Appleloosa, and that's with modern techniques (including magic).
I was thinking about 500 years too. I agree on the general principle of not adding empty years, but I also think not everything should be crammed together for time with no down time allotted for (see my complaints about timeline in the show). That seems like plenty of time for the Crystal Empire to have grown into an advanced city, developed their own customs, and be magically mutated by the Crystal Heart into crystal ponies.
4136431
That snowflake is the map of Crystal Empire streets. :)
4136438 It really could be, cutie marks images do sometimes feel like they come out of a slot machine.
While your interleaved footnotes are easier for flip-back-and-forth reading, they'r eharder to cut out and put in a separate window.
3983935
Quite. "Myriad" is literally ten thousand, but is also "indefinitely many"; 万 is similar. "May you live a thousand years" doesn't imply that one should die immediately attaining that.
4135546
see also "balloon subwoofer animation"
4136438
By Dumbledore's knee!
Well…times of peace exist. It's less of a shock if you have a monster attack every week, as many people insist about Ponyville… [hell, Ep100 pretty much canonizes the attitude of "yeah, monster attacking, we'll just keep on keepin' on"]
4135556
Well, considering how Discord happened in the middle of all this, it might be entirely possible that he messed around with Time as well as Space, yanking a bunch of significant events temporally together so they'd run in close proximity when they were originally stretched out over a longer, much more reasonable timespan, because he thought it'd be funny if they were happening together/overlapping. Also, depending on how powerful he may or may not be, He may have disconnected causes and effects, rewrote events, caused time to flow differently at different points, or enacted "Simpsons Time", where causality is maintained but no actual time passes. (IE, one event follows another, but no one gets older), etc, and unlike physical changes, these might be difficult to perceive and/or fix, even by an Alicorn. Which would leave history and chronology a bizarre, confusing mess in retrospect.
4513305
There’s a methodological problem with this. Namely, supposing that Discord can do anything of the sort implies, indirectly, that he can do anything, period, because it can easily be demonstrated that just about any imaginable and desirable effect can be reduced to manipulating time and space on planetary scales. That, in turn, produces an interpretation that is unfalsifiable. I.e. it becomes impossible to imagine a canonical statement that would disprove it. Because to support it, you would have to invent excuses why didn’t he use any time/space bending during the multiple canonical cases where those would come in handy in later seasons.
That’s no better than saying “the author did it,” and abandoning the intradiegetic perspective entirely. :)
See also RTAC #6