Worldbuilding VIII: Ponies don't have hands · 10:07pm Sep 9th, 2017
Ponies don't have hands; they've got hooves instead.
This is hardly new knowledge, of course. I'm not exactly treading on new ground here.
Warning: lots of YouTube images below the break
To those of us who think a lot about the show--and I think that I'd put most writers in that group--that leaves us with a lot of questions. We do have some explanations in canon of how the ponies interact with their world, of course. The unicorns have their telekinesis, pegasi have prehensile feathers, and earth ponies have magnet hooves and tape.
Source unknown
And, of course, we do need to step back from our philosiphizing every now and then and remember that the intended audience for the show is four-year-old girls, and while the writers have done a great job of making a show that everyone can enjoy and given lots of nods in our directions, they don't have to explain everything.
In my opinion, to make sense of how the ponies interact with their world, we have to break it down three ways. Your logic might be different, and if so, that's great. I'm not claiming that I have some sort of special insight into the MLP world.
First, we need to consider symbolism. I'm sure that every single one of my readers is aware that there are sort of universal symbols in place that kind of transcend language barriers. Things like the on/off switch on a piece of electronic equipment, or a sign to let you know that there's a curve in the road up ahead. Stickman, and all the things that give him a really bad day.
Original Source Unknown
Television is much like that. The animators of a show have to show things that a child might understand, even if it doesn't make all that much sense in a pony world.
To give one example which may or may not be in the show (I'm feeling too lazy to check), if they wanted a bicycle-riding pony, they'd likely animate a generic sort of bike. Now, those of us who are older know that there are lots of types of bicycles, from penny farthings to bicycles built for two to recumbent bicycles and everything in between. We'd also, if we were thinking about this for a story, perhaps consider what design would work best for pony ergonomics.
The show's probably never going to do this, and that leaves us to go in two different directions. They have generic Wal-Mart bicycles in Equestria, or they have pony-built bicycles of some sort which might not actually look like what we see on the screen.
Second, and a logical outcropping from the first, we need to consider simplification.
Probably most of us have seen at least one episode that has a hoof-operated typewriter in it. In case you're unfamiliar, here's a helpful picture:
Source
Much has been discussed about these typewriters, that apparently have three keys--two letter (presumably) keys, and one space bar.
It's generally assumed that the pony language has more than two letters, and I've seen some brilliant discussions about how the keys could perhaps be rolled around their axis to produce multiple letters; if you just had five angles (up, down, left, right, center) you could potentially produce 25 different characters from the pair; if you have nine (add 45 degree angles), you can hit practically every key that a modern computer keyboard has.
I should also say here for those of you who don't know how to use a typewriter, going back and adding something in later like an underline is expected on those. To type an em dash on my Smith Corona mechanical, you type two hyphens, go back two spaces, then use the half-space key and type a third hyphen.
Another option, and one that I prefer, is that the typewriters do type in binary--they type in pony Morse code. Later on, whatever the pony wrote is typeset by another pony who translates the longs and shorts (lefts and rights) on the paper into Equestrian letters and symbols.
That does of course add the complication that any pony typist is going to have to know another 'language' in order to be able to write something . . . but of course, historically, radio operators and telegraph operators had to know Morse because voice transmission wasn't a thing.
[And before you say "That's ancient history," my mother learned Morse to help my uncle get a Boy Scout merit badge, so it's not that ancient.]
The last thing to consider is one thing that's often overlooked by writers. I see it most often in HiE fics, where the human shows up and suddenly everypony is sold on how amazing his wonderful hands are, in contrast to their useless stumps. Because it's pretty obvious to all the right-thinking people that ponies simply can't really manage without hands. It's like they're living in some backwoods dystopia, completely unaware of how bad their world is until suddenly by some sort of heavenly magic a human appears to show them that without opposable thumbs life isn't worth living.
But that's wrong.
They built their world for themselves.
They built their world for themselves.
Everything that ponies built was for the use of ponies, not some strange biped with mange that's got fingers. Every piece of tech that they've got, from their cameras to their outhouses was built with hooves and horns and wings in mind; was built for their quadrupedal stance and their height and what they could do with their own bodies. Their inventions aren't made for humans, and never were.
Y'all are free to speculate on how things do work, of course. And what things might work well enough for a human, such as the hoof-operated bellows on Applejack's stove. In fact, please do; I always love that kind of headcanon.
And one more thing, before I close this blog post. While to my mind it's painfully obvious that Equestria would be designed for ponies and not humans, I think that there's still gonna be readers that are skeptical. That are gonna say that this is all well and good, but what can you really accomplish without hands?
For those people, the YouTube links.
I'm sure that these just scratch the surface, but here's a selection of videos of people without hands (and in some case arms) doing things you probably never thought were possible. And I want to remind you that these people are living in a world that wasn't designed for them, and using tech that was meant to be used with hands.
That's what I keep saying... although, for some reason, everyone keeps getting angry when I do it.
Lyra can always cheat.
“Really?” Trixie transferred her puzzled gaze from the bookshelf concealing Twilight Sparkle to the innocent-appearing unicorn standing in front of it. “Lyra, do you know of anything going on right now that would keep me from going into the bathroom and taking an eight-hour bubble bath?”
“Not a thing.” Lyra lit up her horn and projected an odd appendage made out of green magic floating between them. “The zebra shamans out on Stargazing Hill are still there—” she folded down one finger and continued to fold them down as she checked off points “—and just as cryptic as ever, Sweetie Belle’s dragon egg hasn’t hatched....
Or in Estee's wonderful 100% move, 50% Fire (Sniff. That poor piano.)
They all looked at the instrument. It was -- large. Very large. Even for unicorns, the oldest pony pianos were meant to be played by hoof -- side hooves. For the most classic styles, the musician lies down on their side along on the long bench, orientation varying depending on whether their left side is dominant or their right. The higher hooves aim for the keys, which are distinctly wide -- they have to be in order to prevent one hoof from pressing five notes at once. The lower ones hit the register shift levers. Some curling up and stretching can be required to get at all the octaves: it took a long time before double-jointedness stopped being the secondary requirement for expert skill. The style looks incredibly awkward, feels worse during long performances (especially since padded benches didn't arrive for seven centuries, mostly because previous generations of piano teachers refused to let any student be more comfortable than they'd been), and sounds beautiful -- if done properly. And as for doing it properly... well, the best way to become master of a classic piano is to have the appropriate mark. Everypony else just gets to silently curse the parents who felt the skill could be developed anyway.
"She still asks me if I'm up to Reinbits," Twilight wearily concluded.
My head canon is that ponies ( especially earth ponies) can magically grab stuff with their hooves using magic. In theory, ponies with strong enough magical grip could stand on walls or ceilings.
4663366 ♫ Spider-Pone, Spider-Pone. Does whatever a spider does. ♫
To be fair, just because ponies built that world for themselves, doesn't necessarily mean that hands wouldn't be seen as quite, well, handy. I mean, non-unicorn ponies change diapers with their mouths.
If that isn't a reason to marry a unicorn, nothing is. But apparently ponies make do.
On the human in Equestria front, despite the world being designed for ponies there can certainly be situations where hands might work out better than hooves.
Given the Admiral's line of work I'm sure he's come across a lot of things 'theoretically' designed to be able to be taken apart (or in some cases not be taken apart but still need to be taken apart and still be able to be put back together again) but that seem to be next to impossible for human anatomy. Now imagine if you had telekinesis so that you could apply pressure to or turn anything you could see (or even better, 'feel around' inside hollow objects) wouldn't your job be easier?
Of course there have to be certain assumptions as well, that your telekinesis is fairly nimble and can apply as much force as a human with a simple force multiplier.
the fact that they are small quadruped would also probably fuck up stairs for human by changing steps dimension.
4663366
Actually, I've always thought that pony hooves work like the below video, and that it's purely biological in function and not related to magic.
4663371
Fixed it for you
This kind of overthinking is what makes your stories believable and compelling. In many many stories that I have read I sometimes forget that im reading about ponies. Usually because their interactions with their world and each other seems way to human like.
And lets not forget ponies know what hands are, or at least as close to human as they can get. Minotaur's have hands and there not that rare of a species. Diamond Dogs have digits as well. Oh and griffons too. So hand like things are nothing new to ponies, they dont build to accommodate other species, largely due I would think to their settlements being mainly ponies. But its nothing new. I know I read at least on story that mentioned this.
I like it when the HIE stories show the human struggling to fit into a pony world. Like hitting his head on door frames.
4663366
That's my view on it as well. Some form of contact telekinesis. I would also say they can project it through their hair as well. The things they do with it. I think this is also true for all the ponies not just earth. Unicorns can just project it outside of themselves to effect the world around them. And Pegasus have those prehensile like wings. Which could just be another application of telekinesis being projected through their wings. Even though they have bones in them??!! Which is weird enough on its own, but the telekinesis could just give it a bit more strength and stickiness.
The two main problems with ponies on bike are the handling and the positioning. Unless they can somehow grip the handle bar, they are stuck with either keep pushing it to keep it stable or they would have to turn using only the body weigth. Both are doable. The other problem would be the general shape of their bodies. Although MLP's ponies have clearly very flexible bodies, their natural position is on four leg, sitting on a bike would be quite akward, but you could shape it diferently, like with two unicycle, or by having the seat behind the rear wheel.
Of course, handling or rather hoofing lever for break or gear shifter may be sligthly problematic too, but once again, you could do some hoof friendly things. Or just have a bike with one gear and some kind of retro-pedaling brake.
Yeah, I love cycling, I spent some time thinking it. Procrastination is a great way to pass time.
It's magic, bitch.
Seriously. The canon I put in my stories is that manumancy is magic, and for earth ponies it's considerably more accurate.
I always figured that we humans would be like Gandalf in a Hobbit home. We would be banging our heads around, even more so for those of us who top 6 feet/ two meters tall. I enjoy the stories that cover how the world is for poor Celestia.
4663366
Point of evidence for magic kung-fu grip hooves: Season 1, Episode 7 "Dragonshy." About 7 minutes in, the Mane 6 are nonchalantly walking up the side of a near-vertical cliff.
PS: About Morse code. There are at least two variants, railroad Morse, which used the time between clicks to carry the dot-dash information, and international Morse, which used tones of two lengths. Some ham radio operators still use the second. I don't know if anyone still uses the first.
On the episode with the olimpics tryouts, Fluttershy passes the horseshoe baton without any contraptions. I'm all for the magic hoof theory no matter the specie of pony.
But how did they---
HORSE CODE. I am disappoint.
4663404
one of my favorite head canons
4663421
Considering ponies prefer a quadruped stance, I have considered the handlebars being a lot shorter in height than for a human. Keeps them mostly horizontal. Seat, maybe some sort of belly cushion like thing. Brakes and gear shifting would definitely have to be a bit weird, maybe one of those weird lever things instead of rotating parts. Or Ratchet systems, where you push a lever to go one gear at a time.
Natural suction cups, bro.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/11/13/472085__safe_artist-colon-eagle1division_artist-colon-starshinecelestalis_twilight+sparkle_analysis_anatomy_diagram_granular+jamming_headcanon_hoof+hol.png
4663404 beat me to it
And surely that's a special chording stenotype machine with different zones on each key to press on.
If Earth ponies use more hoof magical manipulation, what happens when one cant, and say its manipulatable accuracy is instead transfered to increased power? So to not break things, they have to use just about every other part of their body instead? At least the mouth thing might work, unless thats also classed as primary maniple, and instead they end up having low lip flexibility and high bite and tooth strength?
Maybe Troubleshoes is a variation?
I have no idea who came up with doorknobs. I have trouble with them with fingers. Much prefer lever handle action. As for typing on a keyboard, thats easy. Couple year back I had a heavy allergic reaction that made both my hands swell up to the elbows, leaving me with effectively a single fingre on each hand. Slowed my typing down 30% because I cant touch type to start with. Strap a pencil to a hoof and you can easily do 10wpm on a normal keyboard, and Miss Mafia has done that with Spoons?
Ever noticed that to do ever smaller machining, you use ever larger machines?
After some wrangling with this for my AU/fusion-fic, I gave up and concluded that the ponies in that alt-Equestria had a variant on Tiny Sapient Ungulates-style toe-hooves.
(Well, to a limited extent; I assume this development applies to forehooves only, and is less complete; basically, a hoof wall that's segmented and can separate/oppose to grip and manipulate to a limited extent. It's not as flexible as a hand, but use both forehooves, a little mouth-work for details, and throw in some earth pony ingenuity, and it gets the job done. And more importantly from the Advancedverse fusion point of view, it saves nitpicking an exception to my worldbuilding rules about just how much manipulatory capability a sophont species has to have...)
4663521
Assuming ponies do use a handle, yes indeed, it would end up being lower.
Implying far smaller front wheels, from a functionnal point of view, human bikes already have the handlebar as low as possible in the case of timetrial and triathlon bikes. Or a really strange steering with either a big trail or a very high fork angle.
All in all, I'm pretty sure the UCI would not allow that kind of bike geometry
4663593
I have tried designing the bicycles a while ago, but gave up.
Also what does "UCI" stand for?
4663646
Union Cycliste Internationale, the main governing body for cycling race. They have a rather long guide on how a bike should and should not be in a race. It tend to e a sort of in joke in the road bike's community.
4663515
That was really cool!
4663646
University of California Irvine
4663665
Boooo
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/373/475/5b8.png
I ever impart upon you my headcanon about doorknobs? Well I was shopping at Lowes one day and I saw this on display, and I knew immediately how pony door knobs work.
I think regular rotating door knobs were pioneered by snobbish griffons of old, envied by unicorns who were also snobbish since they could use them, who then had earth pony craftsponies build them, so they came up with the push/pull thing, so all ponies could use them.
4663721
Oh my goodness, that explains so much!
4663531
But that picture misses that granular jamming grippers use a vacuum pump to perform the jamming. This is very difficult to justify biologically, I think. Magic could be used to explain the vacuum source, but that's a bit convoluted.
(4663404)
4663592
That's some pretty neat critter design behind that link. I have trouble fitting it into my headcanon, but it's still really cool.
Though it seems that contact TK (needs a better name) would satisfy your minimum manipulation ability requirement just as well... I'm curious about how those segmented hooves would look. Would a casual glance miss that they were segmented at all?
4663877
(4663531}
It could be that blood pressure simply serves in place of a vacuum. I'm not completely sure on the mechanics, but given that we have blood run through our fingers, it's feasible. Possibly more so in a pony's case, as there doesn't seem to be any indicator that ponies have frogs on their hooves.
4663812
They did design pony bicycles. They just go up, not forward.
Oh yeah! Certainly. Ponies make things that are suitable for themselves and if a human, by chance happens to show up, the most that'll happen is "Oh, so he has hands. Great."
One thing, however that I do not understand is the existence of round doorknobs in Equestria. Handle doorknobs? Sure, just push down and hey! It opens. But try opening a round doorknob with your fists. Granted, its possible but considerably harder.
They built their world for themselves except for that one time where some idiot decided to invent Earth Pony Proof Doors.
4663877
How is a vacuum pump beyond biological means? You can form a vacuum with just your mouth and lungs. Underwater, the pistol shrimp uses cavitation to stun its prey.
4664040
Perhaps they were invented by unicorns as a status symbol to keep out the unwashed masses.
4663877
That's just a consequence of the fusion worldbuilding in my pet AU; given the parameters of the other 'verse involved, it's really hard to come up with a version of contact TK that wouldn't also work perfectly well as non-contact TK. In an unfusioned Equestria - or if I were less of a consistency-demanding worldbuilding geek - I'd be fine with it.
I think so, yes. (I'm imagining that in a resting/closed position, the "fingers" are pressed tightly together, and the "fingernails" - segments of the hoof wall - are adjoining, so you'd have to look really closely to see the seams. Certainly on a well-cared-for hoof, where there's not caked dirt embedded in them, or chips along the join line, or some such.)
The notable exception would probably be horseshoe-wearers, who in this setup would only be wearing them on their back hooves; can't shoe a movable hoof wall without impairing its function, and unlike their rear hooves, these forehooves can dig in for traction. If that fails, there's always hoof boots...
4663357
Really, at the heart of it, it's a vital thing to remember. We're not writing LoTR fanfiction here; our source material is always potentially suspect.
Having said that, i don't mind reading fics that take Pinkie Pie's fourth-wall breaking and run with it--after all, that is canon. But no matter what choice is made, I do like a story to seem like it's in a consistent 'verse.
I usually go for contact telekinesis and/or prehensile hair for earth ponies. Or gecko-like Van der Waals force-exploiting hairs in the frog of the hoof.
But yeah, doorknobs and teacups notwithstanding, ponies have not spent their lives languishing in wait of the advent of the prehensile thumb.
4663358
I think as awesome as a 'hands' spell would be, it's probably not something that ponies really have, or that Lyra would obsess over, despite the fandom. After all, magic can do so much more than a lousy pair of hands.
4663366
I haven't seen a fic yet with hoof-TK being used to walk on walls or ceilings, although it's the logical next step if they can do hoof TK.
4664277
Hell, with how many iterations and permutations LoTR's setting went through and with how many decisions Tolkien expressed regret about in his later letters? Even that is suspect. In the end, all fiction is fiction. There's an absolute authority, of sorts, but no absolute reality. It's all just someone's imagination, when you get right down to it.
4663386
Oh, I'm not disagreeing that hands would be useful in Equestria. I think that they would be, and of course we could do lots of things with our hands that the ponies might not find all that easy, or might find uncomfortable (like changing diapers).
To give an example, I'm plenty tall enough to reach things on the very top shelf of the grocery store, and some people aren't. So I have an advantage over them, although they have other ways to cope, like stepstools or asking someone tall like me to help, or using a reach-extender or some type. . . .
I'm useful, but they can manage without me.
4663387
As one of my former co-workers said, "You need arms like Gumby to get in there."
Oh yeah, no question. There's lots of times I can see the bolt that I need to get to, but to get a tool on it in such a way that I can turn the bolt with my human anatomy is near impossible. Heck, on the transmission I just did, I had to reach blind three feet in order to remove and install one bolt . . . if I could have felt in there with TK to get the socket lined up, it would have saved about ten minutes each way.
I assume that TK can't, but just being able to get a socket on a bolt, especially if you've got to jog around a bunch of wires and hoses, would be a huge time-saver, even if I had to use hand force (or hoof force) to break it loose.
4663397
Interestingly, I've seen this discussed before on pet forums (specifically, why lots of animals are so bad at stairs). A normal staircase that we're used to is essentially a nearly 45 degree slope, which is really challenging for quadrupeds. A proper pony staircase would probably be a much gentler slope, maybe 20-30 degrees (less slope would be nicer for going down). If I was totally going to throw out a lot of the animation, I'd say that ramps would actually be more practical.
EDIT: It also wouldn't be unreasonable for a large institution (such as the hospital) to have different slopes in the up and down staircases). Pony homes would probably compromise.
Pegasus homes might not bother with staircases at all.
4663404
That's not an unreasonable headcanon. I prefer them having normal equine hooves, but I have nothing against them having some kind of granular gripper in their hooves.
4663415
Agreed--they're no stranger to hands and hand-like appendages, so in that regard, a human would be nothing terribly special just because of that.
I think that there is probably some tech that the ponies use which comes from other lands. For example, I think that minotaurs invented cameras, and that's why the ponies then to have weird rigs to use them--they want cameras, but they weren't invented with ponies in mind.
I think that that's something that doesn't always get considered in stories, to be honest. A town like Ponyville doesn't seem to attract a lot of non-pony visitors, but there have to be big trading cities/melting pot cities/whatever that have multiple species living in them, and there's got to be a lot of tech that goes back and forth. There would certainly be ponies who are using minotaur-designed things, or minotaurs using pony-designed things, and so on.
There's also probably some differentiation between pony tribes, as well. I can see unicorns, and well-off earth ponies with unicorn servants wanting full place setting with silverware and such; normal earth ponies and pegasi probably don't bother with any of that.
From what we see in canon, it looks like lots of pony houses have tall doors and ceilings so humans would fit--also beds that are longer than needed. But that's a detail which could be taken or left, I think; it's certainly reasonable for a human in a normal pony house to have to bend over, bang his head on everything, and so forth. Plus, could you imagine trying to cook in a pony kitchen, with all the appliances, countertops, and everything else being at least a foot lower than you're used to?
4663421
I'm thinking that a recumbent arrangement would be the best overall, I don't know enough of the physics of bicycles to know exactly what would work well and what wouldn't, but to my mind, low handlebars would be ideal, and the pony would be riding a long saddle (like the old banana seats) that ran along her midline.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to have the hind hooves do the pedaling, while the forehooves handled the steering. The steering bar could be pressed down for braking, or pushed forward.
Another thing to consider is that a pony bicycle might use forehooves for motion and hind hooves for steering. That would be a very odd arrangement for a human, but could potentially be better for a pony.
I think they'd also make sure to have some kind of tail-guard on the moving parts of the bike. I've gotten pant cuffs caught in the gear and chain before; I can't imagine how it would feel to get a tail caught.
4663424
quickmeme.com/img/ac/ac0c27270a2fb6a7da5c92d8303a95d556b655bb4d55e54ec7ef75b7c232e0b8.jpg
Accurate to what degree? Could they play scrabble? Type using a human keyboard (possibly with their hooves positioned over it, but never moving). What kind of range and strength does it have?
4663427
From what I've noticed in canon, especially in the early seasons, they have tall enough ceilings for a human to fit without banging his head.
I think that they do that either because pegasi might want to fly indoors, or because they think that there's a chance that Princess Celestia will visit someday, and they don't want to crowd her.
That having been said, I have no objection to reading a HiE where the human doesn't fit into a human home, and has a constant crick in his neck from bending over all the time.