Pony Technology · 6:32am Jun 4th, 2021
It seems medieval at times. Particularly in seasons 1 and 2. What technology level do you want your ponies at in your story?
With magic, it may slow down their technological development. Since they could use magic to heal and generate resources or whatever. So, they won't need as much technology as us humans do. Visiting a unicorn (or even someone like Zecora) witch doctor will actually work since they literally have magic. So, scientists or whatever will be slowed down, since magic can fix a lot of things.
Their army "Royal Guard" is armed with little but spears and medieval armor. My best guess they are in the early stages of electronics, mixed in with some steampunk. However, they still have medieval architecture. They do have ovens, since Pinkie Pie can bake cupcakes or whatever. They have the lightbulb, disco lights at a party with music playing. It seems inconsistent across the board, whatever the plot calls for I guess.
Back to the Royal Guard, I guess they have magic. So, they don't invest heavily in weapon technology. We don't see guns, rocket launchers, tanks, planes, or nukes.
To me, the technology seems to be similar to the technology in the 1910s since the ponies use trains and wagons for travel. There was also an old automobile that was being used by the Flim Flam brothers. In cities like manehatten, you see old electric street lamps being used too.
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Twilight seems to be an outlier. She seems to have computers from what we saw in Feeling Pinkie Keen.
We've seen ponies use a variety of different forms of technology. We have Video Games, TVs, Hospitals, and cars, yet we still see ponies using 1910s era technology. They have manual plows, Wagons, Trains that require a conductor to maintain speed or to use the breaks.
It's possible that the inconsistency of technological advancements across Equestria could be chocked up to one factor. Besides Twilight and Starlight, who traveled back into the past, altered it and changed how things played out, we saw that in the Sombra wins timeline that the Apple farm is all automated, and Pinkie, Maud and Rainbow, being main picks for fighting in this grueling war, have been equipped with mechanical enhancements or tough technological gadgets. That timeline's rainbow has a metal prosthetic wing.
I theorize when in a serious war-like timeline like the Sombra Wins timeline, ponykind is forced to evolve under drastic cirumstances. The Apple Family is forced to automate and only check for bad apples on a conveyor belt. It's quite possible that the interference with the past leads to a more dreadful future.
Let's think about Doctor Whooves (Or just Doctor for copyright reasons) in this situation. He says in Slice of Life, "Time travel is old thinking, my friend." To Derpy. Doctor says that Time Travel is old thinking, meaning or insinuating that in the current present of Equestria, every pony has thought about what time travel would be like. It's insinuated that Doctor comes from the future, or another future version of Equestria, where pony kind has evolved and advanced to the point where Time Travel is as easy as making an apple pie.
Think about this. Maybe Doctor's intrusion and interference with the present (his past) has caused a butterfly effect to where his future is not possible due to his interference, even if it's minor or incredibly major to the plot or in the background. It's possible that Doctor has messed up his own timeline, and the version of him who is later born in Future Equestria (where G4 Ends) probably doesn't discover Time Travel, and this is the definitive timeline. One that can't be changed, because this is how it was now meant to be, thanks to the doctor and Starlight's interference with the past.
Needless to say, the technological advancements that connect to his interference is like if you took the automation advancement from the Sombra Wins timeline, and applied that to the present we know, showing a sudden boom in business, discoveries unseen before the advancements, this is probably due to The doctor exposing and expositing tidbits of knowledge on the future and how Time Travel could work.
Or I'm thinking too hard on this... who really knows?
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They seem really advanced in some ways, but their weapon tech seems awful. Outside of magic, do you think we humans far surpass them in terms of weapons? The Royal Guard seems like a joke of an army. Even in the King Sombra timeline, we humans seem to have much better weapons.
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I highly think that we might be more heavily and capably armed than the Royal Guard, if there weren't unicorns or Alicorns, or a crazy frankenstein's mismash of animal parts known as Discord, we'd win wholeheartedly. We have everything they don't have. A semi-competent military and high grade weapons.
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Well, we can count our lucky stars that ponies aren't evil. They will spare us even if there was a war. Plus, not all humans would agree to have a war with the ponies either. So, there would be humans on the ponies' side in the war.
Since the ponies aren't evil. There would be humans willing to fight for them. Since we aren't dealing with an evil alien race like something like Mass Effect Reapers.
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War often makes the fastest technology advancements out of necessity. Most stuff civilians have were used by army alot earlier (the roll up screen / map comes to mind). So it would make sense that sombra timeline was more advanced.
Compared to humans, ponies are also more powerful and well traveled in general, so them pulling vehicles or walking long distance isnt out of the ordinary. They never needed mobility as they are already mobile. Humans also, without magic, needed new ways to improve. Ponies also talk alot about tradition, wintr wrap up doesn't use magic in ponyville For example
My stories tend to have 1950s tech, minus engine based things, but closer to main cities it shoots up.
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Regardless. Let's say humans and ponies are friends.
Do you think they would most certainly want human scientists to work alongside their own scientists? Imagine, the technology that could be done with humans and ponies working together?
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Hmmm. If friends asin nation friends, then it would be quite tentative. Humans aren't always known for wanting to share, and often look down if they think they are superior. But same goes for ponies too. It would probably take that one group or pairing to make the sides rethink working together properly in such fields.
But human/pony prejudice aside, a mixture of magic and tech would revolutionize the entertainment industry. We know that ponies can enter and play out comics, so applying that magic to tech and mass producing it would make literal holograms, which I'm all for. And it feels like our imagination and story telling abilities far outshine that of ponies (an advantage of higher tech I feel). Cant see a pony in equestria writing Lovecraft books lol
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the real question on that front is how would human government respond to a sapient race that isn't humanoid. Would we speak the same language? What exactly would happen?
I mean, assuming we didn't find a city first, would we just assume they're wild horses?
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Discord would kick our asses if we tried being hostile. He may not kill us, but make fools out of us. So, we may be forced to play nice. Plus, a lot of hippie humans would be angry at governments attacking ponies if they are non-hostile.
Hell, I'm not a total hippie. But even I would be mad if the ponies are 'good' (as in close to canon.) and we attacked them.
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I still feel humans are at a colossal social disadvantage in being ready to deal with any kind of alien race. I mean, we only have 1 type of sapient race on our planet, whereas the pony world has dozens.
Unless it's more like in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Dolphins are the 2nd most intelligent species on the planet after all. 3rd being humans if you aren't familiar with the reference.
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The pony booty would make us fall in love with them. XD
The power of love would help soften relations. I hope.
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First week in Equestria, half the humans get charged with hape.
we can't keep our hands to ourselves.
ww1 tech
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Seems like it. I guess. They could advance over time.
Firearms have never been invested in because ranged warfare is just considered an unicorn occupation.
And steam power, among other technologies, may not be as invested in as in the real world because ponies are more environmentally conscious.
I put their general tech level at the late time industrial period (1880's-1930's) with some pockets of tech being higher.(i.e. Vinyl's turntables, the jumbotron in Manhattan)
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I think that's a good guess overall.
I hope you are well. Considering what happened to you.
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Guns can fire quicker than horns in some cases. If not all cases. They will need at least a shield spell for protection.
A lot of stories mix magic and technology together; like ovens using mana crystals.
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I need to keep that as a note.
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I like the idea, that magic and science is essentially the same thing.
Like, in the shows later seasons, they all but mention, that the law of equivalent exchange is a thing. In the episode, where trixie learns to teleport (kinda) starlight says, that “nothing just disappears”, and when rarity went almost bald, they said, that a new mane would “have to come from somewhere”. So even magic cant just create resources out of nowhere.
And in the season 6 finale, when discord tries to charge into the hive with a flying pig he created, it despawned, when it entered the no-magic-zone, so it probably was never a real pig, just a magic construct, like hard-light, or holodeck matter, so even a god, cant defy physics, he just likes to pretend, that he does.
There are also magical materials, that can be used to craft magical items, like glowpaz, or the crystals in the crystal empire.
Of course all that would lead the ponies down a different tech-tree than humans. weve seen them use Ice-arrows during the equestria games, so they might have developped those in favor of bullets, although i wished, they showed the military use them more often. My personal headcanon is, that the equestrian military is actually more competent, but their more competent members are stationed somewhere off-screen.
I believe, that they could easily invent cars, if they wanted to, but since most ponies possess super-human strength, they dont really need those, since they can already do, everything cars can do.
Their saddlebags also have enchantments, that can preserve food, as seen with the “green cupcakes”.
Most shows treat magic as something “supernatural”, but mlp clearly stated in season 1, that its not, as twilight outright dismissed the idea of supernatural stuff, like ghosts and curses, and wouldnt even read a book, if its labeled “supernaturals” (it was “super_naturals” but still. She also disliked the premise of “alien alicorns vs space pirates” because “the science in it is proposterous”.
And since they are capable of doing things like alter gravity, travel through time and to alternate dimensions, ponies are actually more advanced than humans, even though they dont look like it. They even have magical equivalent to cellphones, both with sunsets journal, and the fartalk potion from the movie.
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I guess. But ponies might be somewhat scared if we make a super Advanced AI. Like Friendship Is Optimal.
They could perhaps save us from this super AI. And put stop this evil version of Celestia.
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Modern guns yes. But as they're being introduced, and magic is proved to wildly more effective, and the other pony races are already working together, further research into the tech would be very motivated.
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ponies also have AI, most notably the tree of harmony. And on the opposite side of the scale, there is the “come to life”-spell, which seems to temporarily infuse an object with an artificial mind.
The ponies might just see it a kind of magical artifact gone rouge.
It depends on the town or city that you go too. Ponyville is closer to a medieval setting with modern tech all over the place. Where marehattan is closer to the 1950s.
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Marehattan appears quite late in the series. You can always make up your own 'lore' if needed in your fan fiction.