Borderworld lore snippets 3 - Discord edition · 3:08am Jul 22nd, 2022
Hey y'all. I'm back with yet another lore snippets blog, and boy was this one a bitch to edit. This time I thought I'd compile all the little bits and pieces of world-building I've written over the years answering questions from friends and fans in various Discord chats.
This one will be covering a very broad range of subjects, and touches on most of my major stories, so there should be something for everyone here. But unlike the last couple blogs, which were mostly new material, this one will also be retreading some old ground, since it contains a lot of quick summaries of things which I've already covered in more detail in my stories and essays before. To that end, if anyone wants further explanation of any particular topic, I've included relevant links wherever possible, similar to a wiki.
I'll get you people reading my essays one way or another, mark my words.
As before, these were not the exact questions I was asked, nor the exact answers I gave at the time, as I have edited both for better clarity and flow. But thank you to everyone out there who gave me an excuse to ramble about this shit to them. You know who you are.
Which ships does the Borderworld incorporate?
Of the mane six, I go with Applejack/Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy/Discord, Rarity/Spike, and Pinkie/Cheese, as they seem most likely from their interactions in canon. Princess Twilight I pair with Moondancer, which will probably be one of my more controversial choices, but I just couldn't justify any of her more common ships in my setting (Sunset, Starlight, and Trixie are all taken, Luna and Flash Sentry she was never especially close with, Tempest never even met her in this universe because she's off in distant lands being a witcher, etc). But at the same time, it seemed unlikely to me that someone like Twilight would ever end up alone, so I had to give her something.
For the Equestria Girls versions of the mane six, I instead pair Applejack with Rarity, and Sci-Twi with Sunset.
As for other side characters, I go with Big Mac and Cheerilee, Apple Bloom and Tender Taps, and Starlight and Trixie. Oh, and Lyra and Bon Bon... though you wouldn't know it from reading Just Dodge!, since I tried to keep their relationship ambiguous in the fic; I wasn't expecting Slice of Life to come along a year later and canonically have them all over each other, otherwise I would've written it much differently.
Also, Celestia of course had her past relationship with Good King Sombra (that's a comic thing, if you haven't heard of it before). I'm undecided on if they were exclusive or how much, since a thousand years is a hell of a long time for both of them, but yeah. Though, that's over now, since their universes separated at the end of Reflections. The prime universe's Sombra did later redeem himself as well, similar to how he did in IDW's Siege of the Crystal Empire, but that Sombra is with Radiant Hope instead, so I guess Celestia's just forever alone.
Why no TwiLuna?
I like what other authors have done with their character dynamic in other fics, don't get me wrong, but it's harder for me to justify that relationship in my setting, because the way I interpreted Luna Eclipsed was that Luna had very little contact with Twilight for most of her first year back in Equestria, until we saw them reunite onscreen in that episode. The two only started interacting on a regular basis once Twilight became a princess, which was mostly in an official capacity when there was royal business to attend to. There was just never a good time for Twilight and Luna to develop that kind of relationship in the Borderworld.
Besides which, Luna already has her harem of guards and maids to take care of (much to Celestia's disapproval).
What about Sunburst? Is he not Starlight and Trixie's bitch-boy?
Those two are based in Ponyville, while Sunburst lives all the way up in the Crystal Empire. So if he's anyone's bitch-boy, he's Shining and Cadance's.
Do any of the mane six have children after the time of the show?
Discord and Fluttershy have a son and daughter, twin draconequui. Their names are Dissonance and Serenity, also known as Vali and Narfi in the draconequus tongues.
Spike and Rarity also had a draconequus daughter with help from Discord's magic. She's called Disparity. Geddit?
Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich also still had Lil' Cheese, like in canon.
Which comics are canon to the Borderworld?
I'm still working this out, but the Borderworld, generally, resembles a mostly unified pre-season seven canon. It follows most of the old comics, but not all of them. Since they're all so mutually contradictory anyway, and I stopped following canon 100%, I started picking and choosing. So Anon-a-Miss didn't happen, for a start. But I kept as much as I could, even from stories I don't like, such as the deer arc. I also followed a lot of other secondary canon, like Under the Sparkling Sea (so I have old canon seaponies, not Movie seaponies), the GM Berrow books for things like Cadance's backstory, and, much to Oliver's probable consternation, Journal of the Two Sisters.
This does mean, however, that the mysterious blood moon from Van Helsing is actually really tiny and really close (as per Nightmare Rarity), and that the hunters could probably go up there and investigate what the fuck's happening for themselves if they had a big enough rope and Celestia's help. Please keep this hilarious detail to yourselves.
What is the history between Equestria and Thicket?
The deer were among the original inhabitants of the Equestrian continent, alongside sheep and cattle and other species. They were once a peaceful and prosperous people, spread out all across the Heartland, but this changed when a big fucking space war came to their planet, and the self-proclaimed Emperor of the Universe sent his messengers to the deer to spread his dark gospel, converting them to Order worship.
Soon after, ponies began settling the Heartland, but they followed Harmony, rather than Order, and one cult in particular even began worshipping the Tree of Harmony in the Everfree directly. This made the deer mad as fuck, and so the pony settlers and the native deer came into conflict, not over land or resources, but over ideology. This turned out to be a bad idea, as although the ponies fought defensively rather than for conquest, the deer were still greatly outmatched, and were soon defeated. The deer retreated, voluntarily confining themselves to several small forest kingdoms, and became isolationist weirdos.
Later, during the Reign of Chaos, as most of the deer kingdoms fell to Discord, those that remained rallied under King Aspen, who established Thicket in the Everfree Forest, using their proximity to the hated Tree of Harmony as a ward against Discord's influence. They later allowed Celestia and Luna to pass through their forest to retrieve the Elements of Harmony to defeat Discord (inadvertently serving as the Tree's trial for the Royal Sisters' worthiness), and subsequently reached an agreement with Equestria to protect their respective interests.
Thicket remains a small enclave of isolationist weirdos to this very day.
What was the agreement between Equestria and Thicket?
Equestria recognises Thicket's sovereignty and borders, and agrees that nobody will cross into Thicket's land without permission. Aspen is authorised to enforce border security and turn interlopers away. Equestria does not conversely require this. The deer may enter Equestria at any time they please, so long as it is not with hostile intent, but they must leave the Castle of the Two Sisters alone, because it is likely that the deer would attempt to desecrate the Tree of Harmony if they did not.
Equestria and Thicket agreed that they were at peace, and would take no hostile action against each other, unless the other side gave them reasonable cause. Reasonable cause is not exactly defined, but is mostly assumed to be violations of the treaty or other hostile military actions.
Equestria also agreed to help bring the Everfree's wild weather under control for the deer, but were ultimately unable to. Other than that, Equestria and Thicket don't have anything in the way of trade agreements, cultural exchanges, embassies, or open lines of communication, as this would violate Aspen's desire for isolation. His demand was basically for Equestria to fuck off and leave them alone.
What's Aspen and Celestia's relationship like?
Pretty much what you see. Aspen quietly despises Celestia because he sees her as emotionally weak, incompetent, and a failure of a leader, and Celestia just sort of tolerates Aspen because he's the ruler of the deer and she has to. At least until he goes too far and forces her to do something about him. It's always been that way, and the two never liked each other. I'm sure Celestia gave him a chance at first, but Aspen is exactly what you'd expect of a guy who literally worships Order – he's set in his ways.
What exactly are Thicket's borders, and how does Aspen enforce them?
Thicket has a well-defined border close to the centre of the forest, which does not encompass the entire Everfree, so towns like Ponyville, the ruins of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, and even Zecora's hut do not actually intrude upon Thicket's land. Aspen's territory is just the city of Thicket.
Aspen does still have a stake in the rest of the forest around Thicket, and does still allow the deer to roam the rest of the woods to take care of the plants and animals, since Celestia does not enforce a border, but this is as far as Aspen allows things to go. Deer are not allowed to leave the Everfree Forest without his permission for any reason, and even if they're still within the forest but outside of Thicket itself, Aspen assumes that they should obey and operate by Equestrian law, hence all the weird logical hoops he jumps through to remain technically compliant with the law during the Well-To-Do incident.
These rules and borders are even still in place by the time of To Keep the Fire Burning, several centuries after the fall of Equestria, hence why the deer never attack the Way of White's camps outside the Everfree, and only fight the crusaders within the forest itself.
If Journal of the Two Sisters is Borderworld canon, how did Celestia forget that she and Luna were natural-born?
Celestia's actual line in The Crystalling was that there had never been an alicorn born in Equestria. I justify keeping both season six and the JOTTS backstory in the Borderworld on that admittedly very thin technicality. Celestia and Luna were born alicorns, just not in Equestria. They were born in Asgard, back when there were still enough alicorns for them to breed amongst themselves. But ever since Ragnarok, the only alicorns left in Equestria are the Royal Sisters and the occasional ascendant, and alicorns coupling with mortals normally never produces alicorn offspring. Therefore, there had never been a new alicorn born in Equestria until Flurry Heart.
Where do alicorns come from?
Alicorns were the creation of Order, one of the three embodiments of magic itself, alongside Discord and the Tree of Harmony (he also created ponies in general, though more indirectly). Alicorns were artificial hybrids of the other three pony types, which he used as soldiers in his war against Discord and Harmony. They were designed as perfect, emotionless, logical beings who exclusively used dark magic (which is why dark magic = alicorn magic according to Zecora), and they were intended to control the sun and moon for him from the alicorn realm of Asgard.
Discord and the Tree fucked that up by giving the alicorns emotions, causing them to rebel and overthrow Order. Asgard existed as an independent kingdom for a time, Celestia and Luna were born and became princesses of Equestria (as chronicled in Journal of the Two Sisters, which mentions their upbringing among the alicorns). Then later, lots of violence happened, leading to Ragnarok and Discord's Reign of Chaos, in which the alicorn species mostly died out.
Ever since then, Celestia and Luna have been regularly raising new alicorn princes and princesses, using an ascension spell loosely based on the magic that Order used to create their species in the first place (though the actual requirements for becoming an alicorn are quite vague, and much of it depends on the candidate themselves being able to ascend on their own, rather than anything they can consciously choose to bestow). There have been many of these ascensions over the centuries; Cadance and Twilight were far from the first, as shown by Sunset's expectation (in IDW's Fall of Sunset Shimmer) that becoming an alicorn was something that she was just entitled to as a student of Celestia.
In fact, by the modern age, there are still many lesser royals around who claim descent from ascended alicorns like these. Blueblood is but one example, his family being descended from an alicorn prince known as Thorncrown, a young, orphaned ascendant who was adopted by Celestia as a nephew, just like Cadance. This is part of the reason why Twilight in Canterlot Wedding didn't immediately recognise that "Princess Mi Amore Cadenza" must have referred to Cadance; there are actually a lot of obscure lesser princesses kicking around.
How would you characterise Cadence in the Borderworld?
I haven't actually written anything with Cadance yet, but I don't see her as a deeply complicated character of hidden depths. I might change my mind on this at a later date, but for my mind, she is exactly what she's presented as – a nice person and a good leader who loves her family and is well suited to her role. She doesn't really need to be anything more than that, and I don't consider that a bad thing. Not every character has to be deep, and I appreciate Cadance precisely because she's so straightforward and uncomplicated.
I mean, maybe I'd make her a massive pervert if I ever wanted to put her in some outrageous Dragonfall-esque comedy, but I don't have any particular ideas for that right now.
What is Cadance's talent spell?
It's the love spell we see her using in the flashback scene in A Canterlot Wedding, the function of which I think is obvious. It's called Easy Lover.
Why did Twilight used to be afraid of Celestia, and fear being banished?
Because Celestia's previous student mysteriously disappeared without a trace, and now nobody ever talks about her. Young Twilight might have indirectly gotten the impression that very bad things happen to ponies who displease Celestia.
What is Sunset and Celestia's relationship in the Borderworld?
I don't picture Sunset and Celestia as having a particularly familial relationship, since it would conflict too much with their portrayals in canon. They really don't act that affectionate towards each other in Fall of Sunset Shimmer, and when I eventually get around to writing Sunset and Celestia, I intend to carry on that characterisation.
Certainly I like the idea of Sunset wanting Celestia to be her mom when she was a filly, and I like how other fanfics have explored this idea, but I can't actually have anything come of it in my own universe. Not unless I write my own rip-off of Terms of Forgiveness.
When did the princesses go from ceremonial figurehead leaders of the Three Tribes to consolidating their power over Equestria?
The princesses were never just ceremonial. They were meant to be impartial mediators in the newly formed Equestrian Concord, which was an elective constitutional diarchy. The centralisation of Equestria occurred later in two parts.
First part, Discord destroyed the fucking world, and the princesses had to rebuild Equestria out of the ashes, so they centralised power somewhat after the Reign of Chaos by reforming Equestria's former territories into states (somewhat similar to the US), since the original governments of the Three Tribes were completely obliterated.
The second part was that Nightmare Moon happened, which was the justification for Celestia centralising Equestria's military powers, ending the nobility's right to raise levies and bringing all the different state militias and knight orders and such under one banner. Most of Luna's followers at the time of her fall were soldiers, so the decentralised nature of the military at the time meant that inciting a rebellion or civil war was easy. The post-Luna reforms were necessary for preventing a repeat occurrence of this.
What caused Nightmare Moon to rebel against Celestia?
Primarily, it was indeed that Luna was jealous of her sister. After Discord fucked the world up and the two of them saved it, Celestia was the one who governed Equestria and saw to the recovery efforts, while Luna was off abroad slaying petty tyrants and liberating other lands in the Reunification Wars. She was a war hero and loved by the military, but everyone else preferred Celestia, and a few even thought of Luna as an imperialist warmonger. Eventually, when the wars were over, she found that she wasn't so popular back home.
This was compounded by another problem – religion. The Royal Sisters had become subject of a new religion after the Reign of Chaos. But when the Church of the Royal Sisters started out, it was dedicated to them both equally. Morning mass for Celestia, evening mass for Luna. But the Celestian and Lunanite priests held entirely different (and sometimes even conflicting) moral values, so the Church underwent a schism and split into two churches, one for each sister, so that they could do their own things without getting in each other's way. But once they did that, it became socially acceptable to be either a Celestian or a Lunanite. You weren't obligated to be both. And the vast majority of the population chose Celestia. Luna did not take this well.
Skip forward two hundred years, and Equestria is still getting gang-banged by vampires and hengstwolves and other monsters as a consequence, thus giving Van Helsing a socially acceptable reason to stab people in the eyes.
How powerful are the vampires and hunters in Van Helsing meant to be?
While older vampires are somewhat stronger, that's mostly expressed in their regeneration rate and vulnerability to sunlight. Generally speaking, a vampire is just a regular person with absurd healing abilities, and that healing can be temporarily inhibited by sunlight magic, or permanently inhibited by sunlight magic to the heart. So basically, if you're a hunter equipped for the job (like Sacred for example), a vampire griffon is no more dangerous than a regular griffon, and taking on several at once is doable, if not necessarily easy. On the other hand, for civilians and other authorities like the Royal Guard, fighting even one vampire is a nightmare, because even if they're the better fighters, that vampire isn't ever going down.
Helsing is kind of a special case, because a vampire-hunting cutie mark counts for a lot in his line of work. Hellfire and True Shot, in comparison, were fairly average hunters, and specialised in hengstwolves rather than vampires, since vampires are much rarer. They did have vampire-hunting gear as well, just in case, but blessed bolts were a limited resource which they didn't want to waste, so it wasn't their primary loadout.
As for the Blackfeathers, they were actually pretty crappy mercenaries, which is probably why they decided to become vampires in the first place. Sure, they can take out a lot of enemies with the element of surprise and the ability to shrug off damage, but as Helsing himself noted, this very quickly made them sloppy and overconfident, so they were utterly unprepared to fight hunters.
Do the Royal Guard not have weapons for fighting vampires?
They probably would have a few blessed weapons in their armoury, but they wouldn't be standard issue because it isn't normally necessary. Sunlight magic is only ever useful against vampires, and it's been hundreds of years since the last time vampires were a serious problem in Canterlot. The Heartland is not like Trottingham; it has a lot more hunters, and also a higher calibre of hunters, so the monster population in general is a lot lower, to the point that the commoners don't even think about vampires in their daily life, whereas in Trottingham, people are killed by vampires all the time.
If the image of Celestia's cutie mark hurts vampires, what does Luna's do?
Luna's mark doesn't particularly do anything, because Celestia doesn't really have any equivalent monsters to vampires working for her. Although, moonlight magic does have one particular effect; it causes beast transformation for those infected with the wolfsplague. Silver is effective against beasts because it siphons this moonlight magic away.
So in summary, vampires are always strong, but sunlight magic weakens them, whereas beasts need moonlight magic to be strong, but silver brings them back to manageable levels. A silver weapon infused with sunlight magic is therefore the best of both worlds.
Why don't hunters wear blessed silver horse-shoes?
These probably do exist, but I'd expect only earth pony hunters would use them, thus covering my ass for not thinking of this earlier.
I really do imagine blessed silver as a limited resource for hunters, though. Most of the hunters that we see are unicorns, so of course their allotted silver would be going into making weapons that unicorns can get better use out of.
Is silver the only material that channels magic or affects monsters in this way?
Crystals and gemstones are probably the best for containing magic in general, and are used a lot in enchanting. But particular plants and minerals have particular uses. Everything in nature in this world has its own "flavour" of magic, and they interact differently, like chemistry. This is the principle that zebra alchemy is built on, and it means that you get particular interactions and weaknesses like the silver thing.
This is visible in the vampires' weaknesses, too. They're weak to a wooden stake to the heart because wood is a good conductor for sunlight magic. Other materials like silver and steel can carry sunlight magic too... but they don't collect it naturally. They need to have the magic infused into them. Which is what Sacred Fire and Celestian priests are doing when they bless weapons. It's not really the holy blessings of Celestia that hurts the vampires as such. It's just sunlight magic, whatever the source of that magic may be,
Since I probably won't ever get to point it out to anyone else, this is also secretly implied by the meaning of Sacred Fire's cutie mark. His mark is a falling holy brazier. It represents that despite the fact that he can summon sunlight magic and enchant weapons just as well as any priest, he's secretly an atheist, because he knows damn well from experience that he doesn't actually need to call on Celestia for his enchantments, and that his magic isn't actually holy.
Do the Church in Van Helsing also know that their magic isn't really holy?
Some other unicorns may know on some level, but it's not a particularly helpful truth to know, so like Sacred, most of them probably don't say anything. It's not really a conspiracy, so much as just a few wishful thinkers trying their best to ignore uncomfortable truths. The Church and the hunters in Van Helsing are particularly zealous and dogmatic because they've been fighting a holy war against literal monsters for two centuries in a world where their devil is actually real (actually, they kind of have two devils, because Discord was the original Devil of Alicornism back before the schism, but then Luna replaced him as the Celestians' symbol of ultimate evil). In that kind of situation, what good does it do them to question the pillars of their own faith?
What is the connection between Celestia and sunlight magic?
The sun itself radiates sunlight magic along with light, which gets absorbed by other things on Earth, and converted into other forms of magic or energy, so that's where sunlight magic comes from in nature.
Celestia herself is the embodiment of the sun. Stars and other celestial bodies in this universe have a rudimentary sentience because they're just so magical, and at some point in history, sun-worshipping peoples were responsible for calling that sun's spirit down to Earth. Same deal with Luna. Mind you, Celestia and Luna are not conscious of this history. Their earliest memories are still of growing up in Asgard. But their souls are still ancient cosmic entities.
As for why Celestian priests can use sunlight magic, well, as described in Journal of the Two Sisters, the unicorns used to regularly burn out their magic while moving the sun and moon, until Celestia and Luna took over the job. When they did, the Royal Sisters travelled Equestria using their newfound power to restore the magic of the drained unicorns. As a consequence of that, generations later, many ponies in Equestria still have a strong affinity for either sunlight or moonlight magic. In the culture of Alicornism, this was seen as a sign of divine blessing, and priests tended to be ponies who were "blessed" with these affinities.
What is an angel in the context of Alicornism?
Basically, they were just alicorns who aren't Celestia or Luna. "Angels" was how the Alicornists rationalised the existence of Lord Second and other alicorns who survived the fall of Asgard, and was a way to show them respect and acknowledge their special status without having to declare them to be gods as well. Ascendant royals in this context were ponies who were "raised" to divinity by Celestia or Luna's will. Later on, some Alicornists also revised their canon to state that Luna was never actually a god like Celestia, but an angel, as a true god would have never fallen.
What exactly is the Borderworld's connection to Human?
In Human's joke ending, the universe is destroyed because Discord presses a big reset button to restore Equestria to factory settings, and this results in the Borderworld. Every individual who existed in Human's world exists in the Borderworld too, but mostly in a highly altered form. So new versions of characters from Human show up all over in my stories.
Helsing and his family (most notably his cousin, Soft Spoken), were all characters from the original universe, though as examples of the kind of changes that happened in the transition, the original Soft Spoken was adopted by Helsing's uncle rather than being a blood relative, Helsing himself was green rather than white, and the original version of Devious was a far less intimidating brown stallion called Jericho, who was actually killed by Godric.
Does Human's Lord Second still exist in the Borderworld?
As I said, the Borderworld officially follows the joke ending of Human with Captain Cometson. But the original planned ending did still happen in another timeline. As a result, there are actually three versions of Second which survived into the Borderworld.
There's the ur-concept of Second, which was reincarnated in a highly altered form like every other character. Borderworld Second is an alicorn from Asgard who happened to not be around for Ragnarok, and now rules a kingdom known as the Valley of Eden in eastern Thoroupe, which is itself a conceptual reincarnation of Secopolis. Like the original Second, he became immortal and was worshipped as a god in his country, but went mad after outliving his wife. He died under mysterious circumstances not long after season six.
Then there's the manifestation of Second's power, known as the Lordforce, which carries on most of original self's his memories and persona. This aspect of Second, along with every other Lordforce user (except Explodey), became a monstrous cosmic horror known as the Orphaned Starchild, a being of smooze, which goes around eating gods and planets just because it hates everything.
And then there's the Second from that original planned ending of Human, who was burned alive in another timeline and fell through time and the multiverse. He eventually landed in the Borderworld, and just kept doing his thing. This version of Second still remembers everything from the original story, and still has his independence and autonomy, but retains only a fraction of his power. He is known as the Skeleton King of the Court of Bones, is currently in Jotunheim, and is set to appear in Something Cosmic.
Is the Smooze intelligent?
Some smooze is, other smooze is not. In the Borderworld, smooze is a species, not an entity, and it's made up of solidified Lordforce leftover from the previous universe. The Orphaned Starchild is the greatest concentration of smooze in the known universe, and it is both intelligent and actively malevolent. Explodey McGee is also an intelligent smooze entity, though it took him a while to awaken his intelligence. Discord's gala guest is still going through that process. He's sentient, but not yet particularly smart. That'll change if he's ever allowed to start absorbing people rather than jewels and precious metals.
Would Discord ever fade away if he stopped being chaotic, like in Discordant Harmony?
No, Discord not being chaotic wouldn't make him fade. For one, his body is still physical, so it wouldn't go anywhere, and for another, his soul wouldn't disappear, because it's a fundamental building block of reality. Discord in the Borderworld isn't just some spirit or chimera, he's the physical embodiment of magic itself. Or one of the three of them, anyway. He's thirteen billion years old, has travelled the length and breadth of the known universe and beyond, and commands theoretically infinite power which he just doesn't use, because actually gathering it would drain it from everywhere else.
So Discord not acting chaotic, by itself, wouldn't do anything. Discord specifically attempting to control or use non-chaotic magic, on the other hand, would cause him to completely lose control of his own powers. Best case scenario, he turns everything for a hundred miles around him into something like his dimension. Worst case... demons, eldritch horrors, and possible planetary annihilation. The wasteland timeline which Starlight created was partially caused by an instance of this.
Does Discord age?
Discord used to age, but eventually he got bored of it.
Where did Sombra and Chrysalis come from?
I follow their comic backstories from FIENDship is Magic. So in Sombra's case, he was an umbrum unaware of his true nature, who was adopted by the crystal ponies, but was caused incredible pain by the Crystal Heart, and who eventually turned on and killed Princess Amore. And as for Chrysalis, just as we saw, her and the rest of the changelings were accidentally created by Star Swirl. Chrysalis herself was born from an unfortunate mixture of love poison, lingering necromantic power, the bones of an alicorn, and a hive of insects that happened to live in that swamp. Star Swirl himself did not actually contribute anything to this makeup; he merely sparked the reaction which caused these elements to coalesce into a new being.
How did Equestria find out about the Crystal Empire's return and build a railway there so quickly?
The EUP Guard, and the Royal Guard by extension, have a punishment platoon which used to be stationed in the far north. Prior to the Crystal Empire's return, the Royal Guard used to send their worst fuck-ups to man a watchpost there known as Outpost Neverwinter (built on the ruins of Fort Neverwinter, the site where Commander Hurricane supposedly slew the Last Windigo). This is what the station was built for.
The outpost was ostensibly just a place for the punishment platoon to be cold and miserable for a while, but in reality it served the greater purpose of keeping a watch for any signs of the Empire's return, so that Equestria could be quickly informed (a duty which only the outpost's commanders were ever made fully aware of). Naturally, many of the soldiers stationed at Outpost Neverwinter over the years were suspicious of its true purpose, wondering why they had constructed a rail line out to the middle of nowhere, and why Princess Celestia really wanted them to keep watch on the north, but until the day of the Empire's actual return, all they had were rumours and superstition.
Coincidentally, Flash Sentry was among those stationed at Outpost Neverwinter at the time of the Empire's return, which was a major factor in him eventually joining the Crystal Guard.
Can changelings still transform into huge monsters like in canon?
Mmmmmmaybe? That might fall within the realms of their abilities, but it's tricky. Borderworld changelings have a kind of elastic quality to their bodies that allows them to bend and twist themselves into weird shapes, which they then overlay with illusion magic, but they still have to obey conservation of mass, unlike the skittlebugs in late-series MLP.
That changeling in the season six finale who transformed into Discord? In this setting, that was an extreme feat, pushing the limits of what changeling transformation is capable of, so I'm reluctant to say they can do anything crazier than that. I suppose a changeling could maybe, theoretically turn into a huge monster like Pharynx and Ocellus did, but if they did, they'd be like pufferfish, just full of air. Good for looking intimidating, but a very bad idea to fight with, otherwise they would've all transformed into big monsters when invading Canterlot.
Do the student six exist in the Borderworld?
I suppose technically they could, and I'm not in principle against it if anyone ever wanted to write a Borderworld fic with them in it, but I think there would almost be no point to including them, because they would basically have to be entirely different characters anyway. They would have had completely different life experiences, they would have been shaped by an entirely different world, and without the School of Friendship, there isn't even any reason for them to all come together.
I mean, just for a start, the hippogriffs aren't even a naturally occurring race in the Borderworld, and don't have their own kingdom; at best they would be super rare hybrids created by interspecies conception magic. So if Silverstream even exists at all in this world, her family would be very different, her home would be different, none of the Storm King backstory would be a factor, and she wouldn't have even grown up underwater, so she wouldn't have that fascination with surface stuff. At that point, is she even still Silverstream?
Do kirin exist in the Borderworld?
No. The Borderworld unfortunately does not have kirin. Well, not show-style kirin anyway. A kirin in mythology is a dragon-horse; I already used the word in connection to draconequui.
Borderworld draconequui come in two varieties. Kirin (or qilin) draconequui, which are chimeras of ponies and great dragons (western dragons, like Spike), and longma draconequui, which are chimeras of ponies and serpent dragons (eastern dragons, like Steven Magnet). Discord is a fucked up example of his species, but he's probably a longma.
Why are some dragons big and others are the small anthro types?
Well, the Dragontown issue of Friends Forever and that episode with Sludge in season eight are not Borderworld canon, so you can assume that any small anthro dragons seen in the series are adolescents in this setting. All adult dragons (or at least, all adult great dragons) are at least the size of the dragons we saw in season one, and they haven't gone anywhere. Torch in Gauntlet of Fire just didn't call any adult dragons to compete for the title of Dragon Lord because he was playing a political game to rig the succession in his daughter's favour.
What are the Dragon Lands, and why do they exist?
The Dragon Lands are located in northwest Zebrica, and are where the great dragons re-established themselves after Discord fucked up the old Dragon Empire. They're supposed to be a kind of neutral ground for the dragons. All dragons have their own hoards and their own territories, and they're free to fight over that if they want to, but the Dragon Lord presides over the one shared territory of their species where they go to seek refuge, settle disputes, trade, fuck, or abandon their children if they're sick of them. And when they're in the Dragon Lord's territory, they shut the fuck up and don't make trouble, or else he'll hit them with the itchy stick.
Where was the old Dragon Empire, and what happened to it?
On the map of Equestria (the pre-movie version), you'll note a large frozen wasteland in the north. The frozen lands beyond the mountains were the old homelands of the Three Tribes, as well as Yakyakistan and the Dragon Empire. The Dragon Empire was the furthest west. Then Yakyakistan. And then the Three Tribes, who migrated from the east over a land bridge called the Forsaken Crags, which connects the Frozen North with Griffonstone (which the ponies fled from back during the Chimera Wars). Naturally, the pegasi served as the bulwark between ponykind and all the fucked up shit west of them. There were also goats living in the region, but they were all enslaved by the dragons.
The ponies fought with the dragons and yaks, of course. They spent a few centuries setting up a few minor colonies in the south beyond the mountains, got along with some species they found there like the donkeys and cattle, very much did not get along with the deer, and then later fully abandoned their homelands to establish Equestria after the windigoes came and permanently fucked up the north. But the yaks and dragons both stayed and physically fought the windigoes, because they didn't know there was anything worthwhile to the south, and so never thought to migrate elsewhere.
Eventually, Discord: End of Empires happened, wherein Discord ended an empire, and that of course left the yaks the sole rulers of the Frozen North, proving once and for all that yaks best.
Will the windigoes ever return to Equestria like in season nine?
No, I don't see them ever returning, and not just because Borderworld Equestria would never suddenly turn racist for no reason like in season nine. Windigoes in this world don't just manifest in the presence of hatred. They were artificially created beings who cannot breed, and there's a finite and ever dwindling number of them. Most were killed during the Classical Era, either by Equestria during the War of the Winter, or by the Dragon Empire and Yakyakistan in the Frozen North. If there are any left on Earth at all, they're rare, and there aren't enough of them left to freeze all of Equestria again. The only place that still has windigoes in abundance anymore is Jotunheim, and the Jotuns are used to the cold.
What happened to the Founders of Equestria?
When he was taking over Equestria, Discord would either drive the politicians mad, extract promises from them to never attempt to rule anybody again, or sometimes just scatter them across the world. That includes the Founders of Equestria. Most of them died in obscurity very far from home. Clover the Clever was an exception, sacrificing herself as a martyr to rekindle the extinguished Fire of Friendship, for which she would later be canonised as a saint by the Church of the Royal Sisters.
What is the world of Equestria Girls like in the Borderworld?
Equestria in the Borderworld is already defined as a very distant alternate version of our world, so the human world is just a closer parallel. There's an America-like nation which is culturally and historically similar to the US, and other countries which similarly parallel real world nations, but people still have Equestrian-style names, and locations and products are still horse puns. This is due to the Roman Empire of this world being obsessed with horses to the point of it affecting their language, and the western world inheriting this quirk of culture.
The laws of physics are also pretty much the same as in the Borderworld, so contrary to what Sunset thinks, magic actually does work mostly the same between worlds; it's just that human biology kind of fucks with it. Humans can't channel their magic normally, so they have no outlet for it. This means that they actually have way more magic than ponies do, because they never use any of it, which makes them volatile and easily transformed into demons when trying to use it.
This also means that Demon Shimmer's plan at the end of the first movie actually had some merit to it, contrary to what you might think; with the amount of raw magical power they had inside them, her army of mind-controlled high schoolers would've been absolutely devastating on the other side of the portal (at least with Sunset controlling and coordinating them so that they don't trip over their own hooves).
The human world also had spirits and gods and such at one point in the distant past, just like Equestria, but they all either annihilated each other or went underground. Most of the spirits are still around in one form or another, just dormant or living as humans now. The thing from Legend of Everfree which the Rainbooms got their geodes from was one of these dormant gods, the dead stump of the human world's Tree of Harmony. Celestia and Luna are also still their world's spirits of the sun and moon; they just aren't consciously aware of it and cannot actually use their powers due to their human forms.
Also, Discord is President of the United States.
How much weed does President Discord smoke?
Probably a lot, and several other things besides.
Why is Filthy Rich a cool guy in Equestria, but a huge asshole in the human world?
Equestria's Filthy Rich is less of an asshole because his family settled in the small town of Ponyville, and made their wealth from a close working relationship with the humble Apple family settlers, whereas the human Rich family made their wealth in a more industrialised, corporate society like our world, and lacked that personal down to earth connection.
This is also why the human Filthy Rich has a much thicker southern accent than his Equestrian counterpart. His company is still called Barnyard Bargains, but for him, that's more of a brand than an actual representation of the culture he grew up in. He puts on the accent to maintain an image as a good ol' southern boy, because he represents the company, and it plays well to his customer base. But it's all an act. It's not the authentic Filthy Rich. In contrast, the Equestrian Filthy Rich, despite being closer with actual southern farmers like the Apples, doesn't speak with this accent, because that's just not how his own family spoke, and unlike his human counterpart, he doesn't feel the need to put on an act. He's free to just be himself.
Human Flim and Flam run a pawnshop. Do you think they ever sold a gun?
If they're anything like their counterparts from Dragonfall, then yes, absolutely.
What is Rarity's last name?
Ponies in this setting don't have last names in the way that we do. Their naming conventions don't work like that. Families might have names, but a pony's name is a pony's name. It might have the family name in it somewhere, or it might not. Applejack's full name is Applejack. Big Mac's full name is Big Macintosh. But for census purposes, they might be called something like "Applejack of the Apple Family."
Rarity in season one once hoped that all of Equestria would one day know her as "Rarity the Unicorn," so I think that Rarity's family don't even have a name. They're just "Rarity's family." And it frustrates her to no end. She keeps trying to pressure her parents to register a family name with the government so that she can call herself something like "Rarity of House Belle," but they're too preoccupied with sportsball and their latest vacation. I guess she'll just have to get married and start her own family name.
How do pony naming conventions work in this setting?
So for a quick rundown:
Ponies have no rules whatsoever about what you can call yourself, because they're a bunch of hippies, hence how we get mononym names like Rarity's, and family names like the Apples, who don't even have to include the word "apple" anywhere in their full name. Despite this, there is a cultural expectation of what a pony name sounds like, and that is that it's no longer than four syllables (not including titles), and that they're usually composed of normal English words, even if the final name itself has no actual meaning.
However, there are individuals from outside the Heartland of Equestria, and in these more distant, foreign lands, they have names that aren't composed of normal English words. They have human-sounding names, originating from other species and other languages. So you get cases like Steven Magnet the Sea Serpent, or Jim the Rock Troll, and it's from cultural contact with these species in the past that you end up with groups of ponies who might name their foals something like Joe or Sam.
Sometimes, just like how real-world immigrants might Anglicise their names, ponies in the Heartland with these cultural backgrounds might also sometimes try to overcompensate with their integration by inserting horse-related words into their human-sounding names. So you that's how you get names like Suri Polomare, or Pony Joe, or Adolf Hoofler.
What the fuck are "moons," and how long are they meant to be?
For the length of a "moon," I pretty much use Oliver's interpretation as-is. There is no getting around the use of "moons" in the series, even if my fics cut off from canon earlier than others do, and Oliver's research deals with the inconsistencies the best.
In the Borderworld, "moons" as a unit of measurement was devised in the Crystal Empire during Discord's reign, because he screwed around with not just the skies, but time itself, and so a more objective measure was not just more useful, but absolutely necessary (the Crystal Empire was protected from the worst of Discord's influence because of the Crystal Heart's harmony shield (though even they weren't totally unaffected by time fuckery; they were just the closest to accurate of the surviving civilizations afterwards)).
"Moons" fell out of popular use in the Celestial Eras, both for the obvious reasons, and also because they were no longer necessary in an age where the flow of time and the solar cycle were consistent again. However, they saw a modern revival during the timeframe of the show after Nightmare Moon's return, since all the big villains showing up and screwing with the sun and moon constantly meant that the solar cycle was once again no longer a reliable measure of time. This is why it doesn't show up in the earliest seasons, and why its usage becomes more common the further we progress.
What do ponies call their planet?
"Equus" is used by some, but only within Equestria, and never in any particularly cosmopolitan places, because it's a really equicentric name that other races never adopted. So "Earth" would be the most common name, at least on the planet itself.
Elsewhere, it's better known as Midgard, or the Borderworld.
Why do most Borderworld characters say "everybody" instead of "everypony"?
The general rule I have is that a pony is more likely to use equicentric language if they're unused to having non-ponies around. Most of the mane six grew up in mostly homogeneous equine communities like Ponyville or Canterlot, so they'd be an example of this. Pinkie didn't even know what a griffon was until season one. So you see more uses of "everypony" and "anypony" from show canon characters like them.
This is in contrast to most of my protagonists, who for various reasons tend to be more worldly and conscious of non-ponies. Helsing and Firelink, for instance, are both from a place literally called the Griffish Isles, so they grew up knowing about griffons. Agony also spent years of his life travelling the world in a mercenary company, so he too much more readily uses general terms instead of species-specific ones.
Why is pony swearing portrayed so inconsistently in Dragonfall?
Pony profanity is generally much softer than ours. Things like Fluttershy saying she's "peeved" is mildly vulgar for ponies, on par with an American saying "damn" or "hell." And words like "damn" or "hell" for ponies are actually really harsh language on par with some of our stronger curses, which indicates that characters like Agony and Helsing are extremely uncouth (unlike the mane six, who are relatively polite, and thus never heard swearing in this manner).
Our more extreme curses, like "fuck" and "cunt," do still exist in the pony language, but only in their literal sexual meanings, not as actual insults or general profanity. So a character like Agony would never tell someone to fuck off, or to go fuck themselves, or call them a cunt (Killjoy would, but that's a habit she picked up from non-ponies). Agony would, however, call someone a motherfucker, because in Equestria that's a literal (if not necessarily serious) accusation of incest, and thus still an insult by pony standards.
Did Agony and Redwood grow up in the Heartland?
Yes. Hard Cash and her family were from Las Pegasus, and Redwood's "father" was from Canterlot. And Agony, actually, is from Manehattan (so feel free to imagine all his dialogue spoken with a comically thick New York accent if you want).
How does Killjoy in the Borderworld differ from Posh's Killjoy?
Posh is the go-to expert on all things Killjoy, since she was created for his fic, Pony Gear Solid. But I would say that the primary difference is that Borderworld Killjoy is much older than the ones in the Poshfuckery multiverse. PGS Killjoy is probably in her early thirties or late twenties, while the Killjoy of Posh's Equestria Girls stories is a teenager. Killjoy in Dragonfall is about the same age as she is in PGS, but crucially, Dragonfall is set some years earlier, which accounts for the differences in Killjoy's life paths.
PGS references a Sunheart Company as well, but Killjoy is not in it. This is because PGS Killjoy was born at the right time to get into the Royal Guard with Shining Armor, and became friends with him and Flash Sentry and others. Borderworld Killjoy, on the other hand, ended up banging the same Sunheart recruiter as Agony, and was thus condemned to a life of mercenary work in the company of cannibals, child molesters, and Literally Actually Hitler.
So in terms of life circumstances, Borderworld Killjoy probably doing significantly worse off, but she's also ironically much more together and functional than most of her counterparts. PGS Killjoy only survived in the Royal Guard for so long because she was close with Shining Armor, but without him to coddle her and show her leniency, she was quickly drummed out of the military for negligence and being drunk on duty, and had the opportunity to grow and confront some of her issues. By the time of Dragonfall, she's... sort of recovered.
Although the version of Killjoy who's doing best is probably her Sunlight For Life iteration, who gets a wolf puppy.
When exactly is Dragonfall set?
989, Fifth Celestial Era, eleven years before the show. Notably, this means that Agony and Killjoy would both have to be at least forty by the time of season one. Probably older. And they'd be pushing their sixties by the time of the Changeling War. Assuming they both survive the story, that is.
How did Googlymoo's bandits in Dragonfall have so many old hunters' trinkets?
I like to think that Googlymoo became the leader of a band of dumbfucks in Dragonfall because he couldn't cut it as a bandit in Griffonstone. But before he left for Equestria, he stole all of Grandpa Gruff's family heirlooms. He tells everybody that he robbed the King of Griffonstone, and nobody else in Dragonfall has any idea what Griffonstone even is, let alone that it doesn't have a king anymore, so they all just believe him.
As for how Grandpa Gruff got this stuff, he's a descendent of Geraldine's family, and so is Gilda by extension. Not sure if they're directly descended from Geraldine or not, though. Maybe from Gertrude or one of their other siblings? That's up in the air.
What are some other fun facts about the Borderworld?
Celestia and Luna are actually half-sisters by different mothers. Their real names are Skinfaxi and Hrímfaxi, and their dad was Thor.
Fluttershy and Zephyr Breeze are distantly related to both Helsing and Agony.
Discord created the minotaurs, and they formed a prominent cult around him back in Minos. He kinda doesn't care about it.
Spike's real dad actually lives in Canterlot. He guards Celestia's treasury. Nobody mentions him because he's a deadbeat and wants nothing to do with the kid.
The Headless Horse was real, and he killed the dinosaurs.
Tartarus is located in the realm of Helheim. It used to belong to Discord, but he gave it away to one of his daughters as a birthday present. It's changed hands a few times since then.
Luna once killed an outer god known as the Nameless One by dropping a meteor on it. Equestria has since built a maximum security correctional facility in the resulting crater.
Ah, Narfi. A fine name with absolutely no worrisome connotations.
(No, I don't think you made that reference intentionally, and no, I don't expect her to make any pacts with any death gods. But the coincidence amuses me.)
... Huh. That makes a lot of sense; I'm surprised I've never seen that supposition before. I may need to borrow it.
Because silver's still a soft metal and the things would wear out if they were worn as actual shoes? Mind you, slip-ons are still viable options. (And I admittedly need to read Van Helsing, so my apologies if sunlight-blessing silver makes it harder.)
And now I'm wondering what he did to get stationed there at the time.
Fascinating stuff throughout! Thank you for another great pile of insight into your world(s).
5674472
Correct. I was going for a completely different set of worrisome connotations.
I expect to be paid royalties.
Did not actually consider this. Better not make them silver then, if I ever do include some earth pony hunters.
Serial waifu theft.
One of my dearest wishes is to one day commission someone to draw President Discord dressed like Vermin Supreme (complete with boot on his head) doing this Richard Nixon pose:
static.politico.com/a1/2c/55bed499413787658f6284e8736c/170205-richard-nixon-ap-97061702515.jpg