[12/14/2014] Revisions to Chapter 4 and onwards. More info here: http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/416547/fixing-i-think-i-can-remember
Celestia is settling into being a princess. It’s a lot of work, but luckily Star Swirl is a big help, even if Luna isn’t.
Then she wakes up and over a thousand years have passed. Her sister was banished to the moon and came back, Star Swirl is long gone, and Celestia apparently has a small purple alicorn student.
What’s going on?
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I'm quite enjoying this have an upvote, tracking, and follow.
i can't wait to see where this is going
Remember: Twilight won't outlive her friends, and we have seen Cadance aging on the show (A Canterlot Wedding). We can assume that Twilight and Cadance (a Pegasus who became an Alicorn) aren't immortal.
Okay, now that that nitpick is out of the way, back to the story! :D Which is awesome!
5358102 Well, "Twilight won't outlive her friends" could mean anything in a world of magic. I doubt the issue of their mortality is going to be raised in the show and as long as it isn't, it's really not something we need to care about.
Besides, this is fanfiction. If an author says Twilight is immortal/as long-lived as Celestia and Luna, then she damn well is xD
And personally, I don't really see why Twilight and Cadence would be different from Celestia and Luna. Were the Royal Sisters even born as alicorns themselves? If they weren't and transformed through some method or other as Twilight and Cadence did, then there's no reason the latter two wouldn't have the same sort of lifespan.
Ah, but there are plenty of head cannons that say Alicorns age very slowly and live for a very long time. I like one that shows they age to full adult hood the stop aging. Also, that "nonimorality" thing is just out there so little girls don't cry thinking about 5 of the six passing on. We don't know in cannon if Celestia and Luna were born Alicorns.
5358102
Or her friends will continually ressurect, resulting in her functionally never outliving her friends as they come and go, or they're going to turn alicorn as well, or who knows...
Or, you know, growing up as an alicorn takes a while, and what we saw were the twilight (heh) of Cadance's absurdly long teenaged years.
5358389
If memory serves right, in "The Journal of the Two Sisters" (which is presumably canon because one of the writers on the show did write it), Celestia and Luna were born as alicorns.
It also states that alicorns "age differently" than the others, but it's unclear whether this refers to only natural-born alicorns or also includes transformed alicorns.
[youtube=Gm705Itp2OU]
small issue. i think the sissters are far older then you are putting them. At minimum I put Discord dethroning at 3000 years ago. That gives time for the sister's to cement their rule and for Luna to have the issue that make her NMM then we have the thousand year solo rule and finally the current age.
Holy crap that premise. Yeah, this is going in my priority RL.
5358784 I did not know that. But, not to be contrary for the sake of being contrary, I honestly don't trust outside material to be properly canon unless it's explicitly stated to be and even then canon can be bent for the sake of a good story.
And in the case of the Journal of the Two Sisters, I'll take anything it says with a grain of salt since I can't be sure all the writers and creator agrees with it. For all we know, the show may state otherwise. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened in the world of entertainment, after all.
Hmmm. Unless it's directly stated on the show I think I will consider Twilight's mortality to be optional and dependent on whether or not it fits the story. That way I have less reason to get into arguments about it xD
5359054 Personally I think 3000 years is way too much. IMO the sisters were likely only a few hundred years old at most when Luna flipped her shit and turned into Nightmare Moon.
Still, opinions. I don't think anyone has ever stated how old they are, so at this point we're just guessing.
Twilight isn't her student anymore. They're equals
5359269 true but the author of this story is putting them at just over a thousand years. That is way to young.
5359333
That's right, agh ...
Luna said it.
5359054 Yeah, I didn't want to put an exact number on it. I used "over a thousand years" because we know they're at least that old, and it sounds good.
I love the story but Why does it Always have to be 1 thousand years? Why not longer?
NMM was a thousand years ago and so was Sombra AND Tirek!
oh yea the Wendigos too from Hearth Warming eve happened then because Platinum and the others were still alive .... (I always assumed that one was at least a few thousand years ago ...)
5359269
Has anyone read the Celestia/Luna diary book?
It might give a clue to their age but I have not heard anything about what is actually in it ...
5359607 fully agree there.
5359601 better use would be thousands of years ago. NMM was a thousand years ago and frankly it would take longer then a century to get to that point. while no dates are given we can assume the Sister have been well entrench as the rulers before NMM.
Admittedly head canon here but i figure that the Sister never met the founding leaders of Equestria and were born either before or during Discord's reign. THen assumed rule after defeating him. I figure at least a couple hundred years for those ages.
5359356 Why is that too young? I'm not sure where it implies that the royal sisters had ruled for a very long time before Luna's banishment.
I mean, if it's something like... 1050 years old then yeah, that's probably too young. But I personally doubt it's something like 1800 years old.
5359879 Consider how entrenched the sisters are in Equestria. They built a castle and the flag bear them on it. any less then what i said really whacks Luna that it didn't take long for her to go NMM. Give her more credit. I could buy them being 1800. but 1050, HELL NO
...What the D'AWW? THIS. IS. ADORABLE PONIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5359652
That's not headcanon, that conflicts with canon.
Starswirl mentored Clover the Clever and was still considered "young" before Tirek attacked, which was during Celestia and Luna's reign. They assumed power after Discord and it's heavily implied Discord ruled after the founding of Equestria, which means it was a very short period of time between Equestria's founding and Celestia and Luna taking power, all within Starswirl's lifetime and therefore most likely within the lifetimes of the other founders, who would be younger than Starswirl.
Also, I don't know where it is, but I think somewhere it's mentioned that Celestia taught Starswirl.
5359952 Starswirl himself is a mystery. Heck we know he traveled through time. So he could teach the sisters during one of his jumps. and we don't really know how long ponies live. Granny Smith at minimum is one hundred. is it concieveable the unicorns have a long life time, yes. But using Starswirl as a reference is not the best idea.
5359909
Well... That's not really all that impressive and not a very good indicator of how long they've ruled. Consider that we've had rulers in ancient and not-so-ancient history who have built up regimes in less than a human lifetime and they didn't even have the benefit of magic or modern day technology.
Also, I find the idea that it took Luna centuries to turn into Nightmare Moon ridiculous. That implies that Celestia was blind to her plight for hundreds of years and I have a very hard time buying that. I'm also not keen on the idea that Luna could resist the kind of mental stress that would cause her to turn into Nightmare Moon for the same amount of time.
It's considerably more realistic that Luna crumbled over the course of a generation or two and even that much is a sign of incredible willpower. Most people are unlikely to endure the kind of issues Luna did for more than a few decades at most before they'd go weird.
Edit: I'm also pretty sure the writers played fast and loose with the timeline of Equestria.
5360069 the second part is what i'm saying. Look at Heir to nightmare. Polaris does what i think was most of what caused Luna to go NMM. he adds in one of the best things to really trip her over.
Luna did simmer on the issue for awhile and Celestia thought it would blow over. she was wrong.
No matter what each of us believe we both think 1050 is too short.
5360124 Yes, 1050 years is definitely too short, on that we agree.
Oooh... This is good. I eagerly await the next chapter.
5360028
The only example of Starswirl traveling through time is a a near-useless spell that lasts ten seconds.
Giving Starswirl the kind of Time travel you claim he's capable of would make him godlike.
5360165
5359909 You guys are right, I've changed it. The first time I wrote it, I picked "not even 50" to give "over a thousand" more weight, but I think I can manage without it.
5360463 it was a small thing and I am interested to see where it goes.
*grabs popcorn*
5359269
I think that is reasonable. Of course any writer may have it otherwise, but three centuries seems like plenty of time for disputes and animosity to creep in.
5359607
Implication is that the Nightmare Moon incident occurred during Celestia and Luna's reign. Thus, if Luna was banished a thousand years ago, those other events must have happened at least a thousand years ago and after Celestia and Luna came to power. It's also a span of time that's long, but not so long that ponies will have completely forgotten if they had records and stories to remind them. The apparent legend makes it seem a bit like Celestia went out of her way to erase certain things from public knowledge. Sombra had to have happened at a similar point; that is, after Luna and Celestia's birth and/or them became the rulers. Thus the exact dates depend on whole old Luna and Celestia were then. and are now. Hearth's warming might have occurred before then, but it seems unclear. Also, if Cadence is Celestia's niece and has her cutie mark how old is she? One might assume that she could have been born before or during the reign of Sombra and wonder what she's been doing in the mean time. Perhaps she was born after and her cutie mark was a symbol that the crystal empire was returning. If she wasn't born before and Luna had a hand in Sombra and the crystal empire then where and when did Cadence show up? Who did Celestia have relations with? Or is she only distantly related?
5359909
The fact that the castle bears their standard doesn't mean much. By the reckoning of mortal, or at least short-lived ponies, three hundred years is a long time. Five hundred is probably more than long enough to relegate the time before the Two Sisters to dusty history books.
5360069
I'd expect it to have taken at least 5-10 years. A century or two seems adequate at the far end to have developed abiding distrust/dislike/spite. It would have taken time, barring the use of dark magic and assuming there was a proper conflict, to build up an army and opposition to Celestia among the pony races. Otherwise she would have gone it alone which is a different scenario and allows for a shorter time, but doesn't explain the apparent terror to ponies that she was.
5360442
Perhaps his other work was deemed harmful. A ten second time jump is significantly limited in the harm it can cause, and can serve as a useful lesson that time travel doesn't work... even if it does. Letting everyone know about that spells makes it easy for ponies to see Starswirl as a really interesting pony, but dissuades them from researching time travel themselves.
Perhaps Starswirl was exceptionally long-lived. I can't say, but living to 150 would be a significant difference if most ponies live to be 100.
5360442 yet he KNEW of NMM return and seemed to be around befpre the founding of Equestria yet be the pony to get Scorpan to betray Tirek. That whole wing is dedicated to him and only found on of his spells. You could say Starswirl was near Twilight in power when she was a unicorn. and since the lifespan of ponies is not known Unicorns could be long lived.
5360596
My headcanon puts Earth pony lifespans at about 200 years maximum, maybe a little over a century for unicorns, and even less for pegasi (mostly because Earth ponies seem long lasting, unicorns seem like they'd have a fairly high standard of living, and pegasi seem like they'd wear themselves out faster by flying everywhere). I also put Founding of Equestria, Discord, Tirek happening within a 60 year period about 2000 years before the show, and the Crystal Empire disappearing 1500 before the show (which puts 1000 years or so between Discord and NMM).
5360713
What? Where does it say he knew of NMM's return?
Actually, going back to the episode transcript, I found something intriguing...
It never says Starswirl invented the spell! It says time spells are kept in the Starswirl the Bearded wing, but it never says why the wing is named that, never says it only contains time spells, and never says any of the spells are his!
For all we know, that spell could have been written by Clover the Clever, or Celestia, or anyone.
5360463 well this sir has caught my attention, im assuming your going to go into alot more detail about the star swrirl thing and how he knew about twilight.
This is looking awesome!
Please don't stop in the middle of the fic like so many others c':
Pretty pretty please
5360800 Who else would have done the prophecy.
And time traveling Starswirl is not out of the question.
Luna - "So, back a thousand years or so, we kiiiinda had a fight."
Celestia - "Oh? Was one of us hurt?"
L - "Well... you may or may not have... sent me to the moon."
C - "!!!"
L - "For a thousand years"
I can't wait to see how THIS talk turns out.
5361091
Uh... any other being with a knowledge of astronomy? We don't even have knowledge that Starswirl was alive when Luna was banished!
It's not out of the question, it's just that your argument hinges on Starswirl being able to perform rather complex magic that he hasn't been shown to have the ability to do, while my argument relies on simple chronology shown in the show.
5361363 the show leaves so much in the air. all we know for sure was a thousand years ago Celstia and Luna fought eachother. that's it. No time is given for anything else.
Promising premise.
Twi should be freaking out way more. As should Luna.
Celestia is freaking quite a bit but there should still be a level of denial.
Edit:
And damn. Celestia is going to have a conniption when they tell her Discord is not only free by her own choice but "reformed" by the shyest pony alive.
*peaks from bed covers*
Huhm. Celestia didn't kill herself or anything. That's a good sign... *inches a bit*
I am eagerly waiting for the moment when Celestia mutters, "I have no memory of this place..."
Hmmm If Discord didn't do it....
So, another being of chaos?
Or, was it simply someone with enough knowledge of magic that they could've imitated Discords magic to an extent?
... It's Starswirl, isn't it?
Seems suspicious.
5364531
I think he might have, but maybe Tirek made him do it or maybe he was hoping to make her forget him so she wouldn't punish him for siding with Tirek?
So how come she doesn't know who Discord is?
They took Equestria from him, and this was when they were younger. Before Luna became (as) jealous of Celestia as Celestia herself still remembers.