We once built homes. Homes that kept us warm and dry. We once had the power of fire within our hooves! But all that was lost to us!

Wait, what? What happened? Windigos haven't cropped up already, have they?

..eh. "Make Equestria great again!" is a completely different vibe to "We will no longer fear the night!". I'm not sure I like the change.

"I count him more of a stallion then you." Dark Storm answered back.

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Meadowlark smiled and shook her head. "Celestia, stop trying to molest little Ash."

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7529501

I thought of mentioning that the usual method of dealing with their dead was to just leave them to the scavengers, While Dark found this distasteful and wanted to do something different. I was also not totally sold on the idea of his burring the bones of the mare, but since he made the trip to find her I thought he just had to do at least something.

You don't have to do a huge detailed paragraph for why he buries the bones or why he does countless other little things that fit better in sedentary substance farming societies where some rituals come out of organized religion.

You can do a whole lot of hand-waving by having Celestia think of her daddy as this inventor of sorts: inventing the first shelters, inventing the first nuclear family, inventing death rituals, inventing food storage. You could say that he was doing these things on his own for a few years, and through example, he gradually got the rest of his herd to follow along.

again that is a start point to move forward for, but I may have set it too far back,

I'm not actually sure what you mean here.

I could have some stallions actually take him up or offer and help out their mare's.

I'm fine with them not helping the mares, and during this period in pony pre-history, I'd prefer it for the sake of keeping the culture logical. It's that the stallions were painted in the broad brush of "these guys are douche bags," rather than "These stallions have good hearts, but as no one in their society has ever asked anything different of them yet, they neglect their children."

7533940 This is pre-Equestria. and "We once built homes. Homes that kept us warm and dry. We once had the power of fire within our hooves! But all that was lost to us!"
I admit, I stretched things there to speed things up a little. But I didn't mean cities by it, just fire and huts.

7534053 again that is a start point to move forward for, but I may have set it too far back,

I'm not actually sure what you mean here.

I meant it as a "This is how bad it is. Now lets fix it."

You were right when I brushed them with a broad brush. There should have been a more mixed feelings in it. No mass group always feels or thinks the same thing.
and when you pointed out the burying the dead, you only pointed out what I was already double guessing myself over anyways.

7533940 Gosh darn it! I've been reading that part over and over again and I see your point. My shortcut totally changed the tract of the story! Sigh... you did it again. Now its bugging me.

7534130 So fix it. Simple, right?

7534130
Brainstorm time.

My understanding is that you want to write about the rise of Pony civilisation, and about Celestia/Luna's really early years. That's good - you have an idea of what this story is about and where it is going.

Chapter two was a good step along this path - as I commented before, hay and shelter will be two of the biggest inventions of early civilisation, and you introduced them in a nice enough way. You could have done better, but I'll let you in on a secret - you always could have done better. Mortals like us are not capable of perfection.

That said, I believe the hay bundle hasn't been invented yet, which I think will be the next revolution in that direction - squashing it so tight that vermin can't get in.

As for towns: in real life, humans began to live in towns when we invented agriculture. (We're not sure which one came first.) You can't really move your crops around with you.

Hmm... growing crops. What is Earth Pony magic good for, again?

So, in my humble opinion, if you want Earth Ponies to stop moving around and settle down, have them discover Earth Pony magic. Ash is a character who I think is thematically suited to this role - he wants to contribute in the same way his father did, as thanks for taking him in. He lacks the same inventiveness, but he tries and tries, until finally he discovers a way to make plants grow faster and better. After that, agriculture will lead to towns, which by necessity will beg the construction of free-standing shelter.

Once they've stopped moving around all the time, they need to worry more about danger coming to them - they can't just abandon the area anymore. I'm sure one of your readers will be a history/military nerd who will be happy to speculate from there .

7534264 That said, I believe the hay bundle hasn't been invented yet, which I think will be the next revolution in that direction - squashing it so tight that vermin can't get in.

Sorry to say, but no matter how much you squash hay, vermin always gets in. We had a great barn cat that did a excellent job of taking care of the vermin in our hay barn.

A hamlet would be the next step to the settled life. As for free standing structures, several more discoveries and inventions will be needed to be made before they get to that, so for the time being they will just haft to make due with lean-to's. Since they don't hunt and make leather goods, things like bags and stretched hides for covered shelters like teepee's will haft to be skipped and instead use a more earthy styled structures like piling stones and making mud huts.

Straps and pottery is also a high priority for a starting civilization. As well as of course Fire.

I am about to add a lot of new characters, and making names for them all is going to take a lot of time. If any of you want to help out with this, then please send me your idea's of names in a private message. The only thing I ask, is that they are not stolen names and they have to fit in with the period of the time. I will give credit for any names I use.

Thanks

comes to hurt us or our family's,

"families"

Dark shoved his muzzle under her fagging tail,

I'm pretty sure she's straight...? ("flagging")

they both began to nuzzled each others muzzles

"nuzzle"

Poor Ash, Celestia's out to get him...

7535674 That's where I left those Typo's, I wondered where they got off too.
Thanks, all fixed.

"Isn't this backwards? Shouldn't he be chasing her?"

"Celestia, stop trying to molest little Ash."

The Rise of Molestia? (I'm so sorry!)

Good chapter!

Let's see how big Dark's herd will be at the end of the winter.

Found one of your lost typos. (It hid itself very good: in an older chapter.)

leaning branches and logs all around the large fir tree,

(I found it while rereading how their shelter looks like, btw.)

7537538 You are the WINNER!
When I wrote that scene, I wondered how long until someone got the hidden reference. And you are the first!
BTW, Celestia is not turning into Molestia latter in life in this story, I just thought it was funny.

Fir tree is correct.

Fir trees are large trees, reaching heights of 10–80 m (33–262 ft) tall and trunk diameters of 0.5–4 m (1 ft 8 in–13 ft 1 in) when mature. Firs can be distinguished from other members of the pine family by the unique attachment of their needle-like leaves and by their different cones

That reference tho

The nights where still freezing

were*

7576116 Got it, thanks

"At this moment, many of the mares are fat with foal. It would be sheer idiocy to march them all the way back to a harsh plateau, which we do not know even has any water!"

If whether or not the stream is dried up is your big concern then why not send a reconnaissance party to find out?

"Celestia, stop trying to molest little Ash."

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7654329 Herds work with strength in numbers, sending out a party would split the herd making it weaker, plus the scouting party would be defenseless without the numbers to defend themselves.

And thus incest ensued.

8150167
But not really... Like Twilight and Shining Armor (in FiW), they're not biologically related. Just adopted siblings... although, since the story is set in a time when Ponies haven't yet been civilized, and are nothing more than highly inteligent animals, still (mostly) following their natural instincts; It wouldn't surprise me if incest was a common occurance here.