The Unity Crystals: A Backstory Theory · 9:05am Dec 21st, 2022
My wonderful niece insists upon watching exactly 2 episodes of G4, over and over again. One of them is the second half of “The Crystalling,” in which Sunburst figures out how to use the Crystalling of baby Flurry Heart to reforge the Crystal Heart she shattered, and Starlight Glimmer stands beside the four alicorns pouring raw magical energy into a most ancient artifact as if she were their peer.
I’ve seen G5’s unity crystals and their backstory of being created by Twilight to fight an unprecedented surge in pony racism, which surely whetted the appetites of the windigoes until the new artifacts forever ended their threat. After seeing that and revisiting The Crystalling, a lore theory popped into my head fully formed:
Starlight Glimmer, now the Dumbledore of the School of Friendship, saw the absolute havoc and social wreckage the unicorn supremacist was wreaking, saw the terrible and depressing effect it was having on her friend Twilight, and she determined to do something about it. She spoke with Sunburst, now the most notable Crystaller and head researcher of the Crystal Heart. He determined that if the Crystal Heart could be a permanent embodiment of the Rainbow of Friendship (in the form of an aurora) keeping the Frozen North thawed, a new relic could be created to cancel the looming apocalypse unwittingly caused by the unicorn supremacist. Together they contacted the foremost expert on the magical properties of rocks, Dr. Maud Pie, who helped them find and carve the three unity crystals.
They brought these three things to Twilight: the three unity crystals created by Maud, the relic creation spell programmed by Sunburst, and the cutie mark magic of Starlight. The unity crystals would forever keep the windigoes away, permanently powered by every pony’s left cutie mark. And as a bonus, by linking the more explicitly magical tribes to earth ponies, it would someday give them magic… as long as all ponies stuck together. But the penalty for unicorns and pegasi of feeling themselves superior to earth ponies would be the cancellation of their own magical privilege.
Princess Twilight and the Council of Friendship conferred and debated, and in the end agreed to the plan of Maud, Sunburst, and Starlight. Twilight and Starlight empowered the crystals with the spell of friendship and destiny, and every pony’s left cutie mark vanished.