Headcanon on EQG, the passage of time, and the when the portal opens

I felt a sudden need to babble about this, but here’s a piece of headcanon I think I’d tend to use in all of my EQG fiction, regardless of whether it’s in continuity, and something I think should be brought to attention: The way the mirror portal functions as far as timing.

Now, it is rather apparent that there is some form of time dilation between Equestria and the EQG universe, aka, time is passing a lot faster in the former as opposed to the latter. Such a thing has been utilized in quite a few stories. For example, Post Graduate by C_F_G.

The reason why people believe there is time dilation going on is the rather vague information of Sunset Shimmer’s life, that she was a student before Twilight Sparkle. The comics, in particular the “Neigh Anything” arc and the story “The Fall of Sunset Shimmer”, indicate a significant age gap between the two students. The former shows a progress report on Sunset when Cadance and Shining Armor are in high school, the latter shows a child Twilight in the background when Sunset is a teenager/young adult.

Anyway, back to timing. So, yes, it is very probable that time is moving faster in Equestria. As far as writing fiction, this concept can be useful in the large scale, but annoying in the small scale. I mean, if you’re trying to cover events happening on both sides of the mirror at the same time, how is the timing lining up? Perhaps that’s just me going too deep, but the thought gave me a bit of a headache way back when.

My solution, something I had planned to bring up in a story that I never got around to writing, was a compromise. Let us suppose that for the three days the portal opens naturally, time between the two universes becomes synchronized, before eventually going back to the normal rates once the portal closes. Makes sense, right? But since the portal can now be open manually, this has resulted in the flow of time becoming almost permanently synchronized between the two universes.

Could it slip back if the portal isn’t used for a very long time? Maybe. But this would allow the author to have the large scale benefits of time dilation between the two universes, while making small scale timing a lot easier, since sure, time was moving a lot faster prior to Rainbow Rocks, but not anymore.

More importantly, here’s something to think about, that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone point out in fanfic. Let’s say that the rate difference between Equestria and the EQG world is 2 to 1. In other words, time is moving twice as fast in Equestria compared to the EQG world, or 2 Equestrian days = 1 EQG day.

Now, the way the portal works naturally is that it opens up for three days at a time every thirty moons. Moons is a fancy or archaic-sounding way of indicating a month, since most of the time, there is only one full moon or new moon in a calendar month (hence the origin of the terms blue moon and black moon). So it opens every 2.5 years.

But here’s the most critical part. Go back to the hypothetical ratio. 2 to 1.

2 Equestrian days = 1 EQG day.

If this is so, then: 30 Equestrian moons/2.5 Equestrian years = 15 EQG moons/1.25 EQG years

If time is indeed dilated, then from the perspective of the human world, the mirror portal would open up a lot more frequently than it does in Equestria. Sure, the number of days it stays open may remain the same, synchronization, but the frequency is increased. Also bear in mind that 1.25 years is only with a 2 to one speed difference. If time in Equestria is moving faster than that, the portal would open up even more frequently.

As I said, I don’t recall ever seeing this pointed out in a story, but it would be nonetheless true and potentially important for storytelling. It means that Sunset would be able to sneak back to Equestria a lot more frequently than you think, or that the wait time, in the event of a character being trapped, would not be quite as long from one side’s perspective compared to the other.

That is all.