Equestrian Cosmology and Calendar: Speculation and Apex Artillery · 8:13pm Aug 19th, 2013
I've thought about Equestria, its cosmology and calendar and tried to reach some conclusions from what's given us by the show.
First, I would like to postulate that Equestria is indeed placed upon a spherical body, a planet. This is supported by the existence of an "arctic north" (see S03E01) (the curvature of the planet's surface causing two "poles" with arctic climate) and a transition during the "smile song" (see S02E18).
Second, it is safe to assume that the planet rotates quite slowly, if at all. The fact that magic is required to move both sun and moon separately to create day and night is evidence for this.
EDIT:It is also implied by S04E01/02, where both celestial bodies hang in the sky for a prolonged period of time.
Moreover, I would suppose that sun and moon are roughly the same size and both orbit the planet. This would explain why Princess Celestia moves the sun instead of the planet and why she could not raise the sun when the moon had not been lowered before (see S01E01).
There is also no reason to believe that a moon cycle in Equestria lasts 29 days. The lunar phase is determined by the positions of sun, moon and planet in relation to each other. As sun and moon are controlled by the Princesses Celestia and Luna, the duration of a full cycle is variable, configurable and ultimately decided by those two sisters. (Hence a statement like "one hundred moons since our last family reunion" is not a very reliable indication of time.)
Our little ponies do however have a twenty-four hour day (as suggested by the depiction of clocks e.g. in S02E17), weeks, months and presumably a year similar to ours (birthday parties would not make sense without a year of consistent length). Its length is, however, not necessarily the same as ours (number of days between one summer solstice and the next).
The week consists of at least five days (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday (see S01E08, S01E14, S02E12)) and is quite possibly the same as ours. (Even more likely if you take into account that Equestria Girls mentions a Wednesday)
EDIT: In fact, S02E05 explicitly states that there are seven days to a week, making this even more probable.
My personal judgement would be to equate an Equestrian week to an Earth week.
The only thing we know about months is that they seem to be relatively constant in length ("a month from now" in S01E08 and "once a month" in S01E09).
Additional Fun Thought: All ponies in Equestria practically ooze with magic as evidenced by their cutie marks. Thus there cannot be any situation in which a pony's movement can be safely assumed to completely comply to the laws of motion. Because magic. (Pinkie Pie and Discord are probably the best examples for this.)
Good work.
1364254
Thank you very much!
The transition in the smile song shows a curve far too severe to be the actual curve of a ball world, unless it were very tiny. Seriously... Pinkie Pie was walking up a hill, just like all the other hills that were shown in the song.
Equestria is on a flat and stationary world with the sun and moon circling above and the enclosed dome of the sky painted by Luna's magic and the outer rim made up of an ice wall that keeps the oceans in.
It's not that Celestia could not raise the sun while the moon was still in the sky, but that it was Luna's duty to lower it and she would not do that. The sisters control the speed at which the sun and moon go in their paths and the wider or narrower circles they make around the North pole. The setting and rising is caused by a vanishing line of perspective, much as train tracks converge in the distance.
3533623
First, point taken. It was not my intention to use it as such a fact, but merely as support for my postulate.
Other leads to support a spherical world would be the lack of another shore visible from Manehatten harbour and birds migrating south for the winter.
Second, mildly interesting cosmology with its own merits (namely the sky dome), however, said ice walls on the outer rim should be visible from afar, so I'd put their lack as a point against it. Other problems that arise might be things as moon phases.
Would you like to share how you concluded that Equestrian cosmology is of such a form?
Thirdly, it is stated explicitly in canon material that Luna "refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn". Also, if she couldn't have prohibited Celestia from bringing forth day, her attempt at bringing eternal night would've been fruitless and it wouldn't have been necessary to banish her.
Lastly, some simple trigonometry will tell you that having sun and moon going in circles above a flat plane will not cause a cycle of day and night or rising and setting on any point of said plane.