Of Wings and Magic - The Price of Loyalty Worldbuilding VIII · 9:10pm Jan 11th, 2015
Arcus hefted a stone with the flat of his wing. It was roughly the size and shape of the captain’s head, which was why it had been chosen from all the rocks on that particular beach as the target of his exercise.
With a single mighty pump, his wing hurled the stone into the air. A downward flap launched the sleek young pegasus’ body into the air after the rising stone, hoof first. It was an exhilarating sensation, just as it always had been since the first day his wings took him into the air: the feeling of true freedom.
His mind wrapped the feelings into his right foreleg, and in one motion, he lashed out. Hoof met stone with the clap of thunder. A few moments later, a hundred pieces of jagged gravel and a single brown pegasus rained from the sky onto the rocky Seaddle beach.
“Woah!” That single word shocked Arcus, and as soon as he’d found his hooves, his head swiveled toward the speaker. A few dozen strides away, a golden mare approached at a brisk pace, her fiery orange mohawk bobbing in the salty sea breeze. “That was incredible, Arcus!”
“Rookie!” Arcus felt his shoulders rise and fall as he slowly caught his breath; the effort hadn’t been tiring in any way, but his heart needed to slow down from the spike of sheer adrenaline the maneuver had granted him. “What are you doing out here?”
“I was looking for you,” the mare—barely more than a filly, really—skidded to a stop, kicking up a few of the shards from Arcus stunt as she came to a stop no more than a wing’s reach away. “I, uh, wanted to ask you for some tips on flying.”
“You uh wanted to ask?” Arcus shook his head. “You don’t need to be so stiff, Spitfire. I’m not the captain. I’m not going to give you drills if your posture isn’t perfect.”
Spitfire nodded, and her shoulders fell. A little. “I know, Arcus. I just… you’re my hero! I mean, you’re the best flier in the world. Period. It’s a little intimidating.”
“Titles like that don’t last, Spitfire. Someday, if you work hard, you’ll be able to say that, and I’ll be the old codger like the captain.” Gritting his teeth, the elder of the two pegasi glanced back up the beach, toward the gleaming lights of downtown Seaddle’s polished glass towers. “Anyway, you didn’t come out here to talk about getting old. You wanted flying tips?”
“Yeah. I’m just…” The young mare sucked down a breath, and then sighed in the course of finding her words. “I feel like I’ve hit a wall. I can out bench-press Finish Line, and I spend, like, twice as much time on the track as the some of the A-team fliers but I’m still nowhere near as fast as you guys are.”
Arcus chuckled. “Well, how’s your empatha?”
“My what?” Spitfire cocked her head.
“Your empatha,” Arcus answered. “You know…” And then, without any further spoken words, he wandered to the ocean and extended his wingtip. A spiraling block of ice and mist emerged from the single feather that touched the water, stretching out a good foot in every direction.
“No way…” Spitfire whispered. “How did you do that?”
Arcus’ reaction was every bit as slack-jawed and wide-eyed as the younger mare’s. “You got onto the Wonderbolts and you don’t know what empatha is? Forgive my Stalliongradi, Spitfire, but holy shit!”
“That… doesn’t really answer my question.”
A smile broke over Arcus’ muzzle. “No, probably doesn’t. The short answer is pegasus magic. Empatha is how we fly. It’s why we can walk on clouds, control the weather, and that sort of stuff. If you know how to use it, you can also make fire, or ice, or compress air to punch really hard like I did to that rock I broke.”
Spitfire nodded slowly, though her eyes made it clear she still hadn’t come to terms with the idea. “So… any pegasus can do that? Make a ton of ice? Or punch through stone?”
“Some elements are easier for some ponies than others. But yes, if you train hard enough.”
“Then why haven’t I heard about this before?” Spitfire flicked a wing back in the direction of ‘civilization’. “Tartarus, why don’t we learn about this at flight camp? Or in school? I mean, the unicorns learn about theirs—”
Arcus held up a wing, and once Spitfire realized it, she stopped immediately. The elder of the two Wonderbolts chuckled. “You’re about the thousandth pegasus who’s asked that. When I was still part of the Royal Guard proper, I heard it about every third sentence. You’re probably not gonna like the answer.”
“Unicorn racism?” Spitfire proposed with a smirk.
The answer earned a laugh from Arcus. “No, nothing that stupid, thankfully. Let’s start at the beginning, alright? Sit down.” The stallion patted a brown wing on the ground at his side. Spitfire bit down on her lower lip and looked away for just a moment, before sidling in against her mentor.
Pushing aside a layer of thick stones with a few strokes of his wings, Arcus began drawing in the loamy gravel underneath. A large cross was his first inscription. “There are four elements of empatha—again, that’s what we call pegasus magic. Fire,” he drew a little flame on the left-most bar of the cross. “Wind,” a pair of curvy lines at the top. “Ice,” a cluster of icicles on the right. “And stone,” a vaguely mountain shaped jagged line at the bottom. “Each element is also associated with an emotional state. Fire is anger, rage, or passion. Wind is usually called ‘excitement’, though ‘desire’ might also apply; you also get to that sort of state if you’re desperate for something, like if you really want to win a race. Ice is sadness. Stone, or earth, is fear or confusion or any of those sort of hollow-gutted feelings you get when you aren’t really in control of a situation.”
“You just have to get angry?” Spitfire asked. “Or excited or whatever? How come foals don’t just burst into flame or start freezing things, then?”
Arcus shrugged. “It does happen occasionally, but it’s very rare. You don’t just feel what you want. You have to feel it in the part of your body you want to do magic with, instead of your head. Wings are easiest, and it usually only takes an hour or so to figure it out if somepony is helping you along, but it’s really unnatural to try and ‘feel’ using something other than your head. I’ve always figured that’s why ponies don’t just stumble onto it.”
“Okay…” Spitfire began. “So let’s say I learn to feel in my wings. Then if I’m angry, they just light on fire?”
“It’s not something that happens passively,” Arcus answered, and then hesitated. “It’s usually not something that happens passively,” he corrected. “There are empaths—pegasi who can focus their magic enough to actually use it are called empaths—that can do it, but it’s almost unheard of; maybe one in a million pegasi. Griffons and dragons can do it too, with training and focus, but they’ll always have less raw power and much less control. Phoenixes, too. Like that one pegasus in a million, they’re so used to their empatha that they naturally feel in their wings instead of their minds. But you really don’t want to get to that state. It always ends badly.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Spitfire answered. “You wouldn’t want to freeze somepony if you got sad or something.”
“That isn’t the only problem,” Arcus began. “Look, let me show you something.” Extending the wing farthest from Spitfire, the brown stallion clenched his teeth and closed his eyes. After a moment, a small fire was crackling along the crest of his wing. “This is about as much fire as I can make if I’m not really mad.” The words were forced out, as though Arcus was struggling to keep his focus. “But if I let myself get mad…” A growl build in the Wonderbolt’s throat, and his wing burst into a small bonfire, warm enough for Spitfire to feel even from his opposite side.
The fire went out after a few seconds, and Arcus panted. His wing was unharmed. “Fire is my weakest element, so that’s a little draining, but you see my point. The casual fire I made wasn’t very warm, or really useful for much. I have to be genuinely angry to use it properly. Now, in the Royal Guard, I learned how to force those feelings, but I think you can imagine why it’s a bad idea to have emotionally unstable younger ponies learning how to light themselves on fire.”
Spitfire’s eyes widened. “Okay, yeah, that’s a good point. But why not teach adults?”
“How much do you know about post-traumatic stress disorder?”
The question seemed to come out of left-field. Spitfire stared at Arcus in confusion. “What?”
“Think about what I’ve told you, rookie. I need to be genuinely angry to make a useful amount of fire, and in the Royal Guard, I learned how to call up those feelings. Do you understand what that entails?”
“No… Not really.”
“Can’t blame you. You know how, when you’re a foal, your parents tell you not to bottle up your feelings? How if you keep stuff inside, and let it build up more and more and more, eventually you’ll snap and break down?” Spitfire nodded, and from her expression, it was clear she had followed the thought to its conclusion. “I was taught to do that on purpose, by habit. I keep sadness and anger bottled up. In battle, you need those emotions to fight. They’ll save your life. It’s a bad habit, I know, and I do my best to break out of it, but old habits die hard. And let me be honest, Spitfire: I know a lot of ponies from the guard who can’t break that habit.
“There’s a principal in psychology that when a pony is under a great deal of stress or danger, their mind will recognize that emotions will get them hurt or killed. They’ll pack away emotions in the back of the mind, so they can deal with them later. The mind isn’t great at pulling those emotions back out again when it’s convenient. When we were fighting the dragons, everypony was business. And you can’t just unpack all that emotional baggage when you got back to camp on command; your mind doesn’t know how. You could sit down and play cards like nothing was wrong, if you had time. But those emotions don’t just go away. They stay there, packed away in some dark, forgotten corner of you.”
“I know a little bit about this, Arcus. My aunt was a guardspony.”
Arcus nodded. “Alright. I won’t try to make you uncomfortable. But there is one thing to understand about empatha. Those sealed away emotions? That’s what your magic feeds off of first. Your mind wants to get rid of those feelings in a way that won’t overwhelm your body. The problem is, if you do that sort of magic too much, your mind gets used to dealing with emotional stress that way. You start packing things away, even when you aren’t in danger. Do it long enough, and you can actually lose the ability to express normal equine feelings.”
Spitfire swallowed slowly. “That sounds scary.”
Another nod answered her. “There are psychologists specially trained to help deal with ponies that wind up like that, but you can’t ever really cure it, any more than you can cure the other terrors of war. You just learn to deal with them.”
“Are you—”
“No, thankfully,” Arcus answered. “But like I said, I know ponies who are. Great ponies. Friendly, quiet, love a good visit. They learn to force themselves to feel again, but it’s hard for them. Harder than any workout I’ve ever done with the ‘Bolts. Acting ‘normal’ is exhausting for them. They get tired; you can see it in their eyes.” Dark eyes gazed out over the ocean, seemingly haunted by something only they could perceive.
“It doesn’t just happen to soldiers, though. Even civilians find out about empatha sometimes, and they think it’s a great way to relieve stress. Instead of getting pissed off at work, you walk outside for a break, light your wing on fire for twenty seconds, and that anger just disappears. Problem is, the same thing happens. Your mind gets used to that, and eventually, you stop feeling emotions the way you used to. They’re just… inconveniences to you. Apparently, it happens to sailors a lot. They call it turning ‘hollow’. Most of the time, the pony doesn’t notice; it’s a slow transition, and by the time they realize something’s wrong, it’s too late to turn back.” Arcus turned back toward Spitfire. “But then there are ponies like the Commander.”
“Sir?”
“Commander Mortal Coil. I served with him for a little bit of the Siege of Stalliongrad. He was Honor Guard; wore some sort of fancy black armor like from the Hearth’s Warming Pageant.” Arcus waved a hoof. “Anyway, the Commander was a career soldier, and probably the strongest empath in the world. But the price he paid for it…” A shudder ran through Arcus, and transferred into the mare at his side. “The Commander had gone over completely. The only way he could let out his stress was with his magic. He did a halfway decent job of faking it at times. We all knew something was up with him, but until he told us outright while he was teaching us about empatha, I didn’t have a clue.”
“He just gave up his emotions?” Spitfire stared at her mentor in shock. “That’s awful!”
“Yeah. But… when it mattered, he saved a lot of lives because of it. I wouldn’t want to have that kind of power for all the bits in the world, but I have to admire him for accepting it.” The two ponies stared off into the darkening sky over the ocean, until Arcus spoke up again. “He died at Treasonfang Pass.”
The waves were mostly quiet. They swept up the stones and down and up again and down again until the ebb and flow began to fade from the minds of both ponies. Only then did Arcus speak up again.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you all of that.”
“I’m glad you did,” Spitfire told him. “At least, if that means you don’t wind up like that. On the other hoof, if you want to make it up to me, you can teach me how to use this stuff to get a spot on the A-team.”
Arcus smiled softly. “Alright. Let’s finish your lesson, then. Like I drew, empatha comes in two axes. For every pegasus one axis is major, and the other one is minor. My major axis is wind and stone, although I’d say yours is probably fire and ice.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know, Spitfire. Just a hunch.” Arcus grinned. “Anyway, each axis has a favored element and a ‘spurned’ element. I didn’t make up the words, before you ask. Now, for any given empath, the favored element on the major axis is the part of their… their psyche, that’s most prone to manifest. I get excited easily. Some ponies get pissed off, or sad, or what have you. This is the one that’s easiest to call up, and the danger it presents is in overwhelming you. Getting so excited or so mad that you lose control, or getting so sad or so afraid that you completely lock up—literally, surrounded by ice or stone.”
“Really?”
“It happens,” Arcus answered. “But very, very rarely. Now, your minor favored element is easier to control, but weaker. Ice is mine; I can’t use it with any sort of crazy tricks, but I’m also not likely to be found curled up and bawling my eyes out under the bleachers somewhere.”
Spitfire glanced at the ice in the surf, still not melted after their minutes of discussion and the salt of the ocean. “That’s your ‘weak’ element?”
“Not that weak,” Arcus admitted. “I still favor it. Military training is a lot of it too. Not the sort of things the ‘Bolts will teach you.”
“But will—”
“Absolutely not. Don’t ask again.”
A dejected sigh preceded her answer. “Yes, sir.”
“Alright, getting a little formal. Relax, rookie. Let’s keep going. Your minor spurned element is a tricky one. I haven’t touched on this much, but with practice, you can use your empatha without actively feeling the element. I don’t need to be excited, or even to have excitement locked away, and I can still use the wind. That isn’t true of my minor spurned element, though. I have to be mad to use my fire.”
“And can you not use… stone, right?” Arcus nodded. “Can you not use stone at all?”
Arcus shook his head. “Your major spurned element sort of has double-downsides, but you can use it. It’s just… risky. You have to feel it to use it at all, bone deep. And if you are feeling it that strongly, it’s more likely to get out of control than even your favorite element.”
Spitfire nodded. “Makes sense. So you stay away from it?”
“Yeah. Stone is strange anyway. I’ve never known somepony good at it, except the Commander.” With a pause, Arcus coughed into his hoof. “Now do you understand why we don’t just teach it to anypony?”
Spitfire shrugged. “I guess. But, I mean, it’s got to have uses beyond soldiers, right? Like, skysteel and stuff, maybe? Or us doing tricks while stunt flying?”
Arcus chuckled. “Technically, we’re guardsponies, so we don’t count. But you’re the only member of the entire team right now who doesn’t know about empatha. Skysteel and cloudstone work used to be based on empatha, but these days, I guess we have industrial tools to take care of that sort of thing. I don’t really understand it all, but something about enchanted buckets or something lets us emulate the way it used to be done…” The senior flier gave a shrug. “Empatha isn’t as well studied as unicorn magic—arcana, by the way—so we don’t have a lot of other uses for it.”
“Then why not study it?” Spitfire asked.
“You know a lot of pegasus academics?” Arcus grinned at Spitfire’s abashed reaction. “Unicorn magic is a lot easier to study than empatha because their magic is based around thinking logically and focusing on all that academic crap. I’m not exactly an expert, but it’s probably pretty hard to do a study when you’re forcing yourself to have a nervous breakdown or going completely berserk. But if you want to drop out of the Wonderbolts and get a degree in magic studies, I won’t stop you.” The senior of the pegasi smiled. “Got any more questions?”
Loyal here; I'm picking up actually answering questions on this one.
Zennyth asks:
Do all the domains share similar views about the pros and cons of empatha? Or would a more tumultuous region like Stalliongrad have a higher proportion of civilian empaths who've disregarded the consequences in favor of being able to defend themselves from hostiles and the weather?
The short answer is 'no', not all domains share the same views. As I mentioned in Guardsponies through History , the Black Cloaks of Stalliongrad are far more experienced and trained than their Canterlot counterparts. Every pegasus Black Cloak knows and uses his or her empatha. The Bitalian Storm Guard are the other empatha-strong domain guard, though they still have hesitance to focus on those talents to the degree that Arcus described of Commander Coil.
The previous Commander (or Captain of the Honor Guard) was named Mortal Coil as well. That's a completely pony than Morty, right?
You tell me. Did an eight-thousand year old unicorn raise himself from the dead into a pegasus body, steal and put on a set of armor that actively eats magic, and then charge off onto a battlefield to get killed again?
Back in your arcana post, you gave a snapshot of each unicorn's strengths and abilities. Is it possible to do something similar with the major pegasi involved? If it's too time-consuming or spoiliery, then no worries. It's just neat to know.
Sure, why not? The list below will be formatted as follows:
NAME - Major-Favored Element/Minor-Favored Element
Let's do this in vaguely chronological order:
Commander Hurricane - Wind/Fire
Swift Spear - Wind/Ice
Cyclone - Fire/Wind
Typhoon - Ice/Wind
Pathfinder - Stone/Ice
Iron Rain - Wind/Fire
Haze - Wind/Fire
Thorn - Ice/Stone
Summer - Fire/Wind
Feather Fall - Wind/Ice
Thunder Hawk - Fire/Wind
Winterspell - Ice/Wind
Silencer - Wind/Fire
Cold Steel - Ice/Stone
Thunder Crack - Wind/Fire
Marathon - Wind/Ice
Dead Reckoning - Ice/Stone
Morning Star - Fire/Stone
Red Ink - Fire/Wind
Serp - Wind/Ice
Princess Celestia - Fire/Stone
Princess Luna - Ice/Wind
Emperor Magnus - Wind/Ice
Lord Krenn - Stone/Fire
Rainbow Dash - Wind/Ice
Fluttershy - Stone/Ice
Spitfire - Fire/Wind
Soarin' - Wind/Ice
Anybody else you want to know?
Zevski asks:
Does empatha also confer pegasi a higher resistance to elements? How much could Spitfire, for example, resist heat more than your regular pony?
Yes. In two ways, in fact.
All pegasi are more weather-resistant than their land-bound peers. They tend not to be as affected by windchill and precipitation, or average ambient heat, though the desert is still dangerous to them, and Stalliongrad's magical snow is even worse. As a general rule of thumb, a pegasus will survive for twice as long when exposed to inclement weather as an earth pony, and thrice as long as a unicorn. And pegasi can often walk away from thunderhead-related accidents (as long as they aren't supercharged military-grade clouds).
The counterpoint, however, is active empatha. Red Ink occasionally makes reference to the fact that, in Stalliongrad (sorry Ink, Stol'nograd), he lights his wings on fire for warmth. Of course, that isn't practical for a lot of ponies, but it can be very useful. 'Ice' empatha can be used to cool a pony off in severe heat as well, though one has to be careful, as making actual ice will use up their body's water and dehydrate them.
But more impressively than just heat and cold, a pegasus (or other empathic being) can use their empatha to render themselves immune to raw exposure to a given element. Cyclone and Red Ink can quite literally stand in fire, and "swim" in lava, at least for short periods (in much the same sense that one can "swim" in pudding... plus the benefit of noxious gasses and stuff that we don't need to get into for the sake of explanatory metaphor). When two empaths of the same element clash, the one with the stronger empatha will overcome the other's resistance.
Fillosof asks:
How many competent medical studies have been carried out to determine physiological and psychological processes occurring in empath's body when he uses his magic or manipulate his emotions in a way Arcus described? Because unless the magic that's involved changes those processes significantly, the 'bottling up theory', the 'emotions as literal fuel' theory and the aftermaths that regularly practicing empaths suffer all sound like BS.
The "pack emotions away in a closet theory"... isn't. A theory, I mean. It's based on well-documented real world psychological studies about human beings during and following times of stress (specifically, from my research and sources, wartime). I'll briefly give a huge shout-out to my editor and ex-Marine, Dusk Watch, who provided a considerable number of useful anecdotes and information on this subject.
Anyway, in real life, human beings have the ability to lock down their emotions in times of great stress. The human brain does this not by getting rid of those emotions, but by "shoving them in a closet" to deal with later. That way, the logical information that is necessary for the person to survive stays at the forefront. This isn't a choice someone makes; it's completely instinctual. It happens whether you want it to or not.
In small doses, this reaction isn't harmful; and indeed, it's vital for human survival. Consider a near-car accident. Setting aside emotions and distractions for those few seconds really is the difference between life and death. I don't know personally, but in my research, I also note that people who have been in such situations note that for the next few moments, they are incredibly focused.
In larger periods, however, the brain encounters an issue. Just as "packing away" superfluous observations and inputs is not a conscious decision, the brain's ability to unpack those concerns is likewise a subconscious event. In the above example of the near-collision, that unpacking occurs fairly rapidly; within a few minutes. However, in the case of combat, or other severe, extended traumatic and dangerous experiences, the brain will settle into a state of keeping those emotions packed away.
It is an extremely well-studied phenomenon what happens afterward. From the day soldiers return home from a military deployment, it takes very close to 90 days for the brain to settle into "safety" and start "unpacking" the concerns it had set aside during extended danger scenarios. For this reason (and understand that I say this with no condemnation attached, but merely as an observation of fact) that most occurrences of domestic violence, alcohol and substance abuse, and other PTSD-related harmful events begin at or around that 90-day marker. It is also for this reason that United States 'reintegration training' hinges upon three specific dates: 30, 60, and 90 days. You're welcome to Google that subject to get a more comprehensive view on this subject.
One well known symptom of this type of PTSD is a difficulty expressing emotions, or unusual emotional reactions to stimuli (breaking down in tears during a birthday party, where most people would be happy, for example). In this case, the cause can be the mind "unpacking" those emotions, and responding to some emotional stimulus by unloading with the "wrong" emotion. At this point, we're well into psychoanalytical theory that I can't explain, so I won't pretend to tell you what the causes are. What I do know, based on medical records and research, as well as the above helpful anecdotes, is the result. The victims of this form of PTSD are often recorded to enter into isolation (and thus develop depression) within their homes, simply because the act of being around and interacting with people, and putting up the effort to appear "normal" is brutally exhausting to them. From the perspective of an outside onlooker, such a person can appear to be in a slow slide of losing their ability to expression emotions altogether.
Anyway, that's the grim reality of real life. What about the grim reality of ponies?
When I explained empatha to Dusk Watch, he observed the above phenomena: that extended use of this ability, either in tandem with or in place of combat experiences, could have severe psychological implications. I won't pretend I had planned out all of the above when I first wrote about empatha (with the help of SatoshiKyu, then my primary and sole editor) back in Honor Guard... chapter 6(?). In a sense, it helped to answer a nagging question about why empatha wasn't as prevalent as arcana in the associated society. Frankly, I thought it was a really interesting mechanic, and even more potently, it has a significant in-world impact: namely, that there exist pegasi who are willing to make the above trade, and to accept the severe psychological and social consequences that come with the ability to be proficient in all four empathic elements.
Now, let's talk a little bit in-'verse. Much like IRL, ponies do have an extensive military system, and thus medical and psychiatric systems related to dealing with the effects of such a system. In fact, Equestria's system takes much better care of its veterans than the U.S. analogue. I won't comment on other countries because I don't know them that well. I'm an American, so that data is more readily accessible to me than other alternatives. Feel free to plug in your own metaphor, and let me know if you have a counterpoint.
Anyway, a necessary part of that psychiatric care is treating ponies with these sorts of conditions. As a result, Equestria does have a knowledge of the above conditions through legitimate medical study (as we acknowledge that, however archaic their architecture and government and in many cases, clothing styles, Equestria's medical technology is, at worst, a decade or two behind our own. See, for example, the hospital Rainbow Dash is placed in during the episode that should have been titled Reading Rainbow.).
Is the symmetrical nature of Elemental Axes and the significance of their influence a law of nature (like Arcana's cantrip system), or just a commonly occurring trend? I.e., if the empath in question is much more emotionally stable and doesn't have/tends not to manifest some of his emotions as more prominent, will he still have two elements as his favored ones and two as his spurned ones?
Yes and no. Fire being opposed to Ice and Wind being opposed to Stone are fundamental laws of nature. Having one axis more focused than the other (major v. minor), and having one element on each axis favored, is a 'law' of psychology. That is to say, all emotionally "healthy" empaths will possess elements according to the above rules. The level to which one favors a particular element over its opposite does vary. Some empaths have a very mild favoritism, such that they can easily call upon their spurned elements, but their favored elements are not terribly powerful.
There are, however, pegasi and other empathic creatures who, for one reason or another, have a psyche which does not map cleanly to the classical axes. I don't think I'm going to comment on this further quite yet for... reasons 
... but I will acknowledge the fact that such beings exist.
There are also at least rumors of pegasus families incapable of using a specific element...
If wings aren't a necessity for using Empatha, just the part with significantly better 'conductiity', then what cells/tissues/organs do the actual mana-to-Empatha conversion? Is it a known fact in-world?
I think you might have misunderstood me on the previous blog post. Here's my quote from there:
You have a slight misunderstanding, in that "raw" mana isn't intrinsically typed. Until the mana goes into a horn or a tusk or a wing or a leg or whatever, it's just "mana". Thus, even "non-magical" races like Diamond Dogs produce mana. They just don't have a way to actually use what they produce.
Any tissue is theoretically capable of converting raw mana into the appropriate specialized type, based on the species of the creature in question. Some tissues perform this conversion faster and/or more efficiently than others. Wings, the stomachs of dragons, the brains of unicorns, and the limbs of earth ponies and griffons are some examples of favorable tissues.
This is really, really neat.
Just gloriously fascinating.
~(OvO)~
Neat.
Also...
Hmn.
I suspected empatha was a slippery slope, but damn, that's a big price to pay. That answered quite a few things. Thanks for the post! Nice to see more from Spitfire.
It sounds like all pegasi enlisted in the actual Guard get trained in the basics at least. I can certainly see now why civilians don't want to be messing around.
Do all the domains share similar views about the pros and cons of empatha? Or would a more tumultuous region like Stalliongrad have a higher proportion of civilian empaths who've disregarded the consequences in favor of being able to defend themselves from hostiles and the weather?
The previous Commander (or Captain of the Honor Guard) was named Mortal Coil as well. That's a completely pony than Morty, right?
Back in your arcana post, you gave a snapshot of each unicorn's strengths and abilities. Is it possible to do something similar with the major pegasi involved? If it's too time-consuming or spoiliery, then no worries. It's just neat to know.
2716489
Replied.
2716025
Why, thank you.
2716445
I can practically hear the gears turning from here.
2716445
No wonder ponies don't like White Flag.
2717250
Mmmmmaybe?
Also, does empatha also confer pegasi a higher resistance to elements? How much could Spitfire, for example, resist heat more than your regular pony?
Since Solo's in the guard now, can she do empatha?
Hmmm. Hurricane is on that list, but not Steel Lining?
Oversight or a clue?
2718061
Steel Lining's omission was deliberate. I know you've seen him in a fight, so you have all the information you need to see why.
2718061
Oh, and "No", Solo isn't an empath yet. There aren't many Royal Guard who are.
2717610
Replied.
2719641
Hello there, LL. I'm glad that we finally have you back. Happy Old New Year in case you will manage to read this on 13th still. Now questions.
How many competent medical studies have been carried out to determine physiological and psychological processes occurring in empath's body when he uses his magic or manipulate his emotions in a way Arcus described? Because unless the magic that's involved changes those processes significantly, the 'bottling up theory', the 'emotions as literal fuel' theory and the aftermaths that regularly practicing empaths suffer all sound like BS.
Is the symmetrical nature of Elemental Axes and the significance of their influence a law of nature (like Arcana's cantrip system), or just a commonly occurring trend? I.e., if the empath in question is much more emotionally stable and doesn't have/tends not to manifest some of his emotions as more prominent, will he still have two elements as his favored ones and two as his spurned ones?
If wings aren't a necessity for using Empatha, just the part with significantly better 'conductiity', then what cells/tissues/organs do the actual mana-to-Empatha conversion? Is it a known fact in-world?
Will you be up to answering a couple of questions regarding your previous world-building posts?
As always, you remind us just why your fanon is one of the best (if not THE best) this site has.
2720063
I'm on break at work, and I refuse to answer in long form on a phone keyboard, so be expecting another reply. I just wanted to say two things. First : thanks! Always great to know people are enjoying these. Secondly, go ahead and post comments on the old blog posts with your questions (or a bump of I missed one previously) so they show up in my notifications feed.
For EVERYONES benefit : I do my best to reply to all questions, but between writing and other real life issues, sometimes comments slip through the cracks. If I don't answer a question within two days of posting, you can PM me or reply to the comment(s). Old blog posts do not go off limit in terms of implementation.
EDIT: Meant to reply tonight, real life came up; will reply within the next 24 hours.
If Commander Hurricane was voiced, what would he sound like? ...He is male in this story, right?
2723248
I know in an older blog post, LL gets into some voices for some of his OC characters.
I don't think he covered Hurricane in that one, but some of the others were pretty interesting.
2720063
Replied
2723248
2723306
Voices Blog Post
I think I might do another one of those for my next blog post, unless another topic strikes my fancy, or there's some greater Price of Loyalty topic everyone wants me to do.
2724223
Once again, I've failed to formulate my statements in a way that will carry the point across.
I wasn't debating the fact that in some cases a person (and from waht I've gathered, even a non-sapient sentient creature) can have his 'emotional' responses overridden by ones deemed more necessary for his survival. Nor was I doubting that it can have the consequences you described.
Things I have my doubts about include:
1)The notion of 'feeling it in the part of your body you want to do magic with, instead of your head'. Emotions are inherently neurophysiological processes, and can't be separated from one's brain. i know Arcus was using an allegory, but it was, IMO a very poor one, because it just doesn't make sense.
2)For the same reasons this quote
makes equally little sense to me, because I don't see how expressing your emotions through magic can even be a separate process from 'feeling' it, not to mention replace it entirely. Also, strictly speaking, those 'bottled up emotions' are very different from normal ones, so I have my doubt about them being appropriate fuel for magic. However, like anything magic related, this last bit can't really be argued about beyond the point that you state is the in-universe law.
3)Roscherk is a living, breathing example of a developed empath whose emotional and magical responses occur almost always simultaneously, and more importantly, seemingly in harmony with each other.
4)Due to the low technological level of every military on Equis, the nature of warfare is vastly different to that of modern conflicts, so I'm not sure if you can adequately compare the level of stress an average combatant experience, or the prominence of war-related PTSD.
P.S. If you haven't decided what the topic of your next world-building post will be, I suggest in-universe view on cosmology, because it's the most confusing issue of every MLP fanon. In-universe view on mythology and religion would be great too.