Fridge Horror · 4:23pm Apr 4th, 2015
Not actually anything to do with the stories, but instead about the premiere and ideas (that I won't be following up on, don't worry) for just how horrifying Starlight Glimmer could be. Also, something-something, different notebook size accidentally created longer than anticipated next chapter to possibly lead to delays, sorry.
No wanna spoilers? No lookie.
Still here? Good. So, she got away. Now imagine a rash of cutie marks taken from influential ponies. Researchers, actors, builders, athletes, politicians, all of them. The ponies who once kept equestria going slowly being robbed of their cutie marks and identities, rendered relatively lifeless. And they NEVER find the marks again. Starlight buries them in caves so deep that they touch the roots of the mountains, or puts them in sealed containers to drop to the bottom of the deep, dark seas.
Now imagine what would happen if Celestia lost hers that way...
Sweet Dreams.
Considering her plan was to have everyone in Equestria make a pilgrimage to the village... yeah I'm with you. Headcanon wise Starlight Glimmer has a very large bounty on her head
I guess they'd just have to wait for the next generation to pick up the slack. In darker, grittier real life, sometimes countries or communities lose their entire leadership. To death, because we humans don't have cutie marks. These things happen.
And it may or may not surprise you to learn that a handful of elite do not a nation make. As much as the people you listed get put on a pedestal, we don't really need them. (Except the builders, but I'd like to see her try to steal millions of cutie marks one at a time.) A nation isn't going to collapse due to loss of professional athletes and politics is something anyone can do. More to the point, for every famous actor or researcher (or what have you) there's a dozen not-so-famous ones and a thousand unheard-of ones. Take out the ones on top and everyone moves up in rank.
It would be truly horrible and traumatizing for those involved, but society would survive.
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But to take out the Princesses, the ones who control the motions of the Sun and Moon? Would society last long enough to even get the slack picked up?
I'm thinking that if she ever comes back, she'll have figured out how to go one step further and actually absorb the marks into herself to keep making herself infinitely stronger and talented. In other words, almost exactly the same thing Tirek did, only there'll be some reason that they can't just Rainbow Power her (at least right away).