Static Versus Dynamic Societies; Changeless Versus Different Pasts; Closed Versus Open Futures · 9:10pm Apr 18th, 2015
Introduction
I come into My Little Pony fandom from a written historical, science fiction and fantasy background, and as a long-time fan of such literature, I pay close attention to the issue of social and technological change in a fictional universe.
I. Static Versus Dynamic Societies
The first question is whether or not a society is "static" or "dynamic." A static society is changeless in all important respects. Rulers and dynasties may change, there may be minor shifts of the border, but one century or millennium is pretty much like the last and will be much like the next, until the whole civilization falls.
In real history, there has never been a truly-static human civilization. The closest real-world approach to such, Ancient Egypt, was a relatively slow-changing culture (due to the protective effects of the deserts surrounding the Nile and difficulty of transporting large forces by sea travel until Classical times), but if you study its history in detail you will see that in various eras the relative power of kings, nobles and priests changed. You will also see a slow economic and technological evolution, as new arts filtered into the country by invasion or imitation.
And Ancient Egypt is about as static as any human civilization has ever been. Most change more rapidly; sometimes much rapidly. Compare Ancient Egypt with Classical Greece, let alone the Modern West. The apparent static nature of earlier civilizations is an illusion with two causes, one lying in our own misconceptions and the other in their own academic limitations.
What's wrong with a static civilization? Well, for one thing, it would mean that there would be no hope of significant melioration of any cultural flaws or technological limitations. Life would be nothing but an endless cycle of the same thing or minor variations on their theme. Individual fortunes might prosper, but those of the people in general never could, for there would be no possibility of economic or territorial expansion. There would be in a very real sense no meaningful cultural future.
Static civilizations are often popular in fantasy because they were popular in mythology, and because an unfortunate number of those who like fantasy are afraid of change, whether such change be improvement or decay. This leads many fantasies to take place in hopeless worlds, in which the heroes have no object but to prevent the (evil) changes attempted by the villains. Such fantasy is literally "reactionary," and while reacting against evil is generally a good idea, a world in which there is nothing but reaction is missing any possibility of growth.
II. Changeless Versus Different Pasts
A changeless past is one in which the nature of one's society was much the same a century or millennium ago as it is now. Changeless pasts -- or, even more sadly, pasts envisioned as Golden Ages and history as a story of inevitable decline from a better past -- are common in fantasy. They are less common in science fiction -- most good science fiction is about the rise and growth of civilizations. Even if there is a Golden Age in their pasts, such only spur the heroes on to try to climb back to and beyond the heights their ancestors attained.
As I mentioned, two reasons why changeless pasts are popular in fantasy because they were popular in mythology and are popular in the non-historian's view of the historical past. Both requires some explanation.
The reason why changeless pasts are common in mythology is that pre-industrial civilizations had no such disciplines as the science of archaeology or an economically or technologically-based study of history. Lacking these, most people -- even most educated people -- tended to make the natural assumption that the past was pretty much like the present. When they told tales about the details of the past, they often assumed that people lived, worked and fought in exactly the same ways they did in the present.
Take the Arthurian myths. These were written down in the 14th-15th centuries AD and are about the events of the 5th-6th centuries AD, around nine centuries earlier; specifically, of how the Romano-British war leader "Arthur" fought against the invasions of the Saxons. In the actual events on which they were based, Arthur would have been leading Roman early-cataphract style armored cavalry, equipped with scale or studded mail on relatively light horses, and fighting with overhand spears, short bows, various cavalry swords and daggers; the basis of organization would have been a semi-barbarized version of the Roman legionary cavalry of the Late Western Empire.
All this is forgotten by the myth-makers of ~ 1300-1500 AD. Instead, Arthur becomes a Christian King on the medieval ideal (he may in fact have been Christian, as the Romano-British were by the 5th century, but he certainly wasn't following any Carolingian or Plantagenet models, and he probably wasn't a "king" at all but rather a "dux bellorum" which literally means "war leader"). His cavalry wears chainmail to full plate mail (note well: full plate mail was only invented in the period in which the myths were codified, and didn't exist in the actual Early Dark Ages), ride heavy war horses of a sort which had not yet been bred in the 5th-6th centuries, and fight with couched lances, broad and bastard swords, and other High to Late Medieval cavalry weapons.
And it didn't occur to either the writers or the readers of the medieval Arthurian romances that there was anything wrong with this. The very concept of "historical fiction," in which the writer describes how the past was different, had not yet been developed (it didn't actually appear until the late 18th / early 19th centuries, with Sir Walter Scott often identified as its first rigorous practicioner).
Suppose that I wrote a war story today, set in 12th-century Britain, in which Stephen and Matilda had it out with armored fighting vehicles, attack jets and automatic firearms? A modern audience would instantly see what was wrong with this, and assume that I was engaged in an elaborate conceptual jest -- for they wouldn't even guess that I could possibly be that ignorant of the past.
But differences between past historical eras can often be overlooked, and I've seen subtler anachronisms than that go unnoticed by most of the audience. For instance, stories set in the early 19th century where the characters talk in Early Modern ("Shakespearean") English, or stories set in the early 20th century in which arranged marriages are assumed to be normal (yes, Titanic, I'm looking at you). And a bane of anyone who studies social history are fictions in which all or most of the characters make anachronistically-modern social assumptions (such as romance novel set in Medieval or Renaissance times where the main characters talk about the need to "explore their relationships") -- what's worse, many editors and readers prefer these anachronisms, because the realistic past can be upsetting and scary.
This leads to the other main source of error, which is that from our advanced technological point of view, it is easy for us to ignore what look like trivial advances in technology made in earlier ages.
For instance, we assume that serious combatants fight mainly with "guns" -- rifles, pistols and the like. (This is actually itself a popular misconception, as most of the killing and wounding in modern warfare is done with artillery and airpower, but I digress). So, if in a past age, people are fighting with "swords," it's all pretty much of a sameness, right? I mean, one sword is very much like the last, with no real technological progress, right?
Wrong.
Swords were invented around 3000 BC, the earliest ones being made of bronze or even copper, meaning that they would be bent or nicked into uselessness after a few successful parries or deflections by enemy weapons or armor. They were essentially display or desperation weapons, with which one could signal friendlies or strike a few blows against foes before throwing them down and drawing something more effective such as a mace or spear. These early swords were sickle shaped -- they had long hilts and relatively short ,thick blades (because a long, thin blade might bend or break on even a single stroke). There's a reason why King Narmer and other early monarchs are generally shown with maces or spears rather than these only semi-practical weapons.
The first great advance occurred around 1300 BC, when the Hittites began producing iron swords on a significant scale. In the ensuing centuries the technology spread, and both (moderate length) broadswords, intended for cutting, and shortswords intended for stabbing became standard officer and secondary enlisted weapons in the Classical era.
These early iron swords were still either soft or brittle (depending on how they were made) by later standards, meaning they might break or nick in combat. The Celts of the 1st millennium BC greatly improved swordsmithing by developing the first steels through alloying and repeated heating, folding and quenching techniques, which were further improved by the Syrians. Romans fought with shortswords in part because a short thick blade was less likely to break; by the Dark Ages, however, good steel was becoming common enough among warrior elites that longer and longer broadswords evolved, becoming the knightly longsword of the High Middle Ages and eventually the deadly rapier of the Renaissance. (On the other side of Eurasia, of course, Japanese swordsmiths developed earlier swords into the true katana, which was in its own way as lethal as any European longsword or rapier, or Arab or Turkish scimitar).
Techniques of swordsmithing improved all through the period in which gunpowder weapons were developed from curiosities into the rulers of the battlefield. The best swords ever made and intended for battle were made in the 19th and 20th centuries. They were wielded by officers and cavalrymen of many armies, including Western ones. Sword combat was not uncommon as late as World War One, and some of the last swords to be used in action were carried by Japanese officers in the World War II battles of 1937-1945. A skilled 19th-century swordsman of c. 1850-1900, equipped with a contemporary weapon, could have cut to bits the swords wielded by most earlier swordsmen, especially pre-medieval ones.
The point of this little dissertation is that one "sword" of one era was not very like any other "sword" of any other era, and this should be taken into account when imagining "low-tech" fantasy worlds. Real progress occurred, even if to our age of air-to-surface missiles and main battle tanks it all looks very primitive.
More importantly, similar progress occurs in production technologies. The farms and mines and quarries and docks of the High Middle Ages and Renaissance were more advanced than those of the Classical Greco-Roman era, which were in turn more advanced than those of High Antiquity or the Neolithic. This means that, as time passed, populations grew both in numbers and (to some extent) even wealth per capita.
III. Closed Versus Open Futures
This gets to the heart of the difference between the two approaches to history-building -- and also the difference between most fantasy (even good fantasy) and most science fiction (save for literary / mundane).
A closed future is one in which Now is the highest the civilization (or worse, the race or species or planet) will ever climb. All relevant sciences and practical technologies have been discovered and deployed. All possible niches of habitaiton have been occupied. The best possible future now is one in which the society manages to hold its position; eventually, it will start to decline (if it hasn't already started to do so). At most, there may be a very temporary and limited renaissance (the West has one under King Aragorn and his immediate successors in The Lord of the Rings).
In contrast, an open future in which Now may not be the highest that the culture will ever climb. There are mysteries of science to discovers, possible technologies to apply, and new environments in which to expand. The ultimate expression of this is the possibility of new worlds to conquer and colonize. The culture may or may not decline in the future, but whether or not it does depends on the choices made by its possessors, rather than due to inexorable physical limitations. Even if it falls, it will probably be succeeded by greater civilizations in the future of the story verse.
Closed futures are common in much fiction because they are easier to imagine than are open ones. If nothing fundamental ever much improves, then the world of 2115 or 2265 or 2515 will be essentially the same as the world of 2015, only perhaps with different diplomatic and political lineups, or changes in fashion. In Equestrian terms, we could set a story about Twilight Sparkle a thousand years after the Return of Luna, and society and technology would be essentially the same, complete with the most common mode of intercity travel being steam locomotive drawn passenger trains.
Next most common are ruined futures. This is a variant of the closed future in which the high civilization has already fallen, and the best for which the writer hopes is that a civilization may rise to equivalent heights in the future. Often, the high civilization fell because it arrogantly assumed that it was living in an open future and tried to transgress its natural limitations, "And Man Grew Proud." Hopefully, the new civilization to emerge will be more humble and not attempt to accomplish such feats as atomic energy, interplanetary space travel, or cybernetic transcendence.
Open futures are the hallmark of high science fiction, or "space opera." They tend to follow some variant of the Standard Science Fiction Future, what Donald A. Wollheim called the "Consensus Cosmogony." This is a general outline of future history in which Mankind rises to explore and colonize vaster and vaster domains -- other worlds, star systems, galaxies and even dimensions -- suffering hardships and reverses along the way, until either failing at the last and going extinct, or succeeding in so transcending our previous human condition that we become something incomprehensibly advanced from our present-day point of view. (The Singularity is a variant of this, where most of the transendence occurs in the fairly near future, before we get very far beyond the Earth).
The reason why ths Consensus Cosmogony (and its Singular variants) are consensus futures is that they make a lot of sense (given the assumption that we haven't yet reached the end of the tech tree). We already know enough science to know that it is possible, and have developed most of the technologies to permit, the exploration and colonization of worlds beyond our Earth. What remains is merely investment and deployment.
Now, mind you, investment and deployment are hardly trivial problems. But they are trivial compared to the question of POSSIBILITY. If Mankind survives long enough, it is almost certain that some Humans will successfully colonize other worlds, and given this, that the sphere of human settlement will expand more or less steadily outward over time.
There was recently a countervailing trend in science fiction -- the so-called Mundane movement -- which argued that it was unrealistic and unscientific to imagine Mankind expanding into the Universe. I argue that the Mundane movement is itself unrealistic and unscientific, based on pre-Copernican and pre-Galilean assumptions that the "heavens" are inherently different from the Earth, a special mystical realm into which no merely "mundane" considerations may intrude.
(See my "The Fear of Boundlessness: Explanation For The Mundane SF Movement" in Fantastic Worlds.
IV. Equestria
We of course do not know what the future of canon Equestria will be. But there is considerable evidence that canon Equestria is a dynamic society, coming from a different past, and expanding into an open future.
Equestria has a high degree of freedom of thought, expression and contract, meaning that Equestrian intellectuals may formulate new ideas and disseminate them to others without much fear of governmental persecution for dissent; and that Equestrian ponies of commerce and industry may attempt to apply these new ideas to practical purposes without having government regulators forbid their innovations. Equestria has developed the scientific method, with academic institutions and professional societies ensuring that new discoveries will be made and added to the structure of existing knowledge, while false theories will eventually be rejected.
This combination was essentially the escalator the West took to world domination and Scientific, Industrial and Information Revolutions. Equestria has had its Scientific Revolution, is having its Industrial Revolution, and is (based on technology shown in canon) close to having its Indformationl Revolution. These revolutions led us to build spacecraft, setting us firmly on the path to interplanetary exploration. For various reasons (such as the greater gregariousness of the Ponies, and the special powers of their Five Kinds), Equestrian Ponies might be better adapted to interplanetary settlement than are Humans. (Examples: Earth Pony strength and affinity for living things; Pegasus flight, cloud-walking and weather control, Unicorn telekinesis and teleportation, Sea Pony hydrokinesis and swimming, Changeling empathy, eusociality and shapeshifting).
In my Shadow Wars Storyverse, Pony civilizations repeatedly rise and fall, attaining the heights of the Age of Wonders, then four thousand years later (soon after the Return of Luna) rising even higher to expand outward into the Universe. The ultimate destiny of Ponykind is to become the Guardians of their Multiversal Cluster against the ever-hungry Night Shadows, the Elder Race nurturing millions of civilizations and leading them to enlightenment and membership in a vast multi-racial intergalactic community, and generate the Great New Ones. So I guess you could call it a very "open" future.
Conclusion
I'll let H. G. Wells summarize my feelings on the matter.
... no rest and no ending. He must go on—conquest beyond conquest. This little planet and its winds and ways, and all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him, and at last out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries of time—still he will be beginning. . . . If we’re no more than animals—we must snatch at our little scraps of happiness and live and suffer and pass, mattering no more—than all the other animals do—or have done. (He points out at the stars.) It is that—or this? All the universe—or nothingness. . . . Which shall it be?
(Things To Come, 1936)
Perhaps even more true for the Ponies.
Wow, this blog has just expanded my world view!
A bit of Jewish cosmology I've heard about is that the universe was deliberately created as "unfinished"; to be brought to fulfillment by its inhabitants(With the caveat of "Don't make me come down there"; e.g. the conquest of Canaan was held off until the Amorites became depraved to the point that eradicating them was the moral imperative). In accordance with God resting on the Sabbath and letting the universe continue, I would make the argument that Jewish mythology uniquely establishes an open future. As for different pasts, the closest thing to a past "Golden Age" is pre-agricultural, so I'd give that a pass too.
You have a lot of universe already built... that you haven't actually written much of.
2996134
Ain't that the truth. Story of my writing life, really, and long before this fandom. Actually, what I've noticed about MLP:FIM is that it gives me an incentive to do more writing than usual.
There are so few optimistic futures in fiction anymore. I treasure every one I find. Thank you for yours.
2996651
Optimistic for the Ponies, yes. I'm glad you liked it. It's optimistic for us, too, because as the Ponies make contact with parallel worlds in which Humans survived to become the dominant race, for the most part our two races get along fairly well.
2996651
#1 fanboy reporting, "Lord of Dorkness" has a couple of fics with optimistic futures.