What Didn't/Doesn't Happen

So, here's the thing. For my little AU, there are a few plot devices and episodes that never happened. And there are some that happened a little differently. I attribute that the period between the start of the show and the first Hearth's Warming to be somewhere in the ball park of three to five years.

So here's the breakdown of episodic changes.

1. Forget Mare-Do-Well; it never happened. Not only is that episode ridiculous, it's also completely insulting. It's insulting to Rainbow Dash, as she's never given a chance to defend herself. It's insulting to her friends because they would have at least tried to talk to her first. And it's insulting to her intelligence that she'd not get that there was more than one pony involved when they started flying and using magic. I really hate that they play up the dumb jock angle with her sometimes.

Edit- Some of what happened in that episode did actually happen. Yes, Rainbow Dash did start getting something of a swelled head after saving the day. And yes, Rarity and Applejack did start to come up with a plan to 'take her down a peg'.

And Twilight and Fluttershy both read them the riot act. Not only did Twilight point out the obvious fact that Rainbow Dash wasn't stupid enough to believe that they were all the same pony- after all, only alicorns are able to fly, use magic, and have earth-pony skills -but that she wasn't completely stubborn. That was more than proved after Twilight sat Rainbow Dash down and actually talked to her. Needless to say, things were a little tense for awhile between Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack; at least until some apologies were said.

And those took intercession from others before they were given. Yep, from a big white alicorn, who was less than pleased as to how a certain pair of ponies wanted to treat a fellow national hero.

2. Winter Wrap-Up and Running of the Leaves happened in reverse; otherwise, we'd see that there are some really messed up seasons in Equestria.

3. The whole wedding bit was poorly executed. And Twilight was more than a little cold to everypony involved, at least until some apologies were tendered. The one that she was the coldest to was Luna, who was a no-show the entire time. Not a pretty sight, that argument. Also, the whole song-and-dance routine wasn't the only time she mentioned either Cadance or Shining Armor; Rarity in particular had already known that there was another alicorn princess. She and the others were simply unaware that Twilight had a relationship with her. This knowledge is what led them to brush Twilight's accusations off, because You Don't Accuse Royalty of Being An Impostor. We saw how that all ended.

4. Celestia did not just send Twilight and her friends to the Crystal Empire. After the invasion, she realized that she was putting all of her eggs in one basket, so there was a hoof-picked cadre of battle ponies that went with them. It was a moot point, as Sombra neutralized them pretty easily; Celestia realized later that the training standards for her military needed work.

5. Twilight was not completely friendless when she went to Ponyville; she had Spike, and a couple of other ponies. She wasn't interested in the social scene. The letter that Celestia sent to her at the beginning had the phrase 'make some more friends.' It's still FiM, as she's still learning about it.

6. Twilight knew about Sunset Shimmer prior to her trying to steal the crown containing the Element of Magic. She just wasn't aware of what happened to her, for obvious reasons. I don't have to spell them out, do I?

7. Obviously, there are some major changes, as I've made pegacorns to be the foundation of the pony tribes. One of the cornerstones of my AU is that there were actually six tribes involved in the creation of Equestria; unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies, hippocampi, nocturne, and the zebra. Yes, the zebra are a pony tribe; they split off after Equestria was founded, since the unicorn nobles are bigots.

8. Equestria is not as happy-go-lucky as the show portrays. There is violence. The episode with the buffalo involved sandbags and clubs, not pies. The chieftain did get a pie thrown into his face, but only after he was clubbed. The whole pie fight makes sense for a kids show, but not for a teen rated fan fic.

9. Chrysalis got lucky. That's all there is to it. If Celestia had been on top of her game, she'd have been a squashed bug. The only reason why Celly didn't go all Sun Goddess on her is for the same reason they didn't on Tirek; other ponies would have gotten hurt. Chrysalis tried again; she was immolated by a big ball of plasma, and the changelings had to choose a new queen. Sucks, as I really like her; she just doesn't plan her invasion attempts right.

10. The level of technology available in Equus is much higher than the show portrays; they have equivalent versions of all the kinds that we have. Twilight's shock at computers when she went to the parallel universe was because she was used to the Royal Archives, which still used more traditional methods. She got quite a shock the first time she went to the Manehattan Public Library, and subsequently lobbied to get the Royal Archives to update their own systems. As of post-journey, they're still dragging their hooves.

11. The whole Gabby Gums incident ended badly for every pony involved. Celestia found out about the blackmail; both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were required to do 200 hours of community service as a result. And their parents had to fork over several hundred bits in fines and court fees as well. Of course, Filthy Rich used his business influence to get rid of the fees; there wasn't anything he could do about the community service, as that was the only way he could keep his parental rights.

As you might have guessed, it didn't work, as all either of the brats did was spend the time manning the counter at Rich's Barnyard Bargains.

The one that suffered the worst was Rarity, as it was found out that she had purchased the majority of the Foal Free Press gossip issues, yet had given the greatest outrage when stuff about her came out. When Celestia found out, she had more than a few very choice things to say about that.

So, that's the low-down on changes for my AU. These are details that I put here so I can avoid unnecessary exposition in my fics.

Until next time!

*jwizard teleports out*