Part 10 of the Palaververse: Old Equestria · 11:51pm Nov 18th, 2015
Another week, another dose of Palaververse! This time, focusing on these curious pastel equines people online seem so enthralled with. Far be it from us to question why.
Apologies for the slight delay in this one. Blathering on about ponies at length turned out to be far too easy to do, and past a given unreasonable word length, completing the full history in anything like a reasonable time and fitting it all into a reasonably-sized post just wasn't going to happen. To that end, old Equestria's history will be covered below, with modern Equestria - everything post-Luna's Nightmaredom and banishment - set to be covered in next week's post. (A thousand years ago totally qualifies as modern, honest.)
As always, if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to pose them in the comments. Don't forget to thank your friendly neighbourhood mustelid for kindly proofreading these. And for various things pertaining to windigos, Discord, and alicorn ascension alike, read on past the image.
Once upon a time in the far west of the Ungulan continent, there was nothing but chaos and strife. The ragged end of the Greycairn mountains plunged down into a patchwork land of dark and tangled forests, rugged foothills, and high and overgrown grasslands. In the far south, before meeting the chopping waters of the Cheval Sea, the land became arid scrubland and desert plains; towards Utmost North, the forests thickened and darkened before giving way to arctic wilderness. Great magic-infused storms buffeted the land endlessly, flying eastwards from across the westerly Black Ocean and infecting the land with the detritus of Antlertis’s Fall. Monsters stalked the forests, and pools of wild magic gave rise to madness, corrupted beasts, and worse things yet. Nobody lived there, and nobody in possession of a functioning brain stem or any better options would even contemplate doing so.
Then, once upon a later time, the pony tribes made this land their home.
Things could be said to have picked up since then.
The lands of what would become Equestria were not the first home of the pony tribes. The exact origins of the tribes are lost to time, with the first evidence of pony settlement and societies dating back to the millennium following the Fall of Antlertis. These early settlements arose in the far north-east of Ungula, in the tail-end of the Greycairn Mountains running between Corva and the vast and inhospitable Ungulan North. Bitter cold, constant storms, and a landscape dominated by sheer mountains made for a grim cradle, and the early tribes were left huddling on the edge of civilisation as the greater powers of Ovarn, Capra, and Corva rose and fell.
The ponies likely wouldn’t have survived at all if not for the latent magic of their species. All pony tribes possessed sturdiness and strength well above what could have been physically expected of most other ungulates, as well as other magical talents. Flight and weathercrafting were a natural gift of the pegasi, allowing them to mitigate the worst of the weather thrown their way. The unicorns matched their prodigious magical channelling to their strength and endurance to become more than a match for most of the wilderness’s perils. And the earth pony tribes not only possessed strength and resilience beyond that of other ponies, but a rapport with the earth and flora that could let them coax crops from a field of stones. Few others but the ponies could have survived their early beginnings … and if the pony tribes had been united from the start, they could even have flourished in their homeland.
However, unity and harmony were far-off things for the early tribes, and conflict was an early constant. The collective farms of the earth ponies spread out across the thin glens and river valleys, and made an inviting target for the emerging unicorn mountain-kingdoms and sky-dwelling pegasus stratocracies. Threats of poor growing weather and military strongarming were often enough to begrudgingly extract produce from the earth ponies, especially when - through as-yet-unknown and arcane means — the greatest of the unicorn courts somehow achieved mastery over the sun and moon. However, these threats could only be taken so far before the pegasi and unicorns would have risked starving themselves, a fact the earth pony rulers knew full well. Threats were made, and whenever they were called as a bluff, suffering and internecine warfare inevitably followed. As the Capric Empire began its rise two thousand years ago, the pony tribes had fallen into an uneasy concord, where crops, fair weather, and the motion of the celestial bodies were all produced and shared in the name of mutual fear rather than genuine fellowship.
The concord held for the next few hundred years, as the Capric Empire expanded in all directions and began to brush up against the edge of the eastern corvid and pony territories. By this time, the pony tribes had stumbled towards unity, with unicornkind united under one royal dynasty, the pegasi cohered around one central commander, and the collective earth pony farms electing their own ruling council. The balance between these three blocs made for a more stable albeit bitter peace. But the weight of centuries of frustration, acrimony, and constant low-key raiding made true unity a pipe dream.
It would take something drastic to bring about harmony between the tribes. And although that drastic something would come in time, it would end up shattering the peace, nearly destroy the tribes, and bring about the largest migration in Ungula’s history as part of the process.
When the forces of the Capric Empire finally descended upon Corva eighteen-hundred years ago, they were met by the corvid clans led by their Third Cormaer, as well as by detachments from the pony tribes. The ponies had no love for corvid reivers, but they could recognise a mutual threat when one came knocking at their door with half-a-hundred legions, and so unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi alike fought and died alongside their southern neighbours in the wars against Capra. But the war was long and bitter, and the Empire’s supremacy in the pitched battles began to tell. And when the corvids were forced to either withdraw from their western lands or accept Capric shackles, there was nothing left to protect the ponies from punitive marauding by the Capric legions, who had suffered more than any being could have predicted against these upstart tribes on the world’s edge and who sought a weak target to release their wrath. Many ponies were dragged away in shackles, and many towns were burned to the ground, ripped off their mountain-sides, or blasted out of the sky. Countless farms were left fallow, if not outright salted, and the surviving ponies were purposefully left on the brink of annihilation by the vengeful legions.
The lack of farmland and the scarcity of the crops caused the old rivalries to flare up again, redoubled by desperation. Conflicts became utterly rife between the three tribes, only diminishing slightly as they gradually rebuilt down the following centuries. The chaos, fury, and division between the tribes made the ponies and their territory a beacon for creatures drawn to such conflict, and who could feed off it to their heart’s content.
What followed has echoed down the ages in Equestria’s founding tales, and the broad details are recounted every Hearth’s Warming Eve. Anger-eating windigos were drawn to the pony tribes, and the winter they brought fell upon the lands of the ponies, finally downgrading the livability of their home from ‘Stupidly inhospitable’ to ‘Even a tardigrade would reconsider’. Crops withered and died, with far too many ponies following their example. The three rulers of the tribes — Princess Platinum of Unicornkind, Commander Hurricane of the pegasi, and Chancellor Puddinghead of the collective earth pony farms — reached agreement. They would have to migrate if they were to survive. And fifteen hundred years ago, they did exactly that.
No new homeland was immediately obvious, though. The North was nothing like an improvement on living standards, Corva was already occupied and distressingly full of corvids, and the Capric Empire sat waiting with shackles across much of the rest of the continent. The far west was the only option, and migrating there required a long and perilous journey across the spine of the Greycairns. Many ponies braved that journey, including the three leaders, and many miraculously survived. Part of this was due to the inattention of the Capric Empire, which was then absorbed with its own internal politics, though the lion’s share of the credit goes to the nomadic griffon tribes that dwelt along the mountains. They had little love for the Empire, and were all too happy to keep the ponies out of its hooves. With their help, many ponies survived the long and perilous journey, and the common travails of their journeys brought many together in friendship. Windigos continued to haunt them throughout, but even then, the power of their winter was beginning to wane. Of the ponies that stayed behind in their original homeland, nothing is known about what came of them even to this day, and no remains of them have been found by even the boldest explorers.
Finally, the ponies made it down the final stretch of the Greycairns, and entered the unspoiled wilderness of Equestria. Tensions as yet lingered between the tribes, and the three leaders initially refused to peacefully compromise with the others in the search for living space and resources. However, as the windigos which had followed them all the way threatened to bring down winter once again, the last of the old hostilities were banished when three subordinates of the leaders came together in friendship. With the power borne of their bond, Private Pansy, Smart Cookie, and Clover the Clever were able to resist the windigo magic, kickstart the slow reconciliation between the tribes which had built during their long migration, and persuaded their three leaders to come together at long last. The foundations of modern Equestria were laid, as the ponies accepted one another’s efforts and friendship in their fight for survival.
That fight would be long and difficult. The lands of Equestria were then exactly as dangerous and wild as described above, and the small pony population was practically confined to the comparatively safe and fertile Dream Valley, just west of the Imperial province of Asinia. Thick and fierce wilderness ran in all other directions and monster attacks were a norm, especially in those days when the spawn of Antlertis’s laboratories were still widespread in the dark corners of the world. The Capric Empire itself had ceased to be blind to the movements of the ponies, and although it had lost its taste for expansion into hostile territories, it was still all too happy to send in the legions to extort fealty and tribute. Although the Equestrians had allies, such as a few griffon tribes and even several dragons, including the future Fire Queen Talon, even the Empire’s casual efforts proved overpowering, and they were eventually forced to send annual tribute to the Empire in exchange for their permitted existence.
Even after that struggle and being left to rebuild, the troubles of the Equestrians didn’t cease. Talon rose in power amongst dragonkind in the decades that followed, and she soon returned to Equestria intent upon raiding and plundering from those she’d once helped. Commander Hurricane and Smart Cookie, the last of the original six founders, went forth to fight Talon and paid dearly for it. Hurricane was killed by Talon, and Smart Cookie was left grievously wounded and in no condition to prevent the dragons from extorting tribute from Equestria as well.
It was a dark age for Equestria. The new nation had been left stricken, being bled dry from two directions at once, and it had lost many of the touchstones of its early unity. But ponykind had never been inclined to yield merely because things had gotten difficult (or even flat-out unreasonable), and new farms were laid and tracts of wilderness were cleared. Among Smart Cookie’s final acts was to draft the outline of how ponykind could organise and govern its affairs in the name of preserving peace and unity. The structures of the old tribes would remain in place, and the leaders of each would form the ruling Equestrian Council. Although the unicorn monarchs, pegasus lords and earth pony landowners retained the most power, the rights and protections that were to be extended to common ponies of all tribes were enshrined in law, as were the responsibilities of their rulers. The success of Equestria had to be a common endeavour, or it would surely fall.
From that brink, Equestria rebuilt and slowly began to expand into the wilderness, clearing wildland and quelling rogue magic and laying fields, one after the other in the centuries that followed. The tributes to both the Empire and Talon became less and less of a burden as the nation gathered speed and strength. Farmsteads grew into villages, which grew into full-blown towns, which in turn sent forth more and more settlers and explorers to tame the wilds. Any monsters encountered were driven back before the advancing ponies, and the remains of old Antlertean outposts were uncovered and delved into for all the secrets and dangers they had to offer. The heroic age of early Equestria was in full swing, with many individual brave ponies going forth and (in)gloriously earning themselves places in the history books.
The last — and possibly the greatest — of these heroes was the unicorn Starswirl, who arose over twelve hundred years ago to become one of the greatest spellcasters and scholars Equestria ever produced. He helped push back the wilderness and pacify countless areas infected with rogue magic, sounded the depths of dozens of old Antlertean ruins and slew many monsters spawned by the long-Fallen realm. One of those ruins turned out to be the great magical prison of Tartarus, a subterranean realm constructed by forgotten Antlertean mage lords to contain the worst cast-offs of their experiments and some of their oldest foes. Tartarus was then watched over by two brothers, Scorpan and Tirek, themselves both creations of Antlertis. Scorpan and Starswirl struck up a friendship unbeknownst to Tirek, who saw the spreading realm of the ponies and conspired to devour their magic for himself. Scorpan kept his brother’s plans in check as Starswirl helped the Equestrians to expand further. Although Tirek lurked in the shadows and the threat of the dragons and the Capric Empire continued to hang overhead, Equestria’s star was very much on the rise, and it remained peaceful and harmonious.
At this point, Discord helpfully entered the picture.
The chaos spirit’s exact origins are unknown, and Discord himself offered up cheerfully contradictory accounts when asked at the time. But wherever he emerged from, he chose to make Equestria his new home and casually defied any and all attempts to drive him off or kill him. Even Starswirl in all his might couldn’t land a single blow on Discord, and Tirek and Scorpan were forced to withdrew back beyond the gates of Tartarus and watch as Discord engulfed the whole land in a storm of chaos.
Discord’s reign lasted for over twenty years, and saw Equestria plunged into madness. Starswirl himself vanished and was never found again, and the Equestrian Council ceased to be anything resembling relevant as their roads were unravelled, their palaces wandered off to live a sailor’s life on the high seas, and their messages to other parts of the land were turned into exceedingly confused manatees. The sun and moon cut chaotic lines through the sky as Discord usurped power over them from the unicorn monarchs, and even the efforts of the still-mighty Capric Empire to invade Equestria and put an end to the madness ended in humiliating disaster. Fields lay fallow, and the skies blazed with weather past any ability to control by the pegasi.
Discord’s rule was as capricious and unassailable as Discord himself, and all hopes of ousting him petered away as pony after pony lost their sanities in the attempt. All hopes, save for those possessed by a few foolhardy and brave ponies, who wandered the land in hopes of unearthing some secret that could lay the spirit of chaos low.
Of all those ponies, two succeeded. And they rule in Canterlot to this day.
Celestia and Luna, an earth pony and pegasus who shared a pegasus noble for a father, fell into each other’s company at an early age after a creature born of chaos tore through Celestia’s home village and Luna’s entire kin fell under the sway of chaos-induced madness. They dedicated themselves to toppling Discord, and the legends of their travels and exploits in that time could fill a hundred books. According to these legends, they visited every corner of Equestria to learn what lore they could from the remaining unicorn scholars, and they went in search of Starswirl himself to unearth what they could of his secrets. They trekked far across the Empire itself to discover what those in still-orderly places knew of Discord and his ilk, and they parlayed with Scorpan, Tirek, and the Diamond Dogs deepest below the earth, braving horrors the likes of which no pony had seen before. The most fantastical rumours even have them sailing single-hoovedly across the Black Ocean in search of the remains of Antlertis itself, to unravel the possible origins of Discord himself amidst the sleeping terrors there.
Whatever the journey and whatever their findings, they finally stood before Discord himself. They bore alicorn forms, having ascended and gained mastery over the sun and moon. And they wielded the Elements of Harmony, with which they turned Discord into stone and ended his mad reign.
In the aftermath, the Equestrians turned to Celestia and Luna for guidance and leadership, both of which the sisters are understood to have reluctantly granted. The world had hardly taken a breath before returning to norm, and hungry powers sought to lay Equestria low while it was at a moment of weakness. Talon and her dragons flew north to harry Equestria, while Imperator Polaris marched out at the head of the Capric Empire’s legions to force the ponies to kneel. Both Luna threw back Talon’s invasion, subdued Talon herself, and forced the Fire Queen into peace. Celestia met Polaris and, after offering him the chance to surrender, shattered his legions and slew Polaris with the sun’s own might. Tirek dared his own incursion into Equestria at this time, which Scorpan forewarned the Princesses of. They were able to subdue and imprison Tirek in Tartarus, and Scorpan gladly gave them mastery over the great prison before he left for parts unknown.
At this point, the outside world began to get the faintest inkling that the balance of power may have shifted. The era of Equestrian supremacy began with Discord’s downfall, and has yet to end. Equestria hit the ground running after the rise of Celestia and Luna, now freed from the shackles of tribute and given the security that peace provided to expand ever-further into the wilderness that still surrounded them. Most ponies happily accepted the rule of the new Princesses. Their title was taken from the old unicorn monarchs, and the old Council shifted towards becoming a parliament over which Celestia and Luna were ultimately sovereign. Some ponies rejected the rule of the Princesses, however, and their number ventured far into the north to establish a new nation amidst the Crystal Mountains — the somewhat-self-gloriously titled Crystal Empire. Although a quirk of the rogue magic running thick in the earth of their new land saw the earth ponies amongst them gain a curious lustre to their coat, the Crystal Empire ponies remained fundamentally the same as their Equestrian kin, and their rejection of the rule of the Princesses scarcely lasted beyond the first generation to move north, instead becoming amicable trading partners with the southern ponies and a satellite of them in all but name.
For two centuries under the rule of the two sisters, Equestria flourished like never before. They pushed the borders all the way to the western Black Ocean and north all the way to the borders of the Everfree, where they raised a great palace from which to govern. Their court bustled with activity and culture, and Equestria’s vast fields became a breadbasket proofing ponykind against want or starvation. The sun and moon turned according to the benevolent will of the Princesses, and the skies soon acquired a nation-wide weather schedule overseen by the pegasus cities of Cloudsdale and Duncirrus. In secret, Celestia and Luna found a young and good-hearted acolyte amongst the Crystal Empire, a pegasus filly called Mi Amore Cadenza, and began to groom her for princesshood to help share their rule. The rest of the world could only look at Equestria with envy, and old tyrants in the Fire Queen and the Capric Empire withered on the vine.
Equestria’s light shone bright, bright enough for its enemies and its ponies — and even its very rulers — to overlook the shadows that crawled beneath. That crawled, and gathered strength, and whispered poison into the ears of those poised to do the most damage if they heeded it.
Once upon a time, a thousand years ago, a long night fell across Equestria.
Where's the upvote button for blog posts?
I have no questions this week, and it seems pointless to vote when this is the first blog of a two-parter, so I'm just going to keep posting Diamond Dogs for now.
33.media.tumblr.com/9baeb8e6d9dad4f5378830fc3b1a753b/tumblr_nuckdefEYR1qdqi4go1_500.gif
I love these backstories. I hope/can't wait for another Palaverse fic though that touches on modern Equestria jamming a horseshoe up the Capric Empire's collective asses.
Are there even any other societies left to vote for next?
Hmm... did we do Zebra? I vote for Zebra.
Edit: I skipped the intro, so I see Old Equestria is still goinng to be covered. Vote withdrawn.
It's always nice to see different author's head canons on the matter of Equestrian history. They as often as not heap misery upon the poor ponies; all the more for them to overcome. Some can be outright weird: this fic, for instance, is Equestrian 'history' as revealed though the words and thought processes of a narrator so lemony, she shits grapefruits and pisses lemonade. It is laugh out loud funny at times, and needs more love.
Your own effort was of the quality we have come to expect from you: intelligent, well written and filled with sweet, juicy world building. I await next weeks entry with interest.
A blend of lucky early positioning (bad luck is still luck, and they stayed off the caprids' radar for quite some time,) stubbornness and resilience that would shame most bovines, and a new home almost tailor-made for a people with those qualities led to the Equestria we know of. Of course, there's the not-inconsiderable matter of the most recent millennium...
In any case, fascinating stuff. I especially like how you were able to work in Tirek and Scorpan, and I love the high adventure flavor of early Equestria. Definitely looking forward to part two.
3551653
Cruelly missing from the site's functions, alas. I'm optimistic that knighty will eventually respond favourably to my incessant offers of baked goods and sexual favours in exchange for some small considerations, though.
3551699
Fair enough. I can imagine worse things to post.
3551716
Glad you approve of the backstories! The next entry should indeed touch on modern Equestria's part in the downfall of the Capric Empire. The other foreign societies in Dactylia and Ceratos remain open for nominations, as do any other topics pertaining to the Palaververse that come to mind.
3551721
Lemony narration is the sweetest narration! ...or some sort of narration, at any rate. I'll give that one a gander, and I'm glad you continue to approve.
3551736
Glad you like it! Coming up with a suitable cocktail to nudge Equestria into the pastel kingdom we all know and love was good fun, as was weaving in Tirek and Scorpan.
Ooh. Very interesting. I like your combination of Hearth's Warming with realism, far too many either ignore it or let themselves take it too literally. The only thing that strikes me as off is Cadence. I mean, she was a teenager when she foalsat Twilight, though she was an alicorn at that point already. Is Cadence a thousand years old biologically, or was she cryo-genetically frozen and awakened while still in her teens? I mean, Cadence is certainly a difficult character to fit into histories of Equestria, but to be honest, putting her as more than a decade or so older than Twilight has always seemed off to me.
There are any number of ways one could handwave why she's an alicorn based on personal preference, but making her old for the sake of being old leaves a sour taste behind, for me at least. If nothing else, is it not so hard to see that Cadence and Twilight have the same relationship as Celestia and Luna? The sun and moon are to each other as love and friendship, so having the two younger alicorns products of the same generation seems appropriate.
Now, I have nothing against immortal alicorns, I prefer it, in fact, but Cadence has always struck me more mature in Twilight due to temperament rather than in age, whether biological or chronological.
3551803
Cadance's situation should get a fair amount of attention in the next blog post. Suffice to say for now that I'm rolling with a teenage Cadance ascending to alicornhood under Celestia and Luna's guidance, and then getting frozen in time along with the Crystal Empire during the fighting against Sombra. Luna's subsequent Nightmarification put a halter on Celestia being able to free her, and she was only able to do so a few years before the events of the show, unaware of the passing of time and still the same biological age she'd been frozen at. Foalsitting Twilight was one approach Celestia used to ensure Cadance was still on the straight and narrow after her imprisonment, as well as acclimatising her to modern Equestria.
The above might not hold up on close inspection - she's tricky to fit into the histories, I quite agree. This way seemed to keep her a closer age to Twilight, while still accounting for her alicornhood and her apparently-seamless ascension to the throne of the Crystal Empire.
3551831 Hmm. The only real issue that setup feels like it creates is Cadence's integration into modern society. She seems absolutely acclimatized and like a natural, but I suppose that would be easier for a teenager... and the idea that she would be ascended at a younger age in an earlier time in comparison to Twilight makes sense.
On another note, do the various species have different lifespans rather than just the average of ~eighty? Dragon live for thousands of years, but what about other races? Do more magically powerful races like ponies, or ibexes, or black-sheep have longer lifespans? If I remember, there was a reference to Fairy Floss being older than a century. One thing that has always struck me about ponies is that they very much have parallels to fantasy elves, and the semi-canonical hundreds of years that Granny Smith has lived would give that theory some credence, though I suppose you could also say that alicorn-created years are shorter or longer than Earth-years.
Waugh, booyah. I want stories about the time when ponies were learning to become one tribe instead of three, under the banner of Equestria. Also, "stratocracy" is my new favorite word. Also also, nice to see someone actually use the damned Hearth's Warming Eve play at face value. Minus the bugaboo about Star Swirl being Clover's mentor. :B But hey, he was a time-traveler, maybe that's what happened to him when he disappeared.
3551849
Easy acclimatisation thanks to her youth was the hand-waviness I would have relied on to account for Cadance's ease of adjusting to modern norms. You wouldn't believe the number of skateboards and yo-yos Celestia had to gently take away from her, though.
Most of the ungulates are lumbered with life expectancies of eighty or so, with no apparent advantage gained from greater magical potency. Some species like the corvids and bovines tend to have shorter average lifespans, though that comes down to societal factors rather than anything biological. Dragons, alicorns, and sentient chunks of metal are pretty much the only ones who can expect to adorn their birthday cakes with centuries' worth of candles. I'm inclined to clock up instances like Granny Smith's apparent centuries to continuity hiccups more than anything else.
3551915
Call it time-travel, then. I'm sure Starswirl's seminal tome Whye To Refraine From Diddling Thine Grandmothre And Maiming Butterflyes could have only been produced by hard-won experience rather than pure theory.
Stratocracy is an affa fun word indeed. I must have missed that detail about Starswirl being Clover's mentor.
3551831 I'm guessing your going to completely ignore the comics than? In the comics going over Tirek's backstory he and Scorpan were prince's of a desert nation. With the Centaurs, imps and the gargoyles having united under one banner.
3551997
Not going by comic canon at all for the Palaververse, alas, as I've not read any of the comics. Even then, I'd still be likely to just take the show itself as the primary canon and regard anything it doesn't directly depict as fair game for invention.
3551653
Seconded. Much better than many stories on the site.
Though i did read a well written pony history fic recently. It read like an academic history paper. I'd have to dig it up. For those who like that type of thing..... like me.
I wonder what Equestria's continued expansion mean for nonponies leaving in it's territory? The Griffons, Mules, and Donkeys seem fine with be citizens.
The Buffalo did not. But then, what can they do when faced with three(verging on four) pony goddesses?
I vote next for the tiny lost nation of Yakyakistan. One hopes you can give them more depth than the show as yaks in real life are quite docile and easily domesticated.
3551997
Maaaaaaaan, Carabas ignores everything. Carabas will ignore the comics, Carabas will ignore the books, Carabas will ignore the official map. Hell, Carabas ignores the show sometimes. I've seen this dude have Sombra show up in a post-Nightmare Moon story. The Palaververse is a world that runs entirely on whimsical creativity, and it doesn't conform to our mortal perceptions. So try not to treat it as the "canon plus" kind of fanfiction, because it's really more spiritually akin to a total AU, even if its stories aren't tagged as such.
The question is what were the state and movements of planet, sun and moon before this? Heliocentric? Geocentric? Controlled by someone or something else? As well, you need to explain why the fact they controlled the sun and moon weren't a deterrent to Capra and the dragons who tried to subjugate them.
3551794 Have you tried offering him (Knighty) sexual goods and baked favors?
I very much enjoyed the history here, though I was a bit sad to see Tirek and Scorpan not as Princes,but making them the Wardens of Tartarus more than made up for it. I would also neatly explain how Tirek was able to escape, albeit after quite some time, and why he sent the Princesses there.
Will you have an origin for the Elements of Harmony for one of your stories? You shared very little about them here, and it made me curious.
3552311 I've always worked under the assumption that the system was geocentric with a micro-sun and a moon orbit an earth-ish planet. However since the system is so small the sun and moon had unstable orbits and 'fixing' them into proper, predictable orbits was what the magic was about. Though, I'm no astrophysicist so take that with a grain of salt.
Thank you for proofreading these, Themaskedferret. :)
"stratocracies"
Not a new word for me, but I'm pleased to see it used. :)
And another interesting one, unsurprisingly. :)
Very nice, especially since this part of the Palaververse severely limits your freedom in regards to worldbuilding because the history has a goal that it needs to reach. Good job on that.
Until now, none of the nations have been that dependent on, to borrow a phrase from Pratchett, which leg of the trousers of time their early tribal societies went down.
The stories one could tell about the forced alliance between the early corvids and ponies, the inside view of the early Capric empire by pony slaves that rose high enough in rank (like in ancient Rome) to live to tell the tale, the pony version of the 'trail of tears' across the Greycairns, the first contacts with the griffons, the madness faced by the intrepid explores who first ventured west towards the Black Ocean's seaboard...
It's highly ironic that the two best things that ever happened to the ponies, in regards to the development of modern Equestria, was the near-annihilation by the Capric empire and the madness of the reign of Discord that at the very end produced the alicorn sisters. Otherwise they would have remained a footnote in history.
3551915
Same here.
You do a fine job, taking the show's hints of Equestrian history and adapting them into the Palaververse.
Making Tirek and Scorpan the wardens of Tartarus was a brilliant touch! (I get the feeling that they're Antlertean creations themselves, and brothers only in spirit and role, considering their wildly different appearances.)
Aww yes. Dungeoncrawling pony adventurers looking for the relics of fallen elder races, and picking fights with any monsters they run into!
3551986
My personal solution for Granny Smith's age is that Celestia has been making sure, for centuries, that there is a settlement where Ponyville now stands, on the straight line between Canterlot and the old palace where the Elements of Harmony lie, and as close to Everfree as ponies can settle. It's been settled, destroyed, abandoned and then re-settled a generation later many, many times over the years. The current Ponyville is just the most successful version, so far.
3552213
Nomination for Yakyakistan noted! Maybe best to remind me about that next week, lest I accidentally overlook any nominations here. The Buffalo should get some amount of addressing next week as well, as Equestria expands into their territories.
3552267
In my defence, I do try to keep things show-congruent. Alas, sometimes the perennial condition of gurgling idiocy rears its head and I miss things like Sombra's chronology in relation to everyone else, and thus make an AU almost entirely by accident.
3552311
Prior to the modern civilisations, Antlertis kept the sun and moon in a controlled geocentric orbit. After they Fell under mysterious circumstances, something unidentified kept them in faltering and gradually slowing motion for the centuries until the unicorns were able to get them under control. As for the deterrent the sun and moon offered, that's something I allude to in The Motion of the Stars. I won't spoil it unless you're alright with me doing so, but suffice to say that it partly depends on how exactly the unicorns are controlling them in the first place.
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I did come across this nice big clockwork and multi-levered sexual good once, and I sent it to knighty in a parcel. That just got me placed on a list by the Home Office, though. Nothing availing there, I'm afraid. The Elements of Harmony and their source in the Tree of Harmony definitely deserve elaboration. Antlertis's eventual blog post should spill a few more details there.
And yep, a geocentric micro-sun and moon are definitely in play. I imagine their natural orbits, absent any magical sapients screwing things up, would have been erratic and unstable ... before the Antlerteans fixed/screwed things up.
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Glad you find it interesting! And stratocracy was a decent find for describing the pegasi and their apparent system of rulership. The 'stratus'-similarity was a nice coincidence as well.
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Glad you like it! I've always liked sweeping historical narratives that can convey some sense of the multitude of stories happening across time, and I'm glad I've been able to pull off for a few of these. Giving the ponies plenty of low points from which to bounce back and ascend also seemed entirely appropriate.
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Glad you approve! Guarding Tartarus seemed like a suitable early role for Tirek and Scorpan, who are indeed Antlertean creations and brothers by spirit and bond rather than actual blood.
And that's an excellent theory for Ponyville's history, one I might well adopt. Though the sequence of settlement, destruction, and re-settlement does deserve some consideration.
3552944 And thus, Ponyville was born. Celestia probably wishes she'd cared about the name by now.
3552522 Thanks for appreciating it.
I have to admit, the main reason I love pre-reading them, is the random stuff I manage to have inserted (Pascoite, Rocs, etc)
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Now a geocentric system with a micro-sun simply can't work if we don't discount physics entirely. You'd never get a fusion reaction going with that small mass and if you did it'd instantly explode since the gravity would be too weak to contain the internal pressure generated... a moon isn't a problem though.
Did the Antlertians somehow manage to destroy the system's star and had to find a quick fix by opening a rift to another dimension that leaks ridiculous amounts of energy (or used their star to do so)... and Celestia actually just tosses that rift around? That would remove the need for her to move an object of enormous mass and could explain the unicorn council's ability to do so. That rift should have extremely strong emanations of magic that could be tapped into (sunfire) and latched onto to move it. Now I'm no Starswirl but...
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Your insertions are good insertions. The rocs'll get their day in the sun soon, possibly for Gazellen's entry.
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I think it's best to just accept that sometimes, major historical figures can and will just randomly decide to go time travelling. It's not their job to worry about the migraines of distant future historians.
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This is probably where my own actively negative knowledge of physics may be an impediment. Best to assume that Palaververse physics is real-world physic's decidedly inbred cousin.
I'd say the Antlerteans latched onto existing celestial bodies that were moving according to whatever erratic physics and magic governed them. The Antlerteans figured out how to control them, and were then like, "Oh bollocks, we've broken things slightly and now they're not going to move at all without our active intervention and magic. We'll have to do something about that. Just as well we'll definitely be hanging around forever."
They Fell, but the artifact they lodged the sun-moving magic in was able to keep them going until the unicorns stumbled across the process described in Motion of the Stars.
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3553123 I'm definitively okay with that :)
It's the beauty of magic that it can explain everything.
Those deliberations just sorta fell into my mind and onto the keyboard while writing.
3553112 Bwehehe, I regret nothing. More puns!
Awesome back-story, to think that ponies and corvids once fought side by side! (Of course, Corvid bellies is my guess for what happened to the last of the ponies who stayed behind).
I really like your description of Discord's "rule." To me the idea that he was this "King of Equestria" never really made sense, he came off more as an ongoing natural disaster without end than anything else.
One question jumps out at me though: As I understand it, the Palaververse provides the backstory and worldbuilding for a number of your fictions, including "King In The Mountain" and "The Devil's Details." I do hope you plan to include Astralus in this, I would hate to see him get cut.
Oh, and for the next post I vote more recent history of Equestria! (I just want to vote for one and actually get it for once.)
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Or maybe the other way round:
Since a geocentric micro-sun would make the most sense with all the magical rising and setting (in the habitable zone around a dwarf star close to the lower limit of mass necessary for fusion, the distance between planet and star would be close enough to conform to the sun's behaviour in the show. Such a system would also explain why the sun doesn't rise and set on its own, because it would likely be tidally locked. The moon would be a whole different affair, though, because it would have to be at a Lagrangian point only a few ten thousand kilometres above the planet to be stationary. I don't think I have to explain what that means for the tides. Also, that whole system horribly breaks down when you start magically moving sun and moon independently of each other), we can deduce that what the ponies call their sun is probably not a star as we understand it, i.e. a big plasma orb powered by nuclear fusion, because a star small enough to orbit a roughly earth-sized planet wouldn't work.
My personal headcanon is the sun essentially being a big blob of blazing hot, roiling, boiling, liquid magic.
(And the moon being a glowing rock half painted dark – because honestly, reflecting sunlight is a bit harder if you only have a geocentric micro-sun)
P.S.: I like how most of the effort and content of this post now lie inside the brackets of what I originally intended to be a harmless annotation. I just had to look all that stuff up, didn't I?
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Did you hear about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac?
He was up all night wondering if there was a dog.
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And yeah, Discord's rule always struck me as an ongoing natural disaster rather than anything organised. Picture him sitting sedately in a throne issuing decrees and contemplating his realm for any purposes other than piss-taking. Somewhat tricky.
Nomination for Equestrian history noted! You're in with a fair shot this time, I shan't lie.
The King in the Mountain's distinct from the main Palaververse's backstory, in terms of Astralus's existence and deeds. The Devil's Details also emerged from an earlier version of the 'verse, from which its intended eventual main villain's been excised. I'll still keep them if I get back to the story, though their existence and origins won't be compatible with the Palaververse's history as it currently stands.
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I commend you for looking that stuff up, at least - it seems to bring you to great conclusions. A roiling sphere of blazing liquid magic i s a fantastic addition to any planet's orbit.
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Pondering the existence of a dog, thank you very much! And I think it's more natural to order the attributes "agnostic dyslexic insomniac" (which also happens to be pleasingly alphabetical), though that part affects the impact less.
...It would be nice if I had something constructive to finish off with. Uh... given their "certain mutual compatibility" as mentioned in Asinia's post, it seems reasonable to suppose ponies and donkeys (+ presumably zebras/etc) are relatives - how did the ponies end up so far away from their cousins in the first place?
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Ah, beg pardon. Let the dog's existence be duly pondered then. And in all honesty, I've got no pre-planned idea for how the mutually-compatible donkeys and ponies and zebras ended up relatively far apart. If I had to handwave an explanation, I'd go for 'Some Antlerteans were dicking around and shifting populations hither and thither, for Creator-knows what awful reasons.'
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That makes perfect 'sense' actually and would also explain why Celestia is able to draw so much magic from the 'sun'. It's like a battery.
The moon then has to be something similar and its phases have to do something with the properties of its magic and not some ridiculous planetary shadow thingy. Align the two things like NNM and you get incalculable effects. That headcanon works.
The whole thing with tidal locking has been a pet theory of mine for quite some time, with Celestia and Luna not really controlling the sun and moon but keeping the planet spinning. It slows down as the magic crystals in its crust constantly try to align with the system's inherent magical field. But I think I'll stop now... this was about Equestria's history, not its orbital mechanics.
I have to commend you on giving the humble bracket its overdue recognition though.
And thus, once again I find myself trying to explain to my boyfriend why exactly I am not only reading fanfiction, but fanfiction about ponies...
Brilliant, as always, and stratocracy is now my favourite word, tied with "update" and "palavarverse".
There is one thing that I've been thinking about though: are there any religions in this world? I seem to recall several allusions to a Creator, which implies a faith, but are there any organised methods of worship, or even temples? Is Celestia worshipped? Is Luna? If so, do they approve? SO MANY QUESTIONS!
Sorry if I went a bit overboard there, but this universe really is fantastic. Can't wait for the next post!
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Not only fanfiction, and not only fanfiction about ponies, but encyclopedia entries about fanfiction about ponies. Best break that next stage to the poor man gently.
Good catch about the Creator references! Organised religions have never really become a major thing in the Palaververse. Most beings tend to have some hodge-podge of beliefs in some sort of culturally-appropriate afterlife, and some manner of belief in some initial Creator as the prime mover at the universe's beginning, but belief in deities and organised worship never took off the same way they've done in our world. Even the hypothetical Creator tends to be characterised as either aloof and alien and uncaring, an incompetent dullard unwittingly responsible for the world's griefs, or actively and pettily malevolent, and hence undeserving of worship in any case. There are low-key forms of some practises with semi-religious overtones and rituals going on - a lot of species will venerate their ancestors and heroes of old, and present-day legends like the alicorn sisters, the Capricious Crown, and the Fire Queen will usually get a healthy amount of awe sent their way. Some attach especial significance to natural forces, like the caprids to the Greycairn mountains, or the Asinians to the ocean ... but beyond those, not much we'd recognize by way of religious practice or paraphernalia occurs.
Brilliant as always. A version of the hearths warming myth that fits in with the history going on elsewhere, and that feels realistic without undermining the moral of it.
Would it be selfish of me to ask for some more precise dates, particularly surrounding Discord's reign? You have the whole decades-long affair pegged as happening roughly 200 years before Luna's banishment. If I even get round to writing the ancient history fic I have planned, I'd like to keep it Palaver-compatible.
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Glad you like it! A more realistic touch that didn't undermine the show's moral at all was what I was hoping to achieve.
With regards to dates, here's a comment I made to that effect, all the way back in the depths of history for the original Ovarn post, and the dates there still more or less hold up. Exact precision isn't something I've gone for, just to allow myself a bit of wiggle room if I ever accidentally tie the chronology into a knot, but these should give an idea of when things roughly went down.
As a supplement, Celestia would have been born just about at the beginning of Discord's reign, with Luna born a few years into it.
Excellent, thank you.
Is there a group for Palaververse-compatible stories?
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Not to my knowledge, nope.
Fair enough. I shall ask the question again in about 15 years when my story's ready to publish.
through as-yet-unknown and arcane means
The first clause is awkwardly worded. Consider this: "Even after that struggle and being left to rebuild, the troubles of the Equestrians didn't cease."
And there's a repeated error:
In these cases, you're using "pegasi" as an adjective. When using a noun as an adjective, it is generally the singular that is used, not the plural. Each of those should read "pegasus", not "pegasi".
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All fixed, and thank you again. Plurals are tricky things, ye ken.
I was always wondering why no one had settled Equestria prior to the ponies' migration. Turns out it's because Equestria was one exceptionally depressing hellhole prior to colonization. Works for me!
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"Like Australia, if all the spiders were sorcerers" is usually enough of a deterrent for any beings with alternatives.
Sorry if I don't comment on your blogs on time. I have fallen sick with all the associated symptoms. Though resting in bed all day doing nothing doesn't appeal to me. So I decided to continue unless my body doesn't agree with me.
Day 10: Old Equestria
- Are the dark and tangled forests like the Everfree? Also, how did they come to be?
- Are there giant continents of ice in the Utmost North and South?
- It's confirmed. Ponies are insane.
- Are ponies the strongest and most powerful of the Ungulans?
- If Equestria was founded in the north is would have changed the history of the Palververse a lot.
- In the Motion of the Stars, Rarity was able to move the sun and moon by sacrificing her life. Is this still true in the real Palververse?
- Is the title of commander still in existence within the Equestrian legions?
- Why do windigos assume the form of ponies? Do they always assume the form of the race they are attacking? Or do they only have one form? Did they used to be ponies, but where transformed by the mage-lords? If they always wear ponies forms, then is Equestria blamed for it?
- Are there lions in the Palververse? If so, are they part of the Gazillen and do they have advance intelligence?
- Capra caused their own downfall when they attacked the pony tribes. Little did they know that it would bite them in the flank centuries later.
- I suppose that Celestia and Luna had a difficult time entering and traveling across the nations of the land? I would love to see the young sisters exploring the world in one of your stories. That or a story about their early years of ruling.