Timelines

This Blog Contains Some Spoilers for The Coltic Prince
If You Don't Want Some Aspects of the Story Spoiled, Then Don't Read Ahead

So as I'm going over my revisions of the story thus far, I'm continuing on the side a calendar timeline of sorts for when certain historical events happen, such as the return of Nightmare Moon, Princess Celestia's birth, and other such things. And as far as things go for what "universe" my story takes place in, I am trying to aim to be the show's depiction of the universe as much as I can. Now, the protagonist isn't going to, say, be apart of the events that happen within the show. He's gone and removed from that completely, due to what's to come in my story. Pretty much everything in the show will happen as it is in the show, while the protagonist of my story will be elsewhere in the world, on his own adventure spanning several years.

So the only event that happens in the show of any significance is the return of Nightmare Moon, but only in an indirect way. See, I'm trying to build a calendar system to help keep track of the times and events my story takes place in. We know Nightmare Moon returns upon the day of the thousandth year of her banishment, giving us an idea where to begin, as this is also the point where FiM begins. To make sure the protagonist is not in the show at all, he must already be "gone" by the time this happens.

So we must also figure out the age of Twilight Sparkle at the start of the show (as she and Keldeo are roughly the same age). If we look at things in some regard as to putting an estimate of her age, let's compare it to real world equivalents. For example, we know all the Mane 6 are about the same age, give or take a year (Fluttershy: "I'm a year older than you...). All of them do not live at home with their parents, some of which even have jobs or their own business. So this suggests they're young adults, probably not in their teens. If so, 19 at youngest. But in Equestria Girls, their counterparts are high schoolers, meaning they must be teenagers there. Sure, this is done probably to be more relatable to viewers as it IS a human world, but let's pretend there is also an age difference in comparison where the pony world is a few years ahead of the human world. So let's use it as an anchor to make sure we're not too far ahead of ourselves and put an age cap of 23 for the pony world characters. So by the events of the first episode of FiM, our cast is between the ages of 19-23.

Twilight, at this time, is still studying at Celestia's School of Magic. Well, she again isn't living at home with her parents, so perhaps she's a college student. She remains Celestia's student for three seasons, so let's pretend one season is equal to one year. Often, four years is the magic number for college students to graduate. From episodes 1 to the end of season 3, this would be 3 additional years Twilight was a "student." From this estimation, Twilight is probably about a sophomore in college. Going by averages of age in school grades, high school seniors are 17-18. Twilight seems the type to jump right into college after high school, so freshman would be 18-19. And a sophomore would thus be 19-20.

Now, I mentioned before that it is obvious that Keldeo, the protagonist, is not in the show at all. That means sometime before the show started, in high school, he is "gone." To most the world, he's going to be dead. Or so the think. Spoilers. I also want his "death" to account for why Twilight becomes so reclusive and uninterested in her friends she had before, because she's afraid of losing anymore and her studies bring her comfort. Spoilers again. So I'm shooting for an age of 16 the protagonist "dies."

This will put the events of chapter 1 of my story to happen roughly 3-4 years before the first episode of FiM. So we got that much figured out. It is tricky to following alone with my inane rambeling, but I'm mostly talking to myself to straighten details out as well.

Now, Nightmare Moon returns after 1,000 years of banishment. I created an era based on this, the pony world's third era. When Nightmare Moon emerged a thousand years before, I'm going to stretch the details of the show and instead of everything going down in just a couple minutes, as witnessed by Twilight as she saw the whole ordeal unfold via flashback, I'm stretching this out to be a week long, where Equestria was stuck in night. This event was witnessed around the world. Not everyone was stuck in night; some were stuck in constant dawn, dusk, or just broad daylight for an entire week. Pretty memorable. So when the day and night started to return to normal, it was to much relief to a world going crazy from a completely unnatural phenomenon. So it ushered in the 3rd era.

So Nightmare Moon returns in the Third Era, Year 1,000. Go back one thousand years, we also take off 1,000 years of Princess Celestia's age. We do not know when she was born, but I'd like to say it is fairly possible that Princess Celestia was pretty young at this time. Most likely, she was somewhere in the realm of 20-30 years old, with Luna being... well, she looked quite younger when we first saw her, so perhaps late teens. I'd say about 6-7 years younger than Celestia.

Anyway, here's a hiccup. Celestia adopts Keldeo when she turns 1,000 years old, a significant number to her as it just drills in how far removed she feels. In my story, she wasn't meant to live this long, but is essentially cursed by the Elements when she wielded their power on her own against her sister. They were both banished in their own ways. So Celestia finds Keldeo few months after her 1,000th birthday, adopts him, ect ect ect. This, unfortunately, puts a strain on my story: If Keldeo was 1 year old upon his adoption, with him being about the same age as Twilight, which we've deduced she would be about 19-20 by the time Nightmare Moon returns... that would mean Keldeo's adoption would happen 18-19 years before Nightmare Moon returns. This would make Celestia about 1,018-1,020 years old at Nightmare Moon's return. Thus she'd have been 18-20 years old upon first banishing Nightmare Moon. Let's not forget she also had a little war against King Sombra invading the Crystal Empire and the fiasco with Discord. I doubt all this happened within a few weeks of one another and it seems almost too odd that Celestia would've taken the throne at that young of an age. And with the age difference between her and Luna, how old would Luna have been then? 12? 14? Well, she doesn't quite look like it now. Maybe with the first Luna we saw in the first episode, but she changed quick. I know in flashbacks, Luna has her more modern remake over the original, but I'd like to think she was the "Woona" even then, as these other traits appeared as she grew more after being banned.

Still, I've got kinks to work out in my timelines. It is going to be tough to strike a balance of Celestia being young, but not TOO young when she banished Luna and keeping an appropriate age limit to Keldeo as to excuse his "absence" from the show. But once I do hit that sweet spot, HNNNNNNNGH. THE CONSISTENCY WILL BE SWEET.

Oh, and no. Not just gonna chalk it up to "ALTERNATE UNIVERSE LOL" and call it a day. I want the pieces of my puzzle to fit together nicely.

Sorry for the ramble bamble.