Musings: Why the canon FoE Timeline is fucked. · 12:34pm Jul 22nd, 2016
A word in advance, before I begin presenting my arguments. One might object that Fall of Equestria is a fanfiction, and mapping it onto the timeline of the show is a priori a pointless endeavor. After all, Fallout: Equestria's timeline, for example, also doesn't fit the show. However, non_creepy_nickname's position is that everything in the first three seasons of the show is also canon for Fall of Equestria. With this in mind, all points I make will present themselves as fully valid.
I owe many of these points to Schorl Tourmaline. She discovered that something was wrong with the timeline of Sun's Setting before I did, and after that we pretty much spelled out the problems together.
1. The Things Only the Sun Knows
To begin this essay, I would like to reexamine the interrogation scene from the fourth chapter of Sun's Setting. Before, during and after being subjected to caribou torture, Sunny gives an account of the following facts and events:
* The diarchy, i.e. Celestia's and Luna's shared rule.
* Cadence's and Shining Armor's rule over the Crystal Empire.
* The Nightmare Moon incident.
* The Discord incident.
* The Sombra incident and the liberation of the Crystal Empire.
* The Elements of Harmony.
* The Crystal Heart and its function.
* In an older version of chapter 4, Sunny also referenced Spike’s growth spurt. This passage has since been removed, but I have a save of an older version of the story as proof if anyone needs it. Due to the removal, I’ll ignore it for this essay, but it should be noted.
It should also be noted that non_creepy_nickname said repeatedly that he considers everything we see in the first three seasons canon for FoE as well. So no problem here, right?
Unfortunately, there is indeed a problem with this.
The more obvious problems with this scene have already been mentioned. How can Sunny know all the intricate details of Equestrian policy and defense? Why do the caribou even ask a dumb female like her? However, for this essay I would like to ignore the things that are merely implausible. Instead, I would like to focus on the things that are outright impossible.
It is impossible for Sunny to know about any of these things because at the time Sun’s Setting is supposed to take place, most of these events haven’t happened yet.
The entirety of the invasion (with the exception of Schorl Tourmaline’s stories, which take place later) is supposed to happen in the course of a bit less than a single year. Twilight Falls, the story of the takeover of Canterlot, takes place some time in Spring, and allegedly shortly after Twilight’s alicorn ascension. Sun’s Setting takes place in the Summer of the year before.
There is of course one tiny little problem with that: In the show, it’s not one season for one year in-universe. Rather, the first three seasons of Friendship is Magic happen in the course exactly one year, although the episodes are not in the same order in which they happen in-universe. There has already been quite a bit of evidence for this in the first three seasons. One example (although I guess one could find others) would be the fact that the first three seasons show only one Nightmare Night, only one Heart’s Warming Eve, only one Gala, only one Summer Sun Celebration, only one Running of the Leaves, only one Winter Wrap-Up… you get the idea. As of season 4, this timeline is explicitly canon. In the first episode of the fourth season, Celestia says that the Summer Sun Celebration we see in this episode is the first one since the Nightmare Moon incident. We also get further evidence by Tanks for the Memories, which is Rainbow Dash’s first winter with Tank. It should be noted though that these episodes don’t retroactively change the timeline of the first three seasons. They only confirm what we’ve already seen in the first three seasons. Anyone who paid attention to the show could have come to the same conclusion. Furthermore, Sun’s Setting came out ten months after Princess Twilight Sparkle had already aired.
Now let’s map the nine months between the Lindisbarne landing and the Canterlot takeover onto the one year of the first three seasons. If we start with Sun’s Setting, we get an obscure summer festival that is not named or described in detail, and that we have never heard of in the show. There are three possibilities when it comes to the time frame: First, the celebration we see in Sun’s Setting takes place before the Summer Sun Celebration. Second, it takes place after the Summer Sun Celebration. Or third, it is the Summer Sun Celebration (which might actually be a reason why it’s not named).
Could the third option be true? Well, if it is, then why is it not night during Sun’s Setting?
We can be benevolent here. The Summer Sun Celebration is in early summer, so we might just say that Sun’s Setting happens in late summer. Sunny would then know about the Nightmare Moon incident, although the way it is presented suggests that it was further back than just a few months. (For example, one comment of Sindri indicates that the Nightmare Moon incident must have happened before the caribou left their homeland, but unless they their voyage took less than a month, that is of course impossible.)
But even then, everything else on Sunny’s list cannot have happened yet. The Discord incident hasn’t happened yet, Chrysalis hasn’t attacked yet, the Crystal Empire hasn’t reappeared yet, and so on. There is no way these three events happened in the course of only a few weeks after the Nightmare Moon incident. A few months time between these events is somewhat plausible, but only a few weeks is not. Unless Sunny can see the future, she cannot know about any of these things. It’s not just implausible, it’s logically impossible.
Also, what can she know about the Nightmare Moon incident? As I see it, she can know exactly three things: That it was night when it should have been day; that Nightmare Moon returned, but was defeated; and that Luna took her place at the side of her older sister again. Sunny might also have heard that the Elements of Harmony were used, but there is literally no way that she can know the identities of the Bearers at this point in time. It’s not like Celestia immediately told everyone. As a matter of fact, we see other ponies being confused about or just not realizing the identities of the Mane Six almost all the time for the first season. The ponies in Ponyville seem to have a certain idea that there’s something special about Twilight and her friends, but outside Ponyville - even in Canterlot - ponies regularly don’t even have a clue about their identities. One weird thing about Dainn’s Equestria has always been that it places far greater cultural importance in the Elements of Harmony and their bearers than Celestia’s Equestria ever did during the first three seasons - and here, it really comes back to bite both non_creepy_nickname and Twipet. If Sunny doesn’t know the identities of the Bearers, she cannot reveal them to the caribou. If the caribou don’t know about them, they can’t come up with a strategy to deal with them by removing Rarity from the equation.
The entire setup of Sun’s Setting doesn’t work - and this time, it isn’t even really Twipet’s fault. I think that non_creepy_nickname is at least as much to blame for this, probably even more. Sure, they both should have seen it - but when it comes down to it, I think we can safely assume that this was mainly his responsibility, not hers. It was non_creepy_nickname who came up with the timeline for FoE, not Twipet. Twipet made a few other mistakes with Sun’s Setting, but when it comes to the timeline, I think her only mistake was putting her blind trust in non_creepy_nickname. I guess something can be learned from this.
2. The Mysterious Vanishing of Two Major Equestrian Holidays
As we can see, Sun’s Setting doesn’t fit with the timeline. But what about the other stories?
First of all, I want to ask a simple question. Why is the Summer Sun Celebration mentioned not even once in all of Fall of Equestria? The caribou twist and corrupt every single Equestrian holiday - Nightmare Night, Hearth’s Warming Eve, even the Grand Galloping Gala (we’ll come back to the Gala soon). In case of Summer Sun Celebration, they don’t corrupt it, they outright deny it has ever existed. In Bruised Apples, Dainn even moves the Grand Galloping Gala from early Spring to early Summer in order to be able to skip Summer Sun Celebration and give the ponies a replacement.
Of course, it could be argued that the reason for this is simply the fact that the caribou cannot appropriate Summer Sun Celebration. No matter what they do, to the ponies it will always represent a memory of Celestia raising the sun. Therefore, the caribou have to outright deny its existence.
However, on a meta-level, there is another reason. In order to find it, we have to look to the other big Equestrian celebration that has been suspiciously omitted from Fall of Equestria - namely, the Grand Galloping Gala. More specifically, the Grand Galloping Gala of the year of the invasion.
The Grand Galloping Gala is traditionally the one night where all the flowers in the Royal Garden in Canterlot are in full bloom. This strongly indicates that the Gala happens in Spring - more specifically, it is probably in early-to-mid Spring. It should be kept in mind that the Gala we have to talk about here is the Gala we see in the finale of the first season, which means Twilight is still a unicorn around that time.
The celebration we see in Twilight Falls, allegedly honoring the farmers of Equestria, is also in Spring. Such a festival would make sense to be at First Seed, i.e. in early Spring - but that’s impossible. It has to be after the Grand Galloping Gala, for the simple reason that Twilight is already an alicorn at this point. This means that Twilight’s ascension to Alicorn happens shortly after the Grand Galloping Gala, between the Gala and the beginning of Twilight Falls. It also means that the festival we see in Twilight Falls is at most a month away from Summer Sun Celebration, possibly less. The ponies sure celebrate a lot! It could almost be said that the caribou takeover happens in early Summer… I wonder if it really is a celebration of farming...
There are of course still some problems with this. First of all, what about Discord? Keep Calm and Flutter On probably happens between the Grand Galloping Gala and the Summer Sun Celebration, and in order for Dainn to make a pact with Discord, it has to happen before Twilight Falls. This leaves a very small window for Discord to be reawakened from stone by Celestia, for Fluttershy to gain his friendship, and then for him to betray her again to the caribou. As a matter of fact, I think the time frame is too short. These things would have to happen within a week. There is no way to make this believable. The alleged pact between Dainn and Discord is bogus. It can't happen if we assume that seasons 1-3 are canon for FoE. It doesn't fit the timeline.
If one decides to take the fourth season into account as well, there is yet another problem. Given that it will take some time for the caribou to take all of Equestria, their invasion will run right into the corrupted vines of the Tree of Harmony - and with the Mane Six out of the picture, they will also have destroyed all of Ponyville by that point. That’s surely something for Dainn to gnaw on.
(Of course, given that the latter is an event from season 4, there would be the option to simply ignore the vines. non_creepy_nickname did dedicate a canon image to them, and it was mentioned in Bruised Apples that Applejack and the others gave up their Elements for that reason, but I guess that could be remedied by a simple retcon. It should still be noted though.)
Addendum: Here's another thought: If the Lindisbarne landing happens before the Crystal Empire has reappeared, and the Crystal Empire reappears some time in autumn or winter (possibly the latter), when exactly is it conquered? It would have to be soon afterwards. As a matter of fact, one could argue that Hornvik had to exist in one form or another before the Crystal Empire reappeared. Maybe the reappearence of the Empire also caught the caribou by surprise as well. It might make for an interesting idea for stories that deal with that time period.
Would explain why Rainbow and Applejack are being restrained by the vines for being black, while the rest give their elements willingly due to the fact they're red...
Good points, Ari. This should very much be taken in notification, but it could be that NCN simply asked for that pic because then he would be lagging behind with the show and everyone else would've asked him 'Where are those vines?' or something like that...
4106293
Well, yeah... the image was probably made before NCN decided to make a cut after season 3. But I love how Schorl used this image to slip in a passage that refers to the vines into Bruised Apples as well - because that was after the cut.
Incidentally, this is also the main reason why I decided that only Bruised Apples would be fully canon for Freeville Chronicles, not any of the stories from non_creepy_nickname's group. I'll still pick up individual aspects from them, like the story of Veizla and Matask from Twipet's A Change of Events. But the canon stories are simply such a big mess of inconsistencies that taking them up as a whole would be nothing but trouble.
Fuck, my fanfic makes more sense and it's a crossover. Let that sink in.
Man this is a little confusing....either that or I don't have a good attention span... Mkes sense though logically.
4609598
Care to tell me which things are still unclear to you? That way, I might be able to expand on them a bit more in the essay, maybe making it easier for readers to follow in the process.
4610127
Apologies, but I think it's just me. The entire thing is clear and concise, I'd think I can chalk up my initial confusion from exhaustion, and over analysis.
4610151
Ah, ok.