Pony Theories Episode 3: The Barren Wasteland universe in the Season 5 finale. · 2:37am Dec 19th, 2016
Now, while I can't say for certain what this is, I can rule out what this barren wasteland was caused by.
First we have Princess Luna. She wanted eternal night. This would freeze things over eventually, resulting in a frozen land. Not a land of dust.
Second is Discord, he's the lord of Chaos and would probably find dust boring, so it isn't him.
It could be Tirek, as he's destroying forests in his reality. But why would we see his universe twice?
Okay, so Sombra. . .he incites a war, but not much else. Unless some sort of bomb was created to combat it, we can safely say it wasn't Sombra.
Well, how about Chrysalis? Well. . .no, in her case she just wants more ponies to be love generators. And without ponies to combat it, the Everfree Forest would just expand exponentially.
So, what other options are there?
The way I see it, there's two options:
Nightmare Star or Demon Shimmer.
Now, the only reason why I'm not 100% positive about Nightmare Star is because I don't know what would cause her to turn evil like that. Maybe she had to kill her sister in one timeline? If so, she'd be depressed, but I'm not so sure about evil.
That leaves Demon Shimmer.
Now, this thought came to me when I found a Youtube video that explained how the wasteland was caused by Midnight Sparkle.
Now, while Midnight Sparkle may not exist (because the Element of magic wasn't found and therefore wasn't stolen which means Equestrian Magic never came to the human world), Demon Shimmer could still exist to some degree.
It all depends on a few things: Sunset's knowledge of magical trinkets. How Celestia treated Sunset in the alternate dimension, and the whereabouts of the mirror.
If Celestia still treated Sunset the same regardless of the element of magic existing, Sunset would still want to prove Celestia wrong, and without the element of magic, she'd have to resort to something else to boost her power.
Perhaps a certain amulet first seen in season 3?
While this may corrupt Sunset, it wouldn't turn her into a demon, but she'd still be a threat.
Would it be enough to burn away equestria? Probably not.
So, who knows what could have happened. Maybe the Yaks went to war with equestria and burned the place down?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Anyways, thanks for reading and be sure to leave suggestions down below for a theory to bust or a theory to build.
See you all next time.
In other words: You don't know.
Well. Wasn't this time well spent.
4345437 Well, some people might like the new idea I did with Sunset (unless they heard it from somewhere else) and this was more for me to put down my thoughts of the episode then it was to prove anything.
Who is Nightmare Star? I've heard of Nightmare Moon and Nightmare Rarity (the latter of which isn't canon, but that's besides the point), but I've never heard of Nightmare Star.
Also, I have a better theory as to what happened to create the wasteland. It's not much, basically just a single question, but... What makes you think that wasteland was just one villain's doing? Why not all of them?
4345462 Celestia gone Nightmare Moon basically. I'm guessing it's her official Nightmare possessed name if it ever happened as that's the name of Nightmare form given to her in the official TCG. Maybe an official Lunaverse or something in the works?
I think that Wasteland is Starlight's future if she actually won and equalized everypony. It would mean she got all the existing princesses at the time without much interference cause the Element Bearers might not've become Bearers by that point regardless of her attempts to separate them from the getgo unlike the other futures where the Mane 6 still became friends and became the bearers, though at a later time than they were suppose to provided none of them were killed in any of those timelines during everything going on.
If she did succeed that means nopony is special anymore, nopony is better at anything and we already know what that was like in the S5 opener. Imagine if it happened to the princesses, who's talent and alicorn magic allow for them to control the Sun & Moon. With nopony moving it and their magic being severely crippled by the equalizing, eventually Eternal Day & Night would happen over the entire planet till nothing is left. Meaning it was Eternal Day in Equestria's side of the planet when crap hit the fan.
4345484 Well then if it's Celestia, why would she have become corrupted? She isn't a tyrant. I doubt she'd become one.
4345501 Either possessed by the Nightmare like Rarity was cause are we certain she's dead? Or a number of Alt. Universes. After all Mirror Celestia was a tyrant til Mirror King Sombra took the darkness into himself purifying Celestia & Luna and becoming evil, though his love for Celestia is still there so he might not be completely evil despite that and opening a chance for saving him like King Sombra was saved after reforming.
With that in mind Nightmare Star could be a tyrannical Celestia possessed by the Nightmare who may or may not have been jealous of Luna and banished or killed her, a Celestia who was targeted by the Nightmare instead of Luna and forced into possession with the Nightmare in full control or something happened in the past and it was so depressing or tramatic or tragic that Celestia was easy to take over and turn evil. Like Luna being killed or murdered in front of her, any children she might have being erased in front of her, ect.
She could even be like Lunaverse's Corona and gone tyrant on an extreme need to protect Equestria from it's nonexistent enemies at the time. Massive paranoia and such, allowing the Nightmare to manipulate her.
4345462 That's. . .an interesting thought actually. . .it could be all of them.
4345499 Wait. . .the first thing I want to point out:
You do realize that in none of the alternate realities the main six were element bearers? Sure, some of them might've still met, but that wouldn't essentially make them friends or element bearers.
As for the rest of your explanation. . .yeah, that's actually something I didn't consider. . .well done.
4345876 Well they might've become element bearers just later than when Twilight and Spike showed up in the show. Remember we don't see the actual end result of those timelines, we don't know what happened after Twilight and Spike left and reformed Starlight. Those timelines might've gotten better cause something good eventually happened to save them. Like Tirek being stopped in his. The element bearers might still have come to be and beat him just shortly after Twilight left. The only one completely impossible to save is Starlight's future cause there's nothing left to save. The planet died basically.
4346461 Okay. But then who would be the element of magic? The whole point of the episode is: What would happen without the rainboom connection. Without it, Twilight never became Celestia's student and therefore never became the bearer of Magic.
True, those universes could get better, but it might not be because the bearers came back.
4346522 Well Twilight might still become the bearer if she isn't killed in any of those timelines. After all it's her destiny to become the bearer of magic cause her cutie mark is on the Tree of Harmony and has been since Celestia and Luna first discovered it 1000 years ago. If we consider how things might go in those timelines, Rainbow Dash might still pull off the Sonic Rainboom. Starlight just ended up delaying it when it actually mattered with her interference. Since Rainbow didn't die she still has the potential to pull it off which could set Twilight's flare off finally and allow her to achieve her destiny. Whether she becomes Celestia's student or not depends on where she's at by that point and if her cutie mark shows up.
True.
4346606 Except by the point we get to those realities, they all have their marks before she would have pulled off the rainboom, meaning it might not matter. Not only that, but without her flare in the beginning, Twilight would've felt crushed and would have locked herself away from everypony, becoming more antisocial then she would have been.
Also, might I point out Chrysalis's universe? She already had captured/killed three of the element bearers (Rainbow, Rarity, and Applejack) so if the bearers did, for some reason come back, three (or four if we count Twilight) bearers would be different ponies altogether.
The main reason I don't like the whole "the bearers might come back" theory is because if rainbow would have done the rainboom regardless, what was the point of the episode? It takes away a lot of the urgency and meaning behind their friendship connection.
I may not have enough proof to say they wouldn't come back at all, but i don't feel like that was their intention with the episodes in the first place.
Not only that but, again, in almost every universe I saw, none of the original bearers seemed to be friends. Some only knew others because (in the case of Rarity and AJ) they lived in the same place or they are in the same place to survive (see RD and Rarity in Luna's reality or Pinkie and Shy in Chryssie's) Not in a single reality are all six bearers in the same place, and in some they couldn't be. AJ has to stay in her farm during the Sombra War while Rarity and Shy are stuck in Manehattan making uniforms. True, I don't know where the others are in Luna's universe, so I can't completely rule it out that way. However, if Luna did win, what would push Twilight away from Canterlot?
This is a difficult thing to try and tackle. It may be impossible to know, but your take on it was interesting and I'd never have suspected Sunset. Thank you.
4346748 Thanks.
4346739 You make some good points there.
As for Luna, pretty much finding Twilight and going after her cause she recognized her as the same mare who just defied her despite being a different Twilight. Which would mean having to flee for her life if Nightmare had ill intentions for her cause same potential, why take chances or wanting to mold her into a servant. That may or may not lead her to Ponyville and the Everfree cause destiny and such driving her to the Tree or something and staging a revolt. Cause why not be stupid and create the scenario that'll cause your downfall like many other villains ironically had done?
4346759 Adding on to that, Luna already knows about the elements and has probably already hidden them somewhere, and I doubt she'd leave them near the tree.
4346763 True if she hadn't decided, "screw it I'm destroying them from the getgo" thinking the threat would be gone and making the same mistake Equestria Prime's Nightmare Moon made in underestimating those who would stand against her. Either way a rebellion and such might pull off a canon Apple Underground or whatever that we see in fanfics dealing with these scenarios of the Nightmare winning regardless of which princess she ended up possessing and whether the elements were used upon her return from banishment if she even was banished in the first place and not the one who was suppose to banish her instead. With that in mind, Twilight could get to the Tree and with it possibly being sapient could enlighten her on what she needs to do cause it seems like something that actually would happen. Either way any number of things could happen.
4346788 The tree is probably my least favorite part of the show, and it would depend on if it hasn't died at this point, because it had died at the beginning of S4
4346817 Actually it didn't die then but was probably close to it. Had they failed to return the elements then it would've died and Equestria if not the planet would be screwed seeing how the elements are the most powerful force of good the heroes had access to to keep the balance in check and what allowed for their most dangerous enemies to be beaten.
4346988 So that's another issue, they'd be on a time limit to become the element bearers if the rainboom was stopped.
4346994 That's true and we'd have to factor in whether being bearers helped the tree fight off the plunderseeds longer or not. So long as the tree gets it's elements back then things will get better eventually otherwise most likely we would be closer to the Wasteland future if not something even worst than no one in Equestria could even begin to imagine unless they read comics like we're able to imagine.
4346749
Your welcome