• Member Since 13th Oct, 2013
  • offline last seen Apr 20th, 2021

Jordan179


I'm a long time science fiction and animation fan who stumbled into My Little Pony fandom and got caught -- I guess I'm a Brony Forever now.

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Jan
14th
2017

Age of Discord: The Law Havens · 8:57am Jan 14th, 2017

The Havens are areas where some strong emanation of Law weakens the powers of Chaos. This is usually due to the presence of some powerfully-Lawful artifact, such as the Crystal Heart or the Lawstone. Paradise Estate was once such a place, until Discord shattered the Rainbow of Light: now, it's just a ruin, more dangerous than most because Discord sometimes comes here to brood over his lost friendships with the Undying Ponies.

Discord dislikes active Havens because his powers are weakened by them, and close exposure to powerful Artifacts of Law actually pain him. So, he generally avoids them, and his spells usually cannot directly affect them. Even his chaotic creatures are generally weaker in here. If Discord wants to affect events inside a Haven, he must generally do so in an indirect fashion, by attacking unprotected areas on which it is dependent or sending mundane minions in to attack them.

Both because high civilizations often possess artifacts of Law, and because during the Age of Discord possessing such an artifact was an immense advantage which tended to attract scholars, statesponies, traders and other bringers of high civilization, Havens were centers of high civilization in the Age of Discord. A reasonable expectation that one's efforts would not be suddenly negated by Discord's whims or the random depradations of his monsters obviously made it more attractive both to most Ponies and most other sapients.

This does not imply that Havens are entirely safe places.

First, Havens are valuable, something well-known by their current owners. This makes them desirable conquests by forces other than those allied to Discord. Intrigue, violence and outright wars may focus on Havens for precisely this reason. The Crystal Empire has frequently seen coups, riots, rebellions and even civil wars.

Also, Lawful does not necessarily mean Good, so Havens may well wind up ruled by cruel tyrants. The White Queendom of the Heartspire decayed into a depraved dictatorship during the Age of Discord. Even less extremely evil Havens could be dangerous to visit: the customs of the Hegemony of Lith are rigid and its judges harsh and unforgiving even to outsiders who unknowingly violated them.

Thirdly, Discord resents the existence of the Havens, because they limit his power and the scope of his domain. He wants to destroy them, and being superpowerful and superintelligent there is much he can do to harm them and their occupants. Indeed, were not Discord also very lazy, he would doubtless have smashed the Havens long ago.

While Discord cannot easily launch direct attacks on the Havens, there are many ways he can indirectly attack them. Many of his minions can bear the emanations of Law better than can he himself, and some are entirely unaffected by them. Many of the Havens are dependent upon hinterlands which their own Lawful artifacts protect less effectively than their metropolitan cores, and hence are more vulnerable to attack.

Discord can also interfere with Law Havens in subtler ways, and indeed such subtle actions are more characteristic of him than are direct attacks. Discord loves to play, and his favorite form of playing is to manipulate others into creating disharmony. Discord very frequently, whether in his own right form or in shapeshifting disguise, either enthralls or simply tricks victims into serving as his agents inside Law Havens, primed to incite rebellions and civil wars, with the ultimate aim of destroying either the Haven or its protective artifact.

Finally, Discord is not entirely unable to directly attack some Law Havens. If he expends sufficient time and effort, he can unravel certain kinds of Law based defenses; and he can overpower weak Lawful Artifacts. There are also some he cannot overcome, but Discord for obvious reasons does not let others know just to which artifacts he is most vulnerable; nor can his occasional utterances on the matter be necessarily trusted.

With all these caveats, the Law Havens remain centers of what high civilization survives in the Age of Discord -- because Ponykind, and other races, simply have nothing better. And they make the best of what they have, as they have no other choices.

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Comments ( 13 )

Rather ironic. Most of the greatest societies in the Age of Discord were rigidly lawful because of his unrule. They couldn't survive otherwise. I wonder if he ever realized that.

WHY are you not a writer for the show?

How was the Heartspire Protected? The law stone and the heart are known, but was was shielding the pointy place. Also I thought that Discord didn't have direct followers? Still an interesting insight into a very chaotic time.

4382610

I'm guessing that the White Queen had something at the top of the Spire that shielded everything in rough direct line-of-sight from it (thus letting the Heartspire Unicorn Ponies have a hinterland for their Earth Pony serfs). And you're right -- Discord doesn't have many (if any) "followers" in any direct and organized sense, but he does have at any time various creatures (Ponies and otherwise) who for one reason or another he can manipulate to do things he wants done.

This is also why he never develops any friends, because he while he does sometimes like one entity or another and treat them more or less nicely (by his own strange lights), he never keeps them around long enough to befriend them. This is deliberate on his part -- he sees friendshp as both overly Lawful, and a weakness. If he likes one, he does usually try to leave one alive and well and better off than before one met him -- and that's about the nicest Discord treats anyone during this period.

4382490

Not only that, but one of the reasons why the Ponies have such strong loves and friendships (usually lifelong) is that Discord actively disrupted both love and friendship across the world he ruled, and he preferred playing with Ponies to playing with any other beings. Strong love and friendship would survive his unbalancing and usually recover; weak love and friendship would not. Yet love and friendship were immensely valuable survival tools, especially in a Chaos-stricken environment. Consequently, he was acting as a selecting agent -- among Ponies, anyway -- for the capacity to form strong affectionate bonds.

This was not his intention.

4382579

Well, for one thing my style of writing might not suit the Show so well. I go for high/science fantasy worldbuilding and epic drama.

Cool world building. The Changling Kingdom certainly qualifies as a LE dictatorship, and their throne certainly kept Discord out. I wonder if Discord inadvertently affected their society the way he did ponies?

4382867 I found your blogs before I started reading "nightmares are tragic", and the tvtropes articles on your stories are why I'm here. How much of this massively detailed backstory do you go into in the stories themselves?

4384674

Some of it. One of my flaws as a writer is that I'm over-fond of exposition, so a surprising amount of it actually gets into the stories. But of course my worldbuilding is broader and deeper than anything I can show in any story. Sometimes I write little histories and geneaologies just for fun.

quick question, would Accord (Discord, other self.) be immune to haven since said places would now percieve him as a pinnacle of order.

4386872

Not sure what Accord is. An alternate Discord, or simply Discord in disguise? A Discord who was not an Avatar of Chaos would be no more damaged by the normal emanations of an Artifact of Law than anyone else, but this would need to be more than a mere disguise or even tranformation; he would have to be a fundamentally-different being. Captain Goodguy, for instance, is still Chaotic -- he's just Chaotic Good.

Discord's chaos is more than an alignment, note -- it's part of his basic nature. He's an elemental avatar of Dissonance the way that Celestia is of the Law of Fusion or Luna of the Law of Gravity.

4386922 Ahh you haven't read the latest comics arc. basically he's what happen when Discord Discordified himself. to understand what i mean here are two of the three parter i'm talking about

As always, this is a great piece of world-building here. I think I enjoy these essays as much as your stories.

I do wonder why Discord didn't destroy some of these places by causing natural disasters of one sort or another. Dissey might not be capable of attacking directly, but, say, he causes a megathrust earthquake offshore, which sends in a tsunami that levels a Haven.

Also, I forget, have any stories been written about these places?

Also, Lawful does not necessarily mean Good, so Havens may well wind up ruled by cruel tyrants. The White Queendom of the Heartspire decayed into a depraved dictatorship during the Age of Discord. Even less extremely evil Havens could be dangerous to visit: the customs of the Hegemony of Lith are rigid and its judges harsh and unforgiving even to outsiders who unknowingly violated them.

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