Hey, what's up with the chronology?

As of S7, we've had a lot of historical things revealed to us.

But I'm a little confused as to when exactly all these things happened in relation to each other.

Here's my take:

1. The Founding of Equestria by Smart Cookie, Clover the Clever, Private Pansy, Commander Hurricane, Princess Platinum and Chancellor Puddinghead.
2. The Appointment of the Two Sisters as the rulers of Equestria.
3. Tirek and Scorpan attack the new nation of Equestria to steal their magic. Starswirl, described as 'young' (but old enough to have had Clover for an Apprentice), befriends Scorpan, and they along with the Two Sisters find a way to chain Tirek in Tartarus.
4. Stygian, wishing to see the new Equestria flourish, helps form the Pillars of Equestria.
5. The Pillars defeat the Sirens (and send them to another world).
6. Stygian is banished by the Pillars and is consumed by the Pony of Shadows.
7. The Pillars plant the seed for the Tree of Harmony, perhaps in the cave that their peers, the Equestrian Founders, formed the Hearthfire. (But they don't tell anyone, for some reason.)
8. The Pillars seal themselves and the Pony of Shadows away in Limbo (without letting anyone know, for some reason).
9. The Sisters do some ruling for a bit.
10. Sombra takes over the Crystal Empire.
11. The Two Sisters attack Sombra, but he lays a curse and the Empire is sent into the future. (I don't think they used the Elements here, so it's likely it was before Discord.)
12. Discord takes over Equestria, and the Two Sisters venture out to find the Tree of Harmony. (Which was like, right outside their castle? Unless there was a third, older castle that was destroyed? Also how did they know about it - Luna calls it by name. Did some random sod come across it one day and tell them about it during Discord's reign? Did Celestia have a vision? ????)
13. Discord sealed in stone by the Elements of Harmony, wielded by the Two Sisters.
14. The Sisters do some more ruling.
15. Luna grows jealous of Celestia and becomes Nightmare Moon.
16. Celestia uses the Elements to seal the Nightmare in the Moon.
17. Celestia rules alone for 1000 years.
18. Celestia takes Sunset on as a student.
19. It doesn't work out.
20. Cadance ascends.
21. Celestia takes Twilight on as a student.
22. Twilight and co. become the new Element Bearers and free Luna from being Nightmare Moon
23. Pony goes as in the media from then on to present.

Huh, I guess writing it out in a list actually helped! There you go.

Comments

[GIGA-XISBASS]

One problem there, the Limbo thing had to have happen after Sombra was banished as his origins hasn't been reconned yet and Luna had to have already become Nightmare Moon and banished, as such Starswirl and Celestia have visited Mirror Equestria via the second mirror portal where they met Mirror King Sombra ruler of that Equestria and Mirror Luna. Celestia's frequent visits due in part to loneliness, for her coltfriend and alternate sister after Starswirl warned her against it is what fractured their friendship and after that Celestia never saw Starswirl again as he up and disappeared for no reason which could be easily explained by the Limbo event.

If I had to guess, The Pillars planted the seed at some point before Celestia and Luna according to their official diary, found the Tree since they discovered it early enough in their rule that Discord had yet to even be mentioned as a problem, assuming he was even in their land at the time since nowhere in the timeline of it was he mentioned, nor Nightmare Moon. So it had to have grown pretty fast from the harmony to make the timeline make sense.

[Wanderling]

4740515
Huh? Oh, are you talking about the comics? I don't really count those, because the show has retconned so much comic stuff at this point. (Also, I've not really read many of them, heh.) If I counted the comics there would be some really iffy time-paradoxes. I'm only really going by the visual media - the Friendship is Magic show and Equestria Girls, (and the Movie but it doesn't really factor in here).

But yeah, the Sombra thing could have happened before the Pillars went to Limbo... there isn't really much to go on with where this one is, only that it was probably before Discord and definitely after Tirek and the Sirens.

However, Starswirl couldn't have been around when Luna became Nightmare Moon, because he and the other Pillars didn't even know what their harmony seed thing had grown into - they hadn't seen the Elements before they Limbo'd themselves, and their virtues had different names. So they were, at the very least, gone before Discord.

[GIGA-XISBASS]

4740533

Possibly unless they never actually saw the elements being used having been away from the areas Discord and Nightmare Moon were at. Equestria is a big place so they could've been dealing with another issue at the time before Stygian got possessed by the dark magic he used in anger and thus missed the actual events and what actual resolved them. After which Celestia needing Starswirl to help her through her depression caused by her loneliness at banishing her sister cause realistically she would feel that way and all, would've stayed by her side til their fallout which in turn leads to the Pony of Shadows and Limbo.

It's never stated how long it was between the misunderstanding and Stygian's return so it is possible they could happen either in between Discord and Nightmare Moon with the return being after, or both happened after.

I think someone else did a timeline themselves that wrapped things up perfectly so everything makes sense in canon between the show and comics since only a few things would have been reconned now. I'm guessing the Siren's origins were one of them.