My Little Ryshadium (Stormlight Archive / My Little Pony) · 6:45am Jun 3rd, 2018
Just playing around with crossover ideas while I work on my next chapter. For those that don't know The Stormlight Archive, you should read it. Along with anything else by Brandon Sanderson really. There are minor spoilers below, so be warned.
Roshar, the planet where the story is set, has horses. So we don't have to make this My Little Axehound making the ponies into some kind of arthropod. Of course, if we want to do that anyway I'll list my thoughts at the end. I'm also more interested in telling My Little Pony stories on Roshar than I am telling Stormlight stories with My Little Pony.
The Radiant Six
Naturally, all of our main characters are Radiants of various orders. One of the pre-requisites to being a Radiant is having a traumatic past, enough to break your soul a little. So there is speculation on both the order and their past.
Twilight Sparkle: Bondsmith. She's the focus of the Elements of Harmony and future Princess of Friendship. Yes, Bondsmiths are overpowered compared to other Radiants. So is Twilight.
Trauma:Friendless background, bipolar disorder or similar.
Rarity: Lightweaver. Like Shallan, she uses Illumination and Transformation to bring out the best in ponies.
Trauma:Race Shift (see below). Alternatively, Sweetie Belle is her daughter from a teen pregnancy.
Rainbow Dash Windrunner. What else?
Trauma:Literally everything about her personality clashes against her role in Vorin culture. She's fought all her life to be a warrior instead of a scholar, and gotten a huge amount of trouble for it.
Fluttershy Edgedancer. The entire order is built around quiet kindness and communication. It also fits with being a graceful pegasus, but mostly grounded
Trauma:Crippling anxiety issues.
ApplejackTruthwatcher. I mean really.
Trauma:Parents died young, and had to take over the farm. Which also clashes with her assigned role in Vorin culture. She doesn't have it as bad as Rainbow, because people recognize the neccessity. She's also perfectly happy to honestly tell meddlers where to stick it.
Pinkie PieNo-one knows WHAT order she's supposed to be, which likely means her spren was touched by Discord back in the day. Just like Renarin's, so there's precedent.
Trauma:Depression when young plus repressive religious upbringing.
Shardplate and Blade
These still exist in the setting, after all it's in the elevator pitch for the series. They are incredibly powerful. While anyone can use Shardplate if they get their hoofs on it, Shardblades are primarily considered a Unicorn weapon. Note, however, that some Shardblades are clearly set up to function as wing blades whether they are used that way or not. Also, unlike most unicorn swords, shardblades do have handles. Further, it's a lesser known property that they are enchanted to be effortlessly held by the wielder's Grip. An Earth Pony is perfectly capable of wielding a Shardblade, though the unnatural two legged stance it requires is difficult to learn.
Discord
He's our equivalent of Sja-Anat, an unmade who corrupts spren ("Discording" them) and eventually makes an ambiguous Heel-Face turn. As for where an Unmade would have come from without Odium around? Interesting question.
The Ponies of Roshar:
Roshar is great for this because their lower gravity means flying is easier. All ponies have symbiotic spren, just like sky eels and such, which is where Pegasus and Earth Pony magic come from. These spren are bonded at birth and don't change, which determines pony race. There's a heritable component to which symbiotic spren their spirit has an affinity to, but sometimes you get oddities like a unicorn or pegasus born to a pair of Earth Ponies.
Unlike Equestrian Ponies, these ponies have natural Gemhearts like Parshendi. It takes the form of a glowing pearl in their chests, which grows a glyph around it when they've bonded a Spren: the source of Cutie Marks. Cutie Marks are ponies bonding with a minor Spren. This doesn't make them Radiant though: you need stronger spren for that. They gain abilities based on the minor Spren they've bound, which could be anything from a Windspren to the Spren of an object. Because Vorin culture is stuffy, they may give 'cutie marks' a more dignified name like soul marks or something. But that's their business, they're still cutie marks.
On top of this, Unicorns have a second Gemheart on their forehead instead of a horn. Most unicorn magic is actually like what Kalladin did when he powered up Windspren to break up a stormwall in Oathbringer. In short, it's animistic: channeling Stormlight to local Spren to get them to do things for you. Unicorn Telekinesis is bribing Windspren, for example, who will follow a unicorn around like Remoras. Different unicorns may also attract other persistent spren who they regularly work with. There are also probably (unusual and maybe dangerous) techniques to bind a second Spren into your forehead gem and gain it's benefits.
The Elements of Harmony:
The Elements were originally Fabriels that contained powerful Spren: the kind of Spren you need to bond to become Radiant. Of course, when our version of Nightmare Moon destroys them the Spren within are released. Luckily, there were ponies present who embodied the spren's ideals close enough to say their oaths and bond with them right there. And so the Mane Six became the first Radiants with power both greater and far more fickle than the ancient Fabriels of legend. Yes, this implies someone bound a being like the Stormfather. Why not? They've bound the Unmade before...
In addition, as a Bondsmith Twilight is able to combine the power of her dearest friends. Through Connecting them, and through a huge expenditure of Stormlight, they essentially form a six way Nahel bond with each other and their Spren. It's hard to do, and only works because of their deep friendship and love, but the results are spectacular.
Harmonic "Redemption Beam" Technical Aspects
When the Elements are used together to heal someone corrupted, several things are going on. First, the power heals and strengthens their Connection and Identity. This will effectively restore them to themselves and make them able to understand another's point of view. The restoration of Identity will stabilize their personality, and combined with a surge of Stormlight for healing will fix any biologically based mental health issues.
There are definitely entities this won't work on. Some things really are evil enough, on a fundamental level, that stabilizing their personality and making them feel empathy doesn't change their behavior. But the truly irredeemable are, fortunately, few and far between.
Alicorns
I'll be honest, I'm REALLY tempted to have Alicorns be Rhyshadium Horses. But no. Luna Celestia and Cadence have bonded with god-spren. Specifically the Spren of the Sun, the Moon, and Love. This technically could also make them Bondsmiths, or it could be their standard pony Spren bond to something truly extraordinary. In any case, this physically changes their form in addition to the tremendous powers it grants. Later, Twilight Sparkle will wind up with the Spren of Friendship and ascend as well.
Culture
Making MLP a Vorin culture is tricky right away, because it's a caste-based and sexually discriminating culture in a show all about Friendship and Harmony. The solution, I think, is to have Twilight and her friends working to change that: both as Element Bearers and later even more when Twilight transforms into an Alicorn as Princess of Friendship. One hopes she has Celestia and Luna's encouragement in this endeavor. So it's explicitly progressive, and at least as focused on dealing with (and changing) society as it is on personal growth.
In a caste-based Vorin society, when Twilight (who else?) discovers that Ponies can change race it will be a revelation that is socially shattering. Dealing with the aftermath of that, which will be a huge mess, can be a big focus in later seasons.
Speaking of, Rarity's speculative trauma. She used to be an Earth Pony. She sought out the Nightwatcher and asked to be made a Unicorn. And since it's a mater of what symbiotic Spren you're bonded to, the Nightwatcher could oblige. But all the Pretender Syndrome that goes with that, along with the fear of being caught, could do the damage. And drive her perfectionism. We need to give her a corresponding curse though, and since it's Nightwatcher it has to be something neurologically based. Lets give her Fainting Goat syndrome, where intense emotion can make her pass out. Avoiding having that happen when on adventures is a good source of drama.
Anyway, it'd be traditional to make the Unicorns to be on top of the caste stack. And I don't see any reason not to really. But the gender divide hits the cast hard, because Applejack and Dash don't fit their assigned role. Dash especially. She wants to be a Wonderbolt (Stormchaser? Name seriousness clash again...) and she can't stand scholarship. Applejack might get a bit of a pass, on account of there just not being enough hands on the farm. So it'll definitely be improper but everyone at least gets that it's necessary. And the Element of Honesty is happy to tell them where to stick their opinions. But you can still get a few good episodes out of dealing with that in various ways. Twilight, on the other hand, is the epitome of the proper Vorin lady. Until you talk to her.
One last thought, instead of Safehands we can instead have covering your Cutie Mark be a thing.
Other Species
But of course! It makes complete sense for Roshar, since in the trilogy Humans aren't native either. The most notable things are that Dragons are Greatshells, and Changelings are Aimians.
My Little Axehound
If we instead make ponies arthropods, nothing much changes except aesthetics. Changelings become sneaky, slinky mammals instead of insectile. Fluttershy has a design reminiscent of a moth, while Rainbow Dash is more like an intensely iridescent dragonfly. As it turns out, 'Ponies' have a widely varying level of fuzziness and antenna styles, it's just genetic. Earth Ponies are reminiscent of grasshoppers, with strong kicking legs. And unicorns look almost like spiders.
Damnit, now this makes me wanna make a full Stormlight Archive crossover