Princess Luna and the Dazzlings · 5:52am Jan 26th, 2019
It came up in conversation earlier, and it was something I wanted to write about a little. I feel like of the Equestrian princesses, Luna is the only one the Dazzlings might have respected, however grudgingly. Part of that is the typical trope stuff- Luna is the warrior, Luna is the one who fell to darkness, etc. And that's all good. I feel like the Dazzlings would understand the allure of power, and strength of magic and such. Of the four we know of, only Luna's domain of night and dreams seems to not be anathema to the sirens' very being.
But the main reason I think the Dazzlings would acknowledge her is the moon. The sirens are generally considered to be creatures of the sea. I don't recall if that's really been confirmed in canon, but their Equestrian forms look very aquatic, bearing a pretty close resemblance to seaponies in a lot of ways, and of course they are built a bit like sea horses. And of course sirens in legend are very much associated with sailing and the sea. So they likely have a certain respect for the tides, as a force of nature. And the moon of course controls the tides.
Anyway, this is pretty much purely headcanon, with little to back it up. But it could certainly be an interesting dynamic to explore. Dreams might be another interesting avenue to explore, as dreams can delve into a person's brain and desires, and the sirens are all about exploiting or fostering desire in their audience.
I'm not sure it's been said for certain, but the history of them shown in Rainbow Rocks seemed to show them on waves with a water-like background, so I think that can be safely assumed.
While I like the connection to the ocean and Luna, I have to wonder if this might not be the case? If the tides are caused by the moon's movements, and it's a pony who controls the motion of the moon, that seems like it'd make the tides less a force of nature and more a creation of pony-magic (Although I guess that depends on whether the sun and moon ever moved on their own; if they work like our real-life ones do, presumably there was a time before ponies figured out how to move them with magic, though I guess it could just be that ponies have literally always been a thing in horseuniverse).
So I could kinda see that going either way, really. It could be a level of respect/commonality (If Luna's especially interested in the ocean because her moon affects it, that's a conversation-starter between them), but I could also see it as a more hostile kind of resentment that Luna's disturbing the sirens' territory.
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That's true, I could see it going the other way around and them resenting Luna for it. Though I do think it's a little less interesting. I mean they don't really need a reason to hate Luna beside her being an Equestrian princess haha. But that said, yeah, I think it would be more of a respect thing, since tides are kind of important. Things tend to die without them!
The thing I remember trying to work out for Haunted Wasteland was whether Equestria has tides or not. Since the moon raises and lowers in a couple of seconds, I'd think the waves would do the same. Also, Equestrian tides would be precisely timed to the day and night cycle. So between that and them changing instantly, I think they'd lose a lot of the mystery that Earth tides have, and basically be what happens to the sea at sunset and sunrise. So I think they'd be much less of an issue for Equestrian seafarers?
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Maybe. I mean, as far as the amount of time it takes, I imagine a bit of uh, cartoonish logic goes into how fast it happens. Usually when it's going really fast, it's because of Discord messing around or Twilight having issues with it. But you may have a point.
A counter point though, while the timing there might be more predictable given the way the moon and sun sync up, the tides would actually be much more intense than on Earth. The moon is the bigger factor usually, but the sun does also have a certain sway with the tides. When the sun and moon are opposite each other, their gravity magnifies each other leading to higher tides than normal (same when they are on the same side) while we tend to get milder tides when they are at right angles. Equestria would be experiencing those greater tides all the time.
Of course, that's assuming the sun and moon are always opposite. Of course, because cartoon logic, we have often seen the sun and moon rise and set in the same place, so really assuming anything is probably a mistake. Honestly, it's probably a flat world is we take that as true gospel. But there's a number of things that make me think the tides wouldn't always be so predictable. For one, they haven't always shown the sun and moon matching up exactly. Really, they only make a point to when they are focusing on one or both sisters. Otherwise, we've seen one rise before the other, and one not rise at all. And of course seen a solar eclipse, though I can't quite remember if that was natural or not. But all that aside, I'm pretty sure we've seen the moon in different phases. Crescent and new moon, etc. I may be misremembering, but remember Luna's cutie mark is a crescent moon, and that would certainly suggest the orbits aren't perfectly aligned.
Another theory that might answer both sides is that the moon and sun may have counter synchronous orbits. In other words, Sun goes East to West, moon goes West to East. Which would make everything both more intense AND less predictable. But really it's all just speculation. I never meant that the sirens would think of her as a god or anything, just that they may have a grudging respect for her as some mistress of the sea or something. Like pony Neptune.