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GMBlackjack


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Nov
14th
2019

Lore of the Pony Show · 10:22pm Nov 14th, 2019

What follows is my attempt to synthesize all the lore from the SHOW, COMICS, BOOKS, and whatever else to get a clearer picture of this strange world that is Equestria. I will try my best to only make claims backed by evidence and avoid headcanon at all costs, which is going to make this fun considering how much the show contradicts itself half the time. The show is primary canon, the comics are secondary, and all else is tertiary. If the show contradicts something in the comics directly (such as Sombra's reformation) it didn't happen. However, if a small detail (like the CMC being terrified of Discord / being best buds with Discord) is contradicted, it's not considered an issue, since the show did this level of self-confusion on itself all the time (the CMC suddenly getting immature in their last episode, for instance).

Show based events are white. Comics are red. Books and other are blue. Educated guesses are orange.

MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC: LORE

As best as we know it.

The creation of the world is unknown. But we do know it is a round planet situated in a universe with other planets. Many of these planets appear to be references to other realms of fiction, but that could just be names.

The earliest known event is the arrival of an interdimensional being that is Malice Personified. She is known by many names: Redjac, Kesla, Beratis, or later as COSMOS. She is heavily implied to be the source of most if not all dark magic in the world, which places her far in the back. She leaves and the world is allowed to develop in its own, whatever it had been before forgotten completely.She is likely the origin of most creatures of pure darkness, such as the UMBRUM.

It is unknown how much time passes after this.
At some point there is a nation of cats and jackals styled after Ancient Egypt that rises, but they are gone by the time any other events of note occur. They are likely supplanted by SOMNAMBULA'S people.
GROGAR comes into existence in ancient times. At this time the nations of the world are divided, angry, and often bicker with each other, especially in what will become Equestria. GROGAR the goat begins his experiments with dark magic to create monsters. It is likely that GROGAR is the source of most monsters that COSMOS was not responsible for in the past or DISCORD was responsible for in the future. Possible major creations of GROGAR include the GUARDIAN BEASTS, DISCORD himself, and WINDIGOS.
After GROGAR has been at this for some time, STARSWIRL becomes well-known among ponykind as the greatest living mage. STARSWIRL spends most of his time wandering the lands and learning more about magic in his younger years, though he is always "the bearded". He trains CLOVER the CLEVER in this time. STARSWIRL also comes across a carnivorous tree that is absolutely seething with dark magic and tries to put a warning sign up to steer ponies away. It is the hanging of this sign that released CHRYSALIS and the changelings from the tree to plague the world for well over a millennium.

Due to the recent appearance of the WINDIGOS (Likely created by GROGAR), the pony tribes of the north start arguing with each other as the weather gets colder, which only feed the WINDIGOS and begin to plunge the world into snow. Many ponies from the three tribes move south and find a new land to settle, but can't agree on how to divide it, and this causes the WINDIGOS to move further south with them. CLOVER and their friends discover the Fire of Friendship and found Equestria on the principles that saved them from the frost. The founding ponies of Equestria are but a small part of modern Equestria - it will take many centuries for all the various pony nations to be adapted.

CHRYSALIS attempts to invade the land of the UMBRUM to the north and fails.
PRINCESS AMORE leads the ponies that remained in the north against the UMBRUM with the Crystal Heart and founds the Crystal Empire after banishing most of the creatures of darkness to their own shadow realm.
GROGAR (possibly noting that his WINDIGOS aren't being all that effective) takes note of Equestria as an insult to his monstrous power. He installs himself as ruler, taking what was once a loose union of ponies in a republic-esque system and making himself a King, earning the title 'First King of Equestria'. It is likely that he began to use the Everfree as a site for his monstrous experiments, since there is no reason anypony would settle next to that nightmare forest.His reign was terrible, but it was eventually stopped by GUSTY the GREAT when she stole his Bell and used it to steal all his magic. The ponies had an easy revolt after that. GROGAR himself either perished in the revolt or died of old age without his magic.

STARSWIRL ends his journeys at the behest of CLOVER the CLEVER and takes an active role in the newly freed nation of Equestria. On his journeys he had encountered the young CELESTIA and LUNA in the Everfree Forest and believed them to be good choices of future monarchs of the nation, if only they were tutored. [NOTE: the headache that is the origin of CELESTIA and LUNA will have its own footnote at the bottom of this because there is basically no information on them at all.] They agree to be taught by him and soon gain their cutie marks in raising the sun and moon, relieving the unicorn mages who significantly drained themselves doing so. This is the first (and one of the few) official dates we have. 1111 years pass between the Modern Show and when CELESTIA first raised the sun. Starswirl continues to teach them for many years, growing them into proper Princesses. Canterlot is constructed to be the new seat of power for Equestria, designed by LUNA with the assistance of MISTMANE and the FOREST CREATURES.

All this time Starswirl is experimenting heavily with interdimensional mirrors. There are a few fiascos that come of this, but he keeps at it. The Reflections arc is, unfortunately, non-canon compliant, but CELESTIA, LUNA, and STARSWIRL are known to have experimented with other worlds, so something similar to it likely occurred.
STYGIAN gathers the Pillars of Equestria: ROCKHOOF, MEADOWBROOK, FLASH MAGNUS, SOMNAMBULA, MISTMANE, and STARSWIRL. When STARSWIRL becomes part of the group, he mostly replaces STYGIAN'S role and makes him feel useless. They banish the SIRENS to Earth, where they have just enough magic to feed off the humans' anger for hundreds of years.
STYGIAN and the Pillars save CELESTIA and LUNA from an alternate universe PONY of SHADOWS who wants to corrupt them. The AU PONY of SHADOWS fails to realize STYGIAN is him, and thus is defeated because his minions listen to STYGIAN.
CELESTIA's and LUNA's coronation occurs, recognizing them as official rulers.
Prince TIREK rises to power in his nation under king VORAK. After stealing the magic of a pony for the first time, he vows to bring his own nation to ruin and seek power Since no other centaurs or gargoyles are ever seen again, it's likely that he succeeded in toppling his nation. TIREK and SCORPAN come to Equestria in hopes of absorbing its magic, but CELESTIA, LUNA, and STARSWIRL defeat TIREK, STARSWIRL befriending SCORPAN in the process. Of note: DISCORD was part of VORAK'S council.
STARSWIRL uses the essences of the Pillars to plant the seed of the Tree of Harmony, largely as a way to help keep the Everfree Forest under control.
STYGIAN, wishing to fight with the Pillars, takes their artifacts and attempts to copy them. They cast him out for what appears to be a dark ritual. Alone, STYGIAN finds the DARKNESS, likely part of COSMOS' essence or an UMBRUM creation, and becomes the PONY OF SHADOWS. STARSWIRL and the Pillars vanish without a word to seal the PONY of SHADOWS in limbo, leaving CELESTIA and LUNA to rule EQUESTRIA.

The UMBRUM create SOMBRA and place him in the form of a false pony, sending him into the Crystal Empire as a sleeper agent. He grows up as a pony, but is ostracized and the Crystal Heart itself is toxic to him. He has one friend, AURORA. Seeing the Crystal Heart, he knows his future of darkness. Fearful of it at first, once he meets the UMBRUM he takes the darkness as what he is, shattering PRINCESS AMORE and driving AURORA away. AURORA tells CELESTIA and LUNA and they engage SOMBRA'S enslaved ponies in battle. In a last-ditch effort at victory, SOMBRA seals the Crystal Empire and all its ponies away, freezing it in time.

DISCORD starts his reign of chaos out of utter and complete boredom. He has his fun and is generally a nuisance that gets on the nerves of the various world leaders at the time. COSMOS returns to the world at this time. She finds Discord doing his chaos thing - and pretends to become his lover so she may use him to sow Malice. She tries to take the Spirit of Chaos and twist him much, much further down the deep end than before. CELESTIA, LUNA and the other leaders are kept largely unaware of her presence. Cosmos fails to completely turn Discord, as he refuses to be part of the death of orphan ponies. He runs to the immortals and stands with them to shatter COSMOS and divide her among the stars. Present are CELESTIA and LUNA having harvested the Elements of Harmony from the Tree of Harmony to stop the reign of chaos The current king of Abyssinia, QUEEN NOVO, KING ASPEN (of the deer), and DISCORD himself.

DISCORD wipes the memories of all present to there is no chance of anyone ever reforming COSMOS. This has the unfortunate side-effect of some of the worst aspects of the reign of chaos being blamed on DISCORD. Not willing to stop being chaotic, he continues to turn the world upside-down in his own way until CELESTIA and LUNA corner him with the Elements of Harmony, turning him to stone. (The Convocation of Creatures was likely formed in response to the reign of chaos.)
The AU PONY of SHADOWS corrupts his CELESTIA and LUNA, but they are taken from him by the local spirit ERIS.
Equestria continues to grow, and the many divided pony nations come together under Celestia through the memory of their legends and the trials they have all faced.
Time passes. LUNA, having been exposed to so much dark magic over a relatively short timespan, falls to the allure of a darkness (likely related to the PONY of SHADOWS, and by consequence the UMBRUM and COSMOS) and becomes NIGHTMARE MOON. Celestia is forced to drain the Elements of Harmony to banish LUNA to the moon for a thousand years (give or take). NIGHTMARE MOON torments Equestria for a millenium with Nightmares as she discovers the secret to dreamweaving from the inhabitants of the moon. Her corrupting influence turns the inhabitants into the NIGHTMARE FORCES, which look a lot like the UMBRUM and are very similar beings.

CELESTIA continues to rule Equestria alone, though she takes a somewhat isolationist approach, ensuring relations with the neighboring nations dwindle slowly over time.
Roughly seven-hundred years before Modern Equestria, the gathering of worldwide leaders, the Convocation of Creatures, stops happening.
CHRYSALIS is a bane on the world for a thousand years on and off, sometimes being sealed away, sometimes not. She proves to be eternally crafty and impossible to take care of permanently.
CELESTIA'S reign continues largely uninterrupted as Equestria experiences, if not peace, than at least not a magical cataclysm every few decades. Contact with other nations degrades over time, and an air of pony superiority begins to spread through Equestria.
Griffonstone's nation collapses from internal strife brought about by a cyclops and economic difficulties.
(Finally, something that isn't from a thousand years ago) The STORM KING rises to power searching for magic artifacts with his fleet of pirate-like ships that are rather organized. He does little in the way of governing or holding territory, rather ransacking, searching for anything to increase his power and control. QUEEN NOVO makes the hippogriffs hide beneath the sea, becoming seaponies. Not to be confused with mermares, a natural race of seapony-like creatures that don't transform.
CELESTIA takes on SUNSET as her pupil. SUNSET rebels, wanting power, and flees through the mirror to Earth. SUNSET wanted to be made an alicorn, but CELESTIA refused, citing it needed to be earned.
RAINBOW DASH performs the Sonic Rainboom, tying together the threads of destiny for six very special ponies. TWILIGHT SPARKLE is taken as CELESTIA'S pupil.

CADENCE, an orphan pegasus, defeats a mage with the very love she stole and is ascended to an Alicorn and is taken in by CELESTIA She is an alicorn as an older teen and still needs to complete her education before she's ready to rule. This is where she meets SHINING ARMOR. CADENCE is the third alicorn of Equestria, crowned as the Princess of Love.

STARLIGHT GLIMMER founds her town of equality.
NIGHTMARE MOON returns and is defeated by the rejuvenated Elements of Harmony through their bearers, TWILIGHT SPARKLE, APPLEJACK, PINKIE PIE, RAINBOW DASH, FLUTTERSHY, and RARITY. LUNA is restored to her former position as diarch of Equestria and takes some time to adjust.
DISCORD is freed and promptly put back into stone by the Elements of Harmony. He is released later at CELESTIA'S request and convinced to reform.
CHRYSALIS attempts to take over Equestria (again) during the wedding of CADENCE and SHINING ARMOR but is stopped by the power of love.

CHRYSALIS attempts to exact revenge on TWILIGHT SPARKLE using the power of the Secretariat Comet. TWILIGHT proves herself more than capable of handling CHRYSALIS, keeping her power. However, it is heavily implied htat CHRYSALIS'S interference with the Secretariat Comet is what sends COSMOS' shards from space down to the surface of the planet.
The remnant NIGHTMARE FORCES on the moon want their queen back, but they get RARITY instead. NIGHTMARE RARITY is a pest for a short time, but LUNA, TWILIGHT, and their friends go to the moon and eventually save her as well as the NIGHTMARE FORCES themselves.
The Crystal Empire returns from its frozen state, with all its ponies including SOMBRA. The Crystal Heart is reactivated to push him away once more into near-nothing. CADENCE takes her direct rulership of the Crystal Empire as the Crystal Princess..
TWILIGHT SPARKLE is ascended to the Princess of Friendship after completing STARSWIRL'S spell connecting the Elements of Harmony, the destiny in cutie marks, and the bonds between ponies.

SUNSET steals the Element of Magic and returns to Earth. TWILIGHT gives chase and redeems SUNSET on Earth.
The Elements are returned to the Tree of Harmony so it can resume its limitation of the Everfree Forest after it tries to eat Ponyville. This turns out to be partially DISCORD'S fault.
TIREK escapes Tartarus and, after biding his time, attempts to steal all of Equestria's magic. He is stopped by the Tree of Harmony, which provides TWILIGHT SPARKLE with her own castle.
SUNSET and TWILIGHT defeat the SIRENS on Earth with a music battle!
STARLIGHT GLIMMER'S town of equality is disbanded by TWILIGHT SPARKLE and her friends. STARLIGHT GLIMMER attempts to rewrite time to stop the sonic rainboom, but this doesn't go over well. STARLIGHT GLIMMER is taken on as TWILIGHT'S pupil.
The CMC get their cutie marks in the midst of this.

Yakyakistan opens its borders.
The events of Siege of the Crystal Empire do not happen. This implies that there is still a door to the UMBRUM realm in CADENCE'S basement.
FLURRY HEART is born an alicorn to CADENCE and SHINING ARMOR. This surprises CELESTIA and LUNA.
The changeling THORAX is befriended by SPIKE and allowed into Equestria as a full citizen.
DISCORD turns himself into ACCORD, a spirit of order rather than chaos. As it turns out, pure order thinks hypnosis is the way to conquer everything. He conquers all of Equestria and defies the Elements of Harmony, until STARLIGHT GLIMMER talks him down by saying mind control doesn't constitute Friendship OR Harmony.
EMBER becomes dragonlord and issues reforms for the dragons.
CHRYSALIS tries to take over Equestria AGAIN, but this time STARLIGHT GLIMMER, DISCORD, THORAX, and THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE manage to stop her. The changelings discover, through THORAX, a way to share love instead of taking it purely selfishly. Tired of CHRYSALIS after a thousand years, they all agree. CHRYSALIS refuses to reform and escapes. THORAX becomes king.

At LUNA'S behest, The CMC stop the sorcerer ECLIPSE from using NIGHTMARE MOON'S helmet to become the next NIGHTMARE MOON.
SHADOW LOCK discovers he is an ancestor of STYGIAN and tires to wipe the memory of STYGIAN and the PONY of SHADOWS off the face of Equestria by using a particular wiping spell on all books containing history on him - and by consequence historic documents of most of the Pillars of Equestria. TWILIGHT talks him down, but the damage is done - already TWILIGHT's mind doesn't contain information about STYGIAN, the Pillars, or the PONY of SHADOWS. No one knows to expect the darkness anymore.

SUNBURST finds STARSWRIL'S journal and TWILIGHT uses it, realizing she could free the Pillars of Equestria from Limbo. Due to Shadow Lock she does not expect the PONY of SHADOWS to return with them, nor does she really know what she's doing. The Pillars are released and so is the PONY of SHADOWS. Together, they use friendship and the Elements of Harmony to purge STYGIAN of the darkness and push the darkness itself back into Limbo.
Abyssinia is ransacked by the STORM KING, though it seems to recover remarkably quickly afterward. CAPPER is displaced.

The STORM KING turns his sights on Equestria after being told about the Princess' power by TEMPEST. Equestira is taken over by the fleet for a few days, but TWILIGHT and her friends manage to save the day. They also mess up relations with Seaquestria by trying to steal QUEEN NOVO'S artifact, but that's smoothed over at the end.
The Convocation of Creatures reopens for the first time in over seven hundred years to help deal with the fallout of the STORM KING.

TWILIGHT SPARKLE forms the School of Friendship, which serves as a way to open up doors to all creatures of ALL nations, not just ponies, to learn about Friendship. (And other higher education). Despite initial hiccups with Equestrian law, it is a resounding success.
CHRYSALIS is in the woods going absolutely off-her-rocker insane. She creates evil copies of TWILIGHT and her friends, but the Tree of Harmony stops them by turning them into logs. CHRYSALIS keeps the log of evil Twilight.
COZY GLOW tries to remove magic from the world with the help and expertise of TIREK and is just barely stopped by the other students of the School of Friendship. COZY GLOW recognizes the power of Friendship and makes that power her primary goal. She is locked up in Tartarus.

COSMOS tricks TWILIGHT and her friends into re-assembling her six shards that fell from space due to the Secretariat Comet. DISCORD attempts to stop this from happening, but she hypnotizes most of the alicorns and uses them as leverage to reform herself, despite the best efforts of TWILIGHT'S FRIENDS, CAPPER, ZECORA, the CMC, BIG MAC, and others. In the end, they have to fight COSMOS directly and win. DISCORD banishes her to the moon, where she, to this day, is writing insulting messages to LUNA.

DISCORD, being the crazy snake he is, decides it would be a good idea to gather all the villains together to give Twilight a boost in confidence as she prepares to take the throne from CELESTIA and LUNA. Possibly thinking he can reform the villains at first, though he clearly throws this out the window later. He disguises himself as GROGAR (Possibly because he was the result of one of GROGAR'S experiments and would know how to emulate him perfectly) and gathers SOMBRA, TIREK, COZY, and CHRYSALIS together. SOMBRA is not a team player and tries to take over Equestria. He fails, which is basically expected at this point.
LUNA gathers TRIXIE, STYGIAN, TEMPEST, and CAPPER together to help an alternate universe from the clutches of a different sort of spirit: ERIS. They succeed, but the DAYBREAKER that takes control afterward may not be the friendliest.
TIREK, COZY, and CHRYSALIS use GROGAR'S bell to absorb DISCORD'S power and unleash their assault on Equestria. They are only defeated because all of Equestria's new allies in the other nations come to their aid, proving that the world knows how to stand together as one, something that has truly never happened in its history.

CELESTIA and LUNA retire, TWILIGHT taking most of their duties with CADENCE assisting.
Decades pass, and the world truly is at more peace than it ever has been. This does not mean the dark influence of COSMOS is gone completely, but it sure seems a far way off, now.

APPENDIX: The annoying case of Celestia and Luna

Virtually every major force in the mlp world, I can find at least a plausible explanation for. Cosmos is convenient for a lot of dark magic and evil, as is Grogar, and Discord. The Tree is the creation of Starswirl and the pillars. All major villains have a backstory of somesort, even the Sirens and Sunset! But Luna and Celestia just... existed, in their castle, until they were asked by Starswirl to be trained to rule. Where did they come from? WHY did they exist?

No idea. We don't even get any hints. Were they ascended or were they born that way? Flurry Heart seems to suggest all alicorns prior to her had to earn their status, and the fact that Celestia in the comics regularly turns into a pegasus indicates hse might have been one long, long ago. But this is very sketchy and only follows by asking the question "WHERE THE HECK DID THEY COME FROM!?"

In essence, we have no idea. Like the origin of the world itself, it's mysterious. And it is the single largest hole in what I have tried to create up there. This bothers me since the two of them are VERY tangible forces. EXTREMELY tangible, major characters at times, even. I'd love if anyone had more information... somewhere.

EXPANDING THE HISTORY

I'm not above adjusting or even adding new events to this history. I've tried to be as thorough as possible, but there's sitll a massive gap of time between NIGHTMARE MOON and the present-ish era. What kinds of things happened in those times? Are some comics I decided not to include in the history more important than they seemed? Are some things out of order? How much self-contradiction are we avoiding here?

Please, feel free to voice any and all concerns, and I'll be sure to update this. I don't want this to be headcanon, I want this to be the place where we have as much as we know / think we can know down as possible, and run from there. In a way... I'm trying to create a baseline Equestria.

AND PLEASE! Do share this around, see if we can spread it to as many people as possible, let's see if we can hammer out some of the mistakes / wild assumptions / solidify some things if we put our heads together.

-GM, master of synthesis.

Comments ( 30 )

This will prove useful in fanfic writing.

Wow, this is amazing! :raritystarry:
And very thorough and really well written and composed. This is the best history of Equestria I have ever seen. I can see a lot of time and effort went into this.

UC
UC #3 · Nov 14th, 2019 · · ·

So, uh, um...
We know a lot of events.
We know almost nothing about the underlying reasons and connections and mechanisms behind them.

5155678
I mean, I suppose I could go into *SUPER* detail on the exact mechanisms, but I don't think I need to describe exactly how the Elemetns of Harmony turn things to stone, and in a lot of cases those connections are left vague enough. The connection between PONY of SHADOWs and NIGHTMARE MOON is heavily implied but as for exactly HOW we haven't the foggiest.

Any SPECIFIC quesitons?

-GM, master of fog.

UC
UC #5 · Nov 14th, 2019 · · ·

Why GROGAR have decided to make monsters?
How did the planet exist before the unicorn archmages could make the sun spell and organize to cast it every day?
How the heck Changleings came to be in that tree? A better question - how every other race came to be?
How Everfree Forest came to be?
Cutie marks why? Why do they exist, how do they actually work, and what bastard named them that?
A lot of questions, really, I can't even think about most of them.

This is a very handy guide, though I think a couple of the events in between GROGAR and NIGHTMARE MOON are... speculative at best. I always got the impression that Grogar was ~2,000 years ago, Starswirl appears ~1500-1200 years ago, with Celestia and Luna showing up at the tail end of the latter.

Also would like to point out that the Journal of the Two Sisters at least implies (and I do mean obliquely) that Celestia and Luna were born Alicorns and were raised by other Alicorns as foals, but then were handed (hoofed?) over to Starswirl before long. This would lead to their shock at seeing Flurry Heart a case of "We knew that we were born that way, but Cadance and Twilight had to be ascended, so we're not sure if genetics applies in this case".

Thank you though! This will be immensely helpful!

5155684
Yeah, the only one of those I even come close to having an answer for is the Everfree: it was just a normal forest until Grogar became King of Equestria and started dumping his experiments into it.
-GM, master of experio.

If we're just WMG-ing, maybe something added the Royal Sisters to the timeline/universe? Notably, they insist on Twilight doing a lot of dangerous things without helping and choose a very quiet retirement after moving out of their home and away from everyone who knows them...

5155694

This is a very handy guide, though I think a couple of the events in between GROGAR and NIGHTMARE MOON are... speculative at best. I always got the impression that Grogar was ~2,000 years ago, Starswirl appears ~1500-1200 years ago, with Celestia and Luna showing up at the tail end of the latter.

See, the problem with Grogar and Starswirl being far apart is that they *both* had to be alive during the founding of Equestria - Clover the Clever was Starswirl's student, and Grogar was the First King of Equestria. Even if they start at about ~1500-1200, their main time of operation has to be around the foundation of Equestria, somewhere around ~1200 (based on Celestia's "1111" years of sun raising.)

Now, it's fair that Grogar may have started making monsters long before them (and it'd be even reasonable) but his time as First King had to be near the founding and before the Princesses were crowned.

Yes, I did basically treat the entire thing as a logic puzzle. "This has to happen before that and is dependent on THAT event..."

-GM, master of speculation.

5155704
Mmmm. No. I don't buy that. The Founding is pretty explicitly the Hearth's Warming story, and nowhere in any of that is Grogar even hinted at. His status as First King is disputable as well, seeing as how he's not even a Pony. It's like saying Romulus was the first King of England, because Rome ruled both places at some point.

Tirek even says in S9 that Grogar was Ancient (his emphasis) when Tirek was last running around, which we know for a fact was Pre-Nightmare Moon but Post-Celesia and Luna taking over (and also prior to the Pillars taking a Void-nap).

Again, a fascinating analysis of the lore. But I humbly disagree with the timeline of events.

Ya but the show outright contradicts Aspen and the deers existence. Deer have appeared several times on the small screen and each time they're just animals in Fluttershy's care.

5155716
My explanation for that is just that there are sapient and non-sapient deer. Two separate species. Not that hard to believe, given that we have sapient and non-sapient varieties of cat, dog, (and if you do take the comics, spiders and a few other things) Everfree Deer probably look at animal deer like we look at chimps, or how a unicorn would look at an Earth horse.

5155709
[I am arguing not to say my way is right, but rather to see if it makes more sense to CHANGE the above timeline, so give me your best arguments, thank you.]

Mmmm. No. I don't buy that. The Founding is pretty explicitly the Hearth's Warming story, and nowhere in any of that is Grogar even hinted at. His status as First King is disputable as well, seeing as how he's not even a Pony. It's like saying Romulus was the first King of England, because Rome ruled both places at some point.

Tirek even says in S9 that Grogar was Ancient (his emphasis) when Tirek was last running around, which we know for a fact was Pre-Nightmare Moon but Post-Celesia and Luna taking over (and also prior to the Pillars taking a Void-nap).

Hearthswarming Story: the idea was that, after the founding, Equestria didn't have a king, but a Romanesque Republic. Grogar took over after forcibly to become named "First King". Will edit to make this clearer.

And you're right about Tirek's stating Grogar was ancient. Even taking into account that Tirek was a teenager when CElestia and Luna were coronated, Grogar coming slightly before them doesn't qualify as ancient. However, if he had been making monsters for a while BEFORE hand and only came into Equestra later, that would still make sense.

That said, you've convinced me to say at the very least Grogar started making mosnters before Starswirl came about.

-GM, master of windigos.

5155719

That said, you've convinced me to say at the very least Grogar started making mosnters before Starswirl came about.

Alright, as far as we can possibly determine, that's a fair conclusion to come to. Considering how... kooky the timeline is and what details we have to go on, that's probably the best any of us can come up with. Good work with this, many thumbs up!

Very neat concept! As someone who tries to incorporate the GM Berrow books and IDW comics into fanfics, I’m glad you put this all together. Though maybe an image timeline would be nice… :twilightsheepish:

Do you think we’ll see an update featuring some of the minor elements from the books and comics, like Mooncurve the Cunning and Princess Luna’s briefly mentioned history with the bat ponies? I have some of the chapter books and comics. I could provide information…if you don’t mind.

5155716
Seriously though, move that whole plotline to Whitetail Woods or don't have it at all; the whole point of the Everfree is to be untamed and untameable.

5155737
If you've got some definite things and a good idea of where to place them, please do! I was trying to stick to grand scoping stuff, but if you've got some ideas it can't hurt to let me hear them! I'm definitely open to adding new stuff (though getting the images that ARE there was difficult enough.)

-GM, master of doink.

5155672
oh you think i've been wanting something like this but just never got the motive to do so^^

5155743
sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many brilliant stories in the books, WHY DID HASBRO DECIDE TO NOT INCLUDE THEM?

5155801
I mean, the Journal, Ponyville Mysteries, and Cadence's Backstory are from the books and on the above blog. (See the blue sections). So I wouldn't say they're NOT included.

-GM, master of blue text.

5155802
i mean in the show itself, there’s enough stuff to make it to season 10.5 or 11 AT LEAST! but i guess we’d be having a Spongebob or Fairly Oddparents on our hands then, and that is NOT something we want,

Show based events are white.

Or black, for those of us who continue to stand against the tyranny of (Princess of the) Night Mode! :trollestia:

But seriously, this is a fantastically interesting post -- thank you for taking the time to put it together! It's by necessity dense, so I think I'll want to read it a few times before I'm even halfway confident I haven't missed anything. (After all, I managed to miss "Magrathea" in the comic panel you show, at least until someone pointed it out to me!)

Still... all this canon and, as you say, we still have basically no origin story for two of the most powerful beings in the entire FiM universe. Why do I get the feeling we'll be seeing a few people writing stories along those lines in the near future? :twilightsmile:

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Hey, you said a while back that you might have information pertaining to the books. I never got anything back from you on that - are you still available for suggesting book-info that should go in this lore post?

-GM, master of green emeralds.

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Oh yes, I’m still available.

Most of the stuff I can offer is from the Daring Do chapter books (since those are the books I own) and is fairly minor in terms of how much it affects the timeline. There’s some more information in the MLP Wikia, if we can dig in there

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Aight. While Daring Do many not influence the timeline, it may help us get an image of what the Guardian Beasts (like Ahuizotl) were ike, as well as what kinds of history were in the temples she was raiding. What sort of artifacts did she play with? What societies made them? What was their history?

-GM, master of bookus.

Actually, there has to be a minimum of 2 canon histories as it is word of god that Twilight Sparkle "completing" "Starswirl the Bearded" final spell literally changed history of the Earth she was on.

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Never heard of this before, source?
-GM, master of source.

Roughly seven-hundred years before Modern Equestria, the gathering of worldwide leaders, the Convocation of Creatures, stops happening.
CHRYSALIS is a bane on the world for a thousand years on and off, sometimes being sealed away, sometimes not. She proves to be eternally crafty and impossible to take care of permanently.

Could these two things be connected?

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Possibly, but there's a 300-year-gap there, so I can't say much for certain or even make a good guess.
-GM, master of gaps.

First, thank you for this. Interesting reading.

Second: I love your tags. :-)

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