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Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do study history are doomed to watch other people repeat it.

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Oct
19th
2020

How to Lore: "Homecoming" and "Daring Do and the Ditzy of Infinite Possibility." · 3:10am Oct 19th, 2020

Let's take a little dive into one of my favorite means of giving exposition without slowing down the story: the lore snippet.

Many authors put lore snippets in their stories at the beginning or end of chapters (see Orson Scott Card and Karen Traviss) so as to give some context to the world without awkwardly shoving into chapters. I don't do it with all my stories, but I make heavy use of it in Homecoming,* which shares a canon with my new story Daring Do and the Ditzy of Infinite Possibility (though they can be read independently).

Also, yes, Homecoming fans, I did go back and write the thing I never planned on writing.

Anyway, both stories stand on their own without the lore, but for readers who want to go a bit deeper, it can be a fun way of engaging them.

Some of this will be familiar to Homecoming readers, but some of it won't be, and people who haven't read either story in this universe may still appreciate this as an example of the writing technique. Hope you enjoy. See my notes at the bottom for an explanation how to make use of lore snippets like these.

For just shade of context before we start, the Homecoming-verse diverges from canon after the end of Season 4. Two of the key facets of that divergence are this:

1. Equestria sunk a lot of money into firearms development after Tirek left the nation functionally defenseless. There was a demand for weapons that could hit with the force of a magic-user. Muskets and other muzzle-loaders soon found themselves replaced with breech-loaders, black powder revolvers, and eventually revolvers, lever-actions, and bolt-actions consistent with the technology of the later 1800s.
2. Equestria and her allies would ultimately end up fighting a bloody war with the Unified Griffon Dominion, which will be elaborated on below. The 'Great War' holds a similar cultural significance to our World Wars.

With that out of the way, let's look at some of the main lore snippets. Minor spoilers for the first two chapters of Homecoming:


Talon. A name that has come to be synonymous with violence, intolerance, and oppression. Though most recently the name of the Unified Griffon Dominion’s paramilitary arm, its origins are with the mysterious founder of the Great Unification Movement.

Little is known about the Movement’s leader before his meteoric rise to power. Rumors abound that he was a disgraced soldier of the defunct Griffonspire Kingdom, or a peasant from the border who saw his family massacred by raiders, or that he was an Equestrian-educated scholar who came to despise pony culture while studying abroad. None of these stories can be confirmed or denied with any certainty, as even his true name has been lost to history.

What is known is that twenty years before the Great War, a griffon known only as Talon would emerge to found the Great Unification Movement. His stated goal was to restore the griffon race to its former glory, to “throw off the shackles of the lesser races” and “replace the corrupt and vile griffon lords who have spat upon their people by making us the slaves of foreign money and power” with a system that was “ruled by the common griffon, where all griffons shall share equally in wealth and prosperity.” With so many of the griffon nation-states riddled with debt, corruption, and poverty, the appeal of a glorious, unified, and above-all wealthy griffon nation appealed to many.

The Movement’s platform of racial exclusivity, rule by the masses, and equal distribution of wealth was to be achieved by means of a centralized government which “protected griffon interests from all threats, both foreign and domestic.” In practice, this meant the creation of a tyrannical regime run under the absolute authority of the Central Party, which forcibly assumed control first of Griffonspire and then of the surrounding griffon nation-states.

One by one, the major griffon countries were brought under control of the newly-dubbed Unified Griffon Dominion, their unique cultures and national sovereignty erased by the monolithic Central Party and its secret police. To avoid provoking foreign intervention, the Dominion’s preferred method of conquest was to support the rise of the Movement in the target nations, spark unrest (an easy feat in the often-unstable griffon nation-states), and then step in at the request of the local Movement members to “bring peace and stability.”

Talon ruled as the de facto dictator of the Dominion for thirteen years, but did not live to see the Great War which his ideology spawned. Eight years before the Hoofenberg Incident and three years before the return of Princess Luna, Talon was assassinated by members of Black Wing, a faction of rebel griffons drawn from Griffuania, a griffon state with strong historical ties to the pony nation of Konikland.

While Talon’s death initially slowed Dominion advancement, the temporary reprieve did not last. Skilled Party propagandists blamed the event on foreign corruption of the noble griffon race (citing Equestria and Konikland as the primary threats) and stirred up national sentiment against all foreigners and non-griffons. The Central Party rebranded itself as being the extension of the ‘martyred’ Talon’s will, while their paramilitary arm took his name.

The newly-branded Talon Detachment was filled with the most zealous of his disciples, and executed the Central Party’s orders with ruthless efficiency.

—Excerpt from Rising Bloodshed, a short documentary series focused on summarizing the works of Dr. Power’s The Problem From Tartarus: Equestria and the Age of Genocide.


Princess Celestia and her cabinet had long feared the rise of the Unified Griffon Dominion and sought to dissuade them through diplomacy and the threat of Equestria’s superior military power. However, those threats began to lose their weight as the Dominion gradually came to surpass Equestria’s peacetime arsenal. Celestia and her ministers sought to modernize the military, but could not gain Parliamentary approval for anything that resembled “foreign adventurism” or a violation of Equestria’s long-standing peace. It was only with the near catastrophe of Tirek’s rise to power that the reigning princesses and their allies finally gained the support to pass the EUP Guard Modernization Act and begin a policy of firm opposition to Dominion expansion.

The diplomatic efforts to dissuade Dominion expansion were spearheaded by Equestria’s newest alicorn, Twilight Sparkle. In her capacity as the Princess of Friendship, Twilight sought to build an alliance of nations into a unified defensive front to intimidate the Dominion into slowing its advance while the government deliberated how best to deal with the problem in the long-term. She focused her efforts on shoring up the support of friendly powers like the Konikland-Griffuanian Commonwealth, the Duchy of Maretonia, and the Kingdom of Saddle Arabia against the common threat of the Dominion while also building a network of mutual defense amongst the griffon nation-states that had not yet fallen under Dominion control. Many of these nations had once been part of the now defunct Austail-Hungriffian Empire and were populated by both ponies and griffons. It was here that Twilight attempted to create a first line of defense against the Dominion. The hope was to stop the war with a show of solidarity along the Dominion border.

Diplomatic talks were proceeding well when the Hoofenberg Incident occurred. Most citizens of the former Austail-Hungriffian Empire had learned to live in relative harmony, or at least tolerance, with the other races. However, there was enough bad blood for the Dominion’s primary paramilitary force, the feared Talon Detachment, to exploit. Though unable to gain control of the governments, but they were able to form terrorist cells. On the day of the Summit, when leaders were preparing to make a unified statement of opposition to Dominion expansion, sixty-three Talon operatives and local recruits attacked the Royal Carriage, nearly killing Princess Twilight and launching a brutal six-year war.

Historians debate whether or not Twilight’s proposed defensive front would actually have succeeded in dissuading Dominion aggression long-term. The princess herself is purported to have become skeptical of the plausibility of such a success in hindsight. However, most agree that, had the Summit succeeded in unifying the nations directly along the border in a formalized defensive treaty prior to the Dominion’s invasion, their armed forces would have been better organized for mutual protection. As it was, the initiative in the early days of the war was ceded to the Dominion, who swiftly overran the disunified defenders and pushed into Equestrian territory, leaving tens of thousands dead in their wake.

—Excerpt from Spark Notes’ A Brief History of the Great War.


For decades, Equestrian firearms had been largely neglected by both the military and the civilian market. Muzzle-loading muskets had existed for over a century, but never reached the point of being standard-issue amongst the military or even a popular civilian home defense weapon. The musket’s slow rate of fire, cumbersome nature, and inaccuracy led to most preferring the crossbow. Even the coming of the rifled firearms (and the corresponding spike in accuracy) and the higher damage output of the weapons relative to crossbows were not enough to offset the general antipathy towards the technology.

As such, Equestrian small arms saw little use outside the borders, where the stopping power of guns was prized by independent ranchers and Equestrian Rangers for use against monsters. Modern firearms like the first generation of Sharps breech-loaders were purchased in small numbers for specialized military units, but not funded for full production.

That all changed when Tirek nearly conquered Equestria. With memories of having their magic forcibly stripped away fresh in their minds, it was suddenly much easier to justify the development of weapons which had the stopping power of magical blasts but didn’t require a mage to use.

Public and Parliamentary sentiment on the matter shifted enough that Secretary of War Hard Contact and Prime Minister Duke Golden Crown (known to his friends and detractors alike as ‘Fancy Pants’) were able to attach the Equestrian Small Arms Development Program to the bluntly-named EUP Guard Modernization Act. However, the margin for passing the Act had been so narrow that compromises had to be made, and the Program received little funding. Recognizing the importance of the Program, especially in light of worrying rise of the Unified Griffon Dominion, the reigning princesses of the Equestrian-Imperial Commonwealth quietly paid for the Program themselves.

Sharp Wit’s famous Sharps Rifle (and its smaller cousin the Sharps Carbine) was the first mainstay rifle issued to Equestrian and Imperial troops in large numbers. While this breech-loader had a slower rate of fire than the average battle caster, it was more reliable over the course of a pitched battle and could be used by all three pony races. The power of the weapon was sufficient to overcome the magical shields of even great combat mages like Shining Armor given enough time and numbers, and it was functional over longer distances than most offensive magic.

Accurate, hard-hitting, and reliable, the breech-loading rifle would be the backbone of the Equestrian Armed Forces for the first half of the Great War. Even as it was gradually replaced by more modern lever-action Spader and Turner Rifles, the Sharps was a common sight on the battlefield, and it remains the preferred weapon of sharpshooters even to this day.

—Excerpt from Called Shot’s Arsenals Abridged: The Weapons of the Great War, Second Edition


The Unified Griffon Dominion’s development of the bolt-action Mk II Needle Rifle and rapid-fire Organ Gun were nearly disastrous for the Equestrian military. For all the Sharps’ virtues, it was unable to compete with the Mk II’s volume of fire, and the Equestrians had no counterpart to the Organ Gun.

Fortunately, Equestrian R&D had one major advantage over the Dominion: a thriving free market environment. Unlike the Dominion, which was a totalitarian regime with absolute state control of the markets and corresponding intellectual property, the Equestrian culture and economy promoted entrepreneurial methods and free-thinking. This led to dozens of inventors stepping up to solve the problem. Spader, Clyde McColt, Chatter, and Time Turner were all largely unknown before the Great War, but their development of the next generation of Equestrian Firearms rocketed them to national prominence. Unlike Sharp Wit, who had been a gun-smith before the war, none of these new inventors had any significant experience designing firearms. Spader was a farmer with a head for metal-working whose son had been killed in the first year of the War. Clyde McColt was a self-described hillbilly who wanted to be able to shoot more rapidly and had been tinkering for years to that effect. Time Turner was a peaceful inventor who only reluctantly turned to weapons-development; his tacit research partner, Endless Chatter, was a disgraced locomotive engineer whose designs had been dismissed as being ‘too wild’ by her previous employers.

Despite their varied backgrounds and lack of prior direct experience, it was their genius which saved Equestria and its allies from near-certain defeat. Spader- and (to a lesser extent) Turner-model lever-action rifles phased out the Sharps as mainstay infantry rifles, and the Turner Carbine replaced the woefully limited Sharps Carbine as the primary weapon of the Air Corps. McColt’s Colt revolvers were issued as a reliable sidearm, and Chatter’s infamous multi-barreled revolving Chatterguns proved to be far deadlier than the Dominion Organ Guns. Meanwhile, Sharp Wit developed new gun sights, starting with the already deadly Sharps and eventually modifying all mainstay Equestrian firearms.

The new weapons gave Equestria a technical edge in small arms which the Dominion couldn’t match and never recovered from. With the might of the Equestrian industrial base and a flexible, motivated military arrayed against them, the final years of the Great War would become a low, painful road to defeat for the once-mighty Dominion.

—Excerpt from Called Shot’s Arsenals Abridged: The Weapons of the Great War, Second Edition


The Equestrian military was woefully understrength before the war. Generations of peace led to fewer and fewer resources being allocated to national defense. This created the joint problems of, firstly, limited personnel and funds and, secondly, the fact that what few personnel and funds they had were spread too thin, with substandard equipment, green units, and poor logistics.

When Celestia and the sitting Government finally managed to ram the EUP Guard Modernization Act through over the intense objects of the Opposition, they began to solve the problems of outdated equipment and neglected logistical infrastructure. Unfortunately, the greatest problem of all went unresolved: personnel. Even as the Guard finally received modern weapons and proper funding for the coming war, they lacked the numbers to use them. Despite numerous recruitment campaigns championed by all four princesses and each branch of the Service, the numbers remained low in most provinces.

This changed abruptly with the assassination attempt on Twilight Sparkle. Outraged ponies flocked to recruitment stations across both Equestria and the Crystal Empire. Soon the EUP had more applicants than it could process.

However, training these ponies still took time, and in the early days of the war the mostly green Equestrian units suffered massive casualties at the claws of veteran Dominion soldiers. This created a desperate personnel shortage even with the windfall of new recruits, which led to a lowering of standards at the recruiting offices.

Common jokes of the time included, “Eye tests? We don’t check ’em, only count ’em,” “Live ponies pass,” and “If you can carry a tune, you can carry a gun.”

—Excerpt from Victor Hoofsen’s Casualties of Peace


Now, anyone can read either of the associated stories without reading these lore dumps and still know what's going on. However, the advantage of lore snippets like these is that they make the world feel that much more alive to those who read them.

Think about Lord of the Rings. You can watch just the movies and know nothing about the world and still follow what's going on. You can still enjoy the story.

However, if you know some of the contextual lore (e.g. the history of the Elves and the Dwarves) it makes certain scenes a lot more meaningful (e.g. Gimli's humble request that Galadriel give him a single strand of her hair is monumental if you know the context). It takes something fairly straightforward (Gimli and Legolas start off not liking each other and become best buds) and deepens the appreciation for the significance of that thing (they overcame literally centuries of bad blood and became like brothers).

Including lore snippets like these above takes ordinary interactions (e.g. in Homecoming, Dash and Applejack talk about their preferred firearms) and raises the stakes (those weapons they talked about were getting invented mid-war and were the difference between life and death).

Even if you don't end up publishing these lore snippets, I encourage writing them - it's easier to write a deep world if the author knows that world's depths - even if no one else ever sees the full background, the world will feel more alive because what you write will be informed by the greater context you have in mind.

Something to think about.


*A note on Homecoming. The story contains the Suicide/Self-Harm tag in relation to one specific scene which happens much later in the story and, at the time of this post, isn't even written yet. No one dies, and things improve for that character.

Comments ( 6 )

Those lore snippets were fun to read (even though I haven't read Homecoming yet... though perhaps this will help me get into it in the near future)! Thank you for them!

However, as interested as I am with the idea of lore snippets and wanting to read more lore, I admit that I am still wary with using them myself even if I like to implement lore like this in my own writing. The thing is, I wonder how to make the reader interested in the lore snippet especially since the lore snippet does not (at least directly) advance the story (to the point that they come very close to being outright exposition dumps). The way I see it, lore snippets like this are a double-edged sword: they can indeed make seemingly ordinary actions/scenes much more meaningful, but they may also act like roadblocks to a story that is otherwise flowing well.

Perhaps this could be mitigated by having a character do the lore snippeting instead via dialogue/monologue, but still, I would like to know how you would deal with the matter of lore snippets and pacing/how to not make it get in the way of the story's flow itself.

5380943
It honestly depends on the story. Karen Traviss in her books generally puts lore snippets at the beginning of the chapter and they're only a few lines - they're typically excerpts from the news, quotes from contextual characters, or snippets of books which relate in some fashion (sometimes indirectly) to the chapter.

For example: in one of her Republic Commando Star Wars books, there's a quote from Palpatine that opens the chapter and sets the tone and context, even though Palpatine doesn't appear in her books. It's still an effective framing device and does cast the chapter in a clearer light. You could skip it and still follow the story, but it does make certain scenes more impactful. Orson Scott Card does something similar.

Another thing that I've seen done is break up sections of books with one-to-two page asides from one of the book's characters reflecting back years after the events that we read about in the book - talking in broad strokes about things they learned or about how they were ignorant of other factors at the time. It helps cast their decisions in that light and creates anticipation for things to come by building tension. For example, if we know a mission ends in disaster ahead of time, we feel the tension build as events spiral towards catastrophe while the characters going through those events remain unaware of the coming disaster. (Alfred Hitchcock did this a lot, which is why his stories remain suspenseful even if you know how they end).

I've used both of the above methods (though not on this site), and my readers have generally responded favorably. Ending chapters with optional expositional lore isn't something I see as often, but I happen to like it and a lot of my Homecoming readers have said it improves the story, so I'm continuing to experiment with it in that story.

5380953

Ending chapters with optional expositional lore isn't something I see as often

I think the crux of me grappling with this is that, at least with how I see writing, I tend towards the traditional "show, don't tell" kind of thing, trusting the reader that they'll get what I mean with what I've written before, and maybe harping on The Law of Conservation of Detail. Ultimately, lore snippets are worldbuilding, and I've yet to distinguish the line between—to paraphrase the TV Tropes article—good worldbuilding and just rambling on about random/irrelevant things. If it's optional in my writing, it's a bit hard for me to keep the detail in.

At least with the lore snippets you've provided, I get that they're topical to the war at hand, but again, it's a conflict I have: how to immerse the reader in the world without compromising the flow of the story.

5380979
There's a fine balance, and I think a lot of it has to do with author's taste. I love stories that do the snippets, and I know a lot of other people do as well. I think the trick is to write a story that people can follow if they skip the snippets, but that enrich the story for those who read them.

Honestly, I think it's kind of like cooking a dish with an optional sauce - it should be good without the sauce, but the sauce really brings out the flavor.

I do love these kind of things - especially in-universe publication ones. Even if they do sometimes raise more questions than answers...

The pitfall for someone who likes writing so much background lore is keeping track of what gets introduced to the public eye. Without those snippets above, we the readers might eventually be able to piece together who Talon is, but not if he's only mentioned once and then never again.

Spreadsheets can help.

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