//------------------------------// // APPENDIX B: HISTORICAL TIMELINE // Story: Friendship is Sufficiently Advanced // by Cordial Nova //------------------------------// (Current to what is known by the latest chapter. Events may have occurred that aren't in the timeline yet. Spoiler markings indicate minor things to be revealed later in the fic, but not major spoilers. Errors and omissions excepted. Void where there isn't matter.) Y.H. (Year of Harmony) 2097 (Summer): Pinkie Pie clones herself. A lot (3x03). CSS Istry Lochran arrives in Phosphoros System, and is sent to Ponyville by Princess Luna. Our story begins. 2097 (Spring): Return of the Crystal Empire, now ruled by Princess Cadance as the rightful heir to its former dynasty, and Shining Armor as Prince Consort (3x01-02). 2096 (Winter): CSS Istry Lochran, Cordelia Vintar-ith-Vidutar commanding, is assigned to investigate the anomalous star system cataloged as IGS 245672, in a newly opened trailing constellation. 2096 (Autumn): Equestria annexes much of the Badlands Plateau as a protectorate under military governorship; surviving changelings, including other hives, go deep and hide from Equestrian patrols. 2096 (Summer): Queen Chrysalis of the changelings attacks Canterlot and is defeated by the Bearers, Shining Armor, and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza ("Cadance"). Shining Armor and Cadance are married (2x25-26). 2096 (Spring): The Bearers suffer the aftereffects of Discord's magic (continued): Party of One (1x25). Episodes: Hurricane Fluttershy (2x22), Hearts and Hooves Day (2x17). 2095 (Winter): Episodes: Hearth's Warming Eve (2x11). 2095 (Autumn): Discord briefly escapes imprisonment in the code-lock inflicted upon him by the Elements of Harmony. More mass panic everywhere as the day/night cycle is disrupted again, even if most of the other chaos is confined to central Equestria. Equestrian diplomats take to drinking heavily. (2x01-02) The Bearers suffer the aftereffects of Discord's magic: Lesson Zero (2x03), Somepony to Watch Over Me (4x17), Putting Your Hoof Down (2x19). 2095 (Summer): The bearers attend the Grand Galloping Gala for the first time. (1x26) (Unknown Ponyville-demolishing incident.) Episodes: The Last Roundup (2x14). 2095 (Spring): Pinkie Pie becomes a journeymare baker. Episodes: Sweet and Elite (2x09) 2094 (Winter): Episodes: Winter Wrap-Up (1x11). 2094 (Autumn): Episodes: Suited for Success (1x14), Green Isn't Your Color (1x20), Fall Weather Friends (1x13), Swarm of the Century (1x10), A Bird in the Hoof (1x22). Princess Luna attends Nightmare Night for the first time. (2x04) The Cutie Mark Crusaders are founded (1x12). Episodes: Stare Master (1x17). 2094 (Summer):Twilight Sparkle moves to Ponyville. Return of Luna, and defeat of Nightmare Moon by the new Bearers of the Elements. Mass panic across most of Equus as the day/night cycle is disrupted; Equestrian diplomats work overtime trying to calm everyone down. (1x01-02) Episodes: Griffon the Brush Off (1x05), Look Before You Sleep (1x08), Boast Busters (1x06), Bridle Gossip (1x09), Dragonshy (1x07), Feeling Pinkie Keen (1x15), The Ticket Master (1x03). Rainbow Dash successfully recreates the Sonic Rainboom (1x16). 2089: Pinkie Pie leaves the rock farm to apprentice with Cup and Carrot Cake in Ponyville. 2088: Fluttershy moves to the ground, just outside Ponyville. 2083: Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo born in Ponyville. Rainbow Dash performs the first Sonic Rainboom; as a consequence, all the future Bearers receive their cutie marks. Twilight Sparkle hatches Spike while taking the entrance examination for Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and as a consequence, becomes Princess Celestia's protégé. 2082: Princess Cadenza meets Shining Armor for the first time. 2076: Pinkie Pie born on her parents' rock farm. 2075: Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash born in Cloudsdale. Cordelia Vintar-ith-Vidutar joins the Imperial Exploratory Service. 2074: Twilight Sparkle born in Canterlot. 2073: Applejack of the Apples and Rarity Belle born in Ponyville. 2066: Shining Armor born in Canterlot. 1994: Princess Celestia grants land to the Apple family (specifically, Applejack's great-grandfather Calvados) at the far end of the Cantervale, west of Saddle Lake, and on the northern fringe of the Everfree Forest. They build Sweet Apple Acres on the edge of the forest, and the town of Ponyville grows up around the nearby railroad junction. 1983: Neigh Orleans founded south of Baltimare, by earth pony prospectors seeking to cultivate the unusual plant life of the Haysead Swamp. 1971: Cordelia "Moongleam" Vintar-ith-Vidutar born on Golden Groves (Principalities). 1410: Equestria colonizes Saddle Arabia, or rather, one eccentric noble with a taste for nostalgia and a minimally active sense of self-preservation, along with his followers, colonizes Saddle Arabia. The world gapes in either or both of awe and incredulity that anyone would try, and then that anyone could succeed. 1394: Dragon Lord Flammifer struck down by Princess Celestia in response to his deliberately negligent enforcement of the Diet of Trottingham. Torch becomes Dragon Lord. 1254: Emperor Gallivant the Grasping of the Griffon Empire plots an assassination attempt against Princess Celestia. After revealing this to his court, he is plucked and hung naked from the Grand Eyrie to die from starvation and exposure, since his plan notably failed to include means to keep the solar cycle functioning. 1194: Great Griffon War. Inspired by Equestria's seeming weakness, the Griffon Empire attempts to invade pony lands to its west, beginning with the then-independent Island Duchy of Trottingham. This proves to be a terrible mistake, as when rumors of the griffon invaders enslaving the population and going so far as to eat some of their prisoners reach Princess Celestia, she shrugs off her lingering depression and rises in fury. The invasion collapses in disarray and is driven back to and beyond the Griffonic coast by Equestrian forces - principally, although minimized in later Equestrian histories, by Celestia's open use of weaponized sunfire. Trottingham annexes itself to Equestria. Diet of Trottingham, signed later in the year, formalizes the accord by which all sapient species of Equus agree not to use each other as food or slaves. 1183: Second Lunar Rebellion. 1069-1070: Lunar Rebellion. Princess Luna succumbs to madness and possession, becoming Nightmare Moon. After various skirmishes, Nightmare Moon is brought to battle in the city of Everfree, and is personally confronted by Princess Celestia in the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Celestia is forced to use the Elements of Harmony against her sister, banishing her to the moon, but her internal conflicts in using the Elements against her sister shatter her connection to the Elements, rendering them useless to her. 579: Stalliongrad refuses an offer of help to evacuate. Celestia's envoys report "vast plumes of smoke and steam" rising from the city. Cargo Pants, a prosperous tailor from Canterlot who opened his stores and warehouses freely to clothe the refugees from the killing winter and in doing so saved many thousands of lives, is ennobled by Princess Celestia, creating the Noble and Ancient House of Pants. 578: The Princesses defeat and discorporate King Sombra, but Sombra's failsafe spell shuffles the Crystal City out of phase and into stasis along with himself. With the capstone now knocked out of the geomantic infrastructure that kept the northern belt ice-free, glaciers and storms rapidly sweep down from the Crystal Mountains and render the region uninhabitable. Refugees flee southward into Equestria. 576: The Sombran regime begins a series of raids and conquests among the Crystal Empire's old provinces, including thaumaturgically-enhanced (i.e., non-pegasus) use of military weather; some of these probing raids reach down into northern Equestria proper. 571: The amnesiac Princess Cadenza, having spent the last two years wandering the northern wilds, is taken in by a religious order in the small coastal town of Reduit, which cared for their "filly goddess" while keeping her existence secret for octcen to come. 569: Sombran Coup in the Crystal Empire; Crimson Quartz takes the title of King Sombra. The Bucephalan Dynasty is wiped out except for the younger sister of the Emperor, Princess Amore, and her daughter Princess Cadenza, who flee southward towards Equestria. Amore dies on the journey; Cadenza, in a moment of rage, loss, grief, and terror, undoes herself, destroying her own memories and transforming herself into a blank-flanked alicorn filly, which state she would remain in for over three octennia. 567: Princess Cadenza, of the Crystal Empire, daughter of the Emperor's younger sister, ascends to alicorn status - to much rejoicing and a new sense of hope. Equestria sends its congratulations. 553: Princess Mi Amore Cadenza born in the Crystal Empire. 292: One of the rare natural-born alicorns suffers a magic surge only a few minutes after birth; the resulting conflagration levels the nascent city of Hoofston and creates Horse Shoe Bay. 5-130: Efforts to reunify the Crystal Empire fail, with the majority of its provinces now enjoying their independence and having little use for the capital that failed to protect them; eventually, lacking its former military might and exhausted by the effort of shielding itself during the Discordant Era, the Bucephalan Dynasty resigns itself to leading a mere city-state, although popular discontent at this decision continues to rumble. Equestria absorbs a few of the southern provinces, especially in the vicinity of the Cantervale, but most remain independent. 47: Princess, self-named Queen, Selenium Blueblood II, elder sister of Prince Palladium Blueblood, sets sail with a group of highly traditional (and disharmonious) unicorns disenchanted with the direction the new Equestria is taking, along with those beholden to them, and founds Unicornia Antiqua, deliberately hearkening back to the ancient unicorn kingdoms, on an island in the southern Great Celestia Ocean, displacing the qilin who formerly occupied it. Prince Palladium rejects his sister's path, reaffirms his loyalty to the Diarchy, and accepts the role of Prince of Canterlot. 3: Reharmonization declared complete: all of Equus is now at least proceeding in the same time-frame, although stubborn pockets of Discord's chaos remain, surrounded by wards and warning signs. 2: The world now has minotaurs, apparently. The minotaurs remember existing before the Discordant Era, but sadly, no-one else remembers the minotaurs existing before the Discordant Era. This confuses everyone, but since Discord could have done any number of things with this result, everyone just has to live with it. DISCORDANT ERA There are no years given within the Discordant Era, mostly because Discord's playing around with reality (whether subjectively or objectively) resulted in the perceived flow of time during it being all over the place. Interviews with ponies alive during the Era report durations ranging from "23 seconds" (Red Tape, former Tricamareon bureaucrat) to "a million years under a cold sun red as a burning coal, while scaly crabs skittered across the parched earth and nameless filth (1) roiled in the deep, ahahahaha " (unnamed unicorn, presumed to have been an artist on the basis of his cutie mark)(2). The mean estimate for the length of Discord's reign is on the order of 600 years, which is close to the (non-identical) durations given by Celestia and Luna, and also to the best estimates Equestrian astronomares have been able to come up with using changes in star positions, but there're wide error bars on that. 1. The Smooze and Friends, shoggot'im, Precursor tramoc jaqef (3), potato, potahto. 2. Your take-away here is that it was a really bad idea to be "interesting" enough to catch the draconequus's eye during the Discordant Era. Incidentally, while he did recover enough to start producing art again, most of his subsequent works are kept safely locked up in the "Things Ponies Weren't Meant To, Or At Least Really Don't Want To, Know" section of the Canterlot Archives. 3. lit. "blob servitors". P.D.E. (Pre-Discordant Era) -789: Bucephalus the Great dies early from severe magically-aggravated pneumonia, secondary to his many battlefield injuries. Rule of his Empire passed to his talented nephew and general Balius, who held the Empire together with a combination of military talent and his alliance with the unicorn sage Meadowbrook, whose creation of the geomantic infrastructure that tempered the northern climate proved a fine carrot to go with the Empire's stick. -811- -789: Bucephalus the Great and his followers, leaving the Republic of Equestria in search of military glory, conquer the petty realms and wild regions of the north, establishing the Crystal Empire as a realm sweeping from the site of modern Vanhoover in the west to Stalliongrad in the east, and reaching almost as far south as the Cantervale. -1,128: Republic of Equestria (i.e. Old Equestria) officially founded in the southern regions of modern Equestria, based on a three-by-three governmental system, in which each of the three classic branches of government has an element from each of the Three Tribes. The executive, for example, is headed by the three Triumvirs, a unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony - each selected according to their own kind's traditions: the first Triumvirs being, therefore, Princess Platinum Blueblood, Commander Hurricane, and Chancellor Puddinghead. The legislature, the Tricamareon, was a tricameral system, made up of the unicorn Council of Lords, the pegasus General Staff, and the earth pony Cakething (4). 4. The original form of earth pony government was simply the Thing, a popular legislative assembly composed of everypony that could be bothered turning up, with certain rules to ensure that it was quorate - something that it often wasn't, due to most earth ponies being quite busy enough with their own affairs, thank you, and not all that inclined to mind everypony else's business in any case. Its transformation into the Cakething was one of Chancellor Puddinghead's many contributions to successful and eccentric governance: namely, the observation that ponies would be much more likely to attend legislative sessions if there was, well, cake. (As a side note, while the genealogical records necessary to establish it no longer exist, it would probably not surprise anypony to learn that Chancellor Puddinghead was the direct maternal-line ancestor of Pinkie Pie.) ~-1,300 Approximate era of birth of the Royal Pony Sisters - Celestia and Luna being born as a unicorn and a pegasus, respectively, of earth pony parents, in one of the rare mixed-tribal encampments along the Long Walk. ~-327,000: As Precursor population dwindles, the artifacts later known as the Canterhorn and the Tree of Harmony are constructed to manage the health of the planet without requiring direct Precursor intervention. ~-329,000 - ~-328,000: Surviving Precursors partially uplift Equus ferus, creating Equunculus sapiens (or, as the Imperial taxonomic system will eventually call them, Esevdra alathis (6).) 6. But in either case, it means the same thing: "wise little pony". ~329,000: Precursor civilization collapses, violently. Phosphoros System severely damaged by warfare, including weapons causing the sun to flare, sterilizing much of Equus by burning off its surface. Extinction of the Zebrican plains ape (5). Surviving Precursors move the planet into a distant solar orbit, protect the remaining life within a shielded "crater", and create the artificial sun and moon. 5. Along with any chance for humanity to evolve in this particular worldline. ~482,000: Equus first discovered by the Precursor civilization of the trakelpanis trakóras amán. Specimens of the Zebrican plains ape, later known as Pseudoeldrae archaea, removed from Equus for experiments elsewhere. ~-4.2 Gy: The Phosphoros System condenses.