I'm not exactly sure where to put this, but hopefully people won't mind hearing about this project here.

For a while now, I was trying to build my own, original setting that took a lot of inspiration from Equestria Divided, but the six factions based off the warring houses just being their own countries that pretty much always existed. Then, however, I contemplated making one of the factions a hydraulic civilisation (admittedly, the concept is rather-overly simplified, but it worked as a for a fictional society), and I realised that the concept of a civil war in a hydraulic empire run by Ponies might actually fit the concept of a not!Equestria Divided type setting far better than my previous take on the thing. The only problem is that it's so similar to canon Equestria Divided I'm not sure what to do with it.

Here's the revised take: let's say Ponies migrated to this country, which was rather inhospitable, for some reason. They're lead by an Alicorn Princess (or Princesses), who immediately set to work having the country terraformed to make it more habitable. She/they has an extensive network of Pegasus weatherponies to direct the weather, making it suitable for agriculture; these Pegasi are also responsible for defending what hydraulic networks exist (*House Stormwing). To make sure this weather system is as efficient as possible, she delegates its administration to a dedicated caste of Unicorn administrators, who see her/their word as divine and use propaganda that she is/they're holy goddesses whose commands cannot be defied to get the rest of the country following their orders (*House Moon and Star). Earth Ponies initially exist as menial labourers under the command of the Pegasus weatherponies and unicorn priesthood-bureaucracy, however, as time goes on, their prosperity increases, and many find themselves as well to do artisans and technicians who manufacture and maintain whatever infrastructure is needed for the country to survive, becoming wealthy and influential, but lacking real power (House Earthborn).

The real turning point, as in vanilla Equestria Divided, is when the Princess(es) get(s) incapacitated: maybe she/they just disappears like in ED, or maybe there's a battle where they're killed or otherwise unable to lead the country, but for whatever reason, she/they are definitely out of the picture. The country, of course, becomes increasingly divided over what to do now that their divine sovereign(s) can no longer rule the country: not!Moon and Star, the conservative priest-bureaucracy insists she/they has/have ascended to full godhood, and as her/their interpreters before this event, its citizens should just continue receiving instructions from them, while not!Earthborn believes that as they no longer exist on the corporeal realm, the priesthood-bureaucracy are no longer necessary to receive orders from the Princess(es), which of course leads to civil war between the two. The real kingmaker is not!Stormwing, which still controls the weather system and the military, and therefore would guarantee success for whoever side they decide to back, but they decide that neither faction are really worthy of their support and decide to lock the country down under martial law, with their own military commanders running the weather, until some definite word can be established as to what, so the war pretty much drags on. Perhaps not!Earthborn has a Lightning Dust equivalent with her own renegade pegasi that would maintain the weather without not!Stormwing, as well as not!Moon and Star.

The other ED factions could have their equivalents in this thought experiment: not!Whitegold being some sort of unicorn aristocracy distinct from not!Moon and Star and are trying to assert their own independence from them, not!Everfree could be an indigenous tribe, trying to re-assert itself after the alicorn conquest, and a not!Cult of Laughter that is gaining popularity due to the conflict (which could or could not be devoted to eldritch gods).

I do have some points to make it more distinct from vanilla ED: as noted above, there's a lot bigger, impersonal focus on socioeconomics and historical trends that caused the conflict to boil out into what it did. Likewise, I imagine that the "playstyle" and aesthetics of each faction could differ from their ED equivalent, possibly quite substantially:

• Not!Moon and Star: a lot more high medieval than the actual Moon and Star, with this high medieval crusader aesthetic heavily reminiscent of Bretonnia in Warhammer Fantasy, with the slaves probably looking more like medieval men-at-arms and "Legionnaires" looking more like medieval knights than the classical look they currently have. Their "playstyle" would probably focus more on mutually supporting crusading orders dedicated to each Princess (if more than one)
• Not!Earthborn: would have a Renaissance Landsknecht look like Warhammer Fantasy's Empire, with lots of halberdiers and/or pike-ponies in 16th century costumes instead of the medieval look Eartborn has. Buffalo are probably absent.
• Not!Whitegold: looks a lot more 18th century, with line infantry in elaborate dress uniforms, perhaps with some sort of clockpunk/baroque look to their technology. Probably very ranged infantry in focus, with mercenaries as melee infantry?
• Not!Everfree: I imagine them looking a lot more fantasy Celtic aesthetics-wise: warriors in kilts and woad body paint, being led into battle by warchiefs and supported by druids and bards. Zebras and minotaurs (see below) probably absent.
• Not!Cult of Laughter: I honestly have no clue. Would depend how similar/distinct they are from their vanilla ED counterparts.
• Not!Stormwing: Frankly there isn't that much to change. Probably more Greek than they already are, for example having the minotaurs not!Everfree would lack, and maybe having the Unicorn and Earth Pony auxilaries in more "modern" fustanellas, fezzes and turbans instead of the Polish Winged Hussar look they have in Equestria Divided.

The thing is, I'm not exactly sure where to go with this idea. Unlike my previous setting, where the six factions were independent states with hundreds, if not thousands of years of independent existence, this is way closer to the existing Equestria Divided insofar that we now have six rival houses fighting for control of a country full of Ponies. As a result, I can't help but shake the feeling that it's too similar to ED to be its own thing, but too different to just be an AU. Do people think this thought experiment has enough on its own to expand into something interestingly different than Equestria Divided, would it best to retool this as an AU of ED, or should it just be scrapped?

6884236
TBH I like your idea a lot, but in the end i think i'd always go with Vanilla ED, and would rather see it try to be revived rather than make a new version of it.

What feels the most lacking in this dmsetting is the absence of anything involving the Main six, Ponyville, or any named character. What really hooked me with a question divided was the in-character decisions and tragedy that made them forsake each other, and how their splintered group represented the entire Pony race abandoning Friendship.

But I’m still really impressed that you took the time to write this all out.

6884350
Of course, I don't even know if this setting would use Equestria or not (my previous take, did not, and basically consisted of six countries running off and doing their own thing for about 2000 years or so instead of a ED-type civil war), so I'm mainly speaking in generals here.

6884236
I could see this as an in-Equestria version of Warhammer Fantasy (such as how the “Power Ponies” had the Mane Six, Spike, and Mane-iac as Captain Ersatzs of multiple human superheroes/supervillains), so I think the best way to build would be to add in other “Not!Warhammer Fantasy” elements to give the factions both potential allies (i.e. the Zebras, Buffalo, Griffons, Saddle Arabians/Ottomares, etc.) and even worse enemies (the role the Changeling Horde(s) serve in EQD) - I can imagine the “not!Cult of Laughter” filling in for the Warriors of Chaos (with a greater emphasis on infiltration cults BEFORE summoning the hordes of demons to rip and tear everything apart), while the “not!Everfree” can have stand-ins for the ”Greenskins” (ie Orks and Goblins) and the Lizardmen, either as enemies or allies to the forces of “not!Everfree”.

6885218

As in, each faction is their own independent state? That was the approach I tried taking beforehand.

6885475
Well, considering that, I think maybe making these factions independent states would probably be the best call at this point, seeing as (as everybody previously mentioned), a rehash of EQD without the Mane Six as their leaders is somewhat redundant and even potentially counter-productive.

I have been thinking about this concept for a bit, and also too for the longest time one project I'd really like to work on is some sort of mashup of high fantasy and slice of life that you saw in Avatar: the Last Airbender, but with Ponies. It occured to me that I can easily put two and two together, and the tentative name for this project is "Three Tribes". ("A point is all that you can score!") At this moment I'm leaning towards only one faction/house for each Pony tribe, and it would follow Hearth's Warmings' Aesthetic in particular (so the Unicorns have a high-medieval crusader feel as to opposed to that classical[?] feel of Moon and Star or the Renaissance feeling of Whitegold, while the Earth Ponies are Renaissance; kind of like the Empire as opposed to the medieval-looking Earthborn).

The main character would be an alicorn filly who'd be the reincarnation of the Princess (who sort of channels her past life at times, which would provide exposition as to how the last Princess rose to power), while each warring faction would want to claim her for their own ends. I imagine actually that she'd have a companion from each tribe, maybe agents who actually liked her and decided to stick around rather than assassinating their rivals, and she'd in the end reject the concept of one of the ruling houses having power over the others, and probably even ruling the place herself (her past life wasn't so much Celestia as she was Qin Shi Huang).

Admittedly, it needs to be fleshed out more, though I have other projects I'm working on, and I feel this isn't the best place to post about it, but I just wanted to inform everyone that I have done something productive with this concept.