time for a new question after MONTHS of this topic having been unused.

What happens if a Cursed Pony is killed in the human world before the timer on the curse expires? I'm asking mainly because of
Discord being cursed to life as a workhorse on Earth for that whole "Five Score to the Power of 4" years. Based on this, I have 3 possibilities I came up with, but I don't know which one is the most accurate.
1. the Curse is soulbound and as such, death will cause the soul to be moved to another family
2. the Curse prevents their deaths by manipulating causality and making lethal events NOT happen in the vicinity of a Cursed
3. there is no Death protection at all and all the Cursed ones that made it to 2020 were just VERY lucky

somehow, because of how "lucky" the "Mane 8" was to end up so poorly separated, I feel like option 2 is the closest possibility

5002972
(3) is the correct one; but it is not just a matter of "luck" they are alive; but also Destiny.

In the original fic, through their human lives each of the "mane 8" had strange quirks that resembled their original magical abilities/skills (because of the usual point of view of the story, the one that gets a more clear description is Dave "Anon" (Rainbow Dash)´s ability to predict the weather; years before the day the curse ends).

Other "random" events like him meeting Jack Smith (Applejack) in a race, or how ponies that were cursed close to each others in time also get to be born as dizygotic ("fraternal") brothers/sisters; indicates the remmant of magic inside them (supressed by the curse, but still influencing their lives), is guiding them to fullfil "the roles" they should play, as closer as they posibly can (regardless of the world or species they currently are).

There was a point in the fic were they theorize about ponies who may have being born as humans in poverty and/or undeveloped countries getting sick or killed on accidents, but the overall distribution of "relevant" characters in the same general landmass of the planet Earth were the portal is located (plus the masive ammount of Ponyvillians also getting to be born somewhere in North America), sugest it not being pure casuality.

If the location were a pony gets to be reborn was based only on time (the exact moment they were cursed); then they will be spread much more through the planet Earth [most of them on Asia, Europe and Africa]; as it rotates over its axis.
Even using teleportation and fast spellcasting, Discord needed at least a minute per pony to say the words.
Since the first targets of the "mane 8" ended on the West Coast ; unless almost an entire Earth day passed in between (it did not happened, based on the dates and hours the curse sets itself off); the others would have ended being born through the Pacific Ocean, either in Hawaii or Japan.

I know it's been a long while since the last post but I am really interested if somebody knows if there are other stories that where somewhat considered canon in the 5 score verse like The last crusade and Five Score: A New Hive??

(You don't even know why the CmC and co suddenly have the elements of harmony in the end without reading the last crusade which I found really jarring considering it's last chapters where posted one year later than the original story). I don't know how this came to be but it felt that both endings were planned beforehand.

7512489

So, Five Score canon is a... complicated subject, considering there's three different versions of the main fic:

• The 'original' version
• The mature version that, beyond the added clop parts, has also been updated in 2019 and is now incompatible with a lot of side-fics
• The print version, that has even more changes, especially regarding chronology, which make it incompatible with all but a few side-fics

Let's consider the 'original' version here, because otherwise even The Last Crusade doesn't mesh anymore with canon. The Last Crusade, and A New Hive to a lesser extent, are the two main side-fics with clear, unambiguous impact on the original story and are thus canon. Earning Wings of a Different Nature can be considered canon by association, as the main character appears in Last Crusade. We also have a bunch of stories and characters referenced in the original, but that don't impact the plot (non-exhaustive list):

• Thunderheads
• Little Horn's Story (though its sequel is incompatible with Last Crusade)
• The New Boss
• Dust on the Wind (the "Dust-verse" plays a little loose with some of the rules of the universe but otherwise fits very well with canon events and is quite expansive)
• Five Score And One For The Road could eventually become "retroactively canon" (major characters appear in Five Score, and as this appearance hasn't been depicted yet in the side-fic it could still be fully canon-compliant)

Other stories could potentially be canon, because they use characters that are mentioned in passing in the original or are briefly seen (the princesses, for example), but as we sometimes have multiple side-fics using the same characters (and thus incompatible) it's hard to say which one would be "more canon" than another. And finally, we have some stories that are canon-compliant, built around the events we're familiar with, but that weren't referenced in the original story so it's really up to the individual reader to decide if they're "canon enough" or not (for example, A Velvet Nightfall, part of the Dustverse, or my own A Prench Tale).

Regarding the fact the endings of the original story and Last Crusade mesh so well, there were efforts back when Five Score was being written to include nods and references, or even true cross-overs like in this case, with some of the side-fics (some of these nods and references have been removed or altered in the updated mature and print version though). So yes, both endings were planned to be complementary!

7512675
Thanks for all the information It made a lot of things clear for me.

Wow I missed that the mature version got updated I only saw that original got a new cover I totally have to reread it!

So I have a story idea that I'm kicking around based on 5s/4 universe but instead of it taking place on May 1st 2020 it would be Oct. 31st 2019. I have a reason as to why/how Discord could get away with sending those ponies to the human realm but I was wondering if this would be something worth exploring. Any thoughts on the idea?

7544440

New interesting variations on the Five Score formula are always welcome, and in this case setting things around Halloween would definitely be prime opportunity for some fun and original situations! Can't wait to see what kind of spooky scenes or 'costume' shenanigans you'd come up with.

Of course, I'm also wondering what option you're thinking about to have the story set at that specific time. An altered, shorter curse maybe ("Five Score, Divided by Four, Minus One Half", in way), or 'early birds' cursed six months before the others, lots of ways it could go that we haven't seen before and that'd have interesting consequences for the typical narrative.

7544440
That could be fun! Depending on when you want them to be half or full ponies you might want to even move it back a day or two?

I could see Discord "testing" the spell or someone catching onto his plan and using it early. Surely a handful of ponies going missing would be strange but they live in a magical fantasy world. I'd certainly be interested to read the ideas you'd put into it and how that plays out.

Alternatively you could have them turn back into ponies October 31st 2020? Any date after May 1st would be canon compliant. Not even May. Some stories pones turn back much later, even the following year. The ponies who turned back earlier could be handled however you want (cover up, ridiculous rumors that are mostly forgotten about six months later? ) Depends on what you have in mind and how you want it to play out.

Either way, I agree with Alsey: variation is always welcome! It's fanfiction. Explore the ideas you want to. : )

7544609

7544625

Thank you for your ideas and suggestions. The very basic premise is this is test before he goes all out on May 1st 1995. I think the idea of having the transformations starting to happen a day or two before Halloween night is cool, I don't think it works as well for my reasoning/idea. I suppose the thought pattern could be that nightmare night is a few days different then our Halloween, but I think considering that the poniverse shares a lot of the same holidays and time frames that it would be a bit of stretch. Speaking of which, I am looking forward to possibly getting chapter 1 up today and with luck getting chapter 2 within a week or less.

7544636
Cool! Knowing us we'll read it. : )

Similar question here. I'm writing a story focused mainly on political grounds and diplomacy. Thousands of alien species scattered across the globe would cause major shift in the world. And I live in just the place to write this story.
But since I don't have any skills about writing, I would love some ideas and thoughts about the concept.

(Sorry if it's hard to read. I'm not native to english...)

7609280

There's so much potential for stories exploring these questions! I'm curious to see what you'll come up with, especially if it's set in a context we haven't seen much before in Five Score.

I too deal with some of these themes in my stories, so here's some of the various questions that I had to ask myself in the process – hopefully that'll help!

(It's far from optimal, but I'll use 'Equestrians' as a general term to refer to the various species from the pony world, including ponies, griffons, yaks, etc.)

So first off, are Equestrians able to get representation at the political level, or not? Can they vote, or be elected? They may still count as citizens in the eyes of the law, but what if they don't? Would they still be considered citizens at all? Do they have the same rights as before their transformation, or not? Is there a difference of treatment between various Equestrian species – ponies may look more friendly/relatable to humans than griffons or changelings, for example.

Going even further, are they even recognized as deserving human-level rights and personhood? Technically the Universal Declaration of Human Rights wouldn't apply, for example. If not citizens, are Equestrians seen as smart animals? As stateless refugees? As citizens of another country? If so, is their presence considered legal, or not? Could they have some kind of dual citizenship – their inherited human one, and their Equestrian one? If they're considered from belonging to another country, is it possible to establish diplomatic relationships? Who would act as official representatives?

In the Five Score universe, contact with Equestria (and other countries on that side of the portal) is limited, especially before the existence of ponies goes public and they gain the ability to open the portal at will, instead of having to wait thirty moons between each opening (and this happens in only some stories, at that). The portal is located on US soil, which also complicates matters. What would be the international reaction to Equestrians? Depending on the country, all the above questions may have radically different answers. Would the UN try to deal with all this in an organized way? Or would the specific interests of individual countries make joint resolutions difficult/impossible?

What of the Princesses, the de facto leaders of ponydom? Twilight Sparkle is in Equestria, the others may be still on Earth but details depend on which version of the timeline we use. What about leaders of other species, are they present on Earth, if so are they recognized as such considering that the MLP show didn't really delve that much into non-pony nations, at least before the late seasons? Are Equestrians appreciated, feared, hated? Some of them control magic, opening new technological paths; would magic-able Equestrian citizens be an asset for a country, or a threat, or both? How would this impact political and societal attitudes towards them? Would Equestrians try to work within the socio-political system of their human home country, or would they try to create their own system? Do they want to live only among themselves, or stay integrated fully into normal human society? What kind of frictions would that cause?

All this would impact deeply how and why Equestrians interact diplomatically with human nations: what would be their goals, how would they prioritize them? Would they advocate for all Equestrians and their issues, or only for those living in some countries, or only for some species and not others? What would be their endgame – peaceful cohabitation on Earth, total repatriation through the portal, something in-between?

And I could go on and on – there's a lot of different angles we can use to explore these questions!