What if when Starswirl was creating his time spell, he accidentally miscounted and when back millions of years to a near future earth?

The story would be about the Mane 6 discovering his secret memoirs about this.

6362127
The twist would be that he had a foal with one of the Pony’s, introducing the magic gene that would give rise to the three types of Pony’s and leading to humanity’s extinction plant of the apes style

6362127
Why are humans always the past? Why not the future?

6362191
6362127
Eon333ms has a good point. We have legends, myths and tales about Unicorns, Dragons, Minotaurs, Griffins, Changelings... so much so that ancient humanity had to have gotten the ideas for these creatures from some where so why not Equestria be Humanities past that ancient humans dug up and tried to make sense of but didn't get quite right.

6362191
6362257
Because we know for a fact that none of these things actually exist, that there was no point at which our world ever looked even remotely like theirs, and that it just plain makes no sense to have them be part of our world's past unless you're willing to go full High Fantasy alternate universe, at which point it isn't really our Earth anymore, now is it?

I did read a rather interesting story once where the human protagonist ended up in an alternate Equestria in which Starswirl himself had been human and came to Equestria thousands of years ago as part of a human interstellar uplifting project, which brought technology and high civilization to their world. All humans personnel of the project had been male and as such died out within a single generation, but apparently it had been planned that way from the beginning and the rest of the human species is presumably still out there somewhere. Starswirl apparently had no beard and Luna recalls that his favourite "ponysona" was to take the shape of an alicorn colt. I thought that part was particularly funny.

6362138
OR (this was the original idea I had, but yours works too) Discord was the result of genetic engineering and he ended the world for humans.

6362355
I think I'm honestly gonna disagree with you. Your reasoning feels a bit petty, we're talking about magical candy colored ponies. If you can suspend your belief for such a concept it shouldn't be hard to say, oh and thousands or millions of years in the future humanity rules the Earth. Having the future of Earth be ponies would arguably already make it an alternate universe, but even if you don't want that, it isn't too hard to come up with reasons for why the Earth looks like it does today.

6362428
I'd call that going full-on alternate universe, but hey, if that's the kind of story you want, more power to you. I'm just explaining why I think people don't generally do this kind of thing. It's a lot easier to write fantastical stories about a future that hasn't happened yet than to invent an alternate past that still makes any kind of believable sense after you spend some thinking about the premise.

That's actually really hard to do and it's why, say, the plot of the Assassin's Creed games is such a complete and nonsensical clusterfuck.

6362430
I guess, but I'd like to see someone attempt it. So far I don't think I have.

6362431
Well, you can always give it a shot yourself. Even if it ends up not making any sense, it would be pretty neat to see the concept turned on its head for once.

6362355

Because we know for a fact that none of these things actually exist

The genre's called fantasy for a reason. It's meant to be unrealistic. And again I say, ancient humans had to have gotten the ideas for these creature from somewhere. The way the worlds works could easily be explained by tectonic shifting, a large meteor or two striking the earth changing the shape of land masses, there a a bunch of ways to explain it.

It's not about if it was our "real" history or not. it about a person being creative and bold enough to find a way for it to work.

6362428
Thank you. I'm glad someone who commented understood what I was going for.

6362355
I do like that Starswirl story you talked about though. Sounds interesting.

6362474

The genre's called fantasy for a reason. It's meant to be unrealistic.

See, this is a particular truism that isn't actually wrong on the face of it, but in storytelling terms, it's actually a really bad to ignore this kind of question. The problem is that it isn't and really never has been about 'realism.' There are magical flying ponies, nobody expects it to be realistic. What it needs, though, is believability. The reader needs to be able to believe that the world you're constructing for your story could actually exist in a "what if" situation that you the author came up with, and basically everything even an elementary schooler learns about the world they live in makes this idea fail to do so.

The thing is, if you can't actually somehow explain how you got from there to here, how a world where magic ponies raise the sun became a planet that revolves around a sun that revolves around the core of a galaxy that revolves around a super-massive something that we can't find? People simply aren't going to accept it. The whole suspension of disbelief comes falling down around your ears and the story crashes and burns because people just can't make it work inside their heads.

So it's not like I'm criticizing the idea because "unrealistic." I'm not stupid, I get that fantasy isn't realistic, that's what makes it fantasy. There are, however, a lot of very good and practical reasons why you need to come up with a good answer for this kind of incongruity before writing your story, because otherwise, your readers will stop caring the moment they realize that your story makes no sense to them personally. That's obviously a bad thing. A lot of really great ideas that I've seen people come up here over the years, ideas that could have been all kinds of interesting in practice, failed to ever lead anywhere because the author-to-be just couldn't make it come together in a way that makes sense as a story setting.

6362485
I get where you're coming from. And I can come up with a way to make it work off the top of my head. The princes don't move the sun and the moon, They turn the planet. It would also kinda explain why they controlled the weather, If It's exactly half and half of the planet facing the sun at all times, some places are going to need a break every now and then.

Also, how the planet came to turn on its own is the same reason Ponies don't really exist anymore. Similar to how the Dinosaurs were mostly wiped out by a meteor strike the ponies were too. The strike It gave the earth its tilt and spin, setting into place the system for the weather we know to make its start.

6362494
Good, you've got one answer out of the lot. Now come up with another for why a species of millions and millions of unicorn ponies that existed for thousands of years didn't leave behind a single unicorn fossil over the entirety of their existence, and then the question after that, and so on and so on...

You probably can't and that's why I said that going "full-on alternate universe" is the easier option: if you construct a world where the historical existence of unicorns is well-known and you can find the skeleton of Princess Celestia in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, this kind of thing suddenly ceases to be a problem. And it's a perfectly valid solution, too! The only problem is that, as I said, it makes it not really our world anymore, because we don't have unicorn fossils standing in museums in the wing right next to the dinosaurs.

It might still make for a good story, but that kind of difference does matter to a lot of people who read HIEs, which is one big reason why I think nobody has really tried yet.

6362497
I can and am. They did leave behind evidence. Again I repeat myself, What do you think ancient humans based their ideas off of in the first place. The reason most, of the evidence was lost was due to the meteor blast, which is like hundreds of Tzar bomb's going off at once obliterating everything in its path in a millisecond. Any subterranean species, Diamond dogs, Changelings and so on might have survived the blast but the world they know is gone and they would have either died out or be shrunk to such small number due to lack of food and liveable land.

But lets say some of them did survive, it would be a constant struggle to live now. The weather they control would be all wonky, food would be scarce and far between. It would be a constant struggle for survival and they need to compete for space and food now so fighting and killing is a factor. It would take thousands of years to even get close to their old civilization. Then nature throws a wrench into the works. Home Sapiens are born into the world. With their ability to adapt at an unprecedented level as well as a higher birth rate they swarm over what was left of the Ponies and the other races who had survived.

Humans fear what they don't understand, and what they fear they start to hate. Seeing these different beings that are new to them they feel threatened and kill them, leaving what is left of the races to flee and hide for their lives. That would be where we get the images and ideas of there creatures and also why people still to this day claim to have seen them. They see the descendants of the originals that went into hiding. They are so few now it might as well be a drop in a bucket of water.

That is how I would start a story like this as well as pull a human into the hidden world that came before humanity. And just because we don't have fossils or remains for unicorns and such doesn't mean they couldn't be real. Scientists, when presented with the remains of a platypus thought it was a hoax because there was no evidence of such a creature being real before.

Everything is fake until it is a proven fact.

6362510
Look, no offense intended. I really don't want to get nitpicky here about this kind of stuff, because that wasn't the point I was making and I don't actually expect you come up with a counter to every possible nagging detail I could ask for. Still, I'm hardly paleontologist or an archeologist and I could poke half a dozen holes into this without even trying. It's pretty obvious that you posted this off the cuff with hardly any thought put into it and it shows. If you want to present this idea as something worth reading for the average user of the site, rather than the type who reads Anon stories and doesn't mind because they weren't expecting anything good to begin with, that's a problem, which is really all the point I'm making.

Humans fear what they don't understand, and what they fear start to hate. Seeing these different beings that are new to them they feel threatened and kill them, leaving what is left of the races to flee and hide for their lives.

Also, speaking seriously? At this point I'm getting kind of offended both as a scientist working on a Chem degree and as a human being, and if you used that as the central excuse for your half-baked "magical ponies totally existed until a few thousand years ago and humans met them, but somehow nobody is willing to admit it" setting, I really wouldn't feel any kind of hesitation to tell you so quite exhaustively in the comments of your story, as well as to anyone who ever mentions your story in this group. Strongly worded and in detail, because "people are arbitrarily idiots for thousands of years so that my story can work" is a dumbshit idea.

6362519
You say you can poke holes in my idea, but all I've heard from you is that you don't like my idea over and over again, just with different wording. And it is true people fear what they don't understand, it's why hate crimes are a thing in the first place. And I never said nobody admits it, as you seem to have left out that I said "Everything is fake till it's a proven fact." I'm giving you a scenario that "could" be possible and you're just tossing it away because you don't like the idea.

And of course it's on the cuff, I didn't wake up in bed this morning and say "You know, I'm gonna plan out a whole new version of human history so Ponies can be seen as real." That's just stupid. It's an idea that I believe has merit and if you don't like it, that's your right as a person.

And people can be stupid regardless of what century they were born in, so the "people are arbitrarily idiots for thousands of years so that my story can work" jab you threw, doesn't stick at all.

6362551

And people can be stupid regardless of what century they were born in, so the "people are arbitrarily idiots for thousands of years so that my story can work" jab you threw, doesn't stick at all.

It kind of does, because your entire concept revolves around a massive meteor bigger than the one that killed the dinosaurs literally pulverizing all evidence of magic horsies but without killing them and nobody ever noticing or remembering this happening and also actively destroying all evidence of the substantial intelligent society that existed before ours.

Look, I'm not saying it couldn't work, I'm just saying you're not making it work - and while you're doing that, you're frankly being kind of unjustifiedly insulting to the kind of reader you want to imagine reading this story. Know what science is? Taking things we don't understand or know about and learning how to do so, so that we can control them to our benefit. You basically just massivelly dissed all of Western society since the Enlightenment and it's not doing the point you're making any favours.

6362562
The meteor would be the start, then you have to take into account the natural disasters that follow, volcano's, earthquakes, floods and so on. plus the ravages of time need to be taken into account, no matter the material time will always turn it to dust leaving nothing left.

Science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

6362562
You need to pose a question to get an answer, same way with Science. I'm posing a hypothetical idea of what could happen if the situation were real.

6362569

The meteor would be the start, then you have to take into account the natural disasters that follow, volcano's, earthquakes, floods and so on. plus the ravages of time need to be taken into account, no matter the material time will always turn it to dust leaving nothing left.

Now consider that we have historical artifacts of human-made tools going more than 500,000 years back and remember that your version of events involves humans actually meeting magic ponies (who have telegraphs, trains and x-ray machines) during our own prehistory. Surely you can see how that wouldn't work.

Science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

Please don't try to use the dictionary definition on someone for who this is actually his job, thank you. I work as a research assistant to pay the college bills. It's kind of rude and presumptuous and I don't want the discussion to sink to that level, because this isn't personal to me and I'd like it to not be personal to you, either.

I wasn't being presumptuous. You said to know what the Science is and I showed you I know what it is.

Now consider that we have historical artifacts of human-made tools going more than 500,000 years back and remember that your version of events involves humans actually meeting magic ponies (who have telegraphs, trains and x-ray machines) during our own prehistory. Surely you can see how that wouldn't work.

I'll draw you back to a point I made earlier. It's fantasy and I'll even add Science fiction for good measure. There will always be a level of stretching the facts to make things work in fiction that varies from writer to writer. it's what makes the genres so entertaining, it's got that fantastical part that captures our imagination and hold it tight and the bit that's real to make you think.

Also they had telegraphs, X-ray machines and such. They also didn't have them in every city, town or place of settlement. Most of it would have been destroyed in the meteor strike while the rest, bar a few places, would be destroyed or lost due to the changes in weather and land masses. They could be burried 10 miles bellow the surface and we've only gone down 7 miles with a two inch drill bit.

We know more about space and other planets then our own, so it is "Possible" that something like that can still exist but yet to be found. Again I say I'm just posing a hypothetical idea as to what is possible and that's all science is. It's best guess until it becomes fact A.K.A. "Fake until it is proven fact."

6362581

I'll draw you back to a point I made earlier. It's fantasy and I'll even add Science fiction for good measure. There will always be a level of stretching the facts to make things work in fiction that varies from writer to writer. it's what makes the genres so entertaining, it's got that fantastical part that captures our imagination and hold it tight and the bit that's real to make you think.

Also they had telegraphs, X-ray machines and such. They also didn't have them in every city, town or place of settlement. Most of it would have been destroyed in the meteor strike while the rest, bar a few places, would be destroyed or lost due to the changes in weather and land masses. They could be burried 10 miles bellow the surface and we've only gone down 7 miles with a two inch drill bit.

Which is great! It's good! It just honestly doesn't make sense as a concept in the world we live in. The reason people thought the platypus was a hoax because it honestly looks like one on the basis of everything we thought we knew about biology at that point. It's a venomous mammal that lays eggs. If you can't comprehend how incredibly mutually contradictive these traits are (which I would not blame you for, because this is college biology shit) then maybe it's just not something you should use as a reason for anything, for all that it looks like a good one.

Also they had telegraphs, X-ray machines and such. They also didn't have them in every city, town or place of settlement. Most of it would have been destroyed in the meteor strike while the rest, bar a few places, would be destroyed or lost due to the changes in weather and land masses. They could be burried 10 miles bellow the surface and we've only gone down 7 miles with a two inch drill bit.

Any meteor capable of burying a civilization that existed within the last 20,000 years deeply enough to be incapable of reaching within a half-century of digging would be big enough to shatter Asia Major into shards no bigger than Hawaii. This clearly hasn't happened in the setting you're proposing, which is why using this as an answer to setting questions just doesn't actually work.

Also, repeating something over and over doesn't make it more true, you've said so yourself. I think you're getting overly invested in this and that maybe we should just stop here for your sake.

people thought the platypus was a hoax because ithonestly looks like oneon the basis of everything we thought we knew about biology at that point

My point exactly. So what's to say that creatures like dragons or Unicorns didn't exist? And speaking of repeating, you keep repeating that "This is a bad idea so give it up" the only difference is the words you use.

What i'm overly invested in is trying to show you that just because you don't like an idea doesn't make it crap. You are not the de-facto, end all debate ruler that decides if an idea is bad or good. It's up to the reader as a whole to decide that, so saying people will automatically not like it just because it doesn't fall into your realm of believability, is just pure hubris.

6362615

My point exactly. So what's to say that creatures like dragons or Unicorns didn't exist?

Well, except for the fact that we have reason to believe that myths of unicorns were just mistaken understandings of rhinoceroses and dragons were misunderstood dinosaur skeletons? Nothing.

What i'm overly invested in is trying to show you that just because you don't like an idea doesn't make it crap. You are not the de-facto, end all debate ruler that decides if an idea is bad or good.

If that's what you think I'm doing, it's frankly your own personal issue, not mine. I've said a lot of times that this is something that could work, but that you're just not making it work, and that you're taking this is a concrete statement when I meant it as a general one.

I'm frankly done with this at this point because I feel like I'm talking to an idiot wall.

6362622
And you were the first to go low brow and name call, such a pity. I was actually enjoying this debate we were having. sigh Well I wish you a good day sir.

6362635
Sorry, man. It's like half past ten here and I have only so many fucks to give when I think my point isn't getting through. That was rude and I apologize, but I was getting a bit frustrated with this. Talk to you some other time and no harsh feelings intended, I promise.

I accept your apology and I can understand being tired effects ones mood.

6362649
Glad to hear it.

congratulations.

my post is now ruined

6362806
it sucked to begin with
and so do you

6362816
well, fuck you too

6362819
Assume the position, bitch.

6362816
wow... just wow.

6362127
I can see him going thru the mirror somehow screw with the human and cause them all to die out and start pony off, to evolved and use magic, that the mirror portal is not to another world but to far past.

6362430

the plot of the Assassin's Creed games is such a complete and nonsensical clusterfuck

there was a plot to Assassin Creed???? I thought it was about kill people

6362828
you need help

6362404
Oooo, and perhaps our last act of defiance before being wiped out was to take the three pony races and genetically engineer a super pony that had the traits of all three! The combined genes magnified the strength of this ultimate life form and made it incredibly powerful but a bit unstable, so the superpony found a pony wife, had a pair of foals, and then sacrificed his power to create... the elements of harmony!

6363436
yes, and they have a secret room in the castle which has the entire history of humanity, so they continue our legacy. And maybe they slowly reintroduce some of our tech, which explains the schizophrenic technology they have!

I guess I shouldn't assume everyone has played New Vegas.

6362806
I apologize if The debate Wlam and I got into derailed from your original intentions. I think your idea has merit and that it should be given a chance. again I apologize for disrupting your post.

6362428

Your reasoning feels a bit petty

...

...The fact that history exists is petty...

I hope to god you're just misusing that word.

6364372
I mean, I can see where he's coming from. The entire reasoning is kind of based in being nitpicky about details that can seem rather minor next to a premise like magical, talking ponies actually existing. It's just that these details actually do matter to a lot of people and having no better answer than "don't think too much about it" can end up breaking your neck when writing this kind of story, because it can really make a difference for how satisfying your setting ends up feeling to the reader. It's about being willing to go to the effort of actually thinking your idea through, from beginning to end, and to make sure that everything fits together in a way that comes across as natural rather than contrived.

6364372
Yeah all I mean is that saying because our history doesn't support this storyline means it can't or shouldn't be written feels petty. Not talking about actual history itself. I just think that a story with Equestria established as Earth's past can be done and saying it isn't historically accurate isn't a very good reason for disliking the story if it never had the intention of being historically accurate.

I don't actually think history would be that big of an issue for this kind of story you just need a good reason for why nothing showed up in history.

6364400
That's not what he said. He even gave a premise where the idea could work. He didn't say that you can't write a story where ponies existed in the past, he just said that such a story couldn't realistically take place on our earth.

saying it isn't historically accurate isn't a very good reason for disliking the story

If a story is meant to take place in reality, the fact that it isn't accurate to reality is an entirely reasonable cause for disliking it.

I don't actually think history would be that big of an issue for this kind of story you just need a good reason for why nothing showed up in history.

You'd need a pretty damn good reason, considering:

A) Pegasi never existed.
B) Unicorns never existed.
C) Griffons never existed.
D) Minotaurs never existed.
E) Manticores never existed.
F) I think you get the point now.

6365476

That's not what he said. He even gave a premise where the idea could work. He didn't say that you can't write a story where ponies existed in the past, he just said that such a story couldn't realistically take place on our earth.

Because we know for a fact that none of these things actually exist, that there was no point at which our world ever looked even remotely like theirs, and that it just plain makes no sense to have them be part of our world's past unless you're willing to go full High Fantasy alternate universe, at which point it isn't reallyourEarth anymore, now is it?

It kinda sounds like that's what he said to me, and I don't see the premise unless you're saying the full High Fantasy alternate universe is supposed to be the premise. Which seemed to imply that he thought a story with modern Earth wouldn't work.
I'll admit I may have misunderstood him at the time (just like you misunderstood me) but we worked it out already can we drop the subject?

If a story is meant to take place in reality

I never really said it had too, that was an assumption on both your parts. Furthermore I still think it can work, maybe it will be an AU, maybe not who knows. Anyways I'm gonna try and drop this now.

6365544

It kinda sounds like that's what he said to me

So when he said, "it just plain makes no sense to have them be part of our world's past unless you're willing to go full High Fantasy alternate universe,"

You took that to mean, "it just plain makes no sense to have them be part of our world's past ever, in any scenario, no exceptions."

No offense, but you gotta work on your reading comprehension.

I don't see the premise unless you're saying the full High Fantasy alternate universe is supposed to be the premise.

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. And unless I'm sorely mistaken, that's exactly what wlam was saying too.

Which seemed to imply that he thought a story with modern Earth wouldn't work.

High fantasy is a genre defined by it's high levels of magic, it doesn't make any statements on technological progression. Though, I won't fault you for making that assumption, as it's sadly true that most high fantasy stories (fantasy in general, really) are set in a pre-industrial age of some sort.

I never really said it had too, that was an assumption on both your parts.

Well, yes, but it was one based on how fanfiction tends to work. Perhaps it would have helped if wlam first mentioned that most people who write fanfictions don't really want to go into world-building, and of those who do, most focus on building the ponies' world, not the humans'. Therefore, most fanfictions involving humans are assumed to have its humans come from our world. Ergo, most stories couldn't realistically feature humans coming from Equestria's future.

But really, the way he put it is a lot more concise.

Anyways I'm gonna try and drop this now.

'K.

6366177

So when he said, "it just plain makes no sense to have them be part of our world's pastunless you're willing to go full High Fantasy alternate universe,"

You took that to mean, "it just plain makes no sense to have them be part of our world's pastever, in any scenario, no exceptions."

No I took it to mean "it just plain makes no sense to have them be part of our world's pastin your scenario. It can only be done my way. Which felt like he was trying to restrict me at the time. Like I said we worked it out.

No offense, but you gotta work on your reading comprehension.

Honestly I think you might need to, this is the second time you've misunderstood me.