GreyGuardPony is submitting for our approval his story Past Remnants.

I haven't read it yet but I will report on it as soon as I'm done.

I vote canon, personally. He's already implemented some changes I suggested when he submitted it a few weeks ago, namely dropping Celestia and Luna being depowered, and the inclusion of Bon Bon. An adventure with just the two of them is probably badly needed.

3287379 Having read it I find nothing particularly troublesome with the set up as it is so I vote canon too.

I'll need to scrutinize it in more detail before making a vote, but a few issues that struck me right away:

* I know we've been trying to stay away from stories that involve only one, Element of Harmony--Emeral's mentioned this a few times. (In fact, I think every other canon story in S2 involves at least 2). This story looks like it involves Lyra and only Lyra in any meaningful capacity. I kind of feel like another L6 member should be catapulted to the island.

* I'm very leery about introducing sentient dinosaurs in any capacity.

* I'm also leery about introducing beings much more powerful than the alicorns, like the Watcher seems to be. It raises issues later along the lines of 'why doesn't he contribute to fighting the various other world-threatening problems that will surely crop up later.'

* We already had a 'psycho golem tries to murder everyone' story that Zap wrote. It feels odd to be repeating the same plot twice.

I do like the actual prose, but I'll need to go into it more carefully before I decide whether to vote in its favor or not.

3287428

I know we've been trying to stay away from stories that involve only one, Element of Harmony.

We have?

3287431 : Yeah, Emeral's brought it up with me a few times, particularly regarding some of stories that have already done that (SfM&S, which was also Lyra focused, and something RK wanted to do focusing solely on Pinkie and Trixie).

3287435
Oh.

I don't agree with that. While it's certainly better to include as much of the L6 as is reasonable, some stories will just only work better with only one of them.

There should, however, be a good reason why the other L6 aren't involved. "Lyra was teleported to Australia" is probably a good reason.

3287431 3287435
It wasn't so much that there should NEVER be stories with only one of the L6, more so just something we should be mindful of. For me at least a big weakness of S2 of the actual show was that a few two many episodes focus on single character spotlights to the detriment of ensemble. So whenever possible I do think we should encourage authors to setup up their stories in such a way that it can feature multiple members of our cast. With the inclusion of BonBon, however, that's arguably close enough. She's not one of the L6 but she is one of our more important cast members.

...

Personally my bigger concerns with this fic are in regards to its seeming intent to delve more deeply into Luna's & Celestia's histories (as well as alicorns in general). As IAH has mentioned, our own S2 has been increasingly explaining things a bit TOO much, and a fic relating to such ancient mythical times risks furthering that trend. If GreyGuard can keep things appropriately vague as befits such a legendary age from before mortal history, there might not be any problem. For my own part though I can't really cast a vote in regards to canonicity until I see how he pulls this whole scenario off.

Still, if a decision must be reached right now though, then I guess I'll defer to RDD's judgment on the matter.

3287752 : I don't think I can vote at this time either. I'm still extremely wary of sentient dinosaurs, which could really be a game-changer if not handled very delicately. And I'm not a big fan of the watcher-type character. He reminds me almost of Coriakin from Narnia, but even there he was subordinate to the big power of the setting (Aslan). Here he seems strong enough to cause issues later.

So I'll withhold my vote until we see more of the story.

***

That's two votes in favor of canon, and two in favor of waiting until we see more. I guess it's up to IAH?

3287767
As long as this dinosaur race stays an extinct precursor thing, I'm not really all that concerned. There shouldn't really ever be much in the way of meaningful problems if there's only this ONE left and who can't leave this specific location.

That said, the word "dinosaur" doesn't sound quite right to me here. Partly because it's very much a scientific sounding word that can feel out of place in an otherwise fantasy setting. More so though because it's such a broad term encompassing many, many species. If there were an alternative name to call them (or even just narrow it down to a single dino species), that might work better.

3287428 The Watcher isn't stronger than alicorns. He can only be tangible inside the pyramid, outside he's a powerless observer. He's basically a cursed ghost, what's left of the Sorcerer King that diverted a comet and caused the dinosaurs to go extinct.

3287798 Saurians? Pterodactyls aren't even dinosaurs...

3288034
That could work.

Right, so in light of the fact that IAH hasn't judged this, and it's been a few weeks now, I'm going to invoke some executive authority and have my vote count twice. So, that makes the vote 3-2 in favor of canonization.

3329701 Alright then locking this thread!

/janitor