Magic. In most senses of the word, magic subverts normal rules of reality to bend it to the casters' will. This can lead to a plethora of spells that in our reality wouldn't be possible without advanced machinery, or sometimes, even beyond that. Yes, magic can break new grounds and lead to advances. However, magic in of itself, is technically broken. You can ignore gravity, physics, or even reality itself if the you have the power and know how. Of course, in smart fantasy worlds, they do their best to put limits and restrictions to magic in order to make it fair. As well, in most cases, the caster is still mortal. Cutting off their head and whatnot usually will do the trick.

Friendship is Magic on the other hand.........You know what, I'm not even going to skirt the issue. The show doesn't really care about power levels and magic feats. Fighting has never been the solution to any problem, ever, in the show and magical capabilities depend on the plot. Given how I really do love analyzing and exploring magic in of itself, this is extremely agitating and a lot of what I come to is born of concepts born of other magical shows/movies/books and headcannon. I do my best to keep it to the show, but I have to face it. MLP magic is kind of broken.

With pegasi magic, it's pretty basic. Weather manipulation. We don't really get to see limits or exact strategies of pegasi, other then a few such as what they can do with clouds and such. Earth pony.......Okay, they don't really ever go into it other then hinting they're good at growing things.....

I know this isn't an anime. If it was, some episode would have explained the Earthern magics and some more of the pegasi in more depth because they have the time. {Entire arcs can span episodes, so they have some time to spare to explain magical abilities.} As well as putting more focus on unicorn limits. They have not.

For the most part, this doesn't bother me. This show is about 'Slice of Life' more then anything, so yeah, I don't really look forward to fights in MLP. They can be cool, but I know how it will go. {Tie, or the ponies fall back and beat the opponent with friendship.} As for magic, I've also come to accept that strength, again, doesn't really matter to most of the slice of life episodes.

However, there are a few unicorn spells that I really don't care for or I think are unbalanced against other pony tribes. This blog will be talking of them and how I'll be using them in the Shimmerverse.

Oh and before you start talking about Starlight and self-levitation, I already went over it here. To sum it up, no. Self-levitation and what Starlight performed wasn't broken of unfair. Given an experienced pegasi, such as a Wonderbolt, and Starlight was literally standing in a killzone surrounded by so many clouds.

1: Teleportation.

Oh, how this single spell annoys me. It has annoyed me since I was a little kid picking up Harry Potter and whatnot. Why? Why would such a spell annoy me? Simple.

It is broken. It is the most broken spell you can have! Why, you may ask? A teleporter can be anywhere they want to be. They can effectively, with one man, take out an entire unit if they're skilled enough. With a levitating opponent, a single sharp shooter can solve the problem. With a teleporting one, he/she can just appear right behind the sniper, kill 'em, and then go on about them. Of course, teleportation usually gets restrictions: line of sight, places they've been, not that common, etc........

But then you have Harry Potter....Where every wizard can teleport......Ohoho, I hated that so very much. Oh it does 'tell' that it can be risky, but for the most part, that doesn't come into play. If you're a writer, I strongly urge you NOT! to do that. Why am I bringing this up? Why does it annoy me? Ticket Master, we see Twilight teleport out of sight, into her home, with just a few seconds of dizziness.

And then the next episode, she's teleporting like it's none of her business. Like it's easy. There's no explanation of weaknesses. No telling of how common or whatnot. A teleporter can just be anywhere they want to be. Oh, it probably does have something to do with power levels, but that's never explained and the side effects only appear in the first two bloody episodes. Every other time, nope.

In my writings, you probably notice I don't use teleportation often. Even Discord himself doesn't do it nearly as much as in canon. I just find it agitating. Not to mention it's annoying, with constant little bright lights/noises. Gives an opponent a little warning, but not much.

That and it's very irritating to watch. The flashes of life and pinging noises have always agitated me. I'm just thankful we don't have another scene like Applebuck Season. Twilight's constant flashes were getting to me.

Shimmerverse: Teleportation is a rare ability in the Shimmerverse and is restricted to line of sight. If you can't see the location with your own eyes, then you can't go there. That's why unicorns invented specialized goggles to further their teleporters vision as well as an extra spell to see through certain types of substances so they can 'see' inside and thus make it. Given their rarity, teleporting units are only used in hit and run tactics as that's where their skills lie. There is of course the sharp 'twing' that accompanies a teleport as well as a flash, but they are over quickly. The spell can be rather taxing and if used too much, will cause a unicorn to faint from exhaustion.

Teleport Markers are larger, industrialized infantry tech, which can allow infantry to pass through small portals to reinforce key strategic points. These have to be manually placed in desired locations and are very vulnerable and easily destroyed if an enemy units attacks it. There are also 'mini' teleport markers that some equestrians have for their home which allows them to connect and teleport to the designated location. This is relatively rare though.

There is the even rarer 'Soul Teleport', which allows the caster to quietly teleport anywhere the caster had a strong connection to. This is mostly used by the Deer Farseers, but have been taught to some ponies through Celestia's guidance.

2: Weather Manipulation:

No. Just no. Unicorns don't control the weather in Canterlot in the Shimmerverse. That's still the pegasi. Unicorns can create 'biospheres' to keep their cities warm in winter or in the arctic. They can generate heat and such temperatures, but they cannot do what Rarity and Canterlot can because of one simple thing.

Remember when I said teleportation was broken? You remember how some people say self-levitation such as Starlight 'undermined pegasi'? NO! This is where I draw the line. If the unicorns could do it, why do they need pegasi? If the unicorns can do it, how did the pegasi keep power? I mean, they seemed to keep a strong presence if the play is anything to go by. Did they just do this through numbers or something?!! Flight isn't a 'pegasi' exclusive ability. Several species and sapients in canon {Breezie, Griffons} can fly as well, not to mention even more so in the Shimmverse.

Weather Manipulation gave pegasi their edge. It kept them relevant and why the unicorns couldn't 'tax' or subjugate them like they sort of did to the Earths. Yet canon says they can do it, even showing ONE, freaking ONE, unicorn doing a town's work. BULLFEATHERS! This is the ability that breaks it and makes the divide unfair, yet people are complaining about Starlight levitating for twenty minutes?!!!! Oh yes, twenty minutes of levitating. Horrid. Now excuse me as I, one unicorn, make the sky to whatever I want. That will not raise any eyebrows.

Shimmerverse: In every city or town, there are a collection of pegasi to help control and monitor the weather. This was a pact that was agreed on during the Equestria's Fourth Age, just after Discord's defeat and the sister's rise to power. This helped crops flourish, the population to grow, and the pegasi had a firm hoof in Equestria's politics. Of course, there was certain opposition to this law in the unicorn nobility. They feared the pegasi would gain too much power, but Celestia has done her best to keep this faction at bay.

Before Equestria was founded, both unicorn and Earth armies always hesitated to fight pegasi, since pegasi had the power to pick and choose whatever weather they wanted for battle. This is why unicorns had gone into developing 'flying' spells, with limited success {I went over that in my previous blog.} Eventual bio-domes allowed them to keep their cities safe, though it wasn't a very 'mobile' spell so their armies were still at risk.
{Note: Also, the Shimmerverse unicorns didn't move the sun or moon. That's just OP! The only unicorn who ever did that was Queen Majesty and she was the most powerful unicorn to have lived, with such power akin to godhood.}

3: Transformation:

Eh, I don't hate transformation magic. I just don't think it should be common. I mean, it gives a unicorn the ability to be a pegasi, griffon, or whatever they want and it doesn't appear to have any drawbacks or such that have been explained in canon. {Also, it was a cop-out in the Breezy episode......I mean, it just comes out of nowhere. Yes, Twilight could turn a frog and bird into an orange, but an orange and a sapient being aren't exactly identical, are they?}

Shimmerverse: Transformation potions and spells are outlawed and punishable by death. This was a law passed during Equestria's Third Age after the tyranny of Queen Majesty. Majesty was infamous for her transformation magics, creating spells and other such tricks to forcibly change entire populaces into her 'perfect' ponies. Afterwards, in one of the few unanimous world meetings, this law was passed world wide during Equestria's Fifth Age, so it's now outlawed world wide.

There, three types of magic in canon and their role in the Shimmerverse, whether included or not. Sorry, I had to vent. I tend to do that on occasion. I hope you all gleamed something from it and if not, I can always take this down later. Until next time.

, I can always take this down later.

Dont take it down, I love reading your posts about the shimmerverse, its almost as entertaining as reading the actual story's.

5081357 Thank you. That means a lot. What did you like about this one?

I cant really say exactly what I liked about it (I always have a hard time explaining myself) I enjoyed the whole post but probably my favorite parts were the little um well

Horrid. Now excuse me as I, one unicorn, make the sky to whatever I want. That will not raise any eyebrows.

Note its my favorite due to comedy reasons and comedy stands out in my brain more than rational thinking most of time time (I still love reading the post though)

I've been meening to ask this what about combination spells (Like in The crystalling part 2 or Every little thing she does.)

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Combination spells are tricky but doable depending on the caster(s).

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thanks for the answer