I wonder about the ethical, social, and political repercussions of two immortal sisters who rule a nation for millennia, allowing some of the more disturbing facts of history to fall into legend and myth. These two have been there through it all. Through the ugliest parts of Equestrian history. They've seen destruction on a scale barely comprehensible. But their greatest wish is to create a society that is not traumatized by such things. A society which can live in a sort of ignorant bliss of friendship and happiness perpetuated mostly by the fact that it is the new standard of normal.

I wonder then, how ponies would react to the knowledge that not only did horrible things occur in the ancient past, but the sisters deliberately kept this knowledge from everyone, as if things had always been somewhat normal, with the exception of the occasional adversary causing trouble. Discord's history seems to be fairly common knowledge, but with a lot of important pieces missing. Most everyone forgot about Sombra. Even Nightmare Moon was at least somewhat reduced to legend by the time Twilight shows up and actually stops to think about it.

And yet, nobody seems to question the sisters on this. Twilight suspected something was up regarding Nightmare Moon. Celestia downplayed it. Then things went crazy and Luna ended up getting restored thanks to some phenomenally unlikely events. At the end, Celestia shows up and reveals that she knew everything all along... And everyone is okay with this? It kind of makes you wonder.

But then comes the even bigger coverup. That of the ancient alicorns. In this situation, the sisters didn't hide things initially. It was the mortals who eventually stopped believing the past. And the sisters just let it happen. They took those tragic facts and removed them from the history books. They allowed ponies to believe in a false origin of their nation.

And now, things are coming to light which disrupt that status quo. Much of this revolves around Everfree and its history. Luna reveals that it was once the capital. That it was not always a dark and hostile forest. She also reveals that it has given them trouble for much longer than that, even. Everfree is an enormous stain on Equestria and its false history. It is evidence that something quite significant happened in the deep past which the sisters have not revealed.

5491829 Holy moly, I'm actually going through something similar that somewhat involved in forgetting major and relatively (Yeah right...) dark events in the past... in my book that not only hasn't even been published yet but focuses on a perspective of an alicorn from five millennia back, four thousands years before the birth of Celestia and Luna. And mind you, I already have the concept and plot of world-building and all that in my thoughts.

Sombra, Discord and all that do come to mind in this past and then there's Star Swirl the Bearded...

5491829 , I chalk it up to the writers not quite knowing what they were going to do yet, back before the first season was aired. I'm as much of an overthinker as the next guy, but I also like to come back to Earth and say, "Hi," every once in a while.

5491837
I'm curious how old you consider the sisters as having been at the time of Luna's banishment. At least in canon or in your own headcanon.

And Star Swirl... I guess I haven't taken him into account in the story, really. He doesn't show up on my timeline at all, but he is mentioned in chapter nine in Luna's moment of introspection. No mention of when he lived, though.

5491840
Indeed, it was not likely plotted out in advance. But I was more thinking about the ramifications in universe of the sisters and the fact that they essentially hid/changed history. I bring this up because the story is now getting to the point where the ancient history is on the minds of several of the main characters. This raises tension, and it calls into question exactly what kind of issues this obfuscation may have caused.

I was thinking about this issue when rewriting the beginning of chapter fourteen today:

Everfree.

Nyx had some quiet time to think during the flight, and her thoughts wandered to that dark forest.

What was it about Everfree which was so disturbing?

Everypony pretty much just accepted the existence of this vast and hostile region in the heart of Equestria.

But it was Luna’s comments the previous day which troubled Nyx the most.

‘Everfree has been problematic for millennia,’ she had said.

What did she mean by that?

Luna had surprised everyone, saying that it had once been beautiful and thriving, even serving as the capital of Equestria for centuries.

And so now, it was Nyx’s task to investigate the odd changes in the forest and its creatures.

She just hoped it could wait.

For now, there were more urgent things to focus on—things like finding out what happened to Lemondrop’s dad and solving the mystery of the zebra plague, which had somehow resurfaced in the enemy military.

Everfree nagged at the back of Nyx’s mind like an itch she couldn’t scratch, but as soon as they picked up a chariot, getting back to the bayou would be the first order of business.

5491951 Honestly, their age is a big mystery to me even if I was to take into account the Journal of the Two Sisters... All I know is that Celestia banished Luna to the moon 1000 years ago so I can safely say that, presently in the show, she is about that age, perhaps even older. Headcanon wise, I'm just making an assumption but I would assume that before the banishment, they were presumably rather young (maybe 1000 years younger) when they were born as babies. Since Celestia is the older sister to Luna, I'd give them a 100 year gap difference. Now at that time, it would be weird since by that age, Celestia would have learned a lot already the moment Luna was born but in my case, due to their agelessness, they tend to learn and take things very slowly. Meaning by them reaching 100 or so, they'd still act as if they were youths despite their intellect and age.

Speaking of them being born, I actually have an interesting headcanon involving all alicorns that sparked after playing a bit of Tales of Symphonia. I don't think it necessary but I felt like bringing that up...

5491969

she is about that age, perhaps even older

Indeed, newborns don't generally banish people.
I find the whole "they were quite young" idea rather implausible whichever way you slice it. I can't imagine them having been much younger than a few hundred years even at that time. Sure, it's possible they were merely decades old, but that feels mighty contrived.

I'd give them a 100 year gap difference.

Interesting. Haven't heard that one suggested yet. Most fanon depictions I see have them somewhere in the 3-8 year age gap range. As in, they shared a childhood together.

There are other complications with a large age gap. If they were 100 years apart, that would eliminate any sort of sisterly type of relationship. That's already something stretched pretty far with Sweetie/Rarity and AB/AJ. Imagine having your "big sister" being a century older than you. She'd be much more like a mother or aunt without any "growing up together" crossover at all. So even if Celestia was 100 and acting like she was 20, she would still certainly not be dependent on parents at all, at that point.

Speaking of parents... if they were born in the same era that Luna got banished, presumably their parents would have some kind of major historical significance. In fact, whichever way you slice it, immortal alicorns should have parents who are still around, right? Where are they? I suppose in some respects this supports the idea that their parents might not have been alicorns at all.

Still... I like my universe much better, as it tightens up all these loose ends nicely.

Ugh. Side track!! This thread got derailed in a hurry.

So, back to the topic of hiding history.

5491997 Yeah, we are derailing this thread I just thought of the 100 year thing because... I don't know why but I find that interesting... maybe not logical, but rather interesting. Still, this is just all speculation from me, I may end up making them like you said, three or eight years apart. Oh the parent thing...? Okay, yes, I have parents in mind for Celestia and Luna (because honestly, how are they going to be born into the world?), however to make this interesting, they are still alicorn but with an interesting twist (if anyone came up with this). They can be pregnant by choice even after an... intercourse. So even if they indulge themselves as many times as possible they can willingly give birth if the need to arises. Mortals do not have this capability so of course they're going to have an anti-pregnancy spell applied on them to prevent birth. To make this more interesting, alicorns don't always give birth to other alicorns but rather other races like the pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies. however what they lack for in the traits, they share in eternal life.

Yeah, I know I derailed the thread again, but I felt like sharing this

So even if they indulge themselves as many times as possible they can willingly give birth if the need to arises.

I find this interesting because that is exactly what I have also decided is the situation between Hyperion & Periapsis. They were together for quite some time prior to the princesses. It was a conscious decision to produce offspring, rather than a "try and see" situation. I'm not going the route of Immortal Game however, in that they essentially "made" offspring like one makes anything. Honestly, what fun is that?

5491829 Oh man, this thread title alone is right up my alley. I am an obsessive history buff who has more than halfheartedly considered giving up my legal career and becoming a high school social studies teacher. In fact if money was not an issue I would absolutely do it.

I'll approach this first from a more philosophical perspective: why does history matter? Why study history?

The first answer is both pragmatic and paradoxically elitist. And that is that any functioning society has to have a group, an intellectual " elite" for lack of a better term that studies where that society has been, so it can then forecast where it is going, or more accurately forecast the most likely group of paths that the society can go down. I am thinking here of legislators such as congressmen or members of parliament, the president/ prime minister, and those who advise these people such as analysts, legislative aides, people who work in think thanks researchers in government universities and the private sector and so one. Basically people who need to forecast things.

The second answer is both more populist and more philosophical. This is where George Santayana's famous maxim comes in " those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This means that there are certain aspects that are INTRINSIC to humanity that lead us to commit the same atrocities again and again and again ( xenophobia, preferring the in-group to the out-group to the point of dehumanizing the out group, territoriality, a large range of cognitive biases etc etc etc) and that thusly it is very easy for human beings to fall prey to these same intrinsic forces without realizing they are doing something " wrong" unless we can use a mirror in which to reflect ourselves so we can see what these urges have led to in the past. There was a documentary series back in the day called " the Nazi's: a warning from History" and that is what I am talking about here : to the masses History is a " warning". It is also of course a source of role models, by studying what our heroes have done in the past we can model our own behavior towards becoming " better".

So in that context i will first the answer the question in terms of the consequences on the society of equestria before actually answering Recons question about the psychological effects of the reveal of such a deception.

Or more to the point, since Equestria seems to be a fuctioning society despite the concealment of its history, I will try to figure out how that could possibly have come to happen.

So as to address point one, the degree to which Equestria needs a historically literate technocratic elite is inversely correlated to the power of the royal sisters who alone know the true history. The more powerful and omniscient, in a word the more divine the royal sisters are, the less of a need they would have to rely on other ponies who know the whole truth. The more limited and weak, in a word the more human the royal sisters are, the more they would need to rely on such a technocratic elite.
.
As to point two... interestingly your ideas about Alicorns point some light in that direction. Again the danger of hiding History from people in general is that it allows them to be blindsided by the dark urges inside every human heart that they could watch out for if they were aware of the consequences humans have suffered in the past when those urges take over. But if all the existential threats to Equestria were foreign and alien to the common pony That is if they were not reflections of things intrinsic to " the pony condition" or ponies as a whole but instead were driven by urges that only exist in entities that are not common ponies then there really isn't a consequence to the ponies not knowing their history( apart from concerns about the value of truth and honesty etc of course). This is pretty easy with Discord ( and yet he appealed to character faults in the mane six) and if your Alicorns are sufficiently dehumanized, that is if they are sufficiently disimilar to ponydom in terms of their character personality intrinsic motivation etc, then they can be ignored in terms of history ( of course in an ideal world they would at least teach the tactics of such "alien" threats to equestria to ponies like Shining Armor and his fellow cadets at whatever the Equestrian Equivalent of West Point is... but this is probably more an example of the " technocratic elite " discussed above.

Now that I have led this foundation I will answer Recon's actual question in the next post.

5491829

5500231 So based on the above I think that the amount of outrage at the discovery of the deception will increase with how much the hearer believes they " need to know" the history that was denied to them.

Because of this, I don't think there would be mass riots or a mass uprising against the Royal Sisters if somehow everypony in Equestria found out about the " real " history. It might cause distrust of Alicorns to increase, but for most ponies the Royal Sisters ( well Celestia at least) have proven their loyalties a thousand times over. No, I think that it is the closer to the seat of power that a pony gets that that pony would be most likely to be adversely affected by the revelation.

The stoic philosopher Seneca wrote the first great philosophical treatise on anger, and he stated quite plainly that anger has at it's roots a betrayal of expectation. In a way anger is the dark side of surprise. But it is not merely shock but also the idea that the thing that changed changed unjustly that is that you were entitled to something, and the something you were entitled was taken away from you in an unjust manner,

Again, let me repeat anger springs from the idea that you deserved/ had earned/ were entitled to something, and the thing that you deserved/ had earned/ were entitled to was taken from you in an unjust manner.

Applying this principle to what I stated in the previous post we can construct a sliding scale of progressive anger and outrage to the revelation that Equestria's true history was hidden.

At the bottom of the scale is the regular joe pony, like say pony Joe at his donut shop. He may feel a little hurt that the Royal Sisters did not trust him with the truth , but it would probably be a passing thing.

Somewhat up the scale are low ranking functionaries of the Equestrian Government. Think Cheerilee or Mayor Mare( " Ivory Scroll" in the Nyxverse). They are more invested in the system and in the government and feel the pressure to be " role models " to other ponies.. They would take this somewhat less well than Donut Joe.

Higher up the anger outrage scale would be someone like say a High ranking military officer who may in most societies be a part of the technocratic elite I mentioned. You would have dedicated your life to Equestria, and what is more, you would believe that this hidden history contained information that someone at your position would need to best execute their duties. If your say, Shining Armor or the pony who took over after him, you're pretty miffed.

Higher still would be a trusted advisor to the Royal Sisters. Especially so if you had a personal relationship with the royal sisters. Even more so if you had been trained from a very young age to be part of the innermost circle, so that as long as some kind of a techocratic elite of advisors actually exists, you are definitely a part of it, no matter how small that circle is. What i am saying here is that Twilight Sparkle will not have a good time with this revelation. At this level there would probably be at least some feeling of personal betrayal.

Who would be the most miffed of all? Let us imagine such a hypothetical character ( yeah yeah Indulge me for rhetorical pleasure okay)

What if there was a character with a deep personal connection to the Royal Sisters, who was already identified with the darkest known episode in the royal sisters history, who felt that suspicion at the revelation would fall hardest on her ( cause say... she is an alicorn) what if this character had to be a member of the inner circle even if she doesn't want to because that is the only "safe" way of treating her , what if this character was closely related to several other members of the inner circle. And what if, to top it all off, the information that was hidden was directly about ponies that are more like her in the critical way revealed by the hidden history than she is to any other ponies save the royal sisters?

What if in other words there was a character that fit in both of the categories mentioned i my post above.... a member of the technocratic elite with a job based need to know... as well as a fundamental need to know because she would have the EXACT SAME impulses that would condemn her to repeat the history she was ignorant of?

Why that character would be the most devastated of all, the one who would be the angriest, the one who would have her faith in the Royal Sisters shaken the most.....

..... As Storm Shadow suspects.