As in, tele-hearing, tele-vision, tele-something else ...

I recalled this interesting loaded piece (at very beginning):

Things seemed to settle down until some clown invented television and the inhabitants of sleepy little United States towns had their minds blown by the realization that people who lived in other places were (gasp) different!

This made me think ...even if Equestria as envisioned by Chatoyance has no radio, and no 'hear-from-afar' spells (at least at time when "Taste of Grass" was set) - what impact such spells might have on society? Will they become working equivalents of our world astral travels, etc? But sooner than latter somepony will math them with far away, but real group of ponies ..of course, with non-conqering mood in general impact will be different, but how exactly different?

Insert the obscure and old: I was looking at various Spark Radio technologies, and while they worked with electromagnetic waves - generic idea of modulating some 'reflector/mirror' of different, much faster and far-traveling energy by voice sound (or even tapping the hoof!) seems to be applicable ... even if not by our electromagnetism.

Harry Hyder, W7IV, while taking a nostalgic trip
backward from solid state to vacuum tubes to spark,
wrote in March, 1992 QST:

“REAL radios glow in the dark. The REALEST real
radios Whined, Roared and Hurled Blue Lightning.”

from "How Spark Transmitters Work by Hal Kennedy, N4GG". I hope at least THIS will capture someone's interest in at least imagining how such 'radio' might look and sound and work in at least one version of Equestria .....

Will be those 'broadcasts' by Luna from one of smaller stories also seen by other, non-ponies, and provide them with informational views of society far away, unreachable yet by physical transportation, but reachable in communication/listening sense? (ala one planet/pocket universe model of what some hoped to get in our reality with interstellar radio)? May be even non-ponies will learn faster about why ponies do their friendship thing if they will be provided with examples of how it works inside real society?

Sorry for very short format .... I can't extract more out of myself right now.

7150791
That pieces comes across like someone looking for a fight.

I have another question. How do they all react with the invention of the dragon potion, the griffin potion, the zebra potion, the merpony potion, the seapony potion, the diamond dog potion, the changeling potion, and the Abyssinian potion?

7150791

This made me think ...even if Equestria as envisioned by Chatoyance has no radio, and no 'hear-from-afar' spells (at least at time when "Taste of Grass" was set)

That is actually incorrect. One of the bits in The Taste Of Grass was the newfoals hoping to be able to figure out just such a thing in order to contact civilization (they failed), the use of a cosmic 'ping' spell to find the lost newfoals, and more. In other stories of mine, we see Celestia broadcasting across Equestria in the form of a vast sky hologram, and we see the use of telecommunications mirrors (magical Skype, really) in Across The Amazon. We also have described all manner of magical telegrams and other communications ala Spike, made available for common use.

That said, such things play a much smaller role in my Bureau stories, that is true. Why? Because, in the end, massive telecommunications tend to isolate and alienate people. The advent of television and cell phones have resulted in people reporting - universally - that they are vastly more lonely now that people claimed to be prior to these inventions. This, despite vast online communications and so very many statements claiming that online relationships are just as valid as 'real ones'. Which, in the use of that latter term, says everything.

Humans are social animals, and they need more than just a voice or an image to fulfill that social drive. They need proximity, touch, and mutual physical assistance from each other. They need to share the same space in ways that satisfy the brain stem and not just the cerebrum. Online relationships are valid, but they are not as satisfying or as capable of curing loneliness as physically proximate relationships. And for this proven fact, my Bureau Celestia limits the advancement of telecommunications relative to what earth had.

There are magical crystal radios, though, and radio stations. And every unicorn who is schooled learns a basic communication and location spell as part of standardized education. It's just that the poor newfoals in my stories seldom were shown gaining this education, because almost all of my stories take place during the turbulent times of the Bureaus, and not the long, eternal times after.

7151363
I think ponies will try to deal with it pony style - you always looking for most kind solution, if there apparently none - you go out of your own element to invent, test, and implement something...... In other words, for ponies (as I like them) social science was not just afterthought.

7151795
Thanks a lot for your answer, I was looking exactly for this kind of response! I tend to think human studies from today can't be applied directly to ponies (who live in non-exploitative society, and have quite different basic drives, and actualization of those drives). But still, their world makes sense! Ponies might feel no need for traveling to conquer - yet they may feel discomfort from overcrowding both in time and in space, they may feel desire to give good quality time to their foals (so this feel/reasoning might play into voluntary limitation of birthrates, while initially such self-limit might come out of more earth-like limits of suitable for ponies space.. as it was just created by Celestia and Luna, in your stories). So, they will both travel/settle at some space away from each 'optimally-sized' as it feels/work settlement - yet they will look for occasional re-connecting with 'outsiders'! (unlike humans, who managed to make a lot of wars out of fragmentation, in Europe at least). You are first author in my life who seriously attempted (with some sounding success!) to imagine whole civilization driven by caring about what others experience! One can naively extrapolate in some point of future history even touch and other forms of connection will be available in semi-remote form - but this road lead to even more different lives and societies!

I was hoping to find quite long article about, I think, "Victorian Internet" - where interesting parallels were drawn between Internet and telegraph networks (down to operators using those costly lines for online chat!) - but I can't find it easily .... Edit, this one might work as placeholder.

Also, Julian found this device, called photophone

The photophone was similar to a contemporary telephone, except that it used modulated light as a means of wireless transmission while the telephone relied on modulated electricity carried over a conductive wire circuit.

Bell's own description of the light modulator:^[12]

We have found that the simplest form of apparatus for producing the effect consists of a plane mirror of flexible material against the back of which the speaker's voice is directed. Under the action of the voice the mirror becomes alternately convex and concave and thus alternately scatters and condenses the light.

The brightness of a reflected beam of light, as observed from the location of the receiver, therefore varied in accordance with the audio-frequency variations in air pressure—the sound waves—which acted upon the mirror.

In its initial form, the photophone receiver was also non-electronic, using the photoacoustic effect. Bell found that many substances could be used as direct light-to-sound transducers. Lampblack proved to be outstanding. Using a fully modulated beam of sunlight as a test signal, one experimental receiver design, employing only a deposit of lampblack, produced a tone that Bell described as "painfully loud" to an ear pressed close to the device.

Cool. May be not as communication device per se (especially for beings with much better initial hearing), but at least as engineering art :}

On possibility of different non-ponies entering Equestria lately - I think this boils down to their psychology:
1) they can be mostly pony-like in their behavior (hard to build up peak or lasting aggression, sensitive to others both as feelings they feel and as thinking logically, no killing as 'necessary evil', no torture, no physical assault), so their unusual form will become non-dangerous norm after some time.

2) They more human-like in their behavior (can work themselves up to considerable aggression, work as hierarchical group against other groups). Well, in this case avoiding them might be valid response. It will be less hard than it was on Earth due to ability of ponies to construct nearly everything necessary from 'simple' surrounding space. So, if some want land - you just move and create land somewhere else ... Your old land probably may get less care, but depend on how those other non-ponies prefer to live it might be even better for them, and still not very ultrahard. If every other type of beings will for some obscure reason want to hit ponies constantly - I think ponies having spend more time in their 'programmable' environment will still have some advantage as far as defense can be built. After some time whatever really creates such aggression in others may disappear, even if it will require creating some really strange shadowy 'prey' beings, who actually never truely die (considering Chatoyance's version of Equestria actually can support such type of life).

3) Ponies who are like Ralf Vitoni (sp?). Pony in form, but not in mind/spirit/psycho. Well, those in big numbers also might be problem, especially if their problematic behavior will not surface early. Whole point of ponification as psychological process in Chatoyance's series was to reduce this human-negativity down to really unsignificant number, so majority, even unbelievable (by Earth's standards) majority of ponies will not fear each other, even in pressing situations. So, I guess other ponies will try to re-amplify those with 'weak' by new standard self-control/other-sense .. yes, may be by stealthy creating some character-building situation for them. Brain structure unable to support normal for those ponies sociality will not considered 'inferior' in humans way of thinking - but something to improve. May be via good diet :} Current human idea about mental health loaded with ...barely-hidden disrespect and burden-most-prefer-to-avoid. Ponies will be quite upgrade from std.humans on this front. But writing down details of such 'reforming' is not easy for me (who is barely can push out even blogpost).