I'd also like to see a note about the economy. One fanfic cliché that really bothers me is the "homeless Scootaloo" cliché. While Scootaloo can easily be an orphan (although she's not in the Lunaverse), but is she really going to be homeless? One of her best friends is part of the most hospitable family in Equestria, and the other is the little sister of the Element of Generosity.

We've never seen any evidence of poverty on the show. The only character who ever worries about money is Applejack, and that's for the purpose of supporting the farm rather than literally worrying about whether she will be destitute. I think the show is pretty clear that Equestria isn't a land of haves and have-nots, it's a land of haves and have-lesses.

How is the Lunaverse handling this? Is there enough work to go around? Ditzy and Dinky were fairly poor before Corona showed up, but they weren't starving. Would somepony have taken them in if they really couldn't make ends meet? Or are there government programs that would have ensured that they not starve? Are ponies driven to crime as a result of destitution, or only ever because of greed? What about medical care?

781545
Some of that might be getting into TOO much detail. Some things really are best left vague. Still, I'd say there is usually work to be found for those willing to put forth the effort, and are willing to endure menial tedium.

My character of Clover Charms is basically supposed to be stuck in that scenario. She's got a job and it pays enough to keep a roof over her head and food in her belly (even if she has to scrape all her meals together from random assortment of bargain bin discount items), but that job is frightfully dull and basically a dead-end with next to zero potential for improvement. When it comes to employment, she's supposed to be scraping near or at the bottom of the barrel.

...oh, and when she met Twilight, Clover's first response was to assume she was a beggar and direct her to a local shelter. So homelessness would seem to exist to some degree. Of course, that's all from a semi-canon fic, so I suppose it's not absolute.

That said, I think to keep Equestria relatable, social problems like poverty need to still exist, all be it to a highly reduced degree compared to our own world, and with far more effective programs for getting ponies that fall on hard times back on their feet (err... hooves).

A couple things need to be addressed in your entry on Alicorns

1) The Ancient Alicorns who vanished that you mentioned elsewhere. This is a series bible and as such needs to include things the audience doesn't need to know, even if it will never come up in the story.
and
2) Are they kill-able? It should be hard if they are, but do they actually need guards, or is that just ceremonial?

Also, I'll take on Lyra.

Editing in profile...this will take some time:
Tribe: Unicorn

Special Talent: Music - More Specifically Lyres, Harps, etc. Cannot play a crystaphone (a highly specialized magical instrument), status of other instruments unknown at this time.

Element: Loyalty

Job: Freelance musician. Despite the stereotype she makes a decent living wage.

Character History:
Act Zero- Raised by two fathers. Was childhood (foalhood) friends with Bon Bon and Cheerilee. As she became older she became girlfriends (marefriends) with Bon Bon. Was accepted into the Academy in the music program. Acquired a mentor figure in Octavia while there. Graduated with distinction. Received a solid eduction on magic theory and became well versed in musically assisted magic called "spell songs". The music itself is not magical but serves as a mnemonic device for spell casting. She manages to catch the eye of Luna just enough that Lyra is assigned as escort to Trixie Lulamoon.

Longest Night, Longest Day - Guiding Trixie is not something Lyra winds up enjoying. Introduction to rest of the future EoH and several background ponies occurs, including Bon Bon. Lyra performs a piece of music for the Celebration. When Corona interrupts and takes a number of ponies, including Bon Bon, hostage Lyra is one of the group that volunteers to try and recover the EoH to defeat the mad alicorn. During the trek while doing introductions, Lyra also demonstrates that she is also double jointed everywhere. Lyra saves the party from a group of sirens by using spell songs to counter their voices. Lyra then collapses from overchannel. After receiving mana flowers to recover, the group continues on. During the confrontation with Corona Lyra throws herself in the way of a blast meant for Cheerilee, but Loyalty saves her. After Corona's escape, Lyra and Bon Bon are reunited.

The Night After - Lyra and Bon Bon are off screen. When they are doing is very heavily, and loudly, implied.

Defining Characteristics: Loyal. Energetic and eager to try new things. In a stable, loving relationship. Well grounded personality. Understanding of others. Self-reliant. Analytical mind. Forgiving.

Flaws/Weaknesses: Sometimes TOO Loyal (hero worship of Octavia blinded her to truth for instance). Gets too excited some times. Tendency to panic. Doesn't always think things through. Doesn't have the best magical energy reserve. Touchy about the stereotype of "poor musicians".

Goals: Marriage to Bon Bon. Becoming a respected musician like her mentor Octavia. Live a peaceful life. Bring down the corruption in the Night Court so that they'll leave her and Bon Bon alone. Re-imprison Corona so that pony kind is safe. Get Trixie to understand that she's not poor damn it!

782400
The bible isn't meant to answer EVERY question. The Lunaverse is an ongoing community project and so certain leeways must be left open/vague to give authors room to explore and inovate.

782472 Sure. But whether or not they can even be killed is kinda a big question. I mean, when they go into a dangerous situation, are they even in real danger that the giant dragon could get lucky and kill them? This sort of thing is a big question.

782525

Just do what I do and assume the Chunky Salsa rule is in effect.

782525
Maybe, but not a really question that fully needs the answer. Death just really isn't intended as a major theme in the Lunaverse. Alicorns can clearly feel pain and be weakened to the point of exhaustion; that's enough to create dramatic tension during a fight. The full degree to which they can be injured is less important, and might not even need to be fully consistent – sometimes what matters most is whether it is convenient to the plot for an alicorn to be injured.

Also, there is the fact while that important to the setting, none of the three alicorns are central protagonists, and so as such the shouldn't even be engaging in that many direct conflict. Too much focus on titanic clashes between god-like entities belittles the smaller scale conflicts of our actual heroes.

Still as I would see it the short of the answer would be: Yes, alicorns can be injured or even killed, but it is EXTREMELY difficult to do so, and should generally not be a major plot point in most fics.

782400
It strikes me that the Character History section should mostly be for events pre-dating the the first episode. For accomplishments from individual episodes, a more general summery of each episode could be linked to under perhaps a Featured Episodes heading added to each character. This helps eliminate redundant information, because it probably shouldn't be desirable to have multiple mini-summaries of each episode in different places.

Personally, I think each profile should contain, above all else, a list of appearances. Pokey Pierce, for instance, could have:

Appearances: File Under I For Impossible (debut), Carrot Top Season (referred to), The Hero of Oaten, ...

This would make it easier to research the character.

782884>>782957

I agree with both of these.

782400
Wow your Lyra one looks great.
In regards to Alicorns, if I recall RDD said that the ancient tribe of alicorns is his theory for M!verse not necessary L!canon and that he intends to keep it mysterious/unanswered. We don't know where Celestia and Luna come from in MLP either.

782957
I might add that if a character only appears in a single chapter, that should be noted as well. This would be especially important for minor characters.

782884: It would probably be good to keep the episode information, though, since we're using anachronic order. If AJ becomes a rodeo clown, say, in Season 2 Episode 5, the guide could indicate the people when that happened so folks who wanted to write Season 2 Episode 2 would still have her as a farmer.

782884 A fair point. But we don't really have a lot of Act Zero info for anypony, so these would be rather short. An episode by episode analysis guide notes character development as it happens.

I'll wait on RDD's opinion on this.

782574 Got it. Chunky Salsa is a go.

783517
Actually, "rather short" is a good thing here. The point of the bible is to give writers a quick and easy reference guide, a foundation to work from and that points them in the direct to finding further information. So we need to be careful of information overload in any single entry. Each entry needs to be informative, but brief – succinct.

...plus, like I said, we want to avoid needless redundancy between entries.

For example: both Trixie and Lyra would warrant listing Helping Hands as a key story, but there would be little point to giving them each separate summaries of their role in that fic because there would be significant overlap because so much of what they do in that fic they do together. Better to have a single summery for the episode, and then have both character entries linked to it.

as far as act zero info goes....

Well, this is really specific, but if anyone should be vague about what happened pre episode one, it's Cheerilee. Expansion Pack Past definitely applies to her.

782957
It's not a bad idea, but for the L6, you'd end up with very large entries. Still, it's better than detailing every single event in every single appearance.

I think I'd like to group everyone's character history into broad "Backstory" and "Season 1" entries, with "Season 2" entries added on once we get that underway.

783661
For the L6 we don't nessassarily have to list EVERY single fic they appear in, but rather should list the fics where they play a significant role -- their key/spotlight episodes, where their character is explored and/or advanced.

Example: All of the L6 (and BonBon) appear in Griffin Over the Line, but really only Raindrops and Trixie had a significant role to play in events. Arguably Carrot Top as well, but her scene is still pretty brief. The rest, however, really only got cameos.

782400

Just a note guys, the show itself uses the term girlfriend in Hearts and Hooves day.

793692

Yes but it's so much cuter to use Marefriend instead.

793803

Matter of opinion, I guess. I never liked 'marefriend'. Sounded too weird to me.

793818
Pony puns need make no real grammatical sense. Everypony knows this. (But yeah, my rule of thumb is: if you can make it a horse pun, then it should be a horse pun. Whether or not it's a good horse pun... really, it depends on the plot.)

793838

Enh, in this case, I think I'll go by show canon.

783661 Does Equestria have a flag?

929452
Yup.

929502 Ballin'
thanks

Right. It took a little while, but I now have Trixie's profile done. Yay...

Anyone want to take a crack at any of the other remaining entries?

943639
Actually, come to think of it I have a Cheerilee one I started working on, but then other stuff distracted me, and days became weeks.

Anyway, I'll see if I can finish polishing it up to make it presentable.

943639 Hey, if there are knights and dragons and stuff, are there ninja's somewhere on... whatever world Equestria is on?

955657
I dunno, maybe. Probably not in Equestria, though, it being pseudo-European.

955657>>956282

They're in Neighpon.

Yes, I planned this already, because Neighpon was mentioned in Scootalong. They have ninjas.

956401 So what's the real world counterpart? Japan?

And cool, thanks. I wanted to make a ninja reference without it being out of place at some point

959326

Yeah, it's Japan. See, in Japanese, Japan is called Nippon. Which is why it's Neighpon.

959388 Ah. Well, that makes more sense then

So I've read over what you have so far. One suggestion I'd like to make; why not add the fact that Trixie is an alcoholic into her flaws?

984361
I think it has been established that Trixie is not an alcoholic, she does occasionally get drunk, but rarely and it's usually only when socializing/really stressed; this is also the rest of the fact she only recently left Luna's tutelage and is enjoying her "freedom", besides that, due to her culture Trixie considers a casual afternoon drink quite normal and where's she's form it is. I think that's the case anyway.

956282 I got an idea about how the elements of harmony work...

The elements of harmony don't represent order or chaos. They represent the balance between the two. Since life can't exist in a world with perfect order (nothing would change and everything would stagnate) and neither could it exist in pure chaos (to volatile for anything to survive).

The elements represent the harmony between order and chaos, creating a balanced union.

Now, where this really starts to make sense in my mind is when you consider the villains that got hit by the elements. When Night Mare Moon got hit, she returned to Luna because she was still mostly an orderly being (somewhat). The elements removed the chaos proportional to how she actually is. In short, she became Luna because the chaos infected her mind, then was removed.

Then we see Discord, who is the physical embodiment of Chaos with almost no order, no reason and no why. So when the elements hit him, he was hit with the amount of order proportionate to how chaotic he was.

Thus, stone.

Tell me what you think of this

986238
Mmn...maybe, but I think I like my explanation, personally. I'm a big fan of order VS chaos.

988040 Well what was yours? I mean, for everypony who doesn't know

988233
I could be wrong, but if I recall correctly, I think it went like this:

In the beginning there was chaos and it was all powerful; but it was also alone, in it's solitude it began casting pieces of itself aside, loyalty, because there were none to be loyal to, kindness for there was no one to give or receive kindness from, laughter because there was nothing to laugh at ETC. Eventually it cast aside five traits, leaving it as a bundle of negativity & maliciousness, this became Discord. Discord immediately tried to destroy the Elements of Harmony and failed, because as he tried, the sixth and final element was born, magic.

These two energies went back and forth in a magical battle and the fallout form their battle created the multiverse and all it's creatures, all of which had a piece of Harmony and a piece of chaos in them. Discord and the Elements in this idea exist outside the universe and each version of them is part of one whole, so Discord and the elements cannot traverse dimensions because they are sort of already there, I think it was compared to trying to climb one's own leg.

As it stands I don't think this is L!verse canon though, that's how I remember it at least, I could be wrong.

988313 So, essentially, Order, or harmony, was born from out of the chaos. Meaning that one is still meaningless with out the other.

988443
That could be it, heh sorry I don't really know the philosophy behind that particular idea. I tend to compare it to the origin of the Greek universe/gods. But yeah within that idea I don't think one can exist without the other or that the universe can exist without them; though it's not my head canon so I could be wrong.

988443
Well, Chaos here is used in the classical Hellenistic sense: the nameless, formless morass that existed before anything else, and from which everything came and to which everything will return. But it is not in this sense synonymous with disorder. It might be better to refer to it as the primordial ooze, but Chaos sounds more deific.

Discord is the antithesis of Harmony, but it's not classical order VS disorder. Discord, after all, wants and loves to be in control of everything; while Harmony created life, which can be very unpredictable and chaotic. It's more like selfishness verses altruism.

988558 So it's like controlled chaos?

So Discord is like the chaos+order when chaos is dominant and harmony is when order is dominant

Am I getting any closer?

988669
N...no, what I'm saying is that it's more like selfishness VS altruism. Coincidentally, Discord tends towards chaos and Harmony tends towards order, but that's not the central conceit of their opposition.

988669
To chime in with a little bit of Discordian philosophy, which is derived form Greek mythology the same way cyanide is derived form almonds, the Principia Discordia has this to say:

A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos [Which is True Reality], and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach.

Verily! So much for all that.

How this relates to the current topic: the character of Discord is a force of disorder against order (symbolized by the Princesses, with Corona taking it to the other destructively radical extreme). Neither of them represent Chaos, which is Reality, which is Truth, and exists in Harmony through a perpetual state of Holy Disequilibrium. Thus both order and disorder are mainly illusions, and Harmony is whatever keeps the world from being destroyed, whether through stagnation or manipulation.

Altricial versus precocial growth development and life-expectancy:

I started a thread about this in the forum, but it has bearing here too.

Thinking of adding this to Trixie's entry. Any objections?

Larger

I'm considering making the second floor larger.

997383
Should draw a big red X where the window is

997418
Good idea.