YAY! The Lunaverse canon was not damaged by this latest episode! Knowing my luck this means that the very start of the next episode is going to introduce us to Cadance's parents...or worse that those horses are Cadance's parents. Damn.

But anyway! For now, at least "An Early Reunion" doesn't have to be stricken or modified in any way so as to not conflict too badly with the main canon. No, we just need to find a spot for the Crystal Empire.

Larger

That was easy. Obviously the Empire seems a good deal larger than it does in the TV show. My excuse for this is that in the TV show we just saw the capital city and its environs, and in fact much of the surrounding land that we saw should have been green and fertile due to the Crystal Heart's influence and part of the Empire as well.

I have the strangest urge to name the Empire's capital city Skeksis...or urRu...or urSkek...

The next thing that needs to happen is trying to fit the Crystal Empire into the Lunaverse canon. My thoughts on the subject: 1,000 years ago (give or take, there's clearly a give-or-take with these things), King Sombra did his thing, angry at the fact that he could only speak in monster-noises (or maybe something with more gravitas, but whatever). In the Lunaverse, Celestia went to deal with the situation *herself,* leaving Luna out of the loop until it was all over. Celestia solved the problem with Sombra...violently, and with only limited regard for the fallout of her attack. To the point where the crystal ponies wished that she hadn't even shown up at all and left them to somehow deal with the problem themselves.

In this timeline, the Empire never disappeared. Sorry, Sombra, but sooner or later I'm going to do "Tambelon" and there's too many similarities between the Crystal Empire reappearing and Tambelon reappearing for me to want that story to be told twice. Celestia's actions up north pretty much ruined Equestria's reputation within the Empire and they didn't want anything to do with Equestria anymore.

A long-standing ally turning into a resentful foreign nation practically overnight clued Luna in to what had happened (Celestia had been evasive); while Celestia, in her paranoia, felt that the treacherous, ungrateful crystal ponies might attack Equestria, or even worse ally with the Griffin Empire and then attack Equestria. So she ordered the mass relocation of ponies from the northern provinces that's mentioned in "An Early Reunion." From there, history proceeds as described in "Symphony of the Moon and Sun."

The Crystal Empire did not ally with the griffins, nor attack Equestria. It remained resentful of Equestria for many years afterwards, but Luna has managed by now to normalize relations with the Empire. Today it's back to being a steadfast ally of Equestria - though it's also, along with Cavallia, one of the few outside nations that understands just how dangerous Corona truly is to the entire world (and not just Equestria).

King Sombra...dunno what to do with him, but I'm sure there's something.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. I'm open to others!

Yes, Lunaverse is safe, until next episode or what ever else they have planned.

The empire doesn't necessarily need to be large, though it really depends on whether we learn anything else about Crystal ponies but due to their nature, their magic ETC they could be closer so some sort of "sect" or something... then again if I remember a separate map I've seen the Crystal empire is apparently huge so probably not.
Please just ignore me, I'm crazy

Hheheh loved King Sombra motive, must have made making decrees very difficult.

Anyway on to the changes, interesting idea, and I certainly agree there's a disturbing number of similarities between Sombra and Grogar and the whole disappeared empire thing.
Though we may see more of Sombra later in the season.

I can see Celestia pulling something like that, road of good intentions and all that. Though it does set Sombra up as being kinda weak, but he was a disappointing villain to begin with.
I kinda like the justification behind Ceelstia ordering the relocation, though considering some places would probably be further form the griffon than Canterlot, it wasn't the wisest choice.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. I'm open to others!

i'd suggest something but i'm to tired.
though I wonder how the crystal ponies will take Celestia return, and what differences does the "Crystal magic" or what ever have, I wish more had been explained

Anyway cool post.
Do we get a review of the episodes?

Aww, I had a decent headcanon for the L!crystal empire, but as RDD mentioned, it probably is to similar to the whole thing with Tambelon.

My idea mostly revolved around Sombra flinging the empire forward through time as his dying act, in order to try and save it from Celestia. From what RDD is saying, it sounds like Celestia just showed up and started flinging solar flares around without bothering to try and negotiate.

Seeing as I'm not allowed to talk about Celestia/Corona anymore, I won't comment on that part. I will say that the plans for the Empire are all right, although it's a shame there won't be any wife-tossing escapades this time around.

What I figured from the episode was that the Empire used to be much larger, but Sombra's reign pretty much wrecked the place beyond repair, leaving only the capital standing. When he was defeated, he cursed the place out of a petty "If I can't have it, neither can you" way. I'd imagine he'd try the same thing before she-who-must-not-be-name fried him...and from the sound of it, 90% of the Empire as well.

491508

Do we get a review of the episodes?

I already did one. And that's my shameless self-promotion quota for today.

Just you wait. Something is gonna come along and throw a damn monkey wrench into the whole machine. From there... Well, have you seen ANYONE write anything that deviates from canon these days? If it ain't canon, it dies., plain and simple. Heck, a few good fics I have read on this site grinded into a complete halt, simply because the source material conflicted with canon....

And then there was one where a particularly whiny nutjob didn't just complained, but bitched to the author to conform to canon, I shit you not. Now granted, it was probably just a troll being what they do best. But it makes me think. if almost everything HAS to conform to what the show has, does this mean doing so at the cost of removing something that you pour your soul into? Will anyone even appreciate the deviation? Why bother writing fanfiction that didn't have Shining Armor, Cadence and the changelings, simply due to being written before hand and having material that contradicts canon. Or even writing anything, your own idea going to be inevitably ousted for show accuracy sakes?

These days, I am always in fear when an episode comes out. What will it do to alter the continuum? What shall be forced to change in order to accommodate whatever the show creators have put in there, ill regardless of whether you like it or not?

Gah.... Sorry, just venting steam. Please skip over and disregard this comment.

Continuing onward.... Ugh... So I ask, why bother being original? It seems that the show will write it out for you. Is there any point in going into detail about the operations of the Wonderbolts? Pfft. Then comes an episode that blows whatever you put into creating the Wonderbolts organization into the water. Failing that, it will force you to either conform or get rid of anything that takes offense. Simply erasing it from all existence. (Again, just venting. Skip comment. Just writing vainly.)

I mean, look at Season 1 Luna, or hell, any of the of the old stories made back in the previous Summer. So many of them are officially out of character. So is there any point in continuing them, when it is inevitable that the majority of the fanbase that reads them will complain that it isn't consistent with the new canon? Why bother reading the old, when you know that disappointment looms in the horizon? It's worthless nostalgia, all completely moot. Its the general rule that fanon must conform to canon, or face the risk of rejection from the general populace. If even one thing isn't in line, such as the Wedding episode didn't happen in your timeline, simply because it was made previously before, then eventually it will phased out and forgotten. Luna's personality from the first season is a perfect example of this. Her fanmade personality was something I could identify with. Canon Luna? At this point, its like comparing Apples and Oranges. But does anyone use her S1 form anymore?

No. Effective the day that episode aired, S1 Luna died alone and forgotten, discarded like a filthy towel. (Example why you were warned to skip comment. Overemotional idiot. Disregard and move on.) Yet no one even seems to notice but myself. Now if you don't force in all the Thous, Thees, Thines and the occasional Royal Canterlot voice, then she is now out of character. Luna was a blank slate for me, a chance to add a personality where there was none before. She was a flexible character. But now that Luna has been given an identity.... I question why I should even consider her use in the present, knowing in the knowledge that it will be panned for an obsolete form of a character that didn't have but two lines to her name in S1.

Pt1

491503

King Sombra did his thing, angry at the fact that he could only speak in monster-noises (or maybe something with more gravitas, but whatever).

The prevailing fanon seems to be that King Sombra was perfectly rational and coherent when he was an evil unicorn ruling the Crystal Empire, but being transformed into shadow and trapped beneath the ice for a thousand years basically made him into an amorphous mass of anger and hatred. When his body reformed on proximity to the Crystal Heart, he was probably back to his old self, and if Cadance hadn't grabbed the Heart, everything would be back the way it was before Celestia and Luna's intervention.

I do like the idea of Lunverse!Celestia nuking the hell out of Sombra as part of her descent into madness. She would need to have been pretty brutal for the crystal ponies to consider her intervention to be worse than being Sombra's slaves, but I'm sure she could manage. In the show, the princesses were clearly using the Elements of Harmony on Sombra, so if it was just Celestia/Corona, using the Orbital Solar Flare Cannon that she later threatened to use on Canterlot, then that's very symbolic.

The Crystal Empire on the map doesn't look very... arctic. I think the show is working on the assumption that there aren't any major countries outside Equestria - there's basically Equestria and wastelands. This sort of thing always happens when one tries to draw a map of a show that's still ongoing.

I have the strangest urge to name the Empire's capital city Skeksis...or urRu...or urSkek...

It certainly did have plenty of dark crystals when Sombra was in charge.

I like the way relations work between the Crystal Empire and Equestria. It's cool to see Luna getting a minor victory in diplomatic relations.

The show seemed to imply pretty strongly that Cadance is part of some sort of prophecy about the "Crystal Princess", or that she's descended from the old Empire's royal family or something. I don't think any of that fits in the Lunaverse (or even in the Nightmare Moon version in "Crisis on Two Equestrias"), given what we know about Cadance's birth and the fact that she has her own kingdom to rule. Shall we just ignore that bit entirely? Who is the current ruler of the Crystal Empire, in that case?

Final question - what is the current state of the Crystal Heart? According to Celestia in the episode, whatever emotions the Heart reflects are beamed all over Equestria by the Aurora Borealis. Obviously it's not full of anger and hate the way it was under Sombra's rule, but it might not exactly be hope and love either, especially once Celestia was finished "saving" them. Maybe the Crystal Empire's fear and resentment towards Celestia was reflected by the Crystal Heart and broadcast over the world, making Luna's restoration work that much harder?

King Sombra did his thing, angry at the fact that he could only speak in monster-noises (or maybe something with more gravitas, but whatever).

... probably the something with more gravitas, but still a funny notion.

Anyway, I like most of what you've outlined save maybe a few points.

1) Technically the region was referred to in the show as the arctic, which would mean any country north of it would have to be frozen over, so placing it south of the Griffin empires seems a bad idea.

2) I think Luna should still have gone to help Celestia fight Sombra. Thier history is supsed to be that the fought together to defend ponies against monsters and evil so Celestia leaving her sister behind seems OOC. I think it would be better for Luna to be first hand to observe the violence that Celestai uses to resolve the issue, if this is to so closely come before there conflict with each other I think it adds to the tension.

3) I'm not sure that relations with the crystal ponies should be something that got fixed in the intervening centuries, or at least the tensions should still run very thick. I'd rather see forming a proper alliance with the empire as a story we tell with the L6 being sent as envoys, possibly along with the restored Celestia herself to assuage their fears that 'Corna' is once again on Equestria throne. Though I suppose the greater issue thier could be that the crystal ponies are threating to cease relations rather than that they've been isolationists for the past 1000. Still that would be a story for S3, or maybe even S4 so it's far too early to make a big deal out of it either wat.

...

As for what to do with L!Sombra; probably best to wait to see what if anything more the show does with him, though for right now my opinion is that he's long dead and gone. We've got better villains of our own to work with and don't really need Growly McShadowpants.

491724

The show seemed to imply pretty strongly that Cadance is part of some sort of prophecy about the "Crystal Princess", or that she's descended from the old Empire's royal family or something. I don't think any of that fits in the Lunaverse (or even in the Nightmare Moon version in "Crisis on Two Equestrias"), given what we know about Cadance's birth and the fact that she has her own kingdom to rule.

That would be the biggest wrinkle. Then again, prophecy doesn't seem to exist at all in the Lunaverse, unless there's some mention of it somewhere that I forgot about.

491732

I think Luna should still have gone to help Celestia fight Sombra. Thier history is supsed to be that the fought together to defend ponies against monsters and evil so Celestia leaving her sister behind seems OOC. I think it would be better for Luna to be first hand to observe the violence that Celestai uses to resolve the issue, if this is to so closely come before there conflict with each other I think it adds to the tension.

The problem with that is that unless you phrase it very close to when Corona was banished, it means that Luna got a full-on demonstration of her sister's insanity, but decided to sit on her hooves. Given how bad things were supposed to get by that point, Luna's inaction would make her in many ways almost as bad as her sister. And we can't have that, now can we?

...Damn, I wasn't supposed to do that anymore.

We've got better villains of our own to work with and don't really need Growly McShadowpants.

...Is it bad for me to say that Sombra made a better villain than Greengrass? Okay, the Duke's not that bad, but he's dangerously close.

491625 Honestly, if canon contradicts an idea of mine, I just run with my idea anyway. If people want to bitch at me because my story isn't one hundred-and-ten percent completely show-accurate, that's their problem. (For example, The Atlantis Scenario, which I thought of before it was confirmed that Sombra was a unicorn, portrays him as being a 'chimera') Hell, technically all Fanfiction for everything should have an AU tag, because does anyone really think that something like, say, Celestia Hates Tea or The Party Hasn't Ended or Past Sins would become an episode?

As for the Luna bit, we've already had this conversation.

491732 I agree he's probably dead and gone, as that seems to be the show's style. Though it would be cool to finally have a more overarching story and continuity, and see if they could expand 'Growly McShadowpants' past his narrow first impression. And I agree on the wait a bit with the whole Corona/Celestia/Crystal empire story, though now would be a good time to plan ahead a bit; at the very least drop a few mentions so it doesn't feel completely out of the blue, like Canon!Shining was in S2.

491748
Zecora claims to have the gift of prophecy, and if I had done "Tameblon" our very first scene would have been in Corona's volcano lair with Zecora delivering one concerning the return of Tambelon. Something rhyme-y and which Corona misinterprets as meaning that Luna is going to try and release Grogar.

Other than that, nothing.

The problem with that is that unless you phrase it very close to when Corona was banished, it means that Luna got a full-on demonstration of her sister's insanity, but decided to sit on her hooves.

If we go that route, I was imagining no more than a few weeks before Celestia decided to crown herself Queen of Everything. Celestia and Luna go to deal with things, Celestia sees the state of the Crystal Empire, sees that Grogar Sombra is trying to do the same to northern Equestria, and she gets filled with righteous anger and drops the solar flare on Skeksis before Luna can stop her. Sombra survives because magic, Celestia is going to just staight up murder him but Luna intercedes and banishes him beneath the ice via the Elements before she can do anything. Afterwards Celestia is chewing her out for interceding and only stops when the crystal ponies demand that both just GTFO (they don't know that Luna wasn't involved and don't care, at the moment, to hear any explenation). Celestia over the next few weeks comes to the "logical" conclusion that the crystal ponies were actually working WITH Sombra, with intentions towards Equestria, while Luna finally realizes just how insane her sister has become.

On a side note, I had assumed that the scene of Celestia and Luna just zapping Grogar Sombra away was an abbreviated version of what happened, shown for Twilight's convenience, and not that Sombra was literally defeated within the span of a few seconds.

...

...my kitty is lying down on half my keyboard...it's really awkward...

491748

The problem with that is that unless you phrase it very close to when Corona was banished, it means that Luna got a full-on demonstration of her sister's insanity, but decided to sit on her hooves.

I'll acnkowledge that issue, but RDD did seem to suggest that Celestia started the whole relocation of ponies thing after this incident which was pretty much the last big tyrannical thing she did be for the sisters fought for the destiny of the land., so that would indeed seem to place the events close together. (though RDD seems to have beaten me to the punch.

Luna's inaction would make her in many ways almost as bad as her sister. And we can't have that, now can we?

I'd think she'd take steps, but they would be personal trying to talk with her sister privately about her anger issues. Probably ending with Luna thinking she got through to her sister and made her understand only to later find out how mistaken she was.

Also our Luna was a emmo goth chick who was turning to dark magic as a drug to escape the sense of isolation she felt. So umm... yeah, I think her being part of the problem of how things managed to get so bad that the sisters had to fight it out and one banish the other for 1000 years is pretty well established.

...Is it bad for me to say that Sombra made a better villain than Greengrass?

That's a fair opinion, even if I disagree.

Either way though, we've still got Corona and Discord to resolve, plus whatever we might do with Chrysalis in S3, so I'd say we have more than enough time to wait on making any choices in regards to Sombra.

491761

...my kitty is lying down on half my keyboard...it's really awkward...

Mine has been trying to do pretty much the same.

491761

I would say that it's a pretty big stretch of logic right there (in both instances), but Celestia/Corona is supposed to be insane, so there you go. As per our agreement, that's all I'll say.

...my kitty is lying down on half my keyboard...it's really awkward...

At least your kitty made it onto the keyboard. Mine missed the jump and ended up digging his claws into my hand.

I thought Sombra looked cool, but we really didn't get to see anything of him. We could honestly probably turn him into a really badass character if we wanted to. I'd love to do something on him, maybe a side-story or something to that effect.

491503 How about this...

100X years ago (cue Megaman theme ), Sombra, a unicorn mercenary, became a general for the Crystal Empire. He fell in love with the Crystal Queen. When she was assasinated by a rival power before she could produce an heir he declared himself King of the Crystal Empire and declared war on the other country. Seeking more and more power to win the war he made a pact with darkness, selling part of his essence to shadows, becoming himself part shadows. Sadly the part that was taken also included his ability to love. Now a creature of anger and shadow he became even more ruthless and soon treated his own subject like slaves.

Celestia, already teetering on the brink saw the rise of this new power and saught to stamp it out before Sombra could turn into the next Grogar. She went without telling Luna to confront Sombra. Without regard for the population the two fought over the capital. Celestia made short destroyed Sombra, but in her fury she also destroyed the capital, and possibly the Crystal Heart itself. Now without its warmth the Crystal Empire became subject to the terrible winters of the North. the heart of the Crystal Ponies became cold, bitter and distant. Luna managed to win their trust back, but not their friendship.

If we want to have Sombra's legacy affect the present we could always have a crystal pony find a piece of his horn and become posessed by his dark power!

491793
Not bad, but considering there are rumors floating around that Sombra's going to be the show's first arc villain, I think we should wait to see how/if that pans out before doing any major world building around him.

491819 We can play around a bit with it, we got time. The main thing I wanted to propose is that instead of being trapped in ice, Celestia just solar flared his ass and blew up the capital city.

491832
I agree with the solar-flare part. As to the rest, I we've still got Discord and Chrysalis to go through, not to mention Corona. So I'm hesitant to waste the effort on Sombra right now. Don't let me stop you or anyone else from trying, it just seem exceedingly premature to me, especially when the show might not even be done with him yet..

491841 Obviously. But it would allow us to have... say a Crystal Pony show up before we actually get to do something with Sombra. I think it would make the Lunaverse very different if the Crystal Ponies never dissapeared. But we obviously can wait for a while before we decide.

491847
I'm fine with that, but we don't want to play our hand to soon either. The bulk of a Crystal Empire fic has a lot of potential to be worked into Celestias redemption which means waiting till our S3 or S4.

We could still maybe have individual crystal ponies traveling outside their home land though.

491853 I was thinking they could have good trade relationships with Elkheim and the Hippogriff State. I could have a Crystal Pony trader appear when I go and write that Elkheim story.

491857
Sound good to me.

491759 What can I say? I am a stuck up whiny bitch.
Pftt.

491896 What does that have to do with anything?

491896 We could always use more of that around rather than more sycompant so we won't hold it against you

Would Crystal pony's still be crystal outside their capital?

491920 A sycompant? What... And why would you want an annoying, whiny bitch boy to ruin your day?
I know I wouldn't. In fact, given the choice, I would blast them and humiliate them on a personal level.

491907 Uh... I got the impression that you thought the comment was meek and childish... And quite frankly, I agree....
I tend to ramble alot when there is something on my mind.... My comments are the results of these delusions....
And you said we met before... Though I have forgotten where.... Could you refresh my memory?

Something I'd be interested in finding something more about is why the Crystal Empire is called an Empire. Going by the map its one of the smaller countries and doesn't look like it rules over other countries in any way. Is it a rump state which inherited its title from a previous larger empire? Is it just trying to sound bigger than it actually is for some reason?

Enquiring minds want to know.

491983
that is a good question if i recall empire usually need another kingdom underneath them, so maybe the crystal empire took something form Eqauestria... I have no idea, the show probably just wanted to sound cool.

I agree the Crystal Empire needs to be further north.

As for canon/continuity... meh. They're two different things: Canon is everything you can reference and assume the fans will get it, and it includes not only stuff that's actually in the show's continuity, but things like Ditzy Doo liking muffins. Continuity is a single, internally consistent world (or at least it tries to be internally consistent), and the Lunaverse is already its own continuity. I don't think it should be bound to always agree with the show's continuity, especially as time goes on--sooner or later the show *will* contradict something that the Lunaverse established as occurring prior to the two worlds' branch-off point 1,000 years ago.

Quick question: Are the Crystal Ponies all Earth ponies (which seemed to be the case in the episodes..?) or do they include crystal pegasi and unicorns? I'm considering having the Daughters of Discord be a crystalpunk band, but I've already got in my head that the guitarist is a unicorn and the drummer a pegasus.

491748

Seriously? Greengrass is my favorite pony villain! Weeding out the weaknesses that make the system falter? As the special talent of a politician? That's *terrifying*! The slightest nudge and he becomes pony Hitler!

could the crystal ponies have moved away after Celestia went nuts?
If she and Sombra did enough combined damage, maybe it wasn't worth staying to fix seeing as they weren't banished for a thousand years, thus allowing nay damage done to heal over the thousand year in canon.

491983 Maybe we could movei t around that lake in the Hyppogriff state, we can say that the Crystal Empire, 1500 years or so ago, had conquered Elkheim and ruled over what is now the Hypogriff state as well as a few neighbhoring Griffon Kingdom! All of that collapsed down after Celestia solar flare'd their capital. The Hypogriff went and created their land in what was mostly empty space (just a few farms who didn't mind new neigbhors), and Elkheim and the Griffon protectorate reclaimed their independance. There is no bad blood left between the Crystal Empire and the other countries (save for the griffons who don't trust ponies much) and they all have good trade relationships with one another.

Oooh... IMAGINE: Crystal Hypogriffs!!

492157

He's a flat, boring antagonist who's only awesome because the narration keeps telling us he's awesome. At the very least, Sombra had enough forethought to outsmart our heroes; he was stopped only because Spike was there to pinch hit and Shining was skilled in Wife Tossing. Greengrass is just your run-of-the-mill politician character archetype, nothing more.

492330
I can't get over how much I love the line, "wife tossing" now, you are to blame for this!

and I thank you

I need to find a GIF of that scene, it could work in so many situations.

492157: *beams* I'm glad you like the character!

As for Crystal Ponies, I rather like RDD's suggestion. An 'L6 ambasador' episode to the crystal empire might be fun later.

498389: Oh, so that's what Trixie and Rarity's daughter looks like. :-)

498389 CRYSTAL TRIXIE!! It's amazing!

I love the Crystal Ponies' greco-roman style manes!

498395
Shh... better not let Vazak here you saying that, he gets touchy whenever folks rock his Raintrix boat.

492150

Quick question: Are the Crystal Ponies all Earth ponies (which seemed to be the case in the episodes..?) or do they include crystal pegasi and unicorns?

Well in the episode the M6, Cadance, and even Spike, all got transformed by the Crystal Heart, if only teporarily.

Personal headcanon: crystal ponies are not a distinct tribe unto themselves. Rather, the empire was founded by a group of homogenous earth ponies who after generations of exposure to the Crystal Heart have been permanently transformed (thus why they never lose their polygon eye-reflections or shinny manes). In theory there could be unicorns, pegasia, or even whole other specious as well that are crystalline, but I'd think they'd all be far more rare than the earth pony variety.

I'm also inclined to say they can only maintain full luster in proximity to the heart and so wouldn't be full jewel looking outside the nation (possible even not outside the capitol).

498389
that is awesomeness unleashed!

I'm planning on putting a crystal pony into the next chapter of The Jackelope Valley Festival, so here's what I'm thinking:

She's a musician who specializes in the crystaphone, a musical instrument from the Crystal Empire. Specifically, it's carved from emotion-amplifying crystal in such a way that it produces sound based on the emotions of the pony playing it. In the hands of an amateur, it makes emotional noise--in other words, it translates happiness into happy noise, anger into angry noise, and so on, but still sounds basically like static or banging noises or what have you, not really music. At the opposite extreme of skill, a crystaphone master can balance the emotions they feed into it to create complex emotional soundscapes that normally require several instruments to create.

Crystalcore is a musical genre that combines rock instruments with a crystaphone to create passionate, energetic music that fulfills more or less the same musical niche as our world's metal, especially the more melodic forms of metal (more like symphonic metal than Slayer, in other words).

You don't have to be a crystal pony to play the crystaphone, but most of the best crystaphone players are crystal ponies. Most of the best crystaphone players also look down on crystalcore as not requiring as much skill or finesse as classical crystaphone.

The crystal-ness of crystal ponies does come from generations of exposure to the Crystal Heart, but it doesn't wear off for a pony who grew up there, or at least it takes months or years to wear off.

492330

really Cadence didn't need to be thrown to the heart. Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy could have flown up there. Or Rarity might have been able to grab it with telekinesis.

498523
Interesting love the idea behind Crystal core, really original and sounds awesome!

498523
Really liking the idea of crystaphone as a musical instrument, and the idea of crystal core as a metal equivalent seems workable as well

The crystal-ness of crystal ponies does come from generations of exposure to the Crystal Heart, but it doesn't wear off for a pony who grew up there, or at least it takes months or years to wear off.

I wouldn't so much see it as their crystalness ever being able to wear off, but proximity to the hear might effect how crystally they are.

As I would see it the bottom image, where they look like walking jewels, is how they look only within the borders of the empire itself. The middle is how they'd generally appear while traveling abroad (though during times of intense emotional exhilaration they can still temporally achieve full luster), while not as overtly jewel like I'd expect there coats would still glisten and spakle. To reach a lack of luster such as the very top image would require them to spend months or even years away from home, and even then they retain crystalline features that make them look distinct from normal ponies; most noticeably the eyes.

498523: I really like the idea. My only concern is that crystallophones are real things which aren't this, but that shouldn't be too big of a deal.

(That said, it'd be neat if the crystal ponies were at least aware of more prosaic 'crystal' instruments like the cristal organ and the glass harmonica

Does the crystalphone require telekinesis to play, or can any tribe play it?

498869

That's why I called it a crystaphone instead.

No, I'm thinking it's based on similar crystal to the Crystal Heart. You basically just sit in front of one and feel at it, and it makes noises in response. Basically anypony can play it in the sense of getting it to make sounds, but it takes enormous skill to control it and get it to sound good.

498988
I'd prefer it if it required actual physical contact like the afore mentioned crystallophones. Emotions augment the music, but it's still an actual instrument in and of itself.

... something like a Glass Armonica or at least a Zeusaphone.

498988>>499019
I would have made it something in-between myself, basically you move around it in a sort of dance/motion and depending on where you are the motions the feeling ETC it changes how the sound comes out.
but that's just me, and Ii'll be looking forward to what ever is written regardless Froborr.

498988 I think it would look more dynamic if it at least involved moving your hooves. Different crystal would be different note, but the emotion would decide the octave and the intensity of the noise. That way you could have a more complex sound than just one note after the other. Or maybe make it look like something of a crystal theremin?