Previously, I thought that “Ponyville” is actually short for “Earth Pony Village.” However, recent discoveries allow me to produce a much better hypothesis.
I’ve been planning to write something of the sort for a while.
Because while I’m writing all those research notes about “canon,” I don’t actually elaborate what exactly “canon” is, why does it matter, and what all these posts with “canon research” tag really are for.
This is much more off-the-ground theorizing than my typical article on the subject, but eh, why not, canon is sparse, and fanon on the subject is sparser still.
Now that I’ve actually brought this up in Aporia, and got complaints that I’m being incongruous, I need to do something about it, since my readers are probably not quite as familiar with secondary canon as I am.
I said that I want to do a collation post on the state of pony technology observed in canon. The Points of Canon series is still a ways off from being complete, but I think I have enough data, so why not do it now.
If you’ve been reading my posts regularly, you’ll know my special hate for the word “moon” as a measure of time.
So I dedicate this post to one of the biggest unanswered questions of chromatic hippology: how long a moon actually is? Because it’s clearly not a synonym for a month.
This post is not as much of a good investigation as usual, in that it does not present a solid conclusion. We have bloody little to go on. It is, nevertheless, the most detailed collation of data I could make and an invitation to discussion.
(Lad|Fill)ies and gentle(colts|men), I present to you the Other Sith Problem:
If twitter discussions with show staff are to be believed, all comics are supposed to be canon. Of course, saying that simply means they don’t understand the question, because occasionally, irreconcilable differences arise.
In expanded universes like that, we generally consider one of the mediums the primary source, while everything else is secondary, and in case of contradictions, the primary source takes precedence.
This is not my usual fully researched and cited post, but just an observation. Potentially an important one though.
First, let me delineate for the purposes of this post and all the subsequent ones in that vein…
Celestia moves the sun. This much is not only stated ceaselessly throughout the pony lore, but is actually demonstrated empirically: When Celestia is not available, the sun does not move. If nothing else, this is proof positive that anything that can restrain Celestia can at least also stop the sun.
My previous argument regarding the nobility of Equestria leaves one interesting issue unresolved. It so happens that this issue is both very minor, and at the same time, has some rather far-reaching consequences for the interpretation of the rest of the canon.
When writing this chapter of Aporia, which drags Shining Armor into the narrative and primes a lot of what this esteemed stallion will be doing for the rest of the story, this question came up repeatedly: Just what is the Royal Guard and what does it actually do?
Because I have to decide just what exactly it is that Shining Armor is a captain of, if only to mention it. This is more complicated than it sounds.
Minor canon research tidbit follows.
Those cute pony-isms get used in primary canon constantly – “everypony,” “somepony.” Around fandom, you can also see “everygriff” and even “everyling,” to name but a few – though I’ve yet to see “everytaur.”
Now riddle me this: How often do these non-pony versions of pony-isms actually show up in canon?
There’s a common, though not dominant, fan theory floating around, that ponies use octal, rather than decimal.
It’s clever. It would make sense. That’s why it’s probably wrong. :)
So let me dig into canon sources and try to weasel out if they say anything about what ponies use for calculations and how do they measure their time when they aren’t using the deliberately ambiguous moons.
I’m not sure why exactly, but the words “best princess” are much more often applied to Luna than Celestia, so I’ll go with that. This is not a statement of preference for either princess, but another long-winded research post, and Luna is just the subject of said research.
And the question I am aiming to answer today is:
Why, exactly, was Luna, apparently, forgotten entirely, and Nightmare Moon was an “old ponies’ tale?”
Discord’s alleged rule of Equestria has been an oft-repeated notion in horse writing, and there is much praise to be said for some of the depictions, just as there are those of them which didn’t turn out so well. However, the subject of today’s musing is…
…When did it happen? What was it like? And, did it even really happen?
As usual, a question more complicated than it appears.
In an earlier post in this series, I have studied the canon regarding the features of Equestrian celestial mechanics, and concluded that Equestria has to be a ridiculously small, spherical planet in a geocentric system with an artificial, manually controlled sun and moon.
Now riddle me this: Why do ponies think of other planets at all?
Let’s do some more canon welding.
In fandom, most commonly, Equestria is called a diarchy. Because it is ruled by two princesses, and one would make it a monarchy. Which gets muddled when two princesses become three, then Crystal Empire turns up, and then Twilight grows wings and gets to be a princess too, so we go from stereo-archy all the way to quadraphonic.
Sometimes, it’s a principality, for the same reason. Occasionally, it’s a feudal… something. More often than not, it’s an empire.
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