Chapter 9: The World Before Discord
Twilight Sparkle
"It was my fault."
Shock stung Twilight Sparkle at Luna's words. The room seemed to spin around her.
"No ... Luna ..." Twilight said. "How? ... it's not possible ..."
"I was there," replied Luna grimly, her voice pained. "I know what I did. And what I failed to do. The fault was mine."
"But ..." Twilight protested, looking up at Luna's face. She noticed that Luna did not seem to want to meet her gaze -- instead the midnight-blue Alicorn jerked her head away, her mouth twisting. "Princess Celestia told me what happened ..." Twilight said. "None of you remembered who you really were. Nopony figured it out until it was too late. You didn't know ..." a horrible thought came into her head. She steppd back, asked in a small voice "Did you?"
Luna looked down. "I did not know," she admitted. "But I should have guessed. I knew more than the others. Knew it longer. I just did not want to admit ... did not want to admit what I had learned. What I had done. What I had meant to do. I was too ashamed ... hurt in my own daft vain pride, while our doom was rising amongst us ...a foolish, foalish little filly, for all that my form was full-grown ..."
"I don't understand ..." said Twilight softly. "What you did, what you failed to do ... what happened?"
"I am dancing about the truth," Luna said. "I do not wish to speak it. I fear the moment when I tell thee, when I see the admiration in your eyes change to scorn. Your friendship has meant so much to me of late, and I do not want thee to think me base. But if I do not tell thee, thou wilt not understand, thou wilt keep hoping for the best from Discord ... I cannot betray thee, as I betrayed my kin before. I cannot let it happen again ... I must tell. I shall tell ..." she paused for a moment.
"I shall tell it all," said Luna. "From the start. As it began here, in the centuries after the coming of the Ice, when Equestria was new and Paradise Estate was so very old ..."
"Twenty-five hundred, four-and-twenty years ago ... when I was born ..."
***
Luna
Dost thou know what a strange world it was then? How big? How wide? How dangerous?
It was fourteen hundred, two-and-fifty years since the Cataclysm tore thy world asunder. We were closer to it in time than thou art today to the first defeat of Discord. The scars of that terrible day, when gigaton explosions blossomed from the backlash of the failed Great Work, when the lands shook and the mountains spouted fire, when the seas slopped over the lands and the lands rose up from the bottom of the sea, when the towers fell and Ponykind was plunged screaming into never-ending nightmare -- they were newer both on the world and in the minds of Ponies than they are today.
There had been eight billion Ponies alive on Earth when the day of Cataclysm dawned. There were eight hundred million when Night cast its kindly veil over the ruins of what had been a great global civilization. A year later, scarce eighty million survived. Put simply, but one in a hundred Ponies had lived.
These numbers, mine own dear friend, are easy to speak. Numbers are simple and clean. Numbers are not vaporized too quickly to understand what is happening; or badly burned but left to perish in unspeakable anguish over a few remaining hours of life; or crippled and forced into an unequal struggle for survival in a newly hostile world, untreated wounds bringing pain at every step in their last days or weeks of existence. Numbers do not weep over dead husbands or foals; numbers do not wander uncomprehendingly through the ruins of what had been their world; numbers are not forced to do dreadful things to survive. Numbers are not cast down from the heights of easy lives in an advanced technological civilization to labor unceasingly to live in a world turned into an Iron Age hell.
Numbers do not suffer. Ponies did. Each of those nine-and-ninety in a hundred who died suffered in her own way, and each of those one in a hundred who survived knew the anguish of dead friends and family, wondered why she had been chosen to survive when so many for whom she cared had not been so fortunate. Most were, by the standards of the time in which they had been born, quite mad.
That is what I mean by scars on Pony minds. Those who survived did so by forcing themselves to become harsh, even cruel by the standards of the Ponies they had been before. A hundred years later, when the Pony populations reached their nadir, and only forty million Ponies lived on a planet that had once held two hundred times as many, the new societies that sprang up were firmly based on loyalty to one's own, and callousness to everypony else. It was a barbaric and savage, a deeply-demoralized world.
And yet Ponies rose again! That is the most marvelous thing about the species which I have chosen to become. Nothing defeats you for long, If even some of you survive, you will form families, clans, tribes, tribal nations ... you will be moved by the desire to do good to one another, rediscovering compassion, ethics and morality. Only a complete annihilation could stop you -- and as long as my Sister and I remember you, even that might not suffice, for we would do our best to recreate you on some new world. For one of the greatest victories of survival Ponykind has won, unawares, was in winning Our admiration and friendship.
A thousand years after the Cataclysm, there were perhaps a hundred million Ponies upon the Earth. Of these the vast majority were subject to other races -- to the Dragons, the Griffons, the Water-Serpents, so many other creatures. In one place alone did Ponies mostly rule themselves -- the northern parts of North Amareica. The climate was different then, the Earth much hotter, in what geologists call a Thermal Maximum. Where we are now was a steaming jungle; and away from the rivers barren deserts. The habitable regions were all in the northlands, especially around the Arctic Ocean, which was then free of ice.
In what was then the fertile southern reach, on the north shore of the Great Lake, stood the Crystal City, that very same one that last year thee didst help free from its tyrant. Founded by university scholars who fled the Cataclysm, it preserved a treasure of ancient books, containing lore from the Age of Wonders. You have yet to find many of them, as they were later hidden in a Secret Archive -- I see your ears perk at this; mayhap we might search for them together some time? I have some ideas where ... he ... may have put them.
Further north and to the west, the Three Tribes lived in a loose confederation on the Arctic coast. Each Tribe needed the other two, yet despised them. Closeness and hatred frequently bred anger, which sometimes led to violence, and there simmered hatreds which grew greater as time passed and the populations grew in the Old Tribelands.
Thou knowest what those hatreds drew from the depths of Void. The Windigoes came, and with them came the Ice. The Arctic Ocean froze solid, the fertile fields were deluged in snow and the glaciers grew and pounced from their mountain fastnesses. What had been the Old Homeland of the Tribes became the Northern Waste, home to Windigoes and Frost Giants and creatures less easily describable. Those who did not leave, or could not leave with sufficient haste -- no doubt their frozen corpses are still locked in the eternal ice.
Oh, she told thee about that? Well enow, for that was something I would fain not have revealed myself. Do not blame her for what she did, dear Twilight, for she was Cosmic then, and the Cosmic do not understand the ways of mortals, and I know she meant good to Ponykind. We have great power in our higher state, but for all our mighty intellects so little understanding of what it is to be limited. tp be mortal. We are ruthless -- I am glad to be Incarnate. I do not like my Cosmic self.
I can believe that her self cared. She has always been warmer than I. I speak only for myself, and I know that I am a force of destruction, which I with great effort try to turn to the defense of creation, and sometimes succeed in so doing. I know that I am of nature cruel, and my Cosmic self is crueller still. Thou shalt know this thyself someday, about Gravity, when we both discarnate, and we meet without the distractions of flesh.
Thou might be kind. I can easily imagine thee as kind, even when thou doth become naked Magic. But I ... I am not.
So civilization fell, for a second time in under a millennium. There was much death and suffering -- all of those in the Tribes endured freezing cold and the pangs of hunger. Perhaps half perished in the course of the Migration. A light toll, compared to the Cataclysm, though it must have seemed heavy enow to the Ponies unfortunate enough to live in that age. Celestia may have told thee that the version you played at the pageant papers over some of the grimmer parts. There are old records in the Great Library of the Crystal City that do not make joyous reading.
Through the Cataclysm, through all the changes in climate, the dust winter that lasted for years, the great thermal maximum, the onset of the ice and its partial retreat, Paradise Estate had endured. Forged of the mystic substances of the Eldren, given unto the Ponies of Dream Valley by one of the last great mages of that magical race, it sat slightly outside of time and space, in the Halfworld of the legends, and those who dwelt there were immortal.
They were mortal by nature, of course. But the magic of the Rainbow was in them, and in that place, and it preserved them through the long centuries, as outside their walls Ponies lived normal lifespans -- or often greatly shortened ones, in the world after the Cataclsym. There were wards woven around that place, cast by the strange science of the Eldren, and few might come there which they did not wish to invite within. It was a place of peace and love, in a world of war and hatred. It was a fairyland, in which the beauty and grace of the time before the Cataclysm reigned unbroken.
But there was a price, as is often the case for fairylands. If they ventured outside, the hand of time would slowly but inexorably settle upon them, and they might live out only the remainder of their mortal spans before Death claimed them. And within Paradise Estate, there had long since ceased to be growth and new birth. It was a ghost of the Olden Times, a light of knowledge, of magic and science surviving into a dark future, but a light that was very slowly dying. One could sense it there, breathing the air of stasis, the scent of a long slow ceasing.
At its height, when Paradise Estate had been the heart of the Reclamation, the taking-back of the world after the Age of Annihilation that had nearly claimed Ponykind six thousand years before the present day, three and a half millennia before even the remote past in which I was born, many dozens of mares had lived there, and many more had visited. Each month a different Big Brother Herd would come in to meet and greet their kin and their lovers, and there would be festivals and stories and matings.
Dost thou know how they had lived then? The sexes were apart, with the mare herds sedentary and the smaller stallion herds -- the "Big Brothers" -- nomadic. They had not done that because they hated each other. The light of Love shone brightly in Ponies even back then, but sheer survival dictated that they not all live together, not put all their genetic lineages in one basket. If a mare herd, or a stallion herd, was annihilated -- by one of the many monstrous perils that made the Earth a death-world for Ponies then -- the other herd would live, and it bore their genetic legacies.
I see tears in thine eyes. Yes, Twilight, they mourned their lost lovers, their murdered parents and children. They did not wish their world to be so fatal to their dear ones, but they had no choice, for they were prey and their predators many and merciless. The oldest Ponies at Paradise Estate, the ones who remembered the time before even they had been granted the Estate, told me of those times, and more than once they cried at the memories.
Toward the end, a desperate few -- Wind Whistler and Firefly were the leaders of this faction -- had started to consider that the role of predator and prey was not divinely ordained, that there was no reason in theory why the Ponies could not fight back. But they were but a few, and they had no idea how to do in practice what Firefly had felt and Wind Whistler reasoned. And they knew that at the first failure, the others would lose all hope.
Then came Tirek the Annihilator, Tirek the Undying to their last refuge and Firefly crossed the Bridge and brought back The Megan, whose race had risen up as killer apes. And she taught them the last thing they needed to know. She taught them how to kill, how to kill without remorse. She slew Tirek, though he would of course in after ages be reborn. And she fought many other warlords and fell monsters.
And then a light came into the eyes of the Ponies of Dream Valley, and they lifted weapons in their hooves, and they turned upon their tormentors, with the example of The Megan and the leadership of Firefly and Wind Whistler, whom the Megan in person taught the ways of war. And the light spread to the other Ponies who had survived, and ... by the time of the Age of Wonders, the monsters were no longer upon the face of the Earth, and Ponykind flourished in its hundreds of millions. And in most times and places, husbands and wives and children dwelt all together, and feared not an early separation at the claws of the beasts.
Dost thou wonder that they made of The Megan a goddess? She had saved Ponykind, though in time most Ponies forgot that she had been of another species entirely. Apotheosis has happened for lesser causes.
But that had been long ago, and now but a dozen or so beings still dwelt in Paradise Estate. The others had left, one after another, to rejoin the mortal world and raise families, and one after another they fell victim to Death's long-deferred reaping. Often they helped the mortal Ponies among whom they settled -- you would be surprised how many towns and realms were founded, how many arts and sciences, were restored, after the Cataclysm, by Ponies who had first drawn breath in Dream Valley. Some of their labors were swept away by Discord in the ensuing age -- but not all.
They were mostly isolated. A few mages and sages knew of Paradise Estate, and some were allowed in past the wards, and the Ponies of the Estate sometimes traveled out -- it took time for the Rainbow's protection to fade from them, so they might do this safely if they did not tarry overlong in the mortal world. There was trade of a sort, and a slow flow of news and ideas in and out.
So the Ponies of Paradise Estate knew something of the outside world. Of Lake City, founded almost a millennium ago, which had mastered an art of growing houses from regular solids, and was already better known as the Crystal Empire. Of the Land of Manehattan, island of the ruined titan towers, wrested by trickery from the savage Minotaurs three centuries ago, whose Pegasus sailors and Earth Pony merchants sailed fearlessly across all the seas.
The stone city of Lith, far to the south where the warm waters of the Gulf River flowed from Mexicolt to the Stormy Sea, where the Earth Ponies had settled two centuries ago and were already raising a mighty civilization. The Pegasus cloud-fortress of Derecho, ally of the Crystal Empire, cruising the Northern skies and with great war-engines furnished them by the Crystal-Imperials, beating back the attempts of the Northern Wastes to expand into the lands of Ponies. The magnificent Heartspire of the Unicorns, not yet sunken into decadence and worse, towering into the heavens in the lands beyond Mexicolt.
Other lands farther away, whose names were fable but from which there sometimes came strange treasures, making their way to Paradise Estate in return for some aid or knowledge.
Lost Hyperborea, whose ruins held the mysteries of Pony origins but were guarded by the Gnoph-Keh and the Frost Giants. Lands across the Stormy Sea, such as the North-Lands ruled by the Dragons, and the Griffon-Kingdoms of Taura and North Zebrica, and the Zebra nations who dwelt beyond the Burning Sands far to the south. Brave cogs made their way there, blown by winds summoned by the Pegasus sailors, and packed with wares of the wily Earth Pony merchants of Manehattan, and brought back ivory, and apes and gold.
The Badlands to the South of our own country, in which it was said the shy and secretive Flutter-Ponies still dwelt. Paradise Estate had long dealings with their Queen Rosedust, though even they found it hard to find them at times. They had a prophecy of a great doom approaching, and feared it might come from any quarter. But they trusted us more than most, for Paradise Estate had never harmed them. Poor creatures! They might have done better to flee from us as well!
We could no longer contact the Sea-Ponies as we had of old. They had fled Ponykind before the Age of Wonders, and the Cataclysm had shocked them to take refuge in the remotest deeps. There they had already interbred with older races, and now called themselves the Deep Ponies, but we might sometimes find them, and they told us tales of elder realms beneath the waves, of Many-Columned Y'ha-nthneigh, of Deep Gll'ho, and far-off Primal R'lyeh where their dead god lay dreaming. They were still our friends, though they had grown apart from the other Kinds.
Many, many lands still farther out, that we heard of from travelers' tales. Neigh-Pon of the Hundred Daimyos, Chi-Neigh of the Ten Draconates. Too many to describe, too many to even name, for I am of course delaying thee, feeding thy wondering and hungry mind with these outlines of a world that was, and is no longer. My world, the world of my innocent fillyhood, the world that my folly helped destroy. Which is the dark ending to which my tale, whether I will it or no, shall of need wend.
It was a wide and a dangerous world. There were no airships, no steamships, no railroads. There were not even any really good roads, in most places. Realms were small and quarrelsome; the unity of the Migration long since broken down by the centrifugal forces of the Settlement of Equestria, and the poor leadership of inadequate heirs to Platinum and Hurricane and Puddinghead. Everywhere, warlords and robber barons and brigands and pirates, monsters and natural obstacles, trade and travel possible only by numerous and well-armed companies. Even the immortals, armed with strange magic, unique artifacts, the marvels of technology and the experience of ages, needed to tread warily in such a world.
It was into that world that we three were born. Myself ... and my Sister ... and Him.
Discord.
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Of course, Dissy was an innocent creature, and was no way evil, who geniunely loved his family and friends. And was the last time Discord was truly happy.
thou wilt keep hoping for the best from Discord
It's possible in this timeline, Fluttershy forced him to remember WHAT HE THREW AWAY . . . and couldn't bring himself to throw it away a SECOND time.
There had been eight billion Ponies alive on Earth when the day of Cataclysm dawned. There were eight hundred million when Night cast its kindly veil over the ruins of what had been a great global civilization. A year later, scarce eighty million survived. Put simply, but one in a hundred Ponies had lived.
Those numbers are EVEN WORSE than how I imagined it in the pony pov verse.
True on the bit about ponies, given everything that's been thrown at them, that they're still around is a testament to them.
The Windigoes came, and with them came the Ice.
That's one kindness to Celestia in this world, the Windigos were no sin of hers.
Oh, she told thee about that? Well enow, for that was something I would fain not have revealed myself.
Or was it after all?
She taught them how to kill, how to kill without remorse.
I wouldn't call it without remorse. Otherwise they'd have gone on to kill POTENTIAL threats opposed to ACTIVE threats. They were content to live their lives when not threatened.
Under the Sparkling Sea and the comics ironically suggest the seaponies still have a healthy relationship with Equestria.
And of course, the irony revealed, that the breezie Kind WASN'T lost when the Age Of Wishes were rectonned out of existence to save the timeline, even if they now basically have their own private pocket universe.
The fact Dissy doesn't exist as a ghost in his mind, IMHO suggests Dissy and Discord are one and the same after all, Discord just doesn't want to admit it. The OPPOSITE of Jekyll and Hyde, where it was the good side that didn't want to admit the evil side was still himself.
I find what Luna says ironic, since in the pony pov timeline, the point of the concept spending time as mortal by their parents is to TEACH THEM to understand mortals.
One must know the the rules for knowing when to break them. This chapter could be told in 5 thousand words of flashback, but Princess Luna tells it in 3 thousand words. This is excellent writing.
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I'm imagining that the fundamental difference between Dissy and Discord isn't identity at all but an overlay. If Dissy was the incarnate form, and he turned into a monster when his cosmic self devoured him... except that in Jordan's universe Discord is not his cosmic self, it's very clear that he's an incarnate... then what actually happened was not that Discord cosmic took over Dissy's body by devouring him, but that Discord was created by overlaying Discord cosmic's personality onto Dissy because Dissy had diverged too far. Dissy is still there but the signal that was an innocent child is easily drowned out by the noise created by overlaying an adult personality on top. (Honestly, most of us are that way... we just don't get there overnight.)
So Dissy does not and never did exist as a separate personality from Discord incarnate; rather, Discord cosmic's personality being overlaid onto Dissy's personality was what created Discord incarnate as we know him. Dissy is no more a separate persona than anyone's child self is separate from their adult self, but the need to conform to the adult personality -- which manifests both as the logical fear he expressed of being deleted by Discord cosmic, but also as a sense of emotional disgust with the parts of his own personality that are divergent -- has led Discord to try to suppress the signals he'd be getting from the Dissy side of his personality. Which is why Fluttershy is able to reach him in this universe -- there's something there that's reachable.
The beings that Discord consumes are entirely separate entities, with their own personalities and consciousnesses, so they remain who they are, more or less, albeit trapped. But Dissy was never actually separate. Dissy was who Discord might have been if he'd had decent parents and loving siblings rather than Havoc, Entropy and the rest of the Draconequui. This of course produced a highly divergent result, which is why the overlay was done... but now part of Discord knows what he might have been and can still feel the feelings that his might-have-been self would have felt. I don't think he realizes that the reason he was Dissy is that he always had the potential to be Dissy and existence with his family knocked it out of him early on... so Dissy isn't a true divergence, he's an aspect, and of all entities Chaos ought to be willing to embrace his alternate aspects, but Discord is scared that if he lets himself be the soft self that knew what it was to have friends and be loved, he'll be fatally weakened against his true family (probably subconsciously; consciously he's just aware that he fears being "weak", not *why*. This version of Discord is hardly a psychoanalyst.) And as it was Kindness from his pony family that allowed Discord to become Dissy in the first place when he incarnated, it's Kindness that's coaxing that part of his personality back out into the forefront.
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I know. And that's true in my verse as well. It's one of the sadder things about your version of Discord, and it's far too tragic not to keep intact.
Luna is very emotionally torn here. She is worried that if she doesn't tell Twilight her memories of what happened, without the part Celestia didn't fully explain (because Celestia didn't want to make Twilight distrust Luna) that Discord will trick Twilight and destroy Twilight and her friends. And my Luna loves Twilight, so she can't let that happen.
But Luna also fears that if she tells Twilight, that Twilight really won't trust her anymore. So she's rambling, which she admits at one point.
And finally, some of Luna's self-loathing at her own mistake is being projected onto even the younger Discord. Because young-Luna really liked Dissy. He was her favorite person in the world after her own sister.
Luna's honest, but on this matter her own feelings make her a (slightly) unreliable narrator. She doesn't even realize she's shading some of these truths.
Did you notice that he didn't actually attack Fluttershy? And he could have done so -- he was under no geas not to do so at that moment. (I'm assuming Fluttershy's Stare is effective on him -- but just barely -- it can't hold him for long).
I can personally think of whole lists of ways he could have, for instance, taken her captive, transformed her, or otherwise neutralized her in ways not requiring actually killing her. He might have even been able to do something subtle, avoiding breaking the peace.
He did nothing to her. All he did was frighten her.
And not entirely on purpose.
Yes, well, that's because two scientists named Sundreamer and Moondreamer equipped the Work with more powerful engines than happened in your verse. Luna doesn't actually want to discuss the details of that with Twilight. Yet. I can't think why ...
Massive tsunamis, earthquakes, eruptions, sudden isostatic shifts raising sea-bottoms causing seas to slop over in -- I guess you'd call them hyper-tsunamis -- and dropping other lands into the seas overnight. Then comes a year or so of volcanic winter, with the emergence of monstrous races for seasoning. Yeah, I can see a total 99% global death toll, and bye-bye to civilization.
This is considerably worse than would have happened, if, say, our world had fought a strategic nuclear war in the mid-1980's when the planetary arsenals were at their highest. Or if Yellowstone blew up. It's almost on the scale of the Draconid -- um, I mean Dinosaur Killer of 65.6 MYA.
What can I say, I like fictional catastrophes.
Yeah, Luna doesn't want to go on to Twilight about Celestia's role in the coming of the Windigoes unless Twilight already knows. And even then she doesn't like to talk about it. Luna is loyal to her sister. And remember how much you had Twilight be shocked when she found out about this.
Well, yeah -- I mean by Pony standards. What Megan showed them was the concept of fighting and winning a DECISIVE victory rather than merely trying to fight enough to dominate or escape. This is something which we Humans only achieved in its present form with the Classical Greeks, and we're a more aggressive species.
Once the Ponies got this idea, their natural racial abilities and competence at cooperation gave them an advantage over their former persecutors.
Yep. You've got it.
And in the year since he was first paroled, he's started to be happy again for the first time since he awoke to being Discord. Largely due to Fluttershy, though he's also starting to like some other Ponies as well.
And now he has to deal with the knowledge that Fluttershy doesn't belong to him. That she's her own entity, rather than some sort of toy. Which is something he has to learn if he's to really change -- though the lesson could have come in a less-harsh manner.
Wind Whistler is actually somewhat hopeful, but she doesn't want to let Discord grasp this because she fears (reasonably) that if he knows he actually could push her emotional buttons, he won't be able to resist doing so. The reason Wind Whistler intimidates him is because he can't intimidate her. But then, he never really could -- he could harm or kill her, mentally or physically, but that's not the same thing. And he knew it.
And it does. What's happened is that Luna has wholeheartedly adopted Pony values, to the point where she finds her Cosmic Self terrifying. Her personality's not as well-integrated as is Celestia -- though far better-integrated than Discord's.
Luna's afraid that if she discarnates, the new lessons she's learned will be lost against the antithetical parts of her Cosmic Self. She doesn't want to lose those lessons. She finds them precious ones.
She has too little faith in herself. In every meaning of "herself."
Celestia and Luna have both gone native in a major way.
Anyway i need to say i would probably understand Discord action if he killed Bulk Biceps, Discord is not a short living human.
If under thousands of years of lonelyness he find one mortal he love and she slept with another then i would imagine the wrath it would cause. Ponies should still feel lucky that hewould only kill one of them instead destroying Ponyville as additional vent off.
Anyway he should probably talk with Spike about heart problems xD
The mention of the Cosmic entity Magic's possible behavior makes me want to see your take on Twilight's ascension. I'm sure it would be awesome, in every sense of the word.
Also, Hyperborea? Home of Conan the Cimmareian?
In any case, a beautiful portrait of a bygone land. Part of me thinks it seems like a great Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. The rest recognizes that this is as much eulogy as history, a farewell to a world and to a filly's innocence. Eagerly looking forward to more.
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The basic problem is as Luna pointed out a couple of chapters ago, that a powerful entity must behave with moral restraint to interact in any but the most abusive manner with less powerful beings:
Luna knows this well, because she actually is trying to live down a reputation for irrational violence and she does have a bad temper. If she were amoral, if she were willing to lash out whenever her will was flouted, then even if Celestia was willing to tolerate this behavior, Luna would find it impossible to make any true friends. She would never know if somepony really liked her or was merely pretending to in order to avoid her wrath.
The same is true for Celestia, only more so because she's the stronger of the pair. Either of the Sisters could devastate a good-sized town in a matter of minutes if she wished to do so, or kill any individual Pony in an instant. Cadance has mind control powers, and Twilight can do what any of her three colleagues can, though with less strength and skill. The four Alicorns can interact with normal society normally (to the extent that they can) only because they are capable of self-restraint.
Oh, sure I'd understand Discord's motivations for wanting to kill Bulk Biceps -- sexual jealousy is a very understandable motivation. It's also the exact same one that Luna used in her example. And remember: Luna actually does find Big Mac attractive, and he actually isn't all that interested in her that way -- and Luna doesn't go about trying to harm anypony over this. And AJ is in point of fact aware of the whole situation: quite aside from her ability to tell Truth from Lies, in whom do you think Big Mac is most likely to confide?
Yes, it's easier for Luna to restrain herself because she is only casually-attracted to Big Mac anyway, with her serious attraction (in my verse) being for Twilight. But even if she was very seriously attracted to Big Mac, she still wouldn't try to force him to be her lover. She gets the moral and socially-organizational principle here, which is respect for the liberty of others. She's a Ruling Princess, not a Tyrant-Queen. There aren't supposed to be any Tyrants in Equestria.
This is the exact problem at issue here. If Discord is allowed to slay, or even credibly threaten to seriously harm, those who thwart him in normal social matters, then he menaces the freedom of all Equestrians. What is more, once such a privilege is yielded to him, he could effectively enslave anypony he was minded to control, without even using his actual mind control powers, as Luna then point out:
("Leman" means "mistress," in the romantic and sexual sense of the word).
How would you feel if some powerful and unscrupulous entity tried to control you in such a fashion? Sure, the motive might be flattering, and Fluttershy actually likes Discord, maybe even loves him -- but how healthy and mutually-benefiical would be any friendship or love based on the awareness by one of the parties concerned that "She'd better love me. Or I'll make her sorry." ...?
And do you notice that Spike doesn't lash out at Rarity? The most he'll do is be sarcastic to her, and only when she really annoys him. But then, Spike knows how to love.
Sure, Spike's not as powerful relative to Rarity or other Ponies as is Discord relative to Fluttershy (though, actually, Fluttershy's more powerful than she seems). But he is more powerful than most Ponies. What Spike has is moral restraint: he would never use his Dragonfire on them out of simple anger.
For that matter, Spike has an ally who is much more powerful than himself or than all but a handful or two of Ponies -- Twilight Sparkle. How well do you think Twilight's friendship with Rarity would work if Twilight told her: "Listen, Spike's getting cranky, so you're his love slave from now on. Otherwise, I'm going to blow up the Boutique." ...?
Love and friendship do not blossom from force and intimidation.
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Well, in a sense Twilight's transformation into an (incarnate) Alicorn in "Magical Mystery Cure" was a controlled discarnation and recincarnation, guided by Celestia to make sure that Twilight came back as Twilight Sparkle (rather than being reborn the normal way as a new incarnate identity). In a sense, she did die and was reborn, but only in a sense. It's not the same as when she died as, say, Dusk Skyshine or Clover the Clever.
I actually have a very good idea what happens when Twilight gets a good long look at the Cosmic level. I don't know if I'm ever going to actually publish the scene, as it happens years in the future.
I'll tell you one thing. Magic perceives the Multiverse essentially as the most tremendous library that ever existed. And wants to organize the reference system.
Close! The word "Hyborea" used by Robert E. Howard comes from the Classical Greek "Hyperborea" which meant "northernmost land" and was a reference to a mythical land across the North Atlantic, which may have come from actual travelers' tales of Iceland or Greenland. Clark Ashton Smith picked up the term from Classical mythology and wrote a series of stories about a fictional civilization located on Greenland, the "Hyperborean Cycle."
My postulate here is that the Ponies were first Uplifted from Equid stock by the Great G'marr, an advanced civilization derived from the Voormis, to full sapience and that the specialized Kinds were then derived from these proto-Ponies by their successors, the Eldren (the race from which the Moochic and the Three Witches originated). The origins of the Ponies actually do lie in the ancient ruins on Greenland, but unfortunately Greenland is currently haunted by the Frost Giants, the Gnoph-Keh, and other creatures inimical to Ponykind.
I'm glad you caught that.
4540394
Yes, exactly. Dissy is part of Discord's own personality, overwhelmed by the "repairs" his Cosmic Self did to this incarnation, while the captive minds within Discord are separate individuals with their own free will. "Dissy" is why Discord can sometimes be loveable by Pony standards.
4541181
Still i can imagine this scenario somewhat similar to Greek mythology. Is basically Zeus who turn himself into mortal do court a mere mortal human. If Zeus love interest was find with a common mortal peasant it would not be unusual in term of greek mythology to raze few cities in great storm of destruction. And main reason he would do it is not just the sexual jealousy but the humiliation. I dont understand exactly the whole Cosmic beings in your story but i guess they are similar to god-like immortal creatures who exist beside Discord and Celestia/Luna. I can imagine powerful god being cuckolded would really harm his reputation with other cosmic being not to mention his own pride. I cant see a best solution here. He will either become spineless joke or dangerous villain.
On the side note
I dont want to sound heartless but if Celestia was responsible as any ruler in history she would probably sacrifice Bulk Biceps instead "having hope" that Discord will calm down and not destroy few cities before she react. I know she play batman bet a lot in the tv show but this time its a grim dark setting so she would not care for either life of one being nor Fluttershy feelings or for the hope that Discord will find his heart. She would do anything to secure the realm. And thats either a diplomacy with Discord or full scale war (which is less possible since many would die if she choose such path). Surely protecting Bulk and pissing off unstable force of destruction is a poor decision.
4541436
I want you to think about something.
You say if Celestia was as responsible as any ruler in history, she'd sacrifice Bulk. So imagine, what if the President of the United States pardoned a very dangerous terrorist because that very dangerous terrorist had decided to defect to the US and work for the US in exchange for a pardon. And then that terrorist was friends with an American woman, a famous model who had given up her career to live a quiet life of philanthropy and promoting animal rights. And that American woman started dating a famous athlete. And then the terrorist -- who is *not* the woman's lover, but her friend -- threatened to kill the athlete because the athlete was dating his friend.
Would anyone say the President would be responding responsibly if his strategy was to turn a blind eye and let the athlete be murdered and do nothing, just to keep the terrorist from blowing up an American city or killing a bunch of people over this?
No. Celestia would not only be morally bankrupt if she essentially abandoned Bulk to Discord, but she would be doing something that, if she weren't an absolute monarch she could get impeached or deposed for. It was her decision to release Discord to be reformed. It was her decision to use Fluttershy to do it. If she abandoned Bulk because of her mistake, that would be an act of evil. Remember, Discord is not Fluttershy's lover! He's jealous because he's attracted to Fluttershy, but he never made that clear to her -- he told her he loved her as a friend, and Fluttershy didn't even know Discord could be attracted to ponies until Luna told her. Discord's jealous because he's an immature twit with no sense of boundaries, not because he actually has legitimate reason for jealousy, and catering to his immaturity is exactly the wrong thing to do. Celestia released Discord in order to give him an opportunity to learn how to get along in Pony society and behave somewhat decently. If she were to let Discord kill Bulk when Bulk has done nothing wrong at all, she would be setting Discord back in his learning about how to be civilized. Also, she would probably destroy Fluttershy's usefulness as an Element of Harmony, because Fluttershy would feel betrayed and broken.
Remember, Discord did do the whole "I am a god, cater to my every whim or die" thing... and got put in stone for it for over a millennium. Celestia and Luna are also godlike entities on the order of Apollo and Artemis, and they do not tolerate gods behaving like Greek shitheads, either themselves or any other gods. You wanna live in Equestria with godlike powers, fine, you've still got to obey the law and treat ponies with respect. The only safe pre-emptive move to make here would not be to give Bulk to Discord, but to get the Elements back off the Tree and pre-emptively stone Discord before he can cause harm. However, while that's a more moral thing to do than to betray Bulk, who is an innocent citizen... it would also seriously damage Fluttershy. Discord is her friend, and she made him a promise. I think she'd break her promise to protect Bulk's life, but she'd blame herself for it, feeling guilty that she created the situation in the first place (even though she was not Discord's lover, didn't know he wanted her, and had done nothing at all wrong by taking a lover). The resulting turmoil and disharmony in her soul might actually weaken the seal enough for Discord to break free, and now he'd feel that Fluttershy had truly betrayed him. So it's also a bad option.
There are no good solutions here except to protect Bulk and seek to contain Discord in a non-aggressive way before he does any harm. Giving Bulk to Discord is immoral, sets Discord up to return to his old evil tyrant self because now he knows he can get anything he wants if he threatens, and makes Fluttershy feel that Celestia has betrayed her. Turning Discord to stone when he hasn't yet done anything harmful (he never even made a verbal threat, actually -- he made menacing gestures, but he was so shaken up by what he saw he never even spoke before he fled the scene) will also harm Fluttershy and make it that much more difficult to win Discord's trust and reform him the next time he breaks out. The diarchs are already doing the only responsible thing they can do.
4541436
As Luna pointed out, she wouldn't seek violent revenge against a Pony who romantically-rejected her. She had that conversation with Applejack because Applejack could directly see that Luna was speaking the truth.
Zeus often behaved amorally, because many of the legends of Zeus dated back to the Bronze Age and he was acting like a super-powerful version of a barbarian warlord. From that point of view, of course he has the right to take any woman he desires, and if Hera gets mad her beef is with the woman, not her husband.
Celestia and Luna never wanted to be merely super-powerful warlords. From the beginning they meant to establish an ethical society in Equestria, which means that they must restrain themselves from simply taking whoever and whatever they feel like taking. Equestria is a culture based on kindness, consent and the rule of law; not on cruelty, coercion and the rule of mere might.
What is more, the Diarchs hold that their right to rule comes with the responsibility to protect their subjects -- from monsters, from foreign invaders, and from injustices visited upon them by other Equestrians or guests of Equestria. Discord would fall into one and possibly more of those categories.
By allowing Discord to prey upon Equestrians, they would be weakening the basis of their own legitimacy. A sovereign which permits her territory to be used as a recreational hunting ground by predators and her people to become their prey finds her sovereignity diminished. This might be a slow process, but Celestia and Luna very much think in the long term.
There are many sovereigns, historically, who would do exactly as you have outlined. But quite aside from the obvious amorality of the choice, backing down to Discord and letting him have whatever he wanted without a fight might not be a good long-term strategy. One very obvious flaw in it would be that it would convince Discord that Equestria was weak (and especially if Equestria is weak, this is not something one wants to make obvious to a potential predator).
Another is that it would show Discord that he doesn't need to be nice to or compromise with anypony; all he needs to is demand and threaten, and the rights of all others will be swept aside to appease him. This would put him right back on the road to attempt tyranny over, rather than friendship with, other Equestrians.
Basically, Celestia was hoping to rehabilitate Discord, as an ally. Feeding him Equestrian victims every now and then is not a good method of rehabilitation.
Would Discord win in a straight-up fight against all of Equestria? Maybe, maybe not. There are four Alicorn Princesses now, three of them have fought Discord before, and there are a lot of highly-powerful and talented Equestrians in addition to the Alicorns, including the other Element Bearers. Some of them actually have powers specifically useful against him.
Discord doesn't know what Celestia and Luna might not have up their fetlocks, and so he cannot simply assume that he would win. He lost the last two times. He also can't assume that if he attacked again and lost, he would necessarily be released any time again soon. So he doesn't necessarily want to start an unnecessary conflict.
Submission to evil and injustice may sometimes be necessary, but it erodes one's own position long-term. Hence it should only be done if the alternative is disastrous. And fighting for one's own sovereignity, provided that one wins, reincforces one's own position long-term, since other aggressors look at one's actions and conclude that one is not an easy target.
This quite aside from the obvious moral issues.
4542409
To bend over backwards in Discord's favor for a moment, Fluttershy may have suspected that he could, given the mutual emotional and physical affection between them. The key thing that Fluttershy did not know was that (this Incarnation of) Discord was actually raised as a Pony, and sees them as his own kind in exactly the same way as does Spike. Discord can be romantically and sexually attracted toward Fluttershy for exactly the same reasons that Spike can be romantically and sexually attracted toward Rarity. Difference is, Spike's a lot less powerful, and a lot nicer than is Discord.
Yes, exactly! As Luna put it, in the end Fluttershy would wind up being Discord's slave, and (she did not say but was well aware of the fact that) so would ALL Eqestrians in potentia. Who knows what Discord might not want the next time he got some stray urge? "Appleloosa's kind of ugly. Evacuate the town and turn it into a giant taffy stand." Or whatever.
I'll add to this that, even if Fluttershy were his lover, that wouldn't give him the right to kill somepony because Fluttershy was cheating on him with that pony. Discord's actions would be more understandable in that situation, but it would still be wrong. This is exactly why Luna used the word "slave" to describe the situation should they yield: Fluttershy would have been given over to Discord as chattel property, and Bulk's fate would prove to everypony that Discord's whim was law.
Exactly. They restrain themselves from acts of injustice, and they also restrain others who wish to dwell peacefully within their borders. Which is well within the rights they have always claimed: a monopoly on the definition of the legitimate use of force in a territory is the meaning of sovereignity.
(*nods*) Even if they had the Elements they couldn't move against Discord without Fluttershy. And it's Fluttershy's nature to be kind, and forgiving offenses against her by others (though she's protective of her friends, a category into which she has definitely put Bulk). But if either Bulk or Discord got hurt in consequence of her failure to communicate better with Discord, she would blame herself as well. And forcing Fluttershy to grossly go against her nature is the very definition the sort of thing that would de-attune her from her Element.
You're absolutely right about long-term solutions. They can't move against Discord when he (as far as they know) hasn't even explicitly threatened to do anything (they aren't privy to his internal dialogue with Wind Whistler -- they don't even know for sure she's still in there), because that would be both betraying Discord and throwing away in a moment's fear a goal they've been working toward for at least a year now. They can't give Bulk to Discord, because that would be betraying Bulk and beyond that betraying their own Realm; and it would be bad for Discord's long-term behavior anyway. And it's probably neither practical nor decent to keep Bulk imprisoned behind wards forever.
They are hoping that Discord can come to the realiziation that threats and violence are unlikely to gain him love and friendship. Failing that, they hope that if Discord does attack, they can contain him.
Luna is especially worried about the whole situation because of the past history with Discord surrounding the Fall of Paradise Estate.
4542409
Well im guessing that this story is not about fight between Discord with anypony but about fight with his two inner "consumed" beings. We already seen Voice of Reason, she will probably defend your argument but i can already see that it wont be an easy debate and Divine Jealousy will surely have valid points.
You compared Discord to a simple terrorist who is just a guest in this realm while i rather saw him as previous ruler who was always stronger than Celestia and Luna combined. They defeated him by simple artefacts which dont really prove their worth. He could easly planned how to get rid of the elements of harmony, the only thing that defeated him was his pride and being too full of himself.
By the rule of the strongest he should be ruling Equestria again. It is only by his will and his affection toward Fluttershy that he didnt decided to take control (which he actually did in Twilight Kingdom so he knew that elements cant be recovered from the tree ever again) over Equestria.
So in his mind whole world is basically his sandbox. He is an adult who plays with toddlers in it and gave 2 little girls leadership over the way they going to play just because it amused him to build a sand castle with another little girl.
After that girl ignored him and went to play with another little boy he basically say "well fuck it" and send all kids away while destroying the playground and all sand structures with his foot.
Its something immature and horrible thing to do but we should consider that people do such things and i can understand if Discord would do the same. He is spoiled, he is half insane but he also has his pride and he know that he is the strongest.
4542561
I see so this story is basically Discord being wronged and see if he do something about it or if he forgive everyone. I would imagine this would be a dillema for every human (even in fiction a good guy like Lee Everett from Walking Dead basically kill Bulk Biceps in this scenario and it never bother a player) but humans learned basics of morality.
Here we have powerfull being with almost no morality who even in cartoon doesnt see anything wrong with trading friends if its benefit to him. I would not give him any hope to actually let it go
We could no longer contact the Sea-Ponies as we had of old. They had fled Ponykind before the Age of Wonders, and the Cataclysm had shocked them to take refuge in the remotest deeps. There they had already interbred with older races, and now called themselves the Deep Ponies, but we might sometimes find them, and they told us tales of elder realms beneath the waves, of Many-Columned Y'ha-nthneigh, of Deep Gll'ho, and far-off Primal R'lyeh where their dead god lay dreaming. They were still our friends, though they had grown apart from the other Kinds.
You know that line oddly work with both Sparkling Sea and the comics. One group chose to travel to deep and met creatures and become deep ponies while other stayed a distance far enough from surface yet not as close as the trenches (A middle group if you will) that serves as liason for the deep and the other tribes (Plus the newly dubbed Merponies don't seem like the 'dancing with other races' sort if the comic is any consideration (Just saying).
so far luna story got me hook, please keep it up.
4542749
The question here is whether Might makes Right, or whether it is actually better (even for the Mighty) to submit to the same rules that bind everybody else. I argue that the unprovked use of force or fraud between persons within a society endanger the ability of all within that society to peacefully enjoy their liberties, and hence reduce the ability of those within that society to make positive-sum exchanges -- ones in which both parties benefit by the exchange -- and hence harms the society as a whole. Even if the Mightier party gets away with such an imposition, not only has the society as a whole been harmed by it, but he has engaged forces which trend toward his own harm and destruction, and hence his strategy was poorly chosen.
This is true even in our world, which lacks psychic and magical forces to reinforce such relationships. In Equestria, not only would such violence by harmful for the mundane reason that it would demoralize members of society and cause them to approach oneself with fear and trepidation, or alternately to insincerely truckle to one's whims; but it would also break the Harmony of society, depriving one of psychic support from it, and prevent one from forming true Friendships, for others would not deal with oneself honestly. This would weaken one's own magic, making one in the end perhaps less Mighty than the defenders of Harmony.
In this regard it might be pointed out that Discord never succeeded in overthrowing a culturally-advanced and united Equestria. He conquered a land which was still recovering from the disruption of the Great Migration and in many ways less unified than the Three Tribes, in that the old tribal organization had broken down, in favor of a social system based on the predominance of great Houses (Unicorns) or Clans (Pegasus and Earth Ponies). Nor was Discord's rule productive -- all he accomplished was to hold the world in relative stasis for a millennium, with those races which survived doing so only by constant and exhausting efforts. Neither culture, nor technology, nor wealth made progress.
Unfettered Chaos is sterile: there is change, but little ability to preserve useful changes. Evolution -- whether biological or cultural -- by contrast requires heritable variation upon which natural selection may perform its magic.
Celestia and Luna grasp this, which is why they have chosen to create a society which significantly restrains even themselves as its Mightiest participants, and why Celestia in particular chooses to act as if she is restrained by laws and customs which, in point of face, could enforce themselves upon her only with great difficulty if at all. They know that by doing this they harness not only the magic of Harmony to sustain and aid Equestria, but also mundanely reassures its inhabitants that there is justice and law, that moral actions are rewarded and immoral ones punished, and hence enables them to relax their mutual vigilance against destruction by others, and instead focus their efforts on creation.
To your point that Discord was "wronged" ...
Individuals, within a free society such as Equestria, are just that -- they are free. Where romance is concerned, they may choose who to like or love, and to what extent and in what manner. They may choose wisely or foolishly, thus gaining the benefits or paying the costs of their choices; and of course others may judge them socially in part from observations upon their choices. None have the right to initiate the use of force or fraud upon others simply because they disapprove of their romantic choices.
Even had Discord and Fluttershy been married, the proper remedy to the discovery that she was having sex with someone else would have been to break (or threaten to break) the marriage, not to harm either Fluttershy or Bulk. If this is true, then it is the more true given that no marriage, nor even acknowledged romantic relationship, existed between Discord and Fluttershy.
Fluttershy is a free individual, not chattel property of anyone else. Her own sense of ethics and morality, held in her own mind -- not a title deed, held by another -- is what informs and restrains her own sexuality. It is precisely because of this that her love (or lack thereof) is meaningful. She chooses to whom to be loyal, and to what extent.
One cannot be another's friend, or genuine love, by claiming ownership over that other person. Loving or befriending someone else implicitly acknowledging their right to reject you, or to befriend or love others as well.
One, of course, has the right to reject another as well: friendship or love are mutual relationships in this regard. Accepting another's freedom is not a one-way street; one is free oneself.
What one cannot do is to demand another's friendship or love as by right. One is not entitled to either, though in the context of an existing love or friendship, the sudden denial of such without due cause may be seen as ungrateful or unreliable, which may well affect the judgement of oneself by others.
Does Discord accept and understand this all? Of course not, or the story would be far more cheerful and fluffy. As AlaraJRogers points out, he's behaving very immaturely, and I would add "especially for a millennia-old immortal." Luna, the less-mature of the Two Royal Pony Sisters, gets why treating others as property doesn't work (I won't vouch for her Nightmare side here), and in fact explained part of what I just have here in a dialogue with Applejack.
For that matter, this is something that Rainbow Dash, one of the least mature of the Mane Six, understands with reference to the very same Pony. Did you not notice the part at which she explicitly admitted to Twilight Sparkle that she had been in a romantic and sexual relationship with Fluttershy, but that this hadn't completely worked out well for them? Her reaction, upon realizing what's going on, isn't "Oh good, now the faithless bitch will suffer for hurting me," it was "Crap, my best friend's in trouble."
Likewise, Rarity and Spike aren't and never have been actual lovers, though Spike wishes they were. He's a freaking Dragon, with the propensity to imagine others his property, and he successfully-restrains this with regard to Rarity (or to be precise: he's converted it through his variant of Courtly Love to a "possession" of Rarity as a friend). Spike is the youngest of Twilight's Companions, but he understands that you can't make somepony love you, and that if you try you only destroy whatever chance you ever had to gain that pony's love, and whatever friendship you may already have with her.
Discord never got this because his childhood was spent in a very limited social environment, within which the only two eligible females both strongly cared for him, whereupon his personality was partially-overwritten by one dispatched by his Cosmic Self, and then he was the mad, tyrannical and lazy ruler of the world for a thousand years. Subsequently, he was a statue for fifteen hundred years.
He has had only a year or so being free again, and in the context of a society much richer and more complex than anything he encountered on Paradise Estate, in which he has only a limited concept of how he might participate. He has a vast store of knowledge -- what Wind Whistler conceptualizes as the "library" -- but little idea of how to organize or use it. He has tremendous power, great intelligence, and a very good grasp of tactics.
But he does not really understand strategy. Military, social or otherwise.
4543877
The seas are wide and deep. There could be numerous aquatic and semi-aquatic Pony races by now, all descended from the original Sea Ponies. And who is to say that, during the G1 episodes the Sea Ponies we met really represented all of their possible cultures and variations?
4543887 Hmm, that is VERY true, i cannot deny you that.
4543879
VERY true.
I can't help but think of the following creepy exchange from Othello:
Iago: Strangle her in her bed, even in the very bed she hath contaminated.
Othello: Good, good. The justice of it pleases. [italics mine].
And one of the things that makes that play work so well is that it's perfectly clear how unjust it all is, and not just because Desdemona is innocent. It plays on the idea that wives are their husbands' property, and then exposes it for the horror that implies.
The contrast with Rainbow Dash couldn't be stronger, and also might explain her gut dislike and distrust of Discord.
Also, I now know what you meant about Big Brother herds! So Pinkie and Cheese are somehow reverting to an ancient social pattern?
4544911
Which was a very humane notion for around 1600. It was much more common then to either assume that the husband's rights were paramount and thus his jealousy rational, or to play the whole cuckolded-husband situation for laughs (as in the commedia dell'arte). There's also a strong theme in the play of being careful whom one trusts.
Wind Whistler in this story is functioning as an anti-Iago. She is trying to cajole and trick Discord into greater rationality, instead of greater madness. This is because she's still fundamentally loyal to Ponykind -- who are, after all, with the exceptions of Celestia and Luna her descendants, and she hopes to rouse Discord's better nature.
Above and beyond anything that may pass between them, Rainbow Dash loves Fluttershy. If Rainbow Dash is loyal to her friends in general, she is loyal to Fluttershy in particular. She knows that Discord's love for Fluttershy is very selfish by comparison. She rather likes Bulk Biceps, despite her obvious jealousy of Fluttershy's attraction to him, because she can tell that Bulk's love for Fluttershy is also mostly unselfish, and she can sympathize with it.
4542749
Twilight's Kingdom demonstrates that if a being with meta-magic steals all the magic in Equestria, and then gets Discord to lower his guard and steals his magic, one being wielding the power of four alicorns can fight that guy to a standstill. This does not successfully make the case that Discord could defeat all four alicorns, particularly with the backup of objects like the Crystal Heart, even though the Elements are gone. (I think Tirek couldn't actually use Discord's magic much once he had it... but by the commutative property of ass-kicking, if a guy kicks Discord's ass and then four alicorns kick that guy's ass, logically four alicorns could have kicked Discord's ass too.)
Discord could individually take out the four alicorns before they knew he was attacking them, of course, getting their guard down the same way Tirek did him. But even by the standard of Rule of Might (which is a terrible standard for a civilization anyway), Discord cannot necessarily be considered to be stronger than the Princesses in combination now that there are four of them. Discord could choose to betray them all and take them down before they knew it was a fight... but he probably wouldn't, because that wouldn't be fun. Discord tends to prefer games that he can possibly lose, even though once he's playing them he'll cheat to win, so he doesn't do the "I kill you all in your sleep" thing that he might need to in order to win. He's not an adult fighting toddlers; he was a teenager fighting preteens, and now that he's an adult, they are teenagers and there's two more preteens in the group. One teenager can easily take down two ten year olds, but one adult cannot easily take down two seventeen year olds and two ten year olds working together.
Of course, you're correct in that Discord may not see it that way, and that he is likely to react badly to this situation... but that simply is not an excuse for sacrificing an innocent guy. Once you pay the Danegeld, you can never get rid of the Dane. Giving in to Discord's whims tells him, and all of Equestria, that he's really in charge. That's not why they let him out.
4544911
Well, maybe-sorta-kinda-by-accident?
4547244
Also, some of those individual Ponies, Alicorns and otherwise, might have special abilities or items to which Discord might be vulnerable. Alara already mentioned the Crystal Heart -- in my verse, the ancient Hyperborean machines around South-Dunnich might also work, as might the Laputa-Stone of Derecho, and some of the ancient magics of the High Unicorns. It's not obvious that Discord is entirely invulnerable to the powers of the Alicorns: he would probably try to defeat them by striking first and with surprise, but there are ways he could be suckered in or delayed to be fixed in place for attack.
The Mane Six have abilities which might be useful against Discord. Twilight's magic-copying (numerous episodes) and the ability of her shields to function as a zone of Law (shown in Return of the Elements of Harmony, Pinkie's precognitive and worldline-choosing reality warper powers, Fluttershy's Stare (and the rather major fact that Discord would go far out of his way to avoid more than the minimum possible harm to her -- if he overcame her he would probably hold her captive rather than hurt her), Rainbow's Sonic Rainboom, Applejack's Truth Vision, and Rarity's charm (don't underestimate that -- Discord is male, after all). And the Mane Six are not the only powerful beings in Equestria.
Note that in Twilight's Kingdom, the combined powers of Tirek and Discord were being used to overwhelm the defenders of the Realm. It was not until Tirek had vanquished them and absorbed their powers that he then turned on Discord. Some other powerful individuals with which whose magic and skills Discord might have to reckon would include Shining Armor (who can project a city-sized version of Twilight's force field), Goldie Pie (an Earth Pony mistress of geomancy), Maud Pie (strength and invulnerability) Claire (the ability to form Gates at will, also has combat tentacles and rapid regeneration), Zecora (one of the most higly-skilled alchemists in the world) Trixie (who shares Twilight's magic-copying ability and by this point in my verse has mastered powerful illusion magics -- she's primarily an illusionist rather than a pure magician), and the entire faculties of several magic schools and leaders of the mage elements of various guard formations.
Equestria has around eighty million Ponies, and not all of them are limited to basic telekinesis, flight and plant growth.
Yes. Especially also considering that the Alicorns are not the only powerful beings in Equestria.
The reason why the Rule of Might is such a terrible standard for a civilization is that it fofces everybody to constantly be on guard against everybody else, getting in the way of creative and productive activities. Any society which accepts internal moral constraints has an immense advantage over any which does not, for that reason.
Exactly.
I made it this far, but no further. I find this story soaked in heavy lore beyond the point of saturation, to the point that it barely resembles MLP at times. That's fine, I suppose, but it's not my cup of tea. Good day.