5306562 probably. Im loving this so far I bet if they gave it a chance they would as well.

Huh. I like the lack of magical solve-all.

I'm really hoping Lero doesn't just go belly up and allow everything without protest. People tend to write him as almost completely passive. It's been pointed out again and again how the herd is with a non-pony, and they really have no excuse in cutting him out like this.

I can easily see him being hurt more by this than any desire to add a male for practical purposes. As far as I've read, he's been more repulsed by sex with a male than by another 'competitor', so to speak. Though it obviously makes him uncomfortable.

ok you now have my full approval this story is defiantly going places.
defiantly a vary good slice of life going on.
harts fire

5307273
>defiantly
But who does it defy?

I have mixed feelings about the existence of this story, on the one hand I knew it would happen eventually, on the other hand I was kind of hoping it never did.

Some points I would like to get out of the way:

1. I have not read this story, I'm being a little chicken-shit and talking about my feelings instead.

2. This is a perfectly valid premise to a perfectly valid story that has every right to be told, despite my feelings on the subject.

3. I get really, really emotional about stories I like, and I have to admit, I like Xenophilia very, very much.

All that said, as a regular part of the "Xenophilia" community, if an infrequent one, I am not totally unfamiliar with this concept. The idea of Bellerophon's herd adding another stallion is far from new. My problem with this idea stems from my own feelings on the subject. I should state right now that I am not in any way against polyamory, heck, I will go to proverbial war to defend people's right to a happy and healthy consensual relationship, no matter what form it may take. Now, putting the soapbox aside for a second, I will admit the ugly, ugly truth; I am a hypocrite. I honestly don't know if I could stand, on an emotional level, to share a lover, one to whom I was deeply and thoroughly committed to, with another man.

It doesn't make me proud, saying that, as I've long been a proponent of multiple partner relationships; heck, I've even been in a few of them myself, but the very idea of introducing a rival male makes me want to beat my chest like a four-hundred pound gorilla that just found out someone shit in his cornflakes. My personal feelings on the subject matter aside, I like Lero, a lot. I empathize with him, I sympathize with him, he's a character very near and dear to my heart. The thought of him going through what, to me, would be pure, unadulterated torture makes me extremely uncomfortable. I keep imagining how I'd feel if someone I loved told me they wanted to be with another man and it just makes me want to hit something until it breaks; it makes me feel irrational, angry, scared, helpless, and just a little bit empty inside. This, I should note, is why I've always avoided talking about the subject whenever it comes up (and it's come up quite a bit on this site over the years).

Still, despite all of the above spleen venting, I am not entirely opposed to this idea. As someone who is both bisexual, and, it must be said, an absolutely hopeless romantic; I have to admit that there have been times when I've read about one stallion or another flirting with an adorably oblivious Lero and wondered "What if?" contrary to my usual unease for the subject. Maybe someday, when I feel more comfortable with that train of thought, I could try writing something along those lines myself.

Getting back to the story, I don't get the feeling that was what you were going for. I get the impression that this is yet another tried and true piece centered around the cultural differences between humans and ponies, as well as the inevitable culture clash that results between two peoples with vastly different values. I think my main fear, and one you'll probably touch on quite a bit, is the fear of inequality. Which, I suppose, is yet another smidgen of hypocrisy, considering that the original story was heavily biased in favor of Rainbow Dash and Bellerophon.

I'm not going to touch on those themes too deeply, both because there are a lot of them, and because they're fairly self-evident, I'm just going to say that I can only imagine how hard something like that would impact Lero. In pretty much every Xenoverse fic so far there's always been this feeling, this pervasive sense that for all his efforts Lero remains an underdog (an idea I've been working on for a while now actually plays with this theme quite a bit, speaking of which, I really need to get my ass in gear and update), a man of cardboard in a world of steel. The introduction of yet another party threatens to destroy the careful balance that Lero has worked so hard to craft and maintain after all his time spent in Equestria, and that's no idle fantasy.

Finally, I would like to apologize to everyone for my exceptionally long-winded, highly opinionated rant, and give my thanks to all of you who stuck with me this far. I would also like to wish you the best of luck in this endeavor CinnamonSwirltheBreaded. And I suppose it wouldn't hurt to cross my fingers and hope for a happy ending.

Intriguing. You seem to be going with an Original Character stallion, as opposed to one of the canon background stallions or something.

And I find myself liking him.

I also just like all the emotional drama you have playing out; showing what a tough choice it is for this herd. Bravo.

5305962

I didn't say Rarity was 'invited specifically' to have foals--in fact that's explicitly deflected during the conversation with Rarara. But there's no way that wouldn't have been a consideration in their minds. You're being inconsistent: Twilight should have considered all aspects and not courted the herd because of this issue, but Fancy and Fleur wouldn't/shouldn't have considered any issue but love?

I am not being inconsistent and I would appreciate if you didn't try to put words into my mouth.

I said that if the ability to have a foal was such an important factor to Twilight, she wouldn't have joined the herd. The author did specify that ponies are practical to a degree in his interpretation of the story after all.

And as for Rarity's situation, your own wording was that she was a solution to a problem. If that was the case then for both Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lys the ability to have a foal would be the motivating factor in the search for a new herd mate. If somehow Rarity ended up being barren, where would that leave her in this relationship?

A friend of mine wanted children of his own and it was something important enough to him that he broke off 2 relationships after finding out the girl was not interested in having more children (in both cases they already had children from previous partners). When you have expectations going into something, it affects the end result.

How can there even be 37 downvotes with so few negative comments? Some will be knee jerk human tag downvotes but I think at this point the story is just getting trolled.

5306053 That may how things were but that isn't how things are now, Lero wouldn't have been brought up in an environment where allowing another male to impregnate his wife just because he can't is an ok thing to do. I understand he's changed a lot to fit in with how Equestria works but I doubt that, if Twilight brought up allowing another male into the herd to help impregnate them, Lero would be ok with it. I also am aware that poly-amorous relationships exist as I'm in one, and I can tell you that I would not be ok if they tried to get pregnant through another male. If the mares tried to get pregnant through another stallion, that goes far beyond simply changing views on relationships.

5306339 If you're trying to insinuate that I think of a woman as an object, I'd like to point out I was speaking from a male perspective. If the genders were reversed and, let's say a female wanted a baby but she was unable to give one, I doubt she'd want her husband to impregnate another woman and then take the child so she can have one. I'm not trying to be sexist, I'm trying to make the point that "Well I can't get a baby from here, I'll try somewhere else instead, I doubt my loved one will mind." is the one of the worst thought patterns you can come up with, especially if you decide not to tell your loved one about it until you found someone else you'd like to have a baby with.

5306053 I think I want to change something in my reply, I understand your point and I retract a bit of what I said, but I think the part that annoys me is actually Twilight's attitude towards Lero regarding the subject. The point, and the annoyance, that my view is coming from is stemming from this one issue.

Twilight doesn't want to tell Lero about any of this until AFTER she finds a stallion that she'd like to introduce into the herd.

This is the one fact that I'm using my argument on, if they were to discuss this for a period of time beforehand then yes, it could perhaps be a possibility, but Twilight seems to have the attitude that Lero probably wouldn't care whereas he would if she just came home with a guy asking to allow him into the herd so they can get pregnant seeing as Lero can't do it himself.

5307425

1. I have not read this story, I'm being a little chicken-shit and talking about my feelings instead.

Well then you are in no position to cast judgement on it.

5309208 Ohh I see, sorry that I over reacted. And I do see your point but perhaps that's just how some part of human nature is. I won't deny I can be a jealous person so I'd rather go down the route of adoption (which ponies don't have? Or Twilight just really wants the kid herself) unless my partner was dead set on birthing the child herself. To me, it just feels like part of them could be betraying Lero by not saying to him that this is a possibility.

5309324
I considered explain or discuss adoption in the story, but it seemed like something of a distraction. The reason they probably wouldn't go for and adoption, in my mind, is that it's simply unlikely that there's any foals around waiting to be adopted.

The herd structure of relationships would make it relatively unlikely that any foal would ever find herself or himself without somepony to look and care after them. Nor does it seem likely that there would be too many mothers choosing to give up 'unwanted' foals since they don't necessarily have to look after them by themselves--and whether or not they get pregnant is very much in their control.

It just strikes me as being improbable that there's a large number of foals waiting around for adoption.

5309551
If she gave up the foal, I would assume the foal could just be 'adopted' into the birthherd. Indeed, in Rainbow's case, she was still welcome in the herd--at least in theory--and she intentionally cut herself out of their lives more because she didn't like them badmouthing her mother.

5302863

Your latter point was discussed in detail, and I suppose one could make a reasonable argument that Celestia or Cadance or whomever should have just told her, but at the same time I can't help but feel like it's not necessarily something that really fits with how the Princesses are presented in the show. More often than not, Celestia seems comfortable--and appears to prefer--Twilight work through the problems herself.

I would kinda agree... except that's in regards to challenges she's personal set before her. Would Celestia really stand aside, and let her futilelly struggle to a goal she knows will only end in failure and heartbreak? Much less, Cadance?

I realize Twilight appears to give up fairly easily within the story, but at this point in the Xenophilia timeline, she's been 'working' on the problem for a while. It might seem like she gave up too easily, but I'd like to think Twilight would recognize a dead end when she saw it.

Except it's not presented that way. "Whoops, it's most likely never been done before. Clearly, that means it's impossible." On top of that, all she did was research if a spell already existed- she made no seeming effort to research a spell for herself.

But there's really no evidence of this, and, indeed, if there was, one would assume that mixed couples would not just be common, but the norm, since there'd be enough males to go around--even if they're not necessarily a unicorn/earth/pegasus pony. But, if hybridization is impossible or hard, it seems to me that the logical and practical solution--which is what I tried to stress here in Twilight's musings--would be to seek out a stallion that would work for you.

A very logical point, and by logical extension, we can clearly see the entire population of Equestria is mules.

I'm sorry, I have to disagree on this point. There's lots of reasons why mixed-herds or hybrid children aren't common, even if hybridization is possible. The males simply might not be physically interested without emotional connection- Lero certainly wasn't, until he fell in love, and while there seems somple places where races mingle- Flight Academy, for one, most of the races tend to keep to themselves most of the time, so emotional connections are uncommon. Maybe the Polygamy and other cultural issues are difficult to overcome. Maybe equestrian women have a reputation as controling, man-hungry clingy mares, so males of other species think they're only after one thing and are on guard for it. Maybe fertility rates are really low, so it's not really a practical solution. Maybe, like mules, most of the children end up sterile. The fact that children are possible is not the same as it being practical, or even desirable to the species as a whole. it's something ponies do on the rare occasions the fall in love outside of their species and it's reciprocated.

Look at it another way; Rarity (in this story) is part of Fleur and Fancy's herd, and I've implied that Fleur is essentially barren, which, in turn, is based off of Archonix's writings about Star Sparkle's herd and Crincile. There's two ways of solving this problem, the first of which would be to figure out some way of making a barren mare fertile again, or else seek out some other mare. I'd argue that infertile mares is probably a more common problem than ponies trying to bare children with non-pony partners, yet the solution is the latter, not the former.

I don't think that's directly comparable. The barreness is generally something that comes as a surprise. The girls entered this knowing that odds were very high they could never have children without magical assistance, which makes Twilight's flipping her position really weird.

I'll grant that this is sort of stacking the deck, argument wise, but I think it gets at what is supposed to be the underlying practical nature of ponies, at least as they've been described.
And, I'll admit, I'm not a fan of 'magic can/will solve everything' trope that sometimes comes up in fiction. I'd rather--and I think it makes for better storytelling--for magic to be limited in ways.

Oh, I agree, absolutelly- for the best storytelling, magic's limits and functions are clearly defined- like physics, or science. Magic that can do anything is lazy storytelling, can easily lead to plot holes, and lack of any real stakes. However, it's just as lazy to decide, arbitrarily, that magic can't do something, without any adequate explaination as to why.

Honestly, though, I get it. MLP's writers haven't put much thought or effort into their own magical system, often resulting in spells that do bizzarrely specific or arbitrary things, with it's limits being equally arbitrary (Magically changing gender is stated to be impossible, but is never stated why such is so.), and Twilight is often depicted learning bizzarelly specific spells (Grow mustaches, turn things into oranges), That, plus the huge deal made about her finishing the spell in Magical Mystery Cure, as well as the discussion of how most Unicorns learn magic, and how they hold Starswirl the Bearded in high regard, I've come to some conclusions:

Magic in Equestria can do nearly anything, but there's two rather severe limitations- One, you need to know a spell that does what you want, and second, you need enough power to cast it. spells vary in difficulty of power used based roughly on their complexity, and how much natural forces normally oppose such things. Growing moustaches is easy, things grow moustaches all teh time- al teh spell does is make the target capable, adn speeds upt he process. Manipulating time...? Well, that's another story, generally only the strongest unicorns can manage.

So, then, where do spells come from? Well, the most common source is unicorns- whenever a Unicorn learns their special talent, they instinctively learn a magical spell that support it- like Rarity's ability to find gems. Studious unicorns, or ones that have magic as a talent, can study these spells and learn them. The other way? Painstaking research and experimentation- Starswirl the Bearded, for example, invented an entire new branch of magic- before him, magic than manipulated time didn't exist (and "Was impossible", to the opinions of unicorns of that time, most likely), However, even to a Unicorn as talented as him, his Magnum Opus eluded him for decades, and was left unfinished on his deathbed.

In my mind, knowing this, I'd re-write the scene of Twilight's realization like this, then:

Well, that was it, then. No easy answers: All existing mixed-couple children were either rare, natural, lucky flukes like Hippogryphs, or someone getting help from a Stallion on the side. There were no existing spells to solve her problem, and her transformation work seemed like a dead end. She sighed to herself. "So... I either have to do years of painstaking magical research that might herd might never live to see the fruitition... or hope I get lucky and find a Unicorn who's special talent is getting knocked up."

5302941

Probablly social reasons- It's easy enough to find a stallion who will knock you up... but they want to have a one that sticks around.

5303035

Firstly, how much original research and development are the ponies doing nowadays? I might be mistaken, but I always thought ponies are a traditionalist society that doesn't like change (and perhaps innovation) that much. If we remember the amount of old magic and knowledge that was forgotten, then, perhaps, from a ponys' point of view Twilight didn't give up too easily. It just wasn't enough.
As for why Celestia didn't say anything about it not being possible - perhaps she doesn't think it impossible, and is confident that Twilight is making some actual real progress. Twilight was pretty optimistic about it, and certainly she couldn't have made such a stupid mistake as to think interspecies hybridization is a solved problem....

See my above observations- IMO, New spells either come at random, or from the few talented enough at magic to original work. And even if Celestia had that level of faith in her, she'd probablly drop the line, "I've never seen that done before, in all my years.", because Twilight having foals isn't one of her tests.

I'm quite sure the origins of pegasi and Cerberus are different from Greek mythology.

Probablly, but I'm just pointing out the setting references beings/mythology where such a thing is commonplace.

Discord seems more like a tragic accident,

Maybe, but *drumroll* nobody knows!

and the bluejay could actually be something only Twilight has done.

Which implies she'd be unable to do it again... how?

It seems that while hybridization is possible, a practical method isn't known.

Which implies she can't find one.... why?

5305680

This kind of shows that her want seems to be more important than his opinion. I'm looking forward to the next part but I beg of you, don't have Lero just roll over or anything for this, letting his wife/girlfriend/mate introduce a guy into their relationship just to have children is something NO MAN WOULD EVER DO.

I can't agree with the hyperbolic assertation of "NO MAN WOULD EVER DO", but I agree with the sentiment- Lero simply rolling over and accepting the concept with no drama, conflict, or soulsearching whatsoever, or, hell, even just los of time to think about it would disappoint me.

5306562

That's... a really unchairitable thing to say.

5309004

>> BackgroundNoise

1. I have not read this story, I'm being a little chicken-shit and talking about my feelings instead.

Well then you are in no position to cast judgement on it.

Which, if you had read his post, would see that he hadn't.

5309257

Only Ms. Loyalty, a pegasus who isn't even sure who her father is (shame), really understands how deep this cuts.

Actually, I thought she did know him, he was just an asshole?

5309448

It just strikes me as being improbable that there's a large number of foals waiting around for adoption.

Especially since All-female herds are a thing, and they probablly want kids, too.

5309662

I would assume that even in the event of total loss of the parents, any foal would have a number of grand parent herds and chances are at least one of them would be eager to take the orphans in.

5308893

Twilight doesn't want to tell Lero about any of this until AFTER she finds a stallion that she'd like to introduce into the herd.

You're misreading her intention: while it might be possible that, right out of the door they'd find a stallion they might want to court before they could get around to discussing the idea with Lero, Twilight's intent was to merely discuss the idea with her fellow mares, before necessarily introducing the idea to Lero.

5310220

I would kinda agree... except that's in regards to challenges she's personal set before her. Would Celestia really stand aside, and let her futilelly struggle to a goal she knows will only end in failure and heartbreak? Much less, Cadance?

Considering the whole series' requires Twilight to make friends at the very last moment, and the best Celestia did was blow her concerns off, It's not out of the realm of possibility.

As for Cadance, perhaps not.

Except it's not presented that way. "Whoops, it's most likely never been done before. Clearly, that means it's impossible." On top of that, all she did was research if a spell already existed- she made no seeming effort to research a spell for herself.

It would have only taken a little bit of work for Twilight to realize that such a spell wasn't written down anywhere, but since she had evidence of fertile mixed-species herds, she did her research under the assumption that either the spell existed or there was some other method they were using, and she was combing the records for hints that might give her a better idea of what to look for or do. And she found it... it just wasn't the solution she was expecting, and, indeed, it was 'magic' at all.

I don't think it's ever been made clear in the show, but it's always been my impression, especially with Celestia's comments after Twilight completed Star Swirl's spell, that 'inventing' magic was relatively rare thing for ponies to do, even for a Unicorn of Twilight's power and skill.

A very logical point, and by logical extension, we can clearly see the entire population of Equestria is mules.

But as you say, they're not mules, and that's ultimately my concluding point. Your opening statement is that you see MLP as a D&D like universe, where everything magical and hybrid with any other magical being/etc, yet at the same time, there's no evidence to support that, beyond the reuse of various mythological creatures that have been used and reused over and over through fantasy fiction since almost it's very dawn.

The girls entered this knowing that odds were very high they could never have children without magical assistance, which makes Twilight's flipping her position really weird.

As she points out however, the idea of having foals is really only something that came into focus for her after she was part of the herd, simply because, much like having friends, it wasn't something that would be within the realm of possibility for her. But now that she is part of the herd, even with Lero, she finds herself dwelling on the idea of having children too.

Well, that was it, then. No easy answers: All existing mixed-couple children were either rare, natural, lucky flukes like Hippogryphs, or someone getting help from a Stallion on the side. There were no existing spells to solve her problem, and her transformation work seemed like a dead end. She sighed to herself. "So... I either have to do years of painstaking magical research that might herd might never live to see the fruitition... or hope I get lucky and find a Unicorn who's special talent is getting knocked up."

On the contrary, there is a very easy answer...

Actually, I thought she did know him, he was just an asshole?

If anyone was the asshole, it was probably Rainbow towards her father. Rainbow had, at this point, accepted the idea that her mother slept outside of the herd.
5310554

I would assume that even in the event of total loss of the parents, any foal would have a number of grand parent herds and chances are at least one of them would be eager to take the orphans in.

Exactly so.

Considering the whole series' requires Twilight to make friends at the very last moment, and the best Celestia did was blow her concerns off, It's not out of the realm of possibility.
As for Cadance, perhaps not.

Yes, except that was specifically a challenge she created for her.

Her having foals is not. This is my point, which you keep somehow overlooking.

But at least we agree on Cadance.

I don't think it's ever been made clear in the show, but it's always been my impression, especially with Celestia's comments after Twilight completed Star Swirl's spell, that 'inventing' magic was relatively rare thing for ponies to do, even for a Unicorn of Twilight's power and skill.

The show is extremely vague on this point, and again, I don't think the writers thought too much about it- but it's explicitly stated that Starswirl the Bearded personally invented a new form of magic, and presumablly, a large number of spells with it (Since we see a huge section of the caterlot library containing his work)- My interpretation is that inventing new spells (Possiblly outside of their Cutie Mark Spell) is something simply outside of the ken of your average unicorn- but ponies with special talent with magic, or intense, specialized training (Say, at a school for gifted unicorns) could do it.

As for Celestia's commens, what she means by "New Magic" is really fucking unclear- It could mean "A new spell", or "An entirelly new kind of magic.", I kind of lean towards the later- We've never previously heard of a spell that channels the powers of the elementals of harmony into making you an Alicorn, or does anything quite like that. Of course, I could just be bias in my interpretation, because it supports my other theories on how the magic in Equestria works.

But as you say, they're not mules, and that's ultimately my concluding point. Your opening statement is that you see MLP as a D&D like universe, where everything magical and hybrid with any other magical being/etc, yet at the same time, there's no evidence to support that, beyond the reuse of various mythological creatures that have been used and reused over and over through fantasy fiction since almost it's very dawn.

Right, but you're missing my point here- perhaps my fault for how I put it. Your statement was, that, essentially, if mixed-species children were possible, they would become the default herd organizationin Equestria- but I was basically calling out your assertation as nonsense, because we've seen for a fact that Donkies and Ponies can breed, yet Mules have not become the dominant Equestrian race, nor are there large numbers of herds of mares attached to Jacks. In short, my assertation of the possibility of natural hybrids was not contradicted by your counteragruement, because it was self-evidently not true.

As she points out however, the idea of having foals is really only something that came into focus for her after she was part of the herd, simply because, much like having friends, it wasn't something that would be within the realm of possibility for her. But now that she is part of the herd, even with Lero, she finds herself dwelling on the idea of having children too.

Fair enough.

On the contrary, there is a very easy answer...

...To having foals with Lero? Did you just not read the entire lead-up and context of that bit?

That was supposed to depict why she'd give up on a magical answer while remaining consistant with how magic was depicted on the show- It's possible, but so long odds as to not really matter unless she gets really lucky.

Remember, I'm not disliking the premise here, just finding problems with how you presented the material, because it seems to clash with the character and the setting to a degree, to the point of looking like authorial shortcuts to get to the conflict.

5310702

“I’m against it,” Rainbow said simply with only the barest hint of anger in her voice. “You say that you’re not betraying Lero, but he’s not even here to vote, and you haven’t even asked him at all.”

“If I—we find somepony we’d like to date, then we will,” Twilight said with a nod. “”We’re just talking in hypotheticals.”

"If we find somepony we'd like to date, then we will." Twilight is outright saying that she will tell Lero, after she finds a stallion they want to introduce to the herd, that they want to introduce a stallion into the herd. She may say she's talking in hypotheticals, but that's still hypothetically saying that she wont ask Lero what he thinks until they find another male, and then if Lero says no, he's going to look like a dick to other ponies because of a clash of customs.

5311178
The thing is, with the whole herding thing, you'd think adoption would actually be a very viable option. To them, the foal may have a slightly closer connection with the birth mother, but all the mares in the herd are its mother, so adopting a foal shouldn't have much affect on how close they feel with the child. As for whether adoption exists, it's probably not common (being that ponies, are herding species, they likely don't abandon foals very often) but I'm sure it still exists.

5311189

Maybe taking care of a herd's foals when a biological parent dies is not even considered adoption outside of some legal matters like noble title inheritance an such, it's just something you do. In this continuity Twilight was raised by her herd mothers after Star Sparkle pretty much walked away from them for several years as soon as she was born.

So far so good. My only nitpick is that Dash has been running on no sleep for a while, with seemingly no problems.

I'm really digging this escalating drama, characters are digging ever deeper ditches for reasons that are valid to their own internal logic.

Also "Bellyphone" is just pfffffffft

5310802

Yes, except that was specifically a challenge she created for her.
Her having foals is not. This is my point, which you keep somehow overlooking.

I don't think I am overlooking the point; Celestia doesn't appear to be too concerned about babysitting her student, at least not at this point in her life, and she's more than willing to let her succeed, or fail, on her own. And strictly speaking, Celestia might not even know whether or not it's possible; while the unicorns might have been open about liaisons outside of their herd, none of these herds specifically shouted to the world about what they had done. Indeed, as Rainbow Dash notes, at least several of them explicitly claimed that the non-pony was the foal's father.

Moreover, as you point out, this is a personal challenge that Twilight has chosen to take on, and she may very well be squeamish talking to the Princess about it. I'm not saying she is, but it's certainly possible, given how she idealizes Celestia.

Right, but you're missing my point here- perhaps my fault for how I put it. Your statement was, that, essentially, if mixed-species children were possible, they would become the default herd organizationin Equestria- but I was basically calling out your assertation as nonsense, because we've seen for a fact that Donkies and Ponies can breed, yet Mules have not become the dominant Equestrian race, nor are there large numbers of herds of mares attached to Jacks. In short, my assertation of the possibility of natural hybrids was not contradicted by your counteragruement, because it was self-evidently not true.

The problem is, the whole reason that ponies organize themselves into herds is because it's a practical solution to the poor sex ratio within the species. If it were the case that they could interbreed relatively easily with other species, like gryphons, it would seem that they would--being the practical ponies they are--use that resource, to whatever lengths they can. And yet this is clearly not true.

The assertion that ponies can or would be able to interbreed seems to me to be an unfounded one. There's no reason, from what we have, to assume that hybridization is possible; yes, mules exist, but mules aren't exactly a wholly successful breeding, and I would imagine having mules might very well be stigmatized. But that's something that's better suited for some other story, in my mind.

Remember, I'm not disliking the premise here, just finding problems with how you presented the material, because it seems to clash with the character and the setting to a degree, to the point of looking like authorial shortcuts to get to the conflict.

See, here's the thing, I'm not totally convinced that you've made the case that there is a clash between what I've written and the setting or characters, either within the show or the expanded material of the xenoverse. It is no evidence, aside from the reuse of what amounts to public domain mythological creatures, that would suggest that breeding outside of the ponies is in fact possible at all; indeed, Twilight and Lero both seem well aware of the problem when it was first introduced in the original xenophilia work.

I'm willing to concede that, perhaps, I should have written off the Princess(es) more clearly, yet at the same time, it doesn't seem to be something that's really the characters would necessarily do. Nor does Twilight seem like the sort to go running after them for help--considering it was Spike who ended up contacting Celestia and resolving the crisis in Lesson Zero.

...To having foals with Lero?

Again; they'd be his foals too even if he's not biologically the father. When a pony like Twilight or Lyra (or Rarity might say to one of her herdmates) says this, they're not talking in the sense of 'well, even if this kid isn't mine, I'm still going to love and raise them' as you might encounter with humans, they mean it very, very literally. When Cinnamon Swift joined Twilight's birthherd, dating Lucent and the other adults of group, she became literally Twilight's mother, as well as mother to Shining and all the other foals of the herd. And any foals she might bare into the herd would be the herd's foals too. Indeed, it wouldn't be surprising if some foals don't know which of the two stallions in the herd actually impregnated their mother, but for all practical and social aspects, it doesn't matter.

And I get that this is a somewhat alien perspective... as well it should be, since we're not dealing with humans here.

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It's not that it's not a viable option, it's merely that there really aren't any foals sitting around waiting to be adopted anywhere. Even if both biological parents of a foal dies, the other mare and/stallions would look after the foal, since they're his or her parents too. In the unlikely event that all the parents die, the child is probably going to get adopted into one of the parent's birthherds. In a herd of three adult ponies, that's three birthherds which could adopt the foals; that's between 6 and 18 additional ponies who could look after the foals.

Moreover, it's unlikely that even if a mother doesn't want the children she's bore--as is the case of Star Sparkle--that someone else won't step up and raise them while she herself does nothing of the sort.

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I can get that, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. What about if a pony was raped and got pregnant? Would the herd all raise the foal anyway? Or what if a child ran away because it was being abused? There are reasons why there would be some foals without families. Not a lot as I can't fault your logic, but there would be some, at least in a big city like Canterlot or Manehatten.

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I think that's where you go into the nature of the ponies being generally gentler and kinder than a humans'. How many rapes can they really be in a society where harmony is a core value and everyone is walking around naked and there's very little taboo about sex since everyone knows males and females are different as soon as they can distinguish shapes? There's so surprise finding out your cousins parts are different after a swimsuit malfunction in Equestria.

Even if rape would happen it would probably be so rare, and rarer still for it to result on a foal (since it would have to happen at a very specific time) that a system to handle such special casea would probably not exist as an institution.

This is super. Can't wait for more.