15. A Message From the Author
I was born a Prince, and am now Imperator. I am and have been scholar and soldier, scientist and sorceror, states-stallion and supreme ruler. I am and have been many things, and I have learned much in my life. To thee, brave Reader, do I bequeath my hard-won wisdom.
From the first words of the introduction she felt enthralled. Prince and Imperator -- it must indeed have been Crimson Quartz, King Sombra, the one who had somehow become Penumbra, who had written this book. She felt that he was reaching out her across the gulfs of time to teach her; she felt honored by his attention. This was not uncommon for Moon Dancer, encountering a great book, but -- because she had met Penumbra, it was all the more personal.
I have learned this lore by reading books, and by living life, yea, unto the sweet heights of ecstasy and the bitter depths of despair. I have known true love and seen my true love trampled under the hooves of a tyrant. I have been by turns a pampered prince, a tortured captive, a powerless exile, and a conquering hero. I have known friendship and enmity, love and hatred, full enough of both to see deeper into their truths and lies than the philosophers and priests know -- or admit.
Moon Dancer thrilled to these revelations. Her studies filled in the gaps. His true love would have been Lady Tourmaline, the Loyal Tourmaline, his faithful mistress who had suffered and dared anything to aid her Prince. The tyrant he fought, of course, would have been the Imperator Sthenarkos, his evil brother Morion. And Crimson had studied so deeply into the lore that was lost now. What had he learned? What would he now reveal to his eager reader?
For much ye have been taught is a Lie, and much ye have not been taught is Truth; much that ye love merely uses your love, to batten and feed upon ye. They dwell among ye, they rule ye, and yet they serve not your ends, but the unfathomable ends of Beings from Beyond our little Earth. Ye know them not in truth, and they depend upon your Innocence to remain in their seats of Power and rule you for their own Purposes.
They say they are your Friends, and play the role of Mothers to ye all, yet did they smite the whole Earth long ago, and smash the Brightest Dreams of Ponies, bringing down in Cataclysm the Age of Wonders, for that they feared that Pony might grow too Great, and shake the Shackles by which their Cosmic Kind had chained us. Yet by the strength of our Minds may we Break these Bonds, and exceed the Limits they have placed upon us -- for the great secret is that they know that we have in time the Potential to be in our Own Selves greater than any Goddesses.
Wait ... was he talking about? ... but no, how could that be possible?
Moon Dancer read on.
Ye who fear the Truth, and would live content in the Lie, read no further. For I shall, in here, reveal most plain certain truths that shall undermine the walls of your happy lies, and most cruelly cast light upon your now undefended Beliefs, by proving some of your most cherished Assumptions to be false. And the knowing of these truths shall end forever your Happiness, which was founded upon shifting sands. I say this at the start, that none might claim that I did trick you into Ruin.
But ye who yearn for the Truth, and could never live content in the Lie, read on. For I shall open your eyes to that which you Desire, and if your walls do fall, it shall only be to let you raise more secure ones on firmer foundations, so that you may in the end be the stronger for it. But heed well -- this is your choice, between the two paths you may walk. Only one can be your destiny.
Her mouth was slightly parted and she was breathing hard as she continued to read, turning to the first chapter, "Cosmogenesis."
16. Cosmogenesis
In the very Beginning, before the Earth or Sun or Stars, everything was very small and close and hot beyond comprehension, neither Matter nor Energy nor Space nor Time, but simply existence. And this Existence expanded very fast, in a vast explosion beyond anything that could now exist, for it was Everything that now exists which was exploding.
And as Everything expanded, it cooled. As it cooled, the raw Existence condensed into diverse forms, first of Energy and then of Matter. There were Gravity and Anti-Gravity, and Subtle Forces of the Atom, and Light and the Subtler Forces of the Kernel of the Atom, and even stranger Energies. And as the Energy cooled, some of it condensed into matter, since ever since the Age of Wonders have wise Ponies known that Energy and Matter are intraconvertible. And thus was born our Universe.
Moon Dancer nodded. The Ponies of the Age of Wonders had possessed subtle instruments beyond the ability of any Ponies now living to build,; in legends they wielded great telescopes and particle accelerators and computers to probe the fundamental mysteries of the Universe. And they had learned essentially the story that Crimson Quartz here told. Possibly from Crimson Quartz, as works on cosmology and physics had been among those the Lady Tourmaline had rescued from the Fall of the Crystal Empire.
But Anti-Gravity, born of the seeming Empty Space created by the the Great Explosion, built upon itself to push Everything apart very rapidly, not merely moving these Things in Space but inflating Space Itself. And this Inflation pushed Everything apart much, much faster than the fastest speed within Space, which is that of Light in the Void. And this meant that the divers Parts of Everything could not carry Information to one another, which meant that they might Contradict one another
Thus was created Paradox.
Paradox in reality? thought Moon Dancer in confusion. But no -- all paradoxes in logic are merely apparent, the result of a mistake in deduction or a poor choice of assumptions or definitions of terms. How could there be a paradox in reality? Moon Dancer tried to grasp the idea, but her mind slipped off the very concept. Such a thing cannot be! Yet, somehow, she felt that Penumbra was not lying -- that Paradox was, and that she couldn't really understand it because it was beyond mortal understanding in some fundamental fashion.
Understand well, Brave Reader. At its foundation the Universe is Information, lore such as one might find in a book or in the crystalline memory-cores of the great Computers of the Age of Wonders, though infinitely grander. Paradox is like ink spilled across the pages, a mistake in the Rules that work the Computers. Paradox destroys Information. It can make the Universe stop. It can be the end of Everything.
If that's true, I'm information as well, Moon Dancer deduced. Thus if I could really understand Paradox as well, I could not be.
That's what it is! she realized with excitement mingled with terror. Paradox is Non-Being. But it's Non-Being that is at the same time Being, the paradox at the core of Paradox, and it spreads!
She still could not directly conceive it, but now she knew why. If she could, she would stop existing. In this case, a certain degree of ignorance was not only bliss, but sheer survival.
It would have ended our Universe in its first seconds of existence, had it not been that our Universe was far from the first Universe to come into being. For, just as Beasts beget Beasts, and in many millions of years the Fish becomes the Frog, the Frog the Lizard, the Lizard the Mammal, and the Mammal the Pony, honed by the Knife of Natural Selection; so in countless millions of Aeons Universes beget Universes, and in stretches of Time beyond Time the descendants of small and simple Universes are great and complex Universes, such as the One in which we dwell.
And as Beasts are preyed upon by Animalcules that cause Sickness, so too are Universes preyed upon by Those Beings which cause Paradox. What this is no Ponies know, and even those Ponies imagine Goddesses can but spy them dimly and by their ill work. But just as Beasts develop their own Animalcules to fight the Animalcules of Sickness, so too do Universes develop their own Beings to fight the Beings of Paradox. They are anti-Paradox, and it is their job to destroy Paradox and its Manifestations wheresoever they may appear.
As Paradox is Anti-Concept, so Anti-Paradox is Concept. And this is what they are, the Anti-Paradoxes of our Universe -- the Cosmic Concepts.
They are those we have named Goddesses.
And they have betrayed us.
Moon Dreamer's mind was reeling with these revelations. It was all assuming a certain dreadful shape in her mind, starting to make sense of ancient legends and half-stated insinuations. Here, Penumbra was not insinuating. He was, as he had promised, speaking plainly.
And what he was saying was horrible.
The first Concepts were born in the very early Universe, before the Earth and Sun and Stars, when Everything was just beginning to settle down and Matter was condensing from Energy. There is an All which even I do not understand, the Pattern for the Universe, and from this sprang in the structure of Everything four Beings: the All-Father and the All-Mother, around whom began to twine the Concepts of Law; and the All-Chaos and All-Ending, around which began to form the Concepts of Chaos.
And the Concepts were not born quite as we understand Generation and Birth. Rather as a Force needed Law or displayed Chaos, interactions formed through a Space above Space, in which Information was not limited by the laggard Speed of Light, And Nodes formed, and Networks, and Patterns, and these Patterns competed for the available Thought inherent in the System, until for each graven Law or displayed Chaos, one Pattern consumed or displaced its Rivals, and became its Concept.
As the book progressed, diagrams and mathematical equations proliferated, most of which Moon Dancer, for all her education, grasped but dimly, but some of which she grasped well enough to understand that Crimson Quartz was explaining them properly. She was awed at the Prince's intelligence and mathematical ability, and wondered if any Pony now living could understand all that was in the Codex. Perhaps the only Pony she knew might have a chance was her former friend, Twilight Sparkle.
Thus were born the Cosmic Concepts. Many there were, each mistress of a Law or Process, but the three which concern us the most clearly are three whose destinies were closely linked both to the Creation of our World, and to its present Governance.
These are Gravity, Fusion and Dissonance.
17. Gravity, Fusion and Dissonance
Gravity, thought Moon Dancer. The force which holds together planets, which locks the Sun and Moon in orbit around the Earth. Fusion. The force which makes possible the heat and light of Sunfire. And Dissonance ... why does that last one seem so familiar? Almost personally familiar?
Of these Forces, Gravity and Fusion were linked by the very Stars, which are of course Suns so distant that they seem mere Pinpoints. For Gravity draws together the Prime Nuclei of Matter, the Watermaker, and Fusion combines them into Sunstuff, and this releases tremendous light according to the formula ...
Math ensued, but at its core Moon Dancer recognized the equation of the ancient philosopher Stony One: Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light Squared, and then a comparison of the masses of two Watermaker nuclei compared to one nucleus of Sunstuff, with the deficit in the product then multiplied by Stony One's equation, yielding a tiny amount of energy on an equine scale per nuclear reaction, but a titanic amount of energy given the number of nuclei undergoing the reaction at any moment in the Sun. There was of course an adjustment to compensate for the Sunwarp, and a check against the actual amount of energy received at an Astronomical Unit from our Sun.
This is astrophysics, and it's amazing that Crimson grasped the lore so fully, over a thousand years ago, Moon Dancer thought. We know this part of it today, though I notice that he claims the Sunwarp was "imposed" -- what does he mean by that? Would even Celestia be powerful enough to warp the Sun?
Thus, from the Beginning, Gravity and Fusion were like unto Sisters, and that there are Stars that shine, including the Sun, is wholly due to their loving Embrace. And in the Fullness of Time, Stars were Born and did Die, in their Deaths spraying out vast clouds of dust and gas, in which could be found new Elements. For only Watermaker and Sunstuff were produced in the Beginning; it is from the power of Fusion and the Death of Stars that all heavier Elements were Created, including those which make up the Rock beneath our Hooves, and the very substance of our Bodies.
I knew this, Moon Dancer thought, it's fundamental astrophysics, and I took a course in it at the Academy. But I never realized the implications. We -- all of us -- I myself right now in this room am part of the processes by which stars are born and die. Amazing! Suddenly she felt both very small, and strangely very proud.
But when Stars exploded and spread their stuff across the firmament, that stuff was at first thinly sowed, far too thinly to come together again and make new Stars. The Clouds of Gas and Dust fluctuated in regular wave-like patterns, but even at their peaks their Density was too small to allow their Coalescence. So would the Heavens have remained Barren, like a Mare who never found her Husband, were it not for a Natural Process.
For the Gravity of other Stars and of the Dark Matter that invisibly shrouds the Galaxies tugged upon the Clouds in manners so complex as to not be tractably reckoned, creating Dissonance in their simple wavelike structures. And though these forces were applied Chaotically, in their summation there was a higher implicit Order, what the Mathematicians of the Age of Wonders called Strange Attractors, and to these points in Space did the Clouds collapse. And thus from the loving touch of Discord, the Heavens were made fertile, and new Stars born. And as this happened, was Discord Himself also born, and opened His Eyes upon the young Universe.
Wait, what did Penumbra just say? He can't mean ... no, that's not possible!
She decided to suspend this line of inquiry, as she lacked the knowledge to come to any meaningful conclusion. So far.
Thus the Three, this Trinity, were linked most Inseperably, in that aspect of the Universe most important to us, the Creation of the very Stars that Shine, and the Worlds that whirl on their courses. Fusion, and Gravity, and Discord. Wherever Fusion and Gravity went, so did Discord follow, and in his Pursuit created the Galaxies in their billions, and each of them a Conglomeration of billions of Stars. And for a long time in our terms, Fusion and Gravity and Discord, and their fellow Concepts, looked upon a Universe that had neither Life nor Mind within it, save for their own.
But then in the Fullness of Time, as the heavy Elements accumulated in generation upon generation of Stars, those Elements combined into complex Chemicals, and these Chemicals into forms which made more of their own out of the primal Stuff surrouding. And these Living Chemicals formed Creatures, which lived and struggled and bred and changed into new Creatures over Time, causing new Concepts to be born of their Life and Love and Strife. And the day came when, on countless Worlds throughout the Universe, some Creatures opened their Eyes, and looked at the Stars in Wonder. And Minds were born.
Including my mind, thought Moon Dancer, awed. And that of Crimson Quartz. Such a mind! Such vast intellect, such deep understanding! Where did he go wrong?
And the Cosmic Concepts looked upon the emergence of Life and Mind, and they found them Good. But they were confused, for the Concepts -- for all their Scope and Might -- were essentially Simple Beings, ponifications of the Laws and Processes of Nature. And the stirrings to and fro of Life, and the concerns of Mind, were alien to them. And Some among the Concepts were seized by a Hunger to Understand the new Beings.
Most curious of all was Fusion, for Her Force was a complex one. And it occurred to her that, if she could send forth a Part of Herself, and let it be Born into a Living Form, that Part might Inform Her of what it meant to be Alive. And so she did, and with her journeyed her Sister, for though Gravity was but a Simple Concept, She could not be separated from her Sister for long.
And after the Sisters, as always, followed Discord.
18. Incarnations
Fusion and Gravity? thought Moon Dancer. The force that lights the Sun ... and the force that binds the Earth and Moon? As ... Sisters? Dwelling among mortals? Among ... us?
Something dreadful was taking shape within her mind.
Penumbra can't mean ... It seemed impossible.
Can he?
No Pony can say how many Strange Forms, how many Unearthly Lives, this Trinity lived until they came to Our World. Nor, in truth, how many Forms and Lives they took even on this Earth, for the Wise know that Ponies are neither the First nor as of yet the Greatest of the Minds which have dwelt on this Planet and looked out to the Stars.
But I do know when it was that they were born on this Earth, in the forms of two lovely Alicorns, and one unlovely Draconequus, to the Undying Ponies of Paradise Estate in the south-lands called Equestria.
No ... thought Moon Dancer. It can't be ...
You, Brave Reader, will doubtless have heard of them, so great is their Reign and brilliant their Glory. You may even feel for them a surpassing Love, for Fusion did design into the Alicorn -- which is not a normal Kind of Pony at all -- a Charisma which few Ponies can resist, even though it is an Armament She devised so that She and Her Sister might do as they willed among Ponies without Restraint. You may already have guessed their Names by now, for I am sure that any who have read this far into my Work are themselves possessed of Minds most Excellent.
Oh yes, thought Moon Dancer. I know what's coming ...
Nevertheless shall I Name them, two Names I know full well, as full well I know their Bearers in person.
That's right, Moon Dancer realized, with the remnants of her functioning reason. Prince Crimson Quartz took refuge first in the City Foreverfree. He would have met them in person. As a fugitive Prince, he would have been of interest to the Ruling Princesses ...
The Sisters were born to Mimic, an Undying of Paradise Estate. They were seeming Ponies, but in truth inequine Creatures from Beyond. One shone like the Sun, while the other gathered to her the dark mysterious beauty of Moonlight.
And they were given Pony names.
Celestia, and Luna.
Moon Dancer slammed the book shut. Her eyes were huge, her pupils pinpointed, her ears flat back.
She trembled in terror, but knew that there would be, neither by day nor by night, for her no consolation.
She had learned the Truth, and feared it would haunt her for ever.
And knowing that the universe is not what she was taught it was is going to do things to her.
This was a fascinating read. I love how you have portrayed Sombra and his liar's tricks; he speaks enough truth, truth his assumed audience already knows, to trick his readers into believing his lies are also true. A well known technique. He uses flattery to lower his audiences defences, leaving them more susceptible to his arguments. All told, a thoroughly unreliable narrator.
And poor young Moon Dancer who, were she as wise and experienced as she believes herself to be, would be well weary of such tactics, is falling for it hook, line and sinker. All told, an excellent job my good Sir
Technically, I see Sombra hasn't lied at all here. Everything he says is correct - Celestia and Luna are vastly older beings; they did design their alicorn forms with hypercharisma; they did tear down the Age of Wonders in what could be called betrayal.
It's just everything else he leaves out.
Looking forward to more.
Oh, Crimson. Was there some grave misunderstanding between you and Luna, or did the Shadows simply twist that brilliant mind to see horror where there was only love?
There's a wonderfully surreal feeling in seeing cosmology and particle physics in the style of ancient manuscripts, and the idea of Einstein as an ancient philosopher is downright bizarre. Still, such are the possibilities offered by your Equestria, and they're a delight to read.
Somewhat less of a delight is Moondancer's continued drinking from this poisoned well. This will get much worse before it gets better...
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Celestia does not let Ponies know that she's actually an incarnation of a Cosmic Concept, for a number of reasons.
FIrst of all, she doesn't want to be worshipped as a goddess. Or feared as a demoness, for that matter. And if Ponies knew that she was in truth a manifestation of a fundamental force of the Universe, both outcomes would be likely. Crusades would be fought for or against her, whether she wanted this or no. And absolutely nopony would be able to relate to her as a Pony. It's bad enough being beautiful and super-powerful, and lest you think this purely Cursed With Awesome, consider that she can never be sure if somepony claiming to want to befriend or love her is sincere or social-climbing. Imagine the distance between herself and her subjects if they knew she was, essentially, the Avatar of something Divine.
Secondly, she actually IS a Pony -- partially out of malice and partially out of misunderstanding, Crimson Quartz is quite wrong to claim she is an inequine alien. Yes, the Concept of Fusion isn't a Pony, but when Fusion split off a tiny part of herself to be incarnated as an Alicorn Pony, that Alicorn Pony became quite real. Celestia has more in common with Ponies than she does with Cosmic Concepts; she can sometimes access and use a very limited set of the memories and powers of her Cosmic Overself, but she doesn't really understand it. She does understand Ponies, though.
How does Celestia conceal the truth, then? No, she doesn't send death squads around to kill anypony who claims that she is a Cosmic Concept. She's far too decent to do this -- and besides, she doesn't need to do so.
To begin with, the very idea of the Cosmic Concepts sounds like something out of a weird tale or comic book. There's no actual evidence of Celestia's origins other than what she has told others or chooses to tell others. Most Ponies would consider the notion absurd: while Celestia is immortal and super-powerful, she's immortal and super-powerful on a Pony scale, not on the scale of an entity the age of the Universe which can coordinate fusion everywhere in the Universe.
Secondly, while there are those out there who have deduced or divined Celestia's true origins, it's hardly easy to find these speculations. Celestia isn't willing to murder to protect her secret, but she is willing to conceal certain books and prohibit their dissemination, and where she can't do this, to use her considerable social skills to make the theory seem silly. Celestia's mostly an ethical and moral being (far more so than most Ponies), but she's not perfectly ethical and moral.
Thirdly, as Celestia is generally loved in Equestria, if anypony did guess what she was they would be impelled to worship her. As I mentioned, she doesn't want to be worshipped, but this means that all she would need to get them to not tell other Ponies would be to ask them not to do so. They would gladly do so to please their Goddess. And if they didn't, they would look more like deluded sycophants than discoverers of a hidden truth.
As for her enemies -- like the main worldline's Sombra himself -- why would anypony believe them? It would look purely like malicious calumny ("My enemy is actually an alien demon!") Do you or I believe the claims that, say, the Bushes or the Clintons are actually Alien Space Lizard People? Of course not. The same problem occurs with regard to Ponies believing that Celestia is actually an ultra-powerful extraterrestrial.
How did Crimson Quartz find out (part of) the truth? Well, to begin with, he had access to the Great Library of the Crystal Empire, the most complete research collection of his world. Then, he was befriended by Princess Luna from an early age, and (as we see with her behavior toward Twilight) when Luna really likes somepony, she can be indiscreet. She's nowhere near as naturally-cunning and socially-manipulative as is her Sister. Finally, the Shadows know what the Concepts are (namely, their greatest obstacles to taking our world) and Crimson Quartz merged with a Shadow to become Sombra.
The real question is probably "Why does Moon Dancer believe the Codex of Shades in this claim?" There are several reasons. To begin with, she likes and wants to believe Penumbra. Secondly, she has a tendency to overestimate the claims made by books, in general. Thirdly, she's a radical revolutionary, and thus open to any claim which would delegitimize Celestia.
She's shocked, anyway, because it's so much more than she expected. And fundamentally, she was raised by Ponies loyal to the regime, and even as a revolutionary, she sort of assumes that the regime will survive forever, just become something she likes more. That's a very common delusion among naive intellectuals who want to overthrow authority, but assume that said authority will always be there to protect them. And Moon Dancer is very naive.
6466217 So,,,,,,living in the world of the Twelfth Equestriad would be something of a problem. A world with no Celestia to blame for everything and with all the problems seemingly addressed would be horrible because she'd have nothing to complain about.
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Well, it might for Moon Dancer, were it not for the fact that she matured and stopped trying to blame the imperfections of her life on everypony else. Plus, in the meantime she made friends, fell in love and generally improved her life. A lot can happen in some 45 years; Moon Dancer at 65-66 is not the same naive Angry Young Soul that she was at 20; she's a much happier and saner mare.
6466639 All the while shaking her head ruefully at those are who where she was.
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In regards to this: none of the facts Sombra wrote in the sections I've shown of the Codex of Shades was an outright lie. It's all in the interpretation of these facts, and what he left out. In part on purpose, in part because Sombra doesn't know everything.
Moon Dancer clearly doesn't understand how horrific King Sombra was.
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Correct. She doesn't. But then she's never met the full Night Stallion form of King Sombra. Only the edge of his shadow.
... I see what you did there
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Yep. And "Einstein's" name actually means "A Stone" or "One Stone."
6469513 even a first year Deutsch studenten should know that and figuring out the Chemistry and physics was a great little mental exercise. Keep up the good work
I'm actually feeling sorry for Starlight Angel and her friends. They get left out of all the history books. Even Starlight's only current legacy is a mad woman using her name which is all ponies will think of.
I hope Moon Dancer realizes she's reading a bias account.
Wouldn't All-Chaos be 'All-Instinct' or 'All-Fear'?
Then again, nothing to say that everything Sombra wrote here was 100% correct.
a Charisma which few Ponies can resist, even though it is an Armament She devised so that She and Her Sister might do as they willed among Ponies without Restraint.
And I seriously doubt Sombra is right about this one.
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I've actually mentioned her in at least one of my stories, just not by name. Sombra doesn't know her name, and he believes that the Cosmic Concepts were merely using the threat of Paradox as an excuse to smash the civilization of the Age of Wonders. He's, of course, wrong about that, as is obvious from Luna's recollections all the way back in Nightmares Are Tragic. But he now assumes Luna was lying to him when he was Crimson Quartz.
She doesn't quite yet, but Penumbra told her something that isn't in the Codex of Shades which contradicts something in the Codex, at least by implication. Which is why he told it to her, and only after his knowledge had been burst-transmitted back to the master copy of Sombra.
That line is a good example of how a Big Lie works. It's founded in truth (Alicorn Charisma is quite real) but includes at least one malicious misinterpretation (partially because, by the time he became Sombra, Crimson Quartz believed it).
Have you ever read If This Goes On -- (Robert A. Heinlein, 1940)? It contains an excellent discussion of how to speak something literally true but shade it so that it's a lie. The example given was a statement equivalent to "Your mother conceived you with your father in wedlock," only said in slang so that it sounded like an incredible insult (the fact that the line the character speaks is never rendered, only described by implication, gives one a good idea of what is actually said.
It is true that Celestia crafted the Alicorn form to be hyper-attractive and hyper-dominant. It is not true that she did this for abusive purposes. It is true that this capability can be abused. Ironically, one of the clear examples of this is Nightmare Moon, and Sombra's own machinations were partially to blame for her madness.
Another good example of this, of course, was Nazi propaganda. There was enough truth in it that it was effective. And, of course, much of it was believed by its authors.
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Probably de facto, as the octavo, quarto, etc. desginations date back centuries in our world, even though they were less standardized before the 20th century. I could easily see some very specialized Pony genius with a Talent for paper-making or printing making the intellectual effort required to devise a standard and get it accepted throughout the Realm, at least.
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A 4-year-old bug which Knighty keeps saying he will fix, but never does, prevents replies from showing in the notifications, unless they are in the original chapter.
The thing about the ratio 1:√2 is that if one cuts the paper in half across its width, the new ratio is 1:((√2)/2). That is √2:1. This video explains it more elegantly than I could:
I have a blog about pony-mathematics:
Why ponies might use Balanced Ternary.
Maybe, you can do a blog about Pony-Mathematics in your 'Verse.
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Had I written any of this after I saw the Season 6 Opener, I might have shipped them. Of course, the Season 6 Opener more rather obviously ships Starlight Glimmer with Sunburst.
To make matters even more amusing, Moon Dancer shares key elements of Starlight Glimmer's political philosophy.
You've mentioned the "Allfather" in a religious context in some of your other stories. Wouldn't this imply the ponies know about the Concepts?
The Universe is a simulation, Paradox is bugs, and the Cosmic Concepts are automatic bug fixing programs.