Luna refilled her coffee mug. Again.
“…Are you sure this is safe, Princess?” I wondered. The mug was nearly as big as my head. And it seems that before it started its career in coffee, it actually was a flower vase. Now that Luna was using it to consume coffee in quantities sufficient to drown small rodents, hardly anypony would suspect, but I could tell.
It was a crazy day in a crazy week, and my head was still swimming from everything.
First, I find out that the reason the whole city is under shield is not wedding security, but some “threat,” and Shining Armor couldn’t even come visit and personally invite me to his wedding, because he has to constantly renew the spell.
Then, he tells me that “Mi Amore Cadenza” is actually Cadance’s official real name. Which would be best news ever, if she actually recognized me. Which she didn’t. I’m still not sure what to think about that.
And then he tells me, that Luna didn’t sleep for three days straight, alternating between roaming the countryside and sitting by a telescope for the entire night waiting for the supposed enemy to show up on the horizon. It got so bad, that on Celestia’s orders, Shining Armor personally disabled her alarm clock when they finally talked her into taking a short nap. Which only lasted until she noticed that everypony else is leaving the dream realms, and woke herself through sheer force of will, planning to resume her patrol “shortly.”
I figured I had to rearrange my schedule and talk to Luna before I do anything else. The girls know what to do, they’ll manage without me for a few hours, but if this keeps up, Luna might not be conscious enough to answer my questions by the time the wedding’s done. Finding Luna caffeinated to the point of visibly twitching definitely did nothing to convince me otherwise – it seemed that for her, the week has been just as crazy. In fact, just looking at her felt like a threat to my sanity.
“Tis not safe to sleep when an enemy is at the gates!” Luna insisted. “Did my sister not teach you that, Twilight Sparkle?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
Luna giggled and downed half the mug in one gigantic gulp. “I must apologize, I am most displeased with this turn of events. You are in no danger. At least, not while I am awake.”
“Too much caffeine can’t be good for anypony’s heart,” I tried again.
“Worry not of my heart, Twilight Sparkle, ’tis as strong as a thousand horses,” Luna brushed me off and took another sip.
“Is it really so bad, that you have to go without sleep?” I wondered.
“Surely you remember that day, when Cerberus abandoned his post at the gates of Tartarus for a short time?” Luna asked. “You were the one to guide him back, as I recall.”
I nodded. It wasn’t long enough ago to forget, and it was a very memorable week, full of chaos and yelling at ponies. And now that time travel gets brought up every other day, I keep looking back at it and wondering how could I be stupid enough to produce the loop in the first place.
“He left to track an escaped villain, a monstrous evil of great power. Alas, Cerberus is a guard dog, not a bloodhound,” Luna explained. I shivered. Was returning Cerberus home such a good idea? Did this evil pass through Ponyville, unseen?… But Luna ignored me and continued. “We have received word, dubious as it is, that this villain designs to attack Canterlot. Until we can ascertain that this shall not occur, the shield is to stay in place.” She bit off a piece of her moon pie and washed it down with more coffee. “And I shall resume my patrol as soon as I am appropriately awake and alert.”
“But when will you stop, Princess?!” I exclaimed.
“When I am sure the creature is back in Tartarus, or outside our borders, or dead,” Luna said sharply. “Or at least, when the festivities are over, for nothing would be more unseemly, than a monster attack interrupting a joyous occasion such as this.”
“What if we never know?” I asked.
“Protecting Equestria is my sworn duty,” Luna insisted, softly stomping her hoof. “And while my sister has acquired many additional duties during the time of my exile, I am determined to do my part, and I shall conduct this duty as I always did.”
I sighed. I had to back down. She certainly feels very strongly about it…
Luna looked me over, and I shivered under her gaze. “Is everything going well with the wedding, Twilight Sparkle?” I must look like a total mess… “Surely, you come to me seeking help, for I cannot imagine anything else would distract you.”
“Actually, I am, but it’s not about the wedding,” I admitted. I really need to get rid of at least some puzzles… “I wanted to ask you about a mare who says she is a personal student of yours. Her name is Trixie.”
“A most courteous and diligent lady of great promise,” Luna nodded. “I spent weeks scouring the dreams of unicorns, seeking one with as much drive and determination as yourself. So far, I am not disappointed in the slightest in my choice.”
What?! “…Are we talking about the same Trixie?” I wondered.
Luna hid a smile behind her coffee mug, “She was your classmate, I believe.”
I felt the hairs of my mane curl and tried to force them to stay in place with a burst of magic before she had a chance to notice. “So you really did send her to duel me for access to the castle library?”
“Yes,” Luna admitted readily, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I hope you enjoyed that. Verily, she should have provided you with a challenge appropriate for your ability. I was most particular on that.”
I didn’t think I could straighten my hair without a brush anymore. I certainly could no longer hide it, and Luna wasn’t just tense from all that coffee. “Terribly alert” really was the more appropriate term.
She put her mug down on the table and looked at me seriously. “Celestia warned me you would not take it well, but I insisted. She never could refuse me… Indeed, I owe you an explanation.”
“Yes, please,” I mumbled, curling up in my chair in the closest approximation of a fetal position that I could manage while still staying sort of dignified.
“Did you consider the consequences of solving your mystery?” Luna asked. “The one that you visited the castle library to pursue?”
“What do you mean, ‘consequences?’” I sputtered. “I would know what to do about it, if anything!” First, Mary, with her cryptic premonitions, talking like she accidentally ended the world and we still didn’t notice, now Luna…
“Just as knowledge is power, so ignorance is a resource. Vital, no matter how unpleasant,” Luna stated. “What we do not know, may still turn out in our favor. What we do know is not in our favor, never will.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I had to wiggle them to make sure they’re still there. Sure enough, they were. “That’s like saying that what we don’t know doesn’t exist,” I stated my almost-question. Is this going to be something as embarrassing as friendship being real, again?
“It does,” Luna said, looking at me curiously. “And yet, as part of apeiron, it is not, yet, decided.”
“…Do you mean the primal unaligned matter?” I inquired. “But it’s just a mathematical fiction in Transmutation, it doesn’t actually exist, this has been conclusively debunked hundreds of years ago—” I started, and then noticed how Luna looked away. “—oh.” That was a long time after she was banished.
“No, that is not what I meant,” Luna said, after a slightly tense pause. “The idea of unaligned matter is based on the philosophical notion of the unlimited. The transformation of apeiron into other substances is the primal means of harmony.”
I had to remind myself, that Luna is the last surviving purely pre-classical magician. In her days, magic was seen as an art, rather than science. Even if I don’t understand it, there’s a system behind it, ideas based on feelings, rather than rules. I already know they aren’t any less valid than mine, Star Swirl’s legacy is a testament to that. That legacy is what classical and post-classical theories were made to explain.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” I finally admitted.
“Harmony guides things to occur the way they should, rather than just the way they can,” Luna started explaining. “In this, a miracle of harmony can transgress any law of magic, just because this is the way the world should be. The more we know, the less miracles remain in the world, for there are more laws a miracle must transgress to manifest.”
This… is a bizarre logic, completely unscientific, but it makes no less sense than Pinkie Sense, on an intuitive level. “Do miracles exist at all?” I wondered.
“Was finding your friendship anything less?” Luna smiled. “Miracles are not quite as uncommon as they might appear.”
Maybe… Maybe it was a miracle. That Sonic Rainboom in which we got our cutie marks wasn’t anything normal. A Sonic Rainboom is supposed to be impossible in the first place, and there is still considerable confusion about how it actually works, even now, when Rainbow can do it on cue. I knew friendship is magic on a whole different level, beyond anything I knew before… and that would be this level, wouldn’t it. I just got lost in the details of how to nurture it, and it distracted me from thinking of how it might affect reality.
But I still think she’s wrong. “Let’s assume you’re right. Doesn’t every discovery present new mysteries?” I countered. “I’ve just started on this one, I have yet to discover anything, and I’m already up to my ears in more mysteries!”
“That was Celestia’s argument as well,” Luna commented. “And it is true. But as you have deduced, this particular mystery lies at the root of countless phenomena. That you might expand the realm of knowledge concerns me not, and is nothing but a commendable result. But it is worrying, that this might happen too fast. When Equestria might be in need of a miracle on short notice, it is unwise to potentially impede it.”
I’m not sure I can accept this way of thinking.
I’m not sure I have to. She could order me to stop, but she didn’t. Something doesn’t add up. “…So instead of simply sending me a cease and desist decree, you choose to send your student to stop me? It’s like you’re treating it as some sort of game,” I accused.
“More like theater. Trial by harmony is a time-honored practice,” Luna assured me. Strange, it’s the first time I heard of something like that. “We are out of arguments, Celestia and I, and yet, we failed to convince each other. We cannot settle which is the right thing to do by argument alone. So we pass the question on to our champions, and through their friendly competition, what should happen, will happen.”
“Friendly?!” I exclaimed, sitting up. Is she serious?! Is this a dream? Did I fall asleep on the train and nopony remembered to wake me up? Did they make a mistake and wake up the wrong pony?! “Trixie hates my guts! She always did!”
Luna paused and looked deep into my eyes. “Trixie Lulamoon just wants to be your friend, Twilight Sparkle,” she said seriously. “More than anything else. She would never admit it to you, but I have seen it in her dreams.”
I choked for breath. “In what universe is it acceptable to conjure a spectral guardian to rip your ‘friend’ to pieces, along with hundreds of priceless books?!” I finally spat out.
“In her universe,” Luna countered, “the surest path to friendship is by forging it through demonstrating your best to each other in adversity. What exactly is wrong with that?”
“Like, everything?!” I insisted. “Friendship is the antithesis to enmity!”
“Friendship is many things. I met the pony who was my dearest friend this way,” Luna said without a hint of humor in her voice. “For Trixie, it is something that can only exist between ponies of matching ability. If she isn’t better than you in anything, she does not think herself deserving of your friendship.”
“That’s… crazy,” I said uncertainly. Didn’t I say that all of my friends are crazy, many times?
“Sanity is relative, Twilight Sparkle…” Luna commented. “But I apologize, I was not aware that this is a lesson you have yet to learn.”
I stopped myself just as I was about to protest again. I’m supposed to study friendship. Can I really dismiss the possibility? Who am I to say that I know everything about how friendship forms? “Not every friendship lesson has to be a result of personal experience,” I said. I want to try that “learning from other ponies’ mistakes” thing for a change.
“I am hardly wise enough in the ways of friendship to give you lectures,” Luna smiled. “If there ever will be any real theory, I have no doubt that you will be the one to write it.”
“It would certainly help me to know of your experiences,” I insisted. “Just how did this friendship start?”
“With a challenge to a duel,” Luna said. “Which, to my shame, she won, even though she could never come close to me in raw power. I have learned a great many things from Platinum. I am sure Trixie will provide you with just as much learning experience,” she smiled with thinly veiled smugness. “Consider this my contribution to the future of some of Equestria’s greatest ponies.”
I felt myself redden at the sudden compliment, but at the same time I was thinking. Platinum? Princess Platinum? The journal describes the first meeting between Luna and Platinum very differently. It says that Luna got offended at Platinum, and humiliated her until she apologized. If that’s called a duel, it’s a very unusual one, and it’s definitely not one Platinum can be said to have won… Maybe I should talk to her about it?
“I must apologize, as much as your company pleases me,” Luna said, standing up. “Duty calls. And alas, I am out of coffee.”
She certainly was.
This reminded me of the homestuck 'quadrants' near the end of the chapter.
7298248
Never got around to reading Homestuck, myself, but my editor keeps mumbling about "kismesissitude" when Trixie comes up...
7298248 Well sanity being relative tends to fit Toby Fox's style.
7298290 sounds about right.
Thinking about the limits of stories.
One, they are limited by the author - their beliefs, prejudices, Hasbro contracts, etc. Twilight need not worry about "Cupcakes" in the "canon" story, because of kiddy show, and needs not worry about it in _this_ story, because Oliver doesn't seem to be that big a dick.
But that's not really my big problem. My issue is when does a story _end_? Presumably, if a story is considered continued by an author and it is not followed up on, the characters are "free" and not bound to a specific course of events after the end of the story, save in where built-in assumptions of the world-building dictate likely continuing events, such as the continued manufacture of inappropriate doorknobs. But what if others continue the story? What of fanfics set in the future or "behind the scenes" of the story as written? What of anthology stories, in which there are continuing settings and characters, but multiple writers, of varying skill levels, and with frequent severe continuity issues and OOC? What, indeed, if the original writer comes back to the story years or decades later, by which time their skill level, ideas, etc. may have changed, if, indeed, they haven't been hit with the Brain Eater? [1]
Re fanfic, if fanfics exist in the Cosmic Library, then they must, once they exist, be independent from the original story, otherwise they would have to _cease_ to exist when developing canon blatantly contradicts them. For instance, the many stories from the first couple seasons in which Luna and Celestia were pretty definitely physical Gods are universes which by necessity would go off in their own directions after the season-two ender where they Nerfed Celestia by having her taken out by an overgrown emotional mosquito.
It really only makes sense for any and all fanfic to represent separate if possibly convergent universes from the beginning - since presumably one author's story-universe can't be internternally modified by the simple _existence_ of someone else writing about it (without the primary author , and if it were, they would _cease_ to become part of the mainline history retroactively when something arose in the TV show that contradicted it, which even in a time-travel setting makes the foundations of reality seem extremely shaky.
And what about fanfics that reference other fanfics? Is an "author approved" continuation of a story by another writer taking place in the same universe, or, like (presumably) an unapproved continuation, taking place in an another universe? (and how exactly does an approved continuation fanfic differ from a continuation of the TV series when a new writer takes over?
(How closely linked does a _series_ of stories have to be to form a single linked fictional universe? In the case of, say, the "Outer Limits" show, each episode is an essentially separate story, and in many cases the internal logic is such that two stories _can't_ be in the same universe. On the other extreme, a novel released at once, with a single overarching narrative, fairly clearly is one story-universe. (Of course, the devil is in the detailed: many novels started out as multi-part serials, some stories and TV shows have only loosely interrelated stories taking place in an overarching setting, and some metafictions may take place in multiple expressly different realities).)
Again, each time we move to a new writer, are we moving to a subtly different story-universe?
Are some stories sufficiently non-canon to enough people that they can be seen as taking place in entirely other universes? (Did they _ever_ reference that Daring Do episode in any of the later episodes?) Presumably there is one book in the library where everything happened as in the show, but is it privileged over all the stories in which something didn't happen or the watchers interpret things differently? What is more privileged: the intent of the writer, or the interpretation of the viewer?
Just some thoughts.
[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FilibusterFreefall
Ah, making it look like an accident. One of my favorite things to do in Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood. That derpboat never saw the moose head coming unfastened from his wall coming.
7299174
Canon contains enough implied squick as it is. Which mostly goes unnoticed, because few people make the effort to actually cache the thing in their heads in in its entirety. I wouldn’t have to add much of anything if I wanted to write an outright horror story. For example, how, exactly, do you think, changelings reproduce, if they reproduce at all? Queen laying eggs? Think again, you’ll eventually realize that given the totality of canon, this is impossible.
Mind you, implied cosmic horror is very much on the table here, but I hope nopony actually goes insane. This is not a tragedy.
To quote Mary, “Time in the Library is very broken.” That sort of nonsense is precisely what she meant. It’s not very linear and kind of twisted into pretzels.
Most of this is going to make it into the story eventually, because they will talk about it – and Twilight has yet to offer her competing theory, which she will, eventually – but it’s going to be a long time before it does, so I might as well explain a few things…
To quote Rika, “That’s how stories form trees.” The Library is immutable and thread-safe (mostly, and for a given value of ‘safe’ – exceptions exist) – but also, highly deduplicated. A story might imply the existence of 10⁸⁰ Equestrias, or an actual infinity of worlds, but they aren’t really stories in their own right until specific events in them are the subject of someone’s comprehension. The Library is the collected corpus of things that make sense. Infinity most assuredly does not, and neither do two worlds only different in the position of a single speck of dust on one particular carpet. That’s why only about a million Equestrias exist, and there are only about 10¹⁸ stories total.
The deduplication rules are vague, but rather simple. As long as two stories can occur in the same universe without throwing a logical exception, they do. The distinction between worlds, from the Library point of view, is also rather illusory, which is why targeting a specific point in a specific space-time is a skill that takes practice and developing a sense for it. There’s also all the notion of phase space. Story trees are a Library-level phenomenon, not a feature of stories themselves, they’re patterns in a virtual shared phase space. Which is also the reason why the shelving pattern for stories that are part of the same tree resists strict definition.
What makes you think there is one, perfect, pure mainline book? :) For many story trees this is true, but for ponies the jury is still out. Nothing is privileged, there isn’t a single “real world” in any sense, and ontological entitlement is …kinda impolite, if you ask me. :)
Well, Dash is still carrying the book, the one with herself on the cover, around with her, as of “Flutter Brutter…”
7299649
I've been leading up to it for over ten chapters, dammit, someone should have seen it coming. :)
7299792
On the other hand, the totality of Canon is self-contradictory, so where does that leave Chrysalis? Or anypony else?
"The Library is the collected corpus of things that make sense. "
Well, that takes out a lot of fanfics, especially ones with labels "random" and "sex"...
" but they aren’t really stories in their own right until specific events in them are the subject of someone’s comprehension."
If I understand this correctly, a variant story (fanfic or whatever) only becomes a separate story when someone (reader or writer) becomes aware of a logical/factual contradiction? All sorts of contradictory, OOC, and downright logically impossible stories can exist as part of the "space" of a story, as long as nobody reads them which knows enough of the original to identify a problem?
"As long as two stories can occur in the same universe without throwing a logical exception, they do. "
But what counts as a logical exception? Different readers may have some rather different views on this. Or are there cosmic rules for this which don't care what what AngryFan1000 thinks about the latest episode?
"What makes you think there is one, perfect, pure mainline book? :) For many story trees this is true, but for ponies the jury is still out."
Because the show is still making new episodes?
7299832
In the state of decoherence, obviously.
There are a few Equestrias in particular where the laws of logic are internally borked. That’s where the ones that actually latch into the collective consciousness of the universe end up.
Reader or writer or character. The system tends to settle into a stable state with minimum energy, just like everything else.
Different readers have different views on things because they assume different things occurring outside the margins of the corpus they have available, right? If they disagree, it means that the worlds they imagined were different all along.
Which do have sufficient contradictions between them that the amount of glue you need to introduce to produce a single non-contradictory universe is pretty high. Check out “Around the Bend”. In a particular example, it is impossible for the world of ponies to have anything approaching realistic cause and effect progression unless episodes are not aired in order of actual events depicted in them…
Equestria is kind of rare in this regard. For example, you don’t need anywhere as much glue to produce a unified narrative of the entire Stargate series with all of its offshoots.
7299886
Ah, Chatoyance. The Headcanon Is Stronk with that one...
(Not that I disagree with the basic issue of Mare-do-Well being an almost offensively stupid episode. )
7300023
I generally find little to agree with her on, but the notion that around the time Lauren Faust left for good, the show's backstory underwent a gigantic invisible retcon is true as far as I can tell. :) Splitting into two separate unrelated universes is extreme, I prefer to glue them, because it produces a richer story. But it supports my argument that there might not be a single "book of the show" that perfectly corresponds to every episode. :)
7300028
Indeed? My general assumption was that there was never a major effort at consistent world-building and they've essentially been throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks from early on, with Hasbro occasionally going all Cultural Revolution to add new toys, but if there is analysis out there that says otherwise I would be interested. (Just please not from Chatannoyance,)
7300159
There was some direction when Faust ran the show, though a lot less than what I would call sufficient or necessary, and some of it was patently weird -- see "Over a Barrel," which apparently, was meant to be taken painfully straight. After she left, they switched firmly to throwing stuff at the wall.
I don't have any particular analysis to point you to, though, I'd have to write it first. :)
7300170
Well, if you want to do unpaid intellectual work for me, I'd be glad to read it for free.
"Over a Barrel". Man, the bit with the Ponies pulling a locomotive still is one of those "they didn't actually do that, did they?" moments, the native American stereotype Buffalo were sort of eye-rolly, but I frankly am still a touch wistful for an Equestria safe and peaceful enough that pies can be your immediate go-to personal weaponry.
(Confession time: I came across the show shortly after my mother's death in 2011, when I was looking for something to watch that would not induce angst (at the time I was so badly off that when I saw "Puss in Boots" with my niece, I was deeply distressed by that fact that the cat's adoptive mother, if separated from him due to the price on his head, was still alive at least). and season one and two Equestria was sort of ideal as a place where, aside from the occasional demigod on a rampage or monster, which would never actually succeed in killing anyone, nothing really bad was ever going to happen. I was really rather badly hurt when Celestia was Worfed and it became clear Equestria would be at risk from any old villain of the week. Unlike _some_ people, I got over it, but for me, too, the show was never quite the same afterwards.)
7300225
Well as you might recall, I rationalized the pies away. It did happen as shown, here. Just not for the reasons we thought it did. :)
Ponies pulling the train? Coal shortages, bad harvest on the rock farms that year.
7300234 But coal isn't actually a mineral...ah what the hell, Equestrian geology is as screwy as everything else, no doubt.
7300159 Eugh, Chatoyance is annoying. I remember being asked to proofread something, and they kept getting bitchy every time I pointed out misspelled words, sentence fragments, and phrases that didn't make sense at all.
Then there was the flame war with the community... Chat is almost as low on my list as PonyMan and Mr Citadel.
I personally like to believe that when comes to timelines in the show, it's all happening at the same time. Time in that universe is the definition of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey to me and we're all just seeing fragments of it all. It's either that or they have "Yule" multiple times a "year", year be a relative thing. I'm still trying to do the calculations on how many days are in an Equus/Equestrian year. And of course, with each new episode we get a bucket full of more questions. Now I have to wonder if the Mediterranean exists in the show...
7300768
It starts making sense if almost half the episodes get backdated into the previous season. The original work in which I saw this was only complete up to season 3, but season 6 likewise works best if every episode without Starlight Glimmer in it actually occurs before the Cutie Re-Mark, again. Which continues the established backdating trend, and it seems to me that this is a result of a rather specific flaw in the production process.
A really interesting chapter as always, but some of the wording choice broke the flow for me as did the switching of tenses in the first person narrative. As you're usually very good, I'm beginning to doubt my own reading and writing abilities, but I am confident that the below sentence at least is in the wrong tense:
"“Surely you remember that day, when Cerberus has abandoned his post at the gates of Tartarus for a short time?”
I feel like this chapter suggests Luna is unconsciously 4th wall-breaking, in a sense. She believes the supply of Narrativium is limited, and scientific discovery eliminates it. The theory that only what we don't know can help us works, but only if you live in a fictional world and you are on the side of the good guys. Scientific progress is systematically eliminating all the ass-pulls Fate would hand to the heroes in a future victory. You need a follow up conversation between Luna and Twilight after Cadance and Shining Armor set off that ridiculous love blast, where Luna just says "see, SEE!"
Oh please please please have Trixie challenge Twilight to a dance off!
7301025
...I suppose it is. Fixed. My excuse is that I got tangled in trying to stylize Luna without actually trying to imitate Early Modern English, (which I definitely can't do) and I'm going to stick with it.
Tense switching in first person narrative is quite deliberate, though, it delineates immediate thoughts from descriptions of what the character sees, and everyone narrates like this around here... except those that don't. ;)
P.S. But if you want to offer further corrections, I suggest you use PM... ;)
7300974 It sounds like you're planning a grand unified episode timeline, Oliver. If you are, I would love to read it.
7301165
Actually, the followup conversation will be between Twilight and Celestia, and it is going to get dramatic... for reasons. ;)
I'm afraid nothing of the sort is likely to happen until they get to the Crystal Empire, but we'll see what happens... :)
7301207
I have one which I didn't write, but mostly agree with, that is complete up to the end of season 3. Which is exactly as far as I myself need it, so I didn't continue it because it basically requires writing my points-of-canon dump for every single episode to be done right. I started laying things out on a Timeline JS3, but didn't have the time to get that done either, because I do have a day job. :) It could probably use some refinements -- for example, the placement of "Hearts and Hooves Day" is kinda contradictory -- but I'm trying to avoid hard-settling on the chronology of things I'm not entirely sure about.
I hoped they would be done with this nonsense after that, and season 4 seems mostly linear, but seasons 5 and 6 appear to produce the same kind of tangled mess that seasons 1 and 2 do, as if some 35 scripts were written for season 5, only 26 were produced, and the remainder got put off until season 6... Which is why I say there's a flaw in the production process somewhere.
7301252 Friggin' holiday episodes cause like 90% of the problems, right?
7301263
No, just the problems easiest to spot, inconsistent seasons (as in year) in general are a bigger issue.
And I think they have a competition for who writes the best holiday episode. Then they produce and air the ones they consider best four in the order of how good the scripts turned out.
The wedding episode is so notoriously ridden with circular causes and blatant plot holes that it resists analysis. That said, if one were to attempt to answer that question, mine would be that Chrysalis sent no threat. Shining Armor's exact line from the episode was:
"A threat has been made against Canterlot. We don't know who is responsible for it, but Princess Celestia asked that I help provide additional protection."
However, we know from the episode that Shining's shield stops changelings (as demonstrated by them attempting to bash through it) and that it does not stop other creatures, as demonstrated by the scene when the train goes through the shield. Notice that the shield is not taken down, and the train does not pass through a hole in it. Rather, they pass right though it, and the episode explicitly shows it passing through their bodies inside the train. Notice also that Spike is with them, so it's not selectively allowing only ponies through. The shield protecting Canterlot apparently allows dragons to pass through it. If you're trying to protect the capital, isn't that a curious omission?
It appears to specifically be an anti-changeling shield.
Therefore, I propose that Shining Armor was misinformed. The "threat" was known specifically to be of changeling origin, and it didn't take the form of a letter showing up saying "we're gonna attack you!" Rather, some sort of unspecified changeling threat was inferred by an un-named Canterlot intelligence agency, but their data wasn't anything so straightforward as observations of troop movements, so they didn't actually know what form the changeling operation was to take. They believed there was "a threat" in the general sense, from changelings, not a specifically "a threat had been made."
If you watch the scene where twilight breaks up the wedding, Cadence acts like she knows that the shield stops changelings. And Celestia makes a comment about "now that you've revealed yourself." The way things are phrased is consistent with the interpretation that both of them knew perfectly well that changelings were the problem.
Captain Armor was a victim of military "need to know." He didn't need to know. So he was left in the dark. His statements to Twilight reflected this.
Chrysalis made no threat. The pony CIA figured out something was going on and that changelings were involved, but didn't know exactly what the plan was. Celestia taught her premier defensive magic-bubble expert an anti-changeling spell without telling him what it did and gave him an incomplete explanation of why. It was only after this that Chrysalis personally made it through the shield alone (not unreasonable, given her magical prowess) and replaced Cadence in order to slowly drain the guy maintaining the shield, so that her army could get through.
Alternately, you could also suggest that they knew perfectly well that it was a changeling army, and that's why Celestia and Luna spent their time up on the balcony looking through a telescope. They were looking for a changeling army, but for some reason the changelings were able to avoid detection. Maybe they were travelling only at night and burrowing underground during the day, for example. Pony-CIA found evidence of changeling troop movements, Celestia had the shield raised and watched the horizons for an army, and the rest plays out about the same as described above.
7302884
Luna needs to make a very obvious hole in the shield to pass, when the train does not. If it's a specifically anti-changeling shield, you would have to conclude that Luna is secretly a changeling, then. :)
7302923
She's shown to be a shapeshifter in the episode Luna Eclipsed.
7303010
If you assume that she is in some way naturally a shapeshifter, it's becomes a question why no other alicorn has ever demonstrated this ability. If you assume instead that what she performs is actually a magical spell, which is how I always interpreted it, the shield cannot reasonably stay selective for it.
No, I'm still not buying that logic.
7303017
There are multiple ways I can respond to this, and I'm not terribly attached to either of them because honestly I think the wedding episodes are simply poorly written, and that's the explanation for the questions we're asking.
However, if we're attempting to reconcile things, just for fun...
Possibility 1
They've never demonstrated that ability...because they're not shapeshifters. I'm proposing that Luna is a shapeshifter. What do other alicorns have to do with this? I'm not proposing that all alicorns are shapeshifters, only that Luna is. We already know Chrysalis can assume the form of an alicorn because she assumed the form of Cadence. If Luna's also a shapeshifter, why would she be unable to? Imagine that Luna is a changeling queen, and the "Luna" form we've come to know is simply an assumed identity. Come to think of it, Luna's entire backstory is that she was unhappy about being unloved, and her being a shapeshifter would also explain her season 1 to season 2 change.
Possibility 2
Celestia shapeshifts at the end of season 1, episode 2, after Luna has been restored.
Changelings have both wings and horn. Celestia, Luna and Cadence are allied changeling queens who infiltrated pony society ages ago because they decided it would be easier to rule over food directly. Or Celestia and Luna were, and Cadence is a relative newcomer, either way. Celestia does quite well being openly loved by her subjects. Luna does ok, but was unhappy that her sister got most of the love. Cadence obviously has connections to love.
Chrysalis is simply a rival Queen, And their shapeshifting is good enough that they can't identify each other when shapeshifted.
is there anything that doesn't explain?
7303058
That goes without saying, any arguments we can have here are about which glue is better, anyway.
This would imply Luna being radically unique. Any proposition of radical uniqueness for a member of a set brings with it a long chain of connotations -- so she's a unique shapeshifter, ok, what made her different, is she even Celestia's sister, etc, etc, etc. Something so major wraps the world around itself and eventually tends to trample over something else.
There are problems with Luna's backstory in general and its perception in fandom in particular. See RTAC #10: Best Princess.
I simply don't see what she does on screen in this case as shapeshifting in any reasonable form. Never mind that it does not fit the origin of changelings as presented in FIENDship is Magic #5.
This train of thought can make a good story, and if my memory serves me right, a story like that does already exist. But it isn't the story I am writing and I am not sure I like this particular combination of parts and glue. :)
7303071
Personally I tend to view the comics as an alternate continuity. I don't see any point trying to reconcile them with the show. It's hard enough sometimes, even trying to reconcile different seasons with each other, and the comicbook writers are entirely different people than the show staff. You may as well try to reconcile comic book batman with 1960s Adam West batman...or "jerk" Superman from the comics with the "heart of gold" superman from the Christopher Reeves movies...or "helpless alternate personality" Phoenix from the X-men movies with the "Avatar of Primal Force of Life in the Universe" Phoenix from the X-men comics.
It's not going to happen. Different media by different authors. It's simply a different continuity.
Ok. What about the simple explanations then?
1) The shield wouldn't have stopped Luna from flying through it, but being a hardened, ancient battlemage she chose to poke a hole through it anyway, because it's simply bad policy not to. You wouldn't play on the railroad tracks just because the train wasn't running that day, would you? Flying through a city-wide theater shield, 2000 feet in the air where you have a very long fall if something goes wrong...
"Tis a situation best avoided. We barely know this Shining Armor fellow, and while he seems reasonably competent for a unicorn of his youth, Our sister has clearly allowed magical training standards to fall since Our time. Further, We are suspicious of this "selectively" spell, as Our Sister calls it. In our time, city-wide theatre abjurations incinerated all that passed through them, leaving even the earth scorched where they touched the ground. Yes, of course We tested the shield Ourselves. It was perhaps at most mildly unpleasant to the touch. But why wouldst We risk Ourselves to it? Tis a feat most simple to poke a hole in such a weak thing cast by a mere unicorn still in his first century."
Very easy to justify that.
2) Earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns each have unique biological magical signatures. Changelings have both horn and wings. The shield detects creatures with both those signatures and stops them.
Alicorns, like Luna...also have both horn and wings.
7304819
This story is being written at least partially with the intent to take everything together, poke a finger into holes and show what gets squeezed out of the other holes. I thought that would be obvious by now. :)
What, exactly, can go wrong, when, for changelings, the shield simply behaves as a solid and Luna flies at a speed not exceeding 5m/s by the time she approaches the shield?
Well, that one is clever, hats off. :)
Too late, unfortunately.
7303058 Possibility 2 doesn't explain how Twilight then became an alicorn, since we're assuming alicorns to all be changelings.
7312248
No, LordBucket's possibility 2 is actually proposing that the shield tests for changeling presence by assuming that "has wings + has horn == changeling" and anyone who fits this definition is a changeling and should be bounced off the shield. Which is a fairly reasonable simplified authentication model, since at the time the shield was cast, only three known ponies fit this definition and are at the same time not believed to be changelings.
The only real problem with this possibility is the question how exactly would it work for a changeling transformed into an earth pony. If it is capable of determining that the original, untransformed state of the creature includes horn and wings, why not use the same tech for screening of key personnel too?
7312257 Yes, I understand that, my problem isn't with the shield, but as he said,
What I was wondering then, if Celestia, Luna, and Cadence are all changelings, how did it turn out that Twilight became an alicorn at the end of Season 3? Did she become a changeling, or maybe the first actual alicorn ascended by the power of changelings?
Also, regarding the bounce-off theory, perhaps it resists all life, but because the ponies were in a train, the train acted as some sort of magical faraday cage?
7312272
What alicorns? There's no such thing as an alicorn in that scenario. They're a form used by changelings to trick the population. As for pony-Twilight, presumably she either died and was replaced, or her "ascension" was turning her into a changeling:
Died and replaced
That meddling unicorn somehow saw through Chrysalis' disguise. That made her a threat. Remember that Twilight only even started researching "Starswirl's spell" (haha, Starswirl, yeah right) because changeling Queen Celestia sent it to her. The spell killed her. We even see her explode into a smoking pile of dust in Magical Mystery Cure.
And given that Celestia, Luna and Cadence are all allied changeling Queens, it's not a stretch to suggest that a new one could have been born. So they decided to give their newest sister a royal persona. Who better to replace that Twilight, who needed to be eliminated anyway? And fortunately, with the wedding of Cadence and Shining armor, we now have a convenient way to add more later if we need to. Those ponies will believe anything, won't they?
"But, wait!" you object. "What about the elements of harmony? Surely they wouldn't have worked for a changeling in disguise!"
Right. And note that the only time they're ever used again before they're removed from the story with that whole tree thing, is when they're used to free Discord. Not exactly prime "harmony" magic, is it? Of course not. Those aren't the elements. They're tools created by changeling Queen Celestia to free Discord. She even commented about how she had "enchanted" them to be different.
In fact, even the magic is visibly different. Here are the Elements of Harmoy being used on Nightmare Moon. Here are the fake elements beign used to release Discord. Rainbows in both cases, but compare the white light engulfing Twilight in the first sequence to the scary red glow around Twilight in the second.
Different auras.
Transformed into a changeling
Watch the ascension sequence. Watch the visuals. Look at the terrified look on Twilight's face. Listen to the song changeling Queen Celestia sings:
"It's time now, for a new change to come, you've grown now, and your new life has begun"
Watch the terrified look on her face. Watch as Queen Celestia uses her magic to yank love energy from Twilight's heart and use it to transform her.
Incidentally, if you don't like the "alicorns are really changelings" theory there's a third possibility in addition to the two I previously proposed, if you have half an hour to watch a youtube video:
Reviwing is Magic: Canterlot Wedding
Spoiler: Luna is Chrysalis. "Chrysalis" is Luna in disguise attempting to overthrow her sister...again. She has a motive, she's a known shapeshifter, she already has one unexplained dark-maybe-pony-hybrid-species in her service in the form of thestrals so why not changelings, she was suspiciously missing during the invasion, she's the only being we see take down a section of shield rather than pass directly through it like the mane six and spike do, and it suddenly makes the fact that Chrysalis was able to defeat Celestia seem far more plausible. This also has the benefit of being able to reconcile season 2 with the original view of the Royal Sisters as Deities. As the video explains, using Tolkein as a metaphor, Luna is basically the fallen Vala.
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7312257
The theory in that scenario was that the magic wasn't looking at superficial structure, but at the underlying magic of the creature. A changeling in earth pony form obviously doesn't lose the ability to transform back. It retains its magic despite the lack of a visible horn.
Since we know that the horn works that way, I don't think it's a huge stretch to suggest that the underlying magical circuitry for flight magic is retained even if the wings aren't.
Compare it to real life security screening:
* When you go to the airport, when do they screen you? When you board the plane. Once you're on, you're assumed to be safe. They don't post guards to re-check people every time they get up.
* When you go to court, when do they screen you? When you enter the building. They don't ask you to take off your shoes and walk through a metal detector at every individual courtroom.
* When you go to a night club, when do they screen you? At the door. They don't post guards to check for weapons every time somebody gets up to dance .
If Canterlot is considered a secured zone, why would they continue screening personnel inside the safe area? We don't in real life. You don't really expect the nobles to tolerate being re-screened on a daily basis, do you?
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7304876
*shrug*
Maybe nothing. It's also totally safe to play on the railroad tracks on days that the train isn't running. But you still don't do it anyway.
7314570 That is absolutely brilliant, I love it. Your theories just make too much sense.
7314570
I think that's still a hole. The said Elements are used to keep Discord under threat of being imprisoned again, when nothing else previously has been shown to work on him. It's difficult to imagine Discord just falling for the ruse. Basically you end up creating new Elements with the same properties as the old except one.
The "transformed into a changeling" variant still works, though.
So you have a city which you know is going to be the target of a terrorist attack. You set up a perimeter, check the papers of everyone who goes in and out, and declare your job done. Meanwhile, the terrorists who have been inside since before you set up the perimeter carry out their attack. No, that one, I'm not buying, none of your analogies account for screened items being there before the perimeter screening has been set up.
7315949
You mean changeling drone infiltrators?
There weren't any
We see this confirmed in the show. Chrysalis is alone. Her army is exclusively outside the shield, and she's using mind controlled ponies to guard Cadence in the crystal mine. There aren't any drone infiltrators.
Maybe such a screening as you describe did take place and those infiltrators are sitting in the dungeon right now. But far more likely, they were never there in the first place. Remember, the premise of this scenario is that Celestia is a changeling Queen. If drones belonging to a rival Queen showed up in her palace, she'd know. Only Chrysalis, being a Queen herself, is able to avoid that detection. Knowing that drones would be detected, she probably very deliberately never sent any n the first place.
So maybe a pre-city-shield interior screening occurred or maybe it didn't. Doesn't change anything if there weren't any changelings to find.
In fact, interior screening isn't a problem for any of the scenarios I've proposed:
* If all alicorns are changeling Queens, again, they'd know if any any drone infiltrators showed up. So Chrysalis never sent any.
* If Luna is a shapeshifter and that's known by not-a-changeling-Queen Celestia, then Luna would be the obvious pony to have conduct the interior screenings. So if Chrysalis never sent any infiltrators, none would be found. If Chrysalis did send infiltrators, then Luna found them and they're prisoners of the Night Guard. Captain Shining Armor of the Solar Guard wouldn't necessarily be informed. Conduct interior screenings, raise shield, everything else is the same.
* If Luna is Chrysalis and it's a secret, once again, no drone infiltrators, screen all you like, there aren't any to find.
* If Luna is just Luna and nopony is a changeling, and Chrysalis is the only changeling in Canterlot...she's impersonating an alicorn. So it would be expected that she generate a positive result for the "horn and wing magic" test. They wouldn't even have bothered to test her. Or maybe they did, and sure enough, she has a horn and wings, as expected.
Interior screening before the shield goes up doesn't change anything.
I'm confused about the dispute between Luna and Celestia wrt miracles. Luna seems to make two mutually-inconsistent assertions about how miracles work:
(A) "A miracle of harmony can transgress any law of magic, just because this is the way the world should be. The more we know, the less miracles remain in the world, for there are more laws a miracle must transgress to manifest." Paraphrasing my own understanding of this claim: Every gain of knowledge is a loss of miracles. No exceptions.
(B) "Doesn't every discovery present new mysteries?" "That was Celestia's argument as well. And it is true." Paraphrased: Unknown-unknowns don't enable miracles, only mysteries salient enough for people to wonder about do. Thus, gaining knowledge might increase or decrease the amount of available miracles, depending on whether it brings more new questions to salience than it answers.
So I have several hypotheses for what the dispute is about, but none of them are satisfactory:
8487575
Here’s something to consider:
Your propositions A and B, as they understand them, are not contradictory, because neither is seen as temporally strict. Let me try to summarize the argument in this chapter slightly more formally….
Does this make more sense?
8487720
Yep, that makes sense.
“Worry not of my heart, Twilight Sparkle, ’tis as strong as a thousand horses,”
Didn't Blueblood just use horses as slang for prostitutes?
<Insert Joke about Luna needing a resilient body because it's about to get pounded by a love muscle.>
8878441
Funny how words can change meaning depending on who is saying them to whom.