Friendship is Sufficiently Advanced

by Cordial Nova

APPENDIX C: GEOGRAPHY

For the Advancedverse I've redrawn the conventional map more than a little. (Both for conventional fusion-fic worldbuilding reasons and because as you may remember from the Prologue, I'm setting the entire habitable area of Equus inside a giant astrobleme on a superterrestrial world.)

So what does the map look like now?

Equestria

Everything revolves around Canterlot, they say, and that is truer than most know, because the Canterhorn, that tall and symmetrical spike upon which the city is situated, lies in the exact center of the crater that is the known world, where the Tears of Epona spring forth from the rock and fall into the Canterstream, which flows south-west down the Cantervale to Saddle Lake by Ponyville, at the northern verge of the Everfree Forest. This, and the other temperate and fertile lands surrounding the mountain, all form part of the Principality of Canterlot, the first and oldest of the twelve regions of Equestria.

Equestria as a whole occupies the middle of the northern half of the main Equine continent, which runs right down the middle of the crater from wall to wall. It is bounded to the north by the Crystal Mountains, separating it from the Withered Wastes; to the east by the Great Celestia Ocean; to the west by Luna's Sea in the far north, and by the Drakenridge Mountains which run almost directly south below that until they disappear into the plains of the Mild West; and to the south by the Badlands Plateau that occupies the center of the continent, separating the eastern Haysead Swamps from the western San Palomino Desert - each formed when the rising Plateau pulls the water out of the moist winds off the Celestia Ocean.

And, as has been said, it is divided into twelve major regions, of which the Principality of Canterlot occupies the center. (Unlike the others, it is a Principality because its titular head, currently Prince Rhodium Blueblood, is a lineal descendant of Princess Platinum.) As for the others, starting by going directly north and then going clockwise, we have:

2. The Crystal Empire. This used to occupy the entirety of Equestria's northern belt, i.e., that area immediately south of the Crystal Mountains, and reached down in parts almost as far as the future site of Canterlot proper when it was first conquered by Bucephalus the Great, back in the pre-Discordant Era. Unfortunately, after the Sombran Coup first weakened its influence and then the multi-octennia disappearance of its capital - which knocked the capstone out of the thaumaturgic infrastructure that kept the northern belt habitable, leaving almost the entire population to decamp southward with alacrity, or freeze - it has been reduced to the level of a city-state. It still claims and administers much of the central and western parts of its old territory, mostly because no-one feels like contesting its hold on vast amounts of icy wasteland.

3. The Sovyet of Stalliongrad, directly to the east of the Crystal Empire close to the coast - but not a port city, because floating ice closes the sea that far north to shipping for much of the year. Founded by those too stubborn to leave when the ice came south - and even today no-one outstubborns a Stalliongradder - it sustains itself on coal mining, strong drink, and mighty feats of earth pony engineering holding back the glaciers. It's also notable for governing itself using what they call "a refinement of" and most others call "a throwback to" earth pony governance in the days of Old (i.e., pre-Discord) Equestria.

4. Moving down the coast, we then have the Duchy of Manehattan, the major port city in the north, a center of trade - and, indeed, the recognized commercial capital of Equestria. Off its coast, and a little to the north, can be found...

5. ...the Island Duchy of Trottingham, a large, peaceful, and mostly agricultural island, notable for its cool, misty, and wet weather.

6. Further south, at approximately the same latitude as Ponyville (i.e., just south of Canterlot), can be found the Duchy of Fillydelphia, which is another - the Fillydelphians would say the other - center of industry and earth pony engineering.

7. And then southmost on the east coast we have the Duchy of Baltimare, another coastal port city on the notable inlet Horse Shoe Bay - an inlet particularly notable, for those aware of its peculiar history, for being the consequence of one of the most recent natural-born alicorns. Other cities in this Duchy include Neigh Orleans, at its southernmost extent, which places it in constant danger of sinking into the Haysead Swamps.

8. Skipping briefly over the little-populated central region south of the Everfree Forest and north of the Badlands Plateau, in the west we enter the Appleloosan Marches, which extend from the southern tip of the Drakenridge Mountains into the San Palomino Desert, and have a more-or-less fuzzy western border with the plains of the buffalo. The capital, such as it is, is of course Appleloosa itself, although it has no jurisdiction over the buffalo who continue to stampede over much of its territory.

9. North of that, and with the cities it is named for typically resting just inside the southern tip of the Drakenridge, can be found the Polis of Los Pegasus and Applewood, twin skybound and earthbound capitals of this western region.

10. North of that in turn, and fully behind the Drakenridge, extending east as far as the borders of the Principality of Canterlot, is the sparsely-populated and mostly rural Freehold of Mustangia, which extends north not quite as far as the tip of the mountains...

11. Where lies the Duchy of Vanhoover, Equestria's port on Luna's Sea, a relatively small region squeezed in between the Freehold and the icy wastes to its north, nominal territory of the Crystal Empire, but in practice, nopony's land.

12. And finally, there is the Polis of Cloudsdale, which can generally be found... up. It tends to avoid intruding on the airspace of Los Pegasus (which in turn tends to stay within the bounds of the region it shares with Applewood), but apart from that, it can be found... "over Equestria". Being a cloud city, it can be moved wherever happens to be convenient - which is quite important when you're the center of the weather industry.

These are the major regions. There are also lots of minor regions under local independent jurisdiction (such as Maretonia, say), along with certain special cases, such as:

Quarantined areas left over from the Discordant Era, complete with wards, fences, and large signs warning of the consequences of ignoring large signs;

The Everfree Forest (administered by the Diarchy because it's ridiculously lethal and the buck always stops at the Thrones);

The northern San Palomino Desert (administered by the Diarchy because no-one wants it), its southern regions generally being considered Zebrican, although the actual border is a mite uncertain anywhere if you leave the road;

and the Badlands Protectorate (administered by the Diarchy since the events of "A Canterlot Wedding" because it makes it a lot easier to justify having the Equestrian military scour it routinely for trouble).

Outside Equestria

Of course, there are other creatures on Equus, and also, Equestria isn't the only pony realm, due to some turbulence during the course of its founding and history. Again, starting in the north and going clockwise, we have:

The Withered Wastes, one of the two dragon realms. (Yes, two: the Great Dragon Migration is in fact to somewhere, from somewhere.) This big chunk of icy wasteland north of the Crystal Mountains is essentially uninhabitable by anyone else, so no-one feels the urge to contest the dragons' right to it. The dragons, meanwhile, don't mind the harsh weather, assuming they even notice it.

(It used to be a temperate pony land before the events commemorated by Hearth's Warming and the Long Walk. Now, not so much.)

To the north-east, on the northern of two roughly tear-drop shaped continents abutting the crater rim, is the Griffon Empire, ruled from the Grand Eyrie. The known part of the Empire is between the western coast and the mountain range in the middle of the continent; the griffons claim all the land back as far as the crater wall, but explorers from Equestria haven't gone that far in to confirm it. A small splinter kingdom, Griffonstone, occupies an island off the southern coast of the Empire; splinter kingdoms actually happen fairly often in griffon lands, but Griffonstone so far appears to be unique in its staying power.

To the south-east, on a continent practically the mirror-image of its northern twin, is the Heavenly Jade Kingdom of the Qilin. Knowledge of this realm is extremely limited, since traders (who are welcomed) are generally restricted to the foreign quarters of a few coastal trading ports. It is very probable that they got a bad impression of the outside world from their neighbors...

...the unicorn separatist realm of Unicornia Antiqua, a large island kingdom off their coast founded by the other direct lineal descendants of Princess Platinum, who are, not to put too fine a point on it, the ponies who heard the good word of inter-tribal cooperation and Harmony, and decided that it really wasn't for them. Comes with a fine line in caste systems and extreme snobbery, and at its worst produced rulers mad enough to consider the degenerated Heartspire (1) a good social model and who were only restrained from putting that into effect by their awareness that that would be the last straw before the Unconquered Sun and Cunning Moon came over there and wrecked their shit.

1. Headcanon borrowed from Cold in Gardez's awesome Lost Cities.

Saddle Arabia is also located on an island in the Great Celestial Ocean; it's a mostly-independent former Equestrian colony, with a hot climate, and Australianesque wildlife that will try and kill you in eighteen separate ways before lunch. Colonizing it was only a short step above colonizing the Everfree in terms of good-idea-ness, and the Princesses still wonder quite how it came to pass. Still, the Saddle Arabians seem to like it...

And finally, a few other tropical, mostly-volcanic islands in the Great Celestial Ocean are claimed by the dragons as their other, southern, homeland. Identified on most maps simply as "here be dragons".

South of Equestria, the Haysead Swamps and Badlands give way to the tangled masses of the Forgotten Jungles (mostly uninhabited, or at least the inhabitants hide very well if there are any), which do however offer a fine line in ancient ruins, of which the Valley of Tenochtitlan is only one. They also offer a fine line in unusual creatures, of which Ahuizotl is only one. Further south still, these jungles and the San Palomino Desert each give way to the endless veldt: Zebrica, home of the semi-nomadic zebras, which ends in a peninsula before the southern crater wall is reached; daring sailors with very well-built ships could sail around it to reach the Southern Ocean, but if any have, they aren't telling.

To the west of Equestria, south of Luna's Sea and to the west of the Drakenridge Mountains, is the earth pony realm of Gildeddale (2). Unlike Unicornia Antiqua, the ponies of Gildeddale are civilized folk, if given to unusual customs by Equestrian standards; they just don't see any particular need to unite with Equestria. To the west of them, and to the west of the Appleloosan Marches to the south, stretches the Mild West, the domain of the buffalo tribes.

2. Partial headcanon borrowed from Jetfire2012's It's A Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door. Also recommended.

It's not called the "Mild West" because of the weather, please note. It's called the Mild West because the buffalo in that region are friendly, and as you progress further and further into the "Unexplored West", they get progressively less friendly. That's because the further west you go, the closer you get to the "Holy Horsefeathers What The Hay Is That AAARGH IT'S GOT MY LEG Far West", where there be monsters. Lots of monsters. The buffalo of the far western regions are dour, battle-scarred, and would be thanked daily by pretty much everyone else on Equus if their endless hunt was better known.

And finally, in the north-west, an island in the northern regions of Luna's Sea houses the pony kingdom of Prance, blessed with unusually mild weather thanks to a defect in the crater wall that lets warm (and slightly radioactive, but let's not worry about that) winds down from the highlands. It's not a separatist realm, strictly speaking: it's descended from groups of the Three Tribes that got separated, found the sea, and build rafts during the Long Walk to found Equestria.

And then there are three unusual cases. Namely, the independent pegasus city, or cities, that are believed to be out there over the ocean somewhere. If anyone could find the blasted things, which is tricky when you consider motile cloud cities that don't want to be found.

There are the diamond dogs, who claim their realm to be "underground, everywhere, or at least everywhere where there are gems", who virtually everyone else with rocky terrain available consider to be squatting on their territory. (Especially rock farmers.) And grudgingly tolerate. (Except the rock farmers.)

And then there is the minotaur realm of Mazein, which is composed of many scattered city-states across the known world, each of which is built in the form of a mighty fortress-labyrinth... which are the same labyrinth. At least, if you're a minotaur. Everyone else just gets hopelessly lost, but minotaurs have been observed by reliable sources walking into one of their cities and walking out of a different city on a completely different continent without any visible means of transport or sufficient time for travel between the two. No-one knows how this works.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

I just bet Twilight would Love Mazeins Library.

[CCC]

7746970

(That Twilight perceives her using those as feeling similar, per last chapter, to a unicorn's field, is itself somewhat interesting in this department, of course.)

Yeah, this already strongly implies that her "vector-control effectors" are working via the same forces as Twilight refers to when she says "magic". Even if they don't use the same words for it...

[Xanderfox]

7747027 remember in cannon Twilight was exploded be the elements so she could be reborn an alicorn, leasts that's what seems to have happened, maybe natural horns explode on brirth?

[Jade Nekotenshi]

7736343 Recall that in canon, Flurry Heart very nearly did go foom, and indeed might have, had Sunburst not come up with a good spell to prevent it (and Shining and Cadance not been strong enough mages to actually use it).

An alicorn born to earth pony or pegasus parents might be the cause of vast destruction indeed.

[zakueins]

Idle Mass Effect question-which would a krogan preferred to be dropped into, the Far West or the Everfree?

[Cordial Nova]

7753724

Depends on if they're looking for a vacation or a challenge.

(Minor spoiler: The Everfree has lots of entertainingly punchable monsters, but the Far West considers them the low end, scales up through tatzlwurms, and includes the [REDACTED] that made and spat out, say, Tirek - as well as most of the other big bads locked up in Tartarus.

[mastermenthe]

i sense a strong influence from the Palavar-verse!

[Greatazuredragon]

Hehe very good work, keep it up.

[LostArchivist]

The minotaur realm... I love eldritch architecture. Reminds me of L-Space.

[MAD-3R]

7774389
So in other words, anyone else wanting to visit would start their itinerary with 'Once the initial C-fractional bombardment has ended.'