Zecora raised a hoof, pointing at each of the newlyweds, coming back to Twilight with a slow blink. "How is it you have gone from nothing to too many in such a short time, it is stunning." Her awkward rhyme matched how off-center she appeared. Her eyes lifted to take in Laud. "You are one of the humans. What has become of my student?"
Lyra shook her head quickly. "Nothing bad's happening, --"
Laud put a hand down in her field of view, cutting her off. "It is a pleasure to meet a friend of Twilight. Perhaps introductions should be the first thing handled?"
Twilight's ears went up. "You didn't call me princess, oh, right." It clicked just then that they were married, so he had less reason to use honorifics on her. She didn't expect most people to call her princess, but he had, and its absence was noticeable. "My husband is correct. This is Zecora, a resident of the Everfree Forest and a very wise zebra at that. She's saved things around here a few times."
Zecora tipped her head. "It is a pleasure to have such friends. But how did we arrive at this end?"
Bon Bon gently nudged Zecora before leading her away. "It's a long story, let's go over it and not interrupt the reception."
The party proceeded smoothly from there, winding up without further drama. Laud even allowed himself to assume that all would be calm and relatively peaceful for the remainder of the day. At least until Zecora moved to accompany them as they retreated for Twilight's castle, their castle.
"There is a little matter of progeny and whether there is sufficient homogeny. A quick test is all that I require to see if you can have what you desire."
Twilight cleared her throat softly. "You can... know that?"
"All we need is a little seed to know if you can breed." She nodded, her eyes on Laud. "If you will give me some, we will know what will come." She curled back on herself and pulled a small vial from her saddlebag. "I need not witness this event, only what you present."
Lyra was giggling with a hoof over her mouth. "Do you... need any--"
"--I can handle this," cut in Laud, taking the vial perhaps a little harder than he should have. "Do you trust her?" He was looking towards Twilight.
Who quickly bobbed her head. "Completely. If it helps, zebras are not unicorns and do not perform magic, at least not of the direct variety."
Zecora tilted her head faintly. "Is the arcane something of a concern? My magic is of the nature of a fern, or other plants and ingredients, mixed to create curatives most expedient."
Laud put together that she was an herbalist, or perhaps a chemist that specialized in plants. Neither sounded horrifying. It even sounded charmingly harmless in comparison to unicorns. "I will return." He strode off to do as he needed to do with that vial.
Bon Bon hiked a brow at Zecora. "You really have a test for this, just laying around?"
Zecora sat on her haunches to free up her forehooves for gesturing. "This is not a new question to know the result of a love session. Many species dot this world, not knowing if their lines can be whirled. Sometimes yes and sometimes no, there is only one way that we can know."
Twilight coughed into a hoof softly. "I'm honestly surprised he went along with it as readily as he did. I expected a lot more resistance to the very idea of it. As caring as he can be, he is very prideful, and this isn't... a proud moment, to fill specimen vials."
Lyra waved a hoof wildly. "I mean, yeah, but he sees this as his job. If he can make an heir, then he will get to it. And if this proves he can't, then he'll toss that aside and stop thinking about it. This is a chance to get rid of a mystery."
Bon Bon smirked at her musical companion. "And if it comes up positive, you two will be spending a sudden honeymoon?"
Lyra began to color swiftly along her snout. "W-well, I guess? I'm sure he'd be... gentle and treat a mare right."
Twilight lowered her hoof back to the ground as she shook her head. "If it comes back positive, we will all take a little vacation. We don't want to create the impression that only one of us is 'that' close to him in an uneven social dynamic."
Bon Bon's nose wrinkled quickly. "You want to... with him?"
Twilight's ears folded back quickly. "As he likes to say, 'This is my duty'. Besides, as the head mare, it really is my job to make sure everything goes smoothly, even if I decide not to participate. She--" She pointed at Lyra. "--is your wife. Will you let your wife go off to create our foal without you? Nonsense. We'll all go, as a family."
"What are those things around your neck?" Zecora pointed to the translators the others wore. "They look curiously high-tech. They speak in words I do not know. What language is it they bestow?"
Bon Bon reached up for hers, undoing its latch and getting it off of herself. "I forgot I was wearing that thing. It echoes everything we say into the human language."
"He seemed to understand me," noted Zecora with some curiosity. "He did not require this to guarantee."
Twilight nodded as she glanced back to her castle where Laud had vanished. "He learned our language properly, but many of the others have not." With a glowing horn, she took off her own collar. "He can understand both languages."
Elsewhere, Paul strode through the town purposefully towards the space dock. He raised a hand to his ear. "Status report?"
"Sir. We're detecting three ships, one big enough to not be capable of landing," came the reply that only he could hear.
Paul released the button to speak a colorful human phrase that would require one to be very flexible to imitate. "I'm on the way already. Get everyone else moving."
"Roger."
Zecora tucked the vial of her specimen into her saddlebag. "I will inform you of the result. I am glad to be one to consult. Let us learn more of each other in the coming days. We can learn much of our different ways." She tipped her head and trotted away to perform whatever test she had in mind.
Twilight let out a little breath. "Well, now that that's over with, shall we?" She gestured for her castle. "I suppose we didn't need to wait out here, but it felt like you wanted your privacy."
Laud had not required an entire castle of privacy, still... "Thank you." As they resumed their walk to get inside, he looked over them. "Are you hoping it is positive, or negative?"
Bon Bon quickly raised a hoof. "Pass. Positive or negative doesn't change things for me. I'll be your wife, but I don't swing that way." She pointed the same hoof at Lyra. "She, on the other hoof, seems to like innies and outies with equal zeal."
Lyra colored at the accusation, but the evidence was stacked against her. "If they're the right kind of pony, then I don't... care. Oh, wow, if it's positive..." She put a hoof on her belly, considering motherhood for the first real time. "That would be something, wouldn't it?"
Twilight raised both her brows at once as her horn magic opened the door. "It would be proof that Laud is correct. Ponies are, or were, humans, before something set them down a different path." She stepped inside, hooves clopping on the crystal floor. "It makes me wonder who, or what, that would have been. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. It could come back negative, though that wouldn't... assuredly... destroy the idea, it would remove the most obvious means of confirming it."
Laud sank into a chair facing the others in the entry hall of the castle. "That is not what I am asking. What does it mean to you? Do you want it to be positive, or negative, if it were your choice?"
Twilight mused over that with a soft little muttering. "I think... positive is the more interesting answer with deeper implications. I would want to know more. I will accept negative, as the truth is more important than what is more 'interesting', but if we get the interesting answer, all the better."
Bon Bon huffed softly. "Positive means I get to deal with a pregnant Lyra." She smirked softly. "As adorable as she may become, I know that will be a trying time, at best."
Lyra colored as the image of life swelling in her was put forward. "I... won't run..." She clopped a hoof down firmly. "Enough running. If it comes back yes, then we are going to... get to know each other really well, and then you'll all get to know our adorable little foal."
Bon Bon burst into laughter at that. "Phrasing! You just used get to know to mean... that, then tell us we'll 'get to know' a foal? I know that's not what you meant, but still..."
Laud allowed a little smile to escape. It was good that his new family, curious as they were, seemed to be in good spirits about things, whichever way it went. "I promise, Lyra, that I will do my best to live up to the dream you've built. However, we are all hu--" Were they all human? "We make mistakes." He hoped that would serve as a save. "When I make one, I want you to assume I will listen. Do not accept it 'for me'. I will not be wed to someone who looks up at me."
Twilight hiked a brow. "We all look up to you."
Bon Bon flopped over, her laughter only growing. "My wives are trying to kill me with comedy!"
Lyra smiled a little awkwardly. "I think he means in terms of standing, not height. Just like... as your wife, we should think of you as Twilight, our wife, not Twilight, princess. Though we can also think of you as Twilight, our head mare, which is a little up, but not as high up as princess." She frowned a little. "How does that work anyway? They didn't go over herd dynamics in school."
Bon Bon rolled her eyes. "How negligent of them." She rolled up to her haunches. "How could they forget to go over antiquated only technically-legal wedding practices? What are they teaching foals these days?" She wiped a fetlock over her eyes to clear the tears. "Laud, what do you hope for? You don't get to ask us without the question being turned."
"For the sake of this country that I have sworn to defend, I hope for a positive result." He crossed his fingers in his lap as he leaned forward. "If we are compatible, that is yet more proof that ponies and humans are too close alike. That will place you in an awkward position in the greater society, but it is a place, rather than an animal."
Twilight frowned a little at Laud. "That's a fine answer as 'Laud Mountbatten, of the Hawkwoods', but you aren't answering as you. Laud, are you... hoping for this, or dreading it?" She gestured at Lyra, then Bon Bon, and finally herself. "We are your wives, and I apologize for springing that on you without consulting with you first, but..."
"We were in this state before today. Only the particulars have changed." He stood up, his hands slapping the armrests in the motion. "We were all ready to be married. The only surprise is who it is we're bonded to, and not even who those people are, just the number. I will do what I said I would do before. In time, I hope and pray, we will find something closer to true affection rather than this awkward start. Let's not force it, or fear it."
Hah. Zecora just wanted to be able to test some alien mojo in her experiments!
"The rumblings of events loom on the horizon..." As the spaceships land? lol
Positive.
Zecora uses Omnidraconic fertility potion. Its Super Effective.
Too big to land? Wouldnt it be limited by the pass throat of the Gate, or is it one of those nonlinear things that depends on how strong the object is to go through intact, or just uses more power?
After all that work on the prupose built field and the first, gusts, are looking like theyll have to be landed on the Moon?
My, but Laud was deflecting a lot. Still, He's unwilling to hurt or upset them, so that's... something.
Let's hope it's positive. Some foals would be nice
Hmm, from a story and society standpoint there's a lot of interesting things to be had either way. If it's a positive, then the idea that ponies and humans are the same becomes that much more likely. If it's negative, then that at the very least means that no matter how related they were in ancient past, they are no longer that alike now. I wouldn't mind seeing either explored.
However, from a character point of view I'm hoping for a positive. These four are starting a family, even if with bumps and trips. And a big part of many families is having children.
Also, don't think this makes us forget the trouble brewing up in space! Paul better show he can back up the Hawkwood talk with action if these guys turn out to be unfriendly.
I like Laud. Laud accepts his duty and the responsibilities that come with it.
Couldn't they wait until after the orbital defense macro-cannons were installed? Or at least the visitor center.
Good, we're moving past that... whatever it was. I'm still not even sure what the whole point of that last arc was, since this end could have been reached much easier and with much less angst with a simple conversation from Celestia or Paul, but whatever. That's past.
On to this new arc. I'm curious why Twilight assumes compatibility would have anything to do with possible human ancestry. They're so genetically different at this point that what they used to be would basically be irrelevant when it comes to genetic compatibility. Even a small difference is enough to prevent non-magical interbreeding from being successful, and going from bipedal to quadruped is waaaaay past that small difference. And that's not even counting that, in the real world, if you somehow do end up with a hybrid they're always sterile. If they can have kids, it'll be because magic, not because genetics.
And even if they are somehow compatible, I'm pretty sure their attempts to make the ponies not look evil and heretical will kind of be ruined by a race of mutant magical satyr things running around.
Also, Twilight, you don't get to be concerned about Laud's feelings at this point. The three of you completely ignored his feelings when he protested, turned the whole wedding into even more of a business transaction than it already was, have expressed zero emotional interest in or connection to Laud up to this point, and now you're concerned that he might not be super happy about all of this? It's a bit late for that, don't you think?
9087523
You seem... Bitter. You alright?
And then they all hugged. Really hard.
So the eagerly curious have come. Let's hope that the sun needn't rise a little higher than normal, eh?
Everyone is trying hard to avoid stepping on toes, but relationships shouldn't start out with constant deflection. BonBon is correct in trying to bring out the personal opinions.
Positive would certainly be interesting since it would force the enumeration of "how". There's an easier path to explain "how not", but why make it easy?
Keep going! ;)
9087807
Hugs make marriage work!
9087523
Well... almost always sterile. There are the exceptionally rare stable hybrids like the recently discovered coywolf. But yheah... stable hybrids are so rare that the chances are almost vanishingly small. Again, even with those hybrids, the parents are normally of genotypicially close stock.
On the other hand, the entire planet is magic, the ponies are all magic, everything is positively steeped in magic... heck, eating the food might even be depositing magic into Laud right now... so... <shrugs> Maybe he's a highly evolved parasprite and just doesn't know it?
9087937
It does beg a question are Hippogriffs a separate species or the result of Griffon and Pony interbreeding? For that matter might Changelings be hybrid of ponies and a shape changing insect? Or magicly mutated ponies.
9087979
Might be that they're all just 'breeds' of the same species with wildly specialized pheonotyping... but, canonically at least, we know changelings are magic saturated bug/plant/pony hybrids... magic is magic and all that. It also means we can legitimately yell "Blame the mage!" since it's Starswirl's blood that got mixed in. Still... from a story point of view, it is WIIIIIIIDE open.
Heck, it could just be that Equestria is far enough removed from the 'known' parts of space that it simply has different rules for what people expect. It could just be that their planet is saturated with extra sub atomic particles that change things on a fundamental level while remaining, on a macro scale, similar.
Could just be that Discord's a troll and decided to plan a prank for a few thousand years in the future... all based on a pony pun...
"Laud, stop that goofy dance and get over here. Lyra's having contractions!"
"Twilight, you know I love you, all of you ladies, but I'm not dancing."
"Oh? Is this some obscure cultural thing you've never mentioned before? Do you all jump around like that during childbirth?" <grabs a notebook and floating quill> "Tell me all about it!"
"Twilight, it's called a Charlie-horse."
<deadpan stare>
"Oh, you should see the looks on your faces!"
"DISCORD!"
"Bwuh?"
"PUSH!"
Actually... I can definitely see Discord doing that.
As long as they're not centaur babies...
i.imgur.com/fzK4Aom.jpg
"It even sounded charmingly harmless in comparison to unicorns."
...well right up to you see the sort of things she can do with "herbalism"
Yes, let's not force it.
9088138
Veritaserum!
I notice Laud side-stepped the question, which I hope the girls press him to answer. It's not at all proper to say that sharing honestly between them all is for the best and then not do it yourself.
I hope for positive, because having children always changes a parent's outlook on life in some way. I also think, while difficult, it would help all of them grow as a family.
It would also have some strong political implications, but that's not generally a priority for me beyond plot relevance, when I can follow it.
a sweet chapter, that poses a interesting question.
i know my answer with out even thinking.
nope not telling.
9087937
There's definitely the possibility of magic making it possible, regardless of what genetics would normally say on the matter. But if it's only possible due to magic and not pure genetics then it wouldn't do anything to support Twilight's hypothesis that successful interbreeding is due to the ponies' ancestry as former humans.
Unless, of course, there was some sort of continuous spell on the planet that transformed any attempt by a human at producing offspring, but that just brings in a whole new slew of problems, not the least of them being what kind of entity could cast such a spell in the first place, let alone maintain it for thousands and thousands of years.
But overall it seems far more likely that it was a simple mass polymorph effect of some kind--rendering the affected magic users as an entirely new species--and making interbreeding impossible. Especially if the original caster's goal was to isolate or restrain the affected magic users. Changing their species but still leaving them able to reintroduce their powers back into the human genetic line would more or less negate the point of casting the spell in the first place.
9089214
Oh, absolutely. Twilight's jump to "maybe we're actually all humans" is pretty odd... and a test like that wouldn't mean much in our version of science. <shrugs> Who knows what her rules are?
Or... she could just be reaching for anything to make sense and doing her best to squash her normal ~NEED~ for facts.
<chuckles> I'm banking on "blame the mage" syndrome though... you know? Magic for the sake of magic.
I'd like a positive outcome.
Hoping for centaurs
Would be interesting if they turn out to be compatible -- of course, it all depends on what you've got planned, Silver...
9104672
Ahem. First, I don't even view the MLP Movie as Canon, with how much of the Show it utterly ignores and forgets about. To me, it's as canon as the equestria girls movies, which the show already contradicted at the end of Season 7.
Second, did you notice anything wrong about the Movie? Anything at all? Like how Celestia and Luna did nothing but stand there and let an orb smack into them. Even Cadance. CADANCE actually used magic and tried to fight. Celestia stood there like a bitch, and Luna ran away and still got hit 20 feet away from the ramp.
But think on this. Canterlot got sacked, the Princesses all captured... And Discord did nothing. Chrysalis did nothing. Star Swirl did nothing. But most of all, THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE PONY GUARD IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE.
There was just the 3 Princesses who do ever do shit, and literally got taken out within 30 seconds. And the Mane 6. And that's it for 'Fighters'. In fact, other than Cadance's spell, not a single other spell was used in the entire fight, except by Twilight once. The same Twilight that went Toe to Toe with Tirek in an epic showdown.
The movie is a VERY bad representation of the Canon. Season 8 acts like the Movie is Canon, but the Movie didn't take anything from the show but the mane 6, and even that was mostly wrong.
However, I want to point something out to you, something that proves just how power ponies are. In the episode where Fluttershy redeems Discord, Twilight wanted to cheat? How? By using ONE of the MANY 'Reformation' spells. Lets not forget the Starlight Season 7 episode where she uses 3 different Mind Control spells on her friends to do friendship lessons. None of those spells were banned, black listed, high tier only spells. They were all found in random books scattered across the library.
If you want to go by the Logic of the Show, Movie, and what is 'Canon', then the Breezies can take over ponies, cause 99.9% of ponies, pretty much everyone that isn't the Mane 6, can't even hurt a fly.
However, you also have to bow to one other rule about the Show, Movie, and Canon then. And that's that no matter the situation, the Mane 6 always come out on top, with Equestria safe, and nothing changing. So if it's based off the canon of the show, something needs to happen that will wipe out all the humans, and have the ponies go back to their normal days without any humans, invasions, wars, occupations, and other influences. The status at the end, would be the same as the beginning, but with some life lessons learned.
Or you can, you know, put a bit of realism involved and not make the Ponies fucking stupid idiots like in the show, and realise Magic is infinitely powerful, and literally gives no fuck to your logic or reason. Especially when you take in Mind Control, and Reformation spells. Mine Control, I might add, that only got mad about cause she used it on her friends, only. Not that she used mind control at all. So it's actually in canon to be able to use Mind Control on people, namely humans, and it will be 100% ok. Just not on your friends.
9104932
The movie has been referred to by the show multiple times. It is more canon. This is fact.
9104952
The show reffered to the movie. Yes. And showed 1 location from the movie, the Hypogriff locations. Yes. But that's ALL it's done. The show has also reffered to the Second Equestria Girls movie, and fucked up with the lore in it, making the movie both Canon and Non-Canon all at once. Whats more, other than the 1 new race, we don't see ANYTHING ELSE from the movie. No Cat Race, No Fish Race, no any race from the movie other than the Hypogriffs. None of the locations but them as well. None of the info or characters except being slightly mentioned once or twice.
The show does NOT act like the movie existed, except when Hypogrifs are involved. Just like they The Pillars didn't exist, except in 2 episode, then stopped appearing and being canon. And Zebras are an extinct race with Zecora clearly being the only Zebra to exist in the MLP Canon.
9104994
Did you forget the extended map?
What from EQG was referred to in the show, besides sirens existing maybe?
9105060
Just that. They showed the Sirens, even had them defeated by a portal the same way. But they fucked up in who was involved. In EqG 2, it was stated that Star Swirl was the only one to fight and banish them to another world. But as seen at the end of Season 7, it was all of the Pillars, and all that Star Swirl did was open the portal, and nothing else.
Anyways, that's way away from the point I was making. That being that Magic is really over powered, even in Canon. I mean, they have Aging Spells, Spells to change what a being likes to eat, multiple spells like that actually (Used on Parasprites and Vamp Fruit Bats), Reformation Spells, Mind Control spells, and has twilight has shown multiple times, she can flat out make up a spell with any effect she wants. Heck, even in the newer Season 8 episodes, we see Starlight able to Banish Discord from the school. His body anyways, but still. DISCORD, all powerful god with reality warping powers that the show likes to nerf to keep him from just snapping his fingers and winning.
That's why they never show him except in the credits of the movie. Cause he easily could have just snapped his finger and send the Storm King and all his army, around the entire world, onto the moon. And why in the 2 big finals with him as the semi goodguy, they take away his powers, even tho those things shouldn't possibly effect him.
9105540
You're arguing how things should be, instead of what they are.
In reality, Discord is never around when you need him most, except that one time, but he did that to keep us on our toes, or it was random luck. You can't tell with him.
In reality, most unicorns can't do much. The few who can, rarely do so in a constructive way when a crisis is upon us, even if their catalogue of spells is impressive.
In reality, ponies are not very smart, but deserve all the hugs, all of them!
9105636
I'm actually arguing about 'Realism' vs 'Make everyone stupid to force a conflict'.
Magic is POWERFUL, just like Discord is neigh unstopable in reality. But the show, throws all that out and makes everyone stupid, and nerfs people, magic, or just makes them forget spells.
Instead of seeing the Bar for characters and magic, and thus building a story around that bar. People, like you and the show, force that bar lower, ignore, nerf, forget, and make ponies and creatures stupid to fit into a story.
For example, for Discord, could just Discord off to get an item for Fluttershy. But to Discord the item must be perfect so that she would love it. And his Chaos creation magic doesn't allow perfect things, that falling under Order, not Chaos. So he has to hop dimensions to go looking for the right item. Thus why he is out of the picture for a long time. Instead of just ignoring him, or weakening his powers like in the show where he couldn't stop something silly like Tirek, or a physical object he can just ignore.
Even in the show, they got around Twilight's Reformation Spell being used on Discord, by having Discord eating the pages with that spell on it, instead of having her use the spell and it just not effecting Discord.
Same with Trixie's return and the Alicorn Amulet, where Twilight defeated her by using tricks and not actual magical spells.
But most of the time, 99/100 times, the ponies are stupid, the villains are stupid, the ponies forget about magic or specific spells or the spells are weaker and useless, or some deus ex machina wins the day at the end just cause the writer/author says it does.
Ponies are not stupid, the show just forces them to be in different situations, ignoring the grouth of other episodes to push the lesson in that one episode. Spike at your service is a very good example. Making everypony in the episode beyond stupid. Or Season 6 final, having a stone effect Discord, when he can literally change the laws of reality, and inverse the effect of the stone, where Changelings can use magic but everyone else can, or make himself immune to it, or just snap his finger and kill Chrysalis.
Right at the end of the Episode, everyone, the Mane 6, princesses, Discord, starlight, and changelings just sit there and let Chrysalis escape and run away without doing anything to stop her, just so she won't get caught and make a better story. Even tho Discord can just snap his finger and catch her, no matter where she is in the world.
Stop fucking with everything to force it all to fit the story, and instead make a story fitting the realism of the setting.
9104932
Fact: We’ve seen Celestia get taken down like a chump numerous times. It’s not just in the movie. It’s literally any time anything seriously bad happens. Nightmare Moon and Discord? Absent. She lets the Mane 6 do literally all of the work. Queen Chrysalis attacks? Cocooned. Sombra threatening the land? Celestia didn’t do anything. Plunderseeds? Tentacled and whisked away. Tirek? When he realized she transferred her magic to Twilight, he sent her to Tartarus. It’s not just Tempest and her orbs. It’s literally every single time Celestia gets into combat. She’s never gone full Daybreaker. She’s never pulled out some incredible, countryside-incinerating spell to immolate whatever two-bit villain is threatening Canterlot at the time. She’s never dropped the sun on anyone, either. The best explanation the fandom can come up with for why Celestia gets casually tossed aside more often than Worf in Star Trek, while still assuming that she’s an all-powerful demigoddess, is that she’s “being Machiavellian by pretending to be weak” in order to “give her protege a chance to excel and grow into a proper successor”. I have another explanation; Celestia actually is that soft, and Equestria is ripe for the taking.
Fact: The Royal Guard are absolutely useless. Glorified doormen. The only thing they can seem to perform with any competency is pointing spears at unarmed people. Any time they’re in SHTF mode, they’re quickly overpowered and beaten. Six girls with magic trinkets are a more dangerous fighting force than the whole damn guard.
Fact: When ponies are sufficiently provoked, and when they have adequate time to prepare, they can be absolutely savage combatants. A single unicorn with a reasonably high level of magic ability can rip a man to shreds with levitation magic, or teleport him underground and cackle as he suffocates to death, or tear out the supporting beams of a structure and let it collapse on their enemy’s heads, or teleport fifty lit kegs of gunpowder into the cargo bay of a starship, or do all of the above in one sitting. Do you know why they don’t do this? Insufficient. Killing. Intent. We’ve seen war in-canon. Just look at that alternate timeline at the end of Season 5 where Sombra gains power and Rainbow Dash is going around with a prosthetic wing (dismemberment is canon, lol), beating the shit out of his troops with her bare hooves. A lot of fanfics play with the idea of ponies, as a culture, losing their innocence and realizing their... uhh... “fullest” potential by shifting their ethics from pacifist to militarist. I mean, there’s more than just Fallout Equestria. There’s The Dread Chitin/Outside the Reaching Sky, The Flower Mare, The Ballad of Nasty Jack, et cetera. It takes time, and sufficient provocation, to get them to gear up and mobilize for warfare. What do all the villains that sucker-punched Equestria have in common? Keywords, sucker-punched. If you go after ponies with a full armada of high-tech starships and started bombarding Canterlot right away, they would have no choice but to surrender. If you merely poked them with a stick over many weeks and months, you’d soon find that what you were poking was, in fact, a nest of hornets.
9106000
Fact, there are no humans, aliens, space ships, or anything else in this story inside of the show.
If you've read my latest post, especially the end of you, you'll see that all I wanted, as a story that was more realistic. Not matching the show, but if a pony world and their magic was real, based on real physics, psycology, and real emotions. As I pointed out in that same post for you to read, The show sets the Bar, such as showing Celestia as an immortal goddess, able to live forever, move the sun, and use the elements of harmony all on her own. She was also, with her sister, able to take down Discord, Sombra, and Tirek. And yet, the nerf her, fuck her over, make her stupid and weak, to match whatever story they telling that one episode.
And that shit pisses me off to no end. Look at her powerset and wisdom realistically. She is wise, she is a goddess immortal being, living for thousands, if not millions and billions of years. She has enough power to single handedly wield the most powerful set of items in their plane of existence, and moves the sun with no effort. She would be so wise, so caring, and so powerful, that realistically she would have spotted Chrysalis-Cadance was a fake and imprison her on first contact. She would have just dropped the sun on Tirek, Sombra, and other threats except Discord. Drawing from the sun, she would have near unlimited energy and easily just smack Nightmare Moon around for thousands of years without breaking a sweat.
That is how powerful she would realistically be, so build a story around that. Not just take those powers away, making her stupid, unable to fight, unable to do anything with the sun but move it on a set path and so on. Actually put thought into your story, and don't be just a lazy dumbass making a story worse than the Twilight Vampire Saga.
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Or, Celestia was once a fearsome combatant, but, like Robert Baratheon, has grown soft and weak over the centuries, and Equestria has, likewise, turned decadent and easygoing, having no real, persistent threats that would prompt them to develop and maintain a high degree of martial skill. You assume that just because they have all this power, that must mean that they know how to use it offensively. To the contrary, their pacifist ideology has stunted their capacity for war. How many ponies can you name, on the show, who would be ready, willing, and able, to use their magic to flay someone alive? There aren’t any. Most ponies would faint dead away if you suggested such a thing.
How else can you explain the discrepancy where any dumbass villain can waltz right into Canterlot and take over the place, and yet, in some timelines, Equestria goes to war with King Sombra and his armies on an even footing? They are not trained or equipped for warfare as humans define it. They have next to nothing in the way of a standing army. They could, if they wanted to, but that’s the point. You have to want it. For that to happen, they have to be threatened sufficiently, and then there’s a bit of lag until their industry and doctrine catches up.
The US military has 1.28 million active-duty and 800,000 reserve members. That’s 1/156th of America’s population. What fraction of Equestria’s population do you think serves in their armed forces? One three-hundredth? One one-thousandth? You can’t train and arm legions of troops overnight. It takes time, money, and infrastructure.
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Giggity.
(I was torn between Quagmire, or "Phrasing!" from Archer.)
This is a world where eagle+lion=griffin, so I'm looking forward to baby centaurs.