Chapter 25: Sphere of Influence
Twilight Sparkle knew she didn’t have much time to act. Freezing water poured in from all around them, water that was cold enough to reach through her fur right to her soul the instant it touched. Much of this priceless relic was being destroyed in that contact, shelves knocked over, scrolls that had been preserved by the ice now being torn to shreds as that same ice melted.
Any thoughts of relief—that the artifact might still be working—would have to wait for the moment where her and her friends escaped with their lives.
Twilight projected a shield. Not a very large one—one of the simple ones, almost a parlor trick. The sort of shields her brother had insisted she learn by rote from her earliest years. She still couldn’t do them nearly as well as Shining could—but she didn’t need to. The water blasted away from her, and Twilight settled on clear ground again. She could hear screams—her friends, justifiably terrified as they were swept away.
Twilight took careful aim, and teleported Spike to land beside her. Applejack and Fluttershy came next, since they’d been in the room with her and were the easiest to reach. With each teleport, she made the shield a little bigger. But her concentration wasn’t infinite, and the room was filling with water. Once it carried the others out of sight, her chances of accurately targeting them were small.
Will the shield hold if this tower collapses on us?
She probably couldn’t have done it, except that her friends had all been gathered around to see the device in action. Twilight collapsed onto the ground, even as they were completely submerged. The light of the tower was twinged an even deeper blue by the water all around them. She felt herself shivering, felt the pressure against her shield, and knew that she didn’t have the energy for another teleport. If I drop this shield, we will all die.
“Woah.” Rainbow Dash nudged the edge of the bubble with one hoof, then quickly pulled it back. “Nice one, egghead.” She was the only one that hadn’t flopped wetly to the floor. The icy water had a way of sucking the energy out of a pony.
Twilight herself felt it. But she couldn’t give up. Even if I could hold the shield for hours, our air won’t last that long. The bubble wasn’t big. They’d have an hour at most, unless she did something drastic.
“Thanks,” she said, dropping to her haunches. But she didn’t dare lie down to rest, even for a moment. A shield was an easy spell to maintain, except for the weight of all the water pressing on her. This tower was tall, and water was heavy. “I can’t get us out of here, though. It’s… so hard just to keep us dry. If I try anything else, the bubble might pop.”
“Well, don’t try anything else then, darling. We’re all here, we can… solve this mystery together.”
“Easy peasy.” Rainbow looked around, scanning the room with attentive eyes. “This is straight out of Daring Do. Water traps are pretty common in her books. Except… she usually escapes before it gets this bad. She’s a pegasus, so she can’t just bubble herself like this and wait.”
“It’s not a trap,” Twilight said. “It’s just… a natural consequence of melting the ice. This tower must be somewhere real low, maybe at the bottom of a valley. The ice is melting and filling it.” Something didn’t seem quite right about that—the land hadn’t changed that much since the golden age of the Crystal Empire. But she wasn’t sure what else could explain this.
“I don’t see what the fuss is about.” Applejack gestured out of the bubble. “This thing is safe enough, right? Why don’t we just walk up the stairs and get out the way we got in?”
“Usually it’s because Ahuizotl locked us in,” Rainbow suggested. “Or because the floor caved in, or maybe there’s a sand golem blocking the exit.”
“Now what the hay is that?”
“I want to meet a sand golem!” Pinkie Pie offered, helpfully. “I bet my sister would really like that. A rock she could talk to… it would be like a dream come true!”
“I believe we should be more focused.” Rarity had somehow dried herself out, and was already recovering more of her poise. “Twilight, dear, is there any reason we can’t just walk our way out? Can this shield spell be moved?”
“Maybe.” Twilight shifted uneasily on her hooves. But the spell didn’t falter, even when she took a tentative step. It did take more of her concentration, though. If she moved the magic around, she wasn’t going to be able to help her friends with any other obstacles they encountered along the way. “I suppose so.”
“You could just do what you did with the breezies that time,” Rainbow Dash suggested. “You could make us all into seaponies, and we could swim out.”
“No.” Twilight shook her head vigorously. “I couldn’t even manage a light spell right now. If I tried to transfigure something, we might not survive.” She turned back towards the stairs. The tower still looked intact. Not only that, but it was still glowing blue, energy still radiating out from the artifact. The water even seemed to be warming up. “Let’s just try and climb out. Stay close to me. I won’t be able to go very fast. And don’t touch anything outside the shield. You might be able to break it from the inside, and if you do…”
If anypony did, they would all die. But she didn’t want to say as much to her friends.
They began making their slow way up the tower. Priceless relics now floated destroyed all around them. Twilight watched ink bleeding from parchment before her eyes. Endless mysteries of their ancestors were wiped away by the ice. She probably would’ve been brought to tears by it, if she wasn’t already so desperate just to hang on to her magic.
There were a few close calls—a few times the sudden change of pressure shattered the crystal stairs in front of them, or something heavy drifted near the shield and Twilight had to hold still and brace herself against it. But they had fought many dangers together, plenty worse than this. If they could survive the eruption of Mons Ignis, if they could survive the griffons, they could survive a little cold.
Eventually Twilight saw the first few rays of faint sunlight filtering in from the top of the tower. It would be fully dark soon, and there would be little in the way of shelter now. Their entire camp had been washed away in the flood. But there was light, and they were still alive, so she could worry about that threat as it came.
They crested the edge of the water a few seconds later, into one of the upper levels of the tower. This hadn’t been a records room—whatever had been stored here had not been protected from time as well as some of what was hiding deeper.
“What are we waiting for?” Rainbow Dash was somehow flying, keeping right near the edge of the shield. Ready to surge right out of it and up the steps. “That’s the trapdoor leading out! We’re done here!”
“I’m waiting to see if…” Twilight could barely talk anymore. Even that much strain threatened to make her lose concentration and break the shield. She didn’t, though it was a very near thing. She watched the water level, and found it wasn’t rising anymore. Actually it was dropping, though so slowly that she had to stare for several seconds to see it had gone down at all. As it faded, frost collected on the floor where the water had been, freezing into a thin layer of ice. Up here wasn’t quite as warm as it had been right in the base of the tower.
Twilight flopped to one side, letting the shield fall. Her head throbbed from the effort, but she’d gotten them out. She didn’t even care that the crystal floor was wet and it started sucking the heat out of her again.
“I’m gonna see what’s out there,” Rainbow Dash announced, zipping up the tower and away.
Twilight watched her go, though everything was becoming dim. She could still see the beam of magical energy shooting up the length of the tower, and vaguely feel the power passing through it. It was a good thing Rainbow Dash had the sense not to fly across the stream—there was no telling what it might do to her.
Her friends’ voices faded to blurs after that. A few others went up the stairs to join Rainbow Dash on the roof, but Twilight didn’t follow.
“Here.” Spike extended a claw, a bundle of something dark and warm in it. A blanket. It wasn’t even wet.
Twilight didn’t question him, didn’t try to force him to take the blanket for himself. She let him throw it over her, and it helped squash her shivers. “Thanks,” she muttered, her words mushing together. “Used… more magic than I…”
“No problem,” Spike responded, grinning proudly at her. “You just rest. We’ll… work this out.”
“Look who’s growing up,” Twilight muttered, bemused. But she was already feeling better. Most of her exhaustion was magical, and she wasn’t keeping the shield up anymore.
“Yeah, well. Everypony’s got to grow up a little quicker when the world is ending around us,” Spike said. “I just hope this works. I don’t wanna fight the griffons. That seems like such a waste.”
“It would be,” Twilight said. “It would be a terrible waste for everypony. I thought we had the best pony for the job…” Except that Starlight Glimmer had slipped up. The griffons had tricked them into keeping pony slaves. Maybe they never would’ve given them up… but now there were ponies calling for war. Probably the griffons were hearing similar voices in Accipio. The emperor did not seem like he was going to compromise anytime soon. But neither was Princess Celestia.
“Hey, uh… Twi?” Applejack’s voice, from the top of the stairs. “I reckon you should take a look at this.”
“Sure.” Twilight rose, shaking herself out. She still felt cold, would’ve rather curled up right there and taken a nap. But her friends were counting on her. She tossed Spike his blanket and made her way up the stairs. He followed close behind, dutiful as ever.
There was no damage to the upper steps, and the layer of ice and snow that had once collected here was gone. Twilight emerged onto the roof beside the others, and stared out at what they had done. She did not need to ask Applejack what it was she was supposed to see.
The tower was now located in the exact center of a perfectly round lake. It wasn’t as deep as the tower was tall—perhaps a third that, and slowly getting shallower. There were a few little islands rising from the water, though not as many as she would’ve liked. Far, far in the distance, she could vaguely make out a wall of ice, stretching high above the water.
A layer of fog rose from the water, as though twisting and dancing through the air in front of her. There was even a boat on the lake.
Their balloon, floating slowly away. By some miracle it had managed to keep from being dragged under and flooded. Thank Celestia we didn’t take one with a chemical engine. Twilight didn’t understand how those worked as well as the magic ones, but she knew that if water got into the chemicals, they could explode.
As she watched, she could see a little line of light occasionally appear, connecting the top of the tower to some invisible point far in away. Back towards the Crystal Empire.
“We did it,” Rarity said, her voice low. “I’m having trouble believing it. But we did it. It’s so… it’s so warm. A few more hours and it might be warm enough to set up a beach resort.”
“I don’t like it,” Rainbow Dash muttered. “You can’t just tinker with the climate like this and expect nothing to happen. Warm air out in the middle of nowhere like this… I don’t like it. This is weather school 101 stuff, Twi.”
“Maybe we should worry about gettin’ our balloon back?” Applejack suggested, pointing. “I dunno if ya’ll noticed, but it’s floating away.”
“Yeah.” Twilight followed it with her eyes. “Rainbow, Fluttershy. Let’s fly out there and drag it back to the tower. We’ll… we have to stick around here long enough to see if anything bad happens. Then maybe…” There were the records downstairs, perhaps some of them had survived the flood. Even if they hadn’t, Twilight guessed there would be other ways to locate the rest of these towers. They all had the same effective range. They could probably assume the ancients had used them as efficiently as possible—used the position of this one to guess at where its neighbors might be.
Even if this worked, even if they found them all—there was no telling whether it would help deal with Accipio. But we can’t just sit around and wait for them to invade. We have to do something.
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Lets hope Mane6 efforts easy tension's in some way. Also hoping to see a-holes on pony side, since all a-holes seem to have been almost exclusively on griffon side.
So, there is another facet of danger for Equestria to deal with, pointed out by Rainbow Dash of all ponies. She makes a good point, though. A sudden, dramatic shift in climate would undoubtedly have impacts on the world elsewhere. It does beg the question though of why no other unicorn or pegasus just as knowledgeable, if not more so, than her regarding such weather magics/sciences when this plan was suggested, raised such concerns. Did no one really think about it? Anyway, excellent chapter.
Rainbow is kinda to smart in this chapter cause she's right.
Manipulating weather is extremely tricky and dangerous thing, just like the ice that was melted that water had to go somewhere, so does the heat that tower generates.
In a way all climate problems could be traced back to the ponies.
Ponies decide that they want cooler summer so they push the hot air away into other territories which can cause draughts.
Maybe that's why that tower was shut down.
8887132
They could start a private conversation but the thing about debate is that others can join in, and input their own thoughts into it, either by new ideas or just agreeing with one side or the other.
That's what's the comment section is for, the author himself may get a few new ideas from such comments for future chapters or help him avoiding plot holes.
Otherwise the comment section would be nothing but thanks yous, great chapter/fic etc.
Nothing constructive.
8896233
8896230
On the flipside, the Crystal Empire has been around for a couple of years now and no immediate reflexive problems have cropped up. Climate in Equestria is weird and magic makes it even weirder, remember this is the universe where seasons have to be changed manually and night and day can be in the same sky.
I doubt the weather manipulation is going to adversely affect the environment. After all, the crystal empire's climate effect seems to be limited to a very specific perimeter, with ice and snow unaffected just outside it.
8896301
But that's only in Equestria, as we've seen the rest of theier world follows a natural order similar to ours.
8896302
The Crystal Empire in its current state is just one city, it may be huge but still its just one city.
So any effects the city would produce would be small and would affect only the closest area.
Also let's not forget the Crystal Empire is far north or south I don't remember, but they're in a area similar to our artic with eternal winter.
So it would be very hard for them to disturb the climate.
One idea that I always had about the Crystal Empire barier is that it just pushes away cold rather then heats it.
Think about it, the barier would have to produce enough heat to turn snow into vapor otherwise the Crystal ponies would get rain every time it would snow or worse if a blizzard would appear which for that area would be common.
Basically the barrier would've to produce enough energy to outdo many nukes, which over an very extended time could cause issues.
8896315
We haven't seen much of outside Equestria though. The Crystal Empire is noted for its permanent storms without the barrier, which is not exactly natural like us either and the Everfree forest is noted to be weird (and it is weird, a tiny patch of extremely localized climate? Weather generally doesn't do borders).
I’m trying to guess how this would affect the climate like rainbow said it would. Assuming that it would never cool off due to the magic, all the glaciers and ice in the area will melt, this is going to cause some things to happen. Firstly there may be some flooding in the crystal empire (or a lot depending on how much melts, and how much makes it there (if any) before refreezing due to coming out of range of the magic.
It was said that twilight could just barely see an ice wall in the distance, so I’m guessing that may be about 30km away, and assuming that a perfect circle was formed, that’s going to be over 2800 square kilometres of warm area. I’m not sure how that would affect the global climate, but it would definitely wreak havoc with the local climate.
There would be lots of evaporation, meaning lots of rainfall. Wind currents would completely change. In fact, if this area is large enough to form a Hadley cell, this area would be as wet as a tropical rainforest, and you’d get new deserts forming elsewhere on the planet.
If this place is the starting point of a Hadley cell, things almost certainly just got a hell of a lot worse...
Great job
8896356
Starlight makes a comment how only Equestrians controls the weather, during a discussion with the prince and its states the griffins have a natural weather system.
The prince even disbeliefes a bit that the ponies can just sweep winter away.
Well in a way there are borders in nature, otherwise we wouldn't have different climates in different part of the world, the thing these borders like all borders can change.
As for Everfree, I think it's just ponies trying to contain it, as they can't seem to control weather inside it for one reason or another.
And we've seen that the blizzard isn't eternal, there are periods of calm, otherwise you could see the blizzards always from the inside, which in the episodes we've seen there was no blizzard outside.
Basically it would be k
like being inside a tornado, calm inside, hell outside.
The beginning of the chapter doesn't make it very clear that Twilight teleported in the other characters besides Spike, AJ and Fluttershy, I feel. It mentions her brining in those specific characters by name, then casts doubt on her ability to do the same for the others, so the implication at first is that she hasn't saved them yet.
That's an interesting point. A sudden source of extremely warm, humid air in the middle of the arctic... that could have some serious side effects, once enough towers are booted up. If I had to guess... I assume you'd have a surge of hot, water-laden air rushing into the surrounding land, which would create both very strong winds as the hot and cold air switch places and a lot of precipitation as the water condenses and freezes. Put those together, and this could be major storm system in the making.
However, if that is so, you would expect that the Crystal Empire itself would have already severely impacted the local weather patterns -- there must be a lot of warm-temperate air being continuosly produced there.
Further complicating those worries is the eruption itself. The weather's already turned on its head by a worldwide volcanic winter. The sudden creation of a large warm stretch of land in the middle of the arctic on top of that... it could make things even worse, or at this point it might even help. Or it might be lost in the general climactic chaos -- at this point, what would be a disaster earlier might simply be a bit more of the same.
8896315
The issue with that is that cold isn't something that physically exists in its own right -- cold is simply the absence of heat. You can't push cold away to warm something any more than you can fill a room by pushing away emptiness. The barrier could work as a greenhouse, but the rapidness with which the Empire is shown to be heated goes against that possibility. The Heart needs to actively produce heat to work the way it does.
8896152
You think they weren't assholes with those terms? You've got a pony centric view.
In the terms Equestria asked for core tenants of the griffin systems to be uprooted, slaves are a key part of their society asking for any slaves born in Equestria is reasonable... Asking for all slaves of Equestrian decent is not.
Gunpowder weapons are also a part of their identity even discounting the fact that they're a core weapon system for them. It's not far from banning Equestrians from using magic in war (not just unicorn but flight and earth magics as well)
They're reasonable to us but to the griffies? Those terms were not just harsh but an attack on their culture itself.
8896525
They're demands were also kinda stupid, release all slaves is just plain stupid.
Many of these slaves were either criminals or beings with debt to someone that the couldn't pay.
These aren't the regular slaves just for slavery sake, for either being born a slave or racism against other races.
On this im on the griffin side realising all slaves would mean freeing criminals and debts being unpaid.
This kind of slavery I would agree with, the only issue I can see is the typical corruption and abuse, this is something that a ruling party should monitor and control.
8896538
Oh I didn't say I agreed with them keeping slaves. I despise slavery... But just because I despise something and would want to see it end doesn't mean that I can't understand how important it can be to a society. Especially one that's already undergoing such a huge trauma as having uprooted its entire society and moved to what is basically a shithole.
8896557
A slave by any other name is still a slave, if you think about it were all slaves in one way or another.
If we were talking about slavery that we practiced back in ancient Egipt or century or two ago I will agree to hell with it.
But what the griffins seem to practice would be more akin to indebted servitude, when you gain a debt you have to pay it of no matter how.
It definitely beats our system where criminals are just thrown into prison living off our taxes or people who never pay their debts.
For example in my case my father owes me around 100.000 PLN or around 30.000 USD in child support that he never payed, instead the government payed 1/3 of that and just racked the debt one that he'll never pay of and there is nothing that anyone can do about this.
This and many other reasons why almost every nation is in debt.
Granted in our case I can understand that such forn of slavery wouldn't work as we have little means of control that would be cheap and effective.
8896525
I meant more like actually seeing them on pony side, like the ones calling for war(, even thou equestria did offer safe-place due to volcano on their own "unfair'ish" terms). I'm actually rooting for the griffons once the peace returns, and that ponies get knocked down from their "high-and-mighty" moral/magical/etc pedestal they kinda seem to have in IMO in non-bloody way. Just wanting that both sides would come out of this on better countries.
Just didn't want to attract negative attention of griffon bashing readers on comment section.
8896592
The problem with the griffon system in that regard is twofold:
Firstly, debt is only one situation where someone can be forced into slavery. Early in the story, it's mentioned that House Vengeance is in the habit of capturing non-griffons who enter their cities and seeing them as slaves. In that case, what debt would be incurred? How could you pay it off? You would owe nothing to anybody -- you'd have simply been apprehended as soon as your ship was moored and marched off to the market.
The other issue is that Accipian society seems to be geared to force freemen into states of penury and debt that will force them to sell themselves into bondage. Free, classless people have no political representation, no ability to obtain economic safety, no voice to speak of. The only way to get those things is to be part of a great house, and the only way to enter a great house from the outside is for one to buy you as a slave.
Even assuming that no-one enters slavery except through debt and that the culture in question is perfectly non-coercive about who does or doesn't sell themselves or incur debt, there is another issue: societies that depend on free, forced labor for their economy will inevitably become very good at ensuring a steady supply of this labor for themselves. This was a major factor in the rise of American slavery: originally, the American colonies used a system very similar to the one here in this story. If you committed a crime or got into more debt than you could pay back in jolly old England, an alternative to the clink was to be shipped off to the colonies as an indentured servant to a local landowner. You would work for them until you paid off your debt or crime, to whatever price that was set as, and when that was done you walked as a free man or woman. The problem was that landowners became very dependent on this labor -- why not? Indentured servants were a hell of a lot cheaper than free, paid workers, and they could hardly leave if they disliked the work conditions. Using them preferentially only made sense, and people who did ran their lands more profitably and efficiently than those who chose not to. A problem arose, however, as the farms and colonies grew, because it turns out that crime rate doesn't grow to match labor demand. This meant that the landowners needed to find new ways to secure unpaid, bound workers for their lands -- and I think we can all guess where that led, after a while.
This happened after the Civil War, too, in the form of sharecropping. Say you were one of the freed slaves in the South. Chances were, the slavers hadn't given you a great deal of land and funds to start a new life with. As a result, you'd be forced to take loans from people who did have money to keep yourself and your family going. A common system that developed was one where poor black farmers would agree to work a rich (and white, because the two things went hand in hand back then) man's land. They'd be provided with the necessary tools, house, storage space, mule and seed on credit, and would pay back their debt through a share of the crop, hence the name. The problem was that since they'd be borrowing so much stuff form the landowner every single planting season, growing season and winter, they'd be constantly incurring more and more debt, so they'd never be able to pay back their original debt. This would be inherited by their children, and the vicious cycle would continue -- slavery in all but name.
This is fairly typical of indentured servitude. The owner of the debt is perfectly aware that they benefit from keeping their indentured servants bound as long as possible, and almost inevitably take the opportunity to extend the debts when they can to ensure constant profit and unpaid labor for themselves. Since they tend to be the sole source of everything the indentured servants need, this is fairly easy to accomplish.
8896701
No disagreement there, I just summed it up in typical corruption and abuse, the griffin system isn't perfect but what the Equestrians demand is moronic.
Realeseing all slaves would mean realeseing criminals and other beings into poverty with no bits to their name and no job which in a nation starved for basic supplies due the cataclysm would force them to steal and pillage as I doubt there will be enough food and resources for everyone.
8896721
True, I suppose. The logistic issues of freeing every slave at once would be unmanageable, given Accipio is barely holding itself together as it is.
That's probably part of the reason why Equestria only demanded the release of pony slaves to begin with, I imagine. Total emancipation was probably intended as a long-term thing to begin with.
8896538
Except the prince's conversation with Starlight revealed most of the time the debt is designed to keep the slaves enslaved permanently, with them not being able to pay it off as interest stacks up in addition to having to buy food.
There's also the point that it's never said that children born to slaves aren't slaves themselves, and in an early chapter, it was said that certain griffins would enslave the entire crew of an airship that crossed into Accipio if even one non-griffin was on board. So it's not like these are all criminals, or former free-men who ended up in debt.
And further point that as far as I can tell in Accipio a non-griffin is either a slave, or in a position where they're likely to end up as a slave either by selling themselves since they can't find work, or because they somehow end up in debt.
8896604
I mean I wouldn't exactly call asking for a specific species of slaves being freed while letting them keep the rest is 'high morality', especially when it's one of two things they asked the Griffins to do. And in this situation, the ponies getting knocked off their 'pedestal' would probably involve the enslavement of a large portion of Equestria's populace and the death of the Princesses.
Because if they do go to war, and the Griffins win, there's no way Equestria will look at all the same.
8896525
Okay on the gun thing, let's not forget the Griffins seemingly have been a hostile force to every nation on the planet for as long as Accipio has been around.
The slaves at least aren't as much of a risk to Equestria, so I can kinda see where you're coming from, but no sane person is going to invite a heavily armed historically hostile force to settle within their borders and let them keep their military arsenal.
8896825
Again your typical corruption and abuse, i never claimed that their system is perfect.
8896799
You my friend are underestimating the power of mobs and riots, even if the griffins would release just the ponies slaves that’s still a large number of unemployed ponies, ponies who will have no job, no food and no homes, now no doubt other ponies will try to help them but remember there won’t be much food to go around and some of those ponies could be criminals.
There is no good side here both griffins and equestrians are dicks to one another but both sides don’t want all out war especially in these trying times, so cooperation is forced.
If given a chance both sides would see the other wiped out
If the poor griffons couldn't accept giving up their pony (and only pony) slaves because it would "uproot their society", they could have just opted to die with that house of idiots back in Accipio. I mean, a life without slaves isn't just worth living, eh?
Seriously though, the amount of people that justify griffons' behaviour in these comments is astounding. The griffons are culturally, politically and even technologically (for the most part) backward savages. It's also been shown time and again that they know very little about Equestrian society, technology etc. For instance, if they were a bit more pragmatic and curious, heart surgery would not have surprised Velar in any way, as they would just have had free (as in non-slave) Equestrian doctors on their soil. Not to mention all the other benefits well-educated and trained ponies could have brought them. As it is, they know very little about anything and seem to believe mostly in strength.
IMO it would have been morally correct for Equestria to have intervened to stop slavery in Accipio long ago, if not through (presumably extremely costly) military intervention, then through economic pressure, blockading, and backing any other nation that opposes them. The story portrays what life has demonsrated a lot of times: what pacifism and isolationism get you in the long run is potential for much larger and bloodier conflict.
8896919
The griffons were literally based off of ancient societies so that's why they seem backwards. We would too to civilizations hundreds of years from now.
As for military intervention, we know the griffons can't invade equestria but I don't think the equestrians could pulled off their own either especially against a practically world government at the height of its power. War for something like this just isn't worth it back then as it is now.
Political and economic intervention wouldn't have worked either since it's equestria (and allies) vs the world (aka accipio). Accipio doesn't need anything from equestria before the eruption. All the invasion attempts are solely due to accipio's hardcore completionist mentality.
8896356
Borders are often placed on natural geological features that sometimes separate biomes and enviroments so borders might do weather (or at least climate.)
I don't know enough about weather patterns to contribute to that discussion, and I'm sick of the slavery thing. I just think it felt almost like a different story with the Mane 6 here. Maybe because we're used to thinking of Twilight in this story as a distant political presence behind Starlight. Not that this was a bad thing.
At the very least, here's hoping they let any future expeditions know to get the records out of other stations before activating them. Just in case any of those scrolls say "DO NOT ACTIVATE THIS". (And bring a lot more cold weather gear, seriously, what the heck?
)
8896369
Oh right, the story did establish that in earlier chapters.
8896375
This assumes that the magic of the Heart obeys our laws of physics though. But in a universe where magic can have day and night in the same sky, pegasi treat clouds as solid matter and seeds can grow into full trees in the blink of an eye, that's not a guarantee. With the speed the Crystal Heart warmed up the Empire in the times we've seen it activate, it very much does seem to 'push out cold.' Trying to do so with just generated heat at that speed would have made it unbearably hot at ground zero.
8896890
Given the context of Starlight's conversation with the Emperor and his wife as well as the conversation between Isabel and her master, the freed slaves would be taken in by Equestria, which currently has plenty of need for able bodies to farm and manage the weather. This would allow the new workforce to get food and shelter, acclimate to Equestrian culture, and start building up experience and contacts for future jobs.
And criminals? Not even Accipians claim most of their slaves are criminals. Even the Prince claims most of the slaves are just civilians forced into debt by the system Accipio maintains. And it only takes a moment of scrutiny to realize that this system is created for the very purpose of forcing non-nobility into slavery to said noble houses.
8897025
Yes, but these borders tend to either be very wide or be built on huge geographical features (like mountains or oceans). Not the edge of a forest.
8896375
As Keroko said magic does whatever magic wants, it does not follow our rules, and take a look here what happens to the clouds and snow at 4min mark.
It’s all being pushed away, also to melt that snow that fast you would need a few nukes.
Geeze, this is really dangerous.
AJ with the sensible suggestion.
Us? Has Dash been going on more adventures with Daring?
Walking out worked fairly well.
Great job assistanting, Spike.
Aside from the intense personal danger, turning on the tower also seems to have worked pretty well. Some logistical work to correct for that, and this is going to provide a lot more fertile land all of a sudden, assuming there's no problem powering the network.
Good points from Dash, however.
8896525
If you mean "key part of society" in terms of "their economy depends on it", their economy already got shattered and the ponies are agreeing to help them rebuild it.
If you mean "key part of society" in terms of "they are super used to it",
1. The griffons could demand a catch-and-release program where slaves are interviewed by Equestrians and get the chance to "opt in" and stay with their houses. Equestria would surely agree to this, possibly (wrongly) assuming that there would be no takers;
2. Fuck slavery.
8897197
re:Daring Do,
potentially, but I read it as more "Dash gets really into the books" and they are now in a similar situation. In the books, this kind of thing would usually be a supervillain locking us into a deathtrap, but I guess it's just meltwater.
8896890
I'm sorry, but that's bullsh*t. If both sides wanted to see the other wiped out, the ponies could've managed that easily when the Griffon were at their mercy, right after their old home exploded. They didn't. Heck, they tried to buy the pony slaves the birds are keeping right now (against the spirit of the treaty), they just can't because the Griffons set impossible and irrational prices, most likely because they really just don't want to set free creatures they believe should be slaves by nature.
8896919
It's because of wanting some sort of balance. No matter what we pretend happened, it's been pretty black and white up to this point, and many folks prefer a more grey versus grey approach. So far, this hasn't been, but I would say it's also been presented in a way that explains it rather well and has been enjoyable.