"Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." ~Gene Fowler
Luna’s return from banishment has been a challenging learning process. But as the years pass and Luna becomes more aware of Equestria’s current technological state, she has a critical question for her sister.
Why?
Cover art belongs to extraluna and all credit should go to them.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Tuesday, Friday, silly details in the grand scheme.
It maybe a 2AM story but still quite entertaining!
Ah Fuck.
derpicdn.net/img/2022/9/1/2938917/medium.png
Oh, Bigger Fuck.
It all magic. It's all magic. Magic is everywhere. You might say, Everything... is Magic.
Good story!
"Well sister mine, as you recall we used to have zebras for stuff. Use to chuck em out into the fields with a bucket of ice to help cool them and their foals off while they worked. Them those Abolitionists came in and put them poor people out on the street."
Very silly fun indeed. I like Celestia's attitude, bravo.
In the very far unknown future, in a unknown location. The future versions of the Alicorns reacting to G5;
Future Luna: I can't believe I ever agreed with you. 😑
Future Twilight: I'm screwed up so badly!!!
Future Cadence and Flurry Heart: Where the heck were we when this happened!? 😓
Future Celestia: Me and my big mouth. 😫
Oh hi, Dune and Warhammer 40k. Whether they were on purpose or not, my mind went there.
Let me guess, this occurred in the city that is known as Detrot?
11658109
I agree, it's sad ... but it was inevitable. They were up against a pegasus.
Tia Celeszynski says no to industrial society.
11658158
You mean Cozy Glow?
Yeah, a little evil brat that almost took away all their magic.
I all honesty the other only tech gape that makes no sense is the weapons. In the real world it is not uncommon form communities with in a single national n to be on completely different technological levels. A rise in traditionalisum can lead to communities favor old methods over mire technologcal ones, cultural groups can form that out right reject technology past a certain era, and underdeveloped or very poor places often lack common technologies. The state of the Equestrian military how ever is frankly baffling, they should have at least advanced to muskets and cannons. Equines not being as war like as primates and having magic could explain the lower level of weapon tech, less need for more advanced weapons, but surely guns and canons would be made to deal with monsters!
"The war against the Mares of Iron was such a tiny insiginificant portion of time in the grand scheme of things, I do not know why everyone gets so hung up about it." -The Master of Ponykind, aka Celestia
Fucking Men of Iron
Honestly this is setting equstria to fall to a technological advanced nation, or twlight like in canon.
Honestly should have had a epilogue where it old celestia and luna in a broken and divided equstria with no magic and celestia like not a word sister
11658241
No, I didn't mean Cozy.
For some reason I confused a fanfic and Opanine's canon backstory.
'Twas an early fic that basically poked fun at the writers by saying that if a single character was able to overcome five alicorns and Discord, she'd have to be/have originally been a magic-less pegasus.
(not that the official bs is any less headache-inducing)
Even Twilight has her problems with technology, and she's a fraction of Luna's age, plus she is supposed to be the smart one here.
11658401
Honestly sister, did you never wonder why our population is so small? It took us nearly 500 years just to bounce back to the same numbers we had before you were sent away. I'm just glad that they bought the story about it being due to disease. Really though, Black Death? Not my best moment naming things, I'll admit, but I was rather distracted at the time.
In human history. Many technology was rush to invent because of war. From firework to gun, from communication unit to internet. Many war technology was adapt for daily used. So since Equestria seem a bit lack of world war. I don't think it weird for technology to advance in difference way.
Historical revisionism is such a harsh term. We prefer to say that "we did a little trolling."
This kind of reminds me of a similar story but instead of Luna going caffeine and red string on Celestia, it was the M6 discovering a less than shining example of Celestia's mistakes throughout her long life. The basic premise of the fic was that Celestia had in a way, adopted all of Equestria as her children, and like any mother, was afraid to watch them grow up so it took a great deal of persuasion to even get her to see the benefits of the steam locomotive as an example.
11658063
2AM Stories I find are the most entertaining, for both the reader and the writer!
11658071
Ah another Sunny enjoyer, a person of culture.
11658155
Records of the City in which the Uprising took place are now REDACTED.
11658125
Dune was the inspiration, but now can totally see 40k, damnable ponies of Iron. Hail the Sun Empress of Ponykind!
I guess it's time to drag out this old quote from The Art of Equestria:
So basically all those more advanced items we've seen from time to time were the result of the producers breaking their own rules.
11658970
Did-
Did you just un-reference my reference?
11658326
I've gradually come to the conclusion that Equestria doesn't have any standing army or any "military" that we would recognize as such. The closest thing to Equestria's military that we've seen are the Royal Guards, whose job seems to be palace security and crowd control, and the Wonderbolts, who apparently can be called out to contain a particularly obnoxious monster (like out-of-control Spike). When the changelings invaded, pony society seemed rather helpless to respond.
I think it's not as strange as it may first appear. Even looking at our own world, email exists alongside postal mail. We have airplanes and spaceships, but there are still places where people ride horses. We have quarter-mile-tall steel and concrete skyscrapers, but houses are generally still made from wooden frames.
Also, a lot of specific oddities can very easily be explained by the biological capabilities of the population. No surprise if technological flight never becomes popular when a third of the population can fly. You might argue that the other two thirds can't...but consulting google, it looks like air freight weight per year is over a hundred times that of passenger weight. When pegasi are handling freight, and a third of the population can fly, how much financial incentive is there to build airport infrastructure everywhere? Would it make sense to build a 1000 acre airport in some centralized location from which freight has to be shipped to its final destination when any pegasus can deliver it you your front door in a fraction of the time?
Even if they have the technology, there probably isn't much financial incentive to use it the way humans do.
As for cannons, a third of the population learns levitation as their daily driver spell just to be a functional adult. It's plausible that ballistics aren't effective weapons of war because any competent unicorn can simply pluck them out of the air. I don't recall seeing any bows or crossbows either. Also, ponies in general seem to be very durable and highly resistent to blunt force. Rainbow Dash flying straight into the ground comes to mind. How hard do you have to fire a bullet at a pony for it to hurt? Wouldn't it be easier to have unicorn fire horn lasers instead?
Maybe you want the cannon as an artillery piece, to take down castle walls for example? Again, watch that scene where Rainbow Dash flies straight into the ground hard enough that the explosion produces a mushroom cloud in order to demolish Applejack's barn. Way more effective than a cannon. Instead of developing an entire industry to produce cannon balls that have to be moved around so you can spend hours firing them out of a cannon to take down a wall, how much easier is it for a unicorn battlemage to simply turn the stone of the wall into mud instead? Or to have pegasi throw a tornado at it? Or to tie the wall with rope to house-carrying ponies like Big Macintosh to pull it down?
You probably don't own any horn warmers. It's not because humans lack the technology to make horn warmers. It's just that humans have no use for them.
Similarly, a lot of human uses of technology probably just don't make much sense for ponies.
My own personal headcannon is that tech for Equestria exists around the turn of the century, sometime like very early 1900s. There was a lot of new tech going on at that time right before and after WW1, but most of the areas outside cities still basically lived like it was the 1800s until around the 1920-30s, when they finally started getting developed, at least in the US.
Putting the tech period there covers a lot of stuff we see in the show, and there rest of the stuff can be hand waved with magic or whatever.
This was a great read, and exactly something I'd expect Luna to find out. 10/10
OAH! Spooky Magic Horse!
11659292
Tongue-in-cheek take this story has aside, I’m in agreement with that headcannon that Equestria is actually a late 19th to early 20th century country. With of course a few exceptions as per the art guide which another comment mentioned. I think most of the inconsistencies can be waved away with the existence of magic. But where’s the fun in an old logical explanation such as that?
11659004
They absolutely do not have an army, besides what you can consider as alternative name for 'Royal Guard': "E.U.P. Guard".
I've written around it as that Equestria seems downright obscure from outsiders perspective, a sun-blessed land of mystique where the alicorn dwells (alicorns at the time of the show). You need to be mad to try attacking it, because all previous attempts ended badly for invaders. Ponies just do not need a conventional army, and Celestia actually softly pedaling against such an establishment, working into the ponies minds the idea that all they need for protection is her. So far it worked.
Also guards seem to be protecting cities in general, because Equestria generally is a wild and untamed land. It shouldn't bode well for would-be invaders too, if they are land-based. Good luck reaching Canterlot before it has a chance to respond. Everfree Forest alone seems like a great hindrance of natural origin
I can't not read the title in Seinfeld's voice.
You mean they were always like this?
If you say so...
Good story!
I enjoyed reading it.
11659391
and yet we see that convectional forces work fine too. the changlings first sneak a army to canterlot followed by taking all the leadership hostage with no one knowing.
honestly i like the idea that Celestia is secretly paper tiger and uses the appearance of power overwhelming to keep thing safe.
it works great when no body has the balls to try anything. falls apart when some one does.
11659620
Well, that's how I read her character and how I am now writing about it, yeah
Seems to have worked for her for a long time. Equestria is not a militant nation, it's not ponies' purpose. But then something surely changed when the Elements uncovered...
Also that 'sneaking the army and taking everyone hostage offscreen' part is more like writers' handwave, just as the magic throne that was featured in the same plot, but eh. Part of canon, I guess. Whatever.
11659635
well it helped give us Equestria at War, so handwave is forgiven.
11660143
Small price to pay for pony genocide
yes
Now we know how G5 came about! ha ha
Man, this actually makes me wish we had an episode about this very premise, lol! Nice work!
I actually believe you on this one. Unless stallions back then were so much more... manly ...then their efficiency would be unchanged.
11658326
That's the beautiful part...
The writers either struck gold by accident or the executives didn't meddle in it. Take a look at all their direct neighbors; how many of them have technology better than what the royal guard has? None. Every last one is either in decline (griffons), barbarians (yaks, dragons), tribal (yaks, again plus Buffalo) or caveman (changelings... for some reason). Saddle Arabia and... that one independent state that is a wordplay on mare ...are on equal footing with the medieval technology (possibly even renaissance) if their blink-and-miss-it appearance is anything to go by.
The movie, hilariously, shows us steampunk towns, airships (outside the comics airships were only an Equestria thing) and weapons and armor made to negate magic. I'll have to rewatch to see if any age of sail cannons were mounted on those airships but the rest of the world is more advanced than Equestria's military yet less than what the common pony enjoys.
Oh... then we have hippagriffs. Distant from Equestria they should have good technology... but don't. The primary rulers are 'good friends'. Though that is debatable as Princess Luna had no idea she existed. Just another primative nation with 'strong ties' to Equestria.
My conclusion?
Celestia, due to long life, is playing the world like a 4x game. The nations of the world has her hoof on their collective throats at one time or another. She seems to have grow laxed and complacent of late. Probably believing that the pony way, the only way, would carry them to victory over the primatives regardless of tech gap.
It seems to have been thrown out for g5 but what can you do?
YOUNGER.
11990590
Celestia is referring to herself in relation to Luna in this instance. She knows Luna would forgive her but she just wants to be safe. I’ll probably just make that clearer
11990838
Okay Thanks.