Bringer-of-Doom

Personal Headcanon [WARNING!!!] The following information is/will/might be part of a story universe of mine. Thy have been warned. NATIONS OF EARTH (ancient and present) [an extract from "Equestria and the World around it: A Reference Guide] THE THREE TRIBAL NATIONS: Also known as the “First Kingdoms” amongst the ponies, these were the united domains of the three pony kinds as they were during the Pre-Classical Era as determined by the Royal Canterlot University. Each was made of the specific pony kind, and interbreeding was frowned on and legally criminated. The Earth ponies were led by a Chancellor, a technically elected position, but the tittle was usually passed on through a single line of blood. The Pegasi were foremost warriors, their leader always being the highest ranking officer, having essentially a ruling dictatorship. The unicorns were ruled by Kings and Queens, of the Bloodline of Silverbloods. The three Tribal Nations came collectively to an end during and after the Windigo Winters, when many of the ponies either fled across the sea from the cold (mostly earth ponies, estimated around 4,000 refugees, of which around 3,000 survived the journey across the sea to the east), or joined the others in the new kingdoms of Equestria. A small amount of the original Earth ponies remained in their now frozen northern lands, where they found themselves a unique form of Harmony in the form of a strange crystal unearthed from beneath the old unicorn hold. These ponies then went on to create the Crystal Empire. THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE: This nation was created by the earth ponies left of the original First Kingdoms. After unearthing the strange magical crystal, the earth ponies were able to concentrate their natural magic through it much like a unicorn horn. Using their sense of kinship as the anchor point, they were able to use the crystal as a way to create a shield which banished the Windigos plaguing them. More on the Crystal Empires history in the Chapter 20: The Crystal Empire. The Crystal Empire was for a long time a rather isolationist nation, but after the Curse of King Sombra ended, and after the ruling of the Empire was passed on to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the Crystal Princess, the nation has become much more open to other countries, especially towards Equestria due to their continued support towards the Empire in the wake of the Curse of King Sombra. Currently the Empire is prospering and growing north of the Equestria, on the old pony lands, now called the Frozen North. THE CANINE DOMINION: A great nation of diamond dogs that prospered on the area currently known as the Badlands during the Pre-Classical Era, this nation consisted of several Warren-States of diamond dogs, each ruled by their own royals. The basis of the diamond dog culture was based around wealth and prowess in battle, so the nation was often times at war with itself. More information on the diamond dogs in the Chapter 6: Equestria: Sentient Species. The Dominion was at a state of civil war when the Windigo Winters started, and as the diamond dogs were weakened by the infighting and the cold brought on by the Windigos, they were unprepared and too weak to resist as the remains of the Great Dragon Horde fled to the Badlands the Wrath of the Sphinxes. Weakened, yet still quite fearsome, they plundered the great holds of the diamond dog’s gems and scattered the remaining diamond dogs to the winds, breaking their power forevermore. THE GOLDEN KINGDOM OF ZARANGI: A zebra warlord Zarangi, who was driven off from the Great Savannah during the Rise and Fall of the Zebra Warlords after his campaign of conquest had been thwarted, created this nation by conquering and enslaving the few tribes that made their home in the Great Southern Jungle. During his reign he forced the jungle tribes to create massive temples and monoliths in the rainforest in his honour. This kingdom came to an end after few decades of tyranny, when the Warlord Zarangi choked on a fruit in his throne chamber full of servants. Afterwards the jungle tribes returned to their ancestral grounds in the forest, simply abandoning the structures they had helped to create. THE JEWELLED CITY OF THE DRAGONS: The great city of Teh-Ranaah, the greatest city on the Great Savannah during the Pre-Classical Era, was renamed as the Jewelled City after it was over taken by the black dragon Death Smoke and his Great Dragon Horde. This tittle didn’t last, however, since after 2 years of using the City as a base from which to attack all the tribes of the Great Savannah, the tribes were finally able to send a plea for help to the Sphinxes of the Golden Desert. Though the tribes did offer the riches of the city as a payment if the sphinxes would help to drive of the dragons, as it was a well-known fact that the sphinxes did nothing for free, for whatever reason they refused to be paid for their services. Thus only 2 days after receiving the call for help six whole dynasties of sphinxes drove of the Great Dragon Horde, and during the process slayed over two thirds of the dragons (around 14,000 of them), including Death Smoke and his commanders. The remaining dragons fled, and the city was rebuild and re-named as the Great City Tehen-Malaahde. THE GOLDEN EMPIRE OF THE SPHINXES: Despite for the fact that this particular nation might very well be the oldest on the globe, not much is known of it. It dominates the Golden Desert, likely the second most inhospitable desert on the planet, which covers the entire southernmost tip of the Equinian Continent. Besides the sphinxes and any life forms that they wish to cultivate there, nothing naturally grows there. More information on the sphinxes in the Chapter 14: The Golden Dynasties of the Sphinxes. The Empire has been an isolationist nation in the extreme, choosing to willingly alienate themselves from most of the inhabitants of the Continent, and indeed the world. Equestria might still be unaware of them was it not for a few recorded meetings with travelling, knowledge seeking young sphinxes during the many millennia, and the stories heard from the Zebras and antelopes. One of the few certain facts known of them is that the Empire has existed at least since the Beginning, and has survived everything from warlords and natural disasters to dragons and the global rule of Discord, and it still stands unbroken to this day. THE UNITED TRIBES OF THE SAVANNAH: The U.T.S was founded sometime after the Discord’s First Imprisonment to bind the surviving Tribes if not physically then at least in spirit and the letter of law. This motion was put forward by the rising caste of Mystics, who helped the Savannahs nature to recover from the Madness of Discord. The U.T.S itself is not really a nation, but a loose collection of different herds, tribes and city-states all vowing to aid and help one another in exchange of following it’s few rules. It should be noted that mystics who initiated this motion could have easily made themselves the next tyrants of the Savannah, as they were the ones to make most of the common laws for the union. Instead, they decided to give themselves to their communities, to ensure a peaceful and prosperous future for all those who live on Savannah. More information on the U.T.S in the Chapter 17: The Tribe Nations of South Savannah. PRANCE: An earth pony nation originally named ‘the Free Colony of Normane’, this country was one of those made up of the earth ponies who fled the harshness of the Windigo Winters across the East Ocean. The land upon which they landed and started their new colonies was at the time an unpopulated, relatively small area made of open plains, pinewoods and rocky outcrops, which resided between the Griffon Mountains further to the east and the East Ocean which they had just crossed. The ponies that made up this colony were originally the upper echelon of the earth ponies, which included administrators, merchants, craftsponies, and scholars of the earth ponies, which had the effect of nurturing a refined and sophisticated culture in this colony. More information on Prance in the Chapter 19: Pony Nations of the East. After the First Imprisonment of Discord the nation renamed itself ‘the Free Sovereignty of Prance’, or simply just Prance, to put the Madness of Discord behind them. A few decades later the nation regained contact with their long lost brethren of Equestria, at the time under the Diarchy of Princesses Celestia and Luna. Together the nations were able to make huge advances in their ways of life, which led to not just prosperous relationship with Equestria, but also renewed and peaceful relationship with Prance’s neighbouring countries, with whom the relations had never been the most kindest. The nation is currently peaceful and prosperous land intent on advances on the fields of social engineering, as well as being the World’s premiere nation of arts and culture.

Okay, another pondering: where did the changelings come from, their possible culture, biology and the like. I have so many thoughts upon this race that it is causing me great indecision to come up with an believable theory for them. Ponder on.

Hmmmm. A good and valid question. I think all of the pony races, plus possibly some other creatures of the world, have the ability to use magic. However, in most cases it isn't as flashy or as direct as it is with the unicorns. For example, the pegasi can control the weather and earth ponies can control the land by their magic. Personally, I think the reason others can't do magic as flashingly as unicorns is what you yourself said: focus. Unicorns can and frequently do focus their innate magic unto a single point: their horn. I believe earth ponies and pegasi can do something similar, but due to their lack of such centralized control over their own magic it is most often instinctual thing, which focuses on most occasions upon enchancing pony's natural capabilities. Of course, we have at least 2 official references to when earth ponies and pegasi have used magic in a very flashy way by using external focus. These focuses being the Elements of Harmony, and the Crystal Heart. In both of these instances both earth ponies and pegasi have been known to use something within them to spark and power a powerful magical artefact, which in turn has casted a spell. The Element bearers, to my understanding, focus on their friends and their feelings toward them, which are mostly tied to their respective element. The Crystal Heart on the other hoof is powered by earth ponies focusing on their feeling of love and happiness to power a magical crystal, which in turn casts a powerful shielding spell. Now somepony might say that the crystal ponies aren't really earth ponies. To those I say b**k you. They still are earth ponies, their generations long contact with the Crystal Heart has simply changed their innate magic slightly. In fact I would not be surprised if the first earth ponies of the Crystal Empire were a some manner of rock farmers. But I could always be monumentally wrong about this, so take it with a grain of salt. Ponder on.

So many Ideas have sprung from this single topic, and it hasn't been for here for longer than scant hours. Allow me to challenge that headcanon: Why would they change the seasons for other ponies of that time period? We need to remember that the ponies views of other ponyraces was, at the very least, rather slanted. All others were tolerated as a necessity rahter than treated as equals. Allthough what you say may have well have occured after the Heartswarming Eve and the Birth of Equestria, it is unlikely that something like that would have happened before that. ...All though I can easily believe that the unicorns would have tried to gain control of the seasons, to bring summer around more quickly, thus bringing the season of growth earlier, thus intittleling them to a larger share of the earth pony grown food. But I think that the pegasi would have made a stand against them for that. Something that closely bound to the weather would fall under their rule. Remember that the earth ponies and the unicorns were first blaming pegasi for the snow. In short, no, I don't think so. But theory is still assimilated for possible later use. Your move, good sir.

Hmmmm. That is actually something that might well have happened, Silverreverb. Idea added to the possible headcanon explanations for later use. Another question then: What is the hierarchy, ranking and possible divisions of Royal Guard, and what is legally their position in Equestria? This includes Luna's Royal Guard (dem batponies), and why do allmost all of the Royal Guards look alike? Ponder away. [EDIT:] Okay, this might be a bit spamming, but I have to put down this idea while it's still fresh. Personal Headcanon [WARNING!] This is/will be part of a slightly alternate universe of MLP for story purposes. You have been warned. The unicorns did not actually raise the Sun and the Moon. Before the Heartswarming Eve and the Windigo Winters the unicorns, while being the most magically capable of the 3 pony kinds, did not have that much real power. Pegasi controlled weather, and the Earth ponies held all the food. All the unicorns could really do for their food was to provide enchanted items: weapons, armour and other items that did not fall through clouds for the pegasi, and better farming equipment for the earth ponies. This left the unicorns at an disadvantage, and if they tried to bully the other 2 into submission, they would have had to endure the wrath of both. Thus to gain some true leverage against the other 2, they crafted spells to rein in the control of the sun and moon. This spell needed the power of well over 100 unicorns to be used, and it could at the best be used to stop the movement of the Sun and the Moon for a short while, but it was mostly used to change the angle and rotation duration of the to objects to grant the pony kingdoms maximum amount of sunlight. They could also easily pretend that they now had complete control of the celestial objects, thus giving the unicorns as a race a tremendous political power. This soon led to them missusing their power, but that shall be part of a later headcanon. TL;DR: The unicorns didn't really control the sun and the moon. They could slightly alter their rotation, and pretend they fully controlled them. Be free to try and question this headcanon idea: the only way to improve something like this is to have it questioned. Ponder away.

Okay. Let's do this before I change my mind. As we all know, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has an extensive, colourful (mostly pastel colours) and distinctive official background. This official background information has been extensively used by bronies to create simply stunning works of literature, art, music and many others. However, most of the bronydom each has their own ideas pertaining on the established background of MLP:FiM, and especially on the topics that are not fully explained, or officially discussed at all. These questions left officially unanswered has spawned whole universes of fanfiction, comics, and other story-telling avenues to answer, or at least, to show each ones own thought of what might be the answer. And that leads us here. I would like to use this spot of the internet, and especially this site to ponder upon questions left answered, questions raised by answers, as well as considering what answer others have already come up to the questions, not to mention to ponder upon what ARE the questions themselves. I would like to point out right now, that I am trying to be serious of this: this isn't a place for you to LOL about animation errors and their like, this is no place for tired old memes. This is a place where all can share their thoughts and ideas on the questions, as well ask their own, as long as their legitimate about it. This is also a change for me to improve upon my own headcanon, and my own story-universe, so you've been warned! May contain alternate universes. So go ahead and and ask and wonder away! Everything legimitate is welcome. I start of this whole thing with a question of my own: How did ponies came up with the idea of baked food? As herbivores, born and raised, they could eat pretty much anything green. They don't need their food to be cooked. Yet they prefer it that way. How, when and why? Ponder away.