Silly Druid

The Three Tribes in G5

Here's an analysis of the condition of the three main pony races in G5, focusing on politics and technology. Unless otherwise stated, it describes the state before the main events of the movie.

Earth Ponies

We don't really know who has the political power in Maretime Bay (before Sprout becomes a self-proclaimed Emperor). We only see the law enforcement department, consisting of sheriff Hitch and deputy Sprout. It's open to debate whether they are the only two ponies to keep order in the entire town. Also the corporations seem to be an important factor, as we can see in case of CanterLogic. Their technology resembles what we had in the 20th century, I especially like the tram - it looks pretty cool, and adds to the charming atmosphere of the town. Is Maretime Bay the only place where Earth Ponies live? If so, it means that some terrible cataclysm must have happened to the race that once was the most widespread on the continent of Equestria.

Pagasi

The city of Zephyr Heights seems to be located in the place formerly known as Canterlot, which suggests that they probably won a war, because the other races (especially Unicorns, who were the majority there) wouldn't abandon their capital without a fight. It's the center of a monarchy, where Queen Haven tries to keep the morale high, mostly by using her talented daughter Pipp who sings songs that lift the spirits of the flightless citizens. In the real world the members of royal families are usually celebrities, but they don't actually perform on stage (maybe there are some real file examples of this, but I don't know any). But does the Queen have real power? She was arrested on first sign of failure, so either there is somepony else who actually rules Zephyr Heights, or some kind of coup happened. The Pegasus technology resembles our contemporary level of advancement, and, not unlike the real world today, focuses on information, communication, and social media.

Unicorns

We don't know anything about their politics, the only important figure we see is Alphabittle, but he doesn't seem to have any formal power (he reminds me of Grampa Gruff, who is often considered a representative of the Griffons in FiM, despite apparently not having any government position). Unlike Pegasi, the Unicorns don't have anypony to keep the morale high after they lost their magic, so the result is that they are quite apathetic (except Izzy). As for technology, they probably didn't need much of it when they had magic, and after they lost it, they used the local resources available in the forest to partially replace it. We see it on the example of the "Just Prance" machine, which is a mechanism made mostly of wood, and uses animals as a power source. The level of technology is hard to define, because it doesn't resemble anything that humans made.

That's what we know for now, hopefully the series will expand on the lore.