How Did Celestia get her Cutie Mark?

[The Fortunato 43]

So, I've been thinking about this for quite a while. Unfortunately, my efforts have only left me with even more questions, and no answers.

 

So it's pretty apparent that Celestia plays a huge role in overseeing the prosperity of Equestria and all of its equine inhabitants. It's not like those huge Suns on her flanks symbolize her extreme talents in being a solar energy engineer, they symbolize her ability to raise and lower an entire star! I mean, imagine if Celestia just poofed out of existence for a year or so (sorry Law of Conservation of Mass). The crops and plants wouldn't be able to perform photosynthesis or cellular respiration, and they would all eventually die (unless the unicorns could produce a kind of pseudo sunlight, but I'd imagine that it would extremely strenuous to pull off, as plants need constant sunlight). Since the ponies are all herbivores, they would be forced to consume the other animals, such as the cows. When the cow population becomes extinct, the ponies would have no choice but to turn on each other, undertaking gross and heinous acts of cannibalism (apparently horses can digest meat). Not to mention the fact that this chaos ensue in an ice-covered, frostbitten Equestria. Actually, that would make for a really cool fanfic. Someone get on that.

 

So, uh, yeah. Praise Celestia. You can see that her role in Equestria is huge, to say the least. But anyway, getting back to the point. How did she get her cutie mark? There's a throng of other questions that accompany this one. She probably got her cutie mark after she realized she could raise and lower the Sun. But in order to raise a mass as large as the Sun, she would need the ultimate form of magic: alicorn magic. This would mean that she would have to be an alicorn prior to her getting her mark, which means that she might have been born as an alicorn. Not to mention the fact the our glorious leader, Lauren Faust, tweeted that she, in her head, imagined Celestia and Luna being born as alicorns.

 

Now to astray for just a bit, I consider there to be two categories of alicorns. Alicorns with moving manes, and alicorns with still manes. Okay, I couldn't even type that with a straight face.

 

But seriously, two groups: alicorns that were born alicorns, and alicorns that became alicorns after they were born. Wow, I just used the word "alicorn" about 58 times in just this paragraph. Woops! 59 now. Anyway, I'm going to make the assumption that only alicorns can give birth to other alicorns. I mean, we haven't seen any new alicorns who were born as alicorns around Equestria, as of late. So that means that Celestia and Luna had to have been born of alicorns. So if that's the case, then what happened to Celestia's parents? Did she even have parents? Was she always just there? Did she even acquire her cutie mark, or when the universe began, and she was there from the star, did she just have it? Was there even a period where she didn't have her cutie mark? Was she even ever a filly? Alicorns are immortal, so if she did have parents, where did they go? Why did her parents even have fillies if they were immortal, and they could just raise the Sun and Moon forever?

 

UGH! So many questions, and so few answers. I hope that you can help me out by giving me your thoughts, as I'd really like to hear them. This is such an interesting topic, and I hope that I've provoked some extensive thought into this matter.

Edited July 22, 2014 by The Fortunato

[Sunny Fox 5,950]

Actually, it was stated in "Heart's Warming Eve" that the unicorn race as a whole used to raise the sun and moon. Once the Royal Pony Sisters came, (we know not from where) they took over that duty, presumably both earning their cutie marks when they did so. As for the rest, it really hasn't been explored, so any explanation you get will just be someone's headcanon.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Sunny Fox

[Pastel 7,630]

Maybe this has something to do with her parents.

Or one day she realized she could raise the sun, and poof! sun cutie mark.

[Simon 4,557]

The answer you seek is in the Journal of the Two Sisters book... super brief spoiler summary:

 

 

Basically the unicorns used to raise the sun and it drained their magic to do it, so when Celestia found out, she took over the job of raising the sun herself, and got her butt tattoo