Pre-founding of g4 Equestria- what really happened?

[ManaMinori 4,143]

I’ve been re-visiting a lot of the past gen episodes, and I can’t help but see that perhaps a lot of g4 lore might have come from g1. Where many fans try to piece together the timeline of Equestria through g4 only, I have a theory that each gen is connected and runs across the same timeline, so I’m gong to try and explain what I think might’ve happened in Equestria’s history.

 

To start, I think we have to look at the different generations and not take them in the order that they were aired if we want g4 pre-Equestria’s history to make sense. Chronologically, I think the timeline would run with g3 having happened first, then g1, g2, and then g4. When g3 starts out, ponies live in isolated communities with no knowledge of other races, and over time, the three groups (unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies) discover that each other actually exist. Furthermore, evil doesn’t seem to exist in their world, and in the absence of threat, the ponies built contraptions such as fairs, theme parks, ferris wheels, and roller skates to entertain themselves.

 

G1 follows next in the timeline, and the ponies still live in an idealistic society. We see contraptions from the g3 era of the past still present in this part of the timeline, such as Glory on rollerskates in the intro. However, society has been dialed back due to the evil that has surrounded the valley they live in, and presence of monsters, dragons, witches, etc. The different races of ponies now commonly intermingle, and the first humans are introduced to the ponies (Megan, Molly, and Danny) from an alternate universe.

 

In the episode “Baby, it’s cold outside”, a villain named King Charlatan that attempts to freeze over the entire world with blizzard and snow could be what had been written as history by Celestia, and made to include the moral of the three tribes of ponies working together to defeat the wendigoes.

 

The resurgence of technology from this point on could be explained by the interference of the Gizmonks and humans in pony society and recreating the tech that was avaliable to the ponies in the past (g3), which is seen much more prevalent during the shift to “My Little Pony Tales”.

 

In the episode “An Apple for Starlight”, it details some of the history of Ponyland. Pony Rock was where some of the first settlers discovered Ponyland, and that they lived in what is now (in the timeline) called Pinto Cave. This sounds like it’s around the time in the Hearth’s Warming Eve play historic events that the earth ponies were driven off from whatever original land they inhabited, broke away from the unicorns and pegasi, and founded “earth” in the new land they came to (perhaps renamed to Ponyland), and then were forced to live in caves, for a time, with the Pegasi and unicorn groups, as the blizzard that King Charlatan closed in on them again.

 

It was perhaps around this time that alicorns entered the scene, though the ponies of this era regarded them as aliens. This is around the time that the episode “Up, Up, and away” took place, where the first alicorn (Starglow) appears with a group of pegasi, and acts as if she had been observing the earth ponies all along, but in secret. One earth pony in particular regards them as a UFO. With word having spread about the magical flying ponies, and each group over time having varying opinions of what these alicorns were like it could’ve reached Starswirl, who went on a quest to seek the alicorns out, and came back with Celestia and Luna who might’ve been descendants of Starglow, to coronate them and found Equestria in unification of the three pony races.

 

This then leads to g4 on the timeline. And what history we know from the HWE pageant of pre-Equestria could've been drastically altered by the alicorns (namely, Celestia) to include the Wendigoes and the moral about pony races having caused the blizzard, in hopes that the three tribes will remain united together, rather than being divided and completely cut off from each other, as the groups had been in the past (g3's earlier era). Perhaps the legend of "the fire of friendship" in the form of a heart was formed, and in actuality, what brought balance was the Heart of Ponyland (a rainbow colored jewel that required the harmonic energies of 6 ponies, in the episode entitled "The Quest of the Princess ponies")

 

 

and, as Pinkie best put it "that's how Equestria was made"

 

 

 

[Jordan D 149]

I haven't watched enough of the original cartoon or G3 stuff to really argue otherwise, but I know Tales for sure can't fit. Tales takes place on Earth. We see a globe of the world in "The Masquerade", which shows North America, Asia, Australia, etc, and Bon Bon fantasizes about going to Paris in the same episode. Also, in Tales, the planet Mars ("Impractical Jokers") exist, while in FiM, it's called "Marsh" ("Shadow Locke") though it could've just been renamed so that's not really a good piece of evidence.

Yet again, in a world of magic and Chaos Lords, whose to say it all doesn't take place in one timeline?

Edited November 20, 2018 by Jordan D
Found a better version of the globe.

[ManaMinori 4,143]

5 minutes ago, Jordan D said:

I haven't watched enough of the original cartoon or G3 stuff to really argue otherwise, but I know Tales for sure can't fit. Tales takes place on Earth. We see a globe of the world in "The Masquerade", which shows North America, Asia, Australia, etc, and Bon Bon fantasizes about going to Paris in the same episode. Also, in Tales, the planet Mars ("Impractical Jokers") exist, while in FiM, it's called "Marsh" ("Shadow Locke") though it could've just been renamed so that's not really a good piece of evidence.

Yet again, in a world of magic and Chaos Lords, whose to say it all doesn't take place in one timeline?

 

well for the record, we did see Chancellor Puddinghead (g4) call their new location "Earth" once they got situated after the blizzard had driven them to a new location. And PT lines up, in this theory, with the settlers having arrived about that time, if the history in "An Apple For Starlight" is taken into consideration. Real world locations also exist (named by the Moochik in  the 1986 My Little Pony Movie") and Prance is also a confirmed location in the g4 comics (and French is spoken by Apple Bloom in "The Cutie Pox")

[Jordan D 149]

5 minutes ago, Nightmare Muffin said:

well for the record, we did see Chancellor Puddinghead (g4) call their new location "Earth" once they got situated after the blizzard had driven them to a new location. And PT lines up, in this theory, with the settlers having arrived about that time, if the history in "An Apple For Starlight" is taken into consideration. Real world locations also exist (named by the Moochik in  the 1986 My Little Pony Movie") and Prance is also a confirmed location in the g4 comics (and French is spoken by Apple Bloom in "The Cutie Pox")

Yeah, Equestria is on a planet called Earth, but the geography doesn't match real earth at all. The official Map of Equestria depicts The Frozen North, Equestria and The Mysterious South as one, massive, north-to-south pole spanning mega continent. Earth as seen in "Nightmare Rarity" consistently  depicts  Earth  as  having different continents. We see a globe depiction of Earth in "The Fall of Sunset Shimmer" as well, with weird continents once again.

Haven't watched the 86 film yet so I can't comment there. I always got the impression that the world where Megan lived and the Pony world were different places all together but again, haven't watched to much of G1 yet (slowly making my way through it).

As for the languages, Languages in Equestria is weird. English, Japanese, Nahuatl, French, Chinese (I think), Akkadian, Scythian, Greek, Latin, etc, have all been spoken or displayed in some way. I'm not really sure what to make of it, since there don't seem to be civilizations that primarily speak those languages 

All that said, I think Equestria Girls planet can fit in this theory really well, though. It has Earth-like geography, a similar cosmology, and a weird obsession with horses is present in its architecture and cultural sites. I mean, they still live in a country called "Equestria", which implies some sort of special connection with horses. 

Oh well. Infinite multiverse, infinite possibilities. 

[ManaMinori 4,143]

10 hours ago, Jordan D said:

Yeah, Equestria is on a planet called Earth, but the geography doesn't match real earth at all. The official Map of Equestria depicts The Frozen North, Equestria and The Mysterious South as one, massive, north-to-south pole spanning mega continent. Earth as seen in "Nightmare Rarity" consistently  depicts  Earth  as  having different continents. We see a globe depiction of Earth in "The Fall of Sunset Shimmer" as well, with weird continents once again.

Haven't watched the 86 film yet so I can't comment there. I always got the impression that the world where Megan lived and the Pony world were different places all together but again, haven't watched to much of G1 yet (slowly making my way through it).

As for the languages, Languages in Equestria is weird. English, Japanese, Nahuatl, French, Chinese (I think), Akkadian, Scythian, Greek, Latin, etc, have all been spoken or displayed in some way. I'm not really sure what to make of it, since there don't seem to be civilizations that primarily speak those languages 

All that said, I think Equestria Girls planet can fit in this theory really well, though. It has Earth-like geography, a similar cosmology, and a weird obsession with horses is present in its architecture and cultural sites. I mean, they still live in a country called "Equestria", which implies some sort of special connection with horses. 

Oh well. Infinite multiverse, infinite possibilities. 

regarding the geography, I'm going to point to Pangaea, and erosion for that. Keep in mind that there were many cataclysmic events in g1 that altered the shape of the landscape and no doubt altered the placement of entire continents. The world was literally flooded twice in the span of a few decades, as affirmed in the episode "Ghost of Paradise Estate", there were massive shifts of the earth due to Lavan and his minions- no doubt all that volcanic activity altered the geography also. If we are to believe that each gen follows the same timeline, change and shifts in continental structures would be natural. (especially given all the events that happened to re-shape them at a greater speed that what is normal)