How would you have written Daybreaker?

[Stardust Live 43]

Daybreaker has only appeared in a dream of Starlights, but I found what she had to say really interesing (and I love a lot of her design!) and it got me thinking. We all know how Luna became Nightmare Moon ... But how would you have written it if CELESTIA were the one to fall, and Luna ruled instead?

From what Daybreaker said:

Quote

Daybreaker: Deep inside, you know how powerful you are. You don't need Luna.
Princess Celestia: That's not true! Even when we were apart, I knew I needed her!
Daybreaker: [laughs] Oh, please! You don't need anypony! You can do whatever you want. And all you have to do is get rid of anypony who stands in your way!
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Daybreaker: Who needs balance when you can have it all?! [laughs]
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Daybreaker: You can't destroy me! I'm everything you want to be!

So what I was thinking ... If we take the elements of Luna's fall, we can easily have it swapped for Celestia. Celestia is surrounded by praise and love and is seen more than Luna. Say it goes to her head ... say she thinks she does the bulk of the work (as she did in A Royal Problem), and wonders why she needs Luna at all. Say she succumbs to the idea of being the only rular, seeing herself as more powerful and beloved than Luna, and thinking the world doesn't need the night, it only needs the day, and ergo only needs Celestia. Daybreaker takes over her, and Luna is forced to banish her sister within the sun to restore harmony.

I think it's possible and plausible, what do you think? I am tempted to do a fic on it, to be honest! You could even have Sunset Shimmer take the place of Twilight, and have Twilight be the disgraced student who wants more order and pushes others away instead of embracing friendship, something Sunset seems more at ease doing when she wasn't being nasty.

Pic related! Artist is Draikjack

 

 

[Goat-kun 2,500]

I had enough tragic pasts and inflated egos for an entire pony generation. I would introduce nightmarefication like how Bleach introduced hollowfication. It would be an unstable power-up depending how much you can handle your inner demons. Celestia would be forced to use it against Real Grogar. She'd get defeated, but it would be an awesome fight that would show Twilight what she must do in her next training arc.

[Cagey 4,209]

I think it’s an interesting premise, and if you wrote it well, I’d read it.

I’m just trying to imagine how ego could lead Celestia to such an extreme, since she wouldn’t be feeling resentment like Luna did. Logically, Celestia might want to only dethrone her, seeing her as unimportant and an unfit ruler. Maybe after telling Luna her plans for ruling alone, Celestia becomes enraged by Luna’s resistance and decides to fight her. These are just my musings with no purpose. 

[Splashee 28,538]

Daybreaker was a success, and gave us one of the best episodes of FIM. Just by knowing that, I cannot really come up with something that would work better. I don't thin Princess Celestia would ever turn into Daybreaker by her own free will.

[Blackfire Blaze 118]

We don't know exactly how intense the battle was between Celestia and Nightmare moon. What if Celestia was pushed to the brink of that transformation during their fight? Or in her grief and loneliness coping with the aftermath? I think Starlight Glimmer would fit the role of Luna's protoge better than Sunset Shimmer.

It's a cool idea, but honestly I think it's a stretch. Celestia seems like one of the most mentally strong and incorruptible ponies on the show. I don't think she would ever give in to the darkness. But then again, she may have only gained that mental and moral strength by her defeating Nightmare Moon and coming to terms with what happened and analyzing the faults of both sides over the long years. I guess we don't know exactly how Celestia was back then, how she was revered, and how it affected her ego, so it might be more plausible after all.

[nightshroud96 116]

59 minutes ago, Blackfire Blaze said:

We don't know exactly how intense the battle was between Celestia and Nightmare moon. What if Celestia was pushed to the brink of that transformation during their fight? Or in her grief and loneliness coping with the aftermath? I think Starlight Glimmer would fit the role of Luna's protoge better than Sunset Shimmer.

It's a cool idea, but honestly I think it's a stretch. Celestia seems like one of the most mentally strong and incorruptible ponies on the show. I don't think she would ever give in to the darkness. But then again, she may have only gained that mental and moral strength by her defeating Nightmare Moon and coming to terms with what happened and analyzing the faults of both sides over the long years. I guess we don't know exactly how Celestia was back then, how she was revered, and how it affected her ego, so it might be more plausible after all.

Unless a villain knows the right words to say to keep pushing Celestia there.
Since we didn't know Luna was essentially inflicting self-harm(mentally) with the Tantabus till season 5, who knows what issues might be going on within Celestia.
She might be really good at keeping issues of hers underwraps to keep up the whole regal look.  In fact she and Luna might be too good at keeping stuff underwraps at times(which led to NMM happen with Luna bottling up her negative emotions according to one of the writers).


(To actual post on here)
 

I can see Daybreaker happening from multiple factors.
Like with how Nightmare Moon was born of Luna's negative emotions, Daybreaker might happen due to the stress and guilt Celestia had to deal with for a 1000 years of ruling alone and what happened with Luna. Probably anger inside too of her being mad at herself for the NMM mess, mad at Luna for said mess and mad at the citizens for taking Luna for granted(which factored into her fall to darkness as NMM) and probably many stuff the ponies had done.
And probably with all of this and how she wouldn't use that possibly destructive inner power she has for so long, it might cause said power to gain a will of its own to MAKE Celestia let loose and use that power. 
Along with how often Celestia had to keep up with that regal façade, Daybreaker might also represent Celestia wanting to run wild and not be hindered by others' expectations(like the citizens going "Princesses aren't supposed to do this/that/etc."). 

I can see some bad guy just pushing Celestia's buttons and making her crack with whats going on internally.
Just to make her snap.

Edited June 28, 2020 by nightshroud96

[Ixrec 86]

I do think that if you start from "present-day" Celestia, her turning to Daybreaker through ego just isn't plausible; she's usually one of the least egotistical ponies in the whole show. You could make it work if you made major changes to her personal history before the time of the show, and that could be interesting, but it risks making your main character "Celestia" in name only and IMO there are better options.

If the goal is to get the Celestia we know and love from the show to fall completely to darkness, then as far as the basic premise goes I don't think we could do much better than the Equestria at War mod's Solar Empire. The short version is that when a full-scale war threatens to wipe out all of Equestria, the ever increasing stress and desperation not only make Celestria angry and vengeful, but convince her the only way to save her subjects is to take tougher, more militaristic actions than she's ever been willing to in the past. You can only lead a multi-million pony war effort for so many months before it becomes painfully obvious that friendship magic rainbow lasers aren't gonna do the trick this time. There's even a subtree of events where Twilight Sparkle turns into "Grand Inquisitor Sunrise Sparkle" and does all sorts of terrifying things on Daybreaker's behalf.

Of course, a sequence of flavor text boxes in a strategy game is very different from a fanfic, so there's loads of opportunity here for filling in details and having other characters not only respond to Celestia's gradual change but actively try to prevent it.

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1 hour ago, Blackfire Blaze said:

We don't know exactly how intense the battle was between Celestia and Nightmare moon. What if Celestia was pushed to the brink of that transformation during their fight? Or in her grief and loneliness coping with the aftermath? I think Starlight Glimmer would fit the role of Luna's protoge better than Sunset Shimmer.

It's a cool idea, but honestly I think it's a stretch. ...

I agree it's a stretch. But for completeness: "Princess Twilight Sparkle" did show us Celestia's fight with and banishment of Nightmare Moon via flashback potion (i.e., not via somepony's personal retelling), so we actually have a pretty good idea how intense it was. At least in that flashback, there was no sign of Celestia being in any danger of transforming or losing her sanity or getting taken over by dark forces. And I doubt she could've lived with what she'd done for a thousand years if she had already been on the verge of a breakdown that day. So at least for me, using this as the Daybreaker catalyst would count as "making major changes to her personal history".

Edited June 28, 2020 by Ixrec

[Rushing cash 829]

I personally think Celestia can turn into daybreaker only through her ego, it can happen if her ego got to her head(it could be a possibility in the beginning of her rule or before luna turned into NMM) but I can't imagine celestia from the show turning into daybreaker, unless starlight didn't interfere and later on celestia and a huge fight with luna and maybe even some villain attack that made their relationship worse and some other factors, only than celestia could turn evil, but even that is a stretch.  

Daybreaker is a great concept, but to make it in the main timeline you need to pull all the strings.

 

[ShadOBabe 18,984]

I like Daybreaker as a scary dream, but in present day, there’s no way it would ever happen.

The only time it could have possibly happened was before Luna fell. That’s the ONLY time where I could believe that Celestia might have been led by the Nightmare Forces into some toxic line of thinking.

”Ugh, she’s STILL moping around feeling sorry for herself? While you’re out here working your tail off to lead? You know what, you should just give up on her. If she wants to pout, let her. She’s never going to be the backup you need, so you might as well just do everything yourself. You don’t need her anyway.”

I can ONLY see that working on a young, tired, let-down Celestia.

Post-NMM? Never. Nope. Not in a million years would she ever entertain that idea after seeing what it did to Luna.

And even under my hypothetical alternate universe, I still don’t see it as likely. The Nightmare Forces went after Luna specifically because she was the easier target.