History DesignatedHero / MyBravePonyStarfleetMagic

The heroes are this to some extent. As described elsewhere on the YMMV and even the main page, their practices and beliefs can be very questionable, if not outright horrible. About the only thing that could prevent them from entirely qualifying is the fact the main villains are often legitimately evil and not {{Designated Villain}}s. And even then, that's not fully guaranteed, like with [[DesignatedVillain Ace Ray and Brass Bolt]]. For highlights both in and out of the fics themselves:

* Agapi leads Cadance to Von Devilor, waits until he absorbs her, [[DemonicPossession then possesses her]], [[GrandTheftMe kicks Cadance out of her body]], and leaves her at Von Devilor's mercy. [[WhatTheHellHero Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor justifiably call her out on it]], [[HandWave and she justifies it by saying she was exhausted from being used as a fuel drive by Devilor]], [[VoodooShark but that doesn't explain why she put in the extra effort to remove Cadance's spirit from her body]] [[StatingTheSimpleSolution instead of just taking her with Agapi]]. It really doesn't help that 1) [[NiceJobBreakingItHero kicking Cadance out leaves her with Von Devilor, meaning that her actions just replaced one source of energy with another, that's also not depleted like Agapi]], and 2) last season, Stammadon did something similar to Striker under similar circumstances, and he didn't even kick Striker out like Agapi did to Cadance.

* Twilight dies and, rather than blame Raven for killing her, [[BlamingTheVictim Starfleet blames Twilight]] for [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming her own death]] for disobeying orders and trying to fight someone who was a threat to someone they love. What makes this worse is that before she went off to fight Raven, Starfleet wasted a perfectly good opportunity to capture the assassin despite Raven being at large and in a vulnerable position that they could exploit, making them come off as incompetent and [[Hypocrite in no position to blame Twilight for her recklessness]].

* Lightning Dawn in ''My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans''; after Principal Celestia kicks Starla out of the play due to photographic evidence of her trashing the props and costumes, Lightning barges into her office, insults her and even states that ''it's a good thing her pet horse is dead.'' This causes Celestia to attack him, but he’s not affected by the punches and chokes and he fells her with a flip, a shove and by smashing a cup of coffee onto her head, which burns her, allegedly doing this out of fear for his life (even though, as previously stated, Lightning retains all of his physical enhancements; the narration even states that Lightning was unaffected by Celestia's punches). Naturally, Grand Ruler finds Celestia at fault and fires her. Lightning feeling ashamed of what he did and getting suspended doesn't negate his actions one bit since he runs off and doesn't go back to help and doesn't apologize to her until later in the fic. Mykan later posted a [[https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/901703/hitting-people-what-i-was-taught a blog]] justifying Lightning's actions and blamed Celestia for supposedly starting the fight because she threw the first punch, completely ignoring the fact that Lightning instigated the fight by actively goading her into lashing out and ignorant of the fact that fighting words and excessive defense are against the law in dozens of countries. All in all, Lightning comes across as less like a hero defying the mean principal and more like a bully who provokes his victims into a physical confrontation so he can beat them up and claim self-defense.
* Twilight dies and, rather than blame Raven for killing her, [[BlamingTheVictim Starfleet blames Twilight]] for [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming her own death]] for disobeying orders and trying to fight someone who was a threat to someone they love. What makes this worse is that before she went off to fight Raven, Starfleet wasted a perfectly good opportunity to capture the assassin despite Raven being at large and in a vulnerable position that they could exploit, making them come off as incompetent and in no position to blame Twilight for her recklessness.

* By the end of V, Starfleet has wiped out all but a handful of the Insectos, meaning that they have essentially committed [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide speciecide]], and they are proud of this. [[DoubleStandard Apparently, speciecide is OK when Starfleet does it]]. [[https://www.deviantart.com/vividspark/art/Fridge-Horror-time-832211700 And this isn't even going into some of their other sketchy behavior when dealing with rare species...]]
* ''Starfleet Magic VI'' gives us the case of [[AuthorAvatar the pony counterpart of Mykan Stevens]]. He spends most of the season being an antagonistic {{Jerkass}} towards everybody and tries his level best to BeAsUnhelpfulAsPossible toward Starfleet as they deal with their latest threat, and ultimately, they end up unintentionally spurring him into a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the ArcVillain ''after'' they've already pretty much defeated said villain. This results in Mykan going out in a SenselessSacrifice that inflicts untold amounts of gratuitous collateral damage, at which point Starfleet has him memorialized as a hero despite him never having demonstrated any sort of heroic behavior whatsoever. Surprisingly, even though Pony Mykan is a selfish jerk, his human counterpart averts this trope when he isn't drugging villainous princesses who ask him for a genuine date.
* [[HellholePrison In VI, we learn that they regularly beat and starve their prisoners for misbehaving, to say nothing of them being literally]] ''[[HellholePrison caged]]''. [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity And this is supposed to be justified because the prisoners are]] AlwaysChaoticEvil [[KnightTemplar and deserve such treatment]]. Long story short, few turned against Brass Bolt for freeing all of the prisoners.
* In VII, ''[[WouldHurtAChild they send a literal child to jail]]''. Sure, said kid helped invade Equestria, but he had since done a HeelFaceTurn several chapters ago and made up for his crimes, and Starfleet ''supposedly'' has rehab, so they have no reason to wheel him to a HellholePrison if rehab was supposedly an option. Because [[FridgeHorror Mako going to the worse prisons would retraumatize him and Sienna and turn them evil again]], that was even worse until a retcon ensured they ''were'' rehabilitated.
* [[NiceJobBreakingItHero VIII has Starfleet literally free the Big Bad Stammadon and endanger at least two entire planets, Ainzul and UE]], ''[[EpicFail through sheer incompetence]]''. Keep in mind that just ''minutes'' ago, they were having a treaty where they were supposed to replace Ainzul's military with Starfleet in exchange for keeping Stammadon captive. They never felt remorse over their mistakes for more than a few moments at best, and once they manage to bump off the BigBad, they basically conquer Ainzul in all but name, even though they broke the treaty requiring them to do so before they even signed it, and never bothered to renew it or ask forgiveness.
* In IX, Starfleet fails to save Princess Calista from getting fridged by Von Devilor, [[EpicFail which only happened due to a string of bouts of idiocy ranging from "not bothering to send more than 2 guards for Calista" to "not trying to save Calista from getting fired at"]], once again putting another planet in danger, and also again, they never suffer actual consequences from the Vistulans for it, to the point of appointing a president before consulting the Vistulans to rule over them, also without anyone questioning this. Said President [[WhiteMansBurden isn't even a Vistulan.]] At this point, it's a miracle no one tried to (justifiably) rebel against Starfleet.

* Twilight dies and, rather than blame Raven for killing her, [[BlamingTheVictim Starfleet blames Twilight]] for [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming her own death]] for disobeying orders and trying to fight someone who was a threat to someone they love.

* The Grand Ruler in ''My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II'' makes Twilight believe she is responsible for an entire family getting hurt, just so he can teach her that she should always follow his orders blindly. Some of his other actions are also extremely cruel, seeing as despite Starfleet's advanced infrastructure technology, Grand Ruler took years to even bother looking for survivors of destroyed planets. (Lightning lost his planet Harmonia at 5, but despite Harmonia's ties to Starfleet, remained lost for 2 more years.)
* Lightning Dawn in ''My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans''; after Principal Celestia kicks Starla out of the play due to photographic evidence of her trashing the props and costumes, Lightning barges into her office, insults her and even states that ''it's a good thing her pet horse is dead.'' This causes Celestia to attack him, but he’s not affected by the punches and chokes and he fells her with a flip, a shove and by smashing a cup of coffee onto her head, which burns her, allegedly doing this out of fear for his life (even though as previously stated, Lightning retains all of his physical enhancements; the narration even states that Lightning was unaffected by Celestia's punches). Naturally, Grand Ruler finds Celestia at fault and fires her. Lightning feeling ashamed of what he did and getting suspended doesn't negate his actions one bit since he runs off and doesn't go back to help and doesn't apologize to her until later in the fic. Mykan later posted a [[https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/901703/hitting-people-what-i-was-taught a blog]] justifying Lightning's actions and blamed Celestia for supposedly starting the fight because she threw the first punch, completely ignoring the fact that Lightning instigated the fight by actively goading her into lashing out and ignorant of the fact that fighting words and excessive defense are against the law in dozens of countries. All in all, Lightning comes across as less like a hero defying the mean principal and more like a bully who provokes his victims into a physical confrontation so he can beat them up and claim self-defense.
* Twilight dies and rather than blame Raven for killing her, [[BlamingTheVictim Starfleet blames Twilight]] for [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming her own death]] for disobeying orders and trying to fight someone who was a threat to someone they love.

* In X, Starfleet defeats Beaker and his gang, and puts them on trial for their crimes. At one point, Swift Star starts insulting Beaker, prompting the judge to tell him to be quiet. Grand Ruler and Lightning, [[SarcasmMode being the wise, fair, understanding ruler and general they are]], [[DisproportionateRetribution threaten the judge into letting Swift Star insult Beaker and openly side with Swift]]. [[BlatantLies Because nothing is more heroic than abusing one's authority, to threaten a judge in court and sway the sentencing!]] Which has... telling implications for [[KangarooCourt Starfleet's judicial system]]. The fact that Lightning is merely the leader of the army makes the militarism of Starfleet very obvious. Furthermore, given how many criminals they prosecute, [[FridgeHorror it's likely that this isn't the first time they've done this...]]

* By the end of V, Starfleet has wiped out all but a handful of the Insectos, meaning that it has essentially committed [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide speciecide]], and they are proud of this. [[DoubleStandard Apparently, speciecide is OK when Starfleet does it]]. [[https://www.deviantart.com/vividspark/art/Fridge-Horror-time-832211700 And this isn't even going into some of their other sketchy behavior when dealing with rare species...]]

* By the end of V, Starfleet has wiped out all but a handful of the Insectos, meaning that Starfleet has essentially committed [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide speciecide]], and they are proud of this. [[DoubleStandard Apparently, speciecide is OK when Starfleet does it]]. [[https://www.deviantart.com/vividspark/art/Fridge-Horror-time-832211700 And this isn't even going into some of their other sketchy behavior when dealing with rare species...]]

* Lightning Dawn in ''My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans''; after Principal Celestia kicks Starla out of the play due to photographic evidence of her trashing the props and costumes, Lightning barges into her office, insults her and even states that ''it's a good thing her pet horse is dead.'' This causes Celestia to attack him, but he’s not affected by the punches and chokes and he fells her with a flip, a shove and by smashing a cup of coffee onto her head, which burns her, allegedly doing this out of fear for his life (even though as previously stated, Lightning retains all of his physical enhancements; the narration even states that Lightning was unaffected by Celestia's punches). Naturally, Grand Ruler finds Celestia at fault and fires her. Lightning feeling ashamed of what he did and getting suspended doesn't negate his actions one bit since he runs off and doesn't go back to help and doesn't apologize to her until later in the fic. Mykan later posted a [[https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/901703/hitting-people-what-i-was-taught a blog]] justifying Lightning's actions and blamed Celestia for supposedly starting the fight because she threw the first punch, completely ignoring the fact that Lightning instigated the fight by actively goading her into lashing out and ignorant of the fact that fighting words and excessive defense are against the law in dozens of countries. All in all, Lightning comes across as less than a hero defying the mean principal and more like a bully who provokes his victims into a physical confrontation so he can beat them up and claim self-defense.

* Lightning Dawn in ''My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans''; after Principal Celestia kicks Starla out of the play due to photographic evidence of her trashing the props and costumes, Lightning barges into her office, insults her and even states that ''it's a good thing her pet horse is dead.'' This causes Celestia to attack him, but he’s not affected by the punches and chokes and he fells her with a flip, a shove and by smashing a cup of coffee onto her head, which burns her, allegedly doing this out of fear for his life (even though as previously stated, Lightning retains all of his physical enhancements; the narration even states that Lightning was unaffected by Celestia's punches). Naturally, Grand Ruler finds Celestia at fault and fires her. Lightning feeling ashamed of what he did and getting suspended doesn't negate his actions one bit since he runs off and doesn't go back to help and doesn't apologize to her until later in the fic. Mykan later posted a [[https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/901703/hitting-people-what-i-was-taught a blog]] justifying Lightning's actions and blamed Celestia for supposedly starting the fight because she threw the first punch, completely ignoring the fact that Lightning instigated the fight by actively goading her into lashing out. All in all, Lightning comes across as less than a hero defying the mean principal and more like a bully who provokes his victims into a physical confrontation so he can beat them up and claim self-defense.

* Agapi leads Cadance to Von Devilor, waits until he absorbs her, [[DemonicPossession then possesses her]], [[GrandTheftMe kicks Cadance out of her body]], and leaves her at Von Devilor's mercy. [[WhatTheHellHero Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor justifiably call her out on it]], [[{{Handwave}} and she justifies it by saying she was exhausted from being used as a fuel drive by Devilor]], [[VoodooShark but that doesn't explain why she put in the extra effort to remove Cadance's spirit from her body]] [[StatingTheSimpleSolution instead of just taking her with Agapi]]. It really doesn't help that 1) [[NiceJobBreakingItHero kicking Cadance out leaves her with Von Devilor, meaning that her actions just replaced one source of energy with another, that's also not depleted like Agapi]], and 2) last season, [[ArcVillain Stammadon]] did something similar to Striker under similar circumstances, and [[EvenEvilHasStandards he]] didn't even kick Striker out like Agapi did to Cadance.

* By the end of V, Starfleet has wiped out all but a handful of the Insectos, meaning that Starfleet has essentially committed [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide genocide]], and they are proud of this. [[DoubleStandard Apparently, genocide is OK when Starfleet does it]]. [[https://www.deviantart.com/vividspark/art/Fridge-Horror-time-832211700 And this isn't even going into some of their other sketchy behavior when dealing with rare species...]]

* By the end of V, Starfleet has wiped out all but a handful of the Insectos, meaning that Starfleet has essentially committed [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide genocide]], and they are proud of this. [[DoubleStandard Apparently genocide is OK when Starfleet does it]]. [[https://www.deviantart.com/vividspark/art/Fridge-Horror-time-832211700 And this isn't even going into some of their other sketchy behavior when dealing with rare species...]]

* By the end of V, Starfleet has wiped out all but a handful of the Insectos, meaning that Starfleet has essentially committed [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide genocide]], and they are proud of this. [[DoubleStandard Apparently genocide is OK when Starfleet does it]]. [[https://www.deviantart.com/vividspark/art/Fridge-Horror-time-832211700 And this isn't even going into some of their other sketchy behavior when dealing with rare species...]]

* By the end of I, Starfleet has killed Serpentari and thrown Titan into the sun, and later kill Titan another two times in TheMovie and Human in UE respectively. Keep in mind that Titan and Serpentari are the last of the Elixians, though arguably that is Titan's fault, meaning that Starfleet has essentially committed [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide genocide]], and they never mention the Elixians again, let alone comment on their killing off the last Elixians. [[DoubleStandard Apparently genocide is OK when Starfleet does it]]. [[https://www.deviantart.com/vividspark/art/Fridge-Horror-time-832211700 And this isn't even going into some of their other sketchy behavior when dealing with rare species...]]

* Agapi leads Cadance to Von Devilor, waits until he absorbs her, [[DemonicPossession then possesses her]], [[GrandTheftMe kicks Cadance out of her body]], and leaves her at Von Devilor's mercy. [[WhatTheHellHero Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor justifiably call her out on it]], [[{{Handwave}} and she justifies it by saying she was exhausted from being used as a fuel drive by Devilor]], [[VoodooShark but that doesn't explain why she put in the extra effort to remove Cadance's spirit from her body]] [[StatingTheSimpleSolution instead of just taking her with Agapi]]. It really doesn't help that 1) [[NiceJobBreakingItHero kicking Cadance out leaves her with Von Devilor, meaning that her actions just replaced one source of energy with another, that's also not depleted like Agapi]], and 2) last season, Stammadon did something similar to Striker under similar circumstances, and he didn't even kick Striker out like Agapi did to Cadance.

* ''Starfleet Magic VI'' gives us the case of [[AuthorAvatar the pony counterpart of Mykan Stevens]]. He spends most of the season being an antagonistic {{Jerkass}} towards everybody and tries his level best to BeAsUnhelpfulAsPossible toward Starfleet as they deal with their latest threat, and ultimately, they end up unintentionally spurring him into a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the ArcVillain ''after'' they've already pretty much defeated said villain. This results in Mykan going out in a SenselessSacrifice that inflicts untold amounts of gratuitous collateral damage, at which point Starfleet has him memorialized as a hero despite him never having demonstrated any sort of heroic behavior whatsoever. Surprisingly, even though Pony Mykan is a selfish jerk, his human counterpart averts this trope entirely.

* For starters, the narrative outright calls their home, Unicornicopia, a police state in I, [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial then tries to justify it by saying it’s a "good" police state]]. Needless to say, this didn't assure many readers.
** [[FromBadToWorse To make things worse]], the Q&A confirms that it's illegal to mock royalty. Given that, in real life, it's common for people to roast their own leaders on a regular basis and the only governments that ban this are often corrupt at best and authoritarian at worst, this does not say good things about Starfleet.

* [[HellholePrison In VI, we learn that they regularly beat and starve their prisoners for misbehaving, to say nothing of them being literally]] ''[[HellholePrison caged]]''. [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity And this is supposed to be justified because the prisoners are]] AlwaysChaoticEvil [[KnightTemplar and deserve such treatment]]. Long story short, few turned against Brass Bolt [[KickTheSonOfABitch for freeing all of the prisoners]].

* Starfleet's EG counterparts are not much better. It's especially bad in Starfleet Events, [[CheatersNeverProsper where they call out the Shadowbolts for cheating and being bad sports]] when [[{{Hypocrite}} they had been using magical steroids to coast by the games]] ''[[{{Hypocrite}} for the past two years]],'' [[UnsportsmanlikeGloating rub in their victories to the opposing side]] with [[JerkJock extreme prejudice]], [[SmugSnake and are all around annoyingly arrogant]].

* Twilight dies and rather than blame Raven for killing her, [[BlamingTheVictim Starfleet blames Twilight]] for [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming her own death]] for disobeying orders and trying and fight someone who was a threat to someone they love.

* Twilight dies and rather than blame Raven for killing her, Starfleet blames Twilight for her own death for disobeying orders and trying and fight someone who was a threat to someone they love.

* [[spoiler:Twilight]] dies and rather than blame, you know, the killer for killing [[spoiler:her]], Starfleet blames [[spoiler:Twilight]] for [[spoiler:her]] own death. Yeah, [[BlamingTheVictim Starfleet blames someone for their own death]] because they had the gall to disobey orders and try and fight someone who was a threat to someone they love.

%%* [[AuthorAvatar Mykan Jaden]] from Dakari-King Mykan's Yu-Gi-Oh!/Totally Spies fanfics, the last of which crosses over with My Little Pony. In the "final season", in spite of being a "master duelist", he makes two rookies duel brainwashed ponies despite knowing that, should they lose, they'll get brainwashed too. When the rookies triumph and Shining Armor is teleported away, Mykan gets so mad at a brainwashed Cadance for trying to brainwash and accidentally destroy his world with card games and double crossing them on a deal they made, [[http://dakari-king-mykan.deviantart.com/art/Chapter-16-Part-2-Tough-Love-524582150 he soundly beats her up]] with the power of a Millenium Item. When Mykan attempts to finish her and is stopped by his wife, he implies [[BlamingTheVictim that it's Cadance's fault]] that he nearly killed her.

* [[spoiler:Twilight]] dies and rather than blame, you know, the killer for killing [[spoiler:her]], Starfleet blames [[spoiler:Twilight]] for [[spoiler:her]] own death. Yeah, [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming Starfleet blames someone for their own death]] because they had the gall to disobey orders and try and fight someone who was a threat to someone they love.

%%* [[AuthorAvatar Mykan Jaden]] from Dakari-King Mykan's Yu-Gi-Oh!/Totally Spies fanfics, the last of which crosses over with My Little Pony. In the "final season", in spite of being a "master duelist", he makes two rookies duel brainwashed ponies despite knowing that, should they lose, they'll get brainwashed too. When the rookies triumph and Shining Armor is teleported away, Mykan gets so mad at a brainwashed Cadance for trying to brainwash and accidentally destroy his world with card games and double crossing them on a deal they made, [[http://dakari-king-mykan.deviantart.com/art/Chapter-16-Part-2-Tough-Love-524582150 he soundly beats her up]] with the power of a Millenium Item. When Mykan attempts to finish her and is stopped by his wife, he implies [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming that it's Cadance's fault]] that he nearly killed her.

* The Grand Ruler in ''My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II'' makes Twilight believe she is responsible for an entire family getting hurt, just so he can teach her that she should always follow his orders blindly. Some of his other actions are also extremely cruel, seeing as, despite Starfleet's advanced infrastructure technology, Grand Ruler took years to even bother looking for survivors of destroyed planets. (Lightning lost his planet Harmonia at 5, but, despite Harmonia's ties to Starfleet, remained lost for 2 more years.)

* The Grand Ruler in ''My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II'' makes Twilight believe she is responsible for an entire family getting hurt, just so he can teach her that she should always follow his orders blindly. Some of his other actions are also extremely cruel, seeing as despite Starfleet's advanced infrastructure technology, Grand Ruler took years to even bother looking for survivors of said destroyed planets. (Lightning lost his planet Harmonia at 5, but despite Harmonia's ties to Starfleet, remained lost for 2 more years.)