- Pinkie Pie: An earth pony who has absolutely no Earth Pony magic at all, even cutting her off from the sacred shiva rites of her tribe. Instead, she has a sort of Wild Magic, which lets her do all kinds of odd things.
- Fluttershy: A pegasus whose racial magic is extremely weak, but who has the ability to communicate empathically with animals and tame them as well as strength beyond what you'd expect from her physical frame, a surprising resistance to illness, and the ability to get by with only a few hours of sleep a night, all traits which might be seen as more in line with earth pony magic.
- Ratchette: A pegasus whose repair talent comes from an instinctive understanding of conveniences and devices, something explicitly called out as being a unicorn trait: when it comes to working on non-pegasus constructs, she's the first device mechanic anypony's ever seen.
- Snowflake: A pegasus whose crippled wings actually mask a more subtle effect; as noted in Scootalift, he has always felt disconcerted or uncomfortable when walking on clouds and prefers to be on the ground. In fact, he's so comfortable with his hooves on the ground as to lack the frequently-seen claustrophobia of his race: he's perfectly at ease when underground. And both he and Fluttershy have internally thought of cloud surfaces as feeling tacky, like they were sinking slightly...
All of these ponies have one other thing in common: they were all delivered by Gentle Arrival. With this in mind, logic suggests that this is no mere coincidence: the most likely possibility seems to be that Gentle Arrival is using the unborn foals he interacts with as test subjects, subtly manipulating their anatomy to coax their bodies into producing different forms of magic, so he can then observe the results and ultimately hone the conspiracy's methodology for turning an adult pony into an alicorn.
* There's a tagline lurking at the bottom of the main Continuum page: a price to pay for every gift... In all four cases, the ponies mentioned don't seem to have had new magic added to what would have been their extant racial capabilities, producing something two-thirds of the way to an alicorn. Instead, it's more like there's been displacement. Pinkie appears to have no feel for earth pony magic and has never used even the simplest of those workings — in 'verse language, tools. For the pegasi, all three have weak fields. Snowflake's been tested out to be below average, can only use the most basic techniques, and has to put more energy into them for anything to happen at all, while getting less in the way of results. Ratchette's been stated as capable of flight and cloudwalking — along with the fact that those two things may be about it. And Fluttershy's general weakness with techniques has been demonstrated. Something's been gained, but something's also been lost. - It bears noting that in chapter 17 of Triptych itself, Her cutie mark is described as seeming beautiful to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, while the others have trouble even looking at it: Rainbow's visibly shaken, Rarity can't maintain a sight line for more than five seconds, and the first view nearly shattered Twilight just through the sheer disruption for that level of order. (Applejack had left the area by this point, so her reaction is currently unknown.) And for the only non-pony in the group...Spike frowned, as if he wasn't sure what the others were reacting to, and kept his gaze steady — but with a sort of disinterested confusion laced in.
- Two other things worth noting: First, when listing the Bearers before sending them on the mission, Discord lists them as: "one earth pony, one pegasus, one unicorn, one dragon. Also one Pinkie Pie, one Fluttershy, and the one and only, thank goodness, Twilight Sparkle." (emphasis in original). Second, the Exception is specifically noted to work by twisting the field in some way that Twilight can't really understand. It is therefore quite possible that contact with this twisted field could twist a pony's magic, while it is still weak and unformed. Gentle might not even have been aware of this effect at first.
- Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Snowflake are all noted as having come within a hair's breadth of dying in childbirth. When the soul stands on the border of the shadowlands, perhaps the magic becomes... plastic somehow.
- And Pinkie is specifically mentioned to have come closer to dying than any other who did make it through, and her magic is by far the oddest.
- Something else interesting to note is that the altered ponies all seem to retain the automatic parts of their magic. Pinkie can't hear or speak, but she still has an earth pony's enhanced strength and durability. Fluttershy, Ratchette, and Snowflake may all have limited aptitude for techniques, but they can still fly and walk on clouds.
Confirmed! In chapter 30 of Triptych, Clear Coordinator thinks over the part he has played in the Great Work. As part of his narcissistic ramblings, he confirms that Gentle Arrival has been experimenting on ponies he delivers. In chapter 40, Gentle Arrival explains to his audience that he has been using a form of necromancy to bind the essence of dead ponies into the bodies of dying foals of different tribes, as part of his overall plans to find a way to transform ponies into alicorns. This results in a vast diminishing of birth-tribe magic, but the "infused" foal later manifests the magic of their infused tribe.
- Pinkie Pie's Wild Magic is very emphatically Not Earth Pony Magic, as is made quite clear through the various stories in the 'verse that focus on her condition. But look at some of the things that she does; Offscreen Teleportation, conjuring random items, even short-range divination; doesn't all of this sound exactly like things that unicorn magic could achieve? Especially if it's being used by someone who's wielding it on pure instinct, and so doesn't have any preconceived notions of "that's impossible!" psychologically hindering her?
More tellingly, in chapter 8 of Triptych proper, Pinkie Pie confirms that she felt the resonance — the emotions aligned with a unicorn's projected magical field — given off by Her in the previous chapter. This is explicitly called out as something only unicorns are supposed to be able to do: Twilight Sparkle, the magical history buff, has never, ever heard of an earth pony sensing unicorn resonance note , and Rarity confirms that she and Pinkie were the only ponies other than Twilight who felt it. Twilight believes there's a chance that it was because the spell was just that strong, with Rarity and Pinkie in the most direct line of fire. But...
This strongly suggests that Pinkie Pie may effectively be a unicorn in an earth pony's body, much like how Fluttershy is more or less an earth pony in a pegasi's body.- It's also the source of her supplies, because she's likely teleporting them to her, and her Offscreen Teleportation, is teleportation, but maybe also she automatically avoids things, so she's never had recoil. Maybe it also allows her to break the Differentiation Rule by teleporting things out of sealed boxes?
- In Pinkie Pie vs. The Soufflé, Pinkie's first out-of-bakery attempt at the dish takes place in the library's mini-kitchen. Twilight gets into an argument with a patron on the other side of the door, and...The sudden silence was more than enough for Pinkie to pick up something which wasn't even a sound at all. Twilight's field was up. She knew it. Something in the air was telling her...
- And in Mechanical Aptitude, Ratchette, the pegasus all but confirmed as having unicorn magic, likewise knows when an out-of-sight Mrs. Wonderment has just ignited her corona, describing it as "the sound which was not a sound."
- Confirmed... sort of? If you thought that there was something "very wrong" as in "supernaturally dangerous" about her mane, you're wrong. If you just thought that it was truly ugly, though... It's a particularly hideous shade of brown that invites comparison to fresh dung, and also so naturally long and wildly tangled that she can't hope to control it with brushes; they just get caught or break trying. No wonder she prefers to magic up a more beautiful and elegant mane.
- Alternatively, or additionally, one could read from the conversation in chapter 24 that the Chaos Pearls were used to store the chaos magic stolen from Discord.
- Confirmed: Chaos Pearls form at the center of patches of chaos terrain, places that are still under the completely unstable anti-reality rules that Discord imposed during his reign. That said, the Conspiracy also learned to make chaos pearls by draining off Discord's magic during his most recent stint in stone.
- One obvious reading of it is that they serve as the "fuel" for the transformation process that ultimately created Her.
- Gentle Arrival also mentions expending one during a recent very difficult birth to save the foal. This suggests that, maybe, his so-called unique talent is no such thing; rather, he's found a way to tap the magic of chaos pearls to interfere with unborn foals inside the womb, working around the usual hindrance of differentiation.
- Which raises two questions; firstly, what does this mean when you take note of the fact that many of Gentle Arrival's midwifed foals grow up to have abnormal magical abilities? Is this just a side-effect of using the chaos pearl to save their lives, or is it still a deliberate manipulation on his part? And secondly; which came first? The "swapped" magical talents, inspiring the plan to use chaos pearls to turn an adult pony into an alicorn? Or was the plan born first and his use of chaos pearls on unborn foals came afterwards?
- Finally explained in chapter 40: Gentle Arrival uses chaos pearls to host the essence of dead ponies in them. When he is midwifing a foal that is likely to die otherwise, he infuses that foal with the essence of a dead pony from a different tribe. This gives them a "hybrid vigor" that helps them survive delivery, but also results in their growing up with "scrambled" powers. Despite his best efforts, though, he has never been able to use this system to cause physical changes in the unborn; his original intent was to try and change the race of the foal entirely. He had the plan for "The Great Work" to begin with, but the chaos pearls were part of his early experiments in achieving it. Her creation was achieved through a combination of using a Snitcher to control her Cutie Mark in hopes of forcing her to get an "Alicorn Cutie Mark", and then shoving a mass of essence into her via chaos pearls when she was getting her mark.
- Which raises two questions; firstly, what does this mean when you take note of the fact that many of Gentle Arrival's midwifed foals grow up to have abnormal magical abilities? Is this just a side-effect of using the chaos pearl to save their lives, or is it still a deliberate manipulation on his part? And secondly; which came first? The "swapped" magical talents, inspiring the plan to use chaos pearls to turn an adult pony into an alicorn? Or was the plan born first and his use of chaos pearls on unborn foals came afterwards?
- Or worse still: she was infected with this disease deliberately as part of the transformation sequence.
- This is more plausible with The Reveal in chapter 12 of Mark of Appeal that it's not a disease, it's poison from a magical flower that amplifies a victim's magic to levels beyond their conscious control, sort of a more lethal analogue to Poison Joke.
- Jossed: Her mark is a result of a deathstone-infused Snitcher, a device known for disrupting Cutie Marks.
- Jossed by Word Of Fanfic Author, although the average annual salary for a Chief Of Medicine would have been nice...
- Jossed: She uses the gift to remove the pain that Her transformations cause her.
- Jossed. They never get exposed. Chocolate Bear does, but he gets cured alongside Joyous and the rest.
- Theory One: It turned him into Sombra.
With his billowing, ephemeral form and bestial mind, Sombra is something of an Animalistic Abomination even in canon, and this Darker and Edgier fanfic verse, it's obvious he was worse. In many ways, Sombra is a lot more like some kind of pony-wraith or equine shadow-lich than anything living, which would fit a horrifically botched resurrection's outcome. Before his death, Starswirl was dabbling with necromancy, harvesting the essence from the dead and dying to produce an Amplifier Amulet in the form of the Alicon Amulet —an item whose effects on a pony have been noted as rather reminiscent of Sombra, too. In this 'verse, Sombra is noted as having practiced Blood Magic, of the "magic fueled to greater heights by pony sacrifice" variety — which many would consider a logical step up from Starswirl's original necromantic leanings. Additionally, during A Mark of Appeal, Celestia uses a working later confirmed as being one of Starswirl's that seems to involve similar Casting a Shadow abilities to Sombra's. With this evidence, perhaps Sombra was born from Starswirl's reanimation, creating a pony that was more undead or an unliving shadow in the shell of a corpse, retaining only Starswirl's powerful magic and little, if anything, else of the original.- Explicitly Jossed by Word Of Fanfic Author here.
- Theory Two: Celestia was trying to back him up.
- So we know that it is possible to communicate with and transfer information to and from SUN and MOON. What if Celestia was attempting to transfer Starswirl's entire self: memories, personality, intellect, the works, to either one of those two devices or possibly to the earth itself? And while she knows the spell "worked" in that something was stored, what she doesn't and can't know is whether the thing she preserved is Starswirl himself or merely a record of his knowledge and memories?
- Seemingly Confirmed in chapter 54, if in a different way to that stated here. Whilst caught in her own thoughts over the dilemma she has been presented with, Celestia inadvertently reveals to Twilight that she cast a spell on Starswirl before Starswirl's death that she believes has forced him to reincarnate. In fact, she believes that Twilight is Starswirl's reincarnation.
- So we know that it is possible to communicate with and transfer information to and from SUN and MOON. What if Celestia was attempting to transfer Starswirl's entire self: memories, personality, intellect, the works, to either one of those two devices or possibly to the earth itself? And while she knows the spell "worked" in that something was stored, what she doesn't and can't know is whether the thing she preserved is Starswirl himself or merely a record of his knowledge and memories?
- It would explain why certain characters view her as having been "broken all her life", and while Gentle Arrival's "Let's hope she remembers you" line could be referring to Quiet Presence's talent, it might have a certain other subtext to it.
- This is highly unlikely since it's mentioned that She is a few years older than Fluttershy, who is six months older than Quiet, who is several years older than his sister.
- Jossed: She is Gentle Arrival's daughter.
- Consider the following:
- First, this quote.
Gentle: Gold. Gold, Quiet. The same gold as the shield. Metallic-hued fields are rare to begin with, and they run in families.- So She is related to a unicorn with a metallic field. Quiet's field is transparent, but Gentle's is silver.
- Something happened right around the time Gentle lost his wife, something that started him on the path to the Great Work. His wife bearing an earth pony filly and then dying in childbirth would fit the bill
- Another quote. Note that it's Quiet who's addressing Gentle, not the other way around.
It's less to deal with anyway. There's something to be said for the life of a normal pony... all right, let me get started. We can discuss the rest in the morning — except for one thing. I've been meaning to ask you this for years and given how many times you've hit everypony else with it, you have this coming. Have you picked out a name?- Gentle is entering middle age, about right to have a young adult daughter.
- Confirmed across the board. Chapter 40 of Triptych has Doctor Gentle establish that she is his daughter, was born as an earth pony, and his spouse died in childbirth.
- Her power is sort of telepathic, and doesn't relate to standard casting. In that sense, it's somewhat like Fluttershy's Earth-Pony-like ability to connect with animals.
- She uses Love Spells, instead of talking ponies through their problems, like I presume a Earth Pony might, or however a Pegasus of Love would express a talent in Love.
- Jossed: A Mark Of Appeal directly states that Cadance, as in canon, started as a pegasus.
- Maybe Discord learns of the Great Work through the recruitment.
- From Chapter 4 of Triptych, presuming it's not being idiomatic or anything, but the literal truth. Also, he might even be the Princesses' brother...:The fallen prince [Discord] and ruling Princess [Celestia] looked at each other across a millennium and more.
Oh, and that brings us to Rule Two, which I also already gave you, generous deposed prince that I am.- Celestia and Princess Luna were born during the Discordant Era, so he can't be their brother. Also, the sheer level of Blue-and-Orange Morality we get from him makes it highly improbable that he could have ever been a normal creature.
- Jossed. They're created by the land slowly building up a protective shell around any residual chaos magic which has soaked into the soil.
- She casually bends in ways ponies shouldn't be able to, has greater bulk and presumably greater strength than the average unicorn (which one might initially assume points towards earth pony magic), and plays an instrument- the lyre -which is either a hand or field instrument... with her hooves.
- This seems to suggest that: 1. Doctor Gentle's "warping" is physical as well as magical, and 2. Doctor Gentle does not have full control over the chaos pearls (he may not have much control at all), because what part of an alicorn is minotaur?
- Jossed to heck, either in Presentation or Cum Cera (With Wax).
- In A Mark of Appeal, when Celestia links with Sun, she recounts discussing her connection to Sun and says:"On my flanks, where... the 'mark' is."
- As if a 'mark' is something new and/or unusual that needs emphasis...
- Jossed: Nothing like that happens.
- He has weak unicorn magic (to the point of his field winking out if he's stressed) and seems to have some sort of empathetic magical ability, and magical empathy seems to be an earth pony power.For on the day he'd been born, Gentle Arrival had not been in Trotter's Falls, completely unable to attend or assist. Coordinator was not one of his, not in any way for which the word could apply and never for the truest definition. It meant he was still pure. He would always be pure. He was safe.
- Rock-farming ability is in Pinkie's blood, as said in Earth Tones. In Pinkie, it got turned into Unicorn Magic, a.k.a mainly teleportation. So with that potential, she might be even stronger than Twilight. Just unfocused.
- Maybe she's using a Tool, "asking" the "between" to let her through, or something.
- Either Twilight, Spike, or Applejack would have a reaction.
- Jossed: That thing that was "too ugly to look away from" was Snowflake.
- The story makes us think that he's talking about his breathing problems and physical weakness, but after the traumatic incident where his sister was born as an earth pony and subsequently taken away he just doesn't want to pass his earth pony ancestry on in case it would come through in his children and result in more trouble, from his wife for example.
- Gentle's thoughts have on several occasions noted that Quiet is the most faithful follower of the Great Work, that even if every other pony deserts him Quiet will stay true. Furthermore, he is specifically noted to not want ascension for himself. In addition, when Gentle confirms that they've found a way to turn an earth pony into a unicorn or so they thought, at least, Quiet immediately starts thinking about how he can now have the children he'd always wanted.
- Dunno what it's gonna do, but we do know that mixing it with Unicorn Magic breaks the Differentiation Rule? Or maybe it doesn't. The main guess still stands, though.
- It got turned into the Secret as a distortion or something, and because Earth Pony magic is effectively invisible.
- Consider the following points:
- On at least two occasions, we've seen one of the Diarchs duplicate one of the Original Six's trick. In A Mark Of Appeal, Luna duplicates Star Swirl's trick to cast through the isolation suit, and in A Night Before Nightmare Celestia duplicates Luna's trick to interface with MOON. In both cases, they speak of it as "calling on" the pony whose trick they are duplicating.
- Twilight can only access her Pegasus magic through the construction of a mental Rainbow Dash.
- The one successful ascension we actually see (Twilight's) involved that spell, and that spell splits off the cutie mark — a portion of a pony's soul— and swaps it around.
- Her failed ascension involved taking a large amount of harvested essence and trying to infuse her with it.
- According to Trixie, Star Swirl's notes from when he was studying ascension confirm that there is a way to add additional essence to a pony, but that he could not use it for some reason.
- Therefore, I propose the following theory: In order to create an alicorn, you must remove a portion of essence from at least one pony of each race, and fuse them together with the essence of the pony you wish to ascend. In the case of Twilight and the Diarchs, this process did not harm the donors because the magic of Harmony replaced the excised essence along with enabling successful fusion. That's why Luna could duplicate Star Swirl's trick and Celestia could duplicate Luna's: Each of them literally had part of the other's soul inside them. That's why Twilight needs to pretend to be Rainbow Dash to fly: She's actually using Rainbow Dash's magic to fly with.
- To further develop this theory, consider two additional facts. First, in one of Estee's recent blog posts, it is implied that for Cadence, the true trauma lies in the actual moment of ascension, not in the aftermath as is the case with Twilight and the Diarchs. Second, in Blessing, it's confirmed that Celestia has often and desperately wished for others to ascend, others who could answer the prayers she cannot. And yet despite that, she has never tried to duplicate Cadence's transformation. Now, this could, of course, mean that she doesn't know how to duplicate whatever path it was that enabled Cadence to ascend, but it could also mean that she knows how to do it, but the price is too great for even her pain to drive her to that path. Both these facts can be perfectly explained if we suppose that whatever powered Cadence's ascension did not replace the harvested essence, that Cadence was unwittingly lifted to divinity by the deaths of others.
- Because just taking out Gentle Arrival means the loss of his obstetrics, and that should be kept? ... Or be dosed with the Red Tinge Flower, which also keeps his mark in play. But that might be too cruel? ... But, the easiest option might be to have Discord prevent the birthing accidents that make obstetrics required in the first place? Or automate what Gentle Arrival does.
- Jossed.
- Jossed
- Really Wild Guess. Made just 'cause its another way to keep obstetrics available, even if Gentle Arrival is removed. Maybe just give the Differentiation exception to midwives??
- She was born an earth pony, which by the rules of pony genetics means that one (or both) of her parents must have had some earth pony heritage. So let's assume that Gentle has a trace of earth pony heritage. In his case, it wasn't fully expressed and he was born a unicorn, but what if a little bit of that heritage was expressed? Just enough to infuse his field with the earth pony ability to pass through matter and affect objects inside other objects?
- Jossed. Chapter 53 has Celestia declare that the Exception is a Cutie Mark-granted Talent, as Gentle Arrival has the incredibly rare Cutie Mark for (irony of ironies) "being a good parent/caring for children".
- In Chapter 3, when talking about Diamond Dog Blood, the narration goes into how Discord can sense something, which I assume is his own blood, lost during the Discordian Era, in fights.
- The Blindfold or the Cells or Twilight's restraint, etc. Something that's useful to them, but not directly affecting the antagonists.
- Jossed: Fluttershy uses her abilities to communicate with animals to summon rats, which work through the Bearers' various bindings.
- Earth Pony magic triggers exceptional Unicorn Magic... Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom triggers Cutie Marks across the nation... What does it mean??
- Because Celestia monitors the news, and so, such an article provides info on where the Mane 6 are. ... Depending on if there is an Equestrian Spy Agency, they'll be called in to assist, as direct Princessly intervention has been blocked by Discord. Maybe.
- Jossed. The Mane 6 rescue themselves.
- Because they need to investigate the Great Work.
- Confirmed.
- Because it's a nice round number. ... And then there'll be a epilogue, perhaps.
- Jossed. Triptych is on chapter 54 and still going.
- Alicorns happen via essence/DNA(?) transfer/donation/replacement/something-or-other. They may have been a thing in the Pre-Discordian Era, and possibly not even known as alicorns. Perhaps fusions between all sorts of creatures were possible, and "alicorn" is just one of countless possible combinations. With that in mind, considering Discord's strange anatomy, completely unique magic, and sheer power, perhaps he was the result of the Pre-Discordian creatures attempting to play God.
- He arrived in Barnyard Bargins, in Barnyard Barge-ins, cleanly. Even though there were many ponies there.
- It's a recurring aspect of the Continuum that whenever we get to see much of Celestia, we are shown that she's a Stepford Smiler, and a huge part of her issues have to do with all of the secrets she keeps about her past. It's also Continuum canon that Celestia is not as all-wise as her little ponies like to think. A logical inferral, then, is that much of her present suffering comes from bad decisions she made in the past and which, for whatever reason, she either can't or won't fix by coming forward and correcting ponies. A non-lethal variant of Hoist by Their Own Petard, in other words.
- It's an established fact in the Continuum that, as Pinkie puts it, "An earth pony and an earth pony make an earth pony, a unicorn with a unicorn is a baby unicorn, pegasus plus pegasus equals pegasus — but add any other, even once, and even if it takes generations, that other will come again...". Which means that there must be some way in which that other is being passed down through the intervening generations.
- In addition, it's an established fact that mark magic "breaks the rules", allowing ponies to do things outside the normal sphere of their tribe's powers. But a lot of the time, those extra abilities sound an awful lot like bits of another tribe's magic. Cup and Carrot Cake can instinctively know the exact temperature of a oven just by letting the air wash over them. That's not something earth pony magic can do, but we know pegasi can see and sense heat. Rarity's gem-finding spell can detect gems that are completely surrounded by earth and stone. That's impossible for unicorn magic, but it's among the most basic of earth pony powers. Similarly, her father has extreme strength and toughness for a unicorn, almost as though he has a touch of earth magic boosting his body.
- We also know that in the case of Dr. Gentle's deliberate hybrids, the magic of their donor tribe will usually find expression through their cutie mark.
- Putting all of the above together, we get the following theory:
- When a pony is conceived, they get a random sampling of their parents' essences, which combine to give them some proportion of all three tribes' essences.
- Whichever essence they have the most of, that tribe's genetic sequences get activated and the embryo grows into a normal foal of that tribe.
- But they still have essence from the other two tribes, and that extra essence can find expression through their mark.
- Since the majority of a pony's essence will always be from their tribe, their children are most likely to be of that tribe, but random chance may lead to the new embryo getting a disproportionate amount of some other tribe's essence.
- Dr. Gentle's essence-swapping spell warps this whole mechanic by changing a foal's essence ratio at birth, after the genetic sequences have already been activated and the physical form is fixed.
- Earth Pony magic is mainly asking the Earth for something to happen, and either it happens or it doesn't. But, could they ask the Earth what's currently allowed, instead of just asking for specific outcomes? ... If the computer metaphor is used, asking for the help file, instead of randomly trying commands.
- Pinkie Pie gets "trysexual", while Fluttershy gets "blank slate"... Now, there's two others that we know of, in Ponyville... and she'll likely try out her talent on one of them. Likely, Snowflake, so this should be Jossed or Confirmed fairly soon.
- Jossed: We aren't told what Snowflake's desires are, but Fleur is able to get a very clear reading of him, as she specifically searches him to see if he had paedophilic desires.
- The earth is like Sun and Moon. It's described how earth ponies need to "ask the right questions" in order to get a desired result and that the earth talks back. Similar to how Celestia can request things from Sun when she interfaces with it. Earth ponies all have the ability to interface with the planet under their hooves as a natural part of their maggic. This ties into how the sun and moon used to be raised by many unicorns working together before Celestia and Luna took over.
- Both afflict ponies with very similar symptoms: the mark magic and associated talent grow stronger, but the mental stability and personality of the pony in question diminishes until they can't think about or do anything that isn't related to their mark. Compare Blank Canvas and Joyous Release's parents. They behave almost exactly the same way even though they are afflicted by what are supposed to be two very different things. This suggests that there's some sort of connection between the two.
- As essence is both described as a "shadow" and a "snapshot" of the respective pony, it can potentially be interpreted as a... 4-dimensional picture, perhaps? A piece of everything of the pony being used to make a complete image of the whole. Something like that. And, predictably, stealing the DNA from a pony's cells is going to kill the pony.
- Possibly if Capless Births are some rare genetic sequence, and most of the survivors have that sequence, their kids would be capless, and that means the death of the mother, for a Unicorn, and likely death of the baby, for a Pegasus. So the possibility of the Hybrids becoming more of the population, are self-limiting, unless they're Earth Ponies...
- Their marks are all the same: a broken scale with their real mark in one of the dishes and the other dish fallen and rusty. First, that sounds like two marks in one: a mark representing the pony valuing or prioritizing/being compelled to value/prioritize the Press Corps above their own talent. Second, marks may repeat, but over time and space, not condensed within one group that "just so happens" to be blatantly fanatical in their thirst for power and hatred of the Princesses.
- Celestia was wrong to assume Starswirl had reincarnated as Twilight Sparkle. The true reincarnation is Starlight Glimmer, indicated both by the similarities in their name and the fact that they both practice magical mark removal/tampering. Additionally, in her flashback to the past in Mark of Appeal, Celestia notes that Starswirl could forget himself and niceties when he was deep into research. Starlight Glimmer is similarly callous and coldly focused on her research notes and the scientific method in her first appearance in Glimmer.
- Additionally, Starlight's mane is acknowledged in universe as being done up in an ancient style.
- Her mane is noted to be in an ancient style that can only be found in old paintings.
- She got hit with the Crystal Empire time stop. Or comes from an even further time, before Cutie Marks.
- Twilight is the modern incarnation, while Starlight is a past incarnation that somehow gained the ability to time travel to the story's present.
- Because when reincarnation and time travel are both on the table, why stop at just one layer of convolution!
Anyway... So, the solar flare (pun) and lunar flare devices... if they can be carried through dragonflame... And if the dragonflame can be sent to offset from a target, like 500 meters north of Scootaloo's parents... With the flare... Then we know very roughly where they are...
Also, we know that for some reason, possibly the same reason as in Glimmer, Anchor Foal Celestia had reason to try the attachment spell with one of Spike's scrolls, before the latest chapter.
Her lockdown appears to be like the one around Tartarus.
It's made by a device, so is it using a Tartarus shard to produce its effect, like the translators?
Old idea was that she was an escapee because she went so insane as be to untormentable, and is Tartarus's Avatar to the outside.
But if that's all true enough, why hasn't she replicated the "can't die" effect or The Needless ones? Too hard? Too many bad side-effects? Etc?
- When they are discussing Cadence and Twilight in A Mark Of Appeal, Celestia and Princess Luna both seem to talk as though only alicorns (and of course Discord) can touch SUN and MOON. They repeatedly emphasize the importance of ensuring that there is always at least one alicorn, implying that this simply isn't a talent a regular pony can bear.
- We know that there exists in Menajeria some force opposed to Discord, something which he cannot understand and which repels his touch, "the wave which picks a single option before forcing all others to cease any existence they might have ever achieved". This force may or may not be what the Elements of Harmony channel.
- Cutie marks, although popularly believed to be part of the pony soul, have several oddities which make more sense if we suppose that they are an external entity.
- They manifest at a later date, well after the rest of the pony soul is formed.
- They can also under the right circumstances be transferred or temporarily disconnected from the rest of the soul.
- Ponies often speak of their marks "whispering" to them or prompting them, as though they were capable of independent thought.
- It's confirmed over in Daily Equestria Life with Monster Girl that cutie marks did not exist during the Discordant Era, that Celestia and Princess Luna's marks were (as far as anyone not Discord knows) the first to appear.
- In cutie pox, a pony manifests multiple marks, each of which brings with it the talent and magic of a true mark.
- Similarly, the properties of cutie marks exactly match the nature of the anti-Discordant force described above.
- They are conspicuously noted to be immutable: nothing can alter a mark's physical appearance once it has manifested.
- Note also that the mark's effect on the pony psyche is to define the pony as some specific role: the Farmer, the Blacksmith, the Researcher, and so on. Even the most well-balanced ponies cannot deny their mark and do nothing related to it, this has been shown and stated outright on multiple occasions. And as for the Fallen, they are what their mark defines them as, no more and no less. This exactly matches the description of the anti-Discordant force mentioned above.
- There seems to be a correlation between the strength of the talent and the degree to which it dominates the pony's life. Talents amplified by red-tinge obviously consume their bearer's life, and both Fortreeze and Blank Canvas are mentioned to have unusually strong talents and to be deeply fallen.
- It's mentioned in a couple of places that Discord cannot directly affect cutie marks.
- Putting all this together, let us suppose that as part of their quest to overthrow Discord, the Sisters made a bargain with this anti-Discordant force, allowing it to bind Splinters of itself to their souls as metaphysical symbiotes. These symbiotes (the cutie marks), grant increased facility at a single defined role and some measure of protection from Discord's influence, but at the cost of locking them into their defined role. And then the Sisters were considered to be speaking for ponykind as a whole, and so their bargain allowed these Splinters to attach themselves to every pony.
- Quantumn theory has been referenced in the Continuum, so we know it exists.
- In Triptych, Dr. Gentle mentioned that there was a story behind the term "cutie mark", which he was not going to share due to time constraints.
- Discord's description above of his opposite, "the wave which picks a single option before forcing all others to cease any existence they might have ever achieved", sounds very much like a description of quantumn waveform collapse.
- That description also very much fits the way marks themselves seem to work: one potential definition chosen and enforced and all others discarded.
- During the Discordant Era, most pony barricade points were monotribal. In the chaos, ponies forgot the workings of their own blood and came to believe that cross-tribe foals were Discord's creations... and at least some barricade points abandoned them to the chaos, "sending them on".
- We've had a hint that there was something that broke Celestia and Luna's relationship with their father, and certainly something pushed them to leave their barricade point on their mad quest.
- To this day, cross-tribe foals and their proper treatment is a major concern of the Diarchy, drawing more of their attention than most of Equestria's other social issues.
- From Triptych Chapter 29, there's this about Snitchers. Or are there more lots of ponies wanting to make their own private village?Nepher wants to know about bulk creation. Asked me to come back if I found something. Thought using them on private village might allow 'direction of society'.