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@SDCC Season 5
It seems like the MLP team is going back to Faust's original vision for the show.

This has been the first time ever in a while that I haven't been lurking or posting much in Pony General.

But do remember that it's good practice to spoiler a lot of heavy Season 5/future Season rumors and revelations.

<div class="spoiler" title="You do not need to put a title if you want.">Things, man. And a pony. "!https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/7/23/681860__safe_solo_pinkie+pie_faic_cropped_artist-colon-redapropos.png!":https://derpibooru.org/681850</div>

Gets you:

Things, man.
And a pony.

Also, there are probably only a couple of moderators who may be looking at this thread over the weekend, so there are no rules. Enjoy.

There are totally still rules. Don't post ponuts, please.

I regret not thinking out a better post in regards to the Season 5 stuff until after posting that video. Oh well.

By the way, I never commented on this, but I really like that Derpy card.

Not because it makes Derpy a canon Mailmare, but just because she looks cute in her uniform. Especially the little tie. It's such a non-Derpy thing to wear, tucked under her jacket like that. Most complicated thing we've seen her in is a few paper bags and a pearl necklace.
Oh, and I approve of the way they chose to un-derp that mistake they made about what type of pony she is.

Page 8? Hmmm what should I post randomly now? ALL I CAN THINK OF IS PINKIE PIE



.
@SDCC Season 5, This looks like its going to be an especially funny season, but it seems like the morals won't be as good, what i mean by this is that when i saw those "Equal ponies" I felt like the mane six, being that they are the new guardians of friendship that they will have to convert the equals to friendship but it seems more like its a "there different so lets convert them to be just like us!" sort of thin. i dunno maybe i'm just talking out of my ass.

OBJECTION!

The exact term is Equusexual. Which is a subtype of the Zoophile.

Sooooo . . . EQD seems to be deluged with traffic right now, so no finding out what happened today for me, except for what you guys have mentioned. Still sounds pretty good so far.

<img src="http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/090/7/a/perplexed_seventh_doctor_whooves_by_purpleamhariccoffee-d7cgmoi.png"

@Dr Whooves
Technically your question has already been answered so I'll forgo the spoiler tag, but yes, Equestria is just a country, not the planet.
I want to say that it has been implied a few different times, but I distinctly remember AJ's verse from Apples to the Core:

We travel the road of generations
Joined by a common bond
We sing our song 'cross the pony nation
From Equestria and beyond

Unless AJ is postulating on the existence of space ponies, we can conclude that Equestria is just one region on the planet and there are other places outside of it.

Then again, who knows what's really out there…

Random cute:

@QWERTY

It seems like the MLP team is going back to Faust’s original vision for the show.

I hope that's the case. A return to that same charm of the first several episodes would be tastefully nostalgic

@Phoneix

The polite term is “ponisexual”
Get it right you shitty horsefucker.

Your insistence is disrespecting my cultural tradition built upon 1000 years of horsefucking. 'Horsefucker' is the familial term used in my culture. We have major cities named after horsefucking and the horsefucker dance is a sacred tribal rite of passage. Please apologize for your bigotry.

@Verbs

FYI, there’s another Pony General which is a direct sequel to this sequel.
You’re already posting for fun here, but the rules in Riff Raff are a little more relaxed, so you can double post and a few other things (nothing explicit or NSFW without a spoilers, still no gore, etc.)
It can get a bit more unfriendly than the rest of the boards now though, so keep that in mind.

As soon as I saw that thread I spilled laughter all over the floor. I love you

You know what would make this a lot easier?

If KYM had some sort of BBS system that didn't come from the Usenet days.

It's almost a chore to post anything on KYM with a forum system this basic.

@Dead Parriot

Ah yes, thanks for that! I've been unsure because there are other quotes that suggest Equestria is a world which other fans have pointed out to me when I say otherwise, though I just recently came across this quote from season one that flat out confirms it as a country:

Twilight Sparkle: Dear Princess Celestia,
I am happy to report that the dragon has departed our fair country, and that it was my good friend, Fluttershy, who convinced him to go."

Though I wouldn't act too quickly in wiping off the possibility of the existence of space ponies quite yet..

<img src="http://www.quickmeme.com/img/ce/ce7252962d55bb173c430c0802d000b82937bcac68c39ab5e44e8b5dfd680d8c.jpg"

I guess the next question would be, would people actually want to venture outside Equestria? (not permanently obviously)

Funny but for me this was obvious Equestria is just a country. Good example the Crystall Empire. Also to stay in the near past. They said Tirek and his brother came from a far land to Equestria of course to conquer it. (Also I want to ask you guys, what do you think? They said Tirek's bro befriended with a unicorn. Is he became the friend of Starswirl? And if he is, then Discord can't be him.( I heard the latter somewhere else.) Because Tirek came after Discord to the land of Equestria. Maybe this is a bit dizzy but I hope you can figure it out.)

Really? I always thought that the Crystal Empire was a city that just has its own area to itself, kind of like Washington D.C. or Seoul.

Washington D.C.? No it's more like Rome BC.

@Doctor Kori

I wouldn't personally think Starswirl were around during the discord ages, otherwise I'm sure he'd play a vital role of which Celestia would have mentioned to Twilight during Discord's second coming assuming Starswirl is really as powerful as he's made out to be. However whenever we've had a glimpse into the time when Discord ruled we've only ever seen Luna and Celestia, there would be no reason Starswirl wouldn't try to stop Discord if he were still around, and even if he failed, Celestia would have mentioned his help to Twilight.

In "Twilight's kingdom" it says he befriended a young unicorn wizard, though that wizard isn't mentioned by name, it could be a decedent of Starswirl, an apprentice/successor or simply a copycat (the bells on the outfit and the patterns aren't exact to the ones Twilight wore in "Luna Eclipsed". – to me, considering the already mentioned cannon of that time era, adding "and starswirl was there too" would be like a clear example of the remember the new guy trope, though it wouldn't be the first time MLP had done this… cough, Shining Armor, cough

<img src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2011/10/TS-Star-Swirl.jpg"

Or it was Starswirl. Just when he was younger. About the bell thingy. It could be either Twilight's costume wasn't exactly the same as Starswirl's, which could happen 'coz he lived long time ago and nobody (or nopony) remember to his outfit correctly or just a "developer oversight".

@Doctor Kori

Here's a qoute from "Luna Eclipsed"

Twilight Sparkle: Princess Luna? Hi, my name is..
Princess Luna: Star Swirl the Bearded. Commendable costume! Thou even got the bells right.
Twilight Sparkle: Thank you! Finally! Somepony who gets my costume!

it's not just the bells, the stars and moons and air-balloons on his coat aren't correctly placed.. Twilight is far too much of an Egghead to mess up a historical figure costume replica. You could sight it as a “developer oversight” However if we're trying to create an accurate representation of the MLP timeline, I think it's safe to say, based on past cannon that Starswirl is far to important to have been around yet not mentioned during the Discord era.

@Timeline

Here's my thinking on the order of the backstory events:

1) The vanishment of the Chrystal Empire happened first. The disappearance was the result of Luna and Celestia's battle with Sombra, during which they imprisoned him in chrystal (though not before he was able to put a curse on the empire).

2) Discord happened second. Both princesses are there, and defeating him required the discovery of the elements (which is why they weren't used against Sombra), which are what Celestia used to banish Luna.

3) Tirek shows up next. If you watch the backstory video from the season 4 finale, we see that both princesses are present (so it's pre-NMM) and that they enter the kingdom in a state of relative harmony, which is part of what makes Scorpan change sides. This suggests to me that the events take place after Discord and Sombra have been removed from the equation. Also, the princesses should still have the elements at that point, which explains how they defeated Tirek (and why they wanted to use Discord to defeat him after, since the elements were unavailable the second time). This might also be when Starswirl starts to become a major political force – befriending Scorpan being what brought him and his abilities to the sisters' attention in the first place.

4) Nightmare Moon manifests soon after the Discord event, and we all know how that turned out. Also, if I remember correctly, Luna's banishment meant that the elements were unusable until Twilight retrieved them later.

5) The events of the mirror universe comic happen – or at least the bits in the flashbacks. If you recall, at that point Luna has been banished and Celestia and Starswirl have become very close friends. What probably happened, then is that after banishing her sister, Celestia, seeking companionship, deepened her friendship with the powerful unicorn who had saved Equestria from Tirek.

To go along with all this, I have a headcanon narrative: we know from that play the Mane 6 put on that Equestria began prior to the sisters' arrival, which means that the story of how they became rulers is a blank spot in the story. I suspect that the arrival of forces like Discord and Sombra are part of why the sisters became the rulers of Equestria in the first place – with defeating a major villain being perhaps how they got their powers in the first place (a la Twilight). So perhaps they emerged, first of all, as a pair of supernaturally gifted unicorns who, with their magic, defeated either Sombra or someone else and in doing so became alicorns. Since the change meant that they were now super powerful and also representative of all three pony races, they were acclaimed the new rulers in place of whatever arrangement preceded them.

What I like about this version is that it explains the weirdness of having so many backstory events crowded into "1000 years ago" with apparently no major nastiness happening after that. What we keep encountering in the show are not random baddies, but the aftermath of the monarchy's growing pains. The sisters, and later Celestia alone, had to extend a lot of effort in order to become princesses and then restore harmony to Equestria, and in doing so they made a lot of enemies who are now, in the main show, coming our of the woodwork. This also helps explain Luna's turning: in my timeline, she would have been princess of the night for a while, but not all that long, perhaps just long enough to feel the sting of loneliness that comes with the job but not the sense of duty and responsibility that comes with being a long-term ruler. It is, then, exactly the kind of growing pain that my timeline makes room for.

So now I just really want to see the process by which the sisters became rulers of Equestria, and what happened after its founding up until then. This pre-princess era is one of the most fertile regions of untapped continuity, and I hope the writers do something interesting with it.

@Platus
Word of God says Celestia and Luna were born alicorns.

Also, Starswirl was likely already a prominent character in the 4th Gen before the Princess's arrival. Clover the Clever was his student, and she was valued enough to become Platinum's close adviser. While the MLP universe isn't exactly in-tone with our world, that kind of high level position isn't given out unless you have a notable background. I'm going to say Starswirl was probably already well know – his name might even point to him being one of the unicorns responsible for the night sky before Luna's takeover.

@Harshwhinny

Ah, I forgot the bit about Starswirl mentoring Clover. That changes things. That and the Faust tweet certainly put holes in my headcanon, but I think my suggested order still stands pretty well, including the bit about Starswirl and Celestia's relationship. I mean, just because he was already an important person, doesn't mean he was a close person friend of the princess.

Also, the fact that he was alive and kicking before the princesses showed up means that there probably wasn't much time between the founding of Equestria and the establishment of the diarchy.

Edit: Never mind. I just found out that there is a published version of the sisters' journal which fills in some of the gaps and has a different order for the events. Well shoot.

Story

@Hasbro and the 3D models: As with everyone else, I'll say this is great and hope to see more stuff like this!

@Harshwhinny: I hate to be the one to bring this up but it's probably gonna happen anyway so… Since Lauren left, does that statement "count"?

@my last post

Oh god, that's awful. textile was completely messed up and even hid some content. Fixed

Nature of HTML. One missing character throws off the entire layout with a cascading effect. In case anyone was wonder what that was.

It almost, sort of…kind of….appears to validate the point I made in my last post entirely.

You should really just use the textile equivalent. Just type:

And you get a one paragraph blockquote.

Also @Dr Whooves:

cough, Shining Armor, cough

You could use:

To get:

*cough* Shining Armor *cough*

The equal signs escape the textile.

@The Cute Master :3
Hey fancy pants. The HTML is much harder to use then the Textile. That's why I challange you. I bet you can't post 3 images, 1 gif, write one _italic and one bold sentence, and quote this post (expect the timeline part) w/o the usage of the quote button.

@Timeline
I think Tirek happened before the Crystal Empire and after Discord. Also I think Discord came before Celestia and Luna. Hence as Celestia said: "Before my sister and I stood up to him, he ruled Equestria in an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness. Luna and I saw how miserable life was for Earth ponies, Pegasi, and unicorns alike, so after discovering the Elements of Harmony, we combined our powers and rose up against him, turning him to stone." Also Tirek could happen before Discord but this would be a problem since not Celestia and Luna ruled Equestria.

@Burning & Cute Master

You know what would make this a lot easier?
If KYM had some sort of BBS system that didn’t come from the Usenet days.
It’s almost a chore to post anything on KYM with a forum system this basic.

We've been crying for a BB system for a long time but it's never going to happen due to the simple fact that the BB system is based upon PHP code

This is a problem because KYM is built upon Ruby-on-Rails. Wholly different code language from PHP in a lot of ways. So it's not something you can just plug into the site. Unlike Textile which can be plugged into various different bulletin boards to my understanding.

KYM is stuck with 3rd party plugins like Textile for post formatting which wont include BB anytime soon until BB releases something that supports Rails. Really the only option is to make an entirely new forum based upon phpBB software in order to get BB code in here

But meh. I've been programming websites for so long that using HTML feels way more natural to me. I make all my links with Anchor tags and my images with IMG tags. Because to hell with intuition

@Platus

I do love the pre-princess era, and the pre-mane six era in general, it's probably my favorite aspect of the show to discuss because everyone seems to interpret the events in a different way and it's all very interesting. As Harshwhinny pointed out, Starswirl is old enough to personally know Clover, and that adds to my reasoning that considering his importance, it wouldn't make sense that he wouldn't be involved in stopping Discord if he were around at that point, even if he failed he would have been mentioned by Celestia and there wouldn't be so much emphasis put on Luna and Celestia fighting Discord alone in the past series and even at the start of series 4. The only logical conclusion I could get from this and the series 4 finale is that, the unicorn that befriended Scorpan wasn't Starswirl and was a successor in some way or another, which would explain why his attire lacked the bells that were apparently iconic to Starswirls appearance according to Luna and Twilight that we would again see in "Threes a crowd".

tl;dr

My conclusion:

Starswirl

Successor

@Dr Whooves
About the emphasis on the Celestia's and Luna's fight with Discord. Look afterall they are princesses, and whatever if it's MLP or not, every princess like to point themselves out as the key figurine, a pivotal character. And they like to "forget" their helplers. Or just what Starswirl did was to help them find the elements, and that's all. About the Tirek thing I'm still saying it's just a developer oversight. The only thing isn't okay for me is the time between Discord and Tirek. Or who was earlier. I wouldn't be surprised if the events were mixed and Tirek was earlier and Discord after, however if this is the situation then Hasbro must need to clean this up and explain it out.

Doctor Kori Said:

About the emphasis on the Celestia’s and Luna’s fight with Discord. Look afterall they are princesses, and whatever if it’s MLP or not, every princess like to point themselves out as the key figurine, a pivotal character. And they like to “forget” their helplers.

Even Twilight?

Twilight: So picture it, the stone brakes, discord jumps out and everyone's like tot's freaking out, and I'm just like nah' no biggy' so I chase him down and he's all like "whoz this pone" and I am like this is ma' crib so I jump right at him, he's freaking out and then I grab the elements and BAM! I, all on my own, defeat discord and everyonez all like, oh Twi you so amazing and I'm just like, it's what I do.

meanwhile:

Also; For some reason… My Twilight persona seemed to unintentionally take inspiration from Tara Strong's character 'Cindy' from "The Boondocks". At the Start of series 4, it wasn't Celestia or Luna telling Twilight what happened, she literally saw the whole thing for herself, therefore leaving no opportunity for any misunderstandings.

@Dr Whooves or Discord was not mentioned 'coz he doesn't "exist" before Luna Eclipse. And under "exist" I mean he wasn't mentioned until that episode. So that's why he wasn't mentioned when Celestia told Twilight the defeat of Discord. So Doctor, the case solved. It was the buttler, of course, which I know since from the begining.

Let's head on the next case.

Doctor "KreagerStein" Kori wrote:

@The Cute Master :3
Hey fancy pants. The HTML is much harder to use then the Textile. That’s why I challange you. I bet you can’t post 3 images, 1 gif, write one _italic and one bold sentence, and quote this post (expect the timeline part) w/o the usage of the quote button.

Did I do it right?
F' Yah I did et write!

@Doctor Kori

Wait? Discord.. didn't exist when.. Twilight was told by Celestia to defeat Discord, which is why he wasn't mentioned in Luna Eclipse? Which solves the case? Discord.. is that you?

Success! I wanted to write Starswirl, but I mixed him with Discord and I wrote the latter instead of the earlier. Maybe I should sleep a bit.

Oh, a timeline debate. As per canon:
>Hearths Warming Eve unites Equestria
>at some point afterward, Celestia and Luna take over*
>Discord usurps control*
>Princesses usurp in return, locking him away
>Sombra gets a crystal fetish
>Celestia/Luna kick him out
>NMM
>power gap
>S1
*canon does not state whether Discord overthrew the princesses, or pre-alicorn Equestria, so those two can be swapped

Tirek occurred somewhere in there, somewhere after Discord but before NMM.

Given the close proximity of the Crystal Empire and NMM (both happened roughly a 1000 years ago), it's likely they occurred very soon after another. Popular headcanons have the evil mirror instigating Luna's conversion, or Celestia getting all the credit for dealing with Sombra which was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Since Celestia and Luna both knew Star Swirl personally (Luna Eclipsed, the really bad Reflection comic arc, the diary book), he was pre-Discord. The princesses were also around, but not necessarily in charge, during those days.

@TSG

[agreement intensifies]
I think you hit the nail on the head.

I think who Discord overthrew is a good question to ask, we know from the series 4 premiere that Celestia and Luna were alicorns when they found the elements of harmony and when they turned Discord into stone, which implies they were alicorns before Discord took over, though they may have received their wings during the Discord-era or alternatively, they could have been born alicorns like Faust said, either option is viable unless the show says otherwise.

@Doctor Kori

Oh, okay! that makes more sense, though a. he existed during series 4, so if they were to randomly add him, that would of been the time to in the series 4 premiere.
- b. we're talking about the in-universe timeline therefore as far as the cannon goes the character had always existed.

Um… damn. That's… probably exactly what happened. Hats off to you.

@Dr Whooves
Yeah I know the fact he existed in-universe timeline, but I say before the Luna Eclipsed, Starswirl wasn't part of the series, maybe as a tought of Lauren Faust, or a concept art but he doesn't had an important role until the latter episodes, and as Faust off, the Hasbro could do anything with the backstory of Starswirl, they could say that Starswirl was a young unicorn when he befriended with Scorpan 500 years after the defeat of Discord, then he accidentaly sent himself back in time (which would answer why he has an entire wing in the Canterlot Library, dedicated to the time travel), and helped Celestia and Luna finding the elements and by this defeating Discord but maybe he was busy with how to get back to his time while Celestia and Luna fighted with Discord. And maybe he stucked in the past and never could return to his own time, and maybe his cape was originaly the same what we seen in Luna Eclipsed but the younger Starswirl liked the cape style too but don't wanted to be a copycat ('coz he doesn't know that guy in the past was him) and that's why he had a different styled cape. Hmmm. Cape? Check! Timeline problem? Check! Suitable answer? Check! So, whaddaya think?

Loving the discussion so far. I have nothing much to add, though, so here's Scootaloo:

Carry on.

There is no OC in there.
The one you're saying is an OC is Surprise (the character from G1 that inspired the creation of Pinkie Pie)

@TSG
Based on all the evidence provided, it appears your timeline is the most accurate I've seen so far. I mean, I could take a look at the contents of the Journal of the Two Sisters to fill in some gaps, but my brain wants to rest from all this. The puzzle of the timeline looks well covered already and that's enough for me.

Specifically regarding that business with Tirek, my personal belief is that the entire event of the two brothers must have happened between Discord's imprisonment and Sombra's conquest of the Crystal Empire.

Perhaps Discord's reign left the land on a weakened state, and, in what seems to be a 'reconstruction period', Tirek and Scorpan traveled there, seeking to take advantage of the situation. The rest is well known: Scorpan has a change of heart, switches sides and dooms his brother to Tartarus.

If I also take in consideration that Tirek knows who Discord is when the two meet each other during the finale of S4 (Tirek has heard of him; they have never met in person before), I'd say it has the most logical outcome.

These two would disagree with you:

And yeah, I could pick them out before I paused it to capture them, especially the weird spikey-headed guy.

@Platus
Chicken jokes…

Grrrr…

Hey, the Comic-Con panels are up!
(Potential spoilers, obviously!)


I haven't gotten a chance to watch them yet, but the info from the write-ups I've seen have been quite interesting.

YayPonies has the new comics up.

Horse:

>comics
>plushies
>diagnosed with diabetus

@those plushies

…they're adorable

Y'all niggas are gay

Excuse me! I'm just trapped here.

Yo, apparently Hasbro and Vinyl Scratch, under her DJ Pon3 alias, is gonna release an official remix album.

That lightning-blue maned pony is going places!

I would have liked it more if they got some people from the fandom to collab on this album.

This is my fetish.