My Little Pony LI: FE

[Deadly]

This is unfortunate, as I have great fun with it. I hope we're not making you feel bad by having what I consider to be an interesting discussion.

It often is interesting, that's why I can't stop it Although sometimes I think it can go on a little too long and become a little too heated, frustrating and tedious to deal with.

Anyway, there's been a lot of thoughts thrown around about the tone of the Pony setting and I have a few more I'd like to add.

I agree with you that you can do the bad guy arms race if you want. And if that makes sense for your story, then it's something that should happen. This is, in my opinion, a subset of the larger effect that the author is basically god of her own story. If the author has a good story to tell, she can do whatever is needed to tell that story.

The issue comes up more when a piece of writing isn't quite right, or when giving advice to new writers. There, it often behooves the author to try and adhere as closely as possible to as many of the rules of writing as possible. They're rules for a reason, and breaking them accidentally or for no good reason tends to make a story feel off.

In this case, the Equestria setting is a sincerely good setting. Everypony seems pretty happy in general and even with a world that has amazing monsters and a military and powerful offensive magic, everypony doesn't have to worry about those things on a daily basis. That strongly implies that the default to the setting is that the good guys win, that things work out in the end, and that when the heroes finally band together and stand united against the villain, they will win without being permanently scarred by the ordeal. I think great stories have been written (some by you, Deadly) that deviate from that model, but it's still true that when you deviate from the model of the happily ever after ending in a pony story you're likely to bother some readers and make the setting feel different.

Oh, definitely can be a challenge to write these things well. That's why I like to write these stories, because they're a challenge. They are more satisfying when you pull it off. And sure, if they're written poorly then they can be wildly OOC, but that doesn't mean you can't write them well and IC. That's all I'm saying

If they're well written then I think they are great stories. A well written sad/dark fic can evoke some very powerful emotions that are hard to compete with. A fun, heart warming tale might be read, enjoyed and then quickly forgotten, while one that made you cry or sit on the edge of the chair biting your nails will stay with you. At least that's my personal experience.

The most powerful scenes in fiction are frequently tragic or dark.

i actually though the whole discord thing was rather hope crushing. i mean, he's not dead. he'll probably get out again. and it's always him. the good guys have to keep getting new ponies to wield the elements.

if theres ever 1 instance where somepony like the mane 6 arent around, they're all doomed. and it's going to happen, because discord has forever.

we also can't be sure twi isnt an organized librarian. if she gets a lot of traffic (since TV and computers arent a thing she probably does), people inevitably put thing where they dont belong.

Discord is very scary and depressing if you think a little about him. That's why I never quite liked him, he's way too powerful and difficult to deal with.

[Thanqol]

And this is why you should always kill your enemies. Yes, even death is not a garentee (but if they can escape from being dead, imprisioning them ain't gonna work either anyway), but generally works as Best Prison for 99% of all things that exist, especially the ones that are particularly hard to kill or claim they are unkillable manifestation of sommat or other, as they tend to be far worse off when actually killed.

Were I Celestia/Luna/remotely present, I'd have taken Discord's statue, shattered into bits and dumped the fragments into a volcano. Or at the very least, dumped it into the deepest part of the sea or send it to the moon or space or something (lobbing it out into the void seems pretty well within abilities) and then no amount if discord is going to break him out if he's drifting petrified in the depths on interplanetary space with no sentient/sapient creatures within a couple of light-years or something.

- Cracking the statue lets Discord out
- Sending him into space when Nightmare Moon is a thing seems like a super bad idea
- Aliens
- Asteroids
- Having the statue of a chaos god on hand makes a really good deterrent for people planning on hitting your capital with an orbital strike.

[Tiki Snakes]

"Aw man, you put the Mask where nobody could see it? Man, it's going to disappear and go meld with somepony else. Now I'm stuck being Sundancer again."

Exit, muttering angrily.

A mask of uncertain powers, qualities and abilities, and you think we left it in an unsupervised Isolation Unit?
Hahahahahahahaha!
Haha, ha. No. There are three Guardponies on duty at any time, two to watch the Item and one to watch the two, all from within a magically grounded booth.

...Sundancer?

[Thanqol]

Huh. Well, it makes me think of the depiction of Amaterasu in Okami.

Thank you!

A mask of uncertain powers, qualities and abilities, and you think we left it in an unsupervised Isolation Unit?
Hahahahahahahaha!
Haha, ha. No. There are three Guardponies on duty at any time, two to watch the Item and one to watch the two, all from within a magically grounded booth.

...Sundancer?

"I hate to break it to you, but your guards are already dead.

"I mean bypassed. The Mask is the symbol of the thing and not the thing. If you brick up the window it looks out through a different one. Might be able to get twelve bits for the metal.

"And yeah. Sundancer. And -" she checks her now quite blank flank, "Aw man, I don't even have my for-reals cutie mark? This sucks!"

[Aotrs Commander]

- Cracking the statue lets Discord out

There is no evidence of that.

The statue cracks when he is released, but I think that's a casual reaction of the latter, not the former causing the latter.

It's a possibilty, yes, but not a certainty.

- Sending him into space when Nightmare Moon is a thing seems like a super bad idea
- Aliens
- Asteroids

*sigh*

No.

Just... no.

Space is really, really REALLY big. I'm not even going to bring up the Hitchiker's quote this time. It's also really, really, REALLY empty.

If you chucked Discord on a trajectory out of the system, the statistical likelihood is he would not encounter ANYTHING. At ALL. EVER. And be floating slowly out of the solar system into empty space until the universe ends.

There are no analogies big enough to describe the relationship in size between a, what, six-foot lump of rock and the size of entire universe.

You would be unlikely to find him even if you were looking for him, and even if you knew exactly what exit vector he went off on. Do you not recall how many sci-fi stories and stuff point out that you can't find a floating man, lost in space? That's entirely correct. This is exactly the same.

- Having the statue of a chaos god on hand makes a really good deterrent for people planning on hitting your capital with an orbital strike.

No, it really doesn't.

Especially considering he's antagonistic to your own state primarily, as is, if anything more likely than not to help the guys nuking you in the face.

[Thanqol]

There is no evidence of that.

The statue cracks when he is released, but I think that's a casual reaction of the latter, not the former causing the latter.

It's a possibilty, yes, but not a certainty.

It's not the sort of thing I'd want to test.

*sigh*

No.

Just... no.

Space is really, really REALLY big. I'm not even going to bring up the Hitchiker's quote this time. It's also really, really, REALLY empty.

If you chucked Discord on a trajectory out of the system, the statistical likelihood is he would not encounter ANYTHING. At ALL. EVER. And be floating slowly out of the solar system into empty space until the universe ends.

There are no analogies big enough to describe the relationship in size between a, what, six-foot lump of rock and the size of entire universe.

You would be unlikely to find him even if you were looking for him, and even if you knew exactly what exit vector he went off on. Do you not recall how many sci-fi stories and stuff point out that you can't find a floating man, lost in space? That's entirely correct. This is exactly the same.

Makin' a lot of assumptions about magic there, sport. Who knows what kind of ambient chaos energy that statue releases, or what his capabilities are trapped inside the thing.

Also scrying and teleports.

No, it really doesn't.

Especially considering he's antagonistic to your own state primarily, as is, if anything more likely than not to help the guys nuking you in the face.

If I, personally, got nuked and am dead then I would be pleased to know that there's now a chaos deity loose upon the world. And I don't very much think he's the kind to help anyone.

It's MAD at it's most basic. You nuke me from orbit, I unleash an undying chaos monster that makes the planet permanently uninhabitable.

[Anarion]

*good reasons to throw the Discord statue into space.*

Have you considered that the ponies are all just really nice? Assuming that we're not 100% sure what cracking the statue would do, and sending it into space somewhere means that eventually it will be somepony else's problem, the ponies wouldn't do that because that would be unleashing Discord on somepony else.

Instead they're well aware that they have tons of superpowers and a friendship nuke that is proven to work against Discord. They probably figure it's the nice, neighborly thing of them to hang onto the statue since they know they can stop him if he gets free.

[Tiki Snakes]

"I hate to break it to you, but your guards are already dead.

Well, technically yes. That's kind of the idea?
*blank stare*

"I mean bypassed. The Mask is the symbol of the thing and not the thing. If you brick up the window it looks out through a different one. Might be able to get twelve bits for the metal.

No, I'm not entirely sure I understood any of that.

"And yeah. Sundancer. And -" she checks her now quite blank flank, "Aw man, I don't even have my for-reals cutie mark? This sucks!"

Well, that's new.
*Stares in sick-facination at the unfolding drama*
I'm uh...very sorry for your loss?

Discord: Sure, breaking the statue might not release him. I wouldn't risk it, personally.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

There's a second chapter that I put up to meet the criteria of the challenge, but it was, frankly, not very good and ended with me written into a corner, with the girls given 2 days to create a ninth Element of Harmony and no idea how to do so. I didn't have any idea how to do it either, so I'll be sending them after a different MacGuffin this time. Let's just pretend it's a brilliant form of meta-textual irony.

I don't know what you're talking about, the second chapter is right there, just like it Always Has Been... Now with a greatly increased number of cookie dough metaphors

Yes, if you're trying to write an episode of the show, or a comedy in the same style, then you have to stay true to the same feeling and atmosphere and general assumptions of the setting that the show uses.

The feeling of the setting, as you describe, is relative and depends on the story you're trying to tell. You could theoretically write a story set in Lovecraft's universe without any horror. Maybe a comedy about some scholar who finds the Mad Arab's cookbook. It wouldn't be a classic Lovecraft horror story, sure, but it would still be in the same setting and could be just as true to the setting and characters as any of Lovecraft's own tales (whether it would work and be interesting is another matter). Now, if you were to also have Pinkie Pie drop in through some interdimensional rift and help the scholar cook up some of the recipes in the book, that'd be OOC for Lovecraft's setting (but maybe not for Pinkie ).

That's what I'd call tone, not flavour. Tone belongs to the story, flavour is about the setting. Could you write a comedy in Lovecraft's universe? Yes. (and at this point I think we're agreeing, albeit with different words) A skilled writer could (and would have to) maintain the feeling that untold horrors lurk in the shadows, that a man's sanity is a fragile thing when exposed to the larger truths of an uncaring universe. The flavour can be delivered via non-euclidean éclairs and ineffable soufflés instead of tentacled monsters, provided the delivery is good enough. But the moment you remove the horrors, render them describable, present a man who's mind can resist the true face of reality... then you've completely lost the flavour. It is no longer the Lovecraft universe, just something that looks like it at first glance.

Another example. I mentioned Philip Marlowe earlier. A Marlowe story, no matter what events occur, how the tone may shift from typical noir trappings, must still be hardboiled, it must still have, uh, I'll steal Chandler's own words for this:

"In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.

He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks -- that is, with a rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

The story is this man's adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in."

Ze magics The flavour.

What you suggest is that it is OOC if it's not exactly as if it was written by the original author(s) of the setting (Tolkien, Lovecraft or in this case the writers of FiM). If that's the only thing you want to read then that's your choice, although I personally think you'll be missing out a lot, but just because someone writes a different kind of story in the same setting doesn't mean it's OOC.

Not what I meant to say (although reading back, I may have implied as much). I said before that what I call flavour is independent of the story told. tLotR and The Hobbit have different tones. Yet they both have that fantastic Middle Earth flavour, where living legends walk the land, that myths are still in the making, and that they nevertheless pale in comparison to the great deeds of the past. Those drinking and digging dwarves could be in Middle Earth, provided their drinking and digging possesses that mythical quality and sense of diminishment, even if it is in jest.

No, it's because the show can't show these things or go into detail. Equestria does have death (we've seen a funeral in Hearts and Hooves Day) and all these other things, but because the show is a children's show they're not going to dwell on it or anything. But it's still part of the setting, it's there, it's just not very prominent in the episodes.

Ponies die in Equestria, some are probably eaten by monsters, but you don't want to show the target audience that, and we wouldn't want to see it in the show either, because you're right that this is not how the show should be. But every story doesn't have to be like an episode to be IC, there are many sides of life in Equestria that can't be explored in the show for one reason or another. Length of episodes is another, for example, but that doesn't mean every story should be short slice-of-life style tales to be IC.

Again, not what I'm getting at. Of course there's death. And disease and kidnappings and dangerous monsters and evil, reality-warping embodiments of fundamental forces. None of these things make the setting dark. The setting is bright and cheery because of how these things actually go down.

We've seen that funeral. And it got interrupted by fillies doing a musical number. Flavour is less about what happens (although it matters!) and more how those things are presented.

That isn't to say death and other tragedies don't belong in the ponyverse. Far from it. It's just viewed through that lens of "Friendship is Magic".

This's what I'm getting at. Death happens in Equestria. And, yes, ponies do sometimes get eaten by monsters. It's a dangerous place. But just because it's dangerous, because death and disease are things that exist, that doesn't mean it's dark. All those things happen with FiM flavour.


EDIT: Bluh. The discussion moved on a fair bit while I typed this up. I'll catch up ASAP.

Just skimming quickly:

This is unfortunate, as I have great fun with it. I hope we're not making you feel bad by having what I consider to be an interesting discussion.

Totally this. I'm greatly enjoying what I see as an open, frank and friendly discussion. I do hope I haven't come off as otherwise.

[Thanqol]

Well, technically yes. That's kind of the idea?
*blank stare*

"Shut up, the last vampires used ghouls for guard duty."

No, I'm not entirely sure I understood any of that.

"You notice the empty, blank white of the thing's eyes? That's because something was looking out. It's wearing the mask from the inside? Anyway, point is that it can just go look out through another mask in the same way you can look out a different window."

Well, that's new.
*Stares in sick-facination at the unfolding drama*
I'm uh...very sorry for your loss?

"I liked that cutie mark. It was cool and unique! Now I'm just going to have to go home and buck apples until I get my apple bucking cutie mark,"

The pony formerly known as Metal Mask rolled her eyes. "I suppose it was inevitable."

[Aotrs Commander]

Have you considered that the ponies are all just really nice?

That's why they don't do it.

(I think Princess C is being far too ncie for her own good, but then again Batman and Superman would likely be just the same, so there you go.)

I did say "if I was..."

Assuming that we're not 100% sure what cracking the statue would do, and sending it into space somewhere means that eventually it will be somepony else's problem, the ponies wouldn't do that because that would be unleashing Discord on somepony else.

And as I said, if you chucked in on a course into open space, no, he really wouldn't. Because nothing short of a plot-armour miracle would mean he ever encountered another star system, let alone one with planets, let alone one with life, let ALONE one with intelligent life, let alone come close enough to one to be found or two land on it.

Scale, people, scale. Space is unfathomably huge. It is finite, but the numbers are so high that they are nearly meaningless in any concrete sense.

Look. Practical experiement. When you next go outside for a walk or something, take a straw and a piece of cardboard and paper with a hole in it to put the straw through. Get a pebble or something, find a field (or perhaps, if you want to be clever, some bio-degradable thing that floats and a duck-free pond). Lob said object to the best of your abilities, and then try to find it again - but you're only allowed to use what you can see through the straw.

That's several orders of magnintude easier than trying to find something in space, and remember you're both actively looking for it AND you have a rough idea of where you chucked it.

That might give you some idea of how hard it is to find anything in space.

Hell, look as astronomers - they're still finding asteroids in Earth's solar system which are so much bigger than roughly-human sized it ain't funny - and how much effort it is to find whole extra-solar planets, when they even know where to start looking (e.g. suns).

It is just not statistically plausible that anything that small lost in that big a space is ever going to encounter anything at all.

[Thanqol]

It is just not statistically plausible that anything that small lost in that big a space is ever going to encounter anything at all.

"I, evil cultist Evilsior, hereby summon the nearest unguarded evil god of chaos to my location!"

I actually feel safer keeping that thing behind my own layers of wards and royal guards.

[Raz_Fox]

Wha?
In Japanese myth the moon is an angry murdery dude and the sun is the happy, smiling and relatively demure one.

And again, the moon is usually associated with the bad side of femininity, the side that makes low-brow males insist they are a separate species distantly related to pole cats. Witchcraft, sabotage, poison, and ambush. Skadi, Hel, Morrigan.

To be fair, the sun is still more powerful in Japanese mythology, as evidenced by the time the moon got kicked out of the house for murdering the goddess of food.

And to be even fairer, the moon wasn't that angry all the time, he was just offended that his hostess would serve him divine vomit. Total breach of protocol, y'know.

[Tiki Snakes]

"Shut up, the last vampires used ghouls for guard duty."

All Vampire, All The Time.
The whole dead or not thing is a bit complex though.

"You notice the empty, blank white of the thing's eyes? That's because something was looking out. It's wearing the mask from the inside? Anyway, point is that it can just go look out through another mask in the same way you can look out a different window."


"I liked that cutie mark. It was cool and unique! Now I'm just going to have to go home and buck apples until I get my apple bucking cutie mark,"

The pony formerly known as Metal Mask rolled her eyes. "I suppose it was inevitable."

No. Nothing is inevitable, save perhaps entropy. If you feel that mask was your one special thing, your purpose, the reason you exist, then you do no such thing. If the Mask is what you want, then you go out there and you get the Mask back.

Your Cutie Mark doesn't choose you, Sundancer. You choose it, through your actions and desires. Buck Apples? Please.

To be fair, the sun is still more powerful in Japanese mythology, as evidenced by the time the moon got kicked out of the house for murdering the goddess of food.

And to be even fairer, the moon wasn't that angry all the time, he was just offended that his hostess would serve him divine vomit. Total breach of protocol, y'know.

...Um. Yeeeah. That's pretty hilarious and/or weird even by mythological standards.

"I, evil cultist Evilsior, hereby summon the nearest unguarded evil god of chaos to my location!"

I actually feel safer keeping that thing behind my own layers of wards and royal guards.

Yeah, standard CAT protocol, never summon a being you couldn't beat blindfolded and with one hoof tied behind your back.
And never, ever attempt to enslave anything that claims godhood. It never ends well.

[Aotrs Commander]

"I, evil cultist Evilsior, hereby summon the nearest unguarded evil god of chaos to my location!"

I actually feel safer keeping that thing behind my own layers of wards and royal guards.

I'm sorry, I am not buying spells capable of detection and instant¹ summoning across the size of the universe. Especially not on Equestria, given the nature of magic and demonstrated power levels in question, EVEN IF you count Celestia as an actual goddess who moves a stellar body on a daily basis (which I do).

Just no.

Hell, even D&D, with it's "infinite" spell ranges treats worlds as seperate planes (and D&D has a ridiculously poor idea of actual scale and what "infinite" means at the very best of times.)

If anyone had that kind of power, to summon inactive divine beings (not extraplanar beings who are actively trying to get (back) into the world, but inactive ones with no current powers available to them personally), paltry wards (which I don't see in evidence in a statue in the freaking palace garden open to the public) would not stop them. Frankly, if they could do that, they wouldn't need to, because they'd already be more powerful than Discord to start with.

Magic is not omnipotent, nor is it omnicient, unless wielded by beings who are already same.

You might, repeat might, manage something in the first few years after the event, while it's still within relativistically close ranges - but after that? No. Another thousand year-plus period of containment like the one Discord just had? Not a chance.

And again, if you can summon from space, you can certainly summon from the palace gardens. And if you can ward the gardens, you can ward a Thing to put the statue in. (I remind you about the previously mentioned total ineffectiveness of the Royal Guard - and the fact Discord's statue wasn't guarded anyway - so not putting guards on it would not matter anyway.)

No, I think the reason Celestia doesn't do it is likely exactly the same reason Batman doesn't shoot the Joker dead (or at least let him get shot by the police, or something). I.e morals, not practicality - and I suspect it will have pretty much the same results in time.



I'm sorry, Thanq, but magic-all-of-space-wide-instant-detection-and-summoning is on the level of universe-sized robots; it's so utterly lacking in conception of real scale that I can only roll my eyeglows at the idea and snort.




¹If it ain't instant, or close to, then it wouldn't matter, since likely the spell will have worn off and/or the planet moved before it mattered.

[Thanqol]

All Vampire, All The Time.
The whole dead or not thing is a bit complex though.

"Uh, if you've only got vampires aboard what do you eat?

"Don't answer that if it's 'me'."

No. Nothing is inevitable, save perhaps entropy. If you feel that mask was your one special thing, your purpose, the reason you exist, then you do no such thing. If the Mask is what you want, then you go out there and you get the Mask back.

Your Cutie Mark doesn't choose you, Sundancer. You choose it, through your actions and desires. Buck Apples? Please.

"You forgot the 'Dear Princess Celestia' at the start," said Sundancer. "And no, the mask isn't any such special thing or anywhere near as deep and meaningful. It was kinda cool, that's all."

Yeah, standard CAT protocol, never summon a being you couldn't beat blindfolded and with one hoof tied behind your back.
And never, ever attempt to enslave anything that claims godhood. It never ends well.

"I think protocol went out the window the moment his mother named him Evilsior."

I'm sorry, I am not buying spells capable of detection and instant¹ summoning across the size of the universe. Especially not on Equestria, given the nature of magic and demonstrated power levels in question, EVEN IF you count Celestia as an actual goddess who moves a stellar body on a daily basis (which I do).

You've got a really, really limited view of alternate magic systems.

One such makes the assertion that distance is an illusion and what truly matters is the sympathetic connections between things. You are more connected to your mother in America than you are to the stranger next to you on the bus.

And that's not even getting into Fate magic and narrative based magic systems.

Hell, even D&D, with it's "infinite" spell ranges treats worlds as seperate planes (and D&D has a ridiculously poor idea of actual scale and what "infinite" means at the very best of times.)

Spelljammer is a D&D setting, innit?

[Tiki Snakes]

I'm sorry, I am not buying spells capable of detection and instant¹ summoning across the size of the universe. Especially not on Equestria, given the nature of magic and demonstrated power levels in question, EVEN IF you count Celestia as an actual goddess who moves a stellar body on a daily basis (which I do).

Just no.

Hell, even D&D, with it's "infinite" spell ranges treats worlds as seperate planes (and D&D has a ridiculously poor idea of actual scale and what "infinite" means at the very best of times.)

If anyone had that kind of power, to summon inactive divine beings (not extraplanar beings who are actively trying to get (back) into the world, but inactive ones with no current powers available to them personally), paltry wards (which I don't see in evidence in a statue in the freaking palace garden open to the public) would not stop them. Frankly, if they could do that, they wouldn't need to, because they'd already be more powerful than Discord to start with.

Magic is not omnipotent, nor is it omnicient, unless wielded by beings who are already same.

You might, repeat might, manage something in the first few years after the event, while it's still within relativistically close ranges - but after that? No. Another thousand year-plus period of containment like the one Discord just had? Not a chance.

And again, if you can summon from space, you can certainly summon from the palace gardens. And if you can ward the gardens, you can ward a Thing to put the statue in. (I remind you about the previously mentioned total ineffectiveness of the Royal Guard - and the fact Discord's statue wasn't guarded anyway - so not putting guards on it would not matter anyway.)

No, I think the reason Celestia doesn't do it is likely exactly the same reason Batman doesn't shoot the Joker dead (or at least let him get shot by the police, or something). I.e morals, not practicality - and I suspect it will have pretty much the same results in time.



I'm sorry, Thanq, but magic-all-of-space-wide-instant-detection-and-summoning is on the level of universe-sized robots; it's so utterly lacking in conception of real scale that I can only roll my eyeglows at the idea and snort.




¹If it ain't instant, or close to, then it wouldn't matter, since likely the spell will have worn off and/or the planet moved before it mattered.

Eh, it's less of a major magical effect if D&D isn't your go-to magical system. I'm still getting to grips with MAGE the Awakening, but sympathetic connections are a lot easier to work with than any kind of tape-measure-limit. Simply knowing Discord's true name would be enough to put him in easy range of magic, as far as I understand.

And certain editions and settings of D&D do count seperate worlds as seperate planes, but post spelljammer and the whole Crystal Spheres thing, that's a lot less the default assumption and more supposition.

"Uh, if you've only got vampires aboard what do you eat?

"Don't answer that if it's 'me'."

Oooh, that's a good question, actually.
Vampirism. You know what it isn't? Porphyric Hemophilia. It's not some passive state as much as it is something that you can get better at.

The long answer is that we feed upon our enemies, upon captives taken in war, and upon willing donors(It's not like it's a lethal process) whose location you'll forgive me if I do not share and only in the minority of cases do we need to feast upon blood itself. Psychic Residue, Emotions, Energy Sources, Blood, the list is exhaustive if you are of the correct lineage.

Personally, after being shot by the Friendship Array, I couldn't eat another drop.

Actually, we tried harvesting blood from Space Whales for a while, but it got messy. Those things hold a grudge like you wouldn't believe.

"You forgot the 'Dear Princess Celestia' at the start," said Sundancer. "And no, the mask isn't any such special thing or anywhere near as deep and meaningful. It was kinda cool, that's all."

Oh. Well, if all you want is magical facewear, that's easy. Aquiring magical artifacts is something of a family tradition, there's a whole store-room of enchanted masks a few levels up from here.
I'm sure we could come to some kind of...deal?
Admittedly, the large majority of them are a tiny bit unwholesome, but there are some real nice finds in there if you look hard enough.

[Thanqol]

Oooh, that's a good question, actually.
Vampirism. You know what it isn't? Porphyric Hemophilia. It's not some passive state as much as it is something that you can get better at.

The long answer is that we feed upon our enemies, upon captives taken in war, and upon willing donors(It's not like it's a lethal process) whose location you'll forgive me if I do not share and only in the minority of cases do we need to feast upon blood itself. Psychic Residue, Emotions, Energy Sources, Blood, the list is exhaustive if you are of the correct lineage.

Personally, after being shot by the Friendship Array, I couldn't eat another drop.

Actually, we tried harvesting blood from Space Whales for a while, but it got messy. Those things hold a grudge like you wouldn't believe.

"Do you eat music, by any chance? What does it taste like?"

Oh. Well, if all you want is magical facewear, that's easy. Aquiring magical artifacts is something of a family tradition, there's a whole store-room of enchanted masks a few levels up from here.
I'm sure we could come to some kind of...deal?
Admittedly, the large majority of them are a tiny bit unwholesome, but there are some real nice finds in there if you look hard enough.

"Sure! What kind of deal, though? I mean, I don't really have any useful skills, or talents, or possessions, or contacts, or history... man, I kinda suck."

[Tiki Snakes]

"Do you eat music, by any chance? What does it taste like?"

Conceptual Vampirism? Hmm. Not as such. I've dined on the emotions of a master musician during a virtuoso performance before. Turns out there can be side effects though, the song was secretly dedicated to his dead mother and I cried for a week.

"Sure! What kind of deal, though? I mean, I don't really have any useful skills, or talents, or possessions, or contacts, or history... man, I kinda suck."

A Favour then, to be cashed in at a time of my choosing, provided it does not endanger or inconvenience you beyond what is reasonable?

[Thanqol]

Conceptual Vampirism? Hmm. Not as such. I've dined on the emotions of a master musician during a virtuoso performance before. Turns out there can be side effects though, the song was secretly dedicated to his dead mother and I cried for a week.

"Huh. So just mind stuff, then? All right. That's cool, I guess."

A Favour then, to be cashed in at a time of my choosing, provided it does not endanger or inconvenience you beyond what is reasonable?

"Ha! It's a deal! Sucker!" said Sundancer, evidencing an idiocy quite profound.

[Alabenson]

- Cracking the statue lets Discord out
- Sending him into space when Nightmare Moon is a thing seems like a super bad idea
- Aliens
- Asteroids
- Having the statue of a chaos god on hand makes a really good deterrent for people planning on hitting your capital with an orbital strike.

*looks back at the smoldering ruins of Canterlot*
Yeah, that part of the plan could have used some work.

*sigh*

No.

Just... no.

Space is really, really REALLY big. I'm not even going to bring up the Hitchiker's quote this time. It's also really, really, REALLY empty.

If you chucked Discord on a trajectory out of the system, the statistical likelihood is he would not encounter ANYTHING. At ALL. EVER. And be floating slowly out of the solar system into empty space until the universe ends.

There are no analogies big enough to describe the relationship in size between a, what, six-foot lump of rock and the size of entire universe.

You would be unlikely to find him even if you were looking for him, and even if you knew exactly what exit vector he went off on. Do you not recall how many sci-fi stories and stuff point out that you can't find a floating man, lost in space? That's entirely correct. This is exactly the same.

The problem with sending Discord into space is that it doing so fails to address the problem of him breaking out when the element bearers pass on, and could even speed up the process if the magic sealing him requires that he remain within a certain proximity to the elements.
And the moment he does escape, you're right back to square one, given that distance has no real meaning to the spirit of chaos. So all you've accomplished is likely spent a great deal of time and resources storing the statue in a manner that's ultimately no more secure than leaving it in the garden anyway.


Also: On Dark Stories and Ponies
I think it's perfectly possible for a MLP story to contain all sorts of "Dark" elements, such as death, despair, insanity, and so forth, and still be true to the setting. However, this is contingent on holding to the central premise of the show, which is that, no matter how bad things get, love and friendship will always ultimately triumph in the end.

[thubby]

your argument applies equally well to them being unable to catapult it into space.

[Tiki Snakes]

"Ha! It's a deal! Sucker!" said Sundancer, evidencing an idiocy quite profound.

Joyreaper? Escort our guest to the Gallery of Faces. She is allowed to take one, please make sure that she doesn't choose anything capable of overpowering her or doing any kind of long term spirutual damage.

Ma'am. This way, my little pony.

[Lix Lorn]

Now to make up for that I will post something ALWAYS RELATED:

Spoiler

Show

(Always related even when the topic isn't ponies)

...it's a shark.
With a FRICKIN LASER BEAM attached to its head.

*sigh*

No.

Just... no.

Space is really, really REALLY big. I'm not even going to bring up the Hitchiker's quote this time. It's also really, really, REALLY empty.

If you chucked Discord on a trajectory out of the system, the statistical likelihood is he would not encounter ANYTHING. At ALL. EVER. And be floating slowly out of the solar system into empty space until the universe ends.

There are no analogies big enough to describe the relationship in size between a, what, six-foot lump of rock and the size of entire universe.

You would be unlikely to find him even if you were looking for him, and even if you knew exactly what exit vector he went off on. Do you not recall how many sci-fi stories and stuff point out that you can't find a floating man, lost in space? That's entirely correct. This is exactly the same.

You are forgetting one vital fact, lichie.
I attribute it to a lack of bardic training.

Narrative causality. If the story would be improved by discord being found, the practically impossibly chance will happen.

(Also, Infinite Improbability Drive.)

"I liked that cutie mark. It was cool and unique! Now I'm just going to have to go home and buck apples until I get my apple bucking cutie mark,"

The pony formerly known as Metal Mask rolled her eyes. "I suppose it was inevitable."

...
>_>
<_<
(POUNCECUDDLE)

[Thanqol]

Joyreaper? Escort our guest to the Gallery of Faces. She is allowed to take one, please make sure that she doesn't choose anything capable of overpowering her or doing any kind of long term spirutual damage.

Ma'am. This way, my little pony.

"'kay. What have you got for me?"

You are forgetting one vital fact, lichie.
I attribute it to a lack of bardic training.

Narrative causality. If the story would be improved by discord being found, the practically impossibly chance will happen.

(Also, Infinite Improbability Drive.)

Also known as Fate Magic.

"What are the odds a cast-off statue of a deity in space will be found?"
"Really good, actually."

...
>_>
<_<
(POUNCECUDDLE)

"Ahh! Oh, right. Now I remember. Ponythread."

[Aotrs Commander]

One such makes the assertion that distance is an illusion and what truly matters is the sympathetic connections between things. You are more connected to your mother in America than you are to the stranger next to you on the bus.

And that's not even getting into Fate magic and narrative based magic systems.

You understand the enormity of the forces and scales involved, for sure. I am of the theory that Ponyville's laws of physics actually structure around narrative causality. The day Rainbow Dash decides to be a superhero the world retroactively reworks into a perpetual disaster zone to enable it. Under that universe's metaphysics the odds of Discord being discovered again are based on "How interesting would it be to have him come back?"

Nope, don't buy that, sorry. The universe is just too big.

I don't recall many if any magic-based-systems that utilise actual stellar distances, i.e. interplanetary travel (even the Force, which is affected by proximity of relationships, is ALSO limited - or at least migitated - by distance).

There is a galaxy of difference between "quantity that is bigger than operational area so appears effectively infinite" and "actually infinite."

Let me put it this way. To paraphrase something I once read (because I cannot for the unlife of me find the quotation, but it was some fairly big sci-fi writer, talking about his story), "how does having an invincible hull not solve all the problems?"

Meaning that, if such infinite power is available, why is it only limited to this one instance of "nuh-uh?" Why cannot aliens from the other end of the galaxy not just pop over whenever they feel like and vice-versa? Why is there ever any sort of challenge is there are no limitations - and most importantly, from a real-world perspective - why is evidence of this not ingrained the very base of society and function wherever magic shows up? Because if it really that easy, why doesn't everyone do it? All the time?

To drag D&D back into it, why isn't everywhere the equivilent of the Tippyverse, if that's true?

Either magic is unlimited in power and scope, in which case it should be everywhere and abused like it's going out of fashion for everything possibly imaginable, up to and including the creation/destruction of solar systems, new dimensions, the complete negation of death/time/whatever, or it isn't. The lack of the former being widespread across the entire of the everything would empirically suggest the latter.

And the moment he does escape, you're right back to square one, given that distance has no real meaning to the spirit of chaos.

Don't believe that, either. Discord is not completely omnipotent because HE HAS BEEN BEATEN. TWICE.

If he was capable of infinite power, he couldn't have been.

Eh, it's less of a major magical effect if D&D isn't your go-to magical system. I'm still getting to grips with MAGE the Awakening, but sympathetic connections are a lot easier to work with than any kind of tape-measure-limit. Simply knowing Discord's true name would be enough to put him in easy range of magic, as far as I understand.

And my (limited) understanding of Mage is that it has no point of contact with any form of space travel or intersystem functionality, does it, being confined to one planet (Earth) and possibly coterminuous dimensions? If so, you can't then say it's magic works over interstellar distances "infinite on the same plane of in this case, planet, maybe solar system" (sic) is not the same as actually "really, infinite, honest".

Unless there are actual aliens in Mage...?

Relative scale (even relative infinite) is not even remotely the same as actual absolute scale.



I think I had better stop this line of thinking, though, because I'm starting to get snippy, and that isn't condusive to any of us.

Spelljammer is a D&D setting, innit?

You realise that using spelljammer as justifaction for anything but ridicule to me is only the tiniest bit less daft than using vampires, right?

I find that setting to be the most ludicrous pile of nonsensical crap I have ever encountered in any anything, with the possible exception of FATAL.

[Thanqol]

Nope, don't buy that, sorry. The universe is just too big.

Size matters not.

Either magic is unlimited in power and scope, in which case it should be everywhere and abused like it's going out of fashion for everything possibly imaginable, up to and including the creation/destruction of solar systems, new dimensions, the complete negation of death/time/whatever, or it isn't. The lack of the former being widespread across the entire of the everything would empirically suggest the latter.

From your own admission these things could be happening all the time and how would we know?

And my (limited) understanding of Mage is that it has no point of contact with any form of space travel or intersystem functionality, does it, being confined to one planet (Earth) and possibly coterminuous dimensions? If so, you can't then say it's magic works over interstellar distances "infinite on the same plane of in this case, planet, maybe solar system" (sic) is not the same as actually "really, infinite, honest".

Nope. I don't know where you got this silly idea. Old Mage, most Orders had their headquarters off planet (in the height of 90's sillyness). Also space was only big because the Technocracy had shaped the Consensus that way. If enough people believed otherwise it wouldn't be.

New Mage, if you can get a hunk of rock from a planet on the other side of the galaxy you can use it to open a Sympathetic portal just as easily as you could open one to an office building you had a similar rock from. Also in New Mage, building personal Solar Systems is one of the mid-range things an Archmaster can do.

Unless there are actual aliens in Mage...?

oMage, the Nephandi I think. nMage you can take your pick of half a dozen different explanations ranging from "Reskinned fairies" to "Extradimensional invaders"

You realise that using spelljammer as justifaction for anything but ridicule to me is only the tiniest bit less daft than using vampires, right?

I find that setting to be the most ludicrous pile of nonsensical crap I have ever encountered in any anything, with the possible exception of FATAL.

I was merely testing the waters, sir.

[Alabenson]

Don't believe that, either. Discord is not completely omnipotent because HE HAS BEEN BEATEN. TWICE.

If he was capable of infinite power, he couldn't have been.

Your argument for the limits of Discord's power is based on the fact that he has been beaten by the concentrated power of the conduits to the most powerful underlying force in the MLP universe.

That's a bit like arguing that an object is flammable because it would ignite if tossed into the sun. The example is simply too extreme to build a useful argument around. Discord might not be completely omnipotent, but he's close enough that the distinction is irrelevant.

[Tiki Snakes]

This is the Ancient Gallery, our little Hall of Faces. There are a couple of hundred magical masks in here, as well as a handful of helmets and at least five sets of enchanted spectacles. Most of the objects here were either crafted by, or at least in the possession of an evil cult, intergalactic crime syndicate, insane wizard or demonic entity of some sort, (and there's a lot of cross-over between all that, let me tell you!), before falling into our possession. They should mostly be safe for you to use, and the Commander has said you may freely take your choice, though I'd avoid anything with a floaty-aura and all of the ones with a persistant smell of bacon, if I were you. Their properties are diverse, their abilities vary immensely, and some of them look really silly.

*Does her best to ignore Lix tackle-hugging Sundancer from no-where*

Take your pick, it's all up to you now.
(Then draw it for us).

As for Mage and Space, there is little Interstellar action in mage, because of how sympathetic magic works. There's a good chance that Neil Armstrong, if he awakened (And if he actually went to the moon rather than it being an elaborate Seer Plot), could with the correct arcana open a portal there easily enough. But no-one else has the right kind of connection to pull that off with anything less than herculean effort (and it's probably some kind of Seer plot regardless of whether he went or not).

A Fragment of the statue, the creatures true name, a vial of chaotic energy, all things that would make it easy to fetch Discord-Statue, and there are plenty of ways that a Mage could find such items in the first place. Distance barely comes into it.

[MCerberus]

Backstory for Esteban Magnet, if you've never heard of him.
Youtube captions put the words "Steven Magnet" underneath him in the episode, and it just stuck because it looked like a name.



As for SiuiS, Pinkie isn't an eldritch abomination, she just channels the energy of The Pink One as one whose mind can comprehend and manipulate the powers without going mad. Or as the Lich would post, Superpowers, superpowers everywhere.