Spoilers for Fallout: Equestria backstory and world building
It's interesting to think about how the show has developed from the first season, specifically, in ways that ret-con the Fallout: Equestria universe. For those who haven't read it, Fallout: Equestria involves a pony-zebra war leading to a "mega-spell bomb" apocalypse and the pegasi sealing up the clouds for 200 years and refusing to open it again (depriving it of direct sunlight and assisstance in farming).
But Fallout: Equestria takes place in a season one Equestria. And so much has changed throughout the series. And some of these changes came very quickly after that fic had first been published at the beginning of season 2.
1, Wendigos (And the Crystal Empire) - Season 2 and 3
70 years of war would've fostered a lot of racism and hate against zebras, and look how quickly the wendigos showed up just in the finale. On the one hoof, it seems very easy to foster racism among ponies (Seriously, you hear the mayor of Appleloosa's hoarding food and you refuse to speak to your Earth pony colleague in Canterlot?). But wendigos are pretty quick on the draw, and would've turned Equestria into a wasteland long before the megaspells hit.
Similarly, if the fear and other negative emotions of the war spread to the Crystal Empire, that's gonna be bad for all Equestria. If the Crystal Empire doesn't join the war it becomes a refugee point for pony civilization to survive.
2, Discord's reformation - Season 3
Really, once he's a good guy he's a living safety net. What's more, how do you have a war over coal when you have a god of chaos that can create matter from nothing?
3, Unicorn weather manipulation - Season 3 finale and Journal of the Two Sisters
In the first season it seemed like only pegasi could rule the weather. In the Journal of the Two Sisters it's revealed that the sun and moon used to be controlled by a mere ten unicorns, it's just that they had to be in rotation because it would drain their magic. More pertinently, in Magical Mystery Cure, we see Rarity using magic to control the weather. She's not good at it, and it's from a cutie mark switching spell, but a unicorn wouldn't have to be an expert. That scene is a reminder that Equestria's cloud covering isn't miles above the world like on earth; it's a low ceiling atmosphere where some unicorn could probably reach up and rip clouds right out of the sky. If the pegasi tried to close up the sky, it wouldn't last.
4, Twilight's Princesshood - Season 3
I'm actually not totally sure how this, on its own, would've altered the FO:E backstory. Twilight and Cadence would've been two extra princesses and the possibility for even more alicorns would be open. Twilight would also be spreading friendship across Equestria and beyond with the Cutie Map.
5, Starlight's alteration of Starswirl's time travel spell - Season 5
As of the Cutie Re-mark, time travel becomes much more accessible than even the closed time loop of It's About Time in season 2. We even see a wasteland version of Equestria (heck, maybe it's the FO:E universe), before Equestria is switched back.
6, The School of Friendship - Season 8
The school of friendship enshrines Equestria's harmonious philosophy into a school and brings all races adjacent to Equestria together to integrate. Diplomatic relations begin between all the new races appearing in the show; changelings, dragons, hippogriffs, griffons, etc. This would've A) Made war much more unlikely and B) Even if it did occur, put many more options into the hands of ponies. Use changelings to infiltrate the enemy? Dragons on the battlefield? Have frightened ponies turn into hippogriffs and live underwater instead of a bunch of sketchy stables? Or even becoming refugees in Saddle Arabia and Yakyakistan?
(Another potential refugee point: The Equestria Girls universe)
7, The depiction of other races and the lack of zebras.
This is far from a definitive problem for FO:E but . . . zebras don't appear to live close enough to Equestria to ever be mentioned again, and what's more, every new race we've seen has been technologically inferior to ponies. If ponies did go to war with any of the other nations, they'd probably not be so evenly matched that the war lasts decades. But even if they were, how far away and/or sparsely populated are the zebras that they never appear again? It doesn't rule out a long, bloody zebra war, but it does cast just that bit more doubt.
8, Speaking of the lack of battle-ready zebras, what about the lack of battle-ready ponies?
The mane 6 seem to be Equestria's primary defense. Yes, in the season 4 and season 9 finales we see other ponies fighting, but that's a lot of absence from everybody but the mane 6 the rest of the time. In the season 9 finale it was hundreds of civilians showing up. Civilians. The royal guard appear useless, and after 9 seasons the closest Equestria seems to have to a military is the Wonderbolts.
The one time we do see an army, in the Sombra war, they're basically slap-fighting each other. It's a physical brawl at best, the most dangerous weapon seen being a rock that was on the battlefield. Everything about how ponies fight is disorganized chaos.
9, The Tree of Harmony is a Deus Ex Machina, and the elements are irrelevant.
Like Discord, if things get to out of hand, the tree of harmony is sentient enough to take matters into its own hands, as we saw in School Raze.
Also, while Twilight didn't need the physical elements in even the first episode, the premiere and finale of season 9 made it a point to emphasize that the magic of friendship can just make ponies, or at least the mane 6, but also the student six and the pillars, laser up and restore harmony when they need to. They restored the magic Tirek stole in Twilight's Kingdom, vaporized Sombra, and drain or wipe away disharmonious magic in Equestria-wide blasts.
10, Ponies are swayed really, really easily.
I mentioned earlier how easy it was to make ponies racist in the finale. But on the flip-side, we pretty much saw FO:E-like events take place during the finale in quick time, including the clouds that cover Equestria being done away with. Ponies became racist and hateful, and the pegasi closing up the sky like in the fic, and that cloud covering was undone by a foal giving a speech, then everyone gathered to help the mane 6 fight for Equestria, all in the span of, what? A day? A couple months if you include the sewing of racial dissent leading up to it?
Sure, it's not an exact analogue. For example, the pegasi have no radioactive, wasteland to close off and no time for a dictatorship to form around keeping anyone from going down there. But at the same time this does not seem like a species that would be committed to a war for 70 years and then close up the sky for another 200.
The ease with which ponies can be manipulated seems to make them extremely malleable, but they almost seem so malleable that they're impossible to control mentally. You can fool some of the ponies all the time, and all the ponies some of the time, but when a few dissidents and sly words can change the sentiment of a nation, it seems like these ponies would be about as easy to control and manipulate as a cat.
It's like the ponies are so gullible they circle back to being impossible to fool for very long.
11, Twilight ascends and . . .
The opening of Fallout: Equestria tries to use Equestria's history of peace as a reason the war lasted so long, but there's also Equestria's cultural focus on friendship, especially post-School of Friendship and Twilight's coronation, and yet it can't seem to figure out how to end a war for seventy years? At some point between the series premiere and it's finale this stops being believable, and I'm not totally sure where. That's not even getting into Equestria plundering another country for resources in the first place (Despite the story depicting it as a desperate move).
And lastly . . .
12, . . . Luna retires
For those who've read the story, you know why this is a clincher. The zebra's fear and misunderstanding of Luna is central to the inability of the ponies and zebras to find a diplomatic resolution. No Luna in power means no zebras terrified of her being in power.
There's also a couple things that might effect the Fallout: Equestria universe, but I'm not sure how . . .
In Fallout: Equestria, Scootaloo ends up in charge of designing the bunkers that the survivors of the apocalypse will live in. (This involves experiments to try to re-design pony society). I doubt Scootaloo would get the same position with the CMC's role helping ponies get their marks.
The entire mane 6 is much more busy, with much more defined roles in the show, so I doubt they'd become "ministry mares" like they do in the fic but it's still possible.
We've also seen the actual roles they're likely to take in war-time in Cutie Re-mark, by helping the war-effort either with their known professions or on the front lines.
2, It's a magical world.
Outside mega-spells and magi-tech there's very little magic in Fallout: Equestria's war-time Equestria. But Equestria in seasons 4-9 is a-run with magical wildcards; Tirek's magic stealing, the pony of shadows able to feed off despair and corrupt a pony, and the fact that battles are routinely fought not physically but through things like draining magic, power-ups and magic blasts. It's hard to imagine an Equestrian war not involving those things, or not having the magical energy of some pony's negative feelings turn them into a monster that runs amok. Combine this with how easily ponies are swayed and I feel an actual pony war would be a lot less . . . straightforward or predictable.
What do you guys think? For those who've read Fallout: Equestria, how would it look different considering things post-season 2? What other things in the show might change the direction or appearance of a pony-zebra war?
For those who haven't read the fic . . . Thanks for reading this far. Hope it wasn't too confusing. Feel free to contribute anyway.
I'm currently away at college and unable to ride. I was wondering if you guys had any tips for how to stay in shape without actually being able to ride. Everytime I go back home I feel like I'm in worse condition than the last
Clipping goals :)
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