@rat: Zecora is classy. I'm still waiting for the episode where she breaks rhyme as a gag.

edited 3rd Sep '12 10:56:25 PM by edvedd

Back in her hometown, Zecora was known as the Mistress of Slam Poetry, she who could drive a man to tears and give him new strength in two verses.

@Dorku: I disagree. The landscape is curved enough in long-distance shots to suggest planetary curves consistent with Earth-sized planets.

Huh. I had not considered that.

Then again, it does run into the whole thing with the sun that doesn't make sense, but I'm willing to chalk that one up to magic.

Sleep o'clock for me. Good night/morning/mid-afternoon.

G'night Syd.

Given the extent of mathematics, advanced physics and astronomy prevalent in-show, I feel that their world is more like ours than most would expect, only more energy (magic) rich.

Clouds are solid objects. How much not-like ours can you get?

Only for pegasi though. If that cloud-walking spell hadn't worked, Pinkie would have fallen right through when she jumped out of the hot air balloon.

Their world works like ours I guess. Just replace science with magic.

edited 3rd Sep '12 11:19:59 PM by edvedd

Magic is just a physics cheat that defies standard Newtonian rules.

They have pastel-colored ponies that talk.

They weaponized an emotion.

They change the seasons BY HAND.

If you want to show how not-like-our-world Equestria is, you can do a lot better than solid clouds.

@Kyler: We can change our own climate too, only it's a lot more expensive and needs lots of machinery. Cloud seeding~

Also weaponized emotion is about par for the cause, especially for Magical Girls.

edited 3rd Sep '12 11:33:11 PM by AceOfScarabs

@Kyler: Pastel-coloured talking ponies with butt tattoos no less.

We change our weather, and only on occasion. Otherwise, the weather usually does its own thing. Ponies have weather management as a year-round job.

They also address the basic, should-be-instinctual needs of ALL local wildlife, like nest-building for birds and food in general.

We tend animals too, but not quite to that level.

edited 3rd Sep '12 11:44:29 PM by edvedd

All this suggests that there was a cataclysmic disaster long ago and the ponies are managing the world manually because much of was rendered uninhabitable or too hostile for them.

You make the assumption that ponies running all the natural processes isn't the natural way of things in Equestria.

Well, given what Discord did before and the track record of megafauna and random villains, it makes it sound like the world was broken before between the likes of random villains and Discord and Windigos.

An implied apocalypse would give it something in common with Adventure Time I guess.

CROSSOVER!

On the other hand, apart from Discord and Nightmare Moon, most of those horrors themselves seem to be natural to the world. Windigos seem to be elementals, for example, rather than Things That Should Not Be, and changelings, hydras, Diamond Dogs et al act more biological in origin than mystical.

edited 4th Sep '12 12:52:40 AM by CountDorku

@Dorku: Point. Nevertheless, the simple fact that a large number of pony festivals celebrate their survival of some vague apocalyptic event suggests that massive civilization-breaking disasters are a matter of course and would definitely make the climate too wild for the ponies, hence their climate engineering.

edited 4th Sep '12 12:55:51 AM by AceOfScarabs

I count two: Hearth's Warming Eve and Nightmare Night. Have I forgotten any?

Hearts and Hooves as well. Also, if we consider the distant pre-Equestrian history of G1 ponies, there are the numerous incidents revolving around the fascist penguins, Smooze, Flutter Valley, and even the incident involving magical breakdown of the world.

Ah, I don't think I ever got around to actually watching that episode, so I forgot that one.

Also, I sort of default to the assumption that if it isn't mentioned in the series it probably didn't happen, so generations one to three don't really count.

But anyway. Three canonical holidays tied to ancient disasters, two of which seemed to primarily affect pony civilisation rather than nature itself. And Discord, whose stuff is reversed by the same blast that petrifies him.

Either the Little Ice Age caused by the Windigo had huge knock-on effects, or things have always been this way.

(Of course, if it turns out there was some epic hypercatastrophe that broke reality, I'll withdraw this assertion, but so far there's been no hint of one that actually counts.)

Mostly I believe that the natural weather of this world is too wild for the ponies, so they have to tame it manually. Also the Windigos and Discord might have had larger consequences than shown onscreen.

edited 4th Sep '12 1:22:11 AM by AceOfScarabs

Given that the mane characters freak out in Elements of Harmony at the idea of clouds moving by themselves, either they have been incredibly successful, or the natural level of activity wildness actually has in Equestria outside is "zzzz, five more aeons".

Likewise, I'm not sure larger consequences that were not seen onscreen or even remotely hinted at are really that relevant to the discussion.

I'd love to continue, but 'tis getting late and someone else wants this Interweb box.