@Lurker: So do I, actually - it even gets over the usual general/specific spell hump I see, which is assuming that there's a specific spell for bloody everything (e.g. 'Levitate: Coffee Cup' and 'Levitate: Spoon' being separate spells), which is silly.

on power levels: I'm of the opinion that Celestia is limiting herself most of the time, like during her fight with Chysalis and in the past with Sombra. She limits herself to avoid collateral damage and traumatizing her little ponies.

When discord happened the first time, that was a case of passing the Godzilla Threshold. So she totally went Supes, pulled a "World of Cardboard" Speech, and unleashed.

And that's why all natural functions have to be controlled by ponies now, because the fight against Discord broke nature.

The end of episode 2 implied that Celestia was returning from the sun. Who do you think put her there?

@Perpetual Lurker: Admitedly possible, but I find that explanation overly complicated, so I'm not going to accept it without more canon evidence.

EDIT: T Here's also the issue that the fact that spells that powerful can exist implies that other equally powerful (ie. world-destroying) spells also exist.

I used to think that too. Then Hearth's Warming Eve showed us that nature's been broken longer than that. So, a different fight then.

edited 28th Nov '12 6:31:56 AM by Sereg

Except for that one patch of forest.

@Ed: The Ever Free is forever immune to pony and Discordian Magic.

@Sereg: I attribute it to the destruction of the Heart of Ponyland.

edited 28th Nov '12 6:32:48 AM by AceOfScarabs

@Blissey: But, ponies already had to control nature before Discord came around.

Anyway, I'm not sure if it's appropriate to put it here, but I just read the comic. Pretty fun though rather short and a bit rushed feeling, also pretty thick on the humor. I'll be looking to see what else comes of it.

That was were the majority of ponies lived at the time, so they put a barrier over it that blocked the effects of the battle

Actually, I sort of have my own theory on Celestia's power limitus: Almost all of the Royal Guard are automata. There's too few ponies who actually have the capacity to be career soldiers, much less the ability, so Celestia pads the ranks by building an army of fully sapient guards from scratch. A section of her power is devoted to maintaining them at all times, and she'sd only break them of in the case of a huge crises, because doing so would effectively kill them, and many of them have developed full, rich lives.

Huh. Comic looks pretty good so far.

Celestia sort of just flew in from the window, didn't she? I've never thought that her disappearance had anything to do with being banished. That, and I think anything like that happening would have been a lot, well, flashier.

@sereg and Mio: I'm also of the headcanon that the story as told during Hearths Warming Eve is not an accurate depiction of the past, but a version that's changed a lot over the years to be something more familiar and relate able to modern day ponies.

edited 28th Nov '12 6:39:52 AM by Blissey1

What makes you say that? I see no reason why there would be any shortage of ponies who are capable of being a soldier. I could maybe see a lack of ponies who desire to become a soldier, but even then I don't think it would be so small that it neccesitates magical robots.

That's more or less what I see too. But I don't think that that discounts the possibility of ponies controlling nature before Discord.

edited 28th Nov '12 6:39:41 AM by Mio

Mostly I expect the bulk of the guards to be more like peacekeepers and police rather than a straight-up army.

@Kegi: Wouldn't that be a really ineffecient use of power? (Actually, I don't know. I don't know much about logistics.)

I do think that forCelestia to use her full power, she has to drop the sun though.

@Sereg: I expect that her true power is masked by the trappings of her physical body, and she has to unravel it if she wants to really cut loose.

@Sereg: Not really. She's less powerful on the whole but it gives her the ability to still be quite powerful over a very wide range. Besides, it's not like she really needs that much power most of the time.

@Mio: The only ponies we've ever seen willing to take it to blows have been the mane six and Twilight's brother, and bear in mind the mane six are pretty much the chosen heroes of Equestria. I don't doubt that their willingness to fight factored into the elements choosing them. But really, most ponies just don't seem like the fighting type, to me. When I say they don't have the capcity I mean they wouldn't really know what to do in a fight.

Of course that said, it's mostly just a funny idea I had. I have one in the complete oppsite direction as well: That the entire upper class is trained as either spies or warriers to deal with things that the common ponies would rather not know about(Also a funny idea, mind you).

All I'm going to say on the Power Level discussion is this:

It's based very heavily on headcanon. If you personally believe that Celestia is that powerful, fine, but don't try to argue that canon proves it. We don't have any hard evidence that the sun is in any way comparable in size or mass to our own. I can't take stuff like constellations as evidence because there are tons of similarities between real life and Equestria that don't make any sense when you make those kinds of assumptions.

I don't think that Celestia has ever been portrayed as that much more powerful in the show. Literally the only evidence for that is "She can move the sun", and we have zero frame of reference for how much effort that actually takes, so extrapolating her overall power level from that seems impossible to me.

@Sereg I don't consider it to be too complicated. More specific = More efficient. Pretty simple, if you ask me. And sure, someone could potentially research a planet-busting spell, but how are you going to test that? Who would want to test that? Who would want to even begin researching that? Celestia sure as hell wouldn't.

Fancy Pants is their leader.

edited 28th Nov '12 6:49:54 AM by edvedd

Fancy Pants is a spymaster, and Fleur is one of his best agents, who has a dayjob as a sueprmodel.

@JT: Well I will say Hearth Warming's Eve seemed to imply that it took the entire unicorn race, but it's also possible it was just the king and queen and the rest of the unicorn's just fucked about all day.

That said, I agree with you. Also, on then ote of the size of the sun and moon I recall once reading a story where Celestia and Luna reveal that Canterpurnicus's calculations on the size of the sun and moon were actually wrong, but the princesses altered their orbits to match his calculations because he was just so proud of them. in truth the moon was small enough to fit in the backyard of the mare who had won itfrom Luna in a bet.

@Ace: Well, as I said, that's true in the Pony POV Series, but I don't think that Celestia can do that. Technically, my version of Plutonia can shed her body, but that actually renders her incapable of physically interacting with the world. Of course, that's just a benefit to being the alicorn of death.

Actually, my favourite ponyfic has Celestia as more powerful than I think of her, but nothing like the Pony POV Series. That is My Little Alicorn. Though Celestia only demonstrates her power in flashbacks.

Also, I remember some people grumbling back when Discord was introduced because they still wanted to believe that Celestia was omnipotent (what.).

EDIT: @JT: Oh, I agree with that. I'm not trying to say that canon proves she's that powerful. I'm merely explaining why I interpret canon that way.

Agreed!

edited 28th Nov '12 6:58:07 AM by Sereg

@kegi: *shrug* civilians in almost any setting are usually not going to fight when it comes down to it, and if they did they probably wouldn't. I don't see that as a trait unique to ponies. Besides, we've seen the Appleosans are willing to take it to blows, regardless of how silly that turned out to be (TV-Y and all).

edited 28th Nov '12 6:58:43 AM by Mio

Riiiight. Powerful as she may or may not be Celestia has never been omnipotent. She doesn't even qualify for Omniscient, which one sort of needs to be omnipotent.

True enough. I mostly jus liked the idea for the image of all the guard disintegrating and Celestia going One-Winged Angel mode.

edited 28th Nov '12 6:56:16 AM by kegisak

@Kegisak: I don't think it ever specifies exactly how many unicorns it took to pull it off. Depending on the individual power level, it could probably range anywhere from half a dozen really powerful unicorns to a few hundred.

Celestia has power, but she doesn't have absolute omniscience or omnipotence.

Anyways Ponies usually only fight if defending their territory or loved ones, they'd prefer to flee or use diplomacy but aren't afraid to punt you if you go too far.

edited 28th Nov '12 6:59:52 AM by AceOfScarabs