It has to be something monumental in that pony's "domain" that unleashes an incredible magical energy. In Twilight's case, it was completing Starswirl's spell with the strength of her friends and embodying the Elements of Harmony collectively. For Cadance, it was swaying the heart of a villain with her love and compassion, which resonated with said villain's Artifact of Doom. For AJ, it could be uniting and harnessing the power of her entire family through some source, or unleashing some kind of Ultimate Truth or something like that.

edited 6th Mar '13 2:01:10 PM by PerpetualLurker

Their eyes must be tired.

Few conventions exist out of space and time.

Repost:

Yeah it seem now that a pony (of any tribe) just needs to do something never done before for the good of others with lots of magic involved and hey presto, ascension. Sounds easier than it is though.

@ Red E Ps are tricky yes. I mean, I don't know what they could do. Although they do have magic...I've no doubt that they could do Power of Love stuff similar to Cadence's and SA's move.

edited 6th Mar '13 1:57:52 PM by ApplelightLimited

Here's a fun game:

Devise ways to earn Alicornhood.

We've seen what earth ponies do under the power of love already. They get really physically strong.

edited 6th Mar '13 2:01:03 PM by Badwolfwho

Just saw the new canon stuff. Hot damn, that's some awesome stuff in that book! I wonder if I can get a e-reader version of it?

It raises the interesting question of what exactly is the 'trigger', aside from the artifacts that give them the magical key. Is it talent? One presumes, since Twilight's was unlocked via magic and Cadence's via love, both of which appear to be their talents, but then how is someone's special talent the sun or the moon? IS it in relation to an event? Twilight was doing magic, and Cadence was spreading love - it's certainly feasible Celestia and Luna's ascension came in relation to their moving the sun and moon. Perhaps they were trying to make the sun and moon autonomous?

IT's kind of a shame, for my part, that this is inching towards jossing my idea of the alicorn's as ghosts/spirits. Although that distresses me mostly because it makes the idea of having a pony made entirely out of sapient sand much less feasible. Still, it does open a lot of other neat avenues, so there's that.

*reads Whatshisgame's post*

Wow, that's a lot of new information.

Processing...Processing...◊

I'm still going with the headcanon that it was defeating Discord, either the actual defeat, or simply gathering the Elements together for the first time to try and defeat him, that Ascended Tia and Luna.

@ Sera

That sounds plausible to me.

EDIT:

Idea for an ascension method...pony goes to the underworld (or other dimension) to retrieve a friend, doing something awesome to get back.

edited 6th Mar '13 2:16:22 PM by ApplelightLimited

For ourselves or random ponies?

@Kegi: You can have sand ponies as something else. It's not like cretures with tht description would be out of place on the show.

EDIT: Also, Meghan says that a recent meeting she attended included the words "This is the most epic thing we've done with pony".

Those are big claims and I hope that they are fulfilled.

edited 6th Mar '13 2:17:24 PM by Sereg

Yeah, that's pretty reasonable. Still leaves a lot of options for the triggers too, and for what exactly determins their 'potfolio' afterwords.

edited 6th Mar '13 2:20:46 PM by kegisak

@ Sereg

Just random ponies...I guess it depends on their talents.

@Cookoo: It will be on NOOK and Kindle.

Reposting my edit:

Also, Meghan says that a recent meeting she attended included the words "This is the most epic thing we've done with pony".

Those are big claims and I hope that they are fulfilled.

Twilight did go to the underworld that one time. Though that was to return a pet rather than rescue someone.

Pony fights whoever is charge in the underworld for said friend.

Nah, this doesn't work.

And I hope this news means that Season 4 is going to be good.

edited 6th Mar '13 2:21:17 PM by ApplelightLimited

@Sereg: Well, it's more to do with that it's a specific pony: Amos, the god of the shifting sands. He was the oldest of the currently-operating gods, and didn't quite figure out how to make a proper body, so he just made an approximation of a body out of the sand in his desert, since he didn't really need a body anyways. Though at that point it's possible to say the Alicorn's are energy beings anyways, and they still have to build their own bodies.

You could adapt the Greek myth of Persephone... where the Pony goes down and does something that so impresses the lord of the underworld that he gives their friend back... but the friend ate 3 apples (or something similar) while they were down there so they have to stay 3 months out of the year.

edited 6th Mar '13 2:23:41 PM by Turtlebutter

It's just nice to have it confirmed.

Ok, looked at at the Amazon link Whatshisgame posted, and found this book on the what other people who bought this bought list.

Oh 4chan, you never fail to amaze me.

Apparently they're donating some of the proceeds to Make A Wish.

So really 4chan is amazing you twice by shitting this out and then making something nice happen.

I don't see why Hasbro doesn't cash in on Daring's popularity. Spinoff books alone would sell out rather quickly.

...And all we did was make a fake book series page.

4CHAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!

edited 6th Mar '13 3:16:41 PM by Calnos

I was thinking more Eurydice.