@Storyteller So either a Lemony Snicket narrator as in a serious narrator or a Homestuck narrator as in a comical narrator, right?

Plus I don't know Homestuck so ehhh....

edited 10th Aug '13 10:38:25 AM by Starscream759

@Kegi: I wouldn't know if ponies would import cod liver oil from the Gryphons or something.

I'd hardly call Lemony Snicket a serious narrator, just an incredibly wry one.

The homestuck narrator is a bit more... jabby, I guess. Given that the 'narrator' such as it is is basically game commands, it's be hard to translate well anyways. Unless it was something akin to, "Twilight Sparkle then had an incredibly stupid idea. If she was anypony normal she would have recognized it for what it was and immediately discarded it, but as she was Twilight Sparkle she instead began to smile."

They must have some kind of international relationship to produce griffons with Equestrian and Fancee accents. If they're on good enough terms to have immigrants, they're probably on good enough terms to have trade.

Of course the question is whether they'd actually realize they had things each other wanted, given the differences in physiology, and therefore most likely culture.

edited 10th Aug '13 10:42:45 AM by kegisak

Posey: Thanks.

They're both comical, just in different ways.

@Kegi: True. I reckon the Ponies import certain animal products they need from the Gryphons and hire them as hunters and suchlike, while the Gryphons trade them for plant products and quite possibly paper or even things like spices or tea.

Homestuck's "narrator" is kinda hard to describe given that he's a character in the story.

Internal Narrator? That could make a nice new trope for Narration.

That... goes alarmingly well with my idea of Griffons having a social structure similar to First Nations tribes, actually. So long as nobody suggest blankets...

But yeah, I can imagine that sort of thing. Probably plenty of luxury goods going on, like gems and stuff. Goodness knows the ponies seem to have a surplus on those.

It kinda makes me wonder if they even regard gemstones as precious(Or for that matter if it's not all just like... various impurities of some cheap, common crystals. It'd be funny if it never occured to them that the gems were valuable until somebody else came along and proposed trade for them, though given Platinum's reaction, I doubt that's the case.

edited 10th Aug '13 10:52:38 AM by kegisak

Well, seems certain gems are a lot more valuable than others. Like the tiny ruby that bought the industrial pet dyer, the rare sapphires Rarity needed for her ensemble in Sisterhooves Social and the heart-shaped ruby Rarity was gushing over in Secret of My Excess.

"Internal Narrator"?

I guess conrundum-based gems are particularly valuable in Equestria. No surprise, rubies are used in solid-state lasers and as parts inside modern mechanical clocks to regulate the gears. Mayhaps conrundum gems are also prized as edibles by dragons, who can filter the aluminum out of the conrundum to use in thermite-based dragonfire, and so ponies use stockpiles of rubies and sapphires to trade with them.

I wonder how spice/tea distribution in Equestria works though. Temperate climes aren't good for coffee and tea, so they might import it or grow it at the hotter parts of the country. Maybe they get extra pegasus support to help control temperature and moisture to help such crops prosper.

Gryphons would easily collect ivory/bone for a variety of products, although the average pony might find it a little macabre to use bone products.

...Oh, right, Saddle Arabia. That's where they get their coffee, oil, tea, spices, and quite possibly glass. The land of zebras and Saddle Arabian ponies.

A narrator who exists within the world of the story they recount, sometimes they get affected by in-universe events in a meta kind of The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You.

edited 10th Aug '13 11:07:36 AM by AceOfScarabs

Like the cowboy from The Big Lebowski?

Yep.

It's actually interesting how we can infer a picture of Equestria's economics simply by learning about their resources and skills and their neighbors.

Gryphons: import plant products from Equestria, export ivory/bone products, leather, cod liver oil, and some spices. Possibly some rare (in Equestria) metals as well.

Saddle Arabians: import plant material and weather services, export oil, coffee, tea, some spices, dyes not found in Equestria, glassworking skills.

Dragons: Import certain minerals and metals, export draconic materials (scale castings, old cast-off dragon fangs), draconic abilities (dragonfire), and magical services (dragonfire faxes).

edited 10th Aug '13 11:14:03 AM by AceOfScarabs

I love The Big Lebowski.

"This is what happens when you fight a stranger in the Alps!"

"You may call me The Dude, or his dudeness."

That rug really tied the room together.

The griffons themselves could easily be providers of tea and spices, considering Griffons are creature of Persian myth and would so likely come from a similar area to ancient persia.

They could also trade some more exotic things - the ancient persians actually had a drink made from special flower petals(It was a concentrate that was watered down, and is referred to as a Sherbert, I believe), so they could probably trade those flowers. They probably appreciate certain metals to use in tools, or maybe building supplies or the like. Lumber, perhaps.

Dragons would, I imagine, be very 'exotic' traders because of their travels. Find something interesting? Carry it with you, some pony will be willing to pay gems for it. In fact, they're probably the ones that open most of the trade routes because of this.

And of course there's also the undersea empire to think about in terms of what they can offer.

I was actually just thinking of that movie, though in my head I called it The Big Wazowski.

edited 10th Aug '13 11:19:45 AM by kegisak

Imagining that Sulley is actually Walter makes Monsters Inc, like, six times better.

Ah, pony equinomics, fascinating stuff. It's occurred to me that the world we've seen is pretty small. Equestria, the griffon kingdom, the zebra lands, Saddle Arabia, and whatever unknown lands the changelings went through.

The sea route would offer lots of cod liver oil, seaweed, algae products, and agar, lots of it. Also sea-salt, which is different from rock salt and raw sodium chloride with its own additive minerals.

I'm imagining ponies living on the sea in a fashion akin to the old Orang Laut of the SEA region, living almost entirely on boats with massive rafthouse formations and algae/seaweed farms. They probably also dive for rare seashells and pearls.

semi-Persian Gryphons offering rare dyes and plant products not found in Equestria is an interesting thing. I would definitely see Gryphons of all three "cultures", Equestrian-acclimated, Euro-centric, and Persian-styled, all gathered in trade cities like Manehatten or something. No doubt Manehatten started as a port city and developed an industrial and economic base as a result.

edited 10th Aug '13 11:27:41 AM by AceOfScarabs

Or they all live inside whales. It's warm, roomy and disgusting.

On whales, in saddled shell-raft houses. Some of these seabound ponies love to spread (fake) rumors about uncomfortable encounters with octopi, squid, and randy dolphins to scare the landlubbers.

edited 10th Aug '13 11:29:13 AM by AceOfScarabs

They have tamed kaiju as pets.

Which isn't that scary because sea monsters can't go on land.

My personal take on gems is that they're valued not by rarity, but by quality. Rarity can dig up hundreds of gems, but only a few of them would be flawless enough to fetch particularly high prices. She uses the imperfect ones for feeding Spike, or for stuff like trim that doesn't require super-high quality material. The good ones she either uses as centerpieces (like the ruby) or sells.