Oh no, I'm getting depressed. Here I go again

DAMN IT, AJ!!!!!

Big Mac dies in a farm accident. AJ inherits the farm. There's an investigation into the matter by the life insurance company.

edited 8th Dec '11 9:42:18 AM by CDRW

RS: Hehe, although if that's true, Twi doesn't seem to be daunted by being physically weaker. She seemed to be quite willing to lead the charge against the Manticore. Plus when they go to confront Zecora, she's literally butting heads for a bit.

Is the forum acting weird for anyone?

I tried to post this earlier:

@ RS Yeah that's pretty much it.

However, what about those Unicorn guards...and Fancy Pants? They seem pretty strong. Then again, they might be 'realsiticaly' strong, whilst an EP (like alpha pony Mac) would be cartoonishly strong.

In my fanon, the reason why we haven't seen any EP guards yet is because there hasn't been a suituation serious enough to deploy them yet...the Unicorns and Pegasi are like beat cops...the EP division are the Riot Squad.

Yeah, keep getting internal errors out the kazoo.

Stupid Twilight.

I wonder if the unicorn guards are particularly skilled in using magic? I was thinking maybe that's why they've only been seen in Canterlot so far, because that's the city with the highest concentration of unicorns... and if a unicorn goes bad you'd want ANOTHER unicorn around to counter them.

edited 8th Dec '11 9:47:30 AM by gingerninja666

Pegasi are weaker than earth ponies

Compare legendary Rainbow Dash sonic rainboom is barely able too keep up with AJ

Yeah, it's not like AJ herself is special or anything

Well, we don't really see guards outside Canterlot other than when the princesses are visiting Ponyville. And they only seem to be concerned with traveling with a tiny escort. I suspect if they were willing to bring more guards, we might see a second chariot bringing in earth pony and unicorn guards.

And yea, I was having issues getting the forum pages to load at all. The main site was okay, though.

EDIT: Hehe, thought just occurred to me that it would be funny to see a group of guard chariots escorting the princesses like the secret service.

edited 8th Dec '11 9:57:05 AM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

God Mode level power (or rather, power than can only be overcome by a god) bugs me

True, AJ kicks harder and stopped a runaway cart no sweat...and although RD beat her at hoof wrestling, I put it down to better leverage because she does karate.

edited 8th Dec '11 9:57:02 AM by ApplelightLimited

Yeah, a lot of the issue here seems to be that people are using Twilight and Rainbow Dash as the baseline for Unicorn and Pegasus skill levels, when they're both pretty much at the top of their respective disciplines.

Also, the hoof wrestling was front legs. AJ's back legs (you know, the ones she actually uses for bucking), are probbaly several orders of magnitude stronger.

@Ginger: Yeah, Twilight has tons of raw power, but she seriously lacks finesse. Having an "overpowered" character is only a problem if that power allows them to solve all the conflicts too easily which isn't at all the case here. If this were Shounen, it would be a problem, but it's primarily Slice of Life, so the "power levels" of the various characters aren't nearly as important as their personalities.

edited 8th Dec '11 9:58:37 AM by JapaneseTeeth

"Pretty much?" They're both "living legend" tier!

Seems like server hiccups to me.

I can hardly wait for the next episode :3

Troper-OC ponies I can recall: Peeler, Tea Love, Clockpunk pony, and my own Bright "Bri" Idea. There are more, aren't there?

On the topic of Pony skills/strength: Clearly Twi is already Prodigy-tier, and Dashie is actually more than physically fit to keep up with the Wonderbolts (It's more her attitude that needs adjustment). AJ has Charles Atlas Superpowers from being only one of two ponies doing the majority of the heavy work on Sweet Apple Acres most of the time.

Pinkie's EP magic manifests as her Pinkie Sense, a form of superpony sensory perception.

edited 8th Dec '11 10:01:31 AM by AceOfScarabs

Teeth: Hey, I cited both Dashie and Fluttershy and no one seemed to take my Fluttershy argument into account.

Ginger: But... but... cute purple unicorn! I do have to agree a little, though. Twi's power sometimes makes me a little uncomfortable and I'm sure you guys all know how much I like her by now.

I've got my ponysona/OC, although I never really talk about her (both here and anywhere else), since OCs are often a touchy subject.

edited 8th Dec '11 10:01:41 AM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

The WIP Sea Pony band...with their Octoquine drummer Jelly Bloom.

edited 8th Dec '11 10:00:03 AM by ApplelightLimited

@CDRW: I don't think I'd go quite that far, unless you're referring to the Save The World thing. Yeah, RD pulled off a Rainboom, but she still has more than enough other problems (reliability) that she's hardly legendary. Ditto for Twilight, she's powerful, but her spells backfire horribly just as often as they work.

And again, I don't really see "power levels" being a problem in this type of show unless they're used as a Deus ex Machina, which they haven't been. Twilight may very well be incredibly powerful, but I don't see how that really makes a huge difference here given that's not at all the point of the show.

edited 8th Dec '11 10:01:32 AM by JapaneseTeeth

Which is one of my issues with AJ (I'm in full on depressed mode btw, if you couldn't tell)

Twilight is the absolute pinnacle of unicorns

RD is the absolute pinnacle of Pegasi

AJ... is not the absolute pinnacle of Earth Ponies. There are several E Ps who are stronger than her

Why does she need to be the pinnacle of the Earth Ponies? All that would do is make Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rarity seem more useless. Besides, having the show be about a group of friends where each member of the group is "THE BEST" just doesn't make for as good of a story. And it's not realistic to boot; in any given group of friends, it's way more likely that one or two of them are going to be a lot more effective at what they do than the others are. The show reflects that.

Yeah, well, the hauler Earth Ponies who pull the train to Appleloosa are hauling a whole train and cargo and passengers, they'd obviously be stronger. AJ still has better passive EP magic in her farming hax, which helps her basically run a two-pony operation on Sweet Apple Acres alongside her brother.

Tealove's a Canon Foreigner, not an OC.

@JT Yeah, but it still bothers me. I don't give two shits if it's realistic. I DON'T WATCH THIS SHOW FOR REALISM!!

and they all ARE the best at what they do. AJ's the only one that we've seen where we can't say that

edited 8th Dec '11 10:08:01 AM by gingerninja666

I think Applejack's a bit more well rounded, though. She's still got great strength and really good agility to go with it. Not to mention she's the most level headed and charismatic enough to keep a large business running.

@ Ginger

OK, so AJ isn't the pinnacle of E Ps...so what? She's proven herself to be much more emotionally stable than the others (this is actually quite a good trait). Plus, even as a humble farmer, she can reasonably take on one of Equestria's greatest athlets (RD).

And I'm still certain that the pinnacle of E Ps can break rock, bend metal, batter a Manticore silly and throw off a dog pile of doom with no effort...when he isn't beating the mares back with a shitty stick.

Isn't that right Mac?

Eeeyep.

Are we talking forum-wide ones, or personal ones? Because I've got somewhere between a few and a butload, depending on how you count characters constructed for stories.

About the aerth pony thing, keep in mind their big thing accordin to word of faust is that they're supposed to have a connection to the earth. We don't really know what this actually means, keep in mind - it could be anything from drawing strength from the earth to simply making plants grow faster. At either rate, my personal theory on magic as a whole is that it's sort of like a martial art - the average pony can't do much spectacular magic in the same way that the average person can't punch a cinder block in half. Twilight's learned her martial art, but she's the only one. We just haven't seen an earth pony that's learned their martial art yet. As for personal opinion...

because all EP's are connected to the earth, they're also connected to each other. Eart pony magic increases exponentially as more of them are together

the EP connection to the earth is two-way. They can give power to it, or draw from it's enourmous magical pool. They can use this to basically manipulate the earth itself, from steeling their bodies to making plants grow at superspeed, to travelling through the earth like water.