I sat down on the invisible platform, admiring my own work. The quasar in front of me was truly beautiful.
It was like a black hole on fire; the disk– accretion disk?– was a dark red at the outer edge, brightening up to an orange in the middle, and ending in a white at the center, where the stellar object itself sat. It was hidden by the bright light. There were also the two opposing streams of light ejecting out from the quasar, at a perpendicular point to the disk’s plane.
All around the star was a reddish nebulae, swirling above and around the disk like an aurora borealis.
‘Wait, is it a star? Or is it like an alternative to black holes? Damn, I could really use Google right about now.’
I resisted the urge to summon a tub of popcorn to eat while watching the sped-up phenomenon. Eating while in a dream, while especially useless to me, was apparently prone to confusing your body. Luna had a lot more experience than me, so I accepted any warnings and advice she would offer me.
“What… is… that?”
I craned my neck around to see Luna slowly walking up to me, eyes and jaw wide. She never stopped staring at the quasar.
“A quasar. Or at least, what we think they look like.”
“What is a quasar?”
“The brightest object in existence. I… I don’t know if there is more known about them. I can’t exactly check anymore.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s… I want to say at the center of each galaxy. Or some galaxies? You get the idea.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“It’s one of the reasons why every galaxy is bright at the center. These and supermassive black holes.”
“A galaxy... I believe I have heard that term in reference once. Something about beyond our solar system, correct?”
“You’re joking, right?”
She shook her head slowly, still admiring the fiery disk in front of us.
“... Right. We’ll get back to this point, then.”
‘Equestria may be a long way away from having actual simulations, but in here I’ve got the next best thing.’
I changed our scenery. We went from floating in space to the usual sitting room in Canterlot Castle. I walked over to the bay doors that led to the balcony and opened them. Luna followed close behind. Walking over to the edge of the balcony, I put my forelegs up on the railing and lifted myself up. I looked up at the starry night sky.
“Tell me what you know about stars.”
Luna joined me by the railing, hopping up in a similar way and brushing against my side with a smile.
“The night sky is a painting of a million stars. In aeons past, I would create a spectacle unrivaled in beauty for all to see. During my absence, the night sky was left… neglected. Celestia did not possess my ability to rearrange the night sky, so she left my last work untouched. Over the centuries, ponies sought to find hidden beauty within my work, creating patterns, stories, and deeper meanings where before there were none. I recall a conversation with Twilight over this one day. She cited a belief named ‘Death of the author.’ I did not know she was into such macabre subjects.
“As it turned out, it is an idea that says each viewer of a work of art, be it paint on canvas or ink on paper, views it in their own way. The creator has no input in how the work should be viewed, despite having created it themself… It is… I wish I had seen even a fraction of that dedication and appreciation before my fall. Not that there was nopony who appreciated my work, but instead that I was blind to seeing their existence.”
“... I’d love to hear the story in full of what happened before Nightmare’s arrival, but let’s go over that later. Right now, let’s talk about the stars. You claim to… arrange the night sky?”
“That is right. It is one of our favorite duties.”
“Last I checked, the night sky is still the same.”
“We… So much culture and appreciation has accumulated around its current form that We can not bring ourselves– I can not bring myself to tear it down to rebuild the sky. Instead, I keep the structure of the sky the same, instead choosing for a more subtle approach. Meteor showers, twinkling stars, auroras, and so forth.”
I shook my head, “Audacious claims of moving stars aside, what do you know about astronomy?”
‘This is also a great chance to hear about Equestria’s progress on that subject.’
“That is… not astrology. In my time, astrology was the appreciation of the night sky and each of its iterations. Ponies would dedicate themselves to recording each night’s beauty, selling paintings of their unique form. After our banishment, it shifted to the study of the stars’ patterns and their meaning. I was told that recently, it has fallen out of favor and has been replaced by astronomy. Ponies now look at my sky with telescopes, trying to view the sky up close. Whereas astrology was the study of patterns and meanings, astronomy is the study of the material of the heavens themselves.”
“That sounds pretty caught up. Does Equestria have any large telescopes?”
“You mean the ones the size of buildings? There is an observatory at Canterhorn’s summit. I have been meaning to visit it and its staff, but the work of rebuilding has kept me at bay.”
“I see. There’s no…”
‘No telescopes in space. They don’t have space travel or rocketry, so they are limited to telescopes hindered by the atmosphere. Which means they never discovered other galaxies.’
I pointed up at the bright band of stars that dominated the center of the sky.
“What is that?”
“That is Faust’s Light. It is one of the elements of the night sky that persisted throughout each iteration, actually. Like raising and lowering the moon, keeping its presence felt… right. Like the night sky was not whole without it.”
“And what did astrology– and I suppose mythology– say about it?”
“That it was the river that led to the afterlife. Faust would guide souls along its length as they traveled to the great beyond.”
“I take it Faust is your deity?”
“As you claim this Panar to be yours.”
“Gotcha. Now, what if I told you that I know what Faust’s Light actually was? And that we were all seeing it from the wrong angle?”
“You have had my attention this entire time, Phasma. I do not know what more you can capture.”
“Let’s start with your imagination. What you call Faust’s Light, we changelings called The Great Tapestry. Or at least, part of it. This is the String of Light, whose form Panarthropo let dangle loosely in The Great Tapestry, the world in its entirety. It was not woven taut like most other Strings.
“But this is wrong, too. A belief, an interesting one at that, but a belief. Faust’s Light, The String of Light, both have light in the name. Light is all it is, but it is so much light that one has to take a step back to truly see its form. Astronomy has called this phenomenon a galaxy. We are viewing this galaxy from the side, distorting our view. This is because we are in the galaxy.”
With a mental command, the balcony– and Equus entirely– zoomed away from beneath us. We were lifted into the night sky at speeds so quick it let me blur everything. I used the lack of focus to shift the dream so that it looked like we shot out of the galaxy, only to slow to a stop well outside of it.
“This is what our galaxy looks like. Or at least, what it could look like.”
It was modeled after the Milky Way, meaning it wasn’t their galaxy. It was close enough, I figured.
Luna was even more shocked than when she first saw the quasar. I leaned in towards her and she instinctively stretched out a wing around my back.
“Astronomy is finding our place in the world, and though I don’t practice or study astronomy myself, I have always been an admirer of… artists’ representations of the findings. Never been one to look through a telescope myself.”
“Changelings discovered all of this?”
“Not… really. I have seen more than any other changeling. It’s… hard to explain.”
She pulled me close with her wing, never taking her eyes off the galaxy.
“I think I shall acquire a telescope of my own tomorrow. Now, we have plenty of time. I would like to hear this mysterious origin story of yours.”
“You already know it. Evil queen, handsome and clever Prince, and painful dismemberment.”
She snorted.
“You possess more knowledge than your race does. You claim to hail from a place far from your own kingdom. You cannot deny that there is more to your story than what you let on.”
I nervously rubbed one foreleg with the other. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I thought over my reply.
“I don’t want to talk about it. It… brings up bad memories.”
“Then let us make a deal. You tell me all of your origin, and I will tell you about my origin and fall.”
“What if I decide that I’d rather keep it secret and lose the chance to hear your story?”
She finally broke her staring contest with the inanimate object and gave me a sour look. It was a look of pain, like a starving child being denied dinner. Or an immortal, eons-old superbeing not hearing a story they wanted to hear.
“What if I say please?”
She pursed a lip as well. I couldn’t take it, I had to look away.
I huffed, “That’s a cheap trick.”
“What? I’m just asking nicely.”
“You– agh, nevermind.”
“... Please?”
‘I swear, if she figures out that she can push me past my comfort zones using only pouty expressions, I’m going to… do something! Something that both of us’ll regret!’
“Damnable witch– Fine.” I paused, trying to calm myself down as well as thinking of how I wanted to phrase it. Luna meanwhile dropped the sad face and gave me all of her attention. “If you were to ask my age, you would get multiple answers. Three, in fact. None of them are any less correct than the others. The first is my first age. The second is my current age. The third and final answer is my collective age. Queen Chrysalis may be my mother– and Chamberlain Eucharis may have been my father– but they weren’t my first. I lived an entire life before hatching from an egg as a changeling royal.
“Chrysalis and Eucharis, they… they tried bringing a dead Princess back to life. Something went wrong and the ritual failed. Instead of Princess Procho being brought back to the world, my soul took its place. Chrysalis then put my soul in a vacant egg or something. Then I hatched. That was… eight months ago? Nine?”
“You would have me believe that you are only eight month old?”
“Accelerated growth period.”
“... That would explain your lack of strong emotional connection to your own mother.”
“Right. Strangely enough, we are kind of similar in ways. Makes me wonder if my soul was really picked at random…”
“I think I have gotten a good idea of Queen Chrysalis’s personality. You said your father is Chamberlain Eucharis? What is he like?”
“Oh he doesn’t do much these days. Heheheh…. Fuck. He was loyal to Chrysalis to a fault, he tried watching over me during my life, and now he’s dead. ‘Course he only revealed that he was my father after I had killed him, not before.”
“You killed him? When?”
“His corpse was the one in Celestia’ personal office. Not sure if that out-of-place body raised any questions, but that was him. That happened right before I went to fight Chrysalis. I tried to stop him, told him that he doesn’t have to side with Chrysalis, but the stubborn fool ignored me and tried to warn Chrysalis anyway. Apparently, those two had a deal where Eucharis reported my every move and in exchange Chrysalis wouldn’t actually hurt me. Kind of messed up that my father had to make that kind of deal, but the changeling hive has never been… familial. Loyalty to the hive is the bottom line. I’m the only changeling who actually knows who their parents are…”
“You are painting quite a bleak picture of your kingdom and early life.”
“Why do you think we invaded Equestria? We wanted a nice vacation spot in addition to not starving to death.”
“And your life before?”
I started to lean away but Luna’s wing held me close.
“... I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Why, if I may ask?”
“Because I never got to say goodbye. Please, can we move on?”
Luna sighed and nuzzled my neck. I wasn’t sure if the whole changelings can’t blush thing translated into my dreams, but I did feel my face heat up and heartbeat quicken at the close contact. After a few moments too short, she pulled back a bit.
“I am sorry Phasma. You have endured a lot of hardship. I understand if you can not speak of such subject so soon. Now, I suppose it is time for my end of the bargain. My sister and I were born far from here, in a small farming village without a name. Our early days were long, working in the fields to grow what we could with our parents. Nopony knows that we have such humble origins, and we intentionally have kept that information from prying ears. You never know what somepony can do with such knowledge.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“I appreciate that. Now, as we worked the fields, it was the unicorns who controlled the rise and fall of the sun and moon.”
“Oh boy, this again,” I interrupted with an eye roll.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your… cult of personality. The whole ‘raising the sun and moon’ nonsense.” I made an air quotes motion with my hooves to emphasize my point.
“That is– you do not believe that we bring the dawn and the dusk?”
“I showed you what a galaxy is, Luna. Gravitational pull is a lot easier to understand than the sheer vastness of space, and the macrostructures that make up the universe.”
Luna shook her head, “We– I understand that you may have lived a life far from here before this one, so it is understandable to be incredulous. However, Celestia and I have raised and lowered the sun and moon for more than one millennia. Were we awake and in person, you would be able to witness our great duty personally.”
“You can’t expect me to believe someone as small as you can move an entire moon or sun. A great philosopher did say that they could move the world with a long enough lever and a well placed fulcrum, but last I checked you don’t exactly have a plank that stretches across the solar system.”
“We do not physically move them. It is our marks; we earned them when we moved them for the first time. In ages past, it was a conclave of unicorns that moved the heavens at great expense. For each ritual, every single caster would lose their magic. Then my sister and I came, forming a connection with the heavens, as Harmony ordained.”
“... If you really had enough magical power to move a celestial body then how did either of you ever lose a fight?”
“We can only access the full extent of our power when moving our sky. If either of us were to try to use any of either the sun or the moon’s innate magical reserves outside of expending them to move said sun or moon then… Poof! A new coat of paint on the walls, in royal viscera.”
“So you can only use that magic when you’re expending it as fast as you gain it?”
“Precisely. All the magic we access, we expend immediately. The exception to this are the Nightmares. When I was Nightmare Moon– or when Nightmare Moon was me, whichever is true– and right now as Celestia is Daybreaker, siphoning off a minute portion of the heavenly bodies’ strength is possible. How is beyond our reckoning, only that the Nightmares prevent our untimely demise via oversaturation of mana.”
“Okay, all that I can believe. What I can’t believe is the idea that there is a need at all to even nudge the sun or moon. Everything works fine when you don’t micromanage their movements.”
“This is not so. On several occasions, the day or night did not give way to the other. If there is nopony moving the heavens, then they do not move.”
“The only way that makes sense is if Equus is tidally locked; one side always faces the sun, and the other never faces it. But even then, if you were to ‘move the heavens,’ A.K.A. spin Equus, then you would only need to do it once. No planet, sun, or moon just stops out in space. A body in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force!”
“This was supposed to be a story about our origin, yet we sit here arguing over something that can clearly be seen every morning and every night.”
“Alright, I apologize. I’ll withhold my pointing-of-plot-holes in your story till after you finish.”
“Ha! I am sure you will. Now, where was I?”
“The conclaves?”
“Ah yes. It was a cold fall night when there was a loud knocking on our hovel’s door. A unicorn and his three friends from the capital had traveled all the way to find us. Legends of alicorns had traveled far, as it happened. Now, back then all three tribes of ponies were at each other’s necks. War and strife were common companions for the everyday pony. The unicorn that had approached us, Star Swirl the Bearded, hopped that we were the key to ending the division that bestrode every walk of life in pony society…”
I craned my neck around to see Lunar slowly walking up to me, eyes and jaw wide. She never stopped staring at the quasar.
Luna has an r added.
Good chapter. I am enjoying this slow burn on Phasma and Luna's relationship.
Ah, culture shock. Looks like Phasma hasn't quite adapted to the idea that a new reality could also mean new laws of physics. Understandable, given how much of his former knowledge they would uproot. Plus, it's not as if religions that dictated the sun and moon both revolved around the earth under the control of other forces are exactly rare on this side. Phasma may need a more personal demonstration of that little fact of life.
Nice chapter and update.
Looks like Phasma is going to have to nudge them towards a space program much harder than he already has; figuring out what the heck is going on with this "solar system" is now a priority, and the scare quotes are completely necessary.
my theory was always that discord messed up the planets polls so the planet locked still and no longer spins, no one has the capability to rotate the planet, there also no proof that equs sun and moon are not the same size as earths, i always assumed both the moon and sun are tiny compared to ours, in show both seem to be same size
i always though discord was responsible for the sun and moons state in mlp. if his magic made them freeze in place then that could explane why they dont orbit
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This is also assuming the Equestrian sky is really what it appears to be. I've read several stories that use other ideas to explain the Sun, Moon, and stars moving; from a global sized illusion to a Dyson Sphere and even a small-scale Moon with a Sun and a few dozen "stars" (mana-based rather than stellar sized hydrogen furnaces)
...and there's also "It's Discord's fault"; after he broke the local laws of physics for the Equis system and left all that mana laying around, it required somepony to move the Sun/Moon or they'd just sit there. But that's only when you have other space-faring races coming over to visit because it's the only Heliocentric system they see.
taut
I enjoyed the banter and back and forth over the potential mechanics of physics vs. magic in Equestria and the surrounding universe, thanks for the chapter
Sweet sweet update... How i love to meet you and how i miss you after the meeting is over...
Good chapter, I like the world building
Wait so they were farmer alicorns since birth? Did Ma and Pa were also Alicorns?
There it is... My meeting with a update is over...
Its always a bittersweet one.
Damn! He revealed his biggest secret. I hope Luna has the decency to not even share its knownlage with Celestia unless coming from Phasmodias mouth itmself.
Magnificent chapter. Clash of knownlage and belive.
Maybe it just loses angular momentum extremely quickly? And they need to continually add more every day? Or possibly the angular momentum is converted into the extreme amounts of magic, given how much force would be behind an entire planet spinning?
the real answer is "A wizard did it!"
Basicly what Disney is doing to Starwars just that they have not the decency to wait for George Lucas to die before they shit on his legancy.
On another note... This is literally the comment section
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A solid foundation for a eternal monoment is a must.
Even than it needs maintenance , reinforment, restructering and the occational expansion.
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That reminds me of ME3 conversation with EDI:
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Unless Luna is actualy accurate... If they life in a micro universe than... Well Shit... Equis might be one of the few things they actualy have to life on...
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Sounds legit. Or Equis is a planet free of orbit flying trough space like a Asteroid. If the Moon and Sun are artificial constructs is open to debate.
Perhaps the Moon was a huge space ship?
The Sun its Emergency reactor?
Equis one huge ass terraforming project on the way to a artificial created solar system...
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Nobody forced him to sell the franchise. Screwing up the prequels was his own fault anyway, regardless of Disney doing an even worse job.
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By Celestias flaming tits! I love the community for stuff like that
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Lore... It breats life into a story ♡
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I know a great really huge story in that direction. PM me and i send you its name
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Magic
Why do I have a feeling this is going to be like Fallout New Vegas and the story is awesome
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There was one story I read that had Equus' Sun be artificial and Celestia had to move it after aliens that invaded long ago destroyed the original "natural" sun (the sun was actually a benevolent alien's ship reactor; it makes sense in context).
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I think i have the story somewere in my favorits...
Discords race as space invaders wile Alicorns are basicly Genetic Scientists that create life on planets.
See non ponys as pets for there entertainment / company life ,like us with dogs/cats etc.
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8 month old
“but he wasn’t your daddy.”
That what I thought when he killed him.
https://youtu.be/vcOojJ3IVw4?t=12
I half-expected him to say in Old Snake's voice: “Accelerated aging, Pure Love the cause.”
https://youtu.be/AhKsNmBKJGM?t=151
But jokes aside this is great chapter. I adore sweet and heartwarming dialogues like here. I really loved to read that. You are writing very believable relationships building.
The next thing i really want to see is Shining Armor reaction when:
A)He will find out that changelings are not clones, but wery much their own persons.
B)He got to know that he was defeated by eight years old kid.
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fun fact earth is actually like that we are not stationary around sun but traveling through space like this here
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I'm very glad to hear that. Romance has always been something that has... passed me by (Can you tell that both Phasma and I are asexual?), so I am ecstatic to hear that I am doing it right. In fact, when the story was just starting, I was considering dropping this plot line altogether.
awesome chapter, that reality check conversation was so much fun to read ^^
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ok
I am thoroughly enjoying the bringing of real world logic into this but I feel like these chapters are getting a bit shorter.
Or maybe is just felt longer before because I read through the first 50 or so chapters without any break in between them and only now do I have to wait for updates. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who knows
I want luna to write "told you so" for just one night in the stars and shake the moon around just to prove a point. Or ask daybreaker for a few minutes of her day to just throw the moon around all willy and or nilly
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Not quite, at least not the story I was talking about. Draconequii were native to Equus, the invaders were what came to be known as Windigoes, and the benevolent aliens that opposed them were called "Seraphs" and they were the ones who empowered Celestia and Luna and turned them into alicorns.
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They are roughly double what they were during the first quarter of the story, so they're definitely getting longer.
I always liked the idea, from a world building and suspension of disbelief perspective, that Celestia and Luna don't actually move the sun and moon, rather, their magic moves the SPACE the sun and moon inhabit and drag the celestial body along with the space that's moved.
The same way that space in real life can expand faster than the speed of light, which is why the edge of the 'seeable' universe keeps shrinking because dark energy is making the space of the universe expand faster and faster over time.
Because space isn't made of matter or energy, so it doesn't have to obey the same laws restricting its movement.
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And i am glad that you changed your mind. Maybe your unique perspective is exactly why this romance look so believable.
It is not cliche "two persons just meet eachother and there is spark between them and they in love" that used EVERYWHERE. (not just in fics)
Here is just two people meet eachother in strange circumstances, and slowly become firstly partners(in meaning of their plans about taking over Equestria), and then slowly understanding that they have very much in common they understand that thay make good couple. (Firstly Nightmare, then Luna.) Perfect slowbern!
This plot line is definitely make this story better.
The only thing i can yearn for is MOAR! Both this ship and story itself.
You are very good writer. (maybe is even unique). Thank you.
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My favorite is "romance" novels.
Ah! Our eyes met! He's raping me with uncontrollable lust! *five minutes later* He is my soul mate! romance then ensued
I have bought a straight up porn novel and got a better romance story than romance stories ever gave. Sure there was lots sex, and no one got married, people changed sex buddies but by the end there were two couples that acted like they were married. Romance is about relationships and most don't do relationships. It's sex and romantic moments with none of the feelings.
While i still find its start contrived it is still well written. Better than most.
This reminds me that he needs a way to stuck the moon and the planet to gravitation pulls.
Some unicorn had to fuck up because life can't start this way and function this early too. They couldn't unite to do that from the caveman equivalent era too, but for species to work together like that, I would guess that it happened between their's equivalent of Iron age and early medieval. And the fuck up happened a couple of years earlier.
Yes, but one of you can still stop the movement and fuck the whole planet.
Again someone fucked up.
If this is because of another older version of the tree of harmony or something like that then chop it down immediately.
Magical trinkets are fine but in no way they should be allowed to juggle a planet
You know, at first I was like "damn, Luna's taking the reveal pretty well" but when I though about it a little, their relationship was already pretty weird, another layer of that doesn't seem that drastic.
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I'm glad you decided to keep it. I don't read romance often, but when I do, it's hard to find something that doesn't fall apart halfway through the plot. Let's hope you can keep the quality up, because so far, it's going great.
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But the sun'ss size is the only thing that keeps planet in a green zone.
Everything else is unhabitable
https://curiosityunlocked.in/science-and-technology/what-would-happen-if-the-sun-was-smaller-than-the-earth/
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Probably they are the only ways to do it, that would prevent the life on the planet from dying.
The problem with Discord being the cause is that the moment Discord is stoned all things go back to normal.
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How would these "new laws" work when everything else is the same?
Changes to basic laws would be the same with time travel, the butterfly effect still applies.
In our world, there were people in primitive civilizations that thought the same, so he has a good reason to think that it's not really what is happening.
Especially if he saw some absurd flat-Earthers "explanations" on the internet before.
The problem with that idea, that without them moving everything, everything stops without their help, just falls apart.
Sun,stars,planets,etc
Nothing in space is static,in one place magic or not. Everything constantly moves.
With a gravitational pull, just not existing out of sudden would make everything just move in one direction and never stop until they hit something.
Of course the planet would leave the green zone of the sun and all life would die too.
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'Twin Suns' a nice backstory for the Royal sisters but its so different that its not really that great of a comparison.
Meeting Discord could he quite mindblowing.
In so many ways...
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Pretty sure she keeps the reactions low to not kill there mood and or spare his feelings. Yet its great to see there trust is so deep that they know what is spoken is true. Even if ones has problems beliving it
1 to 1
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yeah in a world without magic, im sure they be some magic reason bs for why it fine
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With all the war and religion bullshit humanity pulled, i could belive humns simply destroyed there knownlage to use magic.
Example:
Human need a wand or something similiar to channel a spell. Alternativ the wand etc needs to be composed of a special material.
Unicorn horns are from time to time discribed as boney crystal magic channel/focuse to make magic casting possible.
Humans have often a magic touch etc...
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If your logic is correct.
Its just like with Luna and Phasma.
Both have 'there' logic. Question is... Who is right...?
Answer... The Author
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That doesn't sound particularly reasonable, but neither does most of physics and we're talking about literal wizards anyway. Carry on.
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Ay yo is it alright if I just silently delete my comment?
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So we know we have two bombs if all else fails...interesting.
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In all seriousness, thanks for the longer chapters, even if their longevity is lost on me sometimes heh
Also thanks for making this story, really enjoying it
Ah yes, we now arrive at the biggest plot hole in all of MLP. A system where the sun and moon need to be raised every day could never come about in the first place.
I do have my own head-cannon for how this is the case, but it's so simple and mundane that it would feel like a slap in the face to everyone who prefers to see Equestria in more mythic/religious terms.
> She smirked
I swear I’m about to lose it slider, you just barely passed the threshold of acceptable content on this family friendly website with that homosexual relationship, but now you’ve pushed past indecency and into terribleness. I feel like a broken record at this point slider, I’ve already pointed out the horribleness of using such a line and such language in Greenhorne’s story, but now I have to repeat it AGAIN! To an author who should know better! I swear slider, I’m this close to losing it. I can’t believe you would use such a braindead, moronic, autistic line in your work of free publicially available piece of horse fiction. Actually, scratch that, that’s mean to autistic people for you to be lumped into their ilk. This is absolutely horrible slider, get your head back into the game!
I may know of a third theory that could explain Luna and Celestia roll, what if we are looking at the planet all wrong? Like we though it was always the same distant from the Sun than our Earth.
What if instead of that, the planet is like at Pluto distance, they had a sun but it so far away that it will never reach the place to sustain life. So What Celestia and Luna are doing is making some sort of magnifying glass spell so the light of the sun reach them while at the same time look pretty big, and Luna is doing a reflection of the night so it doesn't get to cold at night. That could explain their rolls and why without it, everything will just be pure darkness
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Or
This being a fantasy setting it could really be a planet with two magical orbs orbiting. Recall from the plunder vines that the moon is able to "radiate" night time conditions. Though it has been ignored in later seasons. There is no galaxy, there are no "stars". The universe is finite in size with stars being balls of mana farther out than the sun and moon.
I don't think it's cannon that Luna can even move them; i think we just assume...
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True that can be the case, or she has a sort of veil like a blanket with holes and what they think of moving stars is actually she hidding or showing the ones she choose