Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
Weakness.
Of all the things about himself that Lex hated, the insufficiency of his own power wasn’t the worst – that particular designation went to his inability to perceive and interpret whatever nonverbal undercurrent of communication accompanied interpersonal interaction, especially since everypony else apparently regarded it as so elemental that it defied easy description – but it was still considerable. He knew that sounded preposterous, of course; with multiple types of powerful magic at his command, Lex knew it wasn’t conceited to say that he far surpassed any of Equestria’s professional wizards. But that wasn’t the standard by which he measured his strength.
Rather, he judged his personal power by whether it was sufficient to meet the seemingly endless challenges that he’d encountered since he’d realized that Equestria needed new leadership. By that metric, his overall strength was lacking. Although he’d managed to overcome numerous difficult battles, virtually all of them had been won only by the thinnest of margins…and even then, he’d needed outside assistance. Despite his grudging acceptance of what the Night Mare had told him about utilizing others as extensions of his own strength, it still bothered Lex deeply that he wasn’t strong enough to win without needing anyone else.
But right now, letting the girls lead him back to the train station, it wasn’t his own weakness that was at the forefront of Lex’s thoughts.
It was Princess Celestia’s.
Her magical power is weaker than mine! The thought left him feeling almost giddy, excitement and disbelief causing him to stare blankly into space as he mentally reviewed what he’d just seen. He was vaguely aware that Sonata was asking him if he was alright, but he ignored her, too caught up in this new revelation. Considerably weaker!
Logically, he knew that the few seconds’ worth of information he’d gotten about Princess Celestia’s magical capabilities were tentative at best. While his circlet, with its ability to let him see into the magical spectrum enhanced thanks to the additional power he’d poured into it, had let him view the magical channels in the alicorn’s body, it had only been for a few moments at a distance. That was the equivalent of spending a couple of seconds glancing at a newspaper being displayed in a stand across the street; he might be able to read the headline, but that didn’t offer nearly as much information as going over and taking the time to read the entire article would have.
But that didn’t mean he’d read the headline wrong.
“Hey, Lex, c’mon,” pleaded Sonata, brushing up against him. “You’re worrying me. What’s going on?”
“It all makes sense,” he murmured. He wasn’t in the habit of thinking out loud. Rather, the small part of his mind that was paying attention to his surroundings had decided that vocalizing his thoughts was the least-intrusive way of potentially assuaging whatever was bothering Sonata, allowing him to devote the bulk of his thoughts to processing what he’d just learned. “How could I not have realized this before now?”
“Realized what?” asked Nosey, taking her place on his other side as they led him toward the station platform. “Is this something about Princess Celestia?”
Lex nodded absently. “Equestrian magic is physical, depending entirely on moving energy through the body and externalizing it via the horn. No matter how long she’s lived, or how much practice she’s gotten, or how large she’s grown, there’s only so much power she can use!” That limitation had been why he’d created a new form of magic, one that contained the requisite energy in thoughts rather than in the body. It had been extraordinarily difficult – and it was still imperfect, since compressing the magical energy to the point of where it could be contained within a purely-conceptual matrix was still too difficult for him to accomplish unaided – but it offered potentially limitless advancement, so long as he could conceive of ever more complex theorems and fill them with sufficient power. He’d known that meant that there’d be a point where he could eclipse the alicorns, but he had never dreamed that he’d already reached it…
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, that sounds, like, totes awesome! Now let's get to bed, okay?” Sonata’s voice was patronizing as they guided him toward the station entrance, returning to normal as she looked at Nosey. “I’ll get the door.”
“I can do it,” protested the other mare, her horn lighting up.
But Sonata was already turning the knob, pushing the door open as she glanced back at her friend. “It’s okay, I-, hey!”
From where she’d taken Sonata’s place at Lex’s side, Aria shot her sister a triumphant smirk. “You snooze you lose.”
Seeing that Sonata was about to make it clear what she thought of that, Nosey jumped in. “Are you two really going to start fighting again? Do you want to get cursed?” When both of them hesitated, she let out a sigh of relief before giving Lex a nudge. “Lex? Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you really should get some sleep. Noon isn’t that far away.” She glanced eastward, toward the mountains. “I’m not sure, but I think Princess Celestia’s going to raise the sun soon, so you should try to rest now while there’s time.”
Lex heard her, but gave only an absentminded grunt of acknowledgment, his thoughts already spiraling off in a new direction. She’ll raise the sun, he echoed silently. That’s what her cutie mark helps her do. That’s ALL it helps her do.
That wasn’t surprising, of course. From what he’d been able to see of her body’s magical channels, Lex could estimate that Celestia’s ability to use Equestrian magic was roughly on par with a high-level unicorn wizard in terms of raw energy output, and perhaps somewhat higher with regard to fine control. But there were no wizards, regardless of their power or their control, who could move the sun the way she could. That particular feat was something she could do because her cutie mark was boosting her power, but only in that specific regard. Of course, that she was otherwise able to match Equestria’s best unicorn wizards – all of whom, Lex knew, had cutie marks related to spellcasting and magic manipulation – was impressive unto itself. Doubtlessly her stature, as well as having the musculature of an earth pony and the wings of a pegasus, played a role in that, since they gave her greater physicality through which to move magical energy.
But that’s nowhere near what I’m capable of bringing to bear, he knew, and the thought made his pulse quicken as he took it to its logical conclusion. I could win. If it came down to a fight between myself and them, I could win! It wouldn’t even require assistance from anyone else, the way so many of his recent battles had. At their level of strength, Celestia and Luna – and Lex felt certain that the other princess’s strength was comparable to that of her sister – wouldn’t be overly difficult to defeat. Which meant that if he hadn’t erred on the side of caution all those weeks ago, when he’d openly declared himself in rebellion against Celestia after she’d refused to abdicate on his behalf…if he’d stayed and fought rather than fleeing, certain that he’d be overmatched…
I would be the ruler of all Equestria right now!
The thought made him stop in his tracks, causing Aria to stumble forward, with Nosey only barely catching herself in time. Not missing her opportunity, Sonata rushed in to fill the spot at his side that Aria had just vacated. “Hah!”
Aria glared, but didn’t have a chance to respond before Nosey, rolling her eyes, separated herself from Lex, hopping onto the bench that the four of them had been using as a bed for the last couple of days. “So here’s what I think we should do,” she began as she settled down. “We’re all pretty out of it-”
“Some of us more than others,” noted Sonata, giving Lex a nudge and proving her point when he gave only a mild grunt of acknowledgment in reply.
“-so it wouldn’t be very useful if we went over everything now. Instead, we’ll get some sleep, and then we can talk about everything that happened tomorrow-”
“You mean later today,” interrupted Aria, the petulance returning to her voice.
“-before our meeting with the princesses,” concluded Nosey, refusing to let herself become derailed.
“Ooh! Ooh!” Sonata’s eyes widened as an idea came to her, raising a hoof in the air and waving it excitedly as she gave Nosey an expectant look.
It took the other mare several seconds to realize that her friend was waiting to be called on, as if she was a student in a classroom. “Uh, yes, Sonata?”
“Can we have an early lunch before we go meet with them?” asked Sonata, putting her hoof down. Turning her eyes toward Lex, she explained her reasoning. “I know you’re not giving out breakfasts right now, but I really don’t want to miss eating because you got into some big discussion with those two.”
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” admitted Nosey. “Lex, what do you think?”
“I don’t care,” answered Lex honestly. He barely heard Sonata’s whoop of delight or Aria’s sarcastic reply, not even bothering to protest as the girls led him to the bench and began jockeying for position around him. Right now such trivial concerns were the furthest thing from his mind.
Lex had long since taken to heart Sonata’s suggestion – back when he had sought her out in the wake of his declaration of rebellion against the princesses – that it was better to achieve his goal in a piecemeal fashion, without resorting to force. That was why he had elected to meet with the alicorns a second time, negotiating for ruling over Vanhoover rather than following through on his earlier vow to forcibly remove them from power. But now he was having second thoughts.
It wouldn’t be inappropriate of me to challenge them openly at the meeting tomorrow, he knew. My original declaration of rebellion is still extant, and Vanhoover’s current state is already an illustration of how their leadership has failed. They might even agree, now that they’d had a chance to see just how damaging their incompetence was to their subjects. But if they didn’t…if they refused to stand down… I’d need to have them arrested, and that would precipitate a fight. Of course, their guardponies – and that miserable worm Silhouette – wouldn’t stand by idly while that happened, but Lex wasn’t concerned about them. Severance could…wait…
Thoughts of the scythe made Lex realize that even if his magic was stronger than the princesses’, he had barely renewed any of his spells since he’d fought the horde of ghouls. Doing so would require that he spend several hours using the scythe, which he’d be hard-pressed to do between now and noon. More than that, he was still injured and extremely fatigued, not having given himself a chance to rest. Even if he mitigated that by using his dark magic to go into shadow-form, the prospect of expending it and being forced to turn corporeal again in the course of the fight couldn’t be ruled out.
It was at that point that Lex realized he was seriously considering fighting the two alicorns.
Not knowing what her boyfriend was thinking, Sonata gave him a sleepy smile as she laid her head on his chest. “Night Lex,” she yawned. “Don’t let the bedbugs…no, wait, they’d be bench-bugs now, wouldn’t they?” Pausing as she considered that, Sonata didn’t have a chance to finish her thought as a knock came from the front door of the station, making her blink as she lifted her head. “Huh? Who could that be?”
Her question was answered a moment later as a familiar voice came from the other side of the door. “Lex? Sonata? Are you in there?”
Aria frowned, lifting her head from Lex’s flank to glare at Sonata as though the unexpected guest was her fault. “Tell whoever it is to buzz off. Some of us need our beauty rest.”
“How about I get this one?” Nosey didn’t move from where she was cuddled up against Lex’s back, her horn lighting up as she unlocked the door and pulled it open.
A moment later, River Bank stepped inside. “I apologize for the interruption,” she smiled, a pegasus mare following her in. “But we need to talk.”
Lex gets a glimpse of Princess Celestia's power, and finds that it's less than his own!
Is he correct about being stronger than the alicorns? And will this lead him to try and overthrow them by force?
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It is probably the case where her power is so strong that he just can not sense it.
9400511 At this point, there's no way to say for certain.
In with? Thag doesn't sound right.
It's.
9400511
Even if that's not the case, Twilight does have a magic cutie mark, and she will almost certainly side with Celestia, plus Cadance still exists, as does Shining Armour, and neither of them are pushovers either. I haven't seen Starlight here, but canonically, she is roughly on par with Twilight, if not more powerful. And she won't stand by either, but which side she picks depends on how far in her character development we've got. And we can't discount the mages the princesses most certainly have in their employ.
And then there's the minor point that none of the alicorns (or pony mages) need to recharge their spells.
9400545 Typos fixed, thanks for catching those, as always.
That Twilight is an alicorn who does have a cutie mark related to spellcasting and magic-use is something that I wanted to indicate very clearly without actually saying it in this chapter. I'm glad it worked.
Cadance is there also, and while she's not as experienced as Celestia and Luna are, she'd still an alicorn...plus, you know, that whole "blessed by Lashtada" thing. As for Shining Armor, he's a cut above your ordinary unicorn, both thanks to his military experience and because his cutie mark relates to protection (typically through magic), but I suspect that's not quite the same as being in the ranks of the princesses.
Starlight is another unicorn who has a cutie mark devoted to spellcasting and magic-use, but her fighting Twilight to a standstill in The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2 is something that I think says more about Twilight than about her. I've spoken about that before, but I'll keep mum about it now, since it would mean talking more about what it means to be an alicorn... (Of course, in the timeline of this fic, it's ambiguous if Twilight's met her yet anyway.)
As for how native Equestrian magic doesn't require the users to replenish their spells, that's true, but we know that they suffer physical fatigue from doing so (as with any other sort of physical exertion) and that it can interfere with them using their magic if they become too tired (e.g. right after that fight with Starlight, Twilight can't fight off the timberwolves that she meets in the alternate present where Nightmare Moon won). That, and they're completely reliant on their horn to cast spells...
9400582
I suppose Lex does have a starting advantage. But if he can't take them down quickly, he will lose. His spellcasting simply doesn't have the same endurance that Equestrian magic does.
That was unexpected to say the least but for Lex to even consider wresting control of Equestria from the Princesses through force even more so. While it's true that he never really rescinded his declaration to rebel, actually attacking the princesses would destroy any goodwill he has fostered with everyone that he has saved thus far. Sure, he's stated that he doesn't care what others say about him, but surely he knows that his actions will affect those close to him.
Still, he was there when Sombra took the Crystal Empire down with him and while he likely never bothered to learn of what led to the tyrant's fate, he has to acknowledge that power isn't going to guarantee him victory over the princesses. If not from that, then from what his own battles have taught him, the foes he has faced had powers that either rivaled or eclipsed his and yet he won only with the aid of others. The princesses have an entire nation of Equestria backing them up.
Hopefully, what the girls tell him after they get some sleep will make him reconsider his last resort though the fact that you had a chapter featuring Celestia and Luna discussing about Lex makes me think that they'll surprise Lex when they see each other again.
Addition: Still, it's a good thing he hasn't voiced his intentions yet cause I feel that Aria would be the one egging him on to do it. Makes me glad that he met Sonata first instead of Aria. Aria and Lex would make a terrifying power couple.
9400596 I don't think it's nearly as certain as you're making it out to be, for several reasons.
First, if we presume that it's a battle of attrition, it's questionable if Lex has a major disadvantage. Again, I'll note how the Starlight vs. Twilight fight ended with both of them panting in exhaustion, and that this affected their ability to keep using magic. Lex has a harder time renewing his magic than they do, certainly, but if it's a question of who'd run out of juice first, that's far from certain.
Second, a major salient point is that his strongest spells are (a lot) stronger than theirs are. That was the point of his developing his new style of magic, after all, and now he's apparently realized that he's already surpassed them in that regard.
Thirdly, well, the horn thing again.
Lex... WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID?
Seriously, he's got three full-time babysitters at this point and it still might not be enough.
9400605 One thing I wanted to include in this chapter, but couldn't find a way to work in, was how Lex would go about actually engaging the alicorns in a fight. Specifically, that he'd want to make very sure to publicly announce - in front of a large audience (i.e. the camp ponies) - that the princesses' failures warrant their removal from power, and for them to immediately submit to his authority, possibly with some sort of speech about how they let this happen, etc. In other words, he knows that he can't just bushwhack them and declare that he's in charge now. Even when he initially rebelled, he made a proclamation out of it. Given how much Vanhoover has suffered, it's questionable how the ponies there would react (though even then, "questionable" is the best he's likely to get).
As for King Sombra's battle with the alicorns, remember, a few chapters back Princess Celestia recalled that it was a tough fight for them. Lex doesn't have as much skill with dark magic as his horn's previous bearer did, to be sure, but he has his own magic...which is apparently greater than Celestia and Luna's. So the issue of power seems like it'd be in his favor. The princesses might have popularity, but that wouldn't help them in the middle of a fight the way Sonata or Aria have helped Lex before (though his tone here makes it sound like he'd want to face Celestia and Luna without any help).
Of course, he hasn't made up his mind yet. Hopefully, as you noted, the girls will get him to say what he's thinking and talk him out of it...though Aria's a bit unreliable, there.
9400626 Do you not think he'd win? Or that he'd look bad doing it? Because either way, his indictments of Celestia and Luna - at least where Vanhoover are concerned, to say nothing of their philosophical approach to ruling - seem to have some substance to them.
9400635
He was fooled by Xiriel just as thoroughly as they were, he was just lucky enough that Xiriel tried to fight him personally.
They didn't neglect Vanhoover -- they were tricked by a demon master of trickery. The he thinks it's an indictment of them, even though he should realize that, means he isn't thinking deeply about his ambition, it's just an excuse for grabbing whatever he can get away with.
But yes -- even if he won, he'd just (at best) start a war (and more likely, start a 'contain the insane powerful monster' quest).
9400652
They did neglect Vanhoover. Regardless of what trickery Xiriel used to help keep things under wraps, the princesses are still responsible for the safety of their citizens. I mean first of all there's the more immediate lack of response on their part. They know Vanhoover was hit by an elemental disturbance yet organized no government relief efforts and then Vanhoover looses contact with the outside world they're not appraised of the situation or think to investigate it. There's major negligence there.
And secondly, Lex's entire criticism of them rests on the fact that Vanhoover had no support system in place to prevent the tragedy. Because Equestria operates on a laissez-faire system where each city is left to manage itself.
Lex seems incapable of understanding that a solution to a problem, no matter how effective it may be, can be useless purely due to the fact it isn't popularly palatable.
Simple fact is, you can have all the answers in the world, but if people don't like you or aren't convinced by you, they'll just dig in their heels and sabotage you.
Lex could mehbe beat Celestia and Luna. But it's not only them. He'd fall back to his biggest weakness that anyone who doesn't know him personally sees him as a monster. So it's him and his Waifus against the world. Current Waifu line-up, Sonata, Bard, really high charisma, does bard things. Aria, highish charisma, high wisdom (street smarts), also does bard things. Nosey... I'ma say rogue? Highish charisma, intelegence, and wisdom. Good at finding things.
9400744
No, no, that's the point -- the normal governmental checks and reports were *deliberately sabotaged* by a *powerful demonic force* with many many agents acting on its behalf. If it hadn't been for Xiriel's interference, the severity of the disaster and the fact that the city needed help would have gotten help there *really fast*.
The cities don't need Celestia to tell them to send help to their neighbors, it's just the standard operating procedure. But no one knew anything was wrong because it was being hidden by malevolent forces.
Lex's theoretical government wouldn't have done any better. An official, hierarchical system is not immune (or even particularly resistant) to being infiltrated and corrupted.
I personally think that Lex is severely underestimating the Sisters right now. Celestia and Luna are confirmed Demi-goddesses in this setting, Luna has shown the ability to grant spells to followers, while Celestia doesn't, probably because she doesn't want the extra worship and/or to avoid the corruption the rush of such power might bring. In 3rd edition and Pathfinder, diving beings take physical form in the form of avatars...physical bodies which only contain part of their power, either due to cosmic rules or their own desires not to burn out any mortal that looks at them. Given that Equestria doesn't seem to have an active pantheon, any power caps imposed on them is probably of the Sister's own making. In fact, it's been suggested around the fandom that her loss to Chrysalis was because her going all out would have resulted in a lot of collateral damage.
So yeah, I'm laying bets that while Lex's circlet is technically correct about Celestia's power, it's not taking into account any possible divine power caps she's put on it. Also in his current state he'd probably lose anyway.
9400744
9400652
I'm on the 'Sisters neglected Vanhoover' side mostly because it didn't really matter if the severity of the situation got out or not, given what happened in Manehatten, they should have been assuming the worst anyway. I admit it's been a while, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the only things done before Lex and Sonata were sent was Cadance sending in a bunch of (woefully unprepared) missionaries, of which we know of only two survivors (and technically only 1 before resurrections) out of an unknown amount, and maybe some relief supplies. Given that Manehatten had fire monsters led by a freaking mid-level devil, which KILLED Twilight remember, they should have sent in the military.
Given the only recent interaction of Everglow rules, Celestia and Luna are running on Three sets of magical rules? Equestrian, alicorn magic with cutimark specialisation. Everglow Unicorn magic rules. Start at Level 1 and gain XP through worldy interactions, which Celestia is getting very little of. And Everglow Deity Magic,m given through how many followers they have, prayers, devotion etc? Given Luna is powering up nicely in that respect, if Celestia Ever accepted her Equestrian Deific duties, she would have between adoration and fear and respect, pretty much Total Planetary Fellowship, which is what Night Mare is trying to prevent, because one thing a lot of Old Gods hate, is the New God On The Block?
What was that story? Celestia Moves To Olympus?
I dont know the specific rules of pathfinder, so the following question might be wrong.
Is it possible that Princess Celestia is "Suppressing" her true power?
Or is that just a Dragon Ball thing?
Lex, only a fool goes by appearances and even if his first view of the appearance of Celesta's power was somehow right which most likely isn't and ignoring that power isn't everything she is more skilled than he is which would more than a edge.
Then there is that Celestia's power literally tells Lex nothing about her sister so most likely even if he somehow did defeat Celesta that raises the possibility that, Luna could well defeat even if he had recovered from a fight with Celestia.
Beyond that it seems to me that if he somehow won that that would still leave various people like twilight, starlight and if he's returned Starswirl, each of whom are almost certainly more powerful and more importantly skilled than Lex and possibly others to oppose him not to mention military forces.
He's so caught up in his ambitions that he failing to see the bigger picture which is one of his many flaws but then it wouldn't as be interesting following him if he wasn't so deeply flawed.
O Lex the problem with looking at the cover of a book is you never see the true story.
HOOO BOY River just does not learn, i can see her getting ore curses added before to much longer or some other Princess cautching on to her shit and dealing with her.
9400873
We already know Xiriel was unable to prevent people from Vanhoover from leaving the city. The word WAS out that the city had suffered major damage. The equestrian government sent no aid. Then, when further communication was lost, the sisters waited weeks before thinking to investigate or reestablish communication. They should've been sending out teams to every city hit by a disturbance to assess the damage.
Simple fact is, Celestia and Luna dropped the ball big time.
9401362
He literally had a cordon of people around the city stopping anypony from leaving, and trains sent to give aid were turned back -- or do you think it was a coincidence that one showed up the instant the tracks were re-opened?
9400749 You are, of course, exactly correct. Lex's inability to understand what you just laid out so clearly goes to the very heart of why he's having such a hard time. Of course, his response to this is to try and do more, so that his accomplishments overcome his off-putting presentation of them. So far it's having some mild success, but compared to the amount of effort he's having to put in I suspect that anyone else would try taking a different route. But Lex is nothing if not stubborn...
9400652 From Lex's point of view, what Xiriel did doesn't really factor into it. If he were to indict the Royal Sisters for their failures (as he sees them), very little of what he'd mention would have anything to do with the devil's actions.
Vanhoover's flooding, and the subsequent abandonment of the city by a considerable number of its residents, all happened before Xiriel got there. As such, the information about what had happened reached Canterlot (and likely the rest of Equestria) before the devil could start manipulating the information. When it arrived shortly afterward, it did what it could to try and isolate the city: ponies inside the city or staying right outside it were prevented from leaving, the trains were prevented from arriving, and false information about the situation was disseminated to the rest of Equestria (i.e. that the recovery was slow because of fighting between the three major families in the city).
So what the princesses knew was that there had been a major disaster in the form of a flood, and that the recovery was proceeding incredibly slowly due to local infighting. Their response to that basically to adhere to their philosophy of allowing local governance to rule without outside interference, presumably trusting that friendship would carry the day. (Presumably, after a few weeks of not hearing that things had gotten any better, they were at least a little concerned, which was why they cut the deal that they did with Lex.)
All of that, alone, would be enough for Lex to denounce them as unfit to rule.
In his view, a government should have disaster prevention and relief processes in place, with money, plans, and manpower (horsepower?) ready to go the instant they realized that something had happened. To not only have none of that, but also to hear what was going on and essentially shrug and say "eh, they'll figure it out," is untenable to him, being a complete abdication of responsibility that borders on depraved indifference. A ruler that doesn't leap into action when they hear that their people are in trouble, to his mind, is a leader that's unfit to rule.
From Lex's point of view, the princesses didn't have to know about Xiriel for them to fail in their duties. That they did nothing in response to the flooding and lack of recovery was failure enough.
9400834 Well, he seems to have a fairly good image in Vanhoover, and in Tall Tale too, so that might afford him some leeway. But otherwise, you're probably right in that unless the princesses make a statement saying that they have complete faith in his abilities and that everything will be fine, removing them in favor of him would probably make Lex look very bad to the rest of Equestria.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that his rule wouldn't be accepted. Everything we've seen of the ponies suggests that they're not really inclined to rebel, and that unless there's some sort of imminent threat to their safety they'll probably just go with the flow. Presumably Lex would be banking on that passivity to give him time to showcase why his reforms would make everypony's life better.
9401960 Huh. I thought Lex had implicitly recognized their authority by accepting Mayorship of Vanhoover from them. That may well be what Celestia and Luna think, but not what Lex thinks.
9400933 It's entirely possible that there's a gap in Lex's knowledge regarding what the alicorns can do. For what it's worth, he is aware of this potential; as he noted, the glimpse that he got of Princess Celestia's power was the equivalent to reading a headline of a newspaper from across the street. It's just that the information he has so far was unexpected in what it seemed to convey.
With regards to the Royal Sisters being confirmed demigods though...yeah, not so much, there. This is one of the few areas where I'm doing a "soft retcon" with regards to what David Silver has laid out. The fact of the matter is that - while every version of D&D has taken a different position on how powerful deities are - the 3.5/Pathfinder power level of even minor divinities is far greater than anything we've ever seen the princesses do. Most of the arguments in favor of her being just that powerful tend to revolve around her being as old as she is, which is indicative of nothing (you don't expect long-lived demihumans to outpace humans, after all), and because she can move the sun on her own, which is quite clearly an aspect of Equestria's cosmology more than anything else (since unicorns used to do that without her; she's just a little better at it than they were).
I should note that in D&D Third Edition and Pathfinder, deities are presumed to have a physical form for their entire power; just flipping through the 3rd Edition Deities and Demigods book makes that clear enough, since the stats therein are for the gods' true forms, and I think only a few of them are listed as being incorporeal. Sending out an avatar is more a matter of convenience than anything else (most gods don't even have the divine splendor ability, which is what causes mortals who view them in their true form to die instantly).
Given that we've never seen Celestia do anything that a D&D v.3.5/Pathfinder 1E character could do before hitting double-digit levels, I prefer to follow Occam's razor and presume the reason that we never see anything else is because there's nothing else to see. Saying "she could have defeated Chrysalis if she'd just unleashed her true power, which she didn't for fear of collateral damage" is another name for "making stuff up." Now, there's nothing wrong with that - it's a central province of fanfiction, after all - but I tend to avoid such things where I can; using the d20 rules to create a baseline for how things work in this fic was hard enough without adding even more things into the mix.
(The other argument that gets thrown around for Celestia and Luna being uber-powerful was how strong Twilight became when she absorbed the other alicorns' magic. That's also a case of fans seeing what they want to see, however; leaving aside that Tirek's power isn't a very good measurement, since there's no indication of exactly how many other ponies' magic he absorbed - and certainly nothing to say he absorbed the magic of everypony else in Equestria - things like creating a blast that caused a mushroom cloud isn't really a good metric. Remember, d20 Future tells us that a one-megaton nuclear missile does 16d8 damage, which is 72 points on average, which is a function of the fact that the scale of damage isn't linear. Yes, that means that high-level heroes can be hit with a nuke and keep on fighting; that's a function of just how incredibly broad the range of power the d20 System offers, and why it's important to calibrate your expectations for what's possible as you level up. You can try to use heroic scaling, of course, but the more you interact with people of wildly different levels, the harder that is.)
This isn't to say, as I noted previously, that there's more to Celestia than meets the eye. But if she's a god, then she's a very, very small one.
9402073 I've mentioned this before - in the comments I mean; it hasn't come up in the story...yet - but the agreement that Lex reached with the alicorns was both completely verbal and very informal. Because of that, it remains unclear as to whether or not the princesses ceded that territory to him, effectively removing it from their area of political control, or whether he was taking a position within their country, which would make him de facto subject to their rule.
Presumably, the Royal Sisters would simply presume the latter, since it fits with their laissez-faire method of governing; they're not really concerned about hierarchies of authority or explicit rules as to how power is wielded. Lex, by contrast, would almost certainly attempt to leverage that casualness against them, claiming that interpreting their agreement as them giving up part of Equestria to him is an entirel valid argument, and that they have no case for suggesting otherwise (especially since he never withdrew his formal declaration of rebellion).
9401015 This is a penetrating insight, because it gets to issues of the game rules that are being used as a baseline for this story.
While I can't speak for David Silver, when he wrote the original A Dangerous Sparkle it seemed very clear to me why made it so that going to Everglow made the ponies their change their appearance (to be more "realistic" in their proportions, less bright in their colors, etc.). Namely, that it was a notable cosmetic way of indicating the much more fundamental difference: that all character abilities from Equestria - the most notable being magic - were "replaced" by the d20 game rules (i.e. the Pathfinder version of Ponyfinder) while on Everglow. Hence why we had chapters of Twilight wondering why she couldn't fly or use her magic the way she could on Equestria.
Why did David Silver make that be a thing in the first place though? I'm fairly confident that it was because the mainstream d20 rules, with things like Vancian spellcasting and character classes, didn't do a very good job of representing how things worked in Equestria, where spellcasting required no real verbal or somatic components, was limited to unicorns and alicorns (mostly), and could be used without limits save for physical fatigue (which the d20 System doesn't really have anyway). So a point of differentiation had to be introduced.
However, I'm using a much more flexible rendering of the d20 System, which makes it entirely possible to model what we see in the show under those rules. (Though readers very familiar with Eclipse: The Codex Persona will notice an important difference between Thoth's write-up and mine: he presumes the use of the Superheroic World template from page 161 is in use, and I don't. That's a small difference with a huge effect, since that allows for the use of magic at-will. I had to nix that one, because Everglow - and the rest of the D&D and Pathfinder cosmologies - don't use that template, and keeping that level of difference between Equestria and everywhere else would have changed everything about this story...and Lex's backstory too, for that matter.)
Having said that, being able to thus chart Celestia's power under the d20 rules thanks to Eclipse has led me to the conclusion that she's simply not very powerful, under d20 terms. If we presume - quite rightly, in my opinion - that what we see is what there is, and don't assume much else, then none of her feats are really that impressive. Hence, calling her a god, as the d20 rules define the term, is far and away too generous.
9401023 For the most part, the d20 System rules (D&D 3.0/3.5 and Pathfinder being the big ones) doesn't really have that. The closest that it has are divination spells to discern things about your target (such as the arcane sight effect Lex is using to see how strong Princess Celestia's magic is), and spells to block such effects.
This isn't to say that what you're talking about couldn't be modeled under the game rules, of course, but it's very non-standard.
9402147
Good to know.
Thank you for the answer.
9401030 The trouble with presuming that others are more "skilled" with magic, even if they have less raw power, is that we're not entirely sure what "skilled" means. A more general take on it is that they're very well versed in the practical application of what magic they do have, finding ways to leverage it with regards to their current situation/circumstances so as to achieve an outsized effect. A more specific take on it, utilizing the d20 System game rules that this story is based on, is that they have a higher caster level even if they can't use higher-level spells; in d20 terms, think of it as a 16th-level ranger versus a 11th-level wizard: the ranger can only cast up to 4th level spells (the highest that he has access to) but can do so at 13th caster level (since his normal caster level is his class level -3), whereas the wizard can cast up to 6th-level spells (the highest that he has access to at his current level), but can only do so at 11th caster level (since it's equal to his class level). In that case, the ranger has less power but more "skill" (though "control" might be a better term).
In this case, it's uncertain if Princess Celestia has more control, but the implication is that - compared to Lex - she doesn't. Remember, he did note that her "fine control" was, as he saw it, somewhat higher than those of high-level Equestrian unicorn wizards. He didn't say anything about it exceeding his own. So the implication is that he has her outclassed in both (which leaves only the question of how well either of them can use what magic they do have in a given situation; in that regard, Lex's exploits speak for themselves, whereas Princess Celestia is...uncertain).
If that sounds counter-intuitive on its face, that's not surprising. We're used to thinking of practice (which is a function of having time) as being the road to power; being over a thousand years old, it's an understandable assumption that Princess Celestia would therefore have incredible magical abilities, since she's had many mortal lifetimes to train and hone herself. However, there are problems with this.
Even if we ignore how, in the real world, training in anything leads to problems of diminishing returns (i.e. there comes a point where you have to do more and more in order to accomplish less and less, until there's eventually a point where there's simply nothing more to gain), and that a lack of practice can lead to losses - and we can safely ignore those, as neither are really modeled under the d20 game rules (even if they tend to be at least somewhat assumed in a purely narrative format such as this one) - the simple fact of the matter is that the game rules that underlie this story don't really model the whole "time = practice = power" ideal very well. Ancient demihuman wizards (i.e. elves) will tend to be no stronger than their human counterparts, despite being centuries older than them (and this is in an edition of D&D that doesn't have demihuman level limits). At the other extreme, crunching the experience chart against what the Core Rulebook(s) say is a standard number of encounters per day (i.e. four), a group that has four level-appropriate encounters per day everyday will reach 20th level in about two months. And yet that doesn't seem that common in the background assumptions of most game worlds either.
So if we can write off the issue of having a lot of time being what determines (magical) power, what does? In a word: success. More specifically, successfully overcoming a series of escalating challenges that force you to push your limit. It's a theme in this story (albeit a comparatively minor one) that prevailing over difficult trials results in becoming stronger. Most of the time this isn't really visible, as it happens incrementally and tends to build on existing skills and abilities, but it's intuitive and well-modeled under the game rules. Even better, it nicely folds in a variant on the diminishing returns rule, as gaining levels means that you need more XP to reach even higher levels, so challenges that earned you a lot before become worth comparatively less over time.
In that regard, Lex has been pushing himself very hard for a while now. He's fought numerous powerful enemies and won, growing stronger (as have his allies, though most of them are so much less powerful than he is that their growth tends to be overshadowed by comparison). By contrast, Princess Celestia hasn't really been in many fights - we've seen her get into, roughly, a half-dozen or so altercations throughout the course of the series, and there's really no indication that idyllic Equestria would have offered her any more over her thousand-plus years of rule - and most of those resulted in her losing (a function of mentor characters needing to take the fall to up the stakes for the protagonist(s)). We don't even see her trying to increase her magical abilities via new learning, training, or anything else. In d20 terms, she almost certainly hit her current level a long time ago and didn't feel any pressure to try and grow any stronger. Instead, she's trying to level up her protege.
Now, that's not a bad idea either; multiple characters can act multiple times per round, leveraging the economy of actions in their favor...but that tends to be a good way to gain an edge over someone of comparatively even power with yours (hence why, in the previous chapter, Celestia reminisced about how she and Luna defeated King Sombra only because it was a two-on-one fight). If your enemy is notably stronger than you are, this is worth a lot less. That's a generality, to be sure, but at least insofar as the d20 rules go, it's something of a truism; when your enemy is a balor, for instance, it's far better to go up against it with one 20th-level character than two 10th-level characters.
Given that Equestria simply isn't as much of a proving ground as Everglow (and the other planes of existence in the D&D/Pathfinder cosmology), that makes it questionable just how strong any of the local heroes really are. Of course, it's at that point that we remember that Twilight is currently adventuring in that world once again...
9401061 Well, more of a headline/article thing than book/cover, but in principle you're not wrong. Has Lex really seen the full scope of what Princess Celestia can do?
And River...well, we'll see if she's about to climb out of the hole she dug for herself, or dig it even deeper.
9402221
I could I suppose buy that if nothing else I can grant that Celestia hasn't needed to use much power or skill with the thousand years of peace her rule brought which I would say speaks far better of her ability to rule than anything negative Lex could throw at her and Luna pretty much spent a thousand years imprisoned on the moon as nightmare moon.
Though to be honest I am not sure the dismissal the idea of fear harming other hampering the ability to fight full force against a opponent is completely warranted given it is a common enough real world military tactic to force a fight in a situation where the other side can't use full force for one reason or another.
9402286 While Equestria does seem to have been at peace for well over a thousand years - notwithstanding brief attacks by monsters or the occasional villain (the biggest potential exception here being what we're told in Testing Testing 1, 2, 3 (season four, episode twenty-one), about how "after Luna's banishment, the Protective Pony Platoons were formed") - circumstantial evidence suggests that this isn't the result of anything Princess Celestia has done. The story of how Equestria was founded, as told in Hearth's Warming Eve (season two, episode eleven), makes it sound like Equestria became what it was when the founding tribes came together, which is explicitly stated to have been before Celestia and Luna took over. Personally, I suspect that the Tree of Harmony (which Mage Meadowbrook interestingly characterized as "the living spirit of the land," in Shadow Play - Part 2 (season seven, episode twenty-six), and Twilight asserted in that same episode that if it died, Equestria would suffer) also played a role in this as well, but that's also something that had nothing to do with Princess Celestia, as the Pillars planted the crystal seed that would become it as a fail-safe before going to face the Pony of Shadows.
So Equestria's current peace isn't really a victory that she can claim credit for.
Insofar as "being afraid of the consequences of fighting full-force" goes...I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I think that you're referencing my dismissing the idea that Princess Celestia could have used a lot more power against Queen Chrysalis in A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2 (season two, episode twenty-six) but didn't due to concerns about collateral damage. In that case, I wasn't suggesting that the idea of holding back so as to limit the damage, unto itself, isn't plausible. It was the underlying assumption that Princess Celestia had more power to begin with. That's an assumption that has no basis within the context of the show itself; to put it another way, we're never told or shown that she actually has more power that she's holding back, so I see no reason to presume that it exists.