Behold! The Samsaraverse! · 1:42pm January 7th

“And so…” The monsters roared on inside his mind. “Since countless existences before, the Matriarch of the Great Herd and the Mother of Storms wage their endless war, and mortals dance to their insane aria, and will continue to do so without end.”

1. Introduction
2. The Ethos
3. The Griffonian Situation.
4. Stories in the AU

1. Introduction
I have decided that my alternate universe needs a name. In reality, it is mostly because it is easier to write a blog and then link it in the descriptions of new stories rather than try to explain it all in the description/introduction. This thing is going to go on for a while still, and I also have plans for stories NOT in the AU. It's just going to be easier to organize this mess.

In short words, Samsara is a Hindu concept for the cycle of death and rebirth.

Anyway, the whole thing is a spoiler for Piece of Parchment and for Fólkvangr which are the dominant stories. All other stories which are not sequels are fallout from those stories or spin offs with relevant concepts. I will probably add summaries of each story.

2. Ethos
It is an alternate universe which is both a continuation of FIM, and an alternate universe. The characters are simply not aware of it at the start and the reader shouldn’t know either. Both should understand as the overarching story moves onward in Piece of Parchment and Fólkvangr and their sequels. Here are the most important pointers:

Magic is inseparable from physics and matter has a soul of its own because of that. Much like a collection of Life magic animates creatures, and is called a ‘soul’, plants and matter have souls of their own. Think animism and you’d be on the right track. One of the central themes is Harmony as a semi-intelligent magical force, a result of the universe itself being 'alive'. The world exists because Harmony must sustain itself and if things get to a point when Harmony will be destroyed because the world got too messed up, a magical process is triggered, everything returns to the singularity and creation begins anew, but magic transcends causality, so Harmony can adjust in the next cycle and that is how it tries to self-correct.

Harmony is the flow of magic as living creatures do their thing. Particularly ponies. It reacts to what happens in the world. In Piece of Parchment, Celestia describes it as a song; it ebbs and flows. If a wrong note is played, others react, and the song is balanced. If there was a war to be fought, brave ponies would be born. If there was famine, farmer and merchant ponies would instinctively try to fix the problem.

Even inorganic matter has magic associated with it. A rock has magical energy linked to it that is associated with its purpose (to sit there). A living being also has magical energy associated with it and animals have souls which are the specialized magic that attaches to them and animates the body, but it’s more complex since the ‘self’ of a sentient being is a combination of mind as a product of the brain and that also has a counterpart in the magic as a product of the soul.

When the sun shines on the surface, it provides energy for photosynthesis, and with that energy also comes magic. Plants, as everything else, are made of a duality of material and magical. The process of photosynthesis has a counterpart in the magic attached to that plant that works with the magic that flowed with the light. When a pony uses their telekinetic magic, the magic in their soul will connect to the magic in that object and their telekinesis works. When they teleport, they connect to the magic associated with spacetime and ‘miraculously’, they do something that is technically impossible.

Think of Harmony as the Force in an animistic world. It gives purpose to things and ponies are the tools it employs to move magic around and sustain itself. In the very first cycle of creation, the pony mind was built around the idea that they must fulfill a destiny, while griffon minds are much more independent. Mostly because the first being to come into existence to organize the whole thing, the first deity to exist, was a griffon. A griffoness. And Mother Harpy had very distinct ideas about how things were supposed to work.

In the first version of the universe, the Harpy reigned and made the world as she saw fit. "Basically, we griffons kill you for food, and you get to serve a purpose." The abridged version is that not everyone liked that, and there was a revolt. In the aftermath, the Harpy was dethroned and the pony gods were tasked with jumpstarting life in the next version of the world. And this is, again, the abridged version. Things happened, several versions of the world existed and ended.

One of the goals with the AU was adding religion, a creation myth which introduced a conflict spanning the entire cyclical universe. There are fundamental differences which can't be solved by pointing a rainbow cannon at them.

The present version of the world is a magicpunk reinterpretation which I caringly call ‘edgier’. Thus things like the ‘Westworld Analogy’, the hard magic system, and an attempt of having a tighter hold on ideologies, the technology, as well as the Mane Six and princesses being more careful about being prepared for dangerous situations.

There are large differences in the past ages between FIM and the AU. A chaotic Hadean age which was brought to Harmony by ponies and their magic to the present times when the griffon nation is split between reclusive griffons living on the edge of the Frozen North and a tired griffon republic that is falling victim of corruption and sedition. All consequences of the primordial conflict between ponies and griffons which Luna explains to Gilda in Fólkvangr.

In between were thousands of years of alternate history. After fleeing the Windigos, the newly formed pony nation fragmented because of Discord and a griffon empire had to be defeated by an alliance of all races. Decisions made by Celestia came back to haunt her and set Twilight and Cadance apart from her in a quest to understand their world and how to mend the wounds which never properly healed. Some of them born off differences as old as previous cycles of creation, others inherent to the issues of their own timeline.

There is a reason the story focus on the present cycle of the universe and most characters are completely clueless. Only Celestia and the Harpy understand the deeper magic which governs the universe, and they hate each other to the point they will drag the entire universe along in their war.

3. The Griffonian Situation
In the cartoon's canon, Griffonstone serves as the basic representation of the griffon nation, and it portrays an unpleasant picture. In the AU it is still not a pretty picture and it is also grittier and edgier, but also expanded with regions, kinds of griffons (according to the northerners, at leas) and cities. That is kind of the whole point, anyway.

The griffons have dug a hole around themselves where a deep-seated corruption has made the population tired of all the bullshit, thinking that maybe more radical solutions are the answer. In comes the Harpy and the Lion. He is a charismatic leader with the solution to the problem. Make him the king, and the king will fix the political class. If that doesn't sound dangerous enough, what if his mate had unsavory ideas about griffons mixing with other creatures? What if she thinks the world needs to go back to the way it was before the ponies stole all her precious kittens? What if all the griffons think she is a dignified and honored matron of the grand halls in the northern lands? The spiritual leader griffons need to reclaim their lost glory? What if her goals aligned with the objectives of greedy griffons and they sought to exploit it only to find they had entered a trap and she used them to prove her point? That Griffons need her. That without her, they are lost little kittens at the mercy of the Matriarch of the Sun.

Suddenly, the griffon kingdom would find itself powerless to resist a siren's call of greatness and glory. Could it recall its glory of days past? If only they let go of the principles of democracy and freedom, rejecting the legacy of King Grover and the friendship of thousands of years with the Ponies to embrace the brutal feudal meritocracy of the Cult of the Harpy.

A mention is needed to explain that Griffonia shares a channel with Hippogriffia (the Dove Strait, because I'm so funny), most of its coast is taken by steep cliffs and assailed by a magical maelstrom, making Hippogriffia the only safe approach by sea with the commercial port in Beachhome. The eastern border is shared with Saddle Arabia (who have their own reasons to be worried) and the north is taken by a perpetual winter because of its proximity to the Frozen North where the Windigos have claimed their portion of the world. This is Snow Mountains hold.

Griffonia is divided into different holds: Greenland, with the farms and amenable climate where griffons and ponies started experimenting with industrial scale farming after the successes they achieved in the pony lands. Griffonland is a hilly region and where Griffonstone was built. Fernland is a marshy territory which holds some of the nation's industry. And then there is Snow Mountains. Lord Gilad is this hold's governor, but most griffons barely ever think about it. They consider the northerner griffons a bunch of barbaric savages. The most they ever think about is that there is where the iron and the game meat come from. Until the Lion became famous and legends started being shared. The northerner griffons are actually responsible for keeping the advance of monsters made by the Windigos from reaching the more amenable lands to the south. While griffons started seeing the northerners as brutish, noble monster hunters following a respectable leader, there is a lot about that place that has been lost to history. Only two creatures are old enough to understand that place, and they are part of the problem.

4. Stories in the AU
Piece of Parchment: Princess Cadance, verifying the wards of the forbidden area in the archives inside her palace finds a letter that should not exist. A letter addressed to King Sombra from a griffon emperor who should not have existed. The investigation sends them on a quest to unravel layers of lies and the nature of their world itself.

Fólkvangr: Gilda's irascible temper gets her in trouble with the powerful ruling elite of Griffonstone. An encounter, completely out of chance, sends her in a path to becoming a hero of the Cult of the Harpy, but the path is not free of dangers. Choices made for the sake of survival open the doors to a dangerous path.

The Gray Dames: Sometimes good intentions have the most disastrous consequences. After a skirmish with the northerner griffons, attempting to restore order in Griffonstone, Celestia exposes herself to a magical storm. What she discovers in it scares her so much she turns to old friends and old habits. All with good intentions.

Collateral Damage: Warfare among the gods will drag mortal creatures into their conflict. Gallus and Gabriella live through some of the worst consequences of the timeless war between Celestia and the Harpy. Mostly because the of the Harpy.

Angry Horny Evil Griffons: it is a clopfic, but it is canon to the overarching story of the alternate universe because I don't know any better and nobody is trying to stop me. Anyway, what should a young griffon prince do after he lost his family's fancy warship and got himself captured with his friends? Tell them to fuck off, of course, but his mate was not going anywhere because she thrives on torturing others and they ought to sleep in the same room. They have angry sex because she is a bitch (or molly... because... cat) and he is easily manipulated.

A Loremaster's Book of Tales Series: a series of stories with in-universe tales of the northerner griffons as sanctioned by Lady Gwendolen herself. Told against a backdrop of the events that led an important city to change sides in the upcoming Griffonian civil war.

Griffons and the Art of Hurrying Up to Wait: a young griffon that lost his job because of the of upcoming war joins the military. For some reason, the enemy agents take offense to that. Currenty on hiatus because the writer sucks at comedy. Will continue once Piece of Parchment and Fólkvangr close up.

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