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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

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Darko said:
While Sunset may be extremely biased against her mentor, Celestia, to the point where she does some extremely stupid things, you have to admit that those secret tests of character can sometimes be extremely stupid, especially as some people will never pass them even if they have the qualifications, but may lack the necessary knowledge that they are being tested so won't perform in their best.
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Why do you think it took a thousand years for Celestia to find someone who was:
  1. Naturally strong at pony magic
  2. Willing to study like an obsessive maniac for years to develop that natural talent into genuine prodigy status, AND
  3. Willing to set aside all those years of effort because of a whimsical demand by her mentor to throw a party in a backwater nowhere town just for funsies, and throw enough effort into it that she'd bond with a half dozen other ponies along the way
Celestia was trying to thread an extremely narrow needle to put together the conditions needed to restore the Elements, and only managed it through luck and arguably destiny. The fact that Sunset met two out of the three criteria was just bad luck for her, and if she hadn't f-ed off to another universe then Celestia would have probably had a whole lot of apologies to hand her once Twilight got her accessory.
 
TheEyes said:
Why do you think it took a thousand years for Celestia to find someone who was:
  1. Naturally strong at pony magic
  2. Willing to study like an obsessive maniac for years to develop that natural talent into genuine prodigy status, AND
  3. Willing to set aside all those years of effort because of a whimsical demand by her mentor to throw a party in a backwater nowhere town just for funsies, and throw enough effort into it that she'd bond with a half dozen other ponies along the way
Celestia was trying to thread an extremely narrow needle to put together the conditions needed to restore the Elements, and only managed it through luck and arguably destiny. The fact that Sunset met two out of the three criteria was just bad luck for her, and if she hadn't f-ed off to another universe then Celestia would have probably had a whole lot of apologies to hand her once Twilight got her accessory.
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Except that's all wrong, because Twilight never had to use her own magic to trigger the Elements of Harmony. She just had to realise the intrinsic virtues of five other individuals which happened to match those of the Elements. Studying magic only would have mattered if that related to harmony, and given that neither Sunset or Twilight really knew anything about it we may reasonably conclude that it didn't.
 
Mr Zoat said:
And there are plenty of tail hole ponies so there's no way that everyone's contributing."
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IIRC in most fics ponies use the term "plot hole" as plot is the term for pony butt.
Darko said:
While Sunset may be extremely biased against her mentor, Celestia, to the point where she does some extremely stupid things, you have to admit that those secret tests of character can sometimes be extremely stupid, especially as some people will never pass them even if they have the qualifications, but may lack the necessary knowledge that they are being tested so won't perform in their best.
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Well, that's kind of the point. Who you are in the dark, matters regarding Harmony and it's related stuff.

I predict much shenanigans, as the anti-life is one of the few things that would scare the shit out of Celestia.
 
I think the problem with Sunset, and to a slightly lesser extent Twilight, is that magical talent is what they were told drew Celestia's eye, the school they were at least nominally associated with during their time under her direct supervision was focused on magic, and both of them presumably had an interest in magic (twilight's confirmed, I don't have Sunset's backstory in the same level of detail).

All three uses of that word are in relation to the traditional discipline as taught/used in equestrian academia, scientific, and presumably engineering circles.

Harmony as Celestia understands it is distinctly unrelated to that, and based more on emotional connections focused through potent artifacts of power with their own hidden agendas.

Now sufficient study could probably allow you to tap into similar forces as the artifacts, or make similar devices yourself, but nobody really get s chance to do that.

Celestia raises these kids to be total study freaks, and then acts squirrely when they turn to those same skills that have stood them in good stead so far.

It's rather a self defeating approach.
 
AverusBlack said:
Because the joke was bronies watch it for the plot.

The plot being pony booty.
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Also, just improving the joke through sheer definitional coincidence, a "plot" in the geographic sense is technically a tract of land.¹

¹ Well, if you ignore the fact that "plot" means "small area" and "tract" means "large area" anyways...
 
Mr Zoat said:
Except that's all wrong, because Twilight never had to use her own magic to trigger the Elements of Harmony. She just had to realise the intrinsic virtues of five other individuals which happened to match those of the Elements. Studying magic only would have mattered if that related to harmony, and given that neither Sunset or Twilight really knew anything about it we may reasonably conclude that it didn't.
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I don't remember a lot of MLP, but wasn't Twilight's Element the Element of Magic? Being very good at magic seems rather connected to being able to wield the Element of it.
 
Agumentic said:
I don't remember a lot of MLP, but wasn't Twilight's Element the Element of Magic? Being very good at magic seems rather connected to being able to wield the Element of it.
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Twilight isn't actually that good at magic by the standards of most fantasy settings. Her thaumokinesis is very strong but that's about it. Starlight Glimmer is far more capable.

In addition, Twilight didn't get a lot better at magic between being unable to activate the inert Element of Magic and actually managing to activate it. What she gained in that time was an appreciation of the ponies who accompanied her.

I suppose that it's not so much 'Friendship = Magic' and 'Friendship = Arcane Permission to use Friendship Powered Megaweapons'.
 
Mr Zoat said:
Except that's all wrong, because Twilight never had to use her own magic to trigger the Elements of Harmony. She just had to realise the intrinsic virtues of five other individuals which happened to match those of the Elements. Studying magic only would have mattered if that related to harmony, and given that neither Sunset or Twilight really knew anything about it we may reasonably conclude that it didn't.
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Yes, friendship is what allowed Twilight to awaken the Element of Magic, and recognition of her new friends' virtues is what allowed them to awaken the others. But then what happened is that the potentially world-altering superweapon immediately activated. Because it's a children's show we assume that the Elements just do what they're supposed to, like a reverse monkey's paw, but it's probably more likely that the Elements need to be directed, and presumably that requires an instinctive and powerful control of magic to avoid "oopsing" the entire planet.

(Edit): As for proof, and how Celestia would know this? At this point I have to descend into wild conjecture, but we know that, in the "modern" MLP era, Celestia and Luna need to manually raise the Sun and Moon, and that ponies collectively need to manually change the seasons around. A system like that couldn't possibly evolve on its own, meaning that it's a state of affairs that has been put into place "recently" in a geological sense.

Now, we also know that Celestia and Luna had to activate the Elements of Harmony in the past, to seal Discord and stop his rampage of Chaos magic. It seems to make sense to me that, when Celestia and Luna did this, that they stopped all the Chaos, including the chaotic systems of Nature, forcing them and the ponies to become defacto nature spirits to keep the planet from becoming a wasteland, frozen on one side and baked on the other. I further presume that the two of them coming to this realization is where the Hearth's Warming story comes from, since the story depicts a continent frozen in ice, something you might see if, for example, Celestia and Luna hadn't quite gotten into the habit of raising the Sun every day and the continent was plunged into a night that lasted for a few days/weeks.

w34v3r said:
Celestia raises these kids to be total study freaks, and then acts squirrely when they turn to those same skills that have stood them in good stead so far.

It's rather a self defeating approach.
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Since it's boring to assume that Celestia is just an idiot, I presume that it has to be that way, and that Celestia must have figured this out over the dozens of generations that she's been working to restore the Elements and find a group of ponies that can use them that isn't her and Luna. It would make sense that the connections that restore the Elements had to be genuine, in a "who you are in the dark" way. Informing the ponies involved that the Elements could be restored in this way could undermine how genuine the connections are; just look at Sunset's own words here:
Mr Zoat said:
"You don't think Celestia might have some sort of friendship-powered superweapon hidden away somewhere?"

"I hope not."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Because I'd have wanted to study it. If a weapon like that existed and I'd seen it, that would mean that she'd been on to something with her whole 'friendship'.. thing."

"Yes, which-."

"And she'd have known that and still chose not to show me anyway. If I knew there was something like that laying around I'd have made friends just so I could study it. If that actually happened then after I ascend then I'm going to buck her in the face twice."
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It's possible, likely even, that forming "friendships" solely for the purpose of studying them might undermine the purity of the connection and prevent them from restoring the Elements in the first place. Again, I assume that Celestia must know this, since she's had a thousand years to work on the problem and likely thousands of failures in that time to show her what won't work.
 
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Mr Zoat said:
Twilight isn't actually that good at magic by the standards of most fantasy settings. Her thaumokinesis is very strong but that's about it. Starlight Glimmer is far more capable.

In addition, Twilight didn't get a lot better at magic between being unable to activate the inert Element of Magic and actually managing to activate it. What she gained in that time was an appreciation of the ponies who accompanied her.

I suppose that it's not so much 'Friendship = Magic' and 'Friendship = Arcane Permission to use Friendship Powered Megaweapons'.
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That still needs friendship as a power source though
 
TheEyes said:
Yes, friendship is what allowed Twilight to awaken the Element of Magic, and recognition of her new friends' virtues is what allowed them to awaken the others. But then what happened is that the potentially world-altering superweapon immediately activated. Because it's a children's show we assume that the Elements just do what they're supposed to, like a reverse monkey's paw, but it's probably more likely that the Elements need to be directed, and presumably that requires an instinctive and powerful control of magic to avoid "oopsing" the entire planet.
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Possible, but as far as we know, at that point Twilight has no experience with magic artefacts. Certainly, none are mentioned at any point. Celestia was also quite pointedly not telling her about the Elements of Harmony and she only learned that they existed that day. I don't think that her skill would be relevant.
(Edit): As for proof, and how Celestia would know this? At this point I have to descend into wild conjecture, but we know that, in the "modern" MLP era, Celestia and Luna need to manually raise the Sun and Moon, and that ponies collectively need to manually change the seasons around. A system like that couldn't possibly evolve on its own, meaning that it's a state of affairs that has been put into place "recently" in a geological sense.
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Strictly speaking, we don't know that they 'need' to do that. For example, Yakyakistan has plenty of snow without ponies making it and wherever the kirin live has perfectly nice summers. Honestly, that whole thing looks like a combination of pony OCD and a Cloudsdale pork barrel.
Now, we also know that Celestia and Luna had to activate the Elements of Harmony in the past, to seal Discord and stop his rampage of Chaos magic. It seems to make sense to me that, when Celestia and Luna did this, that they stopped all the Chaos, including the chaotic systems of Nature, forcing them and the ponies to become defacto nature spirits to keep the planet from becoming a wasteland, frozen on one side and baked on the other. I further presume that the two of them coming to this realization is where the Hearth's Warming story comes from, since the story depicts a continent frozen in ice, something you might see if, for example, Celestia and Luna hadn't quite gotten into the habit of raising the Sun every day and the continent was plunged into a night that lasted for a few days/weeks.
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The Hearth Warming story explicitly says that the sun and moon used to be managed by teams of unicorn ponies. Which means that Celestia and Luna must post-date that necessity.

If it's necessary at all. In Fallout: Equestria all that happened when they stopped is that day length became a little variable and there were occasional eclipses.
Handlewithcare said:
That still needs friendship as a power source though
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If it was the power source, wouldn't it be consumed and force them to become friends from scratch each time?
 
I unno, a valid reason for the not telling bit (to me atleast) It's way harder to be genuine in friendship or feeling in general if you are doing ti to get somthing; even if that somthing is good in itself.

IF you want more people to have frendship superweapon powers, not telling them about it might produce better results.
 
DbDRAKE said:
I unno, a valid reason for the not telling bit (to me atleast) It's way harder to be genuine in friendship or feeling in general if you are doing ti to get somthing; even if that somthing is good in itself.

IF you want more people to have frendship superweapon powers, not telling them about it might produce better results.
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Or it might result in the superweapon sitting in an abandoned castle for a thousand years.
 
Pinklestia said:
Was King Sombra anti-life? He did destroy the Elements Of Harmony. He only lost because he got the idiot ball and started to monologue instead of killing the mane six right away.
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Honestly, I think the villains who have been locked away for a millennia+ get a pass on monologues. You can only stew in your own hatred and plans for revenge for so long before you start planning out speeches.
 
TheEyes said:
It's possible, likely even, that forming "friendships" solely for the purpose of studying them might undermine the purity of the connection and prevent them from restoring the Elements in the first place.
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She can also just explain that that won't work, and you need genuine True Companions for it to work, and if they can't stop obsessing over it long enough to have some human interactions then they don't deserve to study it. He'll, just saying that there are magics that can only be accessed when synced to another person should be enough.
 
Mr Zoat said:
"And… If they'd known each other a long time, the effect was even more pronounced."

"If they were friends."

"I couldn't quantify friendship." She blinks, her gaze growing a little distant. "I mean, I suppose I could quantify it in terms of exactly how much their output was boosted… But it.. could just mean that they've learned to instinctively harmonise their magic when they work near each other. I'd have had to find ponies who'd worked together for years and still didn't like each other in order to check, and I'd still have needed them to self-report."
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It occurs to me that sunset knows about Grayven using fear and avarice as power sources right? is it that much of a stretch that Equestria uses friendship as an equivalent power source in a similar way?
 
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Handlewithcare said:
Btw, question: can a motherbox create something? Rearrange matter into technology or food or clothes or whatever?
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In the comics, absolutely. For example the second time Superman fought Doomsday, he had a Motherbox. Among other things it healed Darkseid after Doomsday beat him within an inch of his life, outfitted Superman with gadgetry, and then healed Superman and his costume after the battle was done.

Here, I assume Zoat doesn't want the uses of a power ring and a 'box to get blurry in story.
 
Well, at the end of the day, even if Sunset wants to study friendships, she still has to form them, and that's it. Even if she's made friends to study sociological Madrid or whatever, she still made friends.


At the end of the day it won't matter why she did, since as long as she isn't so far on the sociopath scale that she is unable to empathise, she'll realise that meaningful emotional connections are, and pardon the Department of Redundancy Department, 'meaningful'.
 
Mr Zoat said:
If it was the power source, wouldn't it be consumed and force them to become friends from scratch each time?
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Is Fear or avarice consumed every time grayven or paul uses their rings? unless you want to use the beloved New 52 canon where the emotional spectrum can be used up ala relic.
 
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