Princess Twilight Sparkle

A Spoileriffic Reivew

Season four began today with probably the best opener yet, but for all its awesomeness I am also filled with sadness. I am concerned that this may be the final season.

The two parter begins with now Princess Twilight practicing, and sucking at, flying lessons for a "big finish" she is going to be performing at the Summer Sun Celebration. To put Bronies' hearts at ease Twi tells her friends she is uncomfortable with flying and with her new title.

The theme song is different. Twi now has wings, the CMC and some others are there posing for a picture by Photo Finish, and Lulu is with Tia when they see the new picture in Canterlot.

Tia tells Twi that this is the first Summer Sun Celebration where she's not sad because it reminded her of when she had to banish her sister cause now they're back together. If this event happens only once a year then that means it is exactly one year since Lulu returned on the very first episode. Talk about one busy year!*

The beginning of part one is really sad and sweet with sad Twi being comforted by her friends. Twi is making a list and checking it thrice, and Pinkie Pie is being Pinkie Pie. There's a cute scene where Twilight bumps her head on the ceiling when she's worried about forgetting something, and another sad sweet moment where Princess Celestia tells her that she's not her student anymore, but is instead her equal. They grow up so fast.

Unfortunately Tia and Lulu disappear (with a rather worrisome shriek from Tia as she's captured), the sun and the moon are in the sky at the same time (not a big deal on Earth, as it happens all the time, but in pony world (Hippotopia - literally "place of horses" - if you will), when the sun and moon are together half the sky is day and the other half is night (which looked really cool how they blended together). The Royal Guard, with no other royalty to guard, come to Princess Twilight for direction, and she promptly directs them to get lost for the rest of the episode (pretty much).

Back in Ponyville, black weeds (that look poorly animated at times) start strangling everything and spiny thunder clouds are trying to shoot Rainbow Dash out of the sky. Rarity and Sweetie Belle are having trouble controlling their magic (and Sweetie Belle's magic is blue, just like her sister's, not green like it was in "One Bad Apple").

Twi gives everypony the Elements of Harmony and they summon Discord (who is singing "Winter Wrap Up" in the shower) who affirms that he is not behind these disasters, asking "would I lie to you?" To which almost everypony replies "yes," and Fluttershy giving a less sure "um, maybe?" Discord is kinda-sorta grateful that his good friend "Shutterfly" is giving him the benefit of the doubt. He points them to Zecora, who is having to flee her home now that the Everfree Forest is overrun by killer weeds. She gives Twilight a magic colour-changing potion, Twi drinks it, and all of a sudden she can see into the past. Part one ends with Twi witnessing Luna transforming into Nightmare Moon.

Part two begins with a very intense battle between Nightmare Moon and Celestia that was very reminiscent of this Lullaby for a Princess video. The similarities are spooky, really. The battle destroys the old castle and seems to injure Celestia at one point (very intense for MLP). Tia gets the Elements of Harmony and goes god mode to banish Nightmare Moon.

Cue more flashbacks. Twi sees when Tia and Lulu first beat Discord. We get to see which three elements each sister wielded. Judging by the colours:

Tia
Magic
Kindness
Generosity

Lulu
Laughter
Honesty (AJ - "Dependability")
Loyalty (RD - "Authenticity")

This is interesting because, after BronyCon when I outlined my own story about Discord and the EoH, I gave Tia and Lulu practically the same list of elements, with the only difference being Tia obviously had laughter, as she's always joking around, and giving Lulu Generosity because somepony had to get it and the other five were taken. I'm not going to change my story in light of the canon list, or any of the other events that happened in these two episodes.

When Tia and Lulu blast discord with the EoH he seems not to know what they are. However, at the same time, he throws "plunder seeds" on the ground in a plot to steal the elements and trap the sisters! Unless, he knew about the Elements but never thought Tia and Lulu would figure out how to use them. It takes a long time for those seeds to sprout because a great and powerful force is keeping them at bay.

The Elements of Harmony, it is revealed, come from a crystalline entity called the Tree of Harmony, located within the Everfree Forest. Just as I predicted in The Window, the EoH started out together as part of a single being of unimaginable power (though, in the story, I never specified what that being was). That it was a tree is very interesting. Just as the battle with Discord represents the Chaoskampf, where the demiurge or creator god brings about the world from the primordial chaos, the idea of a tree of unlimited power, uniting heaven and earth is a very common theme. The world tree, axis mundi, or kalpataru (a wish-fulfilling tree which is identified with the supreme God) appears in cultures all over the world (and is the supreme entity in the universe of pretty much all my stories, at least since 2006).



Unfortunately, the Tree of Harmony's power is almost gone, and the plunder seeds have begun to grow out of control. They have captured the princesses and are close to fulfilling their purpose of killing the Tree. The Mane Six go looking for it. They have to put the EoH back inside the Tree to recharge its power and restore the balance of the universe.

There's a fight, Twi is convinced to leave, but Discord says some sly remarks and Twi goes back to her friends. Twi almost dies, her friends save her (in a most awesome scene), she puts the Elements back in the Tree, the weeds vanish, and Tia and Lulu are saved. The Tree produces a box that cannot be opened without six keys that are going to be the focus of next week's episode.

Book ends! That great big thing Twilight was going to do at the Summer Sun Celebration? She flies up and makes her cutie mark appear in the sky, sonic rainboom style. Why couldn't she just use her magic? Why did she need to fly at all? Still, it is a very cute ending.

Overall, I would rate this two parter 98/100.





*On the other hand, if Apple Family reunions happen "every hundred moons" and there's been two so far, then eight years have passed already and Tia has just had a memory lapse or something.

OR the writers just make stuff up as they go along.

Is There a Connection Between Sombra and Luna?

Gasp! An invitation to do a video response? The very thing that put the "you" in "youtube"? I haven't seen one of these in years! Although the feature was officially taken away I recorded this anyway.

Is there a connection between Sombra and Luna? I certainly think there is.

If you can't get through ten minutes of rambling I'll write a transcript over the next few days (I hope).

A Canterlot Wedding

This episode of My Little Critiques with BronyCurious is absolute genius. I loved every minute of it, especially the end.

The Night That Lasted Forever: Terrifying Consequences

I was reading "The Black Cloud" by Fred Hoyle when I got to thinking about Nightmare Moon's plan to eliminate the sun.

Now, in the My Little Pony universe the sun is not some astronomical object out there in space, it is something manipulated by magic. This means that there is not a night side and day side to the planet. [1] This is very important, as will become evident later.

Had Nightmare Moon succeeded in her plan, this "night that will last forever" would completely devastate the entire planet, rendering it uninhabitable to all but a tiny few creatures (assuming they exist) whose lives are not impacted by the sun's existence or lack thereof. Moreover, this horrible fate, the end of all pony kind, would happen in a much quicker timespan than might be imagined by the casual viewer. Allow me to explain with a little timeline.

First, it is important to note that this "forever night" [2] would be very different from an ordinary night. During the night the land surface cools down. This process is mitigated by the effects of the atmosphere. If there are clouds then less heat can escape and the land cools slower. On Earth there is always some point on the surface where it is day time, so part of the atmosphere is always warm, creating convection currents and preventing the entire atmosphere from cooling off. This is why the artic and antarctic never get too cold during their long, sunless winters, because warm air from the lower latitudes circulates, keeping the poles warmer than they would otherwise be. If the entire output of the sun was eliminated somehow (see note 1), then this saving effect of the atmosphere would no longer exist.

It is impossible to make accurate calculations without knowing the size of  pony planet, but we can make some reasonable guesses.

A body the size of the Earth facing an endless night would rapidly begin to cool off. Immediately photosynthesis would stop, and small plants would begin to die as they used up their sugar supplies.

Within a week the surface temperature of the whole planet would reach freezing. The oceans, a considerable heat reservoir, would remain warm for a quite some time.

One month after sun and most plants have died or been eaten. Herbivoirs would not survive much longer. Ponies (being the equivalent of humans) do not seem to be capable of harnessing geothermal power, or operate submarines, as they seem to have 19th century equivalent technology (steam power). They would be able to burn wood, and possibly coal, for warmth, and live off of grain reserves (say a year's worth), but things would get very difficult very quickly. Many ponies would die early on, leaving the harty survivers to a long, cold, dark, lonley fate. The surface temperature would be arctic cold everywhere. Coastal waters would begin to freeze, but the opean ocean would remain liquid.

Six months after sun and the surface temperature is as cold as it ever gets on Earth, −80 °C (−112 °F). Only a few straggling scavangers will survive. If it can't live in Antarctica it can't live on pony planet any longer. Creatures would not only need adaptation to extreme cold, they would need adaptation to darkness. [3] The last of the ponies has probably died. The water in trees has frozen solid and the only surviving plant life is a few frozen seeds. Even the open ocean is frozen on the surface. Most sea life within the first 2 kilometers has died due to starvation. Deep ocean life continues to survive off of detritus falling from the surface.

One year after sun and the only things left alive are either immortal (Luna as Nightmare Moon, Celestia who has been captured, and statue Discord), or lives far below the surface. The deep oceans, warmed by geothermal activity [4] and insulated by over a kilometer of ice, will remain habitable to deep vent communities (tube worms, shrimp, etc., if they exist on pony planet), and bacteria slowly metabolising the rock near the mantle (if they exist [5]).

After that is wild guessing. Even the longest lived seeds would die after a few tens of thousands of year (maybe sooner, if they can't survive the cold). Global glaciations have lasted for tens of millions of years without freezing the oceans solid (although, the sun still existed). In the total absence of the sun, it would still be tens of thousands of years before the oceans froze solid. The only life would remain deep under ground, where the rock was still warm. The surface temperature would be the same as that of the Moon during night time, −238 °C (−477 °F). The atmosphere would have frozen long ago. [6] If pony planet is like Earth, geological activity will end when the outer core solidifies, a process which will take 2 billion years. Subterranian bacteria will have died long before this event, having used up all available water in the rocks. The entire planet will be dead, and all because a princess got butthurt because her subjects couldn't stay awake 24 hours straight.




Notes

 1. As far as we can tell - unless Celestia does not "raise the sun" but "rotates the planet," which would have the same subjective effect. For purpose of this exercise I am assuming that Celestia actually raises the sun, meaning that when it is night time the entire planet is covered in darkness, and when it is day time the entire planet is covered in light.

It is possible that Nightmare Moon could blot out the sun by putting something between it and pony planet, like the Black Cloud. That object would need to intercept and absorb or divert all incident sunlight, and not in any way warm up, or there would come a time, eventually, where it would get so hot as to become as effective a radiant heat source as the sun itself. Either way, the effect would be the same, and the means of how Nightmare Moon eliminates the sun is unimportant.

2. "Forever Knight" was a TV series about a vampire police officer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPhIEG3JYtg

3. Vitamin D must be created through exposure to sunlight or ingesting something that had created it through sunlight. NONE of the latter survive. Life would entail a constant struggle to acquire this nutrient.

4. Volcanoes do exist, as has been seen on the show. The only question remains if dragons are the only creatures that live in volcanoes or if there are Earth-equivalent lifeforms like tube worms.

5. Ponies can get sick, so assumably there are many different kinds of bacteria.

6. If the pony atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, it would have frozen solid at −210 °C (−346 °F). Offgassing from volcanoes would still release carbon dioxide, which would also freeze, producing dry ice snow. Since volcanic activity won't stop for millions of years the atmosphere would consist of carbon dioxide waiting to freeze and trace gasses like helium.