If they want to make it cold in winter, they don't need to use cloud cover. Celestia can just move the sun around such that it casts more or less indirect light on Equestria. Tough shit for the other countries of the world! I wonder what the diplomacy is like. Apparently immigration is totally cool because they let griffins and zebras in no problem. But apparently invading is also cool, with Equestrian settlers just marching into buffalo territory.
Speaking of settlers, they had apple trees fully laden with fruit even though they had only moved in 1 year ago. Did they transplant an entire orchard or did the trees grow that quickly? I'm leaning towards fast-growing trees, because I'm pretty sure that there were no barren apple trees during the Winter Wrap Up.
But if they had fast-growing trees, then they would not have had to transplant Applejack's tree while they already appeared to have a fully-functioning orchard - they could have just grown more. Given the extent to which community service appears to be taken in Equestria, I would not find it shocking if they organized a concerted event to transplant a large number of trees.
Continuing from my previous comment on nature being out of whack. I find the whole idea of the animals and plants being extremly dependent on the ponies reasonable, and yet truly absurd.
1) The Ecosystem and the Food Chain The main question to ask here is whether natural predation still exists. Fluttershy grabbed a bunch of fish and worms for the purpose of feeding some animals under her care-an artificial predation. The show however, does not dwell into specifics, ergo, the food chain from the microscopic to insects hardly seem to be represented at all, and considering how these two groups form the widest base of all life and is the first stage of the food chain in our reality, as well as the main sources for pollination, i find it hard to remove these two groups from the pony ecosystem. There certainly are still APPLES being formed, pollination had to occur (bees maybe, but definitely not for ALL plants), plant reproduction still seems to be normal, like the animals. The idea of ponydom taking care of every creature, from the lowliest insect up is just too absurd. Furthermore, different groups have different habits and feeding habits.
*Sure if they somehow used MAGIC, but even then, just how many species are we looking at? Insects represent a round 90 percent of our life on earth, and thats a mind numbingly huge number. Unless of course, we once again refer to how a cataclysmic event wiped out the majority of these two groups, causing the ecosystem planet wide to be in danger of collapse. Maybe so many species went extinct to the point where the ponies, in panic, created a form of magic to halt the circle of life, and hence, they now have to care for whatever remains extremely purposefully.
2) Hibernation In winter wrap up, its mentioned they have to wake up the animals. Reversely, this seems to suggest the animals went to hibernation on their own; then again i doubt one could force an animal to go to sleep. Again this reveals how fragmented nature is-comparing the trees which turn their leaves brown in preparation for abscission, yet lack that final push, to the condensation of water, which again, lacks the final push for natural precipitation to occur. Back to the point on hibernation however, its reasonable to link the inability for them to wake withought pony intervention, simply because hibernation and metabolic responses are affected by ambient temperature changes, body temperature and time. Clearly if the artificial seasons do not change and ambient temperatures remain constant, animals will not wake due to their internal body temperatures being constant. Not mentioning of course, the whole slew of hormonal and chemical change within the body and the brain that seems to be at a standstill as well.
*This begs the question however, if spring is too late, and the animals sleep too much without being woken, will they most certainly die, or will pony intervention make sure it does not happen. The ponies have all become, literally, stewards of life, and life without them will die a certain death.
But if they had fast-growing trees, then they would not have had to transplant Applejack's tree while they already appeared to have a fully-functioning orchard - they could have just grown more.
Wasn't the tree more of a gift? They already had a full orchard with enough apples to share with the buffalo.
There certainly are still APPLES being formed, pollination had to occur
Maybe they reproduce asexually. There does seem to be only one kind of apple.
Also, I say we move a few discussions to the DA comments, to get some discussions going with some other bronies.
There certainly are still APPLES being formed, pollination had to occur (bees maybe, but definitely not for ALL plants), plant reproduction still seems to be normal, like the animals. The idea of ponydom taking care of every creature, from the lowliest insect up is just too absurd. Furthermore, different groups have different habits and feeding habits.
The thing is, if you consider a domestication process, then it's only the animals that the ponies bothered to take care of that are now dependent on pony care. On the other hand, the animals that the ponies didn't look after just evolved to handle the situation naturally.
Someone on the comments said that Cloudsdale isn't as high as the mountain, so I intend to do some serious research tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm going to re-watch Dragonshy to try to find references to how tall the mountain is. More importantly, I'm going to watch Sonic Rainboom extremely carefully, and when Rarity falls, I'm going to calculate how long it takes. I think that she has a constant scream in the background while she falls, so I know it's real-time. Then, I'll contact an orinthologist and send him/her pictures of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash and ask what types of birds do their wings best match. I'll then match their mass, relative wing size, and flapping speed to calculate the amount of force needed to keep them at a hover. This force is equal to the gravity acting on them, so I can divide that by a pony's mass to give me the acceleration due to gravity. I can then apply this to the time Rarity took to fall (taking into account terminal velocity) to find the height of Cloudsdale. I can also use this gravity and contact an engineer (or do the math myself if I can find a guide online) to find the maximum height of a mountain that wouldn't liquify its base. If this height isn't significantly greater than that of Cloudsdale, then it isn't an acceptable answer.
Have you all considered the fact in order for this to take place equestia can not take place on our planet. If the Sun and the Moon need to go and be controlled that means on the planet there is no orbit, therefore equstria is literally located at the center of the pony universe. As for the season I have a theory that since Celesia is actually the oldest pony there a failed NASA program to test the atmosphere of a planet in a different galaxy and by landing there (my guess would be the evergreen forest) some evolution took place in generations. Due to this Celestia may have known older ponys (ie king and queen) who told them stories about Earth's season and to keep the tradition alive she just mandates that it must be done in her section of the world. Since there is no orbit there is no changing weather pattern hense why the ponys need to take care of the weather and why most of the animals haven't a clue on what to do without the ponies babying them.
If this is the case I could totally see a Planet of the Ponys done in flash animation, "take your hooves off me you damn dirty pony!"
Or it could be the genesis project from star trek took place on a planet with a sun at fixed area and due to the nature of the project stopped the planet from its normal rotation thus the use of "magic" to go and ensure a somewhat normal calendar season.
I think at this point Scrym need to see if they can land an interview with Lauren Faust at the end of Season 1 for a pony follow up show.
Someone on the comments said that Cloudsdale isn't as high as the mountain, so I intend to do some serious research tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm going to re-watch Dragonshy to try to find references to how tall the mountain is. More importantly, I'm going to watch Sonic Rainboom extremely carefully, and when Rarity falls, I'm going to calculate how long it takes. I think that she has a constant scream in the background while she falls, so I know it's real-time. Then, I'll contact an orinthologist and send him/her pictures of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash and ask what types of birds do their wings best match. I'll then match their mass, relative wing size, and flapping speed to calculate the amount of force needed to keep them at a hover. This force is equal to the gravity acting on them, so I can divide that by a pony's mass to give me the acceleration due to gravity. I can then apply this to the time Rarity took to fall (taking into account terminal velocity) to find the height of Cloudsdale. I can also use this gravity and contact an engineer (or do the math myself if I can find a guide online) to find the maximum height of a mountain that wouldn't liquify its base. If this height isn't significantly greater than that of Cloudsdale, then it isn't an acceptable answer.
Wow, do give us all a ring when you get the answers to it. God knows im super interested in this kind of stuff. The height of cloudsdale could help me simulate the temperature at the attitude as well for my thoughts on the water cycle.
Ikatono, there's a fundamental flawed assumption in your plan there, that it is solely the lift given by their wings that allows the ponies to fly. I think it is significantly more likely that pegasus ponies can fly only because of magic, and that wings are comparable to the unicorn's horns in that they are what allow the ponies to control it. The ponies themselves may not realize this, but there's solid evidence that this is the case.
First of all, we have to consider the way that pegasus ponies interact with clouds. We know from the Sonic Rainboom episode that, to unicorn and earth ponies, the clouds are the same as they would be to us, essentially intangible; it follows that there's no special properties to the clouds that let them be manipulated the way pegasus ponies do. We can conclude, then, that the special property must lie within the pegasus pony. Since we see that Twilight can grant other ponies the ability to interact with clouds through magic, I submit that it is most likely that the pegasus ponies are simply born with that magical ability already granted them.
Next, we should consider the manner in which the pegasus ponies fly. Based on everything we know about the mechanics of flight, the wings on a pegasus pony should be nowhere near sufficient to allow actual flying. They wouldn't even allow ponies to glide. Now, the normal, everyday physics of Equestria might very well be so different from ours that this would not be true, but such radically different physics isn't expressed in any of the other non-magical things that ponies do, so I don't think it's very likely. More likely is that the method Equestria already has for apparently breaking the laws of physics is in use, namely, magic.
There's some more evidence that magic is in use in the Sonic Rainboom episode. First of all, the fastest bird in the world can't get to a seventh of the speed of sound. Yet a flying pony can break the sound barrier? It doesn't make sense if ponies fly just using their wings, but if they fly using magic as propulsion, then the limit to their speed would have nothing to do with just regular physics, and could easily be past the speed of sound. Also, look at what happens when Rainbow Dash fails to break the sonic barrier. She bounces off of it. This makes is not possible if she was just flying using wings like a bird; she would just reach maximum speed and then stop going faster. However, if she's flying by magic, there's no reason the sound barrier can't be some special barrier, or maybe even be a mental limit, whose effects screw with their magical ability to fly. Thus, only the best and strongest-willed ponies could ever hope to pass it. It would also explain the rainbow effect that happens at that point too, since only magic can really explain that effect.
Why have wings at all if they use magic to fly? The unicorn ponies show us that to effectively utilize magic, you need to have a focus through which you can control it, like a wand or a staff for a wizard(at least, in some stories). What more reasonable focus for flying magic then wings? Indeed, we can suppose that when Twilight gave Rarity the ability to fly, the wings were there only as a focus for the magical ability, which would explain why Rarity could stay hanging in the air even when her wings were fully extended to refract the light and not flapping. It was only after she lost the focus that she lost the ability to stay in the air. This makes me wonder, if a unicorn pony's horn was lost, through accident or malice, would they lose all their magic? Could they maybe get a prosthetic that would work in it's place, if it's just a focus they need?
By the way, I think this supports my theory that Pinkie Pie's apparent ability to see into the future is just a little-known magical gift. If pegasus ponies fly by magic, it shows that other non-unicorn ponies can have magic, even if it's just a magic all pegasus ponies share. Add this to all the magical beasts we have seen, and it makes having a non-unicorn pony having some kind of magic less unique, and therefore less unlikely. Since Pinkie Pie has no way of focusing it, however, it manifests through uncontrollable bodily reactions which she just has to memorize. This raises an interesting question. If a unicorn pony manifested this gift, would they be able to control it with their horn, and see into the future at will? Prophetic ponies(I wonder what their cutie mark would be)? If this is true, it must be either incredibly rare, for Twilight not to have thought about it in the episode, or Twilight just couldn't believe that an earth pony could have magic and didn't make the connection.
Of course, there is a greater explanation for everything: Flimsy backstory for merch.
Yeah, the "flawed story from flawed human beings" explanation is generally the best one around, but it leaves us zero potential for Gandalf girthing.
I said earlier in this thread that, as far as I know, you can't internally evaluate a fictional world, because you yourself are inherently external to it. You simply cannot rid yourself of the workings of your own mind in an attempt to shift them into the bounds of that world.
However, setting that aside, we need a Pragmatic Theory of Gandalf Girthing. In essence, what are the baseline assumptions one ought to rely on in order to evaluate a fictional world to the best of our ability?
However, setting that aside, we need a Pragmatic Theory of Gandalf Girthing. In essence, what are the baseline assumptions one ought to rely on in order to evaluate a fictional world to the best of our ability?
Imagine you were transported to a different universe with different rules. You want to figure out what those rules are. What do you do? You do science! The problem is that in a fictional world, you can not conduct any experiments. Therefore, without any experimental possibilities all you can do is examine the available canon evidence and come to a conclusion that fits the evidence. Of course, there are infinite explanations that can fit, so you also have to apply Occam's razor.
Of course, there is a greater explanation for everything: Flimsy backstory for merch.
Yeah, the "flawed story from flawed human beings" explanation is generally the best one around, but it leaves us zero potential for Gandalf girthing.
I said earlier in this thread that, as far as I know, you can't internally evaluate a fictional world, because you yourself are inherently external to it. You simply cannot rid yourself of the workings of your own mind in an attempt to shift them into the bounds of that world.
However, setting that aside, we need a Pragmatic Theory of Gandalf Girthing. In essence, what are the baseline assumptions one ought to rely on in order to evaluate a fictional world to the best of our ability?
You know, GGing (or perhaps just this conversation) sort of makes me think of the movie Pleasantville. The movie where 'real' people go into a 'fictional' TV show that one thinks is a paradise, but the other thinks that there is clearly something amiss and starts messing with things. More and more questions come up until the fictional Utopian world essentially breaks down revealing that it's basically an illusion. My point, perhaps, is that if we look too deep into the pony void, ponies may look back into us. ... That or the show will get canceled.
However, setting that aside, we need a Pragmatic Theory of Gandalf Girthing. In essence, what are the baseline assumptions one ought to rely on in order to evaluate a fictional world to the best of our ability?
Imagine you were transported to a different universe with different rules. You want to figure out what those rules are. What do you do? You do science! The problem is that in a fictional world, you can not conduct any experiments. Therefore, without any experimental possibilities all you can do is examine the available canon evidence and come to a conclusion that fits the evidence. Of course, there are infinite explanations that can fit, so you also have to apply Occam's razor.
I agree very much with Occam's razor. I also think some form of inductive reasoning is a necessity - basically, the idea that the future will resemble the past.
However, you can't just consider yourself "transported" to a different universe, because that implies you came from the this universe in the first place.
The question is, how does one place oneself within a fictional universe?
Except that the age group of grils that watch on TV probably do not go to Equestria Daily as much or have a large constructive presence on the internet.
Comments
1) The Ecosystem and the Food Chain
The main question to ask here is whether natural predation still exists. Fluttershy grabbed a bunch of fish and worms for the purpose of feeding some animals under her care-an artificial predation. The show however, does not dwell into specifics, ergo, the food chain from the microscopic to insects hardly seem to be represented at all, and considering how these two groups form the widest base of all life and is the first stage of the food chain in our reality, as well as the main sources for pollination, i find it hard to remove these two groups from the pony ecosystem. There certainly are still APPLES being formed, pollination had to occur (bees maybe, but definitely not for ALL plants), plant reproduction still seems to be normal, like the animals. The idea of ponydom taking care of every creature, from the lowliest insect up is just too absurd. Furthermore, different groups have different habits and feeding habits.
*Sure if they somehow used MAGIC, but even then, just how many species are we looking at? Insects represent a round 90 percent of our life on earth, and thats a mind numbingly huge number. Unless of course, we once again refer to how a cataclysmic event wiped out the majority of these two groups, causing the ecosystem planet wide to be in danger of collapse. Maybe so many species went extinct to the point where the ponies, in panic, created a form of magic to halt the circle of life, and hence, they now have to care for whatever remains extremely purposefully.
2) Hibernation
In winter wrap up, its mentioned they have to wake up the animals. Reversely, this seems to suggest the animals went to hibernation on their own; then again i doubt one could force an animal to go to sleep. Again this reveals how fragmented nature is-comparing the trees which turn their leaves brown in preparation for abscission, yet lack that final push, to the condensation of water, which again, lacks the final push for natural precipitation to occur.
Back to the point on hibernation however, its reasonable to link the inability for them to wake withought pony intervention, simply because hibernation and metabolic responses are affected by ambient temperature changes, body temperature and time. Clearly if the artificial seasons do not change and ambient temperatures remain constant, animals will not wake due to their internal body temperatures being constant. Not mentioning of course, the whole slew of hormonal and chemical change within the body and the brain that seems to be at a standstill as well.
*This begs the question however, if spring is too late, and the animals sleep too much without being woken, will they most certainly die, or will pony intervention make sure it does not happen. The ponies have all become, literally, stewards of life, and life without them will die a certain death.
Maybe they reproduce asexually. There does seem to be only one kind of apple.
Also, I say we move a few discussions to the DA comments, to get some discussions going with some other bronies.
If this is the case I could totally see a Planet of the Ponys done in flash animation, "take your hooves off me you damn dirty pony!"
Or it could be the genesis project from star trek took place on a planet with a sun at fixed area and due to the nature of the project stopped the planet from its normal rotation thus the use of "magic" to go and ensure a somewhat normal calendar season.
I think at this point Scrym need to see if they can land an interview with Lauren Faust at the end of Season 1 for a pony follow up show.
First of all, we have to consider the way that pegasus ponies interact with clouds. We know from the Sonic Rainboom episode that, to unicorn and earth ponies, the clouds are the same as they would be to us, essentially intangible; it follows that there's no special properties to the clouds that let them be manipulated the way pegasus ponies do. We can conclude, then, that the special property must lie within the pegasus pony. Since we see that Twilight can grant other ponies the ability to interact with clouds through magic, I submit that it is most likely that the pegasus ponies are simply born with that magical ability already granted them.
Next, we should consider the manner in which the pegasus ponies fly. Based on everything we know about the mechanics of flight, the wings on a pegasus pony should be nowhere near sufficient to allow actual flying. They wouldn't even allow ponies to glide. Now, the normal, everyday physics of Equestria might very well be so different from ours that this would not be true, but such radically different physics isn't expressed in any of the other non-magical things that ponies do, so I don't think it's very likely. More likely is that the method Equestria already has for apparently breaking the laws of physics is in use, namely, magic.
There's some more evidence that magic is in use in the Sonic Rainboom episode. First of all, the fastest bird in the world can't get to a seventh of the speed of sound. Yet a flying pony can break the sound barrier? It doesn't make sense if ponies fly just using their wings, but if they fly using magic as propulsion, then the limit to their speed would have nothing to do with just regular physics, and could easily be past the speed of sound. Also, look at what happens when Rainbow Dash fails to break the sonic barrier. She bounces off of it. This makes is not possible if she was just flying using wings like a bird; she would just reach maximum speed and then stop going faster. However, if she's flying by magic, there's no reason the sound barrier can't be some special barrier, or maybe even be a mental limit, whose effects screw with their magical ability to fly. Thus, only the best and strongest-willed ponies could ever hope to pass it. It would also explain the rainbow effect that happens at that point too, since only magic can really explain that effect.
Why have wings at all if they use magic to fly? The unicorn ponies show us that to effectively utilize magic, you need to have a focus through which you can control it, like a wand or a staff for a wizard(at least, in some stories). What more reasonable focus for flying magic then wings? Indeed, we can suppose that when Twilight gave Rarity the ability to fly, the wings were there only as a focus for the magical ability, which would explain why Rarity could stay hanging in the air even when her wings were fully extended to refract the light and not flapping. It was only after she lost the focus that she lost the ability to stay in the air. This makes me wonder, if a unicorn pony's horn was lost, through accident or malice, would they lose all their magic? Could they maybe get a prosthetic that would work in it's place, if it's just a focus they need?
By the way, I think this supports my theory that Pinkie Pie's apparent ability to see into the future is just a little-known magical gift. If pegasus ponies fly by magic, it shows that other non-unicorn ponies can have magic, even if it's just a magic all pegasus ponies share. Add this to all the magical beasts we have seen, and it makes having a non-unicorn pony having some kind of magic less unique, and therefore less unlikely. Since Pinkie Pie has no way of focusing it, however, it manifests through uncontrollable bodily reactions which she just has to memorize. This raises an interesting question. If a unicorn pony manifested this gift, would they be able to control it with their horn, and see into the future at will? Prophetic ponies(I wonder what their cutie mark would be)? If this is true, it must be either incredibly rare, for Twilight not to have thought about it in the episode, or Twilight just couldn't believe that an earth pony could have magic and didn't make the connection.
But back to the show, is it bad that I really wanted the message of the most recent episode to be "pie can solve all of the world's problems"?
Flimsy backstory for merch.
EDIT:
Boom De Yadda
And then it gets hilariously out of control.
I said earlier in this thread that, as far as I know, you can't internally evaluate a fictional world, because you yourself are inherently external to it. You simply cannot rid yourself of the workings of your own mind in an attempt to shift them into the bounds of that world.
However, setting that aside, we need a Pragmatic Theory of Gandalf Girthing. In essence, what are the baseline assumptions one ought to rely on in order to evaluate a fictional world to the best of our ability?
My point, perhaps, is that if we look too deep into the pony void, ponies may look back into us.
...
That or the show will get canceled.
However, you can't just consider yourself "transported" to a different universe, because that implies you came from the this universe in the first place.
The question is, how does one place oneself within a fictional universe?
Is it representative? If not, why not?