Qualitatively Speaking: Special Relativity, Time Travel, and The Cutie Re-Mark

By: Psi Star Psi

Special Thanks to my Parents and Needling Haystacks for insightful commentary and review

Qualitatively Speaking: Special Relativity, Time Travel, and the Cutie Re-Mark Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements and Opening Thoughts 4

Introduction

Purpose 5

Why bother with physics at all? 5

Qualitatively Speaking: Special Relativity and Time Travel

The Relative Nature of Space and Time 6

The Principle of Relativity 7

Speed Limit of the Universe 7

Space and Time in Special Relativity 8

Reconciling Time Travel and Special Relativity 9

Qualitatively Speaking: The Magic of Friendship 10

Qualitatively Speaking: It’s About Time

Sheet Diagrams and the Basics of Time Travel 10

Qualitatively Speaking: The Cutie Re-mark

Timeline Order and Events within The Cutie Re-mark 12

Order and Description of Events 14

The Cutie Re-mark Review 16

References

Qualitatively Speaking: Special Relativity, Time Travel, and the Cutie Re-Mark 20

Preface

Acknowledgements and Opening Thoughts

Many months ago, I attended Crystal Mountain Ponycon to meet and thank Dr. , Silver Quill and Commander Firebrand. I also had a copy of a project I had been working on for more than two years: a 296- page treatise on how physics can successfully explain events within the show : Friendship is Magic. When giving thanks my Season 1 Fluttershy came out and to say there was a lackluster reaction to the physics would be an understatement. The former I did my best to fix in EQD’s Nightly Roundup 1342, and this is my attempt at working on the latter. So, what went wrong? Three professional physicists, all full-time researchers with PhDs in specialized related fields of physics, have looked over this treatise. And all three have been unable to sift through the garble, invented formalism, and insane premise. My roommate said it quite well when I started this project: “You may be the only person on the planet who has both the will to get this done and the skills to do it.” As it happens that’s not true, as there are a few Brony physicists out there who could have performed similar calculations that have reached out to me over various channels. But I could list us all on one hand. So, what to do? Well I was given good advice by the famous reviewers: Make things interesting, tie it to the physics more firmly, and explain your theory in 10 seconds. Of course, the latter is impossible as you can’t compress physics to a tweet. But I can do better than 296 pages filled with custom built equations. So, I started working on this series: Qualitatively Speaking.

Lastly, this essay starts with a discussion of physics and theoretical principles that my calculations suggest the My Little Pony universe obeys. However, the latter section moves from this reasonable theoretical physics basis well into the realm of head-cannon. The sequence of events that I outline are primarily meant to encourage discussion of what might have happened, when given the restrictions that can be placed upon the Universe with a detailed knowledge of physics. Though I believe that this is the most likely sequence of events, that belief is not at all confident. I would encourage the audience to examine the discussion and head-cannon presented with a skeptical eye – and to discuss what your observations lead you to believe.

Introduction

Purpose

We have three objectives in this essay. First, introduce the reader to Special Relativity. You can’t understand time travel without understanding time. Which brings us to our second objective: discuss time travel within this particular context. Clearly time doesn’t work in the same way that it does in our Universe, but nailing down exactly how it does work turns out to provide important insight into the world of My Little Pony. Once we have completed When examined, the equations on this chalkboard are clearly derived from the Special Theory of Relativity. One can therefore objective two, we can attack our third conclude that the base principles of Special Relativity are obeyed by objective and analyze the Cutie Re-mark the My Little Pony Universe. from a physically sound perspective. I will do so with no meta knowledge permitted. Every scene will be taken as fact and then I will attempt to produce a head-cannon which fills in the gaps of knowledge.

Why bother with physics at all?

One phrase: Magical . Shouldn’t that exclude the use of physics at all? My first reason for including physics is simple: physics isn’t a theory, it’s a methodology that I have outlined below.

Careful observation of a system whose behavior obeys currently unknown laws

Initial theory as to the underlying laws that govern the system’s behavior Attempt to refine the understanding of the system by Current theory for the laws proposing changes to the original the system obeys proposition which might account Produce mathematical equations for any discrepancies between which describe a system that theory and experiment. obeys those laws exactly

Use these equations to compute theoretical values Perform experiments to for the outcome of determine how closely experiments and predict the experiment and theory existence of previously agree. unobserved phenomena. Physics is just a special case of the and can be applied to any desired system. Including magical horses. However, as one can figure out just by looking at the first page of my original treatise, this particular problem gets complicated fast.

There is a second reason: the show staff include physics and ponies who seek to understand reality within the world of MLP. When denied meta knowledge, everything must be taken as fact and we must conclude that some form of physical laws exists. So, my quest began and here we are.

Notably we have ’s chalk board from It’s About Time. Twilight Sparkle is well read and thus there must be some general theory where Special Relativity is included. But, Special Relativity is very difficult to reconcile with traveling backwards in time, and indeed this reconciling took most of my effort. Explaining Levitation and the Sonic Rainboom are simple by comparison. Qualitatively Speaking: Special Relativity and Time Travel

The Relative Nature of Space and Time

Here we will be discussing the aspects of Special Relativity most pertinent to time travel, but if you want to know more I suggest Bronies to go to: http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/428844/its-about- time-dilation. This post is a discussion of the equations which appear in the episode It’s About Time, which we don’t attempt to describe here. We are more interested in a qualitative understanding of the topic at hand. The author of this post, Pineta, does a very good job and displays an ability to explain physics in a concise and generally comprehensible manner.

To understand Special Relativity, one needs to first understand that space and time are Relative and why this is the case. Let’s make this idea clear, shall we? First, I want you to imagine that you are in the cloud arena watching the events of Sonic Rainboom.

Let’s say this is you. I know whatever is above you is fascinating, but I need you to look down for the lesson!

Furthermore, let’s assume that Rarity has fallen so far that the air resistance equals gravitational pull and therefore she is falling at a constant velocity (often called terminal velocity). It’s clear to you – Rarity is moving away from you quickly. But now I want you to imagine that you are Rarity falling from the arena.

You seriously want

me to ponder physics and the nature of space and time when I am falling to my DEATH?!

Yes. Is there something wrong?

…

Imagine now what the world looks like from Rarity’s perspective. From her point of view, it’s the cloud arena that is moving rather than her. We can see from this example that space and time (i.e. where you are and how fast you are moving) is different from different perspectives. Thus, space and time are relative and depend upon from what point of view you are observing it. In order to understand Special Relativity you need to understand the formal statement of the relative nature of space and time, and one more law.

The Principle of Relativity

Albert Einstein realized that because of the nature of space and time, the laws of physics must be the same for everypony who meets a requirement. Specifically:

1) All physical laws should be the same for anypony moving at a constant speed in a straight line or standing still.

This is the Principle of Relativity. Anypony with zero acceleration will experience identical physical laws.

Speed Limit of the Universe

The other component of Special Relativity is the idea that the Universe has a speed limit. The speed limit of the Universe is the speed at which light travels or 670,616,629 mph. How is this speed limit enforced? This speed limit is enforced by the speed of light being the same for everypony with zero acceleration. 670,616,629 Twilight Sparkle’s Point of View mph 670,616,629 mph

This is very much non-intuitive. So, let’s give an example by telling Rainbow Dash that she can’t outrun a ball of light. I feel confident that would 600,000,000 mph convince Rainbow Dash to try. After researching rocket engines, she produces an engine that should let her travel 600,000,000 mph. That’s a good start so she pulls it out for a test ride and has Twilight Sparkle measuring at the sidelines. When the race starts, Twilight Sparkle see’s the situation shown on the previous page – Rainbow Dash moving at 600,000,000 mph and the light moving at 670,616,629 mph.

But one’s first guess of what Rainbow Dash would see is wrong. When we move to Rainbow Dash’s perspective, she also sees the light traveling at 670,616,629 mph rather than at 70,616,629 mph.

Rainbow Dash’s Point of View Rainbow Dash’s Point of View

670,616,629 mph 70,616,629 mph

0 mph 0 mph

But why does this happen? Light can’t travel at any speed other than 670,616,629 mph, no matter who is watching. To accommodate this, space and time must bend to enforce this law. No matter how quickly you are moving light always moves at the speed of light and as a direct consequence nothing else ever hits the 670,616,629 mph speed limit of the Universe. Rainbow dash probably didn’t take this very well. One of the ways that time and space bends is that, as you move closer to the speed of light, time moves increasingly slowly. As one gets very close to 670,616,629 mph (as measured by Twilight), Rainbow Dash’s passage through time (as measured by Twilight) slows down to a complete stop and it becomes impossible for Rainbow Dash to accelerate anymore.

Space and Time in Special Relativity

But how does this relate to traveling backwards in time? It permits us to create a simple diagram, called a light cone, that describes all locations somepony can move to in the future. Because nopony can move faster than light, everypony is restricted in where in space and time they can travel. Only positions contained within the future light cone (shown to the right) are available, and this clearly excludes moving backwards to the past.

But we have ponies moving backwards in time.

Reconciling Time Travel and Special Relativity

Now that we understand where ponies can travel to in special relativity we can start talking about how to adjust our laws to permit traveling backwards in time. My solution was to generate physical laws in which the forward light cone points in different directions depending on its space-time location. The manner that this permits traveling backwards in time can be easily diagramed;

Forwards in Time

Forwards in Time Spatial direction x

Spatial direction x Spatial direction x

Spatial direction x Forwards in Time

Forwards in Time

You can start at the purple circle in the diagram, follow the red path through each forward light cone, and get back to where you started to meet yourself. Nowhere have you left a forward light cone, but you are no longer restricted from traveling to any location in space and time. Note that under no conditions does this occur in our Universe.

I found it most convenient to place all of on what is effectively a Universe sized rubber sheet, with one real time dimension and three real spatial dimensions. Because the rubber sheet is flexible, ponies on the sheet can cast spells that bend it around to permit loops like the one diagramed above. We now must put our discussion of time on hold to discuss the Magic of Friendship.

Qualitatively Speaking: The Magic of Friendship

Feet meet broken glass. How does one reconcile the fact that the Magic of Friendship has a definite, even predictable, effect upon reality and the fact that reducing the Magic of Friendship to a mathematical formula feels wrong in the context of Equestria?

Unfortunately, the full details of how you include the Magic of Friendship into a physical theory without reducing Friendship to a mathematical formula is well beyond this discussion, but it can be done. The basic principle one starts with is the idea that even if you cannot determine what amounts to divine intervention by mathematical induction does not mean that you cannot record it. But, conveniently we don’t have to discuss the details of this analysis, because it turns out to be trivial to ensure that they agree (qualitatively) with the properties that Twilight Sparkle states or those shown explicitly within the show.

First, Twilight Sparkle states “Friendship connects all of Equestria, and undoing one group of friends made its magic less powerful.” This is mostly quite straightforward, but it is important to describe this property precisely. The Magic of Friendship has a property, which we will call “power”, that is localized in both space and time. Its power describes how strong Friendship based magic is at that location in space and time. Whenever a friendship breaks, its power decreases and conversely whenever a friendship forms its power increases. It’s easy enough to produce examples of power being different in different locations and times – the Discorded Mane six were unable to produce a Friendship beam, while the reunited Mane six were.

Second, the Cutie Map follows Twilight Sparkle through time, and its properties are unaffected by the time shifting. One can reasonably assume that it’s the Magic of Friendship making this occur, which means that the Magic of Friendship has properties which remain unaffected by time shifting. Qualitatively Speaking: It’s About Time

Sheet Diagrams and the Basics of Time Travel

Before attacking the more complex time traveling within the Cutie Remark, let’s talk about a simpler one: It’s About Time. This lets us give a concrete example of how to diagram a time travel episode. The diagram is on the next page, which shows where the rubber sheet connects to itself and where and when each event occurs. When traveling outside of the main timeline, the spell ensures that the pony traveling does not age even a second. The episode reveals several details about time traveling.

1) The spell does not permit changes to the past to be made. 2) This version of the spell goes back one week only. 3) The scroll forbids casting the spell more than once.

The first is a simple consequence of working within a space-time framework like special relativity, or equivalently causality protection. That is, it ensures that paradoxes are not created. The second and third gave me details about how the spell targets a location, which will be relevant in the review. Essentially, Starswirl calculated “where” the rubber sheet 1 week ago was, and then created a spell to make a passage between the two time locations. The calculations to make this work are extremely difficult. The equivalent challenge would be to use a sniper rifle in total vacuum to hit an inch-wide target from 181 billion km away. The guy was a genius.

Finally, the forbidding of multi-casting the spell makes sense given what we theorize about the rubber sheet. If you time travel and hit yourself traveling through time, you would either die slowly from dehydration because you miss your target and float forever through space, or you die from conditions off the sheet, which would probably disintegrate every atomic nucleus in your body in ~10-23 seconds.

Twilight Sparkle’s Path

Significant Event

Equestrian Sheet, Normal

Equestrian Sheet, no personal time passing

Light cone, for reference

Qualitatively Speaking: The Cutie Re-mark

Timeline Order and Events within The Cutie Re-mark

The first thing we need to do for this analysis is determine what the space-time diagram looks like. However, I first need to discuss a commonly stated and very much incorrect conception. Traveling through time, no matter how one might theorize it is done, CANNOT change the past without causing a time paradox, which cannot occur in anything one might reasonably call reality. Let me explain why.

First, this breaks energy and information conservation. The former permits any creature who can travel through time to become neigh omnipotent and omniscient by creating energy and information from nothing. The latter is inconsistent with the existence of life and causes problems that are even more problematic but too technical to discuss. Second, you cannot specify an “original” timeline without taking away free will. Third, space-time fluctuations make it impossible to specify the timeline that you are within. As a result, events become impossible to specify and the space-time falls apart. I probably convinced you at the first one. Traveling backwards in time never changes the time’line’.

So what does happen here? Starlight creates a series of parallel timelines, by bending the rubber sheet back on itself and creating a twist with each cast. While this would require an impossible series of calculations, she doesn’t need to calculate the twists – instead, she uses the Cutie Map to target locations. All in all, this is a pretty obvious change – while stalking Twilight Sparkle she must have noticed the Cutie Map connected everything in Equestria. It was a creative leap of logic, but she

was given a pretty nice clue. But what was the order? Here is what we know;

1) The Sonic Rainboom only occurs once, so it must be on the timeline going to the distant future. 2) The Magic of Friendship’s properties move continuously with the timeline. 3) Twilight Sparkle’s statement that each timeline is

worse than the last. Forwards time direction time Forwards 4) All particles must follow a continuous path from the distant past to distant future. Nopony has the power to duplicate the Universe. Angular time direction From this one can conclude that the King Sombra timeline connects to the distant past, the Sonic Rainboom (and main series) timeline connects to the distant future, and the remaining timelines are in the order shown in episode. Based on this, we can Light Cone determine what happened to each timeline by direction recognizing that the war and strife cause the Magic of Friendship to become increasingly powerless with each passing timeline. A rough 3-D (three TIME dimensions) of what the parallel timelines would look like is shown above. A more detailed diagram is shown on the next page. Geometrically minded readers might note that only 2 time dimensions are necessary for the diagram as shown. That’s true, but it becomes difficult to depict accurately and clearly.

3 3 2 Somewhere between 10 and 40 years 1 1 2

1 2 Distant Past 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 Diagram is expanded out for simplicity of viewing. 12 13 Were it depicted correctly, 10 11 14 15 2 the far past and far future would be perfectly 16 parallel. 18 19 3 17

20. This event occurred somewhere in 21 here.

4 AngularTime Direction

22 5

23

6

25 2 24 7 2 26 3 3

26 27 28 29 8

1 30 Legend

Equestria’s Path 1 Twilight’s Path 1 Distant Future Event Shown in Episode 1 Starlight’s Path

Sonic Rainboom 14 Important Event

8 Timeline Number Light Cone Direction First, we will be going through the events as seen by Celestia and Equestria, not in the order the episode goes. Second, yes, I know this is all head-cannon and other sequences of events could explain the observed scenes and information. This is sequence that I consider to be most likely, while maintaining physical self-consistence. Lastly, the main way that I determined these events is by using the idea that the power of the Magic of Friendship was increasingly decaying over the timelines. This is what Twilight Sparkle means when she says, “each timeline is worse than the last”. She is referring to the Magic of Friendship, not the literal events. As Lily Peet quite correctly pointed out, the ponies are better off serving loyally under Nightmare Moon then being enslaved by Queen Chrysalis. But that’s not what Twilight meant: she was referring to the increasingly powerless friendship magic.

Order and Description of Events

1) The distant past. 2) Starlight and Twilight arrive on the day Sunburst got his Cutie Mark. At first glance, it seems like nothing was changed. Until you realize that Starlight was narrating her past and future well within ear-shot of her younger self. She could not have failed to hear herself. 3) Next, Starlight arrives to stop the first Sonic Rainboom attempt. 4) Nightmare Moon is released, but still the bearer of the Elements of Harmony and with no other options, Celestia gives it her all and wins the duel. 5) Discord isn’t powerful enough to break his bonds or Celestia beats him 1v1 with the elements. 6) The wedding of Princess Cadence and Shining armor proceeds as normal, except this time Celestia is at full power and still wields the elements. She flat out wins her duel with Queen Chrysalis, and the invasion force falls under Celestia’s wrath. 7) returns. Cadence and Shining Armor fail to save the empire. There are several viable theories, but I believe that Twilight Sparkle fell here too, which would explain why Applejack didn’t recognize an Alicorn Twilight Sparkle. I think this is the case because she is powerful enough to make a visible difference in the war effort – probably by countering the mind-control helmets. 8) Celestia then must give up the elements to stop the plunder-seeds. 9) Without the elements, Celestia is unable to hold Kind Sombra at bay and declares war. This war would cause countless Friendships to break, weakening the Magic of Friendship. 10) Starlight once again stops the Sonic Rainboom. 11) Nightmare Moon is once again re-banished by Celestia, who once again wields the elements against her successfully. 12) Discord still isn’t powerful enough to break his bonds, or Celestia beats him again. 13) This time around though, the weakened friendship magic causes Queen Chrysalis’s power to be high enough for her to win. Princess Celestia falls at the wedding, and Canterlot falls. 14) Zecora takes charge of the resistance, and as friendships break under the high stress of guerrilla warfare the Magic of Friendship weakens farther. 15) When the Crystal empire returns, Queen Chrysalis immediately leads an army of Changelings and mind-controlled royal guards north to wipe King Sombra out. This gives Zecora enough ground to become a threat as King Sombra is overwhelmed by Chrysalis’s armies. 16) Zecora’s ability to detect the presence of time travel is now quite reasonable. There’s plenty of evidence of parallel timelines, if you know to look. The appearance of an unknown Alicorn would be more than enough reason for a knowledgeable observer to check. 17) Twilight starts a duel with Starlight, but hasn’t yet realized that the Magic of Friendship is so weak. She overestimates her strength and Starlight uses superior tactics to force the more magically skilled and still very powerful Twilight to a stalemate. 18) This time, Celestia is unable to defeat Nightmare Moon. 19) Discord is not released, or Nightmare Moon kills him before he is released as Lily Peet suggested. 20) At this point (unknown exact location), Twilight Sparkle realizes what is going on with the Magic of Friendship and creates a plan to stop Starlight Glimmer: rewind a bunch more times until the lacking Magic of Friendship causes the apocalypse, then trick her into coming to a future which is sure to affect her. Then, convince Starlight to give up willingly using this opening as leverage. 21) This time Lord Tierk takes advantage of reduced power Friendship Magic to regain his dark power early. Celestia falls to him and he takes over. 22) The next timeline the spell containing Discord fails and he obliterates the rest of the villains. Unhappy playing with just Celestia, he figures out a way to cure Princess Luna. 23) Flim and Flam didn’t defeat any supervillains. My guess is that here, with the Magic of Friendship so weak, Celestia gives into her own despair and wrath as her little Ponies are threatened by Nightmare Moon. But now the sun is not setting and the landscape chars. Flim and Flam come to the populace with a plan: pollute the atmosphere until a permanent cloud of reflective dust blocks out most of the sunlight so they don’t fry. Flim and Flam become heroes of the realm and create an Equestria in their image, while the extremely powerful Nightmare Celestia kills the other supervillains with her dark power and a still Loyal Royal Guard. 24) Twilight Sparkle realizes that the Magic of Friendship has hit critical low and drags Starlight into the future for her friendship speech. 25) This timeline probably went similarly to the last, until somepony invented nuclear warheads / mega spells. With the Magic of Friendship so weak, it probably wouldn’t take much to trigger a nuclear war. There are probably survivors, as the environment is hospitable enough that Twilight, Spike and Starlight survive in it. 26) They now travel to the day Sunburst got his Cutie Mark. 27) This time around, Starlight doesn’t stop the Sonic Rainboom willingly. 28) Now the Sonic Rainboom occurs and Celestia makes Twilight Sparkle her student. At the same time, she must have noticed that her own power over the Magic of Friendship reduced dramatically. Given this and the fact that Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark is on the tree of Harmony, she logically but incorrectly concludes that Twilight Sparkle is the new element of Magic rather than the Magic of Friendship has become vastly weakened. 29) She spends a vast amount of resources hunting down all the new bearers of the Elements of Harmony and ensuring they are in position. 30) The distant future.

The Cutie Re-mark Review

We have learned a great deal about the episode, and what the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Universe looks like. Let’s talk about what the new perspective on the actions and power of various characters tell us about them.

First, Starlight Glimmer’s actions now have a much firmer motivation and her backstory has significantly greater depth. As I noted previously, young Starlight Glimmer could not have failed to hear her own narration of her future/past. While younger Starlight doesn’t show any sign of hearing herself, this may be because she doesn’t immediately recognize her older self. She walks out of the picture, but I theorize that she then ran over to the window to hear herself say that, because of Sunburst getting his cutie mark, she never made another friend. Without this knowledge, Starlight’s actions are highly questionable and could be considered a sign You are RIGHT THERE! of sociopathy at worst. But holding a grudge against Pay attention Starlight. cutie marks for losing a lifetime of friends in a society which puts extremely high pressure on ponies to make friends isn’t nearly as far out there. Chances are young Starlight didn’t believe it – but I would guess that she decided to see if it was true by not writing to Sunburst. Without a reminder, Sunburst got caught up in his own work and forgot. As the months went on and the predictions became increasingly accurate, Starlight would have slowly given into bitterness and despair, believing that she is incapable of making friends. This then would lead realistically to the pony we see in the main show. That is not to say that the back story was written well: one should not need in depth knowledge of temporal logic to recognize the motivations of the main villain. Additionally, the fact that Starlight Glimmer risked the Magic of Friendship completely disappearing from reality is an exceptionally horrifying conclusion that we are forced to arrive at – while her motivations are clearer her crime can now be recognized as even worse, which is saying something. Nonetheless, the knowledge that timelines don’t re-write themselves provide us key insight into Starlight Glimmer’s past. Second, how did Starlight Glimmer manage to pull off the feats in the episode. Primarily two inconsistencies are seen. First, Starlight Glimmer seems to be much more powerful in a head-on duel in this episode relative to Twilight Sparkle. Second, how in Equestria did an untrained modify such a complex spell like Starswirl’s Time Travel spell? The first is explained quite simply within the context of the dropping power of the Magic of Friendship. Starlight Glimmer is more powerful in the episode, and Twilight Sparkle is weaker. This and good tactics (Starlight is clearly the superior tactician) would be enough to tip the balance into Starlight Glimmer’s favor. The second is explained by Starlight’s stalking and how the spell was changed. Without any formal training, Starlight probably struggled a great deal with the spell at first. But while stalking Twilight, she noticed that the Cutie Map must be connected to all of Equestria with Cutie Mark magic. With this, the modification that she made would have become clear. While this leap of logic does show that Starlight is intelligent, it is more consistent with her knowledge and experience.

We have discussed Zecora’s leap of logic as well: once parallel timelines are the structure used for time travel, the adjacent timelines would be possible to detect. This means it’s possible that Princess Celestia knew of the adjacent timelines. Alternatively, without a reason to check she might have chosen not to. But it would explain her visions / knowledge if the various Celestia’s were communicating with each other. The warning of the attack on Canterlot probably didn’t come from Queen Chrysalis – so where did it come from? What about the vision of Lord Tierk? If Celestia has the foreknowledge that a disastrous timeline will come to an end, would she stop it? I honestly can’t tell what Princess Celestia knows.

Speaking of Princess Celestia, it’s important to note that this whole analysis is based upon one simple idea: her ability to wield the Elements of Harmony alone is from her ability to summon up the power of Friendship of the entire world, not just her own Friendships. This is the only self-consistent reason I can think of to explain her wielding the elements alone. That’s why her power weakens so dramatically across the timelines: it’s because the power of the Magic of Friendship also weakens across the timelines so dramatically. We also have learned something very important about Princess Celestia’s motivations concerning Twilight Sparkle. Princess Celestia learned three things simultaneously and drew a very logical but incorrect conclusion from the information:

1) Her own power weakened dramatically. In the first few timelines, the power drop probably wouldn’t be immediately felt. But in the final timeline the difference would be clear. In the original series timeline, the Magic of Friendship is at its weakest when the Sonic Rainboom occurs. As far as the Magic of Friendship is concerned, the apocalypse just happened and that most assuredly destroys many, many friendships. Thus, Princess Celestia feels her own power and apparently, her connection to the Elements drain away. That being said, she is still capable of wielding the elements of Harmony. But with her connection to Princess Luna so weak and the Magic of Friendship of the world at a critical low, she wouldn’t get a significant enough power boost from using them. 2) Twilight Sparkle shows off vast magical potential. This is a combination of her future connection to the Magic of Friendship through her very best friends and her own very substantial magical potential. Their Cutie Mark connection which is made contributes, giving Twilight Sparkle far more magical power then she can handle. 3) Twilight Sparkle’s Cutie Mark is an image which appears on the Tree of Harmony. She gets this Cutie Mark because of her vast magical and friendship potential. But technically speaking, her Cutie Mark is a symbol of her potential to have a connection to the Elements of Harmony, not her current connection. When a pony gets a cutie mark it is a symbol of what the pony has the potential to be – not what they are currently.

But imagine you are Princess Celestia and are handed the three italicized pieces of information and none of the explanations. It would look very much like the Tree of Harmony has chosen a new barer for the Element of Magic. Thus, Princess Celestia places a huge amount of trust into Twilight Sparkle, believing her to be the future ruler of Equestria. As it happens, Twilight Sparkle is up to the task so she was right to put so much faith into her. But the information and logic she used to arrive at this conclusion was, unless she was aware of the parallel timelines, flawed.

Now that we understand how the Magic of Friendship changes within the episode, let’s address a problem with the episode: it is implied that Twilight Sparkle’s Friendships are more important than others. To steal from Silver Quill borrowing from Starlight – “Starlight Glimmer phrased it best – “Spare me your overblown ego”.” The problem wasn’t what was said in the episode: on the contrary Twilight says multiple times that it’s not just her Friendships breaking that are causing this. But it really looks like it. The solution within the theory is quite clear: the massive number of Friendships breaking because of war and strife that Princess Celestia is increasingly unable to handle without either Twilight or her sister. Standing alone Celestia is very powerful, which is why her thousand-year reign was so peaceful. But she is not unstoppable and in the end needs friends to stand by her like anypony else to hold her ground against disharmony. It is true that Twilight Sparkle and her friends are heroes of Equestria and are very important. But my theory gives a series of events where the Magic of Friendship doesn’t prioritize her Friendships over others, consistent with the philosophy of the show. I personally think that the writers simply didn’t have a good choice to not imply this message – though I would have liked if they tried harder.

Lastly, why do I think that Twilight Sparkle planned her friendship speech? The first reason is that a lack of plan is inconsistent with her own personality and abilities. She doesn’t just charge into things randomly and she can get into people’s heads. She understands Starlight Glimmer is emotionally unstable (it’s kinda obvious), and would guess that with the proper opening could convince her to abandon her attack. Also, she knows that Starlight is unaware of the damage that she is doing – handing her that opening on a guided platter. Second, though Starlight Glimmer had the upper hoof at first, it would not have taken long for Twilight Sparkle to obliterate her. All she needed to do was find a place in the future to read over the changes Starlight made, and add a few changes of her own. By moving the conflict from dueling (where Starlight is shown to have the advantage) to pure magical skill (where Twilight clearly outshines – see Magical Mystery Cure), Twilight would wipe Starlight out. Simply having multiple Twilight’s appear in a single past would be satisfactory and simple to make happen. Other Parley? options include but are not limited to finding a friendly Discord, bringing in a Zecora, taking Celestia and Luna for a jaunt through time, borrowing the elements to turn Starlight into stone, etc. Before anyone says that Starlight could just use her version of the spell to work on the spell more, that would push Twilight to make even If Twilight Sparkle hadn’t planned to reform Starlight Glimmer from early on, this more devastating modifications. is how it would have ended. Starlight Glimmer would be forced to enter a spell Like using the spell and Cutie modification war with Twilight Sparkle, and would lose horribly. Map to target her in all unaccounted-for timelines before she becomes a threat, stopping any farther attacks from Starlight before they start. This need not be violent, fyi. Starlight says why she didn’t do this, even though she could have; she wanted Twilight to live and suffer. But given the circumstances, Twilight would. That said, it is consistent with Twilight’s personality to talk her opponent down rather than fight – especially somepony who she thinks she can save. Additionally, we and Twilight know that she does friendship speeches like no other. Reforming villains is practically her full-time job. Altogether a risky, but highly rewarding plan and more importantly it’s consistent with what we know about Twilight Sparkle.

Oh, and if it wasn’t obvious, I liked the episode a lot. Flaws and all. And finally, I am curious what you all think about this theory and episode. What do you all think is going on? Questions, comments, constructive criticism and humorous anecdotes should be sent to: [email protected] References

Qualitatively Speaking: Special Relativity, Time Travel, and the Cutie Re-Mark

A4R91N. (n.d.). Princess Twilight the Ender slayer. Retrieved from Deviantart: http://a4r91n.deviantart.com/art/Princess-Twilight-the-Ender-slayer-383943174

CaliAzian. (n.d.). Twilight Sparkle - Determined. Retrieved from Deviantart: http://caliazian.deviantart.com/art/Twilight-Sparkle-Determined-420033250

Chrzanek97. (n.d.). Twilight spreading wings (Vector). Retrieved from Deviantart: http://chrzanek97.deviantart.com/art/Twilight-spreading-wings-Vector-590353803

Curiel, E., & Bokulich, P. (n.d.). Lightcones and Causal Structure. Retrieved from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-singularities/lightcone.html

CyanLightning. (n.d.). Starlight Glimmer Vector - 06 Do Not Want. Retrieved from Deviantart: http://cyanlightning.deviantart.com/art/Starlight-Glimmer-Vector-06-Do-Not-Want-648127007

Dornan, R. (2015). Russell Dornan (Wellcome Collection), “Don’t cross the streams! How we broke all the rules with #MuseumInstaSwap”. Retrieved from slideshare.net: http://www.slideshare.net/museumscomputergroup/russell-dornan-wellcome-collection-dont- cross-the-streams-how-we-broke-all-the-rules-with-museuminstaswap

EStories. (2016). Vector: Rainbow Dash 2. Retrieved from Deviant Art: http://estories.deviantart.com/art/Vector-Rainbow-Dash-2-415866523

Grumbeerkopp. (n.d.). Speed Limit Rainbow Dash. Retrieved from Deviant Art: http://grumbeerkopp.deviantart.com/art/Speed-Limit-Rainbow-Dash-280653626

Harvard. (2017, May). chandra.harvard.edu. Retrieved from https://i.stack.imgur.com/lD8Sk.png

Hasbro. (2010-2016). My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Still frames taken from numerous episodes.

KyssS90. (n.d.). Vector Alicorn Twilight Sparkle Upset. Retrieved from Deviantart: http://kysss90.deviantart.com/art/Vector-Alicorn-Twilight-Sparkle-Upset-430835307

MangaKa-Girl. (n.d.). Pissed Alicorn Twilight Vector. Retrieved from Deviantart: http://mangaka- girl.deviantart.com/art/Pissed-Alicorn-Twilight-Vector-367442044

Psi, P. S. (2016). The Applications of Classical and Quantum Particle, Field, and String Theories to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; A Proposal for a Dynamic Space-time Structure for the - Equestrian Universe ... Retrieved from Deviant Art: http://psistarpsi.deviantart.com/art/The- Applications-of-Classical-and-Quantum-Particle-617091234

TertonDA. (2016). Shocked Rainbow Dash. Retrieved from Deviant Art: http://tertonda.deviantart.com/art/Shocked-Rainbow-Dash-254754783

Wikipedia. (2015, May). Albert Einstein wiki page. Retrieved from wikipedia.com: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein