@Sjogre And that’s acceptable. I’m just expecting that they do their job well enough to avoid getting fired.
People will as little as people if they can get away with it. Don’t underestimate how lazy people can be.
We’re talking about a few seconds at dawn and (probably) dusk. They aren’t doing astrophysics equations for twelve hours
They are doing astrophysics. Not equations but the actual damn thing, one slip up and it could be disastrous for all parties involved. Just because Celestia makes it look easy doesn’t mean it is.
Hundreds, if not thousands of unicorn ponies would be sharing the load. The main problem would be organizing all of them to work at the same time.
See above. You’re assuming that many unicorns have that kind of strength.
…How the heck do timezones interact with this ability?
Got me.
_ Expecting the unicorns to resume their original role in managing nature is wrong?_
No, but they have to know what the hell they’re doing. Again they have to be the best Equestria has to offer in every imaginable way. There is no room for error here.
@Sjogre
Look it up if you don’t believe me,those are only estimates though given nobody has actually weighed either the sun or the moon. And we only know about pre-history from a play, we don’t know the specifics of how it was done.
The fact that the princess is more powerful than any of them, and has an army on her side.
Even if you take the princess out of the picture, they’re still just one group of unicorns, and the larger the group needed the less likely that all of them would go along with any attempt to hurt others. Other unicorns, along with the other races, would fight them
Again they would have to be Sombra level at least to even attempt to raise either the sun or moon based on raw magical power. And the princesses have many enemies, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think they would join whoever thought of the idea and jump at the chance to take go and take them down. This doesn’t just boil down to strength, but morals too. This the fate of the world each and every day, if Celestia does pick a group of ponies to fill in her place they better be the best Equestria has to offer in every possible aspect.
@Background Pony People look out for their own well being over others in their day to days lives. Naturally not all people are like this but it’s not as common as it should be. And people don’t always do their jobs, and sometimes aren’t even punished for it.
And that’s acceptable. I’m just expecting that they do their job well enough to avoid getting fired.
We’re talking about a few seconds at dawn and (probably) dusk. They aren’t doing astrophysics equations for twelve hours.
Education might be a factor here, but again some ponies just don’t have the raw power needed.
Yes? That’s why they’d do it as a group. It’s like Hurricane Fluttershy, where all of the ponies contribute even if some of them don’t bring a lot to the table.
Hundreds, if not thousands of unicorn ponies would be sharing the load. The main problem would be organizing all of them to work at the same time.
…How the heck do timezones interact with this ability?
Fair enough, and I agree. But I don’t think what you’re suggesting is the right way to go it.
Expecting the unicorns to resume their original role in managing nature is wrong?
I’m not talking about having them become the ruling caste again, I just think that they should at least know the spell for controlling the day and night cycle, if not take the responsibility off of Celestia’s shoulders. She’s already got a full plate, even if managing day and night seems a minor task.
@Background Pony
Given that Celestia just waves her head for a few seconds and that a group of unicorns were able to do it back in pre-history, I think that you’re overrating how technical it is.
After all, unicorns can use transmutation without going over the chemical composition of every molecule of what they change. Magic doesn’t seem to require that much detail on the part of the caster.
If they were that powerful, what would stop them from not giving a crap what the princesses says and start a coup?
The fact that the princess is more powerful than any of them, and has an army on her side.
Even if you take the princess out of the picture, they’re still just one group of unicorns, and the larger the group needed the less likely that all of them would go along with any attempt to hurt others. Other unicorns, along with the other races, would fight them.
Unicorns are arguably the most powerful race, but they live amongst the other races now. The unicorns have friends and relatives in the other races, rather than just being distant overlords. Taking control of the day and night cycle wouldn’t alienate them any more than the pegasus ponies.
Anyway, people, on average, are good. Unless bystander syndrome kicks in, a group of people are more likely to help than hurt.
In this case, the question is whether or not I would trust a bunch of strangers to do their job. I already do that every day.
The person is good, people are assholes. People look out for their own well being over others in their day to days lives. Naturally not all people are like this but it’s not as common as it should be. And people don’t always do their jobs, and sometimes aren’t even punished for it.
Mmmn. This particularly spell was shown as a very widespread spell, like levitation or the flashlight spell, rather than something tied to personal talents. It might need some proper education to use, but the pegasus ponies in the cloud factory are also trained, so not a major issue
Widespread or not, that doesn’t mean they can move stars with it. Education might be a factor here, but again some ponies just don’t have the raw power needed.
There is only one Celestia, and only one Luna.
While they’re long lived, they aren’t invulnerable or invincible, and we have no reason to believe that they are immune to exhaustion or illness. If they get sick, if they get hurt, there needs to be people that can take over for them.
Fair enough, and I agree. But I don’t think what you’re suggesting is the right way to go it.
@Sjogre
And Rarity was doing terrible at it, some unicorns would have the necessary skill or power to it well or correctly. And it’s a far cry from the weather to the celestial cycles. Regardless of how fucked up science is in Equestria (I mean look at the picture above) the sun and the moon are still physical objects in the sky, the moon weighs 81 billion tons, the sun weighs anywhere from 2000 trillion to 2,000,000. sextillion (roughly speaking). They have to do both, each and every day and night. They have the best damn team of unicorns Equestria has without any room for error
It would be far easier to crack on the weather than the sun and moon and stars. If they were that powerful, what would stop them from not giving a crap what the princesses says and start a coup? Again there can’t be any room for error be it power or your morals.
Who knows? Maybe she did teach a select few unicorns that spell just in case, after all that why she made her school in the first place, for ponies to have the power to protect themselves.
@Background Pony Ask yourself, who would you trust with your life? Two people you more or less know, or a thousand people you don’t know?
A lot of the people that I know are jerks. Strangers would be the better option.
Anyway, people, on average, are good. Unless bystander syndrome kicks in, a group of people are more likely to help than hurt.
In this case, the question is whether or not I would trust a bunch of strangers to do their job. I already do that every day.
Unless someone starts up a fascist movement promoting unicorns, I don’t think that there would be a problem with allowing the unicorns to handle the day/night cycle. And a unicorn fascist movement would be dangerous even without the day/night cycle starting in their control.
More to the in-universe points though, remember not every unicorn has that kind of magic in them, just because I know how a computer works doesn’t make a technician or engineer.
Mmmn. This particularly spell was shown as a very widespread spell, like levitation or the flashlight spell, rather than something tied to personal talents. It might need some proper education to use, but the pegasus ponies in the cloud factory are also trained, so not a major issue.
Sure it might take the work of the group to do it, but that would still take a lot of energy out of them, and mortals are more susceptible to mistakes and injury. Something that can’t happen when you’re dealing with fate of the entire planet.
That’s why more than two ponies need to know how to do it. There are lots of unicorns. Loads of them. Multiple cities with large populations. There was enough unicorns to handle the day/night cycle in the pre-Equestrian country, and the population has only grown since then. There are more than enough unicorns to handle a task that only takes a few seconds.
There is only one Celestia, and only one Luna.
While they’re long lived, they aren’t invulnerable or invincible, and we have no reason to believe that they are immune to exhaustion or illness. If they get sick, if they get hurt, there needs to be people that can take over for them.
To say nothing on how things won’t change a bit for the other ponies in Equestria, in fact they would have less words to it.
I’m…. not sure what you meant here, sorry.
@SeraphimDawn It can get bad to a point where nothing gets done. And we see that effect right now in many “democratic” countries today. When something needs to be urgently done, you make them agree.
Breaking a strike can be done in a number of different ways. While you can’t bring in a bunch of scabs for the United States Congress, shoving a bunch of unicorns through a remedial magic course on a single spell is another thing entirely.
This isn’t about ruling a country, this is about lighting one.
@Trickquestion
Given that even Rarity was able to control weather over all of Ponyville and the surrounding environs, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone as powerful as Celestia could manage a significant portion of Equestria. At least, a good chunk of Equestria at the time that she took over.
More importantly, Celestia could have simply forbidden the usage of weather control if she wanted to stop it from being abused the way that day cycle control could be abused. Natural weather, after all, does exist.
If she just wanted to stop abuse of the day/night cycle, then she just could have made abuse a crime and started to track down rogue groups of unicorns.
While Celestia did throw the crystal ponies under a bus to give her student a pop quiz, her restricting knowledge of the spell used to control day and night still seems odd. Simply teaching it to some of her students, or the Royal Guard unicorns, would allow her to have backups in case of an emergency while still allowing her a measure of control.
Given her nigh-universal adoration, even teaching it in public school would be unlikely to be a danger to her power base.
@Sjogre
>Actually, as long as factionalism results in one group willing to be friendly to non-unicorns, that’s an advantage.
Yes, that is an advantage. Centralization has it’s flaws too, but advantages as well.
It can get bad to a point where nothing gets done. And we see that effect right now in many “democratic” countries today. When something needs to be urgently done, you make them agree.
I do agree that everyone should have the right to have their opinions heard.
@Sjogre
Not to say the individual can’t be corrupted, since it’s been proven one certainly can, but the group can be manipulated, bullied, and bought off, double dealings can be had in the figurative shadows and no one would be the wiser. Nuclear energy can used for power too, but it can also create bombs.
Ask yourself, who would you trust with your life? Two people you more or less know, or a thousand people you don’t know? There’s no easy answer here, because either way you have to assume the best out of both.
More to the in-universe points though, remember not every unicorn has that kind of magic in them, just because I know how a computer works doesn’t make a technician or engineer. Sure it might take the work of the group to do it, but that would still take a lot of energy out of them, and mortals are more susceptible to mistakes and injury. Something that can’t happen when you’re dealing with fate of the entire planet. To say nothing on how things won’t change a bit for the other ponies in Equestria, in fact they would have less words to it.
@SeraphimDawn
Actually, as long as factionalism results in one group willing to be friendly to non-unicorns, that’s an advantage.
@SeraphimDawn
That’s also the downside to a dictatorship.
But that’s not really relevant to this discussion. It isn’t about ruling, it’s about turning day and night. The unicorns were able to parley their ability to turn day and night into ruling the ponies before Equestria is founding, but it’s unclear if that continued after the founding of Equestria.
In modern Equestria? The caste system is gone. Earth ponies aren’t farmers, pegasi aren’t the military, and the unicorns don’t focus on the sun and moon. Unicorns that turn day and night would be in the same position as pegasus ponies that work in the cloud factory. Perhaps politically influential, but not ruling the place.
@Background Pony Other than “unicorns” and “magic”, we have no idea what is involved in raising the sun/moon.
Actually, we know that it is a spell that any unicorn can learn, rather than relying on an individual talent. More on the lines of levitation than Rarity’s gem spell.
Or maybe trying to fight over a celestial body results in it exploding.
Or maybe it’s “once you grab it no one else can until you let them”.
The first is almost certainly false, given that Discord took the day/night cycle first from the old unicorns and then from Celestia.
The second is also unlikely, for the same reason, although it is possible that the ponies only controlled the sun/moon for a few seconds at a time, given how Celestia was shown raising the sun. Even if no one else can grab it while you control it, sounds like a job for some strike breakers. If they’re concentrating on holding the sun or moon, they can’t focus completely on defending themselves.
@Sjogre
Season 3 (and the tail end of Season 2) has made it clear that Celestia, for all her apparent holiness, is still a pretty underhanded politician, but not a particularly brilliant one. Taking sole control of the sun and moon makes the entire nation of Equestria reliant on her, but as we see here, her lack of a back up is coming to bite her in the arse. As for weather control, it seems likely to me there simply wasn’t a way around delegating that. It would be physically impossible for Celestia and Luna to individually control every speck of weather in the entire blumming country.
@Sjogre
Dictators tend to get things done when they want it to, without having to deal with getting others to agree with them. They MAKE them agree.
Factionalism is a major flaw to the democratic system.
Other than “unicorns” and “magic”, we have no idea what is involved in raising the sun/moon.
@Sjogre
Or maybe trying to fight over a celestial body results in it exploding.
Or maybe it’s “once you grab it no one else can until you let them”.
Or maybe it’s …
@Background Pony
You’re forgetting that individual unicorns don’t have the power to turn the sun and moon. As they would have to work in groups, it would take consensus for them to try anything.
The ones that can cause havoc and destruction on the spur of the moment are Celestia and Luna, not the mortal unicorns.
I’d equate the unicorn groups more to power companies than people holding the launch codes to a nuclear arsenal. They can’t launch things on a whim, and if one group turns the power off, another can turn it back on.
In the current system, there’s only two people that can handle things, and if both turn against you, too bad.
If you’re complaining about unicorn powers being open to abuse, that’s alway been the case. Manipulating the day and night cycle is actually one of the less abusable abilities, simply because it has to be used in a group, rather than being used as an individual toy.
@Sjogre
Let me put it to you this way, how many people would you trust with that kind of power without abusing it? @SeraphimDawn
Fair enough, that and one of them turning evil are two major flaws here. But we do have two more alicorns who aren’t as powerful but are learning for something greater…just a thought.
@Sjogre
Yeah.
What if Celestia and Luna somehow get sick? You know, even they are evidently susceptible to injuries and pain. Even they get tired. They may be immortal to age, but it’s possible that they could still die by other means.
I’m hoping for an episode where Twilight rallies the unicorn population to tap into their inner ancestral might to raise the sun.
@Sjogre
Celestia and Luna have been doing a good job so far keeping balance to the celestial cycles. And other than a little appreciation in Luna’s case, don’t ask for anything in return.
