MLP G5 Discussion and Speculation Thread
GoodVibesGorgeous 
Grumpy and antisocial
@Background Pony #0AD1
But they’re friends in real life, that’s all it matters. Maitreyi (Zipp) even invited Jenna (Sunny) and AJ (Pipp) for a party related to the premiere of Have I Never Ever’s season 3 (you know, the Netflix series where Maitreyi plays the main character). And I think AJ and JJ (Hitch) played love interests in a play once.
But they’re friends in real life, that’s all it matters. Maitreyi (Zipp) even invited Jenna (Sunny) and AJ (Pipp) for a party related to the premiere of Have I Never Ever’s season 3 (you know, the Netflix series where Maitreyi plays the main character). And I think AJ and JJ (Hitch) played love interests in a play once.
Icicle Niceicle 1517 
Ocs,Boops,Tickles&Memes
@Background Pony #0AD1
They have been together for over 9 years, along with multiple seasons, specials, spin-off a and a movie
They have been together for over 9 years, along with multiple seasons, specials, spin-off a and a movie
The G5 cast haven’t even had one season yet
Feels unfair to compare the chemistry
Background Pony #13BA
Still pretty generic voices regardless of how long they’ve been around. The M6’s voices stood out from each other since the first season.
Icicle Niceicle 1517
Ocs,Boops,Tickles&Memes
@Background Pony #13BA
Voices don’t have anything to do with cast chemistry.
Voices don’t have anything to do with cast chemistry.
GoodVibesGorgeous
Grumpy and antisocial
@Mr.Myoozik
I agree. And even if the VAs weren’t doing well, I don’t think complaining would do any good. MLP has been recorded in Canada since the 90’s and will likely stay that way for a long, long time. The only difference is that now it is recorded in Toronto instead of Vancouver.
I agree. And even if the VAs weren’t doing well, I don’t think complaining would do any good. MLP has been recorded in Canada since the 90’s and will likely stay that way for a long, long time. The only difference is that now it is recorded in Toronto instead of Vancouver.
Mr.Myoozik 
Music Connoisseur
@GoodVibesGorgeous
Plus, it’s hard and expensive to keep the original celebrity voice actors from the movie to do the series and shorts since there’s not only expense, but they have other projects and commitments.
Plus, it’s hard and expensive to keep the original celebrity voice actors from the movie to do the series and shorts since there’s not only expense, but they have other projects and commitments.
Background Pony #13BA
@GoodVibesGorgeous
You could have the argument that they’re supposed to do that for their respective characters. Also, I wasn’t complaining. I’m just saying how generic they sound. Kinda like a G4 BP. Had they kept their beta designs, I’m sure we could have gotten something as unique like G4’s main cast
You could have the argument that they’re supposed to do that for their respective characters. Also, I wasn’t complaining. I’m just saying how generic they sound. Kinda like a G4 BP. Had they kept their beta designs, I’m sure we could have gotten something as unique like G4’s main cast
TheQuietMan 
House of the Arcana
@mimssyciest
The latter. Doesn’t look like Cutie Mark means anything anymore.
The latter. Doesn’t look like Cutie Mark means anything anymore.
Ring Team
@Phoenixflambe
To me, and considering that the season 5 from Friendship is Magic completely rewrote the lore, the purpose, the individual aspect and the point of having a cutie mark just because of one divisive character, that’s not gonna be a problem in G5, where, judging by what we saw in A New Generation and Make your Mark, the new writers seem to have more awareness than I ever wished for.
To me, and considering that the season 5 from Friendship is Magic completely rewrote the lore, the purpose, the individual aspect and the point of having a cutie mark just because of one divisive character, that’s not gonna be a problem in G5, where, judging by what we saw in A New Generation and Make your Mark, the new writers seem to have more awareness than I ever wished for.
Background Pony #1EAD
The rumor is that David Zaslav is in talks to buy Hasbro, so this series will likely be cancelled soon. 😢
Background Pony #525F
is hitch animal power a cutiemark ability or a unique earth pony power he owns?
Hitch couldn’t talk to the animals until he had active magic, and then it can serve as an explanation as to why there is only one cutie mark instead of two on the G5 ponies, because when the magic is closed, it also went beyond the talent magic that is partly passive, partly active.
The G4 has shown that the talent magic depends on the activities the pony does, in order to find the right talent that resonates best with the magic. That is why the CMC has tried almost everything that could be tried to find the right triggering factor. And as we know, the more they try, the more desperate they become - no wonder the CMC was sometimes a severe test for the ponies in Ponyville. But it has been found that active magic is necessary for full utilization.
In these three or four generations after Equestria’s collapse, the ponies had nothing but passive magic, so they may have cutie marks, but only as underlying tendencies for their own talents, and as a result only have a cutie mark on them. Future generations will probably have both cutie marks with return of active magic. Hitch didn’t have active magic, and thus could only get passive reactions.
The observations from MYM Special #1 have revealed that there are two different layers of magic, passive magic which is likely due to the background magic of what is a magical world, and active magic which allows for the manipulation of the environment, as magic would be used in physical activities. The emotional magic from the ponies that came to the Unity Crystals belongs to the field of “passive magic”, as does the internal magic in them related to the background magic, as when the earth ponies experienced being stuck by what was probably corrupt magic. But the talent magic seemed to be divided between passive and active magic.
Hitch couldn’t talk to the animals without active magic. Neither could Fluttershy and other ponies because the passive magic gives them the ability, but not the “fuel”, which came from active magic.
When Twilight took away the magic, she did nothing to the ponies’ internal magic that remained intact, simply because she took away the focus points or “foci” and collected them in the Unity Crystals so that all active magic would come under control. Currently I think Twilight will not touch the passive magic because it will get too close to the essence of the Ponykind. For the ponies it is twofold; they generate an internal magic that is passive, but received active magic from an external source such as the mystical dimension that may be where the magic exists in a timeless and “pure” state.
It could be how the first civilizations arose in the magical world that became Equus, the passive beings had learned how to extract active magic and use them, as when the first humans learned how to make tools from stone in our world.
TheQuietMan
House of the Arcana
@Ring Team
You mean the cutie mark destiny thing? I don’t think they changed it. Magical Mystery Cure shows that swapping cutie mark meant swapping destinies and abilities. I just don’t any instance of it happening in G5 other than it glowing once. Hitch’s definitely reflects his duty as sheriff. I can’t deduce what the rest of any characters meant.
You mean the cutie mark destiny thing? I don’t think they changed it. Magical Mystery Cure shows that swapping cutie mark meant swapping destinies and abilities. I just don’t any instance of it happening in G5 other than it glowing once. Hitch’s definitely reflects his duty as sheriff. I can’t deduce what the rest of any characters meant.
TheQuietMan
House of the Arcana
@Background Pony #1EAD
Better not, it’ll be like no pony for the next 5 years
Better not, it’ll be like no pony for the next 5 years
Background Pony #525F
The rumor is that David Zaslav is in talks to buy Hasbro, so this series will likely be cancelled soon. 😢
Unlikely, there will be massive protests, and besides, this idiot has tried to cut a $3 billion loss and actually enlarged it to $40 billion! If Warner doesn’t get rid of him, things are going to get worse for them, as the trust that was important between the investors and the animators for the production of cartoons has been broken in one of the worst cases in a very long time.
MLP is too big, and Hasbro knows it, which has bet very heavily on G5 on a scale that has not been seen early around G4.
Background Pony #525F
The rumor is that David Zaslav is in talks to buy Hasbro, so this series will likely be cancelled soon. 😢Unlikely, there will be massive protests, and besides, this idiot has tried to cut a $3 billion loss and actually enlarged it to $40 billion! If Warner doesn’t get rid of him, things are going to get worse for them, as the trust that was important between the investors and the animators for the production of cartoons has been broken in one of the worst cases in a very long time.MLP is too big, and Hasbro knows it, which has bet very heavily on G5 on a scale that has not been seen early around G4.
Wrong, meant $20 billion. But Zaslav has created a mess that has now become serious for Warner, as he had obviously not realized the consequences of his attempts to cut costs. So it is not certain whether he will survive as there is a strong demand for children’s entertainment online.
Background Pony #525F
@Ring Team
You mean the cutie mark destiny thing? I don’t think they changed it. Magical Mystery Cure shows that swapping cutie mark meant swapping destinies and abilities. I just don’t any instance of it happening in G5 other than it glowing once. Hitch’s definitely reflects his duty as sheriff. I can’t deduce what the rest of any characters meant.
The CMC has shown that the matter surrounding the cutie marks is complicated, because it is about talent - and then about the ponies’ destinies and abilities, because once the cutie mark is established, the pony has been “fixed” for the rest of her/his life. G4 has shown the consequences if cutie marks are removed or replaced with other cutie marks. These are the consequences of the active magic even though the passive magic - which can come from the pony’s soul - “determined” when the right talent is found. This was seen when the CMC got these cutie marks, these had a slight “ascension” that could only have come from active magic, like when two separate pieces are put together into a complete unit.
The cutie marks possibly glow due to the emotional magic energy because it was seen to happen when they were happy and fueled by positive emotions. We know from the case with the changelings that emotions are a form of energy with magical undertones, but also that this is a bit into the field of life energy and soul. That’s why I’m a little worried, because the emotional instability that makes magic dangerous must be solved - and the Mane 5 can lose their motive if these are “intoxicated” with positive magical rewards.
Background Pony #525F
“It could be how the first civilizations arose in the magical world that became Equus, the passive beings had learned how to extract active magic and use them, as when the first humans learned how to make tools from stone in our world.”
It got me thinking; if the Mane 5 are to remove the emotional instability from magic, they will have to find how the problem could have arisen, as there is much evidence that this is linked to the relationship between emotional energy and magical response. In G4, this has been a rebuttal topic with an exaggerated focus on positive emotions collectively among the ponies. Which the Mane 6 hadn’t thought about at all, as they grew up in such a world, while the royal sisters like Celestia and Luna knew better.
This started when the windigos appeared and provoked a crisis that brought negative feelings to the surface. This was likely over 1,500 years before the end of G4, when the three tribes had co-existed in a neutral relationship that had culminated in a federation to utilize their abilities for the common good. Positive and negative emotions were “free” back then, the ponies could express their prejudices without consequences and can perform good or evil actions towards each other, like us the humans. But then came the great cold, which led to food shortages and transport problems, and many ponies begin to freeze despite their magic and fur. It was then that “the horses begin to bite each other”, when there is too little food and the disagreements lead to anger and then hatred. This hatred was absorbed by the mysterious ice spirits that had provoked the emotional reaction of the ponies. As they then transform into cold and ice, in effect turning the ponies’ own magic against them.
This was probably the first sign of emotional instability with disastrous magical consequences. And it is possible that the windigos had created a “channel” that remained open after Twilight had wiped out these ice spirits at the end of G4. Which then leads to emotional instability affecting the magic, and triggering unforeseen ripple effects that will affect the surroundings. Moreover, this seemed to happen “only” to members of all three tribes - earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi, as the other kind such as diamond dogs and griffons were not subject to this. Then it means that the problem lay in the internal magical structure of the Ponykind, and Twilight realized this when she investigated the causes. The kirins have a similar problem, but in contrast to the ponies, their emotional magic is introverted, so that it happens individually like when an angry kirin becomes a nirik without affecting the environment - well, beyond burning everyone down. Here, the ponies’ problem is that emotional energy is extroverted. The magic came out and begins to affect the surroundings, without being brought under control.
The sirens and the changelings preferred to use the emotional energy stolen from the ponies for their own magical uses, as these were able to “replenish” the mana reserves with the stolen energy, regardless of whether this was positive or negative. And there is a type of plant in the IDW comics that feeds on negative emotions by creating silence so that the victims will have negative emotions, there were other similar examples. These could only be fought with positive energy as Cheese and Pinkie discovered the value of hearty laughter. But these assimilate the energy in themselves, the windigos do not, who were determined to destroy their own “food sources”.
This makes the windigos more unique than many realize. Such “emotion eaters” are not only seen in MLP, these are found in many other fictional universes all over the (human) world. The best example has to be the evroniani from the Disney universe, these are aggressive and greedy aliens who will happily drain entire worlds for emotional energy, with a certain similarity to the aliens from the Alien universe, only equipped with space travel technology and beam weapons. Always wondered how the changelings and the evroniani would view each other. But the evroniani would have considered the windigos to be wasteful and destructive as these “wasted” valuable food.
This makes the windigos a very big enigma, it is as if they were created as a doomsday weapon against the Ponykind. And if this were to be true, it means that there are weaknesses in the magical structure of the Ponykind that may have been discovered - or were known from the very beginning. And then it gets interesting. We’ve learned that the ponies have dual magic; passive and internal magic that is due to the background magic, but it seemed to be charged with emotional energy (the evroniani would have been horrible, because they discovered that a being too strong emotionally will be able to resist extraction) - and active, external magic that had to collected through “focusing points” or foci if you will, on the unicorns this is in the horns, the wings for the pegasi and the hooves for the earth ponies. That is why these glow when active magic returns to them, these had been “opened”.
But it seems that it is possible to convert active magic into emotional energy, and this seemed to be built in from the very beginning regardless of the ponies’ social abilities. It may have created “new” pastures for parasites such as the aforementioned plants and partly the changelings, and predators such as the sirens. It may be this weakness that the windigos exploit, and this leads to the disastrous consequences witnessed in the MYM Special #1 and the IDW comics. The earth ponies’ negative emotional energy that spreads to the Unity Crystals had begun to affect the active magic in the other ponies as when the unicorns lost their magic and the pegasi fell down. A corruption had occurred, and a dimensional portal was created, meant to “take” the earth ponies that had become stuck. The magic had become unstable because only two out of three elements had become active. And it was made even worse by the fact that as a result of the shutdown there had been much greater magical reserves per pony than before. The earth pony crystal crack because it was “full” of too much emotional energy.
The Unity Crystals act as a dam, which suggests that Twilight had mapped the magical structure of the Ponykind - and the book she had used shows a connection with the alicorns, who are more vulnerable to corruption than others because they are far more powerful magically seen, almost divine in its own right. We know that Luna is corrupted by her emotions, but we’ve learned that there is an external factor that makes the corruption complete if accepted - as she and the Stygian had admitted, they became evil without being forced. And we’ve learned what happened to Sci-Twilight in EQG, she became an evil alicorn because the magic power had become too much for her, and because her emotions were out of control. Celestia and others, when the writers weren’t messing with them as seen in S9, had demonstrated an ability to control their emotions and become neutral, ironically bringing their best qualities to the surface. It is possible that the alicornhood and the magical structure of the Ponykind are one and the same.
This explains the connection between the alicorns and the Unity Crystals, and not least why Sunny’s feelings are important when she needs the alicorn powers. Perhaps more instinctively, in our world the stallions are responsible for the survival of the horse herd - in Siberia it was seen that while the mares protected foals, the stallion ran out and guarded them against attacking wolves. The alicorns would have a similar role. In G1, Megan Williams had a similar role originally intended for the pony Majestic, who “died” before the series started. The alicorns watch over the Ponykind, but even they were not invulnerable to weaknesses in themselves. Luna was a good example of this weakness. And this weakness was not natural, it may have been an unintended consequence of the first experiments on active magic as the ponies begin to extract active magic.
This must have started many millennia ago, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. I believe there is a direct connection between cognitive awareness and active magic. In our world, there is in reality little to distinguish an animal such as a chimpanzee from a human, for this difference lies outside the accustomed natural processes of animal life. We call this the “cognitive revolution” which began in earnest 70,000 years ago. Currently, MLP would not have existed without this revolution, which relies on the mental ability to create fictional alternatives and imaginary performances. In the magical world, animals are seen to be smarter than in our world, because even though they could not communicate, they are seen to be more cognitively alert. This must be due to the magical background, but these could not build lasting societies or raise civilizations. It could mean that the animals in Equus are on the same level as the human animal as the Neanderthals, limited by their physical handicaps. Something more was needed.
The first ponies were more intelligent than our ponies, but more likely as a result of social evolution and natural selection as the smarter herds continued with better survival tactics over hundreds of thousands of years. But it is difficult to imagine that they could use tools. Perhaps the passive magic played an important role in giving them grappling ability. And they evolved together with many other animals that came out for the same challenges - like the sheep. The cognitive revolution for the ponies must then coincide with the discovery of active magic. The ponies begin to learn, remember and communicate better.
The discovery of active magic must have happened slowly, as there is not a complete demarcation between the physical world and active magic, as seen with the background magic which means that there is an indirect influence from the magical dimension into the physical world. The first explorers can be equated with the first who learned how to create tools out of stone and how to make fire. And thus the first civilizations begin to arise, the earth ponies were probably the first, but these possibly cannot be compared to the familiar earth ponies in G4-G5, they were possibly like a kind of base model. And they start experimenting.
In the first civilizations, people will explore all the possibilities active magic gives them, and eventually learn how to strengthen their own magic In the first civilizations, one would explore all the possibilities active magic gave them, and eventually learned how to strengthen their own magic, among other things by accelerating the evolution of the pony into separate “branches”, the horn was probably the first - then the wings, and then transforming ponies into adaptable creatures for survival in sea, land and air. This must have been going on for many millennia, in what was the “stone age” of ponies. Perhaps the first alicorns may have arisen, possibly as an unintended result of this magical revival. The first alicorn may even be the first pony that could fully utilize active magic without restrictions.
But something happened. A flaw may have imperceptibly been inserted, some kind of “construction flaw” in the magical structure built over time into what became the Ponykind, who ended up being the most magically evolved “people” in the entire world - and this will likely never to have been fatal were it not for the windigos. Nature had previously developed its own evolution around emotionally charged magic that oozes from the ponies, with animals, plants and intelligent beings that can feed off of it. That makes the case with the windigos very strange from an evolutionary perspective, these would exterminate the ponies they were originally supposed to feed on, because sooner or later the frozen ponies will die out. Nor did they seem to need to subsist by being ice spirits. And they had opened some that couldn’t be closed, as Twilight discovered. It’s as if an intelligence had created this scenario, creating a doomsday weapon that was tailored to the ponies’ greatest weaknesses. From the movie “Alien: Covenant” it was discovered that the aliens were created as a weapon against the humans, so it must have been a David who was behind it.
And the ponies’ civilization was not the only one in the time of the first civilizations.
Lord WyrmSpawN 
Lingering Wyvern
Could you please save this for the Headcanon thread?
This is way too much of not what the thread for.
Background Pony #525F
Could you please save this for the Headcanon thread?This is way too much of not what the thread for.
It’s not headcanon, it’s preliminary conclusions based on observations that can be contradicted or confirmed.
With G5, to a much greater extent than in G4, where the magic was cast firmly, one has been able to observe magic in greater depth than early on. Simply because the magic wasn’t there in a magical world. There is no doubt that emotional energy had passed from the ponies to the Unity Crystals, Zipp saw it with her own eyes when she saw the earth pony magic for a brief moment. She saw that the magic had become unstable, and the events of the aftermath revealed that it ran much deeper. The IDW comics and later TYT have revealed that emotional instability has a destructive effect on the environment when magic is active. Twilight shut down the “dam” so that active magic does not come out if there is too much negative emotional energy. Unfortunately, she didn’t do the same with positive magic, to “reward” the ponies as seen in TYT.
The earth ponies didn’t have magic. It was still as early as in the movie seen that they have; and they were almost sucked into another dimension after being stuck with their hooves. It was only after Sunny brought the earth pony magic that if she had opened an empty channel, the earth ponies got magic. Active magic. Then it means that what was observed was not active magic. But passive magic. As when the ponies were able to grab objects with magic in a magic-free world, the Hasbro had said that this is a magical mechanism when this matter was raised. And since that could happen, that means this is passive magic. There is background magic because the ponies live in a magical world.
According to Discord, the first episodes where destructive emotional magic begins to affect the environment happened many years after S9 ended, and this was never seen early, even for an ageless being like him, nor by the ponies themselves. The closest parallels to this are the windigos and the importance of positive emotional feelings through the collective, which took up much of the content of G4. As seen when the Mane 6 gave color to a village that had become colorless. There is thus a connection between what makes the Unity Crystals necessary and the windigos. Since S6 when it was realized that the windigos would exterminate all Ponykind, there has been an important question; how could it serve these beings? This is not natural; a predator will not exterminate its prey with which it co-evolves, in a reciprocal relationship. And it was clear that these had drained emotional energy from the ponies and then destroyed the surroundings with cold and ice. We see similar in MYM Special # 1 and the IDW comics, where the environment is destroyed by emotional energy, but without an intermediary.
All indications are that the windigos will never return. But they have left a deadly legacy that forced the creation of the Unity Crystals, for the timing between their demise when Twilight eradicated them, and Discord’s tales cannot be a coincidence.
And MYM Special #1 has revealed that energy is currently leaking out of the ponies - emotional energy. The changelings survived on emotional energy from these ponies, especially positive ones like love, which explained how potentially this is. They weren’t alone in feeding on the emotions of the ponies which can be particularly powerful when fused with active magic. A changeling only needs to be near a pony as if he is a nuclear power plant emitting radioactive radiation, in order to survive. The kirins have introverted emotional power, and we saw how powerful a nirik is. Ponies, on the other hand, are extroverted in their emotional power.
This does not happen naturally. Then it is a consequence of the ponies’ exploration of magic in the very beginning, and it certainly happened a long time ago. Twilight - the very Element of Magic - could not repair anything within her area of expertise, because the matter of emotional energy is in a field she would rather avoid; it can touch the very essence of the Ponykind. All she could do was fix the magical side of the problem, ie the relationship between passive and active magic, and that the active magic is external.
This is very old, much bigger and more pervasive.
TheQuietMan
House of the Arcana
@Background Pony #525F
Then condense it. We are not historians. Lore is nice but not as a dictionary.
Then condense it. We are not historians. Lore is nice but not as a dictionary.
Background Pony #525F
@Background Pony #525F
Then condense it. We are not historians. Lore is nice but not as a dictionary.
There is no more to say on this subject; all that has been described could not be refuted on a logical basis and there is no more to vent; MYM Special #1 has created the greatest conundrum in all of MLP related to magic.
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Passive magic is confirmed.
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Emotional energy from passive magical creatures is confirmed.
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Emotional energy affecting the Unity Crystals is confirmed.
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There is a clear distinction between positive and negative emotional energy, it has been confirmed.
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Negative emotional energy has a dangerous effect on active magic, even indirectly; confirmed.
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Early observations have confirmed that emotional energy charged with magic has served as sustenance for other beings and as “turbo effect” on magic, good or evil for the magic user.
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Active magic is external, it does not exist in the ponies’ internal magic or the background magic of the world. This makes them easy to manipulate as with sets repeatedly in G4.
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A connection between the alicorns and the Unity Crystals - which collectively depicted an alicorn - is made visible repeatedly.
In the end, it must be concluded that Twilight could not fix this problem, because the science of emotionality is not within her skills, she is primarily a magical researcher or scientist. Thus arose the Unity Crystals. Sunny has revealed how it works, she made it “open” the magic to the physical world, and she “retrieved” the familiar rainbow that returned the magic to the earth ponies. Technically; a dam.
But that does not mean that this is unsolvable. With the Mane 5, new forces will take over for the solution work. Then they should avoid intoxication problems by getting too much positive emotional response…
Background Pony #0AD1
I think it’s time to accept that G5 isn’t going to be as good or popular as G4.
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