Crazy Headcanons

@Kazapsky
 
Or the known. Crazy Headcanon: Rainbow Dash has run for mayor. Unfortunately, because RD’s tenure as head of Ponyville’s weather service has often been replete with problems, they’d rather the incompetent mayor than someone who’d appropriate all the funds to make a giant weather monument to herself.

@The Twelfth Doctor Whoof  

 
Just like Hearth’s Warming Eve, huh? And we all know how well oppressing the earth ponies worked out…even the most power-crazed unicorn has to eat. So, yeah, go ahead and not raise the sun. See how long that lasts.

@The Twelfth Doctor Whoof  

 
That’s pretty much canon. The series showed that the two of them didn’t know each other at all before the start. They might have known each other’s names, but that’s about it.
 
@YetAnotherBrony  
We know damn well that plants will grow without earth ponies. Having to grow their own food is an inconvenience, nothing more.
 
Hell, the pegasi were planning on conquering another race of farmers, so the earth ponies aren’t the only game on the planet.

The real reason why Celestia is training Twilight so closely and turned her into an alicorn was because she(Celestia) was desperate for a mother/daughter relationship.

Twilight’s parents are dead. The ones you see the ACW and MMC are just holographic projections.

@Background Pony  
Or gggg-Ghosts!
 
Zoinks!

@Background Pony  
Maybe that explains why they are at the same place and behaved in the same way twice.

The reason Celestia wants Twilight to become a Princess is so that she can finally allow herself to die.

@gasmaskangel  
Would be sad to loose the old gal, I reckon.

@PonyPon  
She hasn’t told Luna about this yet either, but banishing her sister to the moon is one of the things that broke her and makes her secretly wish for the end.

@gasmaskangel  
She’s gonna have to trust Twilight enough to run Equestria in order for her to depart from the world.

@gasmaskangel  
Why does she need Twilight for that?

@Sjogre  
Celestia doesn’t specifically need Twilight. She needs a pony both of the appropriate magical power, and the appropriate mindset. Twilight is not the first of her students, nor is she the only one to have been made an alicorn. What Twilight is, is the best candidate to come along in centuries. She had the power and insight needed to reawaken the elements of harmony, even if she can only wield one right now, and she demonstrated the willingness to sacrifice her own gain for the greater good in the Crystal Empire.
 
Part of the reason Celestia was so pissed in Lesson Zero was because she thought her best prospect for actual release from her responsibilities to come along in ages had completely cocked things up and gone insane.

@gasmaskangel  
Which is not completely with precedent, seeing as her last student became a world conquering maniac, and then turned into a pathetic bully.

@Trickquestion  
Maybe Celestia has a hidden talent for driving ponies that she teaches insane.

@gasmaskangel  
Let me rephrase that…
 
Why does she want a replacement? Why is she insisting on a god-queen to dominate Equestria instead of just having mortal rule? Hell, Celestia didn’t have solo rule until Luna was sealed in the moon, so it doesn’t seem like something she wants on any level. Just letting herself die and having Equestria rule itself seems straightforward enough.
 
The show has been pretty clear that the rule of an immortal is an exception, even in Equestria’s history. Why keep it up? Even aside from Twilight’s suitability for such a position, what makes a single eternal ruler preferable? The incident with Luna showed that an immortal is not free from corruption, and Twilight is already prone to rash actions, something that would likely get worse after Celestia’s passing.
 
Heck, Twilight’s extreme devotion to Celestia bodes badly for her stability after Celestia’s passing.

@Sjogre  
Maybe she has severe trust issues. In that she only trust things of her own making.

@PonyPon  
Then why the hell would she trust Twilight? She’s seen Twilight break, sometimes quite easily. Heck, she Luna break, and Luna had Celestia there to try and help.
 
If she doesn’t trust Luna with the country, I don’t see her trusting Twilight, either.

@Sjogre  
It’s like a political Dynasty. Since Twilight is now related to Celestia’s adopted niece, she is eligible, and Celestial sisters themselves don’t have any offspring of their own. I’m sure Equestria has been ruled by several Dynasties before the rule of Discord, and the Celestial Sisters’ Dynasty began after the usurpation of Discord. Celestia’s life span is somehow artificially extended so she could watch over Equestria until the new element bearers arrive and are ready. Twilight, in my headcanon is still a mortal.

@SeraphimDawn  
Why not just form a new dynasty? Or why not have Cadance rule, as she’s actually got a level head on her shoulders?

@Sjogre  
Why does she want a replacement? Because she’s been walking the Earth for better than 1,000 years. Because every being that could possibly relate to her has gone insane (I’m thinking of Luna and Discord) and needed to be sealed away for the good of her people. Because when those beings were healed of their madness or reformed, she had precious little to do with it.
 
Why does she insist on a god queen instead of transitioning to mortal rule? Because people fear change. They’ve had more than 1,000 years of rule by immortal god princesses, if Celestia just up and said one day “well now we’re a democracy” I’d give it a week before the situation devolved into sectarian infighting. You point out that until Luna was sealed up she shared the throne, but after luna was sealed up it was 1,000 years of her ruling alone. Think about the time span involved. The only creature alive to remember Luna being co-ruler of Equestria is Celestia herself.
 
Also you claim that rule by immortal is the exception not the rule, even in Equestria, and I think you’re not quite thinking about the time line properly. 1.000 or more years isn’t a huge chunk of time on a geological scale, but it is almost incomprehensible on a historical scale. Sometime after the third or fourth generation of ponies born with immortals holding supreme executive power its going to start seeming ridiculous to ponies that other civilizations don’t have immortal rulers and the exception becomes the rule.
 
In fact you’ve actually just made it more interesting… she leaves power in the hooves of a pony who has to share custodianship of the most powerful magical force in Equestria with five other ponies. What if the plan is to introduce a republic to ponies gradually over generations, she just hasn’t found the suitable candidate yet.
 
As for why ponies would prefer a single, eternal ruler, study human history. Monarchies are all about a single ruler whom the people believed to have power and authority by divine right. How much more powerful would the claim to divine right be for an eternal princess? And who’s to say she even claimed it herself? We could be looking at a Life of Brian type situation where people will see her as divinity no matter what she does or says.

@Sjogre  
I believe, the Crystal Empire is either a semi-autonomous region with their own rulers, a now province of Equestria, or under some sort of Free Trade Pact/Commonwealth type of agreement. It would make a good fanfiction should there be any separatist Crystal Pony Nationalists trying to fight Equestrian rule for independence in the future.

@SeraphimDawn  
Hmmm… a fanfic that applies both Realpolitik and who wants to live forever?
 
Makes me wish I was a better writer, because the idea is really fascinating.

Never thought we’d be having a serious political/historical discussion about My Little Pony of all things. And people say cartoons rot your brain!

@YetAnotherBrony  
You’re right, this is getting too serious.
 
Celestia is actually twenty super intelligent squirrels in an elaborate costume.