SkunkyArt | MiaMaha — Destinyverse - History of Magic and Tech

The rise in technology in modern-day Equestria really began with Sunset Shimmer's return to her homeland. After refreshing herself on her magical studies in an effort to rediscover her purpose, the mare found herself missing the modern tech back in the alternate human universe. As someone who dabbled in multiple fields, from music to art to science, Sunset decided to try a hoof in contributing to what she felt were the beginnings of a tech evolution in Equestria. Using human builds as inspiration, Sunset helped introduce the first equestrian digital cameras, monitors, and computers. These creations first aided medical and scientific fields, but were quickly picked up by more creative fields. Seeing this, and by pushing festering ideas in the right direction, Sunset was able to inspire other creative minds. She helped encourage the creation of animated and live-action movies, shows, and major advancements in the videogame industry (to her utter nerdy delight). On the flip side, Sunset has also very meticulously worked to keep other human inventions away from Equestria. Through her experiences, she has come to hold one solid belief; just because one can, doesn't mean one should.

While she felt she was on the right path, Sunset believed there was more she could offer. A missing piece. Observation led her to notice a rise in the cost of electricity with the increase of household appliances and electronics. Her mind began churning through ideas of energy-efficiency, convenience, and - through personal-experience once upon a time - availability and affordability for families who were not so well-off. Deep down, Sunset knew incorporating magic would be the way to go. Recalling her old studies on the history of runic spell enchantments from her filly days, Sunset picked up old books, drew up blueprints for her ideas, and approached Twilight for further wisdom.

Twilight provided the knowledge of rune-etching and worked with Sunset to think up different spells for her ideas. Having never attempted rune-etching before, Twilight offered her friends lessons. For Sunset, who once had fiddled around with different spells and potions under Celestia's tutelage, carving runes had been a new and exciting experience. It took practice, but weeks of effort had the craft feeling almost natural for the mare.

If ancient artifacts from eras long past had proven anything, different natural materials such as metals and even gems possessed inherent magical properties that were especially reactive to magical interaction. Aiming to understand which materials could hold and even enhance spell enchantments best, both Sunset and Twilight dove into their experimentation. The two gathered a small group of practiced unicorns who had tampered with rune-etching before for their research team, including Starlight Glimmer, Sunburst, and Moondancer. As they researched the best materials for Sunset's tech inventions and improvements, Sunset found herself naming their little team "Uni-Tech", the beginning stages of magitech in Equestria.

Prototypes followed. However, realizing the runes in their tech could only be powered by a unicorn's magic, Sunset and Twilight were momentarily stumped on how non-magical creatures would be able to recharge runes without aid. Sunset recognized the lack in convenience, however, a new discovery quickly came to them. As traces of magic exist in nearly everything within their world, Sunset discovered that the small amounts of magic within the very electricity that powered their tech created a unique reaction with the magic components in their metal builds. Alongside electricity powering their machines, the reaction created a steady build-up of magical energy for the added runes.

The discovery worked well with machines and tech-powered via cord to electrical socket. Even when unplugged, a machine’s runes would still hold the built-up magic it had stored previously until plugged back in again and used. Upon initial installation, the machine simply required to be plugged in for a number of hours for the initial storing of magic.

The Uni-Tech team grew with the need for professional engineers to finalize their builds and mass-produce products. And thus, Uni-Tech took off, greatly contributing to the booming era of technology with the union of magic and electronics. A facility for Uni-Tech was built not far from Twilight's own castle, and in time, they even developed a secondary location in Canterlot, overseen by Moondancer.

With the correct metals and the positive reactions to magic, Sunset was happy to observe the resulting amplification of power for her runic spells. This meant an increase in power output and a decrease in actual electricity usage in the long run. However, when it came to the concept of developing and improving portable devices (ie. laptops, handheld consoles), Sunset and Twilight ran into an issue. Even if made rechargeable, once a device's magical energy was spent, there was a huge inconvenience in the slow, gradual trickle of charging magic that would lead to far too many hours of waiting to even utilize the magical aspects of a device.

Thankfully a ground-breaking discovery was uncovered; information on elemental runes that had been lost to time was regained by chance. As it turned out, elemental arcane runes were unique in how they consumed the energy of their respective element when in proximity of it. More specifically, they converted this energy into magical energy. In old books, ancient ponies recalled attempting to build fires in uncharted areas, only for their fire to suddenly be snuffed out, followed by an explosion of flames from an undiscerned source. Hidden traps or forgotten runes, Sunset and Twilight had settled. In Sunset's case, electricity runes, when introduced to a steady source of electricity, could quickly charge up with magical and electrical energy.

That single discovery lead to the creation of the magi-battery. The magi-battery not only charged up devices with electricity, but with the correct rune formulas, allowed other spell runes to draw from its storage of magic. It proved to be fast-charging, powerful, efficient, environmental-friendly, and overall revolutionary to their efforts. Because of its huge success during its initial launch, Uni-Tech is now a supplier for companies in Canterlot and beyond.

Sunset continues to lead projects with her company to this day. With new ideas, she often works with Twilight to refine and brainstorm possible spell enchantments. Though they founded the company together, Sunset Shimmer is the true CEO of Uni-Tech, with Twilight assisting when she isn't busy with her own duties.

Uni-Tech inventions include and are not limited to:

This universe's Luster Dawn, who I'm nearly convinced is probably Starlight and Sunburst's kiddo, started working for Uni-Tech as a young and talented intern and has continued to work as a valued member of the company!

For clarification; while Astral Dusk's gem research aids his mother's company, he's technically not a worker for Uni-Tech and is generally just a royal scientist serving Princess Twilight alongside Sunset Shimmer.