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Ragameechu — Trying to make sense of pony ages...
#timeline #headcannon #mylittleponyfriendshipismagic
Published: 2015-06-17 06:07:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 2738; Favourites: 22; Downloads: 0
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Trust me, I've been doing things like this way before I was into ponies.So, I've been working hard to figure out the ages of the various ponies in FiM, and this is what I've come up with. It's a bit of a shabby timeline, I know, but this is the best I could come up with right now. Still, it has a lot of assumptions, so you might just want to take this with a grain of salt.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders - Sometime in 2002, 2003, or 2004 - It's been stated that in For Whom the Sweetie Belle Tolls that Sweetie Belle has had a fifth birthday. (If these ponies aged the same as actual horses, she would have been an adult by then.) Considering the show takes place in 2010 - 2011 (one year passing through the pilot to the season 4 premiere), we can assume that she was born in 2004 at the latest, making her eleven years old. We're going to have to assume that the rest of the CMC are the same age, too.
The Mane Six - Sometime in 1992; Pinkie Pie being May 3, 1993 - There have been plenty of hints suggesting that Pinkie Pie's birthday is May 3. Assuming that Equestria Girls takes place in 2011 (two years before the movie aired), that would leave Pinkie Pie at age 18 by then and the rest being 19. While that's obviously a year or two too old to still be in high school, there are people who are still in high school by that age. In fact, the human equivelant of Twilight (the actual human Twilight, not the humanized pony) might have already graduated into college by this point). We can also assume that other characters, such as Bon Bon and Roseluck, are also around this age.
We may also assume that Spike may have been born around 1997 - 1998, considering The Cutie Mark Chronicles saying that Twilight was younger than the CMC when Spike was hatched.
Ranking the Mane Six by age from youngest to old, I'd say they are Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle.
Cherilee and Others - Sometime in 1976 / 1977 - This is a tricky one. Assuming that Equestrian culture perfectly emulated human culture around 1981 - 1992 (when "80's culture" was popular), which is very unlikely, and the fact that Cherilee got her cutie mark around the same time the CMC did, we'd have to say that Cherilee was born no earlier than 1973, and no later than 1986. What complicates this fact is that she was still a high school senior during this era. This would mean she couldn't have been born any later than 1975 (16 years for 1992). It seems that Shining Armor and Princess Cadence were also around the same age this time, so they'd be born here, too. Some ponies, like Soarin' and Braeburn may have been born the next year, being Juniors.
BUT WAIT! Didn't filly Cherilee appear along with filly Rarity?
Well, the thing is...there are suprisingly a lot of lookalike fillies and colts in the show. Heck, there's a Soarin' and another pegasus who looks exactly like Soarin'. There are also two Berry Punches, two Trixies, and even TWO 1920's versions Bon Bons / Carrot Tops. In some shows, SIX of the same character can be found in one shot. Chances are that this "Cheerilee" is actually just a lookalike, or even a clone.
Then there's a problem with Lyra - there's two Lyras, one who was a junior the same time Cherilee was senior, and one who was in high school at the same time as the Mane Six. It's not likely that she stayed in high school that long, and she doesn't seem to be one of the alumni (unless she still wears some of her old clothes like she did twenty years earlier), so we might have to say they're two SEPARATE Lyras - one being the mother, and the one who's the friend of Bon Bon. That may explain her voice difference between two episodes.
Cadence was probably actually a young adult rather than a teenager when she babysit Twilight Sparkle, but it's far less of a stretch seeing someone in their early twenties dress as a teen than someone in their mid-to-late 30's.
The Mane Six's Parents - Sometime in the early to middle 1950s - This is also tricky. Having them be born before the 1940s is very unlikely, since most women would be unable to produce children after their 50's (with a few exceptions). We'd probably have to put then in the 1950s, since this would it would fit to Shining Armor's age (Twilight's parents having children in their early-to-mid twenties; having children that at that age was common in the 70's). This would mean they would have had Twilight at around their late thirties or early fourties. Rarity's and Applejack's parents might be slightly younger.
Granny Smith - Sometime in the 1920s - Granny Smith is said to have founded Ponyville a while back, and a bustling town like that (with poor commercialization technology) probably wouldn't be under sixty years old. Considering she was somewhere between the CMC's age and the Mane Six's age around then, and the culture back when Ponyville was founded provides some interesting suggestions, she must have been born within the mentioned time frame. This would also fit the time frame of when Applejack's parents were born. She probably founded Ponyville during the 1930's or early 1940's.
Twilight did say that Ponyville had been around for hundreds of years - but considering that Equestria's healthcare is not better than ours at best and Granny Smith could not possibly be that old, this is probably just an exaggeration.
It could be assumed that her parents were born in the late 1890s or early 1900s.
King Sombra - Sometime before the 970s - Sombra was obviously an adult back when he took control of the Crystal Empire. Considering that the Crystal Empire disappeared some time around 1010 AD (approximately), and that many of the Crystal Ponies the Mane Six met where around the same age as Cherilee was now, Sombra was probably slightly older than that, say, the 960s.
The Founders of Equestria - Sometime from 600 to 300 BC - This is pretty tricky. They had technology similar to that of early classical cultures, such as the Romans, Greeks, Hebrews, and Phoenicians. They even had steel pikes and castles, which didn't exist until around the High Middle Ages. Heck, Private Pansy and Chancellor Puddinghead wear fashions that wouldn't exist until the Renaissance. However, early Equestrian architecture considered of...huts and clay houses. We'd have to assume that Equestria was founded somewhere around the time Ancient Greece was on the rise, considering steel and military weaponry was undergoing major developments around that time, as well as the empires mentioned earlier.
Celestia, Luna, and Starswirl the Bearded - Sometime from 700 to 400 BC - I would say that the two are immortal and thus ageless, but there's two problems with this - for one, their magic CAN be taken away, meaning that, while they are really powerful (godlike, even), they are not almighty beings. Also, certain unicorns have been able to raise the sun without their help. This might mean that they must have been very young and not quite mastered their magic (or just avergae unicorns, meaning they probably were not born as alicorns) when Equestria was founded. They did appear on the Equestrian flag, but this may have been a modern version in the play, so it's left ambigous.
Starswirl is said to have been the "most important conjurer of the preclassical era". He is said to have been a mentor to one of the founders of Equestria, but the founder of Equestria had pretty advanced technology for the so-called "preclassical era" ("preclassical" may just be referring to the architecture). He was most likely not born in Equestria (and, if he's an expy or Merlin, was probably born a few centuries before it was founded), but perhaps a different civilization (maybe an expy of Babylon, Crete, or Egypt). He probably lived to see the classical era or the middle ages, considering he wrote some of his spells on paper. (Papyrus, the precursor to paper, would decay too easily after around 2000 - 3000 years). It's probable that he's around the same age as the Celestial sisters.
So, here's the timeline:
- 700 - 400 BC: Celestia, Luna, and Star Swirl the Bearded are born somewhere around this time.
- 600 - 300 BC: Equestria is founded somewhere around this time.
- 600 - 200 BC: Celestia and Luna take leadership somewhere around this time, probably after the death of the original founders of Equestria. They much have ascended into alicornhood around this time in a similar fashion to Twilight Sparkle (considering they were not related to any of the founders of Equestria, and even then, alicorns back in a time of the three tribes is unlikely).
- 500 - 100 BC: The Tree of Harmony is planted or discovered.
- Some time between 600 BC and 1000 AD: Discord invades some time around then. He is eventually turned into stone by the two sisters.
- 900s AD: King Sombra is born, and later takes control of the Crystal Empire.
- c. 1000 AD: King Sombra is banished, and the Crystal Empire disappears.
- c. 1010 AD: Nightmare Moon is banished. Around this time, the Royal Guard and the Wonderbolts are formed.
- 1890s - 1900s AD: Granny Smith's parents are born.
- 1920s AD: Granny Smith and Apple Strudel are born.
- 1930s - 1940s AD: Ponyville is founded, and quickly becomes a boomtown.
- 1950s AD: The Mane Six's parents are born.
- 1970s AD: Many ponies, such as Shining Armor, Cadence, and Cheerilee are born.
- 1980s AD: Cheerilee gets her cutie mark.
- 1992 - 1993 AD: The Mane Six are born.
- 1993 - 1994 AD: Cheerilee graduates high school.
- Late 1990s AD: Spike is born, and the Mane Six find their cutie marks.
- Early 2000s AD: The Cutie Mark Crusaders are born.
- 2010 - 2011 AD: Most of FiM's timeframe takes place here. Future episodes may take place in later years. Equestria Girls takes place after the main show does.
So...that's my idea. There may be a few holes here or there, but that's the best I could come up with. I might be taking this a bit too seriously, but, this was partially just to make sense of the whole thing, and partially just for fun.
Ehhhhh...
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Comments: 21
Huh... this is fascinating and pretty good for trying to line it up along with our earthly method of timeline breakup.
Although for a fan-fic I've been writing I've created a completely different timeline to match the past (Before Celestia (B.C.)), present (Current show/During Celestia (D.C.)) and after (A future post-apocalyptic development in which my fanfic is leading up to and through/ A.C.). It's proven to be easier to write the GINORMOUS story with subdivisions of years/time periods rather than chapters, as I'm frequently gonna be jumping around and it'd get too confusing for readers, but in the end, it'll all connect and make sense. Just my own idea anyhay.
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Well I have theory about this. Celestia and luna are said to be first cousins 52 generations removed from prince blueblood. So if a generation lasted 25-30 years then they'd be 1560-1300
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The timeline does make some sense
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well if one ignores G1 and G4's tending to crunch everything that was in the past at happing the same time I find the chart to be pretty good..
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To quote Spike: "Why is it always 1,000 years ago? That must have been one heck of a year."
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YEP! One heck of a year indeed! It would have to be like the worst year ever!.
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According to your chart, you have Celestia and Luna pegged as being over two thousand years old. The show however likes to hammer it home that most everything big that happened in their world's past happen at least ONE thousand years ago.
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Yes...?
They were already nearly 2,000 years old when said events happened.
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Can you give me the source of this information?
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Well...never mind.
They were around to experience the events that happened 1,000 years ago. So their minimum age would be just a bit over 1000 years old. With the context I've explained up in the description, I pinpointed them at about 3000 years old.
...and this is just an idea, so you don't have to take it seriously if you don't want to.
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And I plan not to. Looks pretty good though.
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BC mean Before Christ
AD mean Anno Domini
I don't think Christ was born in Equestria XD
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Well, I'm talking about Earth's equivelant years.
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I'm really not sure about this one, but I have heard that Rainbow Dash is an adult.
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Um...wasn't Ponyville around like hundreds of years ago? Shouldn't Granny be in her 300s or somethin'?
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Like I said, Twilight may have been exaggerating.
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Actually, the timeline shows it pretty clearly being 80 or so years ago. Ergo the 1922-1930 leeway mark.
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Where did the creators imply she was 80? She was there at the start of Ponyville.
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They never did specifically imply it, but it is a reasonable inference given how the time frame which it takes place (at least within 100 years, given Celestia is over 1000) and how the human Granny Smith looks. Of course, it has never been confirmed that ponies in Equestria live a human lifespan, so who knows.
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