Official Discussion Thread - S05E25-6 The Cutie Re-Mark

[SteelEagle]

Yet they live, apparently some time after the sun has went away. Leads one to believe that in Equestria, indeed there are ways and means of producing foods without sunlight. Magic is likely. 

[MidnightMask]

Since Celestia is trapped in the moon, it's possible her magic radiates outward, and being a 'sun' alicorn, it allows growing under moonlight?

[Bramble Rose]

What you saw ... was the Royal Palace.  There isn't going to be any suffering or malnutrition at the Royal Palace.  They're *always* going to have enough. Sure, at some lesser amount, unicorn magic might be able to create food at a much reduced rate, but they're no replacement for the sun and earth ponies - but what food they're able to artificially create, it's going to be a priority at the palace.  No doubt across the rest of Equestria and beyond, there's starvation, suffering, and famine.

[RegalSteel]

Yet they live, apparently some time after the sun has went away. Leads one to believe that in Equestria, indeed there are ways and means of producing foods without sunlight. Magic is likely. 

 

You mean like fungus? Last I checked there were hundreds (if not thousands) of species of fungi that are edible and do not require sunlight. We're also talking about a magical universe where the sun and moon only rise because someone uses magic to make them. So they don't follow our rules.

 

It is theoretically possible for a planet to sustain life without a sun. It would require a very specific combination of circumstances to happen of course. High planetary temperature/geothermal activity, extremely thick atmosphere, primarily fungal based plant life, and most likely non-oxygen breathing life.

[starswirlthebearded]

You mean like fungus? Last I checked there were hundreds (if not thousands) of species of fungi that are edible and do not require sunlight. We're also talking about a magical universe where the sun and moon only rise because someone uses magic to make them. So they don't follow our rules.

 

It is theoretically possible for a planet to sustain life without a sun. It would require a very specific combination of circumstances to happen of course. High planetary temperature/geothermal activity, extremely thick atmosphere, primarily fungal based plant life, and most likely non-oxygen breathing life.

You are oversimplifying. Without the sun, the landscape of the world's life would be wholly different. We would need a substitute energy source, which would be a combination of geothermal activity and nuclear reactions. And even THEN the life would be VERY different because they would have evolved to meet the requirements of that world. That is why there is something called the "habitable zone" of solar systems. That is where the sun of that system can reach the planet to provide ample energy without roasting it. It has the highest chance of sustaining life as we know it. While life has found a way in the most inhabitable areas of the planet, the life there is still fairly sparse compared to life on the surface of the planet where the sun can provide it's energy.  

Also, funnily enough, a planet without a sun would likely not survive, unless there was a GIGANTIC mass that it could gravitate around, or a black hole. Stars (the sun of that system) are the most common thing for planets to rotate around. Really, planet without sun surviving and maintaining life is such a statistical outliner that it isn't funny. (This is besides the previously mentioned extremophiles)

[MidnightMask]

I think we may also be overcomplicating. Love was the catalyst that causes flameless fireworks to go off when it comes to Equestrian science. They're not living under our set of physics by any means.

 

All we know for sure about Nightmare Moon's eternal night from what we see in the episode is that she's in charge, the surviving ponies are kind of jerks (normal for living under tyranny), and at least enough of them are alive to serve under her. Widespread famine, were-timber wolves, love starved changelings dying in the streets, subsequent freezing by windigos, and all other consequences of this future are, at best, speculative.

 

[Cadabra]

I though I would add a bit of science to this debate with the help of VSauce:

https://youtu.be/rltpH6ck2Kc

[starswirlthebearded]

I though I would add a bit of science to this debate with the help of VSauce:

https://youtu.be/rltpH6ck2Kc

Funny, sounds a lot like my reply only expounded upon greatly.

[Rosewind]

I think the discussion here is getting a bit deep. It's a cartoon, not real life, at the behest of the writer that is more interested in moving the story along than adhering to scientific principles. I don't think any kid will watch NMM's portion of this episode and go "Well then, why aren't all the plants dead from lack of photosynthesis?"

 

We certainly know Equestria is a magic land where even time travel is possible, so a world locked in eternal night is probably the least of their worries.

 

Back to science (lol): That was an interesting video about the "what if?" scenario with the sun vanishing. Near the end he talks about the oceans freezing over and deep sea life surviving. Wouldn't that make the salt levels of the ocean rise to super-saturated levels (and density) and negatively affect any surviving ocean life?

[Bramble Rose]

Given the despair the ponies felt at the prospect of eternal night, and the comment that it was 'worse than' war in the episode itself, I think that eternal night is NOT the least of their worries.

 

And I know that I, myself, when I was that age, would have been doing that.  My nephew has the same sort of response.  Five or six years old (damn my memory) and he's reading books about famous chemists and physicists.  Loves MLP and Tinkerbell in Fairy Hollow, also loves science.

 

As for that... salt doesn't just pop in out of nowhere.  Given a theoretically 'contained system', it wouldn't keep rising in salt content.  Where do you think the salt would come from?

[Rosewind]

The salt content remains the same, there's just less water for the salt to be in since it's being frozen as fresh water.

[starswirlthebearded]

You can freeze saline water. There just needs to be less heat in the system. And I assure you, without the Sun, the temperature would be well below that.

Fun fact, that is the basis of Fahrenheit temperature. 0F = the freezing point of brine (a solution of half water half salt). 100F was intended to be human body temp iirc. Celsius is based on the freezing point and boiling point of fresh water.

[Solana]

So far, I have to rate these as my favorite episodes, I especially liked the first AU with the war against King Sombra. Kinda wish they would have spent more time on that one, but maybe that's just because i'm evil like that.

I DO have to disagree with Twilights statement about each timeline being worse than the last. While it was my favorite, I personally think the first one was the 'worst'. It's made obvious that life is incredibly tough for everypony, not just the ones on the front lines doing the actual fighting. I would understand an argument that the changling takeover was worse, but I think it's more of a very close second. And the one with nightmare moon I would consider the 'best'. Ignore the fact that I have a signature supporting the 'New Lunar Republic' for this one. There is no indication of a war still going on here. Granted, it's possible it happened, and has had more time to come to a conclusion, but it's also possible that the moment Nightmare Moon banished Celestia, everypony just sorta 'fell in line', not knowing how to stop her. And then there's the fact that both Rarity and Rainbow Dash were seen under her employ, and their attitudes didn't seem to indicate that they were forced into their positions, but rather seemed to be there of their own accord. This, and Nightmare Moon found a way to keep vegetation growing despite the lack of sunlight, ensuring that her subjects didn't starve. While this is worse than the original universe, it isn't just entirely horrible.

ALL HAIL NIGHTMARE MOON! LONG LIVE THE NEW LUNAR REPUBLIC!

[Bramble Rose]

Solana -

 

The Changelings have been shown to murder everything they're done eating.  Remember what they did to that kingdom of kittens.

 

As for the Nightmare Moon reality - we can assume, perhaps, that Twilight knows what she's talking about, and the comfortable life of the royalty does not represent the life of the average peasant?  Nor, for instance, the life of far-off griffins and yaks and all the other races outside of Equestria which don't have Nightmare Moon's magic providing a few fields worth of growing food to keep them alive?  I find this a much smaller leap of logic than "Nightmare Moon somehow has enough power and knowledge to utterly change the basic foundations of the food chain at a microscopic level throughout the entire world."

[Solana]

Well, i'm just going off of what is actually shown. With everything else we can go on all day about "what if's" and the like and not really get anywhere.

Going with what is shown, King Sombra wages war with the rest of Equestria, using what appears to essentially be an army of mind controlled slaves (I could be wrong on the mind controlled part, but I don't think I am) and he seems to be winning. At the very least, he's pressuring things so much that any pony not fighting on the front lines is helping make sure those that are have what they need.

With the changling 'war', i guess you could call it, but at this point, it's probably more of an extermination (Which is why I would understand people arguing why this one is the worst) it actually explains why this one is as bad as it is. BUT ask yourself which would be worse. Being fed on, then 'eliminated', or forced to fight against innocent ponies under mind control, and if captured, suffering this control yourself and being forced to fight against the very ponies you want to protect?

With the Nightmare Moon AU, while it's possible that outside the palace is famine and hardship, it shows none of this, so it can't be confirmed. And while this isn't actually evidence, I still ask if you think Rainbow Dash and Rarity would serve her so closely if her rule was causing mass starvation across the land. Nightmare Moon wouldn't have had any previous knowledge of Rainbows speed and abilities that would be well suited for a role as a guard, so it only makes sense that Rainbow must have 'applied' for this position on her own accord, rather than being forced into it. Same goes for rarity i would think. And lets not forget why she wanted to rule in the first place. Jealousy aside (And yes, I'm well aware that that's what is going on, so I'm not justifying this), what she wanted was the ponies of Equestria to love her and her night. I'm fairly certain that she realizes that ponies will NEVER love a ruler responsible for their starvation, But maybe after a few years spent getting used to it, they could come to tolerate the eternal night. And lets not overlook the fact that the trees in the Everfree forest was still green and grass can be seen still growing. If it was difficult for her to keep things growing, she probably wouldn't bother keeping the forest preserved, and you would likely see a lot more of the land capable of growing crops being used for this. But again, she wants to rule and be loved, not destroy, and if she couldn't provide a way for her subjects, there soon would be very few subjects for her to rule. Kinda the opposite thing she wants.

And with your argument about the other far away nations, like with the Griffons and Yaks, Lets assume she is only providing for Equestria, and those other nations are starving out. I would think that King Sombra and the changlings aren't stopping with Equestria either. In those 2 AU's, I would think the entire world either is, or will soon be suffering the same fate. With Nightmare Moon, there is at least one nation 'safe'-ish. Not necessarily good, but better than none surviving at all.

[Bramble Rose]

Let's see, what's worse - a war the good ponies have a chance of winning, or the last vestiges of ponykind being eliminated without a chance of survival.  Think it's the war that's better here.

 

As for the Nightmare Moon AU...

 

You're making a LOT of assumptions there.  First off, Nightmare Moon never was doing that to 'make ponies love her'.  She wanted to punish them for NOT loving her.  (ignoring, of course, that there were those batponies who DID love her night, but to her, they weren't good enough.)  Her entire change to Nightmare Moon was pretty much a teenaged snit because she thought she wasn't popular enough.  And keep in mind what we saw of her while she was banished - her goal was to make ponies *suffer* as much as she could.  She INVENTED nightmares so she could make ponies suffer.  She is *not* trying to make ponies love her.

 

Your assumptions include:

1:  Twilight - our resident expert on the consequences of all things magical - is too stupid to understand the consequences of eternal night in her own world's physics, and mistakenly thinks it's worse than it is.  When this is never shown.

2:  Nightmare Moon, after having worked for the last thousand years to make ponies suffer and try to punish them, suddenly turns around and cares about their well being - plus the well being of all the creatures outside of Equestria.  When this is never shown.

3:  There's some mythical 'super-spell' that can provide the energy of the sun to the entire world just as well as the sun itself, making the day/night cycle nothing more a bit of preference rather than a required bit of balance for the survival of the world.  Which is never shown.

 

Your reasons for believing this are:

 

Rarity and Dash are working for Nightmare Moon.

 

Their obvious jerk tendencies in this AU aside ... you feel that all the above is more likely than... say ... Rarity and Dash working for Nightmare Moon in order to secure desperately needed food for their families ... or being part of some resistance setting up to try to get closer to her and take her out to bring back the day.  Or anything else which requires far less a gigantic assumption than all the above.

[Solana]

Hey, I'm well aware that a lot of assumptions are there. Every time I said "I would think..." or the like is already an admitted assumption. And a few others that were made obvious.

If what she says is true, then somehow a Flim and Flam corporate takeover is worse than Tirek, Discord, and the other 3 I've been talking about thus far. While bad, I don't see this being the case.

There's my rebuttal to your "1:"

as for "2:", how much work did she do while banished to the moon? I don't recall any episode covering what she did while she was there. Perhaps you could give me a season and episode number?

and "3:" Aren't they all "Mythical"? The show is constantly revealing new spells. And Celestia and Luna are powerful enough to move the sun and moon, so "super spells" aren't out of the realm of what they are capable of. For a thousand years, Celestia moved them both by herself. And Nightmare Moon was strong enough that Celestia had to use the elements on her to win their battle, so I'm assuming Nightmare Moon is possibly stronger than, or at the very least a pretty even match for Celestia in terms of magical ability. Seeing as how, again referencing the visible vegetation shown in that universe, there apparently is a spell capable of keeping plant life growing, why WOULDN'T she have the power to have it cover the nation, and possibly their world?

And you're making plenty of assumptions yourself. It's evident by looking at the forest that she can somehow keep vegetation growing. It's an assumption for me to say she can do this for the whole kingdom, but it's also just as much of an assumption to say she can't/doesn't.

And maybe I missed it, But I don't recall the episode detailing the fact that she invented nightmares to punish the others. Perhaps you could point me to that Season/Episode as well.

I DO recall the one where she, as Luna, created the Tantibus (Spelling?) to punish herself, and it got away, but that isn't the same.

And as for your last bit about Rarity and Rainbow either to secure food or being part of a resistance, while possible, these two just don't sit right with me, and regardless would be nothing more than an assumption regardless of what either of us thought.

However, since we're already on that road, I'll start with the food theory, the most likely of the two in my opinion.

Regardless of 'Why' she wants to rule, she does want to rule, even if it was a result of a teenage snit. If she has not found a way to provide food for her subjects, they would have starved long ago, and there would be no point in ruling over a bunch of corpses. Surely, joining her would net them MORE food, but they could survive the same way as the rest of her subjects. And even though that route would be more difficult, I REALLY can't see Rainbow going that route, siding with the pony dooming all of Equestria to starvation for an extra apple pie or two.

As for the resistance idea, while bringing back the sun would take far more than simply 'taking her out', I'll ignore this for now. I'll even ignore the fact that Rainbow appears to be loyal to her in this case, as being a good actor goes a long way in this kind of infiltration. Ignoring what would have to happen aside from taking her out, eliminating her in and of itself would be neigh impossible for whatever resistance was working in the shadows. Referencing the Tirek episode, Tirek absorbed the magic of all pony races in Equestria from every pony there, PLUS discord. Twilights fight with him at best ended in a stalemate before he broke out his trump card. Nightmare moon posesses approximately 1/4 of what Twilight had at the time of that battle. Assuming that things are as bad food-wise as you suggest, Equestrias population could easily be reduced to 1/4 of it's original size, and those that are still there are likely weaker from hunger. With that, the 'resistance' could be the entirety of the remaining population, and not be successful in 'taking her out'.

[Bramble Rose]

That's issue 4 of the Fiendship is Magic miniseries.

 

As far as "I know I'm making assumptions" ... you are also the one who was trying to call others on believing things 'they didn't show'.

 

And no, making the assumption she can't is not 'as much of an assumption'.  If you mean 'it is one assumption', then all right, quantitatively it is. But qualitatively, not so much.  Scale, increasing outwards, grows rather swiftly.  We'll ignore some of the vertical effects that need to happen as insigificant and just assume a plane.  On a planetary scale, this becomes closer to truth, since there's a very limited 'down' effect - that mostly for the oceans and diamond dogs, plus whatever subterranean civilizations we don't know about, and the limited 'up' effect for empowering the weather and any aerial civilizations is limited at the height of the atmosphere.  (The weather also being powered by the sun, and the weather being needed to grow crops.  Unless you also propose that the crops don't need water or nitrogen anymore...)  So! 

 

pi * r^2.  If we assume a radius r = 1 of being enough cropland to feed her immediate retinue, let's say ... a hundred ponies, then the power needed to do that is p, so p = pi * r.  But that's, say, about 25 farms worth of croplands, plus the forest, of course.  Extend past that, assume Ponyville is a moderately large town or small city, despite being only a few generations old, since we've seen that their goods are shipped all over equestria, and we've seen that Filthy Rich, despite being a local businessman, has interests all over Equestria.  50000 ponies, plus all the non-producing land you'd have around there.  This is a pretty 'densely packed' area for food production, seeing as Ponyville can be described as fairly agricultural in theme.  So here, instead of assuming a radius, we'll instead look at the p=pi*r, and expand it to 500p = pi * 500r.  Still linear, because of Ponyville's proximity to the castle and the density packed in.  Still, just to assume that she can fully feed Ponyville is making 500x the assumption than assuming she can only feed her immediate retinue.  A reasonable assumption, though.  Gives motivation to her guards - keeps their families alive, after all.  Gives them reason to be loyal to her.  Gives a reason for what we've seen.

Now let's expand beyond that.  Take the area around Ponyville, expand outwards to encompass all of Equestria.  Here it becomes easier to use a radius, becuase it's not so densely packed.  The radius of enough farmland to feed Ponyville is the square root of 500 times r, or about 22.3r.  If we look at a sphere encompassing all of Equestria, we have to figure out what radius that would be.  They gave us a map of Equestria, but it also says 'not to scale'.  But given the number of cities involved, and the size of said cities, we can assume it is about the size of ... oh ... new york plus california plus one large agricultural midwest state.  If you tuck those other areas together so that california is the diameter of the cicle and the two large states fill in the space, that approximates a circle.  Looking at the diameter of influence of one small city versus the length of california, we can get a diameter of about 800 miles.  The acreage to feed 50000 ponies is about 50000 acres.  (convenient how that works).  Of course, we also need space for homes, medical growth, the unfarmable areas in between, the Everfree ... so let's say 100000 acres, which is about 156 square miles, or a diameter of about 14 miles.  So if 14/2 = 7 miles = 22.3r, then 800 miles in diameter is 400 miles of radius = 1274r.  1274r into our area formula (since it's no longer densely packed) results in 5,096,4578p.

That means that to assume the effect covers all of equestria is over five million times the power that she needs to affect her immediate retinue, or over ten thousand times the power she needs to power Ponyville.

And let's take your assumption!  That she can, indeed, power all of the kingdom!

Even that assumption assumes the genocide of all of the griffins, dragons, diamond dogs, Saddle Arabians, Aquastrians, Abyssinians, etc who are not part of the kingdom of Equestria.  Which is pretty darn horrible.

If we need to avoid that, too, then skipping past laying out the further math, we'd find that we're dealing with over 2 billion times the power needed to feed her own retinue, or over 4 million times the power needed to feed the Ponyville area.  And keep in mind, this is *outside* of her area of expertise.  Her special talent is the moon - not farmland and weather.  And assuming she immediately turned around and started studying to figure that out - since she didn't care about it before she escaped the moon, and didn't have the resources on the moon to study it, she'd need to come up with that pretty quickly, because once all those plants die (in, say, a few days to a week without sun) that spell isn't going to do much.

So yes.  Assuming that much power and effect in that short a time frame ... qualitatively, is a much bigger assumption.

[Solana]

Okay... that's a lot of info.
And i've made edits before realizing you already posted, so you may have missed something I said, after the fact. Nothing I think matters TOO much, but maybe.

well...

As far as "I know I'm making assumptions" ... you are also the one who was trying to call others on believing things 'they didn't show'.

At this point, making assumptions is about all either of us are doing. Might as well keep going with it, backing up what we can with what the show offers.

As for the weather, while the sun powers the weather here on earth, the show depicts Pegasi to be the ones pulling the strings here. If it's raining, it's because the Pegasi pushed the clouds in place and caused this event. They even manufacture the clouds, rather than them being the result of evaporation. Earth physics just don't seem to apply here. Heck, at this point, I'm not sure we can confirm that the sun in Equestria even produces heat. Even winter moves from place to place, not because of the position of the sun, as happens here, but because of a schedule that the pegasi follow. 'Tanks for the Memories' indicates this.
While I'm sure the plants require water and nitrogen, there are plenty of reasons to believe that in Equestria, the sun doesn't play a vital role in this. In fact, i'm tempted to start re-watching the series just to see if there's any actual mention that plants there even require sunlight in the first place. There probably is, but nothing comes to mind at the moment.

But as for how much 'power' it would take to use the spell in question, how much power would it take to move the moon, which she does on a daily basis? (Nevermind the fact that I believe she is strong enough to move both the moon, and the sun, as Celestia did. I believe I also covered why I think this in the edit of my above post) Would those amounts even compare? Just a guess here, but as I stated above (possibly in an edit you haven't seen) Luna possesses approximately 1/4 of the power twilight had in the Tirek episode after the other Alicorns gave their power to Twilight. And if Twilights battle with Tirik was any indication, that means Luna is as magically strong as 1/4 of the entire nation.
It's my understanding that both the moon and sun is quite massive, and Twilight was able to move both of these simultaneously, quite rapidly and erratically. I'm pretty sure that would take quite an insane amount of power. Even at 1/4 of that power, I'm fairly sure that would be enough to keep plantlife alive in, at minimum, their nation. Or heck, the spell may actually be simple, and regular unicorns can use this spell once taught, at least in a small area. Get a unicorn or three per farm on the payroll and there you go. It doesn't state in the show that a lack of food is the reason for their fear of eternal night, it could be as simple as being afraid of the dark. Unless it's in the mini series you mentioned. I haven't seen it.

And assuming her spell DOES stop at the borders of Equestria, and it isn't simple enough that ordinary unicorns can cast it, and assuming it's even necessary in the first place, I never once stated that this AU was sunshine and rainbows. Just that it was better than the changling takeover and war with Sombra. (Actually, I said it was the best, but I would like to revise this statement to being the best of those that was dove into with any detail.  Including the miniature AU visits, the Flim and Flam one is likely the 'best'.)
Assuming that the changlings are only in Equestria for the moment, the moment they finish that nation off, they will spread to others. This will eventually be a world-wide ordeal. Eventually, all nations have become their food supply, not just all but one. And once they have finished, no more food for them, so there they go too.
The war with Sombra would likely be similar. I really don't see him stopping with Equestria and deciding to play nice with all the other nations once he's done. And given the looks of the map, at the rate that he has spread his kingdom, and yet his forces are still concentrated enough to keep going, I'm fairly certain that he's already won. It just hasn't happened yet. If and when he has taken over the world, I'm pretty sure anypony left alive would be enslaved. mind control or not, I would consider that a fate worse than death (Which is partially why I consider this one the worse alternative to the changlings).

[Bramble Rose]

To keep it shorter - no, I didn't see your edits while I was typing that up.  To keep my response short, I'll just hit this one thing you keep sliding past for all your theories on 'it's not that bad'.  Virtually all your theories keep specifying what they can do to stay alive inside the kingdom.  Which means you're casually dismissing the genocide of everyone outside of Equestria.

 

As far as 'a unicorn spell to keep plants growing' - if they had that, then the Hearth's Warming Eve story on the founding of Equestria wouldn't have happened.  It has to be mainly an earth pony magic, which means only a rare earth-focused unicorn or an alicorn would have to do it.  Yes, the show has shown us that this cannot happen.  The last great famine demonstrated that.

[Solana]

Actually, i'm not dismissing the possible genocide of everyone outside Equestria.  I'm saying that while THIS AU would potentially end the lives of everyone outside of Equestria, assuming your points are indeed how things would play out, The other two would either eventually end in the Genocide of ALL nations including Equestria, and subsequently the passing on of the race responsible (Changlings)  OR the eventual enslavement of all nations (Also including Equestria).

And as I said before, between the Sombra/Changling timelines, one of the reasons I consider the Sombra timeline worse is I would consider Enslavement worse than death.  (Having been in 2 firefights myself, I've had opportunities to ponder my thoughts about death, and still the idea of being enslaved is the less appealing of the two.)  This, however is an opinion that would vary from person to person, so as to which AU is worse would vary as well.

But in either of those two cases, no nation would be spared.  In Nightmare Moons scenario, at least Equestria would remain.

Perhaps I chose my words poorly when I said "it isn't just entirely horrible", or more accurately, it is likely worse than I originally gathered from the episode, but even after this discussion, I still think that between those 3 AU's, Nightmare Moons was the best.  Not 'good' by any means, just the lesser of 3 evils.

Not that you don't make good points.  In fact, my Opinion of this AU at this point places it far more undesirable than I previously thought.  Just not so much so that it becomes the worst of the three.

 

Good spot on the Hearthswarming Eve episode.  Though it's possible that the spell wasn't discovered until afterwards, I really can't base that on anything.  And if I recall, Starswirl the Bearded was before or during this time, so he of all unicorns would have most likely discovered it during a time when it was needed, so as it wasn't there at the time, it's possible it takes more than a unicorn.  Just as likely it wasn't discovered yet. 

[stormchaser1991]

what about the AU where Discord rules guys you forgetting about that one? if you think about pretty sure Discord would be the lesser evil out of all of them not much bad side to his AU

[starswirlthebearded]

I'm going to just say this...Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. 

This has been shown to hold true with magic as well. We learned that in the very first season with the wing spell and with the whole Ursa Minor debacle. Twilight, as we know, is an exceptionally powerful unicorn. Yet, she had only a finite amount of magic. But you know what? Let us forget those two episodes for a moment, since we are comparing unicorn to alicorn. Crystal Empire's return. Cadence had to power a shield constantly to protect her empire and keep it temperate. Similar to what NMM would need to do without the sun. She looked rather worse for wear. You are suggesting that NMM was able to do that AND MORE on a consistent basis all across Equestria without being tired? Creating an energy equivalent to the sun without draining her own energy every day constantly? I don't buy it. 

[Solana]

@Storm Chaser

I dunno.  I still see that being worse than the Flim/Flam AU.

 

@Starswirl

I don't know if you know this, but we actually have something IRL to compare this to.  "Plasma Shields" are being developed by Boeing.  Though only on paper at this point, it's likely enough to make this point.

At this point, their design isn't feasible, with massive amounts of energy needed to protect something so small as a vehicle, and rather than constantly in place, they work in bursts, being a 'reactive' system.

 

And in order to provide artificial light, enough to grow in an area roughly the same size, would only require a few light bulbs.  Hardly would I consider that a massive requirement, even while sustained.

 

Now, while operating a shield even in bursts requires massive amounts of energy, Cadence maintained one in a sustained manner, multiplying this shields power needs exponentially, and she was able to do this with an empire (Or at least the city) for several days, multiplying it even further.  Suffice it to say that Alicorns are indeed quite powerful.  Perhaps comparable to a small nuclear reactor.  Remind me not to piss one of them off.

 

Now while the spell i'm referring to keeping plantlife alive isn't artificial light, it could work similar.  Perhaps something similar to infrared, in that it can't be seen by the naked eye, but it suffices for plants.  I know IR light doesn't sustain plants, but that's not the important detail.  What's important is there is obviously a spell capable of doing this, and judging by the fact that the everfree forest is still green, it's energy requirements are small enough that Nightmare Moon is willing to use it to keep such an area alive despite the fact that it doesn't seem to actually be used for anything, and after years of sustaining it, she really doesn't seem to be worse for wear because of it.

 

Now I can only imagine that when Boeing says the shield isn't feasible yet due to 'Massive Energy Requirements', we are talking about some insane amounts of energy.  And this is just for an area the size of a vehicle while working as a reactionary measure.  If Cadence could sustain something like this for so long, I'm pretty sure she could use a spell to keep plantlife alive over an area the size of at least the empire.

 

So, while you say Cadence's shield would be similar to to whatever spell is needed to keep plants alive, I SERIOUSLY doubt the power requirements are anything resembling similar.

[starswirlthebearded]

You realize, we aren't talking about a small area, but THE ENTIRE WORLD. Otherwise there is death and destruction everywhere else. Which means you admit that only the areas surrounding the castle are safe, and everyone else is left out in the cold, literally. 

Also, we have far more capability to generate power via nuclear reaction and... well... the sun. In fact bringing our real world into it kills any argument you have. The reason life is possible on earth the way we know it is because of the sun pouring copious amounts of energy into our system (our system being Earth). So lets talk about the real world for a second and our sun. The energy output of OUR sun EVERY SECOND in EVERY ONE SQUARE METER is 1.4×10^3 J. Now what about that whole number? Well that is 5.5×10^24 J (and that is just what hits earth). A THERMAL REACTOR puts out 4×10^12 J. That is technology well beyond what MLP has, and is only enough to power a small area. And that isn't even HALF of what the sun gives us over the ENTIRE FACE OF THE PLANET IT IS HITTING.

You are assuming, that any pony in the WORLD can generate THAT MUCH energy for any given amount of time, let alone every day all day to sustain the lives of EVERYONE and EVERYTHING on their world? You are literally assuming that NMM is a force of nature. Controlling the object and generating the amount of energy the object produces world wide are two entirely different things. She might perhaps be able to do it for a small area, not the world.

Also artificial light only works on smaller areas. While it does work, you still need those lights, EVERYWHERE to provide full coverage for the world AND supply THE HEAT that the sun produces, lest you know... the plants freeze to death. Which was brought up in the video earlier.... The heat is where that huge number I brought up earlier comes into play. It isn't JUST the light for photosynthesis, it is the HEAT generated to ALLOW the plants to continue to survive. 

Edit: Yes I'm aware of that, and they are two wholly different concepts. That is a plasma energy shield, Cadence's barrier was purely magic based and the magic that is her special talent (love) which means she has a higher affinity towards it. And again, she was still not able to sustain it for long. (that and the shield you speak of is still only a patent and not yet been developed or produced)