My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/WMG/Setting/Shared Universes

Guesses about what other series that the universe of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic may be connected to. If you have guesses on something else then:

"Pony guesses go here

Guesses about Equestria itself go here

Guesses on Equestrian Culture go here

Science and Magic guesses go here

Dragon guesses go here

Guesses on other species go here"

"Go back to the Main Setting Guesses page here"

"and you can still go back to the Main WMG Page, here"

Equestria is on the Earth of Samurai Jack.
The sentient/sapient Ponies (etc.) are much like the talking dog archaeologists, among others; Princess Celestia is a descendant/peer of that giant god-horse that helped Jack's Dad way back when; Luna was corrupted by Aku to become Nightmare Moon (which is why it took a blast from the Power of Friendship to revert her); Equestria is one of the holdouts against Aku's power, which is why there are incursions from random monsters while the weather has to be controlled by (good) magic; the Schizo-Tech fits in with the Samurai Jack aesthetic (Farting Dragon episode, anyone?); and most importantly it'd be cool if all of this were the case.
 * THIS IS A CROSSOVER THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN. NOW. Jack/Pinkie Pie! Get on it!
 * Sorry, no Pinkie Pie. Have some Samurai Applejack instead!
 * Adding to this, Discord may be one of Aku's minions.
 * It's been written.

Both My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic and ThunderCats (2011) take place on the same planet.
Like Thundera, Equestria is just another kingdom on Third Earth, albeit larger and (so far) free from Mumm-Ra's influence. The reason why the gas giant planet hasn't been seen by the ponies is because Third Earth is tidally locked and only the Thundera side faces the planet. Eventually the cats will enter Equestria an be amazed at finding horses (especially unicorns) and will try to enlist their powerful magic in defeating Mumm-ra. It is also possible that one of the Power Stones is hidden in Equestria, since its high concentration of gemstones would be like hiding a needle in a haystack. Also the Snarfs (which are distantly related to dragons) are originally from Equestria but migrated to the Everfree Forest, which is actually a massive landbridge that serves as the link between the two. It is also possible that whatever possessed Princess Luna is in fact one of, all of, or a splinter of the Ancient Spirits of Evil that Mumm-Ra invokes in his Transformation Sequence.
 * If you look very closely at the moon as seen in "Song of the Petalars" there are a series of shadows on it that look suspiciously like the "Mare in the Moon" as seen in the pilot.

This series is actually set in the same universe as all of the previous cartoon series.
Since this is a franchise-wide theory, it's detailed here.

The series takes place in the same world as Adventure Time.
-nods to the guy who said there's not enough tie-in theories on this page- Yet another permutation of the "post-apocalyptic Equestria" theory; this time, the current setting was a result of the devastation caused by the Mushroom War. The usual "humanity was wiped out in a catastrophic nuclear war" (excepting Finn this time, of course) corollary still holds, and on top of that, whatever cataclysmic force ripped a giant chunk out of the Earth (as seen in that one orbital shot in Adventure Time) also splintered the continents, separating what little life remained on the planet, and as the eons went by, the radiation and divergent evolution kicked in. On one landmass, we ended up with sentient ponies who built a new, monarchic society in the image of mankind's, while on the other, we got a weird grab-bag of inanimate objects (candy, desserts, ice, street signs...) brought to life and mutant animals forming a far looser, almost feudalistic society. Obviously, the former became Equestria, and the latter became the Land of Ooo. Ooo's weaker government and relative lawlessness are the result of their greater diversity and the disharmony that resulted from it, whereas Equestrians pretty much seem to agree on letting ponies rule everything (which may imply some degree of pony-supremacist thought on the part of the ruling elite). On both sides, though, the collapse of developed civilisation brought on a return to a primitive, superstitious way of life for the new sentients of the earth, which heralded the return of magic and mythical creatures (I say that last part as a way of pacifying those who would crucify me for implying that ponies and magic are the way they are because they're radioactive...).
 * The one remaining link between the two lands is Rainicorns, who were the result of ponies who migrated from Equestria to Ooo for one reason or another, and were changed over time by the differing environment.
 * The chunk missing from Ooo's planet isn't really missing, it's out of phase - and it is Equestria. It exerts enough influence on Ooo's planet to keep it acting like a real sphere, and to stop the ground collapsing in to fill the gap; but other that, that huge chunk of planet has been shifted into another plane of reality. Princess Celestia had to create a new sun for Equestria because Ooo's sun is out of phase from Equestria, (except in places like the Everfree forest, which is peripheral enough to leech off the light and warmth of Ooo). The phase-shift is precarious, and has to be actively reinforced by Princess Celestia - who is desperate to keep her realm isolated from the relative chaos of Ooo.
 * Could be the same universe as Regular Show then, as Adventure Time has been theorized to be the distant future of THAT show.
 * The series could also take place in the past of Adventure time, with Finn and Jake occupying what was once the Ponyville Library.
 * Which would mean Pinkie Pie was actually wearing "Grucho Glasses" in Party of One.

G4 is set years after G1.
Possibly a Parallel Universe with several key differences (no Applejack, possibly no humans, etc), or a retconned version of the Pony timeline whether neither G3 nor G2 happened. There are several relations to G1, which can be seen in the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic page. Cheerilee (and Rarity probably) lived in the Pony version of The Eighties, and G1 was very eighties right down to Eighties Hair. Twilight's mom apparently appears to be an aged version of Twilight, and the Spa Twins are older versions of newborn Ponies from G1.

The show takes place in the same universe as one of the various Transformers continuity families.
They talk about "sparks" a lot in the pilot. They have had an encounter with the Transformers in the far past, but have forgotten about it, save for some mentions in old books that have are considered myths. That or they are Transformers themselves in their beast modes, having forgotten about their robot modes, or that they ever were robots.

The place was founded by the Transformers
Equestrian creation myths tell of shape-shifting metal giants with phenomenal comsic powers, perhaps even Unicron himself is somewhere out there.

Equestria is the distant future of Hercules.
Long ago, during a golden age of powerful gods and extraordinary heroes (the greatest and strongest being Hercules), a terrible set of events occurred. First, Hercules, having lived his mortal life, died and joined the gods, but his dear friend Pegasus was left behind. Worse, without its grand hero, ancient Greece fell to a series of natural disasters and unnatural monsters. Perhaps this was when Discord, the grand spirit of Chaos, came about and challenged the gods; or, perhaps the combined forces of monsterkind snuffed out mankind, and so threatened godkind.

In either case, the gods left the mortal world forever, but all was not lost. In this time, a hero had risen, who had struggled to defend his people: Pegasus, now lord of all equines. Before they left, the gods honored Pegasus with gifts. Many were merely artifacts or jewelry (one such piece, Harmonia's gift, still surviving to this day), but Zeus, in his gratitude, gave Pegasus 2 daughters, twin alicorns Luna and Celestia. When Pegasus finally passed away to join the gods in Olympus, Luna and Celestia lived on, and so were crowned princesses.

Without the gods to manage the world, the equines (now known as "ponies", and looking very different from their ancestors) had to make do with a bit of magic and elbow grease; the princesses themselves took care of the sun and the moon. In time, the ponies inherited the silly Schizo-Tech of their human forebears, and what remained of the palace that had stood upon Mount Olympus was converted into a grand pegasus capital, Cloudsdale.

The four My Little Pony generations are of one Multiverse
The universes of each gen are named (using "World" for the planet because we don't know the name of the planet): There are also other universes that will be explored as new generations are created.
 * World 1: The universe of G1, which contains the My Little Pony TV Specials, My Little Pony and Friends, and My Little Pony Tales.
 * World 2: The universe of G2, which contains My Little Pony Friendship Gardens (a video game, not a TV series, but still takes place in this universe).
 * World 3: The universe of G3.
 * World 4: The universe of G4, which contains My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic.

Equestria is the second largest Continent on Nirn
It's where the excess Dragons were hiding out, plus Alicorns are more powerful Aedra/Daedra that have lived there.

Equestria is a realm in the classic Spyro series.
It's not that much of a stretch when you think about it, what with the classic series looking like the art style of the show in digital form. Besides that, the main characters look like they would fit in with the Spyro 'verse quite nicely. There's also the fact Spike is a purple dragon that can walk on two legs...

Equestria was originally an living environment experiment at Black Mesa.
Equestria is a test to see if a better, more peaceful world could be bio-engineered using nano-technology to create Pony-Human-Xen hybrids. During the Resonance Cascade, the experimental ponies were transported to an uninhabited dimension with no other sentient life (thus explaining things like the Parasprites and the Everfree Forest. Equestria is no longer a Black Mesa testing facility, thus "bad" things exist to an extent.) Celestia was originally a Black Mesa employee who was given near (but not actual) god-like power for the purpose of making sure a revolt did not happen at the base. Due to the time and the transportation, she has gone insane, believing she is an actual Physical God. Thus, Half-Life 3 involves Gordon Freeman being "hired" by the G-Man to go to Equestria to snap Celestia out of her insanity in order to fulfill the G-Man's unknown plan while the Equestrian equivalent to the HECU hunt Freeman down. Half-Life 2: Episode 3 has been delayed for so long because Valve Software is having difficulty ending Half-Life 2's plot while beginning Half-Life 3's.
 * Guess that explains all the Portal crossovers, seeing as they're the same 'verse.
 * Ellen Mclain said in a recent interview she would love to do voice work for the show. A crossover with Half Life, Portal, or even Team Fortress 2 may be more likely than we think.
 * This must happen. Considering Ellen is best known for her work as GLaDOS, a Portal reference would be most likely... GLADOS PONY, DO WANT!
 * Off topic, but maybe Ellen could voice a villain in a future episode? She could even order around a band of mercenary ponies!

Equestria is on Pop Star.

 * Pop Star is just the kind of place to have a sweet world like Equestria on it, just like Dream Land. Pop Star is orbited by its sun instead of the other way around. Celestia moves this sun as there should be no need to move a sun if it orbits the sun. Also, the way Marx got the sun and moon to fight was to get Celestia and Luna to fight, which would cause the sun and moon to do the same.

Equestria is a region/faction in the world of Fallout.
Before the Great War, the North Commonwealth was deemed too sparsely populated to merit vaults of its own. As a result, most humans in this region arrived in vaults elsewhere. During the War, China and the USSR did not subject this region to the heavy bombing of others, knowing its low population and empty grasslands would be a waste of missiles. However, fallout from the bombs combined with the release of a biological agent similar to the FEV mutated the feral Mustangs in the region, making them This moderate intelligence evolved into full sapience, and the ponies formed many small tribes. The most powerful tribe was one of rare horned-and-winged ponies, and this tribe went on to conquer all of the region, forming the Equestrian Monarchy. Celestia and Luna are descendents of the original monarchy, and all information about their mythical status as well as Equestria's founding was made up by their Propaganda Ministry. The non-pony monsters seen throughout the series are mutants of various sorts. In particular, Spike is an intelligent deathclaw like those found in Fallout 2's Vault 13. The gender discrepancy amongst the ponies is a combination of a somewhat-matriarchal society under Celestia and the drafting of most male ponies into the army, which defends against attack of the Equestrian borderlands by human factions such as Caesar's Legion, the NCR, and the Enclave. Most ponies within the Equestrian heartland have never heard of this strife, and merrily follow their leaders. This theory also explains the Scizo Tech prevalent in both Fallout and MLP.
 * Small and ponylike
 * Rainbow-colored
 * Occasional development of horns and wings
 * Moderately intelligent

The My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic-verse is part of the Dungeons and Dragons cosmology.
Walk through the right door in Sigil and you'll wind up in a gorgeous land of magical ponies and unusually bright and friendly versions of monsters common throughout the planes. Now we just gotta guess which pony belongs to what character class.
 * Which edition? Of course Fluttershy and Pinkie are likely NPC classes, having never demonstrated any kind of combat ability whatsoever (The Stare being a 'spell like ability' of course). Though the idea of Pinkie being a Sorcerer or Bard and simply hiding her awesome power is an attractive one...
 * 3rd or 4th, 3rd for the amusing contrast between My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic and dungeonpunk, 4th for the streamlined aesthetic matching the clean bright lines of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. Twilight Sparkle is a shoe-in for Wizard, Pinkie definitely seems to be a Bard (she does pull off a Pied Piper move and is always singing and dancing), I'd peg Applebloom as a Ranger for the rough 'n tumble nature affinity... Rainbow Dash is either a Rogue (for speedy tricksiness) or a Monk (for sheer speed... though I've yet to see how 4e handles monks)... Fluttershy strikes me as a Paladin, actually, with an emphasis on the laying-on-of-hands gentleness tempered with the Righteous Fires of Charisma allowing her to stare down evil beings. Rarity, not sure.
 * Fluttershy strikes me as a 4th edition invoker. Lightly armored servant of the gods, raining down holy fire at range. It is after all theorised that Fluttershy's meekness is due to her special power being extremely aggressive in nature. Rarity... 4th edition bard maybe? Lots of flashiness and illusions backing up martial ability, and they actually get the power "Words of Friendship". I'm still with Pinkie as a sorcerer, just because it would annoy Twilight.
 * Fluttershy strikes me more as a Druid. Considering her ability with animals, but also that she's able to convince non-animals to do her will (indicating the Wild Empathy ability). She's also got a good Fort save, indicated when she resisted the cockatrice's stare. And let us not forget Angel, her animal companion! She hasn't shown any ability to change shape, but it's possible she's taken an option from a sourcebook that eschews that ability in favor of more focus to animal control.
 * For some reason I'm imagining Rainbow Dash as a Paladin. Rarity is a Bard, Fluttershy's a Druid or Cleric with the Animal domain, Applejack is a Ranger, and Twilight Sparkle is obvious. As for Pinky Pie, she's a Munchkin.
 * Its more Twilight Sparkle as a Wizard, Pinkie Pie is a Bard, Rarity is a Rogue, Applejack is a Ranger, and Rainbow Dash is a Barbarian. (Remember that Barbarians are the only base class other than Monks to get a significant movement boost, and that Rainbow Dash's alignment totally starts with "Chaotic", not "Lawful".)
 * Well, we know what they'd be in Final Fantasy.
 * I'm just going to leave this here.

Equestria is a plane of Dominia.
On second thought: Equestria might be somehow close or connected to Lorwyn/Shadowmoor since in both cases, we have conflicts between forces of day and night that span centuries.
 * Also in both settings, there are "elements" composed of abstract concepts - the Elements of Harmony in one case, and the Greater Elementals in the other.
 * Lorwyn has no oceans, and as of yet there have been no references to oceans in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic either - in fact, we have seen a squid living in a lake, and a sea-serpent in a river.
 * ...nor have there been references to horses in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. But there have been several races (changelings, hobgoblins, selkies, etc.) going into / coming out of hiding when the plane transforms, so post-Shadowmoor ponies isn't too far of a stretch.
 * It's also a nice coincidence that Celestia's cutie mark looks exactly like the white Mana symbol.

Equestria is a former Daemon World of Tzeentch now taken by Nurgle.
Okay...

Nurgle, as you know, is the god of despair and disease, but he also represents other things like parental love, tolerance, and, of course, friendship. Yep. Thing is, all of the Equestia is completely overtaken by some kind of mind-blowing disease that either twists the surrounding into the cute forms or forces the viewer to percieve the world that way - in fact, the My Little Pony world may be a toxic, diseased, disfigured hell beyond imagining. Furthermore... Let's see the antagonists - they are pretty much Lighter and Softer Chaos Gods. Discord is the most obvious, being chaotic, unpredictable and insane (Tzeentch); Windigos (I know about them from TV Tropes only so I may be wrong) are feeding on hatred and fighting - Khorne, eh? Nightmare Moon... Well, I would consider her Slaanesh since she's female, she has purple coloration, she tempts Rainbow Dash with sin of Pride, etc.

This user is now officially insane.

Ponies were a failed experiment by the race that created the Orks to combat the Necrons.
Ponies were the first effort to create a battle race to combat the necrons. They illustrate some of the traits that would later by incorporated into the Orks such as innate magic (which explains how Pinkie Pie can 'just be Pinkie Pie': she's channeling a prototype form of WAGGGGH! energy and much like Orks, she just does does things because she thinks they should work that way). A cutie mark is a genetic stamp of sort indicating the pony in question's society role to be discovered over time. One can presume if the Brain Boys kept this gimmick in their later project, Meks would have cutie marks of wrenches and trukks.

Eventually, the pony project was deemed a failure because of a general lack of combat capability. The ponies proved incapable of conquering the Everfree Forest (the border of engineered, safe world the Brain Boyz made to breed their warrior race). The project was abandoned and the experience was used to further refine the ork concept.

I'm partially willing to add in the notion that Big Macintosh is a prototype Nob.


 * I'm pretty sure the Eldar were created by the same race as the Orkz. Which could explain the unicorns and their innate psyker talents.


 * A agent (Discord) was posted their but he went insane so two other agents (Celestia and Luna) were sent to clean up the mess, they were made immortal so they could keep the ponies safely on this planet because they discovered the back up (Elements of Harmony) was so strong that the precursor race could not beat them.

Equestria is a Shantor reservation.
Specifically one where the Second Republic performed genetic experiments on the population. Fortunately their jumpgate was sealed before the Fall and they're still Lost.
 * As a result of the experiments all Equestrians are psychic to some degree, though generally only unicorns can perform any powers other than basic Soma.
 * Cutie marks are their version of Stigmas.
 * Cutie mark failure insanity syndrome is a Lighter and Softer form of Urge.
 * The reason the ponies need to micromanage every aspect of the environment is because the terraforming machinery is failing.

Equestria is a bardo.

 * Its similar to the Crystal Spheres, its bigger than a few miles in diameter.
 * The whole area has a predilection for ponies going crazy and mania -is- associated with insanity.
 * It has some way of generating its own mania, so the ponies never need to leave it to steal.
 * Probable suspects are the Elements of Harmony. They channel the ambient friendliness and change that into mania.
 * Wonders are 0 size "spells."

The My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic-verse is part of the Cthulhu cosmology.
Based on how often the characters go nuts, especially Twilight the spellcaster.
 * It's probably somewhere in the Dreamlands though.
 * So the Princesses are probably Great Ones.
 * Oh, and an omnicidal god locked away for a thousand years, sounds familiar, don't it?
 * Considering that the omnicidal god in question was released when the stars were right? Yes.
 * And Discord, one of the thousand masks of Nyarlathoetep.

This explains so much:
 * The cosmic naming convention used for the princesses and the general astrological motifs ("From the dark stars They came ere pony was born, unseen and loathsome They descended to primal earth." "They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars, and brought their images with them". etc.).
 * Why Celestia and Luna look so different from their subjects (they're pure-bred Old Ones; the ponies are crossbreeds with some manner of native life on their planet, like Wilbur Whateley from The Dunwich Horror).
 * Why Cthulhu!Luna was so Easily Forgiven; Yog-Sothoth!Celestia didn't care about what she did, simply that she tried it before the proper time ("She shall beckon unto the Old Ones when the stars mark the time of Their coming; for Yog-sothoth is the Gate through which Those of the Void will re-enter. Yog-sothoth knowest the mazes of of time, for all time is one unto her. She knowest where the Old Ones came forth in time along long past and where They shall come forth again when the cycle returneth.")
 * The multiplicity of pony sub-breeds ("They're semblance can no pony know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on ponykind; and of those there are many sorts").
 * The ponies actively changing the seasons and grooming the natural world ("The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites").
 * Pinky Pie's fourth dimensional powers are just her heritage manifesting particularly strongly ("Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen"); as is her accompanying madness.
 * The very Anarchic Order of the show, as our mortal concepts of "sequence" mean nothing in a world touched by the hideous influence of Yog-Sothoth!Celestia and Cthulhu!Luna ("a haunted, accursed realm where life and death, space and time, have made black and blasphemous alliances").
 * In light of this interpretation, I no longer want to give Fluttershy a great big hug.

Equestria is the Isle of the Houyhnhnms from Gullivers Travels.
After a few hundred years of technological advances, of course. The Yahoos have nearly been wiped out as well.
 * Taking this further, the Houyhnhnms were able to take enormous leaps and bounds in both technological, sociological, and moral concepts thanks to the magic coming back. The Yahoo could not cope.
 * Gulliver just ran into a clan of Earth ponies during his stay, never encountering unicorns or pegasi, as this was long before the three groups united.

The ponies are in fact the Gods of the Dothraki.
The Dothraki believe in horse Gods, so yeah...
 * Not only that, but their Gods also represent stellar objects, like the Sun, Moon, and the Stars.

Twilight's library has access to L-Space.
This is kind of a no-brainer since Twilight is already an excellent practitioner of magic, and must have hundreds of books. Quite a few of them have to be magical in nature. Even the non-magical books have an influence, and the library is already Bigger On the Inside. Time will tell if Twilight Sparkle will be visited by a certain Librarian...

Building on the above, Equestria is on another Discworld.
Certain elements of both worlds are similar as is, such as the moon and sun orbiting the planet, magic seems to work on similar principles (i.e. everything being magic just not able to use it), and they both have a similar mix of mythical, fantastical and mundane species. It's been established that there are other worlds on the back of elephants riding turtles, so there could be an DiscEquestria out there. This would make other elements match up to: Celestia and Luna being gods, Luna's smaller because she's a small god since people stopped worshiping her while on the moon, Discord may be one of the nicer entities from the Dungeon Dimensions, Canterlot is their version of Cori Celeste (and the mountian it's on the Hub) and so on. Perhaps Ponies just haven't been up to the Rim yet, so don't know how flat their world is.

Equestria is a Shadow within the Amberverse.
On her way to deliver the Jewel of Judgment to  during the climax of The Courts of Chaos, the Unicorn from whom the Amberites are descended stops and rests in a fast-time Shadow where a few years pass as minutes in "objective" time; though she intended to simply rest and regain her strength, it turned out some of the local equines were at least as charming as , and some progeny get left behind. Some time later the Courts of learn of a Shadow inhabited by sentient horses with Amberite blood on the distaff side, and a Lord of Chaos named Discord is assigned to monitor the situation.

The Shadow's fast-time nature means he eventually gets lonely, and he founds a little dynasty. After taking two of his descendants back to the Courts for Logrus training, they have a little falling out, and Discord gets pwnied. Their little rebellion slips through the cracks with the political situations as they are in Amber and the Courts; left without direction, the sisters rule together until a dispute leaves Nightmare Moon exactly where her name implies, and during the period of rebuilding that follows the newly crowned king of Chaos  stops by. Since he and  have the Amber/Chaos conflict under control he again has time for side projects, and he had to see the Shadow of friendly talking technicolor ponies to believe it. He and Celestia get on just fine, and he agrees to let her rule Equestria autonomously as a protectorate of the Courts of Chaos, in exchange for the chance to study the warped properties of the Shadow, such as how the local conditions caused the Chaos and Amber blood to stratify into three distinct pony races.

During one of his visits he meets an orphaned earth-type pony he adopts as his mascot, dragging her along on his travels through Shadow; this of course is Pinky Pie. On an ill fated visit to Amber she begins walking the Pattern, and of course is obliged to complete it; to  surprise she's able to pull it off, but though she survives, her psyche is damaged and she's afflicted with a bleak, terrible depression. Unable to help her any other way,  attempts the desperate kill-or-cure of having her also walk the Logrus. It works, but in addition to the inevitable Logrus-madness that afflicts all it's masters, Pinkey Pie's memories are fractured. Even when she's recuperated and returned to Equestria, she remembers her old friend  as her beloved Granny Pie, the period after walking the Pattern as her time on the rock farm, and the period after walking the Logrus not well at all. Back in Equestria she's closely monitored by Celestia and her finest physicians. It's found that she has no conscious memory of her abilities to traverse Shadows or manipulate the Logrus, and after she's deemed competent to function in society she's placed with Mr. and Mrs. Cake in a sort of work home situation.

However! She has not in fact lost these abilities, she simply uses them reflexively and without consideration that everyone else can't perform the same feats. Offscreen teleportation? Short Hell-rides through convergent Shadows. Pulling party supplies from Hammerspace? No, just from alternate Shadows with tendrils of Logrus. She's one of the more powerful beings on Equestria, rivaling Celestia and Luna in that the latter two have never walked the Pattern and can't move across Shadows of their own accord. However Pinky Pie uses these masteries for such mundane purposes that it takes a while for reports off odd events to reach Princess Celestia; she, taking advantage of coincidental circumstances, arranges for her protege Twilight Sparkle (who possesses Endurance to rival that of the legendary Corwin and the potential to be the greatest master of their Shadow's brand of Sorcery, ever) to monitor the situation. Oh, and the inhabitants of Equestria were pretty badass even before the Unicorn and Chaos Lords starting sleeping with them; their most famous native was a little horsey by the name of Morgenstern! In conclusion, I look forward to reading the campaign logs of the first sessions of the My Little Pony Diceless Role-playing Game.

Equestria shares a universe with the Firebringer Trilogy.

 * Unicorns are...well, unicorns, mostly Plainsdwellers (hence the descriptive names). Earth ponies are wild daya. As a result of interbreeding between pony kinds, daya now have the lifespan of unicorns (and occasionally give birth to unicorn and pegasus foals, as we've seen) and actually have them outmatched for durability.
 * As for unicorns, it's now sufficiently rare for them to have goatees that Star Swirl's earned him an epithet.
 * The difficult ones to explain would be the pegasi, really...and they're what happened when daya took up with.
 * It's anyone's guess whether or not there are still any hippogriffs. They were, for some misbegotten reason, more fertile with daya than with either of their parent species or with each other (although pegasi, thankfully, dodged that bullet). Which leads us to...
 * Cerapters like the princesses, who have the attributes and abilities of all three kinds (not just unicorn and pegasus, as commonly believed) and may well be the ultimate outcome of pony-kind—well, at least, before ponies officially transcend, anyway. They almost invariably have metamorphosed into that form from from exceptional unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies (Cadance—who seems to have been one at least since she was a filly—is not only an anomaly, but less a cerapter proper than a unicorn who happens to have been born with functional wings). There are never more than a few of them at a time, and most are chessmasters to some degree..
 * Cutie marks are connected to truenames somehow.
 * Dragons and wyverns have evolved and/or mutated into several different species each. While the gryphons are clearly still out there, they mostly stay out of ponies' way nowadays. (The hybridization that resulted in the existence of the pegasi has long since been dismissed as mere vulgar speculation.)
 * Humans and pans are probably on a different continent, or simply far enough away that they've never crossed paths with the ponies. Or this may be an alternate world in which they died out or simply never existed.
 * Humans and pans are probably on a different continent, or simply far enough away that they've never crossed paths with the ponies. Or this may be an alternate world in which they died out or simply never existed.

Equestria is a domain of the Nevernever.
The ponies in all their forms are Wildfaye under the protection of the Princesses who are independent Lords ala the Erlking and Santa Claus.
 * Through the magic of the Elements of Harmony the Princesses have sealed the more dangerous aspects of Fae from their domain. This has the side effect of cutting them off from both Winter and Summer forcing them to micromanage their own ecology through an artificial Day/Night cycle maintained by the Princesses, Pegasi controlled weather and manned season changing.

Equestria is the result of a game of Sburb played by ponies.
Celestia and Luna were the only players of said game to reach the God Tier, thus fully realizing their roles as the HEIR OF LIGHT and MAID OF VOID.
 * Secretly, the STEED OF TIME and SEER OF DERP are still around...
 * Alternative interpretation, based on the perceived necessity for an Heir, a Hero of Time, and a Hero of Space in each session (to properly create paradox clones and generate the Beat Mesa and Forge):
 * Princess Celestia - Heir of Time
 * Princess Luna - Queen of Space
 * Discord - Bard of Chaos (hey, if Nepeta can break the five-words-per-land rule to have Lolcat, Discord can be the Hero of an affinity with two syllables.)
 * God-Tier players from a previous session. They won and successfully entered their universe. And that's how Equestria was made!! Discord entered the new universe at a point in time further in its past than the Princesses, and the solitude drove him further off the deep end he'd been teetering on ever since being horrifically twisted by ascending to God Tier as the hero of Chaos... which is why when they found Equestria it was such a mess under his rule.)
 * The ponies' homes (and the rest of Equestria) are NOT in danger of being destroyed by meteors. Celestia and Luna wield their considerable powers to deflect and harmlessly teleport meteors, pulling in ones with useful artifacts such as the command stations and the Frog Temple... and the mane six as foals. This will cool Applejack's objections to playing "this silly game o' Twilight's" as Sweet Apple Acres need not be abandoned when Applejack enters the Incipisphere: she can easily transportalize back to do her daily chores, and use alchemy to duplicate apples and apple trees by the thousands. (Just like John's dad apparently did with such things as shaving cream and pipe tobacco.)
 * Lacking computers and similar technology, the Equestrian entry into the Medium will be even more different than the trolls' biotechnology-based SGRUB was: SPONY will take the form of a pair of spells, first cast by Twilight and Rarity to help Twilight enter the Medium, then refined into precast scrolls to allow the non-unicorns to pair up as client and server partners.
 * The client-server architecture is as follows:
 * Twilight <== Rarity <== Applejack <== Rainbow Dash <== Fluttershy <== Pinkie Pie <== Twilight
 * Twilight Sparkle: the Heir of Light
 * Land: of Light and Shade (an unusual world, it rotates to give a 6-hour day/night cycle with the light from Skaia, making building upward a challenge for Rarity because of the different forces at play on the structure compared to the other, non-rotating worlds in the Medium.)
 * Fetch Modus: Array. Sensible, organized, allows her to retrieve whatever she needs with a minimum of fuss.
 * Rarity: the Sylph of Hope
 * Land: of Crystal and Textiles (one challenge she faces is leaving her world behind long enough to get quests done elsewhere, as many things she likes are quite obviously in abundance)
 * Fetch Modus: Makeover. Always retrieves the current most beautiful item in her Sylladex--or the one in most desperate need of prettifying.
 * Applejack: the Knight of Life
 * Land: of Forest and Rain (much of Sweet Apple Acres' orchard came with her, allowing her to continue her work even in the Medium)
 * Fetch Modus: Heap. Sensibly, the most valuable item is always accessible at the root node.
 * Rainbow Dash: the Rogue of Time (and she already has the shades 8) )
 * Land: of Sand and Glass (with many hourglasses; Dash's time machine appears as two spinning cross-shaped double hourglasses supported by a stone bearing a resemblance to Greek column tops--operable with her wings, naturally)
 * Fetch Modus: Two-Way Iterator. Allows her to move back and forth through the linked list with great speed, accessing any item in linear time, while still being able to weaponize her sylladex, ejecting only the exact item she wants to by selecting just the right slot to collide with.
 * Fluttershy: the Maid of Heart
 * Land: of Dew and Tea (gradually having more and more adorable creatures she brought over from Lo Fa R and elsewhere. Also, it goes without saying that she would be even MORE nonaggressive towards the underlings than Tavros or Gamzee, and would use the Stare to quell any aggression from them.)
 * Fetch Modus: Politeness. Dispenses the right item when asked with "Please."
 * Pinkie Pie: the Bard of Space
 * Land: of Mirth and Frogs (Pinkie got the session Forge from the mountain where the dragon in "Dragonshy" was napping, via shenanigans. When asked how she got it to move to the Medium when it was so far away from Sugarcube Corner, she just giggles.)
 * Fetch Modus: Miracle. (C'mon, you knew it had to be.)
 * And the question of the eon: why would Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, knowing the mechanics of SPONY, allow the mane six to cast the spells and play the game, knowing that if they made a slip-up, ponies could die or homes be destroyed from the meteors? Answer: Because they wanted to see what a marvelous universe the new Elements of Harmony would create. ...Also, since Celestia already rescued them from the meteors, to not allow them to create their own paradox clones would just result in a doomed alternate timeline. Celestia, as the former hero of Time, would know this all too well.
 * How would the ponies have Strife Specibi without hands when only two of them possess unicorn telekinesis? Easy: like Sollux and Equius, they don't need weapons when they have their natural abilities in Strife. The earth ponies have powerful kicks that would only get stronger as they increased in level, Rainbow Dash could use super speed to similar effect, the unicorns have their magic, and Fluttershy would use her animal communion and Stare to achieve quest objectives non-violently.
 * Kernel(para)sprites:
 * Twilight thinks the "prototyping" will probably just take a copy of the form of the object or entity thrown in, based on the description she reads within the spellbooks Celestia sent. To her horror, Spike disappears entirely, BECOMING the kernel. Fortunately, Spikesprite retains all of Spike's memory and personality and so for all intents and purposes IS still Spike.
 * Rarity prototypes Opalescence quite by accident: Opal is getting a mite freaked out by all the weird furniture-moving Applejack is doing from afar, and jumps on Rarity's hindquarters with claws extended. Rarity throws her off almost reflexively, and the feline sails into the kernelsprite.
 * Applejack, upon hearing that Spikesprite has been giving Twilight lots of useful information about the Medium, decides to prototype Winona in the hopes that her canine herding partner will be more eloquent afterward. Unfortunately, Winona still tends towards barks for communication--adequate for herding, not so much for communicating obscure concepts about the Incipisphere.
 * Rainbow Dash would zoom around setting up everything for entry, and then, when she's just about to use her Cruxite Artifact, Twilight tells her she absolutely MUST put something in the kernel first, so she tosses Tank in and gets in the Medium in ten seconds flat.
 * "Oh Angel... I really need to put something in the kernelsprite... it would be ever so nice if I could have a nice bunny to help me through the Medium... that is... if that's alright with you..."
 * "So Pinkie Pie, looks like you already got your kernelsprite prototyped with Gummy..." "Is THAT what we were doing? I just threw Gummy a Weird Flashy Thing Party and wouldn't you know, he just moseyed right on in!"
 * Hours in the future (but not many)...
 * "Cutie Mark Crusader Incipisphere Explorers!" ...sneaking through one of the transportalizers. Inevitably, tragedy strikes all three, and since they do not have Quest Beds or dreamselves, the ponies desperately try prototyping as a way to bring them back to life, or at least existence.
 * And so through post-Entry second-tier prototyping, Opalsprite would become Sweetiesprite, Winonasprite would become Applebloomsprite, and Scootasprite (formerly Tanksprite) would finally be able to help out her idol.
 * And even though Chumhandles make no sense for a non-text-based communications spell, here they are anyway:
 * crepuscularGodhead
 * textileAugmentrix
 * awkwardTaxonomist
 * colorfulTrickster
 * appliciousCollector
 * gigglingGamer

The setting is a universe alternate to the main Star Trek universe.
In which Q, when being punished by the Continuum (Deja Q), instead of choosing to be made human and dropped off on the Enterprise-D chooses to be turned into a magical chimera and sent to the planet Equestria where he can troll ponies.
 * Q had the choice between any mortal existence, unless the rules themselves were different in that universe. On a less relevant note, I like to think that the Q Continuum exists across the Star Trek multiverse.

Equestria is in The Matrix.
Specifically, it's one of the "paradise" versions of the Matrix intended to keep its occupants content. This one seems to be working.
 * Humans were given pony avatars and physics was messed with so that they'll be even more useless as "freedom fighters" if any do manage to slip out. Cutie marks also help maintain the system's stability.
 * Lyra Heartstrings's nervous system is imperfectly mapped to her avatar, hence her habit of human-like behaviour.
 * Pinkie Pie can see the system's code. Hence her ability to break the fourth wall, her Pinkie Sense, and other abnormal abilities.
 * The Elements of Harmony are backdoor security and hacking utilities.
 * Celestia, Luna, and Spike are all A Is involved in maintaining the system (Spike was specifically designed to monitor Twilight). They couldn't have such long lifespans if they were the avatars of mortal humans. Like the Oracle, they seem to have developed some degree of affection and respect for their inmates.
 * Discord is a rogue AI that was originally involved with creating the underlying simulation (hence his powerful "root access" that Celestia can't override on her own).
 * In such a setting, Discord might actually be an AI on the humans' side: the reason he's so obsessed with chaos is he's trying to break the simulation and the inmate's acceptance of it as reality enough to enable them to wake them up and free them.