I can see the problem with a powerless entity trying to advance arguments against those vastly more powerful than them.
What about an equally powerful entity to alicorns? Discord for example, might be opposed to it for his own reasons but adopt any argument that makes it less likely. (Though he, stylistically, may not fit at all into your fic anyhow.) Although, I can see how people may not like that evil guy is advancing the opposing argument. There are other immortal entities. Dragons perhaps. Whatever employs Cerberus or Ahuizotl.
Or political opponents like Zebra or Gryphon could have reasons to disagree with the plan (like I assume they would dislike the pony hegemony that would occur if everypony became alicorns tomorrow.) They wouldn’t be strictly equal to alicorns on the same power level, but would have some ability to back up their arguments with force, unlike a social representative.
As a side note, I’m a bit confused about Cadence and Twilight. I know that Twilight is sometimes heroically compulsive, but isn’t Cadence the avatar of love or something? I would imagine she’d be a lot more empathetic about suffering ponies and that Twilight would be more disposed to studying.
It’s not even really about magical power. Within the world, it’s about political power, and the fact that the alicorns are royalty. In reality, it’s about the nature of the fanfiction. Much of the fanfiction is about the discussion and debate between the four princesses of Equestria. Therefore, any pony that isn’t an alicorn tends to fade into the background a bit, taking the role of a driving force on the main characters. The main power that the alicorns have is the literary device of being major characters.
I spent two minutes arguing about why Discord was a stupid example, but then realised Discord is actually good now. Discord doesn’t really stylistically fit into any of those five arguments, however. Looking at him, I imagine he would abstain from the issue. I simply don’t see why he would care, period. The only thing he might do would be to try and get Fluttershy immortality, but even if he did take on that side, I don’t see him entering the political arena. Adding an OC immortal isn’t really something I want to do. For one, I suck at making characters, and for another, the thing I enjoy most about fanfiction is exploring the world that already exists.
The political opponents are really more of an obstacle than a character. In my opinion, they would be far better off as an abstraction: Instead of the Griffon Prince coming to Equestria to argue with the princesses, the argument is “The griffons won’t be happy if we do this, and there could be consequences.”
As for Twilight and Cadence, just because Twilight’s bookish doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. I assume she’d be on the forefront of research to solve mass-transformation-related problems, but to do that, it’s only logical that she convince the other princesses they should actually go ahead and agree to the transforming first. I agree that Cadence actually would be a likely candidate to take on the mantle of “We should transform everypony as fast as possible” but that argument is likely to be pretty soundly defeated in the first few chapters anyway. Thus, it’s better for the fic if Cadence has a pro-alicorn, but reasonably well thought out view. It’s okay for Twilight to hold that view for a while and still be rational, because it’s a snap judgement: She only finds out that Cadence and herself are immortal when she actually gets transformed. Before Celestia mentions it, Twilight assumes that only Celestia and Luna are immortal.
Essentially, it would make sense for Cadence to be an irrational character, but I think the fic is overall better to give Cadence a slightly different character and allow her to be more rational, and thus increase the amount of solid discourse within the story. It’s a sacrifice, but I think it’s one worth making. I actually think the irrational view is more in Cadence’s character, but the alicorns are already being bumped up in rationality to begin with: One more won’t be too odd. And a rationalist!Cadence would likely take on the role of “Do it once we’re sure it will work.” I actually have a scene I drafted out which has this particular argument in it, which I’ll send to you as an example of Cadence’s character. (I don’t want to make my comments TOO long in length, we already have a massive comment chain as it is!)
I can see the problem with a powerless entity trying to advance arguments against those vastly more powerful than them.
What about an equally powerful entity to alicorns? Discord for example, might be opposed to it for his own reasons but adopt any argument that makes it less likely. (Though he, stylistically, may not fit at all into your fic anyhow.) Although, I can see how people may not like that evil guy is advancing the opposing argument. There are other immortal entities. Dragons perhaps. Whatever employs Cerberus or Ahuizotl.
Or political opponents like Zebra or Gryphon could have reasons to disagree with the plan (like I assume they would dislike the pony hegemony that would occur if everypony became alicorns tomorrow.) They wouldn’t be strictly equal to alicorns on the same power level, but would have some ability to back up their arguments with force, unlike a social representative.
As a side note, I’m a bit confused about Cadence and Twilight. I know that Twilight is sometimes heroically compulsive, but isn’t Cadence the avatar of love or something? I would imagine she’d be a lot more empathetic about suffering ponies and that Twilight would be more disposed to studying.
It’s not even really about magical power. Within the world, it’s about political power, and the fact that the alicorns are royalty. In reality, it’s about the nature of the fanfiction. Much of the fanfiction is about the discussion and debate between the four princesses of Equestria. Therefore, any pony that isn’t an alicorn tends to fade into the background a bit, taking the role of a driving force on the main characters. The main power that the alicorns have is the literary device of being major characters.
I spent two minutes arguing about why Discord was a stupid example, but then realised Discord is actually good now. Discord doesn’t really stylistically fit into any of those five arguments, however. Looking at him, I imagine he would abstain from the issue. I simply don’t see why he would care, period. The only thing he might do would be to try and get Fluttershy immortality, but even if he did take on that side, I don’t see him entering the political arena. Adding an OC immortal isn’t really something I want to do. For one, I suck at making characters, and for another, the thing I enjoy most about fanfiction is exploring the world that already exists.
The political opponents are really more of an obstacle than a character. In my opinion, they would be far better off as an abstraction: Instead of the Griffon Prince coming to Equestria to argue with the princesses, the argument is “The griffons won’t be happy if we do this, and there could be consequences.”
As for Twilight and Cadence, just because Twilight’s bookish doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. I assume she’d be on the forefront of research to solve mass-transformation-related problems, but to do that, it’s only logical that she convince the other princesses they should actually go ahead and agree to the transforming first. I agree that Cadence actually would be a likely candidate to take on the mantle of “We should transform everypony as fast as possible” but that argument is likely to be pretty soundly defeated in the first few chapters anyway. Thus, it’s better for the fic if Cadence has a pro-alicorn, but reasonably well thought out view. It’s okay for Twilight to hold that view for a while and still be rational, because it’s a snap judgement: She only finds out that Cadence and herself are immortal when she actually gets transformed. Before Celestia mentions it, Twilight assumes that only Celestia and Luna are immortal.
Essentially, it would make sense for Cadence to be an irrational character, but I think the fic is overall better to give Cadence a slightly different character and allow her to be more rational, and thus increase the amount of solid discourse within the story. It’s a sacrifice, but I think it’s one worth making. I actually think the irrational view is more in Cadence’s character, but the alicorns are already being bumped up in rationality to begin with: One more won’t be too odd. And a rationalist!Cadence would likely take on the role of “Do it once we’re sure it will work.” I actually have a scene I drafted out which has this particular argument in it, which I’ll send to you as an example of Cadence’s character. (I don’t want to make my comments TOO long in length, we already have a massive comment chain as it is!)