All universes that we know of behave according to a set of rules we call fundamental laws. These laws shape the way the universe evolves and reacts, governing everything that exists within it. Those these laws may not manifest in an obvious way in some universes, the Equestrian universe is - as we know - more insane than we generally give it credit for. I mean, there are even rumors that Princess Cadance is actually a really awesome-looking insect queen that feeds on love. If you can’t trust your local bubblegum ice cream princess, who can you trust?
It takes a keen mind and a good set of methods to delve into and discover these governing laws. Because I possess neither of these things, we’ll have to work with what we’ve got. Also, since my monthly paycheck consists of a packet of Skittles and half a lion, we’ll also have to wing it with the science. I can do that, I have a degree in science. As a result, I’m pretty sure that these laws exist:
1) The Friendship-Magic Equivalence Theorem
The most irrefutable of the five laws I discovered on my scotch-fueled adventures is, shockingly, the subtitle of the show. I know I may have lost a few of you there, but bear with me. It was hard for me, too.
As demonstrated several years ago with the brutal murder of Nightmare Moon, the power of rapid friendship development (one day or less) between a set of individuals can produce powerful magical effects. Since friendship is such a hard property to measure without upsetting a board of ethical professionals (read: pansies) it is difficult to determine how the equivalence of these forces plays out. However, due largely in part to the research carried out by Twilight Sparkle under her author name Magic Butt we can determine a quite frightening side effect of this law.
If there existed a pony who could, for example, produce friendship between two ponies whenever they wanted, this pony would conceivably be the most powerful magic user in the universe. Man, I’m glad someone like that doesn’t exist.
2) Applejack’s Law
Through countless additional hours of research and maybe an illicit substance or two, this next fundamental law became apparent. It is special in the fact that no other pony exhibits this strange quality with such regularity. Though, on reflection, this may be due to the fact that few other ponies wear their name on their butt.
Regardless, the law is such: the longer that Applejack appears on screen, the probability that she will emit the word ‘apple’ or ‘apples’ tends toward infinity. For those of you who didn’t take calculus, this means that Applejack says apples a lot. In fact, it also implies an interesting corollary- if Applejack stays on screen for a long enough period of time and never mentions her fruit-based namesake, the universal wavefunction may collapse entirely under the sheer strain of the improbability of this act occurring. I’m not totally sure what I just typed, but it sounded good, and when science sounds good, it is good.
3) The Existence of Dark Matter Expressed as Butterflies
Dark matter is an extraordinarily difficult thing to prove the existence of. I know this because Morgan Freeman told it to me, and you don’t really get to question him. He’s god, after all. Fortunately, in the Equestrian universe it’s fairly easy to talk about this conjecture. We merely have to look at the behavior of butterflies.
When Fluttershy was pushed from Cloudsdale before becoming a Harmony element bearer, she was unable to slow her descent due to her atrophied wings. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to assume that she reached terminal velocity during her fall, which should by all accounts have resulted in an interesting yellow impact crater directly below the cloud city and at least one murder charge. Instead, she was saved by a group of passing butterflies- not only an extremely unlikely and amazing event, but one that could not be possible unless the butterflies were made of a as-of-yet undiscovered super-dense substance. Ergo, dark matter. QED.
As gravity pulls everything on the surface of a planet towards the geometric center, it makes sense to continue to the logical conclusion and state that the butterflies also reside at the center of the planet, forming the mass of it around them. Occasionally, they also apparently escape onto the surface, where they can perform feats that defy physics. What I’m getting at here is butterflies are clearly overpowered and should be nerfed.
4) The Cutie Mark Principle
Admittedly, the basis for this law has somewhat of a small sample size. To people who would point this out, I ask them this: has science ever found something incredible without a little adventure? A little daring? A few deft twists of the establishment and their rules and best practices, boldly flying in the face of adversity and charging towards a better world, preferably with an eagle on each shoulder? Have some courage, and pour me another drink.
Keeping that in mind, this law is very simple and extends from the laws of magnetism (which I am told are magic anyway) - the more energy is put towards finding and acquiring a valid cutie mark, the more elusive said mark will be to obtain.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, this seems to also imply that the slightest thing can cause a cutie mark to appear if you’re not particularly looking for it at the time. We only have the six most influential ponies on the planet as the corresponding sample size for this conclusion, but honestly a sonic boom accompanied by a circular radioactive rainbow explosion probably happens every other week in Equestria. I wouldn’t be surprised if most ponies get their cutie marks doing what they truly enjoy without conscious thought, or something. Stranger things have happened.
5) Law of Mirror Duplication
Personalities are a funny thing. Stretch them too thin and they being to wear and disintegrate. No pony is really as strong as they think they are, when it comes down to it. When they’re against the ropes they find out what they’re really made of, and oftentimes they don’t like the answer. Just leave the bottle this time.
Mirror pools are a good personification of this. Experimental results seem to point to the fact that the more duplicates you make of a pony in a mirror pool, the more the copies degrade into their core elements. In the Great Pinkie Pie Duplication Invasion, that core element was fun. If it had been Applejack diving into that pool, I can only assume that after a while you’d just start getting apples out instead.
This law naturally would tend to limit the amount of mirror pool usage, if ponies knew about it, and quite frankly that’s probably a good thing. I’m not too keen on finding out what Rarity’s core element is. Whatever it is, it’s probably loud.
Cereal Velocity has a Twitter. You can follow him @CerealVelocity
