Trope A Day-Rugby Is Slaughter

Rugby Is Slaughter-Well, not rugby exactly. Ponies don’t play rugby, they play hoofball. Hoofball has a very interesting history in Equestria, having been used to decide at least one major armed conflict(1), and having a history of extreme violence. Hoofball is probably the only sport where a major orbital bombardment would be considered a minor delay. The only real delay would be setting the goal posts back up again. It’s also one of the few places that the Equestrian love of honoring rules breaks down-it’s only half jokingly said that there’s so many officials on the field is for mutual protection when they try to enforce the rules.

Tirak could break out of Tartarus, and the only thing that would happen would be a fifteen minute time out. And one team signing him as a striker forward.

If someone was to introduce rugby or Australian-Rules Football to Equestria, it might be considered mild in comparison to hoofball.

(1)-Casualties from the game, and the post-game blitz was only slightly less than the worst battles of the war itself.

Trope A Day-Disaster Dominoes

Disaster Dominoes-Spacecraft are very vulnerable to things going wrong and having them go wrong very quickly. To prevent this, maintenance and repairs and keeping up your hardware is vital. To ponies that haven’t ever been in space, spacer pony obsessions with cleanliness, maintenance, and working the schedule on making sure things as trivial as flashlight batteries are good seems weird.

The ponies that survive this lack of obsessive care about checking things when disaster happens usually either never go into space again or they start being just as obsessive.

Trope A Day-Derelict Graveyard

Derelict Graveyard-The one big one that usually referenced is the Kaladros Wastes. On the edge of the frontier between the Griffin Moot and Equestria, both nations maintained garrison forces on the only world in the system, and warship fleets in the space surrounding the Wastes. They did this even during the Horizon War, and kept the neutrality of the location throughout the War.

The reason for this is simple-the Kaladros Wastes is a Precursor graveyard. The job of the fleets and the garrison is not to keep scavengers and unauthorized exploration parties out. They do this, mind you, but it’s not their primary job.

Their primary job is to keep whatever is in the Kaladros Wastes in.

Trope A Day-What You Are In The Dark

What You Are In The Dark-It’s amazing how many being in the Equestriaverse will do the right thing when nobody is looking. Or nobody will notice, or care, or even take note of it. If they don’t, they’ve probably fallen so far down the slippery slope of morality that they’re a danger to everybody around them.

The question of this heightened morality is natural or built in is a major question that keeps being asked.

Trope A Day-Stop Worshiping Me/Unwanted False Faith

Stop Worshiping Me/Unwanted False Faith-Alicorns.

Full stop.

To say that alicorns are powerful is like saying the sun is a little warm, the sea is a little salty, and hard vacuum is short on breathable material. Twenty-seven beings that the Equestrian ponies revere in various degrees of worship from “the very hoof beats of Faust on the universe” to “very powerful beings that you should respect for that power.” The weakest can kill starships in orbit, the strongest and eldest among them are basically “do not attack, unless you want to prove there is life after death by direct examination.” They are capable of many things…

…but, some things are beyond them. They cannot bless. They cannot bring back the dead (the truly dead, not someone that died but has a cortical stack). They cannot heal beyond what is available by technology. And, the process of becoming an alicorn, Ascention, is something that an alicorn can only provide guidance once the pony has made it half-way there. Whatever counts as half-way for that particular pony.

But, this doesn’t stop ponies from trying to pray. To beg for a miracle. To ask for a blessing. To pour faith into twenty-seven being that for the most part…can only do what they can do and not much else.

For at least six hundred years, the alicorns of Equestria have been trying to reduce the size of the pedestals that they have been put on by ponies. So far…there hasn’t been too much reduction.

Trope A Day-It’s The Only Way To Be Sure

It’s The Only Way To Be Sure-A common way of solving problems when Precursor artifacts go bad. Common whenever the Ministry of Ghosts gets involved. There’s even a protocol for naval officers to follow when this is necessary.

Trope A Day-Required Secondary Powers

Required Secondary Powers-Comedy usually happens when a unicorn (or anybody with a vector controller) forgets that while the vector controller or magic might be able to lift an object, if they aren’t braced properly…

Or, summoning fireballs and forgetting the whole thing about thermal bloom.

Or any number of things where if you forget that the laws of physics will find a way to get you in the end.

Trope A Day-The Ponies In Black

The Ponies In Black-There is no such thing as the Ministry of Ghosts.

There is no such Ministry in the Equestrian government run by Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess Sunset Shimmer, and Princess Starlight Glimmer.

This Ministry-that does not exist-does not handles dangerous Precursor artifacts, magical devices that should not be used by anypony, and anything else that would be a direct threat to any intelligent being.

And, they are especially not behind you with a stun gun and a memory redactor.

Really.  Honest.

Just don’t look behind you.

Trope A Day-Space Elevator

Space Elevator-Before the development of anti-gravity technology, ponies built two of these, the griffins built one, and you can tell the early colonies that happened before anti-gravity technology.  One of the big things about the Princess Platinum-class Orbital Foundry Ships was that it had a weaving loom to build orbital elevator cables.   The space that the loom used to take up is now filled with fabricators and smelters.

Trope A Day-Nano-machines

Nano-machines-Equestria was swarming with nano-machines in one form or another, and acted as the point of interface between magic and ponies. When this was discovered, soon after the Great Shift, there were a lot of questions asked, and very few of them were answered. Eventually, everybody was able to create nano-machines of their own…but was never quite as good as the swarming hordes of invisible nano-machines around them.   Only unicorns and alicorns were able to consciously access and control these nano-machines, while the other races used them instinctively.  Even this level of control is highly restricted, with very few ponies being able to go beyond a few simple “tricks”. Trying to hack the nano-machines is very difficult to impossible, and Very Bad Things happen to ponies that try.

To this day, the nano-machine technology that makes magic possible seems to follow ponies (and everybody else) everywhere, or is there already. It is definitely a Precursor technology (the very existence of the nano-machines violates several laws of thermodynamics and at least one law of causality), and it is one of the biggest question marks about the existence of the Precursors.  Research on them is very tricky-they have very effective self destruct mechanisms and are almost impossible to contain.

(And, this is even cannon!)