Why are royal guards so ineffective?

>>30049360
It is the only way to make strong independent mares like the mane 6 and Glimmy shine, anon.

>>30049360
They're just glorified walking cocks for the princesses to use as they please

File: 1338480048616.jpg (295KB, 900x622px) Image search: [Google]

295KB, 900x622px

>>30049360
Peaceful times make for soft men, and ponies. The Royal Guard has probably been little more than a formality for centuries now, since Celestia is practically a demi-God amongst ponies, and her control over the sun makes the cost of attacking her nation too high for most neighbour states to even consider.

>>30049384
True, but you'd still want a competent defense force in the event that a faction that doesn't give a fuck invaded.

>>30049360
The guards do not exist as characters in this show. They're less than background ponies. They're decor. It's like the police in a superhero movie. It's not that they're ineffective. It's that effectiveness is not even a thing.

>>30049394
Ponies rarely get attacked by silly threats
They always get attacked by huge fucking monstrousities or massive armies no single bakcground soldier would ever survive in your cliche tv show.

>>30049394
And they probably did, for the first few hundred years after she became Princess. But in the absence of real conflict, all they would have had to rely on would be military leaders without any experience, and strategies that are atleast a thousand years out of date. I'm sure the Royal Guard is trying to get its shit together now, but that takes time, and the series has presumably taken place over only a few years.

>>30049384
They were literally gonna be invaded by yaks cause of twilight. The royal gaurd can't be so incompetent

File: Vp5wf42.gif (694KB, 225x200px) Image search: [Google]

694KB, 225x200px

>>30049435

>>30049360
They're gay

>>30049384
>practically a demi-God
She lives really long and eats cake. That's about as far as her powers seem to extend when she's not making daylight

>>30049360
Because I'll fucking kill you.

File: 1337910603377.png (271KB, 863x926px) Image search: [Google]

271KB, 863x926px

>>30049488
It takes an entire group of Arch-Mage level unicorns to move the sun and the moon, and the repeated casting of that spell eventually destroys their ability to manipulate magic entirely. Celestia has been handling both the sun and the moon by herself for over a thousand years without breaking a sweat. That's pretty Godlike just in of itself, before you take into account that she's had several more lifetimes to study magic than even the greatest wizards.

>>30049488
Just think about the implications of this shit, with the snap of her fingers (if she had any, lel hooves) she could either just move the sun in erratic ways or move the moon into specific spots on the sky to blot out sunlight in the lands of the enemy if she wanted to.No sunlight = no crops.You don't fuck with Sunbutt and Moonbutt.

>>30049535
>no sunglight no crops
Except this is wrong because of evidence by the canon in the finale of S5.
NMM banishes Celestia to the fucking moon and takes over, so she never rises the sun again, yet all vegetation seems fine.
It seems that plants work differently in Equestria or writers are massively retarded and didn't care for such "minuscule" detail.

>>30049560
>All vegetation seems fine
Seems, but it's never disclosed that exactly how long into the future the map-portal sent Twilight back to.It's not farfetched to assume that lefrindsepmap loses power as the constant rewrites of history and opening the timewarp takes up a lot of it's power...not to mention the constant weakening of harmony. (Like at the final junction when there's nothing but a fucking wasteland left of the world)

>>30049578
>>30049560

This just occured to me too as an addendum, the NMM part was in the Everfree Forest, which is known to defy the common magical and vegetational rules of Equestria.It's a pretty safe bet that even if it has been quite a while since the timeline shift, that the inherent nature of Everfree kept it healthy.We also never saw any indication of temperature changes Which could be explained by the writers' retardation to detail., AND we also never saw the world outside Everfree itself, so nobody knows if it IS a snowy wasteland or not at this point.

>>30049578
>Never disclosed
It was relative to the point after Twilight got her Castle, so 1000 + some years.
So your headcanon is stepped on, chewed and vomited by a fucking cat then thrown into a pool of acid.

>>30049592
>1000+ some years

Wait what? I can't hear you over all that bullshit you're spewing.

>>30049591
But then every single one would be dead, because there would be no way to produce food.

>>30049604
NMM is cozy with the enslaved elements of harmony in an enchanted forest and a rebuilt castle with magical internal heating,why would she give a single fuck about everyone else being dead as long as she's fine in the darkness?

>>30049603
They are parallel time lines
Don't you know how the work?
It was like in back to the future, they go to 1965 to change stuff, then when they come back stuff has changed according to what they did in 1965, so the new 1985 is different.
In the show it would be like returning to 1965 when Starlight alters the race that made Dosh get her mark, so then they go back to the present of the show (1985 in the back tot he future analogy). Only the past and future changes, not the date they go back to.

>>30049609
But if her servants died and it is 1000+ years since she banished Molestia, then how did the mane 6 came to be? their parents would be dead, unless there was food for all those years and generations to survive.

>>30049604
Based animators took care of that, you can see a small piece of the sun at the right corner near the horizon.

>>30049621
>>30049613

Why the fuck would it be 1000+ years since the banish? Are you really this retarded? Glimglam stopped Dash before NMM resurfaced in Season 1.

THEN NMM comes back, doesn't get stopped and banishes Sunbutt in kind, what 1000 years are you talking about? From S1E1 to the inception of Crystaltwilicastle is NOT 1000 years, idiot.

>>30049360
They probably never seen any fight, Royal Guards are just ceremonial force consisting of mostly nobility.

Also argument that no one attacks Equestria because they control sun is kinda stupid. Even if Celestia has complete control she can't just stop illuminating some part of the world. She would either catch her country in friendly fire, or destroy climate and balance of whole world.

Their sun also must be different than ours, cause even small change in it's patch would destroy their whole system. Maybe it's some kind of magicall artifact or something bur surely not gigant star.

File: 1428918215130.gif (2MB, 384x271px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 384x271px

>>30049631
Fuck you are right, I fucked up there.

>>30049640
No biggie, it happens senpai.

>>30049644
Still any plant of our reality would have dried out in a month or less without sun.
So there must be a way for ponies to get food.

>>30049647
Like i said, NMM's castle was in Evefree.Everfree shits on the logic and rules of both Equestria and Real life both in vegetation and magic, plenty of shit for NMM and pals to eat there, what with the rebuild castle.Why would she give a fuck about what's outside?

>>30049661
But she wanted to rule a kingdom.
Even if she was a bit crzy I don't think any evil tyrant is as crazy as to let all his population die. After all if you wanted the throne is to reign over a population, this is basic logic. You can't reign over corpses.

>>30049360
I've always seen just them as police.

>>30049525
>It takes an entire group of Arch-Mage level unicorns to move the sun and the moon, and the repeated casting of that spell eventually destroys their ability to manipulate magic entirely.
Where did you get that?
>Celestia has been handling both the sun and the moon by herself for over a thousand years without breaking a sweat.
Not sure about the moon, but sun is literally her cutie mark.

>>30049384
That raises the question though, was there ever a time when they needed to be strong? Or were they just created for show?

>>30049704
Diary of Two Sisters. So it's dubiously canon.

>>30049360
>the war with Sombra's Crystal Empire would have been a stalemate w/o Celestia
Nigga they were losing even WITH her

>>30049360
They are stallions, they are there to be looked at not be competent.

>>30049715
Considering Equestria was once unsettled, and even to this day contains colossal beasts and monsters in its remote regions, they were probably essential once.

>>30049738
But the fact that they're royal guards implies that they weren't created until the arrival of Celestia, who would presumably solve the problems herself.

It's not like they existed before Equestria was settled. Actually, maybe they used to work for Princess Platinum.

>>30049750
Before they were the Royal Guard (or the EUP) they would have been separate allied military forces, but I doubt much changed between Equestria's founding and Celestia ascending the throne.

File: imperialism.jpg (56KB, 386x400px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 386x400px

I wonder how much Angelo fuckery it would take to convince Celestia to place the guard under the command of a foreign power then allow that power to disband the guard and have it replaced by that power's armed forces (sort of like the Black and Tan or RSF).

>>30049678
>You can't reign over corpses.

Necromancers would like to have a word with you.

>>30049704
>Not sure about the moon

Then who was taking care of the sun and moon cycles during NMM's banishment before S1?

>>30049525
I'll bet starlight, Twilight and sunburst could figure it out in a month

>>30050250
Twilight already has experience raising and lowering the sun. The question is whether she could do it without permanently wrecking herself without Celestia's power.

>>30049639
I believe she uses the sun as a magical catalyst to rotate the planet. Sorta like a leverage point

>>30049704
>Not sure about the moon, but sun is literally her cutie mark.
>I don't watch the show

>>30049360
You see anon, it's a little girls cartoon so of course nothing is to be taken seriously. This show also glorifies friendship, not brute force and strength.

File: Banan_Guard.png (39KB, 214x500px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 214x500px

>>30049360
> If they were sent after Troubleshoes, they would have come back with a pair of actual shoes.

They're not THAT stupid.

>>30049560
> yet all vegetation seems fine.
Haha, no it is not fucking fine. Check the cutie map when they're in that reality: Equestria's been flattened, turned grey, and the terrain rearranged on a continental scale. It's a literal moonscape now, barren and empty, even more damaged than the actual apocalypse reality. Ponies lived there, but they sure as hell aren't now.

Just because Nightmare's kept everything verdant and living around her palace doesn't override that the rest of Equestria is explicitly shown to be fucked.

>>30049360
Because it's a little girl's show. That really is, unfortunately, the only possible reason - which is a bullshit reason, but unfortunately there's no other way around it.
>But they aren't needed to be a true military force now
Why the fuck not? There's a hair-trigger destructive viking yak in the north, dragons flying through regularly, a predatory infiltrating bug race, angry griffons across the ocean, monsters regularly crawling out of the swamps and woods and whatever - and neither the princesses nor the M6 can be everywhere at once. Someone had to be handling Equestria's security before the deus-ex-machina squad came along, and it's a fair bet it was these guys.

I'd fucking love to see them put in some actual good screen time - show them really contributing to a resolution - but unfortunately they're worfed even hard than the Princesses.

File: IMG_5429.png (498KB, 959x537px) Image search: [Google]

498KB, 959x537px

>>30049384

>she controls the sun

What's she gonna do? Stop raising the sun? Let half the world burn and the other half freeze? Any weaponization of the sun or the moon would be suicide for Equestria, like nuclear weapons. yes, I have thought about this

>>30054198
She can just crash the sun into the enemy country, then put it back where it was and carry on as normal.

>>30054198
This.

>>30054198
Not to mention that half of Equestria's enemies either wouldn't notice or don't care. The Yaks already live in a frozen hellhole, I doubt they even know that the sun exists.

>>30055514
>Oh man, our entire land is melting
>Flash flooding is destroying everything
>What could be responsible for this?!
>That big, hot ball of angry wrath pouring down on us 'cause we pissed off the sun princess? Nah, couldn't be!

I was wondering, are Royal Guards one of the EUP spec ops like the Wonderbolts or are they under completely different commands?

>>30049360
It's like typical enforcement isn't prepared to deal with world-tier cataclysmic bullshit

>>30049360

Probably conscripts. A volunteer force would be better.

>>30049360

Give them some credit. They are, at least, disciplined, as royal guards ought to be.

Season 1 clip incoming...
https://youtu.be/qqIxZqq-be0

File: nato-eu-flag.jpg (14KB, 500x375px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 500x375px

>>30049785
> Treaty of "mutual" defense
> Clause in said treaty where both armed forces base in either nation

> Standardization of armies for "cooperation"

> Combine armed forces command, cuz efficiency
> It is supposed to be an "independent" mil-command, but the hummies are the dominant power

> "Independent" military command deems RG to be incompetent, and lets be fair, they are
> Dissolves Royal Guard

> Equestria is effectively occupied

If there is any sort of doubt or efforts to derail this, one or more Black-flag events to further along the plan.

>>30056218
I've always assumed that the Royal Guard are a higher-end unit within the EUP. But, they're probably in an entirely different branch than the Wonderbolts - until you get all the way up to overall command (i.e., the topmost commanders and the Princesses) the RG follow a different chain of command.