Codex Equus / Tropes U To V

Tropes for Codex Equus
Tropes A to B (Abusive Parents, Adaptational Badass) | Tropes C to D | Tropes E to F | Tropes G to H | Tropes I To J | Tropes K To L (Laser-Guided Karma) | Tropes M To N | Tropes O To P | Tropes Q To R | Tropes S to T | Tropes U to V | Tropes W To X | Tropes Y To Z

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Codex Equus provides examples of:

U

• Übermensch: Quite common in the Codexverse setting and often lauded for their willingness to not abide but to overcome the limitations of the world and their own selves, allowing them to achieve feats transcending the mortal and normal and alter the history/destiny of the world. The moral complexities of the setting also makes it difficult to put an accurate classification of the moral disposition of these characters: more often than not, they are simply too big to judge.
  • Vicearch Iniquitous is a Lawful Evil-incarnate version of this. Having lived in a place that became corrupt under the rule of "good" authority figures, Iniqutious chose to reject good and embrace evil, going as far as to become the Anthropomorphic Personification of (Lawful) Evil and found the Empire of Malrègnar just to prove her point. Unlike fellow Lawful Evil villains like Grogar, Iniquitous sees good and evil as means to an end — to her, goodness and virtue are flawed tools that sapientkind no longer needs in order to survive. However, she acknowledges that evil has its own drawbacks, hence she demands that everyone — including herself — control their darker urges with an ironclad will and direct them toward Pragmatic Villainy. Her ultimate goal is to replace good with her brand of evil so Equus can break the cycle of failure and destruction and truly thrive, but both Fairytale's presence and higher forces have kept her from succeeding.
  • Iniquitous' good counterpart, Virtuecrat Fairytale, is a heroic version. While the Anthropomorphic Personification of all things good and virtuous, she follows a belief system that exists outside even traditional views of good. Fairytale believes in "True Good", which holds that all sapient creatures are born innocent and only become evil through circumstances and corruption. This is the reason why Vertusia doesn't have an economy system — both Fairytale and her subjects have learned to want things in ways that don't require exploiting others even monetarily, getting rid of the need for money. Constructive evil is considered part of "True Good" as it involves using evil in positive ways, such as weeding out and punishing the wicked. However, Fairytale believes that in time, even constructive evil may no longer be needed, and her goal is to ensure this for the entire world. The only reason why she hasn't succeeded is due to Iniquitous' presence and higher entities enforcing the Balance Between Good and Evil.
• Ultimate Blacksmith: Queen Odonata is this, her father being a Kirin and her using it as outlet for her anger at being a target of Fantastic Racism. She's so good even some of the Summer Court have tried to commission her and she does most of the Spring Court's metal working.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Changeling Queen Odonata is the Ultimate Blacksmith for Changelingkind, and has enormous physical strength from that role and also has a powerful Nirik form on top of it. However, she doesn't have much in the way of actual skill, with her sword slash being more like a baseball bat swing. However, her weapon, a giant forge hammer, doesn't require all that much skill.
  • The newly-ascended Changeling King Thorax is an 'infant' Royal Changeling by divine standards, and his meek and friendly disposition makes him very reluctant to fight... but his Ascension has made him incredibly powerful, to the point he accidentally blew Zorpheus across Avalon Valley with a magic beam, leaving the latter unconscious in a crater with a cracked carapace. And that was because Zorpheus has a natural, insanely high defense, it's noted it likely would've been a One-Hit Kill on many other Changeling Royals. It's been stated and shown repeatedly that because Thorax is willing to let go of his people's racism against Dragonkind and forgive those responsible for perpetuating it, he has much greater potential than even the most experienced Royal Changelings. When empowered with his future potential by Luminiferous during the 'Revenge of Apertus' crisis, Thorax's future divine form is implied to be a Changeling Emperor that heavily resembles a colorful version of Emperor Blackthorn himself.
  • Following the 'Cosmic Prophet Debacle' and his coma-induced Vision Quest, Moon Ray Vaughoof (now Prince Canticum Lunae Cahaya) re-Ascended and became an eldritch Alicorn. However, due to his Eldritch Transformation being very recent, Moon Ray/Canticum Lunae is an 'infant' by divine standards (despite being chronologically tens of thousands of years old), and because he gained new domains in exchange for losing his original ones, many of his powers haven't been fully explored yet. To resolve this, Moon Ray/Canticum Lunae has been learning under various divine teachers, including his adoptive father/relatives, the Three Deaths. It's been reported that he befriended Princess Amicitia Sparkle Equestria, likely due to shared experiences, but certain information regarding Amicitia (namely, her being the young Reincarnation of a deceased Empyrean Alicorn) is kept secret by the Church of the Stars for her safety.
  • Zigzagged with Twilight Sparkle (now Princess Amicitia Sparkle Equestria). Twilight/Amicitia is among the most powerful divine mages on the planet and is a learned intellectual, but there are things that she isn't very good at, like physical combat (despite being an experienced battle mage) or using the racial magics of other Pony tribes. Becoming Mana Equus' reincarnation gave her her memories and unique powers yet unexplored on top of even more magic, though Mana Equus herself notes it would take time for her to access them all. Reportedly, this would lead to Twilight/Amicitia befriending Prince Moon Ray/Canticum Lunae, who himself transformed into an 'infant' eldritch god through a series of events and is learning how to explore his new domains.
• Unfazed Everyman:
  • During the 'Second Age', world-endangering conflicts and calamities became such a regular occurrence many Ponies by the 1980s/90s were more or less unfazed by all but the most terrible events. Ace, a colt-friend of the Tales Seven, was more annoyed by the fact that he had to move venue for his birthday party one Monday then by the fact much of the metropolis he lived in was devastated by a massive attack, with the description noting that everything's usually back to normal within a month.
    News Bulletin': - Reports are coming in from all over the world: many cities are in ruins, devastated by hails of ballistic missiles launched by the renegade forces of - this just in! The president has declared a nation-wide state of emergency and martial law in response to - !
    Ace's Mother: Honey, what's the weather forecast for today?
    Ace: Mom, looks like we're gonna have a rain of rockets! And the guy on the Holotube just said our city is gonna be kaput like all the others!
    Ace's Mother:' Ah... so the typical Monday usual, then.

V

• Vertebrate with Extra Limbs:
  • Naturally very common, with winged races being the most obvious.
  • Alicorns, naturally, but exaggerated with the fact that as they age they start growing additional sets of wings. The 4 million years-old Mzazi has eight wings, while Golden Scepter and Ascending Dawn each have six wings, with Golden Scepter being very close to getting eight.
• Vestigial Empire:
  • The Crystal Empire became one as a result of a war against a realm of Giants, although it was showing signs of decadence, arrogance and stagnation by the time war broke out. Many of its mistakes and the actions it took to survive the war ultimately contributed to its decline and collapse.
  • Queen Colossos' Empire, said realm of Giants, also went into decline partly as a result of that conflict, although they apparently had it much better than the Crystal Empire.
  • The Empire of Trot, one of the Crystal Empire's rivals, also had it bad, reduced to little more than a collection of squabbling hedge realms and petty kingdoms that were easy pickings for Queen Chrysalis and her Hive, as mentioned in her MLP My Little Pony: FIENDship Is Magic issue, starting with Timbucktu (which left the Twinkle Eye Ponies critically-endangered) and finally ending with the city of Trot itself.
  • Both above empires and the Principalities of Equestria were the three biggest successor states of the classical Equestrian Empire, whose declined and collapse climaxed at the beginning of Discord's reign and the five-centuries long Age of Chaos.
  • The Empire of Zinari is noted for its unusually rapid decline after the reign of Queen Parabola, leaving behind only its Portal Network and much of its stupendous wealth hidden in vaults across the world, one of which would eventually be discovered by Daring Do and Fluttershy as depicted in Issue 32 of the MLP Friends Forever comic.
• Vicious Cycle: One of the prevalent themes of Codex Equus - no matter how successful, heroic, benevolent, and prosperous a species or civilization is, it would always fall to internal flaws and outside forces... though fortunately, benevolent forces are working to break them, most prominently the Church of the Stars.
  • The most prominent of these cycles is the Changeling-Dragon feud, which was rumored to have started with the "Burning of Amorea" conflict because of Dragonkind's greed and cruelty. While Changelingkind's reasons to hate them are understandable, the grudge has become so bloody, vicious, and enduring that it ended up hurting those who had nothing to do with the conflict, such as King Xestobium, Princess Apertus and Dr. Toxikon, and creating Tragic Villains from these individuals. Almost every single non-Changeling deity had called out both Changelingkind and Dragonkind for their actions, and even Luminiferous made it a point to show off the future potential Thorax and Ember had as friends and gods-in-the-making, so both races will know just how much they are squandering to fuel an ultimately detrimental and petty grudge. Even Thorax himself pointed out that Changelingkind's desire to survive at all costs is rendered moot if they constantly do something that's opposite of survival, and he and Ember are so sick of the violence that they instead forgive the elders of each other's races for their actions. This created a magical karmic backlash that resulted in the "birth" of Princess Lampyridae/Firewing, who is seen as the greatest hope for Changelingkind and Dragonkind reconciling.
  • The curse that Pakak placed on Sunnytown revolves around this by exploiting the Pony inhabitants' paranoia, cruelty, hatred - during a magical simulation of that fateful party, the Sunnytowners are given a choice of either persecuting and killing Ruby Heart for earning a Cutie Mark, or acknowledging their actions as wrong and accepting Ruby Heart's accomplishment. If they choose the former, then they are forced to repeat it for potentially all of time. If they choose the latter, then they are freed from the curse and cured of their zombification... which is exactly what Pakak intended.
  • The cold lands of the Hoyklan Deer pantheon and its divine predecessors have been stuck in a vicious "Ragnarok" cycle since time immemorial - a leader of their pantheon would adopt a Trickster God as their child, only to shun and emotionally abuse them when it's revealed that said trickster god was fated to destroy their pantheon. This would result in Ragnarok occurring anyway, as the trickster god would become so miserable and resentful that they would engineer the end of their adoptive parents and peers out of spite. This would continue repeatedly, with many succeeding trickster gods being killed or suppressed... until High King Kaldr decided to do the right thing by adopting the trickster god Flœrð and treating him like his own son despite the prophecies, even protecting him from those who called for Flœrð's death and/or suppression for the greater good. It's later revealed that the Shadowed Ones have been influencing the "Ragnarok" cycles so they could feed off the energy produced by these cycles, but the actions of Kaldr, Flœrð, and Flœrð's sister Ljóss Hefna would ultimately expose the Shadowed Ones and lead to their defeat, saving the Hoyklan Deer.
• Victory by Endurance: Wibeti defeats Fik'iri this way: while vastly older and more powerful, Fik'iri's complacency and hedonism left her with terrible stamina for a deity, while Wibeti was constantly chased by Moufette and gradually gained incredible endurance and agility for a deity her age. As a result, while Fik'iri initially has the advantage, she tires quickly and Wibeti still has stamina to spare, negating any advantage Fik'iri had as a War goddess. The result was Fik'iri suffering a Humiliation Conga, which Katharsis recorded and sent to all her victims.
• Villain of Another Story: While the canon characters have been facing their own villains, Equus has countless others fighting their own heroes elsewhere.
  • Most of the Changeling Kings are villains to other areas of Equus, many having their own heroes they're fighting.
  • Ivory Towers, a powerful elephant witch, was the Shadow Dictator of Corporatum and main villain to the Dazzling Divas, a group of Magical Fillies. Her demon patron Don'yoku is another example, though he remained the Greater-Scope Villain for much of the conflict.
• Villainous Legacy: In the Codexverse, things left behind by villains can be both good and bad.
  • It is noted that despite being exposed and punished for their crimes, Noble Grace and Bubbling Beaker left behind a legacy in Crystal Prism, who was intended to become an Alicorn so he could be a symbol for a "new age" for Ponykind. Crystal Prism bitterly notes how even though their experiments failed, Noble Grace and Bubbling Beaker still got what they wanted out of him, and feels obligated to fulfill the destiny they've laid out for him. Fortunately, Golden Scepter would encourage him to forge his own path, resulting in Crystal's intended destiny being utterly broken. Temnobog also notes that while the circumstances surrounding Crystal Prism's Ascension were bad, his existence is still a positive one that benefits all.
  • After Morning Star fell to evil, he tried subjecting Equus and the surrounding universe out of narcissism, spawning a civil war that lasted ten unnamed Ages. The fallout of his cruel actions would continue to resonate in the present Age and beyond.
    • The destruction of the antediluvian Alicorn Civilization forced its surviving remnants into total seclusion from the rest of the world to recover. This explains why the Alicorns are no longer around in meaningful numbers in canon, save for a few who left or stayed behind.
    • The birth of Luminiferous. Despite his origins as a living weapon, Luminiferous would grow up with a loving family, who influenced him to become a hero instead. After defeating and killing his father, he would wander the world, helping to raise individuals with potential to greatness and fighting evils threatening Equus as a way to 'make up' for all the damage Morning Star caused.
    • Before Luminiferous, Morning Star created many 'incomplete' and 'flawed' Divine children and minions who would continue to cause trouble for Equus in the ages to come, which Luminiferous would spend a lot of time hunting down and defeating. However, not all of his divine children were bad, as Morning Star indirectly created the Glow sisters, who would play an important role in the battle against the Void Sovereign.
    • Golden Scepter, one of the antediluvian Alicorn rulers who survived the war, stayed behind to help Equus, and its mortal and divine residents rebuild, which ultimately led to the creation of the 'Golden Imperium' civilization of yore. Unfortunately, the traumas he would suffer after fighting for ten Ages, with no one to properly help him deal with said traumas, would bring out many of his worst traits that would also deeply affect his judgement. This led to him making terrible mistakes that ultimately caused him to be sealed away, while his Golden Imperium crumbled and collapsed.
• Villain Song: Propagare sings a version of "Savages" to Xestobium in order to tip him over the edge into carrying out his genocidal ambitions, which Propagare intends to capitalize on. Towards the end, Xestobium himself takes over and finishing the song, signifying the point where he fully gives himself in to his revenge.
• Virtue Is Weakness: Played with Vicearch Iniquitous. After witnessing the actions of the increasingly corrupt, proud, and incompetent Malrègnarian Pantheon, Iniquitous came to believe that virtue and goodness are obsolete concepts that create hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and ultimately moral corruption instead of actually stopping evil threats like they're supposed to. On the other hand, her view on evil is similar to Temnobog's - that evil is like a 'wildfire' that will destroy everything (including itself) if proper measures aren't taken to control it. While Iniquitous does genuinely respect heroic individuals who practice and adhere to their own standards of goodness, such as Virtuecrat Fairytale, Blue Suede Hearstrings, and Santa Hooves, she still wants to find 'better' alternatives to virtue and goodness, believing that the entire world will be better for it. Naturally, this has brought Iniquitous into opposition with a lot of good and constructively evil individuals; Temnobog especially opposes her largely because her success would mean both he and Belyolen would die, due to both of them being the living bisected halves of High King Bogolenya.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • It's mentioned in Blueblood's entry that he has this relationship with Shining Armor, who is technically his brother-in-law since he sees Cadence as his sister despite being adoptive cousins. Despite being best friends, they constantly snark at each other, and notably, during Shining Armor and Cadence's wedding, he congratulated Shining before not-so-subtly threatening him with bad things to come should he hurt his "Caddy".
  • Guiding Light's entry mentions that he has has this relationship with his friends as well - they constantly get on each other's nerves by ribbing and snarking at each other, but they are nevertheless very good friends and will not hesitate to defend each other. Guiding Light really appreciates this, however, because his friends treat him like a normal person despite his blindness, instead of pitying him and giving him special treatment for being disabled.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting:
  • Changelings, as in canon, with the Changeling Progenitors indisputably being considered the best of their children.
  • Trickster deities as a rule are talented at this.
  • Death deities in general have this as part of their domain. When visiting the dying/deceased, a Death deity would change their own form to match the species of those they visit so they could feel more at ease. Many Death deities choose to appear as their pre-Ascendant mortal selves, likely so they would remain grounded and remember what they once were.

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