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"FIM is a BIG MISTAKE to me... its horrible... so I guess an alternate universe is in order!"
Dakari-King Mykan, on the original My Little Unicorn: Magic is Believing

My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic is a series of fanfics based on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, originally started in 2012 with a heavy emphasis on Original Characters written by Dakari-King Mykan.

The series began after Mykan watched several episodes of Friendship Is Magic and quickly decided he hated it for various reasons, not the least of which was the message of friendship.

Enter his personal Alternate Continuity, in which Starfleet, a team of Winged Unicorns, led by main character Lightning Dawn, must save the land of Unicornicopia from various monsters, while learning about the power of believing (what they are supposed to believe in is stated just once: themselves) from the king of Unicornicopia, The Grand Ruler (a three-horned Alicorn). Initially only having subtle references to its source material, by the end of Season 1 the Friendship is Magic cast was folded into the story, with the Mane 6 joining Starfleet as a secondary unit. The power of believing theme that permeated the original season also gradually went away, turning the series into a straight action story with Monsters of the Week, and a rotating cast of villains.

Originally entitled My Little Unicorn: Magic is Believing, Mykan later reworked the story IN SPACE as My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic. The series is treated as if it were a TV show, with each fanfic being called a "season" and each chapter an "episode". So far, there have been eleven "seasons":

  • Season I: 1000 years after being sealed away by the Grand Ruler, the devious sorcerer Lord Titan has returned to Unicornicopia to try and take over once more. Lightning and his friends must prevent Titan from regaining his magical power by defeating his henchmen and their monsters. In the latter half of the season, we are introduced to the Star Stones, powerful gems created by the Grand Ruler and scattered throughout the galaxy to prevent evil forces from combining them. In searching for the gems, Starfleet discover the world of Equestria, which turns out to be the key to the Grand Ruler's past.
  • Season II: After merging Equestria and Unicornicopia, the Grand Ruler and Princess Celestia have married and the Mane 6 have joined Starfleet. In this season, FiM antagonist Queen Chrysalis is the new Big Bad, as she attempts to throw United Equestria into chaos with her army of mimics. Assisting her is the mysterious Changeling Captain, a robot soldier with ties to Equestria's forgotten past.
  • Season III: The Crystal Heart of the New Crystal Empire is shattered after the new Big Bad, King Sombra attempts to steal it for his evil intentions, and Starfleet and Sombra's minions are on the hunt for the pieces. Meanwhile, Celestia is threatened by an assassin who may end up being even more dangerous than Sombra himself.
  • Season IV: It's a fight through time when a new villain, the Dark King, travels back in time to ensure that the Bad Future he rules over comes to pass. Meanwhile, Rarity falls in love with a mysterious new pony in town, who may or may not be working with the Dark King. Finally, a pony known simply as "The Phantom of Magic" has his own plans, which involves stealing Cutie Marks.
  • Season V: Starfleet is under attack by the Insecto Army, an army of creatures capable of assimilating the Ponies.
  • Season VI: Season VI is unique in that instead of one overarching story, it is divided into subsections. In the first third, a dissenter of the royal family manages to release all of Starfleet's prisoners, forcing the team to roundup the criminals again. Next, a stubborn pony attempts to settle a score with an old enemy. Finally, the Grand Ruler and Celestia are driven to murderous rage by Kitty Snap, a manipulative trickster.
  • Season VII: United Equestria is under siege by a gang of space pirates seeking the Elements of Chaos, the antithesis of the Elements of Harmony. Meanwhile, the planet must also contend with a band of vampire bats who wish to add to add new members to their brood.
  • Season VIII: Starfleet accidentally gets an ancient evil warmonger freed, who attacks them to prove his superiority when it comes to strength. At the same time, a spiteful hacker and a destructive virus threaten the lives of innocent civilians.
  • Season IX: The Devils, a race that absorbs hate and is led by a tyrant, attack United Equestria. Their only hope is to team up with a spirit that opposes the demonic forces. At the same time, the heroes have to contend with arranged marriages and the evil lurking in Celestia's mind.
  • Season X: Starfleet faces its most dangerous enemies once more, as while Titan, their mortal foe, is back, with Starlight Glimmer in his thrall, a rebellion is underway to overthrow Starfleet. Can the heroes deal with both of those threats?
  • Season XI: Nightmares threaten the whole United Equestria, striving to become a reality and spread terror. Meanwhile, a little girl that refuses to grow up gets her wish at a terrible price.
  • Season XII: Starfleet is caught between the war of two foolish kings, while Lightning meets another Harmonian who tries to make him quit Starfleet.

In addition to this, Mykan has also written six "movies". The first one is an "original" storyline, the next two are based on My Little Pony: Equestria Girls and My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks, the fourth is about a human named Mykan Stevens (who is TOTALLY not a stand-in of the author), the fifth is based on My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games, and the sixth is a Christmas Special. Despite the fact that My Little Pony has its own theatrically released film, Mykan has stated he has no intention of making a Starfleet one in response. They can be found here:

There are also a few fics that cross over with Mykan's other fics, the first of which takes place before the Space Ponies came to Equestria:

There're a couple of What If? fic:

And finally, there are four Death Battles:

Due to the many questions he gets in regards to this series, Mykan has created a Q&A where anyone can inquire. Do make sure your questions haven't been already answered before posting them.

There at least two "tributes" to his story that serve as deconstructions of his work: Fall of Starfleet, Rebirth of Friendship and My Brave Pony: Starfleet Nemesis, as well as two Alternative Continuities titled Starfleet Redone and Starfleet: Magic is Believing. There is also another deconstruction, in Stormwolf Adventures, but there it's only a part of the plot. Another one exists in the canon of The Silverscale Arena as prominent side-material.


This story contains examples of:

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  • Aborted Arc: Twilight Sparkle loses her wings to Nightmare Moon, and the story states that Twilight must work to earn her wings back. She actually gets them back offscreen between seasons 2 and 3.
  • Aerith and Bob: The EG-based stories are particularly prone to this - Rhymey's human counterpart is named William Stirskewer III who uses Rhymey as a nickname and Artie's parents, Dune Bank and Marigold Belle, are renamed Richard and Jewel. Also, some Space Ponies have human names, such as Harry.
  • An Aesop: Most chapters end with the Grand Ruler giving an Aesop that is tangentially related to the events of the chapter. Unfortunately, the supposed morals are pretty weak and their connection to the main Aesop of "believing" is not very clear. However, these were removed from the retooling, until the DeviantArt version which reinstates most of them.
  • All Crimes Are Equal: Implied by the narration to be the case on Unicornicopia.
    Petty or harsh crimes would not be tolerated and subjected to small sentences— a week of community service, or a night in small prisons, things like that. Then there were VERY serious crimes that usually were handled by trial, but that was hardly the point.
  • Alternative Continuity: Because the author hated FiM's universe too much to use anything from it, even though that's what he was doing anyway, he first made up an entirely different universe with similar though deliberately opposite themes. However, about three-quarters through, it crosses over with the FiM universe. They are even merged into one kingdom at the end, which itself makes for a bit of an alternative continuity again. Also, Starfleet Humans takes place in the same alternate world that Equestria Girls took place in. Mykan has gone on record as saying that Season 4 of FiM onward is non-canon in the Starfleet universe, making it clearly alternative again. This is because he started the series after Season 2 and doesn't want to rewrite large parts of earlier stories to fit the more recent episodes.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: Name an enemy species. Any enemy species. The Crystallites, the Demonites, the Insectos, doesn't matter; if a few, some or all of them oppose Starfleet, they're all evil and need to be killed.
  • And Now You Must Marry Me:
    • Amandiva tries that on Lightning Dawn.
    • In Season VI, Princess Avyanna tries to blackmail Human Mykan Stevens into marrying her.
  • And This Is for...: Pony Mykan Stevens goes through a list of this when he attacks Windy Bag's machine with an axe.
  • Angry Collar Grab: Pony Mykan Stevens picks up Windy Bag this way before slamming her into her own machine.
  • Anthropomorphic Shift: The author makes a big deal of how Space Ponies are more humanoid as opposed to equine in nature. Equestria's population also gets this treatment somewhere along the line.
  • Anti-Climax:
    • In Human in United Equestria, Princess Avyanna, despite being one of the best manipulators in the series, goes down like a punk. She simply gets drugged and answers all the questions of Human Mykan Stevens.
    • The end of Season 6, which involves a siege by a horde of escaped prisoners and Celesto and Celestia infighting due to mind control. The royal couple was only pretending to be brainwashed and lured all monsters into a trap, while the culprit behind the attempt is easily defeated.
  • Appeal to Worse Problems: How Lightning "helps" Cadance get over the death of her brother. He compares Cadance's grief to his own when his planet was destroyed and the naration tells us that Cadance's problems aren't that bad compared to Lightning's because he lost his entire planet and everyone he knew, whilst she only lost one family member. Cadance then apologises to Lightning for not thinking about others.
  • Apple of Discord: In Chapter 16 of Starfleet Magic V, Lightning becomes this when he is injected with something that makes females love him and males hate him.
  • "Arabian Nights" Days: New Saudi Mareabia is characterized this way. Apparently, there are even sarees.
  • Artistic License:
  • Artistic License – Biology:
    • In general, the Space Ponies have this trope in regards to their own physiology. According to Word of Godinvoked, when Celesto lost the use of his front legs, learning how to run with just his hind legs made him much faster. This is the opposite of how it actually works: a good reason as to why horses (and just about any quadrupedal animal, for that matter) can run so fast is because they use four legs to run in the first place. Their bodies are essentially built for running. An equine losing the use of two legs is more or less equivalent to a human losing one: it handicaps the individual rather than strengthens them. Even if we're talking about Celesto's descendants, it would realistically require immense physical training for a regular Space Pony to outrun a unicorn, let alone a pegasus or an earth pony; it would not be a natural advantage.
    • In one chapter, Fluttershy has to go to the hospital, because of her appendix. The author at first thought that ponies don't have one and admitted he knew that, but he was too lazy to think up something else to make Fluttershy sick. When he found out that, not only do ponies have an appendix but it is essential to their survival, he changed the line which handwaved them having one by Anthropomorphic Shift into said shift making the appendix unessential.
    • Cadance is rendered infertile by the pillar that falls on her and causes her to miscarry. An impact strong enough to cause that much damage to the female reproductive system would realistically cause much bigger problems than just sterility. And that's not even getting into the matter of the stillborn child staying in her room for the rest of the season; decomposition isn't even brought up in the slightest.
  • Artistic License – Physics:
    • In episode 5 of season 3, it's claimed at one point that the ponies could theoretically reach "the velocity of light squared" under their own power. You be the judge of how Einstein would react to this.
    • Outer space in these fics holds oxygen in breathable concentrations, allowing them to travel by space bridge without needing respiratory gear. Said oxygen is never at risk of gravitationally pulling itself into new celestial bodies (which is why space is mostly empty in real life).
  • Ash Face: A dragon gets completely covered in soot thanks to Artie somehow making its fire blow up in its mouth in Starfleet Humans.
  • Author Avatar:
    • Lightning Dawn falls into this sometimes, during his more jerkish moments.
    • invoked Or the Grand Ruler, whose design is directly lifted from the author's OC cosplay and Word of God even states that he's voiced by him. When he came up with the concept for the first time, Celesto was even going to be named Mykan.
    • Titan is theorized to represent the deep-seated hatred the author has for FiM.
    • Dr. Kudos in Starfleet Magic IV represents Mykan's hatred of friendship, love, and especially, redemption.
    • Human in United Equestria features a character named Mykan Stevens. His pony self appears in season 6, and acts pretty much like his real life counterpart.
    • Swift Star is this, but only when he rants about why Starfleet is not fascist.
  • Author Tract: Every chapter of the rewritten story when it was first posted started or ended with a rant by the author of how much better this story is compared to the original show. It has since been reposted a second time without the author's notes, however.
    • One of the Aesops the fic preaches is "Friendship is useless, what you need is belief". Though it's not always seen in practice.
  • Babies Ever After: By the boatload in Season VII - Starla, Fluttershy, and Tree Hugger are all pregnant.
  • Baby's First Words: Castor and Leilani both say, "Mama" to Celestia while she's comatose.
  • Back from the Dead:
    • Titan suddenly returns in the Season 1 finale, and returns again in The Movie, Starfleet Humans and Season X.
    • In My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III, Fratello's ghost combines with his replacement robot body.
  • Badass Boast: "Also, these aren't changelings, they're robots. My robots, and with them, I shall easily dominate this dimensional-planet and all who live here!".
  • Bad Future: The Dark King comes from a future where Celestia, Spike and Lightning are dead and he has conquered nearly the entire universe.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: Apparently, "unlike most parallel universes; [their] space has a breathable atmosphere, and comfortable temperature.”
  • Beam-O-War: Celesto and Titan engage in one (the former using the Uniforce) at the halfway point of the first season.
    • Every single fight against a Big Bad has one of these. Many of the fights against non-Big Bad villains do as well. Most of them follow the same formula: villain overpowers hero, hero gets a second wind and pushes back, villain puts more power into his and puts hero on the brink of defeat, then the hero gets a bigger second wind and overpowers the villain.
  • Bedlam House: If the one Ace Ray was checked into is any indication, Starfleet asylums essentially serve as glorified solitary confinement, as their "treatment" of his condition boils down to strapping him into a straitjacket and repeatedly sedating him when he gets too distressed (which, as you can imagine, doesn't help a bit) in the rewrite, or just straight-up forcibly probing his memories in the original. Starfleet also has interesting priorities as to what kind of ponies they put in one of their asylums, as Ace was thrown in for badmouthing Starfleet (and assaulting his sister that one time, but the writing heavily suggests that it's mostly the former), and the idea of sending Rarity there after a mere three days of self-isolation and depression after her species was changed without her consent is seriously considered, while hospitalizing pony!Mykan Stevens, who by all rights is a legitimate raving lunatic, never gets brought up once.
  • Big Bad:
    • Titan in My Little Unicorn/My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic, My Brave Pony: The Movie, My Brave Pony: Starfleet Movie: Human in United Equestria, and in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic X.
    • Queen Chrysalis in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II.
    • Sapphira in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans.
    • King Sombra in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III.
    • Blaze in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans: Starpops.
    • The Dark King in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic IV.
    • King Pinsar in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic V. His family continues his legacy in the end.
    • Xaydie in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans: Starfleet Events.
    • Surprisingly, there is no Big Bad in ''VI''. Windy Bag is the closest the series gets, as she plays the largest antagonistic role.
    • Sienna in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic VII.
    • Stammadon in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic VIII.
    • Von Devilor in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic IX.
    • Zadovia in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic XI.
  • Big "NO!": Lightning when a stone column topples onto Cadance in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic V.
  • Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: The grown characters tend to use "silly" as an insult quite a bit.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: In practice. Starfleet does lots of questionable things and has a superiority complex, plus they save planets in exchange for obedience. But their foes are all violent conquerors and destroyers. Except for some strawman rebels.
  • Black-and-White Morality: The unicorns are good, Titan is evil. There is no depth to any of the characters. Furthermore, a few comments in season 4 imply that being evil in this verse must necessarily be due to them being saturated with evil magic (the Tragic Villain, Freudian Excuse, and Well-Intentioned Extremist need not apply), therefore they can't be redeemed; Starfleet's attempt to reform prisoners by extracting the evil from them ended badly, and the lesson they took away from this experience was apparently to never try and reform a villain again.
  • Blade Lock: Actually, horn and blade lock in an early chapter of Magic is Believing.
  • Blaming the Victim: The main characters all blame Twilight Sparkle for her death at the hands of Raven.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: The name given to Cadance and Shining Armor's stillborn child, "Mio Figlio Amorevole Amando" is supposed to mean "My Loving Son Amando", however Italians more commonly use "figilo amoroso" for "loving son".
  • Blind Obedience:
    • What the "Grand Ruler" Celesto actually constitutes, and taught Twilight Sparkle in the second season of this badfic. The fic also indicates this is the default belief of the Space Ponies.
    • The only time a villain outdoes Starfleet in that is when the United Alliance of Evil are willing to blow themselves up for Titan.
  • Bug War: In My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic V, the Space Ponies fight against an army of insectoid beings.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Krysta. An entire chapter is dedicated to her getting constantly wet in the fight with a water monster.
    • Another example is Ace Ray. He loses the love of his sister and is brainwashed for hating Starfleet.
    • Cadance suffers all the time for being happily married.
  • By the Power of Grayskull!: Each use of the Uniforce, at least early on, is accompanied by a recited mantra.
    • The Starfleet ponies change into their combat armor by shouting "STARFLEET MAGIC! Power of [X]!" with [X] being unique to each pony; for instance, Lightning's is "believing", the twins' is "fire", and Artie's is of course "art".
  • Cain and Abel: Ace Ray (whose "crime" is complaining about Starfleet) and his sister Skye.
  • Calling Your Attacks: "RAINBOW FORCE...!" "DRILL QUILL...!" "STAR SHOWER...!" "PTEAL [sic] DANCE!" ...And so on. Strangely, they even call their attacks when pulling out their weapons. And some finishers even have a full chanting.
  • Can't Argue with Elves: The Space Ponies are portrayed as always right, whether it's imposing martial law, stating that they're superior to Equestrians, killing opponents, brainwashing dissidents, etc.
  • Can't Take Criticism: Every time someone tries to question or register a complaint with Starfleet, they are usually looked down upon as crazy, degenerate or wrong. There are several instances of them actively looking for excuses to arrest someone that badmouths them.
  • Catapult Nightmare: Cadance wakes up from one involving her brother this way early in Starfleet Magic III.
  • Catch Your Death of Cold: In "It's Raining, Evil's Pouring/Wetter Works", Krysta catches a cold due to all the times she got drenched.
  • Character Shilling: The story repeatedly tries to get it in your head how fast, strong, intelligent, and Always Lawful Good the Space Ponies are, especially in comparison to their Equestrian counterparts.
  • Chirping Crickets: Nothing but this and the campfire can be heard when Rainbow proposes the name "Rainbow and the Cool Clouds" for Lightning's band.
  • Circling Birdies: In the original version, Lightning ends up seeing both birds and stars after charging Strong Stone.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The entire premise of the story is based around this. The author has stated in forums that he believes in this concept.
  • Climactic Volcano Backdrop: The last fight between Lightning and Harkin takes place at a volcano in Starfleet Magic III.
  • Clueless Aesop: One episode of Season II attempts to tackle eating disorders. Keyword being "attempts"; it basically boils down to the character being told "hey, maybe you should try and eat less" and that character going "okay then" before being resolved, when it's not nearly that simple in real life. Furthermore, the depiction of the eating disorder isn't remotely realistic.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Unicorns of a certain color tend to live in a specific area of Unicornicopia (at least in the original; the rewrite claims that any unicorn can live in any part of Unicornicopia regardless of color, meaning the color-coded locations are just a running theme). For example, blue unicorns live in Bluesville. The only remotely clever name is O-Range for orange unicorns, and even then, the original version used the decidedly less clever "Orange-Range".
  • Concepts Are Cheap: The original fanfic's supposed theme, believing, is constantly being thrown about. However, its message is ridiculously weak and vague. The rewritten first story, and everything afterward, eventually do away with the "power of belief" theme entirely.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu:
    • Lightning and his gang tend to initially struggle against the Monster of the Week despite outnumbering them. This got worse after Twilight and her friends joined Starfleet as it lead to scenarios where a dozen or so characters were incapable of defeating one villain.
    • Also applies to the villains. If they send only one Monster of the Week, it takes the entire cast to bring it down. If they send multiple monsters, each member holds their own against one. On the few occasions where an entire army of mooks is present in one place, even the Starfleet redshirts can go toe-to-toe with them.
  • Continuity Snarl: Despite this fic taking place after season 3 of FiM, Discord is still encased in stone and not reformed. This is the case for two reasons: 1) the author hates redemption, and 2) he didn't want to change the outcome.
  • Contrived Coincidence:
    • Many folks of Equestrian origin somehow ended up bipedal one way or another, even if they weren't part of United Equestria's reformation, such as Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis and Fratello.
    • In season 1, Mysterious inflicts the main team with crippling nightmares that render them almost useless in battle. However, Artie conveniently had trouble sleeping that night, meaning that he was unaffected and could come to the rescue.
    • When Grand Ruler scattered the Star Stones, one of them just happened to land on Equestria and end up in Fluttershy's cottage. And, of course, when Rhymey lands on Equestria, he ends up just outside... Fluttershy's cottage. And wouldn't you know it, Grand Ruler apparently was a lover of Princess Celestia despite this being never brought up before, allowing them to hook back up.
    • Again in season 1, the main characters are trapped on the about-to-explode Unicornicopia with no way of getting off the planet. Except Brain, by chance, happens to have a rocket ship in his backyard.
    • In season 2, the Changelings attack by possessing ponies, and fighting back against them would only mean injuring the host body. By pure luck, Twilight happens to develop a spell that can eject harmful substances from a target's body at the same time, which just happens to work perfectly despite Twilight never testing it on a pony subject, giving Starfleet a convenient answer to this dilemma.
    • In Season VI, it's revealed that United Equestria was formed on the 1051st anniversary of Starfleet itself. Thus, these two anniversaries are celebrated concurrently.
  • Convenient Miscarriage: In the fifth "season", a column collapses onto Cadance, killing her baby when she was only a few weeks away from giving birth, just so the author can punish her some more for being happily married. According to this Tweet, Mykan originally intended to write Cadance miscarrying when a possessed Shining Armor kicks her.
  • Cross Counter: Starla and Rai Shi punch each other hard in Season VIII.
  • Crossover: Originally, the intent was for My Little Unicorn to be completely separate from Friendship is Magic, but eventually it became a crossover, and then was fully integrated into an MLP story.
  • Cruel Mercy: When Starfleet imprisons Jetar and Phoebe, they do so so they can feel the pain they have caused for their entire lives.
  • Cryo-Prison: Some criminals end up getting shot by a special blaster that traps and freezes them in small spheres.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: The "Death Battles". Being made out of spite for canon, the FiM characters don't stand a chance against the Starfleet characters.
  • Dark World: The Dark Planet, formerly called the Dimension of Darkness.
  • Death by Origin Story: Frequently. As of Starfleet Magic IV, the origin story body count includes the entire Enticorn race, including Lightning's parents, Starla's parents, Buddy Rose's parents and sister, Daphne Dil's parents, Titan's mother-in-law, Penny Sillon's grandmother, Raven's husband, and technically, Celestia with regards to The Dark King.
  • Death Glare: According to the narration, after Celesto exposed Brass as the pony who released Conva's prisoners to many other ponies, "Every single eye was glaring furiously at [him].".
  • Deconstructor Fleet: Mykan claims this story to be one for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, although strictly speaking, it doesn't deconstruct the source material so much as reject everything about it and substitute the author's own ideas. He says he wants to give the Equestrians a dose of reality.
  • Defeat Equals Explosion: Every single Finishing Move causes an explosion that engulfs the target when used, even things like Rhymey's sword and Lightning's Capture Blaster. Villains are apparently Made of Explodium in the Starfleet Magic universe. As is Starfleet-issued armor, as Twilight finds out when she's fatally wounded by Raven.
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • Cookie Dough, who was a core member of the team in the initial series, was removed for several stories and when reintroduced in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III, was a minor character. The DeviantArt remake brings him back, not as a member, but as a recurring background character.
    • Krysta is acknowledged maybe once or twice in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III despite being the main character's best friend.
    • Brain saves everyone in Unicornicopia in the first season. He doesn't ever get such a moment again, not even in Season X which touches on the backstories and arcs of the main cast.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: From the first chapter: "The central town at the very center of the kingdom was Rainbow City Central." And that's just one example!
    • A particularly common example is "vanished/disappeared/exploded, and was gone."
  • Deus ex machina: The following is an extremely abbreviated list of the times that the heroes got saved under miraculous, contrived circumstances; a complete list would likely take up most of the page, since there's an average of one per fight scene and more in the season finales.
    • The Uniforce. A force of good only unicorns with golden horns can summon to amplify their magic by shouting that they believe. It is never explained what it really is, why only golden horned unicorns can use it and how the Grand Ruler discovered it, but it is the main attack to kill all Big Bads. Naturally, Lightning only discovers how to use it when Titan is literally a second away from killing him.
    • Mystic Light, the finishing move of The Grand Celestial Ruler. For that matter, the Grand Celestial Ruler itself, which had exactly zero foreshadowing and shows up just in time to blow Titan to hell. And then the Celestial Entity in Season X, also without foreshadowing, serves the same purpose.
    • Powers aside, there are still plenty of these. One of the most blatant examples is when Mysterious, Dementia, and Rep-Stallion first return after Titan's defeat at the hands of Grand Ruler and receiving a dose of Super-Empowering, strong enough to get the upper hand against Lightning and company. How are they defeated? By their new powers spontaneously fizzling out. It wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to claim that this trope accounts for the vast majority of times that the heroes win.
    • Lightning's Enticorn form manifests just as King Sombra has the heroes on the ropes and all is lost, giving him enough power to win.
    • The Surfer Program, made for Mykan Stevens to combat Internet viruses. Except nobody in Starfleet, especially not Mykan, programmed it, as he barely understood it. It just appears with no foreshadowing so Mykan can fight back against Megadox and Data's monsters. Even the Uniforce made more sense.
    • The Pure Inner Strength, made to stop Stammadon, has too little foreshadowing, makes too little sense and is used only in one season, in spite of it being useful in other seasons too.
    • The super armors Starfleet gets in the same season as the two above are notable for averting this. It is explained where the armors come from, Starfleet is visibly trained with them, and it's first used to get them out of a tough spot through Starfleet planning ahead.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: Twilight dies in Lightning's arms.
  • Dirty Coward: If their encounter with Raven is any indication, the Space Ponies will go out of their way to avoid fighting someone whose power cannot be determined, even if they are a member of a so-called inferior race. Some brave ponies!
  • Disproportionate Retribution: By the freight train load.
    • Titan got his face disfigured in his past and was shunned by everyone for his hideous looks afterwards. Years later, he kills his entire species and starts to destroy parts of the multiverse for no other reason than that it is fun. His former fiancée, Serpentari also has a similar motive.
    • Ace Ray gets sent to an insane asylum and (in the original version) essentially brainwashed into liking Starfleet, for the crime of... saying mean things about them. Sure, he beat up his sister but the way it's worded, it sounds like Starfleet was looking for an excuse to arrest him. Also, even if he really wasn't arrested because he was insulting Starfleet, this implies that citizens who beat up folks all get sent to asylums...
    • Frosteye had been trapped in a frozen cavern for a century by Princess Celestia due to being a mocker.
    • Being stripped of his title and made to clean the palace grounds for cheating in a tournament was adequate punishment for Dusk Shine; being disowned by his parents was overkill.
    • Flash Sentry is imprisoned for life for stealing treasures and smuggling secrets.
    • Emil Kudos is incredibly guilty of this. Being dumped for a shallow reason and a victim of racism that stopped long ago, with the latter not seen as important as the former is no excuse to remove the Cutie Marks of innocent Equestrians, allying with the demon Tirek, trying to make everyone the same, beating up helpless prisoners and burning them if they call him out, imprisoning his ex and blaming her for the above and committing suicide out of pure spite for anyone who tried to help him and to guilt trip his ex.
    • Starfleet Magic VI states that some of Starfleet's prisoners have been imprisoned for centuries and are still alive. Apparently, being imprisoned by Starfleet implies an automatic life sentence - or several.
    • On a meta level, the fact that Princess Cadance gets abused a lot because the author hates her being Happily Married counts.
      • As does Twilight Sparkle getting assassinated because the author hates her for pretty much trying to make life better for everypony around her.
    • Brass Bolt: Sure he was motivated to prove Starfleet is an evil regime by releasing all prisoners by accident (he intended to release only a few) and making them look bad. Does he deserve to be punished? Yes. Should you consider him a bad guy? No. Does he deserve his comeuppance, to be thrown into prison? Ye— Well... Until you remember he was sentenced to prison for life, and it was established that the prisoners kept there are starved and beaten to keep them quiet. In fact, while he was about to be taken away, he directed his gaze at Princess Celestia and demanded to know what she was thinking in allowing United Equestria to happen.
    then [sic] he cast a look at Celestia “and I can’t believe you of all Equestrians would approve of this and let them into our lives with their over-powered slavery.”
  • Distress Ball: Given to all of Equestria when Nightmare Moon and her allies enslave the place without much resistance and take Luna and Celestia hostage. Naturally, the Space Ponies have to come to the rescue.
  • Double Standard:
    • Whenever a guy (mostly Lightning) begins complaining about how bad things are going for him, he's often given sympathy and doted on by everyone. Whenever a gal starts complaining about her issues, she's told she needs to suck it up and get over it and is given No Sympathy. Granted, the author does hate Cadance, Twilight, and Rarity (the most frequent targets).
    • Men who perform gentlemanly conduct are praised for being polite whereas women who act ladylike are seen as snooty divas. The most prominent example of this is Rarity constantly being looked down upon for acting like a proper lady. However, this could (at least partially) be due to the author's hatred of her.
  • Down to the Last Play: In My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans, the Canterlot Wondercolts triumph over the Crystal Empires (seriously, that's the name Mykan gave their team) with a three-point shot at the last second.
  • Dramatic Drop: Several characters do this when they find out Lightning Dawn went to the human world in Starfleet Humans.
  • Dramatic Ellipsis: Overused throughout the fanfic and a defining characteristic of the author's fanfics in general.
  • Dramatic Irony: Usually, when someone is a double agent or a disloyal underling, the reader will know long before characters do so. Examples include Esroh Dab, Avyanna and Ka Hotake.
  • Dramatic Reading:
  • Dynamic Akimbo: Lightning strikes this pose when dealing with a biker gang in Starpops.
  • Ear Ache: Windy Bag drags her son off by grabbing his ear in her first appearance.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: In the original version of the first season, My Little Unicorn: Magic is Believing, Starfleet didn't have a name, the Space Ponies were called unicorns and they could walk on all fours.
  • Earth-Shattering Kaboom: What happens to Equestria and Unicornicopia. They got better.
  • Embarrassing Initials: The name Beaker gives his anti-Starfleet group is the "Industry Dedicated In Overthrowing and Terminating Starfleet". Beaker only realizes that the acronym spells IDIOTS once the other members point it out to him, but he refuses to change it because he already had merchandise made.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Shockingly, Sienna, the Big Bad of Season VII, genuinely loves her little brother, Mako, and seems to care about her crew.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: The car Human Lightning Dawn's parents were driving ends up exploding after rolling down a hill.
  • Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Every single villain feels the need to do this, if the narration doesn't do it for them. Naturally, this often leads to the heroes coming up with a way to beat them based on their exposition. And even then, the heroes still tend to take some time on realizing what their enemies' powers are.
    • In Starfleet Humans: Starpops, the Demonites tell Starfleet and the Rainbooms that they can bring fallen members back to life if they die. They do this repeatedly and our heroes still take some time before they figure out that they're supposed to kill all five Demonites at the same time in order to defeat them.
  • Expy: Most of the characters. Made most obvious in one of the author's YouTube videos explaining his characters, clearly showing that they are recolors of the original show's cast!
    • The Grand Ruler and Lightning Dawn are male versions of Celestia and Twilight Sparkle, while Starla Shine is based on Rarity. Lightning's Enticorn form is said to be a combination of a Super Saiyan and an Anodite.
    • Krysta is named after the main character of FernGully: The Last Rainforest and appearance-wise is pretty much Fluttershy with her mane and coat color swapped, and in human form.
    • Dyno and Myte are based on Mas Y Menos from Teen Titans.
    • Rhymey, Abra Kadabra and Goldwin are based on Muffy Mouse, Waldo the Magnificent and Jeff Hyslop from Today's Special.
    • Titan is inspired by Wiseman and No-Heart.
      • His appearance is reminiscent of D'Sparil, even.
    • In My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III, Raven, Twilight's assassin, is named and based off the Teen Titans character.
    • The Dark King is based on the villain of the same name from Pretty Cure. Furthermore, his minions are based on the Dark King's minions from Pretty Cure's first season, with Esroh Dab notably being heavily influenced by Kiriya. Finally, Dyno and Myte's Finishing Move in their Mega Modes is incredibly similar to the Pretty Cure Marble Screw.
    • Titan and Krysta are reminiscent of Ganondorf and Navi, respectively. The Grand Ruler's trinity of golden horns, which sealed Titan with the Uniforce, is inspired by the Triforce.
    • Princess Amandiva is based on Princess Amentia from Winx Club. Even their introductions are extremely similar.
  • Face Palm: Upon realizing Brass was about to unleash an anti-Starfleet tirade, Piper (one of his co-workers) "smacked her head in dismay".
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: By the bucket load. Discord, Titan, Nightmare Moon and a lot of other villains get blown up. The deaths of Titan`s henchponies get handwaved with the excuse that they were just artificial beings. Worst example is probably in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II, where Cadance's brother Fratello gets killed by her and then blown up, because the author wanted to make her suffer.
    • On the heroes' side, Twilight Sparkle gets slashed through the heart by Raven because the author hated her. There's even still blood on Raven's claws afterwards.
  • Fantastic Racism:
    • Members of Starfleet tend to point out quite often how superior they are compared to Equestrians.
    • In the second season, it is stated that Diamond Dogs aren't allowed in New Ponyville. Why they haven't been jailed if Starfleet finds them untrustworthy is unexplained.
  • Far East: Horn Kong is a hodgepodge of various East Asian clichés, including (but not limited to) kimonos and Kung Fu. So is Ainzul.
  • Finger in a Barrel: A variation occurs in the prologue of Starfleet Humans: Artie somehow lassoes the mouth of a dragon about to breathe fire shut which, for some reason, causes the flames to blow up in his mouth.
  • Fisticuff-Provoking Comment: In "Starfleet Humans", Lightning Dawn insults Principal Celestia and also states that it's a good thing her pet horse is dead, causing her to attack him ineffectively.
  • Fix Fic: With the elements the author seeks to change being absolutely everything.
  • Flanderization:
    • Twilight and friends are reduced to their basic personality traits. For instance, Applejack’s only personality trait in the story is her accent. Rarity is only defined by her love of fashion, is portrayed as constantly forcing makeovers on those who don't want them and whining quite a bit. Pinkie Pie is portrayed as being so annoying that even her friends groan at her and is also shown to be a bit of a crybaby. Rainbow Dash is a reckless hothead that never thinks before or after she acts. Fluttershy is mostly just timid, and even that gets eroded over time to make room for her love for Rhymey.
    • Even his own characters aren't immune from it. In his first appearance, Ace Ray does hate Starfleet but has other priorities such as his sister. By the time of My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III, all he does is rant about his hatred of Starfleet and hates his sister.
  • Flat Character: Every single character. The first time they show up, everyone gets introduced by showing off their one defining character trait (like Artie being an artist, Rhymey talking in rhymes etc.). After that, they are just generic fighters for the rest of the fic. While everyone has their own set of attacks, personality-wise, they are pretty much interchangeable. This gets especially glaring when we get introduced to Dyno and Myte, whose defining character traits are being twins who speak in Mexican slang. In the FiMchan discussion, the author mentions that this was intentional because he believes that personality holds back the possibilities with his characters and has no place in a species of warriors. Many of the villains manage to get even less characterization.
    • The most extreme example of a flat character is Melantha, one of Sombra's four minions in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III. While other characters at least have a backstory and one character trait, Melantha has no characterization at all.
  • Foreshadowing: While the fic usually doesn't foreshadow future events so much as bludgeon you over the head with them, sometimes even putting important details in italics to make absolutely sure you get the point, there's one example of subtle foreshadowing in Season 3. In Episode 6, the Monster of the Week is a possessed statue of Twilight that ends up destroyed in the fight. 10 episodes later, Twilight herself would end up dead.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Lightning Dawn and Twilight Sparkle switch bodies in one chapter.
  • Fun with Acronyms: MOM or Memory Operating Machine in the remade version of the fifth episode of season three.
  • Furry Reminder: "And he threw his head high up into the air and let out a very loud and mournful NEIGH... just like the pony he was."
  • Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: When you use a combination of DNA manipulation and magic to create a Proud Warrior Master Race, indeed it is.
  • Glass Cannon: The very first Monster of the Week in the series.
    Its attack was fairly high, its defenses weren’t nearly too high, but its attacks were dangerous.
  • Gold-Colored Superiority: Access to the Uniforce is restricted to unicorns with golden horns, which is why Grand Ruler took in Lightning Dawn and trained him despite Lightning showing no magical ability.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: The second half of the first story is devoted to heroes and villains trying to find the "Rainbow Stones," (Renamed the Star Stones in the remake) which would grant them new powers; My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III has them search for the shattered remains of the Crystal Heart.
  • Grandfather Paradox: Discussed in season 4, where the Dark King doesn't want his minions to devastate the past too much at the risk of erasing themselves from existence.
  • Grand Theft Me: The changelings' modus operandi in season 2. Also what Stammadon does to Striker in Season 8.
  • Guilt-Free Extermination War: The Space Ponies and Insectos decide that the best way to deal with each other is to completely annihilate the other in season 5. With the exception of Phoebe and Jetar who are imprisoned in suspended animation and a few other Insectos who were taken into custody, the former succeeds.
  • Hanging Judge: According to this comment, Starfleet sometimes doesn't have trials if they have "more than enough proof". This is demonstrated when they immediately arrest and imprison the Spectros without bothering to hear them out.
  • Happiness Is Mandatory: Starfleet are all too happy to look for a reason to arrest and brutally punish anyone that isn't satisfied with their regime. Not that they have to look too hard, since the dissenters usually give them one in short order.
  • Hate Fic: As stated by the author:
    "I do not like FIM at all... in fact I hate it and wish it were never made... and it makes me angry with all its lies and falsehoods about friendship being magic and the true salvation. Not to mention all the horrid emotional pains it brings me. So…I create this to bash at it."
  • Hate Plague: In Chapter 16 of Starfleet Magic V, Lightning is injected with something that makes females love him and males hate him.
  • Haunted House: The house Sole Maker bought was cheap because 20 years ago, a pony killed his daughter before committing suicide; it's heavily implied that the spirit that's visiting Lil' is the ghost of that daughter.
  • Have a Gay Old Time: Starfleet Magic IV uses "queer" in its original definition, which fell out of favor quite a while before it was written (2014). This leads to some passages being rather amusing out of context.
    "[Spike] still felt uneasy about Thunder Cloud and didn’t trust him, especially when he noticed the queer look in his eyes, feeling he was hiding something."
  • Heartbreak and Ice Cream: In the fourth season, Rarity devours three tubs of ice cream after the Phantom of Magic steals her Cutie Mark.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Queen Chrysalis in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II.
    • Distraught in My Brave Pony: The Movie.
    • Phaedra in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III.
    • Dearka in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic IX.
  • Hellhole Prison: As shown in the sixth "season", prisoners are tortured and not given food if they don't keep quiet. According to Mykan, Starfleet prisons are like this because this is what real world prisons are like and MLP needs reality.
  • Henshin Hero: Downplayed with Starfleet. While they play the trope and its associated clichés to the hilt, they do have magical powers without their armor; they just don't use those powers until push comes to shove and they're already armored up.
  • High-Pressure Emotion: When enraged, characters are occasionally described as turning red and steaming.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: Twice, in fact. Towards the end of Season 1, Nightmare Moon is built up as the final antagonist, when suddenly Titan reappears. He then returns in The Movie, hijacking the role of main villain from Distraught.
  • Hollywood Genetics: According to Mykan's Starfleet Q&A, the offspring of a Space Pony and Equestrian will always be Space Ponies. The concept of hybridization never even comes up.
  • Humiliation Conga: In Seasons II and III, Ace Ray (who's depicted as a Jerkass) experiences this. He loses his friends, gets kicked out of the Wonderbolts, and does so poorly during a fight with a changeling that he "would have [gotten] seriously hurt" if Rainbow Dash hadn't interfered. In a later chapter, a couple robots hold Ace and his sister Skye hostage, with one of them knocking him out. He also tries to persuade other characters that Starfleet sucks, but most of them don't even listen to him. The narration even suggests Starfleet's defenders regularly called him a "failure" and he was even suggested to get help. Also, he and a mob he gathered try to protest at a cafe. However, not only does everyone originally ignore them, Skye (who he hates) eventually starts trying to get him to quit his protest. When Ace starts assaulting her, Lightning Dawn (who he loathes) stops him from doing so. He additionally Curb-Stomps Ace, which involves him No-Selling his attacks and ultimately arresting him. In court, Ace gets insulted by Captain Spitfire and he tries to blame Starfleet for everything, which everyone ignores. He also tries to assault the judge, to which Twilight prevents via surrounding him with a shield. Eventually, the court finds him guilty and he gets sentenced to Xandra, an inescapable planet with numerous asylums.note  While he's dragged away there, he still tries to blame Starfleet, only to be ignored again. There, he keeps trying to tell the staff he isn't unstable, and the medical staff respond by restraining and sedating him. In a rewritten version of "Episode 5: Truth Hurts", it's even worse. Not only do all the aforementioned events occur, other characters start cheering Skye when she starts telling off Ace for his trash-talking of Starfleet.note  Skye also reveals in court he was once enslaved by Nightmare Moon and, after Ace has another outburst, the judge calls him out on his behavior.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: A rare female-on-male example when En Shi (a villainess) kidnaps Swift Star and sexually assaults him.
  • I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Lightning Dawn initially blames himself for Twilight's death until other characters convince him it was the victim's fault, rather than blaming, you know, the one who literally killed her.
  • I'll Kill You!: In My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III, Ace Ray says this to Skye after she declares him to be as bad as the evil they [Starfleet] face, which results in him being officially declared a criminal, beaten and arrested.
  • Info Dump: Every backstory in the series is given in either a single monologue from the character themselves or someone related to them, or a solid block of narration. Or a solid block of narration describing the character monologuing about their backstory.
  • In Name Only: It's only a Friendship is Magic fic by virtue of borrowing character names and loosely using the setting, due to the canon characters being Flanderized to the point of bearing little resemblance to their original selves and heavy focus on OCs.
    • The "Death Battles" deserves special mention: There are no analysis portions detailing what the fighters are capable of (unless you count the Starfleet OC stating what they're capable of during combat), nor is the verdict of the fight the result of researching which character would win in a one-on-one battle. And lastly, nopony actually dies despite the name.
  • Insistent Terminology: Stammadon's lair is called a "temple", despite having apparently never been used for religious purposes.
  • Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Pretty much any Asian-coded area we see has at least one Japanese element, even when the place in question is based off another Asian nation. For highlights:
    • Horn Kong is named after Hong Kong, but has elements of both China and Japan, despite HK having a culture of its own, largely derived from Cantonese China and the UK.
    • Ainzul is explicitly stated to be based off of ancient China, yet Mowaza wears a kimono to visit Starfleet.
    • Speaking of kimonos, every Asian-coded location seen so far has a yukata or kimono slapped on at least one native, even in places explicitly based on a nation other than Japan, as Khana and Mowaza can attest to.
  • Interspecies Romance:
    • In the movie, we meet Khan Swift, a Space Pony, and Rani Drop, an Equestrian, who are married.
    • Spike and Rarity are also this until Rarity has to change into a dragon to save her life.
  • Kangaroo Court:
    • In the rewritten version, Ace Ray is given a trial in the loosest sense of the word before being sent to an asylum. The narration actually states, "Court was held the next day at once, at Lightning’s requests for such a severe case, but really, since Ace and his gang were already proven guilty of their crimes charged, the trial was merely to decide the punishment, not the innocence or guilt."
    • In Season X, this happens again. The judge tries to stop Swift Star from insulting Beaker, but Lightning (whose authority is strictly military) and Celesto with Celestia gaslight him into letting Swift speak. Also, Beaker is judged guilty from the start. What a fair trial.
  • Kill Sat: Sapphira uses one to try to transform the citizens of the human world into her slaves.
  • Killed Off for Real: Discord, several Season villains, and, as of Starfleet Magic III, Twilight Sparkle.
    • The Dark King gets erased from existence.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: Twilight Sparkle is dead as of season 3. Some of the author's blogs reveal that to unsuspecting readers, and the later seasons do not try to hide it.
  • Literal Cliffhanger: Rarity finds herself hanging onto a root attached to a cliff in the movie.
  • The Load:
    • Lightning Dawn. Despite his physical strength, most of the villains use magic and his inability to use magic is quite a liability in battle. Anytime he finishes a battle is with his Uniforce. He grows out of this, but falls back in the role when he is reverted into a child for an entire season.
    • Krysta is more of a hindrance to the others than anything. Sometimes she gets kidnapped and has to be saved.
    • Brain is even worse. At least the other two can actually fight sometimes.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: VIII has the Data Squad (Human Mykan and the Cutie Mark Crusaders) keep the fact that they are the ones fighting Megadox and his viruses a secret for reasons. This predictably leads to the Crusaders' respective families being outraged at the kids for fighting monsters and keeping them in the dark about it. The really dumb thing is that they also keep the enemy, who is a virus, hidden from the public.
  • Love Is in the Air: In Chapter 16 of Starfleet Magic V, Lightning is injected with something that makes females love him and males hate him.
  • Love at First Sight: When Dearka's mask gets knocked off and Pinkie Pie gets a good look at his face, she immediately falls for him.
  • Madonna-Whore Complex: Female characters who are concerned with looks tend to be regarded with disdain by the characters, such is the case with Rarity, at best. At worst, they're villains who spend their times looking into mirrors and getting outraged whenever their faces are so much as scratched. Female characters who aren't concerned with looks tend to be Satellite Love Interests.
  • The Magic Touch: In one part of My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II, Rarity essentially gets the Midas Touch, with all the associated consequences.
  • The Main Characters Do Everything: The main characters are often the only ones that even stand a chance against the villains; the rest of Starfleet might as well not even exist for all the good they do. However, there are exceptions; when the villains start fielding large numbers of monsters, the Starfleet rank-and-file will suddenly be able to fight on even grounds with them.
  • Make Them Rot: One of the one-shot villains in Starfleet Magic VI has this power.
  • Meanwhile, in the Future…: In the fourth season, the story sometimes switches between the present and the Bad Future.
  • Michael Jackson's Thriller Parody: In Starpops, the Demonites enthrall most of the students into dancing to a song that copies Thriller's melody.
  • Might Makes Right: There are strong hints of this littered in the badfic, regardless of the author's intent. It doesn't help that the main character and his friends are self righteous and live in a military supremacist society.
  • Monster of the Week: Most chapters deal with fighting one-shot monsters. In series order, we have: a minion of Titan (Starfleet Magic I), a Changeling sent by Chrysalis (Starfleet Magic II), one of King Sombra's minions (Starfleet Magic III), one of the Dark King's Cardinals (Starfleet Magic IV), one of Pinsar's commanders (Starfleet Magic V), an escaped prisoner (Starfleet Magic VI), one of the Space Pirates' Jema-Nites (Starfleet Magic VII), one of Stammadon's monsters, or one of Megadox's viruses (Starfleet Magic VIII).
  • Mood Whiplash: A frequent problem. You'll have some chapters that deal with silly sitcom-ish plots only for the next one to involve a character being brutally murdered. In general, the fics can't seem to decide on whether they want to be a silly slice-of-life story, a campy Henshin Hero story, or a gritty war story.
  • Moral Luck: In Season 1, Abra-Kadabra disobeys orders by helping to attack a monster instead of finding somewhere safe to hide. His efforts manage to successfully damage the monster and both Lightning and Starla praise his illusion skills, with neither bringing up how he disobeyed them and put himself in danger. In later seasons, Pinkie Pie, Twilight and Swift Star all defy orders to attack the enemy and end up being injured, killed and captured respectively. Since these examples all backfired in some way, Starfleet are quick to admonish them for disobeying orders.
  • The Multiverse: Unicornicopia is supposedly part of only one of many dimensions in a multiverse, whose worlds the unicorns can visit. But the author repeatedly mixes up the terms planet and dimension to the point where he refers to the planets themselves as other planes of reality.
    • The remake attempted to fix this by saying that they are in fact planets, but transportation between planets is still called "dimension travel".
  • Mundane Utility: Defied by Starfleet, who strictly forbid the use of magic outside of combat situations, and characters attempting to do so (like Spike thinking about transforming to make it easier to carry things) get told off.
  • Murder by Mistake: Narrowly averted twice.
    • In the third season, Raven tries to poison Celestia's goblet, but due to a mix-up, Shining Armor drinks from the poisoned cup instead. He recovers, though.
    • In the sixth season, Windy Bag tries to kill Pony Mykan Stevens by leaving him poisoned food, only for DD to eat some of it instead, causing her to nearly die.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After essentially being brainwashed in the original version of My Brave Pony III Starfleet Magic, Ace Ray reacts this way to memories of his past actions.

    N-Z 
  • Narrating the Obvious: The author tends to spell out everything, such as outright telling the audience how a mirror-based monster has the power to reflect attacks right back after it's been shown to the audience multiple times already.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: Starfleet believes itself to be in many ways superior to other species in the multiverse, the winged unicorns have actually conquered parts of other realities and they teach in the militaristic force to always follow orders blindly or you will get socially shunned. Not to forget that they excuse murder by deponyizing their enemies. The author admitted on multiple accounts that this is intentional.
    • The United Alliance of Evil is even worse, being genocidal, manipulating people with lies and above all else minions who will blow themselves up or allow themselves to be absorbed for their master.
  • Near-Villain Victory:
    • Frost-Eye nearly freezes United Equestria and kills everyone there.
    • Distraught figures out where the civilians were evacuated to and actually comes close to killing them all.
    • If not for Mykan Stevens intentionally getting himself shot instead of his thrown sword, Titan would've actually managed to win for once.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: At least once per season, Starfleet gets new powers to deal with the villains they go up against, often under suspiciously convenient circumstances. The Grand Celestial Ruler, the Capture Blaster, Lightning's friends' Finishing Moves, the Dragon Knight, Lightning's Enticorn form, the Mega Modes... the list goes on. Most egregiously, in VIII, they could use the Pure Inner Strength to defeat Stammadon and his minions. However, it promptly disappears after VIII, and no one mentions it again or explains why they don't use it anymore.
  • No Endor Holocaust: There's no mention of anyone dying while Discord is destroying Unicornicopia, even though they only began evacuating after the destruction started. The same goes for Equestria during Nightmare Moon's takeover and its subsequent destruction - and that's not even getting into all of the non-pony species on Equestria when it exploded. Granted, the "power of believing" ending might have undone all of the damage inflicted in the above, but there's no mention of anyone being brought back to life. Though one has to wonder where the plants on United Equestria came from...
    • United Equestria has also been frozen over by Frosteye and had its atmosphere poisoned by one-shot villain Poisandra on separate occasions, but apparently neither of these killed anyone.
  • Nonindicative Name: Starfleet doesn't have a fleet of starships!
  • No One Could Survive That!: Despite having been beaten up and slammed into a machine that subsequently exploded, Windy Bag survives with only a ruffled mane and tail, a tattered suit and bruises from aforementioned beatdown.
  • No Ontological Inertia: While the villains might do a lot of damage, it's always undone after their defeats. The Dark King even gets erased from existence with his timeline.
  • No-Sell: In one chapter, after getting super pissed at Lightning Dawn for dissing her dead horse, Human Celestia tries to beat him up. While her attacks land, they don't hurt him at all because of his superior strength.
  • No Sympathy: If you're a woman and you are having a rough time, Starfleet won't give you any.
  • No True Scotsman: When it was pointed out that Raven being an Equestrian meant that she would have been easy pickings for the so-called superior Space Ponies, Mykan stated she was no longer an ordinary Equestrian and thus would have been a challenge.
  • "On the Next Episode of..." Catch-Phrase: Taking a cue from Dragon Ball, the end of the chapters always describes what's going to happen next time.
  • Once a Season: Nearly every season and movie has the protagonists fighting and defeating a group of bad guys near the beginning who will have no further bearing on the plot.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted, though it's not certain whether this was deliberate. There are two characters named Rani in the series: Khan's wife in the Movie, and Reginald Rolls' wife in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III.
    • It has happened again in Starfleet Magic IV, where Big Bull is both the name of a minotaur in one of Lightning's nightmares and a Cardinal.
    • There are two villains with the name Slick: an Insecto general in Starfleet Magic V and one of the Demonites in Starpops.
    • The Skye that appears as an enemy in Starfleet Magic VI is not the sister of Ace Ray.
  • Only the Pure of Heart:
    • In the movie, Lightning Dawn (of all people) is able to get a magical blue orb because he's this.
    • In the third season, Spike qualifies as this so he obtains the powers of the Dragon Knight.
  • Our Homunculi Are Different: The Space Ponies originated with Grand Ruler artificially creating a pony-like form and then magically granting it life. They also fill the typical role of being completely loyal to their master. Titan's minions have a similar origin, meaning that they qualify as well.
  • Our Presidents Are Different: El Mundo and later Vistula are run by presidents as of IX, Alejandro and Hawk Fenton respectively. Both of them are also Generals, and the latter was promoted to General at the same time he became president.
    • It's implied that El Mundo's presidency is hereditary due to all of its known presidents being members of Dyno and Myte's family, as well as that family being explicitly called nobility.
    • Hawk Fenton was promoted after Starfleet got Calista killed through spectacular incompetence. According to GR, he promoted Fenton himself, then waited for the Vistulans to approve of him, and there was no mention of an election.
    • Since both planets are under the same jurisdiction, it's possible that Vistula's presidency is hereditary as well, making them monarchies in all but name.
  • Out-of-Character Alert: In Season II, ponies possessed by Changelings are identified through them suddenly acting like complete jerks.
  • Palette Swap: According to the author's vids and artwork, many of the characters greatly look like each other with the only differences being colour and hairstyles. In the stories themselves, characters are often described by their similarities to others, such as Cerise Wonder being someone "whom greatly resembled princess Cadance— same color, same mane style, even same voice— but Cerise had a golden horn like Lightning had."
  • Parental Substitute: Grand Ruler for Lightning. Not that their relationship has any significance on the overall plot.
  • Penal Colony: Starfleet uses entire planets as prisons! Let that sink in...
    • They're not too keen about releasing prisoners, either; some of them have been locked up for centuries.
  • Percussive Therapy: Shining Armor beats away at some punching bags after Twilight's funeral.
  • Phantom Zone: The Dimension of Darkness/Dark Planet.
  • Police State: The narration states that it's benevolent. Yet it apparently sucks at surveillance, as despite cautionary measures being taken every time a new Big Bad shows up, the villains will always manage to avoid detection until they enact their evil plan du jour. Every. Single. Time.
  • Political Overcorrectness: Starfleet forces the Equestrians to drop pony-related terms like "anypony" because not all the characters are ponies.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Episode 9 of My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II sees a Changeling almost escape due to an argument between Lightning and Starla.
  • The Power of Friendship: Averted. The author is not afraid to proclaim how much he hates the very idea of it.
    • Or at least, the author intended to avert it. But as described under Broken Aesop, it ends up actually being used quite a bit.
  • Pun-Based Title: So, so many. "Rollin' Rocks", "Mirror, Mirror, on the Brawl", "Wetter Works"... and those are just from the rewritten first season.
  • Pungeon Master: Stratos, one of the monsters, loves speaking in puns.
  • Pyrrhic Victory:
    • Discord is defeated and killed, but demolishes Unicornicopia completely. And he didn't even have his canon powers.
    • King Pinsar is defeated and killed before the end of his own season, but Celesto himself is wounded badly because of him.
    • In Human in United Equestria, Titan is defeated, this time not by his own stupidity until the very end, but Mykan Stevens loses his girfriend, and that's not undone. He feels devastated after the fight, even though it was won partially because of him.
    • Titan gets both Unicornicopia and Equestria destroyed, and also absorbs Grand Ruler and Celestia. Because he gloats instead of securing his victory by killing everyone else, he does not get to celebrate it and his damage gets undone later.
  • Rainbow Lite: Inverted with the Rainbow Stones. Because there are four of them with two colors each, white is counted as a color of the rainbow to round out the color quota.
  • Raw Eggs Make You Stronger: In a flashback in the 18th episode of the 4th season, Twilight eats some raw eggs in order to become strong enough to wield the Uniforce.
  • Readings Are Off the Scale: Starfleet's scanning devices can't calculate how high the main characters' strengths are after they're given a boost of power in their sleep at the beginning of the fourth season.
  • Recursive Acronym: Dream, or Dream Reprise Emulating Action Machine in the original version of the fifth episode of season three.
  • Recycled In SPACE: Invoked In Name Only seeing as My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic is just Magic is Believing with a few extra lines and the Aesop of "believing" cut out.
    • It's been reposted after being taken down, with the author's notes and many of the songs now cut completely.
    • The DeviantArt version brings back some of the songs, and attempts to rewrite some of the dialogue with barbs specifically pointed towards his critics.
  • The Remake: My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic is an ongoing remastered version of My Little Unicorn. Beside minor changes regarding obvious narrative flaws, not much has really changed at all.
  • Remember the New Guy?:
    • Turns out, the second main antagonist of My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II is Cadance's brother Fratello, who we never heard of before. Not to mention that Equestria seemingly has been invaded by robots around 15 years ago, of which no one has a memory of.
    • Another example would be Krysta's adopted son Twink, who suddenly appears with no foreshadowing in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II, Episode 1. When asked about why he suddenly appears, Mykan answered "New characters get thrown in all the time (everyone knows that)".
  • Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony: In Season VIII, Princess Cadance and Shining Armor open up a new playground with this.
  • The Right of a Superior Species: Starfleet's justification for basically conquering Equestria, among many other planets and civilizations, is that they're naturally stronger and more noble than the others and are entitled to rule over them.
  • RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Downplayed in that no character uses RPG terminology, but this is how the Starfleet-verse seems to work. Space Ponies are portrayed as better than Equestrians because they have more experience fighting and can (supposedly) no-sell Equestrian attacks and magic, as well as attacks by untrained civilians, due to their "level difference", and when tougher monsters show up, they have to be beaten back by hard training (Level Grinding, in other words) and gaining new skills. It apparently also runs on a turn-based combat system, as no character is ever interrupted when declaring their attacks.
  • Rule of Symbolism: In her debut, Skye runs to a park, where she sees a Wonderbolt and a Starfleet fighter salute each other while they were both on patrol. This was after she had another argument about Starfleet with Ace Ray, who was kicked out of the Wonderbolts and despises Starfleet.
  • Ruptured Appendix: When Fluttershy comes down with appendicitis in My Brave Pony II: Starfleet Magic. See Artistic Licence – Biology for more.
  • Sadist Teacher: Episode 5 of Starfleet Magic IV sees Cheerilee temporarily replaced by Mr. Harshwhinny.
  • Said Bookism: Not the worst case as much of the dialogue is still "said", but you'd be hard-pressed to find a chapter without a line being "sneered". There's also plenty more that are "snarled", "snapped", "growled", "snickered", or "peeped". Even if it's the heroes who act like this.
  • Sapient Eat Sapient: Season VI mentions pigs being used as food. Considering that livestock animals in this world are sapient and capable of speech... Oh and Mykan tries to justify it in his blog by stating Starfleet gets the meat from other planets.
  • Satellite Love Interest:
    • Lightning and Starla. They develop a crush on first sight and we never learn much about her other than her interest in astronomy, which is practically forgotten after her introduction. Starla doesn't even appear in the author's video of character bios for the fic!
    • Another example would be Rhymey and Fluttershy in the later half of the story. Notably, only she changes for him.
    • Celestia to the Grand Ruler, she is introduced as his lover first and foremost.
    • Michelle to Mykan Stevens. She exists for him to think about her, save his life once, then die so there will be drama regarding him.
  • Self-Harm: As part of a masquerade, Brass intentionally gives himself small cuts and bangs his head.
  • Series Continuity Error:
    • The original fic had four Rainbow Stones, but several parts of the story instead stated that there were five.
    • Don't expect the timeline to stay consistent. It's not uncommon for the time lapses and ages of various characters to contradict each other and themselves. For example, in VII, Flurry is at least 7 months older than Shining Light. In IX, however, they are now 6 months apart, even though that would mean Starla was three months pregnant when Flurry was born. However, Starla didn't test positive for pregnancy until after Flurry's birth. The royal twins are apparently 5 years older than Shining Light, but they were 2 in V and Shining was born late in VII, 15 months after VI started (Flurry's conception-to-birth + Starla's last 6 months pregnant), which would make them 3-4 years apart, not 5.
      • For another instance of inconsistent ages, Spike and Rarity are said to be 5 years apart in one chapter and 7 years apart in another.
    • In "Twi-Lightning", Raven states that she lived a thousand years ago "in Ponyville of old". According to an episode in the canon series though, Ponyville didn't exist until about a century ago.
  • Series Fauxnale: Season X was more character-driven than the others, touching far more plot points than the others and bringing back Titan, and it had the feeling of a finale in general. Season XI is already in progress, so X is not the end.
  • Set Swords to "Stun": Starfleet's weapons can be toggled to capture or even heal enemies with their Finishing Moves instead of destroying them, even though it still makes them go up in a massive explosion. This includes things like Rhymey's sword and Artie's staff.
  • Shout-Out: Frequently.
    • Starfleet is named after, not the organization from Star Trek, but the one from Star Fleet. In fact, it's where the star in the logo and the theme song came from.
    • Celesto gets his title of "Grand Ruler" from Teen Titans.
    • The scene of the Grand Ruler dancing and doing hopscotch is inspired by a sketch from Today's Special.
    • Replacement villain Serpent-Terror was named after a mecha from Power Rangers before the author changed his name to Serpent-Tyrant. Later revisions change it to a female character named Serpentari, but she pretty much acts the same with some added vanity.
    • The general plot of Titan's return and the way the heroes face him of shows parallels to the first episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
    • Inquerius is named after the species/homeplanet of the unnerving mentor of Power Rangers Turbo.
    • The author admitted that the Uniforce is inspired from another Deus ex machina from Medabots, combined with Exodia's power.
    • Most of the songs were lifted from other sources, including Today's Special and Shining Time Station. He does cite where they came from.
    • The sequence in the third fanfic where the team goes to "Brogan" is heavily inspired by the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers movie.
    • "Brogan" is also another name for The Dark Side of the Force in Star Wars
    • The Phantom of Magic is heavily inspired by Count Bleck from Super Paper Mario. This is not the first time Mykan has included an homage to Bleck.
    • Parts of the Dark King storyline practically mirror the early portions of the Android Saga of Dragon Ball Z, the second season of Sailor Moon and Futari wa Pretty Cure.
    • Artie's backstory takes some elements from the Power Rangers Time Force episode A Parting of Ways.
    • Pony Mykan Stevens's destruction of Windy Bag's machine echoes Anastasia's destruction of Rasputin's reliquary from Anastasia.
    • En Shi shares abilities, personality and quotes with General Esdeath.
    • The introduction to the antagonistic group of Season X's B-plot, IDIOTS (Industry Dedicated In Overthrowing and Terminating Starfleet) is a blatant lift of LAMOS (League Aiming to Menace and Overthrow Spies), right down to having the same scene showing the less than stellar reactions from the groups' members when they point out the Embarrassing Initials the name spells and the group's leader keeping the name due to having already created merchandise as well as remarking that the name is appropriate after hearing the group's ineffective plans at defeating their enemies.
  • Show, Don't Tell: One of the story's main problems from a technical standpoint is that the author drives the plot forward more through the means of narrative exposition instead of actual dialogue or interaction between characters. The story also lacks detailed descriptions of fight scenes or settings, making it feel rushed. This is explained by the author as a result of him trying to make every chapter like a summary of a TV episode instead of working on a good narration. For example, a melee brawl will be described as "they skillfully punched and kicked each other."
  • Skewed Priorities: After the death of Calista on their watch, Pinkie Pie and Applejack are subjected to an inquiry. They actually smile at each other in relief when the Grand Ruler determines that they are not at fault rather than remain devastated that they failed to protect someone.
  • Slasher Smile: An example that's implied to be this or a Psychotic Smirk. During his scheme to make Starfleet look unintelligent and incompetent, Brass Bolt makes a "very naughty" grin.
  • Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: The characters are ponies in the same way as the characters of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, but the author makes a big deal out of the fact that they can actually walk on two legs like humans most of the time. Rather than using their hooves like hands, Starfleet at the very least uses gloves that function as human hands.
  • Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters: The fics are intended to be on the extreme plot end of the spectrum, in that the author explicitly says that he believes complex characterization is confusing and can hold back the plot. As a result, characters in these fics get virtually no characterization at all in order to focus on the action and conflict. However, they still include a lot of slice-of-life segments that would be more at home in a character-driven work, but these rarely contribute to the overall plot. The result is a plot-driven work that seems to be trying for equal focus, but doesn't quite pull it off.
  • Smoke Shield: A recurring element in the fight scenes: someone will blast their opponent with everything they've got, their attacks will hit them dead center and the resulting explosion will cause a cloud of smoke to appear, and whoever was attacking will stare in awe as for whatever reason, their attack will be revealed to have done nothing. If it's a case of the heroes attacking a villain, the villain will shrug it off to demonstrate how powerful they are. If it's a case of the villain attacking the heroes, the heroes will be saved at the last moment.
  • So Last Season: The cast constantly getting New Powers as the Plot Demands and often being Strong as They Need to Be means that their powers tend to become obsolete over time. The most noticeable examples include:
    • The Uniforce is introduced as a mystical ultimate power that can overpower almost any foe, used to finish off most enemies. A couple of seasons later, it's demoted to Lightning's equivalent of his teammates' normal attacks (which is to say, it looks flashy but does nothing significant) unless he cranks it up.
    • The Grand Celestial Ruler is introduced as the ultimate force of good and easily deals the finishing blow to Titan. All of the Ruler's subsequent appearances have it getting worfed by the Big Bad instead, or be required for secondary antagonists and minions.
    • Lightning's Enticorn form is overwhelmingly powerful when it manifests at the end of Season III and throughout Season IV. Starting from V, however, villains are fighting on equal footing with it.
    • Season III also gives Spike the Dragon Knight form, a stronger form which is later treated as an ordinary power up in later seasons.
    • Shining Armor inherits Saber's powers at the end of Season V; however, despite Saber being one of Pinsar's most powerful generals, from Season VII onward, the villains can keep up with him.
  • Soiled City on a Hill: New White Tail Village gets stormed by Starfleet in VI, and the aftermath of the battle has the city's entire population either displaced, arrested, or forced into rehabilitation. Their crimes? Not supporting Starfleet, firing a de-brainwashing ray gun that had no effect on any creature and unknowingly siding with someone whose alliance with an alien species nearly destroyed the planet.
  • Space Police: Starfleet is an organization devoted to enforcing law and peace across known space. Maybe a little too much law.
  • Space Whale Aesop: The Dark King was created from all the evil from Starfleet's prisoners that they released when they were under rehabilitation, so the lesson seems to be "people shouldn't be redeemed (or at least not brainwashed into redemption) otherwise their negative energy will create a giant monster that will destroy everything".
  • Spaghetti Kiss: Fluttershy and Rhymey have one in Starfleet Humans' prologue.
  • Speak Ill of the Dead: In the chapter following Twilight's death, several people assure Lightning Dawn that it's not his fault that Twilight was killed and that it was the victim's own fault for not following orders instead of, say, the murderer's for, you know, murdering her.
  • Spirit Advisor:
    • Amando becomes this to his parents Cadance and Shining Armor after his stillbirth.
    • Twilight Sparkle after her death advises Lightning and Swift.
  • Spiritual Antithesis: The fanfic is this to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as a whole. While FIM is based around The Power of Friendship, MLU is based around the power of belief.
  • Spit Take:
    • Several characters do this when they find out Lightning Dawn went to the human world in Starfleet Humans.
    • Human!Rarity spits out her milkshake when she learns her pony self is engaged to Spike.
  • Strictly Formula: Many of the chapters, especially in the first half of the fic, all go the same route: Lightning has to help a friend, one of Titan's minions and the Monster of the Week appear, Lightning charges at the monster and fails to even scratch it, his friend figures out a way to weaken it, Lightning finishes it with the Rainbow Rod, the minion flees and is scolded by Titan, "Everybody Laughs" Ending, and The Grand Ruler spells out An Aesop.
    • Most seasons follow the same basic structure: A new Big Bad shows up with his minions and causes some mayhem. He gets held off by the heroes, who have no way of getting to him. The heroes deal with several one-shot monsters sent by the villain alongside scrapes with an unrelated side villain. They have a couple of big clashes with the villains starting from mid-season, with the side villain being beaten in one of them. The Big Bad sends a couple more monsters. The heroes go to different planets for a tangentially related mini-plot. Finally, there's a multi-part season finale in which the villain is defeated by whatever new powers the heroes happened to get.
  • Stuff Blowing Up:
    • To the point that every time something blows up, the author uses onomatopoeia like "Kabloom" and "Bang".
    • Pretty much Dyno and Myte's entire repertoire, as well as their main passion.
    • Even when someone is captured, there is an explosion effect.
  • Stupid Crooks: In Raven's backstory, some thieves desired some treasures that Celestia was planning to give to Ponyville's treasury. Instead of waiting until nightfall or at least until Celestia was no longer present, they stole them right out of her carriage and were pursued by her and her guards.
  • Sudden Name Change: In My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II, the newly militarized MLP cast is called the Friendship Force. In My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III, they are now called "Friendship is Magic"... at least until the DeviantArt rewrite, where they have always been called FiM.
    • Cerise first appears under the name Cerise Wonder, but her second appearance uses Cerise Magenta. This has since been corrected.
  • Sugar Apocalypse: Unicornicopia being destroyed by Discord. And Equestria by Nightmare Moon. And Titan is behind both.
  • Sugar Bowl: Unicornicopia, with its population of winged unicorns and places named after colors.
  • Super Mode: Nearly every major protagonist has one. Celesto and Celestia have The Grand Celestial Ruler, Lightning has the Enticorn form, as well as "Mega Mode", which is shared by his Starfleet teammates, the MLP ponies can transform into the Valkyries of Harmony (as of Starfleet Magic IV), Spike can turn into The Dragon Knight, Cadance has a Super Mode as a ninja, and Shining Armor gets to keep General Saber's powers after being de-brainwashed.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In Season 5, in a minor episode, the natives of a planet hate dragons and see them all as evil. After Spike proves them wrong, they don't completely drop their prejudice, but they do acknowledge he is a hero.
  • Sweetie Graffiti:
    • In the 18th episode of the 4th season, Celestia and Celesto rediscover a column with a heart and two C's carved into it in the Castle of the Two Sisters. Apparently, it had been made right after they got engaged.
    • Calista and Dearka also have their own example carved into a tree on Vistula.
  • Take That!:
    • Titan blowing up Equestria and the author turning the main cast into losers who can't do anything without the Space Ponies' help may be one, taking the Revenge Fic nature of the story into account.
    • Twilight's death is a result of spite alone.
    • Out of spite for having a supposedly easy married life, Mykan had Cadance miscarry.
    • Rarity becoming a Kirin, or Dragony as she is called. It's spite for her vanity, as her looks have to be forever tainted to save her life.
  • Take That, Critics!:
    • In a flashback chapter, we see the Grand Ruler as a teenager being constantly bullied by a unicorn with the name Dusk Shine. Said character is based on someone who posted on FiMchan and asked the author about various Plot Holes. Incidentally, Dusk Shine also happens to be the generally accepted name for a gender-flipped Twilight Sparkle, who doesn't exactly get the best treatment by the story.
    • The entirety of Chapter 5 of Starfleet Magic 3 is a prolonged attack on all his critics.
    • A very inexplicable one occurs in Human in United Equestria Act 1, where after Mykan Stevens asks if he is alive or dead, Dakari-King Mykan adds in an author's note saying "Sorry to disappoint you mockers and haters, oh wait, no I'm not".
    • Three characters who are antagonists, Ace Ray, Brass Bolt and Windy Bag, are made to bash Mykan's critics and get villainized for opposing Starfleet. In practice, only Windy Bag does something very evil, or tries to, in the end of Season VI. An entire group of them appears in Season X and just in case you couldn't tell, the acronym for their group name is "IDIOTS".
    • Right after the IDIOTS are defeated, a spy of Titan takes the role of the critics.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: To ridiculous degrees. No one ever attacks an opponent while they're calling their attack names, with the most extreme case being Titan just sitting there while Grand Ruler is reciting his overly long Uniforce chant, and villains will often take a mid-battle break just to expo-dump their entire backstory while the heroes do absolutely nothing.
  • Tears of Fear: When a fight breaks out between Ace Ray's mob and Starfleet, Skye cries fearfully.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • After months have gone by without an attack, Lightning wishes for some action. Cue the alarms going off.
    • Lightning assures Krysta they won't have to deal with Celestia anymore after encountering her for the first time in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Humans.
    • After being given an award from Cheerilee, Sweetie Belle states that she hopes nothing bad ever happens to her teacher. That evening, the Phantom of Magic assaults her.
  • That Reminds Me of a Song: With the exception of the "theme song", all of the songs are there just to be there. Most of the songs were removed in subsequent revisions, although that's more because Mykan believed that they were the reason the older versions were removed, as Fanfiction.net has a (rarely-enforced) rule against using copyrighted songs. As DeviantArt does not have the same limitations, that version retains the songs and includes links to YouTube videos of the songs he copied.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: Mykan sometimes gives good moments even to characters he hates and bashes a lot in his fics, though they are not so many. Even Cadance, the character he hates the most, gets to save Lightning Dawn, the most prominent Author Avatar, once.
  • Time Crash: The Dark King's defeat in season 4 causes one that erases the entire timeline he came from. Basically, the Stable Time Loop doesn't apply to time travel in this fic.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Lightning Dawn starts as The Load, being only useful for his finisher. He grows out of it and gets a Super Mode that allows him to fight the stronger foes.
    • The rest of Starfleet had no finishers and had to rely on Lightning's to win. Later they grew out of it.
    • Titan becomes stronger and a better schemer in each of his appearances.
  • Took a Level in Dumbass: Twilight and her friends. When meeting Rhymey during his visit in Equestria, they all mistake him for a crossdressing Fluttershy. Bonus points go to Rarity, who outright states she has no problem that "she" completely transformed herself with magic into a male. The remake tries to address this by making them believe that she is disguised, which manages to make them look even dumber.
  • Troll Fic: What many bronies think this story is. It isn't. He's been writing stuff like this since 2006, and he apparently sets a word quota for himself (every story MUST be equivalent to the average 30-minute episode, no exceptions). Then again, he might just be a ridiculously persistent troll...
    • Mykan briefly attempted to release non-Starfleet MLP fanfics that were likely intended to troll fans of the show by ending after the first chapter with no intention to continue. It didn't work.
    • However, it's since become one, if only partially, as the author has admitted to putting things in to "piss off [his] haters".
  • Two Girls to a Team: Krysta and Starla in the first one.
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: All installments so far have a secondary villain running an unrelated B-story alongside the A-story dealing with the season's Big Bad. The first three seasons had the two plots intertwining as the secondary and primary baddies interact, but the later ones have the secondary plots resolved around halfway to two-thirds into the season.
  • Undignified Death: The deaths of Human Lightning Dawn's parents: someone threw a beer can into their car while they were driving, and it scared them so badly that they lost control of the vehicle and ended rolling down a hill where the car exploded.
  • Un Evil Laugh: Practically all the villains, whether it's Rep-Stallion's "Heh, heh, ah, ah, ah, ah…!” or Titan's "Hmm, hmm, hmm!"
  • Unexplained Recovery:
    • Nightmare Moon, who has survived her demise at the end of Elements Of Harmony, and Titan, after being blown up halfway through the story.
    • Speaking of Titan, turns out he survived getting THROWN INTO THE SUN and becomes the Big Bad of The Movie. And then, Titan gets struck at his very soul and manages to still live.
  • Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Celesto and Celestia become parents to twins Castor and Leilani.
  • Utopia: The world of Unicornicopia. There's little to no crime, everybody gets along, poverty isn't a thing and the taxes are very low.
  • Vanity Is Feminine: Many female characters, mostly villains, are defined by how obsessed they are with their appearance. And every time, it is presented as a trait that greatly annoys those around them.
    • Rarity has been flanderized into only caring about her appearance and fashion, something that gets on the nerves of those around her.
    • Dementia completely loses it if her face gets so much as a scratch. After her first fight with Lightning, she spends a great amount of time fixing her appearance and admiring herself in the mirror, much to the annoyance of Mysterious and Rep-Stallion.
    • Serpentari, who became the way she is after she was bitten by a snake whose venom turned her into a monster, seeks out the Rainbow Stones so she can use their power to regain her beauty, and she sees it as just important as getting revenge on Titan.
    • Queen Sapphira, the Big Bad of Starfleet Humans, is the leader of the Crystallites, a species defined by their vanity. Her first fight with Starfleet has her complain about her face getting scratched. This trope is in even more effect compared to other examples because Sapphira's son, Flash Sentry, does not display any of the vain attitude his species is supposedly known for.
    • Princess Amandiva, a one-shot villain from Season IV, is incredibly obsessed with perfection to the point of turning down a suitor because he gave her a bouquet with a speck of dirt on a single petal. She also kidnaps Lightning and tries to force him to marry her because she finds him handsome.
    • Princess Phoebe, daughter of King Pinsar and Queen Ladybird from Season V, was noted to be fixated on looking pretty. This trait was supposed to be an indicator that she's a Spoiled Brat, as proven when she threw a hissy fit when one of her nails is broken. Mid-season, another villain, Jetar, explicitly told her to dump the mirrors and makeup if she was going to be a great warrior.
    • Affra, a one-shot villain from Season VI, was imprisoned for stealing energy from others in order to keep herself young. When she's defeated and all the youth she stole is returned to their rightful owners, she, of course, complains about how all she wanted was to be beautiful right before dying.
    • Princess Avyanna from Human in United Equestria is basically the same as Amandiva in regards to superficiality; just replace Lightning Dawn as the object of her affections with Mykan Stevens and make her more important to the plot.
    • En Shi is not quite as blatant as the characters listed before her but she still has moments such as when she teasingly asks Kara Shi if she looks pretty, getting jealous when he calls Zenia the most beautiful creature he's ever seen, and tries to force herself on Swift Star because she finds him physically appealing.
  • Villain Decay:
    • Discord, god of chaos and, in general, considered one of the best characters in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, is reduced to a brainwashed monster henchman of Big Bad Titan near the end of the story and loses his reality warping abilities. To add insult to injury, he gets Killed Off for Real by Celestia.
    • The sequel also does this to Queen Chrysalis, taking away what character and competence she had and reducing her to a generic Bad Boss who sits back and lets her minions do all the work while lacking any personality other than being evil (which is literally the only type of Big Bad that ever shows up in the series).
  • Villainous Badland, Heroic Arcadia: Unicornicopia, Equestria and later United Equestria are described as vibrant, bustling communities whereas the homes of the villains are often described as bleak areas devoid of most life.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Whenever her looks are tarnished, expect Dementia to flip out.
  • Villain Team-Up:
    • Nightmare Moon and Titan's henchmen team up to take over Equestria.
    • A smaller-scale example occurs in Episode 16 of My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III, where Raven and Harkin team up.
  • Violence is the Only Option: Another theme of this "fanfic": it is pointless to try to solve problems passively, they can only be solved through force.
  • Voodoo Shark:
    • The third episode of the second season used to say that Starfleet Ponies couldn't be possessed by Changelings, only for this to be contradicted eleven episodes later. Mykan would go on to rewrite it to say that it was difficult but not impossible for Changelings to possess Starfleet Ponies but couldn't possess Lightning and his friends at all without any explanation as to why those particular characters were immune.
    • When readers pointed out that Celestia could have just used magic to stop the thieves in Raven's backstory, Mykan edited in a bit that stated that they were outfitted with anti-magic and de-spelling charms that rendered even the princess's magic useless against them. The problem is, if a mere gang of thieves could get ahold of anti-magic and de-spelling charms that could work on even alicorn magic, then villains with bigger ambitions, such as conquerors and specieciders, would have them too, yet no villain in the series does. Furthermore, if the aforementioned charms were so common, ways would have been discovered that could deal with them; otherwise, all magic-users would have been easily toppled.
  • Wave-Motion Gun:
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • Inquerius and Cookie Dough (who was a core member of Starfleet in the first one) don`t play any role in the sequels. According to invokedWord of God, it's because he had no idea how to use them anymore. The same goes for Abra Kadabra, who is only there to make Goldwin come alive.
    • Another example is My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic II one-shot character Cerise, who, despite being a high-ranked Starfleet member and being only the 3rd character shown to be able to use the Uniforce, is only mentioned once in passing later.
  • What If?: Two small stories have been released so far regarding alternate events:
    • What if there was no Starfleet Magic around to save Equestria from Titan's trio and Nightmare Moon?
    • What if Lightning Dawn had saved Twilight from Raven?
  • White Man's Burden: The Space Ponies consider it their duty to protect and change the Equestrians' bodies and culture due to perceiving them as inferior and naive. In Season 8, they try to convince the Ainzulians to dismantle their army and replace it with Starfleet. In Season 9, they do the same to Vistula. In Starfleet Humans: Starpops, they save natives who have spears and are seen as angels by them.
  • Whole-Plot Reference:
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?:
    • In one chapter, Rep-Stallion is ready to deliver the killing blow to Lightning when Titan calls him back for no reason at all. If he had just given him five more seconds, the hero would have been dead. Titan later explains that this is because he wants Lightning alive so he can take his powers. Not exactly the smartest plan when Lightning is the only one who is able to defeat him and he's conquered worlds without the Uniforce before.
    • Happens again in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic III, Episode 11, where Phaedra is called away by Sombra when she is about to kill Royce and Pinkie Pie, though at least this time there's a reasonable explanation (She already got the Crystal Heart Sombra told her to get).
    • Literally every time any villain has the heroes on the ropes, they stand around and gloat for just long enough for the heroes to be saved out of the blue instead of, you know, just killing them already.
  • With Friends Like These...: You'd be hard-pressed to find reasons why the Starfleet ponies are friends with the Equestrian ponies considering all the times the Space Ponies spend berating the Equestrians and being amused at their expense.
  • A Wizard Did It: When not Narrating the Obvious, Mykan tends to explain away major plot holes and details with either "magic" or "belief".
  • The Worf Barrage: Pick any of the heroes' special attacks, including finishers. Any one will do, even the fabled Uniforce. You have to wonder why they even bother with most of their moveset when the majority of it exists solely to get brushed off by villains.
  • The Worf Effect: Most of Starfleet's power-ups, such as the Grand Celestial Ruler and the Enticorn, pretty much exist to defeat one Big Bad and then get its ass handed to it by the next.
  • Worf Had the Flu: The author states Celesto is much stronger than Celestia and would always beat her in a fair fight. In Season VI, where they do fight, Celestia weakens him with a magical field and thus evens the odds.
  • Writers Cannot Do Math: The Space Ponies' four-digit code format limits them to a population size smaller than most real-life cities due to the number of permutations (a little over 170,000), which is extremely low for a species whose army protects multiple planets. Confusingly, Awdr Pomption III doesn't have a code number and Mykan states this is because he doesn't live in the empire and chooses not to have one.
  • Writing Lines: In Season IV, a substitute teacher makes Apple Bloom write "I will not write dirty slogans about my teacher" a few hundred times on the blackboard after Diamond Tiara frames her for the act.
  • You Have to Believe Me!:
    • For much of the first half of Starfleet Humans, Lightning Dawn tries to convince the human counterparts of his friends that he's a magical pony from outer space on a mission to retrieve the Rainbow Rod. Naturally, they all think he's making it up.
    • Conversely, in Human in United Equestria, Mykan Stevens wants to warn Starfleet about a peril and they struggle to believe him, to his annoyance.
  • You Monster!:
    • Human!Luna calls Human!Celestia this for punching her and unsuccessfully attacking Lightning when he insulted her, stated it was a good thing her pet horse is dead, and scalded her face with hot coffee.
    • In one chapter, Fluttershy calls the Shis "monsters".

Alternative Title(s): My Little Unicorn

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