I'm descending into geeky hell.

I'm big on details. Details are important, especially when it comes to a fictional universe. When I started work on Transformers: Armada (Revisited), I wrote up character profiles, technological details, a general overview of how things started, and a timeline of events. All of those things have seen changes as time went on, but in general, I had a skeleton to work from.

Now that I'm starting serious work on the Quiververse, I'm thinking of doing the same. Trouble is, while Friendship is Magic has granted me a lot of stuff to work with, the whole picture fails to make me happy.

From here on, I'm going to divide the 'fiction into three areas - primary canon (the show), secondary canon (printed materials like the IDW comics, the reference books and the chapter books), and tertiary canon (statements from the production team). Primary is absolute, secondary is fine as long as it doesn't contradict primary, tertiary as long as it doesn't contradict the rest. I'll end it with my own headcanon.

First, the firm events established in primary canon, in chronological order - Equestria is founded over a thousand years before the series starts (as recounted in "Hearth's Warming Eve"). Starswirl the Bearded is active at this time. Somewhere afterwards, Celestia and Luna come to rule Equestria, and face several threats - King Sombra, Tirek and Discord being confirmed - and retrieve the Elements of Harmony from the Tree of Harmony in order to defeat the latter (as recounted in Princess Twilight Sparkle). Might've used 'em on the former too, but we don't know for certain, and the footage didn't show 'em in use. Somewhere in this time, the Sirens are active in Equestria and are banished. Finally, we get to the next firm event - Princess Luna becoming Nightmare Moon (how isn't relevant, just that she did). The prophecy from the premiere episodes clearly stated that "on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape", and she escaped on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration, so basic logic? Luna fell a thousand years before the series started. Somewhere after that, Sweet Apple Acres is founded, with Ponyville soon following ("Family Appreciation Day") - the town's described as centuries old in "Winter Wrap-Up", so two hundred years minimum (which means Granny Smith's got a lot of mileage on her - go Granny!). And between Ponyville's founding and the start of the series, the Mane Six, Spike...well, pretty much everyone in the overall cast save Celestia, Luna and all the villains except maybe Chrysalis is born. The same day that Spike is born (or shortly thereafter), the Mane Six earn their cutie marks. Exact ages aren't given, but Fluttershy claims that she's a year older than Pinkie Pie in "Griffon the Brush Off". And at least one year has gone by since the start of the series and the start of Season Four, as two events from early in the start of Season Four - the Summer Sun Celebration and the start of Applebucking Season - also occurred near the start of the show.

And that ignores Equestria Girls - the first film stated that the portal opens "every thirty moons", and its events take place over the course of three days - Principal Celestia announces "Happy Thursday" over the school's intercom the morning after Twilight's first night there, the Fall Formal's stated to take place on a Friday night, so three days. Sunset Shimmer went there, bare minimum, thirty moons before the events of the film. As far as Equestria's concerned, it's smack dab between Season Three's ending and Season Four starting, because Twilight still has her Element of Harmony. "Rainbow Rocks" seems to take place a reasonable amount of time later, given Twilight's got her castle by the time it takes place, but the weather doesn't appear much different from what we saw in the first film around Canterlot High. This, of course, assumes an equal amount of time has passed between the two worlds.

Onto the secondary stuff. "The Journal of the Two Sisters" states that Celestia and Luna were appointed to rule Equestria following its founding, built the Castle of the Two Sisters in the Everfree Forest after discovering the Tree of Harmony, and eventually came to take over the task of raising and setting the sun and moon. The Crystal Empire is also stated as being part of Equestria, rather than a separate nation. So far, no conflicts with canon. The very first chapter book, "Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell", establishes that Cadance was born a pegasus, and later ascended to alicorn status. Everything else in that book conflicts with canon, so far as I know, but I accept this part without question. The "Neigh Anything" two-parter establishes that Cadance and Shining Armor knew one another in school, following Cadance's adoption into the royal family, while "The Fall of Sunset Shimmer" establishes that the two were dating during the time Sunset was Celestia's student, before her departure from Equestria. Said story also shows Sunset, in comparison to Twilight, to be older, possibly full-grown, and when she passes through the portal, it's spring in the human world. The "Reflections" arc, meanwhile, shows Starswirl as still being active prior to Luna's fall from grace, which leaves us a very wide time frame for when the Sirens were banished. Feel free to bring up more points, faithful readers!

Tertiary? Meghan McCarthy said that "Rainbow Rocks" takes place six moons after the events of the first "Equestria Girls" film.

And now we get to my headcanon. I think that the Sirens were banished after Luna's fall from grace, and that Starswirl banished them using the same mirror portal that Sunset later used to travel to the human world. I'm convinced that the events of the first three seasons of the show, leading up to "Equestria Girls", all took place within the span of nine months, from the Summer Solstice to roughly the time of the Vernal (Spring) Equinox. The human world, meanwhile, is season-flipped in comparison to Equestria - one place has spring, the other has fall. As for 'thirty moons', I'm going to assume that a 'moon' in this case is the classic definition in terms of a period of time - the span between one full moon and another, or about twenty-eight days (roughly a month). That, coupled with weather conditions, would put "Rainbow Rocks" in the spring.

With me so far?

Here's where things get tricky - ages. Let's assume, among the Mane Six, that Fluttershy is the oldest, Pinkie's the youngest, and they were all born within a year of one another. Sunset's older, but not by much. Rainbow Dash had a birthday party in "Pinkie Pride", but her exact age wasn't mentioned - we saw a cake with twenty-one candles, yes, but were those candles all for years in age, or did some of them cover her age and some the time spent in Ponyville? Another wrinkle - in "Apple Family Reunion", we're told that there hadn't been such a thing for a hundred moons - same math as above with my headcanon, that means that the Apples hadn't had a reunion (ignoring the gathering for the Summer Sun Celebration as that was probably an emergency rather than a proper family get-together) for a little over eight years. This sorta tracks with one of the flashbacks from that episode, where we see a baby Applejack, still in diapers but old enough to speak in complete sentences. Given the Cake Twins were able to legibly say "Pinkie" and "Pie" after a month, this may mean that Applejack was less than a year old at that point, and that ponies mature fairly quickly. That actually tracks with real life horses - they have an average lifespan of about twenty-five to thirty years. Granny Smith being past two hundred, however...eh, magic and healthy living.

Which leads me to a scary thought - our little ponies are pretty young, maybe nine or ten at the oldest, and Spike's probably younger than the CMC (Sweetiebelle is at least five, according to "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils"), but by Equestrian standards, the Mane Six are considered mature adults. And Sunset Shimmer's less than three years older than they are.

Needless to say, I think Human!Pinkie might end up telling her in a future 'fic, "Holey moley you're younger than you look!"

Thoughts? Comments? Arguments to the contrary?