Time travel

Time travel is the theoretical concept of moving someone or something between different points in time, such as the past or the future. A popular story element in science fiction, time travel is occasionally featured and mentioned in My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and its related materials.
==Development==
On Twitter in early January 2013, Tim Stuby used the hashtag "#timetravelerose" regarding an averted Apple Family Reunion animation error of Apple Rose incidentally appearing young during Raise This Barn.
==Depiction in the series==
===Season two===
 In The Return of Harmony Part 2, Discord shows Twilight Sparkle a flashback to The Return of Harmony Part 1.
In It's About Time, Twilight is visited by herself from one week in the future. This future Twilight—having a messy mane and a scar on her face and wearing a tattered black suit, head bandage, and eyepatch—tries to warn her past self about something related to "next Tuesday morning", but she vanishes before she can deliver her message.
Believing that her future self was trying to warn her about an upcoming catastrophic event, Twilight spends the next week trying to prevent it. Over the course of the week, Twilight slowly takes on her future self's appearance due to a series of accidents. Unable to stop the "disaster" from happening, Twilight decides to stop time using a scroll in the Canterlot Archives, but she fails to find the scroll before Tuesday morning.
When no disaster occurs, Twilight realizes that she has been worrying over nothing. Using a spell to briefly travel back in time, Twilight tries to warn her past self not to worry about a disaster that isn't going to happen. However, she is pulled back to the future before she can deliver her message, effectively ensuring that the events she was trying to prevent will occur.
===Season four===
 In Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 1 and Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 2, Twilight uses a potion given to her by Zecora to project her consciousness back in time and experience visions of the distant past. In her visions, Twilight witnesses the banishment of Nightmare Moon, Discord's first defeat, and Princess Celestia and Luna discovering the Elements of Harmony in the Tree of Harmony.
In For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils, Princess Luna shows Sweetie Belle visions of the past, present, and future through her dreams. In Equestria Games, after embarrassing himself throughout the Games, Spike asks Twilight if she could "turn back time" so he can get a do-over on the opening ceremony.
===Season five===
In Slice of Life, when Derpy accidentally messes up the invitations for Cranky Doodle Donkey and Matilda's wedding, she expresses a desire to "go back in time and fix all this." The science and mathematics-obsessed Dr. Hooves hears this and says he had been working on a theory of "making time come forward."
 In What About Discord?, Twilight misses out on spending a bonding three-day weekend with her friends. Rarity and Pinkie Pie briefly suggest time travel in order to relive the weekend's events, but Twilight says, "Time travel is not something to be messed with."
In The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 1 and The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2, Starlight Glimmer uses a modified version of Star Swirl the Bearded's time spell to travel back in time to when Rainbow Dash performed her first sonic rainboom. As a result of Starlight's actions in the past, Twilight and Spike experience several alternate futures in which one of the past villains rules or destroys Equestria. Starlight also takes Twilight and Spike further back to show how her friendship with Sunburst ended.
===Season six===
In The Crystalling - Part 1, The Crystalling - Part 2, and Spice Up Your Life, the events of The Cutie Re-Mark are mentioned.
In A Hearth's Warming Tail, Snowfall Frost is taken into the past by the Spirit of Hearth's Warming Past and later shown the future by the Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet to Come.
===Season seven===
In All Bottled Up, Trixie says to Twilight, "If anything breaks, Starlight will just go back in time and fix it!"
In It Isn't the Mane Thing About You, Zecora tells Rarity that the only way to regain her mane immediately is to travel back in time, but Twilight and Starlight, both remembering the events of The Cutie Re-Mark, assure them that time travel is not ideal.
In Shadow Play - Part 1 and Shadow Play - Part 2, the events of The Cutie Re-Mark are mentioned.
===Season nine===
In A Horse Shoe-In, Dr. Hooves takes the School of Friendship students on a field trip to his laboratory. He claims to have been experimenting in time travel, and shows off a "temporal transportation device", which turns out to be a chair (as he states that everycreature is always traveling through time).
===Pony Life===
In Time After Time Capsule, the Mane Six are thrown through time by the enchanted time capsule they used to store their treasured items. In The Great Cowgirl Hat Robbery, Applejack and Rarity end up in a western town in Equestria's past. In Planet of the Apps, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy arrive in a future Equestria populated by "mecha ponies". In Back to the Present, the Mane Six are sent back to the present after recovering their items (and experiencing a brief stopover in the Wild Side).
==Depiction in Equestria Girls==
===Equestria Girls: Friendship Games===
In the pre-credits scene of My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Friendship Games, Twilight goes to Canterlot High School and relates the events of The Cutie Re-Mark to her human friends, saying she was caught in a "time travel loop".
===Equestria Girls: Sunset's Backstage Pass===
==Other depictions==
My Little Pony: The Manga - A Day in the Life of Equestria Vol. 1; My Little Pony: The Manga - A Day in the Life of Equestria Vol. 2; My Little Pony: The Manga - A Day in the Life of Equestria Vol. 3.
===IDW comics===
In , Discord arrives to his monthly hangout session with Fluttershy a week early as a result of flying too fast and going back in time. When Fluttershy goes on a nature observation hike with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Discord livens up the outing by taking the ponies on a journey through time. They travel to the lost civilization of Anugypt, the distant future, and the prehistoric era.
On page 14, Pinkie Pie mentions that Ponyville's clock tower "at one time was mysteriously stopped by two time travelers visiting Ponyville", which Twilight Sparkle states is historically untrue.
On page 1, the events of It's About Time are alluded to.
On page 19, Rarity quotes herself as having said, "Darling, feathers? What year did you time travel from?"
On page 19, Somnambula mentions time travel.
In My Little Pony: IDW 20/20, the adult Mane 6 are transported back in time, and encounter their younger selves immediately after they have received their cutie marks. This occurs after Rainbow Dash performs a sonic rainboom during a lightning storm, during which the Mane 6 are all wearing their respective Elements of Harmony.
On cover RI-B, Zipp Storm's evidence board has a "Time travel???꒾" note.
===Storybooks===
On pages 64-65 of The Journal of the Two Sisters, Princess Celestia writes about Star Swirl the Bearded's time travel spell and that he "desperately wants to travel through space and time with no limitations." On page 91, Celestia writes, "Whenever Star Swirl travels in time, he is very careful not to tell [Celestia and Luna] anything about [their] future."
In the Equestria Girls chapter books Friendship Games and Twilight's Sparkly Sleepover Surprise, the events of The Cutie Re-Mark are alluded to as in film.
In Ponyville Mysteries: Journey to the Livewood, Auntie Eclipse's time pocket can rewind time by sixty seconds. The Cutie Mark Crusaders later use it to travel back in time and leave clues for their past selves on how to navigate the Livewood.
In the Equestria Girls: Make Your Own Magic chapter book Starswirl Do-Over, Sunset Shimmer "is trapped in a time loop" as in digital content.
===Magazines===
In a Signature My Little Pony magazine issue 95 comic.
===Software===
====My Little Pony (mobile game)====
In Gameloft's mobile game, several stories revolve around the concept of time travel. Lyra and Bon Bon Save Hearth's Warming features Lyra and Bon Bon dealing with Windigos brought forward through time by Dr. Hooves' malfunctioning time machine, assisted by the similarly time-displaced Rockhoof, Flash Magnus, and other ponies from the same time period. In Timeless Beauty, another malfunction brings several past residents from Mistmane's village to present day Ponyville. Somnambula Springtime and Challenge of the Sphinx revolve around yet another malfunction, this one bringing ancient residents of Somnambula forward in time. In Another Slice of Life, the latest malfunction causes the inhabitants of Ponyville to relive the events of Slice of Life, with only Dr. Hooves, Lyra, and Bon Bon being aware of the time loop. In The Crowning Achievement, Cutie Mark Deuxsaders, Prank to the Future, and Prank to the Future Part Two, and She's All Yak, Lyra and Bon Bon are forced to contend with the arrival of ponies and other creatures from the future seen in The Last Problem. The latter storyline also features the future Young Six attempting to insure that the events of the She's All Yak episode play out as they originally did after discovering that their past has somehow been altered.
"Starlight you're the only one who knows how your time machine works!!"
===Commercials===
In the Hot Topic promotional video Hot Minute with Twilight Sparkle, one of Twilight's interview questions is "IF YOU COULD TIME TRAVEL". Twilight answers, "I would love to go back and see Princess Celestia and Luna growing up together as young fillies."
==Merchandise==
Pages 174-175 of the My Little Pony guidebook The Elements of Harmony are about the season two episode It's About Time.
In Enterplay's trading cards, series 1 card #54 "You're not scientifically possible!", series 2 card #56 Starswirl's Time Travel Spell, and series 3 card #E46 It's About Time also allude to It's About Time. In the Enterplay collectible card game's sets, Equestrian Odysseys cards #52 C and #Pƒ9 of Dr. Hooves both allude to the season five episode Slice of Life, and Sands of Time card #1 F of Dr. Hooves attributes to Roseluck and also lists the respective quotes "If you could go to any time or place in history, where would you want to go?" and "When. WHEN would I want to go."
The fan-designed WeLoveFine T-shirt "Back from the past" features Twilight Sparkle as she appears from the future in It's About Time.
==References==
Category:Society