Talk:Earth ponies/@comment-10390252-20140625221547

What special magic do the Earth Ponies have?

My guess (and I'm pretty sure this is supportable from the show) is that Earth Ponies have one of the following pairs of natural talents: Geokinesis & geoempathy or botanokinesis & botanoempathy.

Maud is an example of one of the rock-sensitive rock-shapers whilst Applejack is a plant-sensitive and plant-shaper. Generally, these talents run in families. For this reason, Apples have been agronomists back for generations and Pinkie and Maud come from a long line of miners and masons.

Sometimes, and this is very rare, these talents comes in a subtler and more flexible form where a pony can shape their environment to their liking at a molecular level, being able to shape minerals and/or plant materials into any form they desire. These are often known as Shapers; Pinkie Pie is an extreme high-end example of a pony with the Shaper talent. Her power level is so great that she can shape complex machinery and structures and even warp the fabric of space-time to a certain extent. Pinkie is about as powerful as an Earth Pony can get, much as Rainbow Dash is the absolute paragon of Pegasi magic and pre-ascension Twilight Sparkle was of unicorn magic.

There is some indication that Applebloom has inherited the Apple family's botanoempathic talent, although its focus appears to be towards the Shaper disciplines. Her ability seems to lie in identifying required materials and combining them into complex end products, such as intuitively identifying herbs and other ingredients required for potions.