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Welcome, pony fans!
Coming to this page you must be full of curiosity and questions. What is PIHC? How is it different from the original show? How can I experience it more deeply?
Here we will answer your questions one by one, and help you get into this world — one as charming as the original, yet far more changeable and far more dangerous.
Questions and Answers
1. What is PIHC?
PIHC, short for The Pony in The High Castle (Chinese: “高堡奇驹”). It is a comprehensive worldbuilding series based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, drawing as well on Philip K. Dick's novel The Man in the High Castle, on elements of real history and on meme culture. Its premise is that in S09E25 the Triumvirate won the Final Battle and the Mane Six were defeated and imprisoned. The setting focuses on how each species survives and resists under the new order established by the Triumvirate of Cozy Glow, Queen Chrysalis and Tirek .
PIHC was originally created by Talirain and released as an Age of Civilizations II mod. The first related video was published on Bilibili on 29 November 2020. Over time the mod's content grew steadily and new creators kept joining, gradually forming a complete and enormous setting — while always staying faithful to the original show.
In 2023 PIHC released a Hearts of Iron IV version, and the main content has been developed on that game ever since. Besides the Hearts of Iron IV mod there are also interactive videos, a Victoria 3 mod, fan-art collections, fan fiction, fan animation, tabletop RPG scenarios and more. Content may differ slightly between formats.
The introductions on this page follow the Hearts of Iron IV mod version.
2. How exactly is this world different from the original show?
The most important change: the alliance of Cozy Glow, Tirek and Queen Chrysalis defeated the Mane Six in the final battle and set the fate of the pony world on an entirely new course.
Because of this, Equestria was torn apart in violent upheaval, and the nations and powers that had once gathered around Equestria began looking for new paths of their own. Worse, with conflict multiplying, the Windigos began to rampage and spread across the world again, threatening to swallow it whole. In the fierce transformation of pony society countless new ideas were born, much new technology was developed, and one conflict after another — up to full-scale war — was unleashed. Among them were wicked schemers bent on dragging countless lives back into the abyss, righteous folk who held to Harmony and kept up the fight, and other creatures who began exploring wholly unimagined new paths... Whatever the outcome, the pony world is heading in a direction utterly different from the original show.
Beyond that, everything from the Equestrian continent to the other powers — griffons, seaponies and the rest — is a reasonable extension built on the original show under the premises above. Where the original show said nothing or was unclear, we have made partly original additions, doing our best to make them fit naturally into the setting.
For the detailed timeline, see here
3. Has the story of Equestria Girls changed?
The story of Equestria Girls is essentially the same as the original. After fleeing, Sunset Shimmer was defeated by Twilight, realised her mistake, adapted to life there after a series of events, devoted herself to dealing with the small problems caused by magic leaking from Equestria, and lived happily with her friends — until that turning point in the story arrived. As the Windigos began to rampage again across Equestria, and with magic being abused in every way, more and more magic leaked into Canterlot City, until it changed the climate of the whole city and the surrounding area.
It must be noted that, since Equestria Girls was never a project Hasbro cared much about, its basic premise was incomplete from the moment it was created; to keep the story coherent we have had to fill in a certain amount of it. A typical plot hole: the Sirens were banished about a thousand years ago, while Sunset Shimmer came to Canterlot High when Twilight was young and met the human M5, who were already friends — yet in the final story they all become students able to attend the same school together. It simply does not add up!
PIHC therefore sets the passage of time in the human world as slower than in the pony world, and the rule governing the flow of time is tied to the state of the portals between the two worlds.
In addition, matters such as the M7's living and economic circumstances and the detailed design of superpowers have been altered and refined to a certain degree in the interests of rigour.
The rest of the supplementary story can be learned in-game.
4. Are the Mane Six all dead?
If you are a fan of the Mane Six, we can only regretfully tell you: yes, in PIHC the Mane Six are doomed to die. To consolidate her rule, Cozy Glow took the lives of the pony Mane Six.
But the Mane Six's friends — Starlight Glimmer, Sunset Shimmer and others — will carry on their ideas and strive to fulfil the wishes they left unfinished. In addition, the human Mane Six were unaffected and are still alive and well.
(...any ponies out there? ...signal... unstable. ...This is Princess Twilight Sparkle! ...Assemble at once... still alive... Equestria will never fall!)
5. Is PIHC grimdark?
That depends on how you define grimdark.
Measured against the well-known “Six Dark Fanfics”, PIHC clearly does not go that far. Although this world is relatively harsher, we do our best to avoid graphic depictions of death and injury, and we do not accept any unreasonable abuse, horror or other unhinged extremist thinking. But measured against the original show's fairy-tale world, we must admit that PIHC may be too cruel to the ponies. All in all, PIHC can be seen as “placing the original characters and ideas in a more extreme environment”.
6. What is Hearts of Iron IV?
Hearts of Iron IV is a famous Second World War simulation game developed by the Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive. It is part of the Hearts of Iron series. The game is set around the Second World War, during the anti-fascist war; the player can choose any country or regime in the world at the time, conduct domestic and foreign policy, and take part in the epic Second World War. More information about the game is available here.
Hearts of Iron IV is known for its detailed and rich Second World War simulation systems and has a highly active modding community; that is why PIHC was developed on this game. We have made full use of the game's rich systems and extensibility to overhaul it in every respect, in order to present a vivid Equestrian world.
In addition, Hearts of Iron IV has two other pony-based mods: 马国戡乱史 and 友谊是谎言. PIHC frequently exchanges and cooperates with them.
7. I don't have Hearts of Iron IV, but I still want to learn about the setting.
If you want to play the Hearts of Iron IV version of PIHC, you can buy the game on Steam or from Paradox's own store. Here we strongly recommend buying on Steam, so that you can install and play PIHC directly from Steam's Workshop.
Steam purchase link for Hearts of Iron IV
After buying the game on Steam, go to PIHC's Workshop page and click Subscribe to install and play PIHC. For a walkthrough, see this video.
Note that Hearts of Iron IV cannot be bought directly in some countries and regions; if you run into that problem, see this video.
If for whatever reason you cannot buy or play PIHC, you can:
Follow Talirain's Bilibili space, where PIHC news is posted continuously.
Follow 青杨桦钙's Bilibili space; we will be releasing a PIHC interactive video series in future.
Join our QQ group: 934449651 — take part in our discussions and download the old Age of Civilizations II version.
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/VzUUMF9af5