Relatively minor spoilers: A leaked synopsis for the season 5 finale says that the Mane 6 will be chasing Starlight through time. Given they've already played with time travel, how do you think this will be played differently? I'm thinking: Starlight tricks an alicorn into casting it, they do it Quantum leap style, or they give no explanation at all for why this works differently. Personally, I hope Doctor Whooves is involved somehow.
I had guessed time-travel was gonna be involved.
With all the bits of Glimmer observing Twilight and her friends, it’s my personal guess that she’s been studying Twilight’s life or something.
I think the main conflict will be that Glimmer goes back in time to somehow takes Twilight’s position as the Alicorn of Friendship, due to some subversion of the time line. In-spite of this, Glimmer will still be corrupt and subtly enforcing her will on Equestria. Hell, she might even do the “Take-thier-marks-and-their-talents-away” thing to all of Equestria.
Twilight, still possessing her cutiemark, but no longer an alicorn would have to somehow combat Glimmer and her newfound Alicorn power. She might be outmatched, and she might even be an effective fugitive in this distorted time-line.
Twilight will do some time-traveling as well I’m sure, and shenanigans will be involved of course, as they bounce around to different times. And I’m fairly confident that they’ll accidentally stumble upon Glimmer’s past and we’ll learn why she hates cutiemarks and/or what the source of her power-complex is. This leads to a new understanding that enables Twilight to defeat Glimmer and fix the whole situation and time line.
I can’t say with confidence exactly how these events will come about. And whether or not the Mane 6 will be involved, or unwitting pawns, seems up in the air to me. I could see them being Glimmer’s “friends”, due to the corrupted timeline; but confused and unsure about it, as Glimmer is still of course a jerk.
But this is my general hypothesis. I’m sure I’m not 100% accurate or even close. But I do wonder if I’ve hit on any possible ideas. Past experience has taught me that no matter ideas I or the rest of the fandom think will happen, what actually does happens is usually something few, if any, people expected. Which is possibly a good thing, actually.
