They're not unicorns. Simply put,ponies have magic.Unicorn magic is an intellectual, arcane, abstracted process that exerts directed precision force or results in specific finely tuned effects.Earth Pony magic is a deep in the gut, divine, intuitive process that interacts with raw probability--natural mechanisms in flora and fauna can either be empowered to grow and progress, or be suppressed to delay interactions or even outright halt. If this sounds vague or easy to abuse--That's because IT IS! EARTH PONIES ARE BETTER AT EVERYTHING @_@ They built Manehattan!Pegasus magic roars passionately straight out of their hearts, linked directly to their 'force of presence', and it manifests asdirected disturbances in causal systems that almosthappen to align with their will. They can do things such as excite electrical discharges, spontaneously liberate potential kinetic energy from uniform masses of particles causing them to move (like clouds, or the very air itself), and ever sodestabilize gravitational fields. This is furthermore why they even CAN do something like 'lose control' of a tornado./headcanonbut seriously, look there, it's an earth pony accelerating the growth of a plant and a pegasus condensing a sizeable electric charge while coming to no harm. I'm especially pleased thathad an idea about this similar to what I always believed!