30 years before the events of the Day of Sunshine and Rainbows, and the Equestrian Wasteland is much the same as it's always been. Except it's not. Not in a mysterious section of the wasteland known only as the Zone, where only the craziest of ponies live and strange forces twist reality.

The ponies of the Zone are struggling to get by with their rapidly dwindling resources, a strange light has appeared in the sky that has not been seen within living memory and violently thrust into this new world is Buckler, a (now ex-) slaver with a talent for shielding. The Zone, and the Wasteland, will soon be changed forever, and there won't be any place in a world of corruption and evil for a pony whose calling is protecting people.