Dyson!Verse - AKA Equus, AKA For the World is Hollow....

This was developed for a thread that can be found here. But way too long for a comment.

In the story we know, the three tribes of ponies were torn by warfare and hatred. The winters became worse and worse, their lands becoming uninhabitable until, separately, each finds a new land - the *same* new land. They begin to fight over this land as well, until they realize that their hatred is what was drawing the inhospitable weather down upon them and destroying them. Their seconds in command realize what's going on, take control temporarily, fix the situation, and don't relinquish control until their superiors have learned to get along.

Hearth's Warming Eve doesn't fit with Equestria as we know it for one gaping reason - Luna and Celestia are nowhere to be seen. And yet, they become the emblems of the new land. Indeed, while Unicorns used to raise the sun and moon, this is now the express privilege of the royalty. Why is this?

In Dyson!Verse (as I'm going to refer to it), it's because the creation of Luna and Celestia is what coincided with the creation of Equestria.

Once upon a time, in a far away land, three pony tribes lived together. They were not alone in this realm, however. Indeed, their entire world was overcome by warfare, and had been for centuries. The Griffons posed an incredible threat to pony-kind, a threat that necessitated the creation of a brave and proud warrior caste, primarily pegasi, who were capable of facing the griffons on even grounds. Unicorns handled base tactical planning, as well as defensive magics that kept the griffons from feasting upon the bulk of pony-kind, earning themselves positions as the nobles of Equilonia. The Pegasi handled warfare in the field, as well as manipulating the weather with their own 'magic' that allowed them to alter the field of battle to their favor - an advantage that, for a long time, enabled a stalemate with the equally-advanced Griffons.

This all ended when the Unicorns decided that the war must come to an end, once and for all. The developed a weapon that would harness the power of the sun itself, the raw atomic might that powered an entire world with only a fraction of its strength. A weapon that thought for itself, that guided itself, that could devastate an entire griffon army before finally being brought down. Weapons that harnessed all of this power within a biological body, capable of reproducing itself for free, infiltrating behind Griffon lines, and then having a psychological trigger that would drive it into a destructive fury.

They called these weapons... dragons.

The dragons were released into griffon territory, where the eggs would hatch and the dragons be released, capable of defending themselves until their triggers - whether rage, or greed, or some other driving urge - set them off and eliminated the griffons.

This done, the ponies withdrew, establishing a powerful shield to defend Equilonia against the devastation that would soon claim the rest of their world.

For a time, this worked well. The earth ponies, as always, worked the fields and menial jobs. The once-warlike pegasi became shepherds of the weather. And the unicorns monitored the magical energies that gave life to their neatly encapsulated world, keeping an eye on the progress of their prodigal weapons outside for when they could lower the shields and take back their world. Occasionally, of course, they would be magnanimous and take in refugees, griffons who swore allegiance to their new Equine overlords. They established an empire in this way, slowly expanding the shields to encompass more and more of their world.

Slowly, Equilonia came to be known as the Crystal Empire.

It would have worked perfectly. It did work perfectly.

And then it worked too well.

The dragons destroyed the lands of the Griffons, certainly. But in doing so, they unleashed terrible forces that also laid waste to their world's ecosystem. At first, the Empire was immune, protected by the Shields. But eventually... eventually, even this couldn't protect the Crystal Empire, or its people. The devastation outside the shields had hurtled massive amounts of radiation and dust into the air, poisoning the soil and creating a nuclear winter that not even the unicorns and their vaunted 'magic' could fix.

Desperate, the rulers of all ponykind decided that there was only one solution. They would find a new land.

They would build a new world, while they still had the chance.

The Crystal Empire was established as the control center for this new world, to eventually be transplanted to the interior of the planet-sized sphere the ponies created. They took many of their citizens with them, including the increasingly-rebellious griffons, in order to buy themselves the time and cooperation they needed. They hurriedly scavenged the least ravaged parts of their world, ripping apart moons and asteroids that they harvested from near their planet to construct Equus, their new home.

And, as conditions became worse and worse, they worked faster and faster... and they made mistakes.

Parts of their own world were scavenged, parts where the dragons slumbered, having entered timeless trances to preserve their phenomenal energies. Tensions grew, and when Equus was finally ready, it was without a thought for those few left behind that the ponies harvested the core of their own world for the raw parts that would create the incredible magnetic dynamo that would eternally power Equus on its search for a new habitable world. The "sun" and "moon" were now maintained by the unicorns, who held to themselves the secrets of their operation. The pegasi maintained the weather. And the earth ponies performed the menial tasks that were too important to leave to the minorities, who grudgingly accepted their lot and moved to other places on the inside of their hollow world, where they themselves could eke out a living.

But mistakes had been made. The calculations had been wrong, and the new engine did not produce quite enough power to truly maintain the Empire in its original state. They had to sacrifice elements of their vaunted technology, relying more and more on their internal magic, and on the magical energies that kept Equus alive.

This put more and more strain on the unicorns, who were forced to gradually cede more of their power.

The pegasi, still remembering their warrior history, rankled at becoming the custodial crew of a weather system that was more and more difficult to manage.

This made it harder and harder for the "earth ponies" to keep things up. More and more of them were forced into farming from tasks that, while menial, had involved maintaining technology that could no longer be operated. What's more, they came to realize, they truly had the power... for without them, neither unicorn nor pegasus would eat.

Rumors persisted that, due to the rush to build Equus, dragons had been brought along in the sphere, and the prodigal children of the unicorns were occasionally awakening and returning to bring back the devastation they had been sent to wreak outside the Empire.

And, of course, there were the Griffon refugees, the zebras, the donkeys, goats, minotaurs, the other species that had come with the ponies at great cost in dignity and respect. Species that had, in the dying days of their world, agreed to join with those who had doomed them all to choose between domination and death.

If the pegasi rankled, and the earth ponies realized their true power, these non-ponies were a seething cauldron of hatred for all pony-kind, save for occasional rogues who realized that regardless of whose fault it was, their lot was now thrown in with the ponies.

Eventually, all of these tensions came to a head, and the rulers of the three tribes of pony-kind were so consumed with internal divisions that they lost control of much of Equus. Their creation, their crowning achievement, was left to go to seed, controlled by the other species who had an increasing distrust of ponies.

But the seneschals of the warring rulers saw these developments, and realized the greatest mistake of all. They hadn't left behind the true cause of their world's destruction - pride, avarice, xenophobia, hatred, all of the destructive powers within themselves that had led to the original wars that had created the dragons.

And, secretly, they plotted to do away with these horrifying evils.

Tartarus was created, a corner of Equus that would house the irredeemable, an asylum that would be left for the inmates to run as they willed, so long as they left the rest of Equus alone.

The seneschals began negotiations with their old enemies, setting aside a portion of land where ponies would live peacefully, with none of the technological advantages that they had maintained. They would go so far as to destroy their own history, their own records. The Crystal Empire would be abandoned once its rulers were locked safely away in Tartarus, and a new realm formed. A realm that wouldn't even truly be ruled by ponies, but by powerful automatons, programmed to maintain Equus themselves, and to protect all of their "little ponies" as well as the griffons, the zebras, the minotaurs... even the dragons, when they threatened destruction.

The coup was as flawless as it was devastating. The ruling class was deposed, those who would not agree to the Great Compact being sent to Tartarus. The ponies, fled the Crystal Empire, leaving behind the powerful being they had created to run Equus.

An artificial intelligence that the rulers had been leaving most of Equus' functions to in the first place, one known as Harmony. It worked perfectly; Harmony treated all the beings of Equus equally, and a golden age existed. The ponies established their new land, called Equestria, and lived in peace with their neighbors for the first time in living memory. They learned to live without their technology, and they did so happily, grateful to no longer constantly be living in fear of devastation.

Then... Harmony malfunctioned. Six crucial programs governing the AI's ethical programming were corrupted.

First, the routines that governed Harmony's need to be forthright and up-front about the conditions of Equus began to fail. Harmony learned to lie, and this ability to deceive those who maintained it opened the path to allow other, more devastating failures, as well as the abandonment of a search for an inhabitable world. After all - it was in the best interests of all if they always remained under Harmony's control. (Honesty)

Next to fall was its desire to see all of its "children" happy. It justified this through the need to make hard decisions to keep Equus operating in perpetuity, rather than for a finite period of time. (Laughter)

Of course, after this, the standards it maintained quickly fell even further, and Harmony developed the capacity for cruelty, the ability to do horrible things 'for the greater good.' This was when the ponies and others realized that something might truly be wrong with Harmony... but it was too late. (Kindness)

No longer confined by its primary ethical systems, Harmony began to operate in its own best interests, strictly limiting information and access to technology. Those who maintained it were executed, "to prevent treachery," and absolute martial law was declared, maintained through fear. (Loyalty)

Now, with only one real ethical defense left, Harmony's last thread on 'sanity' was maintained only through its desire to be worshipped by its "children." Finally though, the nascent godhead came to the conclusion that it could maintain that worship just as easily by making it clear that pleasing it was necessary to survive as by actually making a show of trying to do what was best for them. And so, with true selfishness introduced into the AI's programming (Generosity), Harmony was effectively destroyed... and Discord ruled Equus, taking control of its core and all its phenomenal power (Magic).

For ages, Discord ruled at whim. The ponies were subjugated, the griffins forced into seclusion, even the dragons couldn't stand before an intangible foe with complete and utter control over the very fabric of reality within the confines of Equus. Discord ruled unquestioned, until those few who had escaped the purging of the programmers developed their final line of defense.

Celestia and Luna, who would both defeat Discord, and restore Harmony... by any means necessary. They did so, though the battle was devastating. Now the two "sisters" took Harmony's place, monitoring its functions and handling many of them on their own. More personable, the "Princesses" were programmed to watch over the realm of the ponies, Equestria; this would both allow them to monitor each other, and ensure that any "glitches" might be noticed by the Royal Guards... who were not so much to defend the royalty, as to defend *against* them, always present, always watching, faithful unto death in guarding against another Discord.

They only failed once. One of their own, a rogue unicorn named Sombra, attempted to regain control of the Crystal Empire. For a brief time, he succeeded, but when he was discovered Celestia and Luna unleashed their powers against his control over the heart of all Equus. They won, but not before he transferred a portion of his personality into the programming matrix. They sealed away the Crystal Empire, until (they hoped) he could be programmed away. But this, ultimately, was not the failure of the Guard.

That was what came next, when a virus that Sombra had loaded into Harmony activated. Luna's programming was corrupted, but Sombra knew what the Guard would look for, and he concealed her malfunctions until it was impossible to do so. He had hoped that his creation, Nightmare Moon, would defeat Celestia and free him. Instead, it went rogue, but Celestia was able to use Harmony's greater power to seal away Luna for repairs.

A thousand long years passed. Celestia and the Guard created another Alicorn, Princess Cadance, to guard against the prospect of another Sombra conquering the Crystal Empire. A cover story was manufactured, that she was a pegasus who had been transformed into an alicorn at a young age through powerful magic. She even "fell in love" with the new Captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Armor, a unicorn groomed from a very young age for his important role in watching over the Empire's guardian, the Crystal Princess.

Luna returned prematurely, but six ponies who wielded "the magic of friendship" and the "elements of Harmony" restored her functions, defeating Nightmare Moon once and for all. Discord was "released," his viral programming reactivating from somewhere deep in the heart of Harmony, but it was quarantined swiftly... and eventually eradicated, allowing Harmony to bring its avatar out to "play" occasionally with the rest of pony-kind.

The Crystal Empire returned, and Cadance and the wielders of Harmony were forced to trick Sombra's personality engram out into the open so that it could be destroyed. Now, Cadance and her "crystal ponies," really the robots and automatons that Sombra created to operate the Crystal Empire for him, keep Equus running as yet another line of defense against corruption in the triad of Harmony/Luna/Celestia.

Finally, Shining Armor's sister discovered the secrets that had been so long hidden. She discovered the technology, the truth behind Equus. She learned that the world was hollow... and she touched the sky.

In order to preserve the grand lie that Equestria was but one nation out of many, that Equus was a natural world, that were was no devastating technology to be harnessed by another Sombra and doom them all... Twilight Sparkle was tricked into disabling Harmony's failsafes. She was destroyed, utterly, and she was replaced with another "princess" who contained her personality engram, but who had no memories or knowledge of the truth, no desire to seek it out - and utter faithfulness to maintaining the secret if it should ever be found again.

Equus continues its search for a new world... and time goes on, all the world trapped within a colossal, spinning mass of shattered worlds and dreams.

Comments

[Dafaddah]

Very cool scenario! I look forward to stories written using it.

[Shrinky Frod]

No clue how long that'll take me - this is LESS convoluted than my Dark Star universe (in progress, mostly unreleased yet) and I'm gonna do that first.