Upheavology · 2:08am Dec 1st, 2016
I've received a few requests for information on the world of Upheaval as a setting rather than narrative. I've tried once with World Notes, but I think it's a difficult to use rambling chunk of info. I'll be posting a series of blog posts over time to try to worldbuild something useful for those who are interested.
For the first entry, specific numbers of years are omitted so I can be flexible with changing details as I please as I keep developing the world. Placing specific dates locks me down and I'd rather not have that with what I've put out so far.
If you're not interested in a chunk of exposition as opposed to seeing all of this unfold in the actual narrative, then best you skip everything past the line.
Upheavology I: A Brief Overview of Pony History
I. The Fall of Oceanus and the First Ponies
At the height of the First Rebellion within the Eternal Herd, King Sanctus Dominus struck down his firstborn son, Oceanus, with a great, Throne-empowered blast of sunlight. As the broken prince crashed through Empyrea, he opened the once-void rift and plunged into the new world within. He and his alicorn followers crashed into the central plains of the continent, creating a great rift that swiftly pooled with the power of the abyss.
As he fell, Oceanus's blood spilled from his many wounds, spattering across mountaintops he passed, spraying as fine mist among the clouds, trickling across a river and into the ocean, and covering the earth where he crashed. This blood still coursed with the Throne-empowered sunlight he was struck with as well as the raging power of the abyss he possessed. Where it landed, strange things occured. From the mountain tops sprang the first unicorns. Out of the clouds came the first pegasi. Out of the soil emerged the first earth ponies.
The first ponies were vile and savage creatures, omnivorous and possessed of instinctive cruelty. Drunk with the physical presence of their abyssal "father", they preyed upon the denizens of their new home and swiftly spread across the land around the rift.
After a while, Solis Coruscaria, First among the Handmaidens of Oceanus, observed the first ponies out of curiosity. She followed one earth pony closely, and watched as the stallion hunted down a ram and tore its neck open with only his teeth. She continued to watch as the stallion dug among the innards until he produced two of the longest and thickest bones. In a display of ingenuity, he snapped one to produce a sharpened point and lashed it to the other with fresh sinew to fashion a makeshift weapon. At once, the stallion grabbed hold of the weapon and attempted to murder her. Disgusted, Coruscaria destroyed the stallion and reported to Oceanus that the strange creatures were nothing more than lowly vermin to be ignored. The bearer of the Abyssal Throne, Regia Carnifex, objected, stating that these creatures were Oceanus's children and should be treated with some concern as to be made useful.
Without a word, Oceanus roused himself to movement despite his injuries, and made his way to the vast ocean to the east. When Regia Carnifex protested, he was sealed into a nearby mountain. As such, the fallen alicorns disappeared into the ocean to recover and begin their rebellion anew when the time came.
II. The Outward Migration and the Three Nations
Though he left behind his Throne within the depths of the Blasphemous Rift, the loss of Oceanus's physical presence tempered the wild, dark instincts that flooded the early ponies. They shifted from frenzied and monstrous to still savage, but reasonable creatures. As importantly, they became instinctively aware of the dark influence emanating from the Blasphemous Rift and came to the understanding that they should move away. The result was a general move to the outer areas around the rift by all ponies.
Though more reasonable, these ponies still distrusted each other and were highly xenophobic. Fights frequently and sporadically erupted among the unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies for resources, territory, and even sport. With the move, each race spread to different areas to avoid the persistent conflicts that defined their earliest encounters.
The unicorns settled along the cold mountains to the northwest, along the edges of the frozen north and the mountainous west. There, their fledgling monarchy eventually built into the Unicorn Kingdom. The earth ponies settled all across the western hills and mountains, breaking into multiple clans that either burrowed into mining communities, cultivated farms, and formed logging settlements. The pegasi settled southwest and south, preferring to nest among the massive trees common to the area when they discovered their inability to settle among clouds as they could close to the rift. These arboreal settlements eventually centralized into the Pegasus Nation.
III. The Return and the Everlasting Kingdom
For several hundred years, this arrangement among the ponies allowed for a relatively peaceful existence. Occasional encounters with dragons and territorial disputes with neighboring wolven, ursans, and ophidites did little to mar this peace. Time spent away from the rift continued to soften the harsh nature of ponies eventually allowing the three separate nations to begin peaceful negotiations with each other.
This status quo ruptured with the arrival of Oceanus's rogue enforcers. Led by Lok'Horus, this band of maddened, supernatural entities engulfed pony lands in a whirlwind of abyssal power, killing thousands in a merciless hail of unnatural cold and blackened fire.
With all three pony nations huddled together and on the verge of extinction, the Six Companions, led by Clover the Clever and guided by Starswirl the Bearded, made a desperate gamble by reaching for an old power they knew lay dormant within all ponies. Using their own power of the abyss, they fought back and eventually destroyed the enforcers. The rediscovery of this power led to a new move towards the rift, once the ponies realized that their abyssal power grew the closer they were to the land of their original birth. As the strongest wielders of the power of the abyss, the Six Companions ruthlessly took over their respective nations and initiated the move to the Blasphemous Rift, where they founded a single, united nation of ponies: The Everlasting Kingdom.
Their time spent away from the rift had made the ponies partly resistant to the abyss's influence such that the change in them was not so dramatic. The power of Oceanus's Throne had also become more dormant in his absence. The Six Companions, however, aggressively pursued unity with the power of the abyss. Through frequent communion within the Blasphemous Rift, they learned more of Oceanus, whom they called "Deep Father". They took inspiration from visions granted by the abyss's emanations and developed rituals of all sorts to awaken and strenghten ponykind's natural connection to Oceanus.
The Everlasting Kingdom emerged as a great nexus of depravity and oppression, where slavery, living sacrifices, and magical experimentation on ponies were commonplace. Ponies grew to believe that committing vile deeds raised them in their Deep Father's esteem and strove to outdo one another. Neighboring nations grew to fear ponies and their raiding parties of slavers and sacrifice hunters.
IV. Lexarius and the Golden Age of Equestria
The Everlasting Kingdom had not even lasted half a century before its horrors grew so great that it attracted the concern of the Eternal Herd. Previously, all contact with the world within the once-void rift had been forbidden by the King. Unable to stay aloof any longer upon observing what had been happening to the ponies, Lexarius, then a member of the Council of Elders, renewed his call for an intervention. A great many opposed him in the Council, but the King overruled their vote to remain aloof, and sent him to aid the beleagured citizens of the Everlasting Kingdom, naming him the steward of Oceanus's children.
Lexarius moved among the fringes of the Everlasting Kingdom, uniting its victims and defectors into a powerful fighting force. He then waged a prolonged campaign against the Everlasting Kingdom, hoping to preserve as much of ponykind as possible. The campaign ended in the destruction of the Everlasting Kingdom, with its capital swallowed whole by a titanic flood unleashed by its own rulers.
With the abyss in check, Lexarius placed protective seals in the Blasphemous Rift to block its influence, fearing that attempting to destroy it would scatter the abyss among ponykind. He also sealed several more places that the Everlasting Kingdom had defiled such as the mines of Mount Unicornia.
Ponykind thus entered a golden age, renaming its new, unified whole as Equestria. With Lexarius's guidance and a renewed sense of harmony and purpose, ponykind prospered for hundreds of years, enjoying great wealth and repairing its damaged reputation. The nation expanded outward again, resettling old capitals that had been largely abandoned for the Blasphemous Rift.
V. The Madness and the Troubled Times
Though he remained the de facto ruler of Equestria, Lexarius the Steward concentrated on cultivating the virtues of harmony, as he called them, within ponies. He strove to completely eliminate the taint of the abyss within ponies, as such bypassing their stay in Vestibulum and allow them instant passage to the Eternal Herd upon death. This would have convinced the rest of the Eternal Herd that the children of Oceanus were indeed kin to the alicorns. The administration of the kingdom fell to appointed leaders.
Yet, the taint of the abyss found within all of Oceanus's children could not be destroyed despite Lexarius's greatest efforts. He delved into every method he could think of, observed his subjects, and gleaned as much knowledge as he could from the Eternal Herd's books. Over the course of centuries, his obssession grew. When "safe methods" proved ineffective, he began increasingly dangerous techniques and reckless spells. He experimented on ponies, testing for the virtues of harmony he so desperately wished to perfect, forcing ponies to display ever greater acts of harmony until they broke. First, he endangered the criminals within Equestria then moved on to citizenry who questioned him. This worsening period of Equestria's history became known as the Troubled Times, when ponies lived in fear of their once-beloved ruler.
VI. The Time of the Three and the Great Invasions
News of Lexarius's madness eventually reached the Eternal Herd. Another call for intervention was made. This time, it was by Celestia, Princess of Sunlight and the King's eldest daughter. After recieving permission to enter the once-void rift and acquiring the Elements of Harmony from the Queen, Celestia and her two siblings set forth to stop Lexarius.
They found him as a raving, maddened creature calling himself Discord. Having completely failed to "perfect" ponies, Discord had taken to tormenting his subjects out of amusement, believing that if no ordered method existed to eradicate the abyss, then persistent, random chance would, at least, produce a few passable results.
Enraged by the fall of such a respected alicorn, Celestia led her siblings in sealing Discord into stone, trapping his soul in Vestibulum until his petrified form was destroyed.
With Equestria freed from its mad ruler, Celestia disobeyed a royal order to return to the Eternal Herd so that a new steward might watch over Equestria. She volunteered to take on the role and her siblings elected to stay with her. This period of renewed prosperity lasted a few centuries known as the Time of the Three.
During this period, the infighting races of ophidites finally united under Sesyth as the Empire of Ophidus. To the north, the wolven experienced a similar strengthening under Fenrir while Arugek finally brought the rebellious ursans to heel in the west. These nations became aggressively expansive, pushing into each other's territory as well as Equestria's. Thus began the time of the Great Invasions, plunging Equestria into centuries of a cycle of war, tense ceasefires, and more wars as ponies were forced to protect their homes from invaders coming from all sides.
VII. The Division
With Equestria embroiled in a seemingly endless cycle of violence, Princess Celestia feared that the power of the abyss would only grow stronger within all ponies. She proposed the division to her siblings, a plan to separate Equestria into the Barrier Lands, the home for those who had to fight, that would protect the Heartland, where ponies who knew no endless war would reside. Her siblings agreed and the plan was put into effect. Her brother, Terrato, would govern the Barrier Lands and command the Equestrian Legion, while her sister, Luna, would govern by her side within the Heartland.
A perpetual stalemate with its hostile neighbors and a steadily worsening resentment within the Legion characterized Equestria's period of division along with a splintering of relations among its three rulers. Border territories frequently changed occupants as advantages ebbed and flowed. The Legion witnessed the rise and fall of many heroes from Ash Frost, First Hero of the Legion, to Apple Slice the Bear Wrangler, to the legendary Black Rose. All of whom carried the Legion to great heights before falling.
Falls were not restricted to the ponies of Equestria as well. It was during the Division that Princess Luna agreed to merge with Lunalux Umbra, becoming Nightmare Moon and attacking her sister. Prince Terrato, languishing in what was all but an exile, delved into darker means to ease his loneliness and discover a means to end this seemingly endless duty that his eldest sister had imposed upon herself and him.
VIII. The Reunification
The end of the Division resulted from a crossroads of various events: the return of Black Rose, the reemergence of Lunalux Umbra, a massive wolven invasion, and the discovery of the division by Twilight Sparkle. At the conclusion of a long chain of events, Equestria was whole once more, in time to face the looming rise of Oceanus.
It's amazing how much can be misunderstood when reading the whole story. It seems extremely well crafted paragraphs and sentences explaining the fine details of eight major Equestrian points in history seems to have cleared the air with efficiency.
I am absolutely amazed the amount fine detail and creativity put into your work. I am truly grateful for this opportunity you have given me to read such a thing.
Heck, I'm looking at the cover art I got done for Journeys and I think I'm gonna put out a few more pieces to show admiration. I can draw myself and sure I'm not as good as that, but i'll try to leave an impression.
Damn that was good.
Love this! orig09.deviantart.net/e3f6/f/2012/363/c/f/clapping_pony_icon___applejack_by_taritoons-d5pkxsu.gif
TLDR:
Dad kicks his unruly first son out of the house for being a little bitch. Soon after Dad begins a powerful nap.
Son proceeds to have kids all over town.
Son doesn't care much for his kids, goes to hang out at the beach with his bros.
Friend of the family tries to raise the kids, but is driven mad in the process (lol kids amiright?)
The Dad's other children step in to try and help make something respectable out of the orphans.
Shenanigans with the other neighborhood kids ensue.
Even though shit is getting real, no one want's to wake up Dad from his nap...cause we all know how that song and dance goes.
But seriously the contents of this post lines up well with what I've gathered from just reading the story.
Good stuff all around.
Is this bit saying that Behind Black Roses plan to end the division actual stood Terrato as the mastermind, implying that Black Rose herself wasnt the brilliant mind we were lead to believe as she was manipulated or just outright did the bidding of Terrato?
4324676
No.
4324767
Aw oh well
Wow, this is great!
One question:
Sorry, it's been a while since I read Reckoning and I've read very few of the short stories, but has this event been mentioned previously and with similar levels of detail (i.e. not simply invoking the name of the event/players)? I honestly have no recollection of it.
4325361
No. Fluttershy recounts it briefly as they were about to enter the Blasphemous Rift. The event itself has not been narrated.
This definitely clears things up. To the stories credit, most of the conflicts and relationships are clear, but the order less so.
I really need to get back to reading Upheaval one of these days. I left off only about six chapters before the end of Reckoning.
So are Arugek, Syseth, and Fenrir all also Divine Stewards or are they just really powerful spawn???