Concepts and Creations — Histories: One, Mother of Ponies · 2:38pm Sep 22nd, 2019

This image doesn’t exactly fit, but it was the best I could find.

Felt like a while since I did one of these, so let’s give it another go! This time I am once again going into my Histories group of planned stories, and we’re going back. Way back. No, further. Further. Fuuuuuuuuuurther. Yeah, let’s get some things straight: in my lengthy and largely undetailed history of the shared Trixie vs. Equestria, No Heroes, and Fleur-verse timelines, there are no less than 11 “eras” of time covering ~39,000 years. Except for the first, known only as “The Before”, which has no set length due to the concept of time not having been developed yet. This story takes place then, and covers the origination of ponies as a civilization.

On rare occasions, characters in my stories will reference a being known as “The Voice”. It got a fairly detailed summary as described by one Parjin the Elder, a dragon, in my story Reddux the Tyrant, but deserves reiterating here. This is, essentially, my headcanon origin story of the world of Equus. At least as far as the above-mentioned timelines are concerned; its canonicity for my other AUs is questionable.

The Voice is the original mind of the universe. Even It didn’t know how It came to be; one day It was simply aware that It was aware. It had no form, or even a concept of a form, as It existed in total nothingness. At some indeterminable time, The Voice discovered It had the ability to make new things, and so It did. This led to a lot of experimentation, confusion, and trial and error, but eventually led to the laws of Equestrian physics and magic as we know it. The Voice even created the planet Equus, as well as the sun and moon, as part of Its experimentation. The Voice loved the act of creation, and its ultimate goal was to make something that could change and grow entirely on its own. This desire led to basic cells and plants and, ultimately, animals. This led to the discovery of death, which The Voice found curious but not necessarily bad, as it prevented Its new world from becoming overpopulated with life.

The Voice wasn’t a wanton creator, slapping things together and calling it “life”. The Voice enjoyed the slow progress of existence, nudging the evolutionary process, breeding desirable traits but allowing unexpected mutations to flourish on their own. The Voice loved life as much as creation, and life’s ability to adapt to an ever growing range of environments and locations fascinated It. Some creations were of Its own planning, such as dragons, and others emerged entirely on their own, like the yaks.

But in time, The Voice realized that something was missing from Its existence. It felt... lonely. The Voice recognized Its own sapience and wondered if It might create another being capable of rational thought. Thus did It begin experimenting with breeding traits to encourage intellect in the many creatures of the world. Some — again, like the dragons — were slow to take to the changes. But there was one species that took to the new program with remarkable speed: ponies. So it was that The Voice managed, after countless cycles of the sun and moon, to breed the very first being capable of recognizing its own existence as more than mere animal, but as an individual. The moment The Voice recognized this trait, It gleefully, if perhaps unoriginally, named the pony “One”, and granted her life unending.

The story follows One as she gradually develops as an individual. She names the previously nameless world and things around her, things that The Voice had never bothered to identify (including Itself), and together they developed the first spoken language. It was after One conceived the concept of time and used the moon and sun to identify its passing that the era of “The Before” ended and “The Age of Awareness” began. The story follows One as she works together with The Voice to breed more sapient ponies, becoming the literal mother of all modern ponydom. They conceptualize and create the first pegasi and unicorns and form a rudimentary society, then a tribal civilization.

In the end, One decides that she is weary of life, and so asks The Voice to undo her blessing of eternal life. This proves difficult as The Voice, for the first time ever, must come to accept the concept of losing not a mere creature, but an individual that is dear to It. In the end, It decides to meet her halfway; It creates Elysium, a new, endless reality for the dead to reside, should they be worthy to do so. And One will be that arbiter of fate who decides who is and is not worthy. After much discussion, debate, arguments, outlining of rules, and outright begging from The Voice, One agrees.

This is all, of course, a generalized summary of the story that doesn’t remotely touch upon the trials and challenges One faces as The Voice’s prized creation. It is very much intended as a reflection on the relationship, and growth of said relationship, between her and The Voice, with both of them having to adjust their perspectives accordingly as new issues pop up. This is made all the more difficult by how The Voice never, at any point in time, has any physical form (hence the name). It is also heavily centered on worldbuilding, describing discoveries of many of the things modern ponies take for granted. Even things as simple as the naming of emotional concepts.

Many things wouldn’t exist in this ancient world of ponies. Dragons won’t gain intelligence for thousands of years. Griffons, chimaera, changelings, and other more quirky creatures won’t have even been conceived for at least another era. It’ll be more than ten millennia before the first alicorn... or draconequus, for that matter. It is as ‘origin’ as origin stories get, and it would all be centered on the life of One.

I wish I could have written this. It goes without saying it would have been a worldbuilding dream come true. Alas, it is not to be, except perhaps in an adapted form for some future original fiction.

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