My attempt at a more serious 'Luna meets Neil Armstrong' storyline. What would really happen, both on the moon and on Earth? Inspired by 'The Eagle has Landed' by CyanBlackStone.

Princess Luna has found herself on a very different moon after some strange force interfered with her banishment. She doesn't know what the metal objects that keep orbiting and sometimes landing there are, but she wants to find out. Meanwhile, Neil Armstrong believes that being the first man on the moon will be the crowning achievement of his life. Hoo boy, is he ever in for a surprise.

For those who are interested, the most excellent Zanec has provided this link to an interactive Apollo 11 site.

This story is a sequel to Entrenchment

An Age of Iron story.

At last, Ferrous Dominus is (mostly) secure.
Centaur III has been (largely) pacified.
The enemies of Chaos and Equestria have finally been crushed (probably).

But victory is merely a prelude to the next war. The Imperium of Man and the pitiful, far-flung holdings of the alien await the Iron Warriors and their new allies, ripe for conquest and plunder. With a new home world and a new ally under their thumb, the 38th Company at last turns its attention on a galaxy ablaze with constant war, seeking new victims to fill the bellies of their ships. The gentle but resourceful equines of Equestria travel with them, taking to the field not out of malice or avarice but gratitude in at last fulfilling their grave debt to the Legion.

But in the depths of the void, far beyond the fleet, beyond the veil of the Materium itself, Chaos is not idle. Plots advance, blood spills, and ancient evils seethe.

The light will be extinguished.

(Dark humor warning; grimdark themes)
(Cover art, and pretty much the rest of the art too, by EZTP)

A middle aged brony inexplicably replaces Chrysalis as a new changeling queen some decades before the fruition of a certain pony prophesy. Now the new queen must figure out how to manage a kingdom that has been in a slow, seemingly irreversible, decline for the past several thousand years.

This story is a sequel to The Garden of Ideology

Nut, an unflappably polite young professional, is joined by Potato Blossom, his ward and pupil. Together, they have returned to Vanhoover, the place where Nut calls home. The city is a strange place for Potato Blossom, a filly shunned by her isolated, insular community.

Though he is an evolutionary biologist, or desires to be, Nut is charged by his professors to document Potato Blossom's integration into complex society. She becomes his project for university, a project that will have far-reaching influences upon his academic and scholarly future.

Plucked off of the farm, Potato Blossom must adapt, overcome, thrive, and survive in a city utterly hostile to her needs, wants, and desires. Vanhoover is cold, in both the literal and figurative sense, indifferent, and it seems as though the rains never cease.

Potato Blossom's survival means Nut's evolution into something greater... but what, exactly?

A tale sprouted in the Weedverse.

This story is a sequel to Good Trooper Gilda

Gilda has been a fugitive, a refugee, a prisoner of war, and a bat-hen to Equestria's fussiest unicorn. But it wasn't until she took 'the Princess's bit', that she began to know something about what it meant to be responsible for the welfare of others, even if the others in question happened to be the pack of imbeciles, blackguards, con-ponies, and bat-ponies who had been fool enough to answer her captain's call to the standard.

A crystalline standard which had not been seen in the living world for over a thousand years.

And although Captain Gleaming Shield and her motley band of raw recruits and shifty bat-ponies aimed to do nothing more exotic and dangerous than put a foreign princess on her proper throne, there are other things stirring in the shadows.

Like calls to like, and the revival of ancient battle-colors may lead to the revival of other, darker memories upon which the rays of Celestia's sun lay lightly and infrequently.

In the future, Cadence Arranges the birth of a child, biologically identical to Shining Armour. On his twentieth year she goes to meet him.

Unknown to most inhabitants of Equestria, members of an alien people have come to live among them. Also unknown is that they're there involuntarily, in the dark as to why and how they're there, transformed into members of the native species.

What many ponies do know, the ones who live in Canterlot at least, is that there's a new venue open in Equestria, very exclusive, but not for the rich elite, nor the cultural avante garde. In fact, there seem to be no rhyme or reason to determining who is allowed and not allowed in on the premises, and despite many petitions to have the discriminating bouncer fired, things go on as usual in this strange new club.

Shout out to billymorph for planting the idea for this story in my head with his own story, The Humans in Equestria Club.

When Nightmare Moon’s rebellion tore across Equestria, leaving a trail of blood and horror in its wake, Princess Celestia knew that merely banishing her sister wouldn’t be enough. Her army was too powerful, and too bloodthirsty, to be left behind without a leader. When she finally turned the Elements of Harmony against her, she didn’t just banish Nightmare Moon. She banished thousands.

Now they’re in a race against time, to find a way to survive in an environment so alien that every aspect of it is trying to kill them. They face suffocation, freezing, boiling, starvation, radiation, meteorite impacts, low gravity… the list goes on.

Nightmare Moon thought she should be the ruler of all Equestria. Now, in a world nopony was ever meant to survive, her abilities will be put to the ultimate test.

This story now has a hardcover! If you'd like one of your own, you can grab it here: https://starscribe.net/

Editing by the indulgent and patient Two Bit and Sparktail. Coverart by Zutcha.

Note: I intend this story to be as faithful to our current scientific understanding of the moon, and I’ve consulted for help with the aspects outside my technical purview. That said, I fully expect to make decisions that some may see as mistakes, based on their own independent interpretations.

I am a storyteller first, and I realize it’s likely I’ll eventually make a mistake, or an arbitrary decision to simplify the storytelling over accuracy. I’m doing my best here, but this isn’t a NASA white paper. Set your expectations accordingly.

This story was commissioned by Canary in the Coal Mine on my Patreon, feel free to contact me if you’d like one of your own!

This story is a sequel to I Don't Want to Grow Up

Celestia was a filly living on an isolated farm with her sister and harboring dreams of greatness. Chrysalis was a black goo poured out from a screaming wound in the walls of reality, with a weak grasp on the appropriate amount of fangs one should have. Friendship was inevitable.

Image used with permission from miszasta

Editing by the wonderful Carabas and FanOfMostEverything

Pre-reading and suggestions by bloons3

In the magical land of Equestria, there are no ponies.
In the sleepy town of Ponyville, there are no ponies.
In the glittering Castle of Friendship, there are no ponies.

So who are all these colorful quadrupeds?