A flip of a coin. A twist of fate.

Twilight Sparkle, younger sister of Princess Celestia's personal student, Shining Armor, grew up listening to her brother's bygone dreams of joining the elite of the elite: The Royal Guard.

Now, fresh out of the Academy, this young mare is ready to prove herself equal to the deeds of the great soldiers she read about as a filly. Too bad the princess she ends up protecting isn't Celestia.

A dragon prince, awakened...
A Princess, in love...
A plot to overthrow the Equestrian diarchy and break the very foundations of equine society...
And an embittered Sorcerer willing to go to any lengths to realize his vision for the future...

Ranma Saotome doesn't care about ANY of that. He's on the wrong world, in the wrong body, and fate seems as determined as ever to drive the world's mightiest martial artist to an early grave. As schemes come unraveled and dark magic tears Equestria apart, all he really wants is to figure out what happened to Japan and keep himself fed.
But, alas, he always seems to be in the wrong place at the right time...

(Ranma 0.5/MLP crossover; not an Age of Iron Story)
(Cover art by EZTP)

The Everfree forest is just like any other forest—except it's full of monsters and weird magic junk, but ignoring that—it sometimes grows out of control and needs to be trimmed a bit. In order to keep the forest from growing too large, Celestia asks Twilight to start a controlled forest fire to burn a portion of it down. It seems like a simple request, but a series of mishaps and misunderstandings lead to some miscommunication and, subsequently, to Twilight setting fire to all of Equestria.

Princess Twilight Sparkle receives a letter from Princess Celestia. The letter is simple and to-the-point, but shakes Twilight to the core: Princess Celestia has a new student.

Feeling a little put-out by Celestia having a new student, Twilight goes to talk with her and clear the air.

Takes place post-Season 6. Cover art is an image by keursh29

Day 15 of my Self-Imposed 28 Fics in 28 Days Challenge

Every schoolfilly has heard of the Federation - the tall, mysterious, magicless beings from another world, who visit only rarely and briefly; waiting, they say, for 'stable planetary political unity'.

This is the story of when they first visited Equestria; of early contact between the Princesses and the Federation. It is also the tale of how Princess Luna, with some help from the House of Sparkle, managed the first fully Equestrian warp jump; and of how Spike became the first dragon in space.

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Additional note: There is an alternate ending for this story, which can be found over here. It follows on directly after the chapter titled Further Communications (and there is a note in the author's notes for that chapter to that effect, with another link).

The reasons for the split are contained in the comments to this story. (Note: Said reasons contain spoilers)

A pair of Ferengi merchants and part-time slave traders (any time they think they can get away with it) decide to pick up some people from the newly discovered world of Equestria - a world without local space travel. For variety, they decide to pick out one of each of the major groupings - a pegasus, and earth pony, a unicorn. For ease of control, they pick out juveniles.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders fit the bill perfectly.

(Sidequel to Equestria's First Warp Drive)

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Once upon a time, the Federation paid a visit to Equestria. The story of that visit - and some of its consequences - is detailed over here.

Partway through the tale (in chapter 15, to be exact) a Ferengi ship passing through space meets another ship. There were meta-narrative reasons for this, reasons why the author thought it would be necessary.

These reasons were promptly proven incorrect.

This, therefore, is the story of what would have happened, had the Ferengi ship not met anyone else on their way through space. It follows on directly from chapter 14 (Further Communication) of Equestria's First Warp Drive; I strongly recommend that you read the first fourteen chapters of that story first, and then return here.

After more than a thousand years of comfortably occupying the throne, Celestia has more than a few enemies. Every month, they gather to plot her downfall and commiserate over their past failures. For those fed up with the status quo and ready to see a change, the E.O.P. has ever been a home and respite against the slings and arrows of dull, predictable government.

Today, a new pony joins their ranks.

Equestrian Political Satire- Be warned! There will be discussions, debate, civil disagreement, and beer. Sweet mercy, there will be beer.

Cover art by our beloved iisaw.

Spanish translation by Spaniard-Kiwi

Almost a year after what seemed to be the concluding battle in Celestia's great crusade against necromancers, something Mortem believes to be borderline discrimination, he discovers one of Celestia's armies setting up camp just outside his stronghold.

Not wanting to jump to any conclusions or risk angering the very powerful Princess, he concludes a diplomatic solution would be the best way forward. And so, he writes a letter.

Proofread by the wonderful Soren Mercer
Featured on Equestria Daily here
Audiobook versions by Illya Leonov and TheArchitect are here and here respectively
SoundCloud verion of Illya Leonov's is here

Upon Nightmare Moon's return, the leaders of other nations gather to discuss the situation.

They're not especially happy about it.

Cover art from the gallery of WingFlyte.

Spanish translation, by SPANIARD-KIWI. Russian translation, by Dark Room Collaboration.

In quite a few of my favorite stories on this site, I've seen that the 'plot/conspiracy to overthrow Celestia' pltline utilized, either as the primary threat or just something in the background. I decided to do my own take on it, taking a page out of "Winning, and the pitfalls therein" by RandomPC, found here