//------------------------------// // 4 - The Final Years // Story: On the Era of Harmony // by Meep the Changeling //------------------------------// Sherbert - 10th of Plantation, 25 The Arcane Era   Lifegiver’s Clinic, Ponyville - Equestria   A year after the Battle of the Badlands, a minor international incident occurred which rapidly spiraled out of control and brought Equestria deep into its web. The Empire of Prance has always been known for their casual use of the undead as laborers as well as Necromancy, and in general it works fine for them. However, in this case, a necromancer in the state’s employ who happened to be a Lich defected and fled the country. This Lich, a surprisingly sane and kind-minded person, went by the name Gentle Repose and was offered sanctuary by Equestria due to the Prench Emperor begging for it, and offering an extremely favorable trade deal.   Many ponies wondered why, if the Emperor wanted the litch to be spared, there was any legal problems for him at all. As it turns out, the Prench Emperor had been in a coma and preserved via necromancy for millennia in order to act as a figurehead and diplomat while a line of stewards had been doing the actual ruling. Or so ponies thought!   The stewards were in actuality a single changeling Queen who was getting revenge for her mother having been killed by the Empire in ages long past. Gentle Repose had been working on a means of restoring the Emperor to life, which he completed and used on the Emperor with help from Twilight Sparkle, restoring him to the Prench Throne.   While that is a significant change to the global status quo alone, as Emperor Prance is the stallion who singlehoofidly conquered the lands which would become Prench Empire in days long past, and achieved immortality through his knowledge of alchemy. Since Equestria helped such a stallion return to power, the situation was and is far more complex. Despite restoring the Emperor’s life, Gentle Repose was not given a pardon for several crimes committed while escaping from the Steward’s Prance. The Emperor wanted to show the nation that no one was above the law, nor would he go over the law despite technically having the authority to do so. As such, Gentle Repose’s sentence of exile had to stand. However, the exile was not a permanent one, and Repose would be allowed to return home after many years. Since he was an undead creature who had long since out unlived his family, the delay did not bother Gentle Repose, who took an offered position as Princess Twilight’s Court Enchanter to pass the time. Surprisingly, Princess Twilight’s enchanted equipment has substantially improved since Gentle Repose’s hiring.   Gentle Repose did not travel alone, he came to Equestria with two friends. One of whom, a Felin (pegasi-griffon hybrid) mare by the name of Light Step fell for Princess Luna, who returned the mare’s affections. The two had been dating for long enough to decide to go steady and see if they could make a marriage work, when Emperor Prance attended a diplomatic dinner in Canterlot which Luna had brought Light Step to.   The resemblance shared between Emperor Prance and Lightstep was uncanny, especially since both ponies share a rare genetic allergy to enlargement potions, and had developed a case of arcane gigantism. At the Emperor’s insistence, several mages performed a Bloodline Trace on the two, determining that Light Step was a direct descendant of the Emperor’s first son.   This was a small miracle as the Emperor’s family line had been purged by the Steward. It also greatly shook the entire world as the mare Princess Luna was intended to one day marry was now the Crown Princess of Prance.   Unfortunately for Princess Luna and Princess Light Step, the politics involved in their marriage will result in the unification of two of the world’s biggest Empires. They can not marry until the political groundwork for such a merger has been laid, which may very well be a hundred years from now. However as the Emperor and the entire Equestria Crown are on board with the unification, since Prance is already a permanent ally, the unification is most likely a certainty that just needs enough time to pass before it happens.     I sighed and turned to look out my bedroom window at Ponyville’s skyline. I could see the roof of Sugarcube corner from here, peeking out from behind the three story brick and mortar high school I attended.   Ponyville High. Great school. Ten outta Ten. Not. I wish I was at Sugarcube Corner right now… Pinkie was selling her new Diabeetus Delight cupcakes. So sugary one bite will kill any non-pony within five minutes! Poor griffons. Unable to properly digest sucrose. Those cupcakes were AMAZING! I got to try one while she and Chip were inventing them.   I kicked against my desk to make my chain spin in circles, enjoying the spins to distract myself. I really could use one right now. I didn’t want to write about the Tartarian Conflict yet. Yeah, sure, my grandmother had killed the evil god controlling all of the demons in Tartarus, but no one had, you know, killed all of the demons and sealed that realm away forever. At literally any moment, any random powerful demon could theoretically open up a portal into our plane of existence and lead a warband on a mindless butchering rampage. And there wasn’t exactly anything stopping that from happening save for a tiny company of mercenaries who sealed known portals. Yeah, that’s a huge deal, and everyone should be writing monthly thank you cards to the Slayers for (Especially Genesis, cuz nopony else can actually CLOSE those portals.), but well… If you don’t cut off the head, the body can survive a surprising amount of pain. The only thing stopping the world from disappearing under constant random teleport murder sprees was some form of super classified technoarcane ward spell and shield generator maintained by every major nation in the world. But no spell or machine is ever perfect. There were cracks in the defences. Rare and random times and places where a portal could be opened through the barrier. You read about the aftermath of those moments in the papers or online sometimes… I’d rather not think about that. Quick, brain, distraction! I lay between the twins I’d met in the park this afternoon, in a rather steamy good old fashioned daisy chain position. The stallion was adorably submissive, letting me take control of his hindquarters completely, making no move whatsoever to pleasure himself, his hind legs separated by a spreader bar. Just like my own were, I’d given my own rump to his sister. Domming while subbing, yay! But it was better than that. Technically, this was a fourway. The three of us were curled around a rather sexy, light sand fured, burnt-straw maned sphinx girl, who was giving our little group a loving wing-hug.  While also taking care of her own needs in such a way as to give my back a nice coating of- TRAITOR! Not THAT much distraction, brain. I didn’t have an hour to waste right now, I had to write about the war. But… Was there anything I could write about first? Though um, kudos for remembering I fucking love Sphinxes and tossing one in, Brain. Good work! Just really bad timing. How about we pick this up after the ‘rents are asleep? Also, remind me to find a way to become a hero in Zebrica if we fail to get to Neighpone. I remember hearing that the Sun Cat sphinx tribe recently settled in one of their cities... Gotta love the perma-teats! So cute! Now where was I? Right! Not wanting to write about the war yet. I smiled in sudden realization, or possibly dizziness, and stopped my chair by extending my left hoof. “I could talk about Seven!” I exclaimed happily, but then frowned. No. I couldn’t. Not really. That was not Equestrian history. That was City-State of Pheonix history. Although… There was one thing I could mention in terms of Lyra’s sister’s journey which was of importance here.   Between the beginnings of Prance and Equestria’s pending unification, and the last major event of the Era of Harmony, is a minor event which resulted in a piece of legislation most likely going to be one of the most important laws in Equestrian history. A prototype teleportation device went missing from SkyTech during an emergency use of the device. The device broke when used, opening a portal across different universes. This event not only confirmed the existence of a multiverse, but led to the discovery of a small group of loosely connected individuals known as ‘Travelers’, who can be best described as tourists of the multiverse. The fact that certain powerful, lucky, or dedicated individuals can travel between universes at their leisure did not sit well with the Crown. As such the Interdimensional Travel Office was established to handle visas and screen Travelers who arrived in our universe within Equestria. Naturally it’s impossible to truly screen everyone to locate their origin universe, but the ITO serves one rather interesting purpose. It provides a legal point of entry and immigration for people not from this reality. Amusingly enough, the ITO has had a hooffull of immigrants pass through it, particularly during the aftermath of the Tartarian Conflict. The Tartarian Conflict was a very short lived but exceptionally devastating invasion of Equestria by the denizens of Tartarus itself. Led by an evil god known as Dawn. The demonic creatures of that living realm of torment constructed a portal into the heart of Old Ponyville, seeking to kill every thing thing in the world. Including plants. And microbes. Despite having a goal which sounds cartoonishly evil, Dawn’s goal was quite serious and his plan stood a good chance of success. At least within his own head. The Evil God’s first move was to capture one of the Elements, possess their body to prevent the Elements of Harmony from being used, and then to break the elements themselves. He was successful in capturing Applejack and breaking the Elements, disabling their active properties. However, Dawn’s success and cunning seemed to diminish greatly over time. While his initial move was well planned, his second move was to usurp control of the Everfree Forest from the magical entity which serves as the forest’s brain, and use the forest to cover the destruction of Old Ponyville. According to Applejack herself, Dawn was terrified about even higher beings discovering what he was doing, due to not having enough power to win if they came after him. Why he chose to strike before he had enough power seems to be little more than the perception that with Emperor Prance up and moving once again, he would soon be defeated, as the Emperor had once fought him to a standstill. There is a history between the two, but sadly all information about it save for its existence is classified. Princess Celestia sensed the Elements breaking, and sent the Bearers on individual quests to retrieve the rare items which were used by the Elements creator to make them all those thousands of years ago. Princess Twilight, being the Element of Magic, had to retrieve an arcanite Crystal from the mountains beneath Canterlot. Since this item was in easy grasp, she was instead sent to a pocket universe created long ago by Starswirl the Bearded as an art project, in order to find the Element’s creator and get her to help repair the superweapon. As one can imagine, sending a team of minimally trained civilians on a mission is not a good idea. So having them separate, they lose the advantage of being a part of a well working team, making it a terrible idea. While the Elements were all successful, Lady Pinkie Pie, Lady Fluttershy, and Lady Pinkie’s husband Doctor Sky Trigger teamed up to ensure everypony returned safely. However were nearly killed when an ancient Kaiju interrupted retrieving Lady Fluttershy’s item. Not all of the Element’s questes went that smoothly. Lady Rarity Belle’s airship was struck by an object reentering the atmosphere and went down over the ocean. She was labeled KIA when Lady Pinkie Pie, Lady Fluttershy, and Doctor Mister the Trigger discovered the remains of her airship floating in the ocean along with a few sizable chunks of Lady Rarity’s body which had been chewed on by sharks. As fate would have it, Lady Rarity survived the impact, crash, dismemberment, and open ocean. But only just barely. In an ironic twist, she was found by the occupant of the spacecraft which had struck her airship, a synthetic intelligence named Righteous Indignation. Indy, as he prefers to be called, was able to heal her wounds and even construct rather sophisticated cybernetic replacements for her lost limbs, brainstem, miscellaneous organs, and temporal lobe. Hearing of Equestria’s distress, Indy put his full power at Lady Rarity’s disposal, eventually making her his Captain due to their rapidly budding friendship and Indy’s strong sense of chivalry, as the code is presented in fantasy novels. Cheesy, silly, but completely true. The technological prowess Indy possessed were due to him having been built by the same ancient species which created the ship the Emerald Hive is built within. Indy had been created to operate a similar ship as a substitute and supplement to a normal crew. And had spent the time since his people’s extinction orbiting a distant planet, only able to leave that post thanks to a distress signal he received from the Emeralds. Equestria was not the only location Dawn’s forces attacked. His cultists had spent decades slowly infiltrating the Emerald hive to take it out from within once the invasion began. The moment they heard the attack was on they struck, throwing the Hive into disarray via acts of terror and occasionally open warfare. Those attacks are what resulted in the distress call which summoned Righteous Indignation from his post and allowed Lady Rarity to finish her mission, ultimately leading to Dawn’s downfall. It’s worth mentioning that the Emerald Hive was assisted in ending the cultists due to the efforts of a Twilight Sparkle. Not our Princess, but a version of her from an alternate timeline who had escaped her own universe's destruction along with her immediate family via breaking into our universe as hers disintegrated in a False Vacuum Collapse. It is theorized that the special anomaly that Twilight caused is what allowed Dawn to break the Elements of Harmony in the first place, but this has never been conclusively proven. Due to her identical appearance to Princess Twilight, the other Twilight and her family were processed by the ITO. They were given new names, slightly changed appearances to make them obviously different people to our universe's version of themselves, and given government housing in Manehattan after the war. Regardless of that dimensional rift’s effect on the Elements, it certainly allowed many extra-universal people to enter Equestria during the Tartarian Conflict. All of these individuals helped in some way or another, and all were processed by the ITO afterwards. Naturally the ITO provides confidentiality for those who immigrate through it, but it is known that the individuals who came from the ‘Mirror World’ relocated to Trottingham, save for that pocket universe's version of Queen Chrysalis. That Chrysalis is an inverse of our universe's version. Sane, kind, loving, and apparently too honest to change her identity to hide her origins. Indeed, she made quite a political stir by announcing her intentions to court Princess Celestia several years after the Conflict as a way to ‘Return the love my monstrous clone stole from this wonderful nation.’ and is at present living as a changeling stallion to suite the Princess's sexual preferences. Many ponies find it unbelievable that Princess Celestia has begun to accept Chrys’s offers of dates. Apparently they forget that Celestia is thousands of years old, straight, and every other immortal she knows is a female, and are not willing to change sex simply to be with a person they like. The fragmented way the Tartarian Conflict is presented here is due to the nature of the Conflict itself. Fragmented and odd. The notable events of the war itself include Princess Luna’s transporting the entirety of Ponyville into the Dream Realm to protect it from demons, where the town was set upon by Dream creatures, creating a major mess of dreams and nightmares coming true. It also includes the destruction of Canterlot by Dawn’s forces before he was ultimately slain by Applejack, who had been freed from Dawn’s posession by her wife Rainbow Dash just before the final battle. Dawn’s planning an intellect diminished as a function of time. To the point where by the end of the conflict, the person who had engineered a means to disable Equestria’s greatest defense within the span of six minutes, forgot that he was trying to hide his presence and activities from those yet more higher beings. During the final battle against the Princesses Twilight, Celestia, and Cadence as well as many of the Elements, and the creator of those elements (a human woman named Megan)-   “Heh. Megan,” I giggled, blushing lightly. What? She was nice. She made me awesome hash browns any time I went to my grandparents house. Megan was sort of my third grandma, but only by marriage, not by blood. Another hero added to the pile... Megan hadn’t been a human since before I was born. She and her grandfather had been brought here by Princess Twilight. And Megan, well… She had a unique talent allowing her to use Dream Magic like a dream creature does. Including the downsides. Applejack felt she owed Megan everything for saving her life during the final battle and enabling her to take her revenge upon Dawn for the indignities forces upon her at his hooves. After the war was over, she begged Dash to allow her to form a herd so she could care for Megan for the rest of her days. Dash was totally down for that. Obviously. I mean, her ego required at least two ponies to hold it up. One under each foreleg. If any mare’s ego wrote checks her body couldn’t cash, it was Dash. Grandma Dash is my rolemodel. I love her! Megan had been delighted by AJ’s proposal and as a wedding present, turned herself into AJ’s literal fantasy of the most perfectly hot mare. In terms of AJ’s preferences. Romanticly enough, the form Megan assumed was an earth pony version of Rainbow Dash who was pretty buff but still feminine looking. So cute! The fact that AJ loved Dash that much, I mean. Not Megan herself. I personally thought Megan looked just okay, but hey, that’s personal preferences in build and color for you. She was super nice though. It sucked that using her powers literally killed her a little bit each time. She probably didn’t have many years left by now, despite only being eighty five. Not even middle aged and already reaching the end of her life. That bucking sucked. But hey, where’s it written that life is fair? Nowhere. Because it isn’t.   Durring the battle, Dawn used more power than a mortal is able to have at once and called the wrath of Faust down on himself. Literally. Naturally, the Goddess of Creation herself showing up and stripping the divinity from someone is irrefutable proof of her existence, it’s little surprise that the older pony religions have experienced a rebirth in the modern era. With Dawn’s immortality stripped from him, he attempted to make one last stab at Equestrias heart and succeeded by tricking Princess Twilight into touching a cursed book which transported her into another universe. Applejack immediately killed Dawn after Twilight vanished in a fit of rage and grief, assuming Princess Twilight had been disintegrated.   Thankfully this was untrue, as she had in truth been banished. A rescue mission was launched to retrieve her and was successful, however that mission’s details are classified. We do know what came of that mission, which is officially seen as the last operation of the Tartarian Conflict. Dawn had previously banished the legendary Archmages Starswirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever via the same book he’d used to banish Princess Twilight. Naturally Twilight retrieved them from whatever prison realm she ended up in. The Archmages immediately returned to working for the Equestrian Crown, repairing Starswirl’s laboratory beneath Canterlot, and reopening Clover’s Graduate Mage’s school in Fillydelphia.   Twilight also brought several other individuals with her. This includes a synthetic intelligence by the name of Austin who immigrated into the Emerald hive, even constructing a changeling android body for himself. Austin teamed up with SkyTech and Princess Twilight to convert a large section of Whitetail Wood into a contained wildlife preserve, wherein two of the others Twilight rescued live, helping tend to extinct creatures Austin recreates for scientific study. His park has become something of an Equestrian national park, especially after Discord gave it his ‘Chaos Theory: Seal of Approval’, an ironic way of calling the park safe but fun. The other notable individual to return with Princess Twilight is her wife Princess Nyota. The public’s reaction to the most beloved Princess genuinely being in love with another mare was the final nail in the coffin for homophobic behavior in Equestrians. Not even the most stuffy of nobility dared invoke the Princess’s wrath by allowing any anti-gay policies to continue, or by expressing such views in public. As a result, over the last three decades, a cultural shift occurred which ended the need for the discussion of ‘gay rights’ of any kind. There are no longer rights which are based on one’s sexual preferences, there are just equine rights. The struggle is simply over, with nothing less than total victory for equality. At least in terms of sexual orientation. Older ponies will still sometimes react in shock at just how quickly same sex couples become so normal as to not be a thing to really talk about, due to them simply being ‘a couple’ just like any other couple. Younger ponies have a difficult time believing that around the time they were born, there was anything special, political, or ‘disliked’ about same sex couples at all. The social change will doubtlessly continue as younger ponies are insisting that transgender and nonbinary individuals be treated with the same level of normality. Many youth political movements predict true full equality for all within the next fifty years. There are of course further changes which came from the End of the Era of Harmony. The greatest of which being the reason the Era had to end at all. Princess Celestia had intended for Megan to repair the Elements as soon as she was able to do so. However, while Megan recovered from the last battle of the Tartarian Conflict, Celestia was informed by Applejack and Megan’s grandfather that every time Megan used her unique magics, it not only caused her immediate physical harm, but drained years away from her lifespan. In order to fix the Elements, Megan would need to give up more years than she had left. Naturally, even if Megan had the time to give, she could not ask that of anyone due to her ideals and moral stances. As such, the Elements of Harmony were retired. The passive magical effects they emit still empower their Bearers with powers beyond the grasp of most ponies, and grant them eternal life, but the Elements themselves will never again be used to save Equestria. The Era of Harmony had ended. With two of Equestria’s legends come back from the dead and technoarcana rapidly changing the face of Equestria, promising to make up for what had been lost, The Arcane Era had begun. Naturally, the Era of Harmony continues to influence life today. A notable example is Lady Rarity. Nearly a year and a half after being healed completely of the damage inflicted upon her during her ill fated mission, Lady Rarity found she genuinely missed her cybernetic implants and voluntarily had several limbs amputated so she could once again be partially mechanical. Rather than allow herself to have a crude or gruesome appearance, Lady Rarity spent some time helping to design the aesthetics of her new implants and bionic limbs, using them as a sort of body jewelry, creating a genuinely beautiful look she called ‘Transcendent Harmony’. Being a national hero, a legend in the fashion industry, and also having taken something nopony had ever thought could be beautiful and made herself into the defining example of this new form of art, Lady Rarity greatly accelerated the Equestrian adoption of modern designs and non-arcane technology. More interestingly, while not common, most equestrian towns now have at least one individual using a Rarity Belle brand bionic limb or two, and no crippled pony or amputee has gone without full mobility for the last ten years, as cybernetics have gotten to be fairly inexpensive, and thus covered by Eqestria’s Public Healthcare.   Another major change is the dramatic increase to the training, number, and equipment of the Equestrian Guard. Without the Elements, Princess Luna finally was able to implement some changes to the Guard she had wanted to make for millennia. Most of them have yet to be fully accepted, but Equestria now stands ready for the future, shielded behind a mighty bulwark of knights, guards, and government sanctioned ‘Adventurers’ who have pledged to protect Equestria from any threats which come to her shores. The influences of the Era of Harmony are too many to count. The last thirty years seem to have been largely uneventful, leading many to think the troubles of the past are over for the moment. But if one looks at history, they will see just how hard the people of the age of harmony fought to give us the time of peace we now enjoy. It is our honor bound duty to follow in their example and ensure the next generation also experiences true long lasting peace. Fortunately, we have countless heroes of the prior age to inspire the heros of today.