//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: Warpony 3k 
// by boredhooman 
//------------------------------//

Outskirts of New Clompassa, Equestria, Ceales System

Private Wet Meadows, earth pony soldier of the Equestrian Guard, should be a dead pony. His unit should be a dead unit. Equestria should be a dead world. His species should be a dead one. Fortunately for him, and all of ponykind, a savior arrived in the form of a single TROTLITE, the Master Chief 117. Because of him, UESC forces were able to pour in a gap in the Eldar defensive line and reclaim the area. Wet’s company’s job was to clear out any survivors, whether they surrendered or not.

Laying prone in the arid, dry, and dusty hills surrounding New Clompassa, Wet watched the dense smoke coming from the half-destroyed city choke the sky, it’s once bright blue hue being overwhelmed by oranges and browns. If the battle did not end soon, pegasus weather teams might not be able to clear out the pollutants before they spread. All near him was calm; he could hear the birds, bugs, and even leaves fluttering in the distance. And Eldar hover engines. He took a pair of binoculars and searched the horizon for anything out of the ordinary. Sure enough, there was a large dust clous forming in the distance, with three black streaks in front of it.

Wet shouldered his SR99, one of the only pony-made weapons to not be mounted on a battle harness and instead on a bipod, the stock resting on the shoulder. He folded out the trigger-stick with his dark brown hoof and he aimed the anti-material rifle at the approaching pack of Eldar Vypers. He tracked the fast-attack vehicles with his scope, the digital readout accounting for wind and distance, placing a digital crosshair over where the bullet will land. He pulled back on the trigger, aiming just ahead of the moving vehicles.

His rifle fired. Just as predicted, the fourteen point five millimeter wide projectile flew a downwards arc, several feet in front of the Eldar vehicles. Also as predicted, the vehicle effectively rain into the bullet, it’s engine being destroyed in the process and sending the rest of the chassis into a tumbling mess that the second vehicle in the column crashed into. The third, while lucky enough to escape the burning wreckage, was not lucky enough to escape Wet’s gaze. A second projectile soon destroyed the Vyper while a third bullet launched towards the still functional second Vyper. An explosion of blood and dismembered limbs soon followed.

The radio soon crackled to life in Wet’s helmet. “This is Colonel Redwood, calling all Equestria-based UESC forces. You are ordered to fall back towards Rally Point Bronco.” Wet regarded the message for a second, before it spoke again. “Repeat; this is Col-” Wet turned down the device, packed his rifle onto his back, and began heading to the encampment.

It was not a very long trot, just half a kilometer through the arid, hot, dusty hills surrounding New Clompassa. Finally arriving, he spotted the rest of his squad packing their equipment into Warthogs, while Scorpion tanks were providing makeshift artillery cover for the retreating pony forces. The tents were already packed up for the most part, showing how efficient the military is when it needs to be.

“Oy, earthie!” another Guardsman, a light tan pegasus, called out, the tell-tale accent of the one and only Chips Dubbo. Wet wasn’t sure what “Dubbo” was supposed to even mean, but kept his snout shut on the topic. “Here we’ve got our little Eldar problem taken care of!”
Wet turned to him. “What?” He asked.

“Zerg’s gone’n’ c’t th’ Eldar fleet ‘n ‘alf.” Chips answered, his southern Austallion accent making it hard for Wet to understand.

Wet stopped in mid step, a blank look imposing onto his face. “Wait, you said Zerg?” Chips nodded. “As in, those giant-flank bug things that literally eat worlds?” Chips nodded again. “Salt-licking mother... Do you know what this means?” Wet asked, his voice a little higher than intended.

“Yes, I do, Wet.” Chips stopped to wipe some dirt off his orange helmet-visor. “While those two ‘r’ distracted, we j’s’ need to wait ‘t out ‘til we get those ‘forcements fr’m New Stalli’ngrad! We c’n drive those bastards back! We c’n win this!” he said, excitedly shaking Wet’s shoulder. His accent was really starting to annoy Wet.

Wet looked back towards the city, the once majestic space elevator now lying in ruins around the countryside. There was smoke coming from the city, obstructing the once beautiful sky. “I just hope the Queens can pull something like that off.”





Brief overview of the history of the Imperium of Equuleus, recorded by Twilight Sparkle, Minister of Information

As space exploration began in 1,505 PH (Post Harmony, or the redemption of Empress Luna), the queens, Celestia and Luna, swore to protect all ponykind from threats, both internal and external as the United Equestrian Space Command. Achieving much more and in less time than what could be expected, the UESC soon colonized close to 50 colonies in under 200 years by traveling through the Immaterium, an alternate dimension, to ignore the light barrier.

The Eldar, an ancient collection of xeno races believed to be over 50,000 years old, revealed itself and began to advance into UESC territory, roughly at 800 worlds, in 2,025 PH, starting with the farming colony Harvest. Peace attempts were tried, but the Eldar continued their unprovoked, genocidal war. The Gryphon Kingdom was completely destroyed by 2,038 PH; the Draconic Dominion given haven on Selena Equi, Holy Equestria’s moon, in 2,038 PH. Our second threat, a voracious hivemind race dubbed the Zerg, was discovered in 2,052 PH attacking the Halo, an Eldar superweapon. It was soon discovered that the only way to permanently purge them from our worlds was to melt the surface with nuclear weaponry or crack the planet’s crust, a process now called Exterminatus.

In 2,553 PH, months after the end of the Pony-Eldar War (although conflicts still rage, the stop of the Eldar offensive is considered the end to the war), a new threat was discovered. Nightmare and Discord, two powerful enemies long thought to have been defeated before ponykind was even space-faring, resurfaced and wreaked havoc upon the unsuspecting UESC. Nightmare, the Chaos God of corruption, possessed or otherwise corrupted ponies in the thousands and turned them upon the queens. Discord, the very embodiment of disharmony, acted very similarly, but with different motives. While Nightmare was pure, “untainted” evil, Discord was in it all for the fun. The UESC was destroyed by these forces, but the queens were able to restore order before the Pony-Eldar border was breached. A new government, the Imperium of Equuleus, was built from the ground up to accommodate for the current state of the universe.

In 3,000 PH, the Imperium had control of all lost worlds, totalling at near 800, over half of the galactic arm. All lost territory was regained and terraformed back to near-original state, allowing resources to be spent on expansion. Time was taken to make each planet extremely defendable, learning a valuable lesson from the Eldar. Now with territory firmly occupied and its sights on the center of the galaxy, the Imperium of Equuleus has no choice but to continue onwards, spreading its influence to new frontiers and species as of 3,002 PH.