Date: August 2, 2509
Colony ship USS Alabaster
I dreamed of... something, I don't know what I was looking at, it looked like me, but its coat was dark black, and the horn was a twisted stub with insectoid wings, on its back, the most striking feature was the oblong, obsidian dome that was its head, and the bladed tail swishing back and forth behind it. I watched it grab a purple-colored equine, and a smaller alien latch onto her face, then, everything was a blur, and when it stopped it shown the same equine in an organic building, when she woke up her chest convulsed, she shrieked in pain and something bulged just under the skin, then the creature emerged and her head fell to the side, dead. I looked down and saw I was in the same cocoon and felt an agonizing pain in my chest, then another one of those things came out and I woke up, screaming my lungs out, and sweating, I raised a hoof to my chest and, upon feeling nothing, shakily got up and took a few deep breaths to calm myself down, the mental flood also came along and helped me drive away the dream. The dream felt more like reality than a dream, I felt that thing burst out and saw it and heard it screech in that horrible voice, whatever caused that was trying to tell me something, but I had no idea what, the influx of information gradually reduced to just a twinge in my left eye, and then I saw through my mind numbers, letters, formulas, scriptures, entire books of information, theories, facts, opinions, information. I quickly got my PDA and frantically tried to type while keeping up with the influx, my hooves seemed to type faster than my mind and managed to get most of the data down, but the text file read 8.5 gigabytes, two-thirds of my hard drive, but what I saw as I scrolled through was well worth the cost, I got entire training manuals for this 'magic' and started cut/pasting the information into books based on title, somehow even videos managed to end up on the books. I reordered the massive text file into more manageable book files, and started looking at the basics of the power, I was amazed at what I found out; magic is a source of power within all living beings, more so than others, Unicorns can utilize this power most commonly, earth ponies and pegasi have their own innate magic, one that allows earth ponies to grow bigger and better foods faster and allows pegasi to fly and control the weather, an alicorn, which is a combination of all three, has the magic of all three races, including their own if they control a certain aspect of the environment. I mulled this over a bit and realized that the tattoos on our flanks contribute to our special talents, but I had no idea on what mine is truly supposed to be, is it the collective might of the superheated balls of gas or the destroyer of such stars? Or is it something completely different? I had nothing to which to answer those questions, but at least I know that each and every one of us had something special. I was still pondering it when Kara came in and shouted at me "what the hell were you thinking?!"
"what are you talking about"
"you flew into a star and moments later, the bloody thing disappears, and the shockwave nearly wrecked what wasn't already damaged enough!"
"oh"
"you BETTER have a good explanation for this!"
"well you see-"
"and don't say that it wasn't your fault, because somewhere it was"
"alright then, how do I tell you it? Because I was standing out the window when I turned my attention to the star that was there!"
"oh so you're saying that it sucked you in aren't ya?"
"yes"
"great, great fuckin' dandy, please, tell me how it happened"
"I was about to say that"
"just spit it out"
"I was watching the star when I heard an electrical discharge and my horn started glowing blue, I tried to turn my head and found I couldn't move, the wall in front of me rippled like water and gave way, I entered the star and, I guess sucked it's energy dry, flew back here and slept"
"forgive me if that sounds farfetched"
"then how do you explain my mark?"
"what mar- oh that mark"
"yes, that mark"
"figured out what it means yet?" she looked skeptical but kept her mouth shut
"well, I'd say I'm either a destroyer of suns, or their collective might against something, what, you got me"
"so it's narrowed down to two, either you're the big bad guy of the stars, or you're their sword and shield"
"pretty much"
"but if you were their destroyer, why make the sword in the back golden?"
"yeah, you're right, why would that be?"
"and wouldn't a star be destroyed by a black hole? So why would it be that if the design would be a black hole sucking in a star?"
"good point, so you think I'm some sort of protector?"
"at least, in theory"
"laugh it up, fuzzball"
"I'd rather not" I chuckled at her face, then said "well, if that's the case why am I not making the metal glow white-hot beneath my hooves? The same reason I was able to absorb the energy of the star?"
"I want to say yes, but I have no clue if it's true or not, I'm an engineer, not a doctor"
"whatever you say, Bones"
"I told you not to use that name for me"
"oh well, what's said has been said"
"so, what are you doing right now?"
"I had a flood of information just a minute ago, and I put all I could on my PDA, 8 and a half gigabytes of data from that"
"wow, nice"
"yep, want to take a look afterwards?"
"sure"
"alright, so far, it seems that the species we are now a part of has four different types of energy they named 'magic', those like you and me get the magics of the other three including your own if it deals with something in the environment"
"what, like metal and gases?"
"yes"
"what are the three types?"
"I guess Earth, Air, and elemental magics, Earth magic allows those that wield it to grow bigger and better crops faster, Air magic allows for flight and control of the weather, and Elemental magic allows those with horns to manipulate the world around them"
"so, does it say how they are manifested and used?"
"of course it does, it wouldn't be a manual if it didn't tell us how to operate the new gear that I just discovered"
"how do you know if it was you that discovered this?"
"loser has to go to the cargo hold on foot"
"deal"
"now then about this magic..."
({LOCATION REDACTED, NEWLY NAMED BROTHERHOOD OF NOD HQ})
The castle was in ruins, but it was far enough away from prying eyes that a base could be built without too much trouble. The being before smiled as his few followers started gathering supplies to rebuild and upgrade their new temple, he personally gathered up the smoking remains of Nightmare Moons armor and had them redone for the leader of new arrivals, but he was vague on who'd they be other than he was as tall as Celestia, male, had a fiery orange coat and a blue mane, and let them figure out what to do on that information. The great hall was to be transformed into a massive congregation room; the crumbling supports were removed and were replaced with crossbars in the ceiling, the glass panes were enlarged and given blood-red glass depicting Nod achievements, their banners; hexagonal shapes with scorpion's tails in the middle, were draped above the doorways in the back. The former throne area as made a stage, with a podium on it, and three massive television screens on the wall behind it, the entire underground complex would be rebuilt from the ground up and given dozens of large research areas, factories, living quarters, farms, armories, barracks and training grounds, power stations and substations would be placed at key points along the complex, with each station going to a factory and a substation going to each room. His personal quarters would be in the bedroom of Celestia's former castle, her bedroom, the technology that would make this massive task could be easily procured and if it breaks than his unicorn followers could repair the machinery and keep them digging. The power stations will have multiple cooling towers at the surface, all producing very little aside from small trickles of water vapor and oxygen, the man prided himself in this feat, as what Celestia's followers had were steam-powered, and all of their few engines used coal as fuel, his used the surrounding air to provide the necessary materials: hydrogen and oxygen. The man saw his followers quickly assembling a makeshift bridge and a small camp was set up for until the temple was deemed liveable, he turned to one of the tents and started drawing up plans for his future war against the two sisters