For thousands of years the Imperium of Man ruled the galaxy. Vast armies fought innumerable enemies across uncounted worlds. No foe was beyond our wrath, no world beyond our reach.
Now that galaxy is lost, broken in half by an infernal crimson scar.
Only (one group of survivors is known to have escaped), a lone fleet led by the saviour Empress Herself. She and Her righteous followers travelled with a single purpose: to keep the spirit of humanity alive.
By Her grace she discovered a single planet, long lost to the light of the Imperium. A planet of ponies.
Far beyond the edge of the galaxy, nestled within the greater Magellanic Sister, this single planet had survived, protected by some unknown force.
The Empress was overjoyed to have found Her kind. But upon arriving She was saddened to see that they worshipped strange gods, and upheld misguided ideals. Years of isolation had led them to have forgotten their true heritage. The Empress sought to correct that.
She uplifted not only our souls, but granted us the technology that had once conquered a galaxy, so we may begin our destiny anew. She created my sisters and I to lead the vast Legions of the Adeptus Astartes, with the aid of the re-founded Adeptus Mechanicas.
Today, there are few that remember the time we took our first few steps into the void, not with fear, but a burning desire to reclaim what we lost. I remember the day the Empress declared a new Imperium to a crowd of cheering ponies and our history was rewritten.
Eventually one system became ten, then a hundred, then thousands. Terra had been lost, but the Imperium lived on. In time, pieces of the old world drifted into the edge of our realm, technology was recovered, and fragments of our past pieced together. And yet no living soul has ever been found amongst the wreckage.
Even the destruction wrought during Her ascension did not dampen our fervour.
Yet triumph begat tragedy, and tragedy begat stagnation. It has been many millennia since that day, and we are no closer to the time we may step foot into our home galaxy again.
Perhaps some twisted being has laid claim to Holy Terra itself, basking in a legacy that was never truly theirs.
Only one truth remains: we are the last light of humanity, as whatever the fate of the old galaxy, it is a home for ponies no longer.
-Phoenicia Phoenix, Primarch of the Empress’ Children Legion