//------------------------------// // Prologue: Genesis // Story: War of the Fallen Race // by PegasusKlondike //------------------------------// At this, the end of my life, I must consider the nature of the universe and God as I always have. All men of science know that the universe is comprised of matter and energy. All universal processes can be defined as the interactions of these two constants. Matter is bound to all things by energy, and energy is altered and changed by the processes of matter. One cannot exist without the other. As beings of matter, we utilize energy to walk, to talk and to even form our minds. A creature of sentience is a being of near infinite complexity, all parts working together for the common goals of the whole. Is it too much to say, that as we are beings of matter whose bodies are wrought by energy and whose minds are comprised of energy, that there may be beings of energy who exert influence in the universe by manipulating their frequencies to manipulate matter? Such a being is not constricted by complexity, held back by the binds of matter. Such a being is infinitely simple, an utter contrast to the physical complexity of a being of primarily matter. And it may be possible that such a being of energy has not a body of infinite complexity; but a mind vaster than the gulf of space and utilizing the very energies of the universe, and possibly the energies within us as a portion of its great mind. I concede, after a lifetime of fighting against such thoughts that this near infinite mind whose intelligence seems to mirror our own, may be the mind of a god. -The last known words of Dr Stephen Hawking, spoken in private to a group of his peers as the war for Earth raged around him. ************************************************************ Long ago, before the trees shaded the earth, before grasses swayed in the wind, before the waves crashed upon the shore, there was the Earth and The One. The One was not alive, not as we know, but She had qualities of life. Born in the fiery rebirth of her father The Sun, The One embodied the spirit of life and the soul of the Earth, she could take no true form but felt the pangs of loneliness. She knew naught but loneliness, for the Earth was harsh and inhospitable. She was a mother with no child. And so she sought to see the hellish barrens become a paradise and frolic with her children. The air was still, so she released her breath to stir dust, making the wind. The earth was parched, She opened her bosom to let forth the waters, making the seas. There was coldness, but Her father The Sun gave warmth with his plentiful rays. She had magic, but held it back to let the world blossom in its own right. The world was ready, but The One could not make life, for she knew not how to begin. She provided all of the necessary material, gave the world water and allowed for warmth. Life would have to make itself. The One would allow for life to choose its own path in Her creation. Feeling for the first time the great exertion of Her effort, she slumbered. As She predicted, life slowly emerged. But the first were crude cells, incapable of thought or decision. The Earth Mother awoke, looked upon her creation and frowned, these were not the loving children she envisioned. She looked upon a lowly cell and using Her spirit, gave it the ability to grow larger and consume its neighbors. Feeling a divine plan forming, The Earth Mother slumbered again. She again awoke, and to her infinite delight discovered her oceans teeming with primitive fish. Entire ecosystems had risen and fallen, succeeded and perished while She dreamt. But the lands remained empty, and frustration filled Her mind. Again, she went forth and found the lowliest of creatures, a simple fish. She gave it the ability to breath air and bade it to come to the land. The new creature took the first steps onto the land, and The Earth Mother was pleased. Content with her work, The Mother slumbered again. And so the cycles continued, every few million years the goddess would reawaken and bestow her blessing upon a lowly creature, who would then rise one step closer to being the loving child that she desperately wanted. Gifts of fleet foot and great strength seemed to do little in the way of Her divine plan. What She craved was a child who could compare to her in some way. But then she found a lowly species in the desert climes who would do perfectly. She took pity and bestowed intellect upon the lowly beast and once again returned to her slumber. But she had barely slept when she felt agony unlike any other. The race of intellect had betrayed her, they indeed had minds comparable to hers, but had become twisted by their own desires. Greed, hatred and distrust ran rife within them and the chosen race instead chose to destroy one another to forward their demented lust for power. Often they warred, many a time without purpose or provocation. The goddess could do nothing directly to stop them, they had mastered her world and threatened to destroy it and themselves with each succeeding generation. They no longer loved their Mother the earth, entrusting themselves to their gods of logic and reason. The demon race enslaved many species to make up for their lack of physical strength, speed and endurance. Others simply for food. She did not wish the utter extinction of her once chosen children, but their hearts had been made with a hole in them. A wound that they chose to fill with greed, fear and hate. The demon race chose those amongst themselves who embodied these traits that filled their hearts, and made them lead in their path of self annihilation. Instead She wanted to show them their mortality, expose their minds to the hatred within their hearts, to pacify the rage and hatred that the demons so willingly fell back upon. She felt the return of her magic as the demons slaughtered one another, small portions of herself that had manifested in the demons and taken on their identities. The souls of her children knew the pain of their brethren, and only wished to see them give up their childish fighting and hate. They begged the Mother to do something, anything to make the suffering of their brothers stop. The Mother felt sorrow for her creations, and imbued those they had enslaved with her magic to make them the demon's equals. Among the mightiest were the horses enslaved as beasts of burden, who grew smaller in size, but now had intellect to match the forsaken ones. But the demons were clever, and took to the skies to rain fire upon the rebelling creatures. The Mother saw their false form of flight and in her wisdom granted wings to many of the freed ponies, creating pegasi to bring the fight to the falsely winged monsters. But the demons again thwarted her plans, shelling themselves within husks of armor and machinery. The Mother then created many creatures of myth to combat these abominations of her creation. This was not enough, and the Mother reluctantly gifted a part of herself to another group of ponies, her magic. To concentrate their spells, spiraling horns emerged from the foreheads of the magically imbued, making the first unicorns. Bloody was the conflict waged for the control of the world, the scales never tipping one way or the other. The goddess decided to send her avatars to lead the rebelling creatures to victory. They chose the forms of alicorns, one black as night and one white as winter snow. Celestia and Luna were their names, and with their immortal aid the demons were successfully punished in the eyes of the god. The demons had been pacified in their hateful and violent natures. But a great darkness emerged during the War, something that fed on the very souls of the demons and drove their minds to become less than that of the animals they once enslaved. Eventually the warriors of the forsaken race chose to flee and hide themselves away, a shattered fragment of the mighty civilization that had dominated and threatened to destroy the world. In their absence, the innocents of the demon race fell prey to the soul devouring hunger of the living darkness. The world then knew harmony, though she now had the children she always had desired in the hastily created pony tribes, the goddess knew no greater exhaustion and left her daughters Celestia and Luna stewardship of the world, even to the responsibilities of raising the sun and moon. The mostly unaltered "earth" ponies found joy and great responsibility in cultivating the land they were named after and so took to restoring the devastated land in the wake of the great conflict. The winged and aloof pegasi were tasked with shepherding the winds and creating the weather in the absence of the Earth Mother's breath. The mystical and powerful unicorns sought arcane knowledge and in doing so would maintain the flow of magic throughout the world. And the goddess bestowed one final gift upon the world; something to ensure peace and love, but also to prevent a race as vile and twisted as the demons from ever regaining power ever again. The Elements of Harmony. Though now believed to be no more than myth, sometimes an old pony will tell stories by the fireside to frighten their young foals about the demons who enslaved the world and defied Nature herself. The vanished Army of the Fallen Race who swore to bide their time in hiding and bring forth a black wave of death, chaos and revenge when they had regained their strength. The forsaken race who consumed flesh and destroyed for pleasure. Who stalked the earth on two legs instead of four. The Fallen Race known only as Man. -Excerpt from Starswirl the Bearded's Essays on the Origin of Magic, written in the First Era of Equestrian Freedom. Removed and forbidden from the Royal Library in the Second Era of the Sun Alicorn. ***************************************************************** Ours is a world in crisis. The year of The Fall was preceded by many which crippled and weakened the absolute power of humanity. The year is 2017, a year we have not yet known. The world is struck repeatedly by disastrous calamities which will pave the way for a new way of life. Disease is rampant, several drug resistant plagues have ravaged the planet, leaving unknown millions or billions dead or infirmed. Our ignorance of our impact on the global environment has created extremes of weather which drown untold thousands in torrential downpour while roasting millions in unending heat waves. War is a common theme on the evening news, be it war for freedom or religion, or more recently, resources. Hundreds of thousands die for thoughtless causes and abstract concepts that are beyond them. Natural resources have begun to run dry, in desperation the virgin forests are ravaged for lumber, and today's deepest mines are jokes compared to the mega mines established to keep up with ever increasing demands. Atomic war has ravaged areas of the Middle East, rendering them completely uninhabitable. To try and curtail such things from ever happening again, the leaders of the world swear away from nuclear weapons, and all missiles and bombs are dismantled and their plans destroyed. Noticing its own suffering, the people of America blindly elect men of the far left to lead them in empty promises of peace and prosperity. Freedom is lost as guns are completely outlawed for the civilian populace. The military suffers as well, budget cuts are made so extensively that older technologies must be relied on for survival, and the military is relegated to little more than a flashy militia force. Peace is no guarantee, without the specter of brutal retaliation and reprimand, dictators rise like a flame on dry summer grass. Revolt and unrest, starvation and disease, suffering and ignorance. This is the world that isn't but could be, a world that is choking on its own bile, a world ripe for revolution. Mankind has chosen their fate, and ignored the warnings She has given them. Her cries of agony and sorrow for our self induced suffering have fallen on deaf ears. ******************************************************************************* There, edited for your pleasure, ribbed for hers. In my opinion the edit is a hundred times better than the original.