//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: Shingeki no Uma - Attack on Horse 
// by Ketchi 
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In schools, foals are taught about the world we live in.  Things have always been that way.  We’re taught math, geography, cooking, and the history of our species.  We’re taught that ponykind once dominated significant portions of the world.  That we were once great in number, peerless in every way and bound only by our ethics.  We had great allies - the donkeys, buffalo, gryphons, and even nature itself.  We cared for the creatures of the world, raised them, and ruled them like Mother Celestia to her people.  We were powerful, but we were also wise, valuing harmony above all else - yet we still had great enemies.  There were always impossible tyrants who would stop at nothing to enslave us, nightmarish parasites that ate all they could see, entire species that could steal our forms, and giants who could freeze our lands in an instant.  But somehow, we always prevailed.  We always endured the oncoming storm and came out stronger from it.

However, nothing could prepare us for our greatest trial yet - not even our wits, magic, strength, and legends gathered from the many millennia passed.  We had a new nemesis - more powerful and unexpected than anything we’ve seen before.  The Horses came, nopony knows how or why, but they did.  They were horrifying ponylike creatures but over ten times our size and with an exceeding strength, matched with an unstoppable desire to devour pony flesh.  Yet, although they appear ponylike and share our wings and horns, they are nothing like us.  They care not for any other creature, completely absent of remorse, mercy, and harmony.  They possess no greed for power or wealth, only the gluttonous destruction of innocent souls.

Ponykind met what could easily become its extinction as a species.  We tried everything we could imagine.  We tried communicating with them, but they had no apparent leader or understanding of language.  We tried our magic, but they were immune to our most powerful spells, even to the Elements of Harmony.  We battled with the deadliest of weapons, but they regenerated from even the most fatal of wounds.  The Horses had no weakness and we had nothing left to fight them back with.  Desperate for help, Mother Celestia pleaded to our allies for aid, but those who didn’t turn away were annihilated.  Our greatest of friends perished and all we could do was watch.  Soon, we had no allies remaining - they were either traitors to our cause or wiped out.  There was nothing we could do.  There was no hope remaining.  To us, they were the apocalypse.  But to them, we were nothing but food.

In only two years from appearing in year 738, the unrivalled, unstoppable beasts obliterated everything we had left.  What remained of our number fled to the corners of the globe only to find more Horses in waiting.  Led by Mother Celestia, the last half million of our species found a location rich in natural resources.  Although with a few unfortunate biomes, there was an abundance of vegetation, minerals, and water - perfect for sustaining pony life.  Giving the grim order to lure the Horses away from the area, Mother Celestia prepared a spell alongside Commander Luna.  Countless ponies lost their lives following her command, but every Horse was evacuated.  Together, the alicorns materialised three distantly layered enormous walls, encompassing a diameter of approximately seven hundred kilometres, each measuring a uniform fifty metres in height and ten metres of solid width.  After their magic, ponies have never been able to perform magic or flight, but neither have the Horses.

Mother Celestia was never seen again after casting the spell.  Commander Luna reported that Celestia pushed her limits and gave her life to cast the spell, in hopes that someday somepony may find an answer to the Horse phenomenon and be able to save the pony race.  It is for their sacrifice that we have been able to live one hundred years of peace, protected from the Horses between these impenetrable walls.  In that time, we’ve built towns, roads, and transportation, expanding our population to 1.25 million.  We have named our great land Equestria and the three walls Maria, Rose, and Shina, in the order of outermost to in.  Although knowledge of the outside world is forbidden, we can indeed live a casual pony life.

Under the command of Luna, ponies have continued to volunteer and struggle against the Horses outside as an effort to reduce their numbers and retake our lands.  They join the Military Corps, devoting their entire being to the cause, trained under life-threatening conditions heavy enough to make a grown stallion cry.  They’re taught to use gas powered tether rods and hardened steel dual blades, alien to the instinct of a pony but the most effective choice available.  Alongside their glorification, they seem to enjoy pretending that they’re helping our species, but progress has never been made and probably never will.  There’s no sense in depreciating their sacrifice, but it’s futile.  Nothing but the wall has ever been able to stop the Horses.