//------------------------------//
// Chapter 15: Descent Into Madness – A King and His Empire 
// Story: Equestria: A History Revealed 
// by Hoofry_Poneigher 
//------------------------------//

	Before we can get into the Crystal War, we (we being an intellectual use of the superior “I”) must first discuss one of the “major players” in the conflict, King Sombra, née Somber.

First off, who is King Sombra? Let’s provide a brief rundown of his life, which was not at all stolen without citation from Ponipedia. King Sombra; (918-2012?) was the last along the line of unicorn monarchs in the Crystal Empire. Known colloquially as the “Shadow King”, “Son of Darkness” and, more uncommonly, “Genocidal Dick”, he was responsible for the numerous advancements in the understanding of dark magic, and most significantly, for the attempted mass genocide and enslavement of his nation, and his role as the instigator of the Crystal War of 951-952.

Of course, this regurgitation of facts (from my brain, not from anywhere else mind you), would prove to be quite contradictory to what is known in past history. The ideas of separate monarchs and a random subset of a territory on the continent-nation of Equestria literally forgotten by all is quite difficult to appropriately place in the timeline. In fact, the Crystal Empire’s exact history proves to be quite difficult in the context of traditional Equestrian history. This is not helped by the fact that most of the academia in Canterlot have no mention of this forgotten empire and the year-spanning conflict that resulted from its existence, at least before its reappearance in late 2012, and as such, it was literally an empire and a war, “wiped” from history. And I think we all know who was behind that. But I’m sorry Celestia, but you’ll soon find that under the observant eye of Loose Change, that Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser© isn’t able to remove all stains from hard to reach areas. Even if those hard to reach areas are within the realms of lost history.

For it is in this section that my Crystal Library sources really get to shine. That’s right, it’s time to feature the sources I’ve been hyping up since the Abstract. And it’ll be for an entire two chapters. Booyah.

First, let us dive into the civil history of the Crystal Empire. It seems like when it comes to the Crystal Empire, one must dive into semantics. As the Crystal Empire is indeed a part of Equestria, the continent, it was not always a part of Equestria, the nation. During the unification of the three pony nations (as mentioned in Chapter 3), it seems as though the Crystal Empire was not included in this event. This was most likely due to the fact that no pony had ever truly ventured into the arctic north, or at least any pony who lived to tell the tale.

The Empire, in essence, was an empire. Perhaps that’s why it had the word “empire” in its name. From what pre-Crystal Empire history states (whose time period in respect to Pre-Equestrian history is still debated to this day), the Crystal Empire was established by assimilation. The crystal ponies previously lived in small city states and were relatively independent and separate from each other (showing that despite being from the same race, segregation still existed). But, with the rise of a dominant state, all of the city states were eventually assimilated into one glorious empire through conquest.[71] Interestingly enough, the exact details regarding the annexations of the states of the past, as well as the identity of the superior city state is unknown to us historians, and no valid records were found in the Crystal Library. But what is intriguing about the ancient Crystal Empire were the methods they chose to conduct their domestic and foreign policies.

When it came to the political and social policies of the Empire, it seemed, in fact, that the crystal ponies insisted to live in forced isolation from the rest of Equestria,[72] which I am sure was probably quite splendid. The crystal ponies, a genetic offset from Earth Ponies, were actually jam-packed to the brim with their own culture, cutting edge surround sound, and blast processing.[73] In essence, it was just a large city state, aware of Equestria’s existence, but usually straying away from its conflicts and politics. It was due to this long-lasting isolationist policy that they were able to avoid the pratfalls of Celestia, but on the other hand, they also missed out on some brilliant foreshadowing of her evil by Discord, so every rose has its thorns I guess.

When it comes to discussing the leadership of the nation, the Crystal monarchy itself held many secrets. It seemed that in a crystal pony majority city state, a unicorn monarchy (who, according to records, weren't even made out of crystal) still managed to instill themselves as tyrants. Those goddamn unicorns seep their grubby little hooves into everything good in the world, don’t they? Anyways, the monarchy held adequate success over ruling their subjects (as adequate as a unicorn leader could be I suppose, which by-the-by, isn’t a lot), until the crowning of Sombra as king.

Sombra himself, was certainly an interesting figure in history. Living with the support of a loving family, his role as future king, and crystal pony servants to serve his every beck and whim,[74] it's hard to see how he could turn evil. In fact, it is my opinion that he wasn’t really that evil after all. You know, overlooking the attempted slavery, genocide, and dark magic thing. I mean, in comparison to Celestia, who had the audacity to lie about her identity to strengthen a nation on the verge of collapse, it doesn’t take a genius to sort out the true evil here.

Interestingly enough, Sombra seemed to be quite educated as a growing young unicorn, mastering basic magic by the age of 5, and advanced magic by the age of 11.[75] He certainly possessed a curious mind, which was rivaled only by his passion for learning, as he filled his mind with facts and knowledge.[76]

In fact, Sombra was apparently a prolific author, writing tomes upon tomes of academia in his prime. While he must have been quite the gifted scholar, one could observe his gradual descent into insanity through the titles of his books. With such apt titles as “The Art of Horticulture: The Beauty of the Magnoliophyta”, “Applications and Explorations in Integral Calculus”, and “My Struggle: Attempting Genocide 101”, we can see how the darkness in his mind spread to his academic work as well. I mean, who would write a five hundred page book on Calculus for the fun of it? And a multivolume work on freakin’ horticulture? You’re a goddamn monster!

And it was not as though he was not endowed politically and orally (for clarification sake, not in the context you’re probably thinking of). He was a brilliant speech maker, a strong leader, and a skilled policy maker. As one of the vehement supporters of isolationism during a period when the other Crystal officials considered officially “spreading their legs”, and formally opening relations with the rest of Equestria, he was one of the most vocal in his opinion. One of the few remaining records of the king survives in the form of collected excerpts of one of his royal meetings,



“I maintain my position regarding foreign affairs in our fair empire. A relationship with the rest of Equestria would pave a path of which I am certain would lead to catastrophe.”[77]



What a meticulously worded pony. With his anachronistic way of speaking, he surely must have been quite the pretentious equine (but honestly, what unicorn isn't)? What kind of pony would insist on the inclusion of such ostentatious and superfluous vocabulary to make themselves seem smarter? I don't mean to be querulous, but such spurious behavior simply substantiates his lack of intelligence. But again, unicorn.

We’re getting off track here. Despite all of his “good qualities” (note that the words, good qualities, are italicized and quotated), at some point in his life, Sombra drove himself insane (I’m feeling it was probably with the publishing of that Calculus book). Even to this day, nopony knows what could have driven the Crystal King to madness. Nonetheless, many crystal scholars, before their eventual persecution, had speculated the subject a thousand years ago. Perhaps it was the general public’s constant inane talk of flugelhorns and jousting (which was part of a whole Medieval Equestria fad that somehow enveloped the city),[78] or perhaps it was their obsession with crystal-themed baked goods and Sombra being forced to hold a fair every year to keep the ponies from crying. Maybe it was even the fact that he was literally surrounded by crystals every day and that the ponies would continue to place the word crystal into every line of conversation like a cheap and unsubtle commercial. In my professional opinion, it was probably the baked goods. Whatever it was, it drove the king mad, causing him to mutter the word “crystals” every other second, and most significantly, drove him into an obsession with dark magic.

With that, he started to delve deeper into what little information on dark magic he could find. Given that he was the only unicorn in a city made primarily of earth ponies, it was pretty difficult to do. But thanks to his scholarly mind, he was able to initiate some of the most advanced research regarding dark magic known to ponykind (only rivaled of course, by the Elements of Harmony, and Celestia (and Luna), whose use of dark magic were not yet known). He gradually progressed in his experiments with dark magic, starting from the basics with some simple fear spells, before eventually reaching the advanced level of an endless stairs spell.[79] The only mistake he made (you know, other than the whole “going insane” thing) was making such information public (as a true scholar would), starting a chain reaction whose consequences shall be discussed in the next chapter. But as a fellow scholar who insists on spreading knowledge to the masses no matter how dangerous it may be to themselves, I salute you.

According to the official biography of his life as transcribed by his chief advisor, Crystal Pony #43, before her deposition, his first act as the newly named “Mad King” was to immediately enslave the asinine crystal ponies, to ensure their “shutting of ups”.[80] By hiding the Crystal Heart, an artifact passed down from generations which protected the Crystal Empire from all evil “for the longest time”,[81] he was able to ensure that the crystal ponies could never rise against him and destroy his dark powers. With the completion of those preliminary steps, he then of course, attempted to advance to the next step; the systematic slaughter of the indigenous crystal pony population to fuel his complicated future experiments in blood runes, following the plans described in his book that foreshadowed his evil, “The Art of Horticulture”.

Despite all of this, I can’t fault him for everything he’s done, because unlike Celestia, even under his twisted rule, some good things were able to come from his reign. For example, there was a definite increase in the production of public works projects (thanks to all of the slave labor).[82] And he gave the benign crystal ponies something fun to do; walking around in circles looking sad and pathetic while dragging around their heavy chains.[83] Now who wouldn’t enjoy that? It probably was good exercise for the entire empire. And I’m sure the crystal ponies never looked thinner! (which was also probably thanks to all the starvation) Nonetheless, Celestia could still learn a thing or two from this. Take a break from shoving all those cakes in your mouth and do a push-up once in a while!

With Sombra’s opt for insanity, it seemed as though the Crystal Empire was doomed to perish under his iron-clad hoof of evil and terrible taste in royal cloaks. But of course this was not to be, or else I wouldn’t even be talking about it now, would I? So obviously, there must have been somepony who put a stop to this evil. Alas, it seemed like as we have seen in history, the only way to stop evil is with a far greater evil. After all, isn’t this the pattern we’ve observed? From good (the Caballeros, Equinus), medium (Discord), and evil (Sombra, Celestia), it unfortunately seemed as though history followed a cruel pattern. That pattern of course being, that unicorns are the cause of all evil.