15. A Message From the Author
I was born a Prince, and am now Imperator. I am and have been scholar and soldier, scientist and sorceror, states-stallion and supreme ruler. I am and have been many things, and I have learned much in my life. To thee, brave Reader, do I bequeath my hard-won wisdom.
From the first words of the introduction she felt enthralled. Prince and Imperator -- it must indeed have been Crimson Quartz, King Sombra, the one who had somehow become Penumbra, who had written this book. She felt that he was reaching out her across the gulfs of time to teach her; she felt honored by his attention. This was not uncommon for Moon Dancer, encountering a great book, but -- because she had met Penumbra, it was all the more personal.
I have learned this lore by reading books, and by living life, yea, unto the sweet heights of ecstasy and the bitter depths of despair. I have known true love and seen my true love trampled under the hooves of a tyrant. I have been by turns a pampered prince, a tortured captive, a powerless exile, and a conquering hero. I have known friendship and enmity, love and hatred, full enough of both to see deeper into their truths and lies than the philosophers and priests know -- or admit.
Moon Dancer thrilled to these revelations. Her studies filled in the gaps. His true love would have been Lady Tourmaline, the Loyal Tourmaline, his faithful mistress who had suffered and dared anything to aid her Prince. The tyrant he fought, of course, would have been the Imperator Sthenarkos, his evil brother Morion. And Crimson had studied so deeply into the lore that was lost now. What had he learned? What would he now reveal to his eager reader?
For much ye have been taught is a Lie, and much ye have not been taught is Truth; much that ye love merely uses your love, to batten and feed upon ye. They dwell among ye, they rule ye, and yet they serve not your ends, but the unfathomable ends of Beings from Beyond our little Earth. Ye know them not in truth, and they depend upon your Innocence to remain in their seats of Power and rule you for their own Purposes.
They say they are your Friends, and play the role of Mothers to ye all, yet did they smite the whole Earth long ago, and smash the Brightest Dreams of Ponies, bringing down in Cataclysm the Age of Wonders, for that they feared that Pony might grow too Great, and shake the Shackles by which their Cosmic Kind had chained us. Yet by the strength of our Minds may we Break these Bonds, and exceed the Limits they have placed upon us -- for the great secret is that they know that we have in time the Potential to be in our Own Selves greater than any Goddesses.
Wait ... was he talking about? ... but no, how could that be possible?
Moon Dancer read on.
Ye who fear the Truth, and would live content in the Lie, read no further. For I shall, in here, reveal most plain certain truths that shall undermine the walls of your happy lies, and most cruelly cast light upon your now undefended Beliefs, by proving some of your most cherished Assumptions to be false. And the knowing of these truths shall end forever your Happiness, which was founded upon shifting sands. I say this at the start, that none might claim that I did trick you into Ruin.
But ye who yearn for the Truth, and could never live content in the Lie, read on. For I shall open your eyes to that which you Desire, and if your walls do fall, it shall only be to let you raise more secure ones on firmer foundations, so that you may in the end be the stronger for it. But heed well -- this is your choice, between the two paths you may walk. Only one can be your destiny.
Her mouth was slightly parted and she was breathing hard as she continued to read, turning to the first chapter, "Cosmogenesis."
16. Cosmogenesis
In the very Beginning, before the Earth or Sun or Stars, everything was very small and close and hot beyond comprehension, neither Matter nor Energy nor Space nor Time, but simply existence. And this Existence expanded very fast, in a vast explosion beyond anything that could now exist, for it was Everything that now exists which was exploding.
And as Everything expanded, it cooled. As it cooled, the raw Existence condensed into diverse forms, first of Energy and then of Matter. There were Gravity and Anti-Gravity, and Subtle Forces of the Atom, and Light and the Subtler Forces of the Kernel of the Atom, and even stranger Energies. And as the Energy cooled, some of it condensed into matter, since ever since the Age of Wonders have wise Ponies known that Energy and Matter are intraconvertible. And thus was born our Universe.
Moon Dancer nodded. The Ponies of the Age of Wonders had possessed subtle instruments beyond the ability of any Ponies now living to build,; in legends they wielded great telescopes and particle accelerators and computers to probe the fundamental mysteries of the Universe. And they had learned essentially the story that Crimson Quartz here told. Possibly from Crimson Quartz, as works on cosmology and physics had been among those the Lady Tourmaline had rescued from the Fall of the Crystal Empire.
But Anti-Gravity, born of the seeming Empty Space created by the the Great Explosion, built upon itself to push Everything apart very rapidly, not merely moving these Things in Space but inflating Space Itself. And this Inflation pushed Everything apart much, much faster than the fastest speed within Space, which is that of Light in the Void. And this meant that the divers Parts of Everything could not carry Information to one another, which meant that they might Contradict one another
Thus was created Paradox.
Paradox in reality? thought Moon Dancer in confusion. But no -- all paradoxes in logic are merely apparent, the result of a mistake in deduction or a poor choice of assumptions or definitions of terms. How could there be a paradox in reality? Moon Dancer tried to grasp the idea, but her mind slipped off the very concept. Such a thing cannot be! Yet, somehow, she felt that Penumbra was not lying -- that Paradox was, and that she couldn't really understand it because it was beyond mortal understanding in some fundamental fashion.
Understand well, Brave Reader. At its foundation the Universe is Information, lore such as one might find in a book or in the crystalline memory-cores of the great Computers of the Age of Wonders, though infinitely grander. Paradox is like ink spilled across the pages, a mistake in the Rules that work the Computers. Paradox destroys Information. It can make the Universe stop. It can be the end of Everything.
If that's true, I'm information as well, Moon Dancer deduced. Thus if I could really understand Paradox as well, I could not be.
That's what it is! she realized with excitement mingled with terror. Paradox is Non-Being. But it's Non-Being that is at the same time Being, the paradox at the core of Paradox, and it spreads!
She still could not directly conceive it, but now she knew why. If she could, she would stop existing. In this case, a certain degree of ignorance was not only bliss, but sheer survival.
It would have ended our Universe in its first seconds of existence, had it not been that our Universe was far from the first Universe to come into being. For, just as Beasts beget Beasts, and in many millions of years the Fish becomes the Frog, the Frog the Lizard, the Lizard the Mammal, and the Mammal the Pony, honed by the Knife of Natural Selection; so in countless millions of Aeons Universes beget Universes, and in stretches of Time beyond Time the descendants of small and simple Universes are great and complex Universes, such as the One in which we dwell.
And as Beasts are preyed upon by Animalcules that cause Sickness, so too are Universes preyed upon by Those Beings which cause Paradox. What this is no Ponies know, and even those Ponies imagine Goddesses can but spy them dimly and by their ill work. But just as Beasts develop their own Animalcules to fight the Animalcules of Sickness, so too do Universes develop their own Beings to fight the Beings of Paradox. They are anti-Paradox, and it is their job to destroy Paradox and its Manifestations wheresoever they may appear.
As Paradox is Anti-Concept, so Anti-Paradox is Concept. And this is what they are, the Anti-Paradoxes of our Universe -- the Cosmic Concepts.
They are those we have named Goddesses.
And they have betrayed us.
Moon Dreamer's mind was reeling with these revelations. It was all assuming a certain dreadful shape in her mind, starting to make sense of ancient legends and half-stated insinuations. Here, Penumbra was not insinuating. He was, as he had promised, speaking plainly.
And what he was saying was horrible.
The first Concepts were born in the very early Universe, before the Earth and Sun and Stars, when Everything was just beginning to settle down and Matter was condensing from Energy. There is an All which even I do not understand, the Pattern for the Universe, and from this sprang in the structure of Everything four Beings: the All-Father and the All-Mother, around whom began to twine the Concepts of Law; and the All-Chaos and All-Ending, around which began to form the Concepts of Chaos.
And the Concepts were not born quite as we understand Generation and Birth. Rather as a Force needed Law or displayed Chaos, interactions formed through a Space above Space, in which Information was not limited by the laggard Speed of Light, And Nodes formed, and Networks, and Patterns, and these Patterns competed for the available Thought inherent in the System, until for each graven Law or displayed Chaos, one Pattern consumed or displaced its Rivals, and became its Concept.
As the book progressed, diagrams and mathematical equations proliferated, most of which Moon Dancer, for all her education, grasped but dimly, but some of which she grasped well enough to understand that Crimson Quartz was explaining them properly. She was awed at the Prince's intelligence and mathematical ability, and wondered if any Pony now living could understand all that was in the Codex. Perhaps the only Pony she knew might have a chance was her former friend, Twilight Sparkle.
Thus were born the Cosmic Concepts. Many there were, each mistress of a Law or Process, but the three which concern us the most clearly are three whose destinies were closely linked both to the Creation of our World, and to its present Governance.
These are Gravity, Fusion and Dissonance.
17. Gravity, Fusion and Dissonance
Gravity, thought Moon Dancer. The force which holds together planets, which locks the Sun and Moon in orbit around the Earth. Fusion. The force which makes possible the heat and light of Sunfire. And Dissonance ... why does that last one seem so familiar? Almost personally familiar?
Of these Forces, Gravity and Fusion were linked by the very Stars, which are of course Suns so distant that they seem mere Pinpoints. For Gravity draws together the Prime Nuclei of Matter, the Watermaker, and Fusion combines them into Sunstuff, and this releases tremendous light according to the formula ...
Math ensued, but at its core Moon Dancer recognized the equation of the ancient philosopher Stony One: Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light Squared, and then a comparison of the masses of two Watermaker nuclei compared to one nucleus of Sunstuff, with the deficit in the product then multiplied by Stony One's equation, yielding a tiny amount of energy on an equine scale per nuclear reaction, but a titanic amount of energy given the number of nuclei undergoing the reaction at any moment in the Sun. There was of course an adjustment to compensate for the Sunwarp, and a check against the actual amount of energy received at an Astronomical Unit from our Sun.
This is astrophysics, and it's amazing that Crimson grasped the lore so fully, over a thousand years ago, Moon Dancer thought. We know this part of it today, though I notice that he claims the Sunwarp was "imposed" -- what does he mean by that? Would even Celestia be powerful enough to warp the Sun?
Thus, from the Beginning, Gravity and Fusion were like unto Sisters, and that there are Stars that shine, including the Sun, is wholly due to their loving Embrace. And in the Fullness of Time, Stars were Born and did Die, in their Deaths spraying out vast clouds of dust and gas, in which could be found new Elements. For only Watermaker and Sunstuff were produced in the Beginning; it is from the power of Fusion and the Death of Stars that all heavier Elements were Created, including those which make up the Rock beneath our Hooves, and the very substance of our Bodies.
I knew this, Moon Dancer thought, it's fundamental astrophysics, and I took a course in it at the Academy. But I never realized the implications. We -- all of us -- I myself right now in this room am part of the processes by which stars are born and die. Amazing! Suddenly she felt both very small, and strangely very proud.
But when Stars exploded and spread their stuff across the firmament, that stuff was at first thinly sowed, far too thinly to come together again and make new Stars. The Clouds of Gas and Dust fluctuated in regular wave-like patterns, but even at their peaks their Density was too small to allow their Coalescence. So would the Heavens have remained Barren, like a Mare who never found her Husband, were it not for a Natural Process.
For the Gravity of other Stars and of the Dark Matter that invisibly shrouds the Galaxies tugged upon the Clouds in manners so complex as to not be tractably reckoned, creating Dissonance in their simple wavelike structures. And though these forces were applied Chaotically, in their summation there was a higher implicit Order, what the Mathematicians of the Age of Wonders called Strange Attractors, and to these points in Space did the Clouds collapse. And thus from the loving touch of Discord, the Heavens were made fertile, and new Stars born. And as this happened, was Discord Himself also born, and opened His Eyes upon the young Universe.
Wait, what did Penumbra just say? He can't mean ... no, that's not possible!
She decided to suspend this line of inquiry, as she lacked the knowledge to come to any meaningful conclusion. So far.
Thus the Three, this Trinity, were linked most Inseperably, in that aspect of the Universe most important to us, the Creation of the very Stars that Shine, and the Worlds that whirl on their courses. Fusion, and Gravity, and Discord. Wherever Fusion and Gravity went, so did Discord follow, and in his Pursuit created the Galaxies in their billions, and each of them a Conglomeration of billions of Stars. And for a long time in our terms, Fusion and Gravity and Discord, and their fellow Concepts, looked upon a Universe that had neither Life nor Mind within it, save for their own.
But then in the Fullness of Time, as the heavy Elements accumulated in generation upon generation of Stars, those Elements combined into complex Chemicals, and these Chemicals into forms which made more of their own out of the primal Stuff surrouding. And these Living Chemicals formed Creatures, which lived and struggled and bred and changed into new Creatures over Time, causing new Concepts to be born of their Life and Love and Strife. And the day came when, on countless Worlds throughout the Universe, some Creatures opened their Eyes, and looked at the Stars in Wonder. And Minds were born.
Including my mind, thought Moon Dancer, awed. And that of Crimson Quartz. Such a mind! Such vast intellect, such deep understanding! Where did he go wrong?
And the Cosmic Concepts looked upon the emergence of Life and Mind, and they found them Good. But they were confused, for the Concepts -- for all their Scope and Might -- were essentially Simple Beings, ponifications of the Laws and Processes of Nature. And the stirrings to and fro of Life, and the concerns of Mind, were alien to them. And Some among the Concepts were seized by a Hunger to Understand the new Beings.
Most curious of all was Fusion, for Her Force was a complex one. And it occurred to her that, if she could send forth a Part of Herself, and let it be Born into a Living Form, that Part might Inform Her of what it meant to be Alive. And so she did, and with her journeyed her Sister, for though Gravity was but a Simple Concept, She could not be separated from her Sister for long.
And after the Sisters, as always, followed Discord.
18. Incarnations
Fusion and Gravity? thought Moon Dancer. The force that lights the Sun ... and the force that binds the Earth and Moon? As ... Sisters? Dwelling among mortals? Among ... us?
Something dreadful was taking shape within her mind.
Penumbra can't mean ... It seemed impossible.
Can he?
No Pony can say how many Strange Forms, how many Unearthly Lives, this Trinity lived until they came to Our World. Nor, in truth, how many Forms and Lives they took even on this Earth, for the Wise know that Ponies are neither the First nor as of yet the Greatest of the Minds which have dwelt on this Planet and looked out to the Stars.
But I do know when it was that they were born on this Earth, in the forms of two lovely Alicorns, and one unlovely Draconequus, to the Undying Ponies of Paradise Estate in the south-lands called Equestria.
No ... thought Moon Dancer. It can't be ...
You, Brave Reader, will doubtless have heard of them, so great is their Reign and brilliant their Glory. You may even feel for them a surpassing Love, for Fusion did design into the Alicorn -- which is not a normal Kind of Pony at all -- a Charisma which few Ponies can resist, even though it is an Armament She devised so that She and Her Sister might do as they willed among Ponies without Restraint. You may already have guessed their Names by now, for I am sure that any who have read this far into my Work are themselves possessed of Minds most Excellent.
Oh yes, thought Moon Dancer. I know what's coming ...
Nevertheless shall I Name them, two Names I know full well, as full well I know their Bearers in person.
That's right, Moon Dancer realized, with the remnants of her functioning reason. Prince Crimson Quartz took refuge first in the City Foreverfree. He would have met them in person. As a fugitive Prince, he would have been of interest to the Ruling Princesses ...
The Sisters were born to Mimic, an Undying of Paradise Estate. They were seeming Ponies, but in truth inequine Creatures from Beyond. One shone like the Sun, while the other gathered to her the dark mysterious beauty of Moonlight.
And they were given Pony names.
Celestia, and Luna.
Moon Dancer slammed the book shut. Her eyes were huge, her pupils pinpointed, her ears flat back.
She trembled in terror, but knew that there would be, neither by day nor by night, for her no consolation.
She had learned the Truth, and feared it would haunt her for ever.