Princess Cadance felt on edge, despite having been awake for well over 24 hours. She stood on the second-floor balcony of the house she shared with her husband in Canterlot, looking out across the mid-day light. The sun blazed high in the sky, its presence mocking Cadance, tormenting her. Her conscience nagged at her, never ceasing in its incessant call.
Tell them...
All night Cadance had remained like this, lying awake in bed as Shining quietly snored beside her. When morning came, she had pretended to have slept fitfully, and Shining left to attend to matters of a military nature, leaving Cadance to stand in a silent tempest, her demeanor carefully neutral. But inside she warred with herself.
The SUN! Going out, leaving the inhabitants to die in the dark; cold, starving. The entire WORLD! Dozens of species, erased! Just so that us Alicorns may leave into OUTER SPACE to find another planet to live on! It's all so ludicrous! Worse, it's deplorable! A genocide that we will allow to occur for our gains! Cadance thought to herself.
But... We will start again. Celestia and Luna explained it themselves. This cycle had began since before they were even born, and it will continue until they create what they deem a perfect race. Celestia and Luna have done this countless times, they have such experience in the crafting of economies, cultures, and even species. Surely it must be that one day they would succeed, and would I not want to be present when it occurs?
But in thinking over what her elders had told her Cadance had come to be confused, and thought the whole Alicorn Ideology to be illogical and inconsistent. What's more, she did not understand the 'why' of it, its origins, or even the origins of the Alicorn race. She was still reeling over the fact that she was Celestia and Luna's sister/daughter. That Alicorns were exclusively female did not strike Cadance as alarming, but that they were all nearly genetically identical piqued her curiosity. She wondered how such a species could sustain itself without genetically stagnating and dying out. The implications behind Alicorns all being genetically identical disturbed Cadance, and none of her theories comforted her.
Created in a lab, cloned, engineered... There is no possible way a species could EVOLVE without genetic adaptation and evolution. So Alicorns being a natural product of evolution doesn't seem likely. So the question becomes... who created us? Where did we come from?
Cadance's breath quickened, and it dawned on her why she had never felt comfortable in her own skin; she was an unnatural by-product of a race that should not exist. At this realization a flood of understanding rushed through Cadance, and it all finally made sense to her.
Celestia and Luna's cold logic, the Alicorn Ideology that dictates to them their morality, the beliefs they must follow. Why they will do the things they will do, why they have done the things they have done; all the machinations of the race that created us! A genetic programming that Celestia and Luna continue to this day! In so much that my elders create species as experiments, so were WE created as an experiment! The Genesis of ponydom was a lab!
But to what end?
That was the question that Cadance could not answer. What's more, she could not be certain if her hypothesis that Alicorns, and indeed the Equestrian race, was created by an alien species was even correct. For all she knew, hers were the incoherent thoughts of a mare who had been up for 24 hours after having been told she would survive the literal end of the world. It was a matter she wanted to know about, and one she wanted to ask of her elders. Was pony kind created in a lab, or did they evolve? What was our homeworld?
Whether we were created or evolved really does not matter. The sun is going out, and I must come to grips with what I am to do. Abide by my elders and the Alicorn Ideology, or tell the world the truth. But... What would telling the world the truth even get me? Would they even believe me?
Cadance could not be certain, but doing the right thing was doing the right thing, consequences be damned. But, how to tell them? How to explain to the world the truth? How to ensure that it would reach the masses in a manner that they would believe it? Where could she even start? The reverence ponydom held for the Princesses of the day and moon was deeply ingrained, and most likely engineered into them, if Cadance had to guess. Breaking such a reverence to make them see the truth would be difficult.
But, the most important thing to consider, if they do believe me... What will the end result be?
This was something that Princess Cadance would never come to know.
Rock and ore, millions of years old, enclosed Celestia and Luna as they walked deep in the caves beneath Canterlot mountain, the winding caverns marked with natural spires and stalactites. Their horns glowed, illuminating the way as they walked their path by mere memory, trekking deeper into the heart of the mountain.
"The first of many inspections of My Heaven we must endure. Tell me, sister; does it still scare you, as it does I?" Luna asked, her voice echoing in the large cavern they currently trotted through. Celestia craned her neck to look at her sister, her answer dancing upon her face.
"It terrifies me. A striking, paralyzing fear. Its power, the race it represented, the one who captained it... It's worlds different from every ship we previously owned" Celestia answered. They entered a nondescript cave among many, its intricacies identifying it as the one they needed to travel down to reach the innermost sanctum.
"Do you recall how your student was interred down here during Cadance's wedding? That was a most concerning event, for had she discovered My Heaven it would've created a difficult position for us. Tell me, sister, what would you have done had she uncovered our coveted vessel?" Luna asked.
Celestia did not answer immediately, instead choosing to focus on navigating. Inevitably, though, she relented and offered her reply. "That's a complicated matter. Twilight and her friends represent a significant facet of this iteration's culture and have large public profiles. Had she discovered My Heaven, we would've had to erase this entire iteration and start over. Same for if somepony had discovered the Leviathan of the Haro, or if he had dared to leave the Everfree."
"Folly. Such a foolish folly, leaving him alive all this time. He could've cracked the foundation of this iteration simply by stepping out of the Everfree. I have often wondered why he has not done so" Luna said.
"Perhaps he has died."
"If even we could not kill him I doubt one of the species we've created could" Luna stated. Silence befell the two as they ventured deeper still, quickly coming up on a lone steel door, lain silent and closed for a millennium. Celestia reached forth and threw a switch, the door grinding open. The chamber beyond was brightly illuminated by thousands of lights, all mounted to the walls of the giant cavern and pointing inwards, towards the thing that dominated the wide open cavity deep in the mountain.
"My Heaven..." Celestia muttered, stepping forth into the cavern. She and Luna had carved out this cavern in the center of the mountain specifically to hide My Heaven from the world. The ship was suspended vertically in mid-air, the prow of the ship pointed upwards at the peak of the mountain.
Oval in shape and stretching from the bottom of the cavern all the way to the top, its white hull reflected the lights dully, the black lettering of its name void of any reflection. Mounted on top was a giant cannon, long dormant and cold. Celestia and Luna took to the air and flew over to the side of the vessel, entering via a hatch near the 'A' in Heaven, coming out into the main hangar, located in the center of the ship. They used their magic to root themselves to the floor of the ship, allowing them to walk through the vertically-oriented ship.
"A thousand years since we have walked these halls..." Luna whispered, her shoes clattering loudly against the steel. Celestia followed suit, joining her sister as they turned right towards the hangar exit, heading in the direction of the bridge. The automated doors opened as they approached, and from there it was just another trek down a hallway to the bridge. The door opened, and in entered the sisters Sun and Moon.
"A thousand years..." Celestia echoed Luna, tracing a hoof along the captain's chair. "Let's hope that the next time is the last, yes?"
"With the knowledge we have gained, and with Cadance's perspective, it may indeed be the last" Luna commented, heading around the captain's chair towards the viewport. Celestia followed, joining her sister in looking out the viewport at the ceiling of the mountain just outside.
"I hope you are right, my sister. Cadance is our sister, and although she may not understand the Alicorn Ideology, she will one day come to understand it, and then she will join us at our side as the rightful Goddesses we are. Then, when we have left this world, it is by her touch we will craft the perfect race" Celestia said.
"As you say, so it shall come to pass" Luna replied.