The pony known as Domino was a different matter entirely.

Domino is regarded as the most ‘common-born’ of the Eternal Knights. She was also the youngest.
It is not clear whether Domino was the name she was born with. What is clear however is that she was born and raised in the North Equestrian province of Grittanica Magia Minor or, as it is more commonly known, Trottingham.
Her parents were regarded as commoners though they would, nowadays, be regarded as upper-middle class. Her father ran a small guildhall where apprentices and artisans could study and find work and opportunities, travelling the state and taking in fresh talent, back when universities were far too expensive for anypony but the elite.
Her father became highly thought-of and many young mares and stallions taught by him went on to fame and fortune such as the writer Plott Thickens; the composer Choruse Revel; the actress Marah Yearnheart; the biologist Lars Gibbon; two future ministers of Trottingham, Basil ‘Brush’ Buffer (Who kept Trottingham safe and strong during the First Raptor War) and Tupper Ironclad (Ditto the Second) and the future Ghoran lawmaker Savar Ghodagadhi (Whose statue now towers over Ghorjarath as their first and only Prime Minister who protected and safeguarded the realm while the Maharajah was a hostage in the Glamourling lands). Another apprentice, the youngest at the time of Domino’s foalhoof, was Mallard Dory, a pegasus swordspony and navigator who hoped to become an explorer.
Alas, even after all the successes of Domino’s family, even they could not survive the great economic turnabout which doomed nearly every small business owner in Trottingham. The Grand Acquiescence and the rise of the Elite Industrial Guild.

Industry was on the rise in Trottingham. Since the Crystal War and the Empire cutting itself off from most of Equestria, many states in the mainland were forced to significantly regress in technology. But Trottingham was already experimenting with fuels such as coal and oil.
Even at its early stages, the immediate side-effects of these endeavours were known to their experts, those living around the great powerhouses at high risk of toxic air or water, and so the various factories were kept monitored on both the orders of the local politicians and the princesses.
Demand grew steadily but safely and in time, many other sources of power were experimented with as the mines uncovered the odd crystal or even magical artefact to test. A small but significant age of discovery.
But there was one among these industrialists who sought only profit over discovery, his mind set in a fierce lockstep of ruthless competition and unwavering material interest.
His name was Groat, one of the newest but most significant factory owners. While many other factory owners were supportive of the search and experiments into other power sources, Groat declared the entire business unseemly. He was notorious for working his miners and masons like slaves and was not above bribery, deceit or threats to keep the law out of what he considered his business.
But Groat knew his days were numbered as long as Trottingham continued in their exploration of power sources in the diverse field. So for nothing more than his own interests, he sought to completely undermine Trottingham’s economy and seize control of it in its throes.
He found an ally (No easy feat for such a cantankerous individual) in a prominent aristocrat named Lady Black-Pott, an ancient financial bloodline who ranked among Trottingham’s founders who was a member of a secretive but influential society known as the Lodge of Trovers. Their members held significant posts all around Trottingham and its reaches and colluded in secret to discuss what direction Trottingham would need to take if it were to prosper. Each one was united in two goals.
The first was to discover occultist artefacts before the Age of Magic which they believed would grant them incredible power, greater than any alicorn.
And the second was to break free of and then overshadow Equestria, dominating the alicorns and ruling the land their way.
Many of these plots were fanciful pretentions. They would get together on occasions that had some spiritual meaning to them, consume expensive food and drink, and grandiosely imagine themselves in such a position as to overthrow the alicorn monarchy, listing the things they would do more for their own pleasure than for any real point.
But one recent member, a mysterious intellectual known as Dr Delving. It is believed he either knew of the tragedy that was to occur or perhaps even orchestrated it with the help of the Lodge.

One fateful summer, the local factory owners, entrepreneurs and inventors gathered, Groat absent as he often was, to test another energy source, a meteorite with the glass-like crystal within exposed. The Ministry of Discovery, a respected government branch where some of the finest and most ambitious minds, organised the project. They believed that by focussing the sun’s rays via mirrors upon the crystal, it would generate enough potential energy to revolutionise the industry. A single piece of the ‘starmetal’ could power the entirety of Trottingham indefinitely, all the power of a star in the hands of ponykind. Thousands placed weighty investments on the experiment, a charter declared to ensure all paid their due to keep the starmetal safe and stable.
But something went wrong.
Through what was either a fault or sabotage, the entire laboratory was host to a calamitous explosion, killing or horrifically injuring everypony within and cruelly cutting short the age of industrial discovery and variety.
Groat, the only one with his body and finances intact, sued the Ministry of Discovery on behalf of those affected, bankrupting not only the Ministry and most of the city government itself. He then bought every factory in Trottingham and instilled his pitiless working regime in what became known as the Grand Acquiescence. Keeping the furnaces running day and night, he tore down every forest, dried every river and destroyed every independent settlement in his reach.
He established a doctrine for all ponies in his power.
‘Within Groat’s grand works, there are only two things. The working, moving mechanics and the dead, unmoving fuel. Remain the former. Do not become the latter.’
With his influence, he expanded his business empire over all of Trottingham. Gathering an assortment of fellow businessponies who shared his views, making sure they were either completely loyal or completely indebted, he founded the Elite Industrial Guild of High Trottingham (The EIGHT)

Despite its name, there were actually double that number, all stallions, all earth ponies, all Trottingham born-and-bred and all born into wealth and luxury...or so they all claimed.
Their names and roles are documented.

1. Marshall of the Routes, Governor Dundre: Head of Granport Plenty
2. Marshall of the Guard, Captain-General Twonk: Head of Henx Barracks
3. Master of Stocks, Ruptus: CEO of the Bankers and Betters Guild, seizing and running banking and entertainment centres.
4. Master of Accounts, Parsimony: CEO of the Loaners and Lenders Guild, seizing and running estate and employment centres.
5. Vice President Gnerk: CEO of the Sailors and Shipwrights Guild, seizing and running docks.
6. Baron de Brusque: CEO of the Filterers and Fermenters Guild, seizing and running reservoirs and breweries.
7. Director Drongo: CEO of the Diggers and Drillers Guild, seizing and running mines and rigs.
8. Earl Dingleberry: CEO of the Gatherers and Grocers Guild, seizing and running farms and yards.
9. Archduke Clodpole: CEO of the Smiths and Smelters Guild, seizing and running forges, tanneries and glassworks.
10. Marquis Fopdoodle: CEO of the Tailors and Twillers Guild, seizing and running weavers, tailors, and furriers.
11. Count Schlepper: CEO of the Cutters and Carvers Guild, seizing and running forest clearages.
12. Archdeacon Ninnyhammer: CEO of the Tutors and Trainers Guild, seizing and running schools and academies.
13. Grand Master Ailing: CEO of the Doctors and Dosegivers Guild, seizing and running hospitals and pharmacies.

And the remaining three controlled the criminal classes.
The Guild’s greatest threat was, in the end, the decency of common ponies. So it was their intention to set corruption at an all-time high, dupe the masses with problems to weigh on them and pleasures to settle them. The sordid market of vice was something they also set about seeking to control. Three guilds were set up, one for Gambling, one for Narcotics and one for Prostitution. The guilds also housed, hired and protected various criminal classes, turning what were once seen as crimes into personal professions, so as to make the streets that much less safe unless the guilds were sated. Ponies would only feel safe at work, serving the Guilds who they believed protected them. Those who earned their ire lost that security and criminals were paid to lessen their activities or focus it on the Guild’s enemies. If local politicians refused the Guild, the crime rate in the area would skyrocket. Strangely, murder was not one of the crimes that the Guild was interested in controlling. Though it may be of little surprise since one of the Guild’s codes was ‘One cannot make money from corpses (Theoretically)- Those who die make no money, those who suffer can more money than ever’. So it seems in place of killing those who left them unsated, they made life not worth living.

14. Vicelord Cloak-Dagger: King of Bookmakers and Keeper of Thugs.
15. Vicelord Foyst: King of Dealers and Keeper of Thieves.
16. Vicelord Nonce: King of Pimps and Keeper of Rapists.

Despite all this, it was the Lodge of Trovers who had the real power in Trottingham, now serving as the sole bastion of invention and discovery. Though they did little with this power, preferring to spend their days in idle amusement, boasting of their triumph, their fated victory fulfilled at last. The newly founded Ministry of Scrutiny, headed by the Black-Pott family, became the forerunner of the scientific field in Trottingham but instead of using it to improve life, they used it to assess it, fabricating quack theories to claim that any they found physically or ethically ‘undesirable’ somehow did not deserve to live in the lifestyle of a normal pony, usually an excuse to enslave or even wipe out whole communities. Among them were the piebalds and pintos, hunted down and slaughtered em masse or drowned at birth.
For a decade, Trottingham became the closest thing to Tartarus Equestria had ever seen.

Groat had already bought out every rival company but his acquisition of power had not eased his ambitions. On the contrary, not only was his greed unwavering but he was becoming paranoid. Dr Delving and Lady Black-Pott remained with him at all times, pointing out any enemy, real or imaginary. Every small business was shut down and its owners and workers placed in the lowliest and most dangerous jobs in the factories as ‘punishment’.
Her father was one such pony. Her mother had since become sick with the blue fever, running rampant in the area. She died on the streets with her daughter not a week after her husband was taken. Domino was forced to bury her in the blackened rubble that had once been the forests around Trottingham with only a tortoiseshell pendant placed over a smooth stone to mark her resting place.
With no parents, there was no way to provide for herself and no career that would help her get anywhere in life. What’s more, she was a piebald and therefore a pariah if not a dead mare walking.
Now there seemed no other route for her but out of Trottingham.
But during this time, with the land so ruined, the seas were still kept free as Equestria bore witness to the Golden Age of Piracy.

Stowing aboard one of the cargo ships, Domino sought to find refuge in any place but Trottingham. However, the ship was raided by a fearsome but majestic pirate frigate, the Bonny Founder, captained by the legendary ‘Pirate King’ Jolly Rodger.
Jolly Rodger was no ordinary pirate. With the EIGHT informally declaring war on piracy, Jolly Rodger had banded together several of his most trusted friends and allies and operated what was essentially a seafaring alliance of pirates, buccaneers, corsairs, freebooters and fugitive seafarers. He established the pirate’s code which brought the alliance together (Those that broke the rules sentenced to keel-hauling or even marooning, harsh punishment the only way to install order on the lawless seas) but made his intention to keep the EIGHT from spreading their corruption overseas. While the leadership was captured and ransomed, they allowed any who were willing and able to join up the crew, starting from the bottom.
And this was exactly what Domino did.
For seven years, she grew up as a pirate, working her way up the ranks. It wasn’t easy for her. There were numerous attempts from various individuals to rape and/or sexually molest her but they never ended well for the attacker. However, her special skill lay in strategy. At the time, Jolly Rodger’s first-mate, Silvertongue, was charged with keeping the pirate alliance in order but there were problems. Silvertongue had assembled a group of captains and first mates best suited to govern the management of the alliance but none of them could be trusted. Each and every one had prior knowledge of running efficient, organised piracy but inevitably, they were all scheming to use the alliance for their own ends.
[Note: Silvertongue has a historical reputation for being conniving, self-seeking and, in some works, treacherous to the lowliest degree. Yet, analysing historical sources and the actions he took, it seems very apparent that he genuinely wanted the alliance to succeed through a team effort, likely through necessity than any real good intention but he was nonetheless loyal to the cause]

Silvertongue was something of a mentor to Domino, giving her useful tips of the trade throughout her time growing up as a pirate. In thanks, Domino volunteered to essentially serve as Silvertongue’s spymaster but she went one step further. She started playing each one of them against each other, placing them in a situation where they felt too terrified to make the first move and waited with baited breath for the other to strike first to the point where meetings went from bared steel and bold threats to cold, shifty-eyed silence, gloomily agreeing to whatever Silvertongue suggested. Feared captains, known for their treachery from Luftwood Leechline to the Crimson Corsair to Lila Bolaero to the Powder Monkey, none dared step out of line, not through fear of their leaders but fear of their colleagues. Domino had trapped each and every one in their own circle of paranoia and the alliance held as a result.
Domino, at age fifteen, earned her cutie mark; a chessboard, denoting her skill at espionage, diplomacy and above all, cunning, setting enemies against each other while she gathered her own strength, instilling absolute loyalty in those under her command. Silvertongue considered her invaluable and Jolly Rodger agreed.
During her time as a pirate, she found herself crossing blades with an old friend; Mallard Dory who was serving as a Lieutenant in the Granport Guild Fleet. While he was evidently not a fan of Groat’s methods, he’d always despised pirates and was not about to let them dictate the rules in place of legitimate lawmakers. They often came to clashes with mixed results but each one always lived to tell the tale. It is uncertain whether they intentionally let each other live or if neither managed to simply kill the other.
After the very famous Battle of Freeport Folly where the Pirate Alliance destroyed an armada of Elite Industrial Guild ships and established a free nation in the Rosavivas, Domino fought on Silvertongue’s own ship, the Arapaima, which was connected to the ship of Silvertongue’s paramour, the luxurious seafaring Zebra, Msobo of the Porbeagle. It was between these two ships that she boarded and seized a ship called the IGS Opsophagos, chiefly owned and led by the Lodge of Trovers, the real power in Trottingham, and seized one of its members, Dr Glutler, a ponderous map-keeper and financier who declared his title as ‘Grand Burgess of the Ley Fenn’ (Whatever that meant) and whom Dr Delving had ordered to search for pieces a supposed ancient weapon that would grant its wielder phenomenal strength. One was on Flavour Island south of the Rosavivas, the other was kept in the tomb of Vorpal Blade in Canterlot. The designs for the weapon were on the ship and Domino made it her mission to find it, if only to ensure the Guild wouldn’t. With her numerous friends sad but understanding that she was leaving at this stage, Silvertongue, Msobo, Jolly Rodger and various other pirate captains from each corner of the world who owed her thanks gave her the means to pursue her goal. She was given a new battleship, the Minx, and a formidable first-mate, Galley Galoot, a confident and insightful mare whose knowledge of the sea and every factor that made a ship sail or sink was prized. It is written in both their biographies that the two mares began a sexual relationship on the ship almost immediately. Dr Glutler was their prisoner and was interrogated for information. Galoot in her biography insists that torture was not used, not being necessary as the Trover was cowardly to a fault and told them everything.

The weapon was a combination of a sword and a hammer, the handle of the hammer serving as the sheath. The hammer was made of a strange stone called ‘Forzite’, a meteoric substance that was dubbed by the Lodge of Trovers as ‘Star Granite’, enchanted by the magic of stars to give them a bizarre power. They conducted force of outside contacting elements so that, essentially, however much effort was spent trying to pick up and move the stone, the lighter it felt. It was dubbed ‘The Starhammer’.
For example, trying to lift the stone with a light tug would have no effect but picked up in both hooves and wrestled with over a long time would somehow give the impression of its mass decreasing and increasing again as soon as the force was retracted. It would be incredibly effective as a weapon slung as a projectile as, at full mass, the metal could punch through solid walls of rock and stone with ease. But the most effective way to wield it, the Lodge had supposed, was as a hammer.
The sword was enchanted silver, swift, keen and protecting the wielder from various perils. Essentially, the weapon was a two-in-one matching slow but incredibly powerful aggressive slams with swift, light defensive strikes. The combination of space-rock and enchanted silver would also, according to the notes, make the weapon and its wielder completely magic-resistant. It was not known if the weapon was the only one of its kind but with proper resources but, as Domino would discover, the Lodge wanted it enough to kill. Upon making port off the coast of Alpaca to resupply, Domino and Galley Galoot discovered that numerous villages and tribes had been ransacked and the bodies showed signs of torture, indicating that the Lodge was active and violent in unlocking the secrets of the weapon.
They circled around the Archipelago and at least reached Flavour Island. Befriending native hippogriffs hiding deep in the island from the ferocious Trovers, Domino and her fellows delved into the tomb where the hammer was said to rest. As perilous traps lay in the way, Domino volunteered to go in alone. Her strategic and lightning-fast mind allowed her to navigate the byways of the tomb most efficiently.
Less convenient was her encounter with Dr Delving and what was left of his expedition to find the hammer. Delving, alarmingly, took hold of the hammer and sought to crush the encroacher but Domino simply set about dodging the strikes as he brought the cave down. Domino then subdued Delving, took the hammer, tied a rope round it and swung it round and round and threw it out the opening ceiling, holding the rope. Through the hammer’s growing mass, the force of it pulled Domino out of the crumbling tomb, high into the air and onto the highlands of the island, nearly breaking her forehooves in the process but certainly saving her life.
[Note: I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m not quite sure if this is exactly how it happened. Studies are inconclusive if that may or may not break the laws of physics. The idea of a stone that works in such a way even existing is still up for debate. What we know for certain is that Domino escaped with her life. It is unknown if Dr Delving was killed in the collapse.]
Arriving back on the ship, Domino got back on the Minx, used the hammer as an anchor and ordered the crew to hard port to Canterlot. After a week at sea, they at last approached the mouth of the Magiana River and sailed down through to Bonneyville Port at the very base of the Canterhorn. Domino then headed to the grand capital and found out she was a wanted pony, posters of her face put up by Elite Industrial Guild diplomats all across the city, detailing her crimes in piracy and a price of fifty-thousand bits on her head.
So it was only natural that this would bring her into contact with her future lord commander, Midnight Blade.

It was quite a sight for all the ponies in Canterlot to see the fearsome Lord Commander of the Eternal Knights battling this strange seafaring mare with a massive hammer that shattered the marble stone of Canterlot’s pavements. Despite her skill and cunning, a sane batpony was something she had, until then, regarded as an oxymoron, let alone one of Midnight’s calibre. After a tense battle that lasted long enough for the citizens of Canterlot to set up chairs, flags, a betting system and snack stands, Domino was defeated and captured. Midnight thought it necessary to bring Domino to the Princesses to be safely judged before being hoofed over to the Trottingham authorities. Domino explained the situation, all she had suffered and all that was at stake.
[Note: Interestingly enough, Domino is the only one of the Eternal Knights that never knew Princess Laurelore arriving in Canterlot around a year and a half after her self-imposed disappearance from the Known World.]
Young Princess Celestia and Luna sympathised with her plight but Midnight Blade took issue with the idea of taking a weapon of his uncle from his crypt, certainly not at the whim of a crackpot theory developed by traitors of the realm. But after hearing Domino’s pleas, learning from here what sort of state Trottingham was in and how imperative it was that the Elite Industrial Guild were stopped, Midnight reluctantly agreed.
Vorpal Blade had been buried with many blades. The silver gladius that had been forged by the very first defenders against dark magic had been one of Vorpal’s most prized finds. But Midnight admitted that, while his uncle wanted his swords kept from the hooves of evil ponies, what would have satisfied him more is a good pony to wield them in his stead. So it was that Phasmasevra (Meaning ‘Ghost Cutter’) was granted to Domino and sheathed into the handle of the hammer the way it had been designed.
The hammer’s manoeuvrability increased tenfold, seemingly obeying only Domino. She was able to run at full speed and leap safely carrying the hammer over her back. It seemed evident that the magic held in the hammer was meant for earth ponies, focussing on equilibrium and circulation of strength and energy.
It was at the time of her taking up tutelage under Midnight Blade when the Princesses received a declaration of war from the Elite Industrial Guild. The death of Dr Delving, it seemed, had made them desperate and whether or not they knew Domino was in the capital, they knew the silver sword of Vorpal Blade was. And they seemed willing to lay siege to the capital in order to achieve it.
The Princesses signed the declaration and gave military command to Lord Commander Midnight Blade along with Captain-General Thuja ‘The Green Giant’, Lord Moneyspider, General Cherry Brandy and Legate Black Swan. They gathered a force of around a hundred-thousand along with allies from local flocks of griffons led by Baron Whitethunder, and a small confederacy of local deer, mountain buffalo (Or bison as they call themselves in the northern part of Equestria), moose, mountain goats, bighorn sheep and even a few pronghorns led by the elk chieftain Stoneraven of Blankhead Pass, boosting their numbers to around eighteen-hundred. At the plains before Teakettle Falls, they met the Trottingham Armies, backed by mercenaries from near and far, numbering at least three-hundred-thousand.
A clear advantage the Equestrians had, despite being outnumbered, was variety. The Elite Industrial Guild’s armies consisted almost entirely of earth ponies and even then, all of them were required to fight in a single way as formations, serving as lancers and skirmishers, providing a barrage for the pride of the Guild’s arsenal, cannons.
The Equestrians determined the cannons were the highest priority target. Domino led the charge, ordering the troops to falter behind her.
At the sight of the ‘Starhammer’ in her possession, Lady Black-Pott belayed the command of the army and demanded all artillery fire on her and only her and the lancers retrieve the hammer.
This was exactly what Domino wanted as she tested out the hammers potential by quite literally batting away the cannonballs back at the guns like tennis balls.

The sight caused many of Trottingham’s conscript legions and mercenaries to drop their weapons and soundly retreat, unwilling to die for such uncaring masters. Lady Black-Pott was among the few casualties, standing atop a hill screaming at her troops to stand and fight until a cannonball bounced off of Domino’s hammer and took her head clean off.
Captain-General Twonk of the Elite Industrial Guild’s Henx Barracks also had his head torn off by his own retreating bodyguards while Archduke Clodpole, Count Schlepper and Vicelord Cloak-Dagger were captured. Around one-hundred-thousand of the three-hundred-thousand Trottingham troops defected on the spot.
The Equestrian army encountered little difficulty making their way to Trottingham and Midnight Blade sent a warning to Groat and the Guild Leaders to surrender immediately. All the Guild Leaders except Groat were caught trying to escape via barge to their colonies but were caught and captured. Groat, however, had completely lost his mind at the defeat and declared nopony would have his work or his city. His explosive munitions which he’d been preparing for his conquest of Equestria had been spread all across Trottingham, under every building and establishment and rigged to explode. Groat, it seemed, intended to blow his own city to hell out of spite.
Domino infiltrated the city, attempting to either subdue Groat or kill him. She left the hammer with Midnight Blade and utilised her skills in stealth and espionage to infiltrate the Grandworks, Groat’s primary headquarters. Groat had barricaded himself in his grand hall in a great empty expanse, his paranoia so great. With no option to approach stealthily, Domino chose to rush him. Groat made to flee, running for the room he kept his detonation device.
And ran straight into a blade.
Mallard Dory stood in the doorway, the detonation device taken apart by his hoof.
Falling back, Groat gave Domino one last look of utter rage as the mare severed his head.
The Guild Leaders were put on trial, found guilty of gross corruption and crimes against equinity and summarily executed by beheading, carried out by Midnight Blade himself.
[Note: It is believed that Domino learned from one of her travels about the old practice of shrinking heads for ornaments. With all the heads of those responsible for Trottingham’s hellish state (Bar Dr Delving), she is alleged to have made them into a lash but no proof of this remains.]
Trottingham was liberated but it was in no fit state to celebrate. The factories were turned out, its workers finally unchained but without the industrial churn, nothing else was left of Trottingham.
The city entered a state of repair that lasted around thirty years. The population was relocated to the outlaying pastures of Dobin while Mallard Dory and Domino’s father’s old students set to work, slowly but steadily making Trottingham better than ever. The scars would never fully heal and a single wall of the ugly metal monstrosity that was Grandworks still stands in the city square as a grim reminder of what greed and duplicity can do to a city and its ponies.

Domino, however, chose to take up arms alongside the Eternal Knights. It was more her interest in Midnight Blade rather than Luna that spurred her choice but she soon developed a fond friendship with the Princess.
[Note: No, they never slept together. Luna was barely of age at this time. Whoever’s writing that smut get your minds out of the gutter! We’re civilised ponies!]
She joined around the time tensions rose between the two princesses and their respective court factions. Her espionage provided the Eternal Knights with a great deal of information and security. Her mighty Starhammer remained a fearsome thing and she made use of it in every battle.
Like Saracen, she went missing in undisclosed events after the Civil War.
Midnight is just as certain that Domino is still alive.
Somehow.

6714005
Very nice and actually convenient to release Domino's story when I start the Star Trek story featuring her. And with her using to be a pirate, She and Pip would be something to talk about.

But...Just as a friendly warning, if you ever meet her, hope she keeps her "playful" side restrained on you

6714019
Right.
Most of the Elite Industrial Guild's names are actually based off archaic words for idiot or bumpkin.

Also, no prizes for guessing who 'Dr Delving' really was.

6714510
Good idea

6714005

Marquis Fopdoodle
Earl Dingleberry

I-I can't... those are too ridiculous I can only bet their fathers didn't love them as foals.

6730755
Well, these are all based on archaic words for fool or crook.
I tried to get into the Dickensian style of naming characters.

But I suppose, yeah, you can tell they were compensating for something.