It's for a scenario I had in mind where the two species meet long after the events of the old world has faded into myth, leading to a very awkward second contact. Do they view it with remorse, pretend it didn't happen or even glorify it? If they simply forget about it how does the myth of humanity develop?

7730915
What events happened in the past? I feel like I'm missing context here.

Edit: Ah, after the Conversion Bureau. I thought this was HiE thread for a minute.

So, CB succeeds and they find Humanity again? How many humans are there? Does Celestia still exist? Was there any remembrance or refutation of her actions and their ancestors? If not, then probably descends into a war of revenge. Eliminating an entire race native to a planet Equestrians aren't apart of is fucked.

7730919
The New Earth and Equus found each other, Humankind is in the tens of billions because it's been thousands of years, Celestia died during that war, so while they may also still have a negative view of Humanity, it's not being perpetuated anymore.

7730921
Relations would be strained and unless Equestrians actually make reparation attempts, it won't go anywhere. Humanity will be making a mad rush to beef up the anti-magic defense and probably crank out nukes for mutually assured destruction. Expect humanity to pull a Mossad-type assassination of Equestrian leaders if things get bad.

7730923
Yeah there's a chance that Humanity could react poorly even if it's faded into myth. It depends on if they approach with a fig leaf and how sincere it is. Even then humanity could remain distrustful, and any diplomacy would remain purely pragmatic. Maybe big business might broach for open relations because money > superstition.

7730924
Money absolutely would be a big reason over superstition.

7730925
Now to get back to the topic, how do you think the Equestrians might view humanity? At least in terms of myth and all that. In my mind, whereas humanity associates them with demons, lies and damnation, ponies see humans as kind of like fae or yokai. They're hidden, think in alien ways, & are somewhat destructive. Rather than being associated with nature they're associated with ruins. You have to also cleanse the spirit in order to get them to move on.

7730927
Yikes, if that's the mythos they have of each other, it will just go to war real quick.

It's going to take a romeo and juliet situation to fix that.

7730929
Would it, I figured that the former would have since faded away and people think it's a metaphor for transhumanism gone wrong, and the later is just spooky ghost stories, that it would really be more of a shock. I doubt either side is going to fire the first shot in anger, and some agreement could be made.

7730933
I hope small examples of friendship and romance would start, if rare but small examples happen, it will be a seed and eventually spread like weeds.

I would prefer to think of how it might go in the Gama Option verse by Guardian_Gryphon. In that universe, Earth is literally a dead planet (aside from Humans, obviously) and the synthetic food systems we use to keep ourselves alive. The Barrier is something that happened naturally, and that Celestia is closest to her cannon self in that she’s doing everything in her power to preserve Humanity. Having replicas of Human artifacts made with Equisian materials, even creating their version of the Internet.

However, there are some Humans who successfully flee into space (with a bit of funding from Tia to help) so, say in the far future, the races reunite. To Ponies, Humanity would have existed… but been gone for so long that they may as well have been a myth of half-forgotten distant ancestors. Only the Alicorns would have remembered them.

I think the Humans would remember the Ponies as an odd but friendly creatures whom did their best to help save their ancestors, one way or another.

I think a reunion in this universe would be far more friendly.

7731140
Definitely one of the nicer ways this could go, especially in your tone of voice.

7730915
Realistically, I see a lot of finger-pointing and blame being thrown around. Hostilities would rise to outright racism and a possible second war. I don't think the two societies could just peacefully let bygones be bygones after one openly tried to genocide the other. It wouldn't surprise me if post-TCB human nations leaned heavily into overt "anti-extraterrestrialism," and have been gearing up for a potential second war ever since the first one ended.

Also, genocidal regimes don't go away just because their leaders died. Just look at the real world. It's been the better part of a hundred years since Lenin and Hitler died, yet tankies and wehrerboos are still loud and proud as ever. I don't think ponies would be any different.

I honestly doubt any kind of reconciliation could ever happen. I really can't see a way the two sides could manage to forgive each other. Reintroducing the two after such heavily traumatic and completely unresolved conflict would just reopen the old wounds as fresh as the day they were made; but with the added weight of millennia of actively hating each other. They could never trust each other again.

It would be like if the Nazi regime suddenly came back in the modern day and had to try and make peace with the nations and peoples they tried to destroy.

But to play devil's advocate: Optimistically, it wouldn't be a healthy foundation of a new relationship to just pretend that the war never happened. Ponies and humans would have to work together to find a way to set aside the past and forgive each other for the atrocities that either side committed. The big problem is that Equestria and their leaders wouldn't have had to actually face any consequences for their attempted genocide; and the second big problem directly related to the first one is that if the humans tried to insist on such consequences taking place so long after the war that would likely just cause deeper tensions with the ponies.

The humans would basically have to just say, "Okay, yeah. You tried to exterminate our species, but that's fine. Let's be friends."