• Published 10th Mar 2012
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Directive: Grow - Dragon Dreaming

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Exploratores: Ancient History

“Hey, Rainbow?”

They were a few hours out, now. The forest pathways had made for a pleasant stroll so far, and an interesting one. Twilight had never really had reason to go into the Everfree Forest very far, and it was proving to be a far more enthralling area than she had ever thought it would be. Even in just a few hours, she had seen and heard more wildlife than she had thought possible. Fluttershy had assured her that this was entirely normal, even in physical environments.

“Yeah, Applejack?”

She would need to make more treks here. Not only was the fauna fascinating, but the selection of flora was surprisingly wide. Her original thought had been that forests consisted exclusively of trees, but that had clearly been a naive assumption; of course there would be undergrowth! Bushes of various sorts, ferns, vines, even grass, where the canopy was light enough. And such variety! On top of that, entirely natural in its occurrence. Nothing in the forest had been invented.

“What’s the story with the dragons, anyway? That expedition y’all mentioned?”

If nothing else, this all needed to be catalogued. She was sure the library had some books on botany, and there would probably be at least some people who would want to know what species could be found right here in their own back- Wait, what?

“You don’t know about it, Applejack?” she asked, turning to look at her friend. Applejack gave a sheepish grin, tugging at the brim of her hat.

“I was never all that good with history, less’n it mattered in the here and now,” she said. “But ya said it was required for the military, right? Y’all got me curious.”

“Well,” Twilight started, only to find Rainbow’s hoof in her mouth.

“No offense, kid, but I got this,” the pegasus said. “I’ve heard you talk about stuff, and your enthusiasm is cute and all, but you’re just gonna lose people.” Twilight blinked. “And with history, well, if you wanna make it interesting, you have to tell a story, not just spout the facts.” Twilight nodded, and frowned as Rainbow removed her hoof. Did she lose people? She had noticed a tendency to need to repeat things when she was explaining stuff, but that was usually just that Rainbow wasn’t listening … wasn’t it? Come to think of it, the others seemed to have trouble focusing, too. Not that she had all that many examples to pull from - not nearly enough to form an accurate statistical sample - but Rainbow was a good deal older and more experienced. She would know. Hm. She would have to-

Twilight shook her head. Focus, girl. Rainbow was talking. “First thing to get, fillies,” she said, waving her legs expansively, “is that Captain Tuul wasn’t the first guy to land on Yangtze 7. That was Elias Stern, Captain of the Arlin, and professional explorer. Stern was a badass, right; touched down on six different planets in as many years. Yangtze 7,” she said, pausing to make sure everyone was listening, “was his last.

“Stern touched down on the 28th of Quintum back in 4208 AT, sent out the standard ‘landing successful’ signal, and set to his duties. Got some video and started streaming it. His feed cut out that same day. No explanation, nothing to show why. Just went dead. Folks back at mission control had to have been scratching their heads raw trying to figure out why. They studied the little bit that he’d gotten out, and I guess they saw something interesting, because they set to prepping a full expedition. Probably part of it was trying to figure out what happened to Stern; explorer like that is a valuable asset.

“Four years later, 4th of Secundam, 4204 AT, Marivar Tuul and his crew touch down in roughly the same location as Stern. They can’t find a trace of him or his ship, but they’re a scientific team, so they set to their jobs; you know, taking samples, analyzing things, making recordings and the like. Most significant thing is they keep seeing flying creatures way off in the distance, and all their calculations say these things are huge.”

“The dragons,” Applejack said, and Rainbow nodded.

“Right. Not that they knew what they were right then. The dragons kept their distance at first, but on the 9th, well … say, have you seen the video, AJ?”

Applejack nodded. “Twilight sent it to me when she asked if I wanted to come along. Gotta say, I’d be a lot more concerned about this if we weren’t in The World.”

“You’d be right to. That one dragon from that video destroyed the entire expedition. All hands were lost. Mission control figured something similar must have happened to Stern, labeled Yangtze 7 as a hostile world, and let the galaxy know. So, of course, about five years later, a big smuggling organization decides to put a base on it.”

Twilight frowned. “Why would they do that?”

Rainbow shrugged. “They figured there was profit in it, probably. Yangtze wasn’t the only world in that sector up for possible development, and they might have figured they could exploit it themselves or something. Mostly it was probably that law enforcement wouldn’t ever go near a hostile world. They still won’t, generally. Too expensive.”

“What happened?” Applejack asked.

“Nobody’s quite sure. Not much in the way of records from the smugglers themselves; all historians can say is that the base was set up in 4199 and went down the same year. A lot of ‘em think it didn’t even take a week. Most of them are fairly sure that the smugglers were responsible for what happened after that.

“See, here’s why it’s all required learning for military personnel. Sextum 29, 4186 AT, about 22 years after Stern’s death, the planet Odraimos was invaded, wholesale, by dragons.” The pegasus paused, eyeing her audience. Twilight had to admit, this was certainly more interesting than the brief report she’d read on these events. She hadn’t known about the smugglers, either.

“Odraimos was, at the time, the center of the Illuvian Empire,” Rainbow said. “Same people Stern and Tuul worked for, and where their mission reports got routed back to. Crowded planet, robust military; they were basically certain that they were impregnable. Why they weren’t is one of those things that eggheads like to argue about for days on end; important thing is that they weren’t and the dragons razed about half the planet within a week.”

Applejack gave a low whistle. “That fast?” Rainbow nodded.

“They’re big, fast, and powerful. The ones that hit Odraimos came in prepared. They had their own armor, their own weapons, and they didn’t much care what they wrecked. There’s not a lot of actual footage that survived the invasion, either. Most of the footage from the Dragon War takes place on other planets or is from years after the original invasion of Odraimos. Plenty of games and movies and the like done with it, though.” She shrugged. “People were a little obsessed with it for a while.

“That day was the start of the longest war on record, and the only one to span multiple star systems. The whole thing lasted 1200 years, involved almost 300 planets, and shaped civilization on a galactic scale. The way my teachers put it, that war is the reason there are no interstellar empires, and the reason The World exists.”

The pegasus fell silent, and for a long few minutes the four of them traveled in silence. It was an interesting assertion to make, Twilight thought, but one that made sense. A war of such scale would affect societies on every level. Entire generations of sapients would have spent their entire lives locked within the culture of war. It was a wonder that it was even waged; the sheer cost of such an undertaking, even just in terms of resources, was staggering.

“How’d it end?” Applejack asked, her voice subdued.

“Well,” Rainbow said, fluttering her wings, “the dragons kind of went and made enemies of every space-faring nation. They held out for a damn long time, but each dragon lost was a bigger hit to them than each soldier lost by their enemies. Eventually? They just got worn down. Official records show that when they finally sued for peace in 2980, they were down to ten thousand individuals. As a whole species. And that was throughout the known galaxy.”

She shrugged. “I guess they were smart enough to recognize death when it was knocking at their door. And their enemies were, I suppose, tired of war.”

Applejack shook her head. “I can’t even imagine it. Livin’ my whole life with …” She trailed off, her face looking troubled. “I mean, it ain’t like I haven’t seen death. And it ain’t like I wouldn’t do what it took to keep me and mine safe. But a war like that … I don’t see how they did it. Or why.”

The pegasus laughed. “You and everyone else, AJ. Oh, you’ll get answers; two for every person in existence. But the why of that war isn’t something you’ll get a real answer for, even if you asked a dragon. After all,” she said with a shrug, “everyone who was around when it started is dead.”

The silence fell once again, heavy with the weight of history. The war was a troubling thing; hard evidence that people could and would kill, repeatedly and endlessly. And there had to have been others. Rainbow had said there were none of the same scale, but she was military, and the presence of military indicated the presence of a threat for that military to deal with, perceived or real. Military for whom, though? She should ask, sometime; but not right now.

Now, she had to wonder about this connection. It had been millennia since the end of that war, certainly; and millennia of peace, but, well … dragons. Just what, exactly, was she in for? That thought was troubling. Very, very troubling.