Chapter 2: A Meeting of Minds
General Michael Fletcher sighed as he leaned back in the chair at his desk. The Secretary of Defense had ordered him to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice, but so far, there had been no word from Terra City. Fort Pinedale was stationed near the edge of New Terra’s new territory on the surface, but so far, no invasion force had started to pour out of the ponies’ city, so the nearby city of New Angeles was safe.
Suddenly, his earpiece beeped, and he pushed it further into his ear before saying, “This is General Fletcher, anything to report?”
“No attacks yet, Sir,” the voice on the other end of the link replied, “but the men and women are growing restless. We’ve had to stop six from donning their armor so far, and others won’t come out of the barracks for roll call because they don’t feel safe unarmored.”
“Then just let them put on their armor if it makes them feel safer,” the general replied. “We need to keep high morale, have everyone suit up. We need to be ready for an attack, anyway. If that means having our men and women encased in radioplastic 24/7, then so be it. I’m ordering all Radioplastic Armored Troopers to suit up. Understood?"
“Sir, yes Sir,” the voice on the other end replied. “All R.A.T.s are to suit up immediately.”
“Good,” Fletcher said with a sigh of relief, “we’ll be ready if they decide to attack. Over and out.”
The General tapped his earpiece to cut the link and turned to the papers on his desk, he had a lot of work to do today, so he might as well get started sooner rather than later.
In Canterlot, ponies had stopped panicking after the tremors died down. Most ponies had taken to simply staring at the city that had popped out of the ground. Nopony knew what it was, and all sorts of theories were being exchanged while ponies continued to stare, some in confusion, some in curiosity, and others in fear.
In the palace, Princess Celestia was preparing to seek an audience with the being whom had called himself Henry Stone but a few minutes prior. She had no idea what to expect, so she was preparing her guards much more than herself.
“Remember, we don’t know what these beings are, or what they’re like. Try very hard to not provoke or frighten them.”
“Yes, Princess,” a guard replied for the fifteenth time in five minutes.
“Now, we don’t want to incite panic, so please remember to not see everything as an attempt on my life,” the princess insisted.
“Yes, Princess,” the guard replied again.
“Now, we have to make sure everypony is looking their best, so—” Celestia tried to continue, before being promptly cut off.
“Princess, the chariot is ready,” another guard said as he poked his head into the room.
“Never mind that last part, then,” Celestia said, “we have to get going.”
“Yes, Princess,” the guard answered once more.
“You sound like a broken record,” Celestia remarked, “can’t you say anything besides ‘yes, Princess’?”
“Yes, Prin—I mean, of course!” The guard spluttered as he and a few other guards escorted Celestia to the royal chariot.
Celestia face-hoofed at the guard’s response before climbing aboard the chariot.
After a few seconds, the pegasi pulling the chariot took to the air, it rising with them. They were on their way.
General Fletcher’s earpiece beeped again whilst he was filling out a form to authorize temporarily closing down barrack twelve for maintenance.
He pushed the earpiece in again and said, “This is General Fletcher. Go ahead.”
“Sir, requesting orders to engage a possible threat, Sir.” the voice on the other end replied.
“What kind of threat?” the general asked with worry.
“A small group of pegasi pulling some kind of flying chariot has entered New Angeles’ air space,” the voice explained, “the population is panicking. Should we shoot them down, sir?”
“No,” Fletcher replied.
“What was that, sir?” The voice questioned.
“I said, no.” Fletcher repeated. “You open fire, and I’ll have you court martialed, understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” the voice replied, “and what of the population of New Angeles, Sir?”
“March in there and restore order,” Fletcher commanded, “the last thing we need right now is a riot.”
“Yes, Sir. Over and out.”
Fletcher sighed and returned to his paperwork, there was just so much. One small group wasn’t enough to call an invasion force.
Besides, he had more important things to deal with. Such as preparing to update the internet server satellites for the first time in more than three thousand years. And New Angeles was going to be one of the new uplink hubs, so protecting the ground-bound servers until their data could be uploaded back into space was going to be a must.
As the chariot continued to fly over the city, Celestia suddenly heard screaming coming from below. She chanced a look over the side and saw thousands of bipedal figures staring up at her and screaming.
“The Usurpers are here!” one shouted.
“They’ll kill us all!” another cried out.
“Everyone! RUN!” another screamed.
“You idiots!” a fourth voice shouted in anger, “They’re just envoys for peace! Panicking will make us look foolish!”
And with that, the populace of the city below ignored the lone voice of reason and descended into chaos. Beings ran in every direction in panic, trying to find shelter or some other place to hide or cower in fear.
“This doesn’t look good at all...” Celestia muttered under her breath.
As they continued to fly further into the city’s airspace, panic continued to spread. Every street was filled with beings running about in fear, screaming at the top of their lungs; adults pulling young children inside, white metal carriages with red and blue flashing lights blocking off roads while bipeds in blue police uniforms climbed out and started shouting at the other bipeds, even some bipeds arguing with each other while pointing up at the chariot from time to time, as if some of them were berating the others for being afraid.
“Fly faster,” Celestia ordered, “we need to find the capital of this place, and fast.”
The guards pulling the chariot nodded and put on an extra burst of speed, heading for the cluster of colossal buildings in the distance.
“Alright, everyone, calm down!” a voice shouted to be heard over the cries of panic flooding the streets of New Angeles.
As one, the people in the streets paused and looked in the direction the voice was coming from: Fort Pinedale.
A huge battalion of soldiers covered from head to toe in gleaming lavender armor were marching towards the city, laser rifles in hand. The one at the head of the group was carrying an ultraphone, which could carry sound for miles.
“There is no need to panic!” The ultraphone boomed, “the ponies are not invading! They’ve shown no signs of hostility, and a pair of fighters have been dispatched to escort them to their destination! So everyone, just calm down!”
With that, the panic subsided, but the people were still on edge. The citizens of New Angeles returned to their homes and turned on their livingvision sets, an age old upgrade to standard television, replacing screens and diodes with holographic projectors, to watch nervously for any sign of an attack.
As the cluster of buildings slowly got closer, a pair of huge metal, bird-like machines joined the chariot on either side.
“Unidentified fliers, identify yourselves and explain your intentions,” a voice called from the machine on the right.
“I am Princess Celestia of Equestria, and we’re heading to seek an audience with Henry Stone,” the princess replied, doing her best not to seem surprised by this—undoubtedly common, strange creation.
“Understood. Your heading is off, allow us to escort you to your proper destination,” a voice replied from the flying machine on the left, “you’re heading to Neo York City, and Terra City is a few hundred miles to the north of your current location. I suggest you turn here.”
“Thank you,” Celestia said with a nod as her guards turned to the right, “I think we can find our way from here, so if you’ll excuse us—”
“Sorry, ma’am, no can do,” the voice from the machine on the right cut in, “we’re under orders to escort you to your destination to prevent the populace from panicking at the sight of you.”
“Very well,” Celestia replied, “lead on.”
“Thank you for your cooperation,” the voice from the left said, “this makes our job much easier.”
After a few hours of flying, Celestia’s chariot touched down on a well-kept lawn in front of a white marble mansion. Her guards were exhausted, but they’d made it.
Two bipeds in black suits and sunglasses approached and held up what appeared to be badges. Very ornate, and classy, badges no less.
“New Terra Secret Service,” the one on the right said, “The President has been informed of your arrival. He’s waiting for you in the Peace Gardens around back. Follow us.” He spoke curtly, and in a no nonsense tone of voice.
Celestia nodded, and her guards followed behind her as the two bipeds led them along a path to the back of the mansion, where a massive garden was in full bloom. Trees, flowers, and bushes of all kinds were displaying beautiful colored flowers and blossoms, truly, it was a sight to behold.
There was a white circular table set up in the shade of a weeping willow, where another suited biped was sitting, reading a book.
“Mr. President, your guests have arrived,” the second biped with sunglasses announced.
The being at the table looked up from his book and smiled. A kindly smile Celestia recognized, as it was similar to the one she wore naught but every day upon the throne.
“Ah, Princess Celestia! How good of you to drop by!” The being stood up and walked over to her, extending a hand. Celestia stared at it for a few moments before meeting it with her hoof and accepting the shake.
“Allow me to welcome you to Terra City, capital of the Republic of New Terra,” the being said, raising his arms to the sky and twirling about, as if to say ‘Welcome,’ directing attention to everything around, “I am President Henry Stone, the leader of New Terra and her population of nine billion human beings.”
Celestia started at the mention of the legendary humans of old, as well as at the sheer number of them this man claimed were inside his country’s borders. It occurred to her that to fit such numbers in such relatively small space was indicative of a certain level of intelligence the humans possessed.
Her guards raised their spears and glared at the humans in sunglasses, who didn’t react at all.
“Nine billion humans?” she asked in disbelief.
“Well, living underground for three thousand years with no enemies really helped increase our numbers,” President Stone replied. “I must say, though; the surface is far more beautiful than the caverns I grew up in. The sunlight just makes everything dazzling! And so much open space! I’m sure my ancestors would’ve given anything to see the beauty of this world.”
“But, humans?” Celestia asked dumbly. Whilst she had dealt with many things in her time of rule, such as ancient evils resurfacing and trying to rule the world, being told that an entire civilization had been living under her lands for thousands of years was simply too much to comprehend.
“Why, yes,” Stone replied, “I’m a human, my Secret Service agents are human, the pilots who escorted you here were human! This entire country is home to every human being on the planet.”
Celestia took a few steps back.
“But humans are wicked and vile creatures! Why haven’t you attacked?” Celestia asked in fear.
“Simple:” Stone replied, “we don’t want to fight. Our ancestors tried to explain to the early ponies that we’d left war behind us forever, but they wouldn’t listen after some fools tried to make weapons out of them. The War of Races started because some of us were fools and tried to weaponize you and the other races, but when you turned on us, we stopped fighting to destroy. We just wanted to live. And since our only choices were to either rain down destruction once again, and bathe the world in nuclear fire, or to hide from the world until we recovered enough to return to the surface, we took the latter option, and hid underground for three thousand years.” He explained, not unlike how a kindly schoolteacher would explain an arithmetic problem to a troubled student.
“Wait, you mean to tell me that humans aren’t bloodthirsty monsters?” Celestia asked, confused, all she had been taught, and all that she had read was not doing anything to serve her, for all of her knowledge on humans was now ruled obsolete and incorrect.
“Indeed, that is what I’m telling you,” Stone answered with a smile, “we’re only here to return to the world and stop hiding. We don’t want to fight anyone, we just want to live in peace. Is that acceptable, Princess?”
“How can I be sure you’re not lying?” Celestia asked, eying the human warily.
“If we wanted to fight, we’d already be doing it,” Stone replied, “we really don’t want to fight, Princess. Our people are simply terrified of you, they thought you had come to destroy them, and in spite of our best efforts, they still do.”
Stone fell silent after that and pulled a box out from underneath the table. He pushed a button on it, and a screen on the front lit up and projected a three-dimensional image of a human woman sitting at a desk and wearing a panicked expression onto the table.
“We’ve been getting reports from all over New Terra of sightings of a flying object owned by the Usurpers inside New Terran airspace,” the projection said, “panic has filled the streets as fear of an attack has started to grip the populace. Thousands of New Terran R.A.T.s have been dispatched to attempt to calm down the populace and restore order, but success has been quite limited. Bob Parker is live in Terra City with more information. What’s it look like out there, Bob?”
The image changed to a human man in a long coat holding a device near his mouth that resembled a stick with a black bulb at the end standing among screaming humans running about in all directions.
“Not good, Megan,” the man said as the humans continued to panic, “the commonly-held belief is that the Usurpers have come to destroy us, though we have yet to see any hostility from them. I’m here with John Sewell, a resident of Terra City for an interview. John, what can you tell us about what you’ve seen?”
The image shifted angles to reveal an elderly-looking human man standing next to Bob. Bob turned to face him and held out his device.
“It was horrible!” the old man wailed, “The Usurpers flew overhead in some kind of flying chariot! There were two fighters chasing it, but they didn’t open fire! They must know that we’re doomed! Why else would they not attack? The chariot headed to the Executive Mansion, and that’s the last I saw of it. What if they assassinate the President? We’re doomed, I tell you! The Usurpers are going to destroy us all! Humanity is doomed! DOOMED!”
The old man screamed and ran off, joining the panicked masses running around in the background.
“As I said, things aren’t looking good out here, Megan,” Bob said, “the military’s been doing all it can to calm the populace, but panic continues to spread. At least it hasn’t spread very far from the cites that witnessed the flying object. Unless we hear from the President soon, we may have to assume the worst. We may have to prepare to stop armed mobs like the Xenocide Brigade from forming again. Back to you in the studio, Megan.”
“Thank you, Bob,” the woman said as the image shifted back to her at her desk. “In related news, the authorities have heightened security at the facility holding former Xenocide Brigade leader, Martin Mendoza. In a previous interview with the incarcerated fear-mongerer—”
Stone pressed the same button as before and the projection vanished as the screen went dark.
“What was that?” Celestia asked, bedazzled.
“A news report,” the President replied with a sigh, “you saw what’s happening in the streets of this city as we speak. The people are scared of you, Princess. They’re scared of your entire nation, as a leader of people, please believe us, we don’t want to fight anymore, we just want to live in peace, after all these years. That’s all we ask.”
“I’ll have to speak with Luna, my sister, about this, but I see no problems with your proposal,” Celestia replied with a sigh of relief. “We’ll get a treaty written up and have it ready by tomorrow at the latest, if Luna agrees.”
“Thank you,” Stone said, “we look forward to living in peace with you for millennia to come.”
After Celestia returned to Canterlot, she headed for the throne room to think.
“This is going to change a lot of things,” the Solar Princess muttered to herself, “we’re going to have to re-educate a lot of ponies about humans. Maybe involving some of the humans would help,”
“We’re also going to have to calm ponies down, especially after those tremors,” Celestia continued, not paying any attention to her surroundings as she continued to the throne room guided by memory alone, “and then we’ll have to explain to them who exactly reappeared, which will most likely cause more panic, and then we’ll have to explain that the humans aren’t going to invade, and that they didn’t mean to cause the tremors! Not to mention that I’ll have to instruct the guards to leave the humans alone if they enter our territory!” The solar diarch continued her mutterings, pausing in her walk for a moment to raise a hoof to her temple, this was just going to be so much work.
Celestia sighed as she entered the throne room. “I hope Luna will take this easier than I did—”
“Hello, dear,” a female voice said, cutting into Celestia’s musings and causing her to pay more attention to what was in front of her, which happened to be a pair of alicorns, both slightly larger than herself.
The stallion was a brilliant orange and had the same cutie mark as she did. His mane was also made of animate magic, just like hers, and was the same colors as a sunrise. He was wearing a gold crown with a beautiful sun-shaped orange topaz embedded in it, as well as a suit of golden plate armor, rather ornate, but still with an obvious appearance of functionality.
The mare was a midnight blue, had a mane similar to Luna’s, and had the same cutie mark as well. She wore a silver crown with a similarly beautiful crescent-shaped sapphire embedded in it, as well as a set of silver and indigo robes with steel armor plate spread about.
They were her parents: King Apollo and Queen Diana.
“Mother? Father? What are you two doing here?” The Princess asked in confusion as she approached her parents.
“Some things have come up, so we’re relieving you and Luna of your duties as our regents for the time being,” Apollo replied, taking his older daughter into a hug, “the world needs us again, so we’re retaking the throne for a while.”
“When the problem is taken care of, we’ll return leadership to you and Luna, of course,” Diana continued, “but for now, Equestria needs us again.” She finished with a nod.
“What’s so important that you needed to come back?” Celestia asked as her father released her and her mother drew her into a hug.
“You did notice the cities that just popped out of the ground, right?” Apollo asked, a bemused smile tugging at his features.
Celestia nodded.
“Well, Tia, that’s why we’re here,” Diana explained, “to finish something that we should’ve three thousand years ago. Equestria’s going to war, and they’ll need our leadership and wisdom for the foe we’ll be up against.”
Celestia pushed her mother away and stared. “You’re going to attack the humans?”
“That is correct,” Apollo replied with a nod, “they are a scourge upon the world, and now that they have revealed themselves, we’re going to finish the job.” Her father finished, a serious tone overtaking the previous one of fatherly love.
“But President Stone said they don’t want to fight anymore!” Celestia protested. “They just want to live in peace!”
“You spoke with one of the fiends?” Diana growled, “you could’ve gotten hurt!”
“I spoke with their leader,” Celestia corrected, “and they’re not ‘fiends,’” she said the word with disgust, “they don’t want to fight! They just want peace!”
Apollo looked ready to object, but before he could speak, Celestia added; “and I’m meeting with him again soon, to sign a treaty between ponies and humans to demonstrate that neither side needs to fear the other.”
Apollo closed his mouth and looked lost in thought before finally nodding and saying, “Very well, Celly. We’ll see how this goes. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Humans are not to be trusted, war with them is most likely inevitable, due to their savage nature. Now, before you go anywhere, I want you to go to your room for a while to think things through very carefully. You may be a grown mare, but I’m still your father, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Yes, Father,” Celestia huffed before turning to return to her chambers, unaware of the glint in her father’s eyes as he whispered something to her mother. She needed to write a letter to Twilight.
And so began a series of events that could bring ruin to both the mighty empire of Equestria, and the newly risen nation of Humanity. Because war… war never changes.
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Is this an Evil Celestia story? Is this a Luna's a Prick story?
5174777 NEITHER! The enemy shows up in this Chapter, but it's not any of the Princesses, or President Stone!
I feel like that the king and queen should be sent to death via firing squad.
Ehhh, I'm not a fan of the plot. It's unreasonable and VERY erratic. Now any plot can be made reasonable with proper detail, lore, and causes and effects but this chapter lacks all three. It's fairly fast paced (which I am fine with) and jumps from one thing to another without explaining anything and leaving the reader to have to build a puzzle that doesn't have all the pieces. I will continue to read but from what you've shown so far, this story is falling. If you want me to believe your story in the slightest, you're going to have to put more work into it and provide a lot more detail and lore, especially for such a drastic plot. Why do Celestia's parents just appear? Why are people so terrified of "The Usupers" if it's been generations since? How do the humans how such technology? So many questions and plot holes. Shall I continue; How are there nine billion people if humans were slaughtered on a massive scale even if it has been generations, how have we regrown PAST our original tally? Why are all the characters so ignorant? Put some thought into who these characters are and then write, don't write what you want them to say, write what they would say! This story could be good( I really don't care about the religious stuff ) you just need to put some more though into it. Sooooo, for now I will give you a
6.6/10.0
I'd love to see this story grow.
You have more editors than a newspaper…..
5175060 Hey, you work on this, too, you know!
5175039 Understood. Your concerns are noted, and Chapter 3 will be rewritten (it was mostly done) to answer some of those questions. But beware: when we answer questions, we like to add stuff to spawn more questions to keep people reading. So, some parts of the lore won't be revealed for a while to keep people asking questions and hopefully exchanging theories. So, all will be answered in due time, but some things will be put off to answer later on purpose to keep the guesses happening (even if they don't get put in the comments).
All feels a bit rushed. Would have expected much more of a feeling-out period between the humans and ponies - there really should be a lot of work to do convincing ponies that humans aren't going to cook and eat them like the bogie-monsters they've been remembered as, let alone jump straight into a peace treaty and expect the pony populace to buy it.
EDIT: And given the tone of the human population's reaction to the Usurpers (hell, even just that name), my money's not on humanity having an unjaundiced view of why they were driven underground in the first place. Though given that you've already name-dropped some wannabe pony-killers, I suppose it all works if you WANT it all to blow up in short order. That could be fun.
5175060 The more the merrier!
Then another nation rises from the ashes to wage war! Sorry, I have a good moral compass but I am a warmonger. Or at least I take a heavy interest in war. That's my nature.
And so begins a civil war within Equestria.
You know what would be really funny?
If the king and queen started their war, only to discover that modern Equestria's army is a bunch of pretty-colts in platemail bikinis, and some stunt flyers, and their only real fighting force is a neurotic librarian and her five ditzy friends.
That's just the sort of thing one could overlook, when their first act, after being gone for over 1000 years is the send the commander in chief of the military to her room.
Hmm a bit too many deus ex machina for my taste: the king and the queen, forcing war, to have been 3000 years underground the humans loooks too much like the actual usa population, raising the head of state and the goverment in such vulnerable position, etc
Too many incoherences
5196187 Good points, but once again, the lore will be revealed in bits and pieces, and once they're all put together, this will make a lot more sense. I've tried just giving large portions of a story's lore near the beginning of a story before (and I don't just mean fics. I write regular stories, too), and let's just say it rarely went over very well. How the humans' population is so great will be partially explained in the next chapter, as well as how they became so high-tech. Their journey to become a true republic will be delved into later, but for now, they started as more of a military state out of necessity. How'd they change governments? Neither I, my coauthor, or my editors can reveal the how just yet, but we'll get there when we get into more details about New Terra's far from perfect past, which will be spread out instead of being crammed down everyone's throats all in one go, and I'm pretty sure you'd hate that just as much as any Deus Ex Machina or Diabolus Ex Machina (though I kind of like the Diabolus one myself, most don't, so we'll try to avoid them, since I've ruined stories with them before).
5196750 hmm very valid explanation, but I am not concerned about how militaristic they are or the goverment model or their number, those details are quite explainable. Regards the humans my main concern is how they entered into the scene, showing and exposing themselves when they were expecting a potential enemy. Have it would be wiser and logic to explore the surface more subtlety? why the population was so scared? Were they not informed? I suppose that you have done it like this because it was a element you wanted in your story
About the deus ex, the suddenly appear of celestia and luna parents... Hmmm i would have given it few or ten chapters more. It looks very rushed
But again i am just a humble reader, not a writter, so just consider my opinion taking that into account
Kind of stupid for the mom and dad to consider a war of extermination... when human weaponry, up to and including nukes, dwarfs their own, and doubtless has been upgraded since.
Considering the fact that The Ponies are dependent on magic, whilst Humanity Depends on TECHNOLOGY. The humans are the ones who'll live to see another day, because they have weapons that the ponies don't have, machines that can shake the earth and NUKES :) PS: Aircraft
I collabed with that guy once.
he wot
Also, your cover picture looks like a hybrid of an Equestria Girl dude and an actual human. It's... kinda creepy, to be honest.
5211629
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My comment might not be the best informed (I haven't read the fic yet), but based on the description, it seems the Equestrians and other races defeated the humans in the past. If the humans had Nukes and aircraft then and still lost (In this author's universe), what makes you think the humans would win now?
5328502 Still though, they disappeared to the underground world they previously lived in, but that doesn't stop advancements in technology and medicine. The human mind yearns to explore the universe, with that technology begins to evolve. They may even build armor that can with stand the force known as magic.
This doesn't sound like Celestia at all