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Friendship is Eezo Notes7,711 words

Friendship is Eezo Notes

Just to clarify: This is merely to serve as an online backup of snippets and ideas I find interesting regarding a Mass Effect cross. Credits to their respective writers.

The thread page that started it all:

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-brainstorming-thread-whatever.217506/page-7

Main Thread
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218056/

2nd thread:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/

3rd Thread
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-thread-3-take-back-equestria.218661/#post-7426101

4th Thread
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-thread-the-fourth.219062/

5th Thread
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-fifth-fleet-i-mean-thread.219417/

6th Thread
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/frienship-is-eezo-mane-six-thread-something-something.220228/#post-7512321

https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7448783/

Every year, the three heads of the Equestrian Government officially met to decide broad matters of policy for their nation, settle disputes between their areas of responsibility, and on the rare occasions when everything was going well, just socialize in general. As was traditional, responsibility for choosing the location of the meeting was rotated among the three heads in turn. Traditionally, the chooser would decide the meeting be held in the seat of their power, although over the past millenium, Princess Celestia had chosen some unconventional meeting sites. This year however, the meeting place was chosen by the Commander.

They were on a space station.

True, the meeting room was far from cramped and the view of Equestria below was spectacular. Still, despite being designed with Pony comfort in mind, Celestia found the station's artificialness unsettling. And despite the utility of electronic displays and records, she missed the days when the meeting table would have been piled high with paper books and records. Not that she let any of her discomfort show of course. Celestia wasn't about to retard technological progress out of mere personal pettiness.

Sitting to Celestia's left a third of the way around the round meeting table and opposite the Commander was Chancellor Ballot Box. He was elected head of the Equestrian Parliament and Celestia's theoretical equal. In practice of course, Celestia dominated if for no other reason that she had centuries of seniority and political experience on him.

Currently, Ballot Box was briefing the Princess and Commander on the internal state of Equestria's lands, which were his responsibility. That basically translated into the state of Equestria's civilian infrastructure and economy and nowadays included the same for colony worlds. And after an hour long "briefing" that sounded half like an election campaign speech, Celestia could sum up everything he had said into one line, "Everything's fine!"

Celestia didn't let any irritation show though. She just gracefully thanked Ballot Box for his thorough detail. For not the first time, she quashed the impulse to lash out. No matter how tempting that would be, down that road led to the Chancellor handing powers over to the Princess, inevitably resulting in the Princess drowning in more work and responsibilities than she could handle. Celestia had already seen that happen once and she adamantly refused to let it happen again.

With the Chancellor done, it was now the Pegasus Commander's turn. The Commander's two major responsibilities were handling Equestria weather service and military defense. Historically, the two had been one and the same. But as time went on, the two had grown into separate services with some rivalry between the two but always retained the same Commander. In times of peace, the Commander would be chosen by his or her predecessor from the ranks of the weather service. On the rare occasions when war came to Equestria, it was the military that provided the Commander.

Equestria was not at war. But Celestia found it a sign of the times that the newly promoted Commander was not only from the military arm, but that she wasn't even a Pony.

Commander Hannah Shepherd was a human, and had distinguished herself in action against Battarian "pirates" and had a exemplary record elsewhere. True, she was young for the post and had been chosen over an entire corps of flag officers who had previously outranked her. But most of those officers had been weather service, and Pegasus tradition was that the Commander and nopony else picked her successor and old Commander Spring Showers had chosen Hannah Shepherd.

Celestia hadn't known what Spring Showers had been thinking, but she could guess. Worse, Celestia agreed with her decision which boded ill for the future.

Commander Shepherd skimped on the state of the weather service, which was only to be expected. Like Chancellor Ballot Box, her report basically amounted to little more than, "Everything's fine!" Instead, her report focused on ship deployments, possible alien threats to Equestrian civilians, and new technological and magical developments that she'd like the budget - and here she looked at Ballot Box directly - to upgrade the armed forces with.

"As Commander of the Equestrian Armed Forces, one of my responsibilities is to think of worse case scenarios and come up with counters for them, or at least mitigate their risk," Shepherd was saying. "One of the nightmare possibilities - no offense your majesty - is that our conventional space forces will simply be overwhelmed by an attacker, either through numerical or technological superiority. Now obviously, I can't say who such an attacker would be given that the scenario is purely hypothetical; it could be the Citadel, or it could be some as yet unknown race coming through from some unexplored part of the galaxy. One of the solutions that my think tanks came up with however isn't really my area of responsibility at all."

"It's not, Commander?" Celestia asked. "That seems to be an odd admission to make given that your responsibility is the defense of our nation."

"No, your Majesty," Shepherd confirmed. There was a trace of nervousness in her voice and mannerisms, something Celestia had seen countless times when Ponies were about to tell her something they thought she wouldn't want to hear. "It's not solely my responsibility because if we decide to use it, it would have to be your office who implements it since your office is the one with all the required skills to do so."

Celestia found her eyes widening involuntarily in surprise. There wasn't exactly a shortage of unicorns in military service. The responsibility of her office focused solely on the management of magic, which these days meant primarily education and academic programs to teach magic and the ethical usage thereof. Most applied magic had over the centuries been shifted over to private enterprise, taken by the offices like the Commander's military, or just been outright supplanted by advancing technology. What could Commander Shepherd be talking about that would require the explicit active cooperation of Celestia's office?

"Could you elaborate, Commander?" Celestia asked.

"My people have prepared a brief video that basically summarizes everything," Shepherd said. A touch of a button brought a holographic video to life above the center of the table. "We're calling this 'Sunbeam'."

The video was short and to the point. It couldn't have been more than five minutes long. And it felt to Celestia like she had just been stabbed in the gut... or the back.

"Commander, this..." Celestia struggled for words. "This is an abomination."

"Abomination? You're too kind, Your Majesty!" Ballot Box added in a furor. "It goes against every Equestrian tradition and value we hold dear. It's a direct violation of an agreement made by our Founding Ponies! Why, if the voters even caught a whiff that we were even seriously considering such a thing..."

"Look, I'm sorry, but I had to bring it up," Shepherd said apologetically to them. "I know it's everything you said it is and more. If after this meeting you both want my resignation," Shepherd glanced at Celestia, showing who's opinion truly mattered to her "you can have it. But, please, can you let me explain myself first?"

"What explanation could there possibly be..." Ballot Box began.

"Ballot Box, hush," Celestia interrupted. Ballot Box's mouth shut with an audible click, and he turned to the Princess in surprise. But Celestia's gaze was narrowed and locked on the Commander. "Explain."

"As I mentioned, using Sunbeam is a last resort," Shepherd said. "If we have to use Sunbeam, it means the fleet has failed in the defense of Equestria. It means my office has failed. It means I failed." She sighed. "Sunbeam is a weapon of last resort, something we keep in our toolbox and hope like hell we never have to use. But if we ever need it, we'd better have it. As the old proverb says, better to have something and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

"But I won't deny the danger of having it in our toolbox," Shepherd continued. "If we have it, then the temptation will always be there to use it with the additional danger of misusing it. There's too many echoes in Sunbeam of the RKVs of the Last War. If we implement Sunbeam, then we risk going down the path of the Last War again. Because before the Last War, we told ourselves the same thing, 'we'll just build RKVs just in case, but we'll never use them.' But in the end, we did use them.

"But I would be remiss in my duties as Commander if I didn't even consider the idea, or bring it up here," Shepherd finished. She looked from the Chancellor to the Princess. "So what do you two say? Do we implement Sunbeam and risk obliterating ourselves? Or do we not implement Sunbeam and hope like hell that nothing too powerful for our conventional space forces to handle hits us?"

"I... I..." Ballot Box stuttered, for once at a loss for words. He turned to Celestia, obviously looking for guidance from age old wisdom. "Your Majesty?"

Celestia looked from human to Pony and back again, indecision churning inside her, knowing that whatever she chose could well damn her for an eternity. What should she decide?

https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7403280/

Nikas:

On the Death of Terra, I'm not sure how important the exact details of the war are to a ME/MLP story like this. Basically the humans had a Final War, and survivors had to flee a dying homeworld.

How about this for a bit of background, enough ME tech got made that FTL was about ready officially. Unofficially? Various governments had a small number of FTL combat ships, not even frigate sized, more insystem gunboats, all with the intention of being able to strike harder and faster than the other side(s), possibly inside their communication loop (Bases B, C, D, and E are all dead before anyone knows Base A was hit) Nice idea, a real war winner for the first side to use it. The kicker? All the major powers had it, and no one knew anyone else did. Perhaps a favorite tactics was to kick loose a RKKV just before dropping out of warp?

The survivors started cannibalizing everything that wasn't smashed flat, with obsessiveness and thoroughness that would impress a Quarian. Grabbing official half completed 'colony' ships, all the Eezo they could scrape up, possibly looking at a habitat and going, "You know, with the right bracing and a jury rigged Eezo core we could take this sucker FTL." Or building an FTL and Eezo core, then half dismantling a habitat to weld the living modules to it.

Whinny-Pedia:
The Exodus Fleet: Name collectively given to the vessels that evacuated the surviving human population from Sol to Equestria (do we have a star name?). Something of a misnomer, since some 'ships' were nothing more than space habitats rebuilt around generation zero FTL and Eezo cores. Save a sealed portion that exist in the Canterlot Royal Museum no original parts still exist. They were dismantled due to Eezo dust contamination. The Sanctuary Field Museum (Site of first landfall of Humans on Equestria) does have reproductions of some of the more famous ones, included the 'Ad Astra' habitat/spaceship that was the flagship of the Exodus.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7386642/

On Cerebus

"The Princesses do not understand the horrors of what might lurk out there. Humanity ever since we arrived have forged ourselves into Equestria's Sword and Shield. But with the conflict between us and the Turians and the aftereffects, we found that Equestria needs protection. A guardian.

Even if the Princesses do not approve.

We are Cerberus. And we guard the Gates of Hell to prevent the evils inside from escaping into the heaven that is Equestria.

We are the damned. We were born into the darkness. We live in the darkness and so we will also die in the darkness. And while we may be reviled and dispised by those we protect, we find comfort in knowing that with our sacrifice they are free and alive to do so, and thus we take comfort in that."

https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7386857/

And I thought Celestia would try to step hard on Cerebus, finding their hearts in the right place, but their actions, "Discordant".

"To my embarrassment we have become the living embodiment of our Ponies' kindness and generosity to Humanity when they felt their most unworthy of either. Cerebus is one of the more fanatical versions of such devotion, that has encompassed other Equestrians, even if it is still primarily human. I fear for them Luna, what they might unknowingly become in their self assigned role as Equestria's protectors in such dark places. So I find myself trying to drag them to the light, and fearing I will lose them as I once lost you. And part of me wonders, what if they see this more clearly than I do?"

"Especially if they do means we must stop them 'Tia. I know very well the dangers of isolation in a thankless task. Tis a vexingly human attitude though, "I might die, so others will live." The dusky winged unicorn shook her head. "My guard is better suited for this task, we will search the dark places for our lost ones, spy out what they have found, and take appropriate action while bringing them home."

Emily
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/page-6#post-7413661

As for what happened when they first arrived... well...
______________________________________________________

Staring out at the stars, Celestia is lost in her thoughts until the sound of hooves slowly making their way towards her breaks her out of them. Softly smiling, she turns to see her recently returned sister. "Hello there Luna. Couldn't sleep?"

Luna shakes her head with a sigh. "No... so much has changed." Reaching the balcony where her sister is standing, she looks down to see a human couple on a bench far below. "Including our new... subjects."

Closing her eyes in grief, Celestia nods. "Do you know of their story yet? You have been back for only two days..."

Snorting, Luna gives Celestia a look. "Of course I do." Her eyes then become haunted. "Such horror in their pasts I..." She then looks up as a star-like dot crosses the heaven. "Why?"

Knowing the true question behind it, Celestia also looks up, her eyes fogging over as she slips into memory. "Our first inkling was of a star crossing our skys you know. Then it fell from the heavens and landed on the coast." A slight twitch of her lips happen. "I was among the first there and saw them. At first I was frightened I'm afraid to say but then... I looked into their eyes."

Luna looks over at her sister in confusion. "Their eyes 'Tia?"

Celestia nods her head. "Yes, their eyes." She then turns to her sister who gasps at the emotions there. "They showed a being who's spirit was completely broken, almost a shell of what they once were." She bows her head as her sight becomes blury. "They were all so thin Lulu. It... it was..." She trails off as she takes a shaky breath. "They didn't bother to hide what had happened. What they had done." With a stomp her hoof, Celestia scowls. "They didn't even consider that we would let them settle. In fact all they wanted was perhaps some food for supplies."

After a few minutes of silence, Luna speaks up with a question that's been bouncing in her head. "So... why?"

Celestia is silent for a moment before speaking. "I... almost didn't." Feeling Luna's shocked expression, she sighs. "I was horrified by what had happened. It was so far out of my comprehension that I almost told them to leave and never come back. But those eyes... and her."

Luna blinks in confusion. "Her 'Tia?"

Nodding, Celestia nods in grief. "Yes, 'Her' Lulu. Her name was Emily and she was a survivor from Earth. I could feel her dying as me and you can feel sometimes when we're near one who is. I'm ashamed to admit that I demanded to see her. I thought..." She shakes her head as a tear drips from her eye. "I was able to. And that was when I saw the other half of humanity. Emily was a small girl. She was dying from having been poisoned by what had happened. I saw her hooked up to mechines to try and keep her alive." Now sobbing, Celestia falls to her knees. "While the others were thin, she was almost skeletal Luna. Her hair was falling out and she had been blinded. She somehow knew I was there though. Her voice will always haunt me. She asked who I was and where. So... I told her. I talked to her Luna. She... she finally asked if she could feel that sun. She was cold. I knew that there was nothing that could be done. So, after they unhooked her, I used my magic and gently brought her outside the ship. And she smiled and told me it felt warm." Being comforted by Luna, she turns to the direction of the sea. "She... was the first human to be buried on Equestria. But she was far from the last... There may have been bumps and issues, but we have never regreted taking them in." Choking back a sob, Celestia buries her head in her younger sister's neck. "I still visit her. Every Salvation Day morning, I go there. And I stand next to her gravestone as I raise the sun before telling her that I'll make sure that it's another warm day..."

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/page-7#post-7413882

Luna leaned up against her sister, feeling the pulse of her slowly healing magic. "Do you remember Clover, Pansy, and Cookie 'Tia? How their eyes looked when they told of of the founding, and the Windegos? Human eyes remind me of them when they talk of their Lost Earth."

Celestia nodded, "Yes, though it took me years to make the same connection. My own reminder of the Element of Honesty. My student, Twilight Sparkle, had a rather controversial term paper comparing how close Early Equestrian came to going down the same path of Earth before those three pulled our ponies back."

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/page-7#post-7414360

A human perspective on the Scene Harry wrote:

My name is.... no, never mind, who I am and where I come from doesn't matter. All you need to know is that I am human, and I was among the first of us to tread on equestrian soil as well as one of the first to see Celestia.

Do you think me rude or disrespectful for not using her honorific here? Perhaps, but this little article isn't _about_ Princess Celestia. It's about Celestia, which is who she is, and not Princess, which is _what_ she is.

The years pass, and generations of us spring up that have never had to endure the exodus, never watched their world burn, and their race rush gleefully towards suicide. These younger generations revere their monarch of course, they grow up knowing the debt of gratitude that we have towards Celestia, Luna, and all Equestria's children. But I know too that they don't quite understand that intensity of feeling that we have towards Celestia. Soon, I suspect, as we reach for the stars again, others will wonder the same.

Some will hypothesize that it is simply a debt of gratitude, that we first who were personally saved and owe her our lives are just closer to the heart of the matter. This is true, but only in the sense that we _were_ personally touched. That our physical beings were saved is... minor in comparison.

Others more cynical will rationalize that we needed to place our faith is something, something other than another Human, for the depth of betrayal that we inflicted upon ourselves is vaster and deeper than any ocean. There is an element of this, I admit, but this is not why we love her.

No. To truly understand, you must understand the state we were in.

We were _broken_ than vaunted human spirit that we now take pride in again was a crushed and dead thing. We did not believe that we would survive and we weren't looking for salvation. No, we were simply looking, like a wounded animal, or some dark hole to die in.

And then we found Equestria.

Did you think we celebrated our salvation then? If you did, then you're dead wrong.

Equestria, was a slap in the face. A bitter reminder of what we once had and would never have, never _deserve_ to have again. Equestria is a land of light, lush forests, cerulean oceans. Paradise. This we saw, but we were minded only of the hell we had turned our own Paradise into, of a smoke darkened sky, dead skeletons of splintered trees, and lakes, rivers, and oceans of blood.

It pained us, those first of us who landed and asked for some small relief.... we felt that our very presence tainted the planet. We were in agreement, we would ask for supplies, and leave, and save this wondrous planet from the hell we would surely wreak if we stayed.

And then Celestia came, and our shame deepened. She was as beautiful then, as she is now, and we felt like tawdry wretched things incomparison. I am old now, and perhaps it is simply a hyperbole inflicted by an elder mind, but it almost felt as if her light burned us.

We all knew what a human leader would have done with such as us. Hurried perhaps to usher us from their doorstep. Granted some aid in some pubic way and gleaned the support from their followers. At best, some more aid and hurtful pity if they were still human enough to care.

She, instead, asked to see the sickest of us.

Pity and compassion are... similar things, separated only by hairsbreadth of emotional distance. We expected pity at best, instead, well.... I'm not entirely sure Celestia is even capable of pity.

Not of course, that we even realized it then. We were to far gone to care. A nearly dead man floating in a frozen pond is hardly likely to take notice of a bonfire, however close he is to it.

And then she met and spoke to Emily. A child we all knew was going to die. And with the utmost of gentleness, she took the child, where, under an alien but oh so gentle sun, she, miraculously obtained a last moment of happiness before passing.

You must understand, we didn't feel anything at her passing. So very very many of us had passed, both in the war, and on the way to Equestria. It was an inevitable thing. All of us would die. Some likely even envied her. Dead ourselves, we were past grief, or sorrow.

But Celestia wasn't. Every line of her, non-human as she was, was carved in sorrow. And she _wept_. She _wept_ for Emily and she wept for humanity. She was a glorious and alien being, as far above us as the sun is above the earth. By all rights she shouldn't have even been touched by us, nor spared us a second glance. And yet she grieved for we who were beyond grief. Sorrowed for our lost world and our lost child. Wept for what we never thought we could be again.

And did you know? That touched us. We thought we were as nothing, and yet here was a living goddess grieving for what we were. When we thought we weren't worth anything, her grief told us we were _wrong_. Her sorrow... her sorrow was like a dagger in the hearts we'd lost. It hurt, it hurt terribly... but soon too we grieved. We too wept for lost earth, for Emily, that lost child. For our cultures, and our families, for all of humanity lost to the dark. I am not ashamed at all to admit I cried harder that day than anytime then or since.

And that is why we love her. For that which grieves is _alive_

And when that storm of grief passed, while our hearts were still aching... she asked if we would like to stay.

Celestia didn't just save our lives, she saved all that we are, and all that we ever will be.

Never. Forget.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/page-7#post-7414613

Equestrian Human attitudes are colored by that first meeting?

"Celestia saw us at our worst, and wept because she saw what we could be, what we threw away in our collective madness. So we strive, not for the dead, but the living, for Celestia who offered us hope, for Luna, who knows the path of redemption. To fail to be the best person is more than a personal failure, it is to turn our backs to the promise Celestia wept for, to betray it and Her." (personal journal of one of the Exodus Fleet?)

"Humanity came to the Principles of Harmony much later than Ponies, and suffered far greater than the old nations did during the Founding Period. But Celestia's compassion showed them Generosity, Kindness, Friendship and Honesty. And while grief did flow heavy in those early days, grief is not Laughter's opposite, but a cleansing rain to wash sorrow, for one must feel to Laugh, and as Humanity can attest the opposite of Laughter is to hide from all feelings, for fear of being crushed by the weight of them. Finally came Loyality, even among Ponies Humans are renown for their Loyality to the Twin Thrones, and Celestia. Many Ponies look at this and think that Humans before Equestria were inherently ignorant of the Elements, while Ponies are naturally attuned to them.

This is the worst form of Dishonesty, self-delusion. A clear eyed look at the Founding Period and the events proceeding show that Ponies weren't naturally more Harmonious, we were luckier. We had three that grabbed our herds as they stampeeded off our own cliff, and hauled us back. The Humans had no one to snatch them back from the abyss." -Term Paper, Equestrian History and Human Studies, Twilight Sparkle yr 999 ANM

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/page-7#post-7414692

That's great, but with a slight adjustment (Or rather just my opinion). At the time when Celestia wept, as much as she is wise and far seeing, aside from the brief moment of shared empathy, she doesn't _truly_ know humanity, or it's true potential. Which means the grief is an act of pure compassion for what humanity lost, and that even what was lost was worthwhile. And which means that her offer to let them stay is the truest act of kindness, as well as a leap of faith that Humanity does have the potential to be good. Celestia offer friendship to Humanity as it was then, wretched and weakened, and not out of any conception of what humanity _might_ be in the future.

And that would be a motivation for Humanity to excel like no other.

I really like the bit with Twilight at the end there. It's at once a pretty damn good analysis, on top of which, it's got the vaguely anvilly feeling of a term paper written by Twilight.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/page-7#post-7414801

Okay, run this through, mark II.
"Celestia saw us at our worst, and wept because she saw what we terrible things we had done, what we threw away in our collective madness. She felt all our self inflicted pains and wept for us when we were too wounded to do so for ouselves.

Then in an act of faith that still boggles the mind she offered us a new home. A place on Equestria. Not seperate as some reservation or preserve to keep a random species from dying, but a place in the Herds of Equestria, where we might rest and recover. Some wonder today at how far sighted Celestia was, what we might become if helped.

I think she had no idea at all, or at least didn't care. She offered us a place in her heart, not because we were worthy, or 'had potential', but because it was kind, it was right. And a living Godess took her own leap of faith on Humanity. It would be the worst form of ingratitude to dissapoint her.

So we strive, not for the dead, but the living, for Celestia who offered us hope, for Luna, who knows the path of redemption. To fail to be the best person is more than a personal failure, betrayal of a Godess Faith in part of her Herd." (personal journal of one of the Exodus Fleet?)

Exodus Deathtoll

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/page-9#post-7416611

"Of the ten billion humans that called the Earth system home. It is estimated that up to 250,000 survived to take part in the Exodus. 135,000 lived to reach Equestria and finally 50,000 survived their first year on Equestria. "

" The hardest hit amongst the survivors were the engine crews of the Exodus ships. They had the greatest exposure to Ezeo poisoning amongst the fleet. Almpst all of them died within a year of reaching Equestria. Some just gave up having given all they could during the journey here.They had nothing left."

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/friendship-is-eezo-2-mlp-me-crossover-thread.218345/page-9#post-7416944

Frustrate the hell out of the STG though.

"Close evaluations of the Equestrian Societies found very little room to foment factionalism between the various species. The three 'Pony' races have a quasi-religious connection with their Diarchy. The newest subjects of 'Old Equestria', the Humans in comparison are fanatics. This represents a strategic problem for any successful intervention, Humanity makes up 80% of the Alliance's military, and are also prominent in rescue response services. Between the Humans and Unicorns they also have a solid lock on external biotic talents, and the rest of the Ponies at least counter the other members of the Alliance should a serious fissuring be engineered. The closer interrelationships have grown to the point of families containing members of different, incompatible species."

https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7432763/

Whinnypedia Entry: Celestia's World

Celestia's World is the inner most planet of the Epona system. It is a small, geologically dead, rocky world with a high metal content. Celestia' World orbits close enough to be tidelocked. As small rocky planets go, Celestia's World is utterly unremarkable, except for the singular geographical feature that gives the world its name.

Carved into the planet's day side surface are the words CELESTIA WAS HERE. The individual letters are roughly 500 kilometers tall and five kilometers deep. Geological analysis indicates that the lettering was carved via some form of rapid thermal pulse. As the lettering is on Celestia's World dayside, it was all but invisible from Equestria and not discovered until a human probe surveying the system sent back pictures of them.

Princess Celestia herself has no comment when asked about the geographical feature that names her. Questioning her Majesty inevitably leads to her changing the subject to topics about youthful follies and discussions of anti-intoxication laws.

-------------------

https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7472594/

It could be used as a way to futher disguished humanity from the Quarians.

Humanity kept ahold of everything that it could in a vice like grip. Cultures, languages, religions, so on and so forth. Yet it was willing to move on, and new innovations are built upon the foundations of the homelands. There would be differences, yes, but now everyone will make an effort to live in harmony, to make compromises instead of war, to build a city on a hill that they could be proud of. They viewed themselves as clear eyed pioneers, wanting a fresh start on a new world and a clean slate. Hard work would be expected, but worth it, because there's no going home now. The fact that the new world was hospitable, and the inhabitants were friendly, was an unexpected boon.

The Quarians, on the other hand, went the opposite route. Religious belief has almost died altogether in all but the most casual of blasphemes. Their culture was stripped away of all but what was needed to survive, and instead built around the survival of the fleet. Everything, from the government to the rite of passage, is because of the needs of the fleet. They toy with the idea of settling down, but they're not pioneers. They're crusaders. One day, no matter how grave the cost, they will reclaim their homeworld from the Geth and rebuild their former glory from the ruins of their ancestors.

The Human Exodus Fleet was falling apart by the time they got to Equestria, and if they had to go much farther would have faced extinction. The Quarian Migrant Fleet, while hardly self sufficent, is able to survive and thrive as a nomadic culture in space. When the Exodus Fleet left, humanity didn't know if there were any living sapients outside of the remnants of their species. When the Migrant Fleet left, they were spurned by the Citadel and their former allied sapients.

Really and truely, they're two sides of the same coin.

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https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7403280/

On the Death of Terra, I'm not sure how important the exact details of the war are to a ME/MLP story like this. Basically the humans had a Final War, and survivors had to flee a dying homeworld.

Whinny-Pedia:

The Exodus Fleet: Name collectively given to the vessels that evacuated the surviving human population from Sol to Equestria (do we have a star name?). Something of a misnomer, since some 'ships' were nothing more than space habitats rebuilt around generation zero FTL and Eezo cores. Save a sealed portion that exist in the Canterlot Royal Museum no original parts still exist. They were dismantled due to Eezo dust contamination. The Sanctuary Field Museum (Site of first landfall of Humans on Equestria) does have reproductions of some of the more famous ones, included the 'Ad Astra' habitat/spaceship that was the flagship of the Exodus.

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https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7462154/

Codex Entry: Equestrian Ship Painting

Another fairly unique practice to Equestrian culture, ship painting (commonly referred to as aslik’vis, or ‘loud ship’ in Asari) refers to the aesthetic decorations commonly found on most Equestrian space craft. Common to pony owned civilian spacecraft, the goal of this practice is to turn the ship's hull into a narrative piece of art.

Most commonly these paintings depict figures or events of importance to the ship owner. The personal crafts of Envoy Twilight Sparkle commonly depict Starswirl the Bearded, a noted scholar and early pioneer of the scientific study of biotics in Equestrian society. The ships of Sweet Apple Acres typically depict pastoral scenes, as well as the history of the widespread Apple clan. The ships of the Night Guard depict scenes of the Diarch of the Night, typically in reference to a redemption arc involving the mythical figure of the Diarch or various accomplishments of the office, although historical military and scholarly figures of many species are also common.

The most remarkable of example of this practice is the Day Fleet of Princess Celestia. From the first commissioned craft to the smallest shuttle, in sequence of building, there has been over 500,000 sequential panels depicting the mythical origins and epic history of Equestria. This narrative has yet to breach early written records, and are being exhaustively studied by scholars and anthropologists from both the EA and the Citadel. In several instances Princess Celestia has been seen passing on sketches, giving instructions, and even personally painting ships herself, suggesting that her ship paintings are a personal project to record the oral history of the Equestrian royal family in a visual form.

Human practices, especially in regards to military ships, are similar but different. Human ship painting involves the use of heraldry on larger ships, typically using colors to denote branch. Only three images are used on commissioned military and law enforcement craft: the Crest of the Royal Family (used as a figurehead), the emblem of the branch of service (typically before the name and registry of the ship) and the ship badge (after the name and registry of the ship). Ship badges and 'unit patches' may be simple or elaborate, but are typically depicting symbols and phrases of deep importance to the unit. These ship badges and unit paches are also common in Equestrian uniforms, denoting the wearer as member of a larger community.

On small military shuttles, ground vehicles, and human owned civilian space craft ship painting takes the form of ‘nose art’. These pieces of human folk art are expressions of individuality, often times evoking memories of peacetime life or home. Unlike the almost permanent ship paintings of their pony counterparts human nose art is of an ephemeral nature, and have been noted to change when ownership of a craft changes, or even at the whims of the primary vehicle operator. Like pony ship paintings these pieces of art are recorded whenever possible by Citadel anthropologists, in the hopes of gaining a better insight to human psychology and group identity.

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https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7459830/

Codex: Equestrian "Hornmade" Goods

Hornmade Goods is a classification of consumer products exported by the Equestrian Alliance. These products are so named because they are reportedly constructed by individual or small groups of Equestrian Unicorns using their biotic abilities as focused through their horns (hence the term "Hornmade") in manner not unlike pre-industrial handicrafts.

Hornmade products command high prices within the Equestrian Alliance and even higher prices outside the Equestrian Alliance. The high prices are partially caused by the handicraft nature of their construction, but mostly by the high demand for Hornmade products.

The demand is the result of Hornmade products having unusual properties despite their apparently standard, sometimes even primitive construction. These properties are often wildly at odds of what properties the constituent materials should have, and often have no discernible cause.

Examples of Hornmade products include but are not limited to:

* A scroll made of primitive wood pulp paper. If burned, the paper will quickly turn into a cloud of ash that will somehow move itself to its intended recipient and reconstruct itself and any message written on it. No discernable signs of nanotechnology are found in the paper.

* A set of custom made shoes, beautifully designed, but constructed of simple leather and cloth. When set on an opaque cloud of mist or smoke, behaves as though the cloud were a solid object capable of supporting the weight of not only the shoes, but the sophont wearing the shoes. No eezo or even a power supply could be found in them.

* A glass jar of edible, multicolored paste called "Zap Apple Jam". Universally considered delicious by all sentient species that have sampled it regardless of what kind of diet or even biochemistry their species normally prefers. The only other notable property is that Zap Apple Jam holds a small electric charge.

Given the utility of some of the more unusual Hornmade products's properties, there is some question as to why Equestrian technology appears to be so conventional. The answer it seems lies in the fact that only a few rare unicorns actually possess the talents required to Hornmake any finished goods, which makes industrializing the process difficult. Secondly, the arrival of the humans to Equestria vastly upgraded the Equestrian tech base with conventional technological solutions such that the Unicorns never needed to figure out how to properly industrialize Horn crafting processes, thus relegating Hornmade goods more or less permanently to the luxury market.

***

The Asari Matriarch dismissed the article in favor of examining her new desk that the projector sat on. It was beautifully made with gold trimmed edges embedded with gems and images of dancing Ponies. The desk top was perfectly flat with a mirror finish. A test shove revealed the desk to be rock solid and steady, the perfect work desk.

And a glance under the desk revealed that there were no legs. The desk top was floating above a floor it had no physical contact with whatsoever.

The Asari Matriarch's mind flashed back to a report from her people after they had attempted to reverse engineer a similar desk. No eezo. No power supply. No sensors. No circuitry. Not even an actual Mass Effect field that they could detect. And...

The Asari Matriarch pushed gently at the desk to move it out of the way. Unlike her previous shove, this time the desk glided over smoothly with almost no resistance, but stopped the instant she released her hand. Then she sat on it to test its firmness again. The desk refused to budge.

Yes, she thought. It most definitely was reading her mind.

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https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/7426921/

Codex: Medals of Harmony

Every race known has a medal or award usually issued for Gallantry or Courage in battle considered the highest award that race can bestow on an individual. The Equestrian peoples' buck this trend in that they have six awards that are considered equal known as the Medals of Harmony Each of them represents an Equestrian Cardinal Virtue. There are only known to be three beings at one time that can award this honour the first two are the Solar and Lunar Diarch's and the bearer of the title 'Bearer of the Element of'

The criteria for earning this award is not fully known as they have been few times they have been awarded to both military and civilian personel the citation has varied significantly;

The Medal of Kindness
This medal takes the form of six pink sapphire, two on either side of a bar of gold and two above taking the form of a local insect known as a 'butterfly'. The one of the few known awards of this medal was given to a group of civilian docters who stayed behind to tend patients that could not be evacuated when the Batarian's assaulted Appleloosa in what the Equestrians often miss call 'The First Contact War'.

The Medal of Laughter
This medal takes the form of a briliant blue Zircon in the shape of an irregular flat backed nonagon, similar to a rounded tear drop with a protrusion at the base enclosed with a gold rim. The common belief is it represents the tears the awardee has soothed though what differentiates this award from the Medal of Kindness is unclear. It is als been noted by some to be similar in shape to a party prop known as a 'balloon'

The Medal of Loyalty
This medal also takes the form of an irregular flat backed nonagon, but in this case it is formed of Ruby and cut as a jagged bolt again usually with a gold rim. The best understood of the six awards it is often issued to those military personel who have stood by their fellows at massive risk despite having the oppertunity to depart the field. Often issued to those who survive a 'Code Zero Action' by the current Title Bearer.

The Medal of Generosity
This medal takes the form of a purple sapphire gem cut as a octahedron with two sides truncated set in a gold frame. It is thought by citidel cultural experts that the missing pieces represent the sacrifices the award holder has made

The Medal of Honesty
This medal takes the form of a padparadscha sapphire cut into nine facets topped with two thin twin faceted emerald 'leaves' set in a gold frame giving the form of a local fruit called an 'apple'. While Citadel experts debate the symbology it is rumoured that some humans have a myth surrounding the fruit.

The Medal of Friendship
This medal takes the form of a flat backed tetrahaidecahedron cut as a star of unknown type. In colour it is flashes pink, lilac or white depending on how light strikes it's facets though the colour of the light seems to make no difference to the colours refracted to the constination of gemologists. It is also unique that it has never been awarded to a single individual. From the citations issued it is believed that the current Title Bearer, Royal Envoy Twilight Sparkle, favours awarding it to those of diverse origin that have cooperated to improve the lives of those in Equestrian space as a number of Quarian have been recipients of the award.

The Trim on the as has been noted is usually gold but on occasion the award has been issued with a rose gold posthumously or silver on the rare occations when issued by the Lunar Diarch.

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