Interlude: Ancient History
From 'The Collected Histories Of Clara Terram'.
Three centuries after the founding of Clara Terram, and two centuries after the discovery of magic, an unexpected event occurred, one that would have repercussions that would be felt even to the modern age. That event was the birth of the king's second son, Madigrin.
Clovis, the firstborn, was strong, brave, ruggedly handsome, wise, honest, kind, generous, and charismatic. He was well beloved by the citizens of Clara Terram, and his coronation was looked forward to all, save one. While not blessed with any talent with magic, let alone magic energy, he would, in years to come, prove himself to be an able administrator, and would usher in a golden age for our people. The second son, Madigrin, however, was different. Rather than handsome, he instead possessed an almost effeminate beauty. He was clever, and possessed a certain magnetism that seemed to draw others to him, in spite of his personality. He was also deceptive, calculating, and cruel to the point of sadism. He also possessed, most importantly, tremendous magical power, the kind that few in our history have matched.
And this was where the trouble began.
"Why should I serve others?" Madigrin asked of his father. "Why should I serve my brother, who has less magical capability than a stone? With a word, I can tear down mountains. With a wave of my hoof, I can bring fire and ruin to any who might threaten our kingdom. With a thought, I can rend even the strongest of warriors asunder. Why shouldn't I be the king instead of Clovis?"
While upset by his words, the king advised his younger son that magic alone did not make one worthy of ruling a nation. His incredible talent had left him lacking in humility, unlike Clovis. The king could trust Clovis to rule the kingdom wisely and well because he knew that he was only a mortal pony. Madigrin, however, would not, since he thought his magical abilities made him some sort of god, something that none of the ponies of Clara Terram would stand for.
"Had our ancestors not left the homelands specifically to escape the sort of tyranny you intend? To escape the horned and the winged ones who treated them as nothing more than slaves? Those who forced us to pay tribute to them and thought themselves superior to us in every way? The people will not stand for a pony who tries to rule over them using abilities that they do not possess. If you become king, our subjects will either revolt and overthrow you, or abandon our kingdom, leaving you all alone to rule over an empty nation. No, my son: You are not fit to rule, and I fear you never will be..."
Madigrin would not take no for an answer. He instead would pour venomous, honeyed words of treason into the ears of those members of the populace who possessed great magical power, yet felt constrained by the traditions and laws of our people. He promised them power, the ability to rule over others. They would be as gods, and Madigrin, the king of gods. Within a year, he had a sufficient following to try to seize the throne.
The coup failed, ultimately, due to Madigrin's own twisted dogma, his belief that only magic mattered, and that anypony without magic was beneath contempt. Moons before his coup began, an unspelled serving girl had overheard a conversation between Madigrin and his cohorts while serving them drinks. He thought nothing of speaking treason before a magicless commoner. This would be his undoing. The maiden reported the plot to the newly crowned king, and the king made preparations of his own. When the coup began, Madigrin and his flunkies found themselves faced, not with a palace of unprepared courtiers and servants, but with knights of the realm armed with anti-magic arms and armor, and dozens of powerful wizards who were loyal to the king and to their people. The coup was stopped without a single casualty, and both Madigrin and his followers were captured and brought before the king for judgement.
And on that day, the king made the one mistake of his reign, the mistake that haunts us to this very day: He chose mercy, rather than justice.
The penalty for treason was death. This had always been the case. However, when Clovis looked upon Madigrin, he could only see his brother, and not the monster he was, and certainly not the twisted thing he would eventually become. Instead of death, the king chose to exile his brother. Although, in fairness, the destination of his exile was practically a death sentence.
The Dark Lands were a large island off our eastern shore, the site of a magical battle between two powerful wizards a century previous. Then, as with now, nothing existed there that was not lethally venomous, violently carnivorous, psychotically aggressive, or a combination of all three. That included even the plants, many of the stones, and some of the lakes and rivers. It was expected that Madigrin would die there, as would his followers.
That expectation was not completely wrong. However, it was not right, either...
A century later, the first attack from the Dark Lands, The Day Of Infamy, began. And we have not known peace since then.
Fear of an attack from Madgrin colors every aspect of our civilization: None dare try to leave our kingdom to explore for fear of a repeat of what last happened when Madigrin captured a ship filled with hopeful explorers. Our blue skies have been tinted by the defensive barriers that protect us from his continuous magical onslaughts. Even the taste of our water has been subtly altered due to the dozens of antigens, antitoxins, and alchemical elixirs required to prevent Madigrin's dark magics from introducing plagues or worse into our water supply and do harm to our population.
There cannot be peace between Clara Terram and the Dark Lands. Not so long as Madigrin sits upon its throne. Any who have attempted to broker peace with him have been slain, and their deaths were long, protracted, and broadcasted nationwide for every pony to see. Whatever good was within Madigrin died when he did, and the abomination that he has become is now our adversary, now and forever. He will possess our nation, even if he must burn it all to ash to do so. He will become king by any means necessary, even if it means he will be a king of only the dead...
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A second interlude up! And our villain, ladies and gents. We'll see more of him later, but for now, we get a little backstory.
Why not just leave and let Mardigrin take the empty kingdom? Hell, I bet you could populate the place with golems and automatons right before the exodus and the bastard probably wouldn't care, so long as he was "king".
7897797
I won't consider saying this a spoiler, since we're just talking about geography, but I will admit I was kinda planning on holding this back for a while.
Asides from the dangers of the open ocean, which include monsters both underwater and in the air, there's a significant logistical aspect: Imagine trying to evacuate a country the size of Africa. All of it. This isn't Equestria we're talking about, where a single giant centaur can stride its length and breadth in the course of a day while drain ponies of their magic: Clara Terram is big. And it has a lot of ponies in it. A departure of that size will not go unnoticed, even at the planning stage. And Madigrin wouldn't be above shooting whatever vessels they use down, just for giggles. You'll come to understand, in time, just what kind of... thing he has become. Not that he wasn't nearly as bad even before he became... what he is now.
In comparison, Equestria is very small: The entire country could easily fit within a single province within Clara Terram. And there are a lot of provinces in Clara Terram.
Food for thought.
I can only imagine what those Ponys must think of the whacky inventions coming at them.
7897820 that is interesting information. I myself think that equestria is small too. But its different from story to story and the offival map has no... maßstab. I wonder what the surroundkng nations of equestria will think of the magitek nation. I also have to imagine the size of that planet now... probably bigger than ours, right? I also think that nirn is small. Elder scrolls. Anyway, the earth shrinks the faster we travel. I await more information soon. This is interesting.
7897820 So comparing the U.K. As a single land mass to, say Canada? U.S.? Or the entirety of North America?
7897957
Clara Terram has land mass matching Africa. Equestria is someplace in the neighborhood of... Japan, maybe, in terms of total land mass? Hard to be exact. Mind you, Equestria is just a country on a larger continent (Containing Yakyakistan and Griffinstone, amongst other places), but Equestria is still the largest and most technologically developed country on that continent.
Heck, even on most maps I've seen Equestria isn't all that big compared to the rest of the world.
orig15.deviantart.net/e73e/f/2011/335/a/4/equestria_and_beyond__rev_8_1_by_hlissner-d46wmzm.jpg
See? Not very big at all.
Part of what impacts technological development is available land mass, available resources, and culture. Equestria is small, and while resource rich for such a small nation, it still has limits. However, the culture isn't exactly progressive, no one really seems inspired to invent. I mean, there's no evidence of anyone actually suppressing innovation, but no one is going out of the way to make anything to actually really improve Equestria, asides from maybe Flim and Flam with their cider machine, and in at least one alternate timeline, that has some pretty nightmarish repercussions. I mean, Doctor Whooves/Time Turner is the closest thing to a scientific expert in Equestria (As of Episode 100), but most of his stuff is redundant because of magic, so it is more or less overlooked. Why build even a time machine when time spells are easier and less resource intensive? Nopony has ever considered approaching magic using a scientific method... at least, not in Equestria. If you start combining Science, the study and utilization of the natural laws by which the universe operates, and Magic, the art of using magic energy to alter and even outright violate those laws at will, you can come up with some really impressive stuff.
In recent culture, you could consider Equestria a lot like the island of the birds in the Angry Birds movie. "Why don't birds fly? Because why would they want to go anyplace else?" Why don't Equestrians innovate? Because they've already achieved a utopia... or so they think.
Indeed, sometimes mercy is the worse path. Judgment should not be passed by relatives, as, no matter how much they try, the familial bonds can change the result.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." In this case it's so true that it's scary.
And Equestria is about to be sucked into this conflict? Hoo boy. A much wilder ride ahead than I thought so.
Lich, shade, ghoul, Nightmare, demon, wraith, vampire, fleshwarped...
7897820
Holy cow. That makes a lot of sense. Although, you might want to add that information to this chapter. From the way Clara Terrram was described, I was led to believe it was a large city-state. I mean, a barrier the size of Africa is pretty f@cking impressive.
7898252
Good thought. Thanks.
7898652
tinyimg.io/i/IwqpT3n.gif
Well that certainly explains alot of why Clara Terram haven't tried to go elsewhere. It's because they're kept in place by a villainous power that sought to conquer their lands and bind its denizens to the twisted mind of the god-king.
7898100
The problem with giving something a title is that once you do so, you think you have grasped it in its entirety. When you call something a river, does that fully explain everything it encompasses? Its width, its depth, its current, its rapids? There are rivers so narrow and shallow that a man can walk across them with ease, and rivers so wide that a man can stand on one shore and have difficulty seeing the other side, and so deep that you cannot reach the bottom and come back without scuba gear. Or a lake? Is it a large pond, or something so big that, like the Great Lakes in the USA, its practically an inland sea, and has to be shown on the world map?
The point is, if one were to say that Madigrin was undead and a wizard, they may not be wrong. If they called Madigrin a lich, or something of that nature, they may not be wrong. There would then be assumptions about his appearance, his powers, and his limitations. However, and this is important, we'd be talking about an undead wizard, a lich, that exists in conflict with a society who has magic-based technology that is comparable to not just the modern age, but even future tech. He has waged a war with a civilization that spans a continent the size of Africa, and this entire highly advanced civilization lives in utter terror of him and his forces, to the point that every aspect of their civilization and culture is impacted by their fear of Madigrin. And with good reason.
When you see what Madigrin looks like, you'll be surprised, I think. But when you see what he is capable of... you will be horrified.
Ironically, the first draft of Madigrin was that he was just a high ranking Dark Lands officer, a kind of 'Dirty Tricks' brigade with a history with the Chroma. His personality was complex and it made a lasting impression on me, and I began to realize that, kinda like with Farcry 3's Vaas, anyone that I tried to put over him, anypony who might be "superior" to him... would kinda be a letdown. So, rather than just making him just a traitor, I made him THE traitor in Clara Terram, the leader of the Dark Lands, and gave him powers to match his new role.
7906048
I was just thinking of all the bad things that could have happened to him. Honestly, I am one of those insane people that loves the diabolical villain and, no matter how many puppies he crushes underhoof, i will enjoy him all the more. Not to say the tyrant or the more miscevious villain are bad archtypes, just that truly evil villains (done well) are the best.
Liked the story, but why a smart phone exactly?
Even with magitek wouldn't that be overly complex for calling back and require a support system that just doesn't exist in Equestria? Wouldn't some kind of A.M. radio make more sense technologically, and be more reasonable to build from a scroll?
7884891 wrote : "When ponies write 'Here Be Monsters' on a map, it isn't because no one has been there. It's because there are freakin' monsters that eat anyone who goes past that point!"
Shades of Remnant, here be the Grimm.
7897992 Interesting map, but where's the Crystal Empire?
may be this is good thing this work remain only started ...because I don't think I will very much like to read yet another story where 'more advanced technologically' supergroup of (ponies, in this case) just ruled by progressively more and more asshole beings :/ (this is pattern we humans do in our history, even simply because same shitty humans have bigger and bigger means of destruction. Apparently, we can't even imagine anything different! Yes, I say this despite ch 1 where Starswirl tried to make case against such elitism...)