A collection of tales edited and translated by Polyphonie modes.
Told from an in-universe perspective by the historian and linguist Polyphonie Modes, these stories will cover the history of Equestria, from the founding of the Equestrian Empire on Hearth's Warming Day to the founding of the Solar Empire following the banishment of Princess Luna. The three chapters following the foreword will be each tribe of pony's creation myths, starting with the Earth Ponies, followed by the Pegasi, and finally finished off with the Unicorns. Taking a break due to work and re-imagining (my original plotline had no sombras in it.) Should resume soon.
While every pony is expected to study some small amount of the history of Equestria, their studies are often limited by language. While modern day writers and scholars simply use the Modern Equestrian dialect, for many centuries the spoken tongue and the written word were quite different.
Before the foundation of Equestria, the three nations of ponies--earth, unicorn, and pegasus—each had their own language, and only the unicorns had a written language. After the nations unified to from the Equestrian Empire, a written language and a spoken language evolved from the three tongues.
The commonly spoken language became known as Low Equestrian. It arose from a melange of the tongues of the unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies. While the language was fairly standard across the empire, one could find differences in dialect in different regions of the empire. For instance, in areas mostly populated by pegasi, the Low Equestrian dialect was heavily influenced by the pegasus tongue; whereas earth ponies and their dialects had very few words that meant “cloud,” the dialects commonly spoken by Pegasi often had more than twenty.
The less commonly spoken language, used only in the written form and in court, became known as Aliansi. Where Low Equestrian showed equal influences from the languages of all three nations, Aliansi was almost exclusively influenced by the language of the Unicorns. As time went on and both pegasi and earth ponies learned to write, the dialect became more mixed while still retaining the formal stylings of the unicorn language. It is from these influences that Aliansi became High Equestrian.
From the rise of High Equestrian (around 200 E.C.) to the mid-Solar Era (around 2300 E.C.) scholarly books were written almost exclusively in High Equestrian, with the only exceptions being “common” books published and marketed to the average individual. By the year 1400 E.C., Low Equestrian had evolved so much as to make High Equestrian, which had remained largely unchanged, an entirely alien tongue to the average pony. The novel The Unycorne and the Seaponie, published in 1432 E.C. by Gilden Reynes, a unicorn who would become well known for her erotic fiction, was the first instance of a mass-marketed novel being recorded in Middle Equestrian. It wasn't until 2057 E.C. that the first instances of Modern Equestrian appeared in print, and it wasn't until 2364 that the first scholarly texts were written in Modern Equestrian. By the end of the Solar Era, almost all texts were written Modern Equestrian.
The histories presented in this volume are translated from texts written in High Equestrian during the early years of the Solar Era. As they were written in an age where only the most educated ponies would be able to understand the text, the volume assumes much knowledge of pre-Equestrian history. While I would recommend anybody planning on reading my translations study basic pre-Equestrian history, most pre-equestrian history has never been translated from Aliansi and Unicorn, and translated texts are very difficult to locate. For this reason, a summary of pre-Equestrian history shall be included after the foreword.
--Polyphonie Modes
Pre-Equestrian History: The Earth Pony Creation Myth.
Pre-Equestrian history is largely unreliable and unrecorded; only Unicorns had a written word, which wasn't developed until a few hundred year before Equestria. All three tribes had creation myths, which were passed down orally and finally recorded by Star Swirl the Bearded around 90 B.E. The stories are largely similar, with a few key differences.
The earth ponies tell the story of “the one before time,” a deity who lived in the world for centuries before ponies came about.
The one before time simply came to be one day. At first, she was taken in simply by her existence; her life astounded her, and each new sensation she felt was a thrill. One day, however, a new, unpleasant sensation came to her: hunger. She imagined food, and the grass came to be.
After eating her fill, yet another new sensation came to her: thirst. She imagined water, and the oceans, lakes, and rivers came to be.
Another sensation came to her: boredom. Being bored with the uniformity of her world, she looked to the earth and imagined color, and flowers came to be. She looked up, and imagined radiance and color, and the sky and sun came to be. She looked to the horizon and imagined variety, and the trees and mountains came to be.
After she had frolicked in her new creations, she was struck by another sensation: loneliness. She looked once more to the earth, and all of the creatures of the ground came to be. She looked once more to the sky, and the creatures of the air came to be. She looked once more to the horizon, and the creatures in-between came to be.
She spent decades living in her new world; eating her grass and drinking her water; discovering the wonders of nature and frolicking with her animal friends. As time passed, though, she began to become unhappy.
After a time, she encountered her animals eating one another. She saw her larger creatures trample her flowers, with no care for their beauty. She saw, as time passed, her old friends die and new friends be born.
After a time, she returned to where she began. Overcome with despair by the flaws in her creation, she laid down to rest. Her grief over the carnivore's greed, the large animals' carelessness, and her friends' deaths caused her being to fracture into three pieces. The first piece flew into the sky and struck a cloud. The cloud shattered and the pieces took form, becoming the pegasi. The second piece hit the sun, and once the pieces had fallen, became the unicorns. The last, and largest, piece sunk into the ground, and it's pieces rose as the earth ponies.
Saddened by the loss of the one, nature stopped. The weather stilled; the sun and moon stopped moving; and the plants in the ground stopped growing.
After days of scorching sun and no food, the ponies took action. The unicorns moved the sun, giving the world a break from it's rays. While the sun was down, the pegasi brought water into the sky and poured it down upon the ground. The earth ponies used the water to nourish the plants on the ground, bringing life back to the world. When the unicorns brought the sun back, it shone on a world restored; nature recognised the spirit of the one before time in the ponies, and rejoiced.
The myth of the Pegasi follows their patron deity, Pegasus.
In the beginning of the world, it was simply a large ball of dirt, devoid of life. Eventually, Pegasus descended onto the world, and was displeased at what he saw.
First, Pegasus took a chunk of earth and blew fire onto it. He threw this earth into the sky, and it became the sun. Once Pegasus saw the world in the full light, he was disgusted by its lack of flavour. He spat on the ground, creating water.
Pegasus was still unhappy. His water began to evaporate under the stare of the sun, so he took another chunk of earth and blew cool air onto it. He threw this earth into the sky, creating the moon.
Next, Pegasus looked around and became bored with the lack of variety in his world. He took and shaped earth, creating the trees. He breathed life onto the ground, creating the grass and flowers. Happy with the variety, but displeased by the stillness, Pegasus took more earth and fashioned it into many shapes. He breathed on these shapes, creating all of the animals of the world.
Pegasus was pleased for a while, but his world was static. Plants and animals began to suffer because his water could not reach them inland; the scorching rays of the sun were harmful, and Pegasus did not have the energy to move day into night constantly; his world needed care, and he could not tend to every plant and animal himself.
Pegasus raged in his frustration. His anger ravaged the world. Each time he stamped the ground the earth shaked and shifted, creating mountains and canyons. Each time he snorted the raging air killed vast swaths of earth, creating deserts. The very air chilled in fear to think of his coming, creating large, snowy regions inhospitable to life.
Eventually, seeing the destruction he caused, Pegasus calmed. In his calm, he finally came up with a solution. He took more earth, and formed it into the shapes of ponies. He breathed magic into them, and they became the unicorns. Pegasus instructed the unicorns in how to raise and lower the sun, and they set about the task.
Pegasus made more ponies, and breathed strength into them. They became the earth ponies. Pegasus instructed the ponies in how to tend crops and care for animals. They began to grow his crops and they led his animals to the water to drink.
Finally, Pegasus made his last batch of ponies, and into these he breathed flight. To them he gave the greatest power: the ability to control weather, and through it: nature. They set about bringing his water inland, giving it to the plants and animals as rain.
Finally pleased with his work, Pegasus left his creations, flying off towards the farthest end of his world. He settled down and took his rest, watching his world unfold and develop.
I planned this fic all the way out before I started to write it. My outline was written in the break between seasons 2 and 3.
Season 3 introduced a LOT of canon that completely invalidates most of what I had prepared. I had planned from creation to the beginning of the "Solar Era," which is when Nightmare Moon was banished and Celestia began ruling alone. At least, that's what I was referring to it as. When not much is provided in canon, there's a lot more room for me to work.
Now, history has been expanded upon in canon.
From this point on, S3 and movie spoilers.
To begin with, I had planned on not-so-subtly hinting throughout that eventually Celestia lost power, and that things were more fair under Luna's rule. Now, it seems that Luna won't take over if Celestia loses power. Twilight will, and I have no idea what to do with this.
Secondly, the "First age of harmony." My original plan was to state that there could only be six alicorns in existence at any one time. No, this was not based on Borderlands 2. My obsession with that is much more recent. These six alicorns were to rule together as wielders of the Elements of Harmony. It's pretty obvious who two of them are, and the rest I can keep as planned. The PLOT TWIST 7th, however, was to be Starswirl the Bearded, the first pony to successfully transform himself into an alicorn. Again, fucking Twilight. I have plans to fix the issue, but it's a lot of reworking.
All of this also causes problems with two other fics I had planned: "Translations" of Starswirl's notes as he researched his alicorn spell, and what happened after he had succeeded, which was to be written from a first-person perspective in Starswirl's character; and The Unycorne and the Seaponie. Gilden Raynes was going to be a running joke in translator's notes, showing Polyphonie's love for her writing and literary erotica in general. But, again, this was going to be based off of something that happened in the history fic. Something that will now be changing.
I'm not complaining by any means. I want to be as accurate to the show as possible; and novel-length backstories and world-building are things I love. I'm simply trying to explain what is almost a year's delay in any real update, and slightly expressing my frustration at having to rework 3 stories worth of outlines.
Lastly, I'm going to remove this once I return to updating. Y'all came here because you wanted to read Polyphonie Modes's translation of classical history texts, not to read Girard Fawkes's rant about fucking Twilight Sparkle.
(Disclaimer: I have nothing against Twilight. It's simply a joke because 90% of my rewrites are coming from events directly involving her.)
EDIT: While I'm reworking this, I'll be publishing an entirely different fic, The Harmony of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's based on an RP storyline a friend commissioned from me, and then never got around to using. It should start updating within a few days.