(AN: This is the prologue for the story, Liberationem Lapsis. The chapter will cover the space-faring humans in the story.)

(AN: This is the re-edited first chapter of this. Most of the content has been unedited, but with a few tweaks, and some rewriting to it.)

Editor: Thardoc

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
- Bertrand Russell

January nine, twenty-five eighty-three.

New York City, Capital of the Terran Systems Alliance.

One week after the discovery of planet E2-P3

“Are you sure this information is accurate, Anderson?”

Alex White, the current president of the Terran Systems Alliance asked. Looking up from the pad in his hand, he gazed at the admiral, his old friend during the insurrection. The president was about six feet and seven inches tall. His hair was black while his skin had a brownish tone to it. He was about seventy-eight years old, but due to advances in medical technology, he felt like he was still in his early thirties. His forty years of political experience as a senator and a military man during the Insurrection war has both added to his aged appearance and made him the perfect man for the job as president of the Alliance.

The information in his hand was completely unexpected.

The building where the meeting of the most powerful people in humanity took place was a spacious building in the district of Manhattan which, historically, was the headquarters of the United Nations before it had declared its final act of tying the human race into a world government known as the Terran Systems Alliance.

As the cities of East Coast grew, they soon encompassed all others, morphing them into the super city that was soon simply referred to as Washington which encompassed the District of Columbia, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, and New York, all the way up to Boston.

The building was also changed as well, no longer stood the small building the UN back in the twenty century, but a massive skyscraper that reached nearly six miles upward. It was a work of modern art with a few artistic Gothic and Greco classic lines as well as modern uniformity that gave people below a sense of awe.

Across the far end of the round olive wooden table from him, Admiral Anderson of the Fifth fleet sat along with the rest of the chiefs of staff. Beside Anderson was Admiral William Norwich, native to the colony of New Britain, one of the many seven hundred inner colonies in Alliance space; he was in command of the Second fleet that was stationed in the Goral system, among them were the heads of the various departments of the Alliance, including the Secretary of State, and the other admirals that were in command of many of humanity’s fleets throughout populated space.

“Yes, Mister President, one of the survey ships, the Unyielding Hierophant, was scouting out one of the systems that we recently discovered in sector G5-47 until the ship scanners had picked up a gravitational anomaly on the third planet.”

As soon as he stopped, the room was dimmed and the tiny ‘X’ holoprojector in the center of the table lit up the entire room with a hologram of the planet.

The planet was about the same size as Terra, but with different landforms across the surface. The most noticeable landmass on the planet was the supercontinent in the middle of its oceans. The surface looked beautiful to the eyes of many in the room. The planet was like every other M class garden world that posed to be colonized along with the rest of the system, that is until the survey group found something that humanity had been searching since they took to the stars.

“What is so important on this planet, Anderson?” The President asked as he stared at the holo-projection of the planet.

Anderson’s right arm lit up as he activated his personal X-76 holo tool used by many in human space for doing various tasks in the private and military sector.

The projection of the planet disappeared and was replaced by a string of images showing the planet’s surface.

“When the Unyielding Hierophant discovered this anomaly, it launched several probes down to the planet to see what exactly was causing it. One of the probes discovered this.” Anderson pressed a few keys on the holographic keyboard, bringing up a new image.

What they saw made the various heads and the president himself pay immediate attention, eyes widening. The admirals shifted uncomfortably as they took hold of this new information.

In the image was a small settlement with what appeared to be Victorian Era buildings, in the background was a towering city on the side of a mountain.

The most interesting, and shocking, part was the beings that populated the town.

The creatures in the photo were four-legged equines eerily similar to the ponies’ native to Terra, but this is where the similarities ended. Anderson brought up another image, this one showing a pony in the sky flying around the settlement, leaving a rainbow trail behind a colorful mark in the pristine sky. The image also showed a purple equine, displaying some sort of bio-luminescence from the tip of its horn, perhaps psionic, holding a notepad in mid-air, suggesting a written language which further amazed many of them.

Regaining his composure the president finally spoke, breaking the shocked silence among the heads of the Alliance.

“Admiral Anderson…” The president cleared his suddenly dry throat, trying to find the right words to say. “… Is there any information on this species?”

Anderson waved his holo-tool and replaced the images with three holographic forms of the natives.

“This one…”

Anderson pointed to the winged equine from before.

“Is, from our accounts and the videos taken from the probes, a Pegasus that has the ability to walk on clouds and…” Anderson paused, trying to find the right words as his counterpart had earlier. “… The ability to manipulate the weather around them,” he looked around the table, absorbing many of the reactions, even William displayed complete shock while others showed signs of confusion to outright disbelief.

Continuing on, Anderson pointed to the middle equine, the purple one from the image.

“This one has been named a unicorn due to its resemblance to the mythological creature. From the images and data that the probes had recovered, this type of equine has control over some sort of unknown psionic energy. Scans from the survey ship had discovered strange energy readings on the planet, especially in the mountains where the highest forms of it are concentrated. Currently, the eggheads back in R&D are trying to figure out what the readings imply.

He typed a few keys and a video appeared on the holo, showing a different horned equine buying what appears to be food, completely unaware it being observed, using its powers to lift up some food and put it in a basket and then walk away from the vendor.

The video stopped and the holo-screen dematerialized from view. Anderson pressed a few keys, bringing up another video screen and pointed one of his fingers to the next race, an equine that has no horn or wings.

“This here is another race of the equines that is the closest relation to our own ponies, except the height and skeletal system recovered from the recordings of the probes differs in some areas. We believe that this type of equine’s role in their society is industry and agriculture.”

He typed a few keys and showed another video that materialized out of his holo-tool, it projected a few equines working on a farm, harvesting crops and pulling wagons.

Anderson stopped the video and deactivated the projector, making the screen and the holograms of the equines withdraw back to his holo-tool.

Many of the heads of the various departments of the Alliance were still staring at Anderson as he deactivated his holo-tool.

The silence in the room was tense. No one dared to say anything about it as their minds were trying to come to a conclusion. There were protocols for this kind of matter since the formation of the Alliance, but everyone’s mind was on one thing:

Are they friendly?

Of course, that type of thinking would have seemed very unlikely, due to the fact that the equines in the recordings that have been shown, and they don’t seem to possess any space travel capabilities and appeared… quite peaceful in their lives so far.

Breaking the very tense atmosphere in the room one of the admirals, named Alex Williams, rose up from his seat and spoke in his Australian accent. The man was about average height and had black hair along with aqua eyes. A scar ran across his cheekbone from the war during the Insurrection.

“I know every one of you may be shocked by this discovery, including me of course, but we cannot afford to act rash here. We must not make any mistakes with this amazing discovery, and we must take extra precautions in case these aliens are not friendly.”

He finished his input and sat back down in his seat. The others, in their thoughts, agreed with the man, despite the unusual attitude from someone from the military. It was somewhat unusual for them to vouch for peaceful contact instead of taking the ‘lock down the system and make sure that aliens aren’t a threat’ approach.

The other admirals didn’t have the same thinking as Williams did, but it was not their decision to make since the president and the Senate was in charge of deciding how to deal with the situation on hand.

Of course, there were still many things they missed.

“What about their language, we can’t just waltz in there, speaking gibberish without scaring the hell out of them.” The head of the department of Xeno relations, Alexis West, asked. The department was created in the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life forms or situations that would result in a first contact with other beings, especially many protocols that, in case, of first contact going wrong, would be enacted

“The probes we released did, in fact, pick up on the equines speech, but without more information, there is no way we can breach the language barrier without more samples,” Anderson explained, skimming down the information on his Holo-tool.

“In other means, we’re in the dark on this?” White deadpanned.

“Yes.”

White leaned back in his chair, trying and failing, to feel comfortable, he didn’t know what to do. Sure, he was a politician that knew his way around the Senate floor before he became the president, but these ‘ponies’ are a complete unknown to him. They almost certainly don’t have the same political setup as humans, meaning that any negotiations with them had a chance of going completely FUBAR if they fucked up.

The president took a deep breath, grabbing the glass of water and downing half of it in a single gulp, relishing the water on his dry throat.

Setting down the glass on the olive table, he rose from his seat and began to speak.

“Gentlemen, friends, and comrades, we have survived through tough times throughout our history: the energy crisis of 2065, the near breakout of World War three on Terra, and the Insurrection that nearly destroyed everything humanity had built since we took to the stars.

“This incident may be the greatest discovery in our history. These ‘ponies’, these ‘equines’” He corrected himself on the alien name.

“But we must not alienate the inhabitants of this planet or show violence to their nation. For too long humanity has thought it was alone in the galaxy, but no more. Today marks the day we’re not alone and we will extend our hands in peace, and not bring the horrors of war itself, in the name of justice for every human and sapient being in the galaxy.” He finished his speech and sat back down on his chair, he glanced at many of the heads and admirals who had begun to clap at his short speech, judging their reactions.

He had always been a good speaker in politics, it was one of the many reasons he had won the election against his opponent, Jason Alexandria, a left-wing republican progressive from the planet, New Philadelphia, one of the major economic hubs in Alliance space, home to fifteenth billion people who make their living on the planet and was once one of the battles during the Insurrection when the enemy had tried to capture it for its industrial and resource capabilities during the closing days of the war, but failed due to the actions of its defense force and reinforcements from the second fleet, destroying what’s left of their fleet and leaving their remaining worlds unprotected.

But despite his opponent experience in the political field longer than him. Alex was able to capture the hearts of the middle and poor classes with his voice due to the fact he was once a middle-class man himself before joining the military, which enabled him to capture about sixty percent of the popular vote and two hundred forty-five of the electoral college votes, about two points ahead of his opponent.

The military has also reaped in the benefits of the new technology, allowing them to create new weapons of war, and improving their previous weapons to match the new ones. Their old warships that had seen action during the war were quickly refitted with new armor plating and weapons on par with the newer warships that were churned out from one of the many shipyards.

He turned his head to one of the windows, showing the outside world through the polarized view of the window, keeping the light from penetrating the room. He knew down below the twenty-five point five billion of Terra would sooner or later find out about this, the reaction will be very mixed.

He imagined the reactions would vary from shock, fear and an excitement similar to what he now felt of meeting with another race, and of course there would be people who want nothing to do with the aliens themselves, seeing them of taking away their culture, and others that would have their own reasons for disliking the aliens, but he predicted they would be a very small minority in the Alliance.

Turning his gaze back from the window, his own holo tool was activated on his left arm. He pressed a few buttons

“By tomorrow afternoon, I will make a visit to the Senate and will authorize the sending of a Diplomatic ship to meet with these equines and establish re---“

“You better hold that speech for later, Mr. President.” A familiar spoke up from the entrance to the room, interrupting him.

All heads turned to the source of the voice stepping out of the darkness of the doorway was none other than the head of Alliance Central Intelligence, Director Selah Goliath
.
Selah Goliath was considered a beautiful woman too many in the room. She had deep red ruby eyes that glinted with a dedication to her line of work. Her body had an almost lithe figure to it, her hair a trace of blonde with blemishes of gray, showcasing her age. Her uniform was the same standard uniform for everyone that works at Alliance Intelligence, a black collar shirt with one of the buttons unbuttoned at the top. She also wore tight black pants with white lines running across the black with small pouches on the back.

To the many, her beautiful looks may fool them for an innocent woman. She is far from innocence to that. Born on the homeworld of Terra, Selah had joined the Intelligence community at the age of 18 when war with the Insurrection began after her mother and father died during the opening hours of the war when on a business trip. Seeking revenge on those who took away her childhood, she joined The ACl (Alliance Central Intelligence) after the agency saw potential in her abilities.

Soon she began to climb up through the ranks, masterminding top kills on rebel generals, capturing key Insurrection personnel, and overseeing their interrogations and then executing them on false promises of letting them go.

She soon became the new director of the agency when the previous one was killed in a car bombing outside a public area on the planet of New Louisiana.

Her cold personality mixed with her seven years of experience in the agency has made her a deadly force that makes her a serious threat to anyone who would be her opponent, and with her experiences in the political ring as long as the president himself she was not to be taken lightly.

“Greetings, Selah. Nice for you to join us for this historic occasion.” He greeted the Director with a tint of hostility.

The president and director weren’t exactly good friends in a sense, despite them working for the same common cause. The president didn’t like Selah due to her cold attitude and harsh actions against the enemies of the government, while Selah herself disliked him for being native and not seeing the big picture, as well as pardoning most of the people who were part of Insurrection instead of executing them.

“Hello Alex. It nice to meet you again too, still pleases those idiots at the Senate?” Selah smirked as the man across the table almost lost his composure and tried not to fume at the woman who insulted him while some of the heads and admirals just rolled their eyes, predicting that this meeting would turn into an argument between the two.

Letting out a sigh and hoping to get this meeting over it, Alex just simply glared at Selah, hoping the woman would just tell him what she wants and leave so he can end this meeting. He didn’t always see eye to eye with her due to some of the bullshit she had caused him and his administration over the years. Hell, he could barely tolerate her presence in this meeting.

“Tell me Mr. President, have you wondered why the survey ship left that garden world so early after they found it?” Selah asked, still keeping that smirk on her face.

“What do you mean by that?” Alex replied, a questioning look on his face while the others were thinking the same thing.

“If you had read the entire report, the survey ship began scanning the planet at exactly 1100 Hours ago on the day they discovered it, but at 1112 hours, the ship’s captain ordered all probes to be withdrawn and returned to the ship, and ordered the ship to leave the system.” She explained, activating her holo-tool.

The holoprojector began to light up for the second time, bringing up a black screen to everyone.
Selah continued without looking up from her holo-tool.

“When the Unyielding Hierophant returned to Alliance space, my operatives were able to contact the captain of the ship and some of the crew about the planet, but they refused to speak with them and the captain instead gave us the recordings from the probes.”

“And why didn’t the captain speak to your operatives?” He inquired.

“When the operatives were talking to the captain, they reported that many of the crewmen were angry, weeping or some were experiencing mental anguish.” She explained as she again, showing them a video from a helmet cam, watching as one of the operatives watch two crew members; One, a female, cry on her feet while the other was patting her on the back, comforting her with tears in his eyes as well.

The video then fast forwarded to a scene in a mess hall of a male crew member angrily smashing his plate of food before covering his face with his hands, sobbing into them while in the background, various cries and moans were heard.

Selah stopped the video and screen went back to its black color. The room again silence as the various occupants were shocked at the behavior state of the crewmen. What did they discover on the planet that caused them to act like this? Is this why the crew members didn’t want to speak out?

Growing uncomfortable from the silence in the room, the president broke the ice.

“Selah…what did the captain say and what did he give your operatives that caused the crew members to behave like this?” A certain power of command entered in his voice as he spoke seriously. The crew of the ship shouldn’t act this way of course, even though most of the crew of the ship was ensigns who were transferred to serve on ships for a non-combat purpose to help expand the Alliance since colonization of new worlds began booming after the Insurrection.

Yet what he saw still didn't make any sense. They were trained to control their emotions while on duty.

Selah frowned as she again tapped on her holo-tool, bring up a video.

She walked around the table and stopped at the president. The stare she was sending was telling him what she was about to show wasn’t good.

“This is why making contact with the equines is a mistake.” She tapped on her holo-tool again.

The video began to play, the president relaxes in his chair, wondering what got his enemy to act this way. Sure, they had their annoying arguments about policies during these meetings, and sometimes she can be of bltch sometimes. He could fire her and pick someone else for a replacement, but since she is so good at her job, stopping several people from killing him (Several pleas from the secretary of defense), he’ll ignore what she does if it doesn't hurt the Alliance.

But at least this meeting will almost over.

A few weeks later

The news of discovering sapient life spread like wildfire across the interstellar nation’s holonet. As it is expected, the various reactions were mostly shocking turned excitement at meeting a new race. Scientists and reporters across Alliance space asked many questions about what they looked like? What type of culture they have, and if they are space-faring like them?

The government didn’t answer and was silent for days, they didn’t even release on information on them except their name and their likeness, even their location was kept top secret from the public. This spurted up several theories from many, one of those theories was that that the equines were a race that looked like humans and even one to the point that the aliens want to wage complete genocide on the entire human race, and the government was trying to contain them.

Others, inside the intelligence community or have ties to many corporations, had noticed a high increase in arms and ship production, entire garrisons that kept security for many worlds and sectors for hundreds of years were being moved out to frontier worlds. Though people would have dismissed this as a simple build up securely against pirates, but those in the information business had been noticing repeating messages of ‘E2-P3’ before being tracked and arrested.

On January twenty-nine, 2583, after denying news agencies and the populace questions about what going on, knowing that the populace is becoming frustrated and protests are becoming planet-wide in other systems, as they demanded answers, they finally submitted. On every planet, on every television screen, radio, advisement screen, and neutral lance, they announced that the Alliance is at war.

This announcement caught everyone completely off guard as shocked silence took hold on many worlds than fear came as people panicked in the streets, fearing an alien empire to come in and destroy everything that their race has achieved.

The AIs, once created by the humans to serve their needs in society, who were now equal partners among the Alliance were horrified and somewhat curious on what cause their friends and love ones to act this way.

Others that hadn’t panicked and blamed their government were the former politicians, soldiers, and supporters that all but defended the Insurrection, proclaiming that the upcoming war was caused by them to expend their corrupted power and even to the point of them speaking out that the government is going to enslave the new species.

But then the Alliance dropped the bombshell: The video.

Across Alliance space, protesters and rioters stopped what they were doing and watched in shocked silence on many of large screens that usually shows ads for private corporations, began to show what will forever be buried in every human mind for generations to come.

The video showed of a human child, probably twelve to fourteenth years old, being hit and kicked by an Equine, shouting in its native language, bucking the undefended child in the stomach as the child screamed in pain. The video then showed another clip, displaying various humans being forced to do intense manual labor, the camera zoomed in as the humans worked under the repugnant gaze of the strange horse-creatures, who were armed to stop from any dissent among their 'property'.

The video stopped and the screen immediately changed to show the massive conference room of the UN building, filled with every senator and representative of the Alliance Space and in the center of the room, on the podium, was the president taking a deep breath to begin a speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen, friends, comrades across the alliance,” His voice boomed across space, “On the third of January of the year, 2583, Humanity had finally answered the question that we have been desperate to answer since our race first looked up to the heavens: ‘Are we alone?’.

"But the excitement and peaceful contact with the aliens has quickly to anger when this race use these…disgusting barbaric practices on a separate civilization of innocent humans for their own needs, wiping away their chance of freedom, their culture, their lives. All they know is being servants to these…ponies."

Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the Alliance, I ask you to forget the petty squaddies against your fellow man. This revelation will soon test our tenacity and our compassion. A week before, I've sent one of our best diplomats to try and reason with them, to forgone this stagnated and polluted system of injustice, but alas, they did not recede. They balked at our offers of compensation for freedom of our brethren. One of them insulted us, claiming it was for the 'best' for those they held in chains, claiming that they are civilizing them from their mongrel ways. Our diplomat expresses displeasure at their decline, and express, by my words alone, that we'll not accept any terms that'll keep our fellow humans in bondage in perpetuity. We tried to be civil, but they acted with savage reprisal, almost killing our ambassador, but due to the efforts of our valiant Marines, she was to return unharmed.

By the powers invested in the office of the presidency that I deeply held, and by the graces of the Senate, I've asked for a declaration of war against the Kingdom of Equestria and her Allies. The tetrarchy that holds sway and laps upon the suffering of our fellow people, will be dismantled and scatter to the winds. We'll no longer tolerate this injustice that has gone long enough. By the grace of God, we'll burn this disgusting disgrace of civilization from this galaxy.

We will unite.

We will not hesitate.

We will not show mercy to those who would harm the innocent.

We will liberate our fellow man from the chains of their masters.

And we will remove any leaders of this species who would continue this.

Men and Women of the Alliance, we’ll liberate our fallen brethren, may God be with us all.”

The room then soon exploded in cheers and clapping as the president stepped down from the podium, news cameras flashed and reporters immediately tried to get answers from the first human leader to declared war on an extraterrestrial race.

The next morning, News cameras across Alliance space recorded the last quote given by the president before he refused to answer any more questions before getting into his vehicle.

“There is no glory to be found in war, yet from the blackness of its history and effects there emerges vivid colors of human character and courage. Those who risked their lives to help their friends, to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and to bring an end to the evil has fallen upon them. When war comes, those equines will be at war with a force that has spent thousands of years doing little other than fighting itself, we have mastered war to the degree where it could be called an art, and soon, those ponies will know it.”

Author's Note

The first chapter for the story has been completed. Wow, I can't believe that a simple idea that was posted on a thread became well, this, of course. I would like to thank everyone who has asked me to do this story.

And I like to thank the editor, Thardoc, for his editing skills on this story.

4/12/19: extended the UN Speech.