Summary

In 490 BC (before Celestia), the times were rough. Brutality and barbarism ruled. If you had the might you were the right. Pegasi would swoop down and raid farming communities and then retreat to their sky forts with their booty. Earth ponies fought bravely against these sky pirates and even though the earth ponies were more numerous, they would always be out numbered because the pegasi had rapid deployment and could concentrate numbers. Unicorns retreated to the woodlands and lived lives of secret solitude. With so little food in the forests, the life of a mystic became economical and sustainable.
As the sky pirates succeeded in their raids, they became restless and careless. Their victories made them rich. However gold cannot be kept in cloud cities. Not enough lift. So the pegasi would use their wealth to buy slaves to build stone forts. The made themselves feudal lords over the land, always fighting for supremacy with each other and constantly putting down earth pony rebellions. Those who were less than successful were tortured and slain. The earth or ‘dirt’ ponies would pull or break the wings off of capture pegasus, enslave them and abuse them until they would die prematurely. Sometimes after shaving off a captured pegasus’s mane, they would replace it with its’ very own feathers, torn from the wings.

Unicorns were burned as witches or enslaved. Sometimes they were tortured and raped first. In some extreme cases, the unicorn would have its’ horn broken off, and then it would be raped using its’ own horn. Shaving the beard, mane and tail off any pony marked it as a slave. Unicorns hated slavery; they refuse to grow beards or manes, and thus targeting themselves for derision, mockery, and scorn. Their seclusion into the forests became even more common.

Warlords rose and fell. No one remembers them except for their violence and brutality. To cross one meant to risk life and limb. Undeniably, having your foreleg broken was a familiar punishment. One such warlord distinguished himself from the others. Indeed, he claimed it was his destiny. He was a unicorn, willing to grow a beard, or sometimes a mustache, or sometimes long dark sideburns. He would fight side by side or against dirt ponies or sky raiders. He would use the magic of his horn to levitate some small creature, such as a rabbit, split it asunder over his own head, and drink the blood. He claimed it put fire into his heart before a battle. It certainly put fear into his enemies to see his blood anointed head charging them, sparks of fire from his horn igniting falling drops of gore.

Sombra’s true genius was not in battle; however, it was in economics. He recognized the flow of money and power from one to another. He realized he didn’t have to conquer the world through battle, he could buy it, and to get the bits to do it, he would sell slaves. In exchanged for his bravery in battle, he was made a baron of a small nearly worthless bit of farmland in the north. Unattractive and unwanted by most; not that it could produce food, but it was cold and the winter nights were long. These long nights encouraged the locals to spend their time huddled up in their homes producing fouls and reading.

The serfs were caught in an endless cycle of having too many ponies to take care of each year or starvation certainly resulting in death, and then not having enough ponies to work the farms to produce food for the next season. Sombra perpetrated the fiction that only the true bloods or ancients of this land deserved to live here. They were easy to spot; the crystal glint in their eyes was stronger in some than in others. Those farmers had no idea that the crystal glint could be recreated by eating certain local foods. Sombra did, as a unicorn and had spent many years in the reclusive forests learning all sorts of herbs and lore. He did easily recreate the crystal glint in his own eyes.

As for his peasant farmers, who were they to question him? It was truly his barony. He made deals with some warlords ‘relocating’ some of his excess serfs in exchange for peace and bits. The population of the barony was stabilized. Famine and its threat became a memory of the past. He used his bits quickly to hire mercenaries and buy crystal from the mines least his wealth become a temptation for the sky pirates. He even hired pegasi to protect his tiny little realm. No longer was it called a barony, now it was called a county, and some whispered a dukedom.

The path to success did have problems, yet Sombra had a talent for turning the negative into an opportunity. For instance, a crystal dragon moved into the most productive crystal mine. The locals were eaten and the mine closed. For even though the mine was not within Sombra’s realm, he pledged to reopen it. Leading his mercenaries, into the mine, he slew the dragon and claimed the mine as part of his growing empire. Generally, the populace of ponies was so thankful, that cries of “long live king Sombra” arose spontaneously.

Sombra returned to his fiefdom with the heart of the crystal dragon and proclaimed himself King of the Crystal Empire. Still his practice of relocating serfs or selling slaves continued. They despaired. Sombra became synonymous with enslavement.

A champion of the ponies arose, aided by the wizard Star Swirl; this hero led the rebellion that isolated Sombra to his realm. Star Swirl’s new prodigy rose to power, debunking Sombra’s claim to have slain the dragon and becoming king of the crystal mines. This new king or as he would be called ‘good king’ did not force the issue of war to gain the freedom of the crystal empire. The good king knew that it would take a long bloody war to resolve the question of Sombra and slavery.
Sombra did not suffer his rival and waged war upon him. So the good king further isolated his nemesis by helping to build Cloudsdale. The good king acted to unite the sky pirates or pegasi to control the weather for and in behalf of the dirt or earth ponies and so substantially increase food production. Their success even brought the reclusive unicorns back into society. Meanwhile the crystal empire became more and more isolated. Without buyers, Sombra’s influence declined. Upon the crystal mine the good king built Canterlot.