Prologue to Invasion
The Command deck seemed a wide open place, filled with a wonderful view of space because of the glass screens that protected the inside from the vacuum of the void. The glass forged out of triple reinforced magically compacted sand; it could stand up to a hit from a star battleship and still retain its shape. It came from this view that one lone equine figure stood, watching the world below.
He did not resemble the inhabitants of the planet below, indeed, he was quite a contrast to them. He stood on level with them, a good five feet tall, and three feet wide, but his, if you could call him that, looked to be a suited titan. On his face, vials of a blue liquid feeding into his gills were attached to his face via the helmet he had on. It covered his face, except for a few places were his scaly fur showed. His eyes were thin slits, looking through the goggles on his helmet, translating the light to something his semi-reptilian eyes could see. Where his nose should have been, instead just straight, as if he had no need for a nose at all. Through the helmet came a horn. But the horn split into two smaller horns, each twirled around each other and converging at the top. It was an odd display, and made even stranger by the bat like scaly wings the creature had. They also had mechanical assistance in the form of hydraulic arms fitted to the edges where the primary wing cartilage should have been. To the natives, he would have been known as an alicorn.
To his own race, this bizarre creation lent them some normality. Only defectives would be born without horn or wing, but they still needed the assistance of machines to stay alive; when not drenched in chemical bath to allow their genetic code to heal from damage inflicted in wars long past. Sadly, a small price to pay for regular life.
The Jaugial, as they were know, had been kicked out of their home world long ago, a problem of their own creation. Locked in a brutal war with another race of amphibious equines, they were winning for the majority of the war, and all looked good when they began attacking their enemies home world. What they did not know was that the enemy had been holding back.
Knowing they could not win a long drown out war with the Jaugial, the Gereny, the enemies of the Jaugial, decided to return the favor that they knew the Jaugial would deal them eventually. Both sides assaulted each other’s home world, but in the end the Gereny had the final say. They seed their opponent’s home world with a mutagen that would render them all sterile, helpless beings unable to do anything, and slowly die as a race. The Jaugial fought back with their advanced technology, and thus the machine like, liquid scaly hybrid was created.
But the home world was decimated. So they became a mobile race. Using their ships, they moved around, taking things from other races that they needed. A primitive and semi-barbaric way of life, but it worked.
The deck shifted below the marshal. Wooden decks were a prized commodity aboard ships, a luxury entitled to few. Few but him. He paced, thinking of the best way to approach the world below him. Invisi-probes had revealed the natives of the surface to be primitive technologically, but socially advanced. Most societies had not unified under one ruler, and a benevolent one at that. It was an ingenious system. A shame to spoil it.
But this world sparkled with simple perfection. No major resource veins exploited, no industrialization, no pollution. It was as inviting a world as far as worlds got.
Only one problem.
The probe detected an anomalous energy signature. He had seen it on worlds like this before. It was known as the elements of harmony to the inhabitants below, but known as the mental signature activated hexicannon to the soon to be invaders. All had different visuals, but this one was unique. Its firing sequence looked like a rainbow, a unity of colors working together, representative of its society. It was extremely powerful, and if they had the targeting capabilities, they would be able to target the ships now in orbit. Albeit they would do little damage against the shielded battleships, cruisers, and frigates that now encircled the planet known as equus, but they would still pose a threat to their invasion.
He would have to deploy ground troops, mech landers, and be able to target vital priorities from orbit. It all seemed a little extreme, but he had underestimated planets before, and it had cost him more men and machines than it needed to. Not this time. This time, he would not fail in his assessment of the planet. He would be meticulous in his conquest, not neglecting any details, nothing would be too small to...
The beeping of the probe brought him back to reality.
The probe was still returning data to him via his HUD and mindlink to the ships computer, but most of it was useless. Relatively. Crop reports, tax documents, etc. Nothing that concerned him greatly. But one thing was clear to him. He had to either turn, or destroy the hexicannon. It was the only thing remotely threatening him. He wanted to settle this world, and while he did not want to conquer and exterminate the ponies on the world below, he knew that they would not let him settle peacefully. The only way was a show of force, and once he established himself as ruler, and set up his council of elders, the rule of the Jaugial would be established. It would just have to be worked around by those little ponies on the planet below. Soon, they would start to see meteor showers, and then the landings would start. Within the month they would have seized the capital and the whole planet by the end of the year. The ponies of equus would soon have a massive invasion on their hooves...
Author's Note
This is an idea I had for a while about a good sci-fi adventure with ponies at its heart.
Will write more if their is interest.
