Prologue/Chapter 1: Isolation
Equestria...Once the happiest place in the world, full of loving and friendly ponies. But something changed, and it changed fast. Ponies that were once peaceful and loving, suddenly became targets of the zebras they shared a border with. What ensued was the rapid industrialization of Equestria, and technology came into full effect, Mega Spells were created, and tensions snapped. The zebras and ponies alike set Mega Spells upon each other, and killed many, destroying the land in the process. All that remains, even now, two-hundred years later, is wasteland and radiation. Those that survive here do so on a day to day basis, scavenging, and fighting for their lives. What was once a happy and friendly, has been turned into a constantly warring and violent race of ponies. War wasn't ever a thing until the great war, but since then nopony has known anything different. Because war...War like this lasts forever...And war never changes.
I lost my family in the war. Built my own personal stable under my house, and being a Stable-Tec employee, I had all the tools at my disposal. I put myself into a cryogenic sleeper pod, originally created for this exact purpose, keeping yourself alive for an extended amount of time. Two-hundred years later and I’m woken up and thawed out by the mass amounts of computers I stole and put here for my own purposes. But I’m still not sure what I built this for...Was I shutting everything bad happening out? Or was I shutting myself in...
My eyes shot open, woken by a searing pain all over my body. A painful side effect from the freezing in the sleeper pod. I laid on the hard padding of the pod for a few moments, paralyzed by the pain which was quickly subsiding. I sat back and untensed my body until the pain was completely gone and got up slowly afterwards, unsure on my hooves after so long under cryo-sleep. I constantly re-lived the same dream, over and over again while being under. Memories of the past, before the war, hung over me like a ghost. Constantly reminding me of the way things used to be, but never will be again.
Looking around in the dim light, I could see the multiple life support computers and defense computers flickering to life around me. Seemingly eager to see their owner awake again. After making sure I could stand up and walk properly without falling over myself, I went to the first bank of computers to check power, water, and external feeds of information. To my surprise, data was still flowing from one of the Stable-Tec centers, giving me constant information and video feeds on other stables around the area. However, much to my dismay, most of the feeds were dark or static. Those that weren't, showed only rubble.
“Just as I suspected...”
I whispered out loud into the nothingness around me and let out a heavy sigh.
“Update.”
I looked expectantly at the computer screen in front of me, which flickers from video feeds to a green text screen. The computer unfortunately didn't tell me any good news...
UPDATE: All sources of data from CNTRLT 1.6 are unresponsive to pings.
2 of 37 Stable-Tec data feeds are currently online.
Life support systems are at 100%
Power systems are at 97%
Water filtration is offline.
Power save mode is ON.
All exterior seals have remained unbroken for: 201 Years, and 38 days.
All locks are ENGAGED.
For more commands, type HELP.
I look at the flashing green bar in the text box and type ‘HELP’ which brings up a long list of commands. The first of which I use to turn on the lights and all systems including water filtration. The hum and click of the computers surrounding me falls away as a loud whirring sound comes from below, subtly shaking the concrete floor under-hoof. The lights come on, the computer screens brighten, and the sleep pod closes tight with a loud hiss. I’m back....Back in the world I dreaded before, but now it’s worse than ever...
After checking a few more primary systems on the computer, I got up to check the rest of the area for any problems, and test important functions. Such as the actual water pump itself. Which worked perfectly. Clear, clean water ran from the faucet in a thick stream and I drank as much as I could without nearly drowning myself. Coming out of cryo makes you thirstier and hungrier than you could ever imagine. So as any other normal pony would do, I went straight to my storage room to get food. The door to the storage area clicked loudly and slid into the ground softly, then closed behind me and clicked again as I entered. I looked on the shelves full of dehydrated food for something that seemed satisfying at the time, and settled on a large package of dehydrated applesauce. Turning around I see a locker in the corner of the room that I forgot about, and opened it, curiously peering inside. What I saw jogged my memory and brought back pains...My Pip-Buck, my old shotgun, which I had purchased at the beginning of the war for defense. And finally, a Stable-Tec jumpsuit made for engineers. It was dreadfully cold in the small self made stable, so I put on the jumpsuit, which had something small in the side pocket.
It Was a pocket watch, given to me by my wife. And the upper gold cover had a picture of her and my son smiling wide at the camera in it. I dropped the watch on the floor and sat back on my haunches, deeply saddened. I got up quickly, shaking my head and walking out of the room with my package of applesauce and sat at the bank of computers again, with my front hooves pressed against the sides of my head, deep in thought and sadness. I slammed one of my hooves against the console and sat back up, going back into the storage room, getting the watch and Pip-Buck. The watch I quickly put into my pocket again, and I put the Pip-Buck on, securing it a little above my right hoof and locking it on tight with a key. I flipped a switch on the back which turned on the device, which took a few moments to boot up. But as soon as it did, it welcomed me back.
Welcome back Rust Bucket (Rusty) It has been 201.38 years since you last logged in.
This model of Pip-Buck was special though. A prototype that I was given the ‘honor’ of wearing at work. Considering I was one of the Stable-Tec foreman, building the actual stables themselves, I was given high priority in the company. I got a big office, special tech, and lots of off time. The device on my arm bleeped softly, and a few buttons on the front glowed on and off, each with an option highlighted above it. The first button to the left had an option to reformat the device. The second button, in the middle, had an option above it on screen to continue. And the last button, on the right, had the option to turn the device off again. After clicking the middle button I walked back into the main atrium.
I re-hydrated the applesauce and shortly after I started to eat, my Pip-Buck buzzed twice loudly. I looked down at the screen, the device was telling me that it could interface with the computers here, and I allowed it to. After a few more moments it let out a loud beep, this time telling me of background radiation levels right outside the stable door. I finished my applesauce with no further interruptions and looked up at a large concrete wall with a red digital clock on it. The time was 6:34 PM...The computers woke me up at 6:00 PM, a lot later than they were supposed to. And also three days late on top of that, so much later. I wondered how long I’d even be able to survive down there...
I took a look at some exterior camera feeds. The video that the surviving cameras showed gave little hope to a pleasant outside. On camera 1, the one I had mounted in what used to be my front yard, all I can see is charred house remains and red dust being kicked up by high wind. Camera 2 was dead, not even static came through. Camera 3 was much the same as camera one but was located in the back yard area. Camera 4 used to be located inside the house, and currently only shows the room it was in, still mostly intact with some fire damage. And the last camera, which was mounted on top of the house pointed towards Ponyville, was down like the second. And just from curiosity, I seriously contemplated going outside just to take a look around the house and a bit of the new outside world. It was already fairly late in the day, so I decided against going out into the wastes for the time being. Instead I decided to check the rest of my stable out, just to make sure everything was the way it should be.
Down a short hallway, there was an additional 2 sleep pods...Originally meant for the rest of my family. The lights in that room weren't functioning, so I turned on my Pip-Buck’s light, which illuminated the room in a soft blue glow. Of course, not seeing anything out of the ordinary, I moved on. Down a flight of stairs, into the generator area, and water pump. The water pump, which was in a room before the generator’s room, was not in as good of shape as I thought it was. The room was flooded with at least six inches of water, and all of it was purified too. I could see the leak, a few feet above the purifier, the outgoing pipe had a loose fitting and fragged itself as soon as the water pressure increased. I wouldn't be able to fix it either, I didn't have the right parts. But the flooding meant I couldn't access the generator room without frying myself, and I wouldn't be able to get clean water from the faucets now. Things were already getting bad for me, in my own personally built Stable. I could only imagine the things that went wrong in the others...
My Pip-Buck screeched loudly, and brought up a video feed on the screen, showing camera one, the front
yard camera. A motion alarm had been tripped, and it was tripped by a small caravan of ponies, four of them total. All of them were wrapped up in ragged looking cloth, making it almost impossible to see what they looked like. Although one of them was in some form of armor, and was clearly the leader of the group. I hadn't ever seen that type of armor before, it must have been made while I was in cryo, but it looked very advanced. It seemed late for them to be traveling though, it was just past 7:00 pm. This made me wonder if they were traveling back to a camp. If the camp was nearby, and they were friendly enough, I thought maybe I could settle in in with them. It’s safer in groups anyway. I decided I would sit outside the next day around 7:00 and see if they came back by, just out of curiosity. And maybe a little hope too.
Coming out of cryo sleep puts a lot of stress on the body, as well as the mind. Imagine being in a coma for a few months, but instead of months it was years in my case. 201 years under cryosleep. I was told it would be dangerous and that the computers would likely fail in that amount of time, but I went for it anyway. I don’t know why I did though, I had nothing to wake up to. My wife and son were massacred by Zebras at one of the school attacks, they couldn't get out, and I was left alone. Just like that. And so close to the time that we had planned out to go underground and wait out the war. The extra two sleep pods reminded me of them, just as much as the watch did. And of course I was sad, but that all had happened 200 years ago and it was just me now. There wasn't anything I could do then, and sure as hell not now. So I tried my best to get over it, to push it out of my mind. The stress on my body had already exhausted me, and I was about to fall asleep where I was standing. I made my way to the bunk area clumsily, and fell asleep before I even hit the sheets.
