Chapter 10: History Lesson

'.....fuck.....'

Jake looked straight at Twilight as he tried to come up with an answer for her question in a way that wouldn’t outright traumatize her.

'Should I just… tell her? Could she handle it? I don't know she looks way too innocent... but she must have some history with bloodshed, she IS a princess after all.' Jake concluded as he took in a sharp breath. "Alright.... do you want the long version, or the short version?" He asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms.

"Uh.... the long one?" She asked hesitantly, cocking her head to the side.

"Alright... how familiar is your kind with war?" He asked, causing Twilight to suddenly reel back in shock.

"W-What?! What does war have to do with anything!" She shook her head, motioning around. "We’ve not had a war in Equestira for… well over 1000 years now!"

"Oh... well how old are you then?" Jake asked electing a huff from Twilight.

"I hardly think that matters!" She answered with a puff of her cheeks. "Are you calling me old?!"

Jake’s eyes bulged. "What? NO! I mean... maybe? I-I don't know.... how old do ponies usually get?" Jake replied in a hurried tone.

Letting out a small grunt Twilight replied following a short silence. "Well, most ponies live to be about 80 years old or so. But alicorns," She paused, pointing to her horn and wings, "-are born with the gift of immortality."

"Oh so... you're immortal then?" Jake prodded with interest, tilting his head to the side to get a better view of her wings.

Twilight looked back with a wide glance, before shaking her head dismissively. "Me? No… I wasn't born an alicorn. I was originally a unicorn, given these wings when I became a princess... so no, I'm not immortal." She said with slight relief crossing her features.

Jake picked up on this, looking at her strangely. "You… say that like it’s a bad thing?" He asked, partially curious and partially trying to keep from drifting back to ‘war’ talk.

Twilight pursed her lips in thought. "Well... no. Being immortal does have it's advantages.... but I couldn't see leaving my friends..." She said with some sadness.

"Leaving your… friends? How do you- oh... oh I see..." Jake nodded in sympathy.

"Yeah, a-anyways... on the topic of war- would you continue?" She said as she brought up a quill and parchment again.

'Dammit, was hoping she’d forget about that and I could keep asking....' Jake scratched his chin in thought, before shrugging to the pony. "Alright Twilight I hope you’re ready for this, because it’s gonna get really dark..." Jake warned as he cleared his throat.

Lifting a finger, he looked at her with a serious stare. "Mind you, I only know so much about history. The military schools didn't really teach us much about the past, demand for soldiers was so high that training got very… streamlined.” He said, Twilight giving a hesitant nod back. "Alright well… about uh… three hundred years ago or so? Our… species had realized population growth would be the death of us. Earth, our home, just couldn’t sustain us much further. So mankind slowly began it’s growth out into the cosmos, planet by planet." He explained as Twilight raised her hoof and shook it a little, electing a confused look from Jake as he hesitantly pointed to the bubbling pony. "Uh... you don't have to raise your hoof...." Jake deadpanned as Twilight blushed and put it back down, letting out a small "Squee".

Chuckling nervously, she quickly composed herself. “I was just wondering.... when you said your population was high.... how high is that, exactly?" She asked, the quill resting on the paper.

Jake scoured his memory, trying to recall numbers past and present he’d read in the archives. "Hm, I think... the last time I checked we’re currently around 14 billion, give or take a few."

There was a small tearing sound as Twilight's quill went through the parchment, causing a massive hole. She slowly raised her head to meet his eyes as her mouth flapped in utter disbelief.

"F-F-Fourteen BILLION?! HOW?! HOW CAN A SPECIES THAT BIG EVEN SURVIVE?!” She shouted at the soldier, making him reel back slightly with each word.

Quickly shaking off the outburst, Jake chuckled a bit as he looked back with a small smile. "Well, it’s wasn’t easy. First we tried making supermassive cities with buildings that could hold a larger amount of people. They were enormous, called them 'Skyscrapers`. But even then it became too much.” Jake said with a shake of his head, this part he definitely knows from the history archives… who didn’t by now? “So then they made more super-cities, underground, which solved the problem for a while longer… but eventually we’d come to the conclusion that it was time to leave Earth. With no more expandable farmland we’d starve our species to death. Now compared to this world… uh-“

"Equis." Twilight cut in, listening intently as she focused on Jake.

Nodding back in thanks, he continued. "Alright, planet 'Equis’, what’s the current population of this world… if that’s something you’d know?”

Twilight lightly brushed the quill’s feathery end on her chin. "Well, currently there’s about 600 thousand or so ponies living around Equestria, but the number grows much more if you count the other species as well." Jake hummed to himself and nodded, soaking in the information given to him. “So… you left your world to find others? How fascinating! But, what happened, who did you- um… what caused the ‘war’?”

Jake sighed, continuing his story. "With our new objective in mind and for the first time in… well I want to say all of history, humanity came together. We began to branch out into the stars!” Jake said with a small smile, a sad undertone in his voice keeping Twilight from getting too excited about the tale’s direction. “It was going smoothly for about… a hundred years. We reached out as far as we could, until suddenly faster than light tech was cracked. It changed everything, and only fueled us on. That… is when everything began going downhill...." He trailed off, his features darkening instantly.

Twilight paused for a second before she looked up with a confused gaze. "Downhill? But, why would that be bad?"

Jake huffed a bit before he lazily cast his gaze over her. "Humans have an old saying. It goes, 'Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.'"

"Wow... that's a powerful saying. And it makes a lot of sense I suppose, who said it?" She asked as Jake shrugged.

"I don't honestly remember, heard it one time and it just sort of stuck to me. But this brings me to the part I was talking about when I said things will get dark, Twilight..." Jake said as he let out a drawn out sigh. "After the development of the faster than light engine in those first hundred years, everything accelerated tenfold. Trade, farming, medical breakthroughs… our population boomed as we spread to new, fertile planets." Jake paused for a moment, before continuing with a dark undertone. "Then we found them..." The venom in his voice was so potent it caused the hairs on Twilight’s back to stand up slightly.

"Them?" Twilight paused her writing to look at Jake, who was scowling immensely now.

"The reason for our people’s decline." He stated with balled fists.

Twilight shook her head incredulously. "Decline? What do you mean, the way you explained it makes it sound like humanity is in it’s golden era! How could meeting someone new cause so much damage…” Twilight trailed off, shaking her head at the absurd claims made by the human.

Jake sighed as he felt his eyes water slightly. "Twilight, you know how I said we have about 14 Billion humans as of now?" He asked, causing her to nod lightly, "Can you guess what it was, just two hundred years ago?"

Jake looked away from Twilight as she shook her head, her gut suddenly telling her she didn't want to know.

"34 billion." He finally said aloud, Twilight's eyes widening as the quill and parchment fell to the ground.

Twilight’s mouth hung agape as she failed to speak at first, before quickly pulling herself together and shaking her head. "B-But HOW? So many, just like that?!”

As Twilight asked, she regret it. Maybe it was her imagination filling in the blanks, the possible cosmic horrors that could bring about such suffering manifesting in her thoughts, or maybe it was just the look Jake gave her as he took in a slow, angry breath.

"Because of those hollow fucking MACHINES!” Jake spit in anger, his right hand resting on his face as he peered down. “Those heartless computers who want to see nothing but all of humanity burn! The ones we have begun to call the... the Verix.” Jake was almost visibly disgusted from saying the name, only pushing his angry rant further as he pulled his hand down and shook his head. “We discovered them long ago, a strange signal from a strange system. Weird readings, strange radio signals. So we decided, why not? And what happened?” Jake paused, looking back to Twilight as she stared back in silence. “A slaughter. A slaughter that still continues to this day. Two hundred years of war and yet… it seems like we’re on track to losing.” He hesitated, taking in a deep breath and trying to calm himself. “There isn’t a human alive today that hasn’t known war. And there may never be again.”

Jake was scowling hard now, he never liked talking about human history, it always made him feel… doomed.

Twilight, meanwhile, was desperately trying to sort everything out in her mind as she processed what she was just told. "What in Equestria would drive somepony to… to so much evil! What could go and... kill! Twenty BILLION lives, JUST LIKE THAT?!" Jake watched the princess, noticing the slight shade of green overtaking her features.

After calming down himself, he continued his story. "Everything after contact was pure chaos. They went planet to planet, killing off entire colony networks at a time. None of them stood a chance at defense, we simply didn't arm ourselves against any real threats… weapon manufacturing and distribution was at an all time low. Every colony near ground zero was taken.” Jake shook his head, grunting. “No, obliterated! They didn’t even ravage it for supplies, they touch down and, when everything’s dead, torch the atmosphere and move to the next." Jake finished with defeat, hanging his head a bit as he rubbed his eyes.

Twilight, picking her parchment back up, looked a Jake timidly. "These... Verix. What do they look like?"

"Well...." He began, this time a small smile creeping onto his face. "They’re probably the ugliest sons of bitches you’ll ever see..."

Author's Note

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