I can’t tell you when it started; it just sort of happened one day. It was like the whole world just woke up one day to find a stranger hovering over them; ominous. Repugnant. Devious.
A group made up of those on the fringe, led by characters who preyed on the weak and the downtrodden. Those leaders manipulated the social outcasts and rejects, collected them and used them to spread the word, to educate the world about their new ideology. But it was all lies.
What they really preached was madness. Deceit. They lied to us, and while most paid the ultimate price, they hurt us. They scarred the world, and no amount of magic will ever make me forget what they- I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. But this group, this… cult. They talked about wondrous beings beyond our grasp, or even our total comprehension. They spoke of heavenly gifts brought down, not just for their followers, but for the entire world. Absolute lunacy to most, but to those who were hurting, to the emotionally vulnerable, it was a godsend. They preached, they spread, until even the upper class began to wonder: What if? What if they were right? Later on, they claimed to have communicated with them. With these beings. And thus they bore the name. The name of what they believed were saviors. The name of those who would change everything.
They called them “Humans”.
“Humans”. The word was so… strange. Otherworldly. But then, they were of another world weren’t they? It would only make sense that they wouldn’t sound like us. At that point, the Human Cult was still a minority, but they were gaining attention. It seems they were around every corner, in every street. You could almost never avoid the criers; often dirty, or thin or homeless, but always with such voice. Such gusto. They told us of the gifts offered by the Humans. They talked of boxes that could reveal whole lives in a matter of hours, things that could do the work of our ovens in minutes, an unseen power that could light homes without the need for fires or candles or magic. Food that needn’t be cooked for hours? Food that didn’t even need growing? Advanced technologies, higher thinking- could we do it? Could we truly achieve perfection? The supremacy of the alicorns was undeniable, but with these gifts, we could achieve truly equal society. It was too good to be true. That’s what most of us thought. But there were many that gravitated towards the cult and their honeyed words. Many who bought in.
All of a sudden, they were pressuring society. They were doing it lightly, but it was felt: Pressure. After they’d squeezed through the cracks and had infected us, now they were doing their best to change us. Change our way of life. Many rose against it, but their cries of resistance were ultimately drowned out by the shouts of the Cult. They were the majority, and they’d gained a powerful ally: Luna, Princess of the Night had announced her complete support of the Humanists. She supported their stance to bring equality and a better life to us all. She spearheaded campaigns to build grandiose temples and shrines to the Humans. Celestia, Princess of the Sun, however, remained unusually quiet regarding the matter.
The Humanists, as they’d come to be known, had long ago thrown aside their “cult” status. They were no longer a force to be reckoned with, they were everything. Everything and everyone working toward a common purpose. I suppose, in a way, it was beautiful. Absolutely wonderful, even. To see everyone striving for the betterment of all, instead of living just for themselves was joyous. I myself had remained cautiously optimistic. I understood what the Humanists were attempting to do, and while I never ascribed to their belief myself, I graciously accepted them. After all, they’d managed to unite an entire world’s population under a stance for the improvement of all our lives. How bad could they possibly be?
It was not long after reaching this conclusion that I found out.
Before they had reached critical mass, a figure emerged from them. Someone with a voice, they said, that could shake mountains. A cult of personality, a kind of de facto leader. His name was Harpsichord Hardstring, and he had risen. He had risen through the Humanists to become their leader because, as he said, he “was the obvious choice.”
Some called him narcissistic, egotistical even. But his supporters, who were many, called him a revolutionary. A genius, some even said that was a gift sent from the Humans, to lead us all to them and attain perfection as a species.
He had come to my city once after the Humanists had built their temples and shrines; he would speak to those who would listen, and there were many. I’d never seen anything like it before; a whole city marching toward a specific spot within. But it held none of the beauty I had seen before in them. No, what I saw that day terrified me. They seemed mindless. Drones. Marching toward something terrible and frightening and dark.
I had to see him. I had to know who or what could cause such a reaction in these creatures. Even as I walked among them, I saw nothing in them. I saw husks pretending to be those I had known and loved my entire life; sallow eyes and placid faces revealed them to me. Shallow puppets claiming life, whilst not understanding what life was anymore. It was more than horrifying. It was saddening. I have never felt more ashamed or fearful of and for my kind than I did that day.
As we sat within the Humanist Temple in the center of town, we waited. I don’t know what I expected to see from Hardstring, but I could never be prepared for what came. He was introduced by a small, victimonious little filly. She might have been his daughter, but I am unsure.
When he spoke to us, the crowd held their breath. His voice was smooth as silk, and he spoke in small tones for a little while, before raising his voice, slowly at first, but noticeably. Gradually, his voice became louder, until it boomed throughout the hall. He spoke of us. Of his kind, and how they we might progress. He wanted the advancement, the progression, and finally, perfection of our species to be brought about. The Humans, he said, were the only way to accomplish such a thing. The perfection we so craved, he claimed, was close, and we need only stretch our hooves to the sky, and let the Humans make us what we were always meant to be.
When he spoke of them- The Humans –his voice seemed to tremble, as if speaking in hushed tones of some ancient deity with great power. And I saw it then. This stallion- this creature who stood before us – did not want to advance as what he was. He didn’t love Humans, he was obsessed with them. He thought they could and would grant him the ability to be human, to abandon his kind- the species he claimed to feel so close to; the species he said he wanted to perfect – to become something he believed to be greater. In a way, he was truly pathetic.
It was then that Princess Luna walked onstage, and Hardstring claimed we were “in for a treat”, that we would “see something nopony had ever seen before”. He said he’d found lost magic, something that would form a viewing bridge between our world and that of the Humans. He needed the Princess’ help with this thing, and she’d graciously accepted.
When it started, it seemed as though the light had been drained from the room, though it could only have been midday at that point. And the spell (perhaps ritual is a better word), began:
A ball of pure energy emerged from Luna’s horn, floating several feet above her, until it contracted, and then expanded to become larger than her by several times. It was then that images began to form and then disappear within. What I saw could not be unseen; cosmic horrors and unspeakable acts beyond description. It was as though we were looking through a window to a larger world beyond. A world we weren’t ready for. Those around me seemed amazed, though their vapid expressions betrayed them; they didn’t understand what was going on any more than I did.
And then it stopped. It just disappeared. It was over. Strangely, I felt unimpressed more than anything. I sincerely doubted then, as I still do, that we caught any glimpse of the promised Humans. Though the reason was clear: Celestia had appeared whilst the room was distracted with the show. When Luna tried to speak, her sister shouted her down, and left the room speechless. She then revealed something to us all:
The Humans were never as they seemed. They were evil, wicked beings who had long extinguished the beauty of their own world; who’d reached out into the Nether to find another worth inhabiting. And they’d found us. They had planned to use the Humanists to eliminate the vermin- to eliminate their own race, and finally come to our world and destroy what remained in order to claim it as their own.
Hardstring denounced these claims, and, as Luna before him, was shouted down. Celestia decided to banish him, and to forever curse his family with an obsession of humans, to be mocked and ridiculed for his involvement in the near-extinction of his own race.
It was then that Luna spoke, and as Hardstring before, denounced her sister’s words, and then attacked her.
However, Luna was weak from the strain of the spell, and was swiftly defeated. It was then that Celestia passed down judgment: Her sister would be banished to the moon for 1000 years, where its inherent magic, with guidance from Celestia, would alter her mental state to believe that her banishment was the result of some kind of rebellion entirely of Luna’s design.
Celestia would then use her magic to change the hearts and minds of all those in the room who had been changed by Hardstring’s words, which is what I suppose made me exempt from the spell, as I hadn’t succumbed to Humanism myself.
When I lay down to sleep that night, I didn’t know what I’d find in the morning. Celestia had wiped the memories of them all, no one (besides myself) knew what had happened that day in the temple. Ponies would question it, wouldn’t they? The sudden disappearance of Luna and Hardstring? The Humanists wouldn’t take it lying down, would they?
As it happened though, the truth was much less dramatic, and more bureaucratic. Celestia announced to the unknowing populace that her sister had gone on a long-term diplomatic mission, and had taken Hardstring as a religious ambassador. Celestia said they weren’t expected to return for quite a long time.
Years passed, then decades, and Humanism faded away. With no leader or royal support, they simply had nothing left to hold onto, except for promises never to come true. Their temples fell into disrepair. What had once been the dominant force in Equestrian society had simply succumbed to the onslaught of time.
It has been so long now that many young ones hardly know of Luna, and I expect that knowledge of our Monarch’s sister will fade much like Humanism. Perhaps they will call her a legend, or a myth. A Mare in the Moon, maybe.
I am old now. Soon time will take me as well. My life has unfolded without such an incident as what occurred that day. I married, and had three beautiful children who grew up to become successful and to have children of their own. Our lives have been wonderful, and there is nothing to fear.
But still… sometimes I can’t sleep at night. Sometimes I wonder about what I saw in that cosmic window that day; what if the Humans weren’t the worst thing out there? What if they were just the beginning? I lay awake, fearful for the coming generations. Wondering what could be waiting for them just outside of our universe. What could be lurking, I wonder, just beyond our conscious? I don’t know. But it keeps me up. And it keeps me afraid; even if that fear is just on the periphery of my mind.