Within these pages you will find, as requested, all of the information we of the Royal Equestrian Archives have on the hstory and culture of our most elusive neighbors, known colloquially as "lunar ponies". This information has been pieced together from various accounts given by lunar ponies who have left their forest and have been willing to elaborate on their history and culture, as well as eye-witness reports of the most reliable among those unfortunate enough to enter their forest uninvited.
During the short reign of the Selene Empire, then Princess Luna began spiriting away children from various places around Equestria. Using her unique power over the dreamscape, she was able to brainwash these children and make them into her most loyal subjects. Alongside the refugees and outcasts that flocked to Selene, the foals became her most valued subjects.
As Princess Luna's apparent madness grew and she became Empress Luna (known in popular Equestrian lore as "Nightmare Moon"), her demands of the ponies of Selene became more severe. She demanded that her subjects shun her sister's sun, as they had once the moon, and rise only at night. By the time the Empress had fully transformed and barred the sun from the sky, the ponies of Selene had become so indoctrinated that Luna's law had became nature to them.
On the eve of the final battle with Princess Celestia, a handful of her Lunar Guard, those who had family among the civilians of Selene, became worried about the safety of the civilians. These soldiers defected from the Lunar Guard and organized a city-wide evacuation of Selene. Empress Luna, so focused on the coming confrontation, chose to simply ignore the defectors and fleeing civilians, confidant that her plan would succeed even without them.
The ponies of Selene fled to the northeast, clear of both Selene and Canterlot, with the intension of settling in the foothills of Neighagra Falls. When the battle between the royal sisters finally commenced, the two alicorns unleashed their most powerful and dangerous magic upon one another. The resulting backlash from this clash resulted in a shock wave of wild, chaotic magic that spread from the source all across the the expanse of Equestria. The uncontrolled magic had random effects on all that it touched. Some effects were minuscule while others were drastic and devastating, such as the sudden desertification of the southern reaches of Equestria, the formation of the permanent cloud upon which Cloudsdale was built, and the bizarre, uncontrollable flow of weather over the Everfree Forest.
Unbeknownst to them at the time, the Selene refugees were also affected by the blast, though the full effects of this would not be truly known to them for several generations. The refugees, in particular the foals among them, did however begin suffering from some unknown and terrible malady when the sun returned to the sky. Eventually it came to light that their malady struck them whenever they were out in the light of the sun. As the number of ponies with the "sun sickness" grew, the refugees feared they would not survive to their goal. Instead, they took refuge in the forest to the east, taking shelter from the sun beneath the thick canopy. Unable and unwilling to go further, the refugees carved out a small village that would eventually become Hollow Shades.
Over hundreds of generations, the wild magic-tinged ponies bred and evolved into what are now known as lunar ponies. Physically lunar ponies still retain the same attributes as normal earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi. They do, on average, tend to be slightly smaller than normal ponies of their races and display extremely dark fur coloring and brightly-colored manes. What truly sets them apart however is that lunar ponies' eyes, both pupil and iris, are invariably white.
A lunar pony's eyes are tuned to the cool light of the moon; they can see perfectly clearly with even the most minute light source, and some are even able to make out their surroundings in total darkness. Their ears are also much more sensitive than a normal ponies, due to their nocturnal lifestyle. However, because their eyes are so sensitive, they are rendered virtually blind in the light of Celestia's sun. Because of this weakness, lunar ponies have almost never left their ancestral home of Hollow Shades and its surrounding forests. So rare are these ponies in the rest of Equestria, in fact, that until just recently they were believed to be a myth. Many less educated ponies still doubt their existence.
Recent years have seen a small migration of lunar ponies to the tiny settlement of Shady Stable, which sits directly below the permanent cloud structure of Cloudsdale amongst the ruins of ancient Stalliongard Keep, and a few others have moved to the larger cities such as Los Pegasus and Manehattan due to the fact that the larger cities are still quite active at night. There are unconfirmed rumors of other settlements hidden in other "dark" and "mysterious" places across Equestria such as the Everfree Forest and the caves beneath Canterlot and the Crystal Empire, but no signs of settlements have ever been found in any of those places.
It has recently come to light that the lunar ponies have, for many generations now, maintained a mysterious artifact known as "Selene's Tear". The origins of the stone are unclear, but it radiates the same cool light as the full moon when exposed to unicorn magic. Once a year, on the longest night of the year (around the same time as Hearth's Warming), a festival known as "Noc'tur= Seline Incivti" ("Night of the Unconquered Moon", though many simply refer to it as "Midwinter Solstice") is held. At the commencement of the festival, the lunar unicorns focus their power together into the Selene's Tear; the charged artifact in turn creates a veil over Hollow Shades and the surrounding forest that causes the light of the sun to be muted as it passes through, blanketing the area beneath in perpetual moonlight. Thus protected, the lunar ponies are, within their forest at least, able to move and function during the day in order to conduct any business that would otherwise be impossible to accomplish at night.
The relatively recent invention of the sunglasses has further opened the world to the lunar ponies. While regular sunglasses are not enough to reduce the blinding effect of the light of day to a lunar pony's eyes, lunar unicorns have recently discovered a way to infuse the lenses with a similar enchantment as that of Selene's Tear. Glasses made with these lenses, tinged white similar to their eyes, allow a lunar pony to walk in the light of day uninhibited. Oddly enough, when viewed by a normal pony's eyes, the lenses are completely opaque and impossible to see through.
While the physical differences between lunar ponies and regular ponies are fairly minute, culturally the lunar ponies are drastically removed from that of Equestria at large.
Because of their low population and limited gene pool, lunar ponies were forced to breed early and often to maintain a stable population. Because of this, lunar ponies are far more sexually active and aggressive than most ponies. Moreover, certain things that would be taboo in Equestria at large are common place and actually excepted among the lunar ponies. Foals are actually encouraged to explore and engage their sexuality from a very early age, both with each other and with adults. Incest and homosexuality is also commonplace and accepted in lunar culture.
Generations of isolation have made the lunar ponies wary and occasionally hostile towards outsiders, particularly of other ponies; Princess Luna and her Lunar Guard are likely the only ponies that would be allowed into Hollow Shades undeterred. Over the centuries, the lunar ponies have come to claim the entirety of the forest surrounding Hollow Shades as their home, and while they have had little reason to do so over the years, they also maintain a standing army. While their numbers are low, because of the ancient techniques they are taught, forgotten to modern Equestria, it's believed a single lunar pony knight would be a match for a small platoon of Royal Guards.
The lunar ponies have befriended a number of other nocturnal races in the forest, chief among them the semi-sapient shadow cats. Shadow cats are a race of shape shifting felines that are believed to be, as their name suggests, composed entirely of shadow. Unlike the changelings, shadow cats appear to be limited to three basic forms; a feral form, in which they are roughly the size of a full-grown tiger, a two-legged form complete with clawed hands replacing their fore legs, and an ethereal form in which they are able to blend into and effectively disappear into any natural shadow cast. Lunar ponies and shadow cats have coexisted in Hollow Shades peacefully for generations; the shadow cats live under the protection of Selene's Tear and are allowed to hunt in the forest, and in exchange they aid the ponies in defending their lands from outsiders. It is likely that these felines are the source of the long-standing belief that the forest is haunted, as well as at least partially responsible for the fog that constantly permeates the forest.
Wealth and affluence are foreign concepts to the lunar ponies. The leaders of Hollow Shades are oracles, tasked with preserving the history of their people and of Selene, a history that has become greatly distorted in Equestria. The "rich" among the lunar ponies are those that have abundant food, as the types of food readily available to the lunar ponies are understandably limited to what can be grown without sunlight. However, it is believed that the lunar ponies have mined into the bordering Foal Mountains where several rich jewel deposits lie; while the gems are all but useless to the lunar ponies, they have made trade with outsiders for various types of food and supplies otherwise inaccessible in Hollow Shades.
While the crown officially acknowledges Hollow Shades as part of Equestria, our current official position has been to allow the lunar ponies to maintain their autonomy to a large degree. Luna has stated the reason being that integrating the lunar ponies into Equestria would be all but impossible because of the drastic physical and cultural differences. However, lunar ponies that have moved to other areas of Equestria have, for the most part, been able to integrate themselves with little difficulty.
Though there are no confirmed records of this, as there are as yet no confirmed interracial foals, but it is believed that because of the nature of their bloodline, the foal of a lunar pony and a regular pony will invariably be a lunar pony. In any case, as previously seen with the foals of ponies and zebras, it is likely that crossbreeding could result in foals born with unusual birth defects...
There are a great many mysteries still surrounding the lunar ponies, particularly concerning Hollow Shades itself, as so few outsiders have ever seen the village. I've personally read reports of a certain farm family that had settlers move in and integrate with the lunar ponies but there is no solid evidence of this...
In any case, those that make their lives in Hollow Shades have proven themselves time and again dangerous; I personally agree with the Luna's decision to allow them their autonomy. Equestria has not seen a true conflict since the days of the civil war, and as the recent changeling invasion has shown us, Equestria is woefully unprepared for an all-out war, which I believe we would find were we to attempt to force our culture upon Hollow Shades. By the same token, those who have left their forest and entered Equestria have proven to be friendly and trustworthy. Ultimately, my recommendation is the same as as it was with the crystal ponies; lunar ponies that have entered Equestria of their own volition are to be considered full citizens of Equestria and treated as any other Equestrian citizen is. It is, after all, the idea upon which our great nation was founded. I believe in time the lunar ponies will allow us into their world of their own accord if we can show them they are welcome in ours.
~ North Pole
Author's Note
I imagine it must have been really hard for him to write about lunar pony culture without eluding to his personal feelings on the matter. I'll bet he had to rewrite that a few times...
