The Heavenfall

Three thousand years ago, so the legends say, a species named humanity came to Equestria.

They were wanderers, refugees from a dead world; once a place of life that had been reduced to nought but ash, dust, and broken dreams by the machinations of its own inhabitants. For centuries they had crossed the great void between worlds, sustained within the metal-world of a colony ship called the Ark, named such for a great vessel of their own legends, and upon arriving at our habitable world, they rejoiced, believing their God, the great Void-Dreadnought itself, had finally brought them to deliverance.

The humans were ruled by creatures called Angels: the synthetic children of the God-Dreadnought. Isolated from the rest of the species by a combination of genetics, heritage, and physic, the duties of leadership fell to these rare creatures, prophets of the Ark, and it was they who made first contact with the Solar Princess.

What followed, the legends do not say, but if there is any truth to them at all, humanity has fallen far from grace. It is said that they were once an advanced species; that science was their god, and machinery its divine manifestation. But it is hard to believe the creatures that till our fields and labour in the factories could have ever been superior. Digging through the most forgotten lore and esoteric tomes, one comes across hints of a great conflict, a final battle when the Angels led the warriors of humanity against the forces of the Celestia Sisters.

Of the exact outcome, it is not mentioned, though one need simply look about themselves to discover humanities fate. One thing is made clear though: before the conflict came to an end the Angels had fallen, brought low by the aethereal might of the Solar Princess and the dark subtly of the Lunar Princess. Without the prophets of their God, it can only be presumed, humanity finally crumbled before our forces, and were placed into servitude, their wills broken and spirits crushed.

Yet humanity is a strange species, and, one finds, not without hope. Amongst the people, as they call themselves, there is another legend: a tale the species clings to, as a drowning being clings to flotsam. If it is to be believed, the legend is the final prophecy of the Arch-Angel Gabrielle, and it speaks of another Angel; the last Angel.

The one who shall bring humanities salvation.

His name, so my research has gathered, is Cypher, and it is the belief of the people that he is the chosen son of the God-Dreadnought. Of the Angel himself: his physical characteristics, his mannerisms, and even his origins, the humans knowledge is incredibly vague. Indeed, it would seem they know nothing about him, only the words of the Arch-Angel serving as any guarantee he even exists. But still, it would seem this uncertainty doesn't dampen humanities spirit, and even today, after three thousand years, they still wait for the coming of their savour: the Angel Cypher.

The one they have named the Heavenfall.

An extract from "An exploration of humanity" by Twilight Sparkle.