New World, New History

I have fallen into the habit of comparing the nation of Equestria with Ireland, due to a plethora of things. Not only is there magic and literally Faeries (known as Breezies, strangely), but there is a large forest which is filled with "monsters and scary stuff", as the third highest ruler in Equestria chose to so eloquently refer to it. This forest, of course, reminding me of the Irish, “Forbidden Forest”. To add to all of this, just as how Ireland was first inhabited by Greek slaves who escaped their masters to form a truly peaceful nation, so too were the circumstances with Equestria.

According to both of my main sources, Princesses Celestia and Lunacae, there was firstly a race of Alicorns which lived somewhere near Zebrica. To the best of my efforts, I have failed to learn of this location. These Alicorns held a class hierarchy with three levels: Ruling, and therefore prominent in political affairs, soldiers, and the commons. Even the commons, being of such magical and physical ability, brought that small nation into the heavens with power. The leaders in the ruling class rarely had any real issue with the commons rebelling, though issues slowly increased in number towards The Fall. They were, however, very harsh towards the soldiers, often requiring of them much more than was morally right, greatly attributing to The Fall. In that nation's language, to be clear, 'soldier' would be any militarily trained equine of fighting age that was willing to protect or fight, and so also would function as a guard. The commons seemed to keep themselves in check, and contributed mainly to the construction of such a great empire.

If one amongst them chose to do evil, their punishments were stunningly creative. The bad Alicorn would not only bring the punishment upon himself, but upon all of his bloodline after him, subsequently. The following plays pivotally, according to myth, in the origins of the Unicorn, Pegasus, and Land-pony from the original optimized Alicorn biology. If an Alicorn physically attacked an innocent, due to the nature of the crime, his bones would be made avian and therefore weakened, taking away his strength. Then, given his aggressive nature, his horn (and therefore ability to fight using magic) was totally removed. Both of these attributes would then continue onward down his bloodline, that no child of his could bear the strength of an Alicorn. The story continues that these punished Alicorns were then called the Pegasi, and this is why Pegasi are always the most aggressive and hard-headed of the species. Those Alicorns which were overly-prideful and abusive of their political power because of that pride - often belonging to the ruling class - would have their wings removed (placing them 'below' every other pony). However, given the magical skill of the ruling class as a whole, it would be no problem for the pony to simply re-apply their wings via magic. Hence, their horns were made smaller than their Alicorn counterparts, so that reversal would be incredibly difficult and usually impossible. These were thereafter called Unicorns, and this is why they are usually prideful and stuck-up towards the other types. The Land-pony, however, comes from a much different type of incident. I will get into much more detail about the Land-ponies in Book III.

This empire, however, rivaled none other in the world, now or then. their craftsmanship unmatched, prophesying its own destruction to the exact date upon which it fell - even their food is known to have been better than any other known on the planet then, and even today. I have put much thought into why the two Eternal Princesses suddenly, after so long of being the only Alicorns, have been accumulating other Alicorns. It seems that no other Native or Terrarian has yet to question this, but perhaps the Princesses wish to start again their greatest nation. I simply wish, if nothing else, to see it.

Any Alicorn could raise or lower the sun or moon, or any celestial bodies – but these essential roles were kept to a minimum of ponies, and usually the King and Queen would play them personally. Without this race actively moving the sun and moon, no other race would exist or at least have developed the same. As seemingly necessary as this race and empire was, it does seem that there was at one time no Alicorns. While, according to both Celestia and Lunacae the origin of the Alicorn race, and subsequently other races of ponies, is unknown, Celestia seemed to avoid eye-contact while speaking on this subject. Though I know not what this means, or if it means anything at all, I found it worth mentioning.

I mentioned above the few but decisive uprisings against the ruling class. These have gone mainly unrecorded, but there have been three (one of which I retrieved from the record of a Unicorn, "Acies", placing roughly two-thousand five-hundred years before my own time) which were reported to me. The last one of these riots bringing about the end of the great Alicorn Empire.