The origins of life in Equestria
Chronological – Edits to come based on seasons and creatures introduced.
By Majikkstar
Life as it is known now in what is now known as Equestria began 3,000 years earlier than the events that led up to twilight sparkle and her friends opening the chest that aided in their defeat of Tirek. Life for the ponies was the same as it was on earth, simple. Ponies had little language and no real society, just grazing in a nomadic fashion.
The sun would rise, the sun would set and the moon would rise every twelve hours, exactly. The grass would grow, the snow would fall for exactly three months, or moons as they measured time. Days did not exist, time did not exist, only to follow the food and survive.
Traveling in packs of a couple dozen the ponies traveled across the main Pangean continent going north and south. The travelers to the south found a lot of foliage and trees, and began to limit their travels, eventually stopping and staying in the same areas near the forests and rivers.
The ponies to the north found it to be cold, but there was no need to eat as much. One meal a week of roughly a pound of grass or vegetables was enough to satiate them. They found a warm oasis from the cold and made it their grazing lands.
The northern are was embodied with magic that flowed from the deepest parts of the world in a cycle that never ended, filling the ponies over a few generations they began to have low class magic abilities, by todays standards. Abilities, such as, telekinesis and creating light was quickly the normal skills among them all.
Focusing their magic to their heads they began to grow horns which worked as a channeling focal point of their limited abilities. Eventually, after 100 years they had begun to experiment with their magic and began creating new spells, which were taught from parent to child to keep certain abilities in the family and have a tradable edge.
*
The ponies to the south began to settle in these areas with the best foliage and access to water, having little need to travel they began to find shelter anywhere they could, eventually creating huts and cottages from fallen trees. With no knowledge of farming they would travel up to a day to find the best fruits and vegetables.
After two generations the best fruits and vegetables had begun to grow into large trees and bushes around their homes, and they began harvesting the fruits and vegetables. Several dozen generations (~600 years) passed before the southern ponies realized that trees grew from the food they ate and began to harvest whole fruits vegetables berries and planted them in the ground, growing and harvesting in regular cycles.
*
200 years after settling in the northern oasis the ponies had developed a good trade system and bartered magic and gems filled with magic as money. Outside their oasis a storm had developed and held them within their boarders, not that they really wanted to leave. Everything they could want was there.
Society grew quickly and a council was formed, they chose to call themselves the Unicorns. Uni, because they were one people, and corn, because that was how they said the word ‘horn.’ One people with horns was how they referred to each other, and Unicorn became a respected surname. They called their abilities magic the sound the ground in the center of the oasis made.
The ground was solid but would howl ‘Maaaaaaaa’ then click once every full moon. Gathering every full moon the ponies of the north thanked the magic for giving them a full life and such abilities.
Watching the sky the unicorns began to want, for the first time in generations, to leave their home and explore the area outside the storm. The sky was visible, but seeing outside the storm was nearly impossible and few traveled outside because there was no need. Spells to counter the cold existed, but no pony really cared to use them to go more than a few hours out into the darkness.
The council convened and created a council for magic creation, tasked with creating spells to stop the storm or create paths for exploration. After two years the council had 5 ponies very skilled in creation magic who had learned to give unicorns wings for a few hours. The winged unicorns would practice flight and would report on the world beyond the storm, however they could not go far with such a short spell.
Seeing this issue the spell was modified and at the cost of all one unicorns’ magic ability for 6 months another unicorn could have permanent wings for flight. The new flying unicorns were called Alicorns, Ali meaning ‘all’ in the old tongues. Flying with such grace became the heartwarming spirit of the unicorn people’s explorative nature.
*
Southern ponies began an agrarian society and used the land to create small hamlets along the rivers they lived by, moving further up, down and across the rivers and through the forests to find new food to plant. There was no trade or bartering. What they had the all shared and there was plenty to go around.
Little changed and life stayed the same, simple and happy.
*
The northern ponies experimented with their magic and began to focus their powers from the center of the oasis during the full moon, at the height of the howl. They dispersed the storm for a week at a time, giving the Alicorns time to explore the world.
Traveling east the Alicorns found enough crystals to make their current monetary system worthless, traveling south they found grassy lands, and after reporting back they were allowed to create settlements at the borders of the storms.
Years passed and the Alicorns began to mate, shocked to find out that their foals had no horns or magic, but carried the wings of the Alicorns. Flying was natural and easier for the foals of the Alicorns and their speed and distance was better than that of their parents.
Calling the new children Pegasus, from the old word for large bird, the foals grew slower than Pegasus and Unicorns and they had much, much shorter lives. While this dismayed the mystical beings they had at long last began to escape the prison of the storms.
Using their new and growing magic the magic council created a way to fuse crystals together, and created a huge tower over the oasis’ center, focusing the powers of the crystals across the oasis and transforming the residents into mystical crystal beings. When the ponies offered their new tower praise and thanks at the next full moon, their combined powers sent a mystical wave across the Pangea.
Mystical energy filled every pony across the land and the first cutie marks appeared on every pony’s flanks. Looking at the sky a rainbow filled the sky the weather suddenly changed and foliage stopped growing as quickly across the whole land. The clouds solidified and they rained at regular intervals only over certain spots.
The Pegasus began to build homes from the clouds on the land, grabbing them and flying them to the earth, however every year as the temperatures changed their homes would dissipate, or if they hit the walls too hard holes would appear.
The Alicorns, being older and wiser than their children began to experiment with cloud shaping and movement, passing the knowledge onto the Pegasus, who began to move and shift clouds across the Alicorns’ lands. After a few years food was beginning to become hard to find in great variety in the north, and the unicorns and Alicorns traveled south to meet with the earth ponies.
The unicorns, Alicorns and Pegasus made quick peace with the earth ponies; in exchange for controlled rains to their lands the earth ponies would give a portion of their harvest to the Pegasus, who would then fly it to their brethren in the north.
*
After nearly 800 years the tribes had covered nearly all the land, however they did not live in harmony. The tribes kept a fair distance from each other, honoring the peace they had made, until the unicorns began to use their magic to trick and control the earth ponies. The earth ponies began to limit their harvest gifts to the Pegasus.
In an effort to keep themselves fed the unicorn, alicorn and unicorn held a meeting which proved detrimental to all the tribes. The earth ponies were left out of the meeting and when they found out they cut production gifts in half, not being heartless the earth ponies didn’t want the others to starve, but they didn’t like the imbalance of power they felt.
The Alicorns decided to step out of the discussion and traveled to what is now the Everfree Forest, far to the south and out of the borders of all the others. Building a castle and protecting a small area with magic and invisibly they lived and practiced magic in seclusion. Numbering only 40 and some of the first Alicorns still being alive, the Alicorns had little to worry about, feeling immortal and all powerful they ignored the squabbles of the other tribes.
The tribes stayed at a long distance, beginning to war over land and resources. The unicorns and Pegasus not caring about the Alicorns believed them to have died, not one of the tribes cared to look for them.
After almost 1000 years the elder Alicorns were beginning to die, leaving them with 20 members of their tribe left. Leaving their hidden land they abducted several dozen earth ponies from the nearby towns and began experimenting new magic on them, transforming them into various other creatures that begged for death.
Unsuccessful in their efforts they left and tried Pegasus, their magic had no effect on transforming or merging the Pegasus. This was a result of their latent magic that, while rarely accessible in small amounts to create various effects while flying such as lightning or increased speed.
Turing to their creators, the unicorns, the Alicorns found success. Trapping the unicorns by snapping their horns, the Alicorns created Alicorns in their image. Taking notes and writing their successes they dispatched their creations and planned to create a library with all their stories, experiences, experiments and history.
Watching the world through their magic the Alicorns noted the events and watched as the tribes began to bear their teeth and use their resources and abilities to hold the others under control.
Seeing the tribes reaching a point of war the Alicorns combined their magic, sacrificing all but five of themselves they created a mystical winter storm that engulfed the land to their north, covering the earth in snow. The sacrificed Alicorn decided that if the others couldn’t come together they should nearly all die and the alicorn will start the tribes over.
Nearly the end of all the pony tribes was in view before they called a failed meeting, leaving and traveling far to the south, near the home of the Alicorn, to their surprise, all the tribes arrived roughly, within a few miles of each other the same location, at mountain where they resumed their arguments. Following the group the sacrificed were going to kill the small groups while they fought until they came together.
Love was their salvation and the sacrificed were banished, for the time being. Creating a new civilization based on unity the tribes began to intermingle and create families of all types. While Alicorns were thought to be extinct there were three left. Two of them decided to create new Alicorns to carry on their lineage while one wanted to try to create a new life form that would keep balance with the world.
The two took two newborn unicorn foals from their cribs from different sides of the land, turning them into Alicorns they began to teach the new fillies about magic, one named Celestia, the other luna.
The last alicorn created gryphons and hydra, chimera and changelings to offer resistance, having learned that the ponies were strongest when faced with a common enemy, the last alicorn used his magic to combine all his creations into one. The creature, once created, sucked the magic and knowledge from its master, and named itself Discord.
Immediately turning his new knowledge and powers onto the land he warped physics and the land to his own desires the two Alicorn mares fought him and after losing several battles defeated him, the black magic he had created inside himself during his short reign poisoned the Forest and changed the physics of the area, allowing a combination of the old world, the new world, and Discords view of the world to merge.
The poisoned land had killed the last two eldest Alicorn whose magic would not work properly in the new forest, and their powers transferred to their protégés. Both receiving powers of light, Luna received powers of both night and mischief while Celestia gained the powers of the sun and weather.
Together they made their presence known and were looked upon as gods at first, having control over so much power left all the other tribes in awe, and they passed laws based on their teachings of peace and equality, even though they knew the true darkness that was capable in every pony, they chose to encourage peace and resolution.
Balancing the weather, day and nights the sisters did not bring prosperity to the land, instead encouraging the agrarian society. As some cities nearest the coasts grew faster than the sisters could limit they enforced limits on education, enacted severe crime punishments, technological limitations via approval councils and celestial worship.
Using these tools the sisters were able to keep the tribes at peace: After Nightmare Moon appeared and was banished to the moon, Celestial worship became unofficial law, everything Celestia said became law and peace through control has reigned to this day.
