Apud Stellas Domus Nova

We are Mankind.

We stand on two legs, and we grasp things with our arms, with hands that have ten fingers.

We came from a world much like your own. Blue sky, green hills, crystal seas. The birds sing and the leaves on the trees sway in the breeze.

From what we know, our genesis was in a place with a savannah climate. We got up on two legs, and we began the path to sapience, and to civilization.

We found out about writing. Music. Architecture. Agriculture. Some of us died to weather, predators, and illness, but the rest survived.

We started writing epics, scripture, and poetry. We wrote rhymes, stanzas, and hymns. We built towers, walls, and homes.

We found the use of metalworking tools. We made better tools to build, write, and farm. Some of us died by the bronze spear, sword, and javelin, wielded by greedy monarchs and aristocrats, but we survived.

We discovered sailing, and trade flourished. Money was invented to put an abstract value on belongings or persons or property. Diplomacy was invented by the wise desire for peace, that the sword would not take us away.

Men are finite, and so is their wisdom, so the greedy again took up the sword, and we cut down our own. But again, we survived.

Eventually, we invented our way to sky-scraping towers, plows that fed billions, and weapons that slew millions, but still we survive.

The invention of the written word means that while men may die, their wisdom may yet go on. Time reached a point where our stored wisdom overcame greed, and humankind flourished.

That is, until the Great Mistake.

For all our record-keeping and writing, we do not know what exactly transpired. All we know for certain is what became of it.

Much of Earth's atmosphere is unbreathable now. Much of our lands are infertile and dangerous to dwell in.

And still we have survived. We have rebuilt much, but...

Many say that Earth itself is dying.

So, we, the best, the brightest, and the luckiest of humanity, were chosen. We built mighty vessels capable of travelling beyond the sky and into the void of stars.

Where once was division amongst the human tribes, nations, and empires, there is now a unity driven by a single purpose.

We now dwell among the stars in search of a new home.

If you are reading this, humanity greets you, and wishes sincerely to live in peace.

Twilight Sparkle stirred, digesting and processing the information dump she had just read through. Before her sat the first page in a copy of the first set of reference texts provided for her by these humans. The digital format that they had come in was a bit bewildering, due to their completely alien nature, but the omniglot spell, weaved by Canterlot Scholars, was advanced enough to ignore the format of the works and begin to transcribe the contents of the alien device.

However, the lead unicorn casting the omniglot spell had nearly fainted, and had needed to recast the spell several times in a shocked silence before saying that this device held more information than could be held in the Canterlot Library 15 times over.

After this revelation was confirmed twice again, the decision was then made by the head researcher to just make the first volume.

A copy of this volume, transcribed in good ol' parchment, lay at the hooves of Princess Twilight Sparkle now.

‘Such a diverse people’, she thought. ‘To have saved ten thousand years’ worth of history, cultures, religions, wars, and to have saved allof it?’

Twilight looked over the section regarding the Great Mistake and thought, ‘Well, not all of it. What could’ve happened that would cause these humans to interrupt their record-making and writing to desperately move to preserve what they had? What could be so bad?’

The more scenarios she thought of, the more Twilight still had more questions than answers.

‘They call it the Great Mistake. Do they feel responsible for it? Arethey responsible for it?’

‘The Great Mistake occurred during a point in the history of these species of unparalleled progress and peace. Why would that change? Howwould that change?’

‘Can the events of the Great Mistake repeat here?’

A very cold shudder shook Twilight Sparkle. That was a very real possibility. It could be that the Great Mistake was a result or the side effect of so much progress and peace, somehow. Maybe the events that occurred there might happen again here, now that humans were on the planet. Without actually knowing what the Great Mistake was, nothing was certain. For all she knew, it wasn’t a mistake at all, but some sort of natural ecological disaster.

‘But that means whatever crippled the civilizations on their world can still happen on ours.’

She wanted to know how she could stop it, but without the knowledge of what happened or what caused it, she could only wonder.

Still, she knew she should let the other Princesses in on this knowledge. They would surely know what to do with it.

Even if the knowledge was lacking.

“You’re right, Twilight. This is very disturbing news, indeed.”

The Alicorn Tetrarchy stood in the half-built embassy, now situated on the former expedition site. They stood in a large command tent that had been previously used to orchestrate construction.  It had been commandeered for this important meeting between the Equestrian authorities while the construction continued all around them. The banging of hammers and the cutting of saws provided a stark contrast to the thick tension that existed in that room.

Every princess now knew the weight behind the implications of the Great Mistake. They knew the awkward nature of the event, and how it reflected upon the world in which their guests came from, and the guests themselves. Luna spoke up, saying,

“Sister, these humans don’t know what happened to their world. Can we be certain that their actions won’t destroy ours as well?”

“We cannot be certain without the facts, Luna,”, said Celestia. “Besides, nopony willingly orchestrates their own destruction. You of all ponies must know that.”

Luna bit her tongue and wore a face of serious contemplation. Celestia sighed and held Luna tight with a wing.

“I’m sorry, Luna. I do not mean to open up old wounds, but you must realize how awkward the humans must feel about their own past.”

Luna only nodded. “So, they are refugees,”

Celestia nodded.

The texts and notes translated so far made no connections. No obvious answers to this puzzle manifested. Even with mankind's virtues, vices, saints, sinners, great deeds and misdeeds laid before them, the gathered monarchs still knew too little.

"Well, sister?" Everypony gathered turned to Celestia. Surely, only she would have the wisdom to decide on the proper course of action.

Yet even she was at a loss. She looked now at a diagram of the human body, hoping against hope that these collection of lines somehow offered an answer. She finally sighed, growing weary of hurting her head trying to untangle this mystery. Finally, Princess Celestia said,

"I cannot judge them based on these facts and events. I cannot judge them based on their merits or their crimes. I cannot damn them for the crimes of their fathers or the fact that they're human."

Celestia hung her head.

"In truth, I cannot judge them at all."

Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadence shared confused looks, and then looked back to Celestia, who regarded them with a hollow look in her eyes.

"Every time I am asked to condemn or spare a criminal, I can only see the nature of their deeds, not the characteristics of their heart. Every defiant or scared face I see in the court holds a different story, one I cannot see. They may in fact be worth saving, but they may also just as easily be complete monsters only serving the common good when dead.

“Ponies look at me as if I have some divinity or heavenly power to deliver or damn, but..."

Tears now came to the corners of Celestia's eyes. Her voice began to fail her.

"Even if I do have these powers and responsibility, I don't care. No one, be they pony, human, or whatsoever they are, is so pure, so innocent as to be able to judge fairly."

Celestia turned to Twilight. "Not even I am exempt from error and corruption, but they are my mistakes to bear. Please don't ask me to tell you about what I've done, Twilight, because I will tell you."

Celestia let her head hang again, breaking eye contact with everypony in the room.

"We cannot compare our standards to their mistakes. To do so is folly, and so it is a double-edged sword.

“So don't ask me to judge mankind. Please.

“Damning all of mankind as monsters would only damn us all as monsters."