"Come on, just over the next rise!"
Porter Jade Sight, a gem-colored earth pony, wasn't as enthusiastic as Princess Twilight Sparkle was about this find they were trekking to get to. At the beginning of their journey, the princess’ enthusiasm and anticipation were infectious, but her energy had lasted far longer than the other members of this expedition. The fact that she now was just as insufferable as when they had set first foot on that train to get to the Badlands was wearing on Jade Sight's patience, just as it was surely wearing on the patience of the rest of the expedition, which included many other porters and support staff, and even the Princess's friends. Underneath the harsh sun and the sweltering heat of the afternoon, everypony was feeling it. As their hooves crunched the arid ground, the senses of the ponies were assaulted by dust and the dry smell of the sagebrush and other assorted smells.
As long as Jade Sight got paid, he was willing to put up with it. Besides, the tents ought to be a nice reprieve while the overeager princess continued to overexert herself in a crater filled with rocks and space-dust. Let her worry about it. Meanwhile, Jade Sight would enjoy a cool drink in the shade of a tent.
That is, until he accidently stuck his snout in the Princess's tail on top of the sandy rise because he was too busy fantasizing to pay attention.
Jade Sight shook off some sand and made to apologise to the pony whose personal space he had accidentally invaded, but he stopped only when he noticed that Twilight Sparkle didn't really notice. Instead, she only stared at something in front of her, posture frozen. Her mouth was agape, and her eyes betrayed the shock she was experiencing.
What, did the space rock come down intact? There's no way a space rock hitting some desolate place could possibly be that...
Having clambered up to the rise beside Twilight Sparkle, and following her empty gaze, Jade Sight knew why.
That certainly wasn't a space rock.
It stood on two legs. It stood twice the height of even the princess. It wore a bulky full grey body suit with a brown long coat over the suit, which flapped in the wind. Its face was obscured by a full face visor of gold, and it returned the Princess's stare, itself equally as petrified by its encounter of us as we were of it.
What also wasn't a space rock was the... thing behind the biped. Jade Sight knew not what to make of it. It had wheel, like a wagon or cart, but they were too short and wide, and they were attached to what looked like legs. All of it was bony white, except the head of the thing, which watched them with all the warmth of a camera. The body of the second thing was boxy, giving the construction a very insect-like look, and it dwarfed the biped in size. The entire scene was all so mystifying.
The left arm of the biped slowly rose to hold the side of its head, and it held it there for a minute. Was it just Jade Sight, or was the biped talking to something? The biped’s stance shifted, and it took a step back. It seemed to want no more part of this than the ponies did.
Leave it to the princess to be the hero, though.
Twilight reached out to the biped, calling out, "Wait!"
The biped froze again. Jade Sight fought the urge to just grab the Princess and just leg it.
"Twilight..."
Applejack had just carefully moved up behind Twilight and was equally (if not more) nervous about the bipedal and the metal wagon as everypony else was. The biped had raised its hand to its head again, seemingly listening to something. Finally, its stance loosened, and it clambered over to the strange contraption, which tucked its wheels under itself and sat down, covering the six wheels with its boxy body. A long compartment running the length of the construct opened, and the biped withdrew a bundle of white rods. It then stuck the rods into the ground, and fiddled with it. It became obvious immediately as he worked that it was a tent, or some other kind of temporary shelter. As it laid the foundations of the tent, something incredible happened.
It raised itself, quickly becoming a long, wide, white, cylindrical tent, standing there as a defiance of normal tent-raising. Jade Sight didn't even bother to resist saying, "I want one," to the amusement of many ponies there.
With that, the ice was more or less broken. The ponies also set to work setting up their own camp. Clearing rubble, twigs, and rocks, the expedition in short order raised their own tents, albeit with a little envy for the biped, which even now withdrew with his steel cart into the tent.
Jade Sight could be envious all he wanted, but envy alone wouldn't be raising his tent. So, with a few stakes and a few knots, he was finally able to unshoulder his burden, lay out a sleeping cot, and take a nice, deserved nap in his tent.
In his exhaustion, Jade Sight couldn't care less about the interaction between the princess, her friends, and the biped. Sure, it was history in the making, but Jade Sight was a porter, not a diplomat.
Jade Sight awoke from his restful nap with a yawn and noticed that not only was he hungry, but there was a certain nice smell of something good cooking over a campfire. He also noticed an odd droning sound. Getting up on weary legs, Jade Sight poked his head out of his tent.
Sure enough, the sun was setting, and a broth bubbling by under the watchful eye of Quartermaster Pinkie Pie. Say what you will about her behavior, but she did make a mean vegetable broth.
She also seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of fresh pastries, which Jade Sight was both thankful for and seriously bewildered by.
The biped wasn't among the ponies enjoying dinner. Instead, he sat in a folding chair that he had apparently brought along. He was facing the sunset, which, even here, in the middle of nowhere, was quite the sight to behold. As Jade Sight clambered out to get his fill, he was beset by good friends and food, the biped being completely forgotten. They traded stories, a bit of gossip, and even a bit of wild speculation. The joke theory that made everypony laugh the most was that the suit's biped actually held a colony of butterflies that worked together to move the suit around. They shared many jokes together, and to the Princess's chagrin, they teased her a little about not having learned the omniglot translation spell.
"I was going to get around to it, I swear!"
"That's what you keep saying, sugarcube."
As they shared another laugh, something caught the attention of the pony expedition.
Namely, the distant roar of fire.
Heads swiveled as ponies nearing the edge of panic tried to determine where it was coming from.
And if it actually sounded like any dragon breath they ever heard.
Finally, Pinkie pointed out something in the distance and yelled out, "Look!"
The ponies looked and saw a speck in the distance rising on a pillar of fire, right next to the setting sun. Ponies strained their eyes to.see it as it rose ever higher and higher, and they all lined up beside the reclining biped. Twilight finally got out a telescope and got a better look at the object. She gasped and said, "It's a rocket!"
Pinkie Pie, squinting her eyes and leaning forward, asked, "It doesn't look like any firework I've ever seen!"
Applejack nodded, then said, adjusting her stetson, "Eeyup. It's making too much noise going up, especially for how far away it is."
Twilight bit her lip and ran her telescopic sight over the rising bleach-white object. Both her eyes went wide.
"Girls, I think we can hear it from here because that rocket is huge."
Fluttershy peeked from behind her hair and asked Twilight, "H-How big, now?"
Twilight cleaned the glass on her instrument and said, "This can't be right, b-because it's almost as if it's as big as a... skyscraper in Manehatten."
Rarity fainted, but the ponies barely took notice as they themselves imagined a rocket of that sheer size. Rainbow Dash was the first to ask, "W-What would you need a rocket that big for?"
As the rocket continued to press ever higher, Twilight realized something.
"It's trying to go into space."
Applejack's eyes crossed a little, then she asked, "Well, what would you need to go there for? It's just stars and void-stuff, right?"
Twilight turned to look at the biped in the chair, who had not broken eye contact with the space-bound rocket. It held itself at ease, almost as if regarding the thing with pride.
"Girls, I think we're making contact with an alien race,” the princess said.
She looked around energetically, searching for her things. She took off, her meal having been forgotten.
”Spike! Take a letter..."
The next morning was a somber affair. The ponies stood on one side, and the alien with his self-propelled cart on the other. They both stood in awe of the other, each sapient, fully understanding the weight and scale of what had happened here. Now, each was waiting for delegates of their own kind to arrive. The alien's delegate arrived first. Three giant metal boxes with rounded corners and windowed fronts on those same strange wheels rolled up, unbidden and towed by unseen internal forces, and parked themselves behind the smaller construct. More bipeds poured out of hatches in the back. They wore different suits than the first, bulkier and with a bigger round helmet, but they were still sterile white, the same as their vehicles and that smaller cart thing, with red stripes running across their suits. They also carried some kind of weapon in their hands, albeit ones that were just as alien as they were. Twilight was reminded of some sort of steel crossbows that had missing arms. The last three bipeds to leave the vehicles wore the same suit as the soldiers but had purple stripes on their suits instead of red. They also came bearing cases instead of the weapons their soldiers carried. They lined up in front of the ponies and seemed to converse with the brown-coat biped, and they all bode their time.
They did not have to wait long, though, as the Royal Guard arrived, towing a carriage. The bipeds looked on in awe and confusion.
'That makes sense,' Twilight thought. 'We were awfully confused by them and their contraptions. It is only natural that they beas confused by us as we are of them.'
To Twilight's surprise, Princess Celestia herself climbed out of the carriage, and she bore saddlebags, as did the two other scholarly ponies that accompanied her. She fought back the desire to rush up to Celestia to greet her, as this was far too important to be flighty now. The guards ponies brandished their spears and made the other half of the perimeter that the bipeds enforced.
In complete silence, the delegates of both races marched towards each other. They met in the middle, in a sort of no-man's-land, where only the sagebrush and wild grass were. In complete silence, they bowed towards each other, mutually signalling to the other that they were here peacefully. They also silently offered up gifts to the other, like trinkets, tomes, and strange alien devices. After this was done, they bowed to each other again, and they parted ways, each obviously intending to fuss and read over the things that were just traded.
The exchange had gone smoothly, and Twilight let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. As relief.washed over her, even now Twilight suspected that contact with this race had only just begun.
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."
