An Introspection of a Guardian
"What makes a hypocrite?"
"What in all the years that we have lived in this cosmos have we accomplished since we took up the guardianship of the races we serve?" the commander of the warship in the sky over the planet known to the local inhabitants as Equestria. He sat in his chair in a thoughtful expression as he gazed down upon the planet.
"I could remember the first time we came across this planet, twelve hundred and four years ago, after a sweep of the new territories we had gained after our war with the Terran Empire. The planet was blue, vibrant, and colorful with life; a bounty to beholden for sure. As per our protocol, we set up observation posts near the planet to gauge the local inhabitants as well as send stealth units to the surface of the planet itself. I was one of those stealth units under the Third Fleet, Expeditionary Corps," the captain of the small ship said leaning back as he looked at several monitors on display. A budding feeling rose into him as he remembered several details of his career.
"The planet's dominant species was a quadruped race that called themselves, 'Ponies.' There were three dominant forms of these creatures, regular, winged, and horned; Earth, Pegasus, and Unicorn ponies, respectively. Their system of government revolved around a constitutional diarchy with two main alpha ponies with features of all three races. Local governments stem from republic to tribal councils to total democracy. The race is a standard agrarian society, lightly populated for the land area the race resides in. Traces of technological development can be seen with the advent of train travel, light airship construction, steam power, just to name a few innovations we have seen come from them so far. Their military prowess though, seems to be behind for a Tier 6 species beginning their first forays into technological development, consisting of mere spears and bow and arrows. One curious anomaly is to noted, however. This species has been detected utilizing some form of energy manipulation to handle objects and even perform transmutation and teleportation of objects. Clearly, this is not something a Tier 6 civilization has access to; which, confused my survey team because what we were witnessing would class this race as a Tier 2 civilization. According to our ratings protocols, however, their ability of travel and martial prowess, used to determine the proper tier, ranks at a 6. There was no precedent set forth to account for abilities such as this.
We have also cataloged several major events. This log starts with the brief attempted coup of one 'Nightmare Moon' against her co-ruler ending in failure. This being was cleansed and neutralized by the world's champions before any lasting damage could be done. This was one of several major events catalogued over a five year period. Events include: A new country appearing from nowhere in their north pole, an occurrence of a massive insectoid species invasion, the rise of a god-like entity causing random fluctuations in the causality of reality; to name a few. This species seems to have quite the knack for being able to survive against all odds when a catastrophe is stacked against them. These horrors are averted thanks to what I have discerned as a group of heroines designated as the world's defenders. There are six Ponies that are equipped with crystalline necklaces of an unknown energy signature. These must be used together to produce a type of electromagnetic energy effect that sweeps over the target and renders the threat neutralized. Seemingly, this is without any lethal force on the part of the defenders at all.
I must admit that this planet had surpassed all of our expectations when we first took possession of the star system. Initially, we had come to this sector after Terran records had indicated this would be a prime star system for Klaorite, a mineral substance rare and valued for its use in warship and weapons construction. The system had been scanned and the mineral was indeed found. We assembled a mining fleet to begin operations and found that the planet with the highest concentration was found to have life. Noting that abnormality, we set up mining operations around the other planets where life was non-existent.
As we conducted our operations, however; a most curious event happened. A bright source of light, about the size of a small asteroid, was intercepted flashing in front of one of the mining vessels. We held back to see what would occur. Immediately a communique had opened up on our communications equipment with the blue alpha ruler. Initially we were in shock as we had protocols that prohibited contact or discovery by low altitude flying of craft in the range of their planet's atmosphere. As we were in shock and awe, the first thing we tried to do was even understand her, although initially we could not make out their language. Crude pictograph drawings had to be used until we could finalize a solution.
The blue alpha came to inquire as to our nature. Why are we here, what does our civilization want with them? Our protocols dictate not to engage in any negotiations or formal recognition of primitives. Per those directives we announced that we were Guardians, the new governors of this star system. We further explained that the system's planets were ours to do as we saw fit to use them. We further elaborated that in the event of contact with other intelligent life, these civilizations are rated on a tiered scale. If they ranked high enough, we would establish relations and prepare a formal treaty acknowledging the right of ownership of that star system belonging to that civilization. If they ranked low, as the Pony civilization had, then they were merely afforded the designation of a protected species and that any planets they inhabited would be declared off-limits wildlife preserves. Normally, contact with a primitive species is forbidden and is usually never an issue, but their inexplicable means of reaching us had surprised us more than we cared to admit.
Needless to say this did not bode well for a warm reception, but laws are laws. Their other ruler and their main champion, a lavender-colored winged female, wished to speak with the commander, which was myself at that time. For formality's sake and for good relations I did entertain their parley through our ship video equipment. I expressed my deepest regrets for the treatment of their race. I agreed with them that a loss was being occurred by the Guardians by not reaching out. The artifacts, history.... all of it was grand worth taking a closer look.
Yet...for all its worth, I had to turn down their offers for a more formal gathering. Guardian politics are...frustrating to more progressive members such as myself. We are a people who started out as little more than ants in our rough jungle and desert world. Our legacy, our race's lasting legacy was our sailing traditions. Our home planet had fierce winds that were used by early peoples to sail from tree city to tree city. Skill in flying a well-made vessel was highly praised. We valued aerial engineering to the point that we started to branch out into developing technology that would allow us to sail higher and higher. We also valued the mining profession as well, many rare minerals were found that were prized by kings and city chiefs alike. Democracy and tribal councils ruled early Guardians; intellectual pursuits were highly praised. Through these traits, we advanced our technology to the point of star-faring status. Every facet of our way of life reached its zenith in the days of the early star-faring age. We started performing long-range explorations into uncharted territory and finding other civilizations. We at first willingly traded and signed treaties with these new races. We, for a time, saw ourselves as stewards to bring others to the next step of development.
However, we soon started to regret interfering in the development of primitives once they started misusing the technology we gave them. One of these races soon turned into the Terran Empire, a race of humanoids that learned and advanced rather quickly, almost terribly so. They began to attack anything that stood in their way, taking star systems from both us and other primitives. We had to put them in their place, and after doing so, the Grand Guardian Council announced its tiered ranking system that was in use by the time we found the Pony race. The Terran threat had been neutralized for almost 200 standard years before this planet's discovery; and some progressives had started to lobby for more limited trade, but the prevailing council stuck to the original mandate of no formal contact or recognition.
These things aggrieve me so. As an officer of science, I so badly want to explore this new avenue we have been granted, especially in the wake of finding out that perhaps some of our early breakaway fleets had perhaps seeded this world in the first place. We found ruins through our scans that look remotely like early Guardian vessels and the signals emanating from the necklaces the heroines use seem more like early Guardian tech, though these findings are still inconclusive.
I will send a communique to my superior via light channel. Hopefully I can get an appeal with the Council."
Author's Note
This is my first story in a while. Pretty simple, nothing too special. Hope someone gets some kind of enjoyment out of it. I am not looking for critiques. This was mainly something I had in the "works-in-progress bin" for a few months.
Enjoy!
