It's been a long time since we had a real leader. Celestia and Luna were the last princesses left, but what became of them no pony knows. Some say that they gave their lives fighting some unknown threat. Some say that they set out to find distant lands, and never returned. Some say they went out on their own terms, not wanting to see their friends die before them time after time.
We don't exactly know what happened anymore, thousands of years ago, but one thing is for sure.
They aren't coming back to save us now.
Let me explain how it all started.
After Celestia and Luna were gone, whatever the cause for that was, we were left leaderless. A family which was distantly related to the royal sisters claimed the throne, on basis that they were "family". I don't know if there is such a thing as royal blood, but if there is, they didn't have any of it.
The ponies of Equestria didn't object to this claim of the throne. After all, someone needed to rule. Might as well be the family related to the royal sisters.
Now what a surprise it was, when that family wasn't any good at ruling. They abused their positions to get special treatment, and they did what they pleased. After just three short months, the ponies of Equestria started protesting. It started with a small group of young foals, who had heard how bad the royal family was from their parents at home. Their parents did nothing about the problem, like most ponies of Equestria. The royal family had to know what was best, right?
But the foals didn't care about royalty, so they went to the palace, and started protesting. The ponies on the streets saw what they did, and joined them. They finally realized that they didn't have to just blindly do what the royals said. "Get down from that throne!" they chanted, "Let us choose who rules Equestria!"
Of course, the royal family wasn't too happy with this. The royal guard quickly beat down the protests, but the damage had already been done. The word of the protest had already spread, and protests sprouted up all over Equestria. Entire cities declared that the royal family didn't have any power over them anymore.
As fast as the "royal" family had risen to power, they fell down again. Their rule was no more.
This left another problem. There was, once again, no pony to rule over Equestria.
An emergency meeting was organised in Canterlot, a meeting to determine the next ruler of Equestria. To see if anypony had any bright ideas.
At this meeting about a hundred of the most influential ponies of Equestria came together to figure something out. It was then that Star Shine, a wise mare, suggested that they made a council, a council with twelve wise and influential ponies, four of each race, to rule over Equestria. The other ponies at the meeting agreed, knowing that now no pony could take advantage without the other eleven taking action.
The twelve would be determined through voting, making sure that not the wealthy, but the wise got to rule.
This council was named the "Tri-Star Council", after the mare who invented it.
The system worked, peace returned to Equestria, and everypony was more or less happy.
Years passed, hundreds of years passed, and slowly the original purpose of the voting was forgotten, and eventually there were only rich ponies in the council. They voted for each other, and made other ponies vote for themselves. In the end it was all about money.
The system didn't really work anymore. Well, it worked, but it wasn't the best system out there anymore. The rich weren't automatically good at ruling, you see? The relations with the surrounding countries slowly deteriorated, and eventually Equestria even had to start defending the borders. And that was just the beginning of the end.
Chapter 1 - Cirno is stupid.
There was a small house, surrounded by trees and bushes. It was a smithy, judging by all the stray pieces of metal and unfinished contraptions lying around.
A white earth pony with fire-red hair walked out of the small, hot smithy, and sat down on the grass, leaning against the wall. He had spent a day making power-cores for some company in Canterlot. He had no idea why they would need this many cores, but he didn't care either, so that was alright.
"Taking a break, eh?" said an elderly voice from within the smithy, "Who said you could take a break, eh?"
"I did," said the white stallion, "I finished my cores."
The voice in the smithy laughed. "Keh keh keh! I guess that's alright then. Rest away!"
The white stallion grinned. Old Henry always asked that question, and he always got the same answer back.
The stallion lay down on the grass. He wasn't going to take a long break, he told himself, just a few minutes. He closed his eyes.
Life had gotten interesting, hadn't it? First, some smart bugger far away found out that a certain metal, if used correctly, could convert movement into magic. How he found that out, no one knows. Smart people do weird stuff.
Then suddenly, whole Equestria jumped on that discovery, and now it's like it's always been here. Ponies cook their food with it, move around the country with it, illuminate their houses with it, etc. There is even a basic power network across most of Equestria! Who would've thought!
He certainly didn't. But now that it was here, he wasn't going to complain about it.
Day Break opened his eyes again. He'd better get back to work. He may have finished the cores, but there's always more to do. He got up, glanced at the trees across the smithy's door, and went inside again.
Later that day it was time to go home. Day Break cleaned up his workbench, and prepared to go home with Old Henry, his grandfather.
His parents lived in Fillydelphia, where they did something complicated with cores. Day wasn't completely sure what they did with 'em, but he was sure that he wasn't going to understand them.
He lived and worked with Old Henry. His parents had sent him here a long time ago, after he had gotten his cutiemark, a flame. He had found that he was pretty good at making and modifying cores. He made all sorts of new designs for cores, most of which didn't work as planned.
He did succeed in making his first machine that ran on cores. He wondered if he could make something, so he tried making a sword, just for fun.
Turns out, his design actually worked.
Day had made a magic sword, which burst into flames when you activated the custom-made core in the hilt.
He was pretty proud of it, and he stored it in his room. He never did anything with it, but sometimes he would pick it up in his mouth, and give it a few experimental swings.
He walked home with his gramps, and on the way home he remembered that he wanted to do some reading up on sword design. He wanted to make that sword the best fire-spewing sword there was.
"Hey, gramps, I'm going to stop by the library to read up on some stuff," Day Break said.
"Oh, sure, do what you want," Old Henry said, "I'll be at home drinking your tea. Keh keh keh!"
"No you won't!" Day said, walking into the library.
The library wasn't a place Day often visited, but when he did, he stayed for a long time.
He knew where to books about core-tech were, so he walked straight to row four. He took some books from the shelves, sat down, and began to read.
VERSION 2
It had been a long day at the smithy. Day Break, a white earth pony with spiky, fire-red hair, was tidying up his workbench, putting tools back in the drawers that they belonged in.
"Are you almost done?" said a voice from the other side of the room, "I wanna go home, you know."
Day Break looked up from his workbench. "Almost done!"
That voice came from his grandpa, Old Henry. Day had been living and working with him since he was just a little foal. His parents lived in Fillydelphia, doing something important, probably. Day hadn't heard from them in a long time.
They had sent Day to his grandpa to live and work there after he got his cutiemark, a flame.
