Twilight was in her lab, as per the norm, mucking about. As Equestira finally entered the technological era, radios have become more and more popular. And, knowing the lavender mare, she had to go and super-size the effect.
About a month ago, Twilight had set up a dish on her roof to amplify signals from deep space, in hopes of contacting, or at least discovering extraequuesian life forms. It had taken over two weeks to tune it just right, but she managed to find one.
As the rest of her friends filed into her castle (knowing that Spike was already there, the ones who walked in were Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Princesses Luna, Celestia, and Cadance, as well as her older brother, Shining Armor), she got into lecture mode.
“I have made an amazing discovery, everypony!” she told everyone as they sat down around the overly large radio.
“We know that Twiley, what is it?” Shining said, nervous about what it was. When you have Twilight as a little sister, and she says those words, you tend to worry.
“I was working on a method to increase the range of the average radio antenna, when I found this.” She placed a recording gem on to a small speaker.
“All hands man your battle stations! The inquisition is approaching! All civilians are ordered to take shelter until further notice!” The message repeated on a loop.
The message was faint and full of static, but the message was clearly not from Equuis, the accent was not of this planet.
“I caught this by chance as I was scanning over the Bellerophon constellation, an-” she was quickly cut off by Princess Luna.
“There is nothing out there. The nearest object to the Bellerophon constellation is over 1000 light years away from us! That signal would have to have been traveling for over 1000 years.”
“I know,” Twilight remarked “What we hear was said long ago and those who broadcast this are long gone.” she stated solemnly.
An automatic moment of silence was shared between the 11 in the room. It was somber knowing that the only source of information about alien life was long gone, and that what they did have was the remains of what was possibly a dead race.
The silence however, was broken by the exuberant pink embodiment of caffeine.
“Wellarewegonnajustsithereandmopeorarewegonnalistentosomealiens!?” The shouted question shocked those out of the moment of quiet reflection and back to reality.
“I think that's a great idea. Twilight, if you would?” Princess Celestia asked.
Without another word, twilight flicked on the switch.
What came out of the speaker was not the original species, with their strange alien accent. What was said was in plain Equestrian for all to here.
“We have arrived, and it is now that we preform our charge.” The ponies and drake exchanged confused glances with each other.
“In fielty to the God-Emperor (our undying lord) and by the grace of the Golden Throne, I declare Extermanatus upon the Imperial world of Typhon Primaris.” The ponies were confused, what was this 'God-Emperor' and what was the 'Golden Throne'? And gathered from what was said, the ponies could tell that, 'Extermanatus', was not a good thing for the people of Typhon Primaris.
“I hereby sigh the death warrant of an entire world,” This stunned the entire room. What had they tuned into and who was so evil as to destroy an entire world? “and consign a million soul to Oblivion” Fluttershy at this point had already hidden underneath the wings of Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Pinkie's hair had gone flat, and Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow, Luna, Celestia, and Cadance all had tears in their eyes. Shining Armor on the other hand was silently seething at the audacity that this 'God-Emperor' had to destroy an entire planet filled with innocent creatures.
“May Imperial justice account in all balance. The Emperor protects.” The sound of thunderbolts and explosions in the background became more pronounced. The ponies listened in horror as an entire world was in the process of being destroyed.
With one almighty crash, the frequency Twilight was so excited about discovering was reduced to mere static.
Silence reigned for nearly a half hour, the only sounds was that of the radio static and the sound of 11 tortured souls weeping for the loss of an entire planet.
As they began to calm down, Celestia stood up, and with a grim, tear-streaked face said the eight words that would never be forgotten by any of those in the room. “Shining Armor, Cadance, Twilight, Luna, Prepare for war.”
It had been over three hundred years since the transmission was heard. In those three hundred years, almost all of the technological revolution had been dedicated to perfecting magic assisted space flight, and wartime technology. The petty feuds between the species of the world here put to an end when it was discovered why Equestria had declared war on aliens of all things.
Griffons and the hippogriffs had ended the petty feuds and began a long term peace in order to help with the efforts and eventually developed the technology to move at faster than light speeds utilizing the dark energy of the universe (or as the ponies called it “magic”).
The minotaurs had helped develop the weapons that could take out entire cities with one push of a button. It took a lot of convincing to get them to share the knowledge of the devices, but the minotaurs relented. Again, the bombs were just a rapid energy converter set to dark energy.
Even the changelings helped out, after making peace with Equestria. They designed and built the ships to house all of these technological marvels. Not only were they massive ships that had to be assembled piece by piece in space, but they were amazingly agile.
The zebras used their own brand of magic to shield the ships from any incoming attacks. It used an impervious spell that while darker in nature than most spells, did it’s job perfectly. Most things simply phased through the ship and its crew.
It was the ponies, however, that did perhaps the most marvelous thing of all.
Twilight had been listening in on an adjacent radio signal from that area and managed to pick up snippets of conversations by the inquisition. What she mainly focused on was something called ‘Warp Energy’. It was a weaker form of magic that could be used by almost anyone. It took training, but she had managed to train an entire contingent of pegasi and earth ponies how to use the stuff.
What was really impressive was that normal magic users and magically imbued objects negated the effect of Warp Energy.
In a mere three hundred years, Equuis had a massive army of ponies, griffons, hippogriffs, minotaurs, changelings, and a massive number of the finest golems created by Celestia and Luna.
It had taken over three hundred years to reach this point, but it had been worth it. Twilight looked away from the viewing screen in one of the smaller ships (they knew that being in the flag ship was too obvious) to the armored forms of Celestia and Luna, both in the sturdiest power armor ever created. Twilight was dressed much the same. Cadance was back on the planet, in case something happened.
“Shall we?” Twilight asked The Princesses.
“Let's do this.” Luna answered with an undertone of steel in her voice.
Twilight pressed the button that opened the wormholes used for FTL travel. Within seconds, they were a quarter of a galaxy away from home.
In front of them was the homeworld. The place where this evil originated. Terra. With a nod to the officer next to her, the ships began to get into formation.
Taking a shuddering breath, she advanced to the radio broadcaster that would send this message to every person on the planet. Twilight began the speech that had haunted her for years.
“We have arrived.”
