The Sky Whispers

It is one thousand years before the events of Friendship is Magic in a time before Princess Celestia or Princess Luna. Distrust and hatred mark the relationship between the three equine races: the earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn. Their animosity eventually escalates into an all-consuming battle royal known as the Great Equestrian War.

Though the result is inconclusive, earth ponies grow stronger than their winged or magical brethren in the ensuing decades.  A new golden age of industrialization dawns as earth pony scientists and engineers push the limits of technology. Earth pony cities rapidly expand into colossal architectural marvels, teeming with ponies in numbers once thought unattainable. Eventually, earth ponies match the magical machinations of the unicorn, and even challenging the pegasus’s dominance of the skies.

Fearing for their very survival, the unicorns and pegasi forge an uneasy alliance, and preemptively attack the earth ponies before their technological advances become insurmountable. So begins the 2nd Equestrian War; it is a bloodbath that consumes over a fifth of Equestria’s population. Though the unicorn and pegasus make significant gains in the early years, it is eventually the earth pony's sheer industrial might that turns the tide. Their great factories produce weapons and munitions in titanic magnitude, supplying a seemingly inexhaustible army that floods across Equestria.

Now in the war’s sixth year, the once great empires of the unicorn and pegasus are mere shadows of their former glory. Much of their territory is lost to the earth ponies, and only isolated pockets of their empires remain. With the outcome of the war now certain, age old rivalries among the earth pony nations begin to resurface. The Weimare Republic, the Rolling Hills Federation, and the Dahlia Protectorate, all vie for dominance in post war Equestria.

The final months of the 2nd Equestrian War degenerates into a mad land grab for whatever bit of resources the earth pony nations can secure before the inevitable civil war.