//-------------------------------------------------------// Zenith -by kjack1111- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// 1 Nadir //-------------------------------------------------------// 1 Nadir Dear diary, It started around 10 years ago. Queen chrysalis was overthrown by her subordinates, and a new queen- "Queen Goldshard"- Was introduced to the throne. The changelings sent a official letter, halting hostile relations, and instead started to ignore equestria. We're not sure if this was bad or good, we just knew that the equestrians were relieved at the mail. After some time, We opened the boarders to tourists, under heavy supervision. This is when we started progressing scientifically, and eventually came up with the concept of assembly lines, which required large buildings. However, They produced large amounts of things, but they created pollution, which wasn't well-known at the time. After some time, we started running low on resources in their territory. We warred with our nearing tribes/groups and eventually unified the changeling race. We thought that we dodged a bullet. Then we started researching into more efficient digging processes, and also started to find ways of digging deeper. We started mining like mayhem. The real trouble started when Goldshard allowed our subjects to open their own factories, which caused a industrial boom. Factories could only be built by the monarchy until then, and that plus some reforms (Min wage, Work hour, Ect) Caused our empire to become a forced to be reckoned with, if only for the fact we had now severe pollution problems, which drove our power down. Despite Goldshard trying her best to stop air pollution, The eventual caught up to the empire, and the pollution started spreading across the planet. Acid rain formed, causing crops to drop significantly in their harvest rates. The acidity content rose in the soil, preventing new crops from being planted. Then the weather anomalies began to manifest. Despite being thought to be the Pegasus weather control system botching up, when it came out they were trying to reverse the issue, it was eventually found out pollution was increasing the suns heat. Celestia attempted to dim the sun to accommodate for this, but despite her hardest, she could not. This was only the beginning of the end, however. Despite the fact Goldshard was the source of the problem- Having caused the industrialization, and eventually the catastrophic boom, She was not blamed, for the capitalists directly responsible for the boom were blamed. Despite the worlds nations attempt to ban them from building factories in their land, it was useless in the end, because their country of origin- The changeling empire, made them so powerful, they could just simply bypass these laws. Goldshard obviously did not support this, and tried to remove the captialists. However, the capitalists were too powerful to stop, and eventually, they built foreign factories, which significantly worsened the problem. The worse was still yet to come. 3 years after the boom (5 years from today), Several nations declared independence from the old empires- namely, Grandiose Colombia from Equestria, The new changeling republic from the changeling empire, And the Iroquois republic, From the badlands. While the changeling empire had several skirmishes with the NCR, it didn't escalate into anything. The iroquois republic had several wars of conquest with its neighboring nations, winning them all save for the battle of the gangres- which they eventually won in a second round anyways. Grandiose Colombia, However, Had a complex so strong, they thought that the old empires were all that was wrong with the worsening world. 3 years after the boom (2 years from today), Grandiose Colombia declared war on the equestrian empire. The NCR was dragged in due to a honorable alliance (They didn't want to fight, and they made that perfectly clear to the changeling empire, So they went easy on them), And iroquis joined the war on Colombia's side, because they were in a desperate resource shortage. The new, Industrialist, Capitalist empires of new waged a bloody war with the old empires, which lasted for 6 months, When the colombian capital was sieged by the changelings, The damage from mortars, artillery, and bombs was too much for the planet to handle. The ice caps finally broke, And the mass-flooding began. Not to brag, but due to unfortuant circumstances, I was put in charge of the colombian initiative. Our first encouter around the badlands, We had to retreat from iroquois forces, The colombians met us in our rear. They had never seen our kind of warfare- Prong warfare- So They were easily beaten. The aftermath of the flood proved how terribly damaged this planet was, and equestria banded together and made several, massive, space-ships. (Space-flight was achieved years earlier, when the NCR seceded from The changeling empire.) After 1.5 years, the new, massive, ships, constructed in orbit, were complete, and now equestria is departing from the planet, towards a new planet, which they refuse to share the cords with, saying that we need to find our own world. I don't blame them. We created this disaster, and we should pay for it. However, the NCR is helping us find the planet, and we're currently building our own starships in pursuit of equestria. Bronzedust, Daughter of Goldshard, Queen of the changeling empire As the planet sped away, Rarity looked on. There were massive black streaks, mostly from clouds saturated with pollution. The sun was dim, And Rarity could see the greyish-green surface, and the last remanding city- New Selenium- A dim collection of low-powered, green, lights. She could also see the factory groups, pumping out pollution in visible plumes from orbit. She remembers from the surface, The ocean was a dingy grey-blue color, The grass slowly turning gray or yellow, depending on where she was, With a grey sky. It was also pleasantly cool, but she knew that wouldn't last long, as the planet kept heating up. As the planet sped away, She pitied the inhabitants of New Selenium, And wondered... Could there be a way to bring them all to the new world, in the future? People were flocking too the cold-sleep chambers, to survive the long journey to the star. The journey would take several million years to complete, So of course, If the inhabitants wanted to survive, They had to go into cold-sleep. The idea was to freeze the cells in your body, With a anti-freeze in your blood to allow you to survive, The result being able to live for almost billions of years, assuming you were in cold sleep for billions of years. To keep the ship running, 10-25 People would wake up from cold sleep for a year, Then they would enter into cold sleep, while another 10-25 would wake up, so on, so forth. The initial 10 crew would be, Rarity, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Applejack, And pinkie pie, Along with 4 auxiliary ponies, Derpy, Zecora, Trixie, And Shining, Would complete the 10 required to fly the ship through the galaxy, and avoid obstacles. Unfortunately, A programming error caused the cycle to shift every 2 years, resulting in the ship being unmared for 1 year in every cycle. This was okay in the short-term, Because the ship had automated point-defense systems, To defend against rouge asteroids. However, Because the program was locked in (Unable to edit the code) after launch to prevent sabotage, This would build-up overtime. The ship, during unmared cycles, Was initially okay, However, The colonists would eventually find them selfs over a world they were not trying to get to, at all... Discord was in his house, sipping tea. It was still hot, but not burning hot. He would normally go with chocolate milk, But he decided it was best to mourn the equestrian homeworld. How unfortunate they destroyed it, He thought to himself. When his sub-conscious manifested itself, as one of those little devil-angel things you see in cartoons. The subconscious spoke "Well isn't today a nice day?" Discord agreed. Saying, "While today is, Its another story on twilights homeworld. Did they ever name that place?" His subconscious spoke "While it dosn't matter anymore, Its completely and utterly destroyed. Thinking about it, You could probably take it over." Why, Indeed he could, But he needed to finish drinking his tea. "Thinking about it, The equestrians will have no one to play with them selfs! Why, Thats terrible!". He thought about it for several seconds, Before speaking to himself, "Well, Unless i re-directed a fleeing species to the same planet their going to. That would be delightful for them." He thought. Before quietly speaking to himself, "Lets hope Rainbows ego doesn't get in the way." With a snap of a finger, A wormhole appeared in front of some ships. Author's Note Its happening people. ITS HAPPENING :D. To clarify, the NCR IS a socialist republic, but its chill, so it didn't actively overthrow governments. Shameless POV change, Edited to fix. The story is told completely in bronzedust's perspective now. //-------------------------------------------------------// 2 Dawn //-------------------------------------------------------// 2 Dawn Log 1/26/0010 To be honest, I don't think any of us were expecting waking up from cold sleep only 10 years after departure. But there it was, staring us in the face. It wasn't our target planet, thats for sure. It had a massive equatorial continent, With a massive river coursing through the center. The river split off into 6 rivers, Three and the south and three in the north, Dividing the continent into six regions. Most of the regions are filled with farmland, Although there are very large icecaps, Which have more farmland underneath them. Due to the unknown specifications of reaching the area, several remote-controlled drones were sent out. Everything appeared fine, Until we saw that Luna's And Celestia's Colony ships disappeared, Whittling the fleet to just 4. Then, Surprisingly, Pinkies Penal-Colony ship (Housing several-million low-threat prisoners and the royal guard) suddenly had its habitation centrifuge break, For a completely unknown reason. Because the central core was spinning counter-clockwise, While the centrifuge was spinning clockwise, This caused a devastating inertia effect that caused the ship to completely disintegrate, resulting in the ship soon turning into a very large shrapnel cloud. Thankfully, Pinkie was on twilight's ship when it occurred. The main colonists are fine, But the penal colonists are all dead. I mean it is kinda obvious when you get thrown out in space without protection. The problem is, Almost more then half of our colonists were aboard Celestia's and Luna's ships, which means we went from 1 billion colonists to only 500 million. This is enough for several planet-falls, But we were originally going to found 12 cities after making planet-fall. Now we can only make 6. This is extremely concerning to command, and is considering abandoning colonization. Plus, There are unidentified ships in orbit. Signed, RD. "Hey, Jonathon, Are you seeing this on the Goldshine?" I asked through the radio. A gravitational anomaly appeared around berestia 3, Just when we were about to burn into a gravitational slingshot around alpha Centauri A. "Copy, Got a anon on sector 10-4, Looks alien in origin, Do you copy"? "Yep Jonathon i copy, Do we have enough Delta-V to burn out of here, over." The anomaly was rising from the horizion, And it looked similar to a black hole, but not quite, as the center was a bit colored, With what appeared to be a red-dwarf in the center. "Jonathon, Can you scan into the wormhole, I think we're getting confirmation that there appears to be a system over there, Copy." The gravitational lensing was growing bigger by the second, As we moved toward it. "Mhm Yep confirmation that there is indeed a planetary system over there, With a habitable planet." Everybody roared with excitement when the captain of the goldshine spoke those words. "However, The wormhole is on a retrograde orbit around our same exact orbit, So we gotta decide fast if we burn into a grav slingshot or take chances." Everybody went quiet, And after a quick vote was reached, It was decided that 5 of our 10 ships would depart to our original planet, while 5- The Mithril, The Goldshine, The Hindustan, The UTS, And the Korodai. 2 Were colony ships, 1 Was a radar ship, And the others were assault carriers- for defending against any aliens, as unlikely as that was. "Alright, Jonathon, Shirbi Al-Korbi, Verimont, Napole, Prepare to burn toward the anomaly at full speed." The engines turned on, Emitting a very deep, Orange, Glow, While our fleet zoomed on towards the anomaly, We got a message from the commander. "Good luck, Fleet beta. The bronzeglow here is reporting there appears to be other colony ships around orbit around the planet, most likely from a planet that shared our same fate. We estimate your chances are success are 50-90% If you get along, And well... If you don't, We're sure your chances are 0-10%. Sorry, No happy endings there. Whatever happens there... Godspeed, Fleet beta. Lets hope we meet someday." We flew out of comms range, The wormhole clearly visible now. It was a near uniform sphere, And looking through it, We could find only 1 planet. It has a very large equatorial continent, With 2 large ice-caps. Ice caps. Huh, Never thought i would see those. They're very white, i suppose. Back on earth, The icecaps melted and flooded the earth, Plus with all the methane trapped under the ice, Nobody in the last 2 generations even knew what snow was. Then, We saw 3 points of light, The goldshine confirming those are the ships, With a shrapnel cloud next to them. Looks like someone had a bad day. "10 Kilometers... 9 Kilometers... 8 Kilomet- 7 kilo- 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... BRACE FOR-" All went silent, as we traveled through the wormhole. The inside looked strange, The walls strangely pulsating, Near-White in their color. The planet was in full-view, And it looked like we were going to drop off very near to the alien colony ships. We braced for impact with full expectations of the worse... And we were silently dropped of within space-walk distance of the alien colony ships. Nothing strange, Nothing weird happened. The "Spark" Decoupled with its decent pods. These very large pods contained cities within them, Which would unfold when they made planet-fall upon the surface, And found the first equestrian colonies on the new world. Well, Not colony, But you get the idea. Six decent pods Decoupled in total, And burned into a suborbital trajectory. It was agreed that the elements of harmony would have their own part, Seeing as how the continent was divided into 6 area's. The pods slammed into the atmosphere at full force, compressing the air in front of them, Causing a pretty re-entry. Eventually, After a little negotiation with the controls, Twilight landed in her area first. Followed by Rarity, Pinkie, Apple, Rainbow, And Fluttershy. The pods, after a bit of negotiation with the controls once again, Opened up, Extended their skylines into the sky, And started automatically harvesting nearby water and food for sustenance, and the nuclear reactor (The only technology to be developed while in space, for now) Was turned on, resulting in a clean, modern city. Then the alien (human) ships appeared right next to the equestrian colony ships, And deployed their pods- Which were infact cluster-pods, Designed to split off after hitting the atmosphere and mass-colonize around a certain area. How else are you suppose to transplant almost 4 billion people onto another world? Once again, There were 6 cluster-pods, That burned into a area. Before they burned, They used sensor data from the goldshine to conclude there was enough land in the 6 area's to support each colony. When the cluster-pods separated during re-entry, The massive heat signature of the pods separating alerted the commanders of the 6 pony colonies, and when each stepped out... There seemed like millions of fiery orange streaks in the sky. "Jonathon, What colonies have made planetfall so far?" I asked, As the cities unfolded. 4 cities out of our 20 had landed within viewing distance, obscured by hills, so it was quite a sight to see. "Depends if you go by thorium reactor initiated, or dropped. If we're going by fusion reactor initiated, Congratulations, Your the only colony that has dropped and initiated so far. If we're going by landed, Then, The Iberian Franco-Saxon union, Hindustan, And Muslistan has landed. 2 colonies are yet to land, but will very shortly." "Jonathon, What alien colonies have been established?" I asked. I could clearly see a alien city over the capital, But the only thing i could see on its flag was a pale yellow. "Well, Most, If not all of them are established. They also have compatible radio, which means if your playing geopolitics, You share a border with a... Jesus Christ if I'm getting comms right they look like... Environmental pacifists?" By any standards i am NOT a pacifist, But i am a environmentalist. I think that i and the colony should get along. "Jonathon, Can you try to get a connection? I want to resolve any differences before it escalates, seeing as how i am also, a environmentalist." I really hoped that the other colonies would be peaceful, but until i could learn more about them, i had to be cautious. "Well, I can't appear to get a hold on their capital. I think something is jamming them, most likely poor reactor design. However, I did get a comms request by the IFAU." the Iberian Franko-Anglo union. The main superpower of the west. I think everybody agrees that everybody except America hates them. its a universal constant: Whenever a Spanish-french union occurs, everybody will hate them. "Alright. Route the messages. Can't wait to deal with their endless alliance requests." After a bit of static, the flag of the IFAU Appears, A man, no more then 30, With a incredibly thick Italian accent being the one i was talking to. "Amigoooooo! How is the american colony! must be going swell, because you landed around several geothermal deposits! Thank me later!" Dear god this guy was annoying, but i had to pull through with diplomacy. "Yes, We will definitely thank you later. Hows it like yon your side?" I embraced for the worse, because the IFAU has a habit of starting wars with everyone in their vicinity. "Well, The resident alien colony in our area has been growing restless, so we've decided to jam all alien colonies and try to starve them of data." That sentence broke my faith for European colonies. "You are jamming ALL Colonies? Why not just the one growing restless! THEY HAVN'T EVEN ATTACKED YOU YET! What is wrong with you? On the order of the american government, i order you to halt your jamming. Im trying to communicate with my resident alien colony and you are impeding my efforts." I waited for a response, Before he responded: "You are a american colony, not america. This infraction will be punished in due time." In a cold, Monotone voice before he cut communications. I sighed. The IFAU's threats rarely get enforced, but if they do, they usually do so with extreme impunity. I really hope he wasn't serious. I thought about how IFAU-Alien relations would go, before Jonathon interrupted me. "I've been able to establish communications with the alien colony. I could also hear the conversation. You handed their brains to them on a silver plate." I chuckled a bit before opening communications with the colony. I anticipated what would happen. Would i meet a militarist-but-peaceful colony? Would i meet a incredibly peaceful empire? Thoughts race'd through my head before a quiet, soft, female voice came through. "H... Hello?" Author's Note AHAHHAHA ITS BEGUN! IT HAS BEGUN! THE RIVALRYS BEGIN! HHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA