Fallout Equestria: Liberation

Prologue: Brave New Old World

War…War never changes.

200 years ago, our forefathers and mothers lived in a land of abundance and selflessness. Tales of adventures and glad tidings persisted well into the start of an industrial revolution. An age of technological marvels brought a significant change to ponies. Yet, as it often is, with considerable change comes strife. The technology required power, and the pony nation of Equestria soon exhausted its supply of coal. So they turned to the country across the Celestial Sea for coal. But, unfortunately, the Zebra Empire was an utterly foreign entity to the ponies of Equestria. A nation built through conquest and subjugation of its own kind. Born out of fear for Nightmare Moon, who darkened the sky and brought famine to the Zebra tribes. From these tribes, a hero rose to unite them under one banner. He promised to end the night, but the night ended seemingly on its own, and a nation raised for War was left wanting. The Empire born thereafter looked towards its neighboring pony nation with suspicion. Yet, their own need for Gems to advance their own technology forced them to cooperate.

The two nations exchanged gems for coal, and both creatures felt the tension of generations ebb away for a time. But fear is not so quickly forgotten, and greed could only be kept in check for so long. Especially when population and resources tipped in opposite directions. Tensions left ignored returned, uncertainty spread, fear replaced logic, and neighbors turned against neighbors. Accidents were perceived as aggression; religious rhetoric brought comfort and pointed a hoof at an enemy to direct the blame too. In the end, conflict was inevitable as diplomacy broke down, and both sides took up arms.

War consumed everypony and everything; them or us became a chant for the masses. Equestria, once led by the glowing sun, gave way to the moon. Fears from an age long ago became realized. The Zebras took Flankorage, and Equestria built great machines of War to beat the striped menace. The Zebras were pushed back, and Equestria knocked at the palace doors of Ceasar himself. But it was all for naught; on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the end happened. Both sides unleashed their greatest weapons. Megaspell fire scorched the land; magical gas corrupted all it touched, and in two hours of sound and fury, the world became silent.

But it was not the end as everypony thought; it was simply the bloody prologue to the first chapter of pony history. From the ashes arose a new society, one that fought and struggled but never trusted. Until a plucky pony from an underground bunker known as a stable, one of many built during the Great War, emerged and changed everypony for the better. At least so they had hoped, as she united all she could to end a war for the soul of the wasteland.

The settlements in northeast Equestria banded together. Then, after two decades of relative peace and the promise of a brighter future, old-world problems rose again. The New Canterlot Republic sent scouts west, north, and south, searching for wealth and resources for their fledgling nation. Uncaring or simply ravenous for land and resources, the NCR swallowed communities whole. Tribes were “civilized,” and the raider gangs were pushed back to Fillydelphia. This wanton expansion often brought the NCR into conflict with its ally, the Applejack’s Rangers. The Rangers took the old world values of freedom and defenders of the downtrodden through their previous Elder Steelhooves. Because of these conflicting ideas, the Rangers would retreat into Manehattan to their base on Stable 29, straining their relations with the NCR.

This is where I was born, in stable 29, where my first days as a Knight of the order would put me in the same place as that plucky pony from Stable 2. If only I knew the blood and loss that went into being a hero, I would have listened to my mother and just become a scribe with my nose in computer terminals and manuals. But, instead, I came to learn that War? War never changes.