Countless equine eyes widened in shock at the entrance of five tall bipedal creatures into the ballroom. Each one was colored black but had markings on them, some of them would appear vulgar in human culture but the ponies had no idea what to make of them. The heads appeared amber-colored to the ponies while they each carried large rectangular boxes with the business end pointed at the guests.

Rainbow stood in front of the gathered crowd on one side of the room and spread her wings to their full span in a protective display. She hoped that this would keep the crowd from panicking further. She noticed that Spitfire and the other Wonderbolts were doing the same thing to form a protective line between the guests and the invaders. Rainbow was glad that they didn’t try to attack them because she had a feeling that if they charged in then Equestria would have to train a whole new team of Wonderbolts in the future.

Luna and Celestia recognized the weapons being wielded by the bipedal creatures and had their horns lit and ready for a fight. “What are you doing here?” Celestia demanded.

It was the one in the center of the five who answered her. “Well, our orders were to scout you animals and find out what we needed to know before we invaded but then ah figured we didn’t need to since you don’t look nearly as dangerous as our boss says. We’re just gonna take a few of you with us as test subjects.”

Applejack felt disgusted by the way they talked as it sounded similar to her accent which infuriated her. However, she managed to keep it together and not do or say anything for the time being.

“Test subjects? What do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“Why should we explain ourselves to a bunch of savage animals? Sure you can talk like us and you built civilization, but that don’t mean you’re ready to take on the likes of us who have real weapons instead of your primitive swords and spears.”

“I’ll show you what a sword can do!” one foolish pegasus guard shouted as he tried to attack one of the creatures by slashing his legs only for the blade to bounce off. The marine countered by kicking the guard and making a bloody dent in the wall.

“Cute. Anyone else wanna try playin’ hero?” the offending marine asked.

“You will not harm another one of my little ponies, you fiend!” Celestia growled.

“Ya ain’t in any position to be makin’ demands, pony,” the lead marine informed.

Suddenly the lead marine was struck by a beam of amber magic that came from a stocky white unicorn stallion with an amber mane and tail. The blast sent the marine stumbling back a little but quickly regained his balance. “You will leave this place or we will force you to leave!” Blueblood barked.

One of the marines proceeded to open fire on the stallion who raised a shield to block the fire only for the first few rounds to shatter it and the rest to graze his body or go through one of his forelegs. Blueblood screamed in agony as the marine readied another burst. However, this burst was completely blocked by Luna’s shield.

“It seems that the improvements I made to my shield spell proved effective,” Luna noted while breathing a sigh of relief.

“Fine then, let’s see how you handle a whole clip!” The attacking marine then prepared to set his rifle to fully automatic but never had the chance to fire as the sound of a small amount of glass shattering was heard throughout the ballroom. The ponies looked around until they saw the attacking marine had a hole where his head would be. The marine then dropped his weapon and fell onto his back. When the other marines noticed the hole, they started looking around and pointing their rifles all over the room, looking for something.

“Could our intel be wrong? Could they be capable of training Ghosts?” one of the marines asked.

Twilight looked at the group in confusion. “What are you talking about? There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Shut up ya filthy farm animal!” another of the marines barked and pointed his weapon at the unicorn which made Twilight wince and back away.

“I was warned of your coming, pirate,” Celestia said. “I will give you one chance to leave Canterlot and never return or we will subdue you.”

“You don’t scare us, pony, Just because you’re the biggest in the room don’t make you a threat to us.” The four then pointed their rifles at Luna. “Though ah wonder how well her shield can stand against all of us firin’ at it.”

“Luna!” Celestia shouted just before the four marines opened fire on her. Luna raised her strongest shield to try to block the shots but she wasn’t sure it would hold. Her head roared in pain as she felt the shield cracking in multiple places and was soon on the verge of shattering while the enemies didn’t look like they were letting up. She looked away and raised a hoof to brace for the inevitable storm of bullets to pierce her body.

However, the impact never came.

Luna braced for a few more moments before she realized that something had stopped the attack. When she looked she saw a familiar blue rabbit standing before her with a glowing paw in the air and a number of bullets frozen in midair.

Sophia had enough of the marines demonstrating their firepower to the ponies and decided that it was time to intervene. “Do you ponies see the threat these pirates pose? They are a threat to your very way of life!”

As the ponies were talking to each other over what they saw, one of the marines heard the voice of the rabbit and suddenly it clicked for him. This realization came with a sense of growing fear. “Uhh, guys, that voice sounds familiar, one that ah’d rather not be on the wrong side of.”

“What are you blabbering about?” another marine asked.

“Ah think she’s the Archon, sir.”

“She don’t look like no goddamn Protoss ya idjit.”

“No ah mean the Archon, the Hierarch of the Starcraft Federation!”

“Is your brain high on Stim Packs? The Archon looks like a humanoid…blue…rabbit…oh shit!”

“Finally recognize me? I swear those Stim Packs destroy your brain cells,” Sophia quipped.

“Ah’m outta here!” one of the marines attempted to flee.

“Nova, hamstring him!” Sophia called out. A moment later two shots rang out and the fleeing marine fell to the floor on his face and two large holes going all the way through his leg armor.

Now the remaining three marines were certain that there was a Ghost lurking in the room. And when Sophia called Nova’s name they were certain that they were screwed. They had heard the tales of Nova Terra as one of the most skilled Ghosts out there.

Now that the marines were fully panicked, they decided to see how many lives they could take before they went down so they began aiming at random ponies. However, Sophia called for Tosh and the next instant the marines were rolling on the floor clutching at their helmets as a powerful psionic blast assaulted their minds and temporarily disabled their senses. They couldn’t hear their own pained screams but the ponies could and their ears drooped as they heard it.

Seeing as they dropped their weapons as well, Starlight took this chance to grab the rifles in her telekinesis. Remembering what Sophia told her about the weapons, she pointed the business ends at the incapacitated marines, glad that the trigger wasn’t hard to pull if they decided to try something stupid.

By the time their senses returned, the marines saw Sophia standing before them with her arms crossed. “Are you done with your episode? If you are, you should know that it’s over for you. Unicorn guards, I hope you have decent binding spells.”

“I do,” came a voice that was familiar to Twilight. Shining Armor, who had been protecting Celestia since a minute after the incident began, approached the marines and lit his horn to prepare a binding spell.

“Hang on, let’s get them out of the armor first,” Sophia interrupted. This was followed by her paws glowing blue before what appeared to be small swords made of pure energy appeared just beyond the tips of her paws. “Stand back.” She then proceeded to use the energy blades to cut through their armor like it was soft butter, taking care not to harm the creature inside the armor. With surgical precision, she tore apart the armors one by one until the humans were exposed to the world. Thankfully they still wore pants.

“What are they?” Starlight asked. “They look like they barely have any hair, save what's on their heads, chests, arms and legs. They look similar to minotaurs.”

“They’re called humans,” Sophia explained. “They’re a race of hairless apes who have intelligence comparable to ponies, though these rank and file soldiers usually aren’t very bright.”

Once they were without their armor, the four humans were bound by magic and taken away.

“What the hay was that?” Rainbow asked, approaching the rabbit while feeling certain that the threat was neutralized. The other Wonderbolts still kept the crowd at bay in case of a new development. “How did you make those cool lightning swords appear like that?”

“One of my many abilities. I’ll reveal more of them as they become necessary. For now, we need to tend to the injured.”

“I’ll have one of my guards send for a couple of stretchers to bring them to the hospital,” Celestia offered. This prompted one of the pegasus guards to get moving.”

“I’ll collect the armor and weapons so that you ponies can analyze them later,” Sophia offered before levitating the armor fragments and weapons and stashing them into a pocket dimension.

With that done, it was time to address the onlookers. “Alright, unless you are still in a partying mood, we can have a ‘Q and A’ session in the throne room. However, the press are to remain outside so that the wrong information doesn’t leak.”

“Agreed,” Celestia declared. This put any protests to rest.

Sophia then escorted the ponies, including the nobles and other partygoers, to the throne room where the princesses took their places in their official seats and Sophia stood before the crowd of nobles while a few spells and psionic barriers prevented outsiders from eavesdropping. “First of all, my name is Sophia and yes I am a talking rabbit. You can process that later. Now that the unimportant matters are out of the way, we can begin.”

The first question came from a white unicorn stallion with an azure mane and wearing a monocle along with his tuxedo. “First, I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Sophia. My name is Fancy Pants. I would like to open with the question on everyone’s minds. What were those creatures?”

Sophia smiled as she considered that there could be some intelligent nobles after all. “Those creatures are called humans. They are not from this world but are capable of traveling the stars on vessels called starships. They hail from distant worlds far from this one. They are also referred to as Terrans. The ones who attacked you are a part of an army of intergalactic pirates who seek to plunder a world’s resources.”

“So they’re here to plunder our world?” another noble asked.

“That would be correct. Your world possesses resources that have never been discovered before. Now that your world has been discovered, there will be those who will try to take it for themselves, whether it’s these pirates or other enemies beyond this world.”

“Are you going to protect us from them?”

“I have no intention of settling on your world indefinitely and unless you learn how to protect yourselves against technologically superior opponents, they will probably succeed once I’m gone.”

The crowd erupted into chatter among themselves for a couple of minutes before the chatter died down and another noble spoke up, “Is there any way we can convince you to stay and protect us?”

Sophia rolled her eyes. She had no idea how Equestria lasted this long when morons held the majority of the nation’s wealth. “As you have seen, their weapons can punch through a unicorn’s shield easily. Princess Luna’s shield lasted longer because she improved upon the spell after she was given knowledge of their weapons’ firepower beforehoof. However that won’t be enough.

“What you saw in the ballroom was only a few of their lowest ranked soldiers. Private ranks, all of them. The only reason one of them seemed to do the talking was because he had slightly more intelligence than his idiotic comrades. I suspect that they broke away from their commanding officer and tried to attack the ballroom thinking they were invincible. The fact that I had to intervene proves how you ponies are not ready to fight this enemy as you are now.”

“What about the heroes who defeated the monster at the Summer Sun Celebration? Maybe they might have a way to get rid of them?”

Sophia took a deep breath as she did her best to explain why their methods were ineffective. “These pirates are invaders from other worlds. This isn’t a problem that magic alone will solve. They aren’t magically corrupted, they are greedy pirates who view you as a race of inferior savages. And sorry to burst your bubble, but compared to what they have in their arsenal, your weaponry is that of savages.”

The room then erupted into angry shouting at Sophia as they took her comment as an insult. However, Celestia bellowed out in her Royal Canterlot Voice for everyone to be silent, allowing Sophia to continue. “Even if you enchanted your blades to cut through their armor, will you get close enough to kill one of two of them before a hailstorm of bullets turn you into a bloody pulp? Even if you attacked them from range with unicorn magic, could they not equip themselves with reflective armor to send your attacks elsewhere? Even if you attacked from the air with your pegasi, could they not use their own ships to blast you out of the sky with their explosive ordinances? The answer to these questions is ‘yes’.

“So what must be done for us to bring an end to their threat?” Fancy Pants asked.

“Finally, the important question has been asked,” Sophia dramatically called out. “In order to meet their technological superiority, you must advance your military technology by leaps and bounds before they decide to send everything they have against you. You must embrace technology!”

“Embrace technology? Are you mad?” one noble cried. “The whole reason we had stopped advancing our technology was because the ancient tyrant Discord had plotted to turn it against us.”

“How so?”

“According to what had been passed down, Discord had shown us a world where we were hooked up to pods and had our minds placed into a fake world while the machines we made used our magic to power them.”

Sophia processed what the noble said and her thoughts turned to an old movie she once saw. Given how ponykind had likely never known the concept of a fictional movie it did seem possible that they ended up getting spooked by a movie and mistook it as a vision of the future. She facepawed. “Seriously? Please tell me you’re joking.”

“We’re serious, He used this strange box that displayed visions over a flat surface where he explained that this was the future.”

One facepaw wasn’t enough. Sophia repeatedly bashed her face into the floor until it cracked. “This kingdom is an idiocracy…” she thought.

Ingram also facehooved, “These ponies became technophobic over a ponified edition of ‘The Matrix’? Bloody hell…”

“This Discord and I are going to have words about this…” Sophia mumbled while her face was still planted in the floor. She then returned to a standing position and took a deep breath to calm herself. “This session is over. Return to your homes. We will proceed to debunk your technological paranoia at another time.”

With that, the enchantments and barrier were removed. The ponies filed out, leaving the princesses, Twilight and her friends as well as Sophia and Ingram.

“I can’t believe a piece of media entertainment spooked ponykind into stagnation,” Sophia moaned. “They still have a long way to go before they’re ready to face Schezar’s pirates.”

“Modernizing this country will take much effort and we have very little time to do so,” Ingram added. “We must be vigilant to prevent him from expanding his territory further into the country.”

Suddenly, two equine figures appeared at Sophia’s left and right side, startling the other ponies in the room. “Lady Sophia, are you alright?” Nova asked.

“I’m fine, I just received an unexpected shot of idiocy to my brain. I will need to check later to make sure I didn’t lose any brain cells over this.”

“I certainly got a kick out of it,” Tosh laughed.

Sophia turned to the crow perched on Luna’s mane. “Umbra, can you confirm this?”

Umbra flew off of Luna’s back, landed on the floor and transformed into her harpy form, stunning Twilight’s group and giving said mare and Starlight a ton of questions that flowed through their minds at that time.

Channeling her magic, Umbra’s feathers turned bronze and her eyes glowed blue. She stayed silent for a few minutes while the ponies watched. Soon the feathers returned to their normal black color. “This Discord seems to have a sick sense of humor. Apparently he forced the ponies of the past to be a part of his ‘movie night’ and made them watch a movie about machines taking over the world while giving his own narration to make it more impactful. Apparently the ponies took it too seriously and started fearing technology.”

“Why did your feathers turn bronze?” Starlight asked.

“It’s a side effect of accessing my temporal magic,” Umbra explained. “Luna should know about how my dream magic turns my feathers green.”

Luna nodded, “It’s true. I asked her about it and she explained how certain magic she has access to can alter the color of her plumage temporarily.”

With that matter settled, the room was quiet until Rainbow broke the silence. “So, what now?”

“Ooh, I know! Who wants donuts?” Pinkie offered. Welcoming the distraction, the group decided to end the discussion there while Celestia teleported everycreature to Donut Joe’s.

Celestia was especially glad for the distraction because tomorrow was going to be a headache for her as she would have to hold a press conference to address tonight’s events and begin the slow process of moving Equestria to a wartime status.

Author's Note

I know that this chapter is late. I've been distracted by other things.

Yes, I know that the reason for their technophobia seems silly, but imagine Earth as it was 1000 years ago. Could you imagine how you would react if you watched 'The Matrix' with an 11th century mentality?