The Misunderstanding Princess
Everyone on the bridge was ecstatic! They had found another planet that supported life! Everyone onboard was anxious to find out what life this planet may have held. The fleet had come across some very strange organisms in their time of intergalactic exploration; they wouldn’t be surprised if this one was inhabited by weird tentacle monsters that fed off of bacteria. They weren’t conquering planets; they hadn’t had to fight even once. The large cannons on the ships were simply for destroying any stray asteroids that might come into a collision course with their ships. They were pretty big and hard to miss after all.
They had already sent probes down to the surface to try and see what creatures they were dealing with here. They had found no sentient creatures as far as they could tell, but the animals there were almost exact replicas of the animals on their home planet: Earth. Everyone had started to spread irrational rumours of the planet being a replica of Earth itself. However, this was just people jumping to conclusions, there weren’t any islands that resembled anything on Earth so the countries were not in the same place (if there even were countries).
There were at least 50 ships in the fleet, each with its own commander and crew, around 2 million people in total, and supplies to last each ship around 40 years. Each fleet would travel around the galaxies in close proximity to the Milky Way and find new planets to either colonise or trade with depending whether or not there were intelligent creatures on it. Sometimes it has been complicated, for example, some of the planets don’t have a currency.
The commander of the flagship had finally given the order of touching down on the planet’s surface, much to the crew’s delight. Every time, the crew would always be thrilled about finding a new planet and meeting new species. Each time they discovered a new planet, they would only send 30 ships down and leave the other 20 up in orbit.
Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface:
Celestia had seen the strange metal orbs drop down from the sky, she had wondered on their purpose; Luna hadn’t alerted anyone to a metal asteroid shower. She immediately saw them as some sort of recon mechanism as soon as the huge lumbering metal ships had entered the orbit of the planet. She (being the protective ruler she is) decided to not let these ships land lest the race that inhabits them wishes to conquer them. That is all foreigners seemed to want to do anyway. Any other race that had been fully accepted into Equestria would burn their villages and raid them. She had stopped accepting other races into Equestria for this reason and so harmony could remain dominant over chaos. She had gathered catapults, unicorns powerful enough to blast things out of the sky and any flying creature ready to take up arms to protect their beautiful country.
They had all gathered near the estimated landing zone and were preparing to do their part for Equestria. The area was a large grassy field with several large lakes surrounding it. ‘It is such a shame that this beautiful area would soon turn into a bloodbath’ Celestia thought.
Soon enough, the great metal machines emerged from above the clouds. All of the catapults, readied.
Celestia thoroughly observed the metal ships. She saw huge weapons on the sides. They were here to conquer after all. She watched as they began to descend into range, she had assumed that they didn’t shoot yet due to the low visibility the clouds provided. She had gotten the pegasi to clot up the sky with thick clouds so that the ships would have to descend into range of the catapults as well as be able to see. ‘Success’ she thought.
At last, the ships had gotten into range of the catapults and she ordered them to fire. Great balls of fire and sharp shards of magic hit the ships with devastating effect, she could see a small blue flash on each ship surrounding the hit before the area exploded. Pegasi charged into them and kick the glass and other weak points. The ships did not fire back for at least five minutes. When they did fire back, the projectiles were huge metal balls the size of a house. It was devastating. The huge balls were landing on at least 20 ponies per round, and each pony unfortunate enough to be hit was crushed into a small, bloody pulp.
After half an hour, 30 ships had fallen from the sky and the fighting had stopped. Some of the would-be-conquerors were left lying either dead or very seriously broken on the ground. Some had survived the fall because their ships were either close to the ground when they had fallen/jumped out or they had fallen in one of the nearby lakes. Celestia ordered the soldiers to collect all of the survivors. She didn’t say what to do with them, just to collect them.
While watching the Royal Guard round up the strange bipeds, she walked up to them, deciding that it would be interesting to hear what it had to say for itself. She came across one at last that had the strength to talk and spoke to it, all the others were either to burnt, impaled, broken or were simply unconscious.
“So you thought you could just walk here and take over this beautiful land with no opposition? You thought we would back down to you and give up? You thought wrong! Just what does your kind have to say for yourself?” The creature immediately looked up to her in confusion, it clearly though her a foal.
“Don’t act as if you had innocent intentions! Every other race that has tried to enter Equestria in large groups tried to overcome us. What could possibly make you any different to them, huh?” Now it looked confused and irritated. It managed to speak in a wheezy, yet annoyed voice.
“You mean to tell me *cough*... to tell me that... you killed thousands because you... *cough*... you thought we were here to... to conquer you?”
“What other intention would you possibly have?”
“Knowledge! *Cough* Peace and knowledge. We have... we have travelled across the stars making peace and... *cough*... peace and trade, that is all.” Celestia seemed to be considering this, but she was still buying none of it.
“Liar! There cannot possibly be as many as at least 5 other living planets in the galaxy! Plus, it would take years to travel the stars if you cannot travel at light speed. From what I have seen, you cannot do that.”
“But we *cough*... we can! And we haven’t just travelled through our galaxy. *Cough* We travel many galaxies and have encountered at least... at least 300 other intelligent life forms. You cannot simply assume that we would come here for war! What possible *Cough*... what possible reasons could we want to conquer this world for?”
“I don’t know... Greed perhaps and jealousy... Maybe even just a need to expand your borders in space. You could have many reasons.” She knew the reasons, she just couldn’t fully explain them.
“For a start... our race is past greed, we just trade with other races. We haven’t had to fight once!”
“Then why do you have such destructive weapons?”
“In case... *cough*... in case asteroids threaten to hit our ships!”
“I... I see.” She saw that this was a plausible reason.
“Also... we have a home planet that looks similar to this in the country side, and we only colonise planets uninhabited by intelligent life.” She was speechless by how quickly this creature had made up a whole load of excuses for being innocent. She was refusing to believe that such aggressive creatures came here to make peace. She could see why this creature was angry, but she just wasn’t seeing how it could have good intentions.
“It doesn’t matter anyway, because *cough*... because we called the rest of the fleet to fire down on this area from orbit. The cannons have probably already been shot and the shots should *cough*... should impact any second now.” The creature chuckled slightly after it stopped speaking, but Celestia was suddenly in panic. If those projectiles had caused such a quake in the ground from being shot from about a mile in the sky, who knew what one could do from orbit?
As if on triggered by her thoughts, a loud earth quaking impact hit the ground somewhere outside. The shockwave was felt hard enough for about 300 yards around to cause ponies to be knocked off of their feet. Cracks were beginning to show and the creature spoke again.
“You know... you should feel lucky. You are the first organisms we have had to use this on. Enjoy.” And with that, he laid his head down waiting probably to die from a round landing on him. Celestia wasn’t sure whether his words were true, but what she did know is that she had probably kick started a whole galaxy of beings to turn on Equestria. Oh Celestia you silly Princess you!
