A long time ago, before Equestria had been founded by those historic ponies, Commander Hurricane, Princess Platinum, and Chancellor Puddinghead, ponies lived as peacefully as they do today. Until one day, when an imposter was discovered…
A simple farmer noticed one day that her husband was acting rather odd. When she went to the current king, King Cinnamon Wind, he sent one of the royal magicians back with her to determine the problem. The unicorn set to work the moment they arrived, and, during the investigation, discovered something that would change the future of the Old Kingdom, as it is now known. The pony wasn’t a pony at all. It was a creature with inky black carapace, insect-like wings, strange voids in its legs, and terrible fangs, venomous and needle-sharp. It was a creature that we know of today as a changeling.
The unicorn immediately captured it in a net of magic, and brought it before the king. The king, bewildered as to the nature of the creature, and unsure as to its capabilities and intentions, cautiously decided to deal with the creature in the simplest and safest way. He ordered it to be put to death. The magician performed the grisly deed by closing off an essential nerve to the brain, causing a quick and near painless death. Assuming that the matter had been resolved, they disposed of the corpse in the nearby forest. However, they were unaware as to the nature of changelings, and thus were unprepared for the creature returning for vengeance after its rebirth.(A brief explanation is required here, as little is known about changelings, and some information is required to make sense of this passage. Changelings do not reproduce in a “normal” way. When a changeling “dies,” its corpse lays dormant for a short time, usually within five to ten minutes. After this, the carapace cracks, and eventually a hole is ripped open in the lower torso. A small, infant changeling crawls out of the hole, and almost immediately goes into a short coma. During this time, the newborn grows to its adult state very rapidly, and wakes up, fully grown, less than five minutes later. After that, the changeling’s previous body is abandoned, and the new changeling continues on with its business, as the new changeling retains the memories and personality of the old one. Thus, changelings do not truly “reproduce,” but they simply regrow. This process occurs regardless of the gender of the changeling, and a new changeling forms inside within a day or two of the previous death.)
The king was found dead in his bedchambers the next day, fang marks evident on his legs, and venomous residue still in his veins. The assassin was nowhere to be found.
Panic spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom. What manner of creature could kill their beloved king with such ease, even after its own assumed demise? The three types of ponies, earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi, began to distrust each other, and drifted apart into three separate tribes. There was an unsteady truce between them, until the windigoes arrived and caused that long, harsh winter. Now, as we all know, this was when Commander Hurricane, Princess Platinum, and Chancellor Puddinghead left on their famous expedition to the land we now know as Equestria, taking with them a few of their most loyal or useful retainers. The Old Kingdom never heard from them again…
Meanwhile, in the Old Kingdom, the blizzard continued, as did the death of ponies. However, the situation was made worse by the fact that ponies began to be found in much the same state as their late king. The levels of panic and suspicion had never been as high as they were at this point in pony history. Ponies were never sure who was a pony, and who was a fake.
Ponies began taking matters into their own hooves, and decided to eliminate the problem once and for all. They killed anypony they believed to be an imposter. Realizing that conventional means of execution were insufficient, they tried burning, smashing, poisoning, ripping them apart, and a number of other increasingly elaborate techniques. The most common way, as it seemed to finish the creatures off for good, was to capture the changeling, tie it up, and release it over the opening of the nearby volcano. However, regardless of the technique, more ponies tended to die than changelings. Chaos reigned throughout the Old Kingdom as the number of ponies began to dwindle, bringing it to the attention of a certain chaos spirit…..
Discord.
Now, most ponies know how Discord came and enslaved the ponies of Equestria over a millennium ago, but few know that he only discovered it after being lured to the Old Kingdom by the high levels of unrest and anarchy. Realizing that, if he allowed the two races to continue as they were, he would have far fewer numbers of ponies to play with, he immediately ended the conflict, but allowed them (Or forced them, really) to continue to intermingle, as this only added to the confusion. Discord reigned for nigh upon fifty years, which gave the ponies more than enough time to replenish their previous numbers. Now, Discord was rarely actually present in the Old Kingdom, as he spent the majority of his time tormenting the ponies of Equestria. This did allow the members of the Old Kingdom some reprieve from their agony, but it was too little to make much difference.
During Discord’s forty-eighth year of tyranny… He mysteriously vanished. The ponies in the Old Kingdom were baffled (Though any Equestrian who has been educated in our history knows that this was when Celestia and Luna appeared from the heavens and sealed Discord away in stone), but they rejoiced all the same. It was a time of jubilation, and ponies and changelings discarded their differences and embraced, bringing an unspoken, but still understood truce to the two nations. The festivities continued long into the night, and, in the morning, farewells were said and the changelings left to return to their castle. The three tribes of ponies, having bonded through their suffering, reformed into one kingdom, and there was peace for a time…
However, the changelings, being a warrior people, inevitably began to hunger for control of the Old Kingdom again, and that hunger shattered the truce. Without warning, the entire Changeling Empire attacked the Old Kingdom, massacring any ponies they came across on their rampage. Though the ponies fought back valiantly, they were no match for the well-organized changeling army, and the Old Kingdom fell to their might. The changelings hunted down the ponies that attempted to flee, and it was thought that there was no trace of the Old Kingdom remaining.
However, a ray of hope still existed to recover the story of the Old Kingdom. While I was investigating the area, I discovered a small cottage on the other side of the forest from the ruins of the civilization. There, I discovered a small family of ponies, remnants of the Old Kingdom. They turned out to be descendents of the only known family that escaped the storm of changelings. When I inquired further, the father went into a back room, and returned with a set of diaries. When I examined them, using magic to turn the time-worn pages so as not to damage them, I realized that they were from the time of the Old Kingdom’s destruction. These ponies were descendents of the very farmer who had first reported the odd actions of her husband. Using these diaries, combined with some of my own knowledge of changelings and the history of Equestria, I have summarized the downfall of the Old Kingdom, the cause of which was previously unknown. I have set down these events in the hope that future generations can learn from their mistakes, and prevent Equestria from suffering the same fate as the Old Kingdom.