Prologue: The New Planet.
Lets start off this story with an explanation, shall we? Good, good. The Equuis Empire is the currently ruling power of the stars right now, ranging from deer, donkeys, zebras, unicorns, to pegasi, and earth ponies. Now, one does not become this ruling power with love and tolerance, so this empire has its enemies. To fight off these enemies they need soldiers, and earth ponies are usually the ones that are drafted into that department. Although, not many things actually pose any real danger to them, it's still a standing concern.
In order to get enough troops, they cloned genetically engineered soldiers who could crush cement with their ear alone while still looking like they are not muscle-bound.
One of the most standing enemies of the Empire are the Griffons, who don't really have a united banner.
With an empire this big, you need room to grow, and luckily space can cover that. They are colonizing thousands of planets every day and with that discovering new and fascinating things.
-------- Prologue: The New Planet. --------
Stumbling into my office, I shut the door behind me. Looking around at the sparse decorum, I'm reminded at how busy I'm kept. The last few days have been brutal and right now I want nothing more to take a nap and forget anything ever happened. Remembering the last few days, I shudder.
My job is to examine new planets we find, and figure out exactly what it is we need to do in order to terra-form it. Now, it usually isn't so hard, but this time my ship was assaulted by a few stray Griffin pirates and I had to make a hasty retreat before I was done with my job.
Now, this wasn't the only thing I could do, I went to college studying terra-forming, government, and cultural history. The only reason I did this is because it was the only open job offer, seeing as it can at times be dangerous.
Just as I'm slumping into my office chair, the intercom on my desk crackled. "Your needed in briefing room E6, and be quick about it. Boss isn't too happy about your failure today."
Pressing the button, I reply "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming be patient," looking up at the mirror in front of my desk, I see a unicorn mare with a with a frazzled light pink mane and a deep blue coat, wearing a white lab coat and gloves. That's me, and my name is Shimmering Summer.
Sliding out of my chair, I stumble out the door and into the hallway. "E6... E6... where are ya'?" trotting calmly through the hall looking up at the signs above the doors, I spot E6 and walk inside. Looking around, I see about a dozen ponies sitting at a long table with a projector screen at the end.
"Welcome Mrs. Summer, if you could have a seat over there please," says my boss, Mr. Miles. He is a stone grey pegasus with a red mane. The thing about him is, you could never really tell what kind of emotion is going on behind that stone face of his, unlike me where you can see what I'm thinking as clear as day. I suck at poker.
I look at the seat in question, near the middle of the table. Quickly cantering over to it, I sit down and rest my head on the ends of my hooves. Mr. Miles starts speaking. "I'm sure your all wondering what you are doing here right now," everyone at the table nods their heads, including me.
"Just the other day, there was a scouting ship searching for other planets that we could colonize, he got very luck and found a T-3 planet," Let me clear something up real quick, there are four ways we classify planets. T-0 is a barren rock, usually used to mine the minerals out of. T-1 is a desert, only supporting the most hearty of critters. T-2 is usually able to support life, but is usually very hot or very cold. T-3 is a very diverse planet, having a large portion rain forests and a lot of water, and are so rare that its like finding a needle in a haystack... of needles, and you need to find that same needle.
"Now, he got so excited that he sent some probes down right away. What they found was very interesting, because they found ponies," he pauses for dramatic effect. "This is odd because this planet was never put into our database, and the tech of the planet suggests that they are pre-space flight," he finishes this sentence by clicking on a remote and turning on the projector, showing snapshots of the planet from orbit, and of the inhabitants themselves.
"So we are sending you ponies down there in regular intervals across the planet, to study their culture up close. Do not worry though, we will be sending a genetically-engineered soldier down with you, and will be installing a universal translator into a earpiece for you." He finishes this with turning off the projector and turning to face us. "any questions?"
I raise my hoof. "Yes?"
"Mr. Miles, what exactly is this accomplishing?" I ask.
"Glad you asked," He turns on a hologram and showing a snapshot of the planet with large portions of it highlighted in red. "We still need places for our colonies, and already terra-formed planets are much cheaper to colonize than doing it ourselves, and this planet still has plenty of space. We just don't want to start a war with them if we don't have to, and with you ponies notes we won't risk offending them."
"Along with that, the likely-hood that ponies would evolve exactly the same as us is very low, so we also want you to dig around in their history a bit, and figure out if there is some legend of space ponies or something."
A brown stallion with a black mane raises his hoof. "I have a question." I think his name was Dr. Who or something.
"Go ahead."
"What would happen if they do decide to start a war?" he asks.
"Depending on how they start it, it could be between doing a tactical retreat, or flooding the planet with pathogens." Replies Mr. Miles. When no one else asks any questions, he says "Alright, if that's all the questions you have, start packing, your leaving in a couple of hours." he turns and heads out a door in the back of the room.
