Luna's fun little research

>It was a strange thing these proceedings.
>It was most unlike your little Lulu to call a meeting inviting all the elements, Cadence and Shining as well as yourself without telling anyone the purpose of the meeting.
>Furthermore she had said that it wasn’t anything urgent but that she had something to show everypony.
>She assured you that it wasn’t anything bad and that you’d love it.
>Most unlike her to call meetings that weren’t urgent or serious.
>When you pressed your sister she smiled and in a sign song tune said “It’s a surprise!”
>Most unlike her for sure but you’re happy that she seemed to be having fun and wanted to include others.
>You just hope that it isn’t anything like the last time you found her doing “FUN”.
>While the tax codes did need some updating but the deluge of paperwork was anything but.
>But that’s in the past and at present today is the day of the meeting unveiling whatever it was that Luna was so excited about.
>By the sun she was so giddy that she was practically hopping in place during breakfast this morning.
>It is really nice to see her so happy after everything.
>Twilight and her friends came around noon as you were wrapping up court early in expectation of Luna’s little get together.
>Of course the question of what this meeting was all about were the first thing asked after pleasantries were out of the way.
>You politely did your best Luna impression as you hopped there and reiterated what your sister had told you.
>It got a bit of a chuckle out of the group and you had a nice picnic in the palace gardens that was joined by Cadence, Shining, and Flurry as they found their way to the palace.
>The time passed pleasantly until the dinner meeting that would see Luna’s special surprise revealed.
>Dinner had been a lovely affair with Luna sitting there with a smile like an excited foal.
>Still when asked what the meeting was for she insisted that it would be part of the dessert portion of dinner.



>As the final main dish was taken away Luna cleared her throat, grabbing the attention of all present.
>“My fellow friends and family I am elated that all of you could join me in the presentation of a subject matter that I hold most dear to my heart.” Luna said a little nervously
>It would seem that this is something that she held close to her.
>She’s always had trouble sharing her personal interests.
>Out of the corner of your eye you could see Rainbow Dash grab a dish with chocolate truffles from the server before it was placed on the table.
>“Ya ya Princess, you’ve kept us waiting long enough time to spill the beans!” the impatience clearly evident in Rainbows voice.
>Twilight gave a look that conveyed how rude she thought Rainbow’s outburst was.
>For Luna’s part she looked confused, taking a second to think.
>“Rainbow how can I spill beans? There were none served this night.” Luna’s face deadpan
>Twilight smiled, “Luna, it’s an expression that” she promptly stopped her explanation when she saw Luna giving a small smirk.
>“Ha thou hast fallen for our ruse, we have studied modern parlance and fully comprehend the phrase” at this point she does air quotes “spilling the beans.”
>Everypony in the room is silent for a bit, until Fluttershy starts giggling and her humor in Luna’s antics infects the room.
>You chuckle along but decide to move things along as you’ve been waiting for a month to hear this and you really don’t feel like waiting any longer.
“Luna as much as I’ve been having a good time you have been teasing me with this secret presentation for the better part of a month. If you don’t get on with it I promise to take all the cake and make sure you don’t get any.”
>A look of mock insult crosses your sister’s face.
>“Sister how could you ever think I would enjoy making you wait, I simply wanted to make sure that all our friends could be here for the surprise.”


>You’re sure that she was going to continue but little Flurry managed to get a hold of Luna’s hair and give it a good tug. She does love playing with our manes whenever she gets the chance.
“Ha see even Flurry has had enough of your horseapples!”
>Shining looking a little embarrassed begins fussing over Flurry.
>“Come now little filly we don’t pull on other pony’s manes, besides look what I’ve got here.”
>With his last statement Flurry’s little stuffed snail “wammy” is floated over in front of Flurry.
Flurry proceeds to grab the snail and roll around a bit…adorable. You love foals.
>If only the nobles could stay as adorable as foals and then maybe their whining in court would be enjoyable in some sense.
“Now get on with it before I kill over.”
>Luna clears her throat.
>“So everypony what do you know of humans?”
>The rooms a little quiet before Rarity speaks up.
>“They’re the only magicless race in existence?”
>Twilight follows
>“They live in an area of the third continent of Equis where magic has strange eddies and currents causing odd and frankly dangerous phenomena.”
>Luna lifts her hoof motioning them to continue.
>Applejack speaks up
>“It’s not the one human but his fifty friends you’ve got to be worried about.”
>Pinkies nose scrunches.
>“Why would you have to worry about fifty-one new friends!”
>Luna continues urging “And?”
>Rainbow looks a little annoyed.
>“They have too many colts for their own good and can’t speak a lick of poneish.”
>Luna looks like she’s having fun.
>“Nay, keep trying.”
>Fluttershy after finishing sipping her tea after a bite of cake speaks up.
>“They are a race that thrive using cooperation and numbers to overwhelm enemies. They build elaborate structures without magic that can range from deathtraps to veneration of what are believed to be their ideals.”


>Luna nods her head. “Yes, this is exactly what we are going to show you today. As an aside it’s strange the lack of contact any kingdoms seem to have had with them. Sister would you happen to know why?”
>Well this is gonna be great, time to fill Luna in on the stupidity of the other nations.
“Luna I called a summit and made the others agree not to bother them or encroach on their lands.”
>Luna looked like she was disappointed but expected it.
>“What did the minotaurs do?”
“Wow got it on the first try, sure you don’t want to change your answer to gryphons?”
>“Nay, their kingdom neighbors them and the ruling house was weak when we left. I keep my choice.”
>Ha sound logic as ever.
“Well you’re right, but the gryphons argued very VERY angrily with me. Something about limiting their business opportunities.”
>Your sister scoffed “They would say that. Gryphon noble’s greed knows no bounds.”
“Quite, but back to it about 300 years after your banishment the minotaur Queendom was doing particularly poorly and the populous wasn’t doing much better.”
>Luna nods along.
“So to distract the populous from frequent food shortages and other failings of her rule the noble family got the BRIGHT idea to start using a scapegoat for all their problems. What a great choice the humans were, they were very different, kept to themselves, and had no way of refuting any of it as they didn’t speak.”
>“Truly the highest of cunning.” Your sister replies sarcastically
“It really was no surprise that given enough time one of them was bound to do something stupid. It took 50 years to their credit but some of the nobles took their personal armies and invaded human kingdoms.”
>Applejack looks like she has a question on the mind.


“Applejack is there something you’d like to know?”
>A look of relief as she’s allowed to ask what’s on her mind.
>“Princess you used that word “kingdom” and honestly I’m not sure what that is.”
>Ah yes it is a strange concept for pony society isn’t it.
“Well Applejack, it’s similar to a queendom but like the name implies is run by a king instead. This odd reversal of government is mostly speculation by scholars based on past human militaries being all male. We really couldn’t just walk up and ask them about how things were run plus they didn’t seem keen on visitors.”
“But yes going on that assumption the kingdoms of humans were attacked and the mino queen now was in a position that she had to support them as not doing so would be political suicide. Plus after 50 years some of the royal family had drank the proverbial tomato sauce as it were.”
>”That’s awful.” Says Fluttershy between bites of a toffee brownie.
>Pinkie Pie slams her hoof on the table “Ya what she said, if I was there I would have given that meenie queen a piece of my mind…and hoof!”
>Applejack chuckled “I hear you there sister, taking her outback and giving her a bloody snout would be the beginning. Attacking weak colts is just plain wrong.”
>Twilight is just sitting there enjoying story time like she was an adorable foal again.
>While tickling Flurry Shining spoke up “I bet it didn’t go as well as the minotaur’s thought it would.”
>Oh Shining we both know you knew the answer to that. You’d added this particular part of military history into the military academy studies for a reason. A study of mass organized tactics specifically.
“It went well for about 5 years. Just the occasional tuar going missing here and there. Mutilated bodies being found in trees that no human could have done. Nothing too major, they only lost one platoon in a late night fog and they were never heard from again. You know NORMAL stuff.”


>Rainbow raised an eyebrow “Really that seems like it’s made up.”
>To your surprise Cadence answers.
>”I’d believe it. When Shining was stationed on the border base I went to visit. See the world and keep my Shiny company.”
>She nuzzles Shining after that and you see Twilight playfully roll her eyes.”
>”One night I couldn’t sleep so I decided to sit out on the wall, have some tea and relax with the stars. After sitting there for half an hour looking at the stars I thought I heard something below the wall. Like a really low and deep growl.”
>She tries to mimic the sound her hooves raised up over her head.
>”Like that but deeper and throatier than I could ever make, and it was so quiet I was surprised I heard it at all.”
>She leans back in her chair taking a relaxed pose.
>”So there I was super relaxed after staring at the night sky and I lazily look down expecting to see some far off cat or something. I saw something I really hope I don’t ever see again in the night.”
>She stands up out of her seat and motions to her eyes.
>”And there maybe 30 trots away I saw bright red eyes! Needless to say I’m pretty freaked out at this point and I call the guard over, but when I look back there was nothing there. I tell her what I saw and she says “probably nothing head to bed princess nothing out there but shadows. I’ll bring a couple more guards out to make sure though.” So I went to bed after calming down.”
>She sits back in her chair and leans in conspiratorially.
>”I know what I saw but I’m not stupid enough to go charging after something like that in the dark, so come morning I gathered some mares with me to check out the spot. At first we didn’t see anything but then one of the trackers found something. A SINGLE SET OF PRINTS!”
>Looking around you see that the rest of the mares besides you and Luna are listening with rapt attention.


>”Two massive imprints bigger than my barrel and with claw marks longer than my wing. The thing that bothers me the most, there were no tracks leading away. Like it was there and then it wasn’t.”
>It’s silent for a bit before Rainbow slams her hoof on the table.
>”MINOSHIT! You’re telling me a bunch of guards wouldn’t bother flying over the wall with torches to see what’s there.”
>Everypony in the room turns to Shining.
>Shining rolls his eyes. “Yes because the first thing you want to do in a horror book is to just gallop out and go hug the thing hiding in the shadows. Standing orders are to notify other guards on duty, not to travel alone on watch or at all, and not to interact with something in the dark unless it starts to approach the walls. Other than that we didn’t really talk much about it. I’d also like to point out the stupidity of abandoning the defensive advantage provided by being on top of a large wall.”
>This is why you made Shinning a captain he followed orders and understood WHY those orders existed. In this instance the reason being not having to send letters to guard families saying “family member disappeared under mysterious circumstances and we don’t know what happened.” Didn’t happen often but still wasn’t good when it did.
>Luna stamps here hooves on the floor.
>”Mares please, let’s please get back to the idiocy of the past.”
>Right you were story telling.
“Up till this point academics had believed that human lands consisted of multiple kingdoms that competed for control. Well come year 5 and what do the taurs see but the largest ever recorded army in history. The taur princess wrote in her journal that it was an army without end looking out over the battlements there were thousands of banners of every color. Modern pony historians, using multiple different accounts, estimated the numbers to be around 300 thousand humans.”
>Rarity spit out her drink.


>”300 hundred thousand! I didn’t think that many colts even existed in the world.”
“Yes it surprised everyone. Obviously the amount of humans was much greater than anyone thought. Continuing on the siege didn’t last long, only about a day or two. They had come prepared to take defenses and for open battles. There were even moving towers that they wheeled up to the walls and used them to swarm over. Clearly they knew how to wage war and came prepared.”
>You pause to take a bite of your red velvet cake eyeing the vanilla ice cream that you’re going to make sure is added on top of it.
“The minotaur princesses escaped during the night and eventually meet up with another mino force closer to their lands. This began a series of defeats over the course of a year only stopping at their boarder.”
>Pinkie gasps
>”But why’d they stop? They were winning right?”
>You see Twilights wings flare out as she hops in her seat.
>”Dragons! It was dragons Pinkie. The minotaurs used to have good relations with them.”
>She gives you a sheepish look after participating in Pinkie’s interruption.
“Yes it was dragons, specifically the dragon queen of the time. When the humans got to the boarder they saw the massive Beladon waiting there. Funny enough, an act of bravado from her when she drew a massive line in front of her turned into the only form of diplomacy to occur with humans.”
>Rainbow scoffed
>”What did they play a game of charades. They don’t speak poneish right?”
>You chuckle
“That’s exactly what happened actually. Granted, a lot more angry and threatening gestures were used but it was understood that the minotaurs stay on that side of the line and they’re fine. If they didn’t Beladon was pretty sure that the dragging the finger across the throat meant they’d kill them. Beladon figured she had stopped the enemy of their ally and promptly told the minotaur to piss off when the princess got angry she was leaving.”


>You give a big exaggerated smile.
“And that’s the story of why I forced my way into creating outposts in the minotaur lands because I didn’t trust them to not try something stupid and enrage creatures that can field armies larger that multiple city populations.”
>Your sister stomps her hoof.
>”Ha they got what they deserved. Besides if anypony could have asked me I could have told them what a stupid idea that was.”
“Really now, and how would you have known there were so many of them?”
>”Obviously I studied them.”
“And how did you do that? Did you get in their dreams?”
>Luna gives a pout
>”No I did not invade dreams. I watched them.”
>Well this is interesting.
“How?”
>Luna grabs her mane and flips it in front of her muzzle.
>”Through my stars I can see all, Applejack your sister is having a sleepover in your barn.”
>Applejack slammed her hoof on the table.
>”Consarn it I told her not to have a sleep over she has too much work tomorrow.”
>”Sister I thought I told you I could see where my stars see?”
“To be honest you probably told me that well over a millennia ago. I’ve forgotten some things.”
>You cough into your hoof.
“Well Luna what did you want to show us about the humans.”
>Without your sister moving her mane you see her float a large crystal orb onto the center of the table.
>She plans to project her vision then.
>”I wanted to show you the human civilizations and something that I am not too sure what it is.”
>You raise an eyebrow.
“What do you mean by not too sure?”
>”Well it’s massive, I have no clue what it’s purpose is, and a good deal of humans are traveling to see it. They’re building something big.”

>Your little sister was all grins as she continued.
>”Here my friends, let me show you what wondrous and mad creations these creatures have made.  All without the aid of magic!”
>Luna was excited of course she’s always had a fascination with the strange, and the humans certainly fit that bill.
>The non-magic race in Luna’s mind held nothing but wonder and fun, but you knew better.
>A group of individuals, much less a nation, alone and the only point of contact being an invasion does not make for a friendly bunch.
>They already didn’t like others walking unbidden in their territory before the minotaurs so you had no idea what they had been up to in their heartland.
>So while all the other ponies in the dining room looked on with interest at the point of light growing in the crystal orb, you were filled with concern.
>Hopefully it is just another edifice to their ideals that Luna has found that don’t make sense to Luna’s sensibilities.
>The view came into focus in the orb some ways away from what appears to be a city.
>Clearly Luna wanted to show the scale of this creation.
>Perhaps it’s some form of massive fortress though that can’t be what Luna is confused about.
>The view continues to grow and you can see you are wrong.
>Completely wrong, massive structures loomed in the distance.
>Towers that should not be able to stand at their height without the aid of magical support loomed over the large expanse.
>How does the sway of the wind itself at such height not topple these buildings.
>Still the view continues forward, these are not what has Luna perplexed.
>”WooooooooooW those are tall!”
>The view continues and you can see streets of black unbroken stone.
>”You said it Pinkie, imagine all the thermals from the black stuff there.”
>For once it seems Pinkie and Rainbow Dash both are at full attention.




>On these roads there are, what you can only guess, are metal carriages that seem to move of their own power.
>They start, stop, and all move about in an ordered manner.
>Then you reach the heart of this strange city.
>The pathway has been blocked, not allowing any of the carriages to pass.
>There were guards of some kind at the barricades, their helmeted faces obscured by perhaps some form of glass.
>Both had large rectangular shields and there is a blocky thing strapped to its other forearm.
>Interesting that they do not show their faces to the public, and the color scheme of the armor is mostly black with the shoulder guards being the main sources of color.
>The way that the view lingers on the guards Luna finds interest in them too.
>Both of the guards had the same signs on their left shoulders, a human fist against a blood red background. A symbol that didn’t exist before the isolation you’re sure.
>The symbols on the other shoulder pads you do recognize however, both are from two of the major city states recorded in the old records.
>Two that always fought.
>”That is new, I have not seen human guards of this make. Let us see what all this commotion is about.” Luna says curiosity clear in her voice.
>Luna’s view begins to move forward past the barricade now.
>Flying past you behold a new sight, the reason for the barricades in the first place.
>A massive parade.
>By harmony you’ve never seen so many of them.
>Thousands of humans lined both sides of the barricade.
>In the center of it all there were row upon row of those new guards.
>All of them marching in step.
>Some carried the same weapons from before while others had long tubes of metal resting against them as they marched.
>Then a rumbling sound as….
“What the…..”




>A massive block of what you can only assume to be metal turns the corner to continue the procession.
[HERE REPRESENTING THE NORTHERN IRON WALL ARMORED DIVISION IS THE NEW HAMMER PATTERN TANK WITH HER MASSIVE 200MM CANNON SHE PUTS DOWN ANY AND ALL MONSTERS STUPID ENOUGH TO COME KNOCKING!] A booming voice sounds
>The cheering was deafening as the voice announced that…thing.
>”Mobile party cannons.” You barely hear the whisper
>Turning your head you see the source to be a disturbingly wide smiling Pinkie Pie.
>After that you decide to take stock of present company.
>Glancing over you to see Twilight furiously writing with quill in her magic grip.
>Rarity eyes keep glancing around the crowd, clearly taking in all the different styles and types of human.
>It had seemed like the pale northern humans as well as the darker ones had traveled far to the center of human territory.
>The differences in dress, style, height, and build varied greatly and Rarity was drinking it all in.
>Applejack looks slightly overwhelmed at the entire display.
>Fluttershy keeps switching between looking at the faces in the crowd and the marching guards.
>Both Rainbow and Shining are staring at the marching guards.
>You suspect from the smile on Shining’s muzzle that he is enjoying the military display of ordered marching.
>Cadence was entertaining Flurry as she pointed to different things in the orb that made the little sweetheart giggle.
“Luna, what are the tube things the guards are carrying?”
>This breaks Luna out of her dopy smile.
>”Oh, they are similar to cannons but portable enough to be held by individual guards.” Luna states
>”That’s gonna be a lot of streamers.” Pinkie clops her hooves at the imagined party
>”They don’t shoot streamers Pinkie. I’m not sure what they shoot out but they put holes in what they aim at.” Luna ends that explanation with a little bounce in place.
>Pinkie looks like she’d been slapped with a wet fish.




>”No streamers?”
>”Nope, humans are so creative when they want to defend themselves. There are many other ways they fight as well. I’ve seen them launch a sticky burning substance that didn’t come off what got hit by it.”
>Luna says this like lighting your enemies on fire isn’t a particularly horrific way to kill things.
>It’s obvious that the others in the room are having the same thoughts as you as they had all turned and given Luna a look before turning back to the display with a bit more reservation.
>Except Flurry of course who’s still being entertained by all the colors and sounds.
>The parade continued with many other announcements and cheering was had until a float at the end came into view.
[HERE FOLKS WILL BE THE FIRST HUMANS TO BREAK THE BOUNDARIES OF OUR WORLD!]
>This was the loudest cheer yet.
>Clearly this was the main event that the masses had journeyed for.
>There were 3 humans in bulky suits waving to the crowd as the float went along.
>Luna gave a gasp as she could see the backdrop behind the 3 was a painting of the night sky with the moon featured prominently.
[OUR MAIN PILOT IS ONE CAPTAIN ARDON KEENLEY OF THE EASTERN UHC AIRFORCE. SEEING ACTION IN SEVEN DIFFERENT ENGAGMENTS AND WITH 14 CONFIRMED FLIGHT KILLS HE WILL STEER US INTO A NEW ERA!]
>More cheering as one of the three stepped forward for the crowd.
[NEXT IS OUR MAIN ENGINEER CAPTAIN LUIS BURGDEN. TEN YEARS OF SERVICE IN THE UHC ENGINEERING CORE AND CURRENTLY A MAIN LEADER IN OUR VERY OWN MOON LAUNCH PROGRAM!]
>The middle one stepped forward as the cheering began again.
[FINNALY WE HAVE OUR SECURITY FOR THIS MISSION WILL BE THE HERO OF THE NORTHERN UNDEAD CAMPAIGNS! CAPTAIN ASGER AUDUN OF THE UHC SHIELD BRIGADE!]
>The following cheer that came out was deafening as the final of the third stepped forward, a wide smile on his scarred face.




>Luna’s view continued to follow the float until the float started to leave the city and her view panned up to show a strange site in the distance.
>The float continued forward as Luna’s quickly shifted away from the float to zoom towards the object.
>”Here it is! This is it! I have no clue what they plan to do with it but it’s big and they are throwing a lot of flammable stuff here. It’s definitely not a new building or some kind of idol. I definitely thought that there was a purpose besides some form of idol to an ideal or edification to some hero. It has purpose! There were humans working day and night on this thing! Whatever it is I think we might see what it does today!”
>Luna spouted all this out at a trot a minute.
>What you saw was strange.
>A massive tapered cylinder that was held up by an adjoining tower.
>Humans were moving all around it as checking things and preparing for something.
“Luna, any guesses on what it does? Anything to calm me Luna, please.”
>Please don’t say superweapon.
>Please don’t say superweapon.
>Please don’t say superweapon.
>Please don’t say superweapon.
>Luna taps her chin
>”Well they are putting a lot of explosives into a big cylinder-“
>”A MASSIVE FIREWORK!!!” Pinkie interrupts
>Luna moves her mane out of her face to look at Pinkie, clearly annoyed at being interrupted.
>”No. If this thing was made to explode in a display of pyrotechnics why would they have a compartment at the top that had chairs for sitting?”
>Luna gives Pinkie a smug look that says next time let me finish.
>Rarity gives a raised eyebrow.
>”Why would a bunch of colts want to sit on top of a frankly ludicrous amount of explosives?”
>Luna smirks “Why indeed?”
>”I don’t know that’s why I brought everypony here. Though, if I were to guess, I think that we will find out soon.”
>Looking back to the crystal you can see the three figures from before.




>This time they have helmets on obscuring their faces as the three ascend on a moving platform to the top.
>Looking around you notice that all the other humans checking things have vacated the area.
>A hatch is opened and the three step inside and close it behind them.
>Luna huffs
>”See what I mean, they have put three clearly revered individuals into a chamber that sits on top of enough explosives to blow them clear into the afterlife and maybe back again. What are they planning? Why? What connection do those three have to my moon? Do humans worship my moon?” The last part was said with a giggle.
>As Luna continues on in the background you can see the thousands from before in the distance.
>They are quite far away but they clearly have fanned out of the city to observe whatever is going to happen.
>You can’t help but feel that history is happening before your eyes.
>Thousands of eyes watching and only twelve had no clue what was happening.
>You heard Spike giggle making the first sound at all this evening.
>Was he enjoying this?
>What secrets are you hiding behind your smile dragon?
>”HEY SOMETHINGS HAPPENING!” Rainbow yelled
[insert the launch vid]
>Oh no, the humans have gone mad!
>They’re doing sacrifices!
>Wait it’s….rising.
>A massive pillar of fire behind it as it continues to rise.
>And it keeps rising
>and Rising
>and Rising
“How high is this thing going?”
>You glance at Luna.
>She’s smiling one of those smiles of hers again.
>”YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!” Luna punctuated her outburst with stomping of her hooves startling everypony that had been entranced by the sight before them.
>”GO MAD APES GO! THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES ARE NOT BEYOND YOUR AMBITIONS!!!!”