A Story for the Lunaists Part 1 (CLOSED/INVITE ONLY)

[The Republic of Lanos]

OOC: Do not post in this thread unless you were TGed by me saying you could. If you have questions, TG me or post in the OOC thread. Danke Sie.

OOC thread

Important, read this:

The story of the humans that chose, millennia ago, to worship Princess Luna, the pony princess of the night in Equestria, spans across that same time period and was as turbulent as the winds of time in the homeland they once occupied in the Pony Lands. Spanning throughout this time, the humans that arrived in 900 C.E. in the area that is now the Pony Lands Territory of the Republic of Lanos had remained lost in faith (and nothing much else to hold on to) until 948 C.E. when the Princess of the Night came to the humans in their lands and gathered them all for six days until the evening of the seventh of her trip where she commanded them on how to live amongst themselves and amongst the ponies that they encountered throughout their time in the Pony Lands with varying degrees of hostility and friendship. To her surprise, she did not expect the humans to become devoted and worship her as their goddess. They had seen ponies before but not one like Luna herself. After she set down the basis on the religion that was to become Lunaism, she left them on the seventh day and behold, the humans began to create a homeland and model it on Luna's teachings. The town where she gathered all the humans in the center of the country became Lunasalem and they built a grand temple devoted to their princess and followed in the rest of the country with smaller houses of worship devoted to the Princess and the faith she inadvertently helped to create. Things were simple and no problems came to the humans for a thousand years plus and was even punctuated with Luna making occasional visits as well as visits by prophets of the Princess to reinforce the faith of the humans. Things were perfect.

1210 C.E. came at a time when the humans were experiencing hard times that would later become the "Great Exodus." Years of famine had hit the humans of what was now Lunar Israel and the ponies that did not tolerate the humans, outnumbering the ponies that did vastly, invaded Lunar Israel and engaged in a bloody twenty year war that resulted in the humans being driven out of their holy Lunasalem and their entire homeland, being forced to flee across the region and elsewhere. The reasons why the ponies took offense to the humans was for adopting a religion that they thought only the ponies could hold and, worse, they worshipped Princess Luna and was an unforgivable sin. The exodus of humans resulted in a mass displacement of power in the territory and subsequent conflicts erupted in the territory over which pony faction could control the area the humans had once ruled. Eventually, the ponies of Luna Island, the territory that Luna had herself visited before coming upon the humans in 948 C.E., had come to rule the territory in the 1500s after centuries of fighting.

Luna Island's hold of the territory was tenuous at best. The first three hundred years of rule was punctuated with no serious uprisings though humans were allowed to resettle in the late 1600s until they were banished again in the early 1700s. It was not until 1801 when Luna Island's hold of the territory was challenged by an insurrection led by other ponies, Lunaists that had adopted the religion from the humans during their time in the territory, took hold and forced the nation to heavily invest in bringing down the insurrection. The insurrection would last throughout the 1800s and well into the 1900s and drain and demoralize Luna Island. Anarchy would plague the territory after 1948 when the army cleared out all Lunaist ponies from the territory and even the ponies of Luna Island and sealed it off from all settlement except military occupation forces. That did not end Luna Island's troubles. The island nation was eventually embroiled in a civil war that lasted until the Lanosians came to the nation in 2015 and placed the nation as a protectorate that resulted in the stabilization of the nation and resulted in it becoming independent again.

However, it took more of an effort by the Lanosians to recreate a state on the territory they had just taken in since it was literally barren of all settlement. Millions of Lunaists flocked to the territory after it was opened to civilian settlement and resulted in the refounding of Lunasalem and the old communities once inhabited by humans. The state-building even was punctuated by a recreation of the Great Temple devoted to Luna on the site where she commanded the humans and a personal blessing by the Lunar Princess herself after a trip similar to hers in 948 C.E. Such state-building did not go without controversy. Luna Island and surrounding pony states objected to a Lunaist human state but got nowhere when the Lanosians doubled down on its plans. The 10 million ponies in the territory were evenly split on either supporting the humans or being fiercely against them. Eventually, Luna Island would receive all the ponies that did not cooperation with the humans and renounced all ties to the territory, leaving 20 million humans and 5 million ponies by 2045. The Lanosians set May 7, 2048 as the date when Lunar Israel would become independent (this is also the date when Luna and the humans formally created Lunaism in 948 C.E. and she left them with their religion and their homeland). The Lunaists duly created a constitution creating a presidential republic with a unicameral legislature and declared their independence on May 7, 2048 with great fanfare and celebrations that Luna would come later on the evening to bless the new nation, only to be interrupted hours later by the armies of Luna Island and the pony nations invading the new state in anger.

OOC:
And here begins the story of how the humans came to worship the Lunar Princess to the creation of Lunar Israel. The story of how the religion came to be and how the humans came to worship Luna was crucial into the telling of this story and the eventual creation of a major RP storyline I intend to create of a human-majority nation taking hold in the Pony Lands and its religion is the aforementioned Lunaism and how ponies, both supportive and against, react to the human nation's creation, even culminating in a war that would result in the nation gaining all the territory allotted to it by the Lanosians albeit at heavy cost to both the pony and human sides. I intend to RP as this nation and eventually, when we get to the point where the new state becomes its own state, have others RP as pony nations hostile to this new nation. Please do not post unless invited. Thank you.

The storyline will be created with four parts:
Part 1: Human encounter with Luna and the establishment of Lunaism and ancient Lunar Israel
Part 2: Twenty year war and Great Exodus and how Lunaists fared after exodus
Part 3: Luna Island control of territory and loss of control
Part 4: State-building process and independence of Luna Israel
Eventually, the war between the pony nations and the new Luna Israel will become its own separate thread.

Part 1: How the humans came to worship Princess Luna

[The Republic of Lanos]

April 29, 948 C.E.
Lubkecosta, The lands inhabited by the human race
Pony Lands

It had not been without great stress to the inhabitants of this small fishing and trade village on the coast of this territory, controlled by the human race that had began to inhabit it 48 years, that another fishing boat run by ponies had come ashore and began to heckle the human villagers before being driven away by sword-bearing and bow-bearing militia men devoted to defending the village from pony raids. It was similar to how other pony crowds had taken to harassing the humans, save those that held friendly views on humans and began to live side by side with them, only this incident did not result in bloodshed. It had been a site close to this village 48 years ago, one of many to be exact, where the humans had first set foot to civilize the territory, finding the island across the sea to be already taken. They had mostly moved to the center of the territory here a thriving capital had already been set up and where it was easier to defend themselves inland since the ponies had taken to staying along the coast to do their work. Regardless, the humans had now settled across the territory. Despite having 48 years of existence, the humans in their newfound homeland had yet to be fully comfortable with their surroundings. They, for one, did not have a faith to follow. It wasn't easy to lose a faith but the humans that came to the territory had none to speak of when they were all exiled from their previous nation en masse for refusing to adopt the pagan religion and had refused to adopt any other religion in the wake of exile and kept it that way when they settled in their new homeland surrounded mostly by strange creatures and ponies that did not want them there.

It was mid-afternoon when the villagers saw a great flying chariot. Most figured that the chariot was for one of the Pegasus rulers of a nearby vassal or even across the sea when they discovered that those flying the chariot did not appear to be pony but look more like a mix of bats and ponies. The entire village had converged near the shore where the chariot was approaching, enamored of the sight of such a thing, until it began to land close to where the villagers were standing, forcing the villagers to run into their huts until it landed. The villagers cautiously left their huts and converged on the chariot, only to be stunned on who they saw riding in the chariot. An alicorn, nothing of which the likes of ponies they had seen before, was sitting in the chariot with a majestic appearance and wearing all the fittings of royalty. Her body was of a darker shade of blue compared to her mane. She was as small as the ponies they had contact with but she was majestic none the less. Her cutie mark suggested she was of the night time which baffled the humans of why would a night-time pony would be out in the daytime. The humans were stunned and were unsure of what to do, even those with bows, spears, and swords.

The alicorn surveyed the crowd of humans before speaking.

[Princess Luna]

Rossënór Forest, North Western Menelmacar, The Present

Fluttershy landed lightly in the wide courtyard, where banners flapped in the breeze, the flags of House Almcwenda and of Menelmacar itself, folding her wings casually, she bade a polite hello to several of the elves there, trotting down the stairs. The Elven tower was huge, rising out of the forest canopy below like a skyscraper, white as chalk and engraved with patterns of subtly lined form and shape. The stairs by the side of it were for docking air-yachts and other leisure cruisers, but they also made entirely adequate landing spots for the Pegasus.

She didn’t live here, rather, this was her place of work. Not that her actual work took up much of her time, for although she was the ostensible Sub-Prefect of Pony – in the Menelmacari Quenya, Perimairomo – affairs, Menelmacar found pony affairs important enough that she did little more than sign or issue statements now and then. Which suited her perfectly. Indeed, she found it most satisfactory.

She paused only long enough to look at the tiny fish swimming in the long but shallow gaps along each side of the corridor, before perching herself on a couch in her office. She didn’t usually see anyone throughout the first hour or two of her working day, and a neat stack of papers awaited her.

An hour later, with little new to really do today, most everything seemed to be ticking along nicely, she moved onto the book she’d been reading lately. She would be done with most of what she had to do after a meeting in about half an hour, which she’d attend by nice, remote holo. The book she’d been reading later was one from the almost endless archives of the Menelmacari, and one written by an elven traveller some thousand years ago. It had apparently, an new epilogue written ten years ago, which had made her smile.

Printed along the spine was its title.

Nan i Cardi Perimairotáriu

‘The Tale of the Deeds of the Pony Queens,’ the tense used for “pony queens” was the dual tense, implying a natural pair, used of eyes, hands, wedding rings and so on, Perimairotáriu was in fact the proper noun for the Regal Sisters.

She’d been surprised by how far back the Menelmacari contact with Equestria went, indeed she suspected that only Equestria itself had more extensive records of early pony history than the Menelmacari did. This particular book made extensive claims about the fillyhood of the Regal Sisters, which while not actually contradicting anything she knew, surprised her. How they had been forced as fillies to flee Equestria during the reign of Discord, had grown in exile, and returned to find the Elements of Harmony and defeat Discord. It also spent some time talking about how the Menelmacari had been unable to do anything about Discord at the time due to a larger war, which Fluttershy suspected as the author feeling guilty. It had been quite unpleasant, and she’d skipped the entire chapter about Discord coming to overthrow Equestria.

The book was made considerably more difficult by the fact that it was in verse, rather than a simple prose chronicle.

Epeta Luna rómen oar
Mina nórëo i fírimar
Ulcarindor perimairornna
Ómu cyernaltë an Luna

Fluttershy’s eyes widened in surprise, fírimar was an unkind word for humans, and not on that one saw very often. She read on…

Equestrian Expedition, 948 CE – Sixth Year of the Sister's Co-Dominion, Advance Area

“So. Cold…” Snawhof said, shivering, looking out over the bleak terrain around them.

“I know,” Fæstcyre said, pulling his cloak about him as they looked out over the snow covered landscape. It was April, in the northern hemisphere, and yet a blizzard blew. Both of the pegasi had woolly hoods pulled tight over their heads, and scarves across their faces. Long socks covered their feet over hoof-cups and horse-shoes to spread the weight on the snow where they landed. Both carried sizeable spears over their backs, three or four, with saddlebags with melting icewater and other things, as well as hardbaked cookies.

“There!” Snawhof said, pointing at the horizon. Small thatched roofs poked out from the corners of mounds of snow, some fallen in, others just about intact.

“Be careful,” Fæstcyre said, reaching back undoing the straps between his wings, to loosen the spears a little. The pouch with them slid to one side, easier to get them out, as he slowly walked over the snow.

The visibility was bad, and only as they drew close could they make out more of the settlement under the giant snowdrift. The two scouts stuck to walking, the high winds and perilous snow made flying difficult. Ice and snow rose out of the driving snow like scraggled antlers and teeth haphazardly strewn about the terrain. The two ponies slunk close in to the lee of one of the buildings, looking upward and all about them nervously. They crept in, each scrunch of the snow underhoof sounding like an avalanche to their ears as they moved.

“Snaw, psst,” Fæstcyre whispered. “Guard the rear,” he said, hunkering down as they approached a door.

He turned the spear about, holding it in his hooves, standing on his hind-legs and smacked its rear against the middle of the sheet of ice plugging up the doorway. He was wary of the noise he was making, but there was no way about it. They had to see inside. The ice cracked and broke and fell inwards, shards of ice tinkling against the icy floor inside. The ponies headed inside, Snawhof guarding the way behind as Fæstcyre. The interior of the frozen building was pitch black, save for a wan light that just about shone through the blizzard outside. The leading Pegasus took out a small glow worm lamp, barely larger than his hoof, the little creature cradled deep in the folds of his garment against his heart.

“Come on little guy…” he said, whispering a promise of good nectar when they got back to camp if he could manage a few minutes. It shook itself into activity in its little box, magically enhanced as it shone out and filled the room. The light glittered off the ice covered walls and ceiling, and floor, and the strange, rock-like formations of ice, frosted over, that stood in the corner. Earth ponies, a family, stallion, mare, foal and filly, the young huddled up, stallion and mare glaring at each other angrily, hooves upraised to strike one another.

Fæstcyre nodded, just as he’d expected.

Discord was gone, but his influence remained. Ponies everywhere had been plunged into strife, and without hope for many of these remote settlements, and limited food and many of the best and brightest and bravest gone or worse, an older enemy had moved in. Windigos, lesser spirits of disharmony, but still dangerous. This entire settlement had been overrun with them clearly, the blizzard was their handiwork, they made the surroundings of hateful ponies as cold as their hearts, the Windigos could then gain sustenance from the trapped ponies.

The Army of Night was working its way across the vast expanses of what would one day be called the Pony Lands region, putting to rights what had gone wrong in the reign of Discord, and this village demanded special attention. Reviving the ponies would be easy, but they would need to wrap up this artificial winter, which would require organization and effort.

There would be Windigoes about though. And they would need to be defeated before anything could be done for these ponies. Snawhof tucked himself I behind the door, spear in one fore-hoof, wings at the ready, then flinched back. A moment passed, then another. “Did it see thee?” Fæstcyre mouthed, scarf pulled down from his face.

Snawhof shook his head. And the light guttered out as the bug gave up.

They’d seen what they needed to, proof that this was a recent enough settlement for the army to move in. Now all they had to do was get back with the information. They crept out into the snow, through the buildings.

“Look out!” Snawhof cried, as a sweep of snow fell from the roof above onto Fæstcyre burying him up to the neck in its clinging coldness. A windigo, intangible, half-way to existence, it leapt down, prowling nearby, it couldn’t strike, nor could they strike it really, except in the most ephemeral ways, but its glowing white eyes held another danger, as it stared at Fæstcyre, his bones numbing as its power flooded into him.

It wasn’t fair, he thought, that he should die here, far from Cloudsdale, unmourned and forgotten, with a roar of defiance he lept forward from the snow, thrusting the spear through the Windigo’s heart, it was no use of course, weapons were no use against these things. Why had his supposed princess even sent him out without a weapon worth a damn? Led to death by a child. He could feel his wings freezing, could barely move, his hooves rooting to the spot.

“Begone foul creature!” Snawhof cried, stepping in front of him, throwing one of his spears at it. The Windigo screamed, spear lodged in its body, kicking and whinnying. The spell was broken, the ice sloughed from Fæstcyre and shattered as he moved. The foe reared and bucked, its form dissolving into the blizzard.

Memory returned, and Fæstcyre felt a shame fill his entire being; he should have known better than to meet the gaze of an engorged Windigo, the creatures, when glutted, could make one forget all loyalty and friendship, and the only blade that prevailed against them was one wielded to help another in need.

“Thank thee,” he said, looking around, retrieving his own weapon, although he carried others he had little doubt he might need them all, “we must go,” he said, and his companion nodded his agreement.

The wind became more manageable and they flew up above the clouds,

“They’re following us,” Snawhof said, after six leagues of flying.

Fæstcyre rolled onto his back, drawing out a throwing spear, looking at the monsters following them, easily six or seven of them, barely visible in a rushing black cloud, heads and manes and galloping hooves as they strode through the air. “So they are,” he said, attempting to remain calm, hurling the spear back at the foremost of them, mindful of his duty and his comrade ahead of him as he threw it.

The Windigo was pierced through the chest, and dissolved back into the clouds below, and the pegasus righted himself, flying ahead with haste as Snawhof took the rear, repeating the maneuver. After a short battle on the wing, the Windigos were left behind, and the two scouts found themselves sixty leagues to the west, scarce an hour and a half later.

“I think we need to rest up before heading back to camp...” Fæstcyre said.

“I agree, set thee down on that cloud,” Snawhof said, picking another, as they paused, settling down for lunch.

“Behold, a settlement!” Fæstcyre said after some time, as he saw a thin trail of smoke.

“There are no settlements here, that we know of. Unless some brother ponies have moved there.”

“We should investigate..”

Equestrian Expedition, 948 CE – Sixth Year of the Sister's Co-Dominion, Camp

The camp of the Expedition was simply enormous by the standards of the time, an invasion force - a crusade. Hundreds of structures of various types of colourful fabric stood with streamers and the flags of Equestria flew from them.

Ten thousand ponies made up the expedition, and of them, nineteen out of twenty were pegasi, the others were supported in the far smaller encampment actually on the ground. A particularly large black cloud bedecked with night symbols from which the Equestrian flag hung, was the campaign residence of the Princess.

Snawhof and Fæstcyre landed on one of the broad balconies of the huge cloud, passing through the doors and past the bat-like guards, and were shortly in the war-room, where a great map of the region was spread out over a folding table. There stood Luna, Princess of Equestria.

She was not as she was later, young still, hair a light blue, coat lighter, and she did not today wear the crown and breastplate later associated with her. Instead, a golden crown shone with a diamond-shaped blue jewel on her brow, and a pendant with a thunderbolt of rainbow hues hung from her neck, two of the six Elements of Harmony.

“Your Highness, I crave leave to report,” Snawhof said, as they bowed.

“Rise and make your reports,” Luna said, Royal Canterlot Voice echoing through the war-room.

Luna sat, and listened, “And you saw humans there?” she said.

“Aye, Your Highness.” Fæstcyre said.

Luna looked at the map. “Most likely a settlement of raiders from Imermarken,” she said, “come to steal land or take slaves no doubt. Inform Hererǽswan Ofergylden and Lyftlácan to have their companies ready to fly within the hour. We shall put them down.”

The Princess’s Door-Ward bowed and departed the room to instruct her pages to relay the messages to the commanders she had mentioned.

Equestrian Expedition, 948 CE – Sixth Year of the Sister's Co-Dominion, Lubkecosta

If the native humans had difficulty with the ponies they’d encountered before, then this was another league entirely. A hundred and fifty or so pegasi, armed, their coats ritually dyed a dark grey, armoured, compared to most civilizations of the age, heavily, wings blurring, spears at the ready. Their leader, surrounded by several strange bat-like ponies, rode a chariot, one of several, the others with unicorns in them, but this was no ordinary unicorn, but a pegasus-unicorn, taller than other ponies, and bedecked in finery the likes of which none had seen.

“Settler-Men,” her voice was like thunder, deafening... godlike. “We have seen you from afar, aye, and seen also that you dwell on lands rightfully belonging to our race, we shall not tolerate this intrusion. All this land hereabouts is ours, as it was our ancestors. Know us, we are Luna, Princess of Equestria, and with our sister are the rightful ruler of all these lands hereabouts. None shall come hence without command from us.

“We demand that you either offer homage and swear oaths of fealty to us and to our sister, or elsewise go as fast as go you may!”

OOC – Endnotes: Luna here is obviously very different, and probably different than you expected. She’s much younger, much less wise, and also less tolerant, She is presuming your people are up to no good. She will mellow in time if approached correctly, possibly by the local ponies.

Anglo-Saxon is used here to represent Old Equestrian in use at the time, though only for proper nouns.

Thence Luna went east
Into lands of humans
Trespassers against Ponies
Although they prayed to Luna

[The Republic of Lanos]

Simply put, the humans that first saw the alicorn princess, despite her size and age at the time, didn't know what to do. They couldn't take arms against her lest they all get slaughtered nor could they even if she was to fly alone in their presence. The human race that had inhabited this land they called home since 900 C.E. had a hostile reaction to ponies, save those that had a friendly view (that was a minority view at best), and weren't trusting of the majority of the pony race unless the friendly ponies explicitly came to the humans and swore that they would not dare touch the humans. This alicorn, though, was a completely different pony and rendered a completely different reaction. The entire village of Lubkecosta instead all bowed towards the princess and started to worship her as if she was their savior. For the time they were ejected from their old lands until just now, these humans had no faith and nothing to pray to. The group of 50 humans, of all sexes and ages, cried out that she was their princess (not her sister Celestia. this would be crucial later.) and that they would only serve and worship Luna. Given her age and tolerance level at the time, it was something completely different that what she was expecting. A friendly pony came up to the princess to attempt to explain as to why these humans were doing what they were doing. "My Princess of the Night!" said a white mare with a yellow mane later to be called Marigold Skywhite, "these humans have inhabited this land for the past near half-century with extreme difficulty and very few ponies such as myself have made friendly contact with their kind. I do believe they are...worshipping (the term stammered out of Marigold's mouth suggesting she herself was reviled by the idea of the humans doing this despite being a friendly pony) you as their savior." Marigold gulped. "I do not believe they have had any sort of faith since arriving here and have never seen your likeness before your Highness. Even I myself cannot explain this reason." She stopped as a village elder stood and spoke for the villagers. "Great Princess! We only wish to serve and venerate you as our princess!" He couldn't finish anything before he was dragged back down to kneeling or he'll get slaughtered like those before him. Marigold continued. "These humans have settled well into this land and even up to the river out to the west. They most certainly wish to live in this land as their own and do not wish harm upon our kind but it is rather our kind that wishes to harm them." Luna's reaction to the humans was probably a good indicator, at the time she showed up to this place, that she was one of the majority of ponies that wanted them dead. "They only wish to venerate you because you yourself-" She was cut off by what the Princess was about to speak next.

[Princess Luna]

Luna laughed. It was not the malicious laugh that it would be in time, but a clear, friendly sound, free of pain or malice, almost the laugh of a child, which was clear and happy. “I see…” she said, “well then Marigold,” she picked the name out of thin air, “that rather changes things.”


She hopped off the chariot and flapped her wings twice, coasting down toward the worshipping humans.

“You should all stop, though,” she said, “you don’t have to worship me. I’m not sure why you should anyway,” she added, “I have done nothing for you, I didn’t create you, I haven’t protected you, and I’m certainly not one of you,” Luna said, prodding a grovelling human with a hoof playfully, “I am not going to hurt you either,” she said, “so how am I an object of worship?”

She waved her tail in bemusement, looking at the worshipping humans in incomprehension. “And as for serve me, I assure you I have all the servants I could possibly desire,” she waved a wing up at the army detachment above her.

[The Republic of Lanos]

Luna laughed. It was not the malicious laugh that it would be in time, but a clear, friendly sound, free of pain or malice, almost the laugh of a child, which was clear and happy. “I see…” she said, “well then Marigold,” she picked the name out of thin air, “that rather changes things.”


She hopped off the chariot and flapped her wings twice, coasting down toward the worshipping humans.

“You should all stop, though,” she said, “you don’t have to worship me. I’m not sure why you should anyway,” she added, “I have done nothing for you, I didn’t create you, I haven’t protected you, and I’m certainly not one of you,” Luna said, prodding a grovelling human with a hoof playfully, “I am not going to hurt you either,” she said, “so how am I an object of worship?”

She waved her tail in bemusement, looking at the worshiping humans in incomprehension. “And as for serve me, I assure you I have all the servants I could possibly desire,” she waved a wing up at the army detachment above her.

"But our Princess, you came to us when we had no savior! You are here because it is divine intervention! You have come to save us from those who wish to kick us out of our lands!" As one human shouted these words, others began to speak up about what they had experienced for years under the treatment of the anti-human pony majority (which Luna seemed to now have taken a significant leap away from that crowd) but had not found a pony among the masses to speak up among their kind and urge coexistence. The human-friendly ponies that dared try this before were either exiled to the human lands with or without their families or were killed on the spot. This time, there was a pony that could take the humans in and have them worship her while protecting them and urging coexistence with that no one would dare kill the Princess. "Our Princess must know of the years of hardship we've had with how we came to our homeland and how we were treated since. For She is the first pony of their kind to come to us deliberately to wonder how we came to our lands!" Again, more devotion and grovelling but these people would be convicted in their faith to the princess. If they had convinced Luna to have her take them in as "her humans," it would be certain this scene would repeat across the lands the humans had come to inhabit. Whether or not they had started to convince the princess would be seen.