"A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." - Edmund Burke

"It's dark!"

"I can't see! I can't see!"

"The stupid portal made me blind!"

"Girls! Calm down. We're probably just passing through sub space. Are we?"

"No. Sub Space isn't dark. It's brighter, has shades of violet and is much more scary looking."

"So where are we? I can't see anything!"

"Give us a moment."

Suddenly, four pairs of green eyes flashed in the middle of the dark room. Shadow squad had turned on their night vision and finally had a look around their surroundings.

From what they saw, they were in a metallic room designed much like the interior a space ship than a typical definition of a library. There were do signs of books, not that Shadow was expecting them anyway. A space faring race would have likely invented holographic storage, or at least tablet devices.

On the opposite sides of the hallway were windows. Windows that revealed a view of hyperspace. Not enough to illuminate a room however.

Shadow took a look at the ponies. The six of them were still shivering nervously.

"Looks like we're in the archives all right." muttered Scorch.

"I didn't think it was possible to travel through sub space without major defects." remarked X-ray.

"Our ancestors must have been smarter than we thought." guessed Scarecrow.

"You would at least think they'd place an obvious location for a light switch." hissed Overwatch.

"Aren't those light bulbs however?" pointed Scorch. Sure enough, there were sockets on the roof of the hallway that were clearly made for light insertion.

"Please turn on the lights soon. It's scary." whimpered Fluttershy.

"Hold on, I'm going to take a gamble." muttered X-ray.

"What are you-"

X-ray said something unintelligible to his squad, and the lights in the hallway suddenly flashed on.

The ponies gave sighs of relief.

"What did you say?" asked Scarecrow.

"I said 'lights on' in ancient Greek. Figured our ancestors would be smart enough to invent voice commands." explained X-ray.

The four soldiers turned off their night vision and looked at the ponies.

"Are you four okay?" checked Scorch.

"We're fine darling. Although this architecture isn't." spat Rarity, lamenting on the cold and gritty structure of the hallway.

Scarecrow tapped into his coms. "Command, this is Scarecrow. Do you read me."

There was only static.

"Command. Do you respond?"

No response.

"Fuck. We're alone."

X-ray exhaled loudly. "What did you expect? Transmission signals don't work in subspace."

There was a pause.

"So this is the library." stated Twilight. "Where are the books?"

"A race as advanced as our ancestors would have drooped the need for physical books a long time ago." reminded Scarecrow. "We're better off finding a central information storage where we could extract data logs. Let's move."

"Any thoughts on how we're going to find a central data chamber? Whatever that is?" questioned Rainbow Dash.

"This hallway only leads to one way." stated X-ray.

Before anything could be done, a series of lights lit up on the floor below them and on the signs. The text was written in ancient greek.

"X-ray. Translate." ordered Scarecrow.

"Text reads library. Like I said, one way."

Shadow took the lead and moved forward, the hesitant ponies followed. Even though the mares were no longer capable of getting migraines from the realistic look of Shadow, the room itself created a feeling of unease.

"We've barely been here a few minutes, and I'm already starting to feel uneasy." whimpered Fluttershy.

"Well, you get used to these kinds of locations from traveling in sub space all the time." replied Scorch. "Although the notion of a room suspended in sub space indefinitely is certainly interesting. The possibilities would be endless."

"If you get uncomfortable easy, take a pre caution on what you could end up reading here. No one should go mad from revelation right now." advised Scarecrow.

Another pause passed.

Twilight broke the silence. "You know, I would really like to see what sort of culture your ancestors had. It just seems so different from the Terran Federation. Besides, I'm sure there is a bountiful sum of knowledge stored within their data storages."

"So would I. Although it seems ancient human culture is not too different from recorded information about past civilizations. Doubt we'd learn anything in those fields. But technological and scientific progress is another story." responded Scarecrow.

"Say, should we look for the Librarian as long as we're here?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"We should. There will likely be a central terminal where we can activate the intelligence. Having one around will most probably make things easier." agreed Scarecrow.

The trek was suddenly cut off. As if it was orchestrated to be synchronized, each member of Shadow except for started to experience intense pain.

X-ray clutched his arm once more. Honestly, it felt like it was going to fall off. He couldn't even move the damn thing.

Overwatch lost control of his legs and tumbled to the ground. He was lifted up by Scorch, aided by Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rarity.

Applejack placed a hoof on her chin. "Are y'all-"

She was cut off by Scarecrow pulling down his bandanna and vomiting blood. He clenched his stomach tightly.

"Oh dear, it seems your condition is getting worse by the minute." whispered Fluttershy.

"If we don't find a medic soon, it'll get serious. And I can't defend all of Equestria by myself." gritted Scorch.

"I'm the best medic, and not even I can work in this state. And I doubt any of you ponies know a thing about human anatomy and medicine." muttered X-ray.

"Maybe they'll be a med station here if we're lucky. Too bad my entire HUD has no clue what the fuck is in this room." said Scarecrow.

"But if there isn't, we can still find a way to disable the barrier and bring Federation reinforcements." encouraged Rarity.

Pinkie Pie tried to keep a positive attitude. She closed her eyes and began skipping forward. "Or we could find some hologram thing that will tell us all about medicine and treating wounds and-"

For some reason, Pinkie Pie didn't land on the ground on her current skip. She didn't even feel the floor. Turning her head down, she spotted what seemed like an endless drop to an infinitely far down glowing white field.

Right before Pinkie could scream, Scorch shot his arms forward, grabbed Pinkie and threw the pink mare behind him and back to safety.

"Wow, that was close. Thanks!" cheered Pinkie

The commandos were staring down the edge of the plat from and onto the glowing white field.

"Any thoughts on what that is?" asked Twilight.

"Not sure. Looks like a source of energy. Can't tell the what is though." muttered X-ray.

There was a space between the platform the group were standing on and the other one leading to some sort of facility. The space was far too wide for even Shadow to jump across, even if they were uninjured.

"Me, Fluttershy and Twilight can fly to the other side." proposed Rainbow Dash.

"And what about us? The six of you can't carry one of us nor are capable of using teleportation." reminded Scarecrow.

Scorch turned to his left and found what appeared to be a fork shaped metallic stand. One that would emit a hologram.

The demo man moved closer towards it, and it sparked to life. A transparent blue hologram flashed before his eyes. It had text written in ancient greek with a single central "button".

"Whoa, what's that!" gasped Rainbow Dash.

"Hologram." answered X-ray. "According to the text-"

"What does this button do?" squeaked Pinkie Pie. She thrust her hoof at the icon, only for it to move past right through. She repeated the motion again and again, only to fail each time.

Scarecrow pushed her aside and tapped the hologram.

Suddenly, a bridge extended from the first platform, and connected to the next. The bridge had railings on the side, likely to avoid accidents. The railings were slightly shorter for what would provide guaranteed safety to a modern Terran.

"Seems like the hologram will only respond to human touch. Smart move." guessed Overwatch.

The group crossed the bridge and reached the other side. On the top of the wall, there was a sign in a glowing orange back ground that most likely translated to 'Library entrance. Please be considerate.'

The group entered a room and took in the surroundings.

Rather than looking like her library, Twilight observed a series of metallic constructs with glowing lights of many colors, what appeared to be a screen, chairs and benches, and a series of empty "shelves". There were also some sort of pods lying around. Shadow recognized them as virtual reality tubes.

"This is a library? Too robotic for my taste." shivered Rarity.

"What are all these things for anyway?" asked Applejack.

"These shelves are most likely needed to store tablets for reading, the virtual reality tubes are used to experience interactive stories and I don't know why there's a projector." explained Scorch.

"Can any of you get a connection in this room?" asked X-ray who checked his tablet.

"Negative. Just because our ancestors were advanced, doesn't mean they thought of the internet." replied Scarecrow.

"Do libraries look like this on your colonies?" asked Fluttershy.

"Of course not! Ours are much brighter, less gloomy looking and with a view of the city, not a view of the sub space." defended Scarecrow.

"Why are all these shelves empty anyway?" sighed Twilight. "There should be at least some material we can read."

"Something tells me the humans didn't have time to stock up after they disappeared." guessed X-ray.

"So until we find the Librarian, this place is a dead end?" whispered Pinkie Pie.

"Relax. We'll find the intelligence control soon. I mean, Sombra still found the intelligence regardless." shrugged Scorch.

"Can I just comment on one thing?" requested Overwatch.

"Go head." signaled Twilight.

The other three commandos lined up alongside Overwatch and faced the ponies, leaving their back side unchecked.

"I just wanted to remark how we could have ignored all this. How we could have ignored the fact that creatures from Earth existed on another planet light years away. How we could have brushed off the fact said creatures spoke our language or the fact that they were based off of the very myths our species literally made up! And even then we could have not been bothered by said creatures using technologies or evolving just like another race an infinite distance away. All that, could have been ignored and we would have simply played games or go on some irrelevant adventure. If any lazy minded person would be in our shoes, they would have been lazy in questioning all the anomalies and wouldn't have found out about this major and ground breaking discovery."

As Overwatch spoke, a blue light began to manifest before the four commandos and slowly began to walk towards the counter terrorists. The ponies wanted to warn Shadow, but Overwatch kept talking over them.

"But we didn't. We questioned the ridiculousness of technicolor speaking ponies. We pointed out how wrong it was for you to have technologies that belonged to a human, and now look where we are! We've discovered an entire ancient civilization and unlocked the key to learning about a period in human history that we have never even known about! Although I wonder if we would have found out about it whether we questioned it or not anyway, considering we'd still deal with every single race trying to kill us."

"..."

"Yes, I'm well aware that there's an intelligence behind us right now."

Shadow turned around and tightened the grip on their weapons to face the entity that appeared before their eyes.

Like most intelligence units, it took the form of a being and glowed a transparent blue. Unlike human VIs however, this intelligence did not take the form of a human, even though it was clearly taking the form of some living thing.

The intelligence was somewhat shorter than X-ray, wore something similar to a dress and was humanoid, while not being human. The ears were far more pointed, the nose was smaller than a human's and had a slight square jaw. There were also no signs of wrinkles nor eyelashes and it appeared to have freckles under its eyes. Its hair fell back to its waste.

The eyes were blank, but since it was smiling, one could tell the intelligence was content. The construct appeared to be female due to its figure and facial structure.

The construct spoke with a smooth and calm voice, far too close to Fluttershy's.

No one could understand it however, as she spoke in ancient Greek.

"X-ray, what did she say?" asked Scarecrow.

"She said welcome. I'll handle communication." answered X-ray.

The intelligence raised an eyebrow and frowned, only to smile once more. It extended her hand and touched the fore head of Scarecrow, who nearly drew his shotgun from his back.

She finally spoke in modern Terran English. "Translation software updated, allow me to repeat my previous statement. Welcome visitor to the Crystal Library. I am the monitor of this installation, AI theta-beta 33. or as designated by my makers, the Librarian. The last time of visit to the library is approximately one thousand and three local star cycles."

Scorch turned around to face the ponies. "This is the Librarian, the VI we were looking for."

The Librarian placed a finger on her tiny lips. "Allow me to correct you, I am not a Virtual Intelligence, I am an Artificial Intelligence, fully sentient."

"I thought it was impossible to achieve a full AI." muttered X-ray. The commando used neural controls to check on his HUD. He made sure that he was recording.

"From my readings, you are all humans. However, I have noticed a change in your genes." said the Librarian. "You're much taller, stand more upright and have a far more complex genetic code. I am also reading what appears to be artificial genetic modification."

"Well due to our last visit to the archives being at a ten thousand year gap, our race is obviously going to experience a form of evolution." responded Scorch.

"The difference is still far too acute to be considered a form of evolution. Please state the purpose of your visit." smiled the Librarian.

Scarecrow cleared his throat. "We were attempting to seek information regarding our current ordeal. It's somewhat complicated."

"I see, please hand me your holo book devices or any other compatible device so I may transfer any data file that you may need." instructed the Librarian.

The members of Shadow looked at each other hesitantly. Slowly, X-ray took out his tablet and held it in his hand.

As if she believed X-ray knew what he was doing, the Librarian extended her arm and the tablet began to levitate. The Librarian pulled the device towards her and looked at it for a few seconds.

She frowned. "Oh dear, it seems that this device is incompatible."

"All of our devices are formatted like this, I doubt any of the technology we have will work." said Scorch.

The Librarian handed back X-ray's tablet. "Then I'm afraid I can't transfer any form of data on your devices, unless you allow me to reformat them."

Twilight crept forward. "You're an artificial intelligence, I'm sure you'll have all the answers we'll need."

The AI frowned. "Young alicorn, the Crystal Library is an area has been designated for humans only, I'm afraid you and your friends have to leave."

"You can't talk to a princess like that!" yelled Rainbow Dash.

"The alicorn is not the head of state of the Crystal Empire. That responsibility falls to the joint human tribes." replied the Librarian with an annoyed tone.

Before things got tense, Scarecrow shot up his arms. "AI, it's okay, the ponies are authorized to come with us, the Crystal Empire is their home after all."

"Their home?" repeated the Librarian. "You are mistaken. Surely you would know that this Empire is a human creation."

X-ray shook his head. "Just because our ancestors created the Cryst-"

Before continuing to speak, X-ray felt a sharp pain in his right arm. The injuries from the Buffalo encounter were getting more and more fatal. The problem with being augmented was that any pain he felt would progressively get worse, and if the fibers in his hexagonal muscles were injured in any way, it would be near fatal.

The Librarian did a quick scan of Shadow's conditions.

"All of you are displaying injuries beyond normal levels. Wait here."

The Librarian disappeared, and then reappeared again. Despite being an ethereal entity, she was somehow holding a series of vials in her hands. Shadow noticed how said hands were far more smoother and firm compared to human ones. The liquids were a teal blue, and clashed heavily with her transparent blue form.

"Drink these." instructed the AI.

X-ray was not convinced. "You're an AI, how are you holding-"

"Just drink it dummy!" yelled Pinkie Pie.

Slowly, the members of Shadow reached for the vials.

"What is this?" asked Overwatch.

"Batca. It's a healing agent. Drink it to be cured." encouraged the Librarian.

Shadow pulled down their bandannas and and sipped the liquid. They noted the orange flavor.

"How do you feel?" asked Rarity.

Shadow turned around. Their masks were still on, minus the cloth covering their mouth. They paused for a minute as they felt the effects of the bacta take place.

X-ray suddenly could move his right arm perfectly, Overwatch could support himself without falling over, and Scarecrow didn't need to clench his stomach and stopped vomiting blood. He even felt that blood that he had vomited had some how been replaced. Scorch wasn't wounded, but he certainly felt better.

"Wow, I feel amazing." gasped Scarecrow.

"No more injuries?" questioned Fluttershy.

Overwatch walked forward without harm. "None at all."

X-ray inspected the bacta. He tried scanning it, but his HUD responded by saying there was too much undocumented information to form a conclusion. "How does this bacta work? There should be no way for any medicine to just heal my fractured arm in fifteen seconds!"

The Librarian formed a solemn expression. "You don't know what bacta is? Surely a human would know."

"Lady, that's not half of what we don't know." groaned Scarecrow.

"An answer is an order then."

For the next two minutes, the Librarian gave an explanation of bacta and how it functioned. The ponies were annoyed at Shadow's rampant curiosity, but let the Librarian continue.

After she finished speaking, Shadow stood silently.

"I did not understand a single word of that." admitted X-ray.

"It's simple logic really." responded the Librarian.

"Simple logic only if you've made the discoveries to make it sound logical." defended Scarecrow. He held up the vial. "Still, the effects of this concoction are utterly mind bending. If they can be used to heal anything by simple ingestion, then you could pretty much say that this vial is-"

"Magic?" muttered Twilight.

"Yeah. Kind of like magic."

"Now that we're all healed, I think it would be appropriate to ask a few questions. Since you're an AI, you are capable if responding outside normal programming restrains, no?" asked Scorch.

"Affirmative." smiled the Librarian. "What questions do you have?"

"What is this place!" yelled Pinkie Pie before anyone else could talk.

"The location that you are in is a sub space archive. Standard for most terraformation operations. The creators of the world would create a sub space location in order to review information and dictate the next course of action."

"Why put it in the middle of dimensions?" asked Applejack.

"Safety, and to offer a secure storage location in order to prevent primitives or even early space faring species from uncovering information they are not authorized to know." answered the Librarian. "The only way one could discover such a location is if they discovered inter dimensional teleportation or accessed a Creator Heart-"

"Creator Heart?" interrupted Scarecrow.

"You know, the central device used to orchestrate a creation of a planet." answered the Librarian.

The ponies looked at each other worriedly. That was the true name of the Crystal Heart.

"Actually, we didn't know until a few hours ago." deadpanned Scorch.

"Few hours?" frowned the Librarian. That did not make sense at all for her.

"Why shape such a complex construct as a heart?" asked Rarity.

"Because the Creator Heart is the centre, thereby the Heart of a Terraformation operation." laughed the Librarian.

"Please continue." requested Overwatch.

"As I was saying, to access a sub space archive, a Terraformer species would use Creator Heart to access the archives if he or she needed information. Based on my readings, you all just entered the archives with his method. Still, I do not understand why a human would bring a pony with them, although I have not made any contact with either of your races for millenniums." stated the AI.

"Before we tell you why, we should point out that our race has used the heart multiple times. In fact, it's kinda defending the Crystal Empire right now." said Rainbow Dash.

"But of course. No technological application should only serve one measly purpose." giggled the Librarian.

X-ray sighed and got ready to tell the Librarian about their predicament.

"A few days ago, our current government, the United Terran Federation, discovered the planet of Epona."

"You mean rediscovered." insisted the Librarian.

"More or less. As we were saying, we arrived on the planet a few days ago, and we were totally caught off guard to see a group of talking technicolor ponies."

The Librarian was beginning to think that she was being treated to a massive joke. "Why would a human be surprised to see the Equines on the world of Epona? Are you not aware of-"

"No. That's the problem. We don't know a single thing. We don't know why this is here, we don't why humans were on Epona thousands of years before and we don't know why we can't remember." explained Scarecrow.

"Allow me to finish." requested Scorch. "After we met the ponies, we tried to find out exactly why they were acting so close to us humans."

The Librarian forced herself to not spill the answer.

"Then, something even stranger happened. For some reason, we found ourselves as the target of a multiple species alliance, hell bent on attacking us and wiping us out."

"I don't find it surprising, considering what your ancestors did in the past." muttered the AI.

"Neither do we. But why can't us nor the ponies remember any of it?" gritted Scarecrow.

"It does seem odd that you humans can't remember it. After all, even a species that has been traveling across space for thousands-"

"Hundreds." corrected Overwatch.

"I do believe you are mistaken, you couldn't have simply lost all this technology by magic." implied the Librarian.

"Well, we did. Because for the past few thousand years, we humans had to adapt in order to be able to travel across space once more. And our second voyaging of space has lasted only a few hundred years. Albeit with inferior technology to this." explained X-ray.

"That does seem peculiar. You humans should have every reason to remember such a significant period in your time." frowned the Librarian.

"That's what we said." shrugged X-ray.

"But you don't know at all?" inquired Fluttershy.

"My last period of interaction with a human dates to them creating this sub space archive. It's just blank after this. I can only remember something if data is transferred or if I am activated to experience it." stated the Librarian.

"And you don't know why us ponies remember any of this as well?" asked Twilight.

"That is less of a surprise." shook the Librarian. "You ponies simply had no interaction with the humans after your creation. Can't say the same about the other races."

"Surely we would have remembered an event such as mass genocide. Would we not?" implied Rarity.

"I wasn't around in your part of the world when the humans were attacking. Why you don't remember is anyone's guess unless data is brought to me." answered the Librarian.

"Moving on, after we repelled a few attacks, we found out a bit of our ancestor's history and were instructed to visit this location in order seek information that would aid us." finalized Scorch. "You see, this major alliance is plotting an attack on us and the ponies, but our Federation can't do anything about it because of a giant barrier blocking any form of orbital deployment."

The Librarian formed a look of empathy. "I see, but what can I do about it?"

"We need information on how we can get this barrier struck down. Surely our ancestors would be smart enough to know how to disable a barrier if they could build constructs like this location." demanded Scarecrow.

The Librarian laughed. "Your ancestors? Let me just say that I did not expect you humans to be so rational and knowledgeable when I saw you. Seems like a lot has improved since I last saw you."

"Improved?" blurted X-ray. "We can't even create Artificial Intelligence! Is there anything in this library that will help us remove the barrier and call for reinforcements?"

"Afraid not." shook the Librarian. "This is a data archive, not a military center."

"Come on! The fucking Crystal Heart just turned Epona from a cartoon world into something realistic." complained Scorch.

"Wait a minute? Terraformation is complete? Took you humans long enough." smirked the Librarian.

"Yeah, how did the Heart do that anyway?" asked Scarecrow.

The Librarian gave an explanation. While it only took two minutes, it felt like an eternity.

Surprisingly, Shadow understood none of that.

"Okay, how about I stop asking questions since this technology and science is clearly beyond what me or anyone in the Federation can comprehend." shook X-ray. "You might as well call it magic."

"Hey, I'm sure you'll figure it out one day." encouraged Rainbow Dash. She gave a friendly nudge to X-ray.

The Librarian suddenly laughed like a little girl.. "Come to think of it, I'm thousands of years behind in terms of productivity. After all, I'm running what must be an extremely outdated operating system. Give me a moment to update my software please."

A moment passed, and the Librarian's smile faded.

"Odd, I can't seem to access the servers for software updates."

"Well what did you expect? Since the ancient human empire isn't active, there's no way for us to create a newer version of your operating system." panned X-ray.

"Actually, it has nothing to do with that." hinted the Librarian. She spoke once more before Shadow could respond. "I just can't access any servers at all what's so ever, and with my current OS, I'm afraid there's nothing this facility can do to aid you."

"So there's ultimately nothing a Terraformation device can do about a giant kinetic barrier?" scowled Scarecrow.

"Afraid not." sighed the Librarian. "If it was a barrier emitted by the Heart, it would be an easy feat to shut it down."

"Could you give us any information on the barrier that's surrounding the planet right now? Any way we could deactivate it?" asked Scorch.

"Give me a moment to analyze the planet's atmosphere." requested the Librarian.

The hologram looked down and put her fingers on her lips, as if she was thinking deeply about something. When she finished her analysis, she looked back up at the group.

"Barrier is located within the lower troposphere of the planet. Required energy to shatter the barrier would be at around 3 times ten to the power 33 joules." noted the Librarian.

"That's around the same amount of energy a planet gun would emit when fired." remembered X-ray. "If we were to just round up all six dreadnoughts and have them fire their combined ion canons, we could shatter it."

"We can't take that risk. There would still be enough energy left over to strike a significant portion of the planet." denied Scarecrow. "And I, neither would the Federation, would want to risk blowing up Epona's surface by accident."

"The only other option would be an Electromagnetic Pulse. And we know how that turned out." gritted X-ray.

"The barrier is structured as a Faraday cage, any form of electrical attack would be useless." remarked the Librarian.

"Can't we just teleport ships inside of Epona?" asked Twilight.

"It's not as easy as you think it is." warned Scorch. "Even if the calculations are done correctly, there's no telling that a ship would perfectly materialize in Equestria's sky rather than crashing in a city."

"Is there anything we can do to get this shield powered down?" asked Pinkie Pie.

"This barrier is powered by a source. The only way it would deactivate is if you found whatever was emitting the barrier and taking it out." instructed the AI.

"Why didn't you say so? Who's creating the barrier?" blurted Rainbow Dash.

The Librarian clenched her chin. "Scanning the planet for a possible source."

A moment passed.

"Readings are inconclusive."

Scarecrow wanted to kick something. "What the fuck do you mean inconclusive?"

"Every time I try to route the signal of the barrier, I only get static. As if someone was enabling a countermeasure." explained the Librarian.

"Can't you do anything about it?" whispered Fluttershy.

"It's a counter measure, what do you think?" gritted X-ray.

"There's bound to be something we can use to take out the barrier or at least the giant army coming straight at us! Documents, blueprints, instructions, anything!" pleaded Scorch.

"Well, I do have some patents on how to construct some weapon that would out do your kinetic gauss rifles." remarked the Librarian. "I could transfer them to your devices, as long as you allow me to reformat them."

"Just reformat the documents themselves to something compatible." instructed Scarecrow.

The Librarian nodded. A hologram of a sheet of paper appeared before her. She made a certain motion with her hand over the document which proceeded to disappear. Shadow wanted to ask how she was doing all this, but they refrained.

Suddenly, they got notifications on their wrist computers from an unnamed source.

They accessed the documents to see what the Librarian had to offer them. As usual, all the information that was written was beyond their comprehension. Half of the terminology was alien to them. If they tried to understand it, they would have likely gone mad.

X-ray shook his head. "None of these are practical enough for us to construct them."

"Maybe I could aid you in that. I've made some pretty complex things you know." insisted Twilight.

Scarecrow stroked Twilight's mane. "I'm afraid this is beyond your comprehension too."

"So that's it huh? Trying to disable the barrier is an improbability." gritted X-ray.

"Not unless you find whatever is emitting it." reminded the Librarian.

"Do any of you believe it's some sort of generator?" questioned Scarecrow.

Pinkie Pie placed a hoof on her chin. A light bulb suddenly went off in her head. "Hey, didn't the Zebras mention that they had this ally-guy that was behind the whole thing."

"You're right." nodded Scorch. "But who could it be?"

"I doubt anyone in Equestria has the ability to create a barrier this epic." implied Twilight. "It would have to be some sort of powerful magic user."

"A magic user who holds a grudge against humanity." added Overwatch.

"I bet it's Discord." gritted Applejack.

"It couldn't be him, he's reformed." defended Fluttershy.

"Oh please. The guy loves chaos! He'll do anything to see the world burn!" shrieked Rainbow Dash.

"Actually, it wouldn't make much sense for Discord to be plotting against humanity." implied the Librarian.

"Why not? Shouldn't he hate humanity like the rest of them?" questioned Scorch.

"No." simply said the Librarian. "You humans never really did anything wrong to him. In fact, he kind of enjoyed the mass destruction your ancestors were brining to Epona."

"We humans are not a violent race that would commit genocide for the heck of it or commits war for no reason!" growled Scarecrow.

"I believe you. But the actions of your ancestors would tell me otherwise." responded the AI.

"Then who could it possible be?" inquired Rarity. The situation was getting more and more desperate.

"Speaking of ancestors, could you at lest tell us a little bit about the history of the ancient humans. Like, how long did our space faring empire last?" asked X-ray.

"It wasn't an empire." shook the Librarian. "It was a collection of multiple tribes divided by ethnicity. As for how long it lasted, I'm calculating a few weeks."

"You mean you were in service to humanity for a few weeks?" checked Scorch.

"No, you humans went from being simple cave men to a graduated space faring race in a process of a few weeks. I saw the transition myself. It was rather peculiar to say the least." corrected the Librarian.

No one talked.

X-ray finally spoke. "Few weeks? How does a space faring empire last a few weeks? YOU CAN NOT GO FROM CAVEMEN TO GALACTIC TRAVELERS AND BACK AGAIN IN A FEW WEEKS!"

"Take a chill pill." advised Pinkie Pie.

"Not to worry." smiled the Librarian. She suddenly held a bottle of stress relievers. X-ray just stared at them bemusedly.

"Honestly though, it still feels odd that humans could advanced that rapidly, only to fall that quickly as well." defended Scarecrow.

"I knew humans were rapid adapters, but that would be just ridiculous." added Scorch.

"Easy come easy go?" pondered Twilight.

"To be fair, my interaction with humanity was limited to me being activated, serving your race for a few weeks and then being deactivated. I am reading nearly ten thousand years of inactivity with your race." explained the Librarian.

"Do you know what could have brought down our space faring ancestors back to tribal life styles?" questioned X-ray.

"Negative. The last time I was interacting with your race was when I was creating this library and overseeing expansion of the Crystal Empire. After that, I was simply shut down. And now here I am." told the AI.

"So that's it? You never saw what happened to our ancestors after that? You just stopped functioning?" gritted Overwatch.

The Librarian looked down. "My apologies, but there was no way for me to control whenever your ancestors wanted me on and off."

"Hey, didn't Nigeria mention that the attacks of the ancient humans simply ceased after a period of time?" remembered X-ray.

"Your right. I think that's when the Librarian got shut down as well." nodded Scorch.

"It seems like a possibility." agreed the Librarian.

"But knowing the nature of humans and their relationship to victory, it seems unlikely that humans would just stop fighting in the middle of combat." remarked Scarecrow.

"Well, what if the humans didn't want to stop?" implied Twilight.

"Yeah, what if the creatures of the planet fought back and repelled the invaders?" guessed Applejack.

"I am sorry, but at the rate the humans were decimating Epona, there would be no way for the humans to loose unless they willingly surrendered." debunked the Librarian.

"Then why did we stop? We couldn't have just felt like it. And that still wouldn't explain why we regressed from a mighty group space tribes to pathetic cave tribes." whined Scorch. "Especially in a period that lasted a few weeks."

"Moving on, what was the planet count of the ancient space faring humans? " asked Scarecrow. "Before going to Epona, I'm sure our ancestors would have colonized a vast quantity of worlds."

"And with the Crystal Heart, terraforming would have been the easiest job ever." agreed Rarity.

"Actually, it was quite the opposite." denied the AI. "Other than Earth, the only colony humans were settled on, or at least WANTED to settle on was Epona."

X-ray didn't even bother challenging the ridiculousness of that statement. Surprisingly, it was the former elements that questioned it.

"Are you sure about that?" deadpanned Rainbow Dash.

"I can not lie." smiled the Librarian.

"Well neither can I, but I thought there were a ton of planets the humans would want to claim before coming to Epona." stated Applejack.

"Yeah. Why would their ancestors waste so much time finding our planet when they could have easily colonized so many more?" frowned Twilight.

"It was not my calling. The humans just punched in a random code in the command vessel and the others followed." informed the Librarian.

"Punched in a random code? Sounds kinda risky." twitched Pinkie Pie.

"Exactly. Mighty irresponsible if ya ask me." nodded Applejack.

"To be fair, the ancestors of the humans that stand before us weren't very bright." shrugged the AI.

"Not bright? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a race that could build places like this." whispered Fluttershy.

"Really, it was I and the machines that did most of the work."

"Still, with a huge arsenal of space ships, it seems odd that our ancestors would only focus on one planet." pointed X-ray.

"Huge arsenal?" repeated the Librarian. "The fleet was merely fifteen ships. One carrier at 10 kilometers and 14 standard size frigates at 5 and a half kilometers each. Every tribe had its own respective vessel."

Scorch crossed his arms. "Fifteen ships? That constituted the entirety of ancient human battle prowess? I mean, I know the ships they commandeered are far more superior to ours, but that seems far too little to suffice what would have been the human population."

"Not really. The population was rather small."

X-ray wanted to shoot himself from all the logical fallacies. "Any species that can build starships and the preceding technology needed to create it would need the combined engineering input of at least a few billion."

"Oh no. It was the opposite of that. The humans were at 1 million on Earth. Only a few thousand were on each ship." told the Librarian.

"1 million? That was estimated to be the human population on Earth thousands of years ago." noted Scarecrow.

"How could humans develop tools to make the necessary pre existing technologies and the ones demonstrated here with just a million people?" asked Twilight.

The Library gave a light smile.

"You know something!" pointed Rainbow Dash.

"I do, but I'd rather you ask me a few questions to see if you can figure it out for yourselves." teased the AI.

"I have one!" shot up Pinkie Pie. "By any chance, did you meet a guy named Sombra a thousand years ago?"

"Sombra?" frowned the Librarian. "You mean the unicorn that's obsessed with black and constantly growls?"

"Exactly!" piped up Twilight. While we were rummaging the Empire for clues, we found some notes that stated he found this room while teleporting."

"Oh so that's what he's called." remembered the Librarian. "It's always odd when a creature enters facilities like this by simply teleporting in. It's almost like walking into a room without knocking."

"What did Sombra want?" asked Fluttershy.

"At first he demanded to know who I was and what I was doing here." said the Librarian. "I explained and demanded he was to leave. I was following the protocol established by your ancestors that prohibited me from accepting non ponies into this facility."

"But you gave Sombra some notes." interrogated Scarecrow.

"Yes, your protocol did not prohibit me from distributing non official information. Your ancestors really had no idea as to how you are supposed to establish regulations." stated the Librarian. "I wonder what he did with those."

"Well, we read them and that's how we discovered about this place." flexed X-ray. "And that's also how we learned that our ancestors massacred the races just because they committed heresy and not 'knowing their place' all that bull shit."

"Another question." said Scorch. "Why are all these ponies and other species evolving like humans? And how did they get the earliest technologies out of thin air?"

"Isn't it obvious?" inquired the Librarian.

"Not really. We don't even know how this planet came to be." defended X-ray.

"Come on. Seriously?" giggled the Librarian. "You're in a room that is entirely based on planet construction and I hinted that Equestria's terraformation is completed, meaning that it had to be started."

X-ray put two and two together. "Are you saying that our ancestors created this world?"

"That can't be possible!" exclaimed Twilight. "After we were created, there was a hundred year gap before the humans unleashed their onslaught. If we were made by them, the humans should have been governing us from start to finish."

"Let's just say the ancestors of humanity didn't have a clue as to how space worked in relation to time." hinted the Librarian.

There was a tense moment in the room that swiftly passed.

Applejack finally spoke. "Please tell me y'all are recording this."

"We are." answered Scarecrow.

"If you think about it. It's certainly impossible that a planet would just show up in the middle of nowhere, only to spring with creatures exclusively with your mythology who act and talk the exact same way all humans did." hinted the Librarian. "Besides, didn't you all take a hint by the simple presence of a terraformation device?"

X-ray was desperate. "Well, I, uh, kinda......no." He felt ashamed.

"This is just so fucking confusing." shook Scorch.

"Even more confusing, how did our ancestors program this entire world and create AIs of your caliber?" asked Scarecrow. "I can't even comprehend how they placed a giant room in the middle of sub space."

"Aren't you listening?" panned the Librarian. "I said your ancestors weren't the most intelligent of people. Heck, the four of you would trump them all in a game of wits."

"Not intelligent!" yelled Rarity. "Look at this place for crying out loud, if Shadow can't understand how any of this works and dismiss it as cosmic magic, then their ancestors had to be rather potent in the various fields of science."

"They weren't." was all the Librarian said.

"That kind of explains why our ancestors used such inappropriate terminology when addressing various objects." realized Scarecrow.

"Tell me about it." sighed the AI.

"If they couldn't figure anything out, how did they build all this?" questioned Twilight.

"They didn't."

"But you said they made this planet and all of its living creatures." pointed Rainbow Dash.

"They did."

"So how did we get all this technology?" screamed Overwatch who couldn't take it anymore.

"You found it." said the Librarian rather quickly.

"We what?"

"You found it. As in you did not make any of this technology, you merely found it and used it. I was basically walking your ancestors through the whole ordeal." explained the Librarian.

"This is getting us no where." face palmed X-ray.

"Just another tiny questioned." squeaked Fluttershy. "Why don't you look like a human?"

"Yeah, you would think the humans would design their constructs to reflect them." noticed Twilight.

"You don't even look like anything from a human mythology book." added Scarecrow.

"Why of course not. I have taken the form of a Narret." trivialized the AI.

Scorch stroked his bandanna. "You're a what?"

"A Narret." repeated the Librarian. "A female one to be exact of average build."

"Who are the Narrets?" interrogated Scarecrow.

The Librarian was rather calm. "A race, just like you and the ponies."

"Another alien race? Way to complicate the situation." groaned Rainbow Dash.

"And it was these Narrets who built everything? The Heart? The ships and the sciences behind them?" checked X-ray.

"That is correct. Your ancestors merely exploited the tools of my makers." stated the AI.

It was as if Scorch wanted to cry. "Wait, how did our ancestors get a hold of alien technologies beyond their understanding? Did you ever interact with the Narrets?"

"First, yes. I've been in service with the Narret for seven Vaporan cycles. Vapora is the Narret home world by the way. My instructions were to merely be the central operating system of their fleet. On my last interaction with the Narret race, I was to lead a fleet of unmanned vessels into another system to engage a local Narret terror group. Unfortunately, a glitch in our central mainframe caused me to teleport to the planet of Terra, or Earth. As I was unable to communicate with central command due to being too far for signals to reach, my ships simply touched down on various parts of Earth. A day later, my hull was approached by a series of primitive humans. They activated me, and I was ready to function once more."

Scarecrow yawned. "Hold on, you just served our ancestors? Just like that without questioning? What about protocols? Surely your makers would have instructed you not to help no Narrets."

"I've always been amongst the more helpful of the AIs." said the Librarian.

"Are there any other sapient species in this galaxy that you know of?" asked Twilight.

The Librarian nodded. "Plenty. The Narrets were a part of the Stellar Alliance the last time I was with them. There are the-"

"Just focus on the Narrets for now. What can you tell us about the Narrets? Their culture, who they were and all other relevant facts." requested Scorch.

"This isn't the time to talk about these things Scorch." interrupted Scarecrow. "Right now we have an entire species under attack from overwhelming odds and terraforming this planet to make it more suitable for them doesn't help our situation."

"I'm sorry, but there is literally nothing I can do to help." apologized the Librarian.

"Say, can you call those Narret guys?" asked Pinkie Pie. "Maybe they could help us out."

"Dear universe, I do not need to go through a fucking 'second contact' right now." complained X-ray.

"Give me a moment to make a call." requested the Librarian.

The group was getting tired of waiting.

"Odd. It seems that I can't contact them." awed the Librarian.

"Didn't you say something about not being able to access the extranet?" reminded Scorch.

"That should have nothing to do with it. I should still be able to contact what has become of the Narrets." countered the Librarian.

"Well what if there aren't any Narrets anymore?" panned Overwatch.

"What do you mean by that?" squeaked Fluttershy.

"Its bee thousands of years, they could have perished for all I care." hinted X-ray.

The ponies were getting nervous and scared. Scarecrow elevated the mood.

"Or they could have simply evolved to an even higher field of communication. As a result, they would have no reason to keep the servers of the old extranet running."

The Librarian nodded but looked sad. "True. Although the notion that I won't be in contact with my makers isn't very comforting."

"Hey, don't be sad. That won't make anything better." pleaded Pinkie Pie.

The Librarian took the advice and gave a small smile. "You know, we have never been properly introduced to each other."

X-ray crossed his arms. "We don't have time for-"

Suddenly, he found Rarity bumping is left with an angry look. The commando sighed. The group spent the next minute introducing each other and who they were.

"It sure is nice to meet you all. Although I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you in your situation." apologized the Librarian.

"It's alright. This is beyond your control. I will never blame anyone for something that happened beyond their control." assured Scarecrow.

"Thank you."

"Although, could you at least tell us what our ancestors did? Why they presumably made this planet and what not?" requested X-ray.

"I will not tell you that." teased the Librarian.

"...."

"I will show you that."

Author's Notes:

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Frostbite

Archer

Bandit

Oxide

Guess what these mean. :)