The Unicorn Empirium.

That is where it all began. All the turmoil, all the chaos, all the blights... almost all of the world's problems seem to be able to be traced back to the original Emperium. This is not a case of blaming a people or country for the world's problems; pointing fingers blamelessly and making bold accusations. It is known fact.

It all began with conquest.

They say the Unicorn Emperium began something more... honest. It was a kingdom like any other, and their people were said to raise the sun and moon, marking the passing of days. At some point in history, however, they began to toil with new ideas, with new magics. They found a way to feed their magic with the power of life, the power of blood; be it their own or that of others.

Blood Magic, a terrible thing to behold.

It began with this discovery, and as most horrible tales, it grew. They beheld the ability to control others as puppets, to raise the dead, and they grew drunk with power. They began to plot conquest; stopping the cycle of night and day and holding such a thing for ransom was out of the question, as that would harm them as much as their potential conquest. No, they used their new found magics to storm the cities.

They say Cloudsdale fell the hardest. Their gift of flight and cloud-walking made them one of the few races that could stand in the way of the Emperium's conquest. The Unicorns aimed their magics at them first. Using spells to allow themselves temporary flight as well as cloud walking ability, they stormed the great city of Cloudsdale. From here, they hunted every other Pegasus settlement and attacked en mass.

The Pegasus Empire, once considered the strongest of the three, was utterly destroyed, and it's people either enslaved of scattered across the land.

The Earth Ponies came next. Strong and harty, they still found themselves disadvantaged to the more powerful spell-casting capability of Unicorns. Towns fell, cities were destroyed...

And it seemed the Unicorn Empire would rule the world.

The Unicorn Emperium's hubris grew. They were no longer pleased with conquest on the scale they had been achieving; with only one known enemy that could compete with them (The Zebra city of Zenrador), they set their sights towards another goal.

The Golden City.

They say it took a third of the Laurium in their kingdom, but they opened a hole in the veil, and trotted into the city. But as they first set their hooves in that sacred place, it's golden halls turned black; hubris had poisoned it. They say the Maker himself was displeased with them, and punished them by making their nobles as dark as they had made the city.

This is when the first Darkherd were born, and the begining of the first Blight.

The Blight; the second tragedy brought onto the world by the Emperium. Darkherd spread across the land, corrupting the very soil they tread, their blood as poison to anything that touched it. They say it was divine punishment that the Darkherd sought out the very beings that the Unicorns revered and worshiped - the Old Dragons - and corrupted the strongest of them, birthing the first Archdemon.

This gave rise to the Trotters of the Grey; the Grey Horses. They had learned to hunt the Darkherd, to kill them, and, most importantly, to slay their tainted Dragon leaders. With this advent, however, the world was still in the Unicorn crutches - the Trotters of the Grey did not stand for any particular nation, and only functioned to combat the Blights. This meant the world at large was still at the mercy of the Unicorn Emperium.

And then, they appeared.

There are many rumors as to where they came from; some say they were a fluke of nature, and that they were born with the gifts of all three kinds. Some say they were unicorns who found magics that blessed them with such gifts. Others say they were divinity itself that graced the world.

The sisters lead and inspired armies. The disadvantaged Earth Ponies, the damaged Pegasai, and even Rebelling Unicorns took of their weapons under the flag of Day and Night. Two things the Emporium could not use against the world.

The flags of Celestia and Luna.

They waged war for years. Legends tell that one of the sisters alone commanded power beyond the might of even the Archon himself. They say they even utilized the power of strange mystical artifacts to fight their foes; referred to as the 'Elements of Harmony'. Despite the legend, many disbelieve it, wondering that if it was true, why they wouldn't have used them to spare their lives. Celestia and Luna, under circumstances that to this day are debated, were captured and given a choice - to submit to the Emperium, or to be burned at the stake.

They chose death.

Legend has it their very death brought turmoil into the world and birthed chaos. Such were the times, that the Archon who ordered their execution felt guilt for his actions. The deaths of Celestia and Luna had marred his very soul, and many say he lived the rest of his days in repentance. Many ponies took up Celestia and Luna's deaths with courage and valor, and fought on, believing the sisters to be divine and their deaths to have been a crime against the universe itself.

This is when the Chantry of Celestia and Luna was born.

With renewed vigor, ponies continued to fight until the Unicorn Emperium. With their ruler's conversion, their politics failing, and their might shattering, the Emperium surrendered.

And thus began a new kind of oppression.

Unicorns were restricted; sent to the newly formed 'Unicorn Circles.' Earth ponies had found the means to fight by infusing themselves with Laurium; a strange ore said to draw power from the Fade, the realm of dreams. By consuming this ore, they gained powers that made them strong against magic, and gave their weapons bite that would sap the power of unicorns or similarly magical entities especially dramatically. All Unicorns were to be brought into the Circle as early as the age of six. Unicorns who refused to join the Circles were labelled Apostates.

And Apostates are put to death.

And to think it all started because one king grew greedy.

Unicorns are mistrusted at best, and hated at worst.

Darkherd roam the underground, attacking in the night and spreading their vile poison.

Pegasai are a scattered, broken people, living mostly in the wilds or in the city slums.

Even the world itself has welcomed chaos. If the legends are true, nopony knows; that Unicorns controlled the cycle of night and day, that Pegasai controlled weather, and that Earth Ponies grew food? Well... Earth Ponies still grow food. The rest? Well, weather happens on it's own now, and if somepony is controlling the passing of night and day, nopony has seen them.

But this is all ancient history.

Of course, it is important to know for one fact alone:

It explains why everything is as it is now.