For a thousand years, Equestria been under Princess Celestia's rule. Her sister, Princess Luna, has also returned to co-rule by her side. Her niece, Princess Cadance, takes care of The Crystal Empire. Princess Twilight Sparkle also plays a hoof in the politics and the well being of Equestria. They are loved and worshiped all over the land. They are figures that demand respect.

Not all the ponies respect them though. There're those who question the princesses capabilities. Sure the sisters defeated Discord, but they question why they nearly lost to him hardly a year ago. He might be reformed now, but in a delicate way. He sided with Lord Tirek and his apology was a bouquet of flowers! After that he let his anger get the hold of him and almost sent somepony to another dimension, at The Grand Galloping Gala no less!

Nightmare Moon was defeated, but for how long? She could come back. Can Luna and her sister control her? The elements are gone. Speaking of, the elements were able to make her normal, but Celestia banished her. She never gave an explanation to her choice. Some ponies discredit the choice all together.

Princess Cadance was captured by the changeling queen, Chrysalis. The changelings almost took over Canterlot by tearing it down from the inside and nopony was the wiser. Celestia lost in her duel with Chrysalis. Luna was nowhere to be found and never knew much about the incident. Twilight may not have been a princess at the time, but she and her friends failed to reach the elements. Canterlot was saved by sheer luck. Not only was the pony that should have noticed kept his position as captain of the guard, but is now also the consort title holder as prince of The Crystal Empire!

Cadance was worked to near exhaustion trying to repel King Sombra from The Empire. Twilight was almost stopped by the most "threatening" obstacle of them all, stairs. Sure there was the door that showed your greatest fear and the trap at the top, but it's the stairs that everypony focuses on once they hear it.

The sisters were captured by vines of all things. Their absence caused fear and panic. The Everfree Forest almost escaped from its confinements and spread over Equestria. The elements were then lost in the process.

Lord Tirek got Discord to betray his so called friends. Although everypony can agree that Tirek was a special case, some argue that if there were more alicorns to respond to him in his weaker state instead of somepony as untrustworthy as Discord, disaster would have been avoided.

Twilight almost fell to a cult that could have taken over. She had to be rescued by common ponies. The princess of friendship needed to be saved by a group of normal ponies! An almighty alicorn was left helpless by a simple unicorn! If only Equestria was better equipped to handle what should have been a meaningless task.

With all the power an alicorn has, there were instances in which if other alicorns existed, the situation would have ended up much better than it did. All these facts settled in some ponies and they now want to enact change. So some nobles came together to fund a project. The Alicorn Project. Some of Equestria's greatest minds joined the project and gathered a number of volunteers. Each has their own reasoning to be here. Some wish to dethrone the sisters, others want more alicorn protectors. Most ponies used to worship the goddess "Lauren Faust," the creator, but in recent times, it's believed that Faust had abandoned them. So now they worship a pantheon of gods. The project's members pledge their allegiance and prayers to the god of alicorns, "M.A. Larson."

From all corners of Equestria did the project search. It searched for members, albet in secrecy. It also searched for artifacts. items that can hold the power that they need. At points, it was best to pay experienced explorers to hunt high and low for such items. Sometimes, they needed to be stolen from museums or private collections. Others were near suicidal to gather.

Another thing the project searched was whatever was left over from Starswirl The Bearded. The project's first set goal was to replicate the spell that turned Twilight into an alicorn princess. They don't have access to the spell so they have to build from the ground up to recreate the spell. They need to find as much of his research and maybe combine them with the artifacts they recover.

A problem quickly plagued the project from its foundation. There's little research from Starswirl that they can find that the public can get access to. The rest of it are closely guarded secrets for the power that the wrong hooves can do with them. To try to take that research will blow the project wide open. There's almost no artifacts that are of any use the project and its goals.

After countless study, the project was almost canceled due to the inability to replicate the spell that turned Twilight into an alicorn. Having almost crashed and burned, the project was on its death bed until a scientist suggested that perhaps they can find a gene in pony DNA that might make an alicorn.

The scientist reasoned that since there is a gene in pony DNA that decides what kind of pony that they would be (earth pony, unicorn, pegasus, or even bat pony) there can be a gene that will make an alicorn. It was possible, but it's hard to say whether or not that it's the case for the alicorn princesses aren't known for having romantic relationships with other ponies and therefore have not reproduced to prove whether or not alicorns can exist naturally through something like genetics. The Alicorn Project was in desperate need though.

The new plan was to gather DNA samples from the four princesses to locate the supposed gene to synthetically create alicorns. The nobles continued their funding and everypony prayed to Larson. The project then showed signs of life. Next Chapter: Prologue Part Two: The Magic Gene Estimated time remaining: 18 Minutes