Perhaps the most controversial, certainly the most argued-about and oftentimes most money-making for philosophers such as Oolon Colluphid, who, up until the collapse of the Altarian dollar, had been rich enough not to care much about it anymore, is a very simple, four-word question: “Is there a God?” And depending on who you talk to, the answer will be “Yes”, “No”, “I dunno”, or, “Spunch spunch spunch ckkk ckkk spunch click-click”, which, in Old Andromedan, means, “Zark off, I couldn't give a dingo's kidney.”

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy tends to stay away from these things, for two important reasons: One, to avoid upsetting any religious members of the Guide staff, as few of them as there are, as the publishing corporations of Ursa Minor simply cannot afford to be sued by any of them, and secondly, because the Guide staff that are non-religious tend to prefer writing lengthy articles about the best brothels and bars in the Galaxy rather than debate silly philosophical issues that aren't worth worrying about because, “Hey, we're all going to die anyway, right?”

Many, if not most, gods and goddesses have a general consensus of keeping themselves to themselves to avoid the inevitable publicity scandals that would immediately follow, such as in the case of “Messiahgate” in or around the Earth year 0BCE in which an unidentified god made the unwise decision to, to put it in polite hitch-hiking terms, sass a young woman, which led to almost 2000 years of bickering after the child born subsequently was nailed to a tree about thirty or so years later for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, though this whole mess was all cleared up when the Earth was demolished. This is, therefore, not that story.

There are a select few gods and goddesses who, through special control and organisation actually make things work to their, and, in very rare cases, everyone else's benefit, with little to no ill effects. Such is the case with Princess Celestia, a goddess who happens to live somewhere in an explored, though significantly-less-explored-than-say-the-more-interesting-bits portion of the Galaxy, on a very Earth-like (before it was reduced to a whiff of hydrogen, ozone and carbon monoxide) planet that, while having a very unclear name, is usually just referred to as a whole as “Equestria”, as that is the name of the ruling country there, which is incidentally where the goddess takes up her seat of power. For the sake of convenience, the Guide's staff have decided to treat this as a fact, largely because they'd rather spend a night out seeing who can chug the most Ol' Janx Spirit than worry about minor technicalities.

Princess Celestia leads a world which, to most hitch-hikers' eyes, is like the visual equivalent of someone vomiting pure sugar on to your eyes, and then dusting them with love, harmony and peace for good measure. It's so sickeningly sweet that the Guide recommends packing insulin, regardless of whether or not your species can get diabetes, as you are guaranteed to get diabetes either way. It is inhabited largely by sentient quadruped creatures that are comparable to Earth equines such as ponies, horses, donkeys, and zebras, as well as more fanciful or just plain silly creatures such as unicorns and pegasi. The local dialect has adopted these terms; thankfully, as the Guide's staff were getting worried they'd have more technicalities not to worry about.

Princess Celestia, who is an alicorn, that is, an extremely rare mix of both unicorn and pegasus, whose only known relatives at the time of publication are her younger sister “Princess Luna” and a snobby chauvinist known as “Prince Blueblood” (who is not an alicorn, but a unicorn, thus making him the shame of the Equestrian Royal Family), is gifted with the utterly ridiculous power to move a star to make the sun rise every morning. Most people visiting Equestria have often wondered in the past as to why she doesn't just set the planet, which has remained stationary in space for over 4.5 billion years, in orbit around the star. Of course, said visitors have often been warned to shut up, lest they be sent away to Equestria's natural satellite, which, by a staggering coincidence, is referred to as “The Moon”, in the same way Earth's was. Similarly, her sister has the power to make this natural satellite move. It makes absolutely no sense, and the ruling class show no signs of caring.

Celestia's residence is within a physically-impossible city known as “Canterlot”, which, when she was once asked to explain how it existed, explained it by saying, “It's all magic, I don't have to explain anything.” The problem with Celestia's godliness is this: She unfortunately deitied herself into a corner, and as a result has very little in the way of actual defense against the forces of evil, as few and far between as they may be. As a result, she has had to find a loop hole to god herself out of this hole.

And so it is that six very ordinary equine-descendants who just so happen to be socially interlinked are Celestia's “get out of not-exactly-being-a-god-but-I-sort-of-am-so-yeah” card. And, due to the universe's odd sense of humour, their lives are about to get a hell of a lot more complicated, as is often the way with these things. But, like another, suspiciously similar saga, it begins very simply.

It begins with a hen house.

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