In those first dark days it seemed certain the bright flame of resistance would be extinguished before it could cast the light of new truth across a galaxy of oppressed and beaten peoples…
Star Wars: A New Hope (novelisation).

Then.
Unitopia, Unicornia, 3,476 BAH (Before Anno Harmonia).

“They’re deciding the fate of all of Unicorn kind right there, you know.”

Nodding absently, Galatea took a sip of the ale that the Unicorn stallion had put in front of her. The inn she was sat in (named The Wingéd Unicorn, in what she could only ever have described as a fit of superb irony) was full of Unicorns, most of them drinking and muttering about the negotiations happening in Castle Unitopia.

Right now, Galatea knew, her sisters were up in the castle, meeting with Princess Adamant and her court, alongside Lord Blueblood and the many other lords who had gathered to support them in the intervening years. It was strange to think just how readily the Unicorn lords had been willing to accept the two sisters, yet it seemed less so when one heard of the tacit words of approval left by the so called ‘Pillars’ – Starswirl the Bearded had disappeared only a scant few years after they had declared their allegiance (and by default that of their supporters) to Celestia and Luna.

“What d’you think will happen?” the tavern’s proprietor asked. “With it all, I mean.”

Galatea shrugged. “I wouldn’t wish to guess.”

“Huh.” The stallion frowned at her, as if scrutinising her carefully. “You a noble? Y’sound like one.”

“No,” Galatea replied evenly. She had been careful not to seem too conspicuous: dirtying up her face and slipping her well-worn, tattered brown robe over her body. Yet she knew her voice and manner were hardly typical.

A pity my mother did not make me an actress, she pondered, amongst mine other skills.

Sipping at her ale, she smiled at the suspicious innkeeper.

“If I were a noble,” she said, “I’d be up there, deciding our fates right alongside the Alicorns.”

“‘Alicorns’,” the stallion said dismissively, apparently dismissing his scrutiny of Galatea for the moment. “Pfft. Believe it when I see it. Just some more buckin’ Unicorn lords, I bet.”

“Right,” another of the patrons said drowsily from one corner. “The Alicorns are a myth, nothing more.”

There were a dozen murmurs of assent from around the tavern, echoing this oft-held belief. The irony was hardly lost on Galatea, who simply contented herself with sitting and sipping away at her ale.

How could they believe it? she thought to herself. They have not seen them with their own eyes, and we live in an age of superstition and fear. If they believed all the horrors that came from above, they would soil themselves and hide beneath their beds until the world ended.

“They ain’t no myth,” another patron suddenly said from their table.

Galatea blinked, turning to look at the speaker who dared disagree with the drunken patrons surrounding him, many of whom were already giving him glares of hostility. He was a soldier, with a scar across one eye and an inked tattoo that covered his cutie mark on one side (and at the sight of that particular voluntary disfigurement Galatea repressed a shudder).

“How the buck d’you know?” the innkeeper asked hotly.

“You weren’t there,” the soldier said. “At the Tower, when they moved the stars. I was.”

“You were?” Galatea asked. She had not been there to see the event that had, as far as she could tell, set her sisters’ fates on a new path, and she sorely wished she had.

“I was,” the stallion slurred. “And by the stars, it was mad. They tell tales of the old ones, y’know, the ones who came before? Crazy stuff. Like a story from your foalhood, right?”

Galatea nodded, idly wondering for a moment what a foalhood was even like.

“But it was real,” the stallion continued. “It was all real.”

The patrons of the inn murmured amongst themselves. Their hostility had melted as quickly as it had been stoked, and now they were content to murmur fearfully amongst themselves.

The innkeeper shook his head. “How… how can they be real? Could they be?”

Galatea affected a disinterested shrug. “There is more to our world than we know, I suppose. They may well be.”

“There is that,” the innkeeper agreed, chuckling. “Just wish it didn’t involve ponies making decisions for us that we know naught about. I don’t trust it.”

“No?” Galatea asked. “The Unicorn lords have made decisions for you all your lives and the lives of your forebears that you know naught about.”

“Aye, and they were Unicorns,” the innkeeper countered. “A Unicorn makes a decision, chances are it’ll be a decision a Unicorn would make. Not whatever an Alicorn or whatever they are would do. We don’t know if they think the way we do, or if they have the same beliefs or priorities we do.”

Galatea only smiled. Now it was simple prejudice talking. One could hardly blame the innkeeper for believing that rhetoric. Fear and ignorance were powerful things.

And yet…

“If they are real,” she said gently, “they must have great power. Yet they have not conquered you.”

“What do you think they’re talking about up there?” the innkeeper snorted. “It’s not a battle. But it is conquest.”

“I have not fought any war,” Galatea replied, “but I do not believe that conquest looks like ponies sitting around a table.”

The innkeeper frowned, but something in his expression softened.

“That’s as maybe,” he said. “Well, I suppose, as long as they don’t mess with my business, I shan’t be too put out.” He motioned with an empty mug. “I don’t suppose Alicorns drink ale.”

Galatea resisted the urge to laugh. Instead, she only took a brief sip of her drink and smiled at him.

“You never know,” she said.

Now.
New York city, Earth, January 12th 2022.

“They’re deciding the fate of all humankind in there, you know.”

Galatea nodded, not commenting on the supreme irony of the Unicorn stallion serving the drinks saying this. He had motioned to the television set perched atop his bar’s shelf.

It wasn’t nearly as rundown and dingy as the inn from all those years ago – how could it be? Yet the feel was much the same, at least in Galatea’s estimation. The red faux-leather sofas and stools, the sticky wooden tables, and the smattering of drunk and nearly-drunk patrons all gave the bar the same energy as the thousands of bars, pubs, and other drinking establishments she had seen over the years.

“Deciding what’s to be done, whether we’re going on the offensive or not,” the stallion continued, pouring a drink for himself. “Hope we do, y’know? Staying static is never good in a war.”

Not that you would know that much about them, Galatea didn’t say. She’d seen enough armchair generals to know that they all had the same attitudes: they all thought they knew best how to win any war. But no being alive knows how to win this one. They don’t even know what they’re fighting.

I don’t even know what we’re fighting.

“Should you really be drinking that?” she asked the bartender, sipping her own drink again.

“You kidding?” the stallion asked. “The best bartenders sample their own wares. How the fuck do I recommend stuff to people and ponies if I don’t try it?” He grinned. “Besides, do you have any idea how much fun it was trying human alcohol when I first came here? My cutie mark’s made me a connoisseur, and this place is like heaven. There’s at least twice as many alcoholic drinks available, and some of the cocktails?”

He kissed his hoof and closed his eyes, a blissful smile on his face.

“S’why we have to fight to preserve it,” he said. “All of us, sister. Am I right?”

Galatea shrugged. “I cannot disagree with you.”

“Heh,” the stallion chuckled. “You some sort of rich pony, ma’am? That sounds like an upper-crust accent right there.”

Galatea chuckled. Truly, nothing changes.

“No,” she said. “Actually I’m something of a traveller. I’ve never held much stock in monetary goods beyond having enough to purchase a bed and a drink where needed.”

“Hey, if it works for you, sister,” the stallion said. “Say, if you don’t mind my asking…”

Galatea blinked, tensing unconsciously.

“... why are you here? Fine looking mare like yourself, all on your own?” he continued. “Seems a pity.”

Galatea relaxed. “I’m neither seeking romantic company, nor mourning mine lack thereof, if that’s what you’re asking.”

The stallion shrugged. “Like I said. Pity. If I were so inclined, I might ask for a drink myself, but my husband’d have a fit.”

He laughed at his own joke, and Galatea chuckled dutifully.

“Then what brings you to my bar after all?” the stallion asked.

Galatea only smiled. “I’m waiting for somepony of great importance to come through the door.”

“Somepony important, huh?” the stallion asked, chuckling. “Ain’t never been anypony important step through my door, and I doubt they’d start now.”

Just then, there was a ding from the bar’s front door. The stallion looked up, and his eyes widened, and without even looking Galatea knew who had come into the bar.

“A pity I did not place a bet on that,” she said idly. “It might have done my paltry funds some good.”

She turned her head, watching the mint-green Unicorn mare take a seat next to her awkwardly, sunglasses perched over her eyes and a weary frown on her face.

The stallion swallowed. “Uh…”

“Please, don’t,” the Unicorn said, holding up a hoof. “Just give me something that will make me forget the last seven hours, and then… I dunno, take a ten minute break.”

The stallion nodded, pouring out another drink – a clear liquid that might have been a gin or a vodka, Galatea couldn’t tell which.

“Thanks,” the Unicorn said, downing the drink in one go.

The stallion gave Galatea one final, shell-shocked look, and then trotted off silently. Galatea took another sip of her drink.

“What even is that?” the Unicorn asked her.

“Whiskey, I think,” Galatea replied evenly. She smirked. “What was that the bartender gave you?”

“Fifth of Vodka,” Lyra Heartstrings said evenly. She grimaced. “After the afternoon I’ve had, I really, really need it.”

“I take it they didn’t approve of your plan,” Galatea said.

“Are you kidding?” Lyra said, her eyebrows rising to meet her mane. “They jumped on it, said it was the best thing ever, and gave me permission to whatever the heck I want.” She scowled. “That’s terrifying.”

“The pressure of needing to do the impossible can do that to us all,” Galatea said. “Especially when, in your case, it may truly be the impossible.”

“Well, you’re a barrel of laughs, aren’t you?” Lyra rolled her eyes. “So what is it, then?”

“Pardon?” Galatea asked.

“You know what I mean,” Lyra said, turning to glare at Galatea. “You get to Doctor Whooves, get him to come to me, get me to come to you, all while keeping it hush from UNAC and pretty much all my friends.” She smirked, but it was cold and devoid of humour. “So that tells me a few things: you’re damn well connected. You’re also not Solar Empire.”

“What makes you say that?” Galatea said.

Lyra tapped the glass Galatea was drinking from. “Human whiskey. This bar serves human-only drinks. Hoppy’s been that way since war broke out. No self-respecting Solar Empire agent would meet in this place.”

“Unless I were a spy,” Galatea pointed out.

Lyra laughed aloud. “Oh, yes, the spy who went about her spying in the most overt covert way imaginable. I mean, have you met Whooves? I love that stallion but he’s about as covert as a sledgehammer hitting a glass house with a fez on.”

“Why ‘a fez on’?”

“Because he wears fezzes, duh,” Lyra said, rolling her eyes again. “So come on, Ms – what was it? Galactica?”

“Galatea.”

“Okay, Galatea,” Lyra said. “What is it exactly that you want?” She narrowed her eyes. “Because you want something. Everypony, everyone, they always want something.”

Galatea nodded once. She’d heard that Lyra Heartstrings was clever – and certainly, after all she had gone through, it was only right and fitting that she was cautious as well. Galatea took a deep breath, looking around.

“You and I both know there’s more to this than we can see,” she said evenly. “And so I have a proposition.”

Lyra frowned. “More to this?”

“Don’t play coy with me,” Galatea said sternly, scowling at Lyra. “The Solar Empire. What’s happened to Celestia. This war, this conflict… all of it is far more than meets the eye. There are secrets to uncover.”

Lyra swallowed, then nodded. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“I know I am,” Galatea said. “And you know it too. You’ve done research, been to places others have not seen in centuries. That’s how you know Whooves, why you and he are as close as you are. He’s been helping you.”

Lyra paused for a moment, then nodded.

“Him and others,” she said quietly. “But what’s your interest in those secrets?”

“The same as yours,” Galatea said quietly. “We have to save the humans. But more than that, we have to stop Celestia. Whatever she truly is, we have to stop her.”

Lyra nodded again, her expression becoming resolute.

“Alright, then, Galatea,” she said. “What’s your proposition?”

Galatea smiled.