Prologue to Something
By: Blobskin

Contains: MLP, macro ponies, micro humans, lore, dark
Version: 1

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No one expected World War 3 would be caused by accident. Or that the catalyst would be the arrival of a giant pony race, specifically one named Twilight Sparkle. To be fair, it was a First Contact scenario unlike any mankind had prepared for.

Ponies were huge. On average over 100 meters (330 ft) tall if you measured at the top of the head. Most buildings in New York city were shorter than that. A single hoof filled half a basketball court! Giant, quadrupedal, fur covered, aliens who wielded magic and called themselves "ponies" even though they only barely resembled native Earth equines. There were a lot of scientists with complaints.

Fortunately the collateral damage of First Contact hadn't been too bad. Ambassador Twilight knew of humanity's small stature before coming, but property damage was inevitable. However, the shockwave her appearance made in politics was even greater than the ones she sent through the ground when she walked. In the simplest terms: humanity lost its mind. New religions boomed. Terror mixed with joy as countless people declared the dawn of a new era, whether a new golden age or the beginning of man's destruction. Economies soared while others crashed. Everyone argued.

Then the war started.

Twilight and her friends had not expected it. Honestly, no one had. Nations simply started shooting at each other and the common man and pony couldn't make heads or tails of it. The ponies were safe. Man couldn't make portals to attack Equestria even if they had been trying to. But the civilians of Earth suffered greatly. The desire to interfere, to force man to stop fighting, was almost irresistible. Yet the ponies realized that trying to stop the bloodshed actually risked making it worse. They had not expected nations to start invading each other so there was no predicting what else might happen if they tried. So they instead implemented the Human Integration Program.

From the start there had not been plans to bring humanity to the other side. Originally, the ponies believed trying to develop a mixed society would be just too difficult. It was just as ridiculous an idea as trying to move ponies over to Earth. The sheer difference in scale was too much and the risk to human life was far too great. But now the situation had changed. People were hungry, homeless, dying, and had nowhere to flee. So Equestria opened the flood gates for the refugees.

To be fair, the decision was rushed. The facilities and logistics had not been fully realized before the plan went into effect. Or as the kids would say, "it was a mess". The refugee camps were little more than wooden boxes with a little bit of dirt for bedding. Some cloth was provided so the humans could make their own tents and shelters. A technique for "scaling down" food had not been figured out yet so people were biting into apples bigger than buses and carving corn kernels like they were Thanksgiving turkeys.

But the humans were safe, fed, and warm. So the program continued and ponies considered it mostly a success. Then came the work dilemma.

Ponies, such as Celestia herself, feared that the refugees might become complacent if they were simply provided everything they needed. They would degenerate and become little more than pets. They needed something. Dreams to look forward to. So the Human Integration Program began phase 2. Just because man was waiting for the war to end so they could go home didn't mean they had to be idle. It was time to stop the depressed moping and get people moving forward again...