A thousand years after the banishment of Princess Luna to the moon along with all the Imperialists who swore allegiance to her, a complex lunar society has been built beneath the surface of Nightmare Moon's prison. In just a few decades, the despotic Empress of the Lunar Empire will have gained enough power to return to Earth and invade Equestria, transforming it into a dystopian realm of darkness. The only thing that stands in Nightmare Moon's way is the fulfillment of a prophecy, where the stars will aid in her escape so that the Elements of Harmony may exorcise her of her evil before she becomes dangerous enough to overcome her sister, Princess Celestia.
Enter Myrk, the former Captain of the Lunar Night Wraiths. Once the chief bodyguard to Nightmare Moon, he has since been branded an exile and traitor to the Empire. The Imperial Lunar Rune Guard hunt Myrk throughout the subterranean cityscapes of the moon, until he is forced to hide within the sarosian district of Tranquility deep below the outer laters.
Now, after having reunited with his half-sarosian lover, Choral, Myrk must embark upon a dangerous mission to deliver a captured piece of Princess Luna's magical essence to the lunar surface, in order to cast a beacon that will summon the stars and pave the path towards Nightmare Moon's righteous defeat.
This is an indirect prequel that takes place within the same universe as The End of Ponies.
So many stories, so little time... Also, I'm going to edit my comments once I'm done reading, so that these are actually meaningful.
But I need to actually finish reading everything, first.
again with another story?
new story ahoy-hoy?
STOP POSTING STORIES AND LET ME READ THEM DAMN
And suddenly, 60k words.
Ahh, the one I've been waiting for. Now's when I decide whether to put whatever review thoughts I have on it in the comments, or as a blog post.
FUUUUUUU!!!
1195906 ditto!
1195906 YEAH!
OH MY SWEET BABY JEEBUS!!!
L-Day, also known as the day before the day the Feature Box was entirely filled with SS&E.
Edit: Oh yes, I almost forgot to be really happy 'cause they're COMPLETE!
1195906 I second that motion! Slow down damn it!
YOU ARE TEARING ME APART SS&E
HOW MANY FREAKIN FANFICTIONS ARE YOU UPLOADING???
So far, I think this is my favorite take on the history of the Sarosians, having this as a prequel to EoP just makes it all the better. Did you really have to have the last pony use them as bullets though, I mean that totally made me sad.
-Mintelle
This was a beautiful story. The history between Myrk and Choral, the conflict between the sarosians and the imperialists, and how it ties in with EoP, it's all really well done. The ending was also brilliant, funny, yet also kind of sad. It's too bad the story will be lost among all the other stories your released that day, and wont get the attention it deserves,
Also there seems be a lot of jelly going around here, as this story has so many down votes, yet such few views. I doubt anyone who gave it a thumbs down even read the first paragraph.
Here we go! The one I wanted to read the most out of the 7!
Let's-a go!
I am intrigued. You have my attention. All of it.
I'm fairly certain this is awesome. Time to read more!
Manabullets! Rune magic! Yeah!
You done wrote something brilliant. The The End of Ponies fanboy within me is screaming in delight.
Dat fight scene.
Myrk is awesome.
Explosions! Explosions everywhere!
Ahhhhhh, now I understand these chapters. It all makes sense now.
Why didn't they use light before? It would have been far more effective than the manabullets...
And Choral's sacrifice shall not be in vain.
Stellar is really quite determined to take down Myrk.
Myrk is awesomely awesome. Major Shine had it coming, trying to torture Choral like that.
Brilliant! That plan seems to have worked flawlessly!
Thatta girl, Choral!
Epic nighttime Myrk is epic.
Aauuuugh! Why must you so cruelly torture us with an End of Ponies reference, serving only to remind us of how long it's been since that was updated?
Also, awesome story. 
He thinks the same of you
Yep. Called it (not that it was that hard to call
).
D'awwww...
Wait... The Last Pony is gonna make them... bullets? WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL!? NOT COOL!
Anyhow, this was an absolutely fantastic story. Incredibly well done, sir
This was beautiful, and my brain pretty much exploded at that last chapter. You're such a tease.
As much as I love Background Pony (and I do, though I've not said it much) I still eagerly anticipate the day you return to Last Pony and the Onyx Eclipse. Choo choo crash bang smash and all the rest.
Oh, and I guess you could say that Stellar merely adopted the dark but Myrk was born in it. =P
Well, I'm finally caught up to the massive L-Day post (save for Background Pony). I figured I'd save what I figured as best for last. And I wasn't disappointed. I already love the mythos you've set up with End of Ponies, and this story worked off of it perfectly. Lunar magic is absolutely fascinating.
Story was emotional all around, too. And I liteally laughed out loud when I saw things come full-circle at the last chapter. Although, that was a bit of a crotch-kick at the end. Still, wonderful job once again, SS&E.
Myrk with a mouth...
Wow...bad puns are bad...
...And that's how you end a Pseudo Prequel...by making the single objects that signify the love of the main characters ending up as bullets for somepony that will never think twice about the love the metal she has represents...Pointlessness begetting a thought provoking result to something ending up as such pointlessness...I like it...
Hmm. Just as with the first Petra arc, I fear that your large action sequences tend to increase the number of errors exponentially. There were a lot in this chapter, more than I would normally expect from your own editing. Still, I read on, awaiting the next section of plot.
Starting the reading now. I can't believe lemur day was only one week and a half ago.
This one story is the one that appeals to me the most. Always wanted something about Luna's time on the moon, how she bid her time and (possibly) a parrallel society on the moon !
Onwards ! i1.kym-cdn.com/profiles/icons/tiny/000/134/795/mlfw1031_mlp___luna_likes_it_by_santafer-d4dzwwr.png
And so it ends. Myrk is overpowered beyond belief, the guard are seemingly inept in too many ways, the entire chase was far too long to be believable, and the entire story itself leaves questions of inconsistency with the glance of Ponymonium we get in the Pinkie arc of EoP. Enough so, that I'm going to have to
re-readlisten to my audio of it in the near future while my memory of this is fresh so I can root out any problems that are actually there.Critically evaluating the story/premise as a whole, I find myself with doubt as to the origin of the problem. In a lunar world, one would think the Sarosians would be the upper class, the few citizens that Luna would hold closer to her than the rest. Of course, it's hard to predict societal evolutions after a thousand years, but I imagine that the Sarosians would at least have started at the top of the social ladder in the wake of the civil war. That's my biggest problem with the premise, but I have one more: the timing. From EoP, I was under the impression (misguided?) that the lunar civilization died out/was destroyed much earlier than a decade from the events of the FiM opener. Is that what the ponies of Equestria thought, but were mistaken? What happens between the close of this story, and the end of all living lunar citizens? It just doesn't seem to match up with what I have hitherto thought.
On the technical side, there are numerous errors that a would take a thorough editing, or the efforts of numerous people pointing out the typos and homonym errors as they come up. I didn't notice many punctuation errors throughout because I wasn't really paying much attention to that, but I'm sure for the most part that was fine. Vimbert drilled the correct dialog punctuation into you long ago, so I can only hope it's still in your mind.
The length and complexity of the chase scene, which comprises most of the story, reminds me of Petra Kaizo edition. It's just too much, too fast to really seem plausible. Myrk should be dead. He is not some immutable Entropan mask, he is a living, fragile being. You cut him, burn him, break him, and yet he just keeps going. Even at the end, you have him find new strength to go on and survive the whole ordeal. He got a scimitar buried halfway into him! You don't survive that kind of thing! The moment the blade struck, I was expecting a tragic death; after all the beating he's gone through finally he will have to succumb to the reality of his injuries and die. Alas, not only does he survive the wounds, but at the end of it, when he has been burned alive by the sunlight and should be bleeding to death as his insides fall out of him he manages to kill the three guards as though they were street thugs and he were the Punisher. It just doesn't work that way. We don't know the details of his years as Captain of the Wraiths; we don't know how he's been able to utilize his skills in the past. Because we don't know, we impose logical restrictions on his strength and endurance that the content of this story ignores. Heck, the--presumably--second-best ponies,
Rozencranz and GuildensternNight Wraith companions whose names are not immediately memorable, are dead when the action begins. You'd expect that they would be in the same ballpark as Mryk in terms of "power" and yet they are taken in a trap that MUST by necessity be smaller in scope than the chase of the story. Myrk is just too much to be believed. I'll leave it at that.And even with all that, I believe the story could still work. Though, I believe in its present state it really is below the standard you (and I when I do edit a piece) have set. Of course, not every story can be as good as your best, but to really tie it into the EoP universe as tightly as possible, I think the story would need considerable work.
As always, just one poor excuse for a writer, but a decent editor nonetheless' opinion,
-Warden
Sarosians are really made of tough stuff ! Go Myrk !
I like how you strayed from the easy "Lunar Republic" dogma and made it a dystopian empire.
You go girl !
That diversion worked perfectly. Awesome scenes !
Dat horror scene ! So awesome !
It's my favorite scene in the movie yet.
Same universe as End of Ponies? Yes please!
1206339
I can thoroughly, whole-heartedly second that.
"a gorge of ghastly proportions"
I see what you did there.
On another note: I thought that in EoP, all the ponies that were sent to the moon died long before NMM returned to Equestria. Am I just remembering it wrong, or is that part of the story not canon to the EoP universe - only the runecrafting etc. are?
Hnng!
1264304
I have to agree with you on many of those points, especially with the links to EoP. I'm pretty certain all the lunar ponies had died long before the moon exploded.
On the other hand, I enjoyed the story a lot and that last chapter made me laugh - Harmony's attitude towards the necklace pieces is a kick-in-the-guts when it comes to sentimentality :P