From the diary of Twilight Sparkle, lead scientist of Equestria's space division:

"When we +came across the ESS Ambassador, I had it towed into a region of deep space far away from any inhabited and civilized world and proceeded to board it with one of my trusted assistants, Anon. As I detailed in my previous entry, I had every scrap of data aboard the ship's computers analyzed and uploaded to the central computer onboard my own ship. Thanks to our advanced analytic machines, we were able to learn about the fate that befell the crew, and that the ship was abandoned. At that point I planned to leave the ship adrift in space, far away from where it could do no harm and later return to it for a deep-clean that would sterilize every square inch of the ship to ensure it was free of contamination. Anon and I were looking at a one-month quarantine ourselves for going onboard, but that was a small price to pay for having the chance to study our first contact with another species.

That's when they suddenly appeared: Two of the gulpers, who had hidden themselves in the engine room when the rest of them had fled the ship. Automatic safety measures were engaged, and my ship immediately disconnected and shot away from the Ambassador to keep the gulpers from boarding it, leaving Anon and I to face the two creatures on our own.

I never would have guessed — not in a hundred years — what was about to happen to us."

***

FINALLY got around to doing more Gulper stuff. After a few months of coming up with this intricate and detailed backstory, I realized that none of it was necessary and I could just go right to the revelation about what these things really are.

More to come… hopefully before another five months goes by.