Time: 47 hours before arrival at Equestria
“Is my mane straight?” asked Twilight, as she trotted nervously after Pinkie. “Is there a manebrush somewhere? Or a comb? I can't go and talk to the Princess if my mane's not straight.”
“I don't think the Princess will mind,” said Spike, from his seat on Twilight's back.
“And a shower.” said Twilight. “There's got to be a shower somewhere in this place, I feel like I haven't showered in a week, I certainly can't talk to the Princess when I smell like this.”
“Yeah, we're all a bit stinky.” nodded Pinkie. “Stinky Pinkies aren't the best Pinkies. There might be a shower, maybe the aliens will know. I thought I found one earlier, but I pushed all the buttons I could see and I couldn't get the water started.”(1)
“Rarity.” said Twilight. “Rarity will have found out about showers. And manebrushes. I need to talk to Rarity before I can talk to Celestia.”
* * *
Var'aQ marched onto the bridge, carrying Rainbow Dash over his shoulder. He tossed the pegasus – fairly gently – onto a handy chair and sat down in the pilot's seat. “You're not bad,” he said, glancing over the displays, “for a beginner.”
“My entire body,” groaned Rainbow, slumped over the arm of the chair, “is one giant bruise.”
“You're surprisingly fast,” continued Var'aQ, ignoring the complaint, “your agility is top-notch, you are a good deal stronger than you look, and the ability to fly gives you a notable advantage. Also, the fact that you are so different to the average warrior makes you harder for an unprepared combatant to read your body language.”
Rainbow blinked, unsure of what to say.
“Having said that,” continued Var'aQ, “you telegraph your moves well in advance, you have next to no understanding of tactics, and you fall into the simplest of traps. You would benefit from some basic training. It will hurt, but it will hurt less than the pain of seeing those you love killed by a threat you could not defeat.”
Rainbow groaned.
* * *
45 hours before arrival at Equestria
“I'm afraid that that's the best I can manage with the tools at hand, darling.” said Rarity, inspecting Twilight's mane. “At the very least, I've got all the tangles out, but until we can figure out where the showers are on this vessel and how they work, there's not really much I can do about the smell.”
“If there even are showers.” grumbled Twilight.
“There must be, darling.” said Rarity. “I ran across one of the aliens earlier, and he didn't smell of sweat at all, so there must be some means of keeping oneself clean hidden somewhere in this horrible place.”
“Maybe the aliens don't sweat at all?” suggested Sweetie Belle, who was lying draped across her big sister's back.
“Of course they do.” said Rarity, firmly.
“Maybe it's because they don't have fur.” suggested Spike. “Scales are a lot easier to clean, after all.”
“Ah think y'all are makin' a big deal about nothin'.” volunteered Applejack. “There's nothin' wrong with a bit of sweat, it shows a pony's been workin' hard.”
“Besides,” added Applebloom, “Ah don't think anypony can smell through that magic window in any case. I mean, it's kinda like a window that's closed – y'can't smell through that.”
“Yeah!” agreed Pinkie. “All you gotta do is not mention how you smell, and Celestia won't even notice!”
Twilight took a deep breath. “Maybe you're right.” she said, giving in at last.
* * *
44 hours and 30 minutes before the ship's arrival at Equestria
“We toyed with the idea of worldwide political unity once.” said Celestia. “About, oh, five hundred years ago. It was Prince Regal's idea – as I recall, his intention was to, as he put it, 'foist all the idiotic paperwork onto the lesser races without giving them any actual power'.” She levitated her teacup to take a sip. “Of course, he was a little more diplomatic about it when actually talking to the griffins and minotaurs in person. Nonetheless, the attempt was rather doomed to failure from the beginning, as I'm sure you can imagine.”
“I really can't imagine an alliance on that basis taking off.” said the Admiral, nodding. “Although, in the right political environment, something like that could -”
There was a beeping noise from his side of the subspace link.
“Ah – perhaps we should continue this discussion later.” he said. “It seems we have an incoming message from the Ferengi ship.”
“I do hope it's Twilight.” said Celestia. “If she sleeps much longer, I'm going to start worrying.”
“Let us see, shall we?” said the Admiral. “Splitscreen.”
Instantly, Celestia's screen showed a division down the middle – on the left-hand side, the Admiral remained, while on the right-hand side, the bridge of the Ferengi ship was visible. The top of the Klingon pilot's head could be seen at the lower edge of the screen, but Celestia ignored him in favour of the small group of ponies standing in the middle of the screen, just in front of the Captain's chair, in the centre of that group being a visibly nervous purple pony.
“Twilight.” said Celestia, with a little smile. Her student looked surprisingly neat and well-presented; no doubt Rarity had lent a hoof in that.
“Princess.” said Twilight, with a much broader smile of her own.
“I am glad to see that you are well.” said Celestia, calmly. “Have you learnt anything about friendship over these last few days?”
“Oh yes.” said Twilight, nodding. She took a deep breath. “I've learnt that there are times when you're facing a task that may seem insurmountable, and it might seem like you can't do it, and you're going to fail your friends in some way. But you have to try, and you have to keep going. And with good friends by your side to encourage you –” Twilight reached out to place one foreleg around Rainbow's shoulders(2) and another around Rarity's – “and to help you keep going, you can surprise yourself, and everypony else, with what you can accomplish.”
Celestia nodded. “An important lesson.” she said, then changed the subject. “Have you met Sunek yet?”
“Not yet.” said Twilight, cautiously.
“It might be a good idea if you would.” said Celestia. “I have a decision that I need to make, and I would like to have your opinion.”
“Of course, Princess!” said Twilight, barely refraining from jumping up and down in excitement.
“Excellent.” said Celestia. “If you need me for anything else, feel free to call me from the bridge, or to send a letter via Spike.”
“Of course, Princess.” repeated Twilight, firmly.
(1) This was partly because the shower in question was a sonic shower, but mainly because Pinkie had neglected to put a coin in the relevant slot.
(2) Rainbow only winced slightly
You know, I am not sure how much stupider and greedy Frengi get. Though we did the same thing that cause regulations against big buisness, so it makes you question who is the bigger idiot.
Well good to see a update, keep up the work.
4445295
At the very least, you don't have to work very hard to figure out a Ferengi's motives: The filling of his pockets and the emptying of yours.
An excellent capstone to this act. Looking forward to more. Especially if Dash gets more Klingon combat training.
4445334
Most Frengi:
Not all Frengi are after money. Rom from DS9 didn't though and his son Nog wanted to join Starfleet instead of being a buisness man. Not to mention there was the one out for revenge in TNG against Picard for killing his son. Of course, they could be consider outliers .
4445295 well on the Deep Space 9 branch of StarTreck the Ferengi HAD (more or less) had gone more democratic, they showd THAT when QUARK became Grand Magus BUT it was pionted out that he had MUCH less power than the position had had but it still had GREAT sway in Ferengi society and that was the only reason that the one Ferengi (I think he was some kind of commerce agent mant to keep any Ferengi from going honest, been to long can't remember much) wanted ANYTHING to with him. I always liked Quark he was underhanded dealer but when push came to shove he supported the greater good of teh galaxy
we're needing more updates please
4445363 I totally forgot about Rom and Nog
4445360
4445369
More updates will come. Though there's not much left to this story - basically just the epilogues (or, to put it another way, the sequel fodder). Maybe another pre-epilogue chapter as well.
To put a time-frame on it - the second-last epilogue will take place about half an hour after the mane six arrive back on Equestria, and about two weeks before Shining Armour's wedding.
4276726 Yes The Omega Directive first appears in Voyager and in the (Non-canon) Star Trek Armada game and is the subject of the Romulan Campaign. The Omega Particale can (if it destableises) Destroy sub-space for light years rendering Warp Drive useless.
You know I've always wondered how those sonic showers worked anyway. Granted they had to have some way to shower in space. Though why they don't just use water considering they have artificial gravity and inertial dampeners thus meaning you can walk the decks of your ships and NOT be splattered on the walls do to it's speed so why bother with a new kind of shower when you have a model that's worked for centuries.
Anyhow, who wants to bet the coin op shower only lasts three minutes per coin, and that temperature control and such are extra?
4445416 so if it's two weeks before the wedding then chrysalis is going to learn that the federation have already encountered changelings that completely outclass her own kind. (I remember roughly from DS9 that odo said that changelings would read as what they turned into on a tricorder (he used an example of a rock by saying that a changeling disguised as a rock would only show up as a rock)
thanks for the update
4445799
I can only guess it's because of the plumbing. Miles and miles of pipes to carry water are just one more thing that can go wrong on a spaceship, and water leaking out into anything electronic is a bad idea.
Three minutes? Come now, this is a Ferengi shower, not a luxury human model.
It lasts one minute per coin.
4446357
Hmmm... I'm not sure about 'already'. If the TNG Enterprise is still flying around, exploring the galaxy, then doesn't that place this story before the events of Deep Space Nine - in particular, before first contact with the Dominion?
Of course, having ST changelings meep MLP changelings could make an interesting story...
4447986 Okay fair enough about the plumbing.
Anyhow, You put it at three minutes a coin for the illusion that you can get a shower done in a hurry. Meanwhile you stick them hard for everything else, soap, shampoo, washrag, back brush, temp changes(two coins a pop for that.) towel, bath mat and finally three coins to open the trash bin to get rid of all the disposables.
4445799 Uhh... Because some people like a short whine more than lots and lots of water hitting you very fast? Also, water's heavy.
4448073 ... And now that I know that, really I'd still take an old fashioned shower or a sponge bath to a sonic shower. As while I don't claim to be brilliant I do know that ultra and infa sonic are NOT something you want to screw around with. sound wave can kill you if powerful enough and really a sound wave that's precise enough to clean you, and apparently deal with the stench of sweat or what have you leaves a LOT of rom for error.
Though given it's star trek where they technobabble every little thing it's likely quite safe, But much like when the transporter screws up, hitting the long odds SUCKS. Ick I can just see a rare (as in one in 100,000,000,000 case) where something went wrong and the sonic shower turned someone's brain into a drippy mess reminiscent of what happened in Star Trek the Motion picture.
4448124
There was a comic where an Assassin tried to kill someone with a sonic shower... that led to an interesting scene where the plucky engineer burst into the room screaming "Don't turn on that shower!" while the ambassador was nude.
I really do like this crossover format. The big goods are getting along without many issues, and smaller conflicts give a personal touch to the story. Now I want to know if magic as subspace manipulation still works with the complete series.
4445799
Raises hoof.
4445507
That would render all magic useless in Equestria.
4448073
Were I to have quarters on a Starfleet ship, you bet I'd be replacing my sonic shower with a water based one!
5741994
There was a voyager episode where they MacGyvered a phaser out of sonic shower parts, so it's reasonable.
(Every time I have to replace a word with one I know how to spell, I think of the first letter we ever see Spike writing.)
How embarrassing! I must have had a stuck key or something while I was away. I came back to a bunch of empty comments.
Wow, the Federation folks are rude and negligent if they only gave basic food and water and no other hygiene training. Jerks.
9949515
Prime Directive shenanigans. The Federation is likely still trying to limit Equestrian exposure to technology in spite of it being far too late. So, they will allow replicator use, but only basic food and water. Sonic showers? Nope. Ponies might get ideas and want a piece of the action...