• Published 13th Oct 2011
  • 6,850 Views, 86 Comments

The LUNA Project - The Equestrian Gentlecolt



A science fiction origin story. An alicorn foal awakens alone in an abandoned world.

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Chapter 9 - Hope

Celestia felt the comforting arms of two humans wrapping around her, even as the tears fell from her eyes. She made no move to resist their touch, recognizing the presence of Megan and Michael. Her body shook gently with her grief, but her crying became gradually quieter as she took solace in their closeness, and she soon heard the approach of the rest of her human family. One by one, each put a hand against her coat, and her sobs gradually gave way to silence interspersed with the occasional sniffle or quiet hiccough. Only after a few minutes of this did she finally dare open her eyes and look around herself again.

"Feeling better?" Michael was, once again, the first to speak. He gave her a gentle smile, releasing her neck as she lifted her head, but keeping one arm over her withers.

Celestia ran a foreleg over her eyes, blinking out the last of the tears and wiping them away, and nodded. "I- I'm sorry," she apologized shakily.

"No need to apologize," Michael replied with a soft pat to her neck. "Everyone gets a little angry sometimes." A few of the others winced at the gross understatement, but he appeared not to notice. "Come on, let's get some breakfast and then you can reopen your court."

"But Michael... what about my sister?" Celestia shook her head. "I can't just forget about her."

"Nor should you," the human replied firmly. "But your duty to your people, humans and ponies, should be your first priority."

Celestia shook her head again stubbornly. "But my sister..."

"Why don't you delegate some of those duties?" All heads turned toward David Lee, who looked a bit embarrassed at the sudden attention. "I mean you, what," he hurried to explain, "move the heavens, manage the skies, and tend to the earth? You've got all these ponies around here. If you gave them each even a sliver of your power, you could spread those responsibilities around a bit. Then you'd have plenty of time to search for your sister. And go back to, you know, eating and sleeping, too."

So it was that the three races of Equestria were born. The hardy and dependable Earth Ponies were given great physical strength, practical wisdom, and a natural empathy for the plants and animals of the world. They became the keepers of the fields and forests, and their careful tending focused and corralled the world's natural magic. The graceful Pegasus Ponies were granted wings to fly, the innate ability to manipulate clouds as if they were solid, and the speed and agility to battle even the most tumultuous of storms. They became the guardians of the sky, using their abilities to carefully schedule and manage the capricious cycles of the weather. The elegant and studious Unicorn Ponies gained the power of magic, their horns acting as focal points to channel their wills directly into control over the arcane. They became the stewards of the heavens, their combined powers able to keep the sun and moon themselves in their proper courses.

The humans and ponies adapted to the new changes, and for a time, the world returned to normal.


Luna knew where the humans and Celestia had gone now. They hadn't left their underground facility to return to the sun-scorched surface, there was no way they could survive there. Nor had they left their doomed planet to find greener pastures in another galaxy, they had never found a suitable one. No, the last years of the LUNA Project had been focused on a much grander goal. They had created their own world. No, their own universe!

The alicorn reviewed the results of her reading in her mind as she trotted through familiar passageways. As much as the scientific texts had helped her to understand the processes involved, it was only the imaginative tales of science fiction and fantasy that truly touched on what they had done. The entire project was, as far as she could tell, unheard of in human history. It was remarkable, but more importantly, it was the answer which she had sought for so long. Her next challenge, of course, was to figure out how to follow them.

She considered herself very well-read at this point. The computer's library had been vast, and though she had devoured the information with a speed which she now recognized was "inhuman" by human standards (she spared a thought for how very human-centric the words and idioms of their language were - that would have to be changed now that it was spoken by another type of creature), she had still spent a great many weeks on her reading. She had found one very common theme among the tales she had read, and that was the profound importance of one's place of birth.

It was the thought of that theme which made her, for the first time in all her years in the facility, make a left turn in an intersection where she had always turned right. Her glowing shiny, her key, lit the way through passageways which she had only traveled once before, a memory made fuzzy by the blind panic she had been feeling at the time.

The feelings of fear returned, clawing at the edges of her consciousness, as she began to hear the noises of other creatures. She had become used to the sounds of the other inhabitants of her underground world, but here in this place of panic-blurred memory, they took on sinister new identities. Shadows leered balefully at her from the corners of her vision, brought to life by the swaying of her light as she walked. She shook her head to try to clear it. She was being ridiculous, there was nothing here she couldn't handle. Was there?

She came to a halt in front of a mostly-closed door, hanging slightly off one of its hinges. It seemed ordinary enough by door standards. It was made of the usual mix of metal and plastic parts, had a small window on one side, and a metal handle. There was nothing remarkable about it, except for the fact that behind it lay the source of her terror.

The alicorn shook herself, her hooves spreading slightly and her head lowering in an instinctive attack stance. No great sharp-clawed beast, no matter how terrifying, was going to stand between her and her journey of discovery. She threw the door aside with her telekinesis and strode in, prepared to battle her fears.

Everything about her, her walk, the narrowing of her eyes, the slightly-back angle of her ears, and the dangerous glow around her horn, everything exuded an air of deadly challenge. It dared the creatures of nightmare that inhabited this room to even consider attacking her. She was a living goddess. She was the bringer of death. She was a paragon of arcane power. She was...

She was a lot bigger than the last time she had been here. The feeling of adrenaline that had been coursing through her body was replaced by confusion, and then embarrassment as a nest of large rats scattered to the far corners of the room and into the safety of the air vents. Luna gave another quick look around the room, still harboring the distant hope that some creature of nightmare would leap out of a shadowy corner to do battle, and then shook her head with a sheepish chuckle. The sound was loud in the empty room, and the only reply was the skittering of the rats hurrying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the most frightening thing they had seen in their lives.

Cheeks still warm with a slight blush, the alicorn began her inspection of the room. Much of the same equipment was there as had been in the lab where Celestia was born, although it looked awkward, as if it had been set up quickly or with the intention of being temporary. Cables, frayed and chewed by the vermin inhabiting the room, stretched awkwardly across walkways. The time-worn husk of a computer terminal was propped up on a stack of plastic crates, with a thick manual for some long-lost piece of equipment providing a stable surface for the keyboard that was plugged into it. At the center of the spider's web of wiring was a large glass tube held between two metal braces. The tube was empty, and one side of it was shattered.

Luna trotted over to the last item. This, she realized, was where she had been born. Exactly here, in this glass tube. She must have broken it by kicking around inside of it when she awoke, alarmed by the tightness of the space. The memories of her first moments were hazy, formed by a mind which had only recently realized that it was a mind at all, but there was enough to piece together the puzzle of her birth. Her eyes slowly followed the path she must have tumbled down when the glass broke and the liquid surrounding her flowed out. A few scraps of glass remained, not large or interesting enough to catch the eyes of the local scavengers. She followed the path of her first footsteps to the place where she had found her shiny, a hoof raising unconsciously to touch the key as she remembered the joy of seeing it for the first time.

Then she remembered something else. There had been something else there, under her shiny. She had ignored it at the time, preoccupied as she was, but it suddenly seemed very important. She looked around for where it could have gone, and she felt a pang of worry as she realized how much could have happened to it in the long time she had been away from this place. It was nowhere to be seen. The scavengers might have taken it to their nest, Luna thought, maybe shredded it up into bedding. She hurried to the place the rats had been nesting, in an open cabinet under a cluttered table, and began to dig at it with a hoof, still daring to hope against all odds that she would find even a piece of it.

It was there. By some miracle, buried under layers of shredded technical references and the usual leavings of a nest of rats, was a single almost-intact sheet of paper. The edges were ragged, the paper was yellowed with age and the ink was faded, but the letters were still legible. Luna pulled it out with a hoof and held it in place on the ground as she read.

Dearest Selena,

There is very much I would like to write to you, but I have to make this quick, as we are rushing to evacuate the facility. We lost the last of our solar panels, no doubt the cables near the surface were chewed through by rats, and we don't have the means to repair it any longer. Needless to say, we cannot stay here any longer without the protection of the various systems it was powering. Your sister Celestia will soon be opening a gate to our new home, and we'll only have a few minutes at best to get through it before it closes again.

I know you will not be able to read this when you awaken, but I know that you will awaken, and that you will be a very intelligent creature. I hope that you will find this and my access key, and that you will take both with you. I have modified the key with a basic light enchantment that will respond to your presence, so it should prove useful to you in the darkness you will undoubtedly encounter. I hope that you will find the resources you need to learn our language, and that you will read this paper, as I am filling the remainder of it with instruction on how to open the gate yourself and follow us.

First, you must find the equipment we used to open the gateway. If none of the passageways between here and there have collapsed, this will be very simple. Starting at the room you were born in, turn right when you exit. From there, enter the first hallway on your right. You will pass two doors, one on your right, and one on your left. The stairs on your left after those two doors will lead down to a large, open room. The gateway is directly in the center.

The gateway will be able to function without electricity, as it will run directly on your own arcane power. You will find a pedestal beside it with a flat surface except for a half-cylinder indentation. Lay your horn in that indentation. You will feel very strange, Celestia described it as "feeling the paths of the universe projected onto her soul", but don't be alarmed. This is your map.

Once you have gotten your bearings, finding us will be a matter of following the paths back through the divergences to the the single point which they all originated from. From there, you will know where to go. When you've found your destination, simply reach out with your mind and touch it. The machine will do the rest, and a gate will open. Do not remain on this side for too long, as the gateway will drain your strength quickly until you enter it or release the spell and let it close.

I wish that I could be there to guide you, or even leave you with more instruction. I wish that we could have taken you with us, but you were too young, and you would not survive being moved at this stage. I hope to see you again some day. Know that I, and all of us here, love you.

Thomas Montgomery
Formerly of Project LUNA