Chapter 1: Alpha
1207 YEARS AFTER PRINCESS LUNA RETURNED, 5:23 a.m.
EVERFREE FOREST, 6KM FROM PONYVILLE
“Sir! We found it, sir!” said a brown stallion covered in dirt.
“Where is it?”
“Down here sir, right under the place where the Tree used to be.”
“Oh yes…”
“What is it, sir?”
“I have no idea, but I’ll make sure you get paid in triple.” said Tin Can, walking away from the device. “The Professor will have a stroke when he sees this!”
__*__
4 HOURS LATER
PRINCESS CELESTIA’S SCHOOL FOR GIFTED UNICORNS
“So class,” said an old-looking gray stallion while writing on the white board, “can anyone tell me what is the formula used to calculate the area of a sphere?”
The only thing that could be heard was the snoring of a sleeping student.
“Anyone?”
Before Professor Steel Hooves could start scolding the class, a breathless Tin Can came bursting through the door of the classroom.
“Professor!”
“What the-“
“We found it, Professor! You were right!”
“Where is it?!” exclaimed the Professor.
“It’s upstairs at the lab,” said Tin Can.
“And how does it-“ the Professor suddenly remembered that the students were still there. “Class dismissed.”
All of the students swiftly got up from their chairs and raced for the door, without looking back.
“Children these days, have zero appreciation for learning. All they think about are video games and social networks,” said the gray stallion.
“Well, video games are fun-“
“Don’t start. Now, let’s see that thing you carried here.”
After a few minutes of walking, they found themselves at the lab. The smell of chemicals and plants invaded their nostrils and brought back old memories. The Professor had spent virtually his entire career working at the lab, making experiments and creating new technologies for ponykind. He had worked for the Princesses themselves on two occasions and had won many scientific prizes in many different areas. And while Tin Can was relatively young, he also had his fair share of years spent working in the lab as Steel Hooves’ assistant and protégé.
At the center of the lab stood a tall iron table, and on top of it, an enigmatic black and metallic device rested. On its’ sides, mysterious symbols belonging to an unknown language were written. The device emitted a low hum and an incredibly powerful and dense magic field could be felt and seen by magical beings.
“By Starswirls’ beard…” said the dumbfounded professor.
“You won’t believe where I found this thing,” said Tin Can.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing right now! Right in front of my eyes! This impossible, something this powerful could blow up the planet to shreds, rip a hole in space-time, but it is right here, INTACT! How are we still alive?!”
“Well, I took the liberty to run some tests on this thing, and I can say that you are absolutely right. It is, in fact, opening a hole in space-time that is the size of an atom. But the other end must be insanely distant, maybe even outside of the Universe itself, for it to be using so much energy.”
“Fascinating! Where did you say you found it?” asked the Professor.
“Right under the place where the Tree of Harmony used to be,” answered Tin Can.
“Of course! Only something this potent could power up the Tree of Harmony,”
“But the way it works it’s still a mystery…”
“A mystery that you and I will find out, my friend. Mark my words, this will be the golden age of our careers. An alien object that could energize the entire global population five hundred million times? The only thing that could beat that would be finding the aliens themselves…” conjectured the Professor.
“Yeah…”
“Wait! That’s it! You analyzed this, and confirmed that it is indeed a hole in the fabric of space, correct?”
“And time, yes,”
“All we have to do is to discover where is the other end of the tunnel, and then we will find the aliens! The only problem is the size of the hole… I think it was bigger, but then decayed over time, this thing must have been buried there for ages!”
“Definitely, it was inside a diamond shell so thick that it took three days to penetrate it. The magical pressure is so enormous that it must-“
“-have turned all of the carbon around it into diamond,” completed the Professor.
Master and pupil, stunned. The object in front of them was so advanced that anyone who claimed it wasn’t alien would be considered an idiot. The device could bring a new age of prosperity to Equestria, boosting their technology millions of year into the future, transforming the nation into a superpower. It could even unite the world into a single government, all populations under the rule of the Princesses.
“There is something we are forgetting. Oh, wait. Everyone in the city can feel the magical aura of this thing, and we must keep it secret. Quickly, fetch me the platinum shielding!” said the worried Professor.
“We only have the gold shielding…”
“What? Why?”
“I lent the platinum shielding to Dr. Moon,” answered Tin Can.
“YOU WHAT?! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU: DR. MOON IS MY ARCHNEMESIS!”
“I had no choice, he had Princess Celestia’s authorization!”
Professor Hooves started muttering obscenities under his breath. Dr. Moon was constantly one step ahead, and somehow always obtained the Princesses’ permission to do his experiments, which were mostly the Professor’s own experiments. Dr. Moon stole many of the Professor’s ideas and built his career on top of it.
“Celestia! If only Princess Twilight Sparkle was still alive… Celestia never lets me do my experiments! Always complaining they are ‘too dangerous’ and that they could ‘damage Equestria’. That’s why this country was technologically stagnated for a thousand years! I guess that’s why my ancestor Doctor Hooves disappeared. He must have left after seeing so much ignorance!”
“Professor, stop ranting! The Princesses’ could be watching!”
“I DON’T CARE! I could spend two thousand years petrificated and when I left my stone imprisonment everything would still be the same!”
A silence befell the room. The disapproval of the Professor’s inventions by Princess Celestia frustrated him to no end. He had no idea why she refused to give him permission. He started thinking of himself as Neighkola Tesla, and wondered if when he died his belongings would be seized by the government as well.
“Anyway, cover this up with the gold shielding. I’m going out for a walk.” said the Professor, all the anger in his voice gone. Now he only sounded… tired.
“OK Professor, I will.” responded Tin Can.
The Professor went out for a stroll around the Royal Gardens. Everything was quiet and the sun was descending on the horizon. The sky was a mixture of red and orange, as if someone had set the atmosphere on fire. He could see the expanse of Equestria from there, and down below, in the distance, his place of birth: Ponyville.
“Why did you come here in the first place?” he asked to no one in particular.
__*__
ONE MONTH LATER
“Well, it took a month, but we finally traced the location of the other end of the portal,” said the Professor with a sigh.
“And?”
“It’s way outside the observable universe, more precisely, beyond the edge of understanding,”
“I see,” said Princess Celestia. “And you want to expand it to try to reach the beings that created that device, correct?”
“Yes, Princess, that is exactly it.”
“As much as I’d love to meet them, I’m afraid I can’t allow that experiment to happen,”
“B-But Princess! The device is decaying faster and faster, in about three months it won’t have enough energy to keep the portal open! We’ll be unable to find them after it closes!” exclaimed the Professor.
“And it pains me to do so, Professor Steel Hooves. Do you know why I constantly stop you from doing your experiments? It is not because they’re dangerous, I know that you can keep them under control, it’s because they can be weaponized. Most of your experiments revolve around nuclear physics, and I know the consequences that would fall upon us if we used those weapons of mass destruction. The tensions are brewing between Equestria and the Gryphon Kingdom, and you know that they are a violent race. If this fell on their claws, it could be the end of Equestria. And we’d have to fight back using the same weapons, which is something no living being, no matter how evil it is, should have to go through.”
“I didn’t know that was possible…” the Professor said to himself.
“How come? Princess Luna visited your dreams,” said Celestia.
“I don’t recall having those dreams at all,”
“Perhaps you have forgotten,” answered Celestia, walking towards one of the doors. “Now, if you’ll excuse me Professor, there are urgent matters I must attend to. Have a good afternoon.”
“Yes, yes… Good afternoon to you as well.” said the Professor, pensive.
__*__
“Professor, how are we going to keep the portal open? We would need the power of an entire star!” asked Tin Can.
“My old colleague Freemane Dyson theorized a way to obtain that amount of energy with a sphere or something… but we don’t have the ten years needed to build it, or the resources necessary. We have to try sending a message through the portal as it is,”
“But the thing is the size of an atom! There is nothing that small to traverse it! Is there?”
“Think, young stallion, think! What makes you see the world around you?” said the Professor, quickly connecting wires on a machine.
“What makes me see the world… Light!”
“Yes! More precisely, electromagnetic radiation. An atom, however, is much smaller than the visible spectrum… I hope our alien friend does not mind receiving our message in hard X-Rays.”
“I’m sure it’ll have no problem!” exclaimed an excited Tin Can. “X-Rays, coming out of nowhere? Obviously it will know the source is artificial,”
“Sending message… now!” yelled the Professor, smashing a big red button.
The machine emitted a loud roar, and a typical laser sound could be heard for a few seconds. Then, everything powered down, the lights on the machine slowly fading. Everything went silent. After a few minutes, Tin Can spoke:
“That’s it? No repl-“
BZZZZZZZSSHH
The ground started to shake violently, and the magical field around the alien device started to grow in size, energizing all the other machines in the lab. Suddenly, the device cracked open, emitting a light so strong it was like a glare of an angry god. Space distorted around the device, bending light as if it was spaghetti. Out of the opening, came out floating, a perfectly round, metallic sphere that would make any bald person feel like Samson. And just as suddenly, everything went back to normal, except for the floating metal ball in the middle of the lab.
“What is that?” asked Tin Can.
“I have absolutely no idea.” said the stunned Professor.
The metal ball wasn’t simply floating, it looked as if it was frozen in place, and in time. A two-dimensional hologram sprouted out of it, surprising both of them. It showed a right triangle with different symbols on each side.
“I think… I think it is trying to communicate with us! Using math! Genius!” said an eager Professor. “But it’s obvious! They should have sent us something a bit harder don’t you think?”
“Yeah…” said Tin Can, completely mesmerized and with a stupid grin on his face.
“Uh… How are we going to answer this? Just… talk?” asked Professor Hooves.
“Yeah, yeah, maybe we should try that,” said Tin Can, still hypnotized.
“Okay, then. Um… Hello there. The answer is a² + b² = c².”
At first, nothing happened. Unexpectedly, the two-dimensional hologram turned into a three-dimensional one of the Milky Way galaxy, with all its two hundred billion stars. The location of the solar system where Equestria resided was marked with a blinking red dot, and on one of the arms of the large galaxy was a blue one.
“That must be their solar system! The blinking blue dot,” said Tin Can.
“I see it. It is so far away from us… We will have to travel for thousands of years to reach it.” said the thoughtful Professor. “I’m an old stallion with nothing to lose. I would gladly go on an expedition to this solar system, but we don’t have any resources. It’s worse than that! We don’t even have technology to leave a pony in suspended animation for hundreds of thousands of years!”
“But what if we created a portal?”
“Even if we could somehow obtain the astronomical amount of energy needed to create something like that, we would have to drag the other end of the portal to the place we wanted it to be. And if we just created a portal using that energy, we could end up anywhere, like outside of our galaxy or even inside a star.”
“That sucks. It’s not like we can travel faster than light anyway, so I don’t see any option unless sitting here and waiting for the alien to come visit us.”
“I think the alien is too far away to visit us in our lifeti- Wait a second! What did you just say?”
“Sit here and wait for the alien?” said a confused Tin Can.
“No, no, before that!”
“It’s not like we can travel faster than-“
“-light! Yes, that’s it! Of course we can do that!”
“We… can?” asked Tin Can, more confused than ever.
“Yes, yes! A few years ago I did a theory about Faster-Than-Light travel, and I built a prototype. It’s right there sitting at Station Five! I lost the rights over it… but that doesn’t matter! What matter is that we have a chance of meeting our aliens!” exclaimed the happy Professor.
“Station Five? Do you mean-“ Tin Can was cut short by the Professor.
“Yes, young stallion. And we are going to need a ship, because we are going to Alpha!”
__*__
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3669062
The giant space station will appear on chapter two. Designed it myself
Sorry guys, I'm afraid this appears to be a little out of context. I'm editing right now...
EDIT: Fixed.
Didn't the guy from the beginning leave the galaxy?
3751772 Yes, why?
3751821 I assumed that the portal would end up where he was. Which was in another galaxy. Yea I guess he could've came back.
3751878 Not really. The Universe is expanding, and the story happens almost 3 billion years from now. He is really, REALLY far away (at the edge of the real Universe, not the observable one), and the heat death of the Universe is starting at the farthest galaxies. He had to use the power of a supernova just to get that ball (which is smaller than an apple) through. He could go to Equestria using the portal (assuming he is using the energy out of a quasar or something as powerful as one), but he'd have to leave his ship behind and the portal wouldn't stay open for long and he'd end up stranded in Equestria just like every other HiE fic in the world.
EDIT:
I'm trying to make a hard sci-fi, but it's hard (oops) to make one when you have magical talking ponies. I'm trying my best to give a scientific explanation to everything, even their magic, as you'll see in later chapters.
3751931 Ah man. No fusion power or antimatter in the future. Wait so do these humans have FTL besides the use of these very limited wormholes?
3751977 They're way past nuclear fusion and antimatter. The less advanced ships they have are black hole starships. This is billions of years into the future. And yes, they do have FTL (Alcubierre drive, check the prologue), no, the wormholes aren't limited, they're just energy-hungry. If he had enough energy he could go anywhere.
The only way that I think it would be better would be if you kept Twilight alive and immortal, but she's my tied favorite pony
.
I really want to figure out what will happen next though.
-Clay the Draconequus
3752272 I'd love to keep her alive, in fact, I was going to make her the protagonist but... I don't know how to portray existing characters, with defined personalities, as you can see by my representation of Celestia. And while there is a reason for her actions that I can't tell you now because it will spoil the whole thing, to me it doesn't feel so much like Celestia... Imagine Twilight then, with all her complexity. I can imagine how she would act, but I don't know how to write it.
PS: Twilight is best pony. (and Applejack too, yes I have two favorite ponies. I don't know why)
3751931 So, humanity in this fic hasn't figured out how to harness zero point energy?
3752602
Of course they did, it's billion os of years into the future! And zero-point energy is not a magical solution to everything. Everyone uses this as a deus ex machina on every HiE-Sci-Fi fic.
The guy had to use a hypernova, which produces 10^46 Joules of energy just to get a tiny ball through, and it had to be done in nanosseconds. And also, this wormhole has been open since the first time he came to Equestria 2 billion years ago. The thing is decayed, if he used the wrong amount of energy, it could become unstanble and close itself.
3752321
That is a good idea! To bad I barely ever write. Somebody go write that story then tell me about it! Twilight is best pony, but best charecter is a tie for Twilight and Discord.
-Clay the Draconequus
3752942 Thanks! Yep, Discord really is a great character, my favorite villain from the show. Maybe you should try writing it! This is my very first story, not even my first fic, it really is my first attemp at writing anything, and I got 66 more likes than I expected.
3752744 Zero point energy is used like that because it is infinite. ZP energy is decayed energy, with a ZPG you will have as much power as your capaciters can hold.
3752744 Umm I never seen ANY pony sifi fic that mention, let alone use zero-point energy... Could you link me to some of these stories, please?
BTW the high end estimate of the vacuum energy is 10^113 joules per cubic meter, which is practically infinite. Our universe's mass-energy is only about 4*10^69 joules. 10^46J is nothing in comparison lol
3753763
Yep, I know, but that value is not exactly known. It could be 10^-9 Joules. And even if it is 10^113(and I hope it is because it would be awesome), one accident, one idiot with a bad day or one omnicidal maniac and the whole Universe cracks in half. And if the vacuum is a false vacuum, messing with it, for example, exctracting energy, could make it collapse from a metastable state into a more stable one. Then it is bye-bye life as we know it. The chemistry that allow us to exist wouldn't be there anymore and everyone and everything would turn into soup of particles.
I might have exagerated when I said that every Sci-Fic has that... One I can think about right now is called Starbrought. I think.
3754558 What if life is not as we know it? Humanity have 4 billion years to change, and it is already mentioned in this fic that the captain is the last human in our original body. What if human became something more? Search Downstreamer.
3754935 Good point. Everyone except the Captain are living as pure counsciousness.
But humans won't have billions of years to change. Of course, we can become so advanced to the point of becoming gods, but if our Universe really is a false vacuum, there wouldn't be time to know how the new universe would be and how we have to adapt to survive it. Chemistry would change completely. If the new universe that arised is not compatible with our structure, we are bucked. But you can be sure that the Universe would be entirely different after this.
3754935
Holy shit, that's awesome! (http://outskirtsbattledome.wikispaces.com/Civilization+Profile+-+Downstreamers) But, the humans haven't reached that technological capacity yet, because they had a war and many other problems that messed a bit with their technological developement. The closest thing they have to these Downstreamers is that they created a basement Universe to avoid heat death.
3755087 I know right
The fact that they are descendants of humanity fill me with joy. I don't expect humans in this fic to be that advance, 10^117 years is a VERY long time to develop.
This is a passage from another series by the same author which is also awesome. It shows some really exotic life forms. As the quote goes "And everywhere the humans went... they found life." Both are hard sifi btw
3755038 That's true. Don't mess with vacuum energy, unless you are a downstreamer
Anyway good luck with your story :)
3755136 Oh, yeah! Thanks for your recommendations!
My read later list doubled! 
And thanks for wishing me luck!
Steel Hooves feels like a childish character, and Celestia feels more protective than she should be. Considering she can move the sun around on a whim, to keep the griffins from doing crazy stuff she could just move the sun to the other side of the earth, or magically block the sunlight in that region or something. Poof, war gone. The only pony I can think of that would react the way you wrote would be fluttershy.
By childish I mean he does not seem to be thinking clearly. Why not ask luna about it instead? It seemed that he knew Celestia would disregard (more about this in a sec) his request then why not try a different approach? Luna seems to be more of a pragmatic type, wishing to get to the bottom of something the most efficient way possible.
And wait... now that I'm thinking about it, Celestia and Luna are using Luna's powers to spy on their own country? All of a sudden this feels like a very repressive rulership.
So this is "ha, I get to control the sun, but you don't get to run experiments as to how the sun works." kind of thing? This goes along with the spying repressive rulership mentioned before.
What is the purpose of having Celestia repressive anyway? As far as I can tell it gains nothing in the story and makes Celestia (and Luna) look like a butt that nobody else would like.
Overall it was a lot easier to read than the first chapter, but more annoying in a different way for the reasons I pointed out. Sorry if I sound harsh, I'm just saying what I'm thinking of after reading this chapter. Still reserving my up/down vote.
<edit>
Luna and Celestia are out of character is what most of it comes down to. You said earlier on in the comments that Twilight isnt alive because you didn't want to have to deal with writing about characters and have them be out of character. I... don't know what else to say about it, other than highly suggesting you go back to using Twilight in your writings and conforming to her character for practice.
3759588
Celestia doesn't control the sun, it's hard Sci-Fi remember? And there is a reason for her and Luna's actions.
But the Professor does seem childish. I think I'll have to rewrite this chapter. I wasn't as inspired as I was when I wrote the prologue... I didn't want to be like those writers that take a year to write the next chapter so this came out a bit rushed. Sorry.
Thanks for your comment! It certainly helps a lot.
3760614
I'm sure there are reasons, but anyone reading what you wrote wont know that. I still vote for adding Twilight in, saying she died 1,000 years ago seems like a cop-out.
3760946
Of course they won't know, it's part of the story.
I'm going to be honest with you, this story was supposed to be composed of only one chapter. The rest of the thing was supposed to be, uh, "discovered" or "developed" by tthe readers. It was more like an experiment because, I can create stories in my head that have never been done before, but I just don't know how to transform it into words. It was just to see if I could write at all, because what I really want to do is to write a sequel to a little story called Hello, Sedna. But my writing skills are trash compared to the guy who made it, so I doubt I would be able to get his permission to make a sequel right now. I re-read that story many times, studying it, and what came out of my efforts was the prologue of Fuse (but it wasn't intended to be the sequel to that story I mentioned). People were liking it so I decided to continue the story. But I wanted to make something new, something different, something I would like to read. I was tired of HiEs with the same plot but different characters. That's why there is no Twilight, she is in almost every HiE fic. I could change the first chapter and place her as the protagonist, but that would probably come out worse than it already is.
Teen: Fine with me
Potential War between ponies and humans: Ok
Twilight Sparkle is Dead: NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE
3802562
If Twily was still alive, it would be too easy.
This sty is really amazing! Cant wait to see how this will unfold.
This entire chapter should have been at minimum 3 long. You crammed too much into too short of a chapter.
3820428
Seriously? Perhaps I did. Thanks for your advice
Um FYI, if you travel faster than light you experience something called 'time dilation.' Time dilation is a sort of one way time travel. Basically the therory of relativity states that all light travels at the same speed and if you were to travel faster than light your perception of time would have to chagr. This means that one hour for you, could be a hundred years for everyone else. (If you want more info, google it.) That's why sci-fi universes tend to use wormholes for FTL travel. You're not actually going faster than light, you're bringing point 'B' to point 'A.'
Um FYI, if you travel faster than light you experience something called 'time dilation.' Time dilation is a sort of one way time travel. Basically the therory of relativity states that all light travels at the same speed and if you were to travel faster than light your perception of time would have to chagr. This means that one hour for you, could be a hundred years for everyone else. (If you want more info, google it.) That's why sci-fi universes tend to use wormholes for FTL travel. You're not actually going faster than light, you're bringing point 'B' to point 'A.'
4012990
FYI, I know what time dilatation is, and the FTL in my story will happen by Alcubierre drive. In this method, YOU and YOUR SHIP won't travel FTL, because that's impossible, but the SPACE WHERE YOU ARE WILL. Just like you said, you don't go to Point B, point B comes to you. And if you read chapter 1 you'll see that using wormholes is not going to work, because the other end can pop up anywhere in the Universe, maybe even outside it, if any of the Multiverse theories are correct.
EDIT:
AAAND, I also noticed that you have a wrong idea about time dilatation. When you travel at speeds CLOSE TO THE SPEED OF THE LIGHT, NOT FASTER, you experience time dilatation. The closer to the lightspeed you get, the slower time will pass for you. It's like the Universe not wanting you to cross the lightspeed limit. If you could travel FTL without using "tricks" like wormholes and Alcubierre drives (warp drives), time would flow more slowly, it would actually start to go backwards. The problem of traveling FTL without these tricks I mentioned is that you'd need an INFINITE amount of energy to do it, and there would also be other problems.
I love your story, I wait for the next chapter
PS : your story reminds me "Prometheus"
4035147
Yay!
I'm not sure how the educational system works in the US but I think that this is the right word: college. Next year I'll be in college so, I have to study a lot, which means that I have very little time to write, unfortunately. But I'll try my best to get the next chapter ready as soon as I can!
4036301
Co-Co-Co-Combo Yay !
Your fic isn't just awesome, it is emotional too
4078296
Really? Thank you very much! I wasn't expecting this reaction from any reader. Awesome!
Awesome story. I'm hoping that you pick it up sometime.
4681356
Thanks. Me too.
4690676 I hereby grant you +1 encouragement
Sad that this fic is probably dead. It's really good.
Well I would really like to read more chapters
i wish this story wasent dead
After some years I finally found this story...And I read it again...
I don't know how to say it so I will speak in french because I'm french so :
C'est vraiment magnifique, peut-être qu'il y a besoin d'améliorations pour l'écriture mais l'histoire en elle même est trés bien trouver, je pense même qu'elle est unique, la musique va vraiment bien avec d'ailleurs.
Bravo, si tu pense continuer tu a tous mon soutien.
Genius, and decently-written, story.
May it rest in peace.
plz update this story and dont let it die