C.E. 1001 - Behold My Wonders
Titus dreamed of Earth. He had never been to the planet that was home to the human race. Very few of the 1.6 trillion humans in known space had, since after the Colonial Period much of Earth had been designated as wildlife reserves, and the maximum population of Earth was capped at 3 billion. But Titus had seen pictures, and three-dimensional documentaries, and had often imagined living on Earth, in the days before interstellar travel.
He wandered a forest, with pine trees towering above him. He walked alongside a bubbling stream, following the steady chirping of a distant bird. His boots crunched against the frost-covered undergrowth, and as he walked he could see his breath turn to precipitation. The stream beside him was no longer flowing. Hearing the bird call change direction, he turned and crossed the frozen stream, and stepped into the snow on the other side. Snow fell from the pine branches, and Titus made sure to look up to avoid getting buried. He looked around at the white trees that shook in the heavy wind, squinting his eyes to see through the swirling snow. He could no longer see the trees. He pushed on through the blizzard blindly, but strangely felt no cold anywhere except his face. The bird call got louder and louder, piercing through the blizzard until he could hear it clearly.
"Thithu! Wake up!"
"Is it alright? I didn't mean to scare it."
"I'm sure it's fine. It was like this when it was first found. It just fainted."
"I thought that time was due to blood loss!"
Titus woke up.
"Ah, It's waking up." Celestia remarked to her student. "It'll be fine now, no need to worry."
"Good. I was worried for a moment I'd actually given it brain- MMPH!" Twilight's sentence was cut short by Celestia's hoof covering her mouth.
"No need to alarm it again, Twilight." Celestia smiled as the human opened its eyes and blinked at the two ponies standing by the cot.
"I'm a He, not an It." the human said.
Titus stared at the two aliens next to the cot he was in. He was in the same metal structure he had been in... however long ago he'd fainted. Well, at least I don't have brain damage.
"Oh... well, that was what the doctor had thought, but we couldn't be exactly sure, having never seen your species before. And we wouldn't want to assume." the lavender one, Twilight Sparkle, replied. "So now, does your species have the usual two genders, or do they have three like the draconequui?"
Draconequui? Eh, it doesn't matter now. "Er... two, like usual. Male and Female. Man and Woman." Titus answered. This thing messes with my head, I can now speak and understand an alien language fluently, and the minute I wake up I'M the one being asked questions. I should be doing the asking here!
"So... Man is the Male of the Human species? And Woman is the Female?" Twilight said, as a notebook and a pencil levitated over. The alien scribbled something down in unintelligible script. Apparently the "spell" didn't give me the ability to read. It just looks like scribbles to me.
"Yes." Titus replied instantly.
The creature looked at him oddly. "What was that?"
Huh? Oh, I must have replied in English on accident. "I said Yes." Titus clarified.
"Of course. Our scientists say you are an omnivore?" Twilight continued. "Please describe the typical foods you eat."
Geez, how many questions will it ask me. Wait, is it a she? I should probably ask. "Um, excuse me, but are you a female? I mean, I think so, but I wouldn't want to assume, like you."
"Oh, how could I have forgotten! I should have introduced myself first!" Twilight exclaimed.
"Honestly Twilight, he just woke up and already you've begun interrogating him." Celestia spoke up. "I understand you're curious, but I believe he might be too." The larger creature looked at Titus and smiled.
"I'm sorry, Princess." Twilight looked down for a moment. "Now... I am a female pony, a mare. My name is Princess Twilight Sparkle, and I came here to Northern Equestria... Equestria is the country we're in... to study... You!"
"Wait, did you just say 'Princess'?" Titus asked.
"Yes. Well, Princess Celestia is the one in charge really. I only became Princess a year ago." Twilight Sparkle replied.
It should have been obvious, as soon as I learned the language I knew what "Inkosazana" meant. It also explains why everyone listened to Princess Celestia. "I see. So there are two rulers of your country?" It made sense, sort of.
"Actually, there are four Princesses in Equestria. Myself, my sister Luna, Twilight, and Princess Cadance, who rules the Crystal Empire."
"So are you..." Titus racked his brain, but couldn't come up with an Equish word for elected. "...Are you chosen by the citizens?"
"Of course not. Princesses are chosen for their mastery of a particular form of magic." Twilight replied.
"That's the second time I've heard you talk about magic, or spells. What do you mean?" The more Titus understood this world, the weirder it seemed to get.
"I... don't understand what you're asking. Have you not heard of magic before?" Twilight asked. "Or is it a translation difficulty? The spell should have been flawless, it's based on imagery-emotion connections."
"No, I think I understand you right... but... magic is fake." Titus said, hoping it really wasn't a translation error and magic meant "scientific theory" or something. But then spell would have to be translated wrong too, and that didn't seem likely. Titus also found it difficult to explain a civilization with the tech to alter his memory, but which hadn't invented space travel yet. Or even powered flight.
Twilight coughed. "Excuse me?"
"Magic isn't real. It's unscientific."
"Of course Magic is scientific! Thaumatic Theory is as well established as... as conservation of momentum!" Twilight exclaimed.
"What the heck is Thaumatic Theory?"
"The theory of magic." Celestia offered, though it didn't help Titus much.
"You can't be serious. Magic doesn't exist." Titus said.
"Then how do you explain this!" Twilight practically shouted, waving the notebook and pencil in front of Titus.
Titus had to admit it was impossible to explain the pink aura that kept the notebook aloft. "Um... antigravity fields? Tractor beams? Strings?" That last explanation was pretty lame, Titus realized.
"It's a levitation spell. Most unicorns can perform it." Celestia answered. "I suppose Humans can't perform magic?"
"No." As hard as it was to believe, there was no denying the evidence. If these creatures insisted magic spells were responsible for levitating objects and teaching him a language instantly, who was he to argue with them?
"You mean to tell me that no sapient species on your world can perform magic?" Twilight said, surprise showing on her face.
"Actually, humans are the only sapient species where I come from. You are literally the first non-sapient species humans have ever made contact with, and we've explored thousands of planets. With the exception of 3 or 4 planets that had some plants and microbes, our home planet, Earth, was the only planet that held life we've ever found." Titus explained. I can't believe our first contact took hundreds of years of space flight and colonization, and these creatures made first contact on their own planet. Probably a really long time ago.
"But... without magic, how did you fly here?" Twilight asked.
Titus was at a loss for words. Literally, he lacked the Equish words to explain the propulsion systems that sent humanity through the stars, and the devices that enabled relatively safe wormhole traversals. Simplified answer it is. "Machines. We used non-magical machines to fly here through space. And we have devices that allow us to travel through... 'bends' in space that shorten distances between two far away places. I'm afraid I lack the words to explain it properly."
"Well, just add the words you want to the spel- oh, right. No magic. Haha..." Twilight looked away and laughed nervously. "Normally, you could link the ideas behind a word to the word in the spell, and transfer it to the other's mind. But since it doesn't really work on the reverse, and you can't send me the information, I guess we can't go further in your explanation."
"Right..." Titus said. Honestly, he had no idea how he would do that even if he could do magic, but he left that idea alone for now. "Basically, it's all advanced science stuff."
"Okay. So... why are you here? I mean, not right here, like, this planet here." the winged unicorn continued her interrogation.
"We..." How do I explain this? "The ship we were on traveled through a hole in space, and appeared right between your planet and your moon. The gravity of the planet pulled the ship in, and it isn't designed to land on planets, so everyone on board evacuated on lifeboats, and the ship most likely broke apart. The escape pod I was in crashed into the ocean, but the lifeboats aren't actually designed to land on planets, which is why the one here crashed."
"So you are here on accident, then. You did not intend to come here." Celestia summarized what Titus had just said.
"Exactly."
"I do not wish to dishonor your comrades who died, but I believe it is fortunate for us that you arrived here on accident." Celestia said. "We can perhaps learn a lot from you, Thithu Slater. As I'm sure you can learn from us."
There was quite a lot of learning over the next week at the "Foreign Object Research Site #1" as it was officially called. Titus was quite tired of explaining the nature of every single object Twilight Sparkle got her hooves on.
"Thithu, what about this thing? What does it do?" Twilight said, turning a very badly damaged holographics panel over with her magic.
"That would be a... realistic visual... screen. If it was working, it would respond to touch, but it seems destroyed beyond repair. Even as a technician, I couldn't fix it." Titus said, turning back to the lifeboat's power supply system. The craft had taken significant damage on impact, and the ship's hybrid fusion/fission reactor had shut down automatically. The distress signal Titus had picked up earlier was powered only by the solar panels on the ship, which had been damaged themselves, and being inside a building had drained the ship of power completely. Titus had to repair what he could of the solar panels, acquire enough power to restart the muon-catalyxed fusion, and the lifeboat would be... still pretty much inoperable.
"Hmm..." Twilight hummed, turning the holopanel over a few times before discarding it on the 'FUBAR' pile. "Well, what about this?" she said levitating another object towards Titus.
"Woah, put that thing down! That's a Xion Peacekeeper Mark XIII!" Titus said, switching to English for the weapon's name.
"A what?" Twilight said, hastily dropping the automatic handgun to the floor.
"It's a... a weapon." Damn, lacking the words in another language really makes it hard to describe weapons. "It's a thing that shoots explosives... like a small cannon, but it fires off a lot of shots rapidly. I wouldn't play with it, it's too dangerous." Twilight backed away from the handgun as Titus spoke, looking at the gun as if it had turned into a cobra. Titus walked over and picked up the weapon, aiming it at the floor about 5 meters away while checking that the safety was on. After that, he removed the magazine that had been fed into the handgun. Why it was loaded was a mystery, firearms were supposed to remain unloaded onboard spacecraft unless the ship had been boarded by hostiles.
Titus took aim at a nearby pile of snow, disengaged the safety, and pulled the trigger once. Nothing happened. Titus clicked the safety back on, and satisfied that the weapon was more or less neutralized, laid it on a table on delicate equipment. He kept the magazine with him for safe keeping. "Ms. Sparkle, you should probably tell the other researchers to look out for things like that. I don't want any ponies getting killed on accident."
"Yes, of course," Twilight immediately. Then she stopped and turned to look at Titus. "But um... what exactly is such a dangerous weapon doing on your boat?"
"Well..." Titus hadn't told any of the ponies the nature of the ship, other than its mission of scouting wormholes, but he didn't really see a need to withhold the information. "It was a military ship we were on. Part of my nation's navy."
"So, you are a soldier?" Twilight said, a hard to read expression on her face. "You didn't come here to invade did you?"
"No, no, of course not!" Titus replied. Apparently alien invasion is a universal fear. "And I'm not really a soldier either. As I said earlier, I'm an engineer, a repair guy. And we didn't even know this planet existed til after we had passed through the wormhole and began to crash."
This seemed to ease any of the unicorn's fears. But Titus began to wonder what would happen if the Earth United Planets had decided to conquer the planet...
"Magic is a natural part of the universe, an underlying field that can be interacted with, while invisible to most. Unicorns, and Alicorns-"
"Alicorns... Right, winged unicorns. " Titus said, interupting Celestia while taking a note on a intertab, a wrist-mounted computer that had remarkably survived the lifeboat's crash. "Makes sense." Celestia was giving him a "short" lecture on basic magical theory.
"Alicorns are much more than winged unicorns, Titus. Alicorns are a separate sub-species of pony, more than just Unicorns with wings." Celestia resumed. "Now, as I was saying, Unicorns and Alicorns such as myself have a natural affinity for magic, being able to interact with it much more easily than most other species."
"But how? How do you interact with this... Thaumatic field?" Titus asked. So far, everything he'd heard sounded very vague and unscientific. Not that he doubted, he'd seen enough magic not to doubt, it just didn't make any sense.
"The Thaumatic field is influenced by emotions. Much like the spell Twilight used on you earlier, magic is tied to emotions the way the Equish words you learned are tied to your emotions. You understand the meaning of the words because they are tied to the meaning in your mind. Spells are only tying the Thaumatic field to your emotions, to influence it to your desires. This allows a broad range of magic spells, but it is still limited to the capabilities of the user." Celestia explained. Her soft yet clear voice made comprehension of her words perfectly clear. Comprehension of the subject matter, was quite different.
"But, wouldn't you have only a few spells? Anger spells, sad spells, happy spells..." Titus faltered. Apparently he didn't have an Equish "etcetera" either.
"Ah, but those are only the base of the spells. Those emotions can be combined in any order, and directed at any number of objects in any number of ways. For example, combat fire spells stem from Anger, Courage, and Determination. But a simple sparking spell used to light a fire can be based in Comfort, Fear, and Love."
"So when you are using a spell, you just feel these things, and it happens?" It still didn't sound very logical to Titus, but at least it almost made sense, in a weird way.
"Of course not. Raw emotions can lead to magic, but most unicorns can't perform consistent spells that way. At best, it results in Chaos magic that does almost what you wanted. True spells are based in Incantations." Celestia continued with her lecture.
"But I've never heard any of you say anything when doing spells." Titus pointed out.
"The incantations don't have to be spoken aloud to trigger emotions." Celestia was smiling. She was quite enjoying the lecture. She still rarely taught on "Guest" Speaker days at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, but ruling a country was a busy job. She couldn't teach at her own school as much as she wanted to. This little lecture, however, reminded her of the days before Unification, when she personally taught young unicorns in Unicornia. "The importance is getting the right emotions, in a standardized way, so the spell works the same everytime. By using words in an incantation, you insure the same emotions tied to those words come up everytime. And thinking an incantation keeps your mind focused on the spell. With pure emotions, your mind can wander." Teaching was quite delightful. Unfortunately, nobles didn't like being lectured to in the Equestrian Council, and petitioners at the Day Court didn't usually have time for lessons. "And while you can say the incantation aloud, it's slower than thinking it, it's distracting to others, and in combat it lets your enemy know which spell you are using."
"So, you have these string of words that create the spells? Are they written down? Can you have different incantations that do the same thing?" Titus was excited. It made sense now. It was almost like a programming language for magic, as he understood.
"Creating spells is a very difficult task, often involving trial and error. One has to choose the words for the spell in a particular order, and choose words that are tied to the correct emotions. As such, there are only a couple thousand incantations that are accepted as 'standardized', meaning they will work the same everytime for almost everypony."
"So, the big question: If magic is emotions, why can't everyone do it? Why only unicorns and Alicorns." Titus asked.
"That, my little- uh, errm" Celestia looked away for a moment looking lightly embarrassed. She quickly continued, however. "That is an answer that would take much longer to explain, and delves into Advanced Thaumatic Theory, which deals with the underlying rules of magic and the Thaumatic field itself, rather than the simple rules governing its use." Celestia smiled. "And now, I think you had better get back to Twilight and the lifeboat. That's enough magical lesson for one day."
Titus walked away, happy he at last seemed to possess some explanation of magic, but disappointed. He felt he now had nearly as many questions as when he had started, and his unanswered questions lingered at the back of his mind.
The next week was just as busy as the last. Titus had been repairing the lifeboat, and all systems seemed ready to reboot the ship. Of course, there was nowhere he could go in it, since it was designed only for space flight and not atmospheric flight, but it could remain powered for quite some time and had access to more devices than his escape pod had.
Twilight, and all the researchers at the site, had quite a lot of questions about the escape pod. Titus had demonstrated the holographics panels, the various sensor arrays, the water and air recyclers, and even the thrusters (though the pod had been tied down with steel cable and held in place by magic before the thrusters were fired). Titus had tried to explain as much of the human technology as possible, but not all of it translated well, and sometimes it was just impossible.
Now at last, the lifeboat could be fired up, allowing access to its far more expansive computer database, it's real-time holographic star map (far more advanced than the one on the pod), and probably most important of all: the Organic Compound Synthesizer. Using a stock of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, the synthesizer could replicate a large amount of organic molecules from Trinitrotoluene to Phenylalanine. Of course, the amount of products that could be produced was very limited, and the products always came out in small masses inside sealed canisters, but if Titus needed some nutrients, small explosives, or medicine, it could be produced in a few hours or up to a few days.
Titus began the start up procedure for the reactor. The fusion process started back up, and then the fusion process restarted the fission reactions that provided the bulk of the ship's power. All the displays came back online, including the distress beacon and star map. And the comm channels. One of which was receiving a signal from several hundred miles away.
"...shhhh... ...crew... Enduring Spirit... lifeboat destroyed and using main... eading south..."
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5298259
Perhaps, if in the 500+ years from now they hadn't come up with a new nickname for them.
First off, if you have a muon-catalyzed fusion reaction, than there is no need for a fission reaction. In fact, that makes it far less efficient. Second, Fusion is a lot harder to initiate, but it puts out far more energy than fission, so it would make no sense to have the majority of the energy derived from the fission reaction, nor would it make sense to have fusion catalyze a fission reaction.
5298289
But Maglev is the actual name, it stands for 'magnetic levitation'
5298314
Did you even read the Fission/Fusion Wikipedia article I linked to?
Muon-catalyzed fusion is extremely inefficient, since the production of muons is more costly than the output of the fusion reaction. By using a fusion/fission hybrid, you get a cleaner reaction than pure fission and a more efficient reaction than pure fusion. Best of both worlds.
5298318
First, I didn't say the super-magnetic trains were magnetic levitation trains. So while your assumption is a good one, it is still that, an assumption.
Second, they could still be called MagTrains, or LevTrains, or Lightning Trains for all we know, even if they are of the magnetic levitation variety.
Calling them super-magnetic trains is not incorrect, so I used that.
Cant wait for the next chapter
5298381
Neither can I.
5298356 When is the next cappy?
5356437
I can't make any promises, but a new (admittedly fairly short) chapter should be completed this week. The next chapter after that might be a few weeks away.
5356437
I lied.
5392773 OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Dun-dun-dunnnn!