Chapter III
I honestly did not know what had happened. One second I was fine, just sitting there as the doctor ran through what seemed like a routine check up. The next second, my world was suddenly filled with blades and needles, all inching towards my exposed flesh.
I'm not sure what happened next, though. I guess I must've blacked out, because the next thing I knew I was lying on the ground, curled up in a ball, shivering in terror. There seemed to be something soft and warm on top of me, while I could hear Moon's voice nearby, hushing to me soothingly.
“I-I'm sorry...” I said, as I curled up into a tighter ball.
“Fine, you not mean action,” she said softly.
I'm not sure how long I spent shivering under that soft warm blanket, but eventually I was able to get my emotions in check, and I slowly uncurled underneath whatever was covering me.
The first thing that I noticed were the blue feathers. This confused me at first, so I reached up and touched them with my fingers in an attempt to make sense of what I was seeing. Imagine my surprise, then, when the feathery object I was touching started to giggle.
“Um...” I said intelligently.
“You are feeling best?” I heard Moon say, though her voice seemed to be coming from somewhere beyond the blue, ticklish object above me.
That doesn't make any sense, unless... I thought. However, just as I started to put the puzzle pieces together, the wing above me moved out of the way to reveal Moon's smiling face looking down at me.
...And just like that, everything fell into place for me. I was being wing-hugged by whom I presumed was one of the two leaders of the entire pony nation. At least, if the royal regalia was to be believed.
“Gah! I'm sorry!” I said as I quickly withdrew my hand, hoping I hadn't caused offense to the powerful mare. Crap, out of the frying pan and into the- I thought, but was interrupted by the mare's soft laughter.
...Or, maybe I'm misjudging them. Again, I thought mirthlessly as I shakily tried to crawl back into bed, acutely aware of how weak I was. As I made my attempt, however, I suddenly realized that my body seemed to have gotten lighter. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that I was-
“You try hard, let help, us lend to you,” I heard Moon say as I was levitated back into bed into a sitting position, then covered with the blanket that had somehow fallen to the floor. “You, not alone anymore. You, not need face-brave. We here, we help, we support and heal. No need be afraid.”
I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing, nor was I sure what to say after a pronouncement like that. All I could really do was bow my head and fight the tears that threatened to overwhelm me. “...Thank you. Thank you so very much.”
She just smiled at that, and nodded as the door to the room opened again, revealing the nurse from before carrying a tray on her back. As the mare deftly maneuvered the food laden tray onto my lap, I reflected for a little bit on how radically my life seemed to shift and change. Even though it had only been about a week, it still felt like yesterday when I was running through the woods, fearful of the natives and what they might do to me if I was ever discovered.
But they haven't discovered the real you yet, have they? They haven't discovered what horrors you've done, nor do they know what you are truly capable of...
I shook my head at that, trying desperately to remove the dark thoughts that plagued my mind. No, they helped me when I was nothing but a monster, when they had no reason to help me, when they had no reason to suspect that a real person lurked underneath my hideous exterior. Just take things one step at a time, no reason to get paranoid over the past.
However, as I picked up the fork on the tray, I couldn't help but wonder how these wonderful ponies would react if they knew precisely what they were helping.
* * *
Captain Hazalk grunted in pain as Doctor Ulia changed the bandages on her patient's back. “I just wish you'd let me put you in one of our tanks. You'd be completely fine in a matter of days, and it wouldn't even leave a scar,” Ulia said as she handed a used bandage to the aid at her side.
“A couple of days is too long, especially since I'd have to be unconscious for that particular treatment to be effective,” Hazalk said as Ulia started to spray his wound with a disinfectant. “I need to be on call, just in case the Quzin were to arrive. Plus, I don't really mind a scar. Ladies love scars, especially if you got them doing something heroic.”
Ulia just rolled her eyes at that, then jammed a nanoinjector into the wound, ignoring her captain's grunt of pain. “Sure, whatever you say sir. For the record, though, what you did wasn't 'heroic', it was foolhardy. What would you have done if the traitor had shot you in the head?”
“I would have died, but at least the traitor would have been thrown in the brig,” Hazalk said as Ulia began to wrap him up. “Besides, I can still perform my duties, I just can't take part in any of the training sims.”
“Yes, well, I would suggest you avoid revealing any more conspiracies for the time being. At least until you're fully healed,” Ulia said as she began to redress the captain's wounds.
“Is that an order?”
“If that's what it's going to take to keep you out of trouble? Then yes, it is an order,” Ulia said as she finished fastening the last bandage.
“Yes ma'am,” Hazalk said as he put his shirt back on.
As he was doing so, however, the intercom at his belt buzzed to life. “Captain Hazalk, Sergeants Verilo and Casianon are waiting for you in your ready room, as instructed. Also, Lieutenant Wendalaz would like a word with you,” Hazalk heard Lieutenant Talian say over the intercom.
“Did he say why?” Hazalk asked.
“He said it had to do with the video footage from Team Zen's disastrous attempt to recover Subject-38.”
“Tell him to meet me in my ready room in an hour. As for the sergeants, tell them that I will be up in a couple of minutes to debrief them,” Hazalk said as he belted on his sidearm.
“Yes sir.”
With that, Hazalk turned back towards Doctor Ulia and twitched his antenna a little, while also giving her a little wink. “Well, not that this hasn't been fun and all, but duty calls.”
“Just get out of here,” Ulia said, shooing the captain out of her medical bay.
“Okay! Okay! I'm going! You don't have to shove!” Hazalk said with a laugh.
Once he was outside, he began to make his way to the lift, taking the time to pull out his datapad as he went. As he was waiting for the elevator to arrive, he took a second to review the footage from Ilisk's betrayal. It just doesn't make sense, why would he just tell me who was involved? he thought as he watched Ilisk shoot him again. He couldn't have possibly planned for me to confront him like that, and he is far smarter than that. So why?
Hazalk just shook his head as the lift arrived. The answers that he sought were all held by Ilisk, and the traitor hadn't said a word since he had been placed in the brig. “Maybe I'm just being paranoid about this whole thing,” he said as he entered the lift. “Of course, paranoia has never failed me before.”
He was so lost in thought over this, that he didn't even realize that he had reached his ready room. At least, he didn't notice up until the point where the two Krin already in the room stood up an saluted him.
“At ease, soldiers,” Hazalk said with a wave of an arm. The two Krin soldiers did as instructed, though Hazalk had been a soldier long enough to tell that the two were still on edge about something. “Before we begin with the debriefing, I would like to know what's on your minds.”
“Sir, where is Sergeant Inaz and the rest of Team Zen? We've asked around, but each and every person we've talked to since arriving back at the ship have all told us to wait until we've talked with you. Are they on special assignment planet side? or...” Verilo asked carefully.
“No sergeant. Inaz and his team are dead,” Hazalk said with a sigh as he sat down in his chair.
The two soldiers looked shocked at this news. “Dead sir? What happened? Were they caught by the natives? Because if they were, the natives would have been slaughtered by-”
“Soldier, I'm going to stop you right there. We don't know everything there is to know about these people, but from what I've seen, they are far more dangerous than we first anticipated,” the captain said as he typed a few things onto his computer terminal. “Also, it wasn't the natives. At least, not directly.”
“What happened then?”
“Verilo, Casianon, what I'm about to tell you is pretty shocking, and it completely changes our original mission,” Hazalk said as he brought up a video clip from Sergeant Inaz's armor cam, but did not play it yet. “The ship that we came to the aid of, and the people on board, were the worst our kind have ever produced. They were working in secret, experimenting with genetic and cybernetic enhancements, in order to produce living terror weapons.”
At this, he brought up the video clip, pausing it at just the right time to show off Subject-38 in all its terrifying glory.
Both soldiers flinched at the sight of the thing, clearly disturbed by what they saw. “Are you telling me that an entire fire squad was taken out by just one of these things?” Casianon asked in horror.
“No, but it could have if it choose to. It easily killed both Inaz and Juli, and it had the opportunity to finish off the others, but chose to instead run,” Hazalk said as he reached under his desk for a bottle of water. “The creature got away, and the rest of Team Zen were taken out by the natives on their way out, so I wouldn't be so quick to pass these natives off as simple savages.”
“Sir, what do you intend to do? This monster killed our men, not to mention the ones that were killed by the natives, and such an action clearly deserves to be answered in kind. I would gladly volunteer to lead any operation to seek vengeance for the loss of our troops,” Verilo said with a salute.
“Stand down sergeant. Inaz went in without the proper information, and I can't rightly blame the creature or the natives for their actions,” Hazalk said with a sigh.
“...Sir? What do you mean by that?” Casianon asked in confusion.
“What I mean is that we weren't given the whole picture. Inaz went in thinking that he was up against nothing but an unthinking bioweapon, but he couldn't have been more wrong. That thing,” Hazalk said, pointing at the view screen for extra emphasis. “Is sapient.”
There was silence at this pronouncement as both of the sergeants in the room tried to process what they had just been told.
“Are you telling me,” Verilo said as she stood up. “That the scientists on that ship were experimenting to create sapient bioweapons?”
“Oh, it's much worse than that. I confronted Agent Ilisk about this and it turns out that this creature, dubbed 'Subject-38' by the scientists, was stolen from its home world, then turned into a brainwashed puppet soldier,” Hazalk said with an antenna twitch of disdain.
Both of the sergeants sat down heavily at that, shocked expressions on their faces. After several minutes of this, Casianon finally spoke up. “Was it... was it still brainwashed when it killed our troops?”
“No sergeant, but I still can't blame it for its actions. It was taken from its home, experimented in the most invasive way I can possibly imagine, then let loose on several innocents as part of its 'testing',” Hazalk said as he rubbed his forehead with his two forehands. “What would you do, if such a thing happened to you? If you had escaped, only to find that those who had originally held you captive had come back to retrieve you?”
“I would fight back. In fact, I wouldn't have tried to escape, and I would have instead sought out revenge,” Verilo said blankly.
“As would I. The natives are equally as blameless. They were merely coming to the rescue of their ally, they weren't actively being aggressive,” Hazalk said, then took a swig from his water bottle.
"Are you telling me that it somehow made friends? Looking like that?" Casianon asked in disbelief.
"I wouldn't pretend to know how Subject-38 managed it, but yes," Hazalk said with a nod.
“Then, who is to blame for this disaster?” Verilo asked as she raised her head. “These scientist couldn't have been working alone, and you said before that Agent Ilisk had some knowledge about what had happened.”
“Correct on both accounts. Agent Ilisk is currently being held for questioning, though he is being completely uncooperative at the moment. We also have some leads on who he and the scientists were working for, though those are dubious at best. We have much bigger issues to worry about, however,” Hazalk said with a nod.
“Yeah, like 'how is the High Council going to react to this?'” Casianon said as he slumped further into his chair.
“I'm actually more concerned with how the Quzin are going to react,” Verilo said with a gulp.
“Precisely. This isn't something we can just cover up. A Quzin ship is probably already on its way, and we don't have the time to scrub the site, or to come up with a reasonable explanation for what has happened. Right now, we are just waiting for orders, while also keeping a look out for incoming Quzin ships,” the captain said quickly. “We're going to be in for some rough days, so I need everybody aboard to be up to speed. I've already sent a copy of my confrontation with Ilisk to your personal datapads. Everybody else on the ship is aware of what happened, I just need you two to inform your respective squads of what happened, as well as to show them that footage.”
“Yes sir, would you like to hear our reports of what we saw while we were down there?” Casianon asked with a salute.
Before Hazalk was able to answer, there was a knock at the door to the ready room. “That won't be necessary, sergeant. I have another meeting to attend, so I'll just read your report after you've finished it. Dismissed,” Hazalk said to the two.
Casianon and Verilo nodded at this, then rose to leave the room. They briefly saluted when the door opened to allow Lieutenant Wendalaz entrance, but quickly left soon afterwards.
“Hey, Ulzy, did you have something for me?” Hazalk asked his lieutenant as the door hissed shut behind him.
“Yes sir, though you're not going to like it,” Lieutenant Ulzark Wendalaz said as he gestured towards the datapad he was holding. “I took the liberty to examine the footage from Team Zen's armor camera in more detail, and what I found was rather... unsettling, to say the least.”
With that, the lieutenant's fingers danced across the surface of his datapad, quickly bringing up the footage in question. He then turned the datapad around to allow the captain to see.
Hazalk immediately noticed that this particular clip was focusing on was the data picked up by Private Golin's camera, right before the poor soldier's death. Hazalk watched impassively as plasma bolt after plasma bolt struck the flinching equine, only for it to emerge from the storm completely unscathed.
“What do you see here, sir?” Wendalaz asked as he leaned forwards ever so slightly.
“I see the equine's armor glowing as it somehow projects a field to absorb our weapon's firepower,” Hazalk said with a wave.
“That's what I thought at first too, but then I amplified the image. Here, take a closer look...” the lieutenant said as he touched the touch screen a few more times, then turned it back towards the captain.
Hazalk watched very closely. It seemed to be a close up of the armor the equine was wearing, but it was kind of hard to tell with all the green fire obscuring the footage.
Wait a second...
“Ulzy, are those...?”
“They are, and they aren't at the same time. Whatever the equine was using to protect itself is very similar to the tech that has protected Quzin troops in the past. The symbols look completely different, but their effect seems to be completely identical,” Wendalaz said seriously.
Hazalk just shook his head at that. “I'm not sure how to respond to this,” he said blankly.
“Well, for starters, it raises the threat level of this planet significantly. Any teams we send down there have to watch their step, or they could receive the same treatment that they might expect at the hands of the Quzin Void Knights,” Wendalaz said with a shudder.
“It would also explain the erratic movements of this system's star,” Hazalk said thoughtfully. “I've seen a Quzin fleet pull a star from its position and fling it at an oncoming fleet, completely destroying everything in its path.”
Wendalaz gulped at that, horrified at the thought. “What do we do, sir?”
Hazalk didn't respond immediately. Instead, he choose to unscrew his water bottle and take another long, steady drink. I wish the doc would let me have a drink while I was on medication, I could use one right about now. he thought to himself.
“This changes nothing,” he said as he screwed the cap back on. “We stay in orbit, keeping an eye out for any incoming Quzin ships, while simultaneously waiting for orders from HQ.”
“Yes sir,” Wendalaz said with a salute.
At least, I hope this changes nothing... Hazalk thought to himself.
"Quzin", a decayed version of "Equestrian" mayhaps? Interesting!
5400105
It was already revealed that the Quzin are a space faring superpower that they’ve fought before… and lost against, while Equestria and the planet it resides on are, at best, an Atomic Age society¹ or at the beginning of their Industrial Revolution. They’re decidedly pre‐Space Age. Where on Earth did you get the impression that Quzin is a decayed version of Equestrian from?
¹ If you go by the show and take the singular instance of a radiation symbol on a hazmat suit during The Cutie Pox as anything other than a throwaway gag.
I'd love to see Celestia fending off an alien invasion with a sun.
The Quzin may be able to fling a star at their enemies, but Celestia can move it around like a mace.
Quzin tech? Well, that will be interesting to find out if they were really involved, or if it was just a coincidence.
That sucks about your finals - but I can sympathize - websites are hard. I mean, I have some simple understanding of coding languages, but still, you simply need to have the head of it, or at least be a little interested in order to even be able to properly learn it.
So best of luck to you!
I'm loving this.
Imagine how these aliens would feel when facing against, oh say, Discord? Hell, I wouldn't put it past Princess Twilight to be able to rip the attacking ships out of orbit and use them to bludgeon the rest of the fleet with it.
Or worse... End up facing Maud in combat as she'd protecting those she loves...
Crew: "Sir, there's a pony out there throwing rocks at our ships."
Capt.: "How did they get into space? I didn't think they had space ships."
Crew: "They don't have space ships Sir. The pony is throwing them from the surface. We've already lost three destroyers and one of the battle cruisers has sustained heavy damage."
Capt.: "..."
Crew: "Captain?"
Capt.: "It is time for us to strategically advance in the opposite direction."
Crew: "Run away sir?"
Capt.: "Run away."
Damn, Breeze, only you can make me more interested on an entirely-OC race of aliens that so far has had almost no contact with the ponies than on the perspective of the human that's been rescued by them. These Krin are awesomely complex.
Still on that note, Alex is starting to sound like a broken record. All you've been doing is reiterate that guilt weighs him down so much that it could ground the Wonderbolts forever if they felt a fraction of it. It's not getting us anywhere. Methinks the scenes with him would be more effective if told from the eyes of ponies.
Now... what's that I hear about Night Guard magic being a close simile to old Quzin technology? And it's enough to toss the threat level of Equestria some two or three notches up on the Krin's analysis? Hoooo boy, this is starting to get promising and tense, except for Alex. Seems like he'll be well-protected from here on out, unless the Quzin don't like his face.
I wonder what a Void Knight is...
Hmm, interesting - it seems like these Quzin are a magic-wielding species as well, if I got the implications straight, capable of generating up to Alicorn level of feats (moving around stars at a rapid enough pace to be useful during fleet engagements). And have the technology of a space faring civilization. Now we know why our local bug-people are afraid of them - magic alone allows to punch above your normal weight class, and combined with appropriately advanced technology would be a truly scary sight to behold.
I wonder if the Quizin are going to make contact with Equestria - if nothing else, magic should serve as common ground between them.
5400271 I'm glad you like what I'm doing with the Krin so far!
As for Alex, yeah, he does sound like a broken record, but that's kind of the point. Damage like that doesn't just go away overnight, I have a friend who's a psychologist, and he told me that there is no real cure for that kind of thing. You just treat the symptoms and work with the patient as he steadily improves. He's only been in the pony's care for about a week, most of that time was spent in a magically induced coma as they gave his body time to heal.
However, I was also trying to show that he was fighting against those negative thoughts, as evidenced by these two scenes:
Yeah, he sounds like a broken record, but that's because he kind of is. However, notice that what he's worried about the most isn't the trauma that he underwent during his capture, but his perceived guilt for the murders he was used in during his stay. He's trying to keep a positive outlook, despite everything that has happened. And despite having a really good reason for hating life, he doesn't. In fact, he absolutely loves life, and clings to it, as evidenced by his previous actions.
Trust me, when it comes time for the Pinkie Pie party, he's going to be the first on the dance floor, just happy that he has one more day to spend with friends.
5400149
Would be more interesting if Equestrians turned out to be offshoot of those "Quzin".
You know, like Exodites and Craft-World Eldar from Warhammer - they're the same kin, but first chose to live simple peaceful life on distant planets, abandoning great deal of their technology to avoid corruption. Latter kept the tech and live on immense ships, but they still look over Exodites, coming to help if needed.
5400335 I didn't remark on those because, to me, they were obvious enough. He's been realizing that he often misjudges the ponies since the first story, and he's trying to get over it all.
Still, thanks for the reply!
I agree with everyone on this, you now have me interested in these aliens since they're now similar to the ponies. That and I wonder what the bad aliens did to deserve an entire sun being flung at them like a Frisbee. Any race that can pull that off is a race that deserves all the space they want and no arguments.
"You want this entire galaxy all to yourselves? Sure! Go right ahead! ^_^"
Celestia weaponizing the sun?
Praise the Sun-Butt!
As usual good job with the story
I'm sorry about your finals I know the pain
If you need something to improve your spirit visit me on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiWhcjh4iE2VnHzpUOhBWRQ
For good laugh I recommend this
Just remember to turn on English subtitles
5400414 Do I even have to point out how much this spits in the face of the most fundamental laws of science:
THOU SHALT NOT CREATE ENERGY OUT OF NOTHING
When I do the math for how much energy it would cost to even accelerate the sun or any star by even 1 meter per second, that's (to use a scientific term) an unholy absolute sh*t ton of energy. That's ignoring that you would also have to cancel out the much of its prior momentum (because stars are revolving around the center of galaxies too) and fight off the forces of gravity. Add it all up and now it cost about as much energy as converting a planet into energy with old E=mc squared. So now, a unholy absolute F*cking sh*t ton dipped in liquid gold load of energy.
I need a hug, This hurts my brain.
5400490 Um... are you forgetting that magic exists in this world, and it has already been shown in the show that the sun actually does move as dictated by the whims of an apparently immortal alicorn?
Magic follows its own laws in my fic, but trust me when I say that the energy is not made from nothing.
If you're going to get upset about something like this, maybe you need to re-watch the show again.
5400414 \[T]/
Story justs keeps getting better. It's like an early Christmas present.
The Quzin are a bunch of space sorcerers?
i.imgur.com/dfLd6HF.gif
And, guessing by the previous chapters, they have a theocracy. The higher you are in the church, the higher you are in the world. Which means that if they catch wind of this, they will literally send a divine vengeance against our old boys right here.
Nanoinjector's son! They harden in response to physical trauma! You can't kill me Alex!
(Five cookies to the man who gets this reference)
5400546 I admit that I had to look that one up.
5400554 S'alright, was a bit obscure anyway.
Been reading this series nonstop for a few days and I've just now caught up. I love what you're doing with it, and I can safely say that I'm here to stay. But having to wait for chapters now is going to be hard...
5400534 SPAAAAAACE MAGIC!
Quzin VOID KNIGHTS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! The levels of magical/technological awesomeness is steadily increasing my good sir!
imagemacros.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/win_sector.jpg?w=720
Well, there goes my hopes of Celestia freaking out both the Krin and Quzin with her sun of death movement abilities.
Good chapter, I liked it.
Sucks about your finals, though. I wish you luck when you retake the classes.
5400497 I know that the show didn't explain magic very well and all, but from what I can guess it does have definite rules. The show itself is mostly about social situations and how to learn from them. It doesn't explain magic very well because that's not what the show was about, so now the fic writers have to make up our own laws for magic so I could debate this, but unless there's a prime source telling us what to believe, I'll have to suspend my disbelief.
5400558
In case anybody was curious:
Are the Quzin some kind of Alicorn?
Because it's starting to seem that way. Runes designed to deflect powerful plasma blasts, throwing stars around like it was nothing, this is all adding up to one big reveal of a race of super alicorns that can be in space.
5401156 Nah, nothing like that. If you read carefully what I wrote, you will see that it took an entire fleet to move a star. You'll find that a much smaller group of unicorns could complete the same task, ditto for a single alicorn.
I'm not revealing anything else, because it's plot important.
Stars as weapons? no wonder they don't want to piss them off.
Brilliant job. You managed to create not one, but two interesting original races.
Also, don't forget that PTSD usually is sporadic; they'll seem perfectly adjusted and fine, then suddenly go into deep depression or fits of fury.
5400391
"Bad aliens." Because labeling an entire race is both acceptable and cool!
5400490
5400264 That was so funny I think I berst a gut laughing
5400149 don't forget about the HAZMAT suits in Bats!
ahem...
AMAZING chapter as always.
so...will the aliens remember that "hey, the subject and ponies have been attacked by our species in all of their previous interactions with us and probably have a shoot on sight protocol now, maybe it would be better to contact them remotely?"
and the Youtube channel sounds nice...
maybe a mix of lets plays, skits and pvp things...
speaking of games, do you like those shooty types of games like tf2?
i have a spare copy of a game called Dino D day if you want, it has soldiers fighting dinosaurs in ww2
anyway, keep up the good work as always
5401287 Huh. Good point.
Well that threw all my ideas out the window, let's try waiting for your ideas to be written down!
5400490
That's what warp drives are for. Stretch the space behind and compress the space in front: "motion" without momentum.
That's how gravity works.
It also makes for a killer weapon all on its own.
5401587 I can agree to that. But how does one change the specification on such a device fast enough to react to an incoming enemy and fling a star at them?
Well at least the aliens have more brains than that traitor.
5401595
You just need enough tech/knowhow/energy to make a warp field the size of a star, and then a targeting computer.
The real problem is that now you've moved a star. That can easily throw off the gravitic interactions for a large swath of space. And if you moved it far enough, since you're not actually changing it's current velocities when using warp, now the star is headed in a completely different direction than everything around it, and you've started an interstellar game of Russian Roulette - because someone is going to get F'd.
Also, what kind of dire straights would you need to be in to even consider using a weapon like that?
5401844 An engagement of one ship versus an entire fleet . Still though, it doesn't sound much more dangerous than a hyper velocity star (stars that get sucked to a black hole but just get slingshot past it) The inter galactic game of getting screwed by stars would happen anyways. Though it is admittedly a poor move that would ruin the planet you were trying to protec!
5401888
I'm very much of the mindset of the officer on the Citadel in Mass Effect 3: you do NOT fire a weapon in space unless you are very certain your target, and only your target, is going to get hit. Flinging star to take out a fleet seems roughly equivalent to lobbing a nuke to destroy one convoy. Unless that fleet has enough mass to actually cause an impact between itself and the star, then you just slingshotted a star at someone somewhere and incidentally steamrolled a fleet along the way.
I would hope they had the tech to stop the star after use because the alternative is just so outrageously and capriciously destructive.
5402005 The only reason they considered it an option was because they could control how far it went, and where to stop it. If they were not certain of those two things, they wouldn't have even bothered trying.
Plus, after seeing that, well, I'm not going to spoil the surprise of what happened next.
5402005 I can only wonder how these supposedly advanced aliens didn't have the foresight to think "Hey, maybe it's a bad idea to toss the equivalent of a galactic nuke to simply destory one measly fleet" while we, sitting in a pre inter galactic travel era have the smarts to realise how stupid that is. I could literally give twenty ideas that work just as well and are more galaxy/life friendly. Throw an asteroid, warp their own ships into collision courses, hell throw a planet or big space rock. Any of these would be less overkill and dangerous to all life in that corner of the galaxy. We are smart er than god damn aliens. That's a bit emersion breaking to the story.
But then again there is the intimidation factor. A star would scare the pizz out of anyone
5402057 The only reason they considered it an option was because they could control how far it went, and where to stop it. If they were not certain of those two things, they wouldn't have even bothered trying.
Plus, after seeing that, well, I'm not going to spoil the surprise of what happened next.
5402068
5402057
Now that I think about it, a hostile Dyson Sphere would probably warrant an entire star flung at it.
I love the chapter. Hazalk's getting close to figuring out something even dirtier than the obvious is going on.
Although... I do have to agree with a couple of the comments above. You are laying on the PTSD behavior rather thickly. While a certain degree of repetition is necessary--as you said, this crap doesn't just disappear--it doesn't consume their every waking moment (although his flashbacks, guilt, and sudden panic attacks are appropriate). It may define their behavior, but it isn't an all-consuming influence in their thoughts (that has recently been brought up in every single scene Alex has been in). That's why triggers are such a big issue--they can snap from perfectly normal behavior to a complete breakdown over a couple words. Alex instead looks like he's in a constant state of self-loathing and borderline panic. Even someone who completely, wholly, and unabashedly hates themselves doesn't spend their every waking moment mulling over it (a slight exaggeration of Alex's behavior in this part of the story, but only a slight one).
If I could make a hopefully polite suggestion--rather than having Alex thinking out his shame and fears, show them more in his actions (which you already do--but then you layer his thoughts on top of that, it starts to feel pushy) and how he reacts to others.
5400490 That's easily enough explained.
There's a vast pool of energy that none of our scientific advancements have been able to detect or observe, any more than the best technology of 552 B.C.E. could find the Higgs Boson because we're extremely primitive on the galactic scale of technology and are unfortunately limited in our senses, and all of our understanding of the laws of physics would be completely altered when we eventually find out about it and the influences it plays in the functioning of those laws function in the first place.
It's a pretty generic explanation of why magic can exist in a world where we know the laws of physics otherwise apply, but it works in most storyverses.
Could you give me visual aid how the Krin look like? Because either you give them too much human traits, or they look completely different from what I'm imagining.
So, the Quzin use magic. Interesting.
And epic chapter, once again. Great to see more from this.^^
Great
5400335
I wonder if he's as bad a dancer as Twilight? Oh dear, both of them on the floor at once? Might want to have the doctor's on standby for collaterally damaged ponies.
Not to guess how the aliens think but if it were an Earth-bound situation and some smaller country discovered their own making bioweapons and the US found out (I pick the US since they are the biggest superpower and would find bioweapons offensive to everything they know), that smaller country would probably round everyone up and hand them over to the US in a big pretty box with a bow on top... hoping the US doesn't punish the rest of them. At least, this is how I envision the coming conflict in orbit to play out.
Hopefully he will get human limbs soon to replace the ghoulish facsimiles he currently has.
I'm also predicting the magictech aliens will end up confronting everypony, and human, with a very humbled envoy of bug aliens, prodding them to say they are very very... very sorry for what happened and it won't happen again. It's one giant friendship lesson just like the show!