Dear Journal,
She’s awake.
Rest of the day can’t really compare to that, so I’ll stuff it in up here. Went to get the electrified wire for the wall, turn our base into a predator-proof base. Too much crazy stuff going on lately; between crashing airplanes and weird signals we can’t translate, not to mention the packs of feral dogs. Once we get this stuff installed up there, I’m confident we’ll be able to sleep soundly at night, despite being tiny colorful horses. Brought the stuff in from a warehouse stocking farming supplies for shipping to the Midwest; whole system is meant for cattle. I figure anything that will shock a cow should give a wild dog something serious to think about.
We didn’t get to put in any of it though, even though we’d planned on it today. Not with our rescued pony finally conscious again. I was there for the whole thing too, so I don’t have to tell the story second-hand.
It was afternoon, when Sky and I usually clean the pony and replace all her bandages. We were drying her off with a towel when we notice something we hadn’t seen before then: her legs starting to twitch. Naturally we pulled back and tried to get out of her way, as she coughed and spluttered into conscious life.
It would be understating things to say she was shocked, and the first thing she did was try to fight us. She fell over sideways in the bathroom, trying to wiggle to her hooves as though she’d forgotten she needed all four of them to stand.
We got out of her way in a hurry; didn’t take long for the pony to reduce herself to a quivering, pained mass from all her struggling. I think the first real words I understood from her were “I’m hungry.” Can’t tell, they got pretty buried in everything else.
The pony’s name is Moriah Strickland. We learned this once we had carried her back into the bedroom, and replaced her in the bed she’s been resting in these last several days. She was barely coherent, and very little of what she said came through as English words. Still, we’d understood the thing about food. Sky left to prepare an early supper while I tried to calm the mare down.
It worked, eventually. I was glad as she started to seem more and more relaxed, though I was also worried she would go back to sleep or slip back into her coma. Surely her fighting had taken much of her energy, energy she could scarcely afford after subsisting on honey and flour-water for the last several days.
She didn’t sleep though, and once I told her who I was (couldn’t get anything out of her without going first), she explained her situation. No, I’m not sure if I believe it. But she was very convincing. IF she’s an actor, she’s an exceptional one.
According to, Moriah, she was making a night flight around Los Angeles, racking up a few more logged evening hours to bring her closer to her pilot’s license, when she must’ve dozed off at the controls.
I did my best to remember her exact words for this next part, because they seem so strange and this seems like the sort of thing I should try to remember. What if she slips back into a coma? This doesn’t seem like the sort of information we should risk losing.
“It was like flying through lightning, only I’ve never flown through lightning. Woke up with white all around me, and the whole cockpit shaking. Suddenly I was looking up at the flight controls from below, and my whole body felt like it didn’t fit in the seat.”
She went on to describe finding out she’d been transformed, though she hadn’t been able to get a good look at herself. She was, after all, still flying a plane, soaring down the coast at about four thousand feet with fuel constantly draining.
According to her, she couldn’t radio the tower, and couldn’t do any fine navigation anymore. It was all she could do bouncing between the yoke and the pedals to bring the plane into a gradual descent. The whole coast was pitch black, but she found a single fire and a few tiny electric lights, and she honed in on those.
She said that sand wasn’t the worst thing to use for an emergency landing. She would’ve preferred water if she thought she could’ve swam as a tiny animal. I can only take her word for it, since I don’t know how to use planes.
You can guess where the rest of the story goes from there. The fire she found was ours and we rescued her. I told her all of that, and she seemed relieved. Sky arrived with her food and she started to sip a thin broth while we talked.
Obviously there’s one glaring flaw with this story, I’m sure you’ve noticed it by now. I had to ask Moriah several times to make sure it wasn’t just misspeaking somehow.
Yes, she was describing a flight that had taken place on the night of the 23rd of May. No, she had not been a pony when she took off. No, California hadn’t been experiencing a “power failure” when she took off. Yes, she had been able to use her radio during the flight until then no problem.
When we told her that everybody vanished, she seemed angry, confused, and disbelieving. She continues to refuse to believe us, even though we showed her the dead city out the window. Said she’ll “believe it when she sees it.” If Moriah is acting, she’s damn good at it.
Unfortunately anything that might’ve corroborated her story was lost in the explosion, and the rest was probably washed out to sea by now. Even if tiny planes like that had flight data recorders (they often don’t), it isn’t as though we have any way of tracking it in the bottom of the ocean as tiny horses.
For all that she doesn’t believe us, she’s convincing in other ways. She was as bad at feeding herself as I was on the first day, spilling two bowls and eventually just giving up and slurping it. When I told her her horn had to be amputated, she had just laughed it off and said “guess it won’t block my view of the sky then.”
The heck is wrong with this pony?! How can she be so nonchalant about giving up the magic that makes Joe’s life so much easier? Okay, we didn’t actually tell her about the magic, and Joe was too frightened to come in and visit her. Seriously, he was worse even than the way he is around Sky and me. One of his own kind, and he couldn’t even stop in to say hello. That’s how much her injuries disturb him. She’s not even slightly phased by them.
That’s not even the strangest thing she said. At one point she asked me to hold a mirror behind her, so she could look. I thought she was looking at her butt mark, but her comments made it pretty clear she wasn’t. “Am I female?” she asked. We told her yes. She just went quiet, and we didn’t press her.
We couldn’t interrogate her (as much as I wanted to). She was weak and tired, and after her meal she needed to rest again. We left her to do that, though we also put a walkie-talkie by the bed she can use to get Sky or me if she needs anything during the night.
I look forward to learning more about Moriah, other than that she was trying to do more night flying and that the date she claims to have come from just doesn’t mesh with the reality we know.
She can’t possibly hope we’ll buy a lie that big, right? What is she really hiding? The acting is so good, it must be rehearsed… unless it’s not. Maybe we’ll learn more tomorrow. I hope the poor pony isn’t bedridden for too long. I know I’d go insane. Two days in the hospital was way too much for me.
The rest of us got together to talk about what we thought. They were all pretty reticent, Joseph actually more than Sky for once. Our running theory is that the impact that fractured her horn also caused a severe concussion, and she forgot the events leading up to her takeoff. Small aircraft like that wouldn’t have had a terribly large range. Unfortunately this is California, which means there are probably a dozen or more place she could’ve taken off in range of a tiny plane’s tank.
Only one detail about that theory disturbs me: the first part of her story, about flying at night. That’s obviously a plausible reason to be up in the air in the dark, but that’s just the problem. I’m not a doctor, but this seems like very convenient memory loss if that’s the case. A chunk just the right size that circumstances around it seem to make it fit into memory.
I feel like I’m missing something, something important. Joesph still hasn’t cracked the code, much to our chagrin. He says he’s close, though I’m not sure if he’s really being honest or just telling us what we want to hear.
The code changed again today. I almost didn’t notice, except that I always go upstairs in the evening to see if anyone has noticed my transmission and check on the number station. Its transmission is: “15-17-21-4-6-3-2-15-0-21-4-8-0-20-22-6-12-3-15-26-4-11-6-20-7-17-20-21-4-21-1-20-23-12-23-17-20-21-5-4-0-3-4-20-17-1-22-0-5-4-21-6-8-20-6-16-0-3-22-17”
You’d think that having more and more of this stuff would make it easier and easier on Joe to get this stuff into English. Apparently that isn’t the case, though his explanation as to why went over my head. Tomorrow we will try to get Moriah onto her hooves. Despite having a buttsymbol, she continues to insist that she has no idea how to walk, and even tilting her plane into a landing had been almost impossible. Joseph still hasn’t told her about magic, and neither have any of us. I don’t want to think about how much worse it would be to have magic and lose it than to never have had it at all.
Of course, there also haven’t been any more magic circles that she might be able to use to download things into her brain. Maybe it’s impossible to learn magic without that, I don’t know.
Oh, and one other quick note. You can tell I live in California because this is newsworthy: It rained today. Had to have been less than half an inch, but it was godsend for the plants and even better for the cistern. Too bad we get most of our meager downfall in November and December usually. That's an awful long way to wait. We might not even still be here. Still, felt wonderful. Spent a full hour just running in the rain with Sky. Felt like we could fly out there. Stopped an hour or so after sundown, and lots of it started turning right back to steam. Whatever. Enjoy it while it lasts I guess.
—A
Well, we already know that space time is screwy here. I'm not going to bother with more specific theorizing.
Just pile on the questions why don't ya?
I had a number of theories to make sense of Moriah's story. But they all fell apart when I started remembering the details of the story so far.
This stuff is getting really mysterious. I honestly have no idea where you're going, but it's clear you do, and you're getting there in style. Nice to see the newest member of the party is as messed up as everyone else.
Aww, come on, no horn? She still has 2 inches, at least! if she makes sure to drink a lot of milk she'll surely be at Sweetie Belle's level in no time!
Definitely Discord, no random event has time warping effects in it, he's likely dumping in new human-turned-ponies whenever it gets too boring.
I don't see why he thinks losing a horn would be so bad for her, she apparently woke up a unicorn recently so yeah, and looks like that 'accepting being a pony' think doesn't really apply if this is the case, she didn't even know what she looked like, how could she accept in her heart she was a pony?
And the talent part can't be it, he's great at cars and the like so, what? Is it just 'finding yourself' or what?
That's... pretty strange. To take off at the beginning, but nothing's wrong, and then reappear a little over a month later... Something has gone twisted.
I'm pretty sure that Moriah's experience will be a key to finding out what is going on here.
Her question as to her sex was odd. Is she a transexual when she was human? If she was, it is a major bit of evidence that what happened had some kind of intelligent control behind it.
The plot THICKENS!
Current numbers station output is oqudfcbo udh tvflcozdkftgqtuduatwlwqtued cdtqav edufhtfp cvq
Side note: I banged together a kludgy, horribly nasty Java applet to convert the numbers into a string of letters. If anyone wants it, or wants to make fun of my Java, I'll be happy to give it out. You'll have to modify it if you want to run it in a console; right now it's running in a chatbot.
Assumption: Zeroes are meant to be spaces. Could be wrong, but I don't think so.
Also, only noticed this my second time through:
This should be "its."
The only thing I can think of is just memory damage. I can't think of any other plausible explanations.
Her name sounds female, but she asked if she was? What?
Ok, the cipher is no mystery anymore: LOS_ANGLES_CERTAINLY_HARBORS_SURVIVORS|_EN_ROUTE|_SACRAMENTO (key really was EUGN)
That sounds like some stories from the Bermuda Triangle: Pilots suddenly finding themselves in a lightning storm, then emerging to find themselves hours or days later, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles off-course.
(I'm disappointed noone else brought it up, Bermuda Triangle shenanigans are classic!)
6092563
Well, color me surprised. I haven't had a chance to actually do this one myself yet, but I trust your translation.
The real reason I wasn't expecting the key to be EUGN was the length of the gap between the first two transmissions. That was a gap of a few days, and if the ALEM at the end was the next key, then it means there was no other message between those messages. I just didn't think it likely that A managed to not miss any messages, especially since he didn't seem to be putting much diligence into tracking them.
6092627 between Sacramento and LA, that's about 1 hour 30 minutes by car. far longer by pony.
Since it's a story I'm willing to take Moriah's account at face value even if (we don't know why that happened) I expect the next entry being about her getting out, even on a carriage and learning there's almost nobody else and about magic. I'm both looking forward and fearing a little that part for Moriah.
I agree with that's best being published as a different story than this. But that's after this story's end; for now I'm greatly enjoying this story for what it is.
Ok, so not only did she supposedly take off almost a day after the Event, she also timeskipped almost a month? And it involved a mysterious lightning storm? This is starting to sound like the plot to The Final Countdown. (except not really)
Either parallel universes are involved, and the whole thing is something like at least three of them colliding, or miss aerocorn is terrible at coming up with cover stories.
according to your own rules there should be around 18-72 ponies in the Los Angeles area alone. (pop: 18.75 million for the entire area, city, urban and metro, you give a rate of 1 per quarter million to 1 per million.) Let's be grimdark and say over half of them died of injury, wild animals, going crazy and jumping off a roof, etc. They should still have at least a dozen ponies trying to figure out WTH happened, seeking others, etc. It's over 500 square miles in the city alone, so two or three other little groups like theirs could form and never know there were any others in the LA area.
A simple reason for little or no radiation from nuclear power plants: 1)automated emergency shutdown measures. 2)far fewer nuke plants in the USA than in the rest of the world. 3)Whatever intelligent force did this, took the time to at least shut down the most potentially disastrous things (chemical plants, nuclear reactors, gas lines? a quick snuffing of all candles, fireplaces, etc.)
PROOF THAT THIS WAS THE ACT OF AN INTELLIGENT BEING, OR THAT AN INTELLIGENCE AT LEAST INTERVENED:
1) Nothing's burned down or blown up. Despite the fact that this should have happened all over the city, all over the world even, the moment people disappeared. That pretty much screams "benevolent intervention."
2) The nature of what got "taken." People, of course--- but also vehicles. But only under certain precise conditions--- the sort of list of conditions that an intelligent mind would devise (what happens if a ponified person was in the back seat of a car traveling 55 mph down the freeway-- and the car disappeared? potentially nasty.)
3)The arbitrariness of who got taken. Think of it like a disease, or an allergen: whoever suffers from it is going to have similar symptoms, and probably a great number of similarities to other victims. Those who got transformed had to have had some X factor that made them not get selected--- yet you insist that they have absolutely nothing in common. Ironically only an intelligent mind could come up with a selection system that was COMPLETELY random.
4)One of their number apparently bloody traveled through time..... to land on the one beach, on the one day, that somepony would be there to save her little pony life. That's a twist so outrageous that it HAD to be by effort or design.
My theory: Someone in Equestria was trying to contact another world--- and they done goofed. The contact between the two worlds was like bringing the ends of a live wire together: zap. Nearly every human got sucked over into the world of Equestria as the backwash of magic flowed from their world into ours-- and Equestria got bombed with 7 billion live humans. My guess is that the humans who vanished got transformed as well. Why? Because the magic of Equestria was probably trying to change everyone that came over into Equestria-compatible ponies.
Celestia and Luna probably had just enough time to cast a "shut off the lights before you leave" spell that shut down the more dangerous things in the human world.... probably with an eye towards leaving Earth NOT covered in burning cities, clouds of poison chemicals, and clouds of radioactive dust. They managed to slam the gate shut before the entire biosphere of Earth got sucked over too.... but the backwash still transformed the few humans who were left (and smartened up the animals, too.) The circle was probably an effort on their part to keep the door "cracked open," so that they could try and contact the ponified humans trapped on Earth and explain what happened--- and, hopefully, give them time to figure out a way to get 7 billion disgruntled humans transformed BACK and sent back home.
Basically, this is a HiE story, from the other side of the magic mirror....except for one or two people disappearing, everyone EXCEPT one or two people disappeared....
So we have the mechanic, the hippy, the computer nerd, and now the aeronaut...
So Moriah is surprized that (s)he is female...
So the new pony swapped genders!
That's freaking awesome,
I wonder if she was trans as a human,
and the magic that turned her into a pony gave her the proper gender.
Now I'll have to wait.
6092563
Could you translate the other ciphers for those of us less code inclined please? And congrats on solving it!
With a name like Moriah, but surprised to be female, I'm willing to bet our new unicorn was a trans woman before the event, who was surprised to find her new body had the correct gender instead of the one she'd been born as. And I see I'm not alone in that theory.
Very interesting that she apparently transformed in her cockpit, and didn't crash for a month or so... clearly her plane couldn't have had that much fuel, so she must have gone through some sort of time distortion. Possibly intended very specifically to put her where she could see A's bonfire and thus land near other survivors.
Well, that's very odd. This obviously doesn't add up, but it's unclear where the bad data lies. This should prove quite interesting...
6093302
6082429 This is for the previous message, but the method is the same. It's just a matter of finding the correct code word.
With the code word EUGN, the numbers in order starting from 0 translate to:
EUGN_|ABCDFHIJKLMOPQRSTVWXYZ
So, a big time discrepancy in when Moriah was transformed compared to everyone else so far? Makes me wonder if any more humans (all of the other humans?) will be trickling back in over time.
6092955 There's one thing that I think conflicts with your theory: The use of the word "survivors" in the coded message. It's too specific a word choice in my mind.
6094182 What other word would you use to describe those who had escaped a mass disappearance--- and who were now struggling to survive?
By far, the least believable part of the story thus far
SoCal rain in June?
Absolutely preposterous
6093710
I believe I have figured out the methodology to these keys. They are all places in the Northwest US. First we have Salem and Eugene as keys, both places in Oregon. The next message's key appears to be SACRAMENTO, California's state capital. The system probably involves ending the message with the place of origin, as that would allow a coded response that would be specifically for that location.
All this implies that there is a group of survivors (human or pony)up north. This would make the message from chapter 20 and Moriah's appearance seem connected. What is worrying is that this also implies that the first number message from chapter 19 is from the same group. The line "(P)reservation successful" makes me shudder to think as to what their intentions are .
6094560
For the benefit of everyone who would like to know the messages so far but can't actually decode them:
Chapter 19's message, the first one:
(P)reservation_successsful_no_evidence_of_survivors|_alem
Chapter 20's message, the second one:
"(L)ocated transmissions in Los Angeles. I'll investigate and report."
Chapter 23 message, the third one:
LOS_ANGELES_CERTAINLY_HARBORS_SURVIVORS|_EN_ROUTE|_SACRAMENTO
And here we have the other type of flying pone.
40.media.tumblr.com/ceaba499a7495b688d32cb88ac4b2598/tumblr_npz1nmoi9R1rsmidfo1_500.png
6093302
Kudos for solving go to Gizogin, I just used the algorithm to decode the next message.
6094564
For chapter 20 the deciphered message was OCATED_TRANSMISSIONS_IN_LOS_ANGLES|_ILL_INVESTIGATE_AND_REPORT|_UGENE which would then be (L)ocated transmissions in Los Angeles. (W)ill investigate and report. On the first two radio messages (and also in the magic circle) the very first letter of every sequence is omitted, only this last message is complete.
And not to forget the magic circle from chapter 12 (as described here: 6087675):
EE_BEYOND_SPACETIME|_EVEAL (See beyond spacetime.)
Huh maybe the rest of the humans-turned-pony just disappeared from the face of the Earth after the Event and have yet to reappear. Of course with all the ominous foreshadowing and cipher translations that seems VERY unlikely.
6094651
I'm sorry, I can't seem to understand your method.
To decode the magic circle, you said you use the form of the pigpen cipher found on the wikipedia arcticle on the subject. You read the symbols counterclockwise using the inner ring as the bottom. This I can follow. Then you said to convert the letters into numbers, using z=0 and a=25. I assume you mean you will turn "JJFHJEASZFVTDIJWNRJGFJYJDQ" into "16-16-20-18-16..." and then you solve the number sequence in the same way you solve the number transmissions. I tried that and it didnt work. It yeilded gibberish ("kkpmk...") and I dont know where I went wrong. I think you have the right technique if it fit into the other messages, but I couldn't follow your process.
Edit:
NM, I just got it. You meant that the letters taken directly from the ciphertext are meant to be the number sequence you decode.
6094785
Seems you got a few things wrong, so I will clarify: Read the ring CLOCKWISE starting at the small line at the top, inner ring as bottom (as like standing inside the circle), then translate using the variant of the pigpen cipher shown at the top of the wiki page (not the "Assassins Creed II" variant later on that page), which will give you JJFHJEASZFVTDIJWNRJGFJYJDQ. Then you translate that into numbers with A=1, B=2 and so on, but Z=0 instead of Z=26. This will give you 10-10-6-8-10-5-1-19-0-6-22-20-4-9-10-23-14-18-10-7-6-10-25-10-4-17. From here on you can use Gizogin's algorithm (which is a special variant of the mixed alphabet cipher with an extended alphabet) with the keyword "doorway", so you use the substitution matrix 0..27 -> DORWAY_|BCEFGHIJKLMNPQSTUVXZ.
6094818
I didn't realize there was an algorithm. I have been using Matlab. :P
6091020
Which would be incredibly awesome. Might be hard work though, considering how few clouds there are in the sky to gather. Maybe she could fly north and bring some down.
6092087
Fortunately I didn't just write down real-world number station transmissions. That would be evil.
6092276
I think we're in store (a few hundred years down the road) for three kingdoms that have to come together or else the whole USA freezes over. Or something.
6092281
Hah, she can only hope. Though Sweetie Belle seems to be doing better in this season. Honestly, Moriah might be happy if she could get to that level.
6092280
Thanks for your confidence! I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going. I can only hope that most people appreciate the destination when we finally arrive. Things are going to be really crazy in this coming week and only get crazier, so I expect we'll start to seem some polarization pretty soon.
6092307
A is really good with cars, but hat doesn't mean Lonely Day is going to be a mechanic pony. They might be, or maybe not. It all depends on whether that's what A is really meant to do. Cutie marks are fickle. Obviously A has done tons of auto work already in the story, so it's got to be more complex than working on cars. More like... Rarity's mark. It isn't a gemfinding mark, but that was part of how she discovered it. Probably something similar will happen for Lonely Day.
6092364
I'm not sure if Lonely Day is going to ask "Hey, were you a transexual?" to someone. Seems like a pretty awkward question for most people to ask. Maybe even insensitive, though I dunno. It's hard to tell if it's evidence of something like that, or just someone who's sex was altered by the transformation and was surprised to learn about it. Or maybe it doesn't mean anything.
6092480
Thanks for pointing out that typo. Should be fixed now.
6092504
I can't speak for her reason, but at least according to some sites, the name is unisex.
6092806
Yeah, I won't think about the next story/epilogue too much now. It's still several weeks away, even at the daily update pace, so we might as well just enjoy the ride getting there.
6093160
It's possible, or it's possible she's just got extremely strange priorities. Guess we'll find out if Lonely Day is ever brave enough to ask those sorts of questions. Or feels them noteworthy enough to write down. It could be that A doesn't really consider it relevant either way, though one might argue that not writing it is evidence that it didn't happen since anything new about how the transformation works might be noteworthy.
6093198
Not for long though!
6093319
Again, it's quite possible that Moriah was trans, or it's possible she wasn't. Author's behind the curtain note, I picked her name from a list of unisex baby names. So take that as you will.
6093541
Hey, Lonely Day isn't the only horse name that's not gender specific! Most of them seem to be. Or rather, not specifically gendered. When you use straight-up words as names, that's probably easier to do.
6094484
True. More reason to suspect Equestrian intervention?
[youtube=1fyzD4S2Cy4]
Oh, hey, there was a deleted comment in there too. I wonder what it said.
6094602
I wish I knew a way to include these adorable little side-images in the story itself. I feel like most people probably don't notice them.
6095049
Yeah I saw you used decipherable ciphers. (I'm not looking no spoilers!) I just had to mention the choice of having them on a "numbers station", a phenomenon legendary for its infuriatingly cryptic mystery.
6094560
GODDAMMIT YOU BRAINACS.
Was doing frequency analysis before I realized you people figured out the keys. Arugh. :p
6095049
Most people probably don't. Too busy thinking about number codes or A's (or Lonely Day's) gender. No love for the little ol' artist of this story. This would probably discourage any other, but I will soldier on for myself and those two or three people that see them. Also, when I'm bored and don't have anything better to do.
So, Is there two Earths or something? Like on that episode of Young Justice where the kids and adults are separated? But what is the deciding factor between staying on the people earth or pony earth? SO MANY QUESTIONS!!! Guess I'll just have to read on.
I have 2 theories. I won't use the spoiler thing because I'm on my phone.
Theory 1:
Flying Unicorn over here is part of either another survivor group, or part of the people/things that caused this. The message has to be sent directly to thar direction, so the flying unicorn could have been trying to reach them. The number transmission must be some intelligence out there that knows of their existence and is tryingto contact them without anyone else noticing, and is monitoring them. Maybe Flying Unicorn was a reconissance mission but ran out of gas.
Evidence: convenient memory loss and her convineient night time flying so no one would notice.
Theory 2:
All the humas were turned into ponies, but wormholes and time physics is playing with us here and is throwing them all in the general are of California and at different times.
Evidence: Magic, memory gap, and the fact that A can't be sure how much time passed between him waking up and the actually event, because it could have affected computers too.
Oh! Okay, yeah, I completely understand why she had such a hard, hard time landing that airplane, then. But her instructor should be shot for putting her in one of the most expensive and dangerous types of single engine aircraft for night flight solo practice before her license. I wouldn't do solo night flights if you had paid me before I had my license (I did my required night hours in cross-country dual), and now that I have IFR training I'd still avoid it if I didn't know the area.
fazed