[The following entry is clearly written by “hand”, sprawling from one page to the next]
July 4, 2015
Diary,
I think I’m safe in here. God, I hope so. I don’t hear engines anymore. I think they’ve all gone. I’m not going to chance the laptop, just in case. Talking would be too loud, and anyway Joseph would hear what I was saying. No thanks. Time to start practice writing for real. If I can draw, I can write.
Oliver the regular pony (like me! :) ) was right. There were aircraft passing overhead here in Sacramento. Only they didn’t just pass overhead, they landed.
It was in the late afternoon, and I was with Oliver in the hospital garden (Joseph didn’t want my help and the power situation was taken care of), when we heard them, roaring down from the northeast. It sounded like a flock of helicopters (do helicopters come in flocks?), roaring towards us. I ran out from the cool garden and got my first good look at the two of them.
Two aircraft, flying in fairly tight formation. I’d never seen their like before, not when I had been studying every different plane and helicopter and other craft used by the USAF. Black, elegant birds, with the strange angles of radar deflection. Their main means of locomotion appeared to be massive props integrated into the stubby wings, which could rotate independently of the craft. I know that, because I watched from the shelter of the trees as they circled the airport perhaps a mile from where I stood, shifting smoothly into a hover and beginning to descend.
One of them was quite large, not quite Galaxy proportions but nearly as massive. The other was much smaller, about the size of a bus.
Can’t say I felt good about this, so the first thing I did was call Joseph. Thank god I did; he’d been too absorbed with his work to notice anything. Told him to shut everything down and hide somewhere. Who knew what was going to happen, but I didn’t like the idea of whoever was flying in those mysterious airplanes finding us. He was to take the ditch bags (where I kept this journal) and hide in the basement of the most boring building he could find, far away from the satellite office. Told him to move his ass faster than he’d ever moved before.
Maybe it was the anger and fear in my voice, but he didn’t argue for once. I’d already brought Oliver a new radio, and he seemed just as eager to hide. I told Huan to stay with him, and the dog actually listened. Like, seriously, I just shouted and he did it.
Ditched everything I was carrying except the gun and my radio, then galloped off for the airport faster than I’ve ever run before. Good thing I’ve been wearing my shoes full-time now. Galloping is really loud on hard surfaces, but the “pony sneakers” kept it from being any louder than a running human. Probably made better time than I could’ve when I was human. Finally starting to get good enough that the body is an advantage instead of a detriment.
Made it to a hilly street overlooking the airport through all the trees (this city has a lot of trees), and I could see the big one touching down. Each one had three letters painted in bright white on the black, “HPI”. At least, I think that’s what they were.
The airships landed, taking up much of the runway and taxiway left vacant when humanity vanished. Ramps on the rear of both airships opened. From the larger came several vehicles, though only one rolled out of the tiny one.
All were black and totally enclosed, like more graceful versions of the APCs fighting in the Middle East. I didn’t recognize any of them, though they had the same “HPI” logo painted in bold white letters.
One parked by the airships (at least, that’s how it looked from my distance), while two more turned away and started driving rapidly towards the road access (and me). A flatbed cargo vehicle without a visible driver (automated) followed between the armored cars, a huge container on its back.
I wouldn’t have long to find somewhere to hide. I picked a nearby building (the tallest I could find) and started climbing as fast as I could. Kept listening, but the armored cars barely made any noise at all. Did they even have engines?
Whatever, I kept glancing at the windows, so I didn’t miss them as they went by. Either they hadn’t seen me from a distance, or they didn’t care. Didn’t even slow down as they went by with their nearly-silent cars, speeding away towards the heart of the city and my friends.
Was it stupid of us to hide? You might say: You’ve been doing everything you could to get noticed for a month, and now something big finally seems to be headed your way. Instead of running to that rescue you’ve been waiting for, you run away. Why?
I’m not sure I can explain it. I just… got this feeling. The closer I was, the worse it got. The whole back of my mane stood up and my insides got cold. I felt afraid, terror in my chest worse than when Sky cast the foam for my boots and my legs were immobilized for almost an hour straight.The closer those trucks got, the worse it felt. Nearly ran away from the window while they were passing by. Nearly pissed myself.
There was nothing natural about that feeling. It was gone as soon as the trucks were a mile or so down the road, and I could think again. The planes just sat there, pretty much. Nobody or nothing emerged, not to refuel from what had to be ample supplies at the airport. Not to get more food, nothing. Come to think of it, there were no windows visible on any of them. Call it a hallucination, but as it got dark, I thought I saw little sparks glowing along the surface of each plane, like each one had a bolt of lightning locked up inside that was leaking through the cracks.
I didn’t feel tired this time. Kept climbing, all the way to the roof. Dared the satellite phone then, because I didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t want anything to happen to us without telling Sky. Told her about the ships, told her the direction they were flying and that I wanted her to start loading up the animals into the truck as soon as possible. If the caravan continued south, I wanted her to take everything back to the farm.
For once, I didn’t feel the least bit tired. Used my hoof to break into a vending machine for the snacks. I knew the motorcade was coming back by the grinding, empty feeling in my chest, and I forced myself to watch at the window. Motorcade loaded back into the airships, one by one. Ramps closed, and rotors roared to life. They took off almost as one, rising up into the sky.
Just as I feared, they flew south, almost exactly along the highway that leads to Los Angeles. I was super panicked, but I tried to make myself sound normal when I called Sky. She was already prepared, truck already loaded with our herd, just waiting for the signal to leave. She would drive them with Moriah’s help. Said she’d be fine and not to worry.
But I am worried about her! Sky’s my friend! First friend I made after this whole disaster started. Nothing, nothing that makes me feel as empty and frightened as those trucks did could be good. Nothing at all. We have to stay away. We can’t let them find us.
When the planes were gone, I kept calling Joseph until he answered, told me where to find him. I said I’d head over as soon as I investigated where the ships had landed. I forced myself back down to the ground floor. A bobcat along the way thought I’d make a great supper. After the stress of the day so far, poor thing didn’t even get the time of day. You know how hard ponies can buck? Hard enough to break bone, that’s how. That cat’s lucky I didn’t use the gun.
Made my way back safely, obviously. Joseph and I huddled into a basement to sleep, in case those planes come back. Wouldn’t want to be parked in an RV with prominent lights right there in the center of town. I asked him about the caravan, and he said it’d driven right past him on its way towards the outskirts of town, traveling very fast. He had felt similar discomfort, but he had been able to put words to it with his magic-horn-thing that I couldn’t with just my gut.
I don’t know how much of this I buy, but I’ll pass it along anyway because it’s the closest thing I have to an explanation right now. According to Joseph, there’s “magic” in everything. He can sense it, like a rattlesnake senses heat. It’s most concentrated in ponies, less so in animals, and only passes through everything else like a gradual breeze, hardly slowing down. The vehicles had been absolutely devoid of magic, like black holes drawing in all the magic that neared them and swallowing it. He looked downright revolted as he described this for me, though he was unable to explain why.
Magic. I wonder if I would’ve felt better if he used another word all this time. Like “energy” or “radiance” or “uncertainty” or something. Just because I’ve never been able to explain why his horn works the way it does doesn’t mean it’s really magical, does it?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Maybe this is a biotechnology. I couldn’t say these bodies aren’t really alive, not after seeing so much of Moriah’s insides. That blood was real.
I regret making it so easy to find us. I’ve been giving directions right to our base for all this time, thinking we would be leading ponies in our same predicament to us. We could join together in solidarity, spit in the face of a cruel fate.
Now I fear that maybe I made a serious mistake. Maybe it was better to live quietly. Die alone, but die peacefully.
Or maybe this is instinct talking. Maybe there’s nothing at all dangerous about those ships. They had English letters, I can only take that to mean they all had once human crews (unless they were drones I guess). None of it looked familiar, but none of it looked like stuff existing technology couldn’t do.
Could it have been a PMC? Or… the remains of one, salvaged by ponies? If so, WHY HAVEN’T THEY ANSWERED US?! Skill and determination like that is exactly what the dregs of humanity need.
Not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow. It’s the wee morning now, and I think the adrenaline is finally wearing off. I’ll turn off this lantern and go back to get some sleep. For once I’m glad to have another body close by. Maybe that’s an instinct too. Whatever. I’m too worn out to care right now.
—A
Oh, jeez.
I wonder if they'll ever find a griffon?
Well, buck. I'm going to sit here and process this mounting feeling of dread.
Aw crap. 'Pony persecuting humans?' I know conflict needs to enter a story to drive it, but really, this?
Lemme guess, dregs of humanity (politicians) somehow survived in an anti-magic field and are rounding up the ponies in concentration camps, dissecting them, those unnatural non-magical monsters, evil evil humans, this is your daily five minute's hate, etc.
It's Skynet, I'm calling it now. This is actually a preemptive sequel to Genisys.
6107043
Quite an interesting Independence Day 'A' and the rest are having.
Wink wonk.
6107021
Definitely a case of oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap
6107019
I really need to publish mine...
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Aaaaaaah! I see what you did there!
Sir Arthur, you have my respect.
Military?! American Military is never good. Wish A good luck.
6107043
What makes you say that there are humans? Because I didn't see anything hinting at humans.
6107043
No.
A little late to change the tone to misanthropy now.
Well, all the survivors don't have to be ponies. Maybe the more greedy, and/or violent, survivors turned into Diamond Dogs.
Aw crud, don't tell me the Outsiders found their way into this universe too...
6107300
[youtube=R_NAoNd4YyY]
6107314
I'm not usually a fan of spoilers, but I think I'll make an exception in this case. See this comment:
6107230
right
Looks like despite the Event, Jade Helm is proceeding as planned.
There's definitely something screwy going on here. More so then what we've seen before I mean. I can't wait to see where this is going.
You know what immediately came to mind until I saw the picture?
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/xcom/images/0/0e/Concept_-_SkyRanger2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121025051007
Mind you, I still want it to be the Skyranger, but the picture puts paid to that theory. :C
Vertibirds. Enclave.
s3-eu5.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fvignette2.wikia.nocookie.net%2Ffallout%2Fimages%2F6%2F6c%2FFo2_Vertibird_Clean_2.png%2Frevision%2Flatest%2Fscale-to-width%2F245%3Fcb%3D20100212191840&sp=51cc5a17b64c15483f74f25f9d8c9f5e
I know these aren't, but stuff that reminds me so strongly of those two things can't be good. Like really, really, really not good.
6107021 I'll second this.
Apart from that, this chapter was written extremely edge-of-seat well. Perfect, breathless atmosphere and again this great characterization of the protagonists in extreme situations like in the plane crash scene. Especially liked the bit where Day just makes a short note of bucking that bobcat half to death, something that would probably have filled half a page otherwise had the conditions been peaceful (including some self-loathing about writing pony infomercials of course).
You're good at this.
When this turns out to all be the work of aliens, I am not going to rub it into the mianthrope's faces.
I totally will.
For some reason, the description of this story kinda reminds me of Babycakes by Neil Gaiman
6107337
pretty cool to see factions developing and fighting for remaining resources, as obvious it will in a post-apocalyptic setting
The (current) estimation of Pony population of earth (from the Day's Group) is now 40,000 XDDD
still sticking to 1 Million pop.
The description kinda makes me think of B-2's mixed with Ospreys.
The mystery of these vehicles and their unseen controllers lies on one thing: the meaning of the acronym 'HPI'.
I have to wonder if they may be robots; maybe some kind of AI system set up to continue a fight in the event the US government was wiped out. The robots aren't exactly finding any enemies to fight and they're reaching the end of their program's ability to compensate for the weirdness that they're finding.
The aircraft, for what it's worth, all sound like SHIELD designs.
Just a wild guess but in case it matters.
Human Preservation I... Internatinal, Incorporated?
Oh great, we have our threat people!
I've said this before, every story needs a source of conflict to make it REALLY interesting, Slice of Life sure, if you want something lighthearted, but if you want a proper survival story, your going to need more than food and water problems to make it a difficulty and build drama.
Here we have some kind of Skynet scaryness going on, seriously what the heck is going on? I can call up at least five different sci-fi series that this could be based off of, it's getting a little terrifying.
Now... who could be behind these weird technology things? Aliens? Sentient robots? Dimensional monsters?
6107798 My theory is somewhat similar: Automated vehicles triggered by a complete lack of "check-in" by recognized government or military officials. They could simply be gathering pre-placed resources squirreled away in various locations in case of global catastrophe.
HPI: Human Preservation Initiative?
Curiouser and curiouser....
So, UFOs? That seems potentially bad.
And they're actively anti-magic? That seems even worse.
Dang. This is an awesome chapter. I can't wait for tomorrow's update to learn more about whats going on.
HPI...
Human Preservation Instinct?
It has to be something beginning with Human Preservation.
Also, I know this was already said, but those were S.H.I.E.L.D. birds.
I have a feeling that either has some kind of weird creatures controlling it or an AI doing so, because bloody hell, if magic is a part of everything then sticking someone in one of these things to drive it would be bloody impossible to do with any kind of safety, not to mention lack of panic.
HPI: Human to Pony Initiative
Edit:
Or... HPI Habitable Planet Incorporated
These new arrivals remind me heavily of the Enclave of the Fallout/FalloutEquestria series. Their airships even look alike. If they are anything similar to the Enclave, hiding is a good decision.
6107156 Well jeez, not everyone dislike my comment at once
6106201
Yes, but not special-talent level. More like the level of skill anyone would have if they worked every day. Lonely Day doesn't have any sort of mechanical cutie mark.
6107019
I've thought about all sorts of interesting side characters. The orignal party had a griffon, a changeling, and a thestral... but the side stories started exploring the side races before I got to them, so I thought I would just leave that fun for others. I didn't want to make the extremely rare other species look like they were actually common.
6107090
Better watch out if you're in Texas. Crazy stuff happenin' in Texas if the side stories are to be believed. Little less so lately, but...
6107143
In my original writing, my notes said "Joe mocks American holiday but ends up drunk anyway". This is one of those things where the writing just took off. I never saw it coming until I was writing it.
6107147
mlpforums.com/uploads/monthly_10_2014/post-28557-0-03451400-1412465766.png
6107153
^^
6107275
Possible. We haven't seen any humans at this point, but there's no reason we couldn't see another nonhuman.
6107290
I'm sure Sky would be happy to have more time to spend with the animals anyway. I wonder how long it will take those cows to learn how to talk like they're from Wisconsin.
6107290
Two Bit was the one who came up with this one. I knew a winning idea when I heard it. Honestly I focus much more of character design on history and personality than on how they look, so I'm glad to have a talented support staff.
6107356
Fixed, thanks!
6107379
Just when people get complacent and think they know what's going on...
6107444
I wish it was the skyranger! But there are already so many good crossovers with XCOM.
6107486
Thanks! This was one of the times where the story took an unexpected turn even for me. I knew the crap was gonna hit the fan eventually, but... I didn't think it would happen quite so soon.
6107530
40.media.tumblr.com/d72387a671a0c07d549b7db50a4bc325/tumblr_npk6cqlggA1rsmidfo1_500.jpg
6107551
Gaiman is one of my favorite authors! I've read almost all of his novels and short stories, but not much of the illustrated work. Haven't read that one or Sandman, though I've been meaning to get to it.
6107631
One million would be wonderful it were true. Less will make repopulation difficult.
6107815
I didn't base the HPI on any book or movie I'd seen, though it's possible somebody else has thought of something similar and I just haven't seen it. Guess you can tell me once their true nature is known.
6108121
Again, it would be awesome if they were. This isn't a crossover, but if it was... shield would be some sweet allies to have around during a situation like this.
6108200
Would suck for a pony to be stuck in an anti-magic box to drive if they're as magical as we've seen from them in the past.
6108602
Lots of American readers, if the referrals section is any guide. Your comment could've been "please downvote me!" and you probably wouldn't have got as many.
6108809
Babycakes wasn't originally illustrated, that was done later. It was originally a sort story, IIRC commissioned by PETA. Gaiman said he wore a leather jacket while writing it.
Even illustrated, it's only a few pages.you should read it.
6108821
Ooh, just did! It was pretty neat. I can see how this could've been commissioned by PETA. I'd still enjoy a steak while writing something like this.
Looks like an AI.
Everything was kinda fine until Joseph started hacking.
6108809
Is there some index for side stories? I don't seem to be able to find any of them yet.
6108809
If you haven't heard of it already, I recommend giving Arad's Stardust a read. It's an amazing work; I recently read through it once again because of XCOM 2's upcoming release, and it's still magical.
6108917
http://www.fimfiction.net/group/207757/ponies-after-people
6108927
Thank you ^_^
6108809
Uhm...
And a little typo:
Just as I feared, they few south.
6107156 But seriously, it's a fact in science fiction that you can't trust the military. Don't trust the Japanese military either for that matter.
i.imgur.com/kRBUn8F.jpg
6108602 Heres a nice like question for all you dislikers. If the opposite of PRO is CON, then is the opposite of PROgress, CONgress???