Chapter Three
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Friends of a Solar Empire
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They’d seen each other off at the main gate, a pair of unicorn ponies in the black suits and dark glasses of Her Solar Majesty’s Secret Service lifting Twilight’s saddlebags into the boot of a sleek, white and gold hovercar. Rarity had given them some contact information, should they ever need her help with anything.
“-and I do insist,” She said just before the suited ponies closed the door, “we must see each other afterwards. There is so much of Equestria you have to see, and I simply cannot let you miss any of it!”
Twilight gave an equine shrug from her seat, “I’ll see what I can do… it’ll all depend on what the Princess wants me here for.”
Rarity gave a dismissive wave of her hoof, “Oh, I’m sure her Highness wouldn’t object to you having some fun while you’re here.” She raised a hoof in a wave, “Take care dear!”
The door was snapped shut by the suited ponies, who then took their seats in the front. The hovercar rose from the ground, and glided away; Spike looking longingly at the rapidly receding unicorn through the rear window, his infant draconian mind full of her. Her lustrous mane, her beautiful eyes, her shining coat, the way the TEC Defense Navy uniform fitted her, that clear, crystalline voice that sounded like diamonds…
“Spike, just what are you looking at?”
The dragon was jolted out of a wonderful daydream by a concerned Twilight. Sighing, he sat back on the plush seat, Rarity’s contact information running through his head all the while. She lived in someplace called Ponyville, near the capital.
Clenching a tiny dragon claw, he set his face into a look of pure determination. Celestia above, he’d find a way to see that beautiful mare once more, even if was the last thing he did!
Twilight rolled her eyes at her assistant’s silent theatrics, and went back to reading a simply fascinating article on the city of Cloudsdale.
====================
(Taken from: Voyager Weekly, 20/9/3579 APD.)
The city of Cloudsdale, pegasi capital of Equestria, is quite possibly the best example of how well the younger races have embraced the technology brought by our ancestors nearly a millennium ago. The entire city is airborne and highly mobile, buildings and entire city blocks are kept aloft by high efficiency antigravs, or magically in the case of cloudsculped structures.
Cloud-walking shoes are a must for humans or ground bound equines, as you’ll otherwise miss the city’s most emblematic sites, such as the historical center, the Goldwing stadium, the Skygardens, and the Weather Factory (see our next article for more details). For convenience, the Equestrian Royal museum is in an antigrav section, as are most of the hotels and more modern establishments.
Of course, the aerial nature of the city presents a challenge for the unprepared visitor. There are few roads in Cloudsdale, beyond small side roads within the “clouds” (a local term for a city block, dating back to the city’s original construction and applicable to even the antigrav lifted sections), as the various sections move to and fro according to convenience, although the city itself maintains its position. Retractable bridges will link clouds of similar altitudes, and ramps will allow for wingless travel between clouds of different altitudes, but only when they are the right distance for a link. Visitors are cautioned to obey all warnings of unsafe times to transit ramps and bridges. Pegasi traffic patrols will catch you before you come to harm, but the scolding and fines might make you wish they hadn't (don’t ask).
Due to the complex ways in which the city might change over the course of the day, it is recommended that a visitor planning to travel more than a few clouds from their lodgings either hire a guide, use a aircab, or at the least invest in a local navigator app loaded and enabled for real time updates. The reviewer found “CloudTrotter” to be particularly adept, even able to suggest the best routes based on your expected pace and link times. The routes were roundabout at times but very interesting for the tourist. Standard nav apps do poorly when confronted with variable three dimensional directions.
The city’s center should be the first stop for any tourist. Composed entirely from freestanding cloudsculpted buildings (with the exception of the enchanted bridges leading in from the few antigrav “clouds” that have managed to sneak close by), it’s an excellent example of the handsome classical pre-Celestian pegasus style of architecture, and a must-see for visitors who wish to have a more in-depth visit to this city…
====================
Rarity waved goodbye at the departing hovercar, watching it glide across the pavement. It then took off, gracefully joining the traffic heading for Canterlot.
Nodding in satisfaction, she headed back into the terminal. The automatic glass doors closed behind her, and a gentle air-conditioned breeze caressed her purple mane.
And then something small and loud completely and utterly blindsided her, crashing into her shoulder.
“SIS!”
Sweetie Belle’s impact would have sent her sister tumbling over; if Rarity hadn’t had plenty of practice at keeping herself on her hooves. As it was, she merely stumbled, surprised at the sudden appearance of the filly now clinging to her neck.
“You’re here! You’re here!”
“Goodness gracious, get off! You’ll-“ Rarity started to admonish her sister, but then her mind caught up to what was happening and she quickly forgot about the state of her mane, “Sweetie Belle?!” she gasped, “You’re here already? Oh, look at you, you’re even more of a darling in the flesh!” she gave her little sister an affectionate nuzzle, and put a hoof around her, while the little filly squealed with joy.
They stood there for a moment, the crowd moving around the at long last united siblings.
The moment dragged on, until Rarity spoke.
“Sweetie Belle, did you come here on your own?” she asked.
Sweetie Belle giggled “Of course not! Derpy brought me!”
“And where is Derpy now?”
The unicorn filly went very still.
“Oops.” she whispered sheepishly.
Rarity sighed, with a patience born from shepherding panicky civilians around. “Sweetie Belle…” she started to say, before she heard a commotion behind her.
Turning, she was rewarded with the sight of a flustered pegasus mare with a grey coat flying over the crowd, desperately looking for something. She was wearing…
She was wearing…
Celestia’s mane, the…thing she was wearing…
The pegasus spotted them and slumped in visible relief. As she approached, and Rarity came to see a more and more detailed view of the pegasus’s outfit, coming into what might be described as a state of utter shock. Her mind simply stopped working, her posture went rigid, and her mouth hung wide open.
Captain Rarity, veteran of The War, and witness to some of the most abject brutality of the Vasari, was brought into shocked horror by the outfit Ditzy Doo was now wearing.
Th… That horrible jacket! That scarf! What, in the name of all that’s holy, is that thing around her neck!? And that hat…!
“Miss Rarity!” Derpy Hooves, mareservant of the Shining Light Mining Company estate, called out. She landed in front of her, the pegasus’s eyes rolling around in opposite directions before locking on in front. “Oh, thank Celestia!” she panted, “I was looking all over of her! Must’ve taken off while I was-” Ditzy stopped, taking notice of Rarity’s expression. She gulped, “Miss Rarity? Is everything okay?”
The unicorn blinked, eyes feverishly trying to not see Ditzy’s outfit.
“”Okay?” “Okay!?” Have you seen the abomination you are wearing!? How can anything be okay with such a thing in existence!? My word, what possessed you to put on that horrible getup!?” Rarity nearly screeched in hysterics, wildly gesturing with a hoof and barely managing to restrain herself from bolting over there to rectify what she thought was little short of heresy. “That jacket looks like it came from a flea market fifty years ago! Those colors clash with your coat in a most dreadful and horrific way, that purple scarf has no business being on your neck and that hat...”
She paused mid-rant, bringing a hoof to her chin, “Actually, that hat suits you quite well, dear.”
Sweetie Belle, who until then had detached herself from Rarity and had done a swell job of going unnoticed, piped up, “Really?” she said.
Rarity looked from her sister, to her mareservant’s atrocious outfit, and back again.
“Sweetie Belle, please tell me that outfit wasn’t your idea.”
The filly smiled sheepishly, rubbing the inside of her forehoof.
Rarity sighed; her absence had had greater consequences than she’d previously thought.
====================
Despite its importance to ponykind, and also despite its position as capital of the Equestrian Kingdom, Canterlot was, in fact, an average-sized city.
Of course, this comparison only holds true against other Lesser Core Worlds of a similar population, such as Cirno or Barranca, to say nothing of monstrosities like Tarev or Karak, whose entire biospheres have been reengineered to feed the population, or of true Core Worlds, where the population, sometimes in excess of a hundred billion souls, has spread up into space, into hundreds and even thousands of massive interlinked stations capable of housing millions.
That didn’t make it any less huge.
The capital of Equestria had spread over the mountainsides, arranging itself in concentric terraces. Skyscrapers dug their foundations deep into the very backbone of the mountain, and reached up into the sky, glowing with afternoon’s light reflected by glass, polished steel and aluminum. Hovercars flew in from elsewhere, dropping down from their cruising altitudes to join the early afternoon traffic. The craft holding Twilight and Spike did otherwise, soaring past the upper levels of the tallest buildings and gaining altitude as it reached its destination.
The Royal Palace, the administrative seat of Equestria and her colonies. Sitting on a platform carved out of the mountain, it was a semicircle of glass, steel and bronze, curving up towards its center into a tall, elegant spire, with five smaller ones around it.
The hovercar descended, alighting in an air pad hidden behind the third smaller spire.
There was a momentary pause, before the door was swung open by a suited unicorn, letting Twilight and Spike hop out of the vehicle. The lavender unicorn blinked, her eyes still unused to the glare of the sun. Waiting just outside the glass doors leading into the building and shadowed by a quartet of Secret Service ponies, was her mentor; Her Solar Majesty, Princess Celestia.
The Alicorn of the Sun seemed to glow in Epona's light, both her coat and various regalia possessing a shine that Twilight couldn't recall her mentor ever having, neither in holovids, nor in any of the times the Princess had visited her in whatever research facility she called home at the time. Her mane flowed like an aurora, moving as if caught by a gentle breeze. She smiled at the sight of Twilight and Spike, the former wasting little time in making her way towards her, whilst the infant dragon followed closely behind. Seeing her approach, the Princess's escort made so as to let them through their ranks, whispering code words into tiny microphones.
Celestia looked down at her student, and spoke, her voice clear and bright.
"My most faithful student," she said, "are you enjoying your visit?"
Twilight gave a bow of her head, before answering, "Yes, Princess, althought it's been..." she paused for an appropriate word, "a bit... overwhelming. Not that it's a bad thing!" She hurried to add, "It’s just that... eh... the experience has had me in a bit of sensory overload and... eh..." Twilight stammered, rubbing the inside of her foreleg with a hoof, "Forgive me, it's hard to put it into words."
Celestia chuckled, "Twilight, poets and philosophers have spent ages attempting to articulate the very same thing. You have no need to worry. Now, let us get inside. There's much I wish we talk about."
The group went inside, a white-clothed servant carrying Twilight’s luggage despite her insistence.
They traveled through a tunnel, designed to bring in dignitaries to the presence of the Princess in privacy, without having to pass through the rest of the building. It was a simple affair, with blue plaster walls and a red carpet beneath their hooves. Light was provided by a long strips of LEDs set into the edges of the roof, covered by ground glass to diffuse the glow. It ended at an elevator, its shaft set into the mountain that formed the building’s back, with a small alcove set into its left, a small painting of flowers hanging from the wall.
The elevator opened on their approach, and Celestia and Twilight went inside, accompanied by only a pair of Secret Service ponies. The doors closed, and the elevator started its journey upwards.
“I trust your journey here was mostly uneventful?” Celestia asked, before quickly adding, “Besides the obvious.”
Twilight winced slightly, recalling her near-neurotic breakdown in the station, “Yes, Princess,” she said, “it was all going pretty smoothly until… well…” she nervously kicked the floor with a hoof, “I’m sorry I got held up by the traffic, I should’ve known-”
“Twilight,” Celestia silenced her student, placing a hoof to her chin, “as I’ve told you before, there’s no way you can anticipate everything, no matter how well you prepare for it. There’s simply no way you could’ve predicted the sheer level of traffic we’d be receiving today. We barely had enough warning to prepare. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Twilight nodded, silently berating herself. Of course it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. It was just bad luck, plain and simple. Coincidence.
Her left ear twitched.
Seeing that her student wasn’t going to be letting that go anytime soon, Celestia quickly changed the subject.
“But enough of that,” she said, “it’s been quite some time since we’ve had time to speak to each other face to face. I’d very much like to know what has happened in the interim… oh, we’re here already.”
Indeed, the elevator had reached its destination. The doors slid open, and the group emerged in a large, teardrop-shaped office, with wooden floors and paneled walls. An old desk, decorated with images of the sun and moon, stood at the opposite end, where the room narrowed. A pair of bookcases were mounted on the walls on either side of it, and filled with tomes. Behind it, a balcony opened to the outside. The center of the room was dominated by a round rug, embroidered with the equestrian Sun and surrounded by a quintet of comfortable-looking equine seats.
Paintings of scenes lifted from equestrian history hung from the walls. One portrayed the joining of the three tribes, with a group of pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies huddling together in midst of a terrifying blizzard. Another was of The Founding of Canterlot, with Celestia herself leading a crowd of ponies towards the mountain range that would become the city’s foundations, the sun setting behind them. A third, much larger one, was a rendition of First Contact Day, with Celestia leading a cohort of nobles towards a gaggle of human diplomats, in turn led by a representative of the council -a chipper-looking woman with red hair-, part of the diplomatic shuttle which brought them visible behind them. A fourth painting, much smaller in size, was an artist’s impression of the Endless Sky, Flagship of the Equestrian Self Defense Force, shortly after having been purchased nearly 700 years ago.
Twilight, however, ignored all these things and instead found her eyes drawn towards the bookshelves at either side of the entrance, looking at them hungrily.
While there was no shortage of literature in the Trade Order, physically printed books were a far more expensive commodity that their virtual counterparts. Twilight herself had a whole library stored in her personal computer -nevermind the newsletters and magazine subscriptions- but only owned a few hardcover tomes. These books -some texts on magical theory and practice, and old compliation of children’s tales her mother had given to her as a foal, and a novel with the author’s autograph (“Keep shining Twilight!”-A.L.C.)- were nevertheless amongst her most cherished possessions, and quite valuable too.
There was something special about holding and reading a book, something one simply didn’t get from an e-text.
With great reluctance -and prodding from Spike-, Twilight tore her eyes from the rows of books and walked towards the cushy seats set around the carpet, Celestia having already taken a seat herself. The suited bodyguards stayed only a moment, before returning to the elevator.
Hopping atop a cushion next to where the Princess was, Twilight laid down upon it, Spike leaving his spot on her back to take a seat as well.
The unicorn looked at the Princess, expectantly.
"So, " she started, "what now?"
Princess Celestia chuckled. "First of all, I'd like to know what has happened since we last spoke."
Twilight cocked her head. "Why?" she asked, "I thought Mom and Dad still sent reports."
"They do." Celestia answered, and angled her head closer to Twilight, "But I'd like to hear it from you, personally."
"Oh!" Twilight realized what the Princess meant, "Well... I've been studying Advanced Magical Theory and Practice with help from Magos Nightingale and Scribe Agatha. It's been a bit tricky at times, since some of the spells had to be modified so that I could use them, but I've been learning a lot. For instance, I didn't know that a human could study magic!" she stopped talking at once, realizing what she'd just said. "I mean, not because of a lack of... ability- No! I... I mean-"
Celestia raised a golden-shod hoof to interrupt her. "I know what you mean." she said, her voice taking a more comforting tone. "I could hardly believe it myself when humans started graduating from Canterlot University. Apparently, their incapacity to wield magic naturally doesn't stop them from studying it, or even making their own spells. But go on."
"Okay. Well... I've been looking at some of the more complex Computer Assisted Crafting made spells by Rune Crafty." Twilight's eyes lit up at the memory, "They're so exciting! There's one spell, an Advanced Flux Flow Finder spell that's nearly eight pages long! Surprisingly robust, too..."
Twilight went at great lengths describing what she'd been learning to Celestia over the past month. Often, she would go into detail on certain spells or spell crafters. Celestia, a master in the use of magic herself, would occasionally voice her own opinions on these matters, or talk of her own knowledge, but mostly left Twilight talk.
Spike, having long ago recognized this as the most boring conversation ever, was valiantly trying to keep himself awake, deeply regretting not having taken his game-pad out of Twilight's saddlebag.
Eventually, Celestia decided to change the subject.
"You've made extraordinary progress in your studies in magic, my faithful student." She said, which caused Twilight to beam and swell with pride.
"But tell me, what else have you been up to?"
Twilight's pride rapidly gave way to confusion.
Wait, what?
"I'm sorry?" She asked, giving another tilt of her head.
"Magic may be your talent, Twilight, but surely you've done other things with your time." Celestia explained, "Am I right?"
Confusion quickly found that it was being upstaged by panic.
"Eh..." Twilight racked her brain trying to answer that question, "Er... Well... I..."
She rubbed her front hooves together nervously. "No?" she ventured.
Celestia sighed. "Twilight, we've talked about this, and so have your parents. I know that you find it hard to integrate yourself with others, but that's no reason for you not to try, at the very least."
"But Princess," Twilight protested, "my studies-"
"-are extremely important." Celestia finished for her, "But they do not have to encompass your entire life. There's a lot more to living than just work."
"Like what?" she argued.
"You could make friends." Celestia suggested, and immediately added, "Ones you actually meet, for once."
Spike, roused from his state of boredom by the sudden increase in temperature of the unicorn he was leaning against, groaned. "Here we go again."
Twilight's ears twitched. She'd touched this topic with her parents, and she did not like it. Not one bit. Friends, she knew, were something she just couldn't have. Friends implied a level of trust and openness she simply could not afford. Friends implied sharing things she wasn't allowed to share. Friends were nosy, and were always looking too closely at things.
Friends also cut into her study time, and she liked studying.
"Princess," she started, sitting up on her haunches and mostly failing to keep her annoyance with the subject at hand out of her voice, "I'm a genetically engineered unicorn with an extremely dangerous amount of magical power at her disposal, and a tendency to light herself on fire. How do I make friends?"
Celestia merely raised an eyebrow. "How do I?" she calmly retorted.
Twilight opened her mouth to let loose a brilliant counterpoint to that sentence... and closed it.
And opened it again.
And closed it again.
Oh that's just not fair!
"But... I... you... You're the Princess!" she finally managed to blurt out.
"And you," Celestia intoned, rubbing Twilight's head with the wrist of a half open wing, "are a bright, young unicorn mare that's no different from anypony else, as far as anyone knows."
Twilight lowered her eyes and stared sullenly at the carpet.
"I don't need friends." she grumbled.
"Twilight, everyone need their friends." Celestia said, "Your parents and I have tried our best to give you the chance to relate with others on your own accord, but you have chosen, time and time again, to isolate yourself from everyone." she sighed sadly, "And so, you give me little choice."
Twilight quite suddenly remembered that the pony she was speaking to was the Princess of Equestria, and snapped her head up to look at her.
What are you talking about? What do you mean "Little choice"? You don't mean... oh no! No! I'm a good pony! A very good pony! I didn't do anything wrong!
"Wh- what are you going to do?" Twilight asked, fearfully.
Please don't banish me!
Celestia looked solemn for a moment, before a mischievous smile graced her lips.
"I, my faithful student, am going to give you an assignment."
====================
“Can you believe this!?” Twilight huffed. She and Spike had just left the Royal Palace, this time on a more discreet hovercar; a light grey, slightly boxy model which had no special markings. Stared out the window, and grumbled, her mood dark.
Spike, on the other hand, seemed to have had the opposite reaction to Princess Celestia’s “assignment”. Sitting right beside the unicorn, he rubbed his hands together in delight. To think things would go so well! Of all the places the Princess could have sent Twilight, she had chosen the one he most wished to visit.
Ponyville.
“Hehehehehe…” He cackled in glee. Soon, he’d be with his true love once again!
“Spike, this is no laughing matter!” Twilight snapped, startling the baby dragon, “Can’t you see? The Princess wants me to… to…” She gnashed her teeth together, “”Make friends”. As an “assignment”. Why would she do that!?” she cried, “I am perfectly fine the way things are right now! I know everyone I could possibly ever need to know! Why would she think I need more individuals in my life?”
“Because you do?” Spike ventured. At Twilight’s muttering, he quickly added, “I mean, do you know anyone that’s not me, Shining Armor, Mom or Dad?”
Twilight thought on this, “Well…” she started.
“Online friends don’t count.” Spike interrupted, raising a claw.
Twilight growled, and stared out the window even more intensely.
Spike sighed. “Oh come on! It’s not that bad!”
Twilight very suddenly turned her head, and glared at him.
Oh boy.
“I mean, you’re staying at a library, in a nice, quiet little city over in the countryside.” He explained, “Seriously, your house is going to be practically made of books. How can you not find that good?”
“The apartment’s probably in a separate lodging.” Twilight countered, but at the same time her glare softened.
Spike took the initiative. “What gives? You’re going to be surrounded by mountains of books!” he threw his arms up for emphasis. “And besides, you already know somebody there.”
Twilight blinked in confusion. “I do? Who-” she caught sight of Spike’s immensely smug face and narrowed her eyes.
They stared at each other, before the unicorn gave sigh of resignation.
“Fine.” She said, and went back to staring out the window, “We’ll visit Rarity. Tomorrow.” She quickly added, “We still have to unpack, it's getting late, and I’d like to have a good look at that library.”
“Sure thing!” Spike chirped. Oh, yes, this is perfect!
Spike, you magnificent dragon!
====================
“So, you’re saying our crew lost their seats on the shuttle?”
Colonel Rekav, or rather, the ten centimeter high representation of him being projected by Rarity’s personal computer, nodded slowly, “Yes.” He said, “Apparently, the shuttleline’s in the habit of overselling. A lot. Bunch of our guys got a bit mad at that, good thing I was there when it happened.”
Rarity sighed, the familiar headache settling back into its usual spot, telling her that no, she wouldn’t be getting away from her responsibilities that easily.
“So, you’re stuck there?”
The Colonel sighed, rubbing his temples and most likely under the effects of a similar headache. “For the time being, at least. Most of my side of the ship’s staying up here anyways, to get her ready for the FNG’s, so we donated some tickets. Even so, your boys and girls… well, I’m guessing ‘bout a third of them will be staying in the hotel they have up here, or in the ship, until the auxiliary docks get sorted out. I’ll send you your luggage when things get less crazy.”
There was a small silence. Rarity opened her muzzle to offer a suggestion, but the Colonel anticipated her, cutting her off.
“Ma’am, as your second in command, I’d advise you against buying the shuttleline.” He said, crossing his arms, “Again.”
The unicorn brought a hoof to her chest, as if she had been physically struck, “Oh, how you wound me you vile, vile man!” she proclaimed, “To think that I’d resort to such methods, however much more simple they may turn out to be!”
She quickly dropped the theatrics, “Still,” she said, “I’m afraid I can’t stick around for much longer. I really wish I could see get the crew a proper send-off like I promised, but Sweetie Belle is extremely eager to drag me home, and I wouldn’t dare keep my parents waiting.”
The colonel dismissed her concerns with a wave, “Don’t sweat it.” He said, “I’ll explain it to the crew, I’m sure they’ll understand.”
Rarity smiled. “Thank you Rekav, take care.”
“You too Rarity.”
And with that, Rekav reached forward and cut off the connection, his image vanishing.
Rarity hesitated for only a moment, before tucking the personal computer back into a pocket of her uniform. Rekav’s side of the ship would be staying until after the Summer Sun festival, and she was fairly certain she could track down her own. She still had some time to organize something for them.
“Sis, can we go home now?”
Sweetie Belle was back at her side, having seen that her private call was over, along with Derpy.
“Of course Sweetie Belle.” Rarity said. “Let’s get going.”
Without further ado, they made their way towards the exit and out, into the parking lot. Derpy insisted on getting the hovercar while they waited right outside.
While they waited, Sweetie Belle asked her sister a question.
“Can you tell me a story?” she asked.
Rarity quirked her eyebrows, not sure if she had heard correctly. She wasn’t exactly known for her talent as a storyteller.
“A story?” She asked. “Ah, I’m sorry Sweetie, but I don’t know any good stories.”
“Sure you do!” The filly insisted. “You must have all sorts of stories of kicking alien butt!”
Oh, those stories.
“I’m not sure-” She started, but Sweetie Belle interrupted her, eager and determined to get something out of her sister.
"Tell me a story sis! Tell me! Tell me!"
Rarity sighed dramatically, "Oh I wouldn't wish to inflict old war stories on you, and I’m really not that much of a storyteller..."
===================
Six years previous
===================
An odd quirk of Phase travel was that, once the Phase Drive pulled the ship into Phase Space, it could be brought out of it by the gravity well of an object of sufficient mass. For short, in-system jumps, this could mean anything; from a planet, to an asteroid, or even a debris field from the old wars. For longer, interstellar jumps, one had to calibrate the Drive to put the ship in a “layer” of Phase Space out of which it could only be brought out of by the gravity well generated by the mass of the star on the other end of the jump.
The other odd quirk of Phase travel was that it was nearly impossible to steer when in it. So, while the Phase Drive technically had a much longer range, this meant that any jump longer than a certain distance ran the chance of missing its target, and so sending the doomed ship thousands of lightyears into the unknown. Thus, navigation computers were programed to disregard any system past a “safe zone”.
Of course, this meant that spacecraft routes were fairly predictable, and it was easy to know where to point the PSIDAR in order to detect incoming ships.
To escape detection from law enforcement firms, several criminal and smuggling groups had instead created routes of their own, through series of short range jumps down a path made up of brown dwarfs, rouge planets, and other assorted cosmic debris.
Using these same routes, TEC Regional Command had planned a series of raids behind enemy lines in the hopes of disrupting whatever supply chain the Vasari had and so force them to slow down their advance and buy time for the defense to build up; and to rescue those left behind as the Vasari’s invasion advanced. Kerferak, owned by the Lexmeda Corporation, was one of these worlds, a manufacturing and foodstuffs supplier for the coreward branch of the Outer Rim Trading Company and the colonies of the Galan Union. Of its population of 300 million, 70% had been evacuated by the combined efforts of many shipping and stellar liner corporations. The remaining 90 million had remained under nearly four years of Vasari rule, and it showed.
The On To The Stars had arrived with the first wave of evacuation forces. It, along with its escorts, had gone down to their place on geostationary orbit to begin the evacuation, while the rest of the combat fleet remained far above, on the lookout for alien reinforcements. Debris, alien and friendly alike, drifted through space, a testament to the short-lived battle with the unprepared Vasari forces that had been present.
The On To The Stars, its escorts, and another Akkan -the Coalition Marine-laden Albertine- had settled into a defensive formation around the fragile Protev frigates, some of which would be carrying the population to safety, while others were laden with troops. Rarity’s ship turned its powerful optical sensors towards the planet.
What they saw shocked the bridge crew. No one spoke a word, only the faint sounds of machinery could be heard within the CIC, as those within stared at the image that the main holoscreen was projecting. Whatever cities the planet once had had been wiped from existence, some leaving little more than scorched and cratered ground, while some sections of the planet had been pockmarked by massive holes, as if a giant hand had reached down and torn up the earth. It was a landscape that was utterly alien to the green planet this world had once been; forests had been cut down, mountains leveled for their ores, and lakes drained of their water, or it had been replaced by a noxious sludge of chemical wastes, fed to it by massive factories the invaders had built to supply their needs. The soil was now gray and lifeless.
What remained of the population had been herded into dilapidated shantytowns, huddled around these factories, who belched smoke and poison into the atmosphere, heedless of those living besides them. Other such population centers –if, indeed, they could be called even that- had sprung up around massive open mine-pits, hundreds of miles wide.
The cameras zoomed in, revealing the conditions below in all their horrific detail. People, regardless of species, crammed into tiny houses made from whatever garbage the Vasari hadn’t simply taken. Muddy, crooked streets, filled with filth, riddled the ground, upon which their fellows walked.
Even from this high up, one could see that they’d been broken. They huddled together, although if it was out of cold or out of fear, they couldn’t tell. Several figures lay in the mud, most likely dead.
It was the Colonel who was the first to act, pointedly clearing his throat. Everyone turned to look at him, and he spoke, his voice calm and collected.
“People, stop gawking. We’re here, we’ve got a job to do, and they,” he pointed at the scene on the holoscreen, “are depending on us to do it well. Sensors, give me a full sweep of the area, and keep those eyes peeled, I don’t want any surprises. Comms, hail the Albertine and tell them to get those Gropos on standby.”
There was a chorus of “Yes sir!”s as the bridge crew numbly turned back to their respective consoles.
The Colonel turned to address his superior officer. “Ma’am?”
Rarity sharply shook her mane, and tore her eyes from the view that had shaken her crew so. “I’m fine.” She stated, “Just… a little shaken, that’s all.”
The Colonel didn’t look like he believed a word of it, but stayed silent.
“Sir,” the stallion manning the sensors console spoke up, “we have readings. Negative on Vasari.”
The Colonel nodded “Good. Comms, open a command channel.”
“Chanel open.” The woman manning the Communications console responded instantly.
The Colonel fiddled with the tactical display, zooming into their assigned portion of the planet and selecting the largest concentrations of prisoners as targets. He started to speak, but Rarity beat him to it. Her voice was oddly flat, and missing the sophisticated airs she inflected it with. “Protev group Alfa, this is Diamond-actual. Proceed to your designated Landing Zones. Secure the area, and prepare the civilians for transport.”
“Also, you are to open fire on any Vasari you encounter. No prisoners.” She added, a flash of anger passing through her eyes. “Diamond-actual out.”
A confirmation came in through the speakers, and a cluster of contact icons peeled away from the flotilla, heading down towards the planet.
Rakav approached Rarity, “Ma’am?” he said, sounding slightly worried.
Rarity closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. “As I said before, I’m fine.” She said, regaining a bit of her usual demeanor.
.====================
Sweetie Belle deflated. “Aww…”
Rarity sighed, and finally relented. “Okay, fine! I’ll tell you a story.”
She racked her mind for some anecdote she could tell her sister. Something harmless, but entertaining enough. After a moment's consideration, she found one.
"Let me tell you why the Colonel isn't allowed to gamble anything anymore..."
====================
*Munch, munch, munch…*
Rainbow Dash licked her lips clean of crumbs, and fished inside the bag for another cupcake. “Pinks, just what do you put into these things?” she wondered.
Pinkie Pie paused in her detailed observation of the reentry plasma that was just outside her window. They were in the shuttle that would drop them off at the Cloudbase, the Airforce base over the Everfree forest. From there Dash would fly to Ponyville, while Pinkie took her hovercar.
“It’s a secret!” She giggled at Dash’s question. “And I can’t tell you, or it wouldn’t be a secret, it would be a not-a-secret and it wouldn’t be called Pinkie Pie’s Secret Cupcake Recipe anymore! It would be Pinkie Pie’s not-a-secret Cupcake Recipe, which is silly because all my other recipes aren’t secret except the Super Spectacular Sweet Surprise and that isn’t really a secret but nobody asks me what the special ingredient is because-”
“Pinkie…”
“Whoops!” the perky pink party pony giggled. She almost immediately went back to talking, albeit with a different subject. “Anyways, what do you think about a “Hooray! You’re back from kicking alien flank!” party?” she asked.
Rainbow Dash, having long ago gotten used to the never-ending, constantly shifting verbal torrent that was Pinkie Pie, didn’t skip a beat; “I think it ‘be awesome.” She said, before discarding the now-empty paper bag. She’d put it in the bin. Later.
“But just how are you going to invite those guys, I mean.” She made a vague gesture with her hoof, “We don’t even know anypony there!”
Pinkie Pie tapped her hooves together a centimeter from her own face. “I have ways, Dashie.” she chuckled, “Lots and lots of ways to get people to a party!”
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at this.
“Uh, yeah.” She said.
There was silence, for a minute, before Dash spoke again.
“Listen, Pinkie, I’ve been thinking... you know how the Wonderbolts have been leased to the Coalition?”
“Yup!” Pinkie nodded.
“Well…” Dash rubbed the back of her neck, “I’ve been thinking about seeing if I could get a transfer.”
Pinkie blinked, “You think you could?” she asked.
Dash shrugged with her wings. “I dunno.” She admitted, “I think I could. I mean, I’m the best pilot in Equestria!” she grinned at that. “That ought to count for something.”
“Yeah!” Pinkie agreed. “Ohhh! I know, maybe I can come too! I bet kicking alien flank gets you all grumpy pants all the time, and I know just the party for that!”
She paused, and immediately added, “And things also get broken a lot, and I can fix that too!”
Dash chuckled at that. “Hey, how about we both apply?” she suggested.
Pinkie Pie grinned. “Yes! That’s a great idea!”
They talked a bit more, swapping hypothetical tales of what would happen on the frontlines. Dash wasn’t particularly worried about it. Honestly, how hard could it be?
====================
Cloudbase, and the other five structures spread around Equestria of a similar design, was an odd structure; a pair of cylinders with three, wide, flat arms sticking out of them stacked on top of each other in such a way that, if viewed from above, it looked like a six pointed star. Assorted vehicles landed on pads located on the arms and went down lifts to the maintenance deck below to deliver their cargo, refuel, or to be stored, while ASF’s were catapulted from the tips of the arms. Antigravs on the base of the building kept the whole thing aloft.
Rainbow Dash respectfully wondered if the architect was high on something when they presented the design to the brass which, Dash cautiously reasoned, must have had at least a pair of glasses of Vorkovan Vodka in the preceding thirty minutes. Every time she saw the thing, it gave her the shivers. It looked absurdly ominous.
Not that it stopped the occasional Ursa Major from trying to pick a fight with the thing. Fortunately, the designer, despite their hypothetical taste for locoweed, had had at least enough sense to pack the thing full of auto cannons, and plenty of space for the blank cartridges the Ministry of Natural Resources demanded be used in those situations, as well as the ubiquitous rocket-assisted rounds that were standard on all Self Defense Forces through the Trade Order.
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie quickly got off the shuttle, saddlebags on their backs, the moment the pad stopped in the maintenance level and hurried off, towards the hub in the center. They passed other shuttles disembarking and loading passengers, mostly pegasi and unicorns, off to take their shifts in manning the defensive stations in orbit. Metal floors rang with the sound of hooves, and overhead lights lit the not very appealing interior, the occasional warning light blinking when a pad was raised or lowered.
They entered the central structure, and there they parted ways. Pinkie, along with a small herd of unicorns and a hoofull of other earth ponies, took one of the big elevators on the wall right across of them to the parking area below, chirping a “See ya Dashie!” as the doors closed.
Rainbow Dash waved her goodbye, and took the stairs right next to the shafts, going up. Elevators took too damn long in her opinion.
She trotted two floors up, left the staircase and took a left on the hallway, whose plastic floors and white and blue walls made it slightly more appealing than the maintenance level.
She trotted down the hallway, which grew wider and wider until she reached a small foyer, filled with a small herd of other pegasi. A balcony opened up to the outside on the right, and from there the winged ponies took flight, towards wherever they went after a day of work. Rainbow Dash quickly made her way through the herd, pushing, nudging and squeezing through the mass of pegasi, with the occasional apology or swearing thrown in.
“Excuse me- Sorry!- Coming through- Calm the frack down will ya!? Sheesh!-“
Eventually, she made it to the balcony. One of Cloudbase’s arms stretched overhead, and the sun lay low on the horizon, illuminating the sky in an orange glow. Below, the Everfree forest was spread, all green and wild and overgrown. Around her, the air was filled with the roar of supercharged ion thrusters, the overlapping hum of antigravs, and hustle and bustle of coming and going pegasi.
She opened her saddlebag with one wing and fished around until she found what she was looking for: a pair of goggles. She slipped them on, and tapped a box on the side of the frame with a hoof. Instantly, her vision changed, information was projected onto the glass; altitude, speed, bearing, Planetary Positioning System coordinates, and tags for the various vehicles flying about.
Rainbow Dash crouched down, spread her wings, and took off. She rocketed straight up and slightly forward, flapping her wings once, then twice, then she folded them tight against her sides. She reached the apex of her arch, twisting her body to keep herself pointed in her direction of travel, and plummeted down. She passed the balcony, missing it by not even half a meter.
The air rushed past her, tugging at her feathers, at her mane, at her tail. It caressed her fur, sending chills through her body. Adrenalin started to trickle through her system.
She waited until she passed the 950 meter mark, and then snapped her wings open, curving her body upwards to change her direction, using the momentum gained while freefalling to pick up speed with very little effort made on her part.
She did a little loop-de-loop, cackling in delight. Finally! Free to do whatever she wanted!
*Beep-beep!*
A hovercar; old, worn and painted a bright neon pink pulled up to her right. A window was rolled down, and Pinkie Pie poked her head out, the wind catching on her mane and making it go wilder than usual.
“Race ya Dashie!” she called, wearing a huge grin that, Rainbow Dash knew, was being mirrored on her own face.
“Last one there’s a Navy mare!” Rainbow Dash answered, and rocketed off, towards Ponyville. Behind her, she could hear Pinkie flooring her hovercar with great enthusiasm.
And, for those two friends, all was good in the world.
===================
(From: The Technocracy Magazine 30/7/3581)
And now for something completely different: Spell rune circuits.
Author: -Invocate Snark (Andrew Avrum)
Spell rune circuits are everywhere these days. Hardly a day goes by without someone in the Technocracy office complaining about having to secure yet another magical battery from the shops next time we’re in port.
But what are these devices, exactly? How do they work?
That, dear readers, is what I’m going to tell you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this magazine article, you’d be doing something else, like stratospheric skydiving or whatever it is you do.
The first thing one should know in order to understand spell rune circuits is how spells work in the first place. I’m not going to go into much detail here, because this is the Technocracy, and we don’t do that stuff. If you want a detailed version, just look it up. Odds are, it’s somewhere in the ‘Net.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Spells work by having the caster (Read: a unicorn) maintain an image of the spell in his or her mind, and channeling through that image. This exact image varies from one unicorn to another, but is still basically the same, much like how your version of last night’s barhunt is slightly different from everyone else’s, or how two artists paint the same gas giant differently.
And that’s what a spell rune circuit is: a physical depiction of that image. Of course, it’s a lot more abstract than the image a unicorn uses, and so requires a bit more oomph (Which is why we’re always short magical batteries. All the time.). The runes themselves are made out of magic-conducting crystal wire, which has to be carefully grown in a controlled environment where the magical equivalent of a sneeze can blow everything up. As a result, it is hideously expensive.
Thanks to the miracle of miniaturization, we’ve managed to squeeze relatively complex spells into very small spaces, and so use up very small amounts of very expensive crystal wire making them.
The upside of this is that, with a big enough magic battery, you can use any spell without needing to have been born with a horn. The downside is that magic batteries last way, way less than your standard hydrogen cell, unless you have a unicorn buddy, in which case I’m sorry to say that I hate you very much.
Now, to cough up another couple dozen milicreds…
Comments:
Posted by: Ilikebooks
Something I’d like to add:
Unicorn’s magic is greatly dependent on their special talent. A baker, for instance, will find it much harder to use spells that aren’t related to baking, like teleporting. It’s something explored in much more detail in Marcus Ganmond’s “The nature of magic” and Examine Closeley’s “Mystical Manual on all things Magical” (quite an exciting subject, but I think it’s off topic here).
What spell rune circuits does is allow unicorns to readily use spells that aren’t inherent to their special talent, without having to learn them, which can be very hard for some ponies and for some spells. Also, batteries aren’t that much of an issue for us :D.
I hope this is informative!
Posted by: Invocate Snark
@Ilikebooks: It is, and it is a lot lighter than your last post.
Seriously, that one was longer that the article I wrote.
====================
"Twilight, check it out!"
Spike's voice pulled Twilight away from the reply she was writing on her computer and made her look out the window.
Much like it had in her short visit to Canterlot, the hovercar carrying Twilight was soon leaving the high-altitude traffic that had brought it to its destination, and joining the lower-altitude traffic common around cities. As they banked, spiraling down around the city, Twilight and Spike got a good look at the city.
Ponyville, as Twilight recalled from reading that historical guide she found in the Broadcast Network (two days ago, at around 3:00 A.M.), had been Equestria’s first –and, so far, only- “Corporate Town”. Funded with the help of the Apple Consortium in 2954 APD, it had originally been a purely agricultural establishment, providing the fast growing Canterlot, Hoofington and Manehattan with food.
In 3001, Shining Light Mining Company discovered large deposits of Crystal beneath the Everfree forest. Since open pit mining is forbidden in Equestria, and building anything in the Everfree forest is forbidden by law, they were forced to tunnel into the deposits from outside its boundaries (since the law in question said nothing about building anything under the Forest). Profits were scarce at first, but eventually they were able to access the larger deposits under the Everfree.
As both corporations became larger and more influential, it soon became quite clear that they were the one’s running things in Ponyville, splitting the city in two. Nowdays, the Equestrian government acted as more of a mediator between both sides than any actual authority, besides a modest police force.
From the air, the divide was made quite clear. Approaching from the forest, one could see huge industrial parks and warehouses, the entry shafts for the mines, maglev tracks heading for the nearby Canterlot Spaceport, where goods would be carried off by cargo frigates and ATMS-1000 Pelican Heavy Lifters. On the other end of town, there were the high-strength polycarbonate domes of Sweet Apple Acres hydroponics farm, the packaging centers, and their maglev rail system. Nearing the center of the city, the strict utilitarian aspect of either side of the town gave way to the administrative offices, and vertical housing.
Even there, the differences persisted. The buildings on the spinward side were similar to those of Canterlot; tall glass spires decorated with chrome and bronze. Those on the other side were entirely different; squatter, more robust and lacking the decorations of their counterparts.
The suburbs had spread on the southern side of the city in quaint rows lined with houses of all shapes and sizes and painted with, it seemed, every color of the rainbow.
By then, the Sun was about to sink into the horizon. In Canterlot, Celestia was probably just about to turn the planet, bringing about the night. The setting was alternatively reflected on the city’s windows and backlighting it, silhouetting the tall downtown buildings against the red sky of twilight.
They descended towards the city, first joining the medium altitude traffic surrounding the city and going over the industrial and agricultural areas, before going to ground level and entering the city proper.
The hovercar took them deeper into the city, past the skyscrapers, and into the historical City Center, a de-mercantilized zone restricted to small businesses only, and filled with preserved buildings dating back to the founding of Ponyville, made of wood and brick and stone, and with thatched roofs. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, bright and cheery, full of some sort of long-lost idyllic charm, and awkwardly out of place amongst the modern skyscrapers of the modern city.
They halted just outside the edge of the city center, and the driver opened the door. The city center -he started to explain, before Twilight cut him off as she knew this already- was pedestrianized, and therefore out of limits for motorized vehicles. He offered to take their luggage for them, but Twilight declined. She could handle a couple of suitcases, thank you.
And it wasn’t like she had a lot of stuff to carry about, just a couple of wheeled suitcases barely bigger than Spike. A lifetime of constantly moving from one research station to another had taught her to pack light, and to carefully consider what she bought when it came to buying. She only had a few books, her portable computer, her Smarty Pants doll, and a set of warm clothes (which she always carried about with her when moving, because she hated being cold with a passion).
This was something that had gone over Spike’s head, as he had six different portable consoles in his possession, which took up a considerable amount of luggage space and caused inevitable headaches whenever she had to plan out any travelling she did.
Spike and she waved the departing hovercar goodbye, and started walking. Something about the way her hooves sounded on the floor made Twilight pause, and she looked down. The floor –road, her mind corrected- was made up of many flat, hard, grey things, they were mostly square, and colored, in a variety of pastel grey shades, with one or two being a different color altogether.
She raised a hoof, and brought it down, producing a clear and sharp clop sound. It was something completely different to the clang of hooves on metal, or of the thuck of hooves on linoleum, or of the sharp clack of hooves on ceramic tile, or of the muted sounds of hooves on carpet. In fact, it was entirely different from any sound she had heard before, a rough… earthen kind of sound. What kind of material was this?
She raised the same hoof, and brought it down again.
*Clop!*
Setts!, she finally recalled the correct word for the flooring –pavement, her mind corrected again- of the road,
made of stone.
She felt Spike climb onto her back, which brought her out of her reverie. If the baby dragon had noticed her momentary lapse, he said nothing.
Twilight recalled the directions she had researched online (it turned out, she was going to be living in the library), and trotted off in that direction, after consulting some signs nailed atop wooden posts, her hooves clopping against the smooth stone of the pavement.
====================
There were a few advantages to Twilight’s condition. One was being immune to most diseases, and the other was a frankly terrifying level of stamina. It wasn’t uncommon for her to end up staying awake for up to a week at a time before starting to think that she might need to sleep.
Which was a good thing, since with the amount of exercise she usually got (read: none whatsoever), she’d been quite tired by now.
Apparently, their driver had left them off on the wrong side of the city center, and they had to get there on hoof, through the crooked streets of Old Ponyville. They passed by the quaint buildings and shops, through the central plaza, past the old town hall, now a museum, and through the park.
By then, they sun had already sunk below the horizon. At first, it had hung low in the sky, casting a beautiful red and orange glow into her surroundings, before it was seemingly thrust down, below the horizon, disappearing completely and replaced by the pale glow of the moon. Streetlights sprang to life, illuminating the streets they watched over and, should you happen to peek between the straw-thatched rooftops and into the surrounding metropolis, you could see the lights of the skyscrapers shining, and the faint thrum of night life in the distance, if you really listened for it.
Twilight and a way-past-his-bedtime Spike eventually found themselves looking at their destination. It was a massive tree in the middle of what could be considered a small park, five stories tall at the very least, with a wide trunk and big, thick branches covered with leaves.
It also looked like someone had tried turning it into a house, with a spectacular amount of success. There were windows, a balcony, and a short path led to a wooden door set into the trunk, with a sign above it proudly proclaiming:
Books and Branches Library
Twilight stared at the tree-slash-building, blinking several times, as if that would replace it with something saner.
It didn’t. Looking around her, she found that the library wasn’t the oddest building in the neighborhood. No, that title belonged to a cloud shaped into what could only be described as a small mansion, hovering above the house on the right of the library, with a small waterfall of liquid rainbow as a decoration.
That didn’t make it any less… well…
“It’s a tree.” Spike stated from her back, “A tree with a building in it. That’s so weird.”
“Yes.” She said, sighing, “And we’ll be living in it. Let’s just get inside.”
They’d scarcely gotten a few steps into the front lawn when they heard someone behind them.
“A speeding ticket! Can you believe that?” A very loud, tomboyish voice complained. “I wasn’t even going past a hundred!”
“Oh come on Dashie!” A second, more cheery voice answered. “It’s not that bad!”
“This isn’t even fair!” the first voice went on in her tirade; ignoring the second “You were going just as fast as I was, and you didn’t get a ticket!”
“Nope!” The second voice said, and the first one snorted.
By all means, Twilight Sparkle should have ignored both of them and minded her own business. She certainly would have done so.
Something made her stop. Maybe it was because she was genuinely curious about who these ponies (and it had to be ponies, Equestria was one of the few places were humans were the minority) were. Maybe it was because the way her subconscious was still wired.
Maybe it was something else entirely.
Whatever it was, she stopped, and turned around to see who was talking. They were two mares, which she had already figured out from the voices, with saddlebags on their backs. One, a rather athletic-looking cyan coated pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail that Twilight didn’t think were possible to have without dyes, cut almost foolishly short, and a similarly polychromatic lightning bolt striking down from a cloud as a cutie mark. She wore goggles on her forehead, had maroon eyes, and she looked incredibly annoyed at something, her head hanging low and her ears flicking back. She grumbled irritably.
The other one was a pink coated earth pony of a slightly heavier build than Twilight herself, with an equally pink mane that was a mess of curls and whorls that made Twilight think of synthetic cotton. Her flank was adorned with a trio of balloons, and her eyes were blue. Rather than walk, she skipped and bounced as she went, a happy smile on her muzzle, in contrast to her companion.
The two of them were passing right in front of Twilight, when the pink one suddenly turned her head to look at her, and Twilight could have sworn that she slowed down mid-bounce. She stopped, and stared at her, the pegasus doing the same once she realized that her friend -at least, Twilight assumed they were friends, and based on current observations it was a fairly plausible hypothesis- had stopped.
For a few awkward moments, the three mares and dragon stared at each other.
Twilight felt Spike prodding her from his seat on her back, and decided to take a risk.
“Hello?” she ventured.
“Uh… hi.” Said the pegasus, sounding unsure. She cocked her head and asked, “Hey, aren’t you ne-?”
*GASP!*
Whatever it was that the rainbow-maned pegasus was going to ask her got interrupted by the pink earth pony emitting an enormous gasp, springing up into the air. In an instant, she’d thrown her companion onto her back.
“Wha-!? Pinkie Pie, what are you doing!?” the pegasus cried out, just as confused about what was going on as Twilight was. The earth pony paid her no heed, and galloped off, right into the house next door to the library, closing the door with a tremendous slam.
A short amount of time later, she burst out again, without the pegasus on her back, and disappeared into the night.
It took some time for Twilight Sparkle’s brain to process what had just happened. Eventually, it did, and she arrived at the inevitable conclusion.
Twilight lowered her head in despair. “Spike” she said, her voice flat, “please tell me the Princess didn’t send us into the crazy part of town.”
“Um…” the dragon hesitated, “The Princess didn’t send us into the crazy part of town?”
The lavender mare closed her eyes, and held on to those words, repeating then in her mind, as if she might convince herself of their veracity.
She couldn’t.
“Let’s just get inside.” she moaned, and turned back towards the library. Taking out the digital key –a triangular prism-shaped piece of metal with a microetched visual code on three of its faces and a tiny rubber grip on one end- from her saddlebags, she unlocked the door, went inside and switched on the lights.
The interior was not what she’d expected it to be. Rather than being cramped, the interior of the tree was wide and spacious, a big, cylindrical room with bookshelves carved into the walls and filled with books, nearly two stories tall with a table at the center, a big wooden statue of a pony’s head set on top. Doorways led into what was a kitchen, a reading room with even more bookshelves and computers, and some bathrooms. Two sets of staircases were at either side. One led into a basement, and the other led up to a second story, where a decent-sized bedroom that opened out into the balcony had been carved out. Curiously, most of the furniture that wasn’t meant to move around much had been carved out of the tree itself.
Twilight immediately started to unpack the few possessions she had in her suitcases and saddlebags, Spike helping her. After they’d finished, the dragon had crawled into a small bed they’d brought with them and had fallen asleep, snoring loudly.
Twilight, who didn’t feel the slightest bit tired, tucked the baby dragon in, and went downstairs, ticking off an item in the checklist she’d made on her computer. She looked at the bookshelves, her eyes darting from one to another.
So many books… She thought, dropping to her haunches, Where do I even begin?
She giggled, clapping her hooves together excitedly. Her horn glowed, and half of the books on the non-fiction section were lifted by her telekinesis spell, and started to float around her, like a carousel. She looked from one title to the next, trying to find one which piqued her interest.
She selected a hooffull, and was about to re-shelve the others when one made her pause.
Huh? She looked at the book, it appeared to be very old, its brown cover worn, and its pages emitting that curious smell of old paper. There was a pair of metal strips on its spine, and an engraving of a golden, stylized unicorn was on the front cover. There was no title to be seen anywhere, so she opened it and flipped through its pages.
It was a manuscript, a book written by hoof or horn, not by a printing press. Rather than fill both pages with text, the author of the book had instead only written in half of them. The pages on the right were the ones that carried words, while those on the left were instead decorated with beautiful illustriations.
An illuminated manuscript! She realized, and Twilight felt her smile grow larger and larger, This book must be centuries old, a relic of Old Equestria! Oh, thank you Princess!
Adding the ancient tome to the pile she would be taking upstairs to read, she replaced the books that were still floating about and switched off the lights. She went to the bedroom –her bedroom-, climbed onto the bed, opened the book, and began to read.
“Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria…”
===================
Enter password: *******
Processing…
Password confirmed.
Accessing file PYRSTWSR198756…
Accessing research footage #0001…
Playing footage…
Holovid of a white unicorn mare, with a white and lavender two-tone mane, and blue eyes. She wears a labcoat, and a personal computer hangs from her neck, projecting a holographic screen level with the base of her neck.
She turns to speak to someone outside the camera’s field of view, “Is this thing on? It is? Ah, okay.”
She turns towards the camera and speaks in chipper voice. “Hello, this is Doctor Dawn Velvet. Protocol demands that I make holovid recordings of my monthly reports on my psychological analysis of Twilight Sparkle, as well as our progress in integrating her with society.”
“But first, I’d like to clear up the “Rumors,”” she made a pair of quote marks with a risen hoof, “that have been leaking back to base. Yes, my husband and I have volunteered to raise the subject, whose name, I must remind you, is Twilight Sparkle. Not “Subject five-five-four-two”, not “The Subject” and not “It”.”
She rolls her eyes in derision, and continues speaking.
“And yes, I am familiar with protocol. I understand that Twilight needs … containment” her face screws up at the word, as if she were eating something bitter, “until she gains better control of herself. I saw the footage. All I’m suggesting is that we don’t refer to her as an object until so.”
“That having been said, on to my actual report;” She glances at her notes, “Twilight is… an unusual child. Not just physically, as Doctor Nightlight has surely told you, but mentally as well. Just to give the highlights, as it were: every day, she wakes up at four fifty A.M, regardless of how much she has slept the night before, and stands in the same place, in the center of the room, facing the door. Should anyone enter, she’ll ask for orders. If none are given, she’ll continue to wait, for any given amount of time, until someone tells her otherwise.”
“She seems incapable of acting under her own volition. She will only eat or sleep if she is ordered to do so; otherwise, she will do nothing. Twilight very nearly exhausted herself into unconsciousness before we discovered this.”
She coughs, and continues, “This is clearly part of Horizon’s mental conditioning of her, a control mechanism to keep her from escaping or rebelling.”
The screens in front of her change, as she passes on to another set of notes.
“She also seems to take everything asked of her as an order; including eating, sleeping, etcetera. Once she receives an “order”, she becomes fixated on it, sometimes going to extreme lengths to carry it out. Failure to perform…” she gave a small shiver, “or perceived failure to perform… absolutely terrifies her. One of our newer staff members, probably as a joke, told her to look for a “Snipe”. It took roughly four hours to find her after that, and when we did she was… excuse me a moment.”
She walks out of the camera’s line of sight. The footage jumps, obviously paused and resumed some time later. Dawn is back, her mane slightly frazzled.
“Sorry, as I was saying, after roughly four hours, we found Twilight in an unused portion of the facility, in a corner, crying. Because she couldn’t find a snipe.”
She closes her eyes, and breathes deeply, composing herself before continuing.
“The culprit was verbally reprimanded. The other particularities of her behavior that are of note are an almost complete lack of emotional response to… well, anything, besides the already mentioned. She’s been with us for six weeks now, and I’ve yet to see her as much as cry, or laugh, or engage in any behavior appropriate for a filly her age. She does not emote, keeping her face completely expressionless, and speaks in short, clipped phrases that wouldn’t be out of place coming out of a pre-sapient AI. Several members of the staff have found this behavior to be very… creepy.”
Dawn bites her lip. “It’s almost as if she were a machine.” She muses, “That’s what Horizon wanted her to be: an organic machine, no feelings or thought, just… compliance.”
She is silent for a moment, before continuing.
“The other inconsistency I’ve noticed is her reaction to physical contact.”
The mare finally cracks a small smile. “And the reason it’s inconsistent is because it’s the most normal behavior we’ve gotten out of her so far. She actually likes being hugged, it’s the few times anyone’s seen her smile. From what I can deduce, her previous…” the mare screws her face again, her smile faltering for a moment, “caretakers interacted with her via robotic interfaces, so the entire concept of being held by a warm, living being is entirely new to her. She’s also drawn to soft objects, when given a choice and told to play in the nursery.”
“That will be it for the moment.”
Dawn’s horn glows, as if to end the recording, but she pauses, before adding, “By the way, Doctor Nightlight and I have decided to start recording footage of Twilight Sparkle’s time in the nursery, if only to have a record of her progress. They’ll be in file RRSTWSRI115893, if anyone’s interested.”
Her horn glows.
Holovid ends.
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I now wish to hug Twilight. Is that wrong?
696418 It is never wrong to want to hug a pony. Never.
Where the heck is Rarity's reaction to that last bit? I have GOT to see it.
I've waited so long for this and now finnaly is here good job by the way. I like how you combined the stories it's very fitting.
“Online friends don’t count.”
Curse you Spike! You win. Spike, you magnificent dragon bastard you! I'll have to stop reading fanfiction and go socialize now.
I love this direction you're going with Twilight, mostly because you're pulling it off so well! It's one thing to simply say she's a cliche genetic experiment, like others wishing to give a character of theirs super powers, but it's another to mold their upbringing, thinking, and overall personality so well around that fact. You're showing a character with an obviously well thought out history without boring us with too much of that detail
And to think I was worried I'd never see an update to this wonderful story. Fantastic! This fandom needs more scifi fics that aren't post apocalyptic ponies or misanthropic humans. Until someone does to Starcraft what Kkat did to Fallout (changelings = zerglings, it practically writes itself guys!) then this is the only truly good space ponies fic around. And I need me some good space ponies!
It having humans too is a good bonus. I like humans, they're my favorite people that aren't ponies.
So, yay! Update!
696481 Well, maybe it would be with the one who's too smelly and the one who's strangely obsessed with tubs of jelly.
[youtube=KXR2usGH_Mo]
I wish there was a more extreme smile emote than
... I'm sad to hear you're going to be going on hiatus for this one again, but so long as it's eventually continued, I suppose I've already proven I can be patient. :P
696418 Twilight is a walking moeblob in this fic of couse you want to hug her and turn a starship that has a gatterling railgun the fires treaton yeild nukes at the creatures that did this to her.
But you should know this I am sure I've seen you on Spacebattles.com
Oh, how I wish I could cross the inter-dimensional boundries to give Twilight a big ol' hug. Poor filly.
This story is amazing, I must say. Just amazing.
Can I just say I love Internet Addict Twilight?
Liking the story so far, although I feel sorry for Twilight
I hope she can overcome her childhood.
First of, general praise for characters here. It's been said before, I'm just voicing agreement.
I'm very surprised at how well these two plots fit together. You did a wonderful job merging Equestria and her lore into the Trade Coalition's lore, and then bringing magic and the natural fliers of the planet into the TEC. I'm looking forward to the Advent.
I'm glad you actually put some thought into this as well. The radio dialogue is correct and uses the proper phrases (no roger-wilco chains or similar offenses), and there is a sense of scale in the story. I also enjoy the smaller bits that are thrown in that help explain some of the science involved.
Thourpughly enjoying this story, but I Found some errors in this chapter. Mostly forgetting S's at the ends of words.
(Any underlined parts are where I fixed the excerpt)
"With great reluctance -and prodding from Spike-, Twilight tore her eyes from the rows of book and walked towards the cushy""With great reluctance -and prodding from Spike-, Twilight tore her eyes from the rows of books and walked towards the cushy""
“Listen, Pinkie, I’ve been thinking... you know how the Wonderbolts are been leased to the Coalition?”Listen, Pinkie, I’ve been thinking... you know how the Wonderbolts have been leased to the Coalition?”
"Twilight stared at the tree-slash-building, blinking several times, as if it would replace it with something saner.""Twilight stared at the tree-slash-building, blinking several times, as if it would be replaced with something saner."
Love the story and how you integrate the plots of the two halves. Normally stories with more than one point of view confuse me, but you have done an excellent job of preventing that with fairly smooth and clear cut transitions. Hope my "editing" helps.
You changed Velvet's name? Interesting.