The Great Solar Empire can find its roots on the ancient and long lost planet of Equestria. Here, nearly 1000 years ago, ponies lived in peace and prosperity under the rule of Queen Celestia, then a mere princess, who used her mighty alicorn powers to raise the sun each morning and lower it each evening, in defiance of the laws of physics. However, this peace was forever shattered when the orbiting star, Equis-1, as later astronomers would call it, began one of the fiercest and longest solar flare events recorded in pony history. The power and the violence of the event threatened all life upon Equestria. It required all of Celestias power to contain the flares power, but even she could not hold it back forever.
At the time, the study of arcane science was little more than an academic curiosity. However, as the situation worsened, ponies began to investigate it more seriously as a hope for salvation. After a series of major breakthroughs that would have revolutionised pony society if it were not for the threat of the solar flare, a solution was found—flee the planet, into the space between the stars. Celestia, ever weakening against the brunt of the storm, agreed to the proposal. After 10 years of study, experimentation and construction, the first "spaceships" were built and ready to fly to the stars.
Ponies were not the only race living on Equestria, but shared the planet with countless others; dragons, griffins, zebras, buffalo, donkeys and many others. Many of these races blamed Celestia, the self-proclaimed goddess of the sun, for the disaster. In an attempt to mollify them, in her kindness and wisdom saw fit to grant each race enough vessels to evacuate the planet themselves.
The largest ship to leave the planet was the Canterlot, named in remembrance of the capital city of Equestria, whose populace now resided in, including the newly crowned Queen Celestia. Hundreds of ships from around the planet, bearing their precious cargos, followed in the largest exodus seen in the known galaxy. As the last ship left the planet, Queen Celestia dropped the spell containing the flare. Almost instantaneously the planet was engulfed by the solar energies leaking from Epona, scouring the planet, leaving nought but a blackened rock behind.
The pony races of Equestria remained united under Celestia's leadership, with the Canterlot becoming the seat of her government. The other species of Equestria, however, refused to have anything to do with the new Solar Empire and set off to found their own civilisation—the Confederacy of Species. However, regardless of species, all involved learnt one of the most important lessons of all—Planets are unsafe. Planets are dangerous. Planets are death.
Never able to trust a planet, spaceships became the new home of ponykind. Metals and ice came from asteroids and other planetoids. Food was grown in specially built agriculture ships. Ponies lived and died on habitation ships, never leaving, never dreaming of leaving. The Empire travelled from system to system looking for important supplies, always one barren system away from starvation. Despite the precarious nature of this lifestyle, ponykind prospered like never before, always striving to improve itself. When the Empire rejoined with the Confederacy, valuable trade agreements were established, allowing large portions of the fleet to become stationary, with the Canterlot, the Cloudsdale and the Manehatten becoming space stations, whilst smaller ships trawled over the galaxy seeking supplies, although this relationship with the Confederacy of Species would deteriorate over the following centuries.
Throughout all this, Queen Celestia has ruled the Empire in her infinite wisdom and kindness.
-from A history of the Great Solar Empire, vol. 1 by Crimson Quill, 973 A.E. (After Exodus)
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The omniwatch is the latest in micro-computing devices. Resembling a normal watch, an omniwatch contains the same computing power of that of a ships computer. Omniwatches can fulfil a large number of tasks, thanks in part to the intuitive nature of 'apps', second party programs, or applications, that can be uploaded, allowing the omniwatch to fulfil a large variety of tasks. Skilled arcanoscientists can also program create their own apps directly on to it, giving the tool a large degree of versatility and individuality. The omniwatch can also link wirelessly with virtually any other device with a built in computer, allowing for the flow of data between the two computers. All this can be controled through a clear and easily manipulatable holo-screen. I would go as far to say that the omniwatch is a near essential piece of gear for anypony in the science and technology business.
So when can you expect an omniwatch to appear in stores near you? Not for a long while, I'm afraid. Omniwatches are very difficult and expensive to make. In order to obtain one you must custom order one from Orange inc, the company behind the omniwatch, for a price that easily rivals how much I earn over 10 years.
From the Equestria Daily- Science and Technology Supplement by Oxford Blue
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Technical report #2957293- the 'gallop' prototype engine.
The gallop engine is a miracle of engineering design. Combining the principles of the long range teleport spell with conventional 'trot' engines, it allows spaceships to attain greater than light speed travel within the gravity well of a star, whereas conventional engines must first travel to the outermost edge of a system before jumping, in addition to allowing jumps at much greater speeds of light than 'trot' engines are capable of. It also produces a large amount of horsepower, theoretically allowing space stations such as the Canterlot or the Manehatten to once again become mobile once the necessary adjustments are made. The strategic implications of this new technology are astounding. It allows fleets to instantaneously cross systems, negating several hours’ worth of travel, opening up the opportunity for intrasystem ambushes. It also allows the major civilisation centres to become mobile, avoiding combat and sieges, as well as moving them closer to the supply systems as the closer ones become drained of resources. As with all light speed and greater than light speed travel, advanced logarithms are required to prevent collisions and jumps further than 15 light years at a time are highly discouraged.
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The Ponyville follows several standard conventions in its design. From the outside it bears the appearance of a long cylinder with a pair of rotational thrusters, a set of autocannons and two plama lances running along its sides. This is due to the gravity core that runs along the center of the ship. The gravity core is an incredibly dense object filled with arcane energies, providing artificial gravity for the entire ship, much like the core of a planet, only elongated along the length of the ship. Each deck is then wrapped around the core. The deck closest to the core, as well as the smallest, is the engineering deck, where the engines and other systems are maintained. The gravity here is a heavy 12 meters per second squared (M/S2). The next deck up is the command deck. Here the bridge can be found, along with the medical bay and the science labs. Since most of the crew will spend their working hours on this deck, the gravity is a comfortable 10 M/S2. Above the command deck is the residential deck. The mess deck, crew quarters and senior officers cabins are found on this deck, along with the gym, where the light 8 M/S2 makes exercising easy. The armoury, mareine barracks and the brig are also found on this deck. The final and largest deck, known as the aggrideck, is where food is kept and grown. The gravity here is a very light 6 M/S2 and it is advised that Pegasus ponies do not fly on this deck. On the Ponyville there are small fields which alternate between wheat’s, flowers and vegetables and, unusually for a ship of its size, a small apple orchard. The addition of a hydrophonics lab ensures that fresh food can be grown all year round and also handles the water purification process from ice extracted from asteroids. The extensive plant life found on the agrideck also produces the much needed oxygen a spaceship requires. Since this is the outermost deck, there is also a shuttle bay with several Chariot class shuttles along with the teleportarium.
From The Equestria Daily- Ponyville Launch Success by Oxford Blue
Okay, got it.
Of course a completely space-based civilisation has its own problems including instituationalised and habitualised agoraphobia. The Worlds have Walls, after all and the horror a second-year cadet feels on their first visit to a planet's surface for Away Team training often determines whether they have a future in the fleet or will simply be shifted sideways to the sedenentary, unspectacular and generally poorly-recognised base echelons on one of the mighty Worldships ("CEILING! THERE'S NO CEILING!!! NOOO!!!").
A second advantage of spherical spaceships is this is the optimum shape for heat absorbtion and waste heat dispersal. It is also a naturally very strong shape against concussive and compressive force. Given the strong natural world and abstract basis of Equestrian art and science, simple geometric shapes would probably be also naturally favoured over more complex shapes.
1262894 thanks for the feedback.
When I got to designing Rarity my line of thought was "she likes clothes. What does the military need clothes for? Body armour!" and now she's Worf.
Derpy is the helmsman (helmspony?) because of her clumsiness whilst pinkie is communications so that she can spam every ship in the galaxy with party invites. It made sense in my head when I was allocating crew positions.
I agree on the point of twilight needing subordinates, but I was tired of introducing characters by that point. I might go back and throw a few cadets her way.
As for Twilights speciality, at the moment she is an arcanophysicist- she's essentially magic Einstien. She jumped straight from cadets to officer, so she hasn't had a chance to develop a military speciality yet, but I shall make sure to give her something along those lines. Probably sensors.
Edit- and don't worry about the NLR, the confederacy, or discord (or a certain changeling queen), got it all worked out in my head. It's the in between bits that's got me scrambling for ideas. As for the smaller crew, it was originally 200, but I got lazy and cut it to 23 (mane six, cmc, big mac & derpy, spike, nurse angel (there's your grumpy medic!) and 10 cadets.) it's a small ship because it's a shakedown cruise to make sure the engine works properly. They drift off into space for a year, explore some 'safe' systems, come back, get promotions and extra crew.
1262914 yay people can understand the background material. Although I completely missed the points about the other benefits of a spherical spaceship (heat management, shape strength etc.). Got to keep that in mind.
Okay, quick edit- Twilight now has a couple of cadets to boss around- Lyra and Bon-Bon. They haven't popped up yet, but they will. This leaves 8 crew positions that need filling.
1. What of Luna?
2. What of the humans there? Do the ponies stumble across Earth perhaps? Or do the humans have spaceflight now?
3. I love this fic now! It's really great! Just so good!
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1. Who is "Luna"?
2. Honestly, I don't know yet. I am on the fence on whether or not I should introduce humans. I could, but what would it add to the story, would I be able to weave it into the plot, or would it just be a gimmick thrown in to bump up the word count? So humans might appear, if I can think up of a decent reason that impacts upon the story.
3. Thank you! Have a sexy Rarity cdn.broni.es/images/emotes/mlp-rsexy.png
"Twilight's Voyage". Not "Twilights". Just saying, a typo right in the title is incredibly off-putting
1293753 sorry. I'll go fix that. Stupid dyspraxia grumblegrumble...
Nuts, I have to redo the damn page image now. Bah, I'll sort it in the morning. Sleep now
cdn.broni.es/images/emotes/mlp-rasleep.png
1307360 with pleasure.
Don't they need someone to fill in as security? I mean space is a big place and the possibility of pirates is present.
Also, pairings. What are your thoughts on this?
1331200 Rarity plays security/tactical and she is highly compatent at it. the entire navy (including merchant ships) were militarised after pirate activity rose.
as for pairings, what, like shipping? not in this story i'm afraid.
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Whoops, didn't notice that. Guess that's what I get for not sleeping.
okay, Chapter 1 has been rewriten and I have a plan for the next 2-3 chapters. Hiatus has ended, and you get a free data file.
List of major changes:
-The ponyville is a much larger and more experianced ship, with a crew of 200, all with prior experiance working on the ship. more work for me, but more believeable.
-Derpy is no longer the helmspony, but is in fact the 1000 year old AI of the ship.
-Lyra, Bonbon, Carrot Top and The Great and Powerful Trixie all work as scientists on the ship. Twilight is their direct superior (much to Trixie's annoyance).
also, in data files- collection 2 (which is unfortuantly very short, but I promise to make up for it) is a super secret data file that will blow your mind and set the sceen for the next couple of chapters. if you find it you get a derpy
The first part of this data file keeps referring to Celestia as Princess. Shouldn't that be Queen, since she took the title after the planet was destroyed?
Hydroponics is growing things, not "hydrophonics".
I can't help but read this in the mass effect codex voice.