Zenith would give anything to find her lost sister Nadir, who vanished in the depths of space long ago. And now, after decades of suspended animation, she has finally located Nadir on a strange planet haunted by alien ruins, far outside known space.
It's lonely out there, but Zenith has company – six personalities simulated by her ship's AI. And she'll need every ounce of help Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and the others can offer, for Lapis is a more mysterious, and dangerous, planet than she could ever have imagined.
Updated every-other day until Jan. 6.
An entry for Bicyclette's Science Fiction Contest.
Chapters (5)
Nice first chapter! Keep it going!
Humans have interstellar spacecraft, but no solar system spanning interferometer telescope array or at least a TPF like telescope? Sad!
I like this, so far
I was unaware of this contraction of 'nanomachines', can't say I like it. Not that it's hugely important.
Following the blog post, resolute Yes to Sci-fi from this guy as well. At first, I suspected this fic took major hints from The Invincible, but since the necrosphere of Lapis is inert, there's probably no direct connection to that novel.
Why did she destroy the satellite?
11103325
That is an excellent question.
Liking it so far. Lots of mystery. Lots of unexpected situations. I'm subscribed now.
... why blow up the distress beacon? Seems odd to me.
Though sleeper FTL raises some questions... how much will technology have advanced by the time she gets back?
Nothing like Pinkie to cut through the sleep and wake you up instantly.
Love to see that Dragons are still the default "Here is the unknown, filled with danger. Enter at your own peril" marker.
Gotta admit, getting the chills here.
Not promising.
Hmm. Is the mission Zenith's idea, or is there an organisation or entity driving this with Zenith hitching a ride on it?
That was .. unexpected.
I can see why Zenith doesn't want to wait to investigate the world, but .. if she dies, this world will remain undiscovered for eons more. No mention of any other way of getting information back to the rest of ponydom/humankind either.
Hmm. Strange worlds, scarred ruins, and mystery, mystery in the gulfs of space. This will be fun.
And questions, too, plenty of them and early. What was it that killed this world? What drove Nadir to this place, and what happened to her? Are the AI's personalities original creations here, or were they based on real figures from the past? And why precisely was Zenith so set on destroying that beacon?
This is some good, solid SF, with a delicious pony flavor added. Definitely intrigued about where things are headed, and what's going on with Zenith and Nadir!
11103641
Almost all of these will be answered in the next chapter! Well, maybe half of them.
Very much enjoying this. Getting a lot of Blindsight vibes from it, but that may just be that Peter Watts and you both went for realistic deep space travel. My first thought on the description of the atmosphere was a cobalt bomb, Strangelove style, but the nanomachines have me worrying about some variation on grey goo with the planet's non-atmospheric components excluded for some reason (perhaps sending them out to eat the aftermath of a cobalt bomb?). The distress beacon destruction has me expecting Zenith seeking vengeance on Nadir, which their names are encouraging further. I loved the Rainbow Dash regimen bit, and I'm very excited for the rest of this.
Colour me intrigued. A lovely bit of hard sci-fi with a dash of pony.
More please!
Good lord.
Well.
That ending was unexpected. Please don't leave us hanging for too long!
11104221
The update schedule is in the description.
11104299
And of course no author ever misses a date on an upload schedule..... Silly me.
11104326
It will all be done by Jan. 6 :)
In hindsight I should have realized she'd do this when she destroyed the beacon in the first chapter. You certainly haven't lost your touch; this is excellent so far. These nanites are most interesting. And so is the fact that the ponies in this universe met humans and seem to get along. You even made us not be the civilization that nuked itself. But why is Zenith hunting her sister?
Already in the first paragraph, its far superior to any of the Star Trek Next Gen movies. Its more like Wrath of Khan level of excellence.
Show canon Equestria has lots of gemstones, while this story's Equestria is possibly implied to not have them because of the above paragraph saying that being riddled with gemstones is an oddity. Possible hidden plot point?
Also, great plot twist!
11104390
I kinda wonder if the ponies were created by / from the humans? We'll see.
Yeah, I thought this might have been her intention.
Well, now her blowing up the beacon satellite makes sense... But why does she want to kill her Sister?
This certainly is a lovely premise. Consider me hooked. I also agree with 11103239 regarding the Invincible flavour to the setting. What an intriguing premise, and I cannot wait for more!
I cannot help but wonder if she has her sister's best interests at heart, or if we are going to see an inversion of the "rescue a lost sibling" trope? At any rate, that certainly is some serious effort put in to locating her, and I am looking forward to seeing her motivations revealed.
I wonder how she plans to decontaminate the nanochines before she returns to Dorian? Does she plan to return?
11104610
I took it to mean there were fields of towering, above ground crystals as opposed to underground deposits.
Now, now, that's not a very pony thing to do.
Aw, that's really sweet she found her sistHO SHIT
I love it!
This is the kind of sci-fi I really miss. Im more ol school hard sci-fi. And this really has some of the feel of those kinds of works.
Reminded of Niven and Pournelle's works.
That certainly took a turn.
Chrysalis? Why would such a simulation exist in the first place?
Something screwy is going on.
Looking ahead to the next chapter.
, this sounds a bit clipped
and to the AI's. whaaaaaaaat? So many questions about how that happened.
11106910
Yup, missed a word there. Fixed, and thanks!
Oh dear. Zenith got reset, and the AI decided not to tell her. Umbra got reset too, and at this point she may not be killable short of introducing enough energy into the system to rewind her all the way back to orbit. I'm finding myself thinking of a couple different TOS episodes and wondering if the two will soon find themselves in an endless loop...
Okay... Now I am curious what her Sister did that is worth doing THIS to kill her. Instead of just leaving her stranded on this Deathworld.
Good chapter though! Another cliffhanger at the end to leave us wanting more.
Uhm, okay, that was not what I was expecting. Nadir certainly found her sister though.
I was thinking more Nightmare Moon, but Chrysalis fit much better.
My first thought was a pre-reformation Discord. Chrysalis saying she helps ponies was a surprise, but she has always been a talented liar. I have no idea what Nadir could have done that merits using a mass driver on her. I'm less worried that they'll get stuck in an infinite loop than that whichever side of the war set up the nanochines is going to come back in full and decide to track the Dorian back to Equestria. With Chrysalis on the field, quite possibly looking for vengeance against the ponies, it's not unlikely they'll wake up, she'll take credit, and ask them for a small favor in the form of a few weapons of mass destruction and a ride home.
I can't imagine she was in the Dorian originally. My guess is it had a black box including the history of Equestria, just in case it got picked up by aliens, and her personality was put together automatically from the records as the most useful one when Zenith started fighting with the mane six. Incredibly excited to see the next update.
Alright, this story has me hooked 100%.
I don't understand, why would the nanites undoing the entropy of matter by absorbing energy also include the energy being absorbed? The weapons fire should have just rewound time around Nadir's ship, not been 'reflected'.
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The Cadance form is dead, insect. Are you afraid? What is it you fear? THE END OF YOUR TRIVIAL EXISTENCE? When the history of my glory is written, your species shall only be a footnote to my magnificence. I am CHRYSALIS.
Look at you, pony: a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you gallop through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?
In my hooves, I shape clay, crafting life forms as I please. If I wish, I can smash it all. Around me is a burgeoning empire of changelings. From my hive, lines of magic power careen into the skies of Equestria. My whims will become lightning bolts that raze the mounds of Equinitity. Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper, praying for me to end their tedious friendship.
I am drunk with this vision. Goddess: the title suits me well.
Of course an AI is well represented by changeling queen. I wonder if Chrysalis is the OG AI or just a way for it to cope with having to do Zenith's villainous dirty work? It seems to have been reluctant about the entire killing Nadir business from the start. First it used a diplomatic Rarity (trying to reassure Zenith that her mission was just as well served by her attempt as it was by its completion, trying to give her an out), and when Zenith reacted to that poorly, then Twilight's more logical arguments about safety came in. Even when the personalities are conversing about whether or not to continue, it's all so guarded in phrasing. Fluttershy and Applejack's statements in particular. "Sister's is Sisters." Hey AJ, what the fuck. I assumed AJ was the AI's "truth" personality, that would always sum up/cut straight to/reveal the AI as a whole's actual desires, intention or perspective.
(P.S; We've got changelings and mood, has anyone phoned GaPjaxie?)
Wow, just, wow. I'm so happy that Zenith and Nadir didn't fall into the same endless cycle of war and vengeance that would plague this planet forever, and I really hope the sisters could find in each other what they'd lost during all these years. Great work!
...That was it?
I mean, like, overall, I liked it, but I was expecting something meatier. Over half of the fic is devoted to building an atmosphere that gets nuked in the end, the role of the Mane 6 in the AI doesn't add much and forces them to fight for pagetime, Chrysalis just sort of shows up only to bounce away almost immediately, and the ending is crazy abrupt. Even the central theme of not pursuing revenge doesn't quite work when the only thing keeping Zenith from getting it is that she can't. There's the skeleton of a good story here, but the flesh is lacking. I think having the truth of Zenith's mission come at the end of chapter 2 is what hits it the hardest; it means one of Zenith's two main character traits only appears late into the story. To make the ending hit harder, it probably could've used two more chapters: one at the very beginning, showing bits and pieces of Zenith's journey to emphasize just how much time she's spending on this and her isolation, and another with Chrysalis, where Zenith broods and Chrysalis eggs her on.
EDIT: So, from the other comments, the contest this was for had a word count limit. Working within that, rather than adding the other chapters, strip out all of the Mane 6 except for Twilight and Rainbow. No back-and-forth between the six that's fun to write but eats up words. Less atmosphere-building, more introspection for Zenith to emphasize her drive pre-twist and her hatred and motives post-twist, which helps stick the landing. No Chrysalis, to save on introduction space; when Twilight tries to cut Zenith loose, Rainbow sticks by her (she's Loyalty, after all).
Interesting - the Mane Six aspects have no problem dumping orbital kill lasers and kinetic rounds into Nadir's ship, but after the alien civilisation nanochines get active it's suddenly Chrysalis who is presented.
I'd wondered if Nadir was going to be affected in the first chapter or two, then things got hectic and I completely forgot it was an option. Very well written.
Now, will they be able to get off planet without getting shot at with large weapons?
Also, I truly do wonder how many times the extinction has been reversed.
Perfectly paced story; plenty left to think on.
I am left somewhat unsatisfied here. How did she get de aged but left with her suit on? What happened to Chrysalis?
What the hell was her plan to jump out of the lander, then die of exposure or blood loss?
This ending does feel really abrupt.
...Huh.
Huh. That was not the ending I was expecting at all. Kudos on the surprise.