Starry Night is a newly minted astronaut of Equestria's century-old space program. Assigned to a routine refueling run as her first mission, she isn't expecting much in the way of excitement. But decades of spaceflight haven't made space itself any less dangerous, and she'll soon find her skills put to the test millions of miles out from Equestria's safe shores.
A novella I've been wanting to write about ponies in space, inspired in part by a large number of space-related media. Cover image not mine.
Proofread by Tiki Bat and some online friends.
Chapters (5)
Let's see how this mission will go. The story is interesting, and I'm waiting for next chapter. Ponies in space are cool.
An adventure is reading about somepony else making life and death decisions ...
I like the opening. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Love the story so far, glade to see a good original pony Scifi story with ponies with a focus on space life. I can't wait to see when the action or thriller part of the story will start to come in, keep it up Also dude if you are ever looking for pony Sci-fi design and vehicles let me know we might have work something out. you can go see my DeviantArt gallery here and my Youtube channel here. Looking forward to see more of yours stuff dude.
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I really like how the settings are described here and framed with these lines. (Starry seeing the Celestial station in orbit for the first time, and the crew walking inside/Starry seeing the statue)
It makes everything easy to visualize, and establishes everything as a new experience for the characters and reader in an organic way.
This was a great story! The setting is vivid, the different ships and stations having their own characters, from the new and up-to-date one with the latest technologies to the older, smaller one that's more botched together, then the old ship that's still in service because nothing that big had been built since really keeps things fresh and interesting (also SPACE). The dialogue really helps elucidate it further, seeing ponies' reactions and the attitudes of more experienced ponies who are familiar with the routine versus newer ponies gawking at the world below for the first time and being excited for their first mission.
The last chapter had me wincing, and the ending was satisfying.
Songs are always a treat and these were no different. They helped with the atmosphere and sense of time, and the one at the end tied it off very nicely (as well as songs just being awesome).
Overall a pukka story, and I'm looking forward to anything you might write in the future.
(Also, thanks for leaving me both desperate to go to and utterly terrified of space)
“Equestria spun on its axis just fast enough that the sun and moon appeared locked in the sky, requiring Celestia and Luna to adjust them accordingly twice a day. ”
… wait, what? If Equestria is tidally locked to the sun/moon, then those bodies would *never* move in the skies. Apart from the magic sunrise/sunset, they’d just sit in the same place all the time. Always noon time, no sun moving across the sky during the day or the moon moving across the sky at night.
> Princess Luna had passed a degree
decree
> the largest spaceships ponies had built, including the Draoconequus.
spelling of ship…
> gently pulling in the shop to the nearest docking bay.
… ship ….
This story is great but you need an editor.
Some real action! Space is still a dangerous place.
The characters here really sell the story. I’ll be looking forward to more of this. There’s a few bits of spacey stuff I find odd - no one checked to see if the orbits of a manned station and a deorbiting satellite would overlap in an abortive burn? But still, good stuff.
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I had up to 3 people proofreading this one, so it looks like I need to yell at some folks. Otherwise I've fixed what you pointed out, if you see any more let me know. Regarding the sun/moon cycle, yes they would sit in the same place, which is kind of the point as anything else would probably render Celestia and Luna unnecessary. I addressed this in a follow up blog post, and basically trying to apply real world orbital mechanics to magical horse world means something's gotta give. I picked what I figured would be the least worst option. As for the satellite, well, I couldn't think of anything better and there wouldn't be a story without it :x
Thanks for the comments! Glad you enjoyed
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My interpretation of the celestial mechanics (pun intended) of Equestria was that Celestia and Luna caused a force on the sun/moon each day, accelerating them enough to follow a regular orbital trajectory - for one day. They have to renew the orbital path each day with another application of force, moving the sun/moon a certain distance in the process.
This is actually physically consistent *if* the sun and moon are subject to some negative acceleration normally. Something like an extremely dense interstellar medium would be possible.
Regarding the collision: An easy explanation is un-tracked space debris. This is already a problem in our Earth’s orbit, where we can’t track every piece of junk, and even a fist-sized object can wreck a whole station. I imagine Thraxis has a number of pieces of missing junk from unmanned probes and from station construction material!
Other thing that occurred to me: I hope Starry’s prosthesis is magic and gives her vision back - because with one eye she will have very limited depth perception, and that is usually a hard disqualification for anyone working in high-risk jobs. Definitely for astronauts.
If you want a proofreader for future chapters, feel free to hit me up.