The good of the many

by Dafaddah

Chapter 7: A brane in time

Princess Celestia stood next to a well laden banquet table in her apartments at Canterlot Castle as her sister and Sunset Hoofing entered. Hoofing bowed to her sovereign.

"My two other guests should be here momentarily," she advised them. "Please make yourselves comfortable." With a dainty hoof she indicated some big fluffy cushions arranged in a circle before huge arching windows that let in the sunlight. Before the two mares even had time to cross the spacious room a chime rang out. "That must be them now!"

The ornate doors to her quarters opened. In strode a lavender colored unicorn mare accompanied by a small pink and green dragon. Both bowed deeply to the Princesses. When they rose Celestia rushed to them and in a fashion more maternal than regal wrapped the young mare and dragon in an equine hug.

"Twilight Sparkle, my star pupil, I am so glad to see you and my dearest Spike! Equestria again has need of your special talents, but this time it is upon your intelligence and quick thinking that may depend the fate of not one but two universes."

Twilight's was indeed very happy to see her mentor Princess Celestia, but her eyes grew wide at the Princess’ words. She waved a greeting to Minister Hoofing, one of her favorite teachers at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.

"Everypony required is now present for our meeting," the elder Princess waved a hoof towards the laden table, "but first let us share a meal so we have all our wits about us for our deliberations."

The words were barely out of Celestia’s mouth when a pink and green streak exploded from the entrance straight as an arrow to the food piled high on the table, immediately followed by various chomps, crunches, gulps and smacking sounds. Twilight was only slightly embarrassed. "Spike was really getting hungry on the way here," she explained.

"Yesh, Princhess Cheleshtia alwaysh hash the besht eatsh!" remarked the tiny dragon in between bites.

Chuckling, the four mares made their way over to the table, prepared themselves a plate, then sat around the table eating and chatting amiably. When everypony had had their fill they moved over to the ring of cushions by the windows, with Spike arriving last, so stuffed he could only waddle slowly.

Celestia called the meeting to order. "My little ponies, and Spike, I have called you here today because Equestria faces a mortal peril, one that we have encountered and survived at least twice in my memory."

"Twice?" said Luna with a look of surprise.

"Yes, sister. The first time it created the conditions that led to reign of Discord. The second happened over six hundred years ago, while you were in the moon." She glanced around the circle of faces. "That time I was able to save Equestria, but the effort almost cost me my life." Everpony looked shocked upon hearing this news, Luna leaning over to hug her sister, looked close to tears. "Don't fret, little sister. The event is what led to my decision to remake Equestria such that it could potentially survive even the loss of both of us."

"This, and not the prophesied return of Nightmare Moon is why I first developed a plan to transfer the power of the elements of harmony from we sisters to normal ponies of Equestria. It took hundreds of years to discover how to find the right candidates to carry the elements and then to gather all of them together at the right time."

Twilight looked up in confusion. "Do this mean that my whole life has been planned by you, including my time in Ponyville?"

"In part, my faithful student. But a bigger part was the selection by the element of magic itself in finding the best pony in Equestria to become its host. And an even bigger part was entirely due to you alone, Twilight, for only you could create the bond of friendship between all the elements of harmony that is the very core of their power. I could only set up the conditions for it to happen. Turning it into reality was up to six wonderful little ponies".

She looked with affection upon the relief evident in Twilight's face. With a twinkle in her eye she added "I must confess, before I sent you to Ponyville, I wasn't entirely sure you had it in you to come out of your shell in time to blossom into the pony that could bring all the elements together in friendship. Sending you to Ponyville was a bit of a last ditch effort!". More tenderly she added: "And I must admit I was loath to lose your company which has brought me more joy in these last few years than I can express."

Spike was becoming somewhat embarrassed with all the mushiness and decided to break in. "Oh, brother! I could have told you Twi could make tons of friends if she wanted to. But, what is this threat anyway? Is it a super duper über Dragon, or a Mega Ursa Major, or maybe an Ursa General or Admiral or something like that?"

The ponies all chuckled at Spike's attempt to come up with even bigger threats than those with which he was familiar. Princess Celestia smiled at the baby Dragon, but then assuming a more serious demeanor she raised her head and looked each of the Ponies in the eyes to convey how serious was what she was about to say.

"In order to make you understand the nature of this threat, Luna and I have agreed that it will be necessary to tell you some things about the origin of this universe that we would like to keep out of common knowledge, until the time is right to reveal it to all Equestrians. I do not wish to repeat past mistakes I have made that caused much pain and sorrow to my dear subjects. Do I have your solemn words that you will not repeat this to anypony else?"

The two unicorn mares and Spike indicated their assent.

"There are many universes in the cosmos, and this universe containing Equestria is but one of them. In fact, it is a comparatively small one, as such things are measured. Some of these universes have occurred naturally, and some were made by great cosmic artificers. Our universe is one such, and Luna and I are the descendants of these universe builders.

"However, when a universe is created, usually the artificers do not bother to design all of its elements to the smallest detail. That would require a lot of extra time, energy and testing. As there are literally an infinity of existing models that work perfectly from which to choose, much of the content of made universes is simply copied.

"Again, that is the case for our universe, which is mostly a copy of another with a few modifications. One such change is that in our universe, the planet we live on is actually a huge sphere bigger even than most naturally occurring stars and located at the center of its solar system. The land of Equestria is but a tiny portion of its surface, most of which is unfinished and uninhabited. The life and surface conditons of Equestria have been copied from a template planet called Earth.

"Also unlike with naturally evolved worlds, Equestria’s sun and moon are artificial constructs, which my sister and I control and move in order to regulate the day and the night so that life in Equestria can prosper. Somepony standing on the surface of the planet Earth would have great difficulty telling the difference by looking at the sky - the sun, moon and stars would appear very much as they do here in Equestria, even down to the constellations and celestial phenomena.

"One more difference. Unlike in Equestria, the dominant form of intelligent life is not ponies, but humans, a bipedal descendant of the simian line."

Spike grew quite excited at this. Finally he had an idea of a threat that he could visualize! "Oh, you mean they’re like some kind of giant super monkey, with big ears, and a flat face and grabby hands and an appetite for pony flesh?" He mimed grabbing at Twilight with his paws while laughing in a sinister fashion. "BWA, BWA HA HA HA, BWA HA HA..."

Twilight had another thought entirely and spoke up. "Would these humans be kinda hairless, except for the tops of their heads, and eyebrows and such?"

"Yes, Twilight. I can see you have some prior knowledge of them," said Celestia.

"Ee-ewe..." said Spike. "Neither fur nor feathers nor scales? Don't they get cold?"

"And is that why they wear so much clothing?" asked Twilight.

Celestia seemed amused by the questions. "Those are excellent deductions, both of you. Twilight dearest, how have you come to know about how humans look?"

"I guess I kinda saw one in a dream. But I had no idea what it was until you described them as being descended from apes. It even explains the lack of a tail. Oh, and the strangest thing was that I was a human in this dream and I saw my human self in the mirror. It gave me quite a shock!"

Celestia grew serious again. "This is unfortunately one of the symptoms of the threat to our universe. You see, all universes are part of the multiverse, with some universes in greater or lesser proximity to others in space-time. But when a universe is copied, it sometimes is very close indeed to the template universe, so close in fact that resonances can occur and information leak from one universe to the other, and the reverse as well.

“In intelligent beings, this leakage can take several forms. Sometimes they see ghostly images of the other universe and its occupants. Most ponies will simply ignore these as visual illusions or mirages. But when somepony is very tired or even asleep, they are much more likely to open their perceptions fully and truly sense impressions from the other universe. On rare occasions, there may be very similar minds on both sides, kindered souls so to speak, who can engage in an actual exchange of full perceptual experiences. In essence they walk in the other universe for a time, wearing each other's body. Is that how it felt for you, my most faithful student?"

"Yes, that's exactly how it felt." Twilight nodded vigorously. "I was walking upright, and didn't even notice that I had arms and hands, not forelegs and hooves, until I fell down and saw my body in front of me. I had that dream just last night."

The baby dragon slapped his head. "That explains why you made those noises and woke up in that funny position."

At a glance from Celestia, Luna now took her turn to speak. "There is unfortunately more to this resonance phenomenon. Sometimes universes come so close that they actually touch." She took a breath. "When this happens, there is a huge release of energy. Sometimes it is enough to destroy a whole world, sometimes a whole galaxy, and sometimes, even a whole universe, or more accurately two whole universes."

"Are our universes getting that close?" asked Twilight.

"The closer the two universes become, the more frequent become these resonances.
I fear to report that on my way here today before lunch I encountered a mare, Glowball is her name, who was in just such a 'perceptual exchange'. Equestria is most definitely in a dangerous situation.

"The important thing is that since we are aware of it, we can both monitor the situation and seek the focal point of where the universes might touch."

"What good will it do to know the focal point, if the whole galaxy explodes? It’s not as if we could run away." offered a glum Twilight.

"No, but we could exert ourselves to change the factors leading to resonances, in essence pushing away the other universe before they can touch. This requires a huge amount of energy, but if we can get close enough to the focus then we can apply a form of leverage and Celestia and I should be able to manage it.

"For this reason I have placed a tail on this Glowball mare, and have instructed the Ministry guards to allow her to go about her business. It would seem that Glowball is exchanging experiences with an entity brave enough not to panic, and bright enough to seek information of our universe. I just hope Glowball is doing as much in the human universe, and I want to ensure she has as much time as possible to do so. The information she gathers may be crucial to figuring out how to avoid the worst."

Minister Hoofing spoke up for the first time. "I also wish to relate that as of this morning, there have been multiple occurrences of unexplained phenomena in the labs of the Ministry of Science, with all disciplines including magic being affected heavily, and that this trend seems to be increasing with time."

"But what can I do about all this?" asked Twilight.

"I want you to sleep, my little pony" said Celestia with a grin. "You have demonstrated quite handily to everypony in Equestria that you deeply understand the power of friendship. I expect the human you are resonating with will have a soul much like yours: curious, intelligent and able to love others, even those you do not know personally. You are also one of the most intelligent and well educated ponies in this land. I ask you to sleep, and in your sleep find a way to communicate with this human. Together with her find a way to marshall the efforts of Equestria and Earth to help prevent this disaster."

"Oh, so you want me to organize and create teamwork between two universes?" asked Twilight with a happy gleam in her eye, seeing before her a job about which she could really get enthused.

"Yes!" said the two Royal Princesses and Minister Hoofing in unison.

"And I am the only one Twilight trusts to guard her sleep," said Spike, adopting a heroic pose.

Everypony had a good laugh at this. Celestia decided to conclude the meeting.

"In order to make this as easy as possible, I have had your old room at the Castle freshened up and your baggage delivered and installed. I have also commanded that all staff keep the area around your room totally quiet so as to not disturb your sleep. Luna, Minister Hoofing and I now have a report to receive on the activities at the Ministry of Science, so off to your room Spike and Twilight, and good luck in your mission!"

The lavender Unicorn and baby dragon exited just as a guard arrived, no doubt the one with the report from the Ministry of Science. The two left Celestia's apartment determined to save Equestria, and the human universe too!

Comments

[Corona Blaze]

neeeeed moooooaaarrrrrrrrr

[Mythee]

Something worries me. Do Luna and Celestia have humanworld counterparts that could suddenly find themselves wielding tremendous power if resonance occurred? @A@

[Dafaddah]

211411
I have thought about this also. the big difficulty is their status as immortals would be difficult to match on earth. Also remember that the Princesses are descended from the "Equestrian universe's fabricators" and they did not say that they (the princesses) are descended from or even patterned on entities from the human world.

D the bearded

[Dafaddah]

211411
I have thought about this also. the big difficulty is their status as immortals would be difficult to match on earth. Also remember that the Princesses are descended from the "Equestrian universe's fabricators" and they did not say that they (the princesses) are descended from or even patterned on entities from the human world.

D the bearded
211312

[Dafaddah]

211312
Already almost 2000 words done on chapter 8 - I should be posting it Sunday Feb 12th. And by the way, Thanks for reading!

Dafaddah

[ConsciousHaze196]

If that universe is smaller, does it make it somehow weaker as a whole in case of collision (but perhaps will produce similar local effect because of equal local forces), or is it so much stronger as how it's smaller?.. (not a question)

[BenRG]

I'm wondering who built the ponies' mini-verse? Is it the being who was known as 'Queen Majesty' who died many millennia ago?

1412139
If the Pony Mini-verse is a Ptolomaen Universe, then it is much smaller than our solar system. It would literally be just Equestria, its sun, moon and planets (which are all relatively tiny) in tight, regular and circular orbits and, beyond that, a solid shell into which the stars are embedded - the boundary of the universe itself.