The crew of the Destiny find themselves out of stasis in the new galaxy. It's not what the expect.
May 9th 2014, Three years ago we entered stasis expecting sanctuary in this new galaxy; Three years ago we came close to defeat at the hand of an unparalleled drone army. Three years later we now hope to whatever deity or belief that for once, we can actually go one day without fear of our lives.
-A quote from Col. Everett Young as recorded by Eli Wallace.
Made for people unfamiliar to the Stargate franchise in mind. Currently on hiatus until I can come up with a good ending.
We are going to survive. We are going to make it home.
-A quote from Col. Everett Young as recorded by Eli Wallace.
3... 2... 1...
Systems around Destiny hummed into life, subroutine by subroutine initialised, and with a chorus of complaints from the engines, Destiny dropped out of FTL. The first time in three years.
On it's sensors Destiny detected the warm, life giving glow of a red dwarf on the outskirts of the galaxy. Having dropped out of FTL five astronomical units away, the ancient starship needed only to wait another hour before it could return to full operational capacity. And continue it's millennia old mission.
Meanwhile in the ship's heart 70 humanoid life forms that had served as her crew stirred to life, each individual stasis pod retracting and releasing an occupant.
-&-
Dr. Nicholas Rush groaned as he called to action his weary and torn body in the prospect of seeing the results of his desperate plan.
Beside him Young roused from his faux slumber turning to him with an expression, that read "Rush, did it work, or are we dead?". The -former- leader of Project Icarus' science team ignored the technically impaired colonel, deciding to instead, see if his protégé survived.
-&-
Lights flickered to life, giving colour to a grand ring of naquadah, 9 chevrons adorned the ring at regular intervals, inter-spaced with four arches containing each a unique glyph totalling at 36. One hastily constructed subroutine, out of the thousands of subroutines responsible for the ship to spin the object it referred to as an "Astria Porta", but more commonly as of late it had garnered a new name, the Stargate.
First spinning clockwise the stargate revealed a top most glyph with a hum of energy the glyph glowed in a brilliant white, contrasting with the bronze and blacks adorning the ring. Again the stargate rotated counter-clockwise until a new glyph glowed to life. Of seven glyphs needed to open a link, 2 had been summoned. With 5 more spins each rotating opposite to the previous, the stargate finished and stood stock still. Energy piled in, thousands of kilojoules flowed through the superconductive naquadah penting up, bursting forth in a flush of light, to then retract and form a shimmering blue pool of energy. The horizon to an artificial yet stable wormhole.
Out of the blue shimmer a shirt proudly presenting the fact, you are here, appeared along with the human named Eli Wallace. Or math boy, as his deeds would have it.
Shaking off the horrible feeling of being disintegrated, stored in a buffer only to then be reintegrated, Eli was positively beaming at his attempt to defy death, and to a smaller extent, physics.
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25,000 Light years away Twilight Sparkle lay staring at the vast night sky, musing the thought of counting each and every star, how many years would that take, hundreds, maybe thousands? Then she shook her head at how long Princess Luna must have spent creating them, all unique all unimaginably distant.
A soft smile touched her lips as she saw her pegasus pony friend soar through the air clearing more of the sky with every pass. Like usual the fastest flier in all of Equestria took no longer than a few seconds to finish her nightly routine of clearing the sky.
Twilight yawned, content with this night's stargazing she stood up and trotted off the library's balcony and into her bedroom, snuffing out the candle with a thought before curling up on her bed. Groaning, she remembered her book on astronomy that had been left behind in her quest for a good night's rest.
With a small exercise of will the book was wrapped in a purple aura, and without further ado, promptly levitated over to Twilight's bed stand - Spike would put it away, after all he was her no.1 assistant.
That night rest was the last thing Twilight received. Visions of a dark, metal, behemoth drifting through space, shards of an intelligence many thousands of years wise, but most of all twilight saw a ring of darkness surrounding a standing pool of water shining through the night, the stars so similar yet odd at the same time looking down on the scene. She woke in cold sweat.
"Twilight..., wake up sleepy head, Spike told me to make sure you woke up on time for the royal visit!" An insufferable ball of smiling pink joy filled Twilight's vision prompting her to moan in mock agony.
"Five more minutes, please, just 5 more." Twilight begged her tormentor. "Nope, nope and nope, silly!" Beamed the earth pony named Pinkamena Diane Pie, or just Pinkie Pie.
Rising groggily from her bed Twilight observed that despite Pinkie Pie's ability to wake her for Spike, she didn't seem to fully understand the concept of being on time. The shock of discovering she had only two hours instead of the five she planned to use in preparation for the Royal visit was more than enough to wake her.
Twilight sprung out of bed nearly toppling Pinkie if it weren't for the fact Pinkamina had an odd tendency to teleport the second you looked away. Looking around Twilight's horn glowed furiously as books and papers began flying around.
Pinkie smiling the entire time a normal pony would be scared for their lives.
"Where -are- the plans!?" Twilight cried in fearful frustration. "You mean this?" Pinkie held a clipboard displaying a list of bullet points and tick boxes. "Oh." Twilight stared sheepishly at the piece of paper in the filly's mouth.
"Thanks, Pinkie" Twilight said trying to not look completely stupid "Anyway you should probably go and set up the festivities, that'll be one thing off this list." "Okie, Dokie, Loki!" chirped Pinkie as she bounded out of the lobby.
Encompassing the door with a soft purple aura Twilight exited the library to find herself in a Ponyville filled with joyful anticipation of the upcoming regal visit. Earth ponies trotted here and there with saddles containing assorted decorations, whilst pegasus ponies flew about hanging up banners and taming the weather to perfection. Unicorns trotted around crafting exquisite decorations and for some, selling exquisite articles clothing.
"Why hello darling, you look simply dreadful here, let me fix your mane" Twilight smiled empathetically, Rarity could be surprisingly obsessive sometimes, but Twilight had learned to see the generosity in Rarity's acts. After all, who better to prepare you for a royal visit than the best fashion pony in Equestria?
"Thanks, Rarity I'm just so nervous" "Don't be Darling, no one knows the Princesses better than you." she hummed as a levitating brush fixed Twilight's unruly mane. Twilight knew she was right, but it didn't lessen her anxiety.
Trotting off with slightly more confidence Twilight Sparkle set off down the main street in search of anything to tick on her list. Slowly, as boredom set in, her thoughts returned to the nightmare. What did it mean? Often times the dreams of a unicorn could hold glimpses of the past, present and future. Every dream was of value.
Yet it had been so strange, she stopped dead in her tracks. The stars, would they be the key to locating that ring? No, she was being silly, she had read that pony psychiatrists believed the mind does not produce accurate depictions of the night sky in dreams, regardless of the pony in questions' knowledge of astronomy.
Anyways, Twilight concluded, there's no point dwelling on dreams moments before a royal visit! Speeding up to make for lost time, Twilight Sparkle trotted down the road undeterred yet still puzzled.
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Writer's note, This is my first ever published fan fiction, or for that matter story and thus I would really appreciate constructive criticism, also I'm sorry for the abundance of English slang. I really don't know a lot of the American or Canadian alternatives. Anyways I hope you enjoyed this fic more will come :D
Update, Major spelling improvements via Microsoft Word. MASSIVE changes to wording, this is strictly no shipping! Special Thanks to Soronos for reminding me to slow down and proof read!
It was never about going home. It's about getting us to where we're going. That... is... the mission.
-A quote from Dr. Nicholas Rush as recorded by Eli Wallace.
"Tamara, go and see if everyone's okay. As for me I'm going to babysit Rush, there's no telling what he might end up doing." Lt. Tamara Johansen nodded grimly and left for the other pods. With a sigh the old Colonel set off after Rush.
"Rush, we had an agreement!"
"Fine. You want to know what I know? Nothing. Bloody nothing. For all we know, it could have been millennia since we entered stasis, for all we know, life support might have failed and we are breathing the last wisps of oxygen on the entire ship!"
"Okay Rush, give me positives. What DO we know?"
"There is air, but I take it you know that. And there may well be scraps of energy left."
-&-
Eli rounded a corner sighting the unmistakable button, he leaned on it forcing the nearby door to unlock then open. Before him stood Destiny's Observation Deck, the room was spheroid in shape although flattened with a sweeping glass window displaying the ship's fore and the space above it.
"Wow.“ Eli exhaled taking in the vast galaxy before him only to notice Destiny's trajectory. A star! They were flying into a star!
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Trillions of watts pulsed through power conduits performing a routine as old as the ship, strings of energy coalesced into a weave of light, enclosing the ship with an amber aura. Moving at speeds almost unthinkable Destiny drew close to the ageing star. Crimson and orange light intermingled flooding through each and every window as the ship plunged closer and closer to the star.
Ripples of plasma boiled on the star’s surface as jets of energy poured out only to return to the star's electromagnetic allure. Destiny for all it's grandess was dwarfed by even the smallest of events, but the challenger pushed forward closer and closer to the rippling mass.
The shields shone with untold stress at the sheer pressure of resisting 27.14g of gravitational force whilst buffering 6,740 Fahrenheit of sheer heat, all the while blocking 375,000 trillion trillion lumens of photons barraging each and every side of the ship.
Yet the challenger pushed forwards, fighting its way to the core. Elsewhere on the ship solar collectors the size of small apartment buildings lowered themselves closer to the sea of plasma. An unmistakeable buzz of life surged through the ship light after light flickered on, system after system clicked into full gear. All the while Eli stood beaming at a show well done.
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"Where's Eli?" Chloe asked, a hint of desperation evident in her tone.
"Here!" Eli grinned, maybe everything was going to work out alright. Chloe rushed to hug the bemused Eli who gently patted her on the back in a failed attempt to return the gesture.
"So, Eli, tell us. How did you survive without fixing your pod?" a stunned Rush asked.
"Well, that’s kinda a long story."
"Well I want to hear it." The colonel was not taking no for an answer.
-&-
Three years ago Destiny had to escape an army of robotic drones lest she be destroyed along with her crew, to save the ship Rush and Eli calculated a solution in which they would use their intergalactic Faster than Light engines, in favour of the extragalactic but power thirsty alternative, to navigate through and beyond this far-flung galaxy and into the next. However due to the extremely limited energy supplies aboard, the crew would be required to exist in stasis, conserving power necessary to finish the journey, a three year long journey.
There was one catch to this brilliant plan. The ship hosted 71 crew members and only 70 functioning cryostasis pods. Someone had to stay behind. After a heated debate Eli elected to stay behind, in hopes that with all his knowledge he could find a solution before his week of life support ended.
Only on the last day of his week Eli came up with an idea. Earlier in a desperate attempt to fix his pod, he used a device known as the ancient communication stones. The device was capable of communication at any distance in real time however for it to work a user must be on both sides of the "line" and must swap consciousness with the other. Calling in Cmdr. Samantha Carter, Eli had her look over the stasis pods in hope that Earth's foremost leader in alien technology would have a solution. She didn't.
However as he slept that very night, a vision came to him. Teal'c of the free jaffa nation, a human turned slave by the egotistic Goa'uld race and freed by the peoples of Earth, entered a stargate but before he could exit, it shut off. Samantha had worked day and night to free him from his prison inside the buffer of a stargate. That was the key Eli thought, if he could store himself inside the stargate's buffer he would use no energy from the ship and would stay perfectly frozen in time!
You see, wormholes can only transmit energy, not matter. So the ancients overcame the problem by converting matter into energy, sending it through the wormhole, and then converting that energy back to matter. As a safety feature, all of an object had to be de-materialised before it was sent, so in every stargate there is a buffer that can store the de-materialised form of any creature for any period of time. A perfect solution!
-&-
"Fascinating as your story is Eli, we both know that anything could have happened in our absence and that, that stunt you pulled may very well have cost us those last volts of power needed to remain in FTL!"
Eli cringed at Rush’s scalding words, but only a little, after all it was Rush.
Rush turned and left the room with Eli quickly following, after a short walk they arrived at the bridge, a large square room with a circular depression where an array of consoles and chairs ordered at the front with a raised captain's chair centre-stage.
Quickly planting himself on the captains chair Rush leaned to the side and tapped a few commands in. Eli, knowing the routine sat in the console responsible for system diagnostics.
"Okay, year is 2014, so at least it hasn't been that long, uhh ship looks okay but I'm no expert. Annnndddd no drones in sight!"
"Good. At least that worked out." Rush had relief painted all over his face, it was almost humorous.
-&-
"Listen up everyone, the colonel's got something to say." Master Sergeant Ronald Greer announced, Greer always looked up to Young, in his opinion, he was the type of leader this world needed.
A flying orb Greer knew to be a kino flew by him and settled above the crowd to film Young's speech. With an intake of breath he began.
"May 9th 2014, Three years ago we entered stasis expecting sanctuary in this new galaxy; Three years ago we came close to defeat at the hand of an unparalleled drone army. Three years later we now hope to whatever deity or belief that for once, we can actually go one day without fear of our lives. I have had the pleasure of knowing each and every one of you as not only crew, but friends. This new galaxy, Rush tells me, is very similar to our own milky way, it seems so far that the drones have not followed us across this void, but if they do, we will be ready for them. This is our ground, we have the advantage and I suspect everyone agrees we will use it on those bastards. Until then I suggest everyone go see Lt. Johansen for medical checkups."
With some sparse clapping and a few murmurs of agreement the crowd dissolved. Young prayed silently that he was right.
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Writer's note, Sorry for the lack of ponies, but this part had to be done :D I promise much pony when Destiny next jumps into FTL! And please don't forget to add your 2 cents of constructive criticism, I'm not a professional, but this will help me in preparation for my GCSEs.
Everyone thinks we're safe. They think that they'll never find us again. We're not safe, are we?
-A quote from Chloe Armstrong as recorded by Eli Wallace.
Luna smirked, she could feel their presence in her night sky, how long had it been since a descendant of the Alteran line had been here? Thousands, no, it had been so many millions of years. Luna's heart panged in sympathy, she would've helped them, she wanted oh so desperately to. but sadly she could not help them, nor their descendants.
Sighing she gave a knowing glance to her sister. Celestia, not one to look on the bad side, returned the glance with one that read "You know I have the solution. Just ask.". Shaking her head Luna tried her best to look good for the visit, ponies made such a big deal of their visits. On one hoof, they looked up to her and her sister, after all they were living goddesses. But in the end, how powerful really is a goddess? Does her ability to bend space and time prove her right, even the earth pony Pinkie Pie could do that. But no one realised. They looked only as far as their hoof could stretch.
Trumpets blared to signal their arrival as if being on a flying chariot was not enough. With a landing smoothed after many years of rehearsal their chariot became land bound once more. With a nudge from celestia Luna picked herself up and faced the crowd of cheering ponies.
The day played out like normal, interviews and unrestrained glee brightened her mood, if Celestia couldn't cheer her up, her beloved subjects would.
-&-
As the sun kissed the horizon, Luna's horn glowed for a second of concentration as the moon began to show itself, darkening the sky to reveal the stars.
"You know I can never stop enjoying the beauty of your night sky, even if I hold no domain over it."
"Says the one who banished me for a thousand years" Luna jested.
"As much as I love the night sky, you know as well as I do that life needs this balance we maintain. The sun warms the air and gives light for ponies to see, the moon gives cool respite and helps ponies sleep." Celestia as level headed as ever replied.
"Anyways, I think your little plan had to do with your student, and the Elements of Harmony."
"It's hard to keep a secret from you Luna, and yes, it does. Although we cannot interfere with the humans directly, we can help them indirectly."
"Thanks sis." Luna's eyes swelled with relief.
-&-
Twilight Sparkle had eagerly waited for the crowd to thin before she could get a chance to talk to her mentor about more important things like magic.
Now that they were alone she could talk about the complexities of magic in peace. "Princess Celestia!"
"My faithful Student Twilight Sparkle, I'm guessing you wanted to talk?" Celestia smiled at Twilight, she was one of the few ponies Celestia could rely upon.
"I wanted to talk about the Barovachi calculations, is it true that there could be space beyond our own? That would definitely explain teleportation's ability to exceed the speed of magic."
"Now that would be telling, however I do believe you have already experienced a clue." Twilight's brow furrowed in thought about that point.
"Could it be my nightmare?" "I wouldn't know unless you told me." "Oh, right."
Twilight started explaining last night in as much detail as possible, even depicting part of her morning electing a giggle from Celestia.
"Princess Luna, you've been very quiet, are you okay?" Luna was acting strange.
"Everything's fine, Twilight, anyways since we have all night let's explore this Ring of darkness you found."
With a surprising determination Princess Luna started off in what appeared to be a random direction.
"Uhh, no offence Princess Luna, but why are you going ahead, we haven't even calculated the position."
"Oh, " Luna mumbled sheepishly. Derp.
"Luna, dear sister, no one knows the stars better than you, why don't you lead the way." Silently thanking Celestia Luna set off again. Why must she be constrained by these boundaries? Why must she pretend?
-&-
The stargate had stood inactive for millennia patiently absorbing data and energy for a routine mission, and then it would be forgotten like the rest of it's model. If the stargate had an intelligence it would've been sad. However it did not, it reminded itself. No if it didn't have intelligence how could it remind itself, it thought. Hastily attempting to escape a logic collapse the stargate once again pretended not to be somewhat alive.
Confound these ponies. It thought. They drive me to conception.
-&-
Not 1000 hoofs away Rainbow Dash attempted to follow Twilight, whatever they were doing it would be so awesome.
Giving the signal Rainbow Motioned for Fluttershy to tell the others something was up. The element of Loyalty was not about to let her friend get herself into a mess.
Fluttershy squeaking at the sudden call to action quietly attempted to fly away not realising their antics were very humorous to the living deities.
"Pst. uhh. The cat... has left... the bag? Oh poor thing I hope it's alright." "Oh, silly, it's an expression, Twilight's not a cat." "Oh, um ok." "Ah don't know 'bout y'all but I'm mighty interested in what Twilight's got up to." "You wouldn't suppose we need to get any formal attire, besides, does my mane look good?" "Sugar cube, it looks fine, now quit your dallying and get to it, we got a Twilight to spy on."
-&-
After meeting up with Rainbow Dash the group continued to follow Twilight and the Princesses.
Fluttershy gave a whimper "What... what is that." "Ooh, pretty I wonder if It likes parties!" "Pinkie, does that look like a pony?" Dash nearly facehoofed. "No but..." "*Sigh* anyways if we can be quiet, we might hear them talking." On that note the group continued quitely observing the other smaller party.
An audible gasp from Twilight could be heard when the thing appeared in her line of sight. "What. Is it?"
"That I cannot tell you, Twilight Sparkle however, maybe the magic of friendship might." Twilight dwelt on that before coming up with nothing.
"Hmm..."Running her horn around the object twilight felt almost no magic. Celestia laughed "I guess it does like parties!" to no one in particular.
"Told'ya!" "Shh" Rainbow unwilling to admit defeat.
"Celestia, I don't get it, it's nothing but a big, stone ring." "Why don't you try to talk to it, connect with it." "Uhh. Hello?" grunting Twilight tried a different approach, using a telekinetic wave of energy she hoped that something might respond. It did.
With a screech the device activated, chevrons lighting up, before spinning on it's ramp. With the 7th glyph glowing the stargate settled, but before Twilight was de-materialised by the outburst of energy a mighty. "Twilight, I'ma coming!" shook her out of the stupor. Violently rolling down the ramp from the force of a full grown farm pony flying at you, Twilight was safely illuminated by the pool of light.
"How, how did you know?" "When sumthin nasty is about to happen, there's got ta be a pause before." "Wait, roll back, Why are you here? Have you been following me?" Twilight complained in mock anger "We couldn't leave you behind, why else?" "Thanks guys." "Hey. No problem. You just owe me one." Rainbow dash declared proudly despite having done nothing the whole time.
"Anyways, I have a mission for you Twilight sparkle, and the Elements of Harmony. Find out what this is, and find out what it leads to."
This time it was Luna's turn to glare at her sister "Lead to..? It's just a puddle." "Just a guess"
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Writer's note, Writing the pony parts are far more enjoyable, I hope I kept the humour and light-heartedness of MLP:FiM while writing this. Also once again I beg for constructive criticism.