• Member Since 5th Jun, 2015
  • offline last seen 10 hours ago

Shrink Laureate


“Trixie hates to interrupt a good monologue,” said Trixie, interrupting a good monologue, “but maybe we should continue it somewhere not on fire?”

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Oct
18th
2017

Preview · 6:15pm Oct 18th, 2017

Sneak peek at the beginning of Voyage of the E.Q.S. Ember.


Facet fidgeted.

“Stop that,” said the unicorn. “You don't want your space suit coming open, not this high.”

“Yes, Sir,” said Facet quietly. Deprived of the distraction, he had little to do but look out over the edge of the platform. The lower part of the sky at least looked blue as it should. If he looked out horizontally, it was nearly black.

Facet had never thought of himself as being afraid of heights. He could fly, after all. It would have a severe detriment to his role in the Changeling Republic Space Agency. He wondered, Is there a name for only being afraid of very great heights. Common sense?

“I don't suppose you know—”

“No,” replied the unicorn, his patience thin. It looked like a chat log was streaming past the inside of his helmet, but the spells on it prevented Facet from reading any of it. It would give him a headache if he tried too hard. So he had nothing to look at but the landscape of Equestria below them. Which made him feel a little sick.

Is that Las Pegasus down there? It looks so tiny. All soft clouds. Well. Soft is a relative thing. It would still seen pretty hard if I hit it at a speed of…

Ugh. Don't think about it.

I don't think I'd mind as much if there was at least something underneath us. Apart from a hundred miles of empty air.

“Um. How high are we?”

He turned to see the unicorn pointing a hoof at the writing that ran around the banister of the circular platform, reading, ‘Smokey Mountains Relay 27.4 miles.’

Oh. Only twenty seven miles. That's okay then.

“Okay, look lively,” said the stallion, standing up. “They've cleared the blockage so you're good to go. Stand in the centre, please.”

Oh good, even higher. The stallion lit his horn, preparing the next teleport spell. I'm still not particularly happy being —

And with a flash, he vanished.

Comments ( 8 )

Beam me up, Chryssie!

Instead of rockets and all, they go into orbit by being teleported from one relay to another, until they're in space? Neat idea!

Glad to see another entry into this universe. :twilightsmile: Although that leaves me to wonder what happened to the Mutiny on the H.M.S. Star Swirl. :rainbowhuh:
Out of curiosity, what do H.M.S., U.N.S, and E.Q.S. stand for?

The physics of pony teleportation are entirely headcanon territory. I've seen someone write ponies teleporting up to the ISS in a single bound, and I've seen hard-ish SF where alicorns have to teleport in stages to keep from being torn apart by the difference in relative angular velocity as they move southerly away from the poles.

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Glad to see another entry into this universe. :twilightsmile: Although that leaves me to wonder what happened to the Mutiny on the H.M.S. Star Swirl. :rainbowhuh:

It's, uh... proceeding. Things happen slowly in space. :twilightblush: I honestly don't know which of my stories in progress is going to see the light of day first.

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I'm somewhere in the middle. Based on what we've seen on the show, I'd say a minority of unicorns can teleport, and very few of them can go very long distances. The spell has safeguards written in that generally ensure you arrive at a suitable relative speed and angle, and not part-way through a wall or in the ground, but those safeguards assume you're going to somewhere on or near the ground. The spell was never intended for space. To not only send an object that far up but give it exactly the right change in velocity as well is more than just a massive energy requirement, it's a really precise calculation that has to be spot on. It's not impossible, but it's implausible for a fallible pony to do that regularly.

"Dad, why don't we have flying cars?"
"Because the drivers weren't looking where they were going and they all crashed. Now get digging, son, there's some tins of food under this rubble. And keep an eye out for raptors."

The teleport relay gets you to an orbital altitude but it doesn't solve the other half of the problem: going fast enough once you're up there that you actually orbit rather than falling down. For that, they fire you out of a cannon.

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…A cannon made by Pinkie Party Planning Inc. :)

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And sold by Pinkie Projectile Procurement PLC.

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