In a universe where humans are quite shocked to find ponies that speak languages at all, let alone English, the startling discoveries never seem to stop for the poor crew of the SMS Verreiter IV, an old-warship-turned-exploration-vessel hybrid that's certainly seen better days. Heck, some even speak of times that it had days where all the systems functioned properly for hours at a time.
Either way, they're on a mission of exploration, which means they'll be visiting every Old Earth-sized rock they can find. With a motley consignment composed of few jittery scientists, veteran marines, an exasperated captain, and a combat-hardened, battle-forged crew with absolutely nothing to do besides repair their own ship from itself, it seems like it'll be a very long year of exploration.
Then they find a planet with some rather startling similarities to human society.
Like Manehattan, the apparent parody of the American district, ponies having developed the English language, and the use of human-like tools and buildings.
And when the ship's transmitter fails at the worst possible moment, Forschungsschiff Kapitan Arnhem Zorner has to decide how best to introduce his country and humanity to these beings. Who can levitate books probably as easily as they could levitate knives and hurl them at him.
He doesn't know whether to laugh of cry at the situation that's been thrown at his face.
