Twilight Sparkle, the Solar Regent, was frustrated. She’d never had a chance against Nightmare Moon, and now she had to live with the consequences of her failure and the moon goddess on the throne beside her.

Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard, was frustrated. His liege was gone. His marefriend was somewhere doing something. His sister was showing all the early warning signs of one of her infamous breakdowns. Worst of all, everypony was keeping secrets.

Sweetie Drops, Equestrian special agent, was frustrated. Work kept piling up, and there seemed to be more and more monsters to fight every day. She needed help.

Cadance, the Crystal Princess, was frustrated. Being somepony’s snack was beneath her, but needs must.

Tempest Shadow, wanderer, was frustrated. Why did life always insist on kicking her while she was down? If it wanted to maintain even the pretext of fairness, her next destination would be her last.

Luna, the Lunar Diarch, was delighted. Everything had gone perfectly since her return from exile.

There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and humanity is determined to explore every one. We send probes, probes with the blueprints to reproduce human explorers upon arrival. Uninhabited worlds the galaxy over can be colonized and populated, until after many years they too can join the vast throng of interstellar civilization. But if a probe is very, very lucky, it will land on a populated world instead. Equestria is one such world.

Even so, it's far from perfect for colonization, not with an environment lethal to human life. But each probe is resourceful and armed with the greatest machine intelligence mankind has devised. If placing a human mind into a newly manufactured human body won't work, it will just have to get a little more creative.

This book has a Hardcover! If you want to pick it up, you can grab it here: https://starscribe.net/

This story was written at the behest of Canary In The Coal Mine, who is sponsoring it on my Patreon. As usual, cover by Zutcha. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail.

Fantastic prereading help from: Chyre, Danger Noodle, Doctor Disco, and Doggyshakespeare (who also did the Esperanto translation). Thank you all for helping to make this story more readable and more consistent for everyone.