Baked Bean is but one of the thousands of tourists in Canterlot, and he's looking for some inspiration to help launch his writing career. To this end, he pays a visit to the Royal Gardens, but while there he quickly and quite accidentally invokes a long-forgotten law that will completely upend his life and thrust him into the spotlight...

As Celestia's husband.

And all this because of noses.

As seen on Equestria Daily!

With an audio reading by Fire Hearth Studios!

Cover art graciously provided by the Right Most Awesome Backlash91!
Original cover art provided the Right Most Awesome Sipioc!

Proofreading and prereading services provided by Georg, Sipioc, and Moon Fire!

Fan Art for this story can be found right here!

A most worthy review by Cyonix!

This story is a sequel to Changeling Space Program

Twilight Sparkle's experimental interplanetary drive has malfunctioned, stranding Starlight Glimmer, Spitfire, Cherry Berry, a changeling and a dragon on a hostile planet in another universe. With limited food supplies, very little magic, no communications with home, and no way to leave the planet, they must survive until somepony rescues them.

Fortunately they crashed right next door to another creature with the exact same problem- a creature named Mark Watney.

They're going to science the buck out of everything- and do whatever it takes to survive Mars and get everybody home.

TVTropes page here! Thanks to GymQuirk for making it!

Commissioned art and fan works from the readers! Thanks, everybody!

This experiment in an updates-daily story was made possible by a generous grant from Canary in the Coal Mine and viewers like you.

(Sex tag for crude talk about sex, but no actual sex in the story.)

"I asked a changeling once why they would think peace with Equestria was possible. Their response was the title to this book. I had asked a question on politics and gotten a calculus equation in response. Changelings are odd like that sometimes. They see things differently than the rest of us. I ended up pondering his response for a long time and even dusted off my old calculus books to look for an answer. One day it just clicked in my head what he was trying to say.

Changelings are capable of change.

It was a somewhat redundant answer, and it was a really bizarre way to give it, but I understood what he meant. Changelings, just like ponies, are capable of both good and bad, We could make peace with them, and help them learn to better themselves. That was what the changelings wanted, and ponies everywhere were fighting it. It is for that reason I began creating this book. Within this tome you will find a collection of essays, more like candid stories really, directly from Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, and Prince Morpheus, leader of the Changeling Hive. These reports detail their lives from the day negotiations began. That is the day the Prince himself began living in Ponyville, and it comes with the story of how he and the little town came to adapt to each other as negotiations were occurring. It is my hope seeing their story will show anypony reading this there is no reason to distrust the changelings so, and, perhaps, it will give you insight into the strange little changelings as well. They truly want peace, and, despite the treaties being signed, we can only truly give it to them when we let go of our distrust."

-Changing Times, Author of dC/dt ≠ 0

Cover Image by Void Heart who's work is awesome.
Currently Editted by: Dreams of Ponies, zimmerwald1915, reprovedhawk, Malefactory
Previously Edited by: Twilight_Scratch, Zeta040, StainlessKey, Flink