//------------------------------// // VIII - First Contact // Story: Wanderlost // by GMBlackjack //------------------------------// Everypony continued to stare at the blue-green orb below them. “Ahem!” Discord called. “I said what now? Honestly, it’s like none of us can even think right now.” “Now…” Luna said. “Now… Uh… Now…” “Now we send a message,” Celestia said. “I shall craft one immediately. Starlight, create a Projection Orb.” “Yes ma’am.” Starlight closed her eyes and created a simple, blue globe. “This work?” “Great, thank you.” Celestia cleared her throat and made her face welcoming - but authoritative. “Greetings. I am Princess Celestia of Equis, one of the rulers of the ship you can see in orbit. We mean you no harm. We have been exploring the cosmos for countless decades, looking for habitable worlds. We come to you in peace, looking to become friends and to exchange cultures. I understand that you most likely cannot translate this message - which is why we are also sending down a large portion of our database as a gesture of good faith. May we talk in person soon, hopefully as friends. Until then.” She closed the message. “Prepare the friend package. It’s finally going to come to some use.” “You’ve been waiting forever to use that…” Twilight said. “We’ve got it all ready, let’s just transmit it!” Celestia nodded, looking deeply into the projection orb. “Transmit on all frequencies, drop this orb down next to a center of large population. Don’t hit anyone.” “Got it,” Twilight said, beaming. “This is so exciting!” Then she stood still. “...I told them I’d wake them up if we found something this big.” Celestia smirked. “Send the message, then we can go wake the promised up. The time has come to fully crew the Ark.” Twilight teleported away. Cadence gasped, tears already in her eyes. “I… I can let them out?” “Yes,” Luna said. “Yes you can.” ~~~ The Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon grunted. “No more… I need my peanut butter crackers…” “Trixie! Wake up!” “Huh?” Trixie said, slowly opening her eyes. “S-Starlight? Is it visiting day again?” She rubbed her face. “Ugh… Always have a headache…” “It’s not visiting day.” “Then whyyyyy in the name of Celestia would you wake me up?” Starlight grinned. “We found a planet.” Trixie’s eyes widened. “Are. You. Serious?!” Starlight nodded. “Ohmygosh! Starlight! We can finally do something! I can put on a show under a sun again! And for ponies who haven’t seen the show already!” As the two friends talked they noticed Cadence. She was staring at Shining Armor and Flurry Heart hugging each other after so long. Tears were streaming down her cheeks while she grinned the cheesiest grin imaginable. Shining looked at his wife, smiling back. “This has been really hard on you… But now we don’t have to be apart anymore. I’ll be here for you. We can be together.” Cadence squealed and rushed him into an embrace - Flurry Heart giggled, trying to cast some magic in celebration, but failing - the magic inhibition spell was working well. Elsewhere, Luna and Celestia were releasing the leaders of Equis. Leaders of all the nations were released into the open - griffons, minotaurs, zebras, even Thorax and Ember stepped out of their pods and looked ready to take on anything. It was mostly hand/hoof shaking politics, but the leaders were very relieved to finally be free. As the leaders began to discuss, Twilight arrived. Discord was already there, waiting. “Ready?” He asked. “Ready.” Twilight confirmed, pulling the lever she had set up to release them all. Two earth ponies, two pegasi, two unicorns, and a small dragon were all unceremoniously dumped out with a shake. Twilight winced as they hit the ground. The simultaneous release was probably not a good design choice. Pinkie Pie was up first, cheering. “I told you all we’d make it!” Applejack groaned. “Why’d it dump us? It was all calm the last few times…” “Egghead reasons,” Rainbow Dash said, attempting to look unfazed - and failing, just like every other time. Fluttershy barely stood up before Discord offered her some tea. She ignored it, just rushing to him for a hug. Rarity smiled despite her headache. “Oh, you two are so cute!” “Yeah,” Spike said, laughing nervously. “Cute.” Rarity rolled her eyes. Then the last unicorn walked up to Twilight and smiled. “Hello Twi, long time no see, I presume.” “Sunset!” Twilight said, grinning. “We found a planet!” “I gathered,” She smiled. “Shall we get to work?” Discord grabbed them all up in a big hug. “Oh let’s enjoy ourselves first - the Smooze is ready to party!” The Smooze jiggled slightly. Rarity sighed. “Why did you have to let him out Discord?” “Close friend reasons,” Discord said. “Now… Let’s celebrate!” “PARTY SENSE AT FIVE THOUSAND PERCENT!” Pinkie Pie yelled. “MISSION ACCEPTED!” She set to work. ~~~ The Lobby was filled for the first time since launch. Individuals of all races were celebrating the discovery of a habitable world. There was punch, balloons, piñatas, and random presents all set beneath the glow of the Tree of Harmony. Some of the more religious types had left them by the Tree, using its base as a sort of altar. Everyone was smiling and having a good time. And it was about to get more interesting. Twilight, Sunset, Starlight, and Spike were messing with the screen input, ready to surprise everyone. “We’re good to go,” Sunset said, closing her laptop. “Here it goes…” She flipped a switch, and the screens in the Lobby all lit up in life, each one displaying a video feed taken from the planet below. Most of those present knew what the natives of the planet looked like - it hadn’t taken much to get a single image to show everyone - but they still stared at the unusual creatures. They were bipedal - two arms, two legs, a head - but aside from that they were quite different from all the Equis races. Their skin was a perfect pristine white, the only color on it coming from shadows. Their bodies were angular - sharp elbow joints, raised shoulders, and pointed chins. Their faces apparently had no nose to speak of, but the large bright eyes, simple small mouth, and double-pronged ears were easily visible. Surrounding all of their lower legs and lower arms was a growth of some plastic-like material, giving them natural gloves and boots. Their hair appeared to be made of a stranded form of the same material, and as evidenced from the many videos being shown the hair could be pressed into impressive gravity-defying shapes. They all wore clothes. Of note was the fact that only certain parts of their body could be colored. The eyes, hair, gloves, and boots were always one bright color, of which there was only thirteen options: white, gray, black, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, teal, sky, and blue. The color seemed to have no effect besides a cosmetic one. Everyone in the room was fascinated by these new creatures. The screen that got the most attention was apparently a newscast - a white male was talking in the alien language with an animating picture of Celestia on screen. Twilight had managed to catch that he was saying “Equis” and “Princess Celestia” in context, enabling her to begin learning their language. It would be much easier than trying to decode the alien message since she would have a huge sample size. She didn’t glean much information from the newscast, but she did get the sense that the native was giving out limited information. The video cut off to show a bunch of the natives throwing parties with images of Celestia and the Ark everywhere. Some were apparently even making ‘landing pads’ that appeared horribly makeshift. It cut again to an interview with a very angry yellow female. Twilight didn’t know what she was mad at, but she was mad at something. After the interview, it cut to a sky female who was smiling and seemed way too excited, with a pink one in the background that couldn’t stop dancing. “I can tell you right now,” Celestia announced. “These people run on strong, passionate emotion.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to actually speak with them.” Then the video showed a darker scene - mobs. Mobs holding signs with angrily scrawled notes, and with mutilated pictures of Celestia. They were angry - and then something exploded in the video, cutting it out. The newscaster returned continued speaking, segueing into the weather. The Lobby had fallen silent. ~~~ “What do we do if a giant space rock comes hurtling at us?” Twilight had asked. “Throw the sun at it.” Starlight had answered without hesitating. The thoughts of that meeting weighed heavily in Celestia’s mind as she felt the presence of things around Equis. There was the planet itself, the moon, the sun a little further away, and… it. The thing slowly coming right for them. It was the size of Ponyville. She didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t get any visions on it. It was a blank… So she needed to make a choice. It was going to enter the sun’s orbital in a few seconds. She could destroy it now. But… what if it was just lost? She felt sure it wasn’t just a meteor, but something more. Could she just kill it? No - move the moon in front of it, get a closer look. Maybe make contact with whatever it was… She was shocked out of her thoughts. She sensed a power buildup in the foreign object - scarily similar in signature to a unicorn laser spell on a much larger scale. A planetary scale. She wasted no time ramming the sun into the unknown, vaporizing it. But it would have the last laugh - for the energy buildup coursed through the sun, tearing it molecule from molecule. Celestia felt part of her soul get wrenched away when the sun popped. And then she saw Starlight appear next to her - a broken, battered, scarred unicorn in an absurdly heavy winter coat. “I’m here to undo this.” She had said, and she lit her horn. Celestia felt the very fabric of reality shift and turn around the world, around her. She felt the area where her sun once was shift with the annals of time. It wouldn’t go back. The powerful time spell ran into a wall. It hit the edge of the magical field. Celestia frowned. “Starlight, you should stop…” “No! You haven’t seen what I’ve seen yet! It can’t be this way! It can’t!” She roared. “I can’t let my advice destroy this world…” Celestia reeled - the thought of freezing had already crossed her mind, but she had pushed it out. Starlight pushed harder, her horn glowing brighter than Celestia had ever seen it. “I have to undo this!” “Starlight! You’re pushing too hard! The-” Then reality tore open before Starlight. She screamed, falling into the tear, vanishing right before Celestia’s eyes. She was gone. Celestia woke up with a start. That was no normal memory - that had been a vision. That timeline was not the one she remembered. She had smashed the sun into the meteor - but she had not remembered Starlight appearing. She didn’t even know she had been there when the unicorn had tried to undo everything. She teleported into the Lobby where the leaders were trying to piece together the alien language. “I have had a vision!” She yelled. “Disaster is going to-” The entire Ark shook as something exploded next to it. Red lights flashed, alarms started blaring, and the ship shook as its engines started failing. The Ark drifted towards the planet below while all present devoted all the magic power they could to the shields… A trail of broken hull trailed across the starry sky, glinting in the light of the new sun…