//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Equestria // Story: Equestria 485,000 // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// The mission was to begin immediately. Twilight proceeded to the bowels of the ship, seeking out a node of the ship’s central morphiplasm system. When she reached it, she stopped, looking up at the stem units overhead, a system of pale violet orbs emerging from the curving structure of the ship’s internal surface. She reached up and touched one, engaging the appropriate interface spell. The morphiplasm responded almost immediately, and the stem unit shifted, melting and surging forward over her body, assembling itself into what was in a sense a miniature version of the ship itself: a thin veneer of material that meshed with Twilight’s skin and nervous system, connecting to the aetherite jewelry she wore and forming a protective suit around her.             For a moment, Twilight’s vision faded as the substance covered her face. Then it parted, forming a transparent plate for her to see out of. She took a breath as its rebreather system came online, smelling the familiar subtle scent of recirculated air.             Twilight looked up at Silken, who appeared confused. “What?” she demanded.             “Is the protective suit really required?”             “I may be immortal,” said Twilight, “but I still need to breathe.”             Silken pointed at her back. “Yes, but with your wings covered, you will not be able to fly.”             “I won’t need to fly,” said Twilight. “It’s a useless ability anyway.”             “I see.” She turned toward the dead-end of the empty hallway. “I am equipped to pilot a mitotic section,” she said. “Shall I request one, or do you require more time?”             “It won’t be necessary.”             Silken appeared even more confused. “But then how will we get to the planet?”             “I’m going to teleport us,” said Twilight, charging her horn. “I’m locking on what I think is the most magically charged focus on the planet. It’s difficult to tell with the fallout, but I think it would be a good place to start.”             “This ship is equipped with a high-throughput teleportation system- -”             “I brought you here as equipment,” snapped Twilight, “not to constantly second guess me.”             “Oh,” said Silken. “My apologies, lord. I will be quiet now.”             Twilight grumbled, already regretting having bothered to take the machine with her. There was still time to send her back to join the rest of her kind that populated the bowels of the ship, but that would doubtless cause no end of complaints from the ship’s captain.             Instead, Twilight began the complex mental calculations necessary to engage a teleportation spell. It only took her a fraction of a second, and she charged her horn. “Are you ready?”             “No.”             “Too bad.”             There was a flash of light- -and Twilight felt herself thrown to the cold, snow-covered ground with so much force that she was sure she felt something crack inside her. The wind was knocked out of her, and although the impact had not been enough to cause a concussion through her morphiplasm armor, the strain of whatever she had just passed to left her nearly unconscious. Something had gone wrong with the teleport, and it had gone wrong quickly. The mental strain had been incredible, and had the spell been performed by any other pony- -even though a pony capable of using even simple magic had not been born in countless millennia- -it would surely have resulted in nothing more than a foul-smelling mist exiting at the spell’s final destination. Even then, the spell had been botched so badly that no living creature save for an immortal alicorn could have survived it.             In her semi-conscious state, Twilight felt herself lying still, her suit keeping the extreme temperature from harming her. She still felt cold, though, because of the failed spell. It made her so very tired, and even when she felt herself being dragged she did not wake up. She instead felt herself fading and entering the alicorn equivalent of sleep.             Then, suddenly, she gasped and shot up, just in time to see Silken pulling back her hoof and the medical device morphing back into a pointed hoof.             “What did you do to me?” cried Twilight.             “I administered medical care consistent with what is known about pure alicorn biology. You received a severe feedback injury- -”             Twilight stood up, and nearly fell back to the ground. Her suit compensated, constructing elements to provide further support and to augment her strength. This only disrupted her motion, though, and caused her to list suddenly. The problem was not with her muscles, but with her nervous system.             “I can’t- -where am- -I- -”             “Panic is a side effect,” stated Silken cheerfully.             “Of the medicine you gave me? Without my consent, I might add?”             “Or from the injury. Or the impact.” Silken shrugged. “Your biology is not exactly well-known, and I am not a doctor.”             “Well, that certainly makes me feel a lot better.”             Silken smiled. “I am glad to hear it.”             “I was being sarcastic.”             Silken’s expression fell. “Oh. In the future, please reference the use of sarcasm before deploying it, for the sake of proper user interface.”             “I will sarcasm when I want to sarcasm!” Twilight paused, wondering if that word was really a verb. Even if it had not been, it was now. She was a god after all.             In something of a huff, she walked to the front of the cave. It had been sealed with a large, heavily corroded rock. It weighted at least four tons, but Twilight easily levitated it and tossed it aside with her magic before stepping outside. Her hooves almost immediately crunched on the ice, and even through the morphiplasm that surrounded her body Twilight could feel the strong and biting wind that rushed over the land.             What struck her first was the color. The world was green, but not in the same way that the artificially maintained gardens of the Empire were. Instead, the plants that grew were a harsh and nearly gray color, slightly reflective but so low in saturation that they looked like some cheap copy of plants. In the region they had landed, the trees had no branches and grew at identical acute angles to the ground, all pointing in the opposite direction of the wind. Many of them were immensely tall, but all of them were spaced widely. The spines that served as their leaves were rigid and violent looking, and they did not move in the wind.             Below the palm-like trees there was nothing but thick snow and ice, although even that was green, covered in a soft and almost powdery substance that nearly resembled grayish and unpleasant moss- -or mold.             Silken approached silently from Twilight’s side. Despite the immense weight of her mechanical body, her feet left no impression in the snow save for inch-wide, perfectly round circles. “So this is Equestria.”             “It didn’t used to look like this.”             “What did it look like the last time you were here?”             “When I left?” Twilight stared out at the alien trees for a long moment. “There was nothing green. And nothing alive.”             Silken stared out at the landscape, and a thin holographic band appeared over her eyes. “My analysis indicates that the air temperature in this area is 267K.”             “Only five degrees colder than the ship,” noted Twilight.             “It also indicates that while heavily contaminated, the air is breathable.”             “No,” said Twilight, suddenly. Silken seemed somewhat surprised, and Twilight cleared her throat. “I’d rather not.” She tried to change the subject. “Where are we?”             “Standing in front of a small cave.”             Twilight looked up at Silken with an expression meant to convey the exact opposite of amusement. “I mean, where are we specifically? Contact the ship.”             “Working.” Silken slowly raised her graceful artificial head to the sky, and two narrow bands of hologram were projected over her eyes. She looked at them, and through them, slowly turning her head to find the location of the starship in high orbit around the planet. Above, the sky was dark and gray, and the atmosphere was roiling with the storms that brought the extreme wind that had had apparently resulted in the forest outside growing nearly sideways. Although there was no rain and only the slightest falling of snow, lightning of many colors illuminated the dark clouds above.             After a moment, she spoke. “There is a problem.”             “A problem? What kind of problem?”             “The atmosphere is heavily contaminated with magic fallout. I am detecting dimeritium, trimeritium, extreme concentrations of the zeroth element, superperiotic particles, magically charged material, as well as various sorts of eddy currents in a hypercomplicated system. And neutrinos. So many neutrinos! With my currently installed communication array, I cannot penetrate the ionosphere.”             Twilight stared at her in disbelief. “WHAT?!”             “The atmosphere is heavily contaminated with magic fallout. I am detecting dimeritium- -”             “I heard what you said!”             “Then why did you ask me to repeat it?”             “I didn’t, you idiot- -” Twilight groaned loudly, putting her hoof against her throbbing head. “ARG! The captain forces me to take you, and you can’t even connect me to the ship?!”             “Apparently not.”             “How am I supposed to order additional equipment? Or access the ship’s scanning system?” Twilight stared up at the sky. “There isn’t supposed to still be fallout! The storms should have stopped millennia ago!” She groaned, this time more softly. “Forget it. I’m going to teleport back and get some real communication equipment- -”             “I strongly recommend against that!” said Silken very rapidly.             Twilight was somewhat taken aback. “Why not?”             “The interference field is most likely bipolar. The fact that we are beneath and encircled by it increases the interference of exiting signals.”             “So what? I’m not trying to send a signal.”             “No, but it also apparently interferes with your teleportation. Teleporting in rendered you unconscious for eight months. Teleporting out could be magnitudes more dangerous.”             “Well, I expect there to be some risk, but if- -” Twilight suddenly froze, and then whirled around to face Silken. “EIGHT MONTHS?!”             “Yes,” said Silken, as though she was confused as to why Twilight did not already know that. “Technically eight months three weeks four days seven yours and fifty six minutes. And thirty seven seconds.”             “I was out for EIGHT MONTHS?! And you didn’t think to, oh, I don’t know, LEAD with that information?”             “I did not know it was relevant. If it was so important, you ought to have asked.”             “I kind of expect somepony to tell me when I’ve been sleep for almost a year!”             “It is only two thirds of a year. It took time. The injuries were substantial. I had to rebuild part of the internal architecture of your brain!”             Twilight’s eyes widened and she grabbed her head. “You- -you performed brain surgery? On- -on ME?!”             “There appears to be nopony else here on whom I could perform such a surgery,” said Silken, as though it were obvious.             “But you- -you just told me you’re not a doctor!”             “No. Nor am I programmed as one. My normal occupation is as mathematical support for the team that maintains the ship’s skeletal structure.” She shrugged. “So I had to extrapolate slightly.”             “Extrapolate! By- -by how much?!”             “Your tone suggests that you may not want me to answer that question.”             Twilight grabbed her head. She knew that regardless of what this apparently quite defective remnus had done to her, there would be no permanent damage. She had suffered far worse head trauma than a botched surgery in her long life, and experience had time and time again proven that even severe ablation of her brain would inevitably heal. It was just another aspect of alicorn immortality.             “If you teleport, the damage could be far worse,” warned Silken. “Years next time. Or even decades.”             “I can’t afford decades,” said Twilight. “I can’t even afford years!”             “Then you cannot teleport.” Silken looked to the sky. “If I am correct, though, it is likely possible that the ship is capable of picking up your magic signature from its side. They know where you are, and are watching- -even if they cannot help.” She paused, and the holograms around her eyes expanded.             “Fine,” grumbled Twilight. “Then process my initial request. Where are we?”             “I cannot identify that without access to the ship’s sensors.”             “Try accessing the ancient global positioning network. If you’re right, it should still be possible to pick up a signal transmitted from outside the planet.”             Silken paused. “Will any of the satellites still be transmitting?”             “We won’t know until you do what I told you, will we?”             “Oh. I suppose not.” The holograms around Silken’s eyes widened as she looked to the sky. “Working,” she said. After a few moments, she stopped. She projected a holographic miniature of Equestria between herself and Twilight. “Yes. You were correct. The signals were very weak, but I established a region.”             A space appeared on the holographic globe, and Twilight stared at it. “That’s almost a quarter of the continent,” she groaned. “Can’t you get any better resolution?”             “Yes. But it would require lying to you.”             Twilight frowned deeply at her, and then stepped out into the mold-covered ice and snow. “Fine. We have no support, and we don’t know where we are. I can still deal with this.” Twilight charged her horn, engaging a complex spell that represented itself on magical constructs surrounding her that closely resembled the type of holograms she had used before on the ship. The spell was oddly difficult to perform with the interference from the atmosphere, but far from impossible for the god of magic.             “What are you doing?” asked Silken.             “Our exact location is more or less irrelevant. My teleportation spell only went off-course by seven percent. We are still near the most powerful magical signature from the planet’s surface.”             “Meaning?”             “Meaning we walk toward it.”