"Securing government funds is a fine art, one that takes many, many years of both experience and gumption to master. In order to get even a penny from Uncle Sam's negative treasury, you must first prove that your goal - whether it be coffee cups or carbines - is worthy of being supported, endorsed, funded, advertised, and sodomized by the U.S. Government. In the beginnings of "Fort Plywood," as we called it, there was nothing to throw our boys' lead at but angry chipmunks and an occasional oversized bird every so often. After the dragon came, however...it was all grocery store champagne and thirty-two count brownies. There was already talk of exploiting the resources on the one side, one way or another, and of diplomacy with the locals. Can't have either when you've got fire-breathing tanks roaming around - at least, not with living ones. The money started pouring in fast, and I mean fast. Not just money, too: plenty of good equipment for our men and women as well. By the end of the first month or so, I think, we had six anti-air 20-millimeter turrets and twenty static heavy machine gun nests surrounding the perimeter. Razor wire and Hesco walls everywhere, too. The LM equipment was nice, and we kept it around just in case, but it was more of a sampler than anything useful. Besides, if a good-old fashioned belt of fifty worked for our great-grandfathers, it'll work for us too."
Lee Bradshaw, Head of Security
-William-
"Ladies and gents," President Henderson declared with more than a hint of nationalistic pride in his voice, "we have a plan."
"Should I be concerned?"
William simply sat awkwardly in his chair, his unshaved face itching like crazy as his superiors chuckled at the joke with a sort of professional yet lighthearted attitude. The conference call that would decide the future of humanity's relations with its first foreign species was not going quite as seriously as he had hoped. Why did they have to bust out the good cheer at the least opportune time?
"Anyways," Henderson continued once everybody had settled down, "this thing was buried deep within the White House Archives for god knows how long before we found it. Kennedy signed the plan just three months before his departure from office, and since then it's been stuck under a box of paperwork in a back closet somewhere. The NASA emblem is on here, too. Ahem. 'Procedures for First Contact Protocol with Sapient Extraterrestrial Societies.'"
The President paused for a second to clear his throat and take a sip of water, then continued. "Let's skip to the relevant part. Aha, here we go. 'Establishing the First Meeting and Creating a Mutually Beneficial Relationship.' Blah blah blah... 'At the beginning of the meeting, establish, through appropriate communication channels, an atmosphere of non-aggression as well as a non-threatening gesture of military power and strength. This is to ensure that both sides are willing to communicate positively, but are not completely helpless or weak.'"
"'Once peaceful intentions have been communicated, offer a gift of information or knowledge as a primer to the human species and society as a collective.' Encyclopedia, then. Anderson, you got one on hand?"
"N-No, sir, but I can get a set..."
"'After the exchange is complete, schedule a second meeting through any applicable means. Ensure that the species acknowledges that the next meeting will be for further, in-depth analysis of respective languages.' This first meeting is to be in two days, right? Can you schedule the second one to be three days after that?"
"I can do that. What will we do then?"
"In due time. 'During the exchange, no hostilities are to be made, even if ambassadors are seemingly injured or otherwise hurt in the process. Possible aggressive behavior by the contacted party may not be intended as hostile. Use a visual medium, such as a chalkboard and chalk, to communicate if the species can do so. Do not make any quick, sudden movements or speak loudly and aggressively.'"
"'During the first meeting, establish a linguistic baseline reference from which both parties can build upon. Arithmetic is the recommended starting point, as mathematical concepts are likely to be universal across all languages. Additionally, basic operand symbols such as the concept of the arrow as a pointer and the equals sign should be established as well. Record all communications by the other party as well, and equally partake in learning their language.' This goes on for a while, and I don't have time to read this all. I will be sending everyone a copy of this after this meeting. For now, we'll have to come up with a rough plan of action."
"Excuse me," William interjected, "but...shouldn't we be more prepared? I mean, aren't there people whose job it is to create plans for these kinds of things?"
"Mister Anderson," the President replied, "it's been a miracle that this entire project has been kept under wraps for this long. Currently, we have the eyes of the world pressing down on us, scrutinizing our every move under a microscope. Somehow, by some miracle of God, the media thinks that all you've done was find a forest on some other planet. If we tell them that there are honest-to-god dragons on the other side, or even an alien civilization of literal fairy-book ponies...well, we'd be lucky if the entire world didn't just stop spinning. Trust me when I say that the fewer people involved in this mess, the better."
"Well, why not spend some more time considering our course of action, then?"
"If we don't act, they will. Remember that your people did attack their people before you recovered them."
"That was in-"
"Who knows if they will see it as self-defence? Hopefully we can work out some sort of truce while the return of those injured horses is fresh on their minds."
"This whole thing is just so sloppy..."
"If that isn't the perfect description - no offense, Anderson - if that isn't the perfect definition of this entire mess, then I don't know what is. But we're gonna have to move on. The press, the natives, the public, and even the wildlife are against us - but we still have to continue."
"I...okay then," William sighed. "So we just meet in the west side of our clearing and give them a bunch of books?"
"Yes."
"And then we work on figuring out each others' languages with math?"
"Yes, but do remember that you have notes."
"Why do they have to come to us? Why don't we just go to them?"
"We need to assert our strength. If they come to us, we're letting them know that we aren't just some pushovers they can ignore."
"You kinda already proved that point," William muttered under his breath. "Alright then, I can arrange this. Just a set of encyclopedias and a whiteboard from the offices."
The President nodded. "Shouldn't be too hard. If you just get everything together, nothing should go wrong."
"I don't think anybody can guarantee that."
"True," he replied.
"Wait, one last thing before I go...why are you all so calm? We're about to make official first contact with intelligent life, shouldn't you be more serious?"
President Henderson chuckled to himself as he leaned forward in his chair. "I'm going to be perfectly honest, Anderson...we're all just glad that things aren't worse. Much, much worse."
"-CONNECTION CLOSED-"
-Twilight-
One linguistic matrix, with lanyard.
One Equestrian Standardized Dictionary, 125th Edition.
One copy of "The Royal History of Equestria and the Continent", Scholar's Print.
Ten Equestrian Bits.
Notebooks and pens.
Twilight ran her hoof over each item, the fourth check of her inventory revealing no inconsistencies from her third. Each item on her checklist was starred, checked, crossed through, and circled several times. Slowly and meticulously, she slid first the books, then the pens and bits into the saddlebag before finally slipping the crystal over her head. The hefty matrix weighed down heavily on her, its silver chain necklace digging deep into her neck as the playing card-sized crystal glittered and glistened in the sunlight.
She hefted the bags onto her back, then nodded at Luna as she looked at the purple pony. "I'm ready," Twilight said as her breath steamed in the cold air.
"As am I. Are you nervous, Twilight?"
"I...well, I don't know. I really feel like I should be, but right now I'm as calm as a summer sky. Maybe I'm so nervous, my mind can't register that I should actually be trembling where I stand."
"That's a familiar feeling," Luna chuckled. "You'll experience that sinking feeling in your stomach and that lightness of breath soon enough."
"Aren't you, Princess?"
She smiled. "I suppose I am. I'm just used to the feeling. You will be soon enough, too. Anyways, if we're all ready...let's go."
The three guardsponies that were to be their escort stood up from the dewy grass and picked up their halberds, slinging them over their shoulders as they adjusted their ceremonial armor. Twilight frowned when Luna brought the idea up the night before, but she reluctantly accepted her suggestion. Besides, if Luna was right - which was more than likely the case - it wouldn't matter.
Three ponies with blades wouldn't do much against the aliens. She knew that from personal experience.
Luna waved over at Twilight, who kept right behind her as the party of five proceeded down the wide, sleepy lanes of the camp. There were few ponies walking around the camp, save for the occasional cart or messenger casually meandering down the central avenue. Most of them were busy either doing their assigned duties in the tents or as patrols, or relaxing around fires as they conversed. A few nursed large mugs of liquor in their hooves, the pale yellow ale's smell tinged with hints of fruit and honey as they downed the alcohol in between bouts of laughter and chatter.
Twilight had noticed that things were beginning to slow down around camp since the first few days of its establishment, likely from a lack of pressure to build up defenses or to widen the borders. It seemed as if things were settling into a regular rhythm, as if there were no burning issues that had to be taken care of quickly. Sure, there was the ever looming threat of attack by the visitors - but that was a stale concern, one that had been sitting out in the open for several weeks and was hardly of note by then. Nothing had happened, nothing was happening, and nothing would be happening - and Twilight and Luna would make sure that would be the case.
The tents began to thin out as the ponies walked out into the outskirts of camp, then disappeared entirely as they entered the treeline. Luna cut down the shrubbery and branches in their path without breaking a sweat as they moved further east, her magic blades hacking down the leaves as if they were nothing. The guardsponies' alert eyes swept through the forest, searching for any threats or dangers hiding in the bushes. Their hooves thudded against the ground as they moved, the forest floor's cover of autumn leaves slowly browning into humus and sinking into the soon to be frozen topsoil.
"Twilight," Luna suddenly sighed over the thwacks and snaps of magic against nature, "do you remember what I told you to do when we get there?"
Twilight nodded. "We stand halfway between the forest and their camp's borders, then wait for them to send somebody out to greet us. Once they do, we try to communicate with them and hand them our gifts. Is that right?"
"That's pretty much it," she replied. "I don't know what will happen once we arrive, so there's no real point in trying to completely plan our encounter out down to the last detail. Just make sure not to be too quick or aggressive in your movements."
"That...reminds me. Do you think they'll react negatively to us using magic?"
Luna kept chopping as she formulated her response. "I suppose so. You did say that they had trouble grasping the concept of magic, right?"
"Yes, when I was discussing it with them. Not only that, but when I first used telekinesis in front of them they all seemed...scared, or in shock, or something. I suppose they're just not familiar with it."
"How do you feel about that then, Twilight? Their unfamiliarity with magic, I mean."
"I don't think the minotaurs or buffalo tribes have much in terms of magical capability, but they still know about magic and how it works to a degree. Even if they don't use it, they still understand its limits and capabilities. The aliens, though...I can't say they know even the most fundamental laws of magic."
"So they don't have magic, then." Luna calmly continued forward, as if the statement seemed completely plausible to her.
"A-Are you kidding me, Luna?" Twilight sputtered as she spoke, the suggestion almost too wild to seriously consider. "You know as well as I do the things they can do. How is that-"
"You're limiting yourself to a certain mindset when you say that. I always like to run a proposition through my head several times, testing it with different philosophies and ways of thinking each time. And the most accurate and precise philosophy, by far, is this: the simplest answer is the most likely answer."
"You didn't answer me," she replied with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "How can they come to our world, build those machines, and even kill a dragon without magic?"
"Does a skilled craftspony require magic to create a wrench? Not necessarily. How about a box of bolts? Again, not necessarily. What about using those bolts and that wrench to build a printing press?"
"No, of course not. Earth Ponies build machinery all the time, without magic."
"Now, if I were a pony from a thousand years ago, and you told me that you could make a million copies of a text in just a few days, would I say that you couldn't have done it without magic?"
"Well...yes, I suppose."
"That is what I am talking about. Not everything works on magic, Twilight; a wrench is not a magical implement. But consider how a wrench can be used to create something that seems like magic...do you get what I'm saying?"
"I...huh."
"Their constructs are the printing press, which they wrought from their magic-less tools. We can't simply say that their machines are magical without actually examining them in detail."
"That...is...disturbing, to say the least."
"What do you mean?" Luna asked.
"If they can do all that without magic...wow."
Luna smiled. "Well, we have magic. And magic's nothing to laugh at, Twilight."
"I know, just...gosh."
"Hold," Luna suddenly ordered as her magic blades dissipated. Silence filled the air as the ponies stood still in confusion, wondering just what the princess was thinking. She looked down at the ground, then bent down - and picked up a paper tube the thickness of a pencil stub, one end of the fiber-filled nub slightly burnt. It was clearly an alien object, far different from anything Luna had encountered in her entire life. The tube smelled strangely aromatic, with a warm, burnt sort of smell about it that sent shivers down her back as she sniffed it.
"We're close, aren't-"
"Silence." Luna harshly whispered the command, her ears perking up in search of...something. Twilight heard nothing but the rustling of leaves in the wind and the occasional birdcall, but Luna's expression slowly shifted from curiosity to intrigue as she listened for some far-off sound. "We're close," she muttered under her breath. "Follow me."
Twilight and their accompaniment quietly trailed behind Luna as she pushed aside shrubbery with her magic, the midnight-black blades suddenly abandoned for some reason or another. Her heart began to flutter as what seemed to be litter became more and more commonly strewn across the forest floor, the odd artifacts of a foreign civilization somehow unsettling to the alicorn. It wasn't long before she heard the strange noises as well, a strange amalgamation of harsh mechanical noises, the clattering and clanking of what sounded like construction work, and the constant undertone of undecipherable conversations. Eventually, Twilight got her first glance of the alien encampment in several weeks as the trees thinned out - and gasped in sheer shock.
"Encampment" was nothing short of an understatement; the massive complex was just barely short of qualifying as a military base in the eyes of Twilight. The half-mile meadow was almost completely occupied by the aliens, who had even gone so far as to cut down parts of the treeline for expansion space. It was almost impossible to see over the six-foot tall tan wall that surrounded the entire base, but Twilight could just barely see the tops of the tents and the imposing figure of the portal behind the weapon emplacements and silver, jagged strips of wire that lined the barrier. Although she couldn't see any aliens outside the walls of the enormous outpost, they were clearly anticipating their arrival - dozens of the bipeds stood behind the walls and observed the ponies as they stood there behind the treeline. Twilight gulped as she watched several of their flying contraptions circle around their heads, the strange machines buzzing around and watching them with their dead, lifeless eyes.
Even Luna seemed a bit apprehensive as Twilight quickly glanced at her, the towering alicorn's composure ever so slightly straining underneath the immense pressure of the eyes watching her every move from every angle. She watched as a sweat drop rolled down the navy blue pony's neck and fell on to the dew-covered grass. "Let's get this over with," Luna quickly muttered as she began to move towards the massive compound. Twilight followed right behind her, unsure if the nervous tic she heard in Luna's voice was real or imagined. The small ambassadorial party slowly walked towards one of the openings in the camp's walls, its sides flanked by the same light brown walls and silver wire as well as two more of the emplacements on each side.
It didn't take long for them to reach the halfway point, the ground they stood on devoid of any grass or greenery. The aliens had apparently cleared it all away, either on purpose or through sheer traffic, and Twilight felt a sense of unease as the muddy topsoil shifted and sunk beneath her hooves. "What now?" she asked as she looked up towards Luna.
"We wait," the Princess replied. She held herself in the most dignified posture she could manage, and Twilight quickly followed suit as the guardsponies behind her stood in parade rest. A cool breeze slowly blew across the field, tossing their manes around their heads as they waited for their reception party to appear. Some of the aliens muttered to each other, with a few occasionally talking into little black boxes they carried on their torso or waist. A pair of the creatures in black clothing eventually walked in front of the entrance and set down a large crate, then stood by its sides and waited for the rest of its group to arrive. Twilight watched as more of the black-clad aliens slowly poured out of the entrance, their numbers totaling half a dozen.
Nothing seemed to happen for the next few minutes as Twilight waited for the aliens to advance. "What are they doing?" she asked as she turned towards Luna.
"Preparing their greeting party for us. I don't understand why-..."
"...Luna?"
"Ah."
Luna's face suddenly grimaced at something outside of Twilight's vision. The lavender pony turned her head towards the entrance of the base - and felt her heart suddenly kick into overdrive as she watched a trio of very, very familiar beings round the corner. The female was talking to the black-maned one, both aliens smiling at the dialogue while the yellow-maned one stared at the ponies with a look of fear in his eyes. It seemed to be especially focused on Luna, who stared back at it in equal discomfort.
...This is going to be awkward, Twilight thought to herself as her three friends caught up to the seven other aliens and spoke to them in faintly familiar words and phrases. After a brief conversation between one of the black-clothed aliens, the ten aliens advanced towards Luna and Twilight, who couldn't help but wonder just how earth-shaking the steps they were taking would be.