//------------------------------// // An Earth-Shattering Kaboom // Story: Weirder Science // by Ironthread //------------------------------// Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns has many colleges and administrative hangers-on, but by far the least notorious is a small (comparatively, at least) tower to the east of the main campus, known as the “Experimental Division”. This is the epitome of the old style of mage’s tower, filled with unicorns - professors and students alike - bustling about their business of experimenting with the limits of magic, and more than occasionally having something go wrong in a rather spectacular fashion. Usually not quite so spectacular as this, however, thought Celestia as she looked, awestruck, at the mushroom cloud of thaumic energy slowly blooming over the former location of the tower. Oh dear. Perhaps we shall not start quite so in medias res, and instead bring our story back the the morning of the same day, when Twilight Sparkle, one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria, took to the grounds of the university to reconnect with old professors, share some of her vast knowledge of the arcane in a guest lecture or two, and speak with other minds shaping the future of what magic is capable of. Only two of these things was she excited about. “I swear, half of them weren’t even trying to listen!” She ranted to a sympathetic Enunciated Incantation1, who was all too familiar with the trials of teaching to young crowds. “I just don’t understand, the creation of the first memory-sealing runic matrices has phenomenal implications for the storage and recall of information! It may be one of the most groundbreaking innovations of our time - I’ve done almost nothing but read up on the subject since it was discovered.” 1The only unicorn on staff whose full name was on no records not because he didn’t want it to be, but because nopony could write small enough to make it fit. Most ponies settled for just “Inky”, which was a surprisingly appropriate shortening due to his jet black coat. “Perhaps,” Inky ventured, “you might have picked a less…” It was at this point that he wanted to say ‘esoteric’, but thought better of it, “…advanced topic for a first-year class.” “I suppose, but honestly I would have loved to have been in the seats of a lecture like that my first year.” Twilight huffed. “I daresay, Miss Sparkle, that you are very much not most ponies.” “You may certainly say that again.” The voice of Celestia interjected, to the surprise of both ponies, and the delight of Twilight. “Celestia! It’s so good to actually see you again!” Twilight cried, cantering up to her mentor and embracing her warmly. “It is wonderful to see you too, my dear Twilight.” Celestia said as she returned the hug. “I understand you will be visiting the Experimental Division after this? They have been doing some very interesting work.” “Yes, I am very excited to speak with all of them, I remember really enjoying my time there.” “Ah, yes, your tenure with them featured some of the most interesting magical misfires in the history of the school, as I recall.” Both princess and student smiled at that. “Mister Incantation will be showing you around, I understand?” The stallion in question responded, “Yes, I’ll be showing her some of our big projects in progress right now. I think you’ll be quite interested, Miss Sparkle.” “Oh, I already am!” Twilight replied. The tour was extensive, to say the least - the occupants of the tower had a tendency to have an idea in the middle of one project and get to working on it immediately, simply setting down their current work and finding the nearest available space2 to try out their next idea, certain that this would be the real genius innovation that needed immediate investigation. This led to a lot of half-finished projects that ponies would “definitely get back to in just a moment, let me finish this idea for self-toasting bread first, I just need to tone back the enchantment so it stops setting itself on fire and burning the entire loaf”. Normally this was only a small problem, but Twilight being Twilight, she ended up having in-depth conversations about nearly every idea, theory, and vague gut feeling that the ponies here had dreamed up. At last, making their way down to the basement, she was greeted with a magnificent sight indeed - a whole team of researchers bustling to and fro around an enormous brass structure, all concentric rings and carefully placed connecting beams etched with hundreds of runes, a tiny ball of crackling energy suspended within.  Even the stone base of the tower was not safe from the frantic work of the experimental crew, a massive runic circle carved into the floor below the contraption. 2Sometimes this happens to be the floor, so it is recommended to watch your step in the more frequently trafficked areas - more than a few frenzied researchers have been accidentally trod on in their pursuit of arcane advancements. “This is one of the projects that has been going on for a while now,” Inky explained. “An attempt to create massive amounts of thaumic energy through the careful fission of basic magical structure, of the type any unicorn could easily produce. The fuel spell is actually a retrofit of the levitation spell matrix, to ensure it is as easy as possible to teach and cast.” “That seems quite unstable, how are you keeping the reaction in check?” Twilight asked, still inquisitive even after a very busy few hours. “You’d have to ask Glinty about that, I don’t work on this much.” Aura Glint, presumably the Glinty mentioned, stepped up to field the question. “You can see the reaction-essential runes are all in the first three layers,” she said, indicating the innermost rings of the device, “and everything else is stabilization spells. We move energies in and out through the conduit circle in the floor - it was designed for maximum bandwidth - and fuel is provided by simply casting the fuel spell on the focus in the middle. We’ve already got some loaded in, Eureka Moment provided that earlier -” Glint gestured to a frazzled-looking unicorn stallion in a corner of the room, who waved distractedly “- and we were just about to kick it on. If you stick around for a moment you can see our first test of this new spellform configuration.” Twilight of course agreed, and the researchers set about readying the device for operation while Twilight continued to talk excitedly with Glint about the details of the device’s function. At last, a researcher called to the conversing mares that the device is ready, and they may want to pay attention. Twilight immediately perked up, and accepted the pair of tinted goggles Inky handed her. Once all present had strapped on their protective equipment and (in the case of the research team) picked up their clipboards, the device was powered on. Runes and spellforms glowed to life in the brass structure, and the tiny piece of fuel began to wobble and spark. Rings began to spin in carefully constructed patterns, and slowly, gradually, the circle on the floor began to light up with power drawn from the reaction. Twilight was entranced by the sight, not because of the visual majesty of it, though it certainly was impressive, but by the carefully choreographed interplay of possibly hundreds of individual spells, chosen for the precise way in which they interacted with each other. After a certain point in the reaction the light was so blinding from the whirling runes and steadily brightening reaction at the center that Twilight gave up on watching it visually and instead closed her eyes and probed it with her magic, feeling the interlocking enchantments the way a clockmaker observes the fine mechanisms of a wristwatch. But they weren’t interlocking. Twilight frowned, noticing a strange pattern of interaction in one stabilization layer, double-checking her observations to make sure, but there was no mistake - two enchantments were interacting strangely and causing a small instability. As she opened her mouth to point it out to Glint, Twilight felt the instability grow and crack through two more enchantments, and she changed her comment to a shout. “Layer 2 is failin-” she managed, before one of the rings of the device shattered, and the point became moot. Shock and panic set in among the research team as the whole device began to shudder and split all over, glowing cracks forming as a chain reaction of spell failures began to rip the reaction shielding apart. Twilight, meanwhile, her magic almost moving faster than her brain could process what was happening, fired up her horn and hastily constructed her own shielding spell to hold back the steadily growing reaction at the center of the room. Straining to hold back the massive amount of energy boiling in her magical grip, Twilight managed only a quick “Do you have any backup plans in here?!” This seemed to finally knock the occupants of the basement out of their daze, who immediately set about looking for solutions or bolted upstairs to warn the rest of the tower. Glint, however, looked guiltily at the floor. “We… thought the stabilization would be enough.” Twilight was furious, but didn’t have the energy to stay as such and maintain concentration on her already wobbling shield. “YOU THOUGHT - okay, okay, I can deal with this, you just need to get everypony out of the tower, now.” “Could I help…?” Glint ventured, knowing if Twilight hadn’t asked for it there was likely nothing she could do. “Not unless you received personal training from my brother in shield spells, since I’m almost certain he and I are the only ponies who know how to cast a barrier this strong.” Twilight managed through gritted teeth. “Just evacuate. And tell Celestia. I’ll figure something out. If you don’t see me when this thing goes off, I didn’t find a way out in time.” Glint looked horrified at that last remark. “GO!” Twilight shouted, which seemed to break the stunned mare out of her daze. Soon she, too, had fled the room. Above, It was chaos, and ponies shouted and galloped in all directions, grabbing their most precious work and running as fast as they could - one pony dashed out of the tower with a piece of self-toasting bread in her mouth, another levitating a stack of notes about a foot thick, everyone panicked and a mess of papers and fright. Below, Twilight’s analytical might was being put to the biggest test it had ever faced3. 3Except, perhaps, for Pinkie Pie. Alright Twilight, your magic reserve is dwindling and they’re definitely not going to get someone to Celestia before you run out. How do you get out of this with what you have left? Teleport away once I drop the shield? No, the blast radius on this is going to be - She tried to calculate exactly, but soon realized that here were better uses of her time at this point - pretty big, even on my best days I could only manage that much distance in one cast with a lot of time and concentration, and this is certainly not one of my best days - and I don’t think I’ll have time for a teleport chain when this shield drops. Okay, teleporting’s out. What else? I could put a shield around myself - but again, as soon as this reaction is set free I’m toast - I don’t have time to cast another one of these shields in the moment after I release this one, and maintaining two at once would burn through my mana reserves like crazy. C’mon, think! Hmm, I bet I could enchant something to resist this blast pretty easily, but what then? I hide behind a shield and I get roasted alive from convection. I would need a dome of some sort, and I don’t see anything like that in here. What else… It was at this point that she directed her attention to the floor, where the huge channeling circle was still etched into the stone floor. This could channel power, a lot of it. But it needs direction, a will, an image to build on. I could… And then she gasped in realization, and went to work. Celestia was in the middle of a cup of tea when a frantic researcher burst into her chambers and babbled something about unstable reactions that she only partly understood. She understood the next sentence perfectly, though - “Twilight’s holding it off, but she can’t do it forever - If someone doesn’t help her the blast is going to go off with her right next to -” was all the panicked academic had time for before Celestia had already fired off a teleport and was standing on the balcony of the castle, wings at the ready to fly to the Experimental Division. It was that moment that the Experimental Division decided to abort this plan by blowing up spectacularly. Oh dear, thought Celestia. After the dust cleared, all that remained of the tower in which the Experimental Division once resided was the stone floor of the basement. The circles drawn by the fission team were still perfectly preserved in the rock, along with a whole new set of runes that nopony was really interested in identifying, after what happened. There was shock, then horror, then grief, and finally a massive overhaul of the safety practices in arcane research laboratories all across Equestria. A new tower was erected on the spot of the old one, the basement floor left in place as a reminder of the danger these ponies were facing every day and the sacrifice Twilight made. But none of that, Celestia knew, could bring her back. No, that would require a more directed effort.