//------------------------------//
// Chapter 120 
// Story: Voyage of the Equinox 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//



Join the Flotilla 66%



There was definitely a part of Twilight that reveled in the idea of staying back to stick it to the forces arrayed against them. The Hunger had cost her so much--had nearly devoured her civilization whole, and somehow finding a way to stop it had a deeply personal appeal. If Equestria wasn't in her hooves, and it was just her and her friends left, she might've done it.

But they weren't alone. Over a hundred thousand creatures were frozen on the Canterlot, all depending on her Twilight had to think of them first, and personal satisfaction second. Besides, the races in the Flotilla have probably thought of everything we could come up with. And if not, we can work with them when we arrive to stop Hunger for good. It isn't a war we have to win right now.

The Canterlot had its own little war to win. Twilight was more than a little surprised to learn that it had already been fighting that war, while she was distracted with other issues. 



Do the inheritors change their minds? Yes 



"I know I should've talked to you about it more, Twilight," Pinkie explained. "I've been down in that cell... I guess whenever I was bored? I dunno." She bounced past the hospital bed, far closer to her usual energy than she'd been around Twilight in some time. "But it seemed like they could use a little affection. What pony doesn't feel better after a party?"

You had a party with the ponies who tried to murder me. She resisted showing her indignance. 

"I know you can't just trust them right away, and I think the inheritors know that too," Pinkie continued. "But between Applejack and me, I think they're really coming around. They had no idea what we went through to get here. The more they know about us, the less reason they have to be afraid."

It made a simple kind of sense. Twilight wished she could put the Inheritors right back to work, since they knew more about the modified Canterlot than basically anypony. Every report she read included some strange jury-rig. None seemed malicious, but each one was another setback to getting the station fully functional again. Having 'local' talent on every team was going to be critical to safely restoring the station.

It took a little while, but eventually she was back on her hooves. She passed through the station slowly, her horn constantly alert to magical danger. Even if every conspirator they knew of was in prison, she couldn't shake the impression that there might be others. The Canterlot just didn't seem like a safe place anymore.

Now that she wasn't exploring it for the first time from behind her space suit, the signs of decay were everywhere. Great promenades of crystal and metal had been stripped for parts, leaving only bare walkways and safety rails. Fountains once filled with fish had run dry, and the many gardens and orchards were barren and lifeless. Twilight could remember a time from her own foalhood, where this station had been self-sufficient, importing only luxuries like zap-apples and the occasional spare parts. But from what she'd seen, the creatures maintaining the station now lived only on a thin slime of algae. And 'lived' was used loosely, given their frail bodies and poor constitutions. Eked out a desperate survival, more like. Which was part of the reason she was leaving the hospital to speak to the pony who ran it, rather than just talking in her office.

With the Canterlot's life support systems fully restored, parts of the station were now accessible that had been under vacuum for many years. Twilight stepped through an airlock into one such, up the steps to the princess’s castle. The square was now entirely dominated with stacked cryosleep caskets, with only a single narrow aisle between them. She made her way up the steps to the palace gates, pushing them gently open. Caskets blocked the view of the ancient stained-glass windows. Some of those might still show her own accomplishments--but she couldn't get a good view. Besides, they weren't as important as the reason she was here.

Fluttershy stood at the foot of the ancient thrones, looking up at the empty seats like a supplicant before their god. She turned as Twilight neared, probably hearing her hoofsteps. 

"You wanted to talk in here?" Twilight asked, eyebrows raised. "Not a... painless place for a conversation." But no matter what happened, she was not going to let one of her crewmembers see her cry. 

"I asked Applejack where we could go that we wouldn't be overheard. It had to be somewhere the survivors hadn't modified. Apparently they kept the palace totally empty, so... no modifications. Superstitions. Are you afraid of the ghosts of old alicorns?"

Yes. But the ghosts live in my mind, not in this old castle. She was already seeing them. Princess Celestia stood beside her younger self near one wall. Through the barrier of caskets flashing green and yellow the ruler of Equestria taught her Twilight's first shield spell. There on an upper-story balcony was where a young twilight had curled up with her books, whenever Celestia brought her here to see the solar court. Mostly she read her book, the court had always been too boring. "What don't you want anypony to know?"

"It's about your decision. Taking the Canterlot to the Flotilla, joining Node's survivors... I wanted to remind you of what that would mean. Or maybe tell you for the first time, if you haven't thought about it."

Her eyebrows went up. "I've thought about an awful lot. But I'm listening."

"I don't know exactly how this highway works... but it can't break physics, right? That means acceleration gravity. The survivors on this station aren't going to be able to cope, Captain. I know we're probably months away... we've got mining to do, a dozen different things to fix I don't even understand. I just want to put this in your mind, so we can start figuring out a solution now."

"What do you mean they can't cope?" Twilight asked. Even speaking quietly, her voice echoed in the empty castle. Did she have the courage to walk up and visit her dead mentor's quarters? "Be precise."

"The survivors have lived in zero gravity their whole life. They abandoned navy protocol... well, their grandparents probably abandoned it. Their hearts are small, their lungs are weak, their bones are brittle. Now... Earth Pony magic is probably enough for them to adapt. They'll wish they were dead, but if we've got enough drugs, they'll make it. The others... won't. A few weeks at full gravity, and they'll start dying. Gruesome, terrible deaths. I just... wanted you to be thinking about what to do. It's not just broken station we have to fix. There are broken creatures too."

Twilight could see a few solutions.

1. Prepare to distribute the mechanical conversion to all non-earth ponies. Distributing that much will be insanely dangerous, but Fluttershy can probably come up with something. Being mechanical might not be ideal, but being dead is worse.

2. Gradually swap out ponies on ice with ponies who can't survive the gravity. We don't have any space for new pods, but there's probably thousands of skilled creatures frozen. Plenty of room for all the survivors, and we can build up a crew as we go.

3. Construct a new habitat with magic and technology to counter acceleration gravity, for all the survivors to eventually live in. Sure building new modules takes time, but the Canterlot was always made for it. The cost in energy and supplies is worth remaining united as a civilization.