First Contact: From the Mouths of the Ponies
By Zinitrad
Edited by theBSDude
Part 2: Dinky Doo
"Are you sure you don't want one, dearie?"
The house I am in is small and simple. The architecture is similar to ancient Earthbound European housing, complete with a thatched roof and a wooden support structure. Clashing with its rustic and quaint appearance are the signs of renovation, such as portions of wall that were re-plastered after the installation of electrical wiring, and the presence of electrical devices throughout the building. The mare who owns this house is a 69-year-old unicorn mare named Dinky Doo. She has a light purple-grey coat, a golden-blonde mane, and bright yellow eyes. She was a young adult, 15 years old, at the time of contact in 6214.
Mrs. Doo is a magic educator, employed by the local school to educate young unicorns in the proper use of their magic. She has held this job for 32 years, and plans on retiring soon now that there is someone younger who is fully qualified for the position.
Knowing that I was coming, she had decided to be a gracious host and baked me muffins. Unfortunately, there are issues with the content of said muffin.
"Does it contain hay?"
"Yes, why?"
"Well, sorry, but no thanks. Excessive amounts of cellulose isn't exactly the best thing for humans."
Her face falls. "That's just too bad, I wish I’d known that before. They're really good; it's my mother's recipe, you know. She always made the best muffins...."
The room falls into an awkward silence.
I decided to break it.
"I understand you were a teenager at the time of first contact. Could you tell me what that was like?"
"Oh dear, that was so long ago!" she chuckles.
"I understand that; it’s the reason I am doing this: obtaining the information while it can still be considered an eyewitness account."
"Well then, let's see what I can remember..."
~~~~~
"It had been a strange decade, one filled with all sorts of happenings. Every year, it seemed, something new arrived to turn the world into a living Tartarus. Nightmare Moon, Discord, the changeling armies, every year it was something different. Every year, something would attack. Every year, the Elements would stop it. And every year, the new invader would do more damage to lives and property than the last.
" We were sick of it, and scared — worried about what the new year would bring to our doorstep, and the destruction that would follow. We became paranoid, running in fear from the slightest disturbance, making mountains out of molehills, thinking a light breeze was the end of us all. I swear, the number of times Canterlot was placed on high alert, only for it to be a false alarm... It was ridiculous."
I smiled. "So I imagine our arrival didn't help things much."
"You better believe it didn't help! The moment y’all sent that message down, there was a panic like you wouldn't believe."
"Can you tell me about the initial panic?"
She pauses, gathering her thoughts.
"Equestria was in the middle of an ‘aliens’ obsession when that first message was sent. For the majority of our history, we had assumed the stars to be nothing but dots of light on some kind of cosmic dome. The entire concept of the stars being something more, something bigger, was a fairly recent idea. At the time, we were only just becoming aware of the world around us, and the concept of massive galaxies filled with billions of stars was just that: a concept.
"And it was a concept that writers just loved! As soon as those theories started proving true, sci-fi became big. Soon enough, everywhere you went, you would find examples of this craze. Bit novels, radio plays, films, all churned out by the dozen.
"And they were always such ridiculous concepts, too! It would be something completely silly, like invaders from the moon stealing our mares in order to continue their all-male society, and only a small group of teenagers have it figured out. The poster at the theater would feature some cheesy tagline, like ‘Most Shocking!’, or ‘Equestria has never known terror like this!’. So at that point, we were not only paranoid and literally looking for something to run away from, but we were all absolutely obsessed with the concept of an alien invasion."
She leans in. "If you were to’ve told somepony that aliens were comin', you know what they would've said?"
"What?"
"To fetch them their spear and hide the mares, that's what! We were terrified the moment we learned you guys were out there."
I make an attempt to elicit a more personal account. "Do you remember where you were when the panic began?"
"Let's see... Yeah I think so. I was in Canterlot. I was 16 at the time, a couple years out of foalhood. I had moved there to begin my higher education, so that I could become an educator myself. I was hanging out with my friend Firelock at a local hotspot, this donut shop called ‘Pony Joe's.’ Everypony I knew would go there to hang out after school. It was a fun place to go. The food was cheap, it was open all day, and Joe didn't care how long you sat there doing nothing as long as you bought something first. But what really attracted us there was Joe's radio. Back then, Equestrian-made radios were just being released to the public. The military had had them for a few years before then, but that didn't stop them from being ‘cutting-edge.’ You had to have money to have a public radio set in your house, money that most of us didn't have. How Joe afforded one, I don't know. Either way, that thing was what would seal the deal.
"Anyway, like I said, I was there with my friend. It had been just like any other day, everypony was glad that their classes were over, at least until tomorrow, and all anypony cared about was eating some donuts, drinking some coffee, and listening to some tunes. Nopony was expecting anything out of the ordinary."
"What happened?"
"I remember standing around the radio, listening to some new song by a band from Trottingham. I can’t remember who they were anymore... all I remember was they looked like they were going to be big, but they got overshadowed by, well, you know... They just wound up being forgotten, but-"
"Mrs. Doo."
"Oh, sorry about that. Anyway, in the middle of the song, they just cut out. At first we thought the radio was broken, but then the emergency tone began to play. We had all grown familiar with that tone, the city had been put on high alert 7 times that year. We all started jeering, expecting it to just something that would blow over by the end of the week. Eventually though, as the announcer began talking, Joe told us to shush. I... I don't exactly remember what the message entirely was, but I remember the basics of it. It started out like the others did, with a droning voice telling us that this was an official emergency message from Castle Canterlot. But it sounded different that time, like the announcer was shaky and unsure. He began telling us about us of how a message had been picked up on radio, and of how they believed it had came from somewhere beyond the moon. That was when we all started paying attention. They had basically came as close as they could to saying ‘aliens’ without actually saying it. We were all listening intently then, but I don't think any of us believed it yet. We were running through every possible scenario we could. Perhaps it was a joke? Nah, we thought, the princesses wouldn't joke about that. Was the emergency system hijacked? Nah, the guy sounded panicked, not like a different pony. Maybe some magical experiment accidentally got a radio emitter in space? It would've had to be a really powerful radio.
"But then, the announcer pulled out the ace in the hole. He told us that they had received permission to play the transmission for us. I don't know what we expected, maybe vague static, robotic beeps, some of us probably thought it would be in Equestrian or something silly like that. But what played was something completely different. And first we thought it was just complete gibberish; squeaks, growls, and hums accompanied by a series of beeps. But after a few minutes, I'm pretty sure we all began to realize what we were listening to."
"And what were you listening to?"
"A message. A simple message, just the expression of a simple concept, repeated thousands of times, each time in a different language, each language divided by a tone. I know what the message was now, and looking back, the amount of fear it generated was just ridiculous."
"What was the message?"
"It was hello. Hello repeated in every language that was spoken by that giant society you live in. When we heard it we all became silent. We had just sat for a little over an hour, listening to something that was undoubtedly alien. We didn't know what to do. When the message ended, the announcer told us to stay calm, and wait for further news." She sighs. "Great help that was. They turned the music back on, and all the way till the end of the song we were completely silent, stunned and frightened by this new unknown. When it ended, it was like a bomb went off. Everypony started shouting, screaming and worrying over the perceived invaders. Some ponies were shouting about this being the new threat, about how this was what we had been preparing for. A few ponies were crying, sobbing and telling everypony who would listen about this wasn't something we would be able to fight. Others were simply trying to figure out why you were there, whether you were here for our resources, land, us, our mares, or *gasp* because you wanted to be friends! Others, like me, just didn't know what to think. I was confused and worried, but not ready to jump to conclusions about why you were here." She stops and thinks. "I would say that night was the beginning of the panic."
"But it wasn't the end?"
"No. Not by a long shot. Throughout the week, Equestria's citizens flipped out. Everypony battened down the hatch, began practicing with whatever ‘weapons’ they owned, even if it was just a pitchfork. It was some kind of ‘Everypony a soldier’ thing, a belief that if we all fought we would be capable of beating back the ‘invaders from space.’ I even participated in that a bit, training myself to use my old plateball bat as a club. That was just being prepared though, nothing like the Equestrian Protection League. They were absolutely militant about you guys, saying that anypony who wasn't prepared to fight you from the moment you landed was a traitor, to not only Equestria and the princesses, but to the planet. But their leaders were all well known to be racists, so no pony in the government really took them seriously. On the other hoof, there was the alien enthusiasts, who ranged everywhere from the kind souls who honestly wanted to give you a chance, to the despicable ones who were willing to sell out their planet to get on your good side. And there were the real jerks, the ponies who took advantage of the panic for their own gain. They did the most damage during the panic; the looters, snake oil salesponies, and the rioters who took a delicate situation as an excuse to act upon their own perverse desires.
"All throughout this, we kept hearing more and more about new messages. They didn't tell us fully what happened until decades later, part of a, to be frank, poorly thought out attempt to reduce the panic and fear. Really, we only learned about the most major developments. Even then, we still heard plenty. Over a period of 3 months, messages were sent down. The majority of them were images hidden in the form of broadcasts, which unfortunately, we wouldn't learn to decipher until about 2 months later. Eventually, we started sending our own messages back, and while it was fruitless at first, we started making progress when we learned how to replicate the ability to hide messages. We started sending what we considered to be universal symbols, some of which turned out to be less universal than we though. All-in-all, though, we were finally making progress.
"It was 5 months after the first message that we heard the ‘big news,’ that we were arranging a place for you to land so we could meet you. By that time, the official government position was that we were going to meet you on friendly terms, while bringing enough military to hopefully produce a show of force, to, y'know, let you know we weren't going to be just pushed around. The landing zone was decided to be within the mild west, and everypony in power was going to be there. The Princesses, The Captain of the Guard, Commander of the Ground Forces, Wonderbolts, Elements, some of the big Canterlot family heads, all the big name scientists... this was before there was a Prime minister, so obviously, that pony wasn't there. They allowed a small number of civilian ponies to attend, as a way to hopefully ease our fears about you. I jumped on the opportunity as soon as I could, taking my mother along with me."
"So what was it like?"
"I'm getting there! Just be patient!
"Now where was I... Oh! Right. The landing. It was nighttime when the event began. I really don't know about any of the technical details, I mean, I was there as a civilian not as a scientist. I remember that everypony was talking amongst themselves, eager and a little scared to see you all for the first time. We were no longer panicking over you, but we were still a little afraid of the unknown, y'know? Besides, at that point, while us commoners still didn't know much of anything about you, the princesses and those under their employ had been communicating with you for a while, and if they were willing to meet you here, we were okay with their decision. Suddenly, we all heard an announcement from the princesses, one telling us you were due to arrive any moment now. We all stood in silence, waiting, searching for a sign of your arrival. Honestly I was expecting something like a flying saucer, like the ones they always had in the theaters. I don't think we had even begun to imagine what you actually arrived in.
"It was huge. It started its arrival slow, and at first it started out as a little dot, coming out from behind the moon. We ooh-ed and aah-ed, excited by our first, if insignificant, view of your vessel. Eventually, the dot stopped moving, and it just stayed there. If it wasn't for its almost brown color, I would have lost it amongst the stars. We grew silent, waiting in an anticipation that grew more and more uncomfortable by the second. When we thought it couldn't get more awkward, it happened.
"Out of nowhere, where there was once an empty patch of sky, it appeared, its gargantuan scale dominating the skyline. It was unlike anything we had ever seen. It was larger than any building, any tree, any mountain that we knew of. What really messed with our heads was the fact that it was above most of the clouds, nearly all but the ones right before space. It was barely in our atmosphere, in an area long believed to be too cold to fly through. What really silenced us was the fact that the ship was even flying at all! Dozens of miles of steel and glass, just hanging there in space, simply ignoring how much heavier than air it was.
"Moments after we saw it arrive, we heard it arrive. When I was little filly, I thought the Sonic Rainboom was loud. I thought Luna was loud. I had barely even an appreciation of what loud could mean. The sound of it coming out of warp was the most bass-filled, rumbling, loudest, and most powerful thing I had ever heard. The ground shook beneath our hooves, and it was all the engineers could do to keep the site from falling apart from sheer vibration.
"Dazed and confused, we barely noticed the smaller ship that left the bigger one. The smaller one, while large, was more of what we were expecting to begin with. Fairly circular, mostly symmetrical, made out of shiny metal. Sailing through the atmosphere, it took a minute or two before it made it to the zone. One of my favorite parts of that night was seeing it land. Heavier than air non-organic flight wasn't a very well-understood field in Equestria, and the entire concept of a VTOL wasn't something we really thought of as possible. Seeing the ship stop on a dime above the landing zone, and then slowly descend, was breathtaking.
"After landing, the moment we had all been waiting for began. There was a release of air, a pneumatic hiss, after which a door began to open, a door that fit so perfectly, we hadn’t noticed it till that point. The door opened from the bottom, forming a large ramp. And there, at the top of of the ramp, was the reason we were all there, the reason we had been in panic, and the reason we were going to be propelled to the future. One of you.
"It was so strange seeing one of you for the first time. You were so different, but not a way that was too incredibly strange. I'm pretty sure everybody thought you were gonna look like you did in the movies, like a pony made of slime, or a pony with tentacles, or just a pony in a spacesuit. You were something entirely different, like if the love child of a minotaur and a diamond dog got together with an ape." She stops, looking at me with an embarrassed face. "Ummm... No offense?"
"None taken."
"Eheheheh, er... well, um, sorry. Anyway, one of the things that surprised us the most was when the guy you sent took off his helmet. We really weren't expecting what we saw. I mean, you're eyes are just so small,and while there are some hairless critters, they're all just that: Critters. But those eyes, they're just so small, and beady... You sure you're not offended?"
"Yes I'm sure."
We stare at each other awkwardly, and deciding I have gained enough information for today, and that it was getting rather awkward for the both of us, I choose to end the interview.
"Well Mrs. Doo, its been wonderful, but I must get going. Before I leave though, I would like to get a parting statement. If you could summarize what was going through your head that night and say it, what would you say?"
"I would say that the moment one of you stepped out of that craft, every single one of us realized something: For better or for worse, it would never be the same."
~~~~~
AUTHOR'S CORNER
Hey! Zinitrad here, thanks for reading. Took a while for me to write this, and I think it turned out pretty well, and longer than I expected, too!
Still need cover art.
Watches, likes and favorites are appreciated, and if you like the setting, head on over to my blog to learn more about it. Anyway, ciao.
Edit: I have an editor/pre-reader now, a magnificent fellow known as “theBSDude”. TheBSDude’s also the editor of Fallout Equestria: Heroes and the pre-reader of The Elements of Eternity, both of which are wonderful stories that I urge you to read if you have not already