Captain’s log, supplemental. Nearly two weeks into our mission to Equestria, what we have learned of the ponies and their world has been an education for us all. I have met with the leaders of other nations that coexist with the ponies, including the minotaurs, the griffons, and the hippogriffs. Most have expressed horror as to what it means for the approach of their world to the planet of Betazed, and have pledged to not only help with our efforts to avert this crisis, but also to join with Celestia and the ponies in building a viable colony on the somewhat nearby system that has been chosen for them to colonize. To that end, there are now nine federation starships in orbit, two of which are dedicated colony ships, as well as four Klingon ships and even some civilian freighters assisting in the evacuation. Our efforts to avert the disaster and prevent the necessity of destroying this beautiful world have not borne fruit as of yet, but between communication with Federation Science and the combined efforts of several different governments on Equestria, I remain hopeful.
Picard smiles genially as Queen Novu of the Hippogriffs takes her leave from the conference room, accompanied by her guard. As the door closes behind her he leans back into his seat.
“This is not easy.” And exasperated sigh has Picard turning to look at the blue alicorn sitting on the floor next to him. Princess Luna leans closer to the Captain. “You are doing fantastic, dealing with so many radically different species is difficult in the best of times.”
He nods. “And these are most certainly not the best of times.” He looks down at the pad containing his notes from the meeting. “I’m just glad that most of these rulers aren’t simply trying to carve out their own little fiefdoms in this new colony.”
That gets a laugh from the lunar princess. “A thousand years ago, that would likely have been the case, Captain. Our relations with our neighboring kingdoms has been strained at times throughout history. Though, like everycreature else, Queen Novo wants what is best for her subjects. It is quite fortunate that the planet we will be moving to has fairly extensive oceans.” She stops and looks at him. “But life on that planet is going to be interrupted by our arrival?”
Picard nods. “There is no sapient life, and minimal sea life even. We have seen this before, some planets achieve life, and plant life is abundant on this planet, but anything more than that seems to not really develop. Federation science has spent years there, cataloguing the variety of life and trying to see if some day in the distant future intelligent life would emerge. The general consensus is that it won’t. So, it was cleared for colonization some years ago. The ground is fertile for crops to be grown, and the seas can be well stocked with sea life from your world. Perhaps within a few thousand years it would be indistinguishable from Equestria.”
That gets a frown. “We are not looking to replace our home.” She looks thoughtful for a long moment before turning to look at Picard. “Assuming the worst. What will happen to our colony?”
“What will happen?” Picard furrows his brow, genuinely confused.
“Ponies, hippogriffs, minotaurs, griffons, dragons, we are used to each other, and with the calming influence of myself and my dear sister. We live in harmony for the most part. But we’ve been within this bubble for as long as we remember, longer than even most of our records. We knew the stars were magical constructs, I arranged them myself for time immemorial. And now, there’s not just life out there, but spacefaring species, with wars, and conflict, and the Borg out there. How do I protect my ponies now?”
Picard shifts in his chair uneasily. “I apologize Princess, for thrusting you and your people into this universe without any real warning. I would have loved to have found you long before this. I genuinely would have preferred to meet you under far better circumstances.”
She sidles closer to him, putting out a wing and placing it delicately on his shoulder. “I would have liked to get to know you and your people much sooner myself.” She offers him a small smile. “But I do wonder, about your prime directive. We don’t have warp drive, I don’t think this would have happened without a crisis to have to avert.”
Picard is lost in thought, looking at the lunar princess. After a long moment he shakes his head slightly. “You know, as I’ve gotten to know you ponies more, I am beginning to think that the prime directive should not apply to you. You are not backwards savages, you are certainly not unsophisticated.” He looks down. “In fact, you have mastered much of what we can do without the technology we rely on.” He looks up at her, brown eyes looking into blue-green. “I’m beginning to think Q has a point, we will have to accept the fact, that technology may not be the deciding factor for how advanced a species is.” He gestures to the room around them. “The powers you ponies have, equate to our transporters, faster than light communications, gravity manipulation, even matter transmogrification. The idea that you haven’t built starships capable of visiting other star systems is because you simply haven’t felt the need to. For example, when you teleported to your moon, our sensors showed it to be instantaneous, on the order of a tenth of a second. Light takes slightly over a second to arrive. Our sensors confirmed you exceeded the speed of light when it comes to transportation. Our transporters aren’t nearly that fast.”
“Because we were stuck in our little bubble, unaware of the universe around us.”
“That is a fair point, but assuming Equestria survives all of this, what would you ponies do?”
Luna looks thoughtful for a long moment. “My sister and I have discussed this at length, Captain. Knowing civilization is outside of our safe cocoon, that there is life that we have never conceived of, we would want to do much of what you humans do. Learn as much as we can, get to know our neighbors, and join the galaxy around us.”
Picard nods. “I, for one, would be happy to have you join humanity and our allies…as friends.”
She narrows her eyes. “As some sort of protectorate world?”
He shakes his head. “Oh, no, Princess. You may not have mastered starship design, but culturally you get along with vastly different species and have earned the respect of some very disparate powers on your world. And not through holding them hostage with your control of your sun and moon. I had assumed that your power over the others would produce a chilling effect on potential aggressors, but your sister and you have dealt diplomatically with others as equals, and shown them compassion and friendship. You act truly enlightened, and as far as I’m concerned, deserve to petition to join the Federation as full members.”
That gets a blush from the princess. “Thank you, Captain.” She tilts her head slightly and a bit of a laugh enters her voice. “Perhaps in not too much time, we will have ponies among the crews of your starships.” She shrugs her wings before folding them at her sides. “You never know, Earth ponies are wondrous at building, we might decide to build our own starships. We apparently have some supplies of dilithium on Equestria, perhaps we will be joining the galactic community at large in not too long a time.”
“It would be my distinct pleasure to welcome you to space faring, Princess.” He looks over at the desk. “That wasn’t there before.” A large cookie is sitting on the desk, wrapped in cellophane with a big red bow attached and a note attached. He clears his throat before reading out loud. “The Continuum so loves when you prove you aren’t some simple minded fruit loving ape. By the way, here, I am Discord, not Q.
PS grapes are fruit, right?”
Princess Luna’s magic pulls the cookie gently from his grasp before stripping the wrapping from it and breaking it in half. She floats half of it to her and she takes a bite as she offers the other half to the Captain. “Here is to a long working relationship.”
Picard ponders the cookie for a long moment. “Agreed, but let us fix this first problem, and save your world.”
***
Lt. Cmdr Data is busy on exactly the opposite. Deep in the bowels of the enormous starship is the weapons magazine, connected to the photon torpedo launchers. In addition to the hundreds of devices stored on racks for insertion into the launchers, there is ample work areas for specialized equipment like the probes the ship sends off on a regular basis. Many needing crew work to prepare for launch. In a sequestered area is well over a dozen torpedoes, all of them with their access hatches open. Several techs are working on the various torpedoes. Data is sitting at the computer work station, coordinating the work and providing instructions. The large door whines open, admitting a pony. Data looks up, a bit surprised that a pony is coming into a very secure area of the starship. She looks around a few times then focuses on him, trotting up and sitting before him while giving a respectable salute. “Minuette here, reporting as ordered.”
“I issued no such orders.”
She smiles brightly. “But Princess Twilight did, at Captain Picard’s request. You needed maps and our own surveys to supplement your scans of our world.” She gestures to the saddlebags wrapped around her barrel. She lights her horn and the flap opens, maps fly out, old scrolls, and even books. The volume gets Data to pause.
“That exceeded the internal volume of those bags.” He tilts his head to the side. “How?”
She giggles. “It’s a spell, the bag is bigger on the inside.” She sets down the books and rapidly stacks the scrolls. “Any third year at Celestia’s school can do it.”
He blinks. “Fascinating.” He picks up one of the large maps, his eyes roving over the painstakingly hoof drawn contours. After a few moments he puts down the map. “For a simple map, these are accurate down to the millimeter, for any species to achieve this without the aid of satellite mapping.”
“Some ponies have a knack for navigation and cartography, they spend their whole lives making and correcting maps like this, special talents work that way.” Minette says, then clears her throat, standing tall and pretending to be a teacher, “Cutie marks do not define who we are, they only express the talents we have as we come to understand them.”
He turns to his computer, bringing up a floating image of the planet. His fingers fly across the board as he enters in the new information. As the unicorn stands there watching, he finishes and leans back. The computer makes some sounds as it digests and works on the information. Then bright blooms show in several parts of the planet, causing it to break into pieces, expanding while information showing tractor beams moving pieces around. “One hundred percent fragmentation, no requirement for phaser cutting after the initial blast, all pieces within limits of available tractor beams.” After the simulation completes, the scene disappears, revealing to his eyes a pony standing there, tears streaming down her face.
Tilting her head, she sighs softly, “So, that’s how it would end huh? Not in fire or darkness, but simply calculated dissection. Then no more home.”
Data blinks, looking at the empty space that was the simulation then at her. “I am aware that some species have emotional attachments to locations, I apologize as I failed to factor that in when displaying the simulation.” Looking down at the pony, “Captain Picard ordered me to complete the preparations for if everything else we are trying to do fail. Though it is everyone’s wish that alternate means work.”
He stands up and moves over to her before crouching down to eye level with the pony. “Contingencies must be made for any event, success and failure. It is the hope of the captain, if alternate the plan succeeds, then this program can be deleted, the torpedoes unmodified and returned to storage, and we will be done.”
“All logic,” She sniffles and turns away. “Princess Twilight told me about you, you are a robot, a machine, lacking in emotional context.”
“I am an android, and while it is true, and while I lack emotion, however I do attempt to take the emotions of others into account.”
She slams a hoof into the deck. “I don’t care what you are called, you talk of hopes and wishes. How can you when you are planning on doing this, so casually” She gestures to the empty space that held the simulation. “To my world.” She stops for a long moment, “You can’t understand what I am going through, what we ponies are going through. This is a death sentence for an uncountable number of beings, and you just watch it happen. Cold, calculating, by the numbers.” She looks up at him. “If you could understand the hopes, the wishes, how could you still look at this information, and display it as if it were nothing more than a game?”
Data is momentarily at a loss for words from the emotional onslaught. Though after a few moments he blinks a few times. “Minuette, it is true that I am a machine, but my creator was human. He put within me the desire, the need, to strive to be more human. I am not merely a computational device, I am a being, and that means I work to be more than what I am. I can see how this is affecting you. I do not want to do this. I have to do this, because if our efforts fail, two planets are at risk. Billions of lives on Betazed will be lost in addition to the loss of life on your planet. Part of the reason I am working on this right now is so I can complete the work and then focus on our efforts to save your home. The captain made a decision to get the necessary planning over and done with, and will be saved as a file in our computer. With the hope that the file will be deleted while unused. Captain Picard wants to save your world, and every pony on your world.”
“But, can you?” She gestures to the torpedoes. “I’ve been told you have over a thousand members of your crew, from dozens of different worlds on your ship here. There are a good dozen here working diligently to end our world. How many do you have working to save my home?” The pony whirls away, her ears down her tail wrapped around her rear legs as she sits on the deck, emitting the occasional sniffle.
“The goal of this starship, Miss Minuette, is to save every one of you. While we are preparing for the worst possible contingency, the goal of every crewmember, every single one. Is the saving of your world.”
She sniffles again. “How can you know that? What if some hooman likes the idea of watching big explosions to destroy a world? What if they mess up what we are trying to do?”
Data sits and considers for a long moment. Finally he comes to a decision. “Come with me, let me show you something.”
As he stands up, he can hear the soft clop of her hooves on the deck as they move through the ship. In a matter of minutes, they are standing before a large door. He turns and looks at her. “Captain Picard ordered me, before he beamed down the first time to your palace, to create a program, a representation of what was to come. If his words to your princess were to fail. He wanted to be able to show her the consequences of doing nothing.” He looks at the computer terminal. “Computer, load Equestrian worst case scenario.”
The computer beeps a few times before the computer voice responds. “Program loaded and ready. You may enter.”
With a metallic whine the doors part and they enter. Data looks at the pony. “This is on the planet Betazed, near the city of Dalaria. Currently, the population of the planet is roughly one point three billion inhabitants. Go ahead and look around.” Verdant hills of lush green lay before them in holographic glory. In the near distance, a modern city is showing, in the distance vehicles can be seen moving around. And the field they are in is quite well manicured, with a small stream flowing through it and large old trees. Almost an idyllic setting for any pony or human. Minuette looks around, her ears flicking as the various sounds come to her. She smiles briefly at the android as she walks forward.
“How beautiful.” She murmurs. They continue walking and make it up over a small hill, and in the depression beyond the hill is apparently a park, families of Betazoids are enjoying a relaxing day. Children are playing on playground equipment, swinging on swings, and the joy and laughter of their lives is infectious. Minuette lets out a happy whinny as she trots around, looking at all the interesting creatures around her. Data moves easily to catch up with the small quadruped.
He points up. “Take a look, this planet has three moons, and at this time of day, two of them are visible, that one is Avandar, and the larger one is Keylandar. Your Equestrian system is only a matter of days away, but this was created before Princess Luna contracted the barrier around your world. So, that barrier is fast approaching. In fact, it has just contacted Keylandar. Look up.”
Her ears flatten back as she looks up, the small moon, nearly half the size of Equestria’s moon, is slowly breaking apart. One of the Betazoid children notices and starts to scream. In moments those screams multiply, though they don’t last. The barrier has engulfed the moon and made it disappear. The wavefront is rapidly heading to the planet. Minuette flinches as the barrier hits the planet. Instantly everything becomes silent as the city is utterly flattened from the impact. Her head rotates around as she watches the ground start to heave.
Data’s voice comes through. “The impact with the barrier stripped the atmosphere from the planet, only those in protected enclosures had any chance of survival. But that is not all.” He raises his voice a bit. “Computer, advance time to the approach of the planet.”
The computer chirps and the world reforms around them. Data’s voice continues. It has been three weeks, four days since the impact of the barrier. Your home is now approaching.” He points. “Look.”
Unwillingly, she looks up. His voice buzzes in her ears. “Sadly, while your home doesn’t have to deal with the effects of the collision of the barrier. Equestria will not go unscathed. It will not hit this planet directly, but the third moon of Betazed, Merandar, will not be so lucky.” As they watch, her home planet is dealt a glancing blow by the moon, which had been somewhat sheltered by the planet as the barrier passed through, now slams into the surface of Equestria. Oceans boil and a plume of dust that defies all reason erupts, along with a column of fire from the cracked crust of the planet. “And even if the moon did not hit your home, it would not be fine. Two very large gravity wells are nearly colliding, the gravity from your planet, with this planet in a weakened state, Equestria’s gravity would rip the crust of this world, ending any lives that potentially survived the collision with the barrier. And then we have to think about what happens to Equestria, the same forces that rip the crust of this planet to pieces would be affecting your home. Ground quakes beyond anything you could measure, mountains falling, new mountains being driven up…”
“NO! No! no no no no! Why are you showing me all of this?” She screams, turning away.
“Minuette, this is what we are working to avoid. Nothing we are doing is to have any desire to destroy, only to save. Your lives, and the lives of the people here. That is why we are doing this. That is why we are taking measures to prevent this from happening.” He squats down to get eye level with her. “This is a real danger to your people and mine.”
“Bridge to Commander Data.” Riker’s voice comes across.
He stands up and touches his com badge. “Data here.”
“The Princesses have arrived, it’s time for a status update.”
“Understood. I am in the holodeck with Minuette.”
Silence at the other end for a long moment. Then they hear Riker sputter. “Minuette? How? Why?”
“The pony, Minuette, Commander. I am on my way. Data out.” He looks down at the pony. “I am sorry, Minuette, our desire is to prevent this from happening. In fact, we are going to update your princesses on how much we have been working. My work on our contingency plan is complete, the modifications to our torpedoes will be done by the end of the day. I will focus everything in my abilities to ensure that this.” He spreads out a hand, showing the devastation of the planet. “Does not happen.”
She sniffles a few times. “You promise?”
He nods. “I promise.” He takes a moment to contemplate the vista around him. “I must go.”
***
The conference room situated behind the bridge of the Enterprise is more full than usual for staff meeting with the addition of Princesses Celestia and Luna, as well as Twilight Sparkle and Discord, in addition to the usual staff. Data strides through the door and quickly finds a seat.
Captain Picard stands up and stands before all those assembled. “We’ve had two weeks of work. I’ve invited the Princesses and the Element bearers aboard to hear what we’ve been working on.”
Twilight Sparkle is the first to speak up. “Thank you, Captain. When I first came aboard, I was tasked with research, to look for a magical solution from every source we could find. I have used the Enterprise computers to assist me when it comes to magical research. Your systems have made the research side very time efficient. Thousands of volumes and magical tomes have been scanned into the computer system and we’ve been cross referencing and learning of branches of magic that I’ve never even known about. Even if we don’t find a solution in the magic of Equestria, our research capabilities have been magnified by orders of magnitude.” She blushes and takes a step back. “I was hoping, if we save our world, if some of these computer systems be installed?”
Captain Picard smiles. “This has been an unusual first contact situation, Princess. But part of our normal procedures is to install communications equipment at the primary government’s behest so you can be reached by subspace. I don’t see why a computer system wouldn’t be included with a subspace transceiver array when necessary second contact procedures are taken care of. Another ship, with the necessary components available, can be dispatched to fulfill that.” He glances at Princess Celestia. “With your permission, of course, Princess.”
Celestia nods. “Twilight’s authority is as good as mine in such cases, Captain. But of course, you have my permission as well.”
Picard picks up the PADD from his place and taps a few notes before looking back at Twilight. “Any results from your research.”
The air is expelled from the younger alicorn’s lungs in a big huff. “No, Captain. While research is not complete, in fact, it will honestly take years to research everything. Nothing about dealing with something as big as our entire planet and sun and moon. It’s just too big. I’ve researched time travel, I’ve researched even trying to make the planet insubstantial, but the problem there is the barrier would have to be shut down completely, and that doesn’t negate the gravity effects, which would be just as devastating.” She sighs and looks down. “Research is still ongoing, Captain.”
Picard nods. “I do not expect instant solutions, Princess. If it were easy, it would already be done.” He turns to his chief engineer. “We are working on our own solutions. As we’ve had Princess Luna retract the barrier to buy us time, we were told by Engineer Barclay that we might be able to push the system into subspace?”
Geordie looks at his PADD. “Captain, Barclay and I have run the numbers. Generating the field is possible, but making it big enough to encompass not only the planet, but the moon and sun at the same time.” He sighs and shakes his head. “We are talking a field size of roughly four hundred thousand kilometers. The ship, even every ship in Starfleet, can’t make a field that big even working together. We have thought of using the moon as a focus for the warp energy.” He glances at Barclay standing with a few other engineers against the wall. “But we had to put the idea aside because the energy requirements would be too great. And it would have likely only affected the moon.”
Barclay jerks a bit as though he wants to speak. But he subsides quickly, though Rainbow Dash notices. She speaks up. “I think Barclay has got more information on this, Twi.”
Barclay wilts as nearly every eye on the room focuses on him. “Geordie is right, w…w…w…w.”
“Is okay, take a breath,” Dash says putting her wing on his shoulder. “Talk to me.”
He stops and takes a deep breath, looking directly at Rainbow Dash. “We calculated the power requirements, and even using the crystal in the moon as a focus, we would be short by several orders of magnitude.”
“But…” Rainbow Dash says softly, tilting her head as she focuses her ears on him, her wings folding back to her side.
He looks down at her. “But….” He she starts before he looks up at the Captain, gulping he stammers again, “W…w…w…we might have a solution that might be able to fit within available power.”
Rainbow Dash lifts her wing to block his view and draw his attention back to her, “You got this Reg.”
He stops and takes a big breath. “I’ve been working with some of the unicorns, Lemon Hearts, Twinkle Shine, and Minuette. As well as additional more detailed scans of the moon and the crystal structure inside it. It may be possible. Yes, the effect would be centered on the moon, but we believe that the field can be made to encompass the entire system.” He looks down. “But I don’t know if the field simply being around them would bring them along. My calculations are also confounded by the sun.”
“The sun is my domain, Captain.” Princess Celestia speaks up. “I guide it daily.”
“With all due respect, Princess.” Geordie says. “Dragging the sun with us is a lot more than encouraging it around your planet every day.”
Twilight brightens. “We can combine all of our magic, through the Elements, we can help with that.
Luna frowns. “I know how much the Elements can do. There is a possibility that the sun could be dragged with the moon. But even then, I don’t think the Elements have enough power.” She turns and looks at the engineer. “Do you have a way to send coherent energy? I’ve heard of the tractor beams or even the phasers. That they send energy at a prodigious rate.”
“All energy is not the same. Phasers are particle beam weapons, tractor beams use gravimetric energy. Are we talking sending energy to Princess Celestia here?” At her nod, he frowns. “Your thaumic energy, we don’t have the capability to make it. At all. We can send energy from different parts of the EM spectrum, but your thaumic energy is a completely different wavelength and composition. I’m sorry, Princess.”
Barclay jumps as if he was goosed. “Actually, sir. We can.”
Rainbow Dash giggles a bit, trying her best to look innocent.
“The main deflector.” He squeaks. “We’d have to reconfigure the beam emitters and add a field converter to the mix, but I believe we can convert electroplasma to thaumic energy in sufficient quantities.”
“A field converter? What exactly is that?” Picard asks.
Barclay shakes his head. “Conversion of energy is something the ponies are quite good at. We’d have to craft a crystal, Lemon Hearts was talking about converting electroplasma to thaumic energy a few days ago. She ended up making one that worked pretty well.” He looks at Twilight. “Well, until it blew up, that is, but I think we just need better control of the input energy.”
Geordie sighs. “And there’s the rub. To build a crystal of that size is larger than any industrial replicator on board. So, it’ll have to be grown, tooling can go rather quickly, but building that could take weeks, if not months.”
“Merde.” Picard says softly.
Barclay smiles. “Not necessarily. We don’t have to cover the entire deflector with the crystal. Just over the five high power emitters. That could cut down on manufacturing time.”
Rainbow Dash nods, "You're doing awesome."
Geordie nods. “It might, but we’d be cutting it close.” He looks at the Captain. “I mean, really close.”
Celestia squeals. “Oh, but you forget, Captain. We can make the crystals. Well, not in Equestria, but in the Crystal Empire. The crystal ponies are the best at making precision crystals. Why don’t we go down and talk to Princess Cadance again, and see about building those crystals.”
Discord huffs. “When in doubt, change the laws of reality to suit your needs. So, what about the planet, my little Barkley?”
Barclay looks up at the draconequus, whose head is nearly brushing the ceiling. “It will be enveloped in the field. It’s not emitting its own energy. It should be brought along for the ride.”
“Should be, might be. That’s not will. The crystal in the moon doesn’t have warp coils, it won’t be as efficient as you seem to think it will be.” He smiles but there is no friendship in this smile.
Barkley smiles back, showing exactly the same amount of friendship in his own smile. “Won’t need it, we aren’t going to warp, and we aren’t going far, we are just making an artificial graviton ellipse.”
Chuckling the draconequus smiles almost evilly, “And just think, just a year ago, that level of thinking was beyond the gasp of humanity.”
“Hey!” Dash says flaring her wings, “Be nice, he’s trying.”
Picard looks around. “So, this looks doable?”
Geordie nods.
“Make it so.”