The story opened on two military officers in a big storage facility, staring at one of those human flying machines they saw back in the first part. Having originally seen their smoldering and damaged forms crashing into the depths off in the distance, it was nice to get an up close look at them fully intact. From solar canons to time-traveling armies, the narrator began, there are few areas of science fiction that were not inspired in some way by Hitler’s Wonder Weapons program. In the majority of cases, these outlandish proposals rarely made it off the drawing board. But there is concerning evidence that the Third Reich may have come uncomfortably close to deploying nuclear weapons on American soil.
“Finally we get to learn what nuclear weapons are!”, Sweetie Belle exclaimed.
“Wait, so this Hitler feller inspired most of human sci-fi by himself?”, Apple Bloom with both eye brows raised as if the surprise in her voice wasn’t obvious enough.
“Yeah, that is pretty nuts.”, Scootaloo concurred. “At that point, you know you’re a big deal.”
“You know what would be even crazier?”
“What?”, Scootaloo said in response to Sweetie Belle.
“What if it happened the opposite way?”
Upon noticing the blank stares she was receiving from her friends, the unicorn elaborated, “Like, what if somepony took a bunch of plot points from sci-fi stories and used them to make himself a prophet?”
“Ah’m pretty sure all sci-fi writers profit that way.”, Apple Bloom said.
“No, not profit. Prophet. As in a savior who preaches and spreads the word of a God or… higher power(?).”
“So, it’s like if Starlight had instead built a cult by claiming aliens were talking to her?”, Scootaloo guessed.
“Yeah, and telling her followers that doing what she claims the aliens are telling her they’ll be allowed to come their planet.”, Sweetie affirmed. “Something like that.”
“Honestly, anypony who gets into somethin’ like that probably has a few screws loose.”, Apple Bloom said.
“Wouldn’t that mean your sister-in-law has some screws-“
Apple Bloom quickly snapped her head in Sweetie’s direction and immediately moved to cut her off.
“SHH! Shh, shh, shh! Alright, alright! Fair point! Just please don’t ever tell Big Mac or Sugar Belle ah said that!”
As that conversation came to an end, so did the intro. It then showed another human flying machine, this one actually majestically swimming its way through the sky with its wings outstretched and its propellers revved all the way up. Squinting just slightly, the girls could make out the silhouettes of the human pilots. Each was located in their own cockpit, one on the top and one right at the front.
As the sun started to sink below the horizon, the solitary “twin-engined bomber” made steady progress along the Baltic Coast. Its pilot, Hans Zinsser, was well aware that twilight was the only safe window of flight for the Luftwaffe. Too late for the enemy’s daytime patrols and too late for their night-fighter equivalents. The “Heinkel 111” he piloted was rapidly becoming something of a rarity.
“Heh. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the narrator is messing with us.”, Scootaloo thought with a jovial smirk.
This model had been one of the most abundant bombers at the outset of the war, but “High Command’s” desire to channel their available resources into developing new and untested aircraft designs meant the heavy losses that their existing fleet had suffered were not being addressed. Zinsser had managed to avoid active service, instead operating as a test pilot.
“Damn, that’d be the best job ever!”, Scootaloo wistfully stated.
“Ya mean bein’ a test pilot?”, asked Apple Bloom.
“Yeah! Besides being a Crusader or a Wonderbolt, piloting one of those babies would be my go-to career.”
She could just imagine it now. Testing out Equestria’s state of the art aerodynamic craft. It’d be extra cool if it was equipped with some ammo like the human ones were. Being able to fire cool weapons at targets without worrying about hurting anypony or being fatally fired back at. Even if it didn’t have that, just gracefully flying through the sky at such speeds would be enough to make it worthwhile. Without even thinking, she craned her head to look behind her; the sight of those stubbly little wings of hers elicited a sorrowful sigh.
The bomber Zinsser was now transporting from one side of Germany to the other was destined for modification in order to drastically expand its operational range. This was a necessity, as the airfields which had originally been taken by the Wehrmacht as it had surged across Europe during the opening months of the war had slowly fallen back into enemy hands. He flew on, the light outside the cockpit gradually fading, nurturing a growing sense of unease. Zinsser allowed himself one last look around, scanning for enemy fighters and searching for visual landmarks to take a bearing from. He then glanced down to consult the map that rested upon his right leg.
The screen then cut to the inside of the plane, the perspective being over the pilot’s shoulder from behind. The sight of the insane amount of dials on the dashboard tracking Celestia knows what made Scootaloo second guess her desire to pilot one of these things. She just wanted to fly, not learn all this mumbo jumbo just to keep the air vehicle flying safely and in the right direction. By the dim overhead lighting, Zinsser reckoned he was now passing somewhere to the south west of “Lubeck”, continuing into the province of Mechlenburg. He was still peering down at the map when the whole cabin was suddenly saturated by a white light so blinding that he had to shield his eyes. As the light had faded, he was surprised to see a gigantic white cloud rising into the air off to starboard. All three girls grew perplexed upon spotting this cloud.
“Wait, so that ain’t made by the humans’ weather team?”, Apple Bloom asked without expecting an answer.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure Twilight said they can’t control weather in their world.”, Sweetie Belle answered.
“They can’t even do that!? What kind of weird world is this?”, Scootaloo questioned.
With a roll of her eyes, Sweetie Belle replied, “Oh I don’t know. Maybe it’s just like every part of our world that doesn’t have pegasai.”
Both the pilot and the Crusaders watched for a bit, hypnotized, as it swelled into a huge mushroom shape when, all of a sudden…
BOOM!!!
…he was hit by a huge shockwave.
Each girl watching was made to jump out of their seats on the floor and were now shivering a little as their ears took in the echoing rumble left by that earth-shaking explosion. The impact of that blast was made a little bit clear when they saw the spiderweb pattern left on the cockpit’s windows.
Realizing she was holding her breath, Sweetie Belle then exhaled her question, “Is that what a nuclear weapon is?”
“What kinda mushroom can make somethin’ that explosive?”, Apple Bloom said, wondering if her limited experience in potion-brewing with Zecora might help her figure what this nuclear stuff was made of.
The control column had been violently yanked out of Zinsser’s grasp and the plane veered off to one side as if it had been swatted by a gigantic open palm. It was on the verge of descending into an unrecoverable dive, but he was somehow able to regain control. This was not the first time he had found himself fighting to keep a plane in the air, but as he finally managed to level the Heinkel out, he was stunned by what he could now outside the cockpit windows. Approximately ten miles away from his position, the huge mushroom-shaped cloud now filled the sky. Zinsser assumed it was the pressure wave emitted from this enormous blast that had impacted the bomber.
“If it turns out that it actually didn’t, I’m afraid of finding out what actually hit the plane.”, Scootaloo thought as a bead of sweat formed on her brow.
Honestly, with how progressively stranger this three parter was getting, she half expected to find out some sort of giant monster both made that explosion and swatted the plane itself. Speaking of monsters causing disasters…
“Wait, was Mothman involved?”, she thought, before shaking the idea from her head and reminding herself that he probably wasn’t real.
He banked his aircraft towards the billowing cloud to see if he could determine what had caused such a massive explosion. As he flew closer, the bomber’s electrical systems started to malfunction, with his radio apparently failing altogether. Frowning, Zinsser turned away, noting how the cloud had an almost violet-blue hue to it and appeared to be illuminated from the inside by occasional smaller explosions.
“Hol’ up!”, Apple Bloom interjected. “Are they throwin’ extra dynamite in there for good measure?”
Looking just as baffled as the farm filly, Sweetie said, “I’m pretty sure that one big explosion is destructive enough on its own!”
Zinsser wrote down that the cloud was approximately one kilometer wide, and that the edges were starting to dissipate after about half a minute, before continuing on his way. Upon landing, his papers were seized, and he was curtly ordered not to speak of the matter to anybody else. Sweetie Belle recalled the time she caught a very tipsy (and underage) Rarity coming home from a party very late one night. Being only five years old at the time, she had no idea what was going on. That still didn’t stop Rarity from threatening the life of her stuffed bunny if she told their parents about it. With how scary that was, Sweetie hated to imagine what the government could do to threaten her into silence. Unlike Rarity, they probably wouldn’t sneak an extra cookie into her lunchbox as a reward for zipping her lip.
“That was one good peanut butter chocolate chip cookie~”, she nostalgically recalled.
The next time he would see his logbook would be weeks after the war ended, laid out on an American interrogation room table in front of him by American intelligence officials.
“Now that she’s heard of them, Princess America probably wanted to interrogate any German soldier who’s witnessed these nukes so that she has info to make her own.”, Scootaloo thought. “And she succeeded too.”
The document would later be transported to Maxwell Air Force Base in “Alabama”, where it was subsequently discovered by researchers in 1973. The story then cut to an image of a couple standing in front of a lighthouse, holding each other and staring out at the ocean in front of them. This was the coastal township of “Owl’s Head”, located roughly five from the city of “Rockland, Maine”, taking its name from the peninsula where it’s situated.
Apple Bloom shivered, “Why am ah so afraid of findin’ out why the town and its coast is called Owl’s Head?”
With Bedtime Stories’ taste for the strange and even the grizzly, it wasn’t entirely crazy to imagine that the story somehow involves a severed owl’s head. Ironic now that she once again remembered that mouse head Owlowicious dropped at her hooves that one time.
“I’m sure the bay is just shaped like an owl’s head, Apple Bloom.”, Sweetie Belle assured.
Owl’s Head is a popular holiday destination and is perhaps best known for the imposing 19th lighthouse, which looms above the town’s coastline. But in autumn of 1944, this picturesque resort was the setting for a mysterious and deeply troubling incident. At around midday of Monday September 18th, an elderly couple out walking along the nearby coastal trail caught sight of a lone aeroplane approaching the town from the direction of “Vinalhaven Island”. This in itself was not unusual, with PBM Mariners conducting regular patrols off the Maine coastline in search of German U-boat activity, but subsequent events would make it clear that this aircraft did not belong to the United States Navy.
All three fillies broke out into a cold sweat. Somehow, they neglected to realize earlier that whatever that secret bomb was, it was obviously supposed to be deployed against an entire town; and now they might see one get wiped off the map. The horrifying image of Canterlot or even Ponyville being incinerated in such an explosion flashed through their minds. While they all were terrified by that prospect, Scootaloo seemed to be taking it the worst.
Both witnesses described the plane as have six engines, rather than the two found on a Mariner, with a much thinner and longer “fuselage”. It was colored in a dark camouflage paint scheme, a stark contrast to the bright livery of the US naval patrol craft. As they watched on, they realized the mysterious aeroplane was steadily losing altitude as it came in from across the ocean, drawing ever closer to the glassy waters below. Both the old couple and the young trio kept watching as the aircraft continued its slow and torturous descent, until it crashed into the sea with a big splash.
In moments it was all over, with nothing but churning waters and smoke rising from the point where the doomed craft had entered the bay. After waiting for a short time to see if anybody had survived the crash, the couple hurried back into town to report the incident to Knox County Sheriff’s Department. The Crusaders felt partially sorry for the pilot and would normally have wished he hadn’t suffered that crash. However, considering what sort of cargo that plane was probably carrying, it was either his life or the lives of the entire town. Enquiries were then made to the military, who confirmed that they were not aware of any planned activity in the area and that all their aircraft were accounted for.
“You remember when we tried to get our cutie marks in skydiving?”, Sweetie Belle asked, receiving a reply from Scootaloo.
“Yeah. Too bad they turned us away and told us we weren’t old enough or whatever.”
Scootaloo then grumbled to herself about how she saw a frail old stallion around Granny Smith’s age get to skydive that same day.
“If you can be too young to skydive, then you should also be too old to skydive.”, she muttered.
“Honestly, seeing this guy fall to his death inside that flying machine makes me kind of glad we didn’t end up going.”, said the unicorn filly.
The screen had cut to a scene of a man standing at a beach between his car and some sort of road (or beach?) sign. He looked out at what appeared to be three tarps laid out across the beach.
“Are they pieces of a parachute?”, Apple Bloom wondered.
The narrator explained search conducted using one of the local fisherman’s boats yielded no results for the deputies sent out to investigate the report, other than an oil slick, and so no further investigation took place.
“If I didn’t know what was on that plane, I probably would’ve given up pretty quickly too.”, Scootaloo reluctantly confessed as she rubbed the back of her neck.
“Oh, Celestia. This is gonna come back ta bite ‘em. Ah know it!”, Apple Bloom said with her face in her hooves.
Ten days later, on the morning of September 28th, the remains of three dead men were found washed up on “Penobscot Bay”, just to the north of town. The three fillies found themselves surprised that there was actually three bodies found, not suspecting that the plane required more than one person to pilot it. As the resident who had located bodies stood waiting for the police, he noted they were dressed in grayish blue overalls and equipped with various items which suggested they were aviators. One of the men appeared to have some sort rank displayed on his collar, with yellow and brown tabs. While the resident did not recognize this insignia, the cross-shaped black medal located on the left breast pocket was chillingly familiar to him.
Realizing that whatever they were looking at was beyond their remit, the attending deputies immediately referred the matter to the military. They remained at the scene and assisted in keeping back a growing crowd of onlookers, whilst soldiers recovered the bodies of the three pilots and transported them to the nearby “Ash Point Naval Air Station”.
“Oh no, those humans are done for now that they’ve gotten close to the water where bomb probably is!”, Sweetie Belle said as she slowly brought both up to place atop her head.
Exhaling through her nose and looking down to the ground, Apple Bloom replied, “With how big that explosion from earlier was suppose’ ta be, ah don’t even think they woulda been safer if they stayed their homes.”
With that, the Crusaders sat there, grimly anticipating to see an entire town consumed in a mushroom-shaped cloud, leaving nothing behind except it’s ashes; Scootaloo gulped as she mentally prepared herself to experience, second-hoof, a disaster countless times worse than the one that struck her home recently. The narrator then went on to explain how a steady stream of military and government officials visited the town over the next few days. Some of them claimed to be army intelligence officers, while others introduced themselves as “FBI agents”, asking if any other residents had seen what transpired. Regardless of the subsequent reply, these officials went to great pains to emphasize that the bodies came from a submarine which had sunk further out in the bay and that no plane crash had occurred.
Miraculously, all three fillies raised an eyebrow upon hearing that. They kept that expression as it was further told of how the story of three dead German airmen embedded itself within the local consciousness. Their confusion turned to slight relief when the narrator further exposited how a local diver named Ruben Whitmore decided to investigate this incident many years later. This was accompanied by an illustration of what was presumably Whitmore in scuba gear diving down to search the sea floor.
“Wait, so it never went off?”, Apple Bloom questioned.
Scootaloo turned to her and went, “Shush! Don’t jinx it!”
Internally, the orange pegasus knew that her friend’s words had no impact on the outcome. She really just hoped her hunch that this “Whitmore” guy would accidentally cause the bomb to destruct after discovering it would be proven false.
For several months, Whitmore dived in and around the area, searching for evidence of the crash. The alleged wreck was not there, but he managed to recover several small pieces of metallic debris, exactly at the spot that the plane apparently came down.
“Wait, does this mean the government got the bomb out of the ocean?”, Scootaloo asked.
“Huh.”, Sweetie placed a hoof on the tip of her chin. “I feel kind of embarrassed we didn’t realize that sooner.”
Indeed, that did seem obvious now that they all thought about it. Meanwhile, one of the metal pieces Whitmore discovered was subsequently identified by experts as a “manufacturers plate”. Despite rusting and degrading during its time under the water, raised lettering was still clearly visible. This consisted of a serial number and the word “Fliegeroberstkommando”.
“Wuh?”, Apple Bloom said with a head tilt.
Scootaloo ran her hoof back and forth through her mane, “The only part of that word I think I got was commando.”
“I swear, at least some of these German words had to have been first spoken by someone who was choking at the time.”, Sweetie Belle added.
This word was a German military designation that loosely translated as a pilot holding the rank of Colonel. The narrator pointed out how the fact that the wreck appears to have been covertly recovered, and the insistence by the United States military that it never even existed, raised some troubling questions.
“Why did they need to cover up the nuke, even after the war?”, Sweetie wondered. “Aren’t nukes supposed to be a weapon every human knows exists?”
“Plus, wouldn’t ya wanna have the public aware that the enemy has those city-destroyin’ bombs?”, Apple Bloom added. “Ya know, in case they do it again and the people can be prepared the next time?”
“I think maybe the German were the first to make nuclear weapons. Then when that plane crash-landed in the water, the American military took it apart, figured out how it worked and then finally made their first nukes.”, suggested Scootaloo.
The American Military apparently never attempted to conceal or deny similar attacks by submarine-launched “Japanese” aircraft during the Second World War.
“Hmm, sounds like we got another country that fought in World War Two. And on the same side as the Germans, from the sound of it.”, Apple Bloom guessed.
So, it begged the question: what exactly compelled them to cover up this particular enemy incursion?
The exact purpose of this lone German bomber is unknown. Such an aircraft, equipped with conventional weaponry, would have had little chance of inflicting significant damage to any target in the American mainland. The extreme range it would have to operate at, paired with the strong defenses of the US Air Force would have essentially made such an endeavor a suicide mission. So why did these young German airmen die so far from their homeland?
The screen cut back to the image of the German officers staring at the plane from the beginning of the story. The narrator told of a covert German military project predating the outbreak of World War Two, codenamed “Amerikabomber”.
“See! These Germans know how to name properly name a cool, top secret operation!”, Scootaloo praised. “None of that Project Paperclip horse apples.”
“Ummm… isn’t that name pretty on the nose, though?”, Sweetie Belle pointed out.
With a roll of her eyes, Apple Bloom nonchalantly stated, “Ah’m really not surprised you of all ponies would choose a super obvious name like that for a secret project, Scoots.”
“Hey! I’ll remind you, I’m the one who came with Gabby Gums as our fake name for our school articles!”, the pegasus spoke up in defense of her creativity.
In 1938, Adolf Hitler was well aware that his future plans for “European”domination ran the risk of bringing the Third Reich into direct conflict with the United States. He ordered that the Luftwaffe commence research into a bomber capable of delivering its payload to “New York City” and still having enough fuel to return home.
“So, this New York City was the real target…”, Apple Bloom deduced.
“I wonder what happened to the old York City?”, Sweetie Belle wondered aloud.
Scootaloo took a second to ponder that question before answering, “Maybe it was destroyed in the First World War?”
Apple Bloom had actually forgotten that there was supposed to have been a First World War; she now began to wonder why they haven’t heard a single mention of it so far.
At the time of Hitler’s request, there was no aircraft on Earth capable of completing the 7,200-mile round trip, let alone one heavily laden with explosive munitions. As with many of Hitler’s edicts, the project was paid the necessary lip service and then quietly filed away.
“Wow. Sounds like Hitler didn’t command as much respect as you’d think.”, Scootaloo remarked.
However, this would immediately change when America entered the war in December of 1941. Suddenly, the Luftwaffe had a new top priority. Many different different designs were considered, from aircraft equipped with “jet engines” to modified rocket technology, but the truth was that Germans had neither the neither the resources nor the expertise to pursue such an undertaking.
“Yet they’re supposed to have been capable of building a flying saucer and a time machine?”, Sweetie Belle questioned.
“Yeah. Really undermines the last two parts, don’t it?”, Apple Bloom concurred.
Instead, extensive work was carried out in the creation of a specially crafted conventional bomber capable of the task, the JU-390. As with many German military projects, the completed aircraft arrived far too late in the conflict to be able to turn the tide of war, and a lack basic resources meant that few were ever constructed. In the dying days of World War Two, the allies believed only one functioning prototype of the aircraft ever existed, which was found dismantled when the American army captured Dessau in November of 1944.
That thinking changed during the post-war interrogation of a Luftwaffe airman named Unteroffizer Wolf Baumgart. The image showed Baumgart, the mustachioed photographic reconnaissance expert, claiming to two American military officers sitting across from him that there actually were seven total JU-390’s that had been constructed. According to him, they had completed flights as far afield as “Capetown” and “Tokyo”.
Apple Bloom sighed, “Ah wish this crystal ball could show us a map so we could tell how impressive that is.”
However, it was Baumgart’s assertion that one of these aircraft had successfully reached New York, that most troubled his captors. The Luftwaffe officer claimed that in January of 1944, a JU-390 had set off from the airfield at “Mont-De-Marsan”, not far from “Bordeaux”. Sweetie Belle felt her lips crook upward into a smile.
“Now, those are fun words to say!”
“What is?”, asked Apple Bloom.
“Mont-De-Marsan and Bordeaux.”
Scootaloo gave Sweetie Belle her most judgmental look, “Wait, you think those are fun to say. But you think words like Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine sound like somepony choking to death?”
“I mean those are better than the other German words we’ve heard so far.”, Sweetie conceded. “But whatever human came up with those last two words know how to hit the ear just right.”
Scootaloo dismissively rolled her eyes and she along with the other two girls went back to watching the story. Baumgart had explained how, over the next 32 hours, this plane had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and managed to cross American airspace to within 12 miles of New York City, taking several photographs of its supposedly iconic skyline. In 2007, a supporting story appeared “online” which claimed that in early 1944, another JU-390 had managed to reach “Ohio”, having set off from an airfield in Norway. Apparently, this plane was able to take pictures of the coastline off “Long Island” during its return journey.
“Well, if they really could reach America, then why didn’t they just send their planes over there to attack them?”, Sweetie Belle asked.
“Don’t ya remember? They said they only made six of these planes.”, Apple Bloom explained. “If they tried ta attack the United States, all six of those planes are gettin’ shot down.”
“They should’ve done what I did to get all of us onto that cruise ship for free!”, Scootaloo chirped.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shivered as they recalled being shot out of a canon and flying through the air to somehow miraculously land safely on the deck of the cruise ship.
The narrator asserted that Baumgart’s accounts, coupled with the fact that the JU-390 was equipped with six engines, lends significant credence to the possibility that one may have indeed crash-landed in Maine in September of 1944. As he explained how America’s entry into the war caused Hitler to become obsessed with scoring some sort of symbolic victory against them, the now black screen illuminated with the eruption of a nuclear blast. Hitler was said to have raged over the countless German citizens killed during the incessant Allied bombing campaign and vowed to find a way to repay these actions in kind. The fillies all winced, this being the first time they actually felt sympathetic to the German people. Then a terrible thought occurred to Scootaloo.
“Wait. So, did the Americans actually drop nukes on Germany?”, she mused. “Like… more than once?”
With wide eyes, Sweetie Belle tried to comprehend that prospect.
“How big and populated is Germany that it can keep fighting even after a bunch of their big cities were destroyed by nukes!?”
Apple Bloom was busy picturing the countless smoldering heaps of buildings and the millions of charred human corpses that would have been left by that many bombs.
“War brings out the worst in everypony.”, Apple Bloom thought bitterly.
There was only one way for Hitler to achieve his aim; to drop a nuclear weapon on a major American city. While according to human history, Germany was unable to create a viable nuclear weapon during the course of the war despite their best efforts, this narrative is directly challenged by the alleged nuclear explosion witnessed by Hans Zinsser during his flight near the “Ludwigslust” testing grounds. Naturally, his account would be easy enough to dismiss, were it not for the existence of a corroborating witness.
Writing after hostilities had ceased, an “Italian” war correspondent named Luigi Romera claimed that in October of 1944, the same month of Zinsser’s report, he had been dispatched to Germany at the request of Benito Mussolini.
“Were these Italians on the Americans’ side or Germany’s?”, Sweetie Belle wondered.
Thinking it over for a second, Apple Bloom answered, “Ummm, ah think Germany from the sound of it.”
“Ehh. Nah, I’m pretty sure they were on America’s side.”
With a single irritated twitch of her left eye, Apple Bloom grumbled, “Why’d ya ask then?”
Whilst in Germany he was taken to a remote island in the “Baltic Sea”, not far off the coast, where he witnessed a gigantic and blinding explosion. When he asked what had caused the blast, his military escorts told him that it was a “fission weapon”. The screen then cut to an image that caused all three fillies’ lower jaws to slowly descend to the floor.
“Okay, that’s it! I’m calling shenanigans!”, Sweetie Belle exclaimed as she pointed her hoof at what was on screen.
What was shown was a perfect illustration of Manehattan with all of its most famous structures. It of course had the famous Statue of Friendship to complete the image. Perfectly captured was the statue’s stoic yet welcoming expression, its magnificent crown and the torch raised up high in its right hoof. Except, it wasn’t actually being held up by a hoof, but rather a hand belonging to a human female dressed in the statue’s iconic garb. The Statue of Friendship, but in human form.
The narrator continued on discussing how the Amerikabomber project hinged on the delivery of a super weapon directly into the heart of enemy territory. A weapon designed to cause the largest possible loss of life, and to gift the Nazi leadership with a propaganda victory the likes of which the world had never seen. The successful delivery of such a device could have granted Hitler an untold degree of bargaining power and potentially even change the entire outcome of the war. Unfortunately, the trio of fillies were taking none of this information in, as their minds were still stuck on the drawing of New York City, or “alternate Manehattan” as they knew it.
“I mean, did the humans come to our world a century ago and copy our buildings?”
As Scootaloo spoke, Apple Bloom recalled something her unicorn friend had said last night.
“Hey, Sweetie. Didn’t ya say yesterday that there’s… human versions of us in their world?”
Sweetie Belle snapped out of her wide-eyed stupor. She then took a second to recall what Apple Bloom had brought up before turning to the farm filly and saying, “Y-yeah, that is what Twilight told me. Why do you ask…?”
With a shrug of her shoulders, Apple Bloom explained, “Well, if this place has different versions of us there, then maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised there’s other versions of our cities there too.”
“Well… I guess your right.”
“Does this technically mean we’ve been listening to stories about alternate universe Equestria this whole time?”, Scootaloo considered asking but decided against it.
Meanwhile, the narrator was positing whether the threat of further nuclear bombs by the Germans would have caused the Americans to put its offensives on hold or encouraged them to retaliate harder with nukes of their own. The window of opportunity for such a raid on the American mainland supposedly would have been closing rapidly in the aftermath of the successful “Normandy landings”. And with little in the way of resources to call upon, if the Germans were able to create a viable fission weapon, it is unlikely they would have been able to create more than one such device.
“I guess there really isn’t a point to throwing that weapon if they can just throw way more back at you.”, Scootaloo said in an uncharacteristic moment of wisdom.
The narrator then began to conclude with his now familiar rhetorical spiel, asking what caused the US military to deny the existence of the downed German aircraft off the coast of Maine and then covertly recover its remains. What awaited the naval divers who first ventured onto the wreckage? An odd-looking solitary weapon, rather than the bomb bay full of munitions that they were expecting to find? The reality is, that barring any future admission by the American government, the truth behind the Owls Head Crash will never be known. Potentially, this may have been a further test flight or reconnaissance mission for the developers of the JU-390.
“That could explain why they didn’t wanna tell the public.”, Apple Bloom mused. “The American government guessed that Germany only had a few of those planes. If there really wasn’t a city-destroyin’ bomb on it, then they had no reason ta scare the public by admittin’ that the enemy had planes that could reach them.”
Or perhaps the last desperate attempt at a good news story or propaganda coup for the German people, the conventional bombing raid on an American city providing a symbolic response to airborne destruction of Germany’s infrastructure. But the possibility remains, that this may have been something far more sinister. Something so awful and horrifying to the minds of American leaders that it needed to be concealed from their people. And if this was, indeed, the case, one must remain thankful that it never came to pass.
Scootaloo looked intently at the scene of New York City as it darkened into nothing but a silhouette. It’s resemblance to the familiar Manehattan made the threat of nuclear annihilation feel so much closer to home. Even though it was in an alternate universe, the idea that she and her friends had to live with the possibility of being annihilated at any moment and the average person could do nothing about it made her heart sink to her stomach. Her whole world had never felt so fragile.
“Hey, ah just realized somethin’.”, Apple Bloom spoke up.
“What is it?”, asked Sweetie Belle.
“If New York is just alternate universe Manehattan, don’t that mean America is actually Equestria?”
Her eyes lighting up with realization, Sweetie replied, “Oh! Yeah, your right!”
“Does that mean Celestia is the ruler of America in their world?”, the farm filly asked, before quickly correcting herself immediately realizing something important. “Or actually Twilight should be its Princess, ah guess.”
“Wellll, Twilight told me her human counterpart was still in high school the last time she visited.”, Sweetie explained. “So, I doubt she’s somehow become a princess in that short amount of time.”
“Ta be fair, our Twilight climbed up the ladder faster than the other princesses ta become our leader.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”, the unicorn conceded.
While this conversation was going on, Scootaloo had craned her head back to look at the window. She had been doing this repeatedly all night, usually out of a concern for her aunt’s safety. And while that was still on her mind, there was also something that compelled her. Something she couldn’t explain. It was as if she couldn’t risk not taking a good, long look at her hometown or else it might be gone before she knew it.
“Anyway, a deal’s a deal. Time ta play that card game ya promised, Sweetie.”
Scootaloo turned her forward upon hearing her chance for a new, much-needed distraction to occupy her anxiety-riddled mind.
“Alright.”, said Sweetie.
“That reminds me, Sweetie Belle.”, Scootaloo said. “What were you gonna make me do if we decided to watch a different video and I chose a bad one?”
Using her horn to lift up and dole out the deck of playing cards, Sweetie Belle simply waved her hoof dismissively, “Eh, I don’t know. I honestly wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”
Scootaloo narrowed her eyes at Sweetie, growing more suspicious of her friend’s behavior. If she had to guess, she would say Sweetie Belle didn’t want to give her dare away in case she got an opportunity to use it again. Rather than dwell on it though, she took up her hooful of cards once Sweetie was finished giving them out. A little too much has been on her mind lately; instead, she should put her focus entirely on absolutely destroying her friends at this game.
While looking though her cards, Scootaloo was made to jump out of her fur when she a heard a loud boom outside. Instinctively, she snapped her head back towards the window to find that the town was, in fact, still there. Realizing that it was just another lightning strike, she turned back to her cards.
“Have I been getting really jumpy lately, or is that just my imagination?”, she wondered.