//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7: Welcome To Jurassic Park 
// Story: Friendship is Magic: Jurassic Park 
// by Triple B Studios 
//------------------------------//



Twilight blinked at the man stepping in the plane, a tall, thin, balding man dressed entirely in black: black shirt, black trousers, black socks, black sneakers. She watched as the man in black shook hands with almost everyone. All the while introducing himself as Ian Malcolm. He sat in one of the padded chairs. The stewardess asked him if he wanted a drink.

“Diet Coke, shaken not stirred.” Malcolm said. Twilight opened her mouth to say something but Ellie beat her to it.

“Isn’t it a little warm for black?” Ellie asked. The stranger glanced at Ellie.

“You’re extremely pretty, Dr. Sattler,” he said. “I could look at your legs all day. But no, as a matter of fact, black is an excellent color for heat. If you remember your black-body radiation, black is actually best in heat. Efficient radiation. In any case, I wear only two colors, black and gray.”

Ellie was staring at him, her mouth open.

“These colors are appropriate for any occasion,” Malcolm continued, “and they go well together, should I mistakenly put on a pair of gray socks with my black trousers.”

“But don’t you find it boring to wear only two colors?” Ellie asked incredulously.

“Not at all. I find it liberating. I believe my life has value, and I don’t want to waste it thinking about clothing,” Malcolm explained, looking at her with a smile. “I don’t want to think about what I will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls, while the rest of the world pays money to applaud. But, on the whole, I find fashion even more tedious than sports.”

“Dr. Malcolm,” Hammond explained, “is a man of strong opinions.”

“And mad as a hatter,” Malcolm said cheerfully. “But you must admit, these are nontrivial issues. We live in a world of frightful givens. It is given that you will behave like this, given that you will care about that. No one thinks about the givens. Isn’t it amazing? In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.”

Hammond turned to Gennaro and raised his hands. “You invited him.”

“And a lucky thing, too,” Malcolm said. “Because it sounds as if you have a serious problem.”

“We have no problem,” Hammond said quickly.

Twilight, Fluttershy, and Applejack watched the two men converse. The three ponies exchanged knowing glances, then looked back at the men.

“I always maintained this island would be unworkable,” Malcolm said. “I predicted it from the beginning.” He reached into a soft leather briefcase. “And I trust by now we all know what the eventual outcome is going to be. You’re going to have to shut the thing down.” 

“Shut it down!” Hammond stood angrily. “This is ridiculous.”

Malcolm shrugged, indifferent to Hammond’s outburst. “I’ve brought copies of my original paper for you to look at,” he said. “The original consultancy paper I did for InGen. The mathematics are a bit sticky, but I can walk you through it. Are you leaving now?”

“I have some phone calls to make,” Hammond said, and went into the adjoining cabin.

“Well, it’s a long flight,” Malcolm said to the others. “At least my paper will give you something to do.”

Twilight watched him glancing around, at which point his eyes met Twilight’s own.

Malcolm furrowed his brow. “Have I, uh, seen you from somewhere?” He continued to stare back.

Twilight blinded, shaking her head. “Oh, err – My apologies, Doctor Malcolm—”

“Ah!” Malcolm raised a finger with a chuckle. “I know who you are. You’re Twilight Sparkle, right?”

“Yes, that’s me. Nice to meet you!” Twilight replied brightly. “You came to visit the island too?”

“Indeed I am,” Malcolm said with another nod. “But I actually came to see if my paper will no doubt conclude that Hammond’s island will fail.”

“Fail?” Fluttershy echoed.

Gennaro leaned forward slightly and asked, “Your paper concludes that Hammond’s island is bound to fail?”

“Correct.” Malcolm nodded again.

“Because of chaos theory?” Gennaro guessed.

“Correct. To be more precise, because of the behavior of the system in phase space.”

Gennaro tossed the paper aside and said, “Can you explain this in English?”

“Surely,” Malcolm said. “Let’s see where we have to start. You know what a nonlinear equation is?”

“No.”

“Strange attractors?”

“No.”

Before Malcolm began his explanation, Twilight pulled out her notebook from her bag and stared at Malcolm curiously.

“All right,” Malcolm said. “Let’s go back to the beginning.” He paused, staring at the ceiling. “Physics has had great success at describing certain kinds of behavior: planets in orbit, spacecraft going to the moon, pendulums and springs and rolling balls, that sort of thing. The regular movement of objects. These are described by what are called linear equations, and mathematicians can solve those equations easily. We’ve been doing it for hundreds of years.”

“Okay,” Gennaro said.

“But there is another kind of behavior, which physics handles badly. For example, anything to do with turbulence. Water coming out of a spout. Air moving over an airplane wing. Weather. Blood flowing through the heart. Turbulent events are described by nonlinear equations. They’re hard to solve—in fact, they’re usually impossible to solve. So physics has never understood this whole class of events. Until about ten years ago. The new theory that describes them is called chaos theory. Chaos theory originally grew out of attempts to make computer models of weather in the 1960s. Weather is a big complicated system, namely the earth’s atmosphere as it interacts with the land and the sun. The behavior of this big complicated system always defied understanding. So naturally we couldn’t predict the weather. But what the early researchers learned from computer models was that, even if you could understand it, you still couldn’t predict it. Weather prediction is absolutely impossible. The reason is that the behavior of the system is sensitively dependent on initial conditions.”

“You lost me,” Gennaro said.

Applejack nodded in agreement. “Eeyup. Ah couldn’t understand a darn ‘tootin thang ‘bout that.”

“Neither could I.” Fluttershy admitted.

“Well, uh, let me give a better explanation,” Malcolm said. “If I use a cannon to fire a shell of a certain weight, at a certain speed, and a certain angle of inclination—and if I then fire a second shell with almost the same weight, speed, and angle—what will happen?”

“The two shells will land at almost the same spot.” Gennaro answered.

“Right,” Malcolm agreed. “That’s linear dynamics.”

“Okay.” Gennaro nodded.

“But,” Malcolm continued, “if I have a weather system that I start up with a certain temperature and a certain wind speed and a certain humidity—and if I then repeat it with almost the same temperature, wind, and humidity—the second system will not behave almost the same. It’ll wander off and rapidly will become very different from the first. Thunderstorms instead of sunshine. That’s nonlinear dynamics. They are sensitive to initial conditions: tiny differences become amplified.”

“I think I see,” Gennaro said.

Twilight nodded whilst humming in understanding. “Wow,” she said after a pause. “This is really captivating! I must admit Doctor Malcolm, I’m struggling a little to keep up and make sense of all this – this sort of academic thinking hasn’t really been touched on in Equestria all too much...”

Malcolm chuckled. “Well, perhaps it’s best kept that way,” Malcolm began as a grin crept across his face. “After all, at least this way you won’t have someone calling you out for your nonsense. But I’m getting off topic here. The shorthand is the ‘butterfly effect.’ A butterfly flaps its wings in Peking, and the weather in New York is different.”

Twilight hummed, tapping her hoof in thought. “So,” she said, “chaos is all just random and unpredictable? Is that all?”

“No,” Malcolm said. “We actually find hidden regularities within the complex variety of a system’s behavior. That’s why chaos has now become a very broad theory that’s used to study everything from the stock market, to rioting crowds, to brain waves during epilepsy. Any sort of complex system where there is confusion and unpredictability. We can find an underlying order. Okay?”

“Okay,” Gennaro said. “But what is this underlying order?”

“It’s essentially characterized by the movement of the system within phase space,” Malcolm said.

“Jesus,” Gennaro said. “All I want to know is why you think Hammond’s island can’t work.”

“I understand,” Malcolm said. “I’ll get there. Chaos theory says two things. First, that complex systems like weather have an underlying order. Second, the reverse of that—that simple systems can produce complex behavior. For example, pool balls. You hit a pool ball, and it starts to carom off the sides of the table. In theory, that’s a fairly simple system, almost a Newtonian system. Since you can know the force imparted to the ball, and the mass of the ball, and you can calculate the angles at which it will strike the walls, you can predict the future behavior of the ball. In theory, you could predict the behavior of the ball far into the future, as it keeps bouncing from side to side. You could predict where it will end up three hours from now, in theory.”

“Okay.” Gennaro nodded.

“But in fact,” Malcolm said, “it turns out you can’t predict more than a few seconds into the future. Because almost immediately very small effects—imperfections in the surface of the ball, tiny indentations in the wood of the table—start to make a difference. And it doesn’t take long before they overpower your careful calculations. So it turns out that this simple system of a pool ball on a table has unpredictable behavior.”

“Okay.” Gennaro said.

Twilight scribbled down her notebook quickly while looking thoughtful, listening to Malcolm’s explanation.

“And Hammond’s project,” Malcolm said, “is another apparently simple system—animals within a zoo environment—that will eventually show unpredictable behavior.”

Gennaro raised a brow at Malcolm. “You know this because of…”

“Theory,” Malcolm said.

“But hadn’t you better see the island, to see what he’s actually done?” Twilight asked. “Don’t you want to look at everything first before giving your honest thoughts?”

“Oh no,” Malcolm replied confidently. “No. That is quite unnecessary, Twilight. The details don’t matter. Theory tells me that the island will quickly proceed to behave in unpredictable fashion.”

“And you’re confident of your theory?” Gennaro asked.

“Oh, yes,” Malcolm said. “Totally confident.” He sat back in the chair. “There is a problem with that island. It is an accident waiting to happen.”

Silence fell for a few moments.

Finally, Applejack broke it. “Well, Ah’m sure we’ll have a look for ourselves when we get over there. And see whatever this ‘project’ ole Hammond got goin’. No point in worryin’ ourselves with what we don’ know.”

Gennaro nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“In the meantime,” Applejack said, “ah’m goin’ on ahead and take me a nap. Wake me up when we get there.”



“Twilight, wake up.”

The softness of Fluttershy’s voice woke Twilight out of her sleep. She looked around blearily. She was still in the jet’s lounge; the light that filtered in from the porthole told her that it was morning outside. The bright light made her eyes hurt.

“Is it morning?” Twilight grumbled drowsily. “Are we here?”

“Oh, yes it’s morning. The sun just came up. But we’re not at the island yet, we have new passengers though.” Fluttershy pointed toward the farther left side of the jet, toward the other seat. 

Twilight glanced in that direction. Her eyes landed on another human, one that she could describe as a fat and sloppy man. He was eating a candy bar and there was sticky chocolate on his fingers. Flecks of aluminum foil on his shirt. Twilight heard him mumble something about doing computers on the island, and was surprised that he hadn’t offered to shake hands with anyone. Not even her or her friends.

A black man sat next to the sloppy fellow and appeared to be asleep, slumped down into the leather seat. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, head slightly tilted forward, chin resting against his chest. The man wore blue jeans, a red crew neck sweatshirt, and brown boots with the laces tied together in a loose bow. There was a brown backpack sitting on the floor next to his feet, and his black braided hair hung loosely in a ponytail.

“Who’re those two?” Twilight asked, pointing her hoof at the two strangers.

Fluttershy turned in her seat to give them a glance. “From what I heard from Hammond, they’re from San José,” Fluttershy explained. “Who had flown here to meet us. Their names are Dennis Nedry and Andre Weller.”

Twilight turned her head just in time to see Hammond enter the lounge. He smiled warmly at her. “Ah, good morning Twilight,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Ah slept okay!” Applejack announced, stretching slightly in her seat, clearly awake.

Gennaro yawned loudly.

“Ah, that’s quite good to hear Applejack.” Hammond smiled. “And you woke up just in time too.”

“Are we there yet?” Applejack asked.

“Not yet,” Hammond replied. “Just a few minutes now, and we should be seeing Isla Nublar.”

“What’s Isla Nublar like?” Fluttershy asked eagerly.

Hammond chuckled. “Beautiful,” he said. “But it isn’t a true island. Rather, it’s a seamount, a volcanic upthrusting of rock from the ocean floor. Its volcanic origins can be seen all over the island, There are steam vents in many places, and the ground is often hot underfoot. Because of this, and also because of prevailing currents, Isla Nublar lies in a foggy area. As we get there you will see—“

Hammond turned his gaze towards the jet’s window. A small smile played upon his lips.

“There it is.” Hammond mumbled in excitement and anticipation of seeing the sight. Everyone, including Twilight, Fluttershy, and Applejack turned their gazes towards the direction he pointed out to them. The scenery that was about to be revealed to them.

Finally breaking through the fog, Twilight saw the island: ‘Isla Nublar’ as John referred to it, appeared in the distance. The lush green jungle that surrounded the island covered the view from its edge up. As they were getting closer to the island, Twilight saw that it was rugged and craggy, rising sharply from the ocean. Fog wreathed the forested slopes, giving the island a mysterious appearance. 

At the north end of said island, Twilight stared in awe at the highest hills. Rising more than two thousand feet above the ocean. She saw the rugged cliffs and crashing ocean below, and the top of the hills were foggy.

“Christ, it looks like Alcatraz,” Malcolm said.

“Much larger, of course,” Hammond said. “Eight miles long and three miles wide at the widest point, in total some twenty-two square miles. Making it the largest private animal preserve in North America.”

The helicopter began to climb, and headed toward the north end of the island. Grant was trying to see through the dense fog.

“It’s not usually this thick,” Hammond said. Applejack caught the worry in Hammond’s tone.

The helicopter climbed above the hills.

“Unfortunately,” Hammond said, “we have to land on the island. I don’t like to do it, because it disturbs the animals. And it’s sometimes a bit thrilling—”

Hammond’s voice cut off as the pilot announced, “Starting our descent now. Hang on, folks.” 

The helicopter started down, and immediately they were blanketed in fog. Twilight couldn’t see anything at all. She began dimly to discern the green branches of pine trees, reaching through the mist. Some of the branches were close.

“How the hell is he doing this?” Malcolm asked, but nobody answered.

The pilot swung his gaze left, then right, looking at the pine forest. The trees were still close. The helicopter descended rapidly.

“Jesus,” Malcolm said.

The beeping’s volume increased as the helicopter went further and further down. The three mares looked at the pilot. He was concentrating. The pilot corrected slightly and touched down on a helipad. The sound of the rotors faded, and died. Twilight, Fluttershy, and Applejack sighed collectively.

“We have to come down fast, that way,” Hammond said, “because of the wind shear. There is often bad wind shear on this peak, and … well, we’re safe.”

Running up to the helicopter, a man with a baseball cap and red hair threw open the door and greeted cheerfully, “Hi, I’m Ed Regis. Welcome to Isla Nublar, everybody. And watch your step, please.”

One by one everyone stepped out of the jet. Twilight and her friends were the last to step out, as they all followed behind Hammond, who led the way down the stairs leading to the helipad.

The three mares looked around. A narrow path wound down the hill. The air was chilly and damp. As they moved lower with the group, the mist around them thinned, and they could see the landscape better. Twilight saw down below the white roofs of large buildings, nestled among the planting. Twilight was surprised at how elaborate the construction was. They moved lower, out of the mist, and now she could see the full extent of the island, stretching away to the south. As Regis had said to her and the group, it was mostly covered in tropical forest.

Twilight started towards Grant. Stopping next to him.

“Wow, this island sure is beautiful,” Twilight murmured. She pointed her hoof at the trees at the far left side of the island. “Look at the trees, Grant. Do you see how much taller they—“

Twilight felt something grasping her head and slowly tilted back until she was looking upward. She blinked as her eyes landed at a curving stump to the south, rising above the palm trees. Twilight was bewildered by what she saw. She thought it was just a stump. A stump of sorts. Her eyes followed  up said stump. It didn’t look natural. It wasn’t any sort of tree stump. It was too big, and too smooth, and… it was rising fifty feet into the air.

Twilight’s eyes grew large when they met the stump’s face. It was not a stump anymore. No… she was staring into the eyes of an enormous creature. And it wasn’t just any creature: it was a dinosaur.

“My God,” Ellie said softly. Everyone stared at the animal above the trees. “My God.”

Both Fluttershy and Applejack were silent.

Fluttershy’s first thought was that the dinosaur was beautiful. With it being so huge, it would easily take her breath away if she weren’t already in shock. Fluttershy threw her hooves over mouth. Rising above the foliage, a second head rose above, and then a third, and a fourth.

“Oh my goodness,” Fluttershy said breathlessly, staring at the long-necked animals, their bulbous eyes staring right back at her. Her heart skipped a beat. The fourth animal made a low trumpeting sound, and the others joined in as one to answer its call. Said trumpeting reminded her of an elephant but much more powerful, louder, clearer.

This… this couldn’t be real. It couldn’t. This couldn't be happening. There was no way these things were real. But there they were! She had seen them only in their skeletal form, but not like this—not in the flesh—not in real life!

Applejack was speechless. Like her friends, she too was in awe at the gracefulness of these giants. Her hoof unconsciously reached for her Stetson, pulling it off from her head and holding it close to her chest. She didn’t dare look anywhere else except into those black eyes which were gazing upon her.

In spite of Fluttershy’s best efforts to hold back her feelings, the emotion that overcame her, overwhelmed her completely. Tears began running down her face.

Twilight stood there dumbfounded, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. She tried to speak, but nothing came out of her mouth. A part of her wanted to believe she was dreaming—that what she was seeing wasn’t real. But hearing the animal’s low trumpeting sound was enough to convince her otherwise.

Twilight was so shocked that she failed to hear Grant suddenly laughing.

“What is it?” Hammond said, worry laced in his tone. “Is something wrong?”

Grant just shook his head, and continued to laugh.

A fifth and a sixth neck crane up above the palm trees. The long-neck titans watched them arrive with a stupidly pleasant gaze.

“What are they?” Fluttershy finally managed to say, her hoof covering her mouth.

Grant stopped laughing and spoke.

“They are Apatosaurus,” Grant said in amazement, his eyes fixed on the dinosaurs. “North American herbivores, from the late Jurassic horizon.”

“I take it they’re not animatronic,” Malcolm said. “They’re very lifelike.”

“Yes, they certainly are,” Hammond said. “Well, they should be, shouldn’t they?”

From a distance, they heard the trumpeting sound again. First one animal made it, and then the others joined in.

“That’s their call,” Ed Regis said. “Welcoming us to the island.”

Grant stood and listened for a moment, entranced.

“You probably want to know what happens next,” Hammond was saying, continuing down the path. “We’ve scheduled a complete tour of the facilities for you, and a trip to see the dinosaurs in the park later this afternoon. I’ll be joining you for dinner, and will answer any remaining questions you may have then. Now, if you’ll go with Mr. Regis…”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she stared at the medium-size apatosaurus craning above the palms.

“Wow.” She breathed out, watching with delight as the herd of dinosaurs turned and walked into the depths of the jungle, disappearing behind a clump of trees.

She and her friends quickly followed behind the group who followed Ed Regis toward the nearest buildings. Over the path, Twilight saw a crude hand-painted sign with a speaker below it reading: “Welcome to Jurassic Park.”

Just as she read that, the speaker cracked, making her flinch.

“Welcome, to Jurassic Park!” The mechanical voice spoke up with a cheerful greeting, “A place where dinosaurs roam, and can be seen in any habitat at any time!”

They moved into a green tunnel of overarching palms leading toward the main visitor building. Twilight’s head turned from side to side, taking in the scenery. The extensive and elaborate planting everywhere really emphasized the feeling that she was entering a new world. A tropical prehistoric world, and leaving the modern one behind her.

“They look pretty good.” Ellie remarked, looking at Grant.

Grant shook his head. “It changes everything,” he said, grinning. “I still feel dizzy.”

“You don’t seem upset,” Malcolm said.

Grant shook his head. “It’s been discussed, in the field. Many people imagined it was coming. But not so soon.”

“Story of our species,” Malcolm said, laughing. “Everybody knows it’s coming, but not so soon.”

A small squeak of joy escaped from Twilight’s throat as she looked around at her friends. All three were smiling broadly at each other, still amazed at what they saw earlier.

“I can’t believe it,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “We saw a dinosaur—well, six of them actually, but a real dinosaur nonetheless!”

Applejack chuckled at Twilight’s statement. “Eeyup, we did. Ah almost can’t believe it myself. It’s a mighty shame Rainbow, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie couldn’t be here to see it.”

“Did you two see how those animals gracefully moved? It was so beautiful.” Fluttershy gushed.

Grant glanced at the mares and smiled, “Yes, it is quite fascinating.”

As the group walked down the path, they could no longer see the dinosaurs. But they could hear them, trumpeting softly in the distance.

“My only question is, where’d they get the DNA?” Grant asked with a puzzled expression.

Ellie placed her hands on her hips. Tilting her head in thought. “You can’t reproduce a real dinosaur, because you can’t get real dinosaur DNA.”

“Unless there’s a way we haven’t thought of.” Grant pondered aloud.

“Like what?” Ellie wondered.

“I don’t know.” Grant replied.

They came to the swimming pool beyond the fence, which spilled over into a series of waterfalls and smaller rocky pools. The area was planted with huge ferns. 

“Isn’t this extraordinary?” Ed Regis commented to everyone. “Especially on a misty day, these plants really contribute to the prehistoric atmosphere. These are authentic Jurassic ferns, of course.”

Fluttershy paused to look more closely at the ferns. “I’ve never seen a plant like that before,” she noted, staring at it in wonder.

“Neither have I,” Twilight said. “I wonder what kind of plant it is?”

“It’s an Serenna veriformans, a plant found abundantly in fossils more than two hundred million years old, now common only in the wetlands of Brazil and Colombia.” Ellie explained. She frowned as she stared at the plant.

But honestly, she thought, whoever had decided to place this particular fern at poolside obviously didn’t know that the spores of veriformans contained a deadly beta-carboline alkaloid. Even touching the attractive green fronds could make you sick, and if a child were to take a mouthful, he would almost certainly die—the toxin was fifty times more poisonous than oleander.

“If you look up ahead, you’ll see our Safari Lodge. That’s where you’ll all be staying here in Jurassic Park.” Ed Regis informed them.

Twilight saw a dramatic, low building, with a series of glass pyramids on the roof. They continued following Ed down the path.



Fear.

One of the things that everyone has in common is fear. Humanity has it. Everyone is afraid of some things. It’s a simple biological function that humans have. A natural instinctive reaction to certain stimuli which humanity’s ancestors had probably been exposed to for generations. Some might say, fear is an intrinsic part of human nature, one that mankind’s brains have developed from the moment they were conceived and the very first thing that they experienced upon seeing or experiencing their environment was the fear of being eaten by a monster and the terror that followed. It’s like a part of them that they have no control over.

Fear is ingrained into the human mind. And it’s hard to unlearn. The first instinctual reaction when one feels unsafe in a strange place is to run away as far as one can possibly go until they reach safety, until your heart stops beating with a rapid pace, until their lungs start working properly again so they can breathe once more. They feel safe only when they can retreat back to where they came from, to home. Home is where the sun rises every morning, where the birds chirped and the butterflies flew. But the world doesn’t just exist in one’s head anymore. In the real world, humans can encounter dangers outside those barriers of home and safety.

There are a set of triggers that could trigger one’s primal instincts. Fear of being attacked by an aggressive tiger, fear of thunderstorms, fear of snakes, fear of falling, fear of heights, fears of getting lost in the forest, fears of dying, even fears of being eaten alive.

These are the things Andre Weller feared most in his life. But today, a new fear was beginning to grow within him. It wasn’t the fact that he saw those living, breathing dinosaurs for the first time—those herbivores. No, they were not his biggest problem, but something much bigger than them would soon be. He learned this when a terrible realization dawned on him earlier on during the day.

If there are herbivores here… so are carnivores…