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// Starting the Modernization 
// Story: Equus' Unexpected Future 
// by Robert Emerald Fountain 
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Twilight’s School of Friendship had been doing very well and the Young Six had recently graduated with honors. During the Young Six’s graduation party, Twilight received a message from Celestia and Luna.

“Dear Twilight,

Equus has been thriving for many years and your campaign to start friendship schools has ended all of our wars between the other races around the world. We feel like it is time to bring the world into a new era with modern vehicles and technology. At the same time, we hope to begin exploring the deep reaches of space and possibly establish research bases while searching for new forms of life. We kindly request your presence in Canterlot tomorrow so we can give you the plans.

Signed, Celestia and Luna.”

Twilight spread the word to all of her friends, the Young Six, and to Flurry Heart, who had recently turned 18. They were excited to bring their world into a modern era. So they all boarded the train the next morning and arrived at the royal palace. After following the Royal Sisters into a conference room, they took seats to hear the plans.

“Our intent is to start out with new vehicles that move under their own power, then we will start the missions to explore space. Along with building research bases, we will also send automated probes to venture further and search for other possible forms of intelligent life.”, explained Celestia.

Twilight accepted the new plans and began preparing everyone for what was to come. A news report went out all over the world and got everyone excited.

**

A few months after receiving word of the upcoming modernization, construction began for motorized vehicles on the ground, water, and in the air. Trains already moved under their own power, so this would focus on building cars and other road vehicles. Much trial and error occurred for the first three weeks, but the new vehicles were soon built, tested, and mass-produced. After designing ground vehicles, the time was right for new forms of water transportation to be created. This mostly included submarines for exploring areas under the water. Pre-existing ships for cruises and cargo were enhanced to increase safety so that there was a low risk of injury when the ships were in motion or in dock.

Eventually, after one year, the time had come for constructing aircrafts. Over the course of the next two years, planes and helicopters were built, tested, and given to transportation and rescue areas. Airports were also built so that the planes and the helicopters had places to land and take off at any time. Everyone around the world was thrilled at the idea of travelling by air or having their own vehicle for moving on the ground.

Six months after perfecting the aircrafts and creating the radar systems for tracking them, it was time to create new technology for Equus. This included TV’s for seeing the news and computers to keep a close eye on what was going on. The computers would also be a large help in the upcoming missions to explore space and with designing ships for a defense fleet if Equus were to ever come under attack. Some of the computers had touchscreen monitors and others included motion control that required wearing special gloves or goggles to operate the equipment. Some of the new computers were installed on ships and submarines to allow for faster operation of on-board systems. Shortly after getting their new technology perfected to the highest level of efficiency, which took three years, it was time to begin the campaign to explore space.

Luna oversaw the space exploration to make sure it all ran smoothly. The plan was to make six landings on the moon and then build probes and space stations for experiments and searching faraway areas before constructing a starship fleet for battle and defense.

The first two landings on the moon brought back samples of different rocks and metals. Rock samples included basalt while metal samples included zinc, cobalt, and nickel. The next four landings formed the project to build a research base. A larger ship was constructed to carry the pieces of the base, which were built on the ground. After flying the pieces to the moon, they were carefully assembled to construct the base. Building the research base took only three months, since the designers were quick to build everything. This base was going to be the nexus of all future missions to explore deeper into space.

Once the moon base was operational, the transport ship was used to build two space stations. One would be used to process communication data between Equus and any other ships in the area, along with the moon base. Thorax volunteered to man the communications space station. The other space station was the dock for larger spaceships that would be constructed later. Gilda stepped up to man this one.

After the two space stations were built, Luna requested that two small probes be sent into deep space to search for life. Once the probes were launched from the dock, they set off on their automated missions. At this point, a total of six years had passed since the initial plan to modernize Equus.

One of the probes revealed several star systems that were worth exploring once the technology to travel long distances in short amounts of time had been designed and tested. The other probe reached one star system and detected a planet with intelligent life, called Earth, but it later went offline before all of the data was gathered. Looking at the probe’s flight path, Luna made the conclusion that a stray asteroid had struck the probe and damaged it to the point that it shorted out. Little did they know that the probe would be found soon and they would be making new friends.