//------------------------------//
// Humans 
// Story: Fallout: Equestria- Chasing Stars 
// by not_me 
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Humans.

Humans were not even creatures of myth or lore. They were creatures seen only by the paranoid and mad. The Bison Herd had stories about them; none of them were good. They all seemed to involve anal probing, and the devouring of intelligent creatures like ponies or bison. Humans were said to be strong like bison, smarter than earth ponies and unicorns, immune to the all magic, and capable of more evil than nightmare moon. They were creatures from beyond the stars; zebra kind would run in fear at their mere mention alone. Yet still I saw one standing in front of me.

“Hello, welcome aboard the U. S. S. Embarr. I am Chief Warrant Officer Nuniez. I saw that show you put on outside. I am sorry for your loss.”

It spoke! “You’re a Human,” is all I could say.

“Yeah, and you’re a unicorn. Believe it or not until a few centuries ago us humans thought half the stuff in your world were make believe.”

“You’re a human,” I repeated.

“We already established that. Look I’ll just start talking and when your brain catches up maybe than we can speak. Ok.”

“You’re a…”

“People are from another world. I was sent here on a mission to observe and learn about your world. We were doing a routine patrol when we had engine trouble and our ethereal drives failed forcing us out of subspace above an Enclave command ship. They noticed us before we could turn on our stealth systems. Our protocols do not allow for us to interact with your world, we could not defend ourselves. At least we weren’t suppose to. Half our crew got killed before we disobeyed orders and returned fire. We took out most of their forces, but they destroyed out kinetic drives forcing us out of the air. All the other crewmembers died in the crash. I am all that is left. I am not suppose to be even talking to any natives, I could be court marshaled! The coms array is down and the jump drive was damaged beyond repair in the crash. There is no rescue party coming, even if they knew were I was central command might not risk a rescue. I saw you outside, that spell you pulled off before going all white and killing everybody was picked up by our sub-ether detectors. You went sub-space for a second, right?” 

Ok, she was defiantly talking. Talking techno babble. I am only semi literate in techno babble. So, sky battle, explosions, me seeing the whole thing, dead humans, and I think there was a question in there somewhere. “You mean that dark plain I went to when Lucky touched me.”

“Dark plain? I guess that could be sub-space. We can’t actually see it, we use sensors to navigate through it.”

“What is it?”

“It is like a place between spaces. One can still interact with the outside world, but physical parameters that make up reality are weakened. Things like energy constants, time, and distance don’t mean as much. Humans use it to travel great distances quickly in our universe.”

More techno babble. “So its the world outside the veil of existence.” The veil was a bison concept. It was what separated the living world from the spirit world. There was supposed to be layers to it though. “Wait! Humans don’t come from the stars; they come from another universe entirely. How, Why?”

“Well the properties were actually stumbled upon. It is all very complex.” What isn’t? “The fact is the universe, well any universe, is infinitely large. We could search for eternity and never find any other intelligent life. It is much easier to explore other universes to find intelligent life. I mean our world produced life once before. Change some variables slightly, hop on over to the next universe. Boom life found. Most what we found were other humans. But, change enough variables and viola pony world.”

“Wow, that almost makes sense. How could I help you any? I am just a unicorn.”

She laughed, hard, in my face. I got freaked out when I noticed her teeth. They were sharp in the front. Designed for tearing flesh, ponies flesh maybe. She started to wince in pain as she laughed before sitting back down in her chair. “Ow, I think I tore some of my stitches. Let me tell you it’s a son of a bitch having stitch up your own body.” I glared at her. “Look, just a unicorn, humans did everything I talked about with out using any magic, just science. Our universe doesn’t have it. Our bodies do not even process it. We have no idea how it works. You managed to teleport, fly, shoot lightning and laser beams, cause an earthquake, and enter subspace with out using any machinery. I think ‘just a unicorn’ is enough, besides I am pretty sure unicorns are only supposed to use two or three spells that match your magical butt tattoos. I think you can help me. Besides I don’t have many options. I am sick. I don’t have long. None of your spells or medical supplies can help me. Even your medicinal herbs are reliant upon their magic properties.” She laughed again, this time she sounded sad. “Please just cut a girl a break.”

“Ok, I’ll help. My name is Star Chaser, my ‘cutie mark’ was given to chase down a falling star. Well that star was you, so I guess my special talent might be to help you. I have no clue how I entered the void nor how to do it again. What you saw out there was called magical overload. When a unicorn enters that state common restrictions upon magic use are temporarily removed. The unicorn just acts as a conduit for any and all magical energy in the surrounding area with no control.” I had learned almost all of this from Twilight Sparkle’s Big Book of Unicorn Magic. The herd kept anything that had to do with the elements of harmony, and growing up my adoptive father Thunder Head made sure I learnt all I could about old pony culture. He seemed to know more about it than any bison should. I was really well read considering the current state of education in Equestria.

Officer Nuniez quickly grabbed a piece of paper and started taking notes. “We were not aware of this phenomenon. So during that time you had no control of the spells you were casting.”

“Well sort of. The raw magic was just reacting to my emotions. In fact most spells are hard to create. Most unicorns just learn them during their cutie mark events. I think the act of getting the mark introduces raw magic to them when they are midst of one of the most emotional parts of a young ponies life. I think after that they are left with the magic they were exposed to the during the marks creation.”

“Fascinating.” She kept on writing. “See we were working on a different theory. We thought that since magic had sub-space properties, and sub-space does not follow established chronology, it consists of elements of the past, present and future, the ponies are exposed to a possible future experience. It was thought they were learning from their future self. Since magic is the manifestation of a ponies will we thought that’s what allows you ponies to have such a control over your projected time line. I mean that would explain why your potential future timeline projections are so limited compared to most other…” She fell dead silent. She knew she made a mistake and said something that I was not supposed to hear. “Shit!”

“Projected futures. Humans see into the future? So what you just enter other universes and travel through time collecting data.”

She looked sheepish, nothing like a monster from a story. For the first time I could tell she was in a weakened state. “Pretty much. I definitely was not supposed to reveal any of that. Look I’ll just come clean, but it isn’t going to be pretty.” She took a breath. “We are not I what you would call the present per se. There is a hard line present. If one were to go back before that point in time and change anything from before it would create an entirely new universe. It is a chaotic and powerful event. Its best avoided at all cost. However, in subspace the timeline can be hard lined to create a projected future temporarily in subspace. We were wondering about your culture so we created a bunch of them, but no matter what we do the probability that the events that will create this future is fixed. We think it is due to magic, but we are unsure. Where unsure about a lot of things!”

“Wait if this is not the present, but the future. When is the present?”

“Two hundred and twenty one years ago approximately from this point in time.”

“So the war hasn’t even started.”

“Technically? No, but it is a fixed event as far as we can tell. The outcome is not. Which takes me back to why I need your help.” She turned away from in her chair and set down here notebook. What do you know, the screen is touch based. “I was going to lie and say something about sending a distress signal, but since you know already. I wanted to use you to collect data about the timeline. This world, your world, this timeline has been my life work. Growing up I loved My Little Pony. It was a story told to little girls. When we found this world it seemed a dream come true. Then I saw the projected future. I wanted to stop it from occurring at all cost. We are legally not allowed to interfere with your timeline though. I am dying, I don’t care about the law anymore.”

“So you want me to help you change the past. To help you save my world.”

“Yes. I know of a way to get you back into the past. You can go back to anytime after the Discord events. Here is the catch. It is a one-way trip. You can go alone, but the machine can easily take ten to twenty ponies. I’ll trust my legacy to you, just promise me you will not fail.”

It all sounded to good to be true, but I was talking to a human and two days ago I was talking to an alicorn. Ponies like the stable dweller wouldn’t need to die anymore, this could work. “Deal! Just tell me what I need to do.”

“Here let me see you pip-buck.” I gave her my hoof. She just slipped it off somehow. She put it on a tray where blue lights traced it. It disintegrated. A second later a golden pip-buck ‘grew’ in its place. She tapped the screen some more before grapping the new pip-buck and asking my to see my hoof before attaching it. It booted up. It brought up the same screen as before. It seemed no different except now the boot screen said pimp-buck 3 billion, for just a second. Afterwards it returned back to pip-buck 3000. “Okay I altered your pip-buck. It should work the same as before except I vastly increased the memory and added some files and features. You should now have some of my research notes, read them. There are some hints on when the timeline can be changed. Next I added the ability to read into computers remotely along with some hacking software. It is designed to break into a few special systems, but should aid you with any regular system. The third thing I added was a sub-ether detector. This thing will start vibrating when you enter sub-ether field. It’s dangerous for you ponies. Magic breaks down in its field if it is too strong. Ponies run on magic. So it can be lethal to you, which is kinda strange due to the fact magic has sub-space properties. Find out about this if you can.”

“Okay, now I left you written instructions but there are six things you need to do. First, find a computer with access to the Equestria network. The pipbuck will run some files and return a search result. That will tell where to find a computer with sub-net access, which is the second thing. Once you have access to the sub-net the pip-buck will run another search and should give you a list of locations for some files. The third thing is to find a passkey. You need a file passkey from the EC-11 series. There are eleven in all ranging from EC-1100 to EC-1110 any should do the trick. Fourth, you need gain access to the priority-one access channel with the passkey. You will get these locations from when you accessed the sub-net the first time. It will tell you where to find an ethereal and jump drive. Number five, get to the drives location. It should be all under Project Moon Fall. Keep an eye out for anything that deals with it. Now the last thing, you are going to need what you ponies call starmetal. As much as you can get your hands on.”

“I don’t have hands.”

“Whatever. What you ponies call starmetal is a subspace alloy. It emits a small sub-ether field and is dangerous to be around for too long. Store it in a lead container.” At that she pulled out a plain wooden box. I opened it to find it was lined in metal and filled with a golf ball sized chunk of blue metal and several square rectangular sheets an inch long. My pip-buck shook slightly. “That is about a third of what you need. Keep and eye out for any human weapons. Some might contain it. They are like energy pistols but they will turn anything it hits into a pile of blue dust in one shot, so be careful.”

“Thank you for everything. I will do my best.” My whole life I had prayed for something to do with my life. Now I had a list of six things I needed to do in a neat ordered list. The whole ordeal seemed to take a lot out of the Chief Warrant Officer. She was sweating hard her skin seemed to get paler. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah just peachy.” She tried to get up before collapsing. I lifted her onto my back. Her legs were dragging. 

“Tell me were to take you.”

“Medical,” she grunted. I was going to ask where that was, when a blue light formed on the ground. I followed it. When I reached those inoperable doors they opened on their own. Her medical room was sparse. I laid her down on a table when a scanner zipped across her body. A read out of her vital stats lay in front of me as a computer read them off. ‘Temperture: 102 degrees Fahrenheit (warning you are running a high fever). Blood pressure normal. Warning you are infected with an unknown virus (potentially lethal and contagious), unknown form, please quarantine yourself in a stasis pod. Alert, all stasis pods are down, please repair ether drive. Administrating temporary measure, please see a doctor for further aid. Warning: staff doctors current vital signs are unresponsive please call command. Warning: communications are down. Please repair comms.’ A large needle came down from the ceiling and injected into her neck. “Ow,” she said before sitting up. Apparently the medication worked fast cause she looked better.

“I don’t need to be worried about getting your virus do I?”

“Actually I think to you I have like a common cold. My body can’t handle it though, whatever it is. My body is going into systemic shock. My organs are slowly shutting down. At least I have good blood pressure,” she laughed. Shit maybe I was really unlucky. Everypony I had ever met has died shortly after meeting me. My family, Lucky, the whole of Appleloosa, now the only human I ever met too. “Please don’t look at me with those big sad pony eyes. Ponies should be happy, not sad. Please smile, just for me.” I smiled and she smiled back. She put her hand down and rubbed my mane. “I set this ship to explode at the end of this week. I diverted all energy into stealth systems so no one should find me after you leave. I would end it now, but my God does not look too kindly on doing such a thing. Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you out.” She walked with me to the exit in silence.

“So are you part of some military?”

“Yeah but we were part of their science division. We were examining magic, the brass wasn’t quite interested in how ponies developed, but this future is a goldmine in long term weaonized magical effects on the land.”

“Oh, I guess that could be useful. Are all humans part of the military.”

“No, most are civilians. There are also a whole shit ton of other countries. Humans are about as varied as ponies in terms of personality.” At that we approached the exit. “This is where we part my little unicorn.” She propped herself against the wall. “Take care Star Chaser.”

“Thank you, Chief Warrant Officer Nuniez.” As I descended the stairs I waved good-bye to her. She waved back. After the hatch closed she turned around. “Computer access CWO logs. This is CWO Nuniez final log. I guess I feel bad using that unicorn like this. He eagerly ate up all my bullshit. I hope he does what I ask if only so my notes get broadcasted back home. I love you Mom, I love you Dad. I have no regrets. Well except for maybe shooting my CO, if the dumb fuck listened we wouldn’t have gotten our asses kicked in that fight. The bastard ordered the computer to shut down all our systems before dying. We mutinied for nothing. On the other hand I finally got to meet a unicorn, every little girls dream come true. He was black with blue hair. He was wearing an old leather jacket and a flat brimmed hat like some cowboy, you should have seen it. I love you all good-bye. Computer send this to his pip-buck.” She slumped against the wall, resigned to her fate, but one thing still bothered her. “Computer, new message, to be played to the pip-buck user after all six parts of the quest are finished. Star Chaser, I am sure by now you have realized I was not telling you the truth. I am sorry for tricking you. The truth is…”





As I walked away from the ship I was examining my shiny new pip-buck just going over the quest log. I looked through and noticed ten new entries in my notes section. They all seemed long and technical; I would have to read them later. I had to find a computer apparently and had no idea where to start. I made to go back west when I realized that there was no longer an Appleloosa anymore, and there were definitely no networked computers back with the herd. According to Lucky there was supposed to be a major road on the other side of the mountain. So, I walked along it in hopes of finding a navigable pass. After an hour my back was aching, probably from carrying two saddlebags worth of supplies.

Among the bison we were taught to accept death. Luna knows I had enough experience with it. Deaths were handled in regimented fashion. The family of the deceased had one day to grieve. The next morning there was a funeral. If the buffalo that died were a soldier, the chief would say some somber speech as all bison in service stood vigil. After that a family member would speak their peace, and last was a medicine bison that was close to the bereaved. All in all it would take an hour or two. As a scout I was in attendance of a funeral every other week it seemed. My adoptive father was never given a service though. He was still considered missing and would be so until a body was found. Raiders don’t leave bodies. The mantra for the herd was survive one day at a time in the best way possible.
Although I sorted through her bag I never did clean any of the junk she put into mine. Most of the stuff was junk. Plates, tin cans, scrap metal and so on. I consolidated any food, medicine and ammo into my bag when I came across a glowing Sparkle Cola Rad bottle. I had never seen any of these before. I made to drink it when I felt something blunt hit my head. I turned and saw on what any other day would be the craziest thing I have ever seen. Three elderly earth pony mares dressed in matching spring dresses and high beehive hairdos brandishing rolling pins and switchblades.

I stood up an entered VATS prepping for a magic barrage, but there was none left. I was burnt out. I dropped out as the nearest one closed in on me. I made to block but I felt the sting of a rolling pin hit me. I swung my pip-buck at her. Blocked. I kicked at her. Blocked again. I jumped back only to realize one of the other mares had cut me off as she drove her switchblade into my shoulder.  I pulled out the blade with my teeth and limped slowly away from the three crazy mares as the slowly regrouped. I was fucked. I had always considered myself a proficient fighter, but now realized I had always relied on magic to supplement my fighting capabilities. As I faced three experienced melee fighters who never learned to rely on magic I realized I was screwed. Sure I could take them on, it would be a long fight trading blows for blows. However, there was no honor in fighting them. I would not stand being the pony that killed three elderly mares. Only one word rung in my mind: Survive!

I turned tail and ran as quickly as my hooves could carry me as the three gave chase. Not my proudest moment, I admit. Every once in a while I could hear them swing at me a few feet behind me. I might not be too strong or agile, but one-thing years of stampeding builds in a pony is endurance.  After five minutes of running I could barely hear them. After ten minutes I think I lost them. I stopped to catch my breath and drink a healing potion. It helped with my bleeding but did nothing for the pain. My head was throbbing from the smack and the magical burnout. I got up to take in my surroundings when I saw one of the crazy mares charging at me. “Give me back my knife thief,” she screamed. I never considered taking a knife used to stab me as stealing. And we’re off to the races again.

I ran another two minutes before I lost sight of them. However, it mattered not as I had cornered myself on cliff. Though I could not see them I could hear hoof beats in the distance. I saw a rock out crop half way down the cliff that I could reach. As I made to land I stumbled and found myself rolling the rest of the way down. I was going to get back up and keep running when I saw a metal door built into the cliff. I kicked it open and jumped in what appeared to be an abandoned mine. My whole body was aching now, not just my head.  I slammed the door shut and caught my breath. It wasn’t long when I heard some pony land on the same rock I did. “Give me a break,” I said aloud. The pony outside heard me and was now trying to bang the door open. I threw my body against it to keep it closed when two more bodies joined the first in trying to force the door open. Than to my horror I saw the two giant scorpions coming from the cave to inspect the noise. Seriously, what the fuck wasteland?

I pushed off the door as the three mares slammed the door open, falling on there faces. I rushed past the giant scorpions before they could react and bolted deeper into the mine. I found the first unlocked door and ran in. I turned the door slamming it shut and locking it. There were three radroaches as big as my face ready to greet, so I introduced two to my hooves as I danced on top of them popping them into gross bits. The third however found its way onto my face. I yelped out as it chewed on my cheek. Without thinking I slammed my head against the wall before realizing I could just pry it off with my hooves. I threw it as hard as I could muster right onto the floor. It died with a gurgle. Tired and messy, I slumped on the floor and leaned against the door.

Outside I could here a battle to the death between the crazy mares and the scorpions. I heard one of the mares scream, “They killed Maude.” After a few minutes it was silent. The room I was in was dark. I made to make my horn glow only to feel a sharp pain. “No magic idiot,” I said to myself. I fumbled in the darkness until I found out how to switch on my pip-bucks lamp. I was in a bunkroom with a bunk bed and a couch with half of the room was caved in. Along the opposite wall from the door was a series of lockers and next to that a computer. I searched the lockers and found some old world bits, two more horseshoes and a hat. I replaced my two worse horseshoes with the new pair and took the band off of the new hat and replaced the one on my pop’s with it. The feather seemed to stay in place better with the new band. “There we go all repaired,” I said to no pony with a smile.

I really didn’t care about the computer, but I had a new tool and damn if I wasn’t going to use. I went to the keyboard, but my pipbuck beeped first. I looked at the little wrist-mounted screen. ‘Contact with computer established… Security password required… Initializing backdoor protocols…’ A list of random words and symbols appeared just before a bunch of them disappeared. ‘All duds removed.’ I looked at the screen and there were a list of seven four-letter words. I saw the word ‘mine’ on the list so I picked it first. Correct! I was greeted with a list of shipping manifests and a notice of security protocols.  I scrolled through the list and found one option to ‘open locked ordinance container’. I selected it and heard a soft click beneath the rubble. I went over and moved a piece of the ceiling to find a safe built in the wall behind it. Inside the safe were six sticks of dynamite and bunch of unreadable papers. I slipped the dynamite into my bag. 

I was dead beat so I decided to hole up for the night and take care of the scorpions and mares tomorrow since no one was getting in through the locked door. Turns out the couch was more comfortable than the two-century-old bedding, go figure. I was tired, but I wanted to read one of the notes the human left me first though. I took off my jacket, hat, and saddlebags as I made myself comfortable.

Equestria Weather Patterns
Equestria weather systems relied upon anthropogenic control prior to the Pony Zebra War. However since the culmination of the war, pegasi have used the weather to create a continual cloud layer utilizing the Ministry of Awesome’s (MoA) Single Pegasus Project (SPP) protocols as a basis of weather control after the destruction of the weather control factory in the Cloudsdale megaspell attack. MOA has been shown to be the primary espionage and intelligence agency under Luna ruled Equestria. The artificer that controls SPP has been shown to rely on high-energy magic that was comprised of zebra and Ministry of Arcane Technology (MAT) derived techno-magic. The cloud cover is believed to have increased pegasus survival by primarily allowing for non-irradiated agriculture. Well the Enclave have shown to be a primary force preventing the re-integration of pony culture, societal development is shown to not have developed any quicker in non-Enclave cloud cover timeline projections. However, the SPP is a primary candidate for the ongoing search for the missing Elements of Harmony (EoH) artificers. Current theories point to an arcano-tech integration of the EoH into the machinations of a MoA or MAT project prior to the…

At that point I fell asleep. The boring note was boring. I had no dreams this night. I just fell deep into a void, dead to the world. 

I heard a series of pop’s like a string of firecrackers. I awoke when I heard screaming and realized I was hearing bullet fire. I sat up and hoped for the best as everything fell silent again. I saw the door handle jiggle. I was still locked. I felt relived. Whatever pony it was would just move on… then I heard a click as the door came unlocked. The door flew open as a single pegasus flew in wearing a double mini-gun battle saddle. She turned to me and I saw her guns start spinning a she grinned.


Footnote: Level up! Level 5

New perk: Eerie Equestria: The most bizarre and strange elements of the Equestrian Wasteland are unleashed. Not for the faint of heart or the serious of temperament.

Science: 30
Repair: 30