//------------------------------// // The Ascent // Story: The Quest For Iscanter // by eternalsquire //------------------------------// "Captain", Forest Snow said, "Missile has vanished from radar, all detonation energy has dissipated.". He took his horn out of the control socket for his console. "Rarity.", the captain said, "You are in the Helm station. Helm, right the ship and bring the nose up. Extend flight surfaces. Connect port and starboard auxilliary rockets to wave engine. Auxilliary rockets to full power!" The ship rapidly began its ascent through the atmosphere. The windows showed the sky slowly changing from bright blue, to indigo, then to black. Stars could now be seen. They were in orbit. Fluttershy threw a couple switches. Cheers from nearly everypony in the ship could be heard over the speakers. "Thank you, Comms. Make it two way.", Avatar said, "Thank you, all officers and crew. Now that you all have my complete attention, I will say that every creature so far has done a magnificent job. Forest, as I recall, you have sealed orders from your grandfather, to be opened once we made it to orbit." "Yes sir.", Forest said, as he opened up not an envelope with paper, but instead a paper scroll containing Imperial calligraphy. "My grandfather, the Emperor of Crysanthemums, respectfully requests and requires our ship be named for our undying will to persevere over the many long years uncountable. The word for this is also the most ancient word for our people: we are the Yamato. Signed with the Emperor's seal, witnessed by the signatures of both Princess Celestia and Princess Cadence." "Let it be so!", the captain said. "We are the Yamato!", he ordered. "WE ARE THE YAMATO! WE ARE THE YAMATO! WE ARE THE YAMATO!", everypony on the ship, as well as Iron Will, shouted over the speakers. "Thank you all.", the captain answered. "We will be heading on thrust to Mares. Once we arrive in about three hours, we will attempt our first warp manuever. That is all." Avatar directed in a more discreet voice. "Helm, connect main rocket to wave engine. Combat speed one, please. Comms, shipwide off. Good job, Comms!" Fluttershy smiled. . . . Avatar passed the word through Rarity and Fluttershy to bring the entire Mane Six along with Forest and Luna over to his ready room for planning. He would meet them there in a half hour. Precisely to the second, Avatar entered the room. He certainly expected the other ponies there. What he didn't expect were the tantalizing odors of fresh baked bread and apple pie, along with brewing coffee. The sources of those odors were laid out upon a shelf upon one side of his ready room, alongside pitchers of juice and water. He noticed Pinkie Pie and AppleJack standing in front of the shelf to one side. AppleJack rang a triangle while Pinkie Pie shouted, "Lunchtime!" "Outstanding!", he exclaimed. "Has the rest of the crew had theirs first?", he asked. AppleJack replied, "You won't want to thank us just yet. These were made from the first batch of, um, 'recycled' ingredients. Pinkie tasted first, then I tried them because I was assisting her. If the captain doesn't mind, we want him to be our first test subject before the crew eats this stuff. If the captain pleases?" He nodded at them both. "Normally, I'd disagree. In nearly all cases it's been my policy on board my ships that the crew eats first before the officers. But my crew has never tasted food synthesized directly from thier own poop nor drink from their own pee! Therefore, it falls to me to set the example." He tasted a morsel of bread and a forkful of apple pie, washing them both down with a sip of black coffee thoughtfully poured into a cup by Pinkie. Finally, he motioned to the yellow pitcher. AppleJack served him a glass of it. The liquid tasted exactly like freshly squeezed lemonade. "I can't tell any of these apart from the real thing. I hope they're nutritious as they taste.", he said. "Excellent work, both of you. The pie also meets the Apple family reputation. Now, I want to see my crew fed within the next hour. We here will feed ourselves." Pinkie and AppleJack both left the room, smiling, enormously pleased with themselves. "Join in, everyone.", Avatar urged. "We'll make this a working lunch. XO, overview please." Twilight Sparkle nodded. After taking a few moments to eat an entire half loaf of bread, she inserted her horn into the overhead socket interface for the ready room projection console. This was her first time using the direct interface, and her eyes widened in amazement. Wow, she thought, I can see the stars, I can see our present course, I can see everything! Now I want an illustration of the warp process on the floor for all to see. The information systems embedded within the console promptly responded to her mental request and obtained information from the astrogation systems on the bridge. "The process of doing it is actually simpler than the process of describing it.", Twilight began. "Think of space and time together as a huge piece of fabric upon which everything in the universe rests.", she said. An even rectangular grid appeared on the floor. "Now, everything having mass, such as planets and stars and even our sun, creates dents in the fabric proportional to the mass.", she continued The entire solar system of which Equestria formed a part, became superimposed upon the grid: distorting the grid in the places where the sun and planets presently resided. "The fact that dents exist naturally implies we can make our own dents. In fact, when I teleport, that's exactly what I do: I instinctively make a dent in the fabric hard enough to punch through and then emerge at a difference place in the fabric. Princess Celestia was right in that if I actually had the strength and the experience of where Iscanter exactly is, I could have teleported there long since and retrieved what they have to offer us. We all know I have neither. That's why we need a crew working together using Iscanterian artisanship to teleport our ship from here to there. Even then, we don't have the power in the wave motion engine to do that single leap all at once, we have to proceed in smaller jumps." The view on the floor rotated and changed to show a pair of curved walls connected by a tunnel. "Notice the tunnel", Twilight said. "The engine creates a tunnel, a molehole if you like, for just as long as needed for our ship to act like a sewing needle: piercing one side of our reality and exiting into another part." Rarity immediately paid attention as soon as the work 'sewing' was mentioned. "So that's why...", she breathed in sudden insight. "Yes, Rarity", Twilight said, "That's the reason the captain picked you for helm. You'll learn more about navigating in normal space on the job, but we all know you have the steadiest hand in Equestria with a sewing needle." "Really.", Rarity deadpanned. "It's only a matter of making the stitch in time." "And", Twilight grinned, "Your job is to make a stitch in space-time! It has to be done manually, because there's one small problem left, and that's propelling ourselves through the tunnel. The wave motion engine works by capturing waves composed of particles smaller than you can see which can travel no slower than light. That gives us as much power as we can build the engines to handle. Has anyone ever done any surfing?" Pinkie Pie smiled and raised her hand. "I vacationed in Hayway-eee once. You have to lay on your board and catch the wave at just the right time, or it won't work. The wave won't take you and your board to the shore." "Exactly", Twilight agreed. "Not only do we need to pierce the space-time fabric with our ship, we also need to do it at the precise moment a faster than light wave arrives to carry our ship through the tunnel from the place we exit to the place we arrive. It takes the judgement of a live intelligence to do this." The floor image now superimposed a series of waves crossing rapidly through the right hoof wall, through the tunnel, and then through the left hoof wall. "Perfect timing is absolutely necessary", Twlight concluded, "or it won't work." "What if Rarity gets it wrong?", Rainbow Dash challenged. "What could happen?" "The best outcome for us in that case", Twilight replied, "is that we waste our opportunity to jump. We waste engine power and crew time, and then we have to try again. I don't believe the captain would be happy with that." Captain Avatar nodded grimly. "A not-quite-as-good outcome", Twilight continued, "is that we exit in the wrong place, practically anywhere in the universe, and be lost. We'd fail our mission." "Correct.", the captain said. "An even worse outcome", she said, "is that the engine would destroy the ship and all of us with it. Finally, there's the almost infinitesimal possibility that the pieces of space-time fabric remain permanently attached together, causing the universe to completely collapse upon itself instantaneously. It would be as if Equestria transformed into an imaginary concept rather than remain a real fact of life which we all exist for. It would be as if we never were. Questions?" None dared raise their hand. "So, let's get to work.", the captain concluded. "Dismissed." The expression on Avatar's face darkened. "Alicorns, stay.", he grated. I need to have words with you three." Forest looked nervous. Twilight gulped. Luna remained calm and serene.