//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Twilight makes first contact // by Immanuel //------------------------------// Twilight was moving at a fast canter through the complex. As per her 'Presentable Princess' morning spell kit she had conditioned herself to use automatically on any awakening during the past few years, a brush each for her mane and tail and two for her coat were carefully grooming her while a locator construct was delivering her the closest available mug of coffee. In addition, the unique refreshener/calming dual-purpose autohypnosis spell was helping her focus on the immediate concerns at hoof. "Princess, we have the preliminary results on the passive thaumaturgical seeping gradient," said a research pony representing the Magic team's night shift. "There seems to be an uneven distribution of magic in the samples, but we haven't yet verified the reason." The parchment detailing the rate at which the local environment was susceptible to magical presence joined others in the small constellation of reports floating around her, from which Spike, riding her back, plucked it up and added it to a folder named 'non-immediate urgency'. Twilight took a turn towards the atrium. "Princess, Professor Pattesbury and his team have been alerted and briefed as per your command, and are on their way to meet the new locals," said a sergeant of the expeditionary security force. "Thank you, Sergeant," Twilight replied. "Have Lady Shine join us as well." "As you wish, Your Highness," the sergeant said, saluting and turning off to march back to the residential quarters. Spike was checking a lengthy to-do-list against a smaller list of expedition priorities and compiling a new checklist of tasks for the day while at the same time checking off the list of necessary things to accomplish in the mornings. The years of Twilight's princess-hood had seen a significant increase in Spike's multitasking abilities, and it had been a long time since he had last mocked her compulsive checklisting. In fact, on some days he rather wished there were more lists to check on. "Princess, the reports from the chemistry, physics and biology teams," said another research pony, representing one of the science teams. The parchments were quickly filed under 'non-urgent important', while Twilight finished reading the summary of conjectures from the sociology night shift and the status report of the linguistics night shift and approved the expansion of the xenopsychology team. Applejack was already waiting for them in the atrium, chatting in a normal tone with Rainbow Dash and Rarity. She was the only one of the three looking fresh, used as she was at waking at the crack of dawn. The tiredness of Rainbow Dash was somewhat covered by her apparent excitement over something, while Rarity was using her reserves of class. "-and Pinkie said they flew on their own, just like the chariots we saw yesterday!" Rainbow Dash finished. "That's nice, dear," Rarity said and yawned in a ladylike manner, levitating a small cup of espresso with just a hint of mint in it. "Ah wonder who raises tha sun in these parts," Applejack said while looking at the quickly brightening dawn through the high windows of the atrium. The space was designed with the possibility of diplomacy in mind and as such looked rather more impressive than the laboratories or the living spaces that took most of the complex. The design of the latter had been a point of contention between the Designers' Guild and Her Highness Princess Twilight, who had wanted no undue waste of space because of 'frivolities'. It was only due to the influence of Lady Rarity that there was any luxury at all to be had in the living quarters, but they were still strictly egalitarian. Instead, there was the Ambassadorial Wing, where any kind of on-site diplomatic activity would be taking place, if necessary. When not used for its primary purpose, the space would serve as R&R quarters for the expedition. Twilight approved of the efficiency of the design, if not the equine need for rest in the face of new scientific discoveries. "Oh, hey Twilight," Applejack said turning around. "Fluttershy went ahead. She's mightily enchanted by those two-legged critters. Ah think she wants one of 'em as a pet," she chuckled. "Hi, girls," Twilight said, somewhat distracted by the influx of information in the morning reports. "I'm not sure if they qualify. Of course, if they can survive Equestrian environment we could attempt determining the possibility of social symbiosis with the prime-sapients, but it's likely the co-dependency factor would render them as 'friends' rather than 'pets'. Um, what's up?" "Well," Applejack drawled, ignoring the outburst of twilightness with a smile of somepony long since used to it, "Pinkie was playing charades with 'em jus' a moment ago, an' it looks like there're some more a' them iron chariots comin' here. Ah guess word a' us has been gettin' around wi' tha locals." "Dreadful things," commented Rarity between dainty sips, before blinking and blushing slightly. "Er, not that I would ever say that to the locals of course, but just look at them! All blocky and swamp-green, not at all like that nice royal chariot yesterday." "Right," Twilight said, leading the ponies outside. "And the flying chariots?" "Oh, dude!" Rainbow Dash gushed. "You won't believe how awesome they were! They, like, roared like dragons or something and hovered! And they were the size of houses! Big houses! So cool!" "Aha," Twilight said and made some notes into the notebook Spike provided her without even needing to ask. "And there was no sign of the power-source?" "I swear you, Twi," Rainbow Dash said solemnly with a raised hoof. "There wasn't a hint of pegasosity in the air, when they arrived. Just as dead as yesterday. Have I mentioned already how hard it is to fly here, by the way? 'Cause it's pretty hard. I only make it look easy, 'cause I'm like that. Awesome." They were interrupted by a third research pony, this one representing the very new, but increasingly important field of pinkieology, which was the study of unconventional magic epitomized by such figures as Pinkie Pie, Cheese Sandwich and Discord. Pioneered by Twilight Sparkle, the field had already expanded greatly the pony understanding of the very nature of magic and the cosmos they inhabited. "Your Highness," the research pony said. "The magical aura and expenditure readings from the feedback pylons." "Thank you Brightweather," Twilight said and glanced at the parchment filled with columns of numbers and symbols with a gaze that promised a loving inspection later. "I- wait, is this right?" "Indeed, Your Highness," Brightweather responded evenly. "Huh," Twilight said after a moment, and shook her head. "It will have to wait. For now, meeting with more of the locals is the priority." She sighed heavily and closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself to ignore all the tantalizing leads of incredible discoveries seducing her to leap from research to research with their siren-song of previously uncovered knowledge. Prioritize, Schedule, Organize, went the mantra in her head. Oh, there's so much to do! I wish I didn't have to be the responsible one! A warm, wet touch on the side of her head made her eyes open up in a jolt. The sight of one of the equine aliens from earlier by her side made her relax, however. This one had a coat with a reddish tint to it and thick blond mane, which had made the girls joke she had to be a local Apple. Twilight nuzzled the alien contentedly back, taking solace in her seemingly unflappable calm. "Nice to see you too," Twilight said smiling to the alien, who returned to the more important task of playing with her herd-mates. Ah, these beings have it right. I would do well to follow their wisdom and experience the moment as it comes. * * * Dr. Carmichael moved his hand through the mane and coat of the gently hovering little creature in front of him. The banana-yellow alien seemed to enjoy his touch, cooing softly and stroking his sparse hair. "This is unbelievable," he breathed. "The musculature seems very organic and they appear vertebrate, but the range of movement in the limbs of the pink one makes it seem like they are literally boneless. And the flight! This alien appears practically weightless while hovering, yet there is no sign of machine aid anywhere! The wing movements appear almost irrelevant to the flying. I can't begin to guess how this being works, or how much of it is biological and how much artificial. This is literally unlike anything I have seen before!" He hummed for a moment. "I wonder if I could find any reproductive organs..." "Doctor," Major Quais said with a note of warning. "Yes, yes," Dr. Carmichael said distantly. "I'm not going to do anything untoward. It would just go a long way to confirm or disprove the hypothesis of their artificial nature." "Well, to be fair, there's no telling if they even have a taboo against that sort of thing either way," Dr. Pierce said, recording the scene with an ultra-high definition camera. "Still, better not to start poking them before we can ask permission, just in case." "They do seem very friendly," Professor Morris noted. "How does the communication go, gentlemen?" "Um, hard to say anything at this point," Professor Jackson said. "I've been recording the sounds they make, and I can hear differences, but that's about it." "And I believe I just lost a game of tick-tack-toe," Dr. Argyle said in a befuddled tone of voice. * * * Cassie was riding towards the gleaming little fort at the side of her ranch, rising sun at her back, Michelle on the back of Buttercup on her left side. While her little moment of panic from earlier was but a memory by now, she still felt a little pang of nervousness at the sight of the structure. That pang, however, was very subdued next to her bubbling amusement. "Lil' heart-shaped windows?" she asked with a snort. "Pink head boards? Fer real?" "Ah know," Michelle replied, shaking her head. "Kinda hard not to think we're not bein' played fer fools." "Hey, that must be the military," Cassie said, nodding towards Major Quais, who was waving at them beside an impressively large army green truck that was being unpacked by a company of army engineers. "Miss Ryan? Miss Burton?" the man said, striding towards them. He was clean-cut and square-jawed, the stereotypical officer without a hint of afternoon shade on his chin. Even the uniform he was wearing looked like it had been freshly pressed. But he did have the silliest little glasses on his face that warmed Cassie up enough to earn him a smile. "Pleasure to meet you. My name is Major Quais. I'm in charge of the military side of this little operation." "Ya got a first name, Quais?", Cassie asked while shaking his hand. Sweaty. "Nathan, or Nate to my friends," the major said with a smile. "Alright, Nate," Cassie said and dismounted. "Ya cain call me Cassie, and that's Shelly. Much easier that way." "Fine by me, Cassie. Shelly," he said, shaking the other woman's hand. "I understand you were told about the reimbursement you'll be receiving from the Navy for the use of your land?" "Yeah," Cassie said, and patted Daisy on her way. "An' we're fine with it. Jus' glad to see y'all helpin' out with these little fellas here," she said nodding towards the colorful aliens crowding around the first contact team some distance away. "That is, if there's not gonna be any unpleasantness," she added with a meaningful look towards Major Quais. "I can assure you, ma'am, that we only want friendship from the visitors," Major Quais said with a smile. Cassie held his eyes for a moment before relaxing into a smile of her own. "Well, that's jus' fine, then." Meanwhile, Daisy and Buttercup had both wandered towards a certain pink alien and were affectionately nuzzling it between munching on the grass still a bit moist from the morning dew. The alien, after greeting the horses in their own way, bounced towards the ranch owners and whinnied loudly. "What's the pink one want, Shelly?" Cassie asked. "Dunno, Caz," Michelle answered. "Hey look, it's got more cupcakes." "Oh gee, ah hope it's not gonna put up another party," Cassie said. "Ah'm tired from last night." The alien stopped right in front of them and waved the cupcake around for a moment, whinnying and gesticulating wildly. Despite herself, Cassie giggled a little. Then the alien pawed the ground a little bit and made a small dirt cake. Finally it mimed kneading movements with its hooves for a while and stopped, looking up at the women steadily. "Ah think," Michelle said slowly, "that it wants to bake." * * * The president of the United States waved one of her aides to bring her another cup of coffee - the fourth that morning - while acknowledging with her eyes the adjutant delivering yet another incredibly classified folder full of indescribably important information summarized both incoherently and boringly. At the same time, she was listening to the words the German chancellor was speaking over the international hot line, trying to decipher what the woman was actually saying without putting it into words. Multitasking at six in the morning, with two hours of sleep. Fun, fun, fun. "Well, Madam Chancellor," she said to the phone, formulating her own unvocalized response to the chancellor's, while coating it with diplomatic words, "I can assure you and your people that such an obstruction of information has not occurred, and that in fact, as soon as it is prudent, we will take steps to forward the talks into a more international stage. At the moment, the information we have provided our allies is upfront and will remain so. We are, of course, always welcoming of any help from our friends and will be expecting communications from the European scientific community at the first occasion. "However, we have provided this information with the unspoken guarantee that, for the time being, it will not be made public without a unanimous agreement on the matter. Our experts have not yet arrived at a conclusion on what such publication might mean in terms of long or short term consequences due to popular fallout. In such an unprecedentedly momentous occasion such as this, we must move with both caution and moral integrity, after all." She smiled at the response she heard from the other end. "Indeed. We will be in touch, Madam Chancellor, Prime Minister, Monsieur President." The president closed the line with a sigh and rubbed her face. "That should keep those idiots arguing with each other for a while," she said as a kind of mental relaxation exercise returning her to a more straight-forward line of thought. "Indeed," chuckled her Secretary of State. "As a by-the-way, the Canadian and Australian governments are now in the know about the matter and are directing their resources to work with us." The president nodded. "Every bit helps, said the fisherman's wife as she pissed in the sea," she said. "What about our not-so-allies?" "Well, the Russians have their own problems, of course," the Secretary said. "The NSA expressed some doubt as to whether there actually was anybody paying attention to their satellite imagery, or if there were, where that knowledge would end up. The Chinese, on the other hand, went silent. They have a hunch, but we lost all our normal channels of intelligence." "So, we don't know what they are actually thinking," the president said. "Great. Glad they're not paranoid," she added sarcastically. "What about domestic? Jerry? How long until we need to go public?" "I'd say a week, tops, before our denial will be blatantly ridiculous," her political aide said. "Apparently some amateur footage of the anomaly is already spreading over the internet, and the mobilization, of course, is becoming more and more apparent by the minute even with the major news organizations under lock-down. "With any normal situation, I'd say we could just deny and wait until about half of the people were arguing with the other half over what's true, but with this, I'm not sure we can rely on the normal rules. We may have to release a statement in a day or two." "Wonderful," the president said dryly. "Why couldn't this have happened in the Eighties? What's the situation with our best and brightest, Neil?" "Well, with the rate they're establishing communications down there, you may have something to tell about by the time you make your statement, Madam President," Dr. Tyson said. "I hear the science teams are already receiving some pretty interesting stuff from the first contact group." "Well, that's good news," the president said, relieved. "There hasn't been any problems, has there?" "Not really," Dr. Tyson said. "Well, the cruisers with the AI-enhanced countermeasure systems reported their Boltzmanns started acting up when they arrived at the site, but they don't know what's causing it yet. I wouldn't worry, personally. They had the same kind of problems when they started out with the systems two years ago. Still, your navy guys are making a deal out of it, regardless." "I see," the president sighed, and thought about the lavender little alien that had called her cute. I bet your people just make sunshine and rainbows when you ask them to behave. * * * "Professor Pattesbury!" Twilight greeted cheerfully, having escaped from the essentials of management for the first time in hours. There had been ponies to update, memos to forward, project leaders to debrief and advise. And there was not a part of it that wasn't essential. The magical integration rate of the local environment was information the expedition absolutely needed in order not to do harm, and it was up to her to make sure that the right ponies were working on it. That also meant making sure that any information essential to the project got there. That meant being in the know of what everypony else was doing. Similarly, breaking the language barrier was pretty much essential for the expedition to succeed in its main task of making new friends with a strange civilization and studying how they came to be. There was no way of foretelling what information the linguistics team might need in order to unlock the secrets of the alien language. Rarity had been right; Twilight was irreplaceable as the leader of the expedition. Everypony seemed to need her counsel and approval, even the ones that knew very well what they were doing. Nopony else was collating all the knowledge the expedition was producing, after all. It fell unto her to make connections and suggest cross-disciplinary paths of investigation. Fluttershy had compared her to a bee, pollinating the flowers of knowledge with the ideas each were producing. Twilight giggled silently at the image of her flying from research group to research group, bits of data dangling from her coat. And Twilight enjoyed delegating. The fine-tuning of the expedition to match the reality they had discovered and were in the process of discovering was both challenging and exhilarating. She felt she was in her element when she was able to take disparate ponies with their unique skills and form a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Still, she was sorely missing out in the department of focusing on any single aspect of the expedition's progress and that made her feel slightly bad about herself. As if instead of reading a book with a careful analysis, notes and cross-references, she was instead skimming. Sampling. Slacking off. "How goes the progress in communication?" Twilight asked the professor. "Wonderfully!" Professor Pattesbury replied eagerly and waved his hoof in an arc to encompass a group of ponies and aliens they called prime-sapients exchanging notes and pictures in a frenetic organized chaos. "We have actually reached a mutual agreement on logical principles, Your Highness!" "Really?" Twilight asked with wide eyes. "Indeed!" the professor exuded. "It seems the prime-sapients had the same idea as we did! We started the morning by introducing very basic paired logical principles like 'and' and 'without', or 'agreement' and 'disagreement'. At the same time, they started with their own logic vehicles that we eventually deduced to mean such concepts as 'true' and 'false' or 'follows'. It's wonderful!" "Fascinating! That actually sounds rather high-level communication, Professor!" Twilight said, amazed. "Only when put in words, I'm afraid," Professor Pattesbury said with a raised hoof and a shake of his head, but still smiling. "This truly is the mere bones of language, the logical basis, if you will. Nevertheless," he said with a gleam in his eyes, "we have already managed to proceed to mathematics!" "That is excellent!" Twilight said with a clap of her hooves. "They like math after all!" "Indeed," the professor said. "In fact, they seem to be rather eager at exchanging mathematical knowledge. They've driven most of today's progress by themselves." "Perhaps they are as eager to talk with us as we are with them, in any way they can," Twilight said hopefully. "That indeed promises warm relations between our peoples, Princess Twilight," Professor Pattesbury said with a wide smile. "There is however something that may prove problematic." "What do you mean?" Twilight asked. Problematic? Oh no, I must have missed something. What could it be? He just said everything is working out fine! "Have you had time yet to read the night shift's report of our progress, Your Highness?" Professor Pattesbury asked. "Not yet," Twilight answered, banishing a fleeting moment of shame to the back of her head. Composure!, she reminded herself. "Why?" "Well," the professor said, assuming instinctively a position to deliver a dissertation, "while we are, indeed, progressing on the front of exchanging logic statements, the analysis of my team seems to indicate that, unless some new development is made in understanding the local language, we may not, in fact, be able to evaluate the veracity of translation the magical matrix provides." Twilight cocked her head to one side. "I'm not sure I follow, professor," she said. Bad pony! You didn't do your homework!, went the inner voice struggling against the Axioms of Princess-hood she had developed to help her comport like a leader. You didn't read the report and now you don't know the answer! "You see," the professor said, "my team estimates that in order to be able to translate a language that doesn't share a sympathetic connection to our reality, the magical construct in charge of the translation must in fact be able to do second degree connections within the logical mapping of the language, between the language and the environment and between the alien language and Equestrian. Therefore-" "Therefore," Twilight said quickly, "according to the Law of Complex Connections, it gains a level of autonomy comparable to sapience!" "Exactly," Professor Pattesbury said. Yes!, Twilight squealed in her mind. Take that, self-esteem complex! "And in doing so, there is no guarantee we could understand its function, unless-", the Professor continued. "Unless the development of the matrix is tied within the consciousness of...the caster," Twilight said, her eyes widening in realization. "Professor, you don't mean...?" "Your Highness," the professor said with a bow, "you may be the only pony capable of performing such a feat." * * * "Okay," Dr. Argyle said, "so, the interesting difference between human logic and their logic is that we use binary truth values while they use this gradient concordance value system. It's almost like we started at the opposite ends of the logic continuum. Where we use a yes/no switch, they use a group of vectors. Incidentally, that's probably why their math looks the way it does." "Reminds me of ancient Greek mathematics," Dr. Kuhn said. "Geometry instead of arithmetics." "Precisely," Dr. Argyle said. "And it's very logical to them, since they use base four. Simple calculations are exactly as easy as drawing the starting values together." "It's utterly fascinating how deeply this shows in their logic system," professor Jackson said. "It took quite a bit of explaining to establish the binary logic, actually. Luckily, they seemed to have at least some understanding of the concept." "But their equations are simply beautiful!" Dr. Argyle said. "Aesthetically speaking, I mean." "I agree," Dr. Kuhn said. "Look at this, for example. It's one of the easier equations that helped us establish some common ground with the aliens in science." "What is it?" Major Quais asked, studying to his eye rather complex collection of curves on the notepad Doctor Kuhn was holding up. "Newton's laws of motion," Dr. Kuhn said. "This collection of sguiggles here represents the mass. It's so complex because in its general form it is potentially a grouping and a variable. This other collection here is the velocity. See how elegantly you can make it be either accelerating or constant, simply by changing the angle and the curve? Together, of course they are the force. Now, if I give values...here, and there, let's keep this constant...and there, it collapses into an answer without any effort at all." "I think I see that," Major Quais said. "It's probably pretty intuitive once you get used to it." "Oh yeah," Dr. Argyle said. "Actually using it must be heavenly. But constructing that stuff? Hell, no." "So, what's that third set of ...sguiggles?" Major Quais asked. "I see it didn't collapse." "I'm not sure yet," Dr. Kuhn said, sounding excited, "but the mathematicians and physicians back at your end probably do. It could be the relativistic part of the equations, or maybe the generalization into the conservation of energy. I hear the team believe they identified a set of alien equations describing the probability current of wave functions so we should have the info soon." "Okay," the major said brightly. "So we're communicating?" "We're exchanging equations," Professor Jackson corrected. "Recognizing shared knowledge of the universe in mathematical form is still a long cry from actually communicating. When we start hitting stuff humanity doesn't know yet, there's no telling if we can make any sense of it without better communication." "We're actually just beginning the project of explaining our computers to them," Dr. Argyle said. "We've made sure they understand the binary logic, so now we start teaching them binary language. First numbers and math, then letters and words. At the same time, we show them what the logic matrices look like physically." "It's going to take a while," Professor Jackson said, "but once the basics are down we'll take exponential steps and then hand the flash drive over. If everything goes well, we could be communicating by tomorrow already!" "That's with the assumption their information processing capabilities are practically infinite, of course," Dr. Kuhn said dryly. "I think it's a safe assumption to be working under," Dr. Argyle said. * * * "So, to conclude," Twilight said to Stony Hinge, the head of expeditionary engineering team, "the expeditionary team would be expanding by a total of hundred and twenty ponies." The stallion hummed. "We'll need to construct additional pylons. Not a problem, ma'am." "Oh, while you're at it, would it be possible to assign a specific feedback pylon for Pinkie Pie alone?" Twilight asked. "I have the theoretical schematics here." * * * Pinkie Pie watched carefully the alien bowl covered with alien cloth. Inside, she knew, there was alien dough and alien yeast, possibly rising. It was made out of alien flour, alien sugar and alien eggs, with just a pinch of alien salt and some alien spices, mixed by alien paws. All ingredients oh, so familiar, yet so distinctly alien. She had watched like a Pinkie while the alien mixed the dough, gravely humming along with the strange bipedal creature as it worked. She hadn't felt the tiniest tingle that normally accompanied baking anywhere, yet for all intents and purposes, the materials had behaved just like the dough she used at Sugarcube Corner. * * * "And now..." Michelle said, feeling like a stage magician. "Ta-dah! The dough has risen!" she yelled with laughter in her voice, removing the cloth with a flourish. The alien had wordlessly urged her to bake something, and she had complied with sweet rolls, amused at the intense attention the little creature had paid to the proceedings. She felt like she was performing to an audience of toddlers and puppies, mixed together into a single adorable critter on a kitchen stool. She simply wanted to grab the creature and crush it with a hug. When the pink alien gasped loudly at the sight of risen dough, she broke into laughter. "Seriously?" she asked, wheezing. "Ya've never seen the dough rise before? Where did yer krispy kremes come from then, hm?" She watched with a grin as a shaking hoof reached towards the bowl of dough. With a 'tsk', she slapped the hoof away, and gave the alien a bit of the dough on the end of a spoon. The alien seemed to concentrate on the taste and texture of the dough, licking its lips slowly, while frowning and looking at the distance. Then it nodded, once, and produced a notebook and a pen from its saddlebag, sticking the latter in its mouth and scribbling at the book. When Michelle peered at the notebook, she could only see indecipherable hieroglyphs on the page, mixed with tiny doodles of all sorts of cheerful things. "Ah wish ah knew what ya were thinking," she said softly, shaking her head. * * * "All right," said Dr. Schoenblume of the mathematics team. "So when we translate their string of logic statements into mathematical sigils, we have a variable here... a squared variable here, and here... a function here, and a relation here... so that's-" Twilight gasped. "Neighton's laws of motion! If you set that variable as infinite and you forget the sympathy function. Astonishing!" "Yes," Dr. Schoenblume said with a small cough. Her team hadn't noticed the similarity for half an hour. "Astonishing. Indeed." "But what's that, then? I thought you said it represented time?" Twilight asked. "Indeed, Your Highness. It-" Dr. Schoenblume started. "But that would make time mutable," Twilight said with a frown. "The closer you get to this value, the slower time would go...that can't be right, can it?" she said, turning to the good doctor. "Well, like Your Highness said," Dr. Schoenblume said, flustered. "If this variable were infinite, it would just describe normality. However," she said, bringing forth a rather smaller local equation, "this more general system of relationships between different coordinate systems seems to rely on that variable being constant." "I can't get over the smaller equations being the more general ones," Twilight said softly, caressing the incredibly smooth alien parchment with her hoof. "This notation must be heavenly to use." "Well, it has its drawbacks in making the actual calculations a pain," Dr. Schoenblume said. "Anyway, those symbols actually represent entire equation matrices. Allow me to expand this into a complete Equestrian form, centering on this as the variable constant with a value." Twilight's eyes widened as the equation grew and flourished, almost like a living thing, until it described an inherently beautiful system of relationships between moving metrics. "It's magnificent!" she whispered, after studying it after a while. "It is," the doctor agreed. "However, our physicists say it doesn't describe anything we actually know as being real. Yet, when we select specific instances carefully, it produces equations we already know." "Like Neighton's laws of motion," Twilight said. "Exactly," the doctor replied. "So, what is it? Art? Description of a group of theoretical realities?" Twilight asked. "Ah," the doctor coughed. "The funny thing is," she said hesitating a bit, "that the prime-sapients actually gave us the value of that variable. It's a big value, but not infinite." "You're kidding," Twilight said after a while. "I am not," Doctor Schoenblume said gravely. "Also - as a side note - if possible, somepony should teach Miss Pie how to use actual mathematical notation. She reconstructed some of the alien equations ahead of our team in her own...unique way. We were unable to interpret her notes until we had solved the problem ourselves." "But this would mean..." Twilight said slowly. "I will send this information back to Equestria immediately. If we accelerate a very, very small particle with enough magic...yes, this could be testable, just barely. Oh, and I tried to teach math to Pinkie years ago, when I first noticed that tendency. Whatever part of her understands mathematical relations doesn't communicate with the part that understands ponies." * * * "So," Dr. Kuhn said, "we have been grouping the equations they've given us in the assumption that they describe the physical reality. And the result is kind of depressing, actually." "How do you mean?" Major Quais asked. "Well, the ones we have recognized, with one partial exception, all come under this one subgroup of equations they gave us," Dr. Kuhn said. "Note that I said 'under'; we have no idea how to get from this equation to the ones we know. The visitors simply showed us how the conservation laws - and they actually gave us only the conservation of probability in their own notation - can be derived from this equation group here, so obviously the related natural laws belong there as well." "What's the exception?" Major Quais asked. "Something that looked a bit like the second law of thermodynamics at first but on a closer look seems to describe how a system becomes more unpredictable in time," Dr. Kuhn said, and frowned deeply. "Which is b-Bad Word!-t! There's no such thing! Yet, apparently, they seem to define time itself through that little equation. It's madness!" "So, that's the depressing thing," Major Quais said leadingly. "No," Dr. Pierce said with a grin. "What Doctor Kuhn here finds depressing is the fact that the mentioned subgroup of equations, and the other subgroup this 'second law of probability dynamics', as we like to call it, falls under, are all part of an innately coherent dynamically interactive system of six equation groups, whose interaction likely describes the reality as the aliens see it." He shrugged. "Or, at least, that's the highest level equation they've given us yet." Major Quais stared at the complex circle of alien equations and functions displayed on the big screen in the base camp. It looked almost decorative with its smoothly interlocking curves suggesting motion with their very form. "Madness, I tell you," Dr. Kuhn said. "Those things don't describe anything! Mere mathematical fantasies!" "You're just mad because this thing doesn't support any model of string theory we have," Dr. Pierce said with a wild smile. "They recognized Calabi-Yau manifolds," Dr. Kuhn said with a hand covering his eyes. "They just don't use them to describe anything that could possibly be real." "So," Major Quais said, "our understanding of physics is woefully inadequate next to theirs. Wasn't that the assumption we were working under?" "Not just inadequate," Dr. Pierce said with a raised finger, "but actually erroneous! Some of this stuff either directly contradicts things we thought we knew about nature or we completely misunderstood what they are trying to explain." "Possibilities I find rather unlikely, personally," Dr. Kuhn said with a tired voice. Major Quais eyed the two men carefully. "Is there a third option?" he asked. "There is," Dr. Pierce said, grinning excitedly. "They're not from our universe at all! That monstrosity of equations might actually describe natural laws of a different universe!" "Or the laws of the multiverse," Dr. Kuhn said. "I refuse to believe any kind of creature born in a universe so intrinsically different from our own that we can't even recognize the laws under which it operates could survive here." "Ah," Dr. Pierce said, "but the point is moot if the creatures we see are indeed constructs made by using the rules of this universe, isn't it?" "Conceded," Dr. Kuhn said, "but even so, the implications..." As the physicist fell silent, Major Quais took his turn. "I gather we need to re-evaluate the energy expenditure of the mini-dome?" Doctor Pierce laughed aloud. "The name becomes increasingly absurd. Yes, we should add a dozen zeroes to the upper value with the caveat that the value may be indefinitely higher than that." He shook his head while chuckling. "We'd better just wait until we can speak with the visitors. All this simply means we are officially talking out of the seat of our pants right now. 'Educated guess' is an overly nice way to describe our hypotheses at the moment." "Glad to see you're amused," Dr. Kuhn grumbled. * * * Lieutenant Wachawski slammed her hand on the table. A full house. "Read 'em and weep, boys!" she said with a grin. Ensign Perry smirked. "Not so fast, eltee," he said, showing the four of a kind he had, and started collecting his winnings. "Sorry to disappoint, Perry," Midshipman Keyes said softly, and spread his hand. Royal flush. The men and women of the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, gathered at the table for a little game of Texas Hold'em stared at the hands in silence, before Lieutenant Pike, junior grade, spoke up. "Okay. That was the fifth time today. Who's fooling around with the deck?"