“—and after the Battle of Yorktown, the British were powerless in America, and that was the last major battle. The United States of America soon became an independent nation,” Neil finished. “Any questions?” Luna had remained quiet the entire time, preferring to save her questions for after the lecture. Neil was obviously at least passingly knowledgeable about the subject, but he was certainly no scholar.
“Yes, I do have some questions,” she began, but Buzz interrupted, “Hold on a few minutes—we’re going to lift off and get on our way to Columbia now. It might be a bit rough for the first few seconds. Hold on to something.”
Neil was already in his seat, and so was Buzz. Luna wrapped her forelegs around the nearest protrusion and braced herself as best she could. The lander began to shake, and a dull roar sounded from beneath her hooves. ‘That must be the ‘combustion rocket,’ they spoke of,’ Luna thought. The roar intensified until she couldn’t hear anything else, the sound waves shaking her to her bones.
Then, as Buzz began to take the LM off the lunar surface, the vibration increased as the rocket went to full power and it fought against the sparse atmosphere of the Moon, the lunar gravity, and the lander’s mass to begin its trek upwards.
After it had gotten several dozen yards off the surface, the roar diminished, as did the vibration. “Right,” Buzz said in relief. “We’re clear of the Moon, Houston, and en route to Columbia.”
“Copy, Eagle. En route to Columbia. We’ll inform Collins of the recent developments in more depth as you go. Houston, out.”
“Eagle, out.”
Now able to hear her own thoughts (faster than any other mode of transportation it might have been, but it was certainly louder as well), Luna recollected them and then asked, “Why is it your country resorted to violence to free itself of the injustices you described? Surely there was another way.”
Neil shook his head. “I’m going to say this straight up, Miss Luna. Humans are not the most pacifistic species. Since the beginning, our species has had conflicts within it. And we tried, we really did. First, there was peaceful protest. Then, there were official complaints to the government of England. Lastly, there was not-so-peaceful protests. Still, the English government refused to even address the grievances we set forth. So, the only option after that was force.”
“I see,” Luna said thoughtfully, relaxing her hold on the lander. “And you said your government was a democracy?”
“Close. It’s a democratic republic,” Neil corrected. “But yes, it’s similar. We hold elections for our officials. What kind of government does your nation have?”
“’Tis a diarchy,” Luna said. “Two equal rulers, each with their own spheres of responsibility. Or rather, it was. One of the two rebelled against the other and attempted to usurp the kingdom. She was banished. Now the kingdom—“ She caught herself, managing not to say, ‘I suppose,’ or something to give away her own banishment, “is a monarchy. The leader hasn’t given power to anypony else yet—the rebellion was quite recent, as these things go.” Oh my, but thinking of Equestria in both the abstract and the present—without her—was hard.
Neil cocked his head in confusion. “Did you just say ‘anypony?’” he asked.
“Yes,” Luna said cautiously. “Is that not the proper term of addressment?”
“Well, no,” he replied, grinning slightly. “The correct term would be ‘anybody.’ As you can see,” he spread his arms and wiggled his fingers for emphasis, “We’re not ponies.”
“Ah, I see,” Luna said, filing that tidbit away. “Would the other terms of address then be ‘some...body,’ and ‘everybody’?”
“Got it in one,” Neil said with a smile, pointing one finger at her. Luna just stared at the finger. What was that supposed to mean?
Neil’s smile faltered, and he glanced between her nonunderstanding gaze and his finger. “Oh!” he said in sudden understanding. “It’s how humans point to others,” he explained. “It’s implying, I’m talking to or about you. Alternatively, it means, you have a point there.”
“I see,” Luna allowed. Those appendages would be so much more useful than hooves for manipulating objects, no matter how nimble the hoof.
“I would bid thee continue with thy country’s history,” she said formally. “’Tis most interesting, and filled with conflict.”
-----
“WHAT?” Luna’s bellow shook the LM almost as much as the engines had. “Thine country kept slaves and dared to call itself a land of freedom?” She huffed, “Such a nation deserves none such title.”
Neil sat down heavily. “Well, yes,” he admitted. “Our country was once a slave-holding country. Many of the Founding Fathers tried to abolish it, but the landowners in the South relied too much upon it for their livelihood, and so it remained.” He grimaced. “As you can see, it soon led to problems.”
“Another war,” Luna answered sadly. “Tell me, for such a ‘free’ nation, how many wars has your country fought?”
“Umm...” Neil glanced at his hands, mouthing words as he counted on his fingers. “Nine—one of which is going on right now.” He checked with Buzz, who confirmed his figures with a nod.
“And so many in... how many years?”
“About two hundred,” Neil said, wincing.
Luna’s mouth flopped open. “That’s.... that’s a war roughly every twenty of your years! How hast thine country survived?” Those numbers... simply boggling. Before she had—before, there had not been a war for over a century. And even that had been a small matter, quickly settled.
Buzz defended, “We’re far from the worst offenders. We’re actually pacifistic, when you consider that of those wars, all of them but the Civil War were provoked by outside action threatening our nation. If you look at Germany and France, they’ve been fighting nonstop for the past 70 years, almost, and it shows. Especially Germany.” The two humans shared a glance laden with meaning Luna couldn’t decipher.
“Whatever dost thou mean?” she demanded.
“Well, there were a lot of small conflicts between the two countries about a century ago, during Germany’s founding, but 55 years ago, a huge war—we call it World War One—erupted, mainly on the front between the two. France won, but humiliated Germany afterwards.
“Then, only 20 years later, Germany had been overtaken by an extremist faction led by a dictator named Hitler. He started another war and conquered France, but was eventually beaten. By the end, Germany was hardly functioning as a country. It was actually broken up into two countries—East and West Germany. The US and her allies run West Germany, and, well, others run the East.”
World War? Luna’s brain fixated on that thought. To think of a war large enough to embroil an entire planet—and the ‘One’ in the title. That meant there had been more than one. How had humans ever survived as a species if they were constantly killing one another?
“Whom are these others you speak of?” she asked.
Buzz and Neil once again shared a look, with even more hidden meaning this time.
“Well—“ Neil began.
Buzz glanced at the control panel. “Hold that thought, sorry, but we’re docking, and I need to concentrate.”
“We’ll tell you later, then,” Neil acquiesced gratefully. “We’ll introduce you to Mike Collins first. I’m sure he’ll love ya!”
A few minutes of inopportune silence ensued as Buzz began to dock with the Columbia. With a clunk, the two connected, and Buzz checked the seal manually, then swung up the hatch.
“Welcome to the Columbia!” he said, with a grand sweeping gesture.
In the hatch stood a third human, this one not dressed in the heavy white suits, but rather a blue undersuit. He stared for several seconds in shock. His first words were:
“Aw, hell. They really weren’t kidding.”
Neil, Buzz, and Luna all burst out laughing at the sheer bewilderment contained on his face.