Are We Alone?: A Spore Story

by Heat Horn


Diplomatic Relations

Nibon walked along the bridge of his ship and argued with himself endlessly...

It's been about four hours... why hasn't he reported back yet... Nibon thought thinking about what could've happened to his partner while he was on the surface. Nibon had always feared interacting with other alien races face-to-face, Morbus had always told him that it was an irrational fear but he could never overcome it.

What if his communication line is broken, what if he got captured... or what if he's dead!!! Nibon said as he sprinted to the ships main console and opened the tracking device. The monitor showed three separate windows, one showing Morbus' location, one showing his vital signs, and another showing his suit condition.

"Well he seems fine... wait why are his helmet visuals down?!" Nibon said as he looked over Morbus' suit condition and noticed that the helmet cam was turned off.

I swear if he took his helmet off... well he seems fine... b-but that's still no excuse, he could've been killed Nibon said with genuine concern. Nibon wasn't one to take risks, he liked doing things exactly by the book and didn't like it when Morbus went... anywhere on his own especially on missions.

"Talbet! get me a suit I'm going down there!" Nibon said while he prepared the beam chamber and gathered his courage.

Talbet, a smaller Biride with multi-coloured feather and a longer tail, was currently monitoring the ships health and energy levels while keeping track of the air pressure inside every room.

"Sir?! You can't be serious?! The captain told you to stay here, did he not?" Talbet said as he looked up, stunned as to what he just heard. Secretly, Talbet always wanted to have his own ship but he could never pass the final exam to be a captain, and no matter how much help he got or how hard he tried he simply couldn't get an above 90% average.

"Talbet, I know that you're not qualified to captain a ship... but Morbus is my friend and I can't just leave him on his own, especially if he's on a planet with a possibly hostile race!" Nibon said while he put on his jump suit and grabbed a pulse blaster.

"Sir, I know that you care for the captain but sometimes you can be a bit overprotective... you have to just calm down and try contacting him first, I'm sure that he'll pick up a call from a friend." Nibon was right, Talbet wasn't a qualified captain and should even be working in the bridge but Morbus hand picked him, and by using his legendary performance rating, he was able to get him on board.

"Ok... pull up a commsat uplink... I'm going to patch through to his holographic screen" Nibon knew that he could get very overprotective over Morbus sometimes, but he always thought that it would be his fault if anything happened.

"Sir, the link is ready I'm patching the call now... this will take a little while" Talbet knew how much Nibon cared for Morbus but he also knows that Morbus is a free-spirit and doesn't like to conform to the standards like Nibon. Talbet hoped that one day he could also make a name for himself... even if it meant doing what Morbus was doing right now...


Morbus sat on a chair in the main hall of the castle and patiently waited until he could see this princess...

"I wonder what's taking so long?" Morbus wondered as he looked at his watch and realised that he had already spent three hours on the surface and only had two more to make a good impression before he would have to go back to the ship due to intergalactic law.

Morbus' attention was caught by the giant door at the other end of the room beginning to open and a purple pony with open wings and a horn stepped through, with what looked like a piece of regalia oh her head. Morbus had only begun to stand up when the purple pony fell to the floor and had seemed to faint.

"Twilight! Twilight! Oh my gosh... what do I do whatdoIdo Fluttershy said as she looked around and panicked over her friends' fainted body.

Morbus, after observing this, quickly ran over towards Fluttershy and who he assumed to be Twilight and began to scan her body.

"Is she going to be ok?!" Fluttershy said as she looked over to Morbus who was currently looking at Twilights vitals vitals and atmospheric requirements.

"Yeah, I think she's going to be fine... but it looks like she fainted" Morbus said as he observed Twilights slow heartbeat and slow breaths

"But we should probably get her somewhere flat so I can do a full body scan" Morbus said as he turned of his canner and began to tweak the beam controls. Morbus began to use his suits beam to lift Twilight off of the ground and on to the bench that he had been sitting on.

"Can we do anything?" Fluttershy said as she looked at Twilights passed out body.

"Why in fact yes..." Morbus said as he pushed a button on his suit which mad a mask and a box pop out of his suits container which was located on his back. The mask was attached to the box by a small cord and had the label Atmospheric Revival Unit, or ARU for short.

"What's that?" Fluttershy said as she observed Morbus positioning the mask on to Twilight's muzzle. Fluttershy couldn't make out what the symbols on the box or the mask meant but she had seen that type of equipment before; the Ponyville hospital.

"It's an Atmospheric Revival Unit..." Morbus said as he turned the small box on and adjusted a few of the knobs on it's side, until the meter reading Oxygen was at 21% and the nitrogen meter at 78%

"What are you doing?" Fluttershy said as she watched Morbus adjust some of the knobs on the small box. Fluttershy had been studying Taxonomy and Biochemistry, so she knew that this device was used for regulating the composition of the atmosphere that the patient was inhaling. Fluttershy wasn't really that open with her friends about what she had been studying, she thought that it was boastful to tell others about the fact that she a doctorate in medicine and a masters degree in chemistry, yet besides these accomplishments she still panics when she sees somepony faint, get hurt, or bleed.

Suddenly the door to the dining hall opened and revealed four other ponies with confused faces staring at the scene before them.

"Who are you? and what have you done with Twilight?!" a mare with a rainbow mane and tail said as she flew foreward and charged at Morbus.

Morbus wasn't inexperienced with these types of scenarios and had experience when dealing with them. Morbus was quick to react to the pony's sudden outburst and used his jump jets to leap out of the way.

"Rainbow! don't be so brash!" a Marshmallow coloured pony seemingly held Rainbow Dash from charging at Morbus again with her horn.

Morbus watched as he saw the Marshmallow pony's horn light up and an aura surround it. The aura also appeared around Rainbow Dashs' tail and seemingly hold her back.

"What's going on here?!" Twilight said as she sat up on the bench that she was lying on. Twilight saw the creature from before being assaulted by Rainbow Dash who was being held back by Rarity.

The room fell into a dead silence and the only sound that could be heard was the several heartbeats of the beings in the room and ambient sound of Rarity's magic. Twilight motioned for Rarity to drop Rainbow Dash, which she took a bit literally causing Rainbow to face plant onto the floor. Twilight then began to recompose herself as she got up and started trotting towards the new creature, everypony in the room could tell she was nervous due to the amount of sweat visible on her face.

"Now, I presume you are intelligent correct?" Twilight said in a half inquisitive and a half annoyed tone as she paced around the new creature. Twilight saw that the creature was wearing some form of armour, but she couldn't place whether or not it could be used for war or whether is was actually dangerous.

"Yes I am intelligent, your highness, I am Morbus Captain 180-, wait how do I know I can trust you?" Morbus didn't like the idea of talking back to the authority but with the way Rainbow Dash had reacted he couldn't take any chances.

Twilight finished pacing around the creature and looked over to Fluttershy, who was cowering underneath the bench she had been lying on.

"You trust her right?" Twilight said as she pointed to Fluttershy. Twilight knew that the whole first impressions thing was out the window, but she needed to be sure that this wasn't some agent of darkness.

"Yes... Yes I do but that still doesn't mean that I can trust you... why don't you tell me your name first?" Even though Morbus could aromatically pair a name with a person, or in this case an alien, using his AST he still liked to be formally introduced before he started using their names, he learned that it creeped them out.

"Then why don't you tell her?" Twilight said motioning for Fluttershy to come to her side.

"Umm... actually he did tell me, when we met... earlier" Fluttershy tried to say but it didn't looke like Twilights heard her.

Twilight looked at Fluttershy and made her glare more intense.

"Fluttershy we both know that you talked to him before and he seems to trust you so will you just come up here?!" Twilight said in a more intense voice, that she would have never used on Fluttershy had it not been for the circumstances.

Fluttershy timidly repositioned her self into a position in which her belly was parallel to the floor and she used one swift buck against the wall to slide out of her hiding place, shocking everyone with the ninja-like methods she had used to get out of the tight spot. Fluttershy then pushed up using her abdomen muscles and caught herself mid-air with her wings.

The whole room was silent once more, but this time all of the ponies jaws had dropped and their eyes were glued to Fluttershy.

"Did I do something wrong?" Fluttershy said with a worried look on her face and her eyes to the floor. Fluttershy didn't want to admit it but she and Rarity hadn't been completely honest with everyone...

"No it's fine... sorry for being so harsh... I just need to know if IT is good or not" Twilight said to Fluttershy while indirectly insulting the creature that stood beside her.

Fluttershy then bolted with way too much speed for a pegasus on her hooves, she then looked at Twilight and whispered slowly into her ear.

" Don't call HIM an IT ok? Fluttershy said with a calm tone and a soft voice before stepping away from Twilight while her regular meek smile returned to her face.

"Umm... *gulp* O-ok then Mr. umm... I'm sorry I didn't quite get your name..." Twilight said while sweating bullets

Ok before I was just worried, but now I fear for my life Morbus thought as he looked at Twilights terrified face.

"I am Morbus, Captain 18001 of the fleet A-Andromeda 3, representing the Birdie Empire" Morbus said with a slight stutter in his voice. Morbus didn't really like his exposing his true identity, but when surrounded by an alien race you don't really have much of a choice.

"Ok m-my turn I guess, I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Ponyville and the element of Friendship" Twilight said with whatever composure she had left.

"See, we can all be friends here... I'll leave you two here to talk and me and the rest of the girls will just wait outside, right girls?" Fluttershy didn't like showing this side of herself, especially with such an important guest in her presence, but since the situation didn't seem to be getting any better she had too intervene.

"U-uh yeah o'course, c'mon girls lets go and tidy up in the dining room." Applejack said as she helped Fluttershy push the rest of their friends into the dining room.

After Fluttershy and Applejack had pushed all of their friends into the dining room Twilight and Morbus were left alone in the main hall, not really sure what to do now.

What did Princess Celestia do when a diplomat form Saddle Arabia come to Canterlot? Twilight thought as she stared at Morbus. Twilight didn't know much about being a princes but she did remember some things from when she was tasked to accompany Princess Celestia when Luna couldn't do it.

What did Nibon do when we first made contact with the Wurbbles? Morbus thought as he stared at Twilight. Morbus wasn't really used to diplomatic relations, he was trained for combat and captaining a ship.

"So... umm... should we talk elsewhere?" Twilight asked in an attempt to break the ice.

"Ok then... umm... where do you want to talk?" Morbus said before looking at the dining room door to make sure that Fluttershy wasn't watching them.

"How about the balcony? I do need some fresh air" Twilight said, starting to relax a bit. Twilight wasn't sure what had happened that made Fluttershy snap like that, but she would try to never do whatever it was again...once she finds out what 'whatever it was' is.

"Ok then, lead the way... I guess?" Morbus said as he picked his helmet up form the floor and packed up the small ARU and packed it back up into the container on his back.

The two made small talk while they walked to balcony in an attempt to get to know each other a bit more. Once they had gotten to the balcony they saw something strange...

"Umm... were you expecting someone Twilight?" Morbus said as he looked at the neatly prepared table-for-two, with an assortment of foods drinks and an assortment of utensils laid out beside two plates, opposite each other. He also noticed two chairs facing each other, where he assumed that they would be talking; however these things weren't what he found weird, beside these things there stood a creature with mismatched parts form the different creatures that they had also found on the planet.

"Discord? what are you doing here? And where were you when the others started fighting?" Twilight asked in an unbelieving tone, she had not seen Discord since breakfast, and here he was... dressed in a waiters outfit and holding up a service tray

"Well I heard that we were to expect a visitor so I prepared a lace for you two to sit down and have a nice morning tea while talking about... whatever it was you said you wanted to talk about" Discord said while he pushed both Morbus and Twilight to their respective seats.

"Bu-wha? How did you know we would go to the balcony?" Twilight liked that Discord helped alot around the castle but she still found his methods weird and sometimes creepy.

"Oh come now Twilight, don't you think you have other matters to attend to other than questioning me?" before Twilight could retort Discord had already taken his leave and left the two alone.

Twilight and Morbus talked for about 30 minutes and they had gotten to know each other quite well and Twilight was amazed at how advanced the technology on his was.

"...And this is the scan feature, it allows me to instantly record and catalogue any animal or anything it hits" Morbus said as he pointed to the tiny scanner on his wrist.

"Wow, so you just press this and whatever the beam hits will be instantly saved in the memory thingy?" Twilight asked as she admired the sheer level of innovation that Morbus' race exhibited in their spacesuits.

"That's not the half of the tech on this suit, and you haven't even seen the ship yet!" Morbus said enthusiastically.

"Wait you have a ship?!" Twilight said, this was the first time Morbus had ever mentioned a ship, but she did find it logical... I mean how else would Morbus have gotten to this planet.

"Why yes I-" Morbus cut himself off remembering that any details about his ship are supposed to be kept secret. Even though Morbus trusted Twilight, he still had to abide by the Captains Code.

"What is it? Is something wrong?" Twilight asked slowly, wondering why he suddenly cut himself off.

It was at that moment that Morbus' communicator started blinking...

"Oh my, it's Nibon... I should probably go answer this" Morbus said as he got up and walked towards the opposite side of the balcony. He hadn't realised that 4 hours had passed and he hadn't called or even sent a signal back to the ship.

"Ok then I'll just wait here." Twilight continued to sip her tea and look at the helmet in front of her, Wondering what the world looked like form inside the yellow lens.

Twilight looked over to Morbus and saw that he was busy talking into his wrist, and what she assumed to be some form of communications link. Since she saw that Morbus was preoccupied, she decided that trying on Morbus' helmet would be completely harmless.

"Wow..." was all that Twilight could say as she put the helmet onto her head, It had taken some effort to fit it on due to her horn but she was fine nonetheless. The helmet displayed various forms of information and data relating to Twilights surroundings, and even though she couldn't really understand what the readings were, she marvelled at them nonetheless.

Twilight was taken by surprise, however, when the helmet started to play a sort of sound, it sounded like a series of tweets and chirps. At first Twilight disregarded the sounds and pushed them off as some form of ambient noise form outside, it wasn't until she looked back at Morbus and saw that the chirping noises were in sync with his beak movements, she also noticed that the helmet had displayed another meter which looked like a vocal pattern.

Twilight wasn't able to decipher much, but she could understand bits and pieces of whatever Morbus and whoever was on the other end were talking about.

"...So how do we *chirp* *tweet* maybe it could *chirp* *tweet**crow*" Morbus said in a different tongue.

"You actually had to do *tweet**tweet**tweet* but if it is necessary maybe I can" another voice replied. Twilight wasn't sure why she was hearing this, or if she should even be eaves dropping on Morbus' call.

"I'll explain everything later but now *chirp* *chirp* bring down the ship" Morbus said with authority in his voice.

"Ok then I'll land the ship, but where do you want it? also remember we shouldn't *chirp* *tweet* everything ok?" the voice on the other end seemed to be unsure of what to do, but he seemed to comply with whatever Morbus wanted him to do.

Twilight had already stopped listening in when she heard that an alien ship was going to land on their planet.

"I have to tell the others... and the Princesses... I wonder what they'll think...


Elsewhere in the galaxy...

"Systems check, crew check, ship check, we have a go for launch" a robotic voice said into a headset. The voice belonged to a Grox commander by the name of Velocity34 E-7, he was quite large compared to the others of his race and he was wearing a decorated military outfit.

"Ok commander we are a go for launch, target at E-35-7-8432-9" Another robotic voice said while he strapped himself into the cockpit and turned on the edges, he also yelled something to the back of the ship.

"Scout team ready? You are too collect data of the planet and report back immediately... there's no telling how powerful this race is yet, but they're sitting on a spice gold mine" Terminal said with conviction, he gave his final salute and with it the command to launch.

The mission was under way...