//------------------------------//
// 2 - The Visitor 
// Story: Stargate - Rise of the Sun God 
// by Arvaus 
//------------------------------//

	Equestria, eight thousand years earlier. Thirty hours before first contact.


"Each one of you has taught us something about friendship, and for that we will always be grateful."

The sun hung low in the sky as Princess Celestia stood, reading the inscription below the statue for what might well have been the thousandth time. She often took this route through the Canterlot gardens on her morning walks before the day's work began, and when she did she always made a point of stopping at the Harmony memorial.

Atop the pedestal bearing the inscription stood an ornate carving of six ponies: Princess Twilight Sparkle surrounded by her five companions, the white marble glistening in the morning sunlight. It was a little over a century now since their long lives had come to their peaceful ends, but Celestia was certain she would never forget them. Together they had brought about an age of true unity for all races, and Twilight's studies of the Elements had revolutionised their understanding of magic. There was still much to be explored, but more had changed in the last two centuries than in the thousand years before that.

A cool breeze blew past, ruffling the fur on her neck and drawing her back to the present. Remembering the time, she turned her gaze to the slowly brightening western horizon and waited, hoping she would get her timing right today. She watched patiently for a minute, until a bright spot appeared over the hills and began its leisurely traversal of the sky, slowly fading away behind the ambient blue as it approached the east.

She smiled. That small point of light was proved how far they had come; the first truly multi-species venture of their still-young space age, known almost universally simply as the Space Station, was a testament to the spirit and drive of Equestrians to push the boundaries of what they were capable of. On the station at that moment three ponies, two zebras and their gryphon commander were busy testing theories and performing experiments that would have been impossible just decades ago. Celestia hoped she would one day be able to travel up there herself to see what it was like to look down on their planet from orbit, but there were just too many demands on her time. Exploration would have to be left to others for now.

She heard the sound of voices approaching in the distance. Closing her eyes, she took a series of deep breaths, clearing her head and chasing the last remnants of tiredness away. This first meeting of the day was likely to be short, but it could well be very significant.

Moments later, two ponies emerged round the end of a hedgerow and entered the clearing surrounding the memorial. The first was Celestia's younger sister, Princess Luna; She looked tired, no doubt looking forward to the end of this meeting just so she could go to bed. Her companion looked quite the opposite, however; Starburst Nova, the Astronomer Royal, looked like he had enough energy to run a marathon and was busily chatting away about something technical. The unicorn's crimson coat and long golden mane were thoroughly dishevelled and there were huge bags under his eyes, making Celestia wonder when he had last slept, but he was so excited that he didn't seem to care. Judging by the huge pile of scrolls he was carrying, the two of them had had a productive night.

"Good morning sister, Starburst," she said as they approached. "I trust your observations went well?"

Luna opened her mouth to reply but Starburst beat her to it.

"Went well?" he laughed. "I wish you could have joined us too, Princess! Last night was truly the most incredible night of my life! Our observations may completely reshape our understanding of the entire universe! This could be the most ground-breaking discovery in the history of…"

He trailed off, remembering where they were and glancing over to the statue looking down over them.

"Uh, not that I would wish to belittle—"

"Don't worry," Celestia interrupted, smiling and dismissing the comment with a wave of her hoof. "I fully understand your excitement and do not wish to deprive you of it. I am sure you enjoyed yourself as well," she added, turning to Luna.

"Oh yes," Luna yawned. "Riveting night. Look through telescope, write down numbers, look through telescope again…"

Celestia smiled sheepishly. She did feel bad about farming all the observational work off to her sister, but her schedule had just been a lot harder to clear.

"I'm sorry sister," she ventured. "You've done a week of this now; I can take over for the next week."

Luna nodded, but Starburst cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"Actually, we may not need to do any observations next week," he said.

Celestia looked round, surprised. "Really? So soon?"

Starburst nodded. He put the scrolls down on the grass and rolled one out between them. On it was a hoof-drawn map of the inner solar system, an image which she had become very familiar with over the past few days. Her eyes automatically went to a point not far out from Equestria's position and ten or so degrees anticlockwise away from the planet, where a large cross had been drawn. It was at the end of a line which curved slowly back toward the outer solar system, with similar crosses marking it at regular intervals.

"There it is", Starburst said, pointing at it, "almost exactly where we predicted it would be."

Whatever it is, Celestia thought to herself, staring at the enigmatic cross. It represented the single greatest puzzle of Equestrian history; a large unidentified object, first spotted by telescopes just a month ago, whose path appeared to originate far outside the solar system, which was going to pass so close by Equestria that anypony with a telescope would be able to see it. Nopony knew what it was, but its detection had caused great excitement and division in the scientific community.

Many dismissed it as nothing more than a rogue comet, and were doing everything in their power to keep others from what they saw as unnecessary speculation. But many were much less sceptical. They pointed out a number of anomalies; it had no visible tail, for one thing, and its absorption spectrum didn't match any minerals known in their system. And then there was the strange gamma-ray burst detected from the same quadrant of the sky just days before it was spotted… the list went on. Starburst had become convinced – and Celestia was starting to be won over by the theory as well – that there was something much more exciting happening here.

"Wait a minute," she said. "You said almost where we predicted?"

"Yes, Princess," Starburst went on, barely able to contain himself. "It's been travelling through the system on a hyperbolic path with no deviations whatsoever, and we were expecting it to pass Equestria in the next few days and make its way back out into interstellar space. From last week's measurements we predicted exactly where its path would put it tonight."

Celestia looked up. "But…"

"But," he said, unrolling another scroll which showed a much closer view of the object's path. The projected path was drawn on in black, but then a short series of red dots had been drawn on, tracking off to the side away from it. He paused for effect, clearly wanting to make the most of this moment.

"It's accelerating," he said.

Celestia stared at the map, feeling a huge weight in her stomach. Those two words changed everything. The red line of dots had been extended somewhat shakily across the map, and the path it showed left no doubt as to what was happening. Something had entered the solar system, and was now headed straight – and deliberately – toward them.

"So you were right," she said. "There is an alien intelligence at work here."

"There has to be!" Starburst said. "I never dreamed I would get to see this day!" he went on, pacing restlessly in circles round the clearing. "We finally get proof that there's life in the universe beyond our planet, and it's coming to visit us! I might actually get to meet a creature from another world! It's… it's…"

He stopped, then fell backwards onto his haunches, the night catching up with him.

"I need sleep," he said.

"I should retire also," Luna commented. "This night has been a lot to process, and…"

Celestia nodded. "Starburst," she said, "When will it arrive?"

"Uh, tomorrow afternoon," he said, "at which point I assume it'll enter into orbit around the planet."

"Okay," she went on. "You two should get some rest. And take the night as well. We must all be fully alert when it arrives, and prepared for anything."

Starburst stood. "Certainly," he said. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. Good night… er, day, Princesses."

He turned and started to leave. Luna was about to follow, but Celestia put a hoof on her shoulder. "Sister, wait," she said. "We have more to discuss."

Luna looked up at her, and nodded silently. The two of them waited until Starburst was out of earshot.

"You look tired," Celestia said. "And it's more than just the long nights, isn't it, Luna?"

"Yes, sister," she replied. "I have been hiding it as best as I can so Starburst does not notice, but…"

She paused, took a deep breath, and looked her sister in the eye. "Every night it gets worse. In all my centuries I have never had any difficulty with raising and lowering the moon. But now, it is as if it does not want to be raised. It persists for you also?" she asked.

Celestia nodded. It had been nearly four months now since they had first noticed the change. Slowly but surely their heavenly charges had become more and more inaccessible. Where once they had been able to move them across the sky however they wished with a single thought, it was now taking all their power just to keep them steady on their allotted path.

"I am worried, sister," Luna went on. "We may not be able to hide this much longer. And what happens to Equestria if we lose control completely?"

"We will not," Celestia asserted, putting a reassuring wing over her sister's back. "We will remain strong, for our subjects. And for each other."

Luna nodded wearily. The two made their way back to the castle together, looking up at the sky above them; the sky which was filling with more and more mysteries each day.

"Do you think these events are linked?" Luna asked.

"Given the timing…" Celestia said, but hesitated. This was the question that had been weighing on her mind ever since the strange object had been detected. But something still didn't seem to fit.

"Honestly," she continued, "I cannot understand why they would be. We will have to wait and see how the next few days play out."

Luna nodded. With nothing more to say, the two of them walked the rest of the way to the castle in silence. Once inside, Celestia made her way straight to the court chambers to find out what was next on her agenda. It was going to be a long day.





The following afternoon, the two sisters made their way to Space Command in Canterlot. A tall, stone building with smoothly curving painted roves, it was expertly matched to the ancient architecture of the old city, and wouldn't have looked out of place there five centuries ago. But the illusion was broken as soon as they stepped through the doors.

Inside was a maze of corridors, all the same identical sterile white, pictures of planets, nebulae and spacecraft hanging in the spaces between enumerable doors leading off to labs and offices. The events of the last week had kicked Command into a frenzy, and staff members – predominantly ponies and zebras – were running back and forth pushing trolleys full of equipment or trailing huge reams of paper. The princesses carefully moved their way through the chaos along one corridor, then climbed up a flight of stairs and pushed through the glass double doors which led to Mission Control.

The room was no quieter than the corridors outside. The rows of workstations which filled the room in front of them were packed with technicians, who were galloping back and forth between their stations, calling orders to each other over radios, and generally getting in each other's way. A middle-aged earth pony with a white waistcoat and close-shaven mane pushed over to the two of them through the crowd as they entered.

"Good afternoon, Princesses," he said. "You're just in time. We're scheduled for an uplink in five minutes."

"Thank you," Celestia said. "We certainly wouldn't want to miss this."

"Yes," the flight controller said. "I would like to say, though, that I don't feel comfortable with the military being brought in to this," he added, nodding to the far side of the room. Confused, Celestia looked round and saw a minotaur in blue dress uniform approaching them.

"Princesses," he said, saluting them. "The ESS Shining Armor is deployed in the Eastern Sea and awaits your command."

Celestia looked round at Luna, confused.

"I'm sorry, sister," Luna said. "The navy has protocols for unidentified potential aggressors for a reason. I thought we should take the precaution."

Celestia sighed. "I suppose so," she replied. "Let us hope it does not come to that, though. Thank you, General," she said, turning to the minotaur again. "Stay vigilant, but fire only on our command."

"Yes, your Highness." He saluted the two of them again and walked back to the observation seats at the back of the room.

The flight controller cleared his throat. "I'm hoping today will be remembered as a victory for science and curiosity, not the military," he said. "I've read enough science fiction to think we don't want to fire the first shot at an alien race."

Celestia chuckled.

"What are your thoughts on this?" Luna asked him. "You seem remarkably unfazed by the prospect of a visitation from aliens."

He laughed. "Yeah, it's pretty crazy, but I've been in the space industry thirty years. In that time I've seen things my great grandparents couldn't've dreamed of. Sure, driving a robot on another planet pales in comparison to this, but as far as I'm concerned, crazy is just part of the job."

Celestia smiled. "Very astute," she said.

"But while we're on the subject of crazy," he went on, "I was wondering if you could do something about your friend over there."

He pointed down to the rows of workstations. In the midst of the throng of white-shirted staff was Starburst, his red fur standing out like a sore hoof. He was moving restlessly back and forth between the workstations, peering over shoulders, and causing a bit of a mess. His mane was in an even worse state than last time they had seen him.

"Oh dear," Celestia said.

"Starburst!" Luna called. He froze at the sound of his name, looked round and spotted them after a few moments.

"Luna! Celestia!" he shouted, pushing his way toward them. "I mean, Princesses." He stopped in front of them and gave a little bow. The controller shook his head and wandered back to his post.

"This place is incredible!" Starburst said, his eyes daring round the room. "They've got three different telescopes monitoring it in real-time! We know exactly where it is! And to think I'll get to talk to real astronauts as well!" He was almost dancing on the spot. "Thank you both so much for getting them to let me in!"

The princesses exchanged glances. "When was the last time you slept?" Luna asked.

Starburst stopped to consider the question, counting under his breath. "Uh, seven, maybe eight... days ago," he said. "But it's fine, I drank about a gallon of coffee this morning, and I've done plenty of all-nighters before, you should've seen me when I was writing my thesis, I must've… got to..."

He slowed down, like his batteries were running flat. Eventually he came to a halt and just stood there with a vacant, cross-eyed expression. Celestia looked round at Luna, and saw her horn glowing.

"Sister," she said, shaking her head.

"Just a simple relaxation spell," Luna replied sheepishly. "He should wake before anything important happens, and will with any luck he will be somewhat more lucid."

Celestia sighed. "I hope this all settles down soon," she said, "if only for the sake of his health."

"Agreed," Luna said as Starburst walked in a trance over to the observer seats and sat himself down, falling asleep with his head rested against a rather confused minotaur. "Hopefully the proceedings will begin soon."

Right on cue, a window appeared on the wall-screen, a mess of black-and-white static resolving after a few seconds into the feathered face of Commander Razorbeak, current leader of the team aboard the space station.

"Hello, Canterlot!" the gryphon barked, his gruff voice rattling the speakers. "Can you hear me down there?"

"Loud and clear, Commander!" one of the technicians replied. "You're in luck today, it would seem; you have a clean uplink and a royal audience!"

Razorbeak peered closer into the screen on his end, searching round until he spotted them.

"Ah, Princesses!" he bellowed. "I wondered if you'd come for this."

A young zebra cantered over and gave the two of them earpieces. Celestia clipped hers to her ear.

"It's good to see you again, Commander," she said. "How is life in space treating you?"

"Well enough," he replied with a hearty laugh. "My wings're getting restless though. When I come back down I think I'm going to fly around the world."

He pushed back away from the camera, perching on a bulkhead just behind. "But you're not here for the conversation, are you?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"No, we are not," Luna replied. "What can you tell us of the object?"

Razorbeak chuckled. "I can tell you this," he said. "Your astronomer friend was right on the money."

He pushed back over to the camera and pulled out a keyboard, his talons tapping away at the keys. Moments later, a three-dimensional rendering of the planet appeared on the monitor next to him. A red line arced across the screen, passing very close to the surface before heading back off into space.

Celestia looked over at Starburst; he was half awake already, and he was watching the screen with interest.

"Its trajectory's brought it within spitting distance of the planet," the commander said. "We've been tracking it since it came into range, and it's been following a constant-acceleration path which puts it within five hundred kilometres of the surface. That is, it was… until five minutes ago, when it began to decelerate. It'll attain stable orbital velocity any minute now."

A spontaneous round of applause broke out in the control room, hooves clattering away on the floor. Celestia smiled; she couldn't help but share their excitement.

A zebra floated up into view and said something quietly to the commander. He nodded, and she turned to address the screen. The room went quiet again.

"We have a stable polar orbit!" she announced. "Four hundred and eighty seven klicks above sea level!"

There was another burst of applause. The zebra then disappeared back off the bottom of the screen.

"Sorry my crew's being so absent," the commander said. "But it seems they can't pull themselves away from the view from the telescope."

There was a sudden commotion behind Celestia. Starburst had jumped to his hooves and was staring, wide-eyed, at the commander.

"You have pictures?" he shouted.

The commander stared at them blankly.

"Oh, sorry," Celestia said. She passed her microphone over to Starburst who clipped it to his own ear.

"You have pictures of it?" he asked again.

"Yes, of course," the commander laughed. "We've all been glued to the screen ever since it got close enough. Here, I'll send you a downlink."

He pushed some more buttons, and a third window appeared on the wall. The image was blurred, probably zoomed in as far as they could go, but the important features were clear. The object on the screen was a sharp, symmetric triangle, glowing bronze in the sunlight. Scale markings on the image put it at over two hundred metres wide.

Silence fell in the control room, as all eyes turned to the image before them.

"There's no doubt up here that it's artificial," Razorbeak said. "We've already started calling it 'the ship'."

"Do you think it has a crew?" Luna asked?

"Your guess is as good as mine," he replied. "We haven't seen any activity on the ship's surface yet, but... well, something must be telling it where to–"

The image suddenly broke up, static and distortion filling all three displays. Then, barely a second later, they were back.

"Do you still read us?" a technician said.

"Yeah, still here," the commander replied. "We only lost you for a moment. What was that?"

One of the technicians in the front row stood up. "All channels just picked up a broad-band sweep across the entire spectrum. No damage, but..." He stopped, scratching his head and staring at his monitor like he didn't believe what he was looking at.

"Flight," he said, turning to address the controller, "I think we've just been scanned."

Silence fell. One by one, all eyes turned to look at the image of the ship, still apparently just sitting inert in orbit.

What are you doing up there? Celestia thought, her eyes narrowing.

Then the image suddenly changed. There was a bright flash of light at the base of the ship, and something shot out from it, disappearing off the edge of their view.

The room filled with panicked chattering. Celestia stared in disbelief, frozen to the spot. While she had imagined plenty of worst-case scenarios after since she had heard about the object, she had never really expected any of them to happen. Even now, she refused to believe that this was supposed to be a hostile action.

"Princesses," the general said, running over to their side. "We're under attack. I need my orders."

"Stand by," Celestia said. Then she addressed the room at large. "I need information! Give me everything we know!"

"Tracking it now!" one of the technicians called. New lines started appearing on the display, falling down from the ship to various points on the planet's surface.

"We're attempting to get a visual up here," Razorbeak said, before disappearing from view.

Celestia waited, the seconds dragging agonisingly on, as she watched predicted trajectories jump around on the screen. Then, finally, they began to settle down to a single path.

"It's headed straight for us!" somepony shouted. "It's going to hit Canterlot!"

There was a scream, and in an instant the entire room devolved into panic. The flight controller was shouting something, trying to keep calm, but he could barely be heard over the commotion.

Celestia felt a hand on her shoulder, then it pulled her round so she was face to face with the general.

"I need orders!" he yelled.

"Give me a minute!" Celestia said.

"We may not have that long!" He growled, pointing at the screen. "We are under attack! Let me do my job!"

Celestia stared at the screen, watching the object as it fell toward them. Was this really how this was going to end? Was her first interaction with extra-terrestrial life to be to destroy it?

"Impact in three minutes!" another technician shouted.  Celestia sighed.

"Okay, General, you're cleared to—"

"Wait!"

The entire room froze, all eyes turning to Starburst. He pushed past between Celestia and the general and walked forward, eyes locked on the screen. For a long while he stared at it in silence, transfixed.

"It's going too slow," he said.

"What do you mean?" Luna asked. "Why does it matter how fast it hits?"

Starburst shook his head.

"I've been studying spaceflight all my life," he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. "I know what something falling through the atmosphere looks like, and it's not speeding up enough."

"He's right actually," the flight controller said, scratching his head. "There's no way that thing's ballistic."

Razorbeak appeared on the screen again suddenly.

"We've got a picture of the projectile!" he said breathlessly, typing away at his keyboard. "You need to see this!"

The image of the ship was replaced with a still photo of an object, cyclindrical in shape, a glowing wake pouring from its sides as it pushed through the upper atmosphere. In front of the object was a second glow – a jet of plasma pushing out ahead of it, like a rocket.

Starburst's eyes went wide. "Retro-boosters," he said. "It's not an attack."

"It's landing!" Celestia said.

"Position update!" the tracking technician yelled. "It's coming down in the forest, just south of the city!"

Celestia was paralysed with relief, completely forgetting the general waiting by her as she stared at the new image of their visitor on the screen. Luna took up the initiative.

"Belay that order, General!" She said. "Notify the guard; I want a shield up over the object the moment it hits the ground! Celestia, come on." She turned and galloped for the door. Dazed, Celestia followed.

The two of them burst out into the corridor, pushing past confused staff until they got to the stairwell. They climbed to the roof, taking entire flights in a single bound, burst out into the open air and flew up into the sky.

"Thank you, sister," Celestia said as her eyes scanned around them.

"I do not wish to fire the first shot, either," Luna replied. "I only hope we are right."

"As do I," Celestia said. Her eyes darted back and forth across the clear blue sky, looking for any sign of the mysterious object, but she couldn't see anything anywhere, until—

"There it is!" Luna said, pointing to the north, where a thin white line was streaking across the sky, directly toward them. The two watched it in silence, waiting and hoping, as it drew nearer and nearer. Eventually it got close enough that Celestia could tell, to her great relief, that it indeed wasn't headed for the city. It was headed straight for the uninhabited woodland in the valley north of Ponyville. But something still didn't look right.

"It's still not going slowly enough," she said.

Sure enough, when it hit the ground moments later it was still travelling at incredible speed. A great cloud of dust and dirt was thrown out in front of it, completely obscuring their view of the crash site. Then a translucent blue dome began to stretch across the area as the national guard contained the blast.

Silently, the two sisters bent forward and swooped down into the valley to meet the new arrival.





A guard pegasus met them as they landed at the edge of the shield.

"Report, Lieutenant," Luna said as he saluted them.

"Ground zero's about fifty metres that way," the guard said, pointing through the shield. "It ploughed across a road as it hit the ground, but nopony was hurt. We've completely cleared the quarantine zone."

"May we enter?" Celestia asked.

The lieutenant nodded. "You can cross the shield freely from this side," he said.

"Thank you," Celestia said. "Please have an ambulance and guard escort meet us at the crash site," she added, "just in case."

"Already on their way. If I may," he asked hesitantly, "what's going on?"

"I'm afraid we do not have the answer to that question," Luna replied. "Not yet."

The guard nodded, then waved them past. The two sisters walked through the shield and took to the air again, heading for the crash.

The dust was beginning to settle, but they weren't able to get a good view of the craft until they were right on top of it. It was a long, lozenge-shaped object, its metallic surface battered and streaked with scorch marks. It lay atop a pile of broken trees, the forest surrounding it flattened by the impact, and the two of them had great difficulty finding somewhere to land in order to properly inspect it.

Celestia made her way carefully toward it and reached out a hoof to touch its surface. There in front of her was absolute proof that they were not alone in the universe. As she stared at the alien object she felt a rush of confused emotions; she was wary, with no idea what this thing was or where it came from, but at the same time she couldn't help but feel honoured. For some reason its creators had deemed them worthy of coming all this way to see.

Something moved on the surface. Celestia pulled her hoof away, stumbling backwards and staring as the outline of a door appeared on the smooth metal, air hissing through the opening seal. The two sisters exchanged glances, but then moved slowly forward again as the door slid open.

Celestia's heart stopped at the sight. Inside the ship was a single creature, about the size and shape of a pony but otherwise completely alien. Its body was covered in scales and bone-like armour plates, and its mouth was framed by a pair of sharp, protruding tusks. It stared up at them through a pair of narrow, dark eyes set underneath broad horned ridges. But despite all its armour it was clearly seriously injured. A dark green fluid was oozing from beneath its scales, its movements were forced and slow, and its eyes were filled with pain. The creature was fighting for its life.

"Hello?" Celestia said. "Can you hear us?"

At the sound of her voice, the creature suddenly turned and looked directly at her, its eyes looking straight into hers. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, before its eyes rolled backwards in their sockets and it slumped back into the craft, unconscious.

"For what it is worth," Luna said, "welcome to Equestria."