//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Civilizations Collide // by Charx //------------------------------// They listened to the whole record. Twice. Vinyl and Octavia said they loved the music, well, Vinyl just nodded and smiled when Octavia said she loved the music. Fluttershy said she loved the nature sounds, and everypony generally agreed that the 'humans' had made an excellent first impression. Twilight finally got a letter off to the Princesses, and was currently trying to extrapolate images from the recording. "What I don't understand is how they speak the same language!" said Twilight as she continued to calculate the images. "Uh huh, Twi. It's a mystery," said Spike, clearly very bored. "It is! It makes ZERO sense. And the nature sounds, too!" "Why don't you ask Lyra? She says she knows all about 'humans'." "That's just some dusty old-" Twilight gasped and spun around, "Myth!!" "Uh, what?" "The old myths! Starswirl and the humans! I never gave them much thought; that's why I didn't remember it in the first place! But Lyra," Twilight gasped again and smiled widely, "She knows all about them! Read every single one!" Twilight gallopped out of the room, with an annoyed Spike right on her hooves. "Lyra! Lyra Lyra Lyra!" Twilight gasped, out of breath, "I gotta talk to you about humans." "Why? Thought you said its 'just a myth'." "Well, uh, I was wrong," Twilight said with a grin, "now c'mon, we gotta-" "Wait, hold your horses and back up!" Lyra leaned in, eyes full of hope, "y-you believe in humans now?" Twilight smiled again and said, "I think I have something you'd be very interested in." XXXX "This is incredible! Amazing! It's the biggest scientific breakthrough in all of history!" Lyra had just finished listening to the record. "I know, I know," Twilight calmed the excitement of the green unicorn, "So, what can you tell me about these 'humans'?" "Oh, well uh, we first heard about them from Starswirl the Bearded's ancient journals. You know of his theory about Starswirl-Clover Bridges,right? Well he actually figured out how to create them using magic! And he used it to travel to another world, light-years away." "He described the species, 'humans', as small, hairless minotaur/monkey hybrid things. Well, he didn't use those exact words, but you get the idea. They were supposed to have genius inventions and innovations, but lacked really strong harmony like in Equestria. They always fought wars, a very violent race, Starswirl said they were." "So he tried to teach them. He taught them a little Equish, and some good governmental philosophies. I think he said something about a republic? Like to some tribe or something . They didn't have magic or anything, so he couldn't help them that much. But he could give them things. He used magic to change the evolution of the planet. Apple trees, and tameable animals and cows, all from Starswirl messing with natural history. They told stories about him. Stories of unicorns, and pegasi too. He was something of a god to them." "So that's how they speak Equish! Why their culture is so similar to ours! We must've influenced them through the centuries," said Twilight. They continued to talk in a nerdy way about the small details of this discovery until Twilight remembered a very odd detail about the night the craft appeared. "Um, you said they didn't have magic, right?" asked Twilight, and Lyra nodded, " But the craft appeared through a wormhole. How could that be possible without magic!?" Mind you, ponies don't have all the fancy tech humans have, so this is a perfectly legitimate question. The humans, after detecting miniature black holes in the LHC, figured that after ripping holes in space, it would be a simple matter to bend it to their will, right? Well, wrong, because it wouldn't be until 2068 that the first successful wormhole was created, and the first detection of miniature black holes was in the 2020s. But the important thing is that they managed to do it. XXXX "We cannot honestly say that we discovered alien ponies!" A group of human scientists were arguing about the recent discovery, "There must be a malfunction on the probe." "Oh really? And what sort of malfunction would cause this?! It's not like they're from a cartoon or anything!" said one scientist, "These are real pictures from a real planet!" "We can't make that conclusion, because we know that the probe messed up somehow. It should have sent more than three pictures, and those pictures should not have anything to do with Earth. Something went wrong." responded a quieter, calmer individual. "I think we should keep a lid on the discovery and send a real expedition," said one scientist. "I would agree, as the probe seems to have malfunctioned from the core reacting to radiation from the wormhole. With sufficient protection, a human could go through. But it would cost too much to send one up to WORMCAST with all the nesecarry shielding." an engineer replied. "It won't cost too much when we tell them we discovered aliens. Do it'" The first scientist sighed. "The alien thing may not be true, but it'll get us the funding we need. Do it," he said, "And I guess they do kinda look like cartoon characters."