4. Ghosts Of A Civilization Past
Canterlot: Royal Castle
Celestia, with two royal guards flanking her, slowly walked to her throne in the center of the room and sat down.
"Now then," said the elegant alicorn in a much kinder voice than what she had used to introduce the rather unfortunate changeling a moment before, "I'm sure that Twilight, here, has already asked you for information on your situation. Am I correct?" Celestia looked between Twilight and the group of humans.
Twilight simply nodded while John looked at Celestia and gave a short "Yes, ma'am."
"Good," said Celestia with a small smile. Then she said, "I know you have already explained this all already, but, I would like to hear the details first-hoof, just so there is no confusion."
The Marines gave each other quick sidelong glaces at the use of this modified word, "first-hoof", but quickly shrugged it off and continued standing just as still and stoically as the multitude of Royal Guards through out the room.
"Of course their language would be slightly different from ours, given their lack of hands... and the fact that they are ponies." thought Luke.
"Alright." replied John, and quickly launched into a brief summary of what had happened, giving Celestia more or less the same explanation Luke had to Twilight.
____________________________________________________________________________
UNSC Pillar of Autumn Bridge
"Captain." the stereoscope operator called out on the bridge of the Pillar of Autumn.
Keyes walked the short distance over to where the operator was stationed.
"What is it?" asked Keyes.
"Sir, the deep scan has been completed and there appears to be major deposits of silver and copper in various spots around the planet. Large quantities of both ores will be needed for the repair of the FTL drive, sir. It looks like we are going digging."
"Yes, it appears so." said Keyes as he picked up a radio ear piece and walked to the middle of the bridge.
"Lieutenant Dominique," said Keyes to the communications officer.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Get me the Chief."
"Aye, Captain."
____________________________________________________________________________
Canterlot: Royal Castle
"And that is more or less the extent of our situation." finished John.
"I see and do you know how long the repairs to your ship will take?" asked Celestia
"A rough estimate is somewhere around eight to ten weeks."
"Ah, well, we will be more than happy to aide you in the repair of the ship. Is there anything specific you are in ne..."
Just before the princess could finish her sentence the radio in John's helmet crackled to life. John inclined his head slightly and put a hand to the side of his helmet causing Celestia to stop mid sentence and look at him with interest.
"Master Chief, come in Master Chief." Captain Keyes' voice came in loud and clear.
"Yes, Sir? Chief here."
"Chief, you and the Marines with you are talking with the ruler of the country, correct?" asked Keyes.
"Affirmative." replied John
"Good, put this radio frequency on your helmet's external speaker, I would like to speak with them for a moment."
"Yes, Sir." came John's quick reply.
John patched the radio frequency through to the external speaker and said to Celestia, "Our Captain wishes to speak with you."
"Very well," replied Celestia, "But how will we communicate? Isn't he currently on your ship, like you said?"
Yes, he is but you two will be able to talk through my radio." said John to Celestia, "You're on Captain, patching visuals through now."
"Good work chief." came Captain Keyes' voice both inside his helmet and outside to the rest.
"May I ask who it is I am addressing?" asked Keyes
"Princess Celestia, diarch of Equestria," said Celestia in her usual calm and collected voice. "And who is it that I am addressing?" asked Celestia.
"Captain Jacob Keyes, UNSC Navy."
"It is a pleasure to meet you Captain Keyes," said Celestia, "Now, you wished to talk with me about something?"
"Yes, ma'am," came Keyes' respectful reply, "In order to make the necessary repairs to our ship we need raw materials such as copper and silver to rebuild the electrical circuitry that was damaged. We have detected several large deposits of both around the Marines current location and around the small town they were at a few hours ago. Is there any chance that there are some running mines in the area of these two locations?"
After a brief pause and with a thoughtful look Celestia slowly nodded and said, "Yes, if memory serves me correct, I do believe that there are some open mines in both locations."
"That's good news. With your permission, your majesty, we would like to mine what raw ore we need. We will supply all the machinery and man power for this job."
"Very well," said Celestia, "You may mine as much ore as you need, I will give the group here a map of where the active mine sites are and they can relay the information to you."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Keyes "We will start preparing at once."
"You are quite welcome, Captain Keyes." said Celestia.
There was a small click as the radio signal disconnected, and the room was again quiet.
"Well," said Celestia, "It looks like there is some digging in your future."
"Looks like it huh," said Luke, "Well at least our machinery does a lot of the work for us."
"Ah, yes, your captain said something about machines, what kind of mining machines are they exactly?"
"They are called Nightcrawlers. They are long machines that have a fast rotating head at the front with many large metal teeth that chip and break the rock as the entire machine is pushed forward. The broken rock is then transported to the back of the machine where it collects in a hopper and periodicity empties into a large truck that drives the rock out of the tunnel."
"My, you are a rather technologically advanced race, we mine with explosives, picks, shovels, and rail cars."
There was a slight pause here and Luke then said, "So, wait... if you don't have hands to be able to grip tools such as picks and shovels, how are y'all able to mine?" asked Luke. "Do unicorns do all the work with their magic?"
"Oh no, not just the unicorns, the earth ponies work in the mines too and every once in a while a pegasus but thats rare considering most pegasi are not to fond of enclosed spaces."
"Wait, earth ponies? Is this planet called Earth?" asked Luke
"Yes, it is... why?" asked Celestia.
The Marines quickly looked at each other then to Luke and then up to Celestia.
"Its just that... uh, one of our planets is named Earth as well." said Luke
"Ah, I see," said Celestia. "Anyway, like I was saying, pegasi don't generally mine all that much.
At this Rainbow Dash gave a visible shudder and said, "Ugh, caves, never liked them. They have always given me the creeps. I'd much prefer the open sky any day."
"My point exactly." said Celestia with another gentle smile towards the Marines as she gestured at Rainbow Dash.
"Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm not scared of them or anything," Rainbow said looking at the Marines, "I just don't like them." she said matter of factly.
Celestia nodded knowingly and continued with her explanation, "It may seem odd to you but all three pony species have some magic, pegasi can walk on clouds and move them around allowing them to create weather. An earth ponies' magic allows them to be strong and know the right times to plant, harvest and find water, and, of course, unicorns have their innate magical abilities and due to this magic that everypony has within them, all three species can pick up and manipulate objects with their hooves.
"That clears things up a little... I guess." said Luke.
Celestia gave a small chuckle and said, "Yes, magic can be a little confusing."
"Especially when you aren't used to it." said Luke
Celestia nodded and said, "You know, it may surprise you to learn that pony kind used to be a fairly technologically advanced race as well, but this was hundreds of years ago."
"Really?" asked a more than a little surprised Twilight, "What happened to all of it?"
"Well, soon after the evil ruler of Equestria, Discord, was defeated by me and my younger sister, Princess Luna, we sought a way to become as powerful as possible, just in case Discord or some other threat tried to do Equestria harm. This was a agonizingly slow process, but during this time, a group of archaeologists stumbled across an ancient ruin that appeared to be alien in origin. Though we were not able to decipher their language, the machinery and other technology within told a lot of the story."
"Wait, did these ruins look like this?" asked the Chief as he pulled a miniature holo pad from a pack and inserted a small memory card, and with a press of a button an image a Forerunner artifact blazed up.
Celestia looked at the image intensely and said, "Yes, that looks similar to what was found."
"We have come to call the race that built these places Forerunners, they were a people that were technologically
advanced beyond belief." said John as he put away the holo pad recalling the information that Cortana had gathered.
"Yes, that sounds comparable to what was found here. At the time of the discovery we decided to put forth a mighty effort into creating our own technology with the..." Celestia paused for a second and carefully said the new word, "Forerunner's ideas as a base. I drew together some of the smartest ponies in all of Equestria, actually, I believe one of them was related to you, Twilight. Smarts must run in the family." Celestia said with a gentle smile as Twilight blushed slightly and smiled sheepishly at the ground.
Celestia continued, "Anyway, with this team of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers we were able to come up with many things; from life support systems for medical purposes to advanced weaponry. Admittedly, there were several flaws with the almost everything but we managed to work a lot of things out. The weaponry though, because there were no functional devises, we mostly had to go off the diagrams we sometimes found. Many of our prototypes either did not function or, what happened most of the time, blew up in an enormous explosion. Due to this we had to resort to creating our own weapons. They actually looked rather similar to yours. Even down to the projectiles they fired." said a thoughtful Celestia.
"We even found a suit of armor that appeared to be powered by some form of super efficient battery." said a new voice from behind Celestia.
Celestia turned around and said, "Ah, Luna, I see you are up and about. Have you already raised the moon?"
Celestia turned to the window she had recently thrown the Changeling from, remembering this she gave a small chuckle, saw that it was dark, and turned back around to the group in front of her.
She only saw confused looks from the humans.
"Oh, my apologies, this is my sister, princess Luna who I mentioned earlier and and to explain what I said a moment before, Luna here and I, raise and lower the sun and moon with our powerful magic."
"So, you mean to say that the sun and moon here don't rise and set on their own?" asked a very confused Luke.
"Well, technically, yes, they would; but the orbit of the planet is slightly irregular and for a good long growing season constant alteration of the planet's orbit is needed."
"It is more or less the same situation with the moon." said Luna as she walked up next to Celestia. "Without our, er, my interference, the tides of the oceans and seas here would be so chaotic and hazardous that they would quickly destroy anything along the coasts."
"Still not exactly used to the new way of speaking." said Luna under her breath to Celestia.
Celestia merely gave a knowing nod.
"Wow," said Luke. "That's really impressive."
"It's nothing big, you get used to it after a while." said Luna.
There was a slight pause then Celestia said, "Well, back on topic. Luna, if I remember correctly, you took a great liking to that suit of armor."
"Oh, yes. I even had a sub group made out of the group Celestia had just for studying the armor. It was rather quite amazing. It was somehow able to project a personal energy shield that was able to deflect blows by many objects and explosives. It looked, to be honest, quite like yours," Luna pointed at the Chief with a hoof, "but it was much more slim and not as bulky. Eventually we managed to come up with a pony version that looks more like yours than the original and could do amazing things such as, run incredibly fast, lift heavy objects, and increase the wearers' reaction time, sight, and hearing capabilities."
"That sounds familiar," thought the Chief, "I'm going to have to ask Dr. Halsey some questions when I get the chance."
"Soon after we had discovered a great deal of this technology though, Luna and myself decided to switch from technology to a more magic based society. We did this in order to keep Equestria safe. A lot of the research was starting to turn more towards weaponry than anything else and we feared that to much technology especially weaponry would cause ponies to start fighting among themselves over even some of the most insignificant things."
"So, you mean to tell me," said Rainbow Dash, who was angrily hovering in place with the others, "that we had all this awesome technology and stuff and you just gave it all up for magic?! And with all the stuff that tries to attack Ponyville and Canterlot?!"
"It is not as simple as that." said Celestia gently. "The technology is still here and being worked on by a present day team of scientists, but for the most part it is secretive. This team and both Luna and I, swore we would never use the majority of this militaristic technology unless Equestria was on the verge of complete collapse. One of these events happened recently with the Changeling attack. Thankfully, Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadence were able to defeat them before we had to take drastic measures. This is why Luna was not attending the wedding for the most part. She was cataloging the equipment that we have at our disposal due to the threats that we had received before the wedding, just to be sure that if something major happened we would be able to defend ourselves.
There was a long pause here as the information sunk in that the Changeling battle could have been far more violent.
"But, to end on a happy note, we did not have to resort to such drastic measures, what weaponry we have is still secret, and it was a happy ending to a rather eventful day."
"Agreed." Twilight said.
Everypony nodded, but were still a little shaken up at the realization of how close they had all come to possibly being killed in a counter attack against the Changelings.
"Well, I do apologize, but it is getting late, and as always, I will have to rise early in the morning. Here is the map of the active copper and silver mine sites that was promised."
Celestia's horn glowed a light yellow and a rolled up piece of parchment glowed with the same light and floated over from a desk at the far side of the room. John held out his hand and the small roll dropped into it.
"Good night to you all, and safe travels, oh and may I suggest resting for the night somewhere here in Canterlot? It is already getting late, maybe the Gilded Horseshoes? Tell them to just charge me." said Celestia with another kind smile.
"Oh, Princess, thank you!" said an excited Twilight.
"That's the most famous and luxurious place in all of Canterlot, besides the castle here, of course. Oh this is so exciting!" said Rarity.
The Marines looked at each other, unsure, but decided, by the reactions of both Twilight and Rarity that it was a good place. then again they all have been in worse before.
Both the humans and ponies bowed and started walking away towards the door, all except John and Luke. the others turned and looked at them with a questioning expression on their face and Luke said, "We will be there in a moment, wait outside, we just need to tell the Princesses one last thing."
The others nodded and walked out the door closing it behind them.
"Yes, what is it you need?" asked Celestia.
"Do you remember the alien race, the Covenant, I mentioned earlier?" asked the Chief.
Celestia's disposition stiffened slightly and she replied, "Yes, I remember you describing them."
"We are not sure about this, but they may be following us. If they are, they are probably about a two months away but we should be repaired and moving out by then. We just wanted to let you know that if they show up earlier than expected we will let you know and we will stay and fight with you. You may still have to use your cashed technology though."
"Very well," said Celestia "If they come we will be more than ready."
Both Luke and John gave a quick nod, spun around, walked to the doors, and rejoined the group outside, and closed the great doors.
As their hoof and foot steps died away, Celestia turned to Luna and said, "Put the research team on full alert and enact operation Midnight's Light."
"Understood," said Luna, "let us just hope nothing comes of this."
"Agreed." said Celestia as she paused at the doorway leading further into the castle. "But if worst comes to worst, we've rebuilt Equestria before, and we will rebuild her again if necessary."
Ok guys, I'm so sorry that it has taken so long to get this up here. I've just had so much stuff going on at once that I haven't had a lot of time to write. That's why this chapter is also my shortest. I know there are going to be mistakes here. If you happen across any, please point them out and I will try to get in and fix them.