The Canterlot Archives were the largest repository of spells in all of Equestria. In fact, it was the largest repository of spells on the whole planet. Unfortunately, it was also the oldest. While there was an ongoing effort to modernize the archives into collections of similar spells, written into books, more than half of the archive was still on individual and poorly sorted scrolls.
Thankfully Celestia had an excellent memory and knew exactly what wing the translation spells were located in. Now it was just a matter of digging through the shelves and finding the correct scrolls. If only she could get her ponies to put scrolls back in the exact location they came from.
"I found a number of spells to translate written word!" Twilight said happily. "I think we've got everything we need now."
Celestia smiled warmly at Twilight.
"It has been a long time since we've done any spell-crafting together. I've been looking forward to this."
Twilight squeed internally, she cherished any time she got to spend with the older alicorn. Twilight may have had an innate understanding of magic, but Celestia had thousands of years of experience. The spells she wove were both elegant and powerful, they were, in a word, beautiful.
"Me too," she said, beaming.
The two alicorns got to work on creating a translation spell that would work with radio communications. Twilight already had a few ideas and she started to write them down. Every few minutes Celestia would interrupt with some additions of her own, or she would show Twilight how to improve a portion of the spell. Celestia's revisions helped reduced the amount of magic needed to cast the spell and also improved the accuracy of translation.
Twilight put the quill down on the table and looked at Celestia.
"You told me last night, that if I wanted to know more about Tirek, to talk to you later."
Celestia looked at Twilight and sighed.
"Tirek showed up a few hundred years after Luna and I locked Discord away with the Elements. He was similar to Chrysalis and the changelings, but instead of feeding on emotions, he could drain magic from a pony. Pegasus ponies lost their ability to fly, Earth ponies lost their connection with nature and Unicorns were so weak that they couldn't levitate a feather. If left unchecked he could drain so much magic from a pony that even their cutie mark would vanish."
Twilight gasped, everything she knew about pony magic said that should be impossible.
"Was it permanent?" she asked.
"No, but depending on how much a pony was drained it could take weeks or even months for them to fully recover. With each pony that Tirek drained, he grew more and more powerful. He was like a sponge, soaking up the magic of any ponies he could capture. But he produced little magic himself, so he had to continually drain ponies to keep his own power from diminishing."
She paused to make some changes to the translation spell.
"As his power grew, he was able to drain more and more ponies at once. In secret, he started to capture ponies and imprison them, so he could drain them over and over. His plan was to drain all of Equestria, which he thought would give him enough power to drain Luna and I. His brother, Scorpan, who was on friendly terms with ponies, tried to get Tirek to abandon his plans, but when Tirek refused, Scorpan warned us of Tirek's plan."
"Could Tirek have drained you of your powers?" Twilight asked.
"Luna and I did not know for sure. We were both still fairly young and managing the solar system after Discord was locked away, kept us relatively weak. It may be that he could, or it may be that even in our weakened state we were beyond him, but neither of us wanted to find out."
"We knew what Tirek's plan was, but we did not know exactly where he was. I sent scouting parties out into the badlands to look for him with the express order to report back when he was found and to not engage him. Of all the things I've done in my life, that sending out those scouts is what I regret the most."
Twilight had since stopped working on the translation spell entirely. She watched Celestia intently as the mare told her story.
"One of those scouting parties was lead by a powerful unicorn mage named Moon Gem. I did not know at the time but she and Luna were in a relationship. When all other scouting parties returned but hers did not, Luna panicked. She gathered up the Elements and took off for their last known location."
A few tears rolled down Celestia's face as she continued.
"Moon Gem had attempted to engage Tirek and had been captured. He now knew we were looking for him, but he wasn't ready, he didn't have nearly enough power to face us. Luna had arrived outside the cave Tirek was hiding in and was searching for him."
"In a move of desperation he drained every last drop of magic out of all the ponies he had captured, including Moon Gem and her scouting party. The force at which he drained those ponies proved fatal. In the blink of an eye, 1200 ponies lost their lives that day. Luna entered the cavern prison just in time to see them all die, including Moon Gem."
By now Celestia was in tears. Her story to was bringing up painful memories. At first Twilight wasn't sure what to do. She hesitated for a moment, but then reached over and gave the Celestia a comforting nuzzle.
"You don't have to continue if you don't want to."
"It's alright Twilight," Celestia said, taking a moment to calm down. "Under normal circumstances Tirek would not drain a pony to death, he kept them around so he could feed on their magic as it returned, killing a pony meant removing that source of magic in the future. As I said though, he was desperate."
"Luna became enraged. she took the Elements and started to cast a spell. This spell however was not meant to entrap or contain, instead she meant to strike Tirek down, her heart full of vengeance. It was against the Elements nature to be used in such a way, so they resisted, but her rage fueled her magic and she and she fought to bend them to her will."
"It was then that I arrived. I sensed what Luna was doing and I teleported in and countered her spell. It dissipated before she could finish casting it. I quickly cast a teleport spell and sent Tirek directly to Tartarus."
"Luna would not talk to me for years, she blamed me for sending Moon Gem, and she blamed herself for not stopping Tirek in time. When she finally spoke to me again she had grown distant. A portion of the Elements power had shifted into her when I interrupted her attack, but it was corrupted by her rage. Twisted and evil, it slowly grew in power over the centuries and eventually gave birth to the Nightmare. This is why when I discovered that Tirek had escaped Tartarus, I dealt with him immediately. I didn't want to force Luna to be reminded of the pain."
"I can't believe I brought up Tirek to Luna. I didn't mean to hurt her," Twilight said sadly. "I can't even begin to imagine how much it would hurt to have somepony you love torn away from you like that."
"Luna still blames herself for her loss of control and the Nightmare that followed, but I do not. She reacted poorly, but in truth I have never seen such a number of ponies murdered in cold blood. Especially when one of those ponies was a lover. I do not know how I would have reacted."
"What about in wars, or during the reign of Discord?" Twilight asked.
"In my long years I have indeed been involved in many wars and seen thousands die, but while killing is never a good thing, there is a vast difference between killing in war and the murdering in cold blood. As for Discord, it was a very rare thing for him to directly kill a pony. Discord embodies chaos, but he is not evil, he never went out of his way to kill anypony."
Both ponies sat there in silence for a few minutes. After that Celestia finally spoke up.
"We should get back to work on this translation spell."
After a few more hours, they finally finished work on the spell. They gathered up everything they needed and went back to Luna's observatory.
#####
The rest of the Elements, Cadance, Shining and Spike had arrived at Luna's observatory. Luna greeted them but then went back to work, setting up her radio transmitter. She let the party know that Celestia and Twilight were still working on something, but when they returned all would be revealed. After almost two hours of waiting, even Fluttershy was getting impatient. Dash, who was bored out of her mind, had taken to flying back and forth across the room in her own version of pacing. She noticed Luna was finished with whatever she had been working on and sitting alone at a desk across the room.
Luna looked up from her notes.
"Rainbow Dash, it is good to see you again."
Dash gave a quick bow.
"Hello Princess. I don't suppose you would care to give any hints to what this is about?"
"Celestia and Twilight should be back soon, be patient young pegasus."
"Believe me, I'm trying, but it's taking forever and knowing Twilight, she's probably sitting in the Canterlot library reading some stuffy old book, having completely forgotten she's supposed to be meeting us."
Luna laughed. Even though Rainbow didn't know it, she was pretty close to the truth.
"Did Twilight ask you to visit Ponyville yet?"
"I do not believe so, what is the occasion?" Luna asked.
"Oh, well a group of us met up the other night near AJ's farm. Twilight brought a telescope and she was telling us all about the night sky. Cheerilee, she's the Ponyville school teacher, I guess she used to run an astronomy club, she was talking about starting it up again."
Luna smiled, it was always nice to hear about ponies taking the time to appreciate her night.
"I had asked Twilight to invite you, figured you might like to hang out. You could join me... I mean us the next time, you know, if you like the idea," Rainbow said laughing nervously, a hint of red showing in her cheeks.
"I think that is a wonderful idea. Let me know when your next meeting will be. Oh and Rainbow, you can always ask Spike send a letter to me directly if you don't want to wait for Twilight."
The door to the observatory opened and Twilight and Celestia walked inside. Twilight went over to greet her friends while Celestia walked over to Luna.
"Ok everypony."
"And dragon!" Spike said.
Celestia chuckled.
"Yes, everypony and dragon. If you would gather around Luna and I will bring you up to speed. I think the easiest way to do this is to show you. Luna, if you'd cast your spell?"
Luna's horn glowed momentarily and a projection of space appeared in front of her. It twisted and distorted as she brought the ring into view. The rest of the Elements were confused, they weren't really sure what they were looking at.
"Three nights ago, I sensed an object entering the outskirts of our solar system. Neither Celestia nor I could identify the object, only that it was unusual, both based on its extremely high velocity, and that it was slowing down."
"Luna and I decided to inform the other princesses, so letters were sent to Twilight and Cadance. They, along with Shining Armor and Spike, joined us in Canterlot. We then went to work on designing a new spell, the Deep Space Imaging Spell, or DSIS. The spell allowed us to view the object, which was still too far away to see through normal means. Once DSIS was complete and cast, this is what we saw." Celestia said, pointing a hoof at the ring.
"We still do not know what this ring is, but as you can tell, it is clearly artificial in nature. Its current heading will bring it very close to Equus. Closer than Luna's moon in fact. I cannot think this is a coincidence, I believe it will either take up orbit around the planet, or possibly land on the planet itself."
"I do not believe it will land sister, and if it does, that may be dangerous. I have been able to calculate the size of the object based on the magnification provided by the spell and that ring, as small as it looks the outer part of the ring is nearly 7 miles in diameter."
Twilight gasped. The entire town of Ponyville could fit inside that ring, with room to spare. The room erupted into questions. Celestia and Luna answered them as best they could with Twilight chiming in every so often.
"We don't know if it's spying on us or not Rainbow, but we must assume it has some knowledge about us, or it wouldn't likely be headed here."
"No Fluttershy, we don't know if it's dangerous or not."
"Yes, we have been working on methods to communicate with it."
"If its deceleration remains constant, it will be here in just under 2 days."
"Yes Pinkie, if there are aliens on board, you can prepare the official Welcome to Equestria party."
This went on late into the evening until the ponies reached a point where none of the princesses had any more answers. Finally Celestia adjourned the meeting.
"Some of you already know this, so consider this a reminder. Please keep this information secret. Refrain from discussing the ring unless you are here at the observatory, or in another private location. Luna and I will be making a public announcement once we have more information on what this object is. As you can tell from the lack of answers to some of your questions tonight, we simply don't know enough about this object yet."
With the meeting ended, the group broke up. Twilight and her friends headed back to her room to setup some extra beds. Cadance and Shining decided to grab a late dinner. Only Celestia and Luna remained.
"Sister, there is one thing about this ring that has been bothering me for the last day."
"Just one thing Luna?" Celestia said with a smile.
"Alright, there are many things that I am curious about, but this stands out above the rest. If I were to bring an asteroid of a similar size to the ring up to the speed that ring is currently moving, the magical field around it would be enormous. Yet even as this ring draws closer and closer I sense no magic. The area the ring occupies is as devoid of magic as the space around it. How is it moving and how does it continue to slow down?
Celestia's great horn lit up, she reached out with her senses and focused on the ring as it flew through space. Luna was right, the ring was completely without magic.
"Maybe it moves by other means?"
"Perhaps, but what besides magic could be powerful enough to move it at such great speed?" Luna asked. "All the theoretical methods of space flight that I have read about used either magic, or rockets, or some combination of both, and no rocket could be as efficient as magical propulsion. Not to mention, we can see the ring right now. There are no rockets visible."
"I do not know. Perhaps it is some technology we have yet to discover, or even dream of. Or perhaps it is using a magical means that is undetectable to even us."
The two sisters sat together and kept watch over the ring for some time. Eventually Celestia bid Luna good night and decided to get some sleep.
The next day the ponies met up again. There wasn't much left to do in preparation for the arrival of the ring. Celestia had already written the start of the public announcement, but she was waiting for more information before she could complete it. Luna decided to get some rest since she had been awake for days. Twilight took Spike and the girls on a tour of Canterlot. Shining Armor visited some old friends in the guard with Cadance.
#####
Canterlot may have been the capitol of Equestria, but Manehattan was the nation's commercial center. With almost 4 million ponies living within the city limits, it was by a large margin, Equestria's most populous city.
Swift Wing stared out the window of the train. This was his first time to the big city and he had never seen so many ponies in his life. He had no idea how he was supposed to find Arctic Skies.
"So, have any of you been here before?" he asked.
Crystal Star raised her hoof. "I have, I lived in the suburbs for a few years before joining the guard."
"I take it you know your way around?"
"Yes sir, or well I did, it's been a while."
Swift Wing gave the address given to him to Crystal Star.
"Do you know where this is?"
"I think so sir."
"Good, then you're on point."
The train pulled into the station and the group of guards disembarked. Crystal Star led the group as best she could. They left the station at a fast trot and hopped on a trolley to take them across town.
"Ok, I know it's in this neighborhood, but I don't know exactly where."
The squad spent the next 30 minutes searching without success. Finally, after getting directions from a local police pony, they were able to find Arctic Skies' home. The four guards trotted up to his door and knocked.
"Just a minute!" they heard somepony say from inside the house.
The door opened and they caught sight of an elderly unicorn. The swirling colors of his aurora borealis cutie mark stood out against his pure white coat. Only A few strands of hair still matched the vibrant blue of his eyes, the rest of the color in his mane and tail having long since dulled with age. There was a slight chip on the end of his horn, unusual since such injuries were easy to treat in this day and age. He matched the description provided by Celestia perfectly, but it was always prudent to verify identity. Swift Wing coughed to get the pony's attention.
"Good morning, are you Arctic Skies?" Swift Wing asked.
"I am, may I ask who you are?"
"My name is Swift Wing, my squad and I are here on orders to escort you to Canterlot."
"Canterlot? Who are these orders from?"
"Princess Celestia herself, she asked me to give you this," Swift Wing said, pulling a letter from his saddlebags and giving it to Arctic Skies. "It is for your eyes only."
Arctic Skies opened the letter and read it silently to himself.
"Hello Arctic Skies, it has been a long time since we last talked. I apologize for the abruptness of my request, but I find myself in need of your knowledge and expertise. I have sent an escort of guards to accompany you on your journey. The matter is quite urgent, but also sensitive. Of the group you travel with, only Swift Wing has knowledge of the matter. I ask that you keep the content of this letter confidential until I decide to go public with it.
Four nights ago Luna discovered an object of unknown origin at the edge of the solar system. This object appears to be a course to, or close to Equus. It will reach the planet on Tuesday, which should be the day you receive this letter, sometime in the early afternoon.
Neither Luna nor I have ever sensed any object before quite like this one. It moves with great speed across the heavens, yet it's course changes as it approaches. A mystery like this warranted further investigation, and so we kept it under careful study. We can now confirm that it is, in fact, slowing down. Luna devised a spell to give us a visual image of the object. It appears to be a great ring, 7 miles in diameter. It is clearly artificial in nature, and moves through space by no apparent magical or technological means.
Please join us in Canterlot as quickly as possible, so we can discuss this further,
- Princess Celestia"
"Is this a joke?"
Swift Wing hadn't seen the contents of the letter, but he could guess.
"No sir," he said.
Arctic Skies lit his horn and the letter caught on fire, seconds later, it was nothing but ash.
"Give me an hour to pack some things and I'll be ready to go."
Commander Viettar was less than pleased. Of all the ships Central Command could have sent, it had to be the Jassarie. First off, it was a Ravager class. That bucket of bolts has been obsolete 150 years ago. Secondly, this particular ship was run by the most pompous ass in the fleet, Captain Thrux.
"Yes Captain, I am aware you have been waiting for 24 hours, but the gateship just now has sent the full report. We haven't had the time to process it yet, nor to put together a plan of entry. We don't even have a language translation yet, the gate barely sent enough data to start a translation matrix. Regulations state that there will be no ship will enter a system until preparations are complete. I know you outrank me, but as the commander of this system I have the final say in matters of gate travel. I will not permit passage of your ship until protocol has been followed."
"We shall see about that Commander Viettar."
The communication ended without warning. Viettar stood up and started pacing back and forth across his office. He pulled up the report from the gateship.
Summary of System 29537:
Star:
• 1 Class G star
Planets:
• 4 gas giants
• 1 ice giant
• 8 rocky planets
• Major asteroid belt detected, high in raw materials.
• 1 planet is capable of supporting life.
• 1 planet has a indigenous population
• Class III Civilization
• System recommendation: Unknown
The report from the gateship was confusing. The ship had reported back a class 3 civilization. That meant pre-space travel and no detectable nuclear power.
Long range scans showed at least 100 million life forms on the plant. This could easily solve the workforce problems this section of the Empire was suffering from. With a habitable planet he could move his command post from the beat-up old station it currently resided on to planet side. However there was missing information.
Oddly, the report had given an unknown status for the system recommendation. There was only supposed to be three possible selections. Absorption, avoid, or ignore. In addition the system map was completely missing from the report. The section that it was supposed to be in was completely blank. They had only a count and basic information on the planets.
At first the he suspected a problem with the gateships sensors. Many of the gateships had been built hundreds of years ago. They were quite outdated at this point. None of his techs however, could figure out what kind of malfunction could occur that would allow the gateship to detect planetary bodies, but not create a system map. The best they could think of was some unknown bug in the mapping code. The same thing went for the system recommendation. They were trying to dig up the revision of the software that had been installed on the ship, but it was written over 250 years ago, making it difficult to retrieve.
They didn't even have a map of the planet the ring was orbiting. Without it, the Jassarie was going to have to map the planet when it arrived. Normally he'd send a mapping probe there were none in the system and Thrux was refusing to wait. He didn't know how Thrux was going to plan an absorption incursion properly without one.
Based on the transmissions, the planet had at least 3 different languages in common use, but cross referencing this with the life scans showed that those languages were being used by entirely different species. This would be the first time a planet was discovered multiple forms of intelligent life.
Viettar looked at the clock. The gateship was scheduled to arrive in 2 hours. He had that long to go through the rest of the report and figure out what to do with Thrux.