The future of harmony

by Storm Rival

Chapter 2: Science and morals.

Princess Celestia has asked me to do something very improbable, build a time machine. Sure the antics of time travel have both plagued and intrigued me for some time, however, I’m not sure that even working in conjunction with Cloudsdale’s elite scientists and the royal scientists here that we can pull this off. Sure many hands make light work, however if that work is beyond the reach of our hooves…

“Dr. Whooves.” I hear Celestia say.
“Yes, your majesty.” I replied.
“It is time to extract the elements.” she said to me.
“Understood.” I replied back to her, grabbing my crystal chipper.
The device was small and precise able to chip the littlest bit off of any crystal.
The royal guards, with a chariot attached to them awaited Princess Celestia’s orders and took off as soon as the pegasus and unicorn scientist as well as me and Celestia were aboard. They took off with both haste and precision.
The ride took about a couple of hours. The breathtaking scenery could be enough for any earth pony’s life, however, instead of looking down I looked to my side and began to converse with my cohorts.
“So, how are you chaps doing?” I ask both the Pegasus and unicorn along for the ride.
“Eh, its kinda stuffy here,” the Pegasus said in a gruff voice. “I’d love a chance to stretch my wings, but given the position i work, that chance is very hard to come by. I can’t be flying off now, especially when i get an opportunity of a lifetime, that is sitting right next to you your highness.” he said first to the group, then looking at Princess Celestia.
“Why, I’m flattered you’d give up a golden opportunity to do something you like on my behalf,” Celestia said looking at the pegasus. “Though I don’t want to hinder what you like to do.”
“You mean,” he started.
Celestia merely shook her head. And with that the Pegasus scientist opened his wings letting the high altitude air drag him back. “Wooooo Hooooo!” he yelled flying through the sky with as much skill as Rainbow Dash.
While he was flying without a care in the world, the unicorn turned and spoke to me. “I’m quite interested in the subject we’re researching as well as performing. Though, i can’t help but feel if we do this we’re going to cause more trouble than good.”
The pegasus caught up with the chariot. Cutting off what i was about to say. “My name’s Bill, though most ponies I work with call me Redbull, because of how stubborn I can be.”
“Well,” The unicorn next to me said, “if we’re introducing one another My name is Nyer.” she said
“Well, I’m Whooves, Dr. Whooves…”
“Were you named that way by your parents?” Bill asked.
“Quite frankly, I was” I replied.
We land at the edge of Everfree forest after that. I am quite frankly ready to do research on these elements.

These Shackles are too tight. I was not ready to receive my penance when Twilight had sent me to Tartarus. And now these chains are too tight, They feel like the nooses I would have put on all those ponies had I gotten my way. I wish these chains were looser, If they were I’d be back in Equestria in no less than five thousand years. Enough time to have Twilight and her ‘Friends’ dead by time, and enough time to see those two who had first imprisoned me die by my hand.
Hell hath no fury like what I’m going to have upon Equestria, and it’s precious princesses. I shall be the sole ruler of everything and there is nothing that those ponies can do about it… if only these chains were looser.
I hear Cerberus bark and growl as though he knew what I was planning. A thousand years to start biding my magic to break free, I can do this.
All of a sudden I feel my shackles loosen. Yes… Five hundred years and I shall have my revenge. Enough time to catch the princesses off guard, Have Twilight and her gone and enough time to prepare an army should my plans fail again.

Now with the smallest shards of the Elements of harmony we can determine what energies connect them. Sure Earth pony science will not be able to crack this therefore I leave this to Nyer to figure out. His expertise of Magic and science is almost unrivaled. The only few who could outmatch him would be Twilight Sparkle, whom this entire operation is for, and Starswirl the bearded. I must say I am excited for the chance to test the time machine. I can only hope though that this doesn’t end in failure.

That day Bill, Nyer and I were going to ask participants of the scientific community to test out our first prototype. This prototype was the conventional sort of time machine. Pony gets in pony goes to future pony experiences future much like, well, Back to the Future. This will be interesting.

“Hello all,” I began and Nyer took over “and thank you all for participating in these tests.”
There was chatter among those here. And then. “We don’t guarantee anything except the possibility of seeing the future”
There was once more chatter, and a few very astute ponies had left the building. Knowing what I know now I too would’ve left. They were all good ponies even that one guy who was with Twilight that day all the school ponies just had to get a picture of her. However nothing could prepare us for: “The Time field is breaking down! Its either pull them back now or have them trapped in the future.” The one decision that no pony could make. There wasn’t enough time to unplug all the time distorters and there wasn’t any way I’d leave somepony trapped in the future. Though the inevitable happened.

Nopony was prepared for what had just happened. Today in the experiment we lost three ponies to time traveling. I'm just happy that the princess didn’t know about this attempt, and wasn’t there to see the horrible failure. We were able to see the ponies we sent to the future however what we weren’t aware of was once you set hoof in the future, you can’t head back to the past unless it was the product of some magic spell that only lasts a few minutes. The same spell Twilight had used when she worried about nothing on a Tuesday.
If I can’t sent the whole pony to the future, perhaps I can send part of the consciousness to the future instead. This will take some time and research. Thanks to Tirek we know that all ponies have some form of magic. The pegasai flight, the unicorns latent magic, and the Earth pony, well I just don’t know it’ll take a while to figure out.

“Whatcha’ writing doc?” Nyer asked levitating my journal over to herself.
“Just some scientific journal Nyer."
“You should not include the part about today,” he said.
“I’m sorry Nyer, but in the pursuit of science everything must be documented. Failure or not, I plan to keep this in the journal.”
“Just know that eventually when this journal is published ponies will question all of our credibility. Do you want to be known as the doctor that had to kill for time travel?”
That last statement stung. Sure I wanted to be the one to potentially create time travel aside from the spell Starswirl created many years ago, but I didn’t want to have the title Nyer so creepily put on it as well.

Work continues as planned with the time machine, Though, this time with our secret setback we know that we must not send ponies to the future the 'conventional' way but rather another way entirely. perhaps these elements hold the key. I, for a moment, take an apple and hook it up to a wire then I hook the wire to both an element of harmony and the monitor. At first there was nothing but static, However as I wiggled the wires closer and closer to the core of the apple and to a seed I saw that the image got more clear as I saw not an apple but an apple tree.

There has been a success, however, I have only tested this on merely an inanimate object that isn't anything like a living pony. Tomorrow perhaps I'll be able to test this on a living being perhaps a lab rat. So far going to the future via spell seems to be different if you're going to the future via machine. I must continue more projects upon this matter and hope that we are not too late to complete the time machine.

"Hey, hey, there doc," I hear bill's voice behind me. "Still working on those science journals of yours?"
"You bet I am."
"Well, good job," he said. "Listen I heard about your 'success' today if you'd like to call it that in your journal."
"hmm, Yes. The next step is to test it on a live animal or being."
"which I'd like to be apart of."
There was a silence.
"I don't think-"
"I don't care."
"but you'd"
"I. Don't. Care."
"Celestia would still need us if this is yet another failed experiment."
Bill was silent.
"Listen, if I'm not in that test thing when its being tested," He started "you'll learn the meaning of my nickname."

Where am I what's happening? who am I? I feel different I no longer have my wings but what do I have? I feel my 'new' torso, and find indeed that I have no wings I feel the top of my head and find that I have instead a horn. a unicorn. I Redbull have been reincarnated as a unicorn. I look around this unicorn's home and find a lot of pictures of family and such. Meow. I hear from a cross the room. "Cat! I'm allergic to cats." I yell
"No, I'm not." I hear another pony's voice say to me.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Well, mind pony, if you don't mind me asking, who're you first? I mean you did intrude my mind."
Was... Was that the truth? Am I in somepony's mind in the future? "W-what year is it?" I ask.
"Geez one thing at a time mind pony what's your name?"
"Bill," I say.
"Well, Bill, My name's Jaxx, and as far as the year its 2516."
five hundred years in the future... My mind is in the clouds as Jaxx continues with his evening. I hear a knock at the door, and hear my future say "who is it?"
I only heard half of the name "Sugar..." the view faded out, I saw nothing but black.

"Bill, Bill?" I hear a voice talking to me.
"Whasoinhnere."I murmur incoherently
"What's going on here?" I say more coherently.
"What happened is that I saw that you were in somepony's house and all I heard was their voice and yours." Doctor Whooves said.
"Huh..."
"And I can say that it worked."
"Ha! I knew it!" I said excitedly
"Though one of the side affects of this seem to be that the subject remains unconscious for about a few minutes to an hour."
"I was out for an hour?"
"Yep," Dr. Whooves said to me. "I was quite worried about you chap that you'd succumbed to well... The inevitable."
"Well, Thanks for worrying about me buddy, but I know now this thing goes five hundred years into the future.
"Five hundred?"
"Did I stutter?"
"No, No you didn't." he replied.
"Good." I said slapping him on the back.

Bill did something today that puts science to a dead halt and starts making it something more along the lines of fillies with explosive fireworks. Sure what 'Redbull' and I did today was indeed a success, though I fear what would've happened had it gone horribly wrong. I fear to think that time travel could be an instrument of death, however I am relieved that it is instead a temporary jump to the future and nothing more. I am interested in seeing if this could be in some way a temporary jump to the past, However I must do tests to see what I can do to strengthen the response time of the pony getting out of the machine.

"So," after about a year's work on the machine. "Are you sure its ready for Princess Celestia to test?" I ask Bill and Nyer.
"Doctor Whooves," Bill said. "I'd say after being sent in that machine more times than I'd like to have been, its ready."
"After testing it this past year, I'd say a Royalty visit is best." Nyer said.
With the past year we have finally completed the time machine. With this we've figured out that it takes at least a day for a pony to completely recover from the side affects of it. The time machine also takes about three days to recharge the element that slightly corresponds to you. Reading once that Celestia and Luna had both wielded the elements of harmony together, I'm anticipating that Twilight and her friends will be able to use the machine sometime this coming week.
Her Rainbow mane flows as she enters the room, She cordially greets us as she passes by. Bill Nyer and I head to our stations to prepare the machine for her departure to the future.With the past year we have finally completed the time machine. With this we've figured out that it takes at least a day for a pony to completely recover from the side affects of it. The time machine also takes about three days to recharge the element that slightly corresponds to you. Reading once that Celestia and Luna had both wielded the elements of harmony together, I'm anticipating that Twilight and her friends will be able to use the machine sometime this coming week.
Her rainbow mane flows as she enters the room, She cordially greets us as she passes by. Bill Nyer and I head to our stations to prepare the machine for her departure to the future.
As we do so, the machine sparks and sputters. The elements of harmony, that were used to power the device, completely shatter and Celestia's Rainbow like flowing mane slowly change to a burning hot white as both on the screen and in here we some reminisce of the sun. The dial that showed we were only 500 years in the future spiked and showed that this was more than three thousand years into the future. Celestia living that long or less. That is indescribable, aside from temporary immortality as it seems to their subjects. Would Flurry Heart also be able to live that long? and what about Twilight? as for now there are more pressing things to worry about.
Bill and Nyer are working on the power supply as I work to remove the head brace from Celestia's burning mane. the fire singes my fur just a bit as I get close to the mane however, her mane slowly returns back to its original state; Flowing rainbow like. She gets up from the machine and simply asks: "Why's it so hot in here?"
All of us laugh as we prepare the play back of what just happened. Celestia stared wide eyed at what she had just witnessed on the tapes.