//------------------------------// // Nerd Stuff // Story: Painted Mirror // by Lord of Turtles //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash knocked her hoof on the door to the library. She waited around five seconds before knocking again harder. After another few seconds her face screwed up in impatience and she started rapping on the door with the speed of a woodpecker. The door swung open and Spike said “What's the ru-” His question was cut off by a rapid tapping on his skull and he shied away. Rainbow stepped back and shot him an apologetic smile with a weak blush. “Oh, sorry 'bout that Spike.” Spike rubbed his forehead and muttered. “It's fine. Nice headband.” Rainbow ran her hoof along the white band tied around her head and smiled. “Isn't it? I practically have to wear it now since Raj is training to me to kick some flank. I need to advertise that I'm nopony to mess with.” She stood up on her hind legs and punched the air, holding a pose for a moment with her eyes closed. Spike stared for a moment before clearing his throat. Rainbow fell back to all fours and said “Oh yeah, is Rajrishi around? He was supposed to meet me at the practice field but he didn't show.” He pointed a claw over his shoulder. “Yeah, he's here. In the basement with Twilight. They're doing some science.” “Neat. Is it safe to go down?” she asked. “Nope. Why do you think I'm up here?” A loud crash came from the basement and they could both hear Twilight yelling and Raj's muffled voice saying something back. “Don't say I didn't warn you.” Spike opened up the door to the basement and gestured for her to go ahead. Rainbow wavered for a moment, gulped, and slowly stepped through. As soon as she was in Spike slammed it behind her, making her jump and stumble down a few of the stairs. It smelled like the air after a lightning strike in the basement as well as hot metal like at a blacksmith's forge. She trotted down the steps a bit and looked out on the enormous single room. The whole place was lit by hanging lamps, illuminating a motley assortment of half-built machines and scribbled chalkboards. Twilight stood in front of one such wall, lightened by chalk-dust as she levitated three separate pieces of chalk to work three different equations while her eyes scanned a floating book. Rainbow came up behind her friend and tapped her on the back. “Hey, Twilight? Where's Raj? We were supposed to be training today and he didn't show up. Twilight?” She nudged her friend and still Twilight gave no sign of noticing her presence. Annoyed, Rainbow reached up with a wing and flicked her glowing horn. Twilight let out a startled little cry as her books and chalk fell to the dirt. “Gah, Rainbow! What are you doing here?” “Looking for Rajrishi. What is all this? What are you guys doing here?” she reached out to a bank of dials that had a dozen cables snaking to it. “Don't touch that!” Twilight shouted and wrapped her friend in a field of telekinesis before yanking her up. “Whoa!” Rainbow flailed at the air. “Twilight, what gives?” “Sorry, sorry.” Twilight swung her friend over to a blank section of the basement. “I don't mean to snap but these instruments are really delicate and we don't have time to fix them if they break.” “I-it's fine Twilight. It's cool.” She stands up and brushes herself off. “What is all this stuff? Is this what science looks like?” “No well, sort of. Raj and I, we're doing an experiment. A very important experiment.” “Where is Raj?” At that a tangle of cables passed through the high window near the ceiling followed by Raj's feet. “Alright, I got the RF meter wired up and it looks good.” Raj slid through the hole and fell the fifteen feet to the basement floor. “We should be able to get some good data if our window is clear.” Raj looked at Rainbow and slapped his hand against his forehead. “Holy crap I forgot about our training. I am sorry Rainbow Dash.” “It's fine dude. It looks like what you two are doing is important. Whatever it is.” “We're trying to listen to Raj's home planet, earth.” Rainbow looked at her friend blankly and cocked her head “Huh?” Twilight laughed a little. “Maybe I should start at the beginning. A few weeks ago I was talking to Raj about life on earth, getting some more material for my paper, when he mentioned a human technology, radio. I asked him to explain it and he told me that almost everything on earth revolves around manipulating radio waves.” She cocked her head. “Aren't those just the weird, sort of worthless energy that comes off of electricity and unicorn magic and stuff.” Twilight started and stopped herself. “Actually, yes. Someone was paying attention in science class. Yes, conventional wisdom posits that electromagnetic frequencies are just nuisance nuisance by-products of other reactions, like smoke from a fire. But humans use radio-waves to send information, just through the air!” Rainbow looked at Raj “Really?” “Yeah, music, mail, images, even movies are sent through the air. It's kinda sweet.” he answered back. “It's not just 'kind of sweet' Raj, it's an astounding manipulation of natural phenomena! There's nothing like that on Equestria. It's incredible!” Twilight squeaked. “Yeah, I guess it is. But that doesn't tell me what you guys are up to.” Rainbow Dash asked again. “Oh, right. Well, humans broadcast information and have been doing it for a long time. That information also gets broadcast into outer space, including towards our planet. And with the right equipment, we might be able to listen to what the humans of earth are saying, albeit on a pretty significant delay.” “Why is it delayed?” Twilight's horn lit up and she gestured her chalk towards a formula on a board. “Radio waves move at the speed of light, like teleportation. Earth is about twenty light years away from us, so any signals we received would be twenty years old by the time they got to us and degraded to the point of being just noise, but this is an important first step to forging a bond with an extraequestrial species at large!.” Her eyes glittered with excitement and her tail started twitching spasmodically. Rainbow looked leery for a moment at her excitement and said “Oookay, so that's what you guys have been doing? Building a bunch of machines to listen to Earth talk?” “Yeah.” Raj answered. “I've been handling the hardware stuff and Twilight's been handling the calculations and filling in the gaps with magic. "Gaps? Like what?" she asked. “Like the receiver, the thing that actually catches the radio-waves.” Twilight said before going on to explain “The only one we have was salvaged from Rajrishi's vehicle in the Everfree and it wasn't anywhere near sensitive enough for what we need. But with it, I was able to devise a spell that uses a sizable part of our planet's ionosphere as a receiver and moves that down to this device.” She patted the machine with the banks of dials and buttons. “But we need as little interference from the intervening atmosphere as possible to get something clear.” “We're going to have a pretty clear atmospheric window tonight, so we're rushing to finish some stuff up. That's why I forgot our training session. Sorry Dash.” Raj apologized She waved him off. “It's cool dude. This sound pretty important, so we can skip a day.” “You don't have to Rajrishi.” Said Twilight as her chalk danced over the board. “If all the components and hardware are set, all we need is to wait for tonight. I'll fine-tune some of the math, but I can do that by myself.” Raj nodded. “If you're sure Twilight, I'll be back in a few hours. Rainbow, prepare to get stomped.” “Right back at you big guy.” she said with a cocky grin. * * * Rainbow Dash's hoof flashed in and cracked against Raj's jaw. He staggered back and shook his head, hand rubbing the sore spot on his face. RD bounced back and forth on her hindlegs, grinning wide. “Gotcha that time Raj! Didn't even see it coming, didja?” Raj worked his jaw a few times before answering, “No I did not. You're getting better.” “Nah, you're just realizing how good I've always been!” She let out a quick laugh and flapped her wings, launching herself at him again. Raj threw his guard up and felt hooves rap against his forearms and hands. He gave up ground, making Rainbow over-reach. He snapped out a hand and grabbed one of her limbs on a far extension. Her eyes widened. “Oh no.” “Oh yes.” Raj shot back before hauling her back and and swinging her to the ground on her back. Air whooshed out of her and her head lolled. She came to her senses in time to see a black fist rocketing down at her. Rainbow let out a fearful squeak and flinched as Raj's limb sailed past her face and buried a good half inch into the packed dirt. Rainbow cracked an eye as his other hand came down and he flicked her on the muzzle twice. “Two for flinching.” “Oww, that hurt you jerk.” He put a hand on his hip. “As much as being dead hurts? Cause you know you're dead, right?” “Yeah, I know. Horseapples” She kicked at the ground despondently. “Thought I had that one, after the hit on your jaw.” “That's why I got you. You stick around too long when you get cocky. You stay in one place for too long and you start to telegraph. You telegraph, and you die.” “Yeah, yeah, I know.” She put on a weak pout. “Speed kills, you keep telling me.” “Cause it's true. You're crazy fast Rainbow, staying in one place doesn't make use of that. Stay mobile, like the Wonderbolts did, and you'll be crushing Nagas in no time.” That got a cocksure grin from the pegasus and she said “Looking forward to it Raj.” He nodded and took a draw from his water bottle. He looked up at the sun and measure how far it hung on the horizon.“I think we're done for the day anyway Rainbow. Good work.” She cocked her head. “You sure? I think I have a few rounds in me left.” “I'm sure. I have a few things I want to check on with the experiment. Some changes to the plugs I thought of.” “Oh, alright. I'm still not sure what all that stuff Twilight told me meant. All that science stuff just goes,” she swung her hoof over her head and made a whoosh sound. “Just, I don't follow it at all.” Raj chuckled “I'm in the same boat Rainbow. Twilight's pulling this wagon, I'm just following along and trying not to freak out.” She narrowed her eyes. “Freak out? Why would you freak out?” “Because depending on how this goes, I'll know whether going home is possible for me or not.” * * * Twilight inspected the line of runes on the circle carved into the ground, measuring each glyph and making minute changes as she went. Not a bit of energy could escape the matrix, otherwise she wouldn't be able to achieve the distance she needed to reach the sky. Raj lifted a roll of paper as thick as his torso onto the rack and injected another canister of ink into the hopper. The lack of a digital computer was something he regularly bemoaned while they were working together, but lacking the time, resources, knowledge, and capability to build a computer, he was forced to return to the analog contraption Twilight had stored in her basement. The circle done to her satisfaction, she teleported herself to his side and floated over her last minute check list. “Alright Raj, one more rundown. Ink?” “Check.” He slammed the door shut on the printing press. “Papers?” “Check.” He slammed the other door shut on the printing press. “Fire extinguisher?” “Check” He held up the red canister. “Backup fire extinguisher?” “Check.” he held up a larger red canister. “Lights?” “Check?” He clicked on the floodlights. “Spike's basket for when he falls asleep?” “Hey I'm not gonna fall asleep, I'm wide... awake...” He started to trail off into a yawn and sat on the grass blearily. Raj picked the little dragon up and set him in his tiny bed. “Check.” “All the connections?” “Check, check, and triple checked. I think we're go Twilight.” “Not yet we're not.” She teleported back to the center of her circle and looked up at the star speckled sky. “We have exactly... seven minutes until we're at optimal atmospheric conditions.” “Good. Well then, let's see what we can hear.” Raj sat heavily and leaned into the eye piece of the telescope, searching for any errant bits of cloud that they'd need to correct around and tried to ignore the sweat on his palms. A great wind whipped by and Raj startled, falling to his side. He looked up to see a flapping, blue pegasus hovering over the array. “Rainbow!” cried Twilight. “What are you doing? These instruments are very delicate.” “Sorry! Sorry, forgot.” She settled onto the ground. “I just didn't want anypony to miss this.” Raj stood up. “Anypony?” Raj looked around and saw four figures trotting up the hill. “Buh?” “Hi Raj! I brought snacks.” Pinkie reached into her mane and pulled a bowl of popcorn and a cake larger than her head out of it. Applejack cocked an eyebrow at that and asked. “Seriously sugarcube, how much do you have in there anyhow?” Pinkie shrugged and dumped half the popcorn into her mouth. Rarity, wearing a scarf and low boots to ward away the autumn chill, said “Rainbow Dash told us you were in distress over an experiment you and Twilight were performing, some experiment to listen to your planet. How if it was successful you'd be able to talk to your family on earth?” Fluttershy peeked out from behind her hair. “Oh really? She told me he'd be able to surf home on some sort of wave.” “See, now I got the impression from what she was tellin' me that thissere experiment would let him mail himself back to earth, but it would take twenty whole years.” added Applejack. “Okay, none of that is accurate, not a bit of it.” Raj deadpanned. “Details darling.” Rarity chided. “Regardless, something momentous and important relating to your stay in Equestria was occurring and we decided it was important to show you our support.” The other collected ponies nodded their assent. In her circle, Twilight smiled sweetly. “You guys didn't have to do that.” Rainbow came down and wrapped her arms around his neck form behind. “Of course we didn't, we wanted to though big guy.” Pinkie trotted up with a plate of cake bouncing on her head. “You're our friend Rajrishi.” “And friends're always there fer eachother.” Finished Applejack. Raj looked down at the little ponies arrayed before him, sighed with a smile and opened up his arms. “Alright, get in here all of you.” Pinkie squealed joyously and bounced off his chest. Raj oofed and dropped to the ground letting to the others get in and hug and nuzzle him companionably. He endured it with a reluctant smile on his face, happy for affection all the same. An egg timer rang and Raj silenced it. “One minute Twilight.” “I'm ready! Everypony stand back.” The unicorn set her hooves and started channeling into her horn. Raj sat up and put his hands on his knees. “I appreciate the support, I do really, but I think you guys are going to be disappointed. There shouldn't be much to see really.” Twilight let out a scream of effort and the runes on the ground started to boil. Her eyes burned white as motes of lavender energy drizzled off of her. Raj blinked. “The hell is-” The rest of his sentence was lost to a terrific sound as energy washed off of Twilight Sparkle in a hot wind that lit the hilltop up in a lavender fire. Grass for a dozen feet in all directions flattened as Twilight released the energy in a column of roiling power five feet thick. The beam vanished upwards and splashed off the sky in an expanding wave of purple that vanished into the horizon. Smoke drifted up lazily from the runes at Twilight's hooves as she panted tiredly. Somewhere in the distance, a dog started barking furiously. Pinkie bounced up and shouted “Woohoo! Again! Again!” “Raj, I'm getting some extra heat off the spell. Cool down these runes.” Asked Twilight. Rajrishi bolted to his feet and ran over, dusting the circle with frigid foam. The horizon lit up as the wave receded to a pinprick and beamed back down towards the circle. Twilight grunted as the energy fed into her overtaxed horn and channeled down into the circle, feeding along the lines as purple fire that led into the cables. Pulses of light danced down the wires and the presses started spraying out reams of data. Raj grabbed the paper and fed it along, trying to avoid smudging the ink. The whole thing was over in minutes, the backlog of pulses in the cables feeding in one at a time until they had hundreds of kilograms of information to sift through. As the last lines were being written, he tore the page from the press and scanned it, anxious about what he'd see. “Well Raj?” Asked Twilight as she dazedly lifted to her hooves. “What does it say?” * * * “Essentially, all this tells us that the earth is too quiet.” They were in the basement of the Golden Oak Library, boxes of paper lining the one wall. A line of equations marked the board with a big number circled. Rarity scanned the math and said politely “You're going to have to explain that darling.” “Alright, I'll try and give you the quick and dirty version. This,” he gestured at the circled number “Is the raw amount of transmission we received from Earth. Regardless of what it is, who's sending it, this is the overall RF signal strength. Signals decay over distance according to the inverse square law. If we invert that principle and stop it at the distance we know the Earth is from Equestria, we get the strength of the signal at its point of origin.” “Okay, following along so far sugarcube.” “Great. Now then, it's generally accepted that an object can only move so fast, that's what we call the speed of light. That's the speed of these radio-waves and the speed ponies teleport at. Based on the distance between them, it took twenty years for these signals to reach Equestria. Similarly, it took twenty years for me to get here from Equestria by standard teleportation.” He gestured to some lines of Twilight's math on the board. “Wouldn't you be super old then?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I don't think that's how it works, and no, I'd be forty-nine. That's not super old." Fluttershy stood up and pointed at the board “So the waves you just received would be from shortly after you left, right?” “Yes, right you are.” Fluttershy smiled “But they aren't.” Fluttershy drooped. “How do you know that?” piped up Applejack. “Like I said, the volume.” He pointed at his final number. “Back home, there was a preposterous amount of information being beamed around in the air. Cell phone signals, radio signals, internet, low band, high band, there was so much people were having trouble finding enough of the spectrum to fit their data on. And most of this information goes up to thousands of satellites that reflect those signals into space, and the vast majority of that was put in place less than two decades ago. To put it simply, this number should be much, much bigger. Hundreds of times bigger.” The ponies in the room were quiet for a moment before Rarity sat on her haunches and asked. “While that's all very interesting darling, what does it all mean precisely.” “That means a lot actually.” Started Twilight as she adjusted the icepack wrapped around her horn. “It means that something impossible brought Rajrishi here. He didn't arrive via teleportation or anything else, he came here, from a distant planet, in an instant with no travel time. Conventional magic has no explanation for what brought Rajrishi to Equestria.” Pinkie lowered her ears. “But, what could do that?” Twilight shook her head. “I have no idea. Certainly not an accident or random happenstance. Something immensely powerful and with abilities I wasn't even aware existed did this for reasons I can't even begin to fathom.” The room was quiet for a bit save Spike's gentle snoring. Raj shrugged and said "I could be wrong, I could be dead wrong. The signal could have decayed more from proximity to a stellar body, our receiver could be less effective than we thought. Hell, I suppose it's possible that a few months after I left Earth some sort of techno-apocalypse occurred and all the signal-beaming devices and satellites shut down. I don't know, but running off of the data I have available to me, I came here at instantaneous speed." "And if that's the case, then I've been wasting my time for months." Twilight laid her leg over her face. "Ugh, so much worthless work." Raj shrugged. “Ultimately, this is good news. It means that I can return to an Earth I might recognize, instead of one with decades of advancement where everyone I know is aged forty or more years. If that had been the case, I think I would have just... given up. On the idea of going home that is.” he clarified quickly. “Well thank Celestia that's not the case. I don't think I could bear to see a friend made that despondent.” Rarity said with a shudder. “Regardless, anything I can do to help you Rajrishi, all you need do is ask.” A general murmur of agreement went up among the rest with a chorus of nods. “Glad to hear it girls. Because this puts me back to square one.” “Square one's not so bad. It means you have the whole rest of the game to play.” Explained Pinkie. Raj thought about that for a moment and smiled. “I suppose it does Pinkie. I suppose it does.”