Okay! Let’s quickly set up the scenario: A world of ponies is unaware of your presence.

You have a ship that can orbit the planet and land and take off under its own power (so no shuttle or special landing pads needed), but you don’t have Star Trek “Beaming” technology and you can’t “download” a language into a living being (so, you’re just one step better than our current level of tech in that you don’t need a freaking shuttle to escape a planet’s gravity.)

They haven’t spotted you yet, so the first move is yours. How do you initiate first contact?

Land and meet face to face?

Set up a durable tamper-proof computer with Rosetta Stone and give the ponies a chance to learn about us before making any other moves?

Leave gifts or do favors to show you’re friendly?

Something else?

....Also, who do you prefer to contact? Simple sensible Civilians or Ponies in positions of power? I await your delicious answers, fellow non-bastard brony brothers!

1879785
WAZZUP!?

Land in open, clearly visible field, near a settlement, but not to close. Make sure the landing zone is safe as well. Wait a few days, perhaps a week for the ponies to register your existence and become semi used to the giant spaceship that dropped from the sky.

After a few days, and establishing that it is safe to exit. Open main airlock and exit the ship slowly. Find a nearby group and kneel in front of them, holding out trinkets and such to show that you are peaceful, you must remember that they would be far more scared of you than you are of them.

1879785
Assuming I can scan the planet and determine that they're stuck in the 1300's, technologically?

I land my ship in the palace garden and show off as much as possible without explaining any of it beyond "No, it isn't magic."

Oooooooohhhh...thoughtful topic posts. I like you.

How I would attempt first contact is very different than actually making contact. For me, it would be making amends with the mayor of Ponyville and establishing political ties with the rulers of the land. Or something, I don't quite understand political gibberish.

What I might actually do is stumble into Fluttershy's house, freak out, and knock her out cold with a chair. That's just me, I guess.

I would land in Cantlerlot and wait outside the ship for someone to come close and then try to make contact.

1879785

If you make the assumption that you can spot them but they can't spot you (which could be a huge mistake), observe for as long as you can. Our current imaging technology probably isn't quite good enough, but it's the future, so hey...

I would try to determine who the rulers and important people are. I would then plan to land in an uninhabited place. I would have the sole person in the landing craft be as un-threatening as possible--older is better, probably.

I'd want him or her to be wearing as little clothing as possible, in the case of the ponies--maybe even nude. Thus, no concealed weapons. A backpack of simple books, illustrated books, and drawings of humanity, how we got to their planet, etc. I would give it all to them as a gesture of goodwill, and I would expect my volunteer to willingly submit to search and arrest. Hopefully, the powers-that-be would eventually be notified, and peaceful contact would go forth from there.

If they killed the messenger, I'd try again somewhere else. Same plan.

1879785
If my ship is longer than a kilometer, then I buzz Canterlot while dropping fliers for a human/pony meat and greet barbecue.

If my vessel has anti asteroid weapons, I carve "Hi we should be friends" into the moon.

If neither I shall release presents in the forms anti-gravity cotton candy with chocolate milk dispensers in them. This is guaranteed to win at least one pony over.

That or I land close to town with light set up in the manner of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and then see how long it takes them to realize they're just playing Simon Sez.

....It's just occurred to me that I'm not the best person for first encounter scenarios.

Also who the hell contacts civilians instead of those in power? The princesses are the ones you're going to have to meet anyway and they're the ones who can quell any chance at panics too.

1879925 Pretty sure the ponies aren't fans of the Xbrick.

I would send a type of probe in first. It would search for intelligent life and upon finding it, relay a video with easy to understand visuals of our planet and humans. After the video a sort of countdown will initiate on the screen. I'm sure the locals would make the connection that something is going to happen when the counter ends. This way they get a heads up I'm about to land on their front lawn and they'll already have the right people that need to be there waiting.

Kidnap their virgins as a show of power.

Remember!

If you contact ponies in high places… the truth of your contact attempts might be hidden or you might be used as a scape goat for politicians to gather more power for themselves and excuse their own malfeasance. Is this okay with you or can you plan around this? And if saying "Hi" to world leaders is your plan, would you even mind if the public never learned about you?

Picking ponies positively lacking political pull… this might lead to those ponies and their families harassed by their government to keep quiet. Can you live with that or do you have a way of protecting them?

As you can probably see, my opinion on government is fairly low. It feels like I've been spamming comments that just sweat negativity in great profusion these past few days. Sorry 'bout that. I'm sure I'll un-pucker my butthole as Halloween gets closer.

Say sup then punch Pinkie in the face when she throws a welcome party and surprises me.

I'd say something along the lines of maybe taking a small entourage to Canterlot, even if you said no shuttles I say too bad, and have them play classical music with peaceful images of Earth on a holographic projector.

Such things would be like a mail boy on his bike tossing newspapers to people in a suburban town, some people having fun at a park, a small business receiving new supplies with the owner having friendly banter with the lorry driver. Such and such.

Why classical you might say? Well simple really; the songs I have in mind don't have lyrics so no worries of them not understanding stuff and classical is gernerally seen as calming. (Even for people who say it's boring and makes them fall asleep; if that's the case it's obviously so calming it made you relax to sleep. )

Find an open area. Drop a rosetta stone large enough to be noticed. Wait 1 month. Drop another, as well as 2 human 'artifacts' in the area. Wait 1 month. Land in the area.

1879785
Make an entrance so great that it changes their religion

1; Land well away from any hot pink residents. This is crucial.
2; Land in a nice open field near a settlement.
3. Wait for ponies to initiate contact. For this, stand well away from spaceship to make them less wary.
4. Disregard step 8.
5. When the delegation approaches, stay sitting so your increased height does not intimidate them. Give them trinkets as gestures of good faith.
6. Wait till the eventual visit from the sun god and protegee.
7. Communicate telepathically with ponies.
8. Fire all guns at Canterlot without the Princess to defend it. Because nanites.
9. Learn their language(Possibly under tutelage of purple demigod?)
10. Finish writing the HiE story.
11. ???
12. Profit
13. Hasbro copyright enforcement.

1879785

I land in the middle of a very public Canterlot square where everypony can see me and, like any good classic alien first contact, I come out, raise my arms, and say, "Greets ponylings! I come in pieces! Take me to your lizard."

First I would spend quite a bit of time observing to be sure of who I was talking to and pretty sure that they won't just try and kill me. In the process I would also identify a suitably important-looking inhabited area to announce myself.

Ideally, if my ship can hover for extended periods of time, I would drop into the atmosphere and park myself in the air over an uninhabited patch of ground but within clear sight of and some distance from said inhabited area. I would wait there while the ponies reacted. Only once I was sure they were done freaking out and wanted to communicate would I land and invite myself out to meet them.

The goal would be an open exchange of information and I would gladly share who and what I was, where I came from, and pretty much anything that they wanted to know but I feel wouldn't be harmful to either side. More sensitive topics would be reserved for after relations had been established and I felt those in charge were ready/needed to know.

What 1879835 said.

>>>Meanwhile, in the evil mirror universe>>>

Seriously? Imperial doctrine states that you demand immediate surrender of all their cities.

They will either subject themselves before or after planetary bombardment.

The choice is theirs.

1879785
Send in some probes to observe them from afar. Make sure they are hidden from pony eyes - no need to reveal your presence yet. Determine their level of technology and how likely they would react in a hostile manner to humans.

If deemed peaceful enough, send in another probe, but let ponies see it this time around. Use it to test their reactions. If the probe returns safely, send in some more. Use the probes to slowly introduce ponies to the notion of humans. Project images or sounds, if possible.

Finally, after a couple trials, land in an open field near a small town. A low population for first contact will allow ponies to see you face-to-face and contact their leadership for you, while also lowering the danger should things turn bad.

Once the leadership comes, show that you mean peace. Act friendly. Give them small gifts. Long-term goals would be to bridge the language barrier and establish proper relations, of course.

1879785
Five rounds rapid, 25 yards. Target the primary xeno witch. The rest will scatter when she dies.

-----

I'm a fan of the "put on a show and make yourself useful but let them initiate actual contact" method. Fly across the sky from time to time. Divert disasters (flooding, out of control fires, etc). Leave it to them to try to get in actual contact with you, though. Make them meet you at least part way. It'll do them some good both technologically and culturally in addition to requiring a fair percentage of them to first want to make contact.

show our art like music,painting, sculpture, by a holographic projector. then once they get adapted to it slowly making out of the ship.

1879835
This is probably what I'd do after the ponies had learned some of my language and had a firm understanding of human body language and facial expressions. So, basically, I'm a fan of dropping off a couple of portable computers with language learning software at different locations.

1879905
I like your idea and I'd certainly like to determine who their rulers are and which cities are their capitols. But how can you and your shipmates tell who is head hancho as apposed to someone of lower political status who just happened to walk up to your craft, like members of a SWAT team?

1879785 Do it like the monkeys do, genital-genital contact.

1879785

If I have faster-than-light communications: phone home, say I found aliens, and let someone else handle it.

If it's just me and my crew and we don't have faster-than-light anything: observe. Attempt to decode their written language if possible. Deploy probes if I have them.

Once I'm confident we can perform crude communications without encountering horrible, horrible culture shock, touch down in an uninhabited area, walk up to the nearest settlement, and say hello.

If we can't ever understand or speak/write their language, take extensive notes and leave them be. Maybe future generations can make first contact, but I'm not contacting a species with which I can't communicate.

1879785 Land outside a town like Ponyville and give em the universal greeting or the old fashioned I come in peace routine.

1880775 Ah the "Intrusive probing" procedure. A classic.

1879785 If I had to make first contact, I would do it calmly. First I would take a small shuttle so as to not intimidate them with my size. Then, when the first pony approaches, I make very slow and gentle gestures to them. I would then attempt to see if we have a similar language. If so, we can chat. After getting to 'friend' status with said pony, I let them slowly introduce me to every other pony until I am welcomed by all. If this fails, then I try the method of scare everypony away, walk up to the Goddesses, and offer them my memories. There are multiple other scenarios, like the chance that In reality, they are taller than us. There is always that chance. Who knows?

1880755

. But how can you and your shipmates tell who is head hancho as apposed to someone of lower political status who just happened to walk up to your craft, like members of a SWAT team?

You can't. That's why the first guy's got to be expendable. Your best hope is that they're peaceful, and take your crew member to their leader. However, if the pony SWAT team kills him, you hope they're curious about who or what he was. You might be able to garner some more information from their reaction. If they seem fairly civilized, you can try again; if they seem overtly hostile, you might want to take a different approach, or leave them alone.

In the case of Equestria, there's any number of other sapient species; if the ponies don't work out, you could try Zebrica or maybe the Griffon homelands.

1880929

That's why the first guy's got to be expendable.

Sounds cruel, use a robot or something if you want cannon fodder.

1880978

Asimov covered the problems with that in one of his fics . . .

I'm not suggesting that you just toss a guy down there to see what happens. If your observations reveal that they're savages and will kill anything that looks different than themselves, of course you don't send an away team. That's just dumb.

When the data's been gathered, though, and your best guess is that they won't be hostile on sight, then you send the guy, knowing full well that if you're wrong, you don't want to provoke an incident, so you watch them kill him and come up with a plan B.

Is it cruel? Maybe. Still, the history of exploration is rife with examples of explorers who did their due diligence, planned a mission . . . and failed anyways. I personally think you'd have to pick from a pool of volunteers, even if you told them that they might die.

1880929
I (coal hearted as it seems) agree to sending out a disposable guy since it's better to have one guy die at the hands of some panicking locals than start a war (or more acutely, an attempt to exterminate any of our spacecraft) when we accidently create an even higher level of paranoia among the larger populous by going in guns (or tasers) blazing trying to save that same guy.

1881120 for me, if they killed the guy out of curiosity and he/we made no blatant signs of hostility, or if they kill him because they wanted to study him, I'd maim everybody in the area. not kill, maim. just to show that they did wrong by killing our doodz.

1881411

Agreed, especially in a first-contact situation where you don't know what they're capable of. Sure, you've made your best guesses, but if you try a Rambo-styled rescue of your ambassador, lose, and then discover too late that they have a way of taking your spacecraft and using it to find your home planet, you're screwed. The High Crusade by Poul Anderson covers this topic quite nicely.

1881476

Might as well pull a Western Europe on those Native Equestrians, and kill any of them that are offended you're taking their land. When they're thoroughly subjugated, you can learn from the survivors what their culture used to be like. Of course, that's presuming you can send wave after wave of your own men at them if they turn out to be tougher than they look. Remember how the Vikings colonized North America? No? That's because it didn't work out so well for them.

1881605 I'm not here to colonize. I'm here to explore. But i'm smart enough to know not to pull a Jamestown and kill everything.

I would do this as well.-> 1880790

But with the specific observations of gestures (if there are any), movement reactions (if there are any), expressions (if there are any), activity (if there are any) and relations to others between themselves.

The last one being most important as I wouldn't want to go down were they kill each other by something as simple as a difference in appearance, and this is between themselves; which is the sharing of history and language. Be a unique being with no relation to them whatsoever other than being alive and from the same universe? (This can be discussed) I would be in clear observation for longer than it takes a small baby to become a toddler, depending in how need-y I am from getting into contact, before I get any close to making any first contact.

And if I have all the information I need to establish communication (All stated above), then I would have to go as if I was a new country in the planet that none have seen. Not the story I would give, but being able to understand much about them is already a big step.

But there’s also the possibility that this raises mistrust and wariness as being able to spy on them from any given moment and have so much about them and them not so much about us will feel unfair. But then I would answer:

“Because it is so. We have much more to lose from allying ourselves to you than you to us. If we have found you in any relation to a civilization that cares only to its self-growth and in no way cooperative to have any exchange that is equal, then we have no need to communicate with each other, as just talking now has cost us, not you, much to accomplish.”

un-pucker my butthole

Tactical Insertion.

huehueheuheuhuehuehuehuehuehuehuehue

1881120 I still wouldn't order him to just go down there and be like "oh yeah, if they turn out hostile you just let them kill you, okay lad?"

Lad's reaction:

I'd have an plan ready for him to fall-back on if things go south, something as simple as "run like a mother fucker back to the shuttle and fly away" would be better than nothing.

But I would give him every advantage he could get. He'd have a non-lethal weapon; since this is sci-fi how about something like a phaser on stun or even shock rounds that can be fired from a standard pistol to leave the pony a spasming mess. And a belt full of concussion grenades.

If non-lethal weapons used in self-defence would be enough to cause an, as you put it, "incident" then just him being there would have equal "incident" levels.

Or I could even fire the ship's weapons in-between him and the ponies giving chase, making them think twice as he makes his way to the shuttle.

And if all else fails and he still dies the ponies sure as hell aren't going to get a pat on the back and be like "oh we understand." Not saying I'd start a war but I'd have the soldiers imprisoned, and spew a lot of "pleasant" words to the leader who thought it okay to kill an alien for no reason.

I don't foresee any crew just shrugging off a murder of an fellow crewmember. As the old saying goes "no man left behind."

1884720

The thing is, you're playing such a potentially high-stakes game with a potential partner you know nothing about, it's too risky to do anything offensive. Yes, there are non-lethal weapons, and they rarely kill (but a person can be killed with a tazer). If we're applying this to first contact with Equestria, you don't know how much voltage they can take without dying. You don't know where you can safely hit them with a rubber bullet to incapacitate--but not kill--them. For that matter, if they do kill him, it might be accidental; in that case, retaliation would make humans look even worse.

The guy can run; I'd be okay with that. If he shows up on the edge of town and is greeted by a mob with torches and pitchforks, he probably should run like hell.

The thing is, sometimes even a high-ranking official isn't worth fighting a war over, and an explorer should never be. Thirty years and a month ago, the Russians killed a sitting U.S. Congressman when they shot down a passenger airliner that was off course. He, and 268 other passengers and crew were killed. The U.S. did not go to war with Russia over the incident; a diplomatic solution was reached over the course of years.

I agree with the sentiment of "no man left behind," but if that man volunteers for a potential suicide mission? (because I'd want a volunteer to be the first, not a conscripted man)

1885018 I never said to go to war with them. I even said if they did kill him that I wouldn't go to war with them; just demand the soldiers who killed him to be imprisoned and yell a shit storm of fury at the leader once contact has been established.

If the death was accidental than I don't see a need for retaliation. But if they purposely murdered him for doing nothing other than coming to say hello then his death their responsibility. There shalt be yelling and cursing and a shitstorm among the horizon.

Carve symbols of geometric mathematical troops into the ground. Have probes dig up corpses so I could understand their biology. Use an AI program to determine the structure oc their language (you can't be sure they use a tree like structure similar to ours.) Determine the highest concentration of technology on the planet.
Then and only then do I make contact using probes. Direct contact only happens if I can figure out their entire language, and maybe not even then.

1879942 >human/pony meat and greet barbecue
Meat? Barbecue? Oh my

1885891
Tree like structure of our language? Do you mean nested ideas?

as in:
"I like pie" --> "I think I like pie" --> "He said 'I think I like pie'" --> "He said 'I think I like pie' to me"and so on.

Whereas the same ideas without being nested would be much longer and much more complicated sentences.

"I like pie" --> "I have a thought. I like pie" --> "I speak. I have a thought. I like pie" --> "He spoke. I speak. I have a thought. I like pie" --> He spoke. I speak. I have a thought. I like pie. I heard the speaking."

Abduct some of them to study their language and culture. Once we have a good idea of how their society works release them unharmed after having given them the date and location of our landing, so we have a decent audience when we do so. At that point we should hover above the mountain Canterlot is built in for a while, so they won't be thought of as completely crazy, until it is time to head for the predetermined landing place, probably on a nice open field near a medium-sized city.

Once we have landed and confirmed the presence of their leaders we slowly open the door, and I step out to greet them flanked by my heaviliy armed stormtroopers, all the way blasting the Imperial March from loudspeakers. Once the music has faded I shall inform them that from this moment forth this planet is under the jurisdiction of the Human Empire and they are to bow before me as a gesture of their loyalty. After that it depends on their reaction.