In the distant future, a probe arrives in the skies above Equestria after a journey of five thousand years.

Once discovered, a mare's voice tells of a lost colony on the galaxy's edge, and begs for rescue before speaking these mysterious last words: "I am sorry... I hope this was enough..."

Submitted for the Science Fiction Contest #3, 2024.

Cover by OutterBozak.

(This story is sci-fi, and somewhat different to regular FIM stories.)
Aneki's world was small. It was spherical, and it only took a day to gallop from one side to the other. She had been taught nothing existed outside the sphere, but she wasn't so sure about that. Perhaps her world was a bottle, a container in which ponies had fled to live. A time would come when she gained the opportunity to investigate these things first hoof, if she lived that long.

XCOM Record: Operation: Rising Star
11:52 am, 18th Febuary, 2016
Northwestern Territories, Canada.

Summary: Witness reports contact with extra-terrestrial creature. X-ray is unconcious and unresponsive. X-ray does not match description of previously observed species.

Response: Strike-One dispatched on high alert, orders are to recover X-ray alive. Alien Containment prepared for the new arrival.

***

The war ended. They were beaten back, their mothership destroyed, their command structure in ruins. Lost ships and soldiers continued in vain, but thanks to XCOM, humanity won, and the world was saved. The Volunteer saw to that - everything changed because of one man.

And then suddenly, everything changed again. Only this time, it's not a man's doing - it's a mare's.

Proofreading by the aweome Setokaiva, entirely without me asking!
Tagged Dark and rated Teen: Gore, because there is going to be some blood shed by the end of this.

This story is a sequel to The Diamond Dog's Guide to Engineering

Part of the Observations Universe!

Everyone knows her as Daring Do, the Adventuring Mare of Mystery, but when the revolving doors of her various nemesis' ambitions seems to stop, she suddenly finds herself with far too much time on her hooves.

Through an anonymous source curiously identifying themselves as Daring Do's Number One Fan, she receives a set of coordinates that seem to point to nowhere. Taking her chances on what could either be a trap, a dead-end, or one of the greatest discoveries in her field, Daring must come to terms with the fact that even she, an expert in the field of ancient history, might not know where to draw the lines between myth and legend on this adventure.

Leaving home meant losing many of Orson's old friends, separated by time and distance. But they weren't willing to give up one thing: their old tabletop game. After trying and rejecting each of the online tools for roleplaying games, they stumbled on a novel solution: Equestria Online.

The game was unlike everything else on the market, an entire procedural generated world ran by a mysterious curator artificial intelligence. But Orson and the others didn't care about any of that--they just needed somewhere with a game table and some dice. The AI happily obliged, and soon they transitioned all their games to E.O. Equestria Online had its own host of benefits, bringing the GM's images to realistic life before their eyes, and even letting them visit and interact with the characters between sessions.

That was only the beginning...

A Friendship is Optimal story. I suggest any readers who are unfamiliar with that universe read the Original first, or FiO: Futile Resistance before reading this one. None of my other optimalverse stories are required to understand this one.

Written as a Patreon reward for Sparktail, though we stole the idea from Silver Wing.

Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail, cover by Zutcha.

Updates weekly on Wednesdays.

One day, over a plate of burgers, the Doctor and Derpy became very interesting to a lecture group of 4th dimensional beings.

Note: A bunch of nonsense I've come up with after looking at the picture used as the cover art. I don't even know which reincarnation the Doctor is in this story.

Cover art is by askclockwisewhooves on Tumblr. Not sure though, I found the picture on google images in the first place.

I had come from Hooflyn to visit Apple Bloom because my cousin had written me about her cutie mark nightmare. Though my golden scissor could cut only one thing, my special talent called in to question everything; whether I was adopted, if I was an Earth pony, if I was willing to take responsibility for the life of the strangers around me. It made my life a waking nightmare. I wanted to talk to Apple Bloom so I could decide whether to keep my cutie mark… or remove it.

Tagged SF for the exploration of a particularly awesome trope.

In a futuristic Equestria where cybernetic implants are as common as jewelry, Celestia sends her student Twilight Sparkle to locate her five missing research aides during an outbreak of strange pony behavior in Ponyville. As Twilight tracks down the missing aides, it soon becomes apparent that a larger threat is behind their vanishing, and it seems that Ponyville is just the beginning. Can she stop this ancient evil from plunging Equestria into chaos? A crossover with the Mega Man series.

Many thanks to ChromeMyriad for being an awesome reviewer and helping me improve the fic's quality.

An MLP/Warhammer 40K Crossover

The Iron Warriors 38th Company has landed in Equestria, entrenching themselves like a barbed hook. They hunt the aliens of the Tau Empire, intent on destruction and pillage.
A small squad is dispatched on a reconnaissance mission, only to find that there is intelligent life on this world besides the feuding space-farers.
Will these improbably adorable and friendly equine aliens turn the damned warriors of Chaos from their blood-soaked path, cleansing them of their dark legacy with the magic of friendship and harmony?

No.
No, that isn't happening.
EXPLOSIONS!!

(Dark humor warning; limited grimdark themes)
(Cover art by Nicholas Kay)
(This series now has its own TVtropes page!)
(This story is a contestant in the Tournament of Canterlot, a charity event to raise money for Syrian refugees! Go here for details and donations!)
(Featured on Equestria Daily 8/20/15 )

A Gellar Field malfunction casts 800 Pre-Heresy Word Bearers into the immaterium just after the Fall of Monarchia.
When they return 10,000 years later, they are forever changed.
Gone are the fanatical worshipers of the Emperor, for in their place stand not the heralds of Chaos, but the Heretics of Harmony.