My Little Borg

by rogermw

CHAPTER TWELVE

Canterlot's main reception hall was packed to the rafters. So many ponies ... so many colors.

Twilight had been right about the earth ponies being better builders. Within an hour of being underway toward home, Applejack had studied the engineering diagrams they'd brought with them and come up with a way to reinforce the warp core. Twenty minutes later, HMS Rescue made a smoother transition to warp two than they'd ever thought possible. By the time they made atmospheric re-entry and landed on Equestria, various earth ponies had concocted procedures to remove the nanoprobes from their blood and divest every piece of Borg hardware from their bodies.

Some Borg implants, though, couldn't come off. There was no magic or science that could regrow a lost limb or a lost eye. Twilight's left leg and left eye were still artificial, and looked ... different against the natural lavender of her fur. The Borg transceiver was still stuck to the right side of her head, too, but that was ... voluntary. She wanted to be able to track the Borg should they ever decide to call her bluff. At least, that's what she told herself. In truth, instant access to the biggest library in the unverse was too tempting to resist. You might even say that resistance would be ... futile.

In fact, a few of the earth ponies had elected to do the same.

But contact with the collective had grown slower and more sporadic as the cube distanced itself from Equestria. The transceiver's range was incredible, but it wasn't infinite. Twilight, and a handful of the earth ponies who still had their transceivers, had spent their time scouring this mental library for technologies that had nothing to do with starship construction, and copying down every important scrap of data they could find. Who knew what the potential of any of the Borg's inventions might be, five or ten years down the line?

And now, less than two days after they'd landed, she stood proudly on the same dais she'd been on so long ago. The last time she'd been here, Princess Celestia had ceremonially commended her and her five closest friends for overcoming Discord. The throng facing her today beamed with a gratitude even greater than she'd seen on their faces back then. She looked up into the eyes of her princess expectantly.

"Mares and gentlestallions, fillies and gentlecolts," Celestia addressed the crowd, "We are gathered here today in appreciation of perhaps the greatest act of heroism Equestria has ever seen. Twilight Sparkle," she turned slightly to keep both Twilight and the crowd in view, "You've been my student for several years. I've watched you grow and mature, and I always knew a great destiny was in store for you. But I had no idea just how great you would become. I watched you shoulder the greatest burden I have ever seen anypony take on. I watched you take the reins of leadership, and turn Equestria's darkest hour into its finest. It's no exaggeration to say that two-thirds of the ponies standing here today owe their lives and freedom to you. And thus, it is my great privilege to bestow upon you the highest award any Equestrian can receive: the Canterlot Medal of Honor!"

The princess levitated a blue ribbon around Twilight's neck, from which dangled a metal disc bearing the Canterlot coat of arms and the simple Latin word VIRTUTE.

The crowd erupted into thunderous applause, stomping their hooves like it was going out of style. Cheers rose up that threatened to drown out even their applauding hoofbeats. Then, jumping up and down in place, Pinkie Pie called out, "Speech! Speech!" Then Applejack joined her: "Speech!" Then Rainbow Dash: "Speech!" And soon, the noise of the cheers had given way to a wall of sound echoing "Speech!"

Twilight blushed, and made ready to speak. The crowd noise spontaneously died away, accompanied by the occasional "Shhh!" to let her be heard. She cleared her throat. "I've never been more proud to be a unicorn than I am today. Two weeks ago, if you'd told me that unicorns who'd never picked up a hammer in their lives could build a working space ship, I would have said you were crazy. Every unicorn in this room, and nearly all of those who aren't, stepped up to an impossible challenge, and every one of you came through. We built something nopony had ever built before. We risked our lives by stepping on board an untested vehicle filled with high explosives, then hurtled ourselves through an airless void at an implacable foe. And we did it," she pointed at a throng of earth ponies and pegasus ponies in the audience, "Because our friends were worth saving."

"But, I'm afraid our job isn't over yet. We have only glimpsed the tiniest sliver of the true extent of the Borg. This one cube chose to leave us alone, but there is no guarantee they won't be back. We need vigilance. We need to build a network of orbiting sensor platforms that can cover every corner of the sky, to search for warp signatures and give us early warning should the Borg return. We need to take all this new technology that we've only just begun to grasp, and hone it into tools that will give us every edge against the Borg we can get. I'm not asking for another big push, like we undertook to get the HMS Rescue into space. I'm asking for a long term plan, for us to integrate this technological development into our daily lives. For us to become the same kind of high-tech species the Borg are, without becoming the Borg ourselves. This is not a plan for a week, or a month, or even a year, but for decades. Perhaps centuries. Your children and your grandchildren are going to inherit a world vastly different from the one we grew up in. We need to make sure that that world is a better one. A world in which we can all sleep soundly in the knowledge that the Borg can't abduct us in the middle of the night. Today, in this room, we celebrate our triumph. Tomorrow, let's start building that new world."

She stepped down, and there was more applause. The crowd began to break up into little groups as royal caterers started filtering among them with hors d'oeuvres. Princess Celestia fell into step beside her and said, "Let's go mingle." She lowered her voice. "That speech was a bit of a downer, don't you think?"

Twilight shrugged. "It had to be said. I didn't think I was going to get another opportunity to address so many ponies at once."

Celestia smiled. "Given what I've seen out of you the past week, I think you might be pleasantly surprised. You're a natural leader."

Twilight looked down as the two of them made their way across the room. "I don't know if that's a good thing, or bad."

"Twilight!" Rarity came trotting up to her. "I must see this new medal of yours up close!" She stared at it, and her smile vanished. "Why, it's so plain! It's just a bronze disc stamped with one word and a single design. No gemstones, no scrollwork, no shimmering aura of magical light. It hardly seems worthy of your accomplishments!"

"For once, I agree with Rarity," Applejack said, joining them. "You'd think Equestria's highest award would at least have a couple o' rhinestones on it."

"The medal of honor isn't jewelry," Celestia explained. "What it represents needs no fancy decoration. Only a few ponies in history have ever been awarded this medal. Its design stretches back to a time before even I was born."

Rarity gasped. "But you're over a thousand —"

"That's right," the princess said. "Canterlot has some truly ancient traditions."

Twilight piped in, "The only way Celestia could have honored me any more than this would have been to make me a princess." She snorted. "Can you imagine that? Being turned into a princess by some sort of magic spell? Hah! Princess is a title of royalty. The only ways to be a princess are to be born a princess, or to marry a prince. You can't just grant someone princesshood like you were handing out a promotion!"

Princess Celestia looked away uncomfortably.

"So," Applejack changed the subject, "What're y'all plannin' to do with that gigantic space ship you've got parked outside Canterlot?"

"We could use it to learn from our mistakes," Twilight offered. "It's a prototype, built by unicorns. I'm still impressed it could fly at all. It's got working sensors, working control panels, a working structural integrity field, and working artificial gravity. Any one of those technologies probably has a thousand uses we haven't thought of yet. And ... well ... who's to say we won't decide to build more starships?"

Applejack balked. "What on Equestria for?"

"Well, there's a great big universe out there. We can't explore it with magic, but we can explore it with warp drive. Maybe we'll get lucky, and one of the nearby star systems will have a planet with that mysterious 'dilithium' stuff on it. Then instead of exploring at ten times the speed of light, we can explore at a thousand. We might even decide we want to build a whole exploration fleet to systematically observe all our stellar neighbors up close. We could call it ... star fleet!"

Applejack and Rarity stared at her, then glanced at each other.

"Okay, you're right," Twilight said, "That's a stupid name."

"Besides HMS Rescue," Celestia said, "We've also got an enormous fusion reactor that we built to supply the ship with antimatter fuel. Now that the mission is over, what are we going to do with such a large power plant?"

Twilight furrowed her one remaining natural eyebrow in thought. She thought of the challenges Equestria faced in its immediate future. Rebuilding Ponyville. Caring for and harvesting crops that have gone unattended for over a week. Building this new technological infrastructure. It seemed like more burden than blessing. Then she thought of all the various and sundry automated machines she'd seen Borg plans for, some of which could perform the labor of a dozen ponies and all of which required outside energy to run. She envisioned armies of automated tractors plowing fields and reaping crops. She envisioned motorized trucks hauling lumber instead of pony-drawn carts. She thought of all the ponies could do when freed from back-breaking drudgery, and the answer was clear.

"Simple," she said. "We use the power plant to uplift the world."

THE END

Comments

[Relevant Heavy Metal]

Computer God - Black Sabbath

[Eagle]

[GMZ_Casper]

Good story, short, but still good. There are a few errors, a few I might not have picked up on, but not that much. Good job. Kinda expect Twilight to apologized to Celestia for that outburst, though, even if many of her points seems logical and correct.

I'll PM you my C&Cs I made.

[Darth Wedgius]

You might not get as many views as you'd hope, just from the subject (it seems to me that Star Trek crossovers aren't super popular here) but I think that for the subject it was well done. I certainly enjoyed it.

[Abbgy]

The sequel should have them meet the U.S.S Enterprise(from TNG)and have the crew mistake them for Borg.

EDIT: Twilight piped in, "The only way Celestia could have honored me any more than this would have been to make me a princess." She snorted. "Can you imagine that? Being turned into a princess by some sort of magic spell? Hah! Princess is a title of royalty. The only ways to be a princess are to be born a princess, or to marry a prince. You can't just grant someone princesshood like you were handing out a promotion!"

Can she be an alicorn in the sequel?

[rogermw]

Although the story is finished, and I'm satisfied with the ending, I've toyed off-and-on with the idea of adding two more sentences to the end of this story:

"Twenty years later, Equestria was admitted to the United Federation of Planets.
Ten years after that, they became its leaders."

[Starlight_Tinker]

Ah, that was good Compact, eloquent and very entertaining. Well done

Being Scottish myself (and a trekkie), I couldn't help but laugh at this:

"Cap'n!" speaker 2 blared. "The engine is overloadin'! It canna take much more o' this!"
Twilight puzzled. "Why are you speaking with a Scottish accent?"
"I don't know," speaker 2 answered. "I just ... it seemed ..."

[rogermw]

3006683

The Nexus? But the only thing that'll change it's course is ...

Of course!

"Quick, Princess Celestia, put out the sun!"

[Marked of Luna]

I applaud you for the great story

This quote...

You might even say that resistance would be ... futile.

made me think of this

[Marked of Luna]

3024107 good to see you got the reference

[Cosmalone]

Great story, i read it 3 times because of its awesomeness

[rogermw]

3768379 In "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2", we are shown an incubation chamber aboard the Borg cube, which contains a baby Borg. Every indication in the episode is that this baby was produced from among the cube's population. So, at least some Borg ARE born.

[Dolphy Blue Drake]

3772540 I recently checked Memory Alpha (the canon Star Trek wiki), and it turns out that the Borg can't reproduce. That infant was also assimilated. The Borg simply put assimilated juveniles in maturation chambers to speed up growth and only release them after they become adults. Ones below a certain age are incubated like that infant was, until they're deemed old enough to be linked to the Collective and placed in maturation chambers. The Borg can only add to their numbers through assimilation, which actually helps explain why the combined populations of eight Delta Quadrant Borg planets only totaled 4,000,621 drones (the eight planets destroyed by Species 8472 in Scorpion Part II). The planets in Borg space had been assimilated centuries ago, and if they had been capable of increasing their numbers through procreation, wouldn't each planet have at least a couple billion, instead of several hundred thousand each?

TL;DR: The Borg actually can't procreate.

Even so, great story. Liked and faved.

[Dolphy Blue Drake]

2804037 Personally, I prefer this clip:

[Slslslfkfjgnngjf]

2859699 That would make for a good sequel

[rogermw]

5796174 I suppose I could allow for the arguments you present -- except none of them were so much as mentioned in the canon. (The closest we get is when Celestia says "I knew it was you [Twilight] who had the magic inside you to defeat her [Nightmare Moon]".)

It appears you have some strong emotional ties with a particular interpretation of Celestia, in much the same way that I have strong emotional ties with a particular interpretation of Twilight Sparkle. I'm sorry that our disagreements about this one character makes the rest of my story unpalatable to you.

[Ryvaken]

5802487 Actually, it is addressed in canon. Twilight's ascension and the season four climax both follow the same pattern. In all three instances, the magic from the Tree of Harmony reacts to independent actions, aligned with its virtues, that are taken for the sake of the actions themselves. We only saw the Elements used without that emotional context once, against Discord, and please note how spectacularly they failed.

This is logical analysis, not emotional ties. For your assertions regarding Celestia's lack of plan to hold up, you pretty much have to assume that she is an incompetent idiot that didn't bother coming up with a better plan despite having a good thousand years to work on the problem. That assumption doesn't work with Equestria's governmental or social structure.

Celestia is and has been the sole ruler of Equestria for a thousand years. Incompetent idiot dictators have this tendency to get beheaded after a couple decades, tops. They also tend to create pretty miserable places to live for the peasants and lower classes, such as farmers, bakers, and civil servants. Except Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash actually have pretty good lives, as does almost everypony else. Logical contradiction -- one of these assumptions is in error.

If we assume Equestria is not under Celestia's sole authority, you suddenly fall into a rather convoluted morass of what the government structure does, in fact, look like. This is a possibility you could explore, but you have no support from canon in doing so. And even then, you would need to explain the masquerade of Celestia as sovereign that is in canon.
As a side note, it is also possible to assume that Equestria is a mismanaged dystopia under Celestia's incompetent rule and Ponyville, Canterlot, and most everywhere else we see is the elite, privileged few. Do I even need to explain why this possibility should be dismissed instantly?

If we assume Celestia is not incompetent, then you have to assume that her plan had reasons for being as shaky as it was. And in this, you actually do have support from canon, as I pointed out. We have a further tidbit in S4E2, where the Tree of Harmony bore Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark before Celestia and Luna ever took the Elements from it. By S1E23, the same cutie mark Twilight earned when the Princess first met her and decided to take her as an apprentice. But I'm sure that's a coincidence and has nothing to do with why Celestia chose to put her faith in a young mare. Yes I'm being sarcastic!

You almost have a story here, but you derail it repeatedly to soapbox your headcanon. Each time you do so, you introduce logical failures, like this. Those failures are what devalue your story so badly, not any emotional ties or whatever.

[rogermw]

I just realized -- this story has the same basic plot as Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. (The movie, not the TV series.)

[DiscountDiscord]

An impressive story in my opinion. Tense, with some moments of enjoyable humor.
I was kind of expecting it to end with maybe an epilogue of Starfleet coming to visit.
After all, Equestria is warp capable now.
One thing that nags at me is that Borg typically are self-repairing, so the part that Twilight burned out might have been able to repair itself, especially once she was within range of the Collective. I'm just nit-picking though. I'm not enough of a Trekkie to make a comprehensive argument for or against it.
Regardless of my criticism, I liked this story.

[rogermw]

7431285 That's an angle I hadn't considered. The Borg do pride themselves on their ability to self-repair, and although I don't recall ever seeing an individual Borg Drone's hardware repair itself, it seems reasonable that the Borg nanites that are part-and-parcel of the Assimilation process would be able to repair damaged drone hardware. I was operating under the notion that Borg adaptability was just a matter of tweaking those parameters that COULD be tweaked, e.g. personal shield frequencies when exposed to hand-phaser fire.

[DiscountDiscord]

7433719 I think there were a few moments of self-repair like that in the Star Trek: Voyager series, where "reformed" Borg, Seven of Nine, manages to succumb to certain Borg command signals that retake control of her implants.
Overall though, much of Star Trek lore does seem to come down to fan interpretations.
Magic being an effective anathema to Borg tech and their sense of order does make a certain kind of sense, though. So it's not unreasonable to assume that a proper spell could disrupt Borg tech completely.
Kind of makes me wonder... If Borg fear/dislike magic because it's too chaotic... meeting Discord would probably make the Collective collectively sh*t themselves in fear.

[tinmanbrony]

sequel please

[Jamin P Rose]

It may have been 5 and a half years since this story was written, but it is an amazing piece of work. I found it to be just what I needed to make me smile. So thank you author, for sharing your wonderful creation.