Chapter 1
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
~ Arthur C. Clarke, “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination”
“Twilight, darling, you absolutely must try this punch!”
“Dashie! How's the party? Isn't it great or what?”
“Um...like I was saying...I was thinking maybe about trying modeling again...”
“Yeah, I guess. But right now my wings are feeling a bit cramped, and it's totally perfect flying weather out there tonight.”
“You okay, sugarcube? You're kinda starin' off into space...”
“Eh, she's fine.”
“I hope you've been getting enough sleep. It's not good for a girl's health, you know?”
Aside from the busy lights of Pinkie's party, it was a perfect night for stargazing. For a moment, Twilight Sparkle indulged, and the conversation of her friends around her faded into a buzzing white noise that went in one ear and out the other. The stars were calling to her, and this perfect cloudless night revealed a shimmering, infinite sea of stars stretching across the black velvet sky. This rare lunar eclipse meant the stars shined more brightly than she had ever remembered.
Twilight sighed wistfully. It was a sad thing to miss, but her friends had been planning this event for weeks now, and she couldn't bear disappointing them. She gradually returned to the hum of the party, fending off inquiries from friends close and otherwise about her health. It was a little embarrassing staring off into space like that, but sometimes she couldn't help herself.
Rainbow Dash was more persistent though. She offered Twilight a cup of the bubble-gum pink punch that Pinkie had made as she made doubly sure that the budding alicorn was really okay.
“Yes, Dash, I'm really fine. I was just taking a moment to do a little stargazing,” she sighed. At least the punch was pretty good.
“Well, if you say so...I know a garden party isn't the most exciting thing in the world, but you're usually in your element in these sorts of things,” Dash said with a hint of suspicion in her voice. A cool breeze then blew over them, just enough to tousle manes and mess with more delicate decorations. “Besides, doesn't this weather just make you itch with excitement, make you wanna stretch those wings and fly?”
Twilight shrugged wordlessly. In truth, her new wings didn't quite feel “real” yet...they were an add on to a body she'd long grown accustomed to, and the additional limbs hadn't seen much use yet. Maybe that would always be the gulf between her and her athletic close friend. She just wasn't born to fly, let alone go where angels fear to tread like Rainbow Dash.
Pushing aerodynamic limits was where Dash was most at home, and her senses and life were finely honed for that. It was what brought her the most enjoyment in her life, and naturally she wanted to share that rush of ecstasy and sense of limitless freedom with her friends.
Twilight wanted to tell Dash that she'd never be able to share in that feeling. Flying was not the wind beneath Twilight's wings, and probably never would be. But the thought of saying it just seemed too heartlessly cruel...especially after seeing the great joy on Dash's face when she first boldly proclaimed that they were going to be wingponies from this day on, and that she'd teach the fledgling alicorn everything there was to know about the glory that was flight.
Dash wanted a companion to share in that rush of pushing the envelope so badly it hurt. Lightning Dust could have been that person...but her rashness and callous disregard for others had made that impossible. Twilight would have to crush that dream eventually...but not now.
If the tables were turned, and Dash had suddenly sprout a horn and gained access to the wondrous power of unicorn magic, the outcome would have been just the same in reverse.
“So what do you think about when you stare off all googly-eyed at the stars?”
Twilight shifted awkwardly. “Just what kind of a question is that?”
“Come on, I know you too well. It must be pretty important to distract you from a Pinkie party.”
“Eh, not really. I mostly just admire the beauty, and look for familiar constellations. Occasionally a shooting star.”
Dash hovered up over her for a better view. “Do you really think that stars are like they said in school...other suns just like our own?”
“Most likely. With how far away they must be and yet we can still see them shine, they'd have to be that bright.”
“That's actually kinda cool. You think maybe that there are ponies like us, living on planets like ours?”
“It's a possibility.”
One of the stars on the horizon was twinkling brighter than usual. It was also getting brighter, and shifting ever so slightly.
“Twilight, is it just me, or is that one getting bigger?” Dash pointed at the anomalous star with the outstretched lead feather of her wing.
By the time Dash had finished her sentence, it was already the largest and brightest object in the night sky, visibly glowing an orange hue. But still it grew larger and brighter, and little flecks of light could be seen streaming off the central light.
A slow rising dread filled Twilight...that shooting star was shooting straight for them. All she could manage was a little “Eeep!” as the object streaked towards them.
“Hey, that thing's going straight for us!” Dash shouted.
The throngs of people began looking up at the shooting star. A small panic rose as the fireball dipped towards Ponyville. Tables and chairs were tipped over, spilling beverages and snacks across the grass. It was but a moment before the giant fireball was almost on top of them, and in that flash Twilight thought desperately for something to do...anything to forestall this calamity. But what...it was too huge and moving too fast. All that she could really do was get ready to cash in her chips.
But just as suddenly, the fireball's course changed. It leveled off abruptly, and banked to its left. It practically clipped the tree tops as it roared over head, and a tremendous booming noise, like thunder, followed in its wake, fading into a deafening roar. For the briefest fraction of a second, as Twilight cowered helplessly behind an overturned table, Twilight thought she could see a smooth, silvery skin beneath the flames and smoke. Then came another great crash, and the earth shook like a jello mold.
The last she'd remembered, Diziet Sma had gone to bed several hours ago, slipping into the soothing embrace of the anti-grav bed in her quarters, drifting off to sleep alone this time. She was aboard the Culture General Contact Unit It Belongs In a Museum as it slipped through four dimensional hyperspace at forty thousand times the speed of light. The self-aware starship and her skeleton complement were on yet another rendezvous course, ferrying Sma and her companion drone from point A to point B. Just another routine mission for the diplomatic/scientific corps that was Contact.
Well, somewhere along the line the “routine” part had been chucked out the airlock. Sma had landed awkwardly on the deck of her quarters. Her well honed instincts had her awake and alert instantly, scanning her surroundings for a clue to the trouble.
As she pushed her nude body up from the hard deck of her utilitarian quarters, the first thought that had occurred to her was that someone had shut off her anti-grav bed...whether for revenge for a petty slight or a slightly painful prank. But as her lithe,body tumbled off the deck through the air, her long red hair floating in her face, she quickly abandoned that hypothesis. The artificial gravity aboard the ship had gone offline, leaving her to cartwheel through the darkness amidst a few of her scattered nick-knacks. She smacked up against the wall next at a not inconsiderable speed.
That...that just didn't make any sense.
“Ship!” she cried out.
The ship didn't answer. That wasn't a good sign.
Her training quickly took over...training for what to do in the event of some systems failure left a ship careening out of control. She just didn't expect to ever have to use it on board a Culture vessel. Even in combat, at the technological level of the Culture generally it was only a few nanoseconds that separated a ship from being totally fine and being totally annihilated and reduced to stardust.
She braced her body in the archway leading to her bathroom, and held on for dear life.
The emergency lights in her quarters flickered on, revealing her personal effects careening through the room, bouncing off walls and occasionally smashing into her. Her drone companion, Skaffen-Amtiskaw, rolled, tumbled and cork-screwed into the room. Its characteristic aura field, the choice tool of sapient Culture AIs for non-verbal communication with organics, was off-line as well. “Dizzy! Are you alright?!” it cried. It tried, and failed, to avoid collision with the bulkhead.
“What about you! If I didn't know better I'd think you were drunk.”
A particularly sharp tumble of the GCU It Belongs In a Museum strained Sma's grip on the bulkhead. But her athletic body held on, even as Skaffen-Amtiskaw crashed into her chest.
“Whatever is affecting the ship is affecting my systems too. No anti-grav, no fields, no effectors...I'm left with a piddling little fan for movement and station keeping.” The drone was not amused in the slightest.
“I can't raise the Ship...what's going on?”
“It has been out of contact since the warp drives began to fail sixty-seven seconds ago. From there, its systems have been progressively failing, and if I had to hazard a guess, we've been violently shunted out of hyperspace.”
She waited for a tense moment as it sank in. For all she knew, the superhuman AI Mind that was the ship's heart and soul was dead. The possibilities were hard to contemplate. Short of a superior computer intelligence cracking the It Belongs In a Museum's systems and taking over...there wasn't anything she could think of that could cause this.
“If the Ship is dead...we need to make it a module before whatever it is that caused this moves on to eliminating us.”
A feminine synthesized voice reverberated through the room. “That won't be necessary, Diziet Sma.”
“Ship! What's going on?”
The It Belongs In a Museum hissed, “I wish I knew. All systems were functioning at optimal levels until this GCU entered what I can only describe as a topographical defect in space-time. I would have collected more data to theorize, but crossing the event horizon resulted in catastrophic systems failure, the cause of which I am not certain. The warp drive began to fail, and the ship was rapidly shunted out of hyperspace. All related systems experienced catastrophic failure, including my own core systems.”
A knot formed in Diziet Sma's stomach. “So we're lost and dead in space...”
The Ship's disembodied voice sighed. “That would be an accurate assessment. I had mere nanoseconds to transfer my mind-state to secondary systems before I was cut off from hyperspace totally, killing me. I was unable to react while the emergency routines convered my mind-state to function at the greatly reduced capacity available to me. As a result of this lobotomy, I am functioning at a fraction of my normal abilities.”
“This just keeps getting better,” snarked the helpless drone cradled in Sma's arms.
Under normal conditions, a Culture Mind like It Belongs In a Museum would spend its existence totally in hyperspace, taking advantage of the physics of four spatial dimensions to dramatically improve its computational abilities by orders of magnitude. Left in this state, a Mind would be a shadow of its former self.
“Well, we're all having a near-death experience right now, what is our course of action. I assume we're cut off from the Grid as well?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“Correct. The ship's force fields are down, and the structural integrity has been compromised. The unplanned re-entry into realspace is the source of the tumbling, which has been exacerbated by the venting of atmosphere from multiple decks. I am currently attempting to restore secondary power, as well as determine our location. Gravity drive is damaged, presumed non-functional...”
“Why don't you make this simple, and just tell me what still works?!” interrupted Sma.
“As far as I can tell, the life-support systems, lights and toilets are still functioning.”
“Well, that's appropriate, Dizzy,” droned Skaffen-Amtiskaw, “We are currently, as that Earther phrase you seemed fond of during your Contact mission there goes, 'up Shit Creek without a paddle'.”
“I've restored some real-space sensors...though I can't believe the readings I'm getting,” the Ship said in disbelief.
“That's great...how long before you can do something about this spin?” Sma asked. Sure enough, her grip slipped, and she tumbled into her desk.
“I'll have minimal gravity drive power back in seventy-eight seconds. Unfortunately, if the sensors are functioning at all, we'll be beginning atmospheric re-entry eighteen seconds prior. Diziet Sma, please don your gelfield suit, it should still be functional.”
She was almost too shocked to react. It took a bit of effort, but she located the neat little ball that was the suit. Upon interfacing with her neural lace, the gel flowed over her body, covering her in a second skin to protect her from anything from heat to impacts to the hard vacuum of space. In the seconds that it took to don the suit, what the Ship had said still didn't make any more sense. The odds of dropping out of hyperspace randomly within the gravitational sphere of influence of a planet were so astronomically low that she had doubts that they were even calculable. Space is, after all, mostly empty space.
“Your neural lace is still functioning...good...I've managed to get my avatar functioning as well. I am unable to do the normal scans of this planet, so we are likely going to need to have as many eyes on the ground. From what little information I've managed to glean, there appears to be some sort of civilization on this planet, but that isn't what troubles me.”
“Your endless exposition continues to fascinate me,” Sma replied, rolling her eyes.
“You asked to know what was going on. I was merely honoring that request. Atmospheric interface in five seconds, please brace yourself.”
The Ship didn't need to ask twice. Diziet Sma was already clinging to the bulkhead, the gelfield suit adhering her to the exotic materials of the hull like a barnacle. The ship soon began to flex ever so slightly as the atmospheric pressure and heating increased.”
“Sma...this is important. I cannot make sense of this, but even after multiple redundant system checks, the outcome is the same. The orbital mechanics of this system are completely fucked.”
“That is uncharacteristically vulgar of you, Ship.”
“There isn't any other way to express finding out that this system's star orbits around a body that can only be described as a planet, and not the other way around.”
“What the hell are you saying...”
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Oh my holy god yes.
Okay, I noticed a couple of typos, but I'm on my tablet so I can't point them out at the moment. Suffice to say they didn't distract from the story, which is off to a bloody good start let me tell you.
I was a little wary of anyone being able to pull this off, but this is excellent. You've got the voices of both sides down perfectly. Hope to see more.
Here I was thinking the title was just coincidence or inspired.
Interesting. Very interesting indeed. I will be following this.
Good show author, please continue.
you have my interest please continue
You have my attention, even if I'm a bit wary of anyone being able to pull this off well.
This is certainly new, so I will take a look at it having a fair deal of knowledge about the Cultures series, but in that description, Calling Equestria and the Culture Utopas? Haha, no. The Culture likes to think of themselves as one, but they aren't, and Equestria tries, but fails, to be one.
You have my attention.
I believe you're missing a 'put' there.
Also, I see a lot of things 'beginning to happen' when them just 'happening' would do just as fine. It's a pet peeve of mine.
Looks interesting, nice opening chapter.
I am liking this so far.
Other than that "on" that should be either "put on" or "don", my only complaint is your occasionally tactless descriptions. For instance, you state Sma is nude, that her body is lithe and (again) nude, and that her body is athletic. Yet you give no real context nor relevance for these blunt descriptions. Other than that, looking forward to more.
Finally! A Culture crossover!
RIP Iain M. Banks, he made space opera mean something again among an ocean of grungy cyberpunk.
upon relising this was a culture crossover, my life just got better,
will read now.
Yep. Yes. Yeah.
I'm following this fucker.
Let's see what you got, boyo!
~Skeeter the Lurker
The title's appropriate. I hadn't even heard of the Culture until now. Definitely going to have to look into it.
In the meantime, I look forward to more.
Not bad, this looks like it could be very interesting.
Could use some minor editing, but definitely interesting.
Very promising opening! A few niggling errors here and there, but overall this was good. I can't wait to see Rainbow Dash and Skaffen-Amtiskaw interacting.
i20.photobucket.com/albums/b217/strangething/ponies/lyra-mother-of-god-right.jpg
THUMBS
IT NEEDS MORE THUMBS
UPWARD AND ONWARD
This.
All of this.
More!
ps. I love the Culture novels and this looks like it's going to be a fun ride!
All of my likes! Now I need... moar!
A few minor wording issues aside, this is so awesome.
1. Tiny colourful talking horses
2. Experimental lady with a "healthy appetite"
3. All the sarcasm in the universe given the form of a drone
4. ????
5. PROFIT
Author. You sir, are made of win.
Uh oh, now you've done it... Now you're going to have to not-disappoint a lot of readers eagerly anticipating each chapter. I'm not sure whether you're brave, foolish, or some combination of the two to attempt this.
The fans will eat you alive! 
Seriously though, I saw the title and realized instantly my "list of favorite things that don't have a pony crossover" was now shorter. That phrase (and the mind-stretching explanation of it) were one of the more awesome things I took away from the Culture series. I do think you've set yourself up for quite a challenge here, but so far, it looks like you got a good start, and I can't wait to see what you do with it.
A Culture/Pony crossover? Almost makes me want to break my rule of not reading fics until they're finished... ngh... severely tempted.
What the heck; rules are meant to be broken.
(sorry Twilight)
eagerly looking forward to more
Hmm, never heard of Culture, personally, but it seems interesting. I'll keep an eye on this.
Culture and ponies? Oh my god yes. I have been waiting for this since forever.
This is awesome and I'm eagerly awaiting more.
Lovely!
However, there is a huge problem so far. A lack of :"Chapter 2" Pls fix as soon as possible.
What I know of The Culture I know from spacebattles, particularly their Culture meets 40k. Culture figures out how to set up a stable population of chaos worshippers, puts the Orks into a combat sim where they can kill, die, and respawn to their hearts content...
Looking forward to this.
whoop.
So, call me interested. First chapter in and you've established a character arc, introduced the newcomers, and a cliffhanger from multiple sides while hinting at future conflict. This is gonna be something.
Culture ship names.
I always love the reactions of space fairing civilization's to the equestrian system...
Are they really two rival versions though? I mean, lets be fair here, Equestria is just a friendly place in what amounts to a death world. A utopia is the last thing I'd call it, but if you must call it one, the Culture wouldn't so much be a *rival* utopia, so much as a more mature one. More like a modern super computer compared to the worlds first computer, and not so much like AMD vs Intel.
6921725
Meh, Equestria isn't really a death world, especially if you compare it to Earth. Most of the really dangerous creatures seem to avoid civilization and only inhabit places like the Everfree. The weather is manually controlled for the most part, so drought and flood are non-issues. Apparently Equestria was able to go along without major incident for a thousand years before Nightmare Moon, Discord, Sombra, and Tirek all appeared in quick succession, which can definitely be qualified as an anomalous occurrence that shouldn't be considered the norm. It's a downright pleasant place if you think about, and don't live in Ponyville.