21 hours before arrival at Equestria
The discovery that Fluttershy's cutie mark let her understand the alien's speech had two near-immediate consequences. The first of these consequences took place on the bridge.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Twilight tapped her pointer(1) against the ground. “As you are most likely aware, we have recently discovered that neither of our groups knows all that much about the other. In order to reduce this gap, I have decided to present a lecture on the basics of Equestrian life-forms and natural magic. In this endeavour, I am aided by five assistants -” Twilight's pointer spun around to point at the assistants one by one - “Sweetie Belle, the unicorn; Rarity, Sweetie's sister and another unicorn; Scootaloo, the pegasus; Apple Bloom, the earth pony; and Spike, the dragon.”
This last one caused a brief muttering amongst the assembled aliens.
“Is something the matter?” asked Twilight.
“Are dragons a sentient species?” asked one of the aliens. A human, Twilight suspected, though the different alien species proved very hard to tell apart with any surety.
“Yes.” said Twilight.
“Your homeworld hosts two sentient species?” asked another of the aliens.
“No.” said Twilight. The alien looked confused, so Twilight clarified. “My homeworld hosts at least fifteen different known sentient species, of which ponies are only one.”
That caused a bit of a commotion in the room.
Twilight rapped her pointer against the floor. “People! Please remain calm. I'm sure that you have a lot more questions, but there is a fair amount of material to go through, and if we're going to get through it all I will have to ask you to hold any further questions until the end.”
The group quieted down.
“Now, the first item on my list is a brief overview of the magical and physical differences between the three pony races. For this part of the lecture, I would like to ask Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle to remain at the front; Rarity and Spike, take a seat for the moment, your part will come later.”
Twilight took a deep breath. “We shall start with the pegasus. A pegasus pony is most easily identified by their wings, and their magic centres around flight and the manipulation of weather...”
* * *
The other consequence of the discovery that Fluttershy could understand the aliens was that she joined Var-aQ's training class.
Not as a pupil – her reaction to Var'aQ so much as giving her a fierce look was to immediately run away and hide – but rather as a translator.
Results were mixed.
“He, um, he says that he's going to start teaching you about battlefield taunts now.” Fluttershy quietly told the other three ponies.
Var'aQ yelled something.
“He, um, he says the point of a battlefield taunt is to distract and demoralise an opponent. For example...”
Var'aQ spent a good ten minutes yelling in Rainbow Dash's face.
“Oh dear.” said Fluttershy, blushing. “I'm not repeating that.”
“Then how in tarnation are we supposed t'learn?” asked Applejack.
“Oh, I couldn't.” said Fluttershy. “It was very rude. Besides, it's not true. I've met Rainbow's mother, so I know.”
* * *
“...and that's the basics of unicorn magic.” said Twilight. She was gratified to notice that several members of her audience appeared to be taking notes. “Now, we move on to the subject of cutie marks. Rarity, Spike, if you would step up to the front for a moment, please? Now, a pony is not born with a cutie mark; you will notice that these three fillies do not have theirs yet. A cutie mark appears, as a manifestation of natural magic, when a pony finds out for themselves what their special talent is; these three fillies are at approximately the right age to obtain their marks, which they may do any day now.”
Twilight spun her pointer around and pointed it at Rarity's hindquarters. “Over here, you can see Rarity's cutie mark - a design of three diamonds, symbolising her ability to find and bring out the beauty in almost anything. As a side effect, she is also able to cast a spell that can locate gemstones in the nearby area; as gemstones are nothing more than the physical manifestation of the idea of beauty.”
Several of the aliens looked confused at that remark, and several raised their paws.
“Questions at the end, please.” said Twilight, firmly. “Write them down for the moment(2), I may answer them during the course of the lecture. Now, while a cutie mark always represents one major talent, or destiny, it may incorporate a number of minor talents which help the pony to achieve that destiny. Rarity's gem-finding spell, for example, helps her to gather the materials which she needs in order to manufacture her clothing. Fluttershy's cutie mark represents her talent at looking after all sorts of animals; and, in order to help her to do that, it permits her to understand the language of any sort of creature. My own cutie mark –” Twilight's pointer spun about and pointed at her own hindquarters – “represents my affinity with magic; it allows me to use a far wider selection of spells than most unicorns, and both gives me greater reserves of magic and helps me to recover those reserves more quickly.”
Twilight paused for a breath. “There are a very wide variety of cutie marks in Equestria; however, some designs are more common than others. But the design is only a part of the cutie mark – two ponies with cutie marks that are visually indistinguishable may yet have completely different interpretations of what the mark means, and therefore completely different special talents. It is theorised that the visual appearance of the cutie mark is defined by the subconscious mind of the pony at the time when the mark is obtained; that is to say, the cutie mark takes the shape of whatever it is that that pony thinks would be the best depiction of their special talent. For reasons as yet unknown, it often, but not always, takes the form of three similar objects; as shown, for example, by Rarity's triple diamond mark.”
Twilight's pointer spun around to point at the baby dragon. “Spike, here, is not a pony, and he thus does not have and can never obtain his own cutie mark. However, this does not mean that he is unable to access magic; dragon magic is simply different from pony magic. It centres around fire-breathing, physical strength, and the acquisition of a 'hoard', or a collection of valuable items...”
(1) A long stick made out of, apparently, diamond. Sunek had managed to get it out of one of the replicators for her.
(2) She couldn't help but notice that Sunek had been doing so from the start of the lecture, and was already starting on his second notebook.
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He, well, he was a main character in the first half of the story...
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4680228
yay!
I'm glad you're enjoying it.
So the Stare doesn't work on Klingons? Good to know.
WHOA!
He's a Vulcan, it's not like he could just accept 'Magic' and not try to explain it away
So many good laughs out of this chapter, MOAR!
I want to hear Sunek's questions!
That is a very good distraction. It lasted ten minutes and required an interpreter. That's roughly a fifth of the length and number of plot required characters in an episode. And it didn't even work.
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"It is all done by perfectly reasonable scientifically explained phenomena, like telepathic and otherwise tele- powers, cosmically powered transhuman intelligences, and the giant space wedgie of the week!"
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I guess if he's not a main character anymore and became unimportant after Twilight and Co. got to the ship, then that's that.
Can't say I'm not disappointed, though. I'll get over it.
Haha, listen to me. I'm trying so hard not to be that person that whines that Spike is overlooked, even in stories where he would not fit in or has no reason to be there, that I'm balking at complaining that he was overlooked and given no resolution to his conflict (being kidnapped) in a story where he does fit in, and is already there and was important before. Especially since all the other named characters (unless I'm forgetting some, the changeling had something right?) had some form resolution, even if only in the form of a fluffy scene afterward.
But, honestly, if you just forgot him before and he's not going to be important in the story anymore then that's what it is now.
Biggest chuckle was this gem:
Now, the Borg wish to assimilate Pinkie because they managed to extract from every ones memories that she apparently has short range precience? That, is a really impressive piece of survival memory editing on everyones part on what they have seen Pinkie actually do.
Have we seen the Borg in any episode go up against someone, apart from Q, who breaks the 4th wall, as in lives in simulation, literary space?
Theoretically there are a couple of ways Borg and Pinkie can go. they eject the Cube contaminated by her from the collective and cause its singularity drive to self destruct. They become the ultimate mortal based Gods, then have total reality destroying war with the Q continuum. They find out that applying Pinkies n dimentional fractal stochastic logic to their own, causes a catalytic, catastrophe cascade, causing the collective to centrally collapse.
Recursive feedback can be a real beach.
So, are they going to get back to the planet, only to have those two Borg cubes show up? Cos I want to know what they can adapt to when faced with a rainbow phased X Class Flare, cos Im sure the Borg can track them over a few days travel.
I wonder how Celestia beat them last time, and what their thoughts will be when faced with Celestia, Luna, and the Nightmare beam, apart from playing them off against each other.?
About variable frequency phasers. Apparently you can get current digital tech that supposed to be highly resistant to even quantum processing, less than 4096 bit RSA? equivalent?
Pity Maud wouldnt be around. How did you get rid of that nasty Borg person? A rock. I threw it.
The pony shapes the mark, not the other way around. This matches my headcanon flawlessly, which is always nice to see. (Not that I don't like other interpretations. It's just nice to get affirmation.)
I'm sure the Q&A session will be quite a sight to see.
Also, Var'aQ continues to be the funniest character in the story since Pinkie Pie.
Hmm... Actually, where is Pinkie? She never showed up this chapter. Is she just off in the background, or should I be worried?
...Yeah, I'm going to be worried, though I'm not sure for whom.
Looking forward to more.
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"Silly borg. You didn't assimilate me. I assimilated you."
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Not necessarily. Fluttershy only ever seems able to use the Stare when her friends are being threatened; and, no matter how fierce Var'aQ may look, he's training her friends, not threatening them.
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He's not going to have time to ask all of them before the ship reaches Equestria.
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Exactly!
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No, you have a very good point and a relevant criticism. What you are pointing out is a problem with the story, and I should go back and fix it.
I suspect that the only way to do so at this point is to go back and edit in the scene where Twilight first meets Spike after their rescue. I don't like going back and editing after having published, but I think in this case I'm going to have to.
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The Borg can't adapt to being clobbered with a handy star, and they know it. That is why, despite their strong desire to assimilate the ponies, they don't launch a frontal attack on the planet.
...mind you, they will reappear in an epilogue. Just because they can't launch a frontal attack doesn't mean they can't try something sneaky.
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She's just off in the background. Being Pinkie.
As to the marks - the pony might shape the mark, but even before the pony has the mark, the mark is shaping the pony (Sweetie Belle's singing talent is a prime example).
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Hmm... The Borg could just send trillions of nano probes so as to overwhelm any defence the ponys could have.
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The trouble with the Borg using nanodrone grey goo, and the speed of take over etc, added to their Transwarp abilities, means they really shouldve taken over the entire galaxy within 30 days of the idea being proposed.
At longest.
The prolem is Shining, no matter the amplifier behind him, throwing up a planetary shield capable of filtering and stopping nanoprobes.
As for sneaky. I read the last Voyager book. but I haven seen or read any subsequent storyline, so it looks reeal bad.
Given Flim is still hearing the wispers, and Red Dawn is a psysiological metamorphic magic being, and would pass muster under most scans except possibly for changelings.
Stars are highly unmanouverable. so the idea is to put their power into a far more manouverable form, and a a side effect pop the power density up ten or so orders of magnitude.
If my maths is theoretically correct, given the right, spells, Celestia could have Absolute control over subspace, the entire volume, out to about 2 light years. Lunas reach is all the more impressive when she might just be trading power for efficincy. Like the warp cores.
As for Alicorns never finding a device that could handle their power levels, its because they are thinking within themselves, containng the power. My designs, think without themselves, and control the power. Makes for some Very intresting effects.
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I should probably do a prologue at some point...
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I haven't read the last Voyager book, so I can't take hints from there.
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Next story... Pinkie and how she back-symilates the Borg.
How to bring chaos to order.
My head hurts now.
I hope you plan to recover Red Dawn at some point. She seemed nice, for a changeling.
And Twilight is in her element.
Let's see if I can name them:
Buffalo
Changeling
Diamond Dog
Donkey
Draconequus
Dragon
Goat?
Griffon
Minotaur
Pony
Zebra
All from Season 1-2
More recently:
Breezie
Cat
Centaur
Hippo (implied)
Hippogriff
Kirin/Nirik
Reigndeer
Siren
Goat
Yak
Oh Deer.
You know, it's been a while since we've seen Dawn. She still ok?
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Dawn is not ok. She was assimilated and taken away by the Borg Probe, and so was not rescued.
You know, the next scene with them should have been Fluttershy giving Var’aQ some first aid, while reminding him to apologize to RD for what he said about her mom, and that some lines should not ever be crossed....