3: Ancient Ruins, Part 2
Twilight and Applejack returned to the central plaza as had been agreed. Few others had returned already and started a small fire to keep themselves warm. Four of them were setting up some accomidations by clearing out one of the more well preserved buildings from the snow.
Twilight was going to ask them about it before realizing that leaving that the cavern offered good protection against the elements, with addition of a building to keep in the heat, they could stay here for few days. Though she wished she had taken Spike with her when they left. At the moment she had no way to contact Celestia and she was dying to tell Princess about what they had found.
When the final pair arrived, she called them over for a debriefing
.
"So, what have we found? Me and Applejack found some sort of military outpost, with weapons and all." Twilight began, then waited for the next one to report.
"Some sort of hospital, stripped clean. Though it's size was larger than we had expected. We theorized that these creatures might have gotten sick much easier than we do."
"Several apartments, as well as some sort of vehicle depot. All of them lacking the engine, just the frames."
"A municipal office, we think. At least it looked like it."
"A library."
That caught everyone's attention. The pegasus that had said it cleared her throat.
"We found a library, lots of books. Most of them ruined beyond use, to point where they crumbled to dust when we tried to pick them. The low temperature had prevented moss from growing, but the humidity had still ruined the paper." Twilight lowered her head at this and sighed, but the pegasus continued. "We also found a sealed vault."
"A vault?" Twilight said, once again interested.
"Yes. The vault is airtight, Trickers checked it. We found no way in it, nor did we found any cave-ins."
"Which means... if anything survived, it's in that vault." Twilight concluded. "This is great news. We must study this vault and find a way in. Preferably without damaging it."
"Take it easy, sugarcube. We got time. We are supposed to return at the end of the week, right?"
"Right, better not rush and ruin this." Twilight agreed, calming herself down. "Anyone else found anything interesting?"
"No."
"Nope."
"Second verse, same as the first."
"Depends." One of the unicorns said. "I think there is a statue of these creatures in higher parts of the city. We didn't go check it, because the time it would have taken, but I think the alien was without it's suit."
"What makes you think so?" Twilight asked.
"Well, for one thing, it didn't have helmet. I saw it from behind and it seemed like the statue was wearing what seemed like clothing. No helmet, but what looked like a mane or hair."
"Interesting. We should check that one out too." Twilight said. "We should set up a camp and prepare our equipment. Old Tongue, did you write down the text already?"
"The old equestria part, yes. I still need some time to fully transcript the alien text, since I need to copy their letters fully. As you commanded, I am being extra careful."
"Good, keep working on that. This trip turned out to be more bountiful that we had hoped for. We should check the statue today and focus on that vault tomorrow." Twilight said. "Actually, let's go check that statue right away. Lead the way. Applejack, you want to stay here or come with me?"
"Ah think Ah stay here, help others to set up the camp." Applejack responded.
"Alright, see you soon."
Twilight followed the unicorn and earth pony that had found the statue. Their trip took them through several buildings and over what seemed to be a river. There was a broken down bridge over it, but due to accumulated ice and snow, it was not needed. Crossing the river, they come to a set of stairs. Twilight could see the silhouette of the statue on top of the stairs. Trio started to climb the stairs, which went slowly as the stairs were frozen.
Eventually, they arrived at the top. The statue stood in front of them. The being was fully clothed, apart from hands. On it's head, it wore a funny looking hat. It's right hand was missing. What was weird, however, that the creature seemed to be sitting on top of a very large earth pony. A pony about a size of Celestia.
"That's... disturbing." Twilight said.
"And weird. Didn't the monument speak of friendship? Or did ancient Equestria practice slavery?" The earth pony said.
"As far as I know, no. Not to mention, look at the size of that pony. Either the creatures have grown in size and this statue is bigger than it's supposed to or earth ponies used to be much bigger." Twilight said.
"Not really, all findings indicate opposite, that modern ponies are much larger than the ancient ones." The unicorn commented. "Though look at that face. It's eyes are too small for its head."
Twilight nodded at this. The pony had too small eyes for it's head. Same went for the creature riding it. It's eyes were too small compared to it's head, not to mention the fact that head was too small for it's body. The pony had reigns on it which the creatures left arm was holding. She wondered where the right arm was.
"Let's try to see if the right arm is somewhere. Maybe it's just buried under the snow?" She suggested. The trio started to dig around the statue. After a while, Twilight found the missing arm. It was extended forward and was holding a curved sword on it. "That's weird. Why is it using a sword? I mean, we found their other weapons already."
"Maybe it's for honor of some ancient hero?" The earth pony suggested. "I mean, Princesses have entire garden full of statues."
"But if it's so, then how old is their civilization? If they once had swords and abandoned them in favor of their current weapons, yet only appeared to exist for about 50 years." Twilight asked. "Something is wrong here but I can't say what. Their civilization seems too old to be have only existed for such a short time."
"Maybe this a cycling thing? Appear every 2000 years to screw things up?"
"If so, then they have seriously diminished in this time. The limited area of their operations is a sign of this." Twilight responded. "If we these are the same creatures, then why have they not appeared all over the world? Argh, this is starting to raise more questions than it answers. Still, we did find out what they look under that armor. Let's head back to the camp."
The next day Twilight, Applejack and four others went to the library. At first, Twilight thought it looked about the size of one in Manehattan... or what had been in Manehattan. However, entering it she quickly realized how wrong she had been. The library stretched downwards several levels, with huge central shaft showing how deep the library went. Several shelves has collapsed or otherwise broken down. Twilight picked one book at random, only for it to break down in piece and it's content falling out as dust.
"Looks like these books won't help us. So where is the vault?"
"Downstairs, on the lowest level. Stairs only go to third level, after that they have collapsed all the way to the fifth level." A pegasus said. "We need to fly the rest of the way or teleport."
"Better head as down as we can with the stairs first." Twilight said.
The group moved to the stairs. However, Applejack noticed two metal doors.
"What are those doors?" She asked.
"We don't know. We couldn't get them open."
"Well, let's try again." Applejack said and walked to one of the door. She gave it a good kick, but the door remained closed. "Ouch, that one is tight." She gave it another kick, with the same results. However, Twilight noticed something.
"Wait, try to push them to sides." She suggested. Applejack gave her a confused look, but tried the suggestion. After a crack of ice, the door opened, revealing a small room.
"Huh, what's this?" Applejack said stepping inside. "There are a bunch of numbered buttons here." She said. She tried to the floor, which moved. In fact, Twilight noticed that the entire room moved as Applejack at first nudged it and then jumped up and down.
Suddenly a loud groan vibrated through the building.
"APPLEJACK! GET OUT OF THERE!" Twilight shouted. Applejack jumped out of the room as the groaning grew louder, until a loud snap was heard. The room pulled downwards, pulling a thick rope with it for while before the rope too disappeared. This was soon followed by a loud crash as the room hit the ground floor.
"Ooohkay... let's not do that again." Applejack said. Twilight walked over to the now open pit and looked down. An another room was hanging little bit lower on the side. She looked up and saw the ropes holding the room, as well as the snapped rope that had been holding the room that Applejack had been in. She also saw a pulley attached to some sort of machine.
"Looks like a system to quickly move between the levels. Though I would not use it, we just saw that these things won't-" Another loud snap and the second room pummeled downstairs. "And there wen't the last one. I guess that now that the wards are broken, these buildings are no longer held together with magic and the natural deterioration is starting to take effect. Even with the wards, the natural elements must have damaged the structures badly. Would explain why most of the towers have collapsed, yet at the same time have turned into mere piles of rubble."
"In Equestria?" Applejack asked.
"The place is going to collapse soon because we broke the wards." The pony next to Applejack translated.
"Oh-kay. So how about we stop fooling around and get to work before this building collapses on top of us?" Applejack suggested, earning nods from other ponies who were now keeping eye on the roof.
The group started their walk downstairs. The stairs moved in two-part levels, traveling to half way before turning around. The stairs were surprisingly clear of ice and snow, though they were rather steep. First two levels showed minimal damage to the structure, but on the third level the group could saw that one of the supports had failed, thus causing the fourth level stairs to collapse. A quick fly and teleportation allowed the group to descent safely.
Two ponies that found the fault originally lead the group around several bookcases. There, they entered through door into what seemed like a large storage room. It had boxes, some of them open revealing more books, as well as other objects. Strange reflecting discs, too small to be Frisbees and had a hole in middle of them. Then there were more of the strange machines, once again in different levels of disrepair. Cases that contained more of the discs, some with pictures on the disc. Twilight thought that this might be area where the aliens, or should she call them now Ancients, stored objects not publicly available.
After going three more room, they entered the final room. It was empty, except for the massive steel door. In middle of it, there was a rusted round handle, clearly for opening it. Next to the door was a plaque, but the text had washed out long time ago. It didn't really matter, since Twilight and others couldn't have read the text anyway. Twilight stepped forward towards the door.
"So... Suggestions? It's mostly likely rusted shut." She said, looking at the others.
"Ah dunno. Try turning that handle?" Applejack suggested. Twilight decided to give it a try, first turning it clockwise. It didn't budge, so she tried to turn it counter-clockwise. After a short groan, the handle snapped off. Twilight was about to blame the rust, but saw that connection point was not rusted. The frozen water had expanded, creating pressure until it had cracked the connection pole. She discarded the handle.
"Well, that went about as well as you could expect. So, how do we open it?" Applejack said dryly. Twilight looked over the vault and tapped the side wall.
"Well, we could try to go through the wall I guess." She said. "I just fear that breaking something could cause the structure become unstable."
"Yeah, Ah don't like of being buried all this concrete." Applejack said. "Actually, Ah wonder, if this thing is that rusted, maybe the locks have rusted too?"
"I don't think so." Twilight said, turning to the group. "You said this was still airtight?"
"Yes." The unicorn said. Twilight turned back to the massive door and pressed her hoof against it.
"So, I don't think this will-" Her speech was cut short as the door budged inwards with a crack of ice.
"Well that was anti-climatic." Applejack commented.
"... Never mind, help me open this thing."
Together, the group pushed the door open. Luckily, despite not being locked for some reason, it was still remained sealed, to point where a warm dry air rushed out of the vault. It was a single, relatively small room, full of boxes. Twilight carefully approached one of them and opened the lid.
It was full of books. Fully intact, well preserved books.
Twilight quickly cast a basic preservation spell over the books and the box. Other began to open other boxes, only to find more books. Around 1/4th had strange discs that were too small to be vinyls in them and 2 had machine parts, picture guide and one intact machine. Same procedure was repeated again and again, until all the books had been secured. Twilight looked over the books to see what they contained.
"Looks like this vault is for preserving books. All these books look very old." She said, flipping few pages. "Looks like some sort of history book? But I don't recognize the maps."
"This one looks like it's a book about plants." Applejack said. "Diagrams and all that." Twilight nodded at this and picked a new book. It was the same as the previous and she continued to next one.
"Another history book, but little bit different." She flipped few pages and tried to understand what she was seeing.
The picture was black and white picture. It had a group of Ancients, running towards the camera. Some of them wore similar mask as they did now, except these had two large circular eyes rather than T-shaped visor as well as only one tube, Their weapons were much more longer and less stocky than what they used now. Their helmets were round and looked more like plates than helmets. One of them was missing the mask and the helmet and was in process of falling down, a hand reaching for it's throat. It's face was not visible, but it looked like it was dying.
Another picture was also black and white and this one had soldiers with similar masks, except these lacked the tubes. Their helmets also resembled the ones used today. Soldiers were lying on some sort of trench, looking at something. Two other creatures, wearing similar masks, stood by them. She couldn't say why, but for some reason she immediately thought Diamond Dogs.
She was starting to suspect that this city and it's "friendship" with locals had either been an anomaly or a clever ruse. Most of the pictures showed different kinds of soldiers, all ready to fight. Ruined cities, obvious combat vehicles... Didn't these creatures do anything else except war? Though she did notice that pictures moved from black-and-white to sepia and eventually fully colored ones. She guessed their technology was not able to produce color images right away... or the world didn't always have colors. Which sounded stupid to her.
However, it seemed they did have great leaders. One picture showed a great number of Ancients, all without helmets or masks, standing around one Ancient. It's hand was raised in a greeting. Others were returning the greeting, some with expression that made Twilight think of joy. One could not get such respect, if one were not a great and wise leader. She put the book down and closed the lid of the box.
"Okay, let's get these out of here. I want them somewhere safe." Twilight said. "That machine and it's parts first,
since it's unique among the items. Then few of those discs, then books and then rest of discs. Take them to top floor right away, near the exit. Just in case things go wrong."
Group nodded and carried first boxes out. Twilight took a parchment of paper and began to write down what they carried out and what was still in the vault. After the machine parts were out, she marked four disc boxes to be carried out. That left another 4 in. However, she wanted some of the books out too.
The building had started to groan and she noticed small cracks around the vault door. She was not sure if they had been around when they had come, but she didn't trust them. She had initially assumed that Ancients had build things to last... but it seemed like only reason the place was standing was that magic had preserved it. As groanign sound started sound louder, she started to fear. They only had about 4 book boxes out.
"Twilight? I know you are going to hate this but... We need to go. This place is not going to stand much longer." Applejack said, looking around the library. Twilight wanted to protest, but looking around she could tell that building was build to be maintained regularly. It was aesthetically impressive, but structurally not. She relented.
"Very well. Alright, take one more box with you, let's get out of here while we can." Twilight shouted. As the box was being flow out, a chunk of ceiling fell down almost hitting Twilight. "Okay... we better hurry. It's starting to look like the place is going to fall down at any moment now." She said.
She and Applejack teleported up to the stairs alongside those who didn't fly with the pegasis. After ascending one level, the rumbling sound grew louder. It was becoming increasingly obvious that building was going to collapse. Magic that had held it had disappeared alongside the protective barrier. After ascending another level, it began. On the other side of the library, part of second level collapsed upon the third level, which collapsed upon remains of fourth which also gave out.
"RUN!" Twilight shouted and the group began to climb the stairs as fast as they could, all the while more and more of the library began to collapse. Twilight saw from corner of her eye that the vault was buried, thus denying them access to rest of its content. They reached the top level and began to run towards the doors, where pegasis and few others were urging them to hurry. Just as they rushed out of the doors, the roof finally gave out and collapsed upon the rest of the library, leading to the library turning to a crater.
"That was too close." Twilight said. "At least we got few things out."
"Ah just worry about rest of this place. If magic was the only thing keeping it together.." Applejack said, nodding towards the ruins.
"Well, time to take these ones to the camp." Twilight said and the group turned to return the camp.
"Found anything interesting?" Applejack said, carrying two plates of soup with her. Twilight had focused on the books they had secured before the library had collapsed, leaving others to do their own searching. Right now, they were having a dinner.
"Not really, only thing I can understand are the pictures... and it worries me." Twilight said, setting down a book and taking the soup
"What do you mean?" Applejack asked.
"Well, I fear we lack the... mindset for this war." She said, taking careful sip before setting the soup down to cool off.
"Reading these books, or more specifically, taking a look at their pictures, it seems that they are in constant state of war."
"Huh? Why would anyone keep a war going on forever?"
"That is what confuses me. The pictures only show Ancients, engage in warfare, but against who. In fact, they don't seem to show any other intelligent lifeforms, which leads to a worrisome conclusion. They have been waging an eternal civil war since the dawn of their civilization."
"That's crazy." Applejack said, her eyes open.
"Yes, but the problem is not the fact that they have this civil war, it's the implications of their combat skills." Twilight
said. Applejack gave this a though before nodding.
"It's like farming. You can farm and stop and continue farming after a pause, but you will never be a good as someone who has farmed all her life." Applejack said, earning a nod from Twilight. "So you fear they have gotten so good at killing others that we can't really deal with such skilled enemies?"
"Yes. Well, technically we could win easily, by Princesses unleashing their full power on the Ancients... but that would also kill those who are still there, not to mention turning the occupied territories inhabitable."
"And if they don't, these Ancients will keep launching more devastating attacks. Damned if you do, damned if you don't." Applejack concluded.
"Well, on the bright side... there might be a chance to communicate with them." Twilight said, earning a raised eyebrow from Applejack. "They clearly do have culture beyond simple war. There are lots of art in these pictures that depict non-warfare or other violent events, as well as the art in the city itself. Then there was that plaque we found. It seems that local ponies and Ancients were friends, to a degree, before Ancients left."
"Ah guess you got a point there." Applejack said, finishing her soup. "Also, you might want to come a take look at this." Applejack said as Twilight finished her soup. Two of them headed out into the city again, until they reached the ice wall.
"So what did you want to show me?" Twilight asked. Applejack simply cleared some of the snow from the wall, taking a quick look into the ice and then gesturing Twilight to take a look. Twilight shrugged and took a look. Inside the ice, she could see faint shapes of buildings. Badly damaged, some looking barely more than irregularity in the ice, but some were still clearly buildings.
"Wow." Twilight said.
"Yup. This city is a lot bigger than we thought. Ah guess we merely found one part of it."
"No wonder the spell could last for 200 years. It didn't. It has shrunk all this time, until only this place remained. Incredible." Twilight said, peering into the ice again. "How many Ancients lived here?" She wondered aloud.
"Dunno about that, but there sure ain't any of them left here. Too many in Appleloosa, in my opinion." Applejack said. Twilight shook her head.
"Doesn't matter, in the end. We need to get these books back to Canterlot so we can analyze them. We can return here later. I think the cave is stable enough to not to collapse. Although it pains me to leave these buildings unattended, I want those books analyzed and studied soon. Maybe send another expedition here as well." She said.
2 weeks later
Dear Princess Celestia
Our expedition to find Glowing City was a success. We managed to locate the city and confirm that it's former inhabitants did share many similarities to our current enemies. As such, theory about return of the Ancients seems to be the most correct as of now.
Although we only managed to locate a limited about of books and information, I am confident that this knowledge could help us to better understand our enemies. I have attached the reports from other Heads of Department, even if they are not always encouraging.
Although professor Letter Soup says that the information is not useful to us, I disagree with him. These history books will, I am confident, offers us insight we need into the mind of Ancients and their civilization, perhaps even offer us how to end this war without further bloodshed.
As a closing statement, I suggest we send another expedition to the Glowing City to search for more information. We do not know for sure how long those buildings will survive now that the preservation spell is broken. If possible, I suggest sending a team of powerful unicorns to recreate the spell, even if a smaller scale. The buildings, and knowledge contained in them, that are frozen in the ice are a lost cause at this point.
Your faithful student
Twilight Sparkle
Engineering Department Report 2, A
Head of Department: Wrecking Wrench
Subject: Basics of Ancient technology
We had some major breakthroughs recently. Although much of the technology is still beyond our understanding, we have now found out the basic workings of the machines. Interestingly, unlike our own devices, these machines do not run on any sort of magic. No power stones, no magic conduits, no spell matrices, nothing. Instead, electricity is the key. Electric pulse of certain power at certain frequency is what makes everything happen.
"Greenboards", as the technicians call them, use this electricity to do, well, something. We assume these greenboards are used to run a logic tests, to direct the current to correct location in the machine. Once the electric pulse reaches certain point, it causes other electric pulses to go off, leading to machines to react to these pulses and so forth. It is, if you allow me to say so, a marvel of engineering. Entire system ran off from a single source. Whenever or not greenboards are "natural thinkers", as certain spell matrices we use, or "taught thinkers", as most spell matrices, is still unknown. However, we assume they are "taught thinkers" due to their non-natural nature.
As for the power sources, it still largely unknown. Due to hazardous nature of it, which we assumes come need of generating lighting without magic, studies into it's nature have been slow. Our worry is that it houses some of the most complicated machinery we have ever seen. Even more worryingly, most of this machinery is not dedicated to produce energy or divide, but quite opposite: They seem to be fail-safes, ready to dismantle the power source moment it goes wrong.
This leads to another issue we have had, the numerous cooling mechanism in the power sources. We have been keeping them on, in fear of removing them could cause something go wrong, but they are starting to fail. Our tinkering into them seems to have broken something, I am afraid. We have created artificial freezer, but we still detect occasional jumps in the temperature. This is worrying us greatly. As such, I highly recommend that the device is sealed somewhere safe, in case of catastrophic event.
Engineering Department Report 2, B
Head of Department: Wrecking Wrench
Subject: The Ancient Device and discs
The device is a small sound device. It plays whatever sound that has been stored in the discs, which are much smaller than vinyls. Furthermore, they posses much greater memory capacity, able to have over 8 hours of sound in them.
We have total of 25 discs. Discs 1-5 have some sort of speech in them, but we do not know what they are saying. Discs 6-10 are damaged, refusing to play. Discs 11-25 have music in them, raging from classical orchestral music to... I really don't know how to describe it, at first we assumed the discs were damaged, but analysis showed that the sound we hear is actual music. Some of the more youthful members of the staff seem to like it.
Device runs on batteries, using unknown substance to maintain charge. Initially we assumed the device was broken, but thankfully one of the engineers was able to realize the nature of batteries and devise a method to recharge them. We are attempting to apply this same method on other technologies we have acquired, but so far without success.
What interest us most, is that the device is lacking obvious mechanism to read the disc. We are still looking into this. Our attempt to play of the disc on our own device resulted merely in a ruined discs. System is less complex than what other devices we have acquired, but it's small size is causing us issues. The precision required to do anything is making us wary to attempt anything.
I have ordered the device to be left alone, as we have no other copies of it, as well as no knowledge to fix it or build another one.
Linguistic Department Report 2
Head of Department: Letter Soup
Subject: Translation process and content of books
Once again, I must report bad news. While the initial studies have allowed us to create a very basic understanding of the language of the Ancients, it is useless to us. Either the language spoken by the Ancients of Glowing City has died out or the language has evolved to point where it does not connect to modern day speech.
However, what little we do have managed to translate, we paint a confusing picture. Creatures never reference to other intelligent species that would have competed with them, ever. Only exception to this is a species they refer to as Homo Erectus, which seems to have been a sub-species, rather than full fledged species of it's own. The Ancients themselves see, to refer to themselves as Homo Sapiens, who are further divided among different races.
Their society seems to have been quite similar to Griffins. Both economic and military successes were highly valued. However, they also place a great value on art, but quite differently from ours. Where to us art is valued, but is available to everyone, it seems that among Homo Sapiens art had so great value, that only select few were able to acquire it. This does seem to indicate certain level of creative sterility, but I shall refrain from making a final comment yet.
They also seem to be highly competitive, to point of war being constant event in their history. However, there seems to have been cultural shift from "War as glorious" to "War is Tartarus" among them, as the depictions of war become increasingly gruesome and campaigns become smaller and smaller.
Now, more interestingly, as per report by Head of Engineering, Wrecking Wrench,(Report E2B, "The Ancient Device and discs"), we have believe that these "speeches" are actually books. A books, which have been read and then stored on a storage device. This does actually offer some interesting ideas, which would no doubt be of great interest of the entertainment industry.
To return to my point, we are very sure that the Discs 1 contains 9 books, two which are called "The History of Union Americana", "Brief Introduction to Confederación Europea" and one which tittle we have not yet translated, but is Sangre roja de Marte: Sino-Euro disputa sobre el comercio interplanetario. We have not yet recognize if there are text version of the other books or are those books lost to us. Also, we are not sure ofAmericana and Confederación Europea are names for nations, as Equestria or Catsmere do, or detonate the race, as Griffin Kingdoms and Zebra Union do
To sum up my report, the knowledge gained offers very little in relation of modern day Ancients, but offers a great insight to their past.
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Forgive me if I missed some stuff. :twilight blush: (If I did, I'll be sure to do a better job for next chapter.)
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/George_Washington_statue.JPG
Is this the statue they saw; if it is, they are in Washington D.C.
3654295
Of course, next question is why are the books in Spanish?
Another question is, is the statue something that exist now, or is something that was raised in future?
Oh no, anything but THAT...
3660543
Imagine seeing that without the context or idea what sort of leader said person was.
Sufficient to say, said misconception is not going to last the first round of translations. Even if it does, humans will be more than happy to correct said misconception.
3660543 The Nazis?
3656143
Mexico City? Madrid? Barcelona?