“Hey, Rainbow?”
They were a few hours out, now. The forest pathways had made for a pleasant stroll so far, and an interesting one. Twilight had never really had reason to go into the Everfree Forest very far, and it was proving to be a far more enthralling area than she had ever thought it would be. Even in just a few hours, she had seen and heard more wildlife than she had thought possible. Fluttershy had assured her that this was entirely normal, even in physical environments.
“Yeah, Applejack?”
She would need to make more treks here. Not only was the fauna fascinating, but the selection of flora was surprisingly wide. Her original thought had been that forests consisted exclusively of trees, but that had clearly been a naive assumption; of course there would be undergrowth! Bushes of various sorts, ferns, vines, even grass, where the canopy was light enough. And such variety! On top of that, entirely natural in its occurrence. Nothing in the forest had been invented.
“What’s the story with the dragons, anyway? That expedition y’all mentioned?”
If nothing else, this all needed to be catalogued. She was sure the library had some books on botany, and there would probably be at least some people who would want to know what species could be found right here in their own back- Wait, what?
“You don’t know about it, Applejack?” she asked, turning to look at her friend. Applejack gave a sheepish grin, tugging at the brim of her hat.
“I was never all that good with history, less’n it mattered in the here and now,” she said. “But ya said it was required for the military, right? Y’all got me curious.”
“Well,” Twilight started, only to find Rainbow’s hoof in her mouth.
“No offense, kid, but I got this,” the pegasus said. “I’ve heard you talk about stuff, and your enthusiasm is cute and all, but you’re just gonna lose people.” Twilight blinked. “And with history, well, if you wanna make it interesting, you have to tell a story, not just spout the facts.” Twilight nodded, and frowned as Rainbow removed her hoof. Did she lose people? She had noticed a tendency to need to repeat things when she was explaining stuff, but that was usually just that Rainbow wasn’t listening … wasn’t it? Come to think of it, the others seemed to have trouble focusing, too. Not that she had all that many examples to pull from - not nearly enough to form an accurate statistical sample - but Rainbow was a good deal older and more experienced. She would know. Hm. She would have to-
Twilight shook her head. Focus, girl. Rainbow was talking. “First thing to get, fillies,” she said, waving her legs expansively, “is that Captain Tuul wasn’t the first guy to land on Yangtze 7. That was Elias Stern, Captain of the Arlin, and professional explorer. Stern was a badass, right; touched down on six different planets in as many years. Yangtze 7,” she said, pausing to make sure everyone was listening, “was his last.
“Stern touched down on the 28th of Quintum back in 4208 AT, sent out the standard ‘landing successful’ signal, and set to his duties. Got some video and started streaming it. His feed cut out that same day. No explanation, nothing to show why. Just went dead. Folks back at mission control had to have been scratching their heads raw trying to figure out why. They studied the little bit that he’d gotten out, and I guess they saw something interesting, because they set to prepping a full expedition. Probably part of it was trying to figure out what happened to Stern; explorer like that is a valuable asset.
“Four years later, 4th of Secundam, 4204 AT, Marivar Tuul and his crew touch down in roughly the same location as Stern. They can’t find a trace of him or his ship, but they’re a scientific team, so they set to their jobs; you know, taking samples, analyzing things, making recordings and the like. Most significant thing is they keep seeing flying creatures way off in the distance, and all their calculations say these things are huge.”
“The dragons,” Applejack said, and Rainbow nodded.
“Right. Not that they knew what they were right then. The dragons kept their distance at first, but on the 9th, well … say, have you seen the video, AJ?”
Applejack nodded. “Twilight sent it to me when she asked if I wanted to come along. Gotta say, I’d be a lot more concerned about this if we weren’t in The World.”
“You’d be right to. That one dragon from that video destroyed the entire expedition. All hands were lost. Mission control figured something similar must have happened to Stern, labeled Yangtze 7 as a hostile world, and let the galaxy know. So, of course, about five years later, a big smuggling organization decides to put a base on it.”
Twilight frowned. “Why would they do that?”
Rainbow shrugged. “They figured there was profit in it, probably. Yangtze wasn’t the only world in that sector up for possible development, and they might have figured they could exploit it themselves or something. Mostly it was probably that law enforcement wouldn’t ever go near a hostile world. They still won’t, generally. Too expensive.”
“What happened?” Applejack asked.
“Nobody’s quite sure. Not much in the way of records from the smugglers themselves; all historians can say is that the base was set up in 4199 and went down the same year. A lot of ‘em think it didn’t even take a week. Most of them are fairly sure that the smugglers were responsible for what happened after that.
“See, here’s why it’s all required learning for military personnel. Sextum 29, 4186 AT, about 22 years after Stern’s death, the planet Odraimos was invaded, wholesale, by dragons.” The pegasus paused, eyeing her audience. Twilight had to admit, this was certainly more interesting than the brief report she’d read on these events. She hadn’t known about the smugglers, either.
“Odraimos was, at the time, the center of the Illuvian Empire,” Rainbow said. “Same people Stern and Tuul worked for, and where their mission reports got routed back to. Crowded planet, robust military; they were basically certain that they were impregnable. Why they weren’t is one of those things that eggheads like to argue about for days on end; important thing is that they weren’t and the dragons razed about half the planet within a week.”
Applejack gave a low whistle. “That fast?” Rainbow nodded.
“They’re big, fast, and powerful. The ones that hit Odraimos came in prepared. They had their own armor, their own weapons, and they didn’t much care what they wrecked. There’s not a lot of actual footage that survived the invasion, either. Most of the footage from the Dragon War takes place on other planets or is from years after the original invasion of Odraimos. Plenty of games and movies and the like done with it, though.” She shrugged. “People were a little obsessed with it for a while.
“That day was the start of the longest war on record, and the only one to span multiple star systems. The whole thing lasted 1200 years, involved almost 300 planets, and shaped civilization on a galactic scale. The way my teachers put it, that war is the reason there are no interstellar empires, and the reason The World exists.”
The pegasus fell silent, and for a long few minutes the four of them traveled in silence. It was an interesting assertion to make, Twilight thought, but one that made sense. A war of such scale would affect societies on every level. Entire generations of sapients would have spent their entire lives locked within the culture of war. It was a wonder that it was even waged; the sheer cost of such an undertaking, even just in terms of resources, was staggering.
“How’d it end?” Applejack asked, her voice subdued.
“Well,” Rainbow said, fluttering her wings, “the dragons kind of went and made enemies of every space-faring nation. They held out for a damn long time, but each dragon lost was a bigger hit to them than each soldier lost by their enemies. Eventually? They just got worn down. Official records show that when they finally sued for peace in 2980, they were down to ten thousand individuals. As a whole species. And that was throughout the known galaxy.”
She shrugged. “I guess they were smart enough to recognize death when it was knocking at their door. And their enemies were, I suppose, tired of war.”
Applejack shook her head. “I can’t even imagine it. Livin’ my whole life with …” She trailed off, her face looking troubled. “I mean, it ain’t like I haven’t seen death. And it ain’t like I wouldn’t do what it took to keep me and mine safe. But a war like that … I don’t see how they did it. Or why.”
The pegasus laughed. “You and everyone else, AJ. Oh, you’ll get answers; two for every person in existence. But the why of that war isn’t something you’ll get a real answer for, even if you asked a dragon. After all,” she said with a shrug, “everyone who was around when it started is dead.”
The silence fell once again, heavy with the weight of history. The war was a troubling thing; hard evidence that people could and would kill, repeatedly and endlessly. And there had to have been others. Rainbow had said there were none of the same scale, but she was military, and the presence of military indicated the presence of a threat for that military to deal with, perceived or real. Military for whom, though? She should ask, sometime; but not right now.
Now, she had to wonder about this connection. It had been millennia since the end of that war, certainly; and millennia of peace, but, well … dragons. Just what, exactly, was she in for? That thought was troubling. Very, very troubling.
This one has not it's usual proofreading. I think I caught everything, but please do point out errors if you find them.
More questions. Good.
...wait, wait wait wait wait. The war in the real world or the Virtual one? Virtual I would understand, what with "interstellar travel and other worlds" etc but wouldn't have as much meaning because it is simple data that could be rewritten if destroyed. But if in the real world you would think that advancement in weapons would make a dragons size unrelated considering they would have to have FTL drive and so forth to get to other worlds, and what with the multitude of space faring species.
ooh- world building. Nice.
So from what I gathererd, this is set far far in the future, where civilisation has spread across the stars, although thanks to the dragons there are no empires. However, there is a sub world, "The World", which is digital, and inhabitied by AI's and Users.
... Wow, just wow.
I wonder just what made the dragons attack... and how they got so powerful...
And if this will introduce Spike
1457392 Well I didn't see any, and I usually catch most things, so it's probably clean. Good job!
1457562
Very far. The dates Rainbow Dash describe count down forward in time, (leading me to believe that the first part of AT stands for 'Anti') which means that this story is set at LEAST 4200 years AFTER space travel has become somewhat routine, and fast enough that "a year between landings" is possible.
Oh, and the zero point of the calendar doesn't seem to involve the war, which means there was an even BIGGER event that marked year 0. One so major that all other events were calculated in relationship to it... the founding of the World, perhaps?
(And that is how, my friends, you can say a HUGE amount with only a few details, mentioned in passing)
1457495
Obviously the Dragons had their own tech.
1457720 Maybe but even if they did would their size still be taken into account? Sorry I'm just trying to work out the time frames etc. Although this fiction is alternate universe so I would assume that the dragons live on a different would to the equestrians? Gah, this chapter needed to be longer -.- I'm not really doing a good job explaining my confusion either
Very clean for no proof-reading. Good job, with editing!
Besides that, the exposition was great!
This... interests me.... dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_TwilightWut.png
I'm guessing interstellar war on that scale would have scared the pants off economists for millenia to come. No one wants that, and so nobody builds an empire(or Republic, whatever). No Empire means no galaxy-wide organization.
No organization of that scale leads people to figure other ways to emulate it, and they model it on the internet. This "internet" connects worlds like servers(going off of my previous speculation) and there is no more need for an "empire."
Holy shit! Now there was an expansion to the world building that I either previously missed or really didn't see coming. A 1200 year interstellar war with the whole galaxy vs. a race of dragons? Oh my god yes.
I love this story even more now.
1457392
- seems like there's a missing 'an' before explorer
- missing end quotes on all three, that's about all I spotted.
1457392
The forest pathways had made for pleasant a pleasant stroll so far
but that was the only thing I caught
anyway, spacefaring dragons! Certainly a frightening thought. Was it their own tech though? or was it stolen/repurposed from the 2 expeditions and the smugglers? However, it does raise some other issues. It's unlikely that these are Equestrian dragons, and thus that that recording was taken on Equestria, for a few reasons. First being that, from what we've seen, Equestrian dragons are more greedy than destructive; they would never have razed half a planet without first properly looting it, and you can't properly loot half a planet in only a week. And second, 10k dragons left in the galaxy after 1.2k years of war? For creatures that big, they clearly started out with way more dragons than a single planet could sustain, especially a planet were ponies are the dominant lifeform. Heck, they even ended with way more than I'd suspect a single planet of being able to sustain.
Which all leads to further questions on the nature of Equestrian dragons. Are they native to Equestria and joined in on the war, or are the equestrian dragons leftovers from the war that decided to settle in Equestria?
Holy crap. The scope of this story just EXPLODED. A millenium-long interstellar war? Pan-galactic repercussions? Just how freaking big IS The World? And just who, and WHAT, are the Users within it?
1457716 I'm inclined to believe that AT would be Latin (we currently use AD, Anno Domini), and there's only a few words in Latin that start with a T that I can find which would make sense in this broader context:
Anno Terra- "Earth Year" (based on a modified version of our own calendar?)
Anno Tumultus- "Year of Uprising" (some sort of mass upheaval or revolution?)
Anno Tyranus- "Year of the Tyrant" (a feared ruler taking power?)
Anno Timor- "Year of Terror" (maybe marking the start of some grand war or a particularly horrible attack?)
Curiouser and curiouser.
1457910
Years AT descend going forward, that's why my bet is on 'Anti' not 'Anno' in this context.
Anno Domini is 'year of our lord' aka the church backed calendar. My own latin classes in high school are too far back for me to really remember...
Years 'Anti Tumultus' might work: Years Before the Uprising.
Even if I hadn't seen it in the featured box, I would know by reading that description that this fic has potential to be positively epic.
I'll definitely be reading this later.
1457892
What Equestria? No world of that name has been mentioned so far.
1457716
High, high praise. My thanks.
1457869
Rules for dialogue and quotes are that if the same person is still speaking on the next paragraph, you leave the end quote off, to denote that the speaker has not changed. If there's an end quote, and the next paragraph starts with a beginning quote, then you've got a new speaker.
Gramatically, yes, there should be an 'an' there, but it was left out intentionally as part of Rainbow's voice.
Thanks anyway!
1457892
Fixed, thanks.
1458022
No, but I do read xckd, and I am now curious what you thought was the reference.
Calendar dates are set up rather similar to the Gregorian calendar in function. Dates AT move forward in time in descending magnitude, as most of you have caught. Dates AN move forward in time in ascending magnitude.
1458162
*bows* I try to use the same economy of expression, and I know how good it can feel when someone catches one of my 'clever bits'. :)
I don't follow that rule with quotes myself, but I do understand it when I come across it.
And what goes in quotes (or associated with sound effects) doesn't have to follow the rules quite as tightly. Things like that are a good way to build 'voice' in text, which is another of the clever bits I like to use.
Oh, of course this is to introduce the Spike-analogue. Derp.
1457741 I'm imagining that if the dragons tended to fight among themselves (which is likely, as they had weapons) they would likely be best equipped to take out their own kind. This means that they would have weapons powerful enough to overwhelm dragon defences and more importantly strong armour to resist such weapons. Assuming the Illuvian empire is built with mammallian creatures in mind, their weapon effectiveness would likely be much less on dragon armour than on smaller and lighter mammal armour. Imagine shooting a hunting rifle at a deer. The deer is dead. Imagine shooting a hunting rifle at a crocodile. The natural armour deflects the round and you end up with one very pissed off gator. You are dead.
Anti-aircraft missiles designed to destroy smaller pony craft would probably cause non-critical damage to vessels that have been scaled up to accomodate dragon mass. From their prior research in capturing the explorers and smugglers (who may have had black market tech) and by planning for two decades they had an edge up on Illuvian war intelligence and likely knew just where to hit Odraimos to cripple their defences.
1457892 Space Faring Dragons? Better get your power armour.
fc03.deviantart.net/fs25/f/2008/075/a/8/Samus_vs__Meta_Ridley_take2_by_Flama_foxangel.png
Time for Spike to enter the picture~ <3
I wonder if he´ll be a User of an AI. Hope he´ll become Twi´s assistant/that she hatches him somehow though. :3
1457965
Yeah, while I'm convinced that ponies, more or less as we know them, exist in the physical world of this verse, I'm starting to wonder about Equestria itself...
this story was already shaping up to be epic, but now that it's formally introduced the dimensions of the physical universe, the scale just got a lot larger. i wonder, though, are the AI's capable of travel in the real world? obviously not in a digital sense, but perhaps by controlling a robotic machine? i'm kinda hoping this story stays within The World, but that'd certainly be interesting...
1457910>>1457960
Probably 'Ante T???', meaning 'before T???'.
I guess judging by the words used in some of the paragraphs suggest that "The World" was created by humans.
Interesting...
And the plot thickens, be interesting to find out who RD works for.
It boggles my mind that, with FTL travel, there was a galaxy left after 1200 years. It has been said that the power of a spaceship drive is directly related to its power as a weapon, and FTL is very, very powerful. Also, as for dragons wiping out half a planet in a week? That is a mind-boggling amount of firepower, moreso given the implication that it was applied directly (as opposed to, say, orbital bombardment). Landing, at minimum, several hundred thousand dragons, more likely several million, and all associated equipment, takes a staggering amount of spacelift capacity.
1457495
A rifle might be able to penetrate through 1 inch armor,
A tank might be able to penetrate through 10 inch armor,
But when something the size and strength of a dragon wears armor 5 foot thick... and a human is capable of walking, fully upright, into the barrel of their standard rifles...
Size really does matter in warfare.
Well that was a charming little story. Thank you, Dash.
Captain Stern... hah! No doubt the dragons went after him for a moving violation.
1460724 That makes more sense than what I said (serves me right for posting right after I get home from work ).
Space Dragons.
A whole army of Ridleys.
Shit, nigga.
A very new take on Dragonshy. This fic is so nifty.
w00t, world-building! I feel dumb for only now realizing that this is an opportunity for Spike to get involved in the story.
Faster than light travel, It took the dragons a week to blow off a planet that was a pinnacle of military might in a week, 300 planets get involved in total(noting that the vast majority would not match the military capacity of the first, and the dragons could attack whichever one had the least capable defense at a given moment), the dragons were especially vulnerable to attrition due to low population and low population growth, and the war as a whole lasts 1200 years?
Am I missing something here? How does a steamroll or be steamrolled war scenario like that get protracted out that long?
1465928
The dragons took Odraimos by surprise. No one was expecting that attack. As it was, it took them years to even get there. Following the devastation, you either set up shop there, or hoof it back home - either way, you're talking another significant period of time. And once you've found your next target(s), you've got mount THAT assault force and get them there, which also takes years. And in the meantime, your targets know you're coming.
Now take this, and expand across a galaxy's worth of star systems. Do you see the problem?
Nice, I think the use of FTL is a dangerous one, because generally most of the ways to do it (or rule work around proposed) either take planet cracking energy to accomplish.
Or allow for planet cracking quantities of momentum to be created.
Still enjoying the story though, I'm just having to put the FTL basis in the same category as 'sun goddess princess alicorn'
1466763
FTL is one of those things that is absolutely necessary for stories that take place on a galactic scale but which is as of yet impossible. Kind of like magic for most fantasy stories. I intend to treat it as such.
Gah, scope-explosion completely out of the left field!
I'm just confused as to whether this history references the real, physical world or 'The World'.
1466802
Oh I'm not so sure on that, you are already making the conceit that the setting has social structures that persist for thousands of years.
The only reason you need FTL in most settings is because it turns any travel into one way trips otherwise or causes interstellar politics to happen on timescales that exceed human lifespans .
But either way I'm not against it, just It would be nice to see more fiction that handles the gravitas of what a starship IS a little better
I suppose I will have to write some of my own.
Yay history lesson!
I'm really liking this story. The world you have created is interesting, and I'm enjoying the characters. Well done.