Equestria Trek: First Contact

by MetBoy

Responses and Reactions (part 1)

Responses and Reactions: In which things are told from another perspective.

Equestria was in shock. The scale of the attack on Cloudsdale was the sort of thing they expected to come only from villains like Nightmare Moon, or Discord, not from a group of normal beings. Not even the buffalo attack on Appleloosa had prepared them for such directed malice; the settler ponies had been in the way, not the target as the Weather Factory had been.

By the afternoon, thanks to Dragonfire Delivery, the news of the attack had spread across the whole nation, and was reaching neighboring realms. The news that Celestia was going to make a speech about events came out before the sun set.

---=={***}==---

“My little ponies. Yesterday something happened in Cloudsdale, something I had hoped would never come. A group of griffin raiders attacked the Central Weather Factory, kidnapping over fifty pegasus ponies, and stealing as much of the equipment as they could.”

A hush, as rumor was confirmed.

“These griffins were simply the ‘front’ of a much worse threat. Intelligent life from another world supplied them with weapons and equipment, supporting them when two of the Champions of Harmony stood against the attack. I fear that this was only their first attack, and that they intend to rob this nation of our infrastructure and treasures.”

“This is not a threat that can be answered by myself or my sister alone. The Champions of Harmony alone can not answer this threat; indeed, the Champions of Loyalty and Kindness were among those taken from us.”

“But this threat can be answered.”

“And it will be answered, by all of you, my little ponies. Working together, we shall use the power of friendship to shelter each other, and the power of harmony to keep safe all we hold dear. Doing so will require changes to how we live, to find the new means to protect our world.”

“We must prepare as if for war.”

War. The word was not unknown to Equestria, but had not been spoken of seriously in centuries.

“We can not go back to the blissful ignorance of yesterday, ignoring the rest of the galaxy. But...”

There was a hint of a smile now on Celestia’s face.

“The stars hold great danger, but also greater hope; there will be those from the stars who will wish to help us. We must prepare to meet them as equals, so we can be their friends in turn.”

---=={***}==---

Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Spike had been whisked to Canterlot with urgency that matched the time Discord had been released. But this time they were more worried, as Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were not with them, and the rumors out of Cloudsdale were more terrifying. Princess Celestia’s address to the nation renewed the hope of all five, even as their fears were confirmed.

Their reactions to the meeting that followed were more... varied.

Twilight Sparkle had found comfort that her brother, Shining Armor, was part of the meeting, and she was taking her own notes on everything that was being said, what each person was being assigned to do. Applejack was listening for the part that concerned her, specifically, with all of the patience of a farmer, while keeping a hoof on Pinkie Pie, so that the boredom of the latter didn’t develop into a sidetrack into sillyness. Rarity silently bridled at having to sit next to Blueblood, who was being his overbearing worst. Thankfully, Celestia kept firm grip on the proceedings, giving clear assignments.

Spitfire and the Wonderbolts would coordinate the efforts to manage the weather and rebuild the Weather Factory, spreading the load across all of the nation’s weather ponies. Applejack and Pinkie Pie would join the Solar Guard in the search for the base of griffin group responsible, still their best lead to finding those taken captive. Shining Armor would oversee the creation of a new military, a new kind of army for a new age. The ancient feudal military tradition was ending, much to Blueblood’s rage, but Celestia had a new task for the ancient nobility. They would use their prestige to represent the nation to the rest of Equestria, and were tasked with making the alliances they would soon need.

That just left...

Princess Celestia rose from her seat at the head of the table. “This meeting is dismissed. Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Spike, come with me.”

---=={***}==---

Twilight Sparkle followed her teacher through the palace, Rarity and Spike trailing in her wake.

“Twilight, what did you learn at Ponyville’s Winter Wrap-Up?”

“That I shouldn’t feel bad about what I can’t do well, but I should focus on what I can do well to help others.”

“A good lesson, but there is more that I wish to remind you of,” the Solar Princess said. “I need to tell you of one of the most difficult things for me to do, something you must learn how to do.” By now they had entered the Royal Library.

Twilight looked at Celestia with trepidation. What could her teacher actually find difficult? But the suspense was not long-lived.

“The hardest thing for a good ruler to do is to order her subjects, her followers, those that depend on her, to do things the ruler can do. Delegation. Asking someone to do something dangerous, or something that’s important to you, because there is something else that needs to be done.”

Twilight looked at Celestia. “Is this why you didn’t want me to go on the search team?” she asked.

The Princess nodded, leading into dark and dusty, unused portion of the library. “Applejack and Pinkie Pie will do just fine without you, but you are one of the few who will be able to do the research needed, and Rarity has a gift for turning design ideas into reality.”

Rarity quietly preened, pride overruling normal disgust at the dirt and grime.

Celestia stopped, her horn lighting up as a slim tome was outlined in the same shades. She pulled forth the book, cobwebs snapping as it was freed. “Ah yes,” the princess said, inspecting the cover. “Twilight Sparkle, your assignment is to study the theories presented in this book, to investigate how to confirm them, and to look into what practical uses could be made.” She passed the book to Twilight. Her student’s eyes widened as she read the title.

“The Lost Formulas of Starswirl the Bearded?”

Celestia’s magic kept Twilight from immediately opening the book. “There is one last thing I must ask of you.”

---=={***}==---

The part of Canterlot Castle that the Princess of the day had brought them to was unfamiliar to Twilight, for reasons she was able to quickly deduce. The underlying architectural style was old, but the construction very recent; Twilight’s mental map of the Castle revealed that it had been remodeled. The choice of stone was not the usual marble and granite that composed most of Canterlot Castle, but obsidian and feldspar, with silver ornamentation, instead of gold. There were small gems in the walls and arched ceiling, in a pattern that felt somehow familiar.

While Twilight was trying to put the clues together, Rarity had already discerned the truth. “This is Princess Luna’s wing, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It is,” the solar princess replied, stopping beside a door.

The door opened, revealing Princess Luna in her bedroom, the princess sitting on her bed. She looked up to see the two champions of Harmony with her sister. “Ah, is it time?”

“If we are ready?” Celestia cryptically replied.

Luna raised one wing... to reveal a sleeping Scootaloo. “She cried herself to sleep with worry,” the princess of the night reported.

Celestia turned to Twilight and Rarity. “We found her in Clousdale, and she needs to be taken home.”

---=={***}==---

“Wait, why are they called The Lost Formulas of Starswirl the Bearded? They’re not lost, they’re right there in the book! Look, they even put ‘lost’ on the cover.”

Spike was looking at the book-stand from behind, as Twilight dashed around the library setting up for an intensive reading session.

“Starswirl found many of the important formulas for how unicorn magic behaves. He was truly ahead of his time, half the formulas weren’t verified for centuries after his death,” Twilight explained. “But no one ever was able to test, let alone make use of, the formulas in this book. They fell out of scholarly knowledge, which is why they are called the ‘lost’ formulas. Only a few copies were made, by devotees of his teaching, who wanted to make sure they weren’t lost, even if they couldn’t use them.”

“So why does Celestia think you can make sense of them when everyone else failed?”

“Because... these formulas aren’t about unicorn magic. They’re about pegasus, and earth pony magic,” Twilight reported, from her first skim of the book on the way back from Canterlot.

“Huh? I just thought pegasus ponies just flew... and walked on clouds... and manipulated the weather...” Spike’s counter-argument lost steam. “But earth ponies don’t have magic!”

“They do, it’s just not as flashy as a sonic rainboom,” Twilight said. “Earth ponies are stronger, with more endurance. But that wasn’t my point. Starswirl wrote his works before the Pony Tribes united to form Equestria. He didn’t have pegasus or earth pony friends to help him test his ideas. Now! Get me the copy of Isaac Nehyton’s Principia Mathematica.”

Comments

[MetBoy]

Author's Notes:
Dragonfire Delivery is from Long Distance and is used with permission.

And yeah, another partial chapter. If you've been watching my blog you've seen that this chapter has given me issues, technical issues that disrupted my creative rhythm. This chapter was intended to cover from the attack to the fall of USS Judges... thankfully, I'm not cutting in the middle of a big action scene this time, just taking a break before the narrative fast-forward.

Hopefully, posting this will make possible re-creating what was lost and writing the events that finish this chapter.

[Thespurgin]

Isaac Neighton. Yes this is good.

[MetBoy]

701833
Truth be told, I was waffling on that one. On the one hand, I don't want to overdo the pony-puns, but on the other, it helps explain what Twilight is researching without having to explain bunches of stuff in the text.

[TheScribbler]

What a disappointingly short chapter.

[bcsnakeeyes]

this is going to be good.

[Caneighdian Jake]

538364
Why would the Klingons care about killing the survivors. The Orion captain does not seem to care whether it became known that they were there. I was under the impression that the Klingons attacked not because they were trying to keep their presence or identity hidden or that there was something special about the system that needed to be kept secret. The Klingons simply wanted a fight; to gain the honor and recognition that comes from defeating a foe. They clearly won a spectacular victory, so why go through the trouble of hunting down every single survivor? There just does not seem to be anything of importance to gain from it.

[Dinode]

701884 Personally, I prefer Falling Apple.