They finally revealed themselves in the mid 21st century. After hundreds of years of clandestine observation and experimentation, they admitted defeat in their quest to prevent the genetic death of their race. Thus, they gave us their knowledge and technology in the hopes we could avoid their fate. But the gifts came with a responsibility: we had to assume their role in overseeing and protecting the various worlds they had taken under their wing, or in some cases, had outright created as experiments. Amongst these is, of course, Equis, the one experiment world with a full ecosystem complete with non-human sapient natives, and we can't exactly wear a body suit and expect to fit in.
And that is why I'm a mint-colored unicorn now, mom.
...No mom, I'm not joking. Why? The pay is good, I get to see a new world, help protect innocents from the meaner denizens of the place, that sort of thing. ...No, mom, I am not still upset that you didn't get me a car on my sixteenth birthday. I wasn't really upset in the first place, honestly. ...Should you really be asking that? ...Okay, if it'll get you to stop asking, yeah, everything works. Yes, even that. No, I have not tried it out! I don't even have fingers! Oh for the love of—just, just put dad on the line, okay? I've only got fifty seconds before my card runs out and I start paying full rate for interstellar calls. Lousy telecom companies.
-This story inspired and largely influenced by Project: Sunflower by Hoopy McGee, but it is a separate, unconnected story. No endorsement from said author is implied.
Rated Teen for occasional foul language, discussion of mature topics, and fighting scenes. Nothing graphic, however. This is a story in progress, and as such tags for characters and/or categories may be edited as future updates may warrant.
And thus, Lyra was born.
-Party whistle-
Lisa Heinkel.
Nice name.
Very interesting world you have built up, indeed.
Somewhat off topic:
Does this world have cybernetics? Because if it does, I can't see too much difficulty in attaching claws into one's foreleg.
Intriguing set up. Fave’d.
P.S. I noticed you’ve been spelling “alicorn” as “alacorn”; might want to fix that.
4609924
I appreciate the notice, but that was actually intentional. Yes, I know that Hasbro has made the official spelling "alicorn", but alicorn actually means the material a unicorn's horn is made out of. Whereas "alacorn" is a combination of the Latin prefix "ala" meaning "winged" or "wings", and meshing it into a portmanteau with unicorn, hence "alacorn".
Again, I know it's not "official" and all, but after some consideration I prefer it. Call me picky or iconoclastic, but that's how I'm going to spell it from now on.
4611354
You’re picky and iconoclastic.
…
What? You asked me to!
4608827 Choosing Lyra as having been human isn't new, but it is a new take on this idea. "Anthropology" and the heartstrings tumblr are also great stories.
Looks good. Will track it.
.
.
.
And I still hadn't read latest chapter of Falling Stars. What is wrong with me?
4613229
A good question.
4613927 You know those habits of putting the best thing to be the last? Like eating meat at the end of the dinner, or leaving newest ep of your favorite TV show to watch last out of all releases of current week? I'm doing this, but you want to know how bad I'm at this?
I've been in cinema at Pacific Rim. I love this movie. I got the bluray right after premiere... I still didn't watched it.
4612064
... To be completely honest? That was just a guess
Even before reading the second chapter, my mind kind of hooked up 'Lisa' to 'Lyra' in about ten seconds. Come to think of it, I forgot to really read the summary as well.
It wasn't so much a party whistle of apathy, more like a party whistle of... I'unno. What are party whistles usually used for?
This is looking very interesting so far, although there is not enough material for me to be comfortable giving it a thumbs up or down yet.
4622892
Fair enough. I just wanted to throw this out.
Also sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't try the whole "throw stories out and never finish them" plan that a certain other author on this site uses and seems to work out for him.
4625132 Yeah, that was what I figured.
As for the throwing stories out there and never finishing them thing, it looks like you are trying to refer to someone in particular, but that is kind of a common thing so I have absolutely no idea who you are thinking of because it is obviously not me with my zero stories. I for one am annoyed by that and hope you do not start doing it because it is very frustrating to get invested in a story that dies on you. I understand that sometimes shit happens, but that is no reason not to plan on finishing what you start.
Also, you should really not get discouraged by a limited response when you first publish a story because a lot of people will recommend good stories which do not get much attention and this is not really far enough along for recommendation yet. I for one will probably add this to the gallery of stories that I think deserve more attention on my user page once it gets another chapter or two, and I can also directly recommend it to a few friends who may boost it further.
Awesome read, I can't really say what the thing about well written sci-fi human in normal equestria is that I like so much, but there are much too few of that kind of stories
.
Well, at least now I got this one too
Fav'd, eagerly waiting for more.
Very glad you decided to write this story.
I have been looking forward to it since you posted about it in your blog.
It doesn't disappoint.
Yay! I, for one, am happy that I did not wait this long for a piddly 2k word chapter!
Now I eagerly wait for the interaction between Lisa/Lyra and Bonbon.
Time for our little human to get dropped off the deep end, it seems. Ponyville is by no means a calm, stable environment. At least she won't stick out that much. At all. Ever.
That might be important eventually.
Very nice work as usual. It is interesting to see how Celestia is handling things from another perspective here and how others are working around her obstructions. I am also getting the distinct impression that Novak is making plans for drastic action because while he hands may be tied in regards to ground teams so he cannot get them anywhere useful quickly enough, he undoubtedly has some really big toys at his disposal which he is probably getting ready to use if things go really wrong. After all, orbital strikes and ICBMs can hit anything at a moment's notice with more than enough raw power to utterly annihilate just about any problem.
Also, I have no idea what you were trying to say at the end of this sentence:
5686557
Ah, yes. Novak has some toys to use if he deems it so. Let's just say this human government is of the mindset of "be prepared". But mainly I'm thinking of drop teams along the lines of battle armor equipped with BFGs being ready to land and take on whatever threat rears its head. Even have half a mind to have a side story where such a team moves in to take care of a problem, but that's down the line.
As for that sentence, that's another thing where my brain thought it made perfect sense because I know exactly what's going on, but it doesn't convey enough information to someone else.
It's fixed, now. Thank you.
5686452
The words of Jack Nicholson's Joker come to mind. Although it would by Lisa/Lyra saying it.
5686953 Yeah, being prepared for anything is always a good thing and I did somehow forget about orbital insertion
. Then again, a nuke or orbital strike is actually more subtle as bizarre as that may seem because it is just a really big unexplained boom which does not scream "aliens" so it will be written off as Celestia doing it or something and preserve the secret. Ground troops on the other hand are kind of impossible to mistake for anything else, especially when they are bipeds twice the height of the locals wrapped up in massive suits of ultra high tech powered armor. Planetside response teams that look like natives would still be the ideal for solving problems while maintaining cover, especially if you can subtly enhance them with human tech, but if Celestia says no...well, boom time.
Also, it would be tons of fun to read about those teams in action, especially when they inevitably run into ponies who do not know about them. I am leaning towards the Mane Six for this at the moment because you seem to have a good chunk of the background cast accounted for at this point, although the Flower Trio would also be hilarious (unless you do something ridiculous like making them an elite strike team). There is also admittedly a part of me that wants to see them get overwhelmed by the CMC, but there is really no way that would happen because they would be dragging them out of the way and dumping them with a random adult while they blow up whatever the crisis of the day is.
Finally, I figured that was the case. We all make dumb mistakes so I figured I should point it out.
5687126
The spahys mahreens are more of a hammer on hard targets, and the idea I had is the ponies deploy a first reaction team to cordon off the area and then the humans drop down in a shuttle with a cloak or something to do the heavy lifting while the royal guard unit kind of runs interference. Something like, say a diamond dog incursion where they keep raiding but their home base is away from a pony town. Royal Guard comes in, makes sure the locals stay in town, and then deploy illusion spells to help cover the humans as they go in and completely wreck s**t up.
But the idea of transformed humans and native ponies working together is kind of the point of this story.
Lyra/Bonbon is just going to be the focus, but there are other, bigger teams. I don't rule out they might become involved from time to time. And my whole point about the battle armor troops is that they're a step of force application between "clandestine agents" and "weapons of mass destruction". I kind of think there needs to be more of a friendly gradient on that scale. 
And as for the Mane Six, there's going to be interactions with them, but basically they won't know what's "really" going on behind the scenes. This way I preserve the show's stories, at least for a bit.
5687214 Yeah, that was what I was figuring the usual MO was, but that will be a problem if they have to go now because Celestia is crippling those supporting units. That means they will have to drop in with basically nothing but a preliminary report from Lyra and Bon Bon so there will be no cordon or guard interference so the general population will definitely see them.
Also, I am definitely seeing at least one mission following Rarity's abduction to root out that problem before more ponies are affected, although it is making me wonder how they would do a rescue mission in a more typical scenario like that because it is really hard to rescue someone without them knowing who rescued them.
For the Mane Six, I kind of figured that was the case even if you do have some flexibility with working in conversations around the episodes which is why I suggested the Flower Trio, especially given how hilariously badly they will respond to stressful situations. Just have Lyra become friends with at least one of them and the chaos should basically write itself.
5687735 Well, then it's good that they won't necessarily be dropping in. Won't spoil any surprises but there's gonna be a reason the episode went as much as it did.
Rescue mission? Well, thankfully the situation hasn't come up. Yet. As for how it gets handled, well... I have no idea.
Hadn't thought of that, might have to do something with it. 
As for what Lyra does to cause chaos... well... let's just say I've got an idea or two.
5687819 Yeah, I figured that would not actually be necessary, but that is only because I have seen the episode and know there is a good solution to the problem. The characters in the story on the other hand will have no way of knowing any of that so you can bet there will be a lot of worrying about Nightmare Moon and debate on weather she is enough of a problem to send in troops without proper containment and risk blowing their cover wide open.
For rescue missions, that is a definite possibility which could be a lot of fun as are all the other various forms of special operations so it might not be a bad idea to take a look at what they do and see if it gives you any ideas. After all, there are lots of crazy things that have been done in the real world so they could easily happen in Equestria, especially for an organization like this.
As for chaos, I figured you had plans already which should be encouraged by Lyra being Lyra, I was just thinking that the Flower Trio would let you amp things up even more with how panicky they are.
Finally, it might be fun to do something with Cadence's comments about trying out being human at some point, either as part of this story or in a separate one-shot.
Will 'next time' take as long as human pregnancy as well?
5690662
That good enough for ya? Huh? HUH? HUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHH?! 
I'm actually working at it now, smartass.
COME AT ME BRO!
YOU WOT, M8? BISCUITS AND TEA FOR EVERYPONY.
5690839 pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw3931_small.jpg
5692305
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw8950_small.jpg
5692412 mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw3371-seriously.jpg
5692538
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw4588_small.jpg
5692599 i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/306/930/d20.gif
5692834
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/thumb/mlfw10469.gif
5692865 *didn't read story yet, glosses over comments, faves because of picfight*
6903543
dashie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw11067_small.png
This soundsike a Stargate crossover 0-0
6903626 Not quite.
6903640 The whole 'genetic death thing' and humans taking thier place screams the Asgard from Stargate.
6903651 Which got it from the "greys" the UFO nuts talk about in that subculture. =P All Stargate SG-1 did was take the weird ramblings of conspiracy nuts and turn it into fiction fodder, so they don't own it.
So, Bonbon is Lisa/Lyra's Equestrian partner in the wonderful, wonderful world of interstellar peacekeeping?
6903681 More or less.
I have been looking forward to an update for this for a long time. I really like the concept behind it all!
The spelling is alicorn, not alacorns.
Can someone explain this genetic death thing, I must've missed it.
Good chapter, hope to see more.
6903767 As noted in an earlier comment someone made, I prefer the alacorn spelling. It makes more sense to me since "alicorn" is the material said to make up a unicorn's horn.
The genetic death is a reference to the little gray aliens of UFO mythology. They're said to be a dying race needing genetic material to revive their ability to reproduce, hence "genetic death".
Glad you liked it. You make some good stories (which I need to catch up on) so getting that kind of comment lightens my day.
Psst. Rokas.
There is a Mansville.
6903989 And it's still a very silly name.
6904085 Agreed. It gives me the giggles everytime I drive past the town.
This story seems interesting, but the huge gap between chapters has me worried. You started this over a year and a half ago, but you only have four chapters. From what I've seen of other stories, the chances of you ever finishing this story are slim to none, depending on how long you plan this to be. I hope I'm wrong, of course, but you're going to have to pick up the pace a little or you'll stop caring and give up.
6904231 have to agree has me a wee bit worried because this is one of the better written fics i've read.
6904231
6904734
At least I do update, unlike many stories that make one or two chapters and then disappear.