First Steps
Princess Luna liked to think of herself as a charitable mare. Still, there are limits to everypony’s tolerance.
This was one of the first occasions since her return that she found herself indulging in some of the…darker thoughts that sometimes drifted through her mind unbidden. As wonderful as it was to watch her sister’s young niece be wed, she wasn’t sure she could be held responsible for what would befall Equestria’s “magnanimous” monarch if she had to hear one more crack about “sleeping through a hostile takeover”. As much as she loved her sister, her sense of humor was starting to wear quite thin.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts, and raised her hoof to knock on the library door. She was somewhat surprised when the door opened inches from her hoof, revealing Spike, who looked just as surprised to see the Night Princess standing there with one hoof in the air and a look of confusion on her face.
“How did you know I was standing here?”
“...I was actually headed to the market to get some coffee, ‘cause Twilight looked like she was gonna need it.”
“She is not awake?”
“Not really. She muttered something about ‘orbital mechanics’ or something when I tried to wake her up, but then she just went back to sleep.”
“I see. Perhaps I can try my hoof at waking her while you are out?” Luna suggested, trying to hold back the grin threatening to spread across her face.
Spike cocked an eyebrow, but left without further comment. As Luna closed the door behind him, she stopped fighting the grin, and trotted up the stairs as quietly as possible. Apparently their little “sojourn” had worn her new research partner out more than she had anticipated.
The market wasn’t too crowded, and Spike was able to gather both the coffee and a few other items in short order, returning to the library with a small bag of groceries. It would speak to the progression of the last two years that he was not unduly surprised when his caretaker appeared in midair and mid-scream in the library proper before said scream was silenced with a thump and a brief expression of pain.
“Morning, Twilight,” he said before walking into the kitchen to get the coffee ready.
“You could have just yelled in my ear or popped a balloon or something a little less freaky.”
“I haven’t had a chance to practice ‘fun’ since Nightmare Night, and it wasn’t that bad...”
“You try waking up to two giant glowing eyes two inches from your face.”
Luna took what most would have considered grave insolence in the face of royalty in stride and laughed uproariously. Spike could clearly be heard attempting not to snicker as he cleaned up from their light breakfast in the kitchen. Twilight had to try very hard not to roll her eyes at having one of the two immortal Diarchs of her world playing pranks on her and - oh wow, she snorts when she laughs...
This was too much weirdness to be dealing with less than two days after finding out that her brother was marrying her old foalsitter without her even having heard a word from him for years, followed rapidly by a massive changeling invasion, a brawl the likes of which she hoped she never had to take place in again, and having to do all the wedding preparations over again due to the first set being for the queen of said invading horde.
At least Spike makes good coffee. Sure gonna need it for today...huh, what is happening today?
“Might I ask why you dropped by today, Princess?”
“Well, we obviously couldn’t continue our little project with everything that was happening around the wedding, but I decided that two days was enough time to recover. After all, this is no minor undertaking!”
“So what’s our next step?” Twilight asked after taking another sip of her coffee, waking up far quicker now that her mind was getting back into gear on their research.
“I had thought that selecting potential targets would be the next order of business.”
“Alright. Did you bring your star charts with you, Princess, because I’m sure your’s would be more accurate-”
“Not to sound arrogant, but I have the night sky memorized Twilight Sparkle. I’m sure your own charts will be more than sufficient. Even if they were incorrect on any details, I’m sure I could help you fix them.”
“Oh, right, yeah...”
Hiding her temporary blush behind her mug, the lavender librarian’s mind was already working over what she had memorized of her star charts and trying to recall which of the nearby stars had planets that they could actually visit. She was fairly certain that even Luna couldn’t handle some of the more hostile worlds her projections indicated that some of those stars would play host to.
As soon as Twilight finished her coffee, the two adjourned upstairs to her room to further work on their calculations. It was now her bedroom floor that was covered in splayed out scrolls and massive sheets of paper covered in small drawings of solar systems. Luna was beginning to worry about how much time her host was obviously spending at her telescope when said pony spoke up again.
“Ok, I think our best bets are here, here, and here. These are all stars of around the same color as our own, so they have the best chance of having planets around them that we can actually survive visiting, and that might actually have something worth seeing on them other than rocks.”
“The second one is one I had considered myself when I first started this pursuit. I remember it having quite a few planets, but not whether they would work for us or not.”
“Well, we could solve that with a few observations, but that would have to wait until tonight, unfortunately.”
Both mares were simultaneously struck by the fact that their enthusiasm was rather abruptly left without an outlet. Until nightfall, they couldn’t do any detailed stargazing, and their calculations were already more than solid.
“Huh...well, you have any official business in Canterlot or anything?”
“No, not for today at least. My sister can handle what little there is on the agenda.”
“Well, you didn’t have much of a chance to just look around Ponyville last time you were here. Wanna get a better introduction to the town while we wait, Princess?”
“That sounds like an excellent idea, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna replied with a smile and nod.
For Luna, the walk was very relaxing, and the chance to actually take in all the sights of her new friend’s home was quite enjoyable as well. She noticed that ponies seemed to find her far less intimidating in the day, allowing her to actual meet and exchange pleasantries with quite a few of them, helping to dispel more of her less positive memories of her last Nightmare Night.
After being almost forced to break for an early lunch by an ecstatic Pinkie Pie, the two were trotting along the outskirts of Whitetail Wood, enjoying the feeling of the warm summer breeze blowing past them, the shade of the trees making their walk quite comfortable. They were halfway back to Ponyville when Twilight finally broke the silence again.
“I was meaning to ask you last time we met, but what were you shaking your head about that night? When I came back your face was scrunched up like something was hurting you.”
Luna let out a long and heartfelt sigh, berating herself for not having expected this to come up sooner or later.
“My sister doesn’t often reflect on the memories of...what happened between us one thousand years ago because she has so many memories she’s made since then. However, virtually all of mine are of dwelling on those few from that time, and my mind strays back to them sometimes.”
“You know, most ponies have a bunch of different theories on what it was like up there. Most of them assumed that you being sealed there meant that time was stopped for you for a thousand years, or something like that.”
“Its probably best that they continue to think just that. I imagine the reality that I spent that many years nursing my own hatred and plotting revenge would make it a lot harder to hold a conversation with most ponies.”
Twilight felt more of a compulsion to wince than laugh at that kind of humor, but it at least showed that Luna could see the lighter side of the subject, even if making jokes about it seemed in pretty poor taste. They walked in silence for a few more minutes before Luna abruptly stopped and looked directly at her walking partner.
“The history books may try to gloss over certain aspects of my attempted coup, but I think that you know that such situations are never as ‘neat and tidy’ as history tries to paint them to be. Not only did ponies die in those weeks, but many of them, and quite a few of those to my own horn and hooves. Celestia says I should take some solace in the fact that I didn’t kill any innocents, but what could the Royal Guard be said to be guilty of?”
She turned and looked up at the aura of the sun shining around the cloud that had drifted across it.
“Many of my Night Guard fell as well, but I barely noticed in my fervor to become the sole ruler of this world. Its still so foolish and foalish what I was trying to achieve. Endless night would have killed every one of the ponies that I was so desperate to rule, thinking that the rise and fall of both celestial bodies was some kind of tyranny.”
Twilight said nothing at this, wisely realizing that Luna wasn’t looking for any input. She merely watched as the alicorn continued to stare upward at that cloud until it finally left the sun’s face, averting her eyes from the full glare.
“Give us something back.”
Luna’s head snapped around, and her ears stood straight up as Twilight finally spoke up.
“What?”
“Your memories hurt you so much because they’re all about what you took from the ponies who looked up to you, about the ones you killed and the others you would have turned into slaves and left in eternal darkness. What you need is new memories and something that you can feel that you offered in atonement or you’re never going to get rid of those feelings. What you need to do is finish this with me; finish what you started over a millenia ago and give the world the greatest discovery it’s ever seen.
“Uhm, Princess,” she finished, blushing at the informal tone she had just used, and hoping she wasn’t about to be reprimanded.
Luna’s smile surprised her a little, but she found herself smiling in return quite easily.
“I think we can dispense with formality for the time being, Twilight. Forgive me if I tend to cling to it unduly; it may have been quite a few years, but that is still what I am most used to.”
“It doesn’t bother me, Prin-” she cleared her throat and blushed.
“It seems this is something for both of us to work on,” her alicorn research partner laughed, “Now, I recall you mentioning Ponyville Lake being a great place to swim?”
If any of their previous interactions had shocked Twilight, this one certainly took the cake. She was left standing with her mouth hanging open for what anypony would have considered a bit too long.
“C-come again?”
“Come now, it should not be that shocking that I enjoy a good swim now and then. Or did you think such things were beneath royalty?”
“I-uh-”
“Judging by your surprise, you must not be aware of how long my sister takes in the bath. Do not assume that she does not indulge simply because she is more discreet about it. Besides, all that hot water makes her horribly pruney for hours...”
At that mental image, they both laughed, and Twilight led her back across town to the perfect place to cool off after a long summer day.
The rest of the day passed rather quickly, and Luna’s past never came up again, much to her relief. Full-black found them out on Twilight’s highest balcony with her telescope, gazing up at the sky once more. The enchanted mirrors she had finally worked the kinks out of a month ago were doing a beautiful job of clearing distortion and improving magnification, her telekinesis keeping it tracking along path's she had thoroughly memorized. Spike could be heard snoring softly in her bedroom as they kept their voices low so as not to disturb him.
“Judging by the way these other points are clustered around that star, they’re obviously it’s planets. Looks like there are...twelve of them.”
Showing impressive coordination, Twilight jotted down a rough sketch of the system while tracking her telescope with the star’s movement. Once she had that layout, she started working it into their calculations, and then cross-referencing it with the newly revised spell they had finished in their last session.
“It looks like this planet here is what we’re looking for. Fifth one out, and based on the intensity of the star it should be the closest match to our own world.”
She turned to Luna for her input, but her partner was just looking up at the sky with a blank expression on her face. One could tell by her eyes that she was deep in thought, though, and she soon smiled slightly, before her horn lit and began growing brighter, the stone back in her room growing brighter as well, causing Spike to grumble and roll over in his sleep.
Before Twilight could ask what was going on, the air in front of her began to shimmer, and suddenly she was looking at a black circle. A few more seconds of inspection showed a large number of stars visible in this circle, and she realized that Luna was channeling sufficient power from the stone to make a far-sight spell stretch that entire distance.
That would certainly explain why her face is all scrunched up like that, and the sweating.
As much as the realization that her new friend was reaching across light-years of space to make a picture in midair was rather cowing, something was wrong. It was just a black circle of space. Luna let the spell fade with the same expression of confusion, until she suddenly slapped herself in the face hard enough to leave a hoofprint.
“Argh, how could I have forgotten that?”
“Wow, that...didn’t that hurt? Wait, what did you forget?”
“The speed of light,” she responded, looking back to Twilight almost sheepishly.
It suddenly clicked in the librarian’s mind. Magic operated regardless of distance, the only notable indication of range being the energy consumption, but light was locked into a set speed just like sound, meaning that-
“-that planet isn’t there. We’re looking at where it was dozens of years ago. Yeah, that’s kind of embarrassing to forget,” she said, rubbing at the back of her neck with the realization that that should have been obvious to her as well.
“We were getting ahead of ourselves, it seems. This will require some recalculation of our spell.”
“Yeah,” Twilight replied, grinning now, “and I know just what kind of calculations we need, and exactly where to find them.”
Luna caught on, now smiling as well, and they both spoke together.
“The Canterlot Archives-” started Luna
“In the Starswirl the Bearded wing,” her partner finished.
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This is getting good, very fast. And, I really appreciate that you are making this as realistic as possible. Case in point:
Epic. Just epic.
Twilight and Luna, science buddies! I approve heartily.
One minor nitpick. It is extremely difficult to see planets in other solar systems (to the point where we need several satellites). Nothing that will cause any Suspension of Disbelief problems or anything like that though. It's also nice to see the story's updated too.
1283611
I was kind of torn between making the situation more complicated or keeping the narrative flowing. I eventually decided that the formidable size of one of her telescopes that I remember from one episode might allow her that level of resolution, and that I should follow the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid).
sounds really interesting, fav first before reading..
(Keep working)
1283714
I probably didn't define that very explicitly, but they were in a very low orbit for that scene, about 250 miles up.
static.fjcdn.com/pictures/MLP+WALLPAPER.+Cool+Discord+wallpaper_16a9c2_3354767.jpg
Moar?
Trackin' like I'm cracka-lackin' cuz I been snackin' on these Saltines and now I can't whistle :c
1283622 Twilight does have some very nice telescopes... but none of them would be able to see planets from even as few as a dozen light years away, of course.
You'd need at the least something on the magnitude of a VLA (very large array)... or an alicorn who can use a ridiculously powerful farsight spell, I suppose. If I were you, I'd go with the "A wizard did it!" logic for the fact that Twilight and Luna actually know about the presence of planets around any nearby stars. But that's just me.
1284066
Maybe Twilight's telescope is enchanted to draw in more photons than its diameter would normally allow. Sort of like a magical funnel, centered on the lense, that bends light incoming from a certain direction onto the focal point, effectively making the telescope bigger than it physically is.
Hell, I can see Twilight doing that just for the challenge.
smosh.com/sites/default/files/bloguploads/ancient-aliens-th_0.jpg
*Cackles* Nuff said.
Also, addendum: Whilst the speed of light remains constant except when warped by intense gravitational forces, there are ways around it. Einstein-Rosenbridges for example. Also known as Wormholes. And given that teleportation works similar to this, then would it not be possible to create a temporary wormhole between one point and another in the MLP verse, allowing Luna and Twilight to see through whilst it retained impermeability, thus ensuring no air was sucked in/ out?
Whilst the power requirements for such a light-teleportation spell would be obscene, it would take far less energy than actually teleporting there. And were it oriented above the system allowing the viewer to see the planets from above, then said calculations could be made to re-target the light-teleportation spell to get a better understanding.
SCIENCE!
Remember kids: Why word hard when you can cheat?
Also, Deamon: No, you will not make the telescope a Tardis.
Cheers
GM
1283622
Without invoking magic, you can't do any useful observations of extrasolar planets from the surface no matter how good your telescope is. At just 10 light years the resolution limit imposed by the atmosphere is on the order of 20AU, or about the orbit of Saturn.
The good news is that, on Equestria, you can easily invoke magic. Perhaps a common enchantment on astronomical telescopes is a far sight spell fixed to 'skip over' most of the atmosphere.
I'm liking the story so far and I like where it's going.
One teeny tiny little grammar thing, though; you're mixing up its and it's. 'Its' is the possessive pronoun, and 'it's' is the contraction for 'it is'.
This is an interesting start and the fiction is complete new.
So Luna in this fiction can only move the moon but can't move and create stars and constellations.
I love this story but I have a suggestion.
It is interesting to have real science in the magical fiction (such as speed of light or something else)
Don't put too much real science in this fiction or this will make you some trouble writing.
That is a magical world (university) and sometimes magic can solve physical problems.
Or you can use Alicorn's (Luna's) IMBA power to solve some problem (but according to your own rule in this ficiton).
Anyway, fav and love. Your fiction has great potential.
5 Celestia for your nice begining!
1283585
And that little passage is when you know this fic is serious, glorious fucking business.
Interesting story. Please, keep on working on it.
1284424
I like the way you think
I'll work that into the next chapter.
1285139
One of my favorite parts of the story collection "Gold" by Isaac Asimov is where he effectively debunks time travel in reality by virtue of there being no means to account for movement of stellar bodies in most of the methods we've brainstormed so far, but then turns around to say that that should in no way preclude people from using it in their stories because the plots are just too much fun.
1285451
Okay, so they're getting ready but Twilight figures the Power Gem will give them maybe three two-way flights at the maximum. That means they have to identify the right target and do it first time if this is going to be worth it.
How to locate the nearest stars? The parallax effect. The nearest stars would move perceptably against the background based on charts made six months apart because the planet Equis would have moved half-way around its sun (a base-line of probably around 180-190 million miles or 2AU). Although this is still only a tiny difference for an object as distant as even the most nearby star, it still would enable someone sufficiently smart (*coughTwilightcough*) to calculate the distance to the object based on a fairly elementary trigonometric equation.
SAFETY NOTE: Bright =/= nearby. Brightness is a function of the power of the star, not its proximity. Some of the brightest stars in Earth's sky are giant-class stars several thousand light years distant. Indeed, Sun-class stars are invisible to the naked eye at distances greater than just 30 light years. An observer on a hypothetical planet orbiting the A-Centauri triple star would not even note the Sun as a particularly bright star in the sky.
So, once you've found a nearby star, I recommend one inside the 'red line' of 25 light years (8 parsecs) that you would be able to fly to at sublight speeds in less than one human lifespan, you need a star that has a habitable planet. Most astronomers would recommend you don't try a close binary star; the conflicting gravity of the two suns would prevent larger planetary bodies forming and rule out stable orbits. Similarly, the very smallest and most common stars - red dwarfs - are so small that any planets orbiting them would have to be unthinkably close to the primary to get enough energy to be habitable and, at that distance, would likely have 'years' measured in just days and would be tidally locked with one face eternally turned to the sun and the other in eternal night; unihabitable. The ideal stars are of spectral class K (orange), G (yellow) and A (white). Any habitable planetary body in such systems would be in approximately the same zone as Equis around its primary - about 70-150 million miles orbital radius.
You're right about the light speed effect (we can only see the object as it was when the light left it to travel to us). However, there is also an issue of real motion. All stars move around the galactic centre in orbits like planets around their stars. However, those orbits are not uniform in speed or even in inclination. The Sun, for example, is in an orbit that extends about 20 degrees above and below the galactic disc. They also have an intrinsic motion away from the nebulae where they were born that is aside from their galactic orbits. So, yes, a lot more observation is needed to complete the astronavigation problem
Whew! Sorry about all the tech stuff there! You can tell that I'm as much a space geek as Twilight ever was!
You can see that this story has caught my interest. I'll be watching for more updates!
1285598
Nice to see someone who's enthusiasm for this subject matches my own! One of my concerns was that if I applied everything I knew to this, it would read like a Scientific American article and probably not be that enjoyable. Part of why this took me so long was trying to pare down some of the detail I was putting into areas that weren't really relative to the storyline.
I'm glad to see a story that panders to the astro-heads like me! I'm thoroughly enjoying all the scientific and technical details you're working into the story, and I look forward to more of this TRUE sci-fi tale.
BTW: I am such a sucker for hard sci-fi, where we're exploring concepts, not seeing how many model spaceships we can blow up in a ten minute span. It's why I like movies like 2001, The Thirteenth Floor, Bicentennial Man, and books like Ringworld, Rendezvous with Rama, and the collected works of Asimov: they aren't afraid to explore the great question, "What if?" as well as all the necessary implications of asking such a question.
What if ponies used their magic to leave their world and explore other worlds, maybe for colonization? What if once they got there they brought along several unicorns who pooled their magic in order to colonize the galaxy, building it up over a couple hundred years until sufficient power was stored to make a FTL jump to other star systems? The possibilities are truly exciting, and I hope you keep it up. Like I said, true sci-fi excites me to no end, and I am just chomping at the bits to see more of this story!
Also, are you going to sneak in some pop-culture sci-fi references in there sometime? Much as I love hard science fiction, those still tickle my sense for adventure.
1286185
The Rama series has always been one of my favorites, and another good author to look up if you haven't already read his work is Robert A. Heinlein, who is my personal favorite of "The Big Three".
1286210 I love Heinlein! And I will never forgive the guys who made Starship Troopers into a movie about blasting bugs in outer space. The novel was so much more than that, but they felt the need to turn it into a summer blockbuster.
Have you read The Forever War? Much comparison has been made between it and Starship Troopers, but it's more about the implications of fighting an interstellar war when you still have to play by Einstein's rules. And I loved the ending.
(checks Wikipedia) EDIT: Apparently it's been too long since I read it, as I forgot about the Vietnam War analogy angle.
1286320
I'm well aware of that, and you needn't worry. There won't be any human involvement in this.
All of the hard science in the story AND the comments makes me feel like an uneducated plebeian... Kinda wishing I had taken Physics so I could have a better grasp of the finer points here. I'm also guessing that some of this is university-level astronomy?
In the glorious name of astronomy, please keep writing this story. I love all the scientific details you're putting into this.
1286260
I read and loved Forever War, as well as Forever Peace. I would also suggest Marsbound and Starbound, his two most recent novels.
1287607Hmm, I haven't read any of the sequels. I seldom read sequels anyway, though. I'll check them out, though.
1286611Actually, very little of it is past the high school level, or at worst junior college. You can probably pick up any basic astronomy book from the library and it would give you the basics of things like orbital mechanics, time dilation, etc.
1285598 Pardon me, but didn't they recently discover a terrestrial planet in a binary star system? It made headlines, something about "discovering a real-life Tatooine".
1285139
Indeed.
Plus, nice characterization of Luna & Twilight on how they, metaphorically, look up at the sky and ask, "Gee, I wonder what's out there?" Makes them a little more, dare I say, human-like.
Also, why do I get the feeling that, due to the fact that they only have enough juice for a few "jumps," that one of them may get left behind on an alien planet? Or some other such dilemma?
Know what? F*k it.
Favorited. Thumb'd up. Tracking. The whole nine yards.
1288947
Yeah, I read about that but it was a wide-spread binary like Alpha Centauri, not a close binary like Tattoo. It's close binaries that prevent planetary formation.
1290387 Ah, I'm sorry, my eyes skipped over the "close" part. You're right; those are too unstable to form a planetary system.
Hmm. Makes me wonder if Tatooine was a rogue world that was somehow captured by those stars. If that's the case, it should have a pretty short lifespan as a member of that system.
1288921 Perfect, I'll actually understand half this material
This looks interesting so far! I can't wait to read more.
I appreciate the effort to keep things scientifically accurate (or as much as they can be, in a universe populated by magical talking ponies).
Definitely looking forward to finding out what Twilight and Luna find out there.
I ship this.
(I have to point this out, since the space stuff has been fairly hard this far: Even with the strongest telescope, you'd be unable to to see a star's individual planets from a distance of dozens of light years. They're so close and so dim that they're basically indistinguishable from their star...)
It's the only wing there is, as far as Twilight Sparkle is concerned!
More genuine antique typos.
yours
actually
It's
It's
paths
its