The weather outside is frightful
Twilight Sparkle hummed happily as she scanned the clipboard in her canvas-covered hoof for the thousandth time and paced. Ponies trotted to and fro around her and the gentle murmur of their conversations blended with the low humming of the mana crystals - powering up slowly in the final test of her newest experiment. The four large crystals twisted slowly in the arcane flux shield arrays set at ley line intersections while tracery lines of silver, gold and salt directed the energy toward the complex and beautiful spell sigil arranged in geometric perfection around each carefully positioned control station. Even the ceiling of the vast cavern had been inlaid with lines and containment spells.
One of the technicians gave her the most cursory of bows as he weaved his way through the stations encircling a rounded depression in the stone floor that held the most complex four dimensional spell sigil known to ponykind. There, multiple layers of spells - each changing slowly over time - would pierce the veil between worlds while other spells would report on the worlds found and provide feedback to the main spell. On a raised platform along one of the curved walls of the cavern, the main control could 'key' any world found to an easy-to-remember series of magical pulses. This was the genius of Twilight's design - perfect dimensional recall.
Somepony cleared their throat behind her. Twilight glanced up, her face breaking into a huge smile. Her five Ponyville friends had come - though her smile faltered somewhat at their obvious discomfort.
"Twilight, are you sure about this?" Rainbow Dash fidgeted with nervous energy and unconsciously pushed against the tough canvas belt around her barrel and wings. Twilight's other friends also looked uncomfortable in their protective wear - from Rarity's scrunched nose to Pinkie's hoof-tip dance in her rubber-coated canvas booties. With so much magical energy and such delicate spells, even minor busts of magic could ruin months of hard labor. Thus, all unicorns (and alicorns) were forced to wear inhibitor rings, every pegasus (and alicorn) was grounded and every earth pony (and, yes, alicorn) were forced to wear booties while near the delicate machinery. Twilight herself wiggled her wings in the strap and gave her polychromatic friend a calm smile.
"Yes, Rainbow. Just think - we can finally retrieve somepony sent to one of these worlds! Ponies interested in pan-dimensional studies can test their theories without jumping blindly into what could be a volcano." Twilight sighed, offering the rest of her friends the same smile. "Just think of the worlds that could be waiting just a spell away."
"Ah don't know, Twi." Applejack adjusted her hat for the thousandth time, obviously a nervous habit due to the arcane shielding around her hooves. "Ah just don't see th' point ta all this - don't ya think we've got enough problems here on Equestria ta go galavantin' around other planets lookin' fer more?"
"Be that as it may," Luna's sudden voice caused everypony to jump and the five mares hastily dipped into bows as she delicately walked between the lines inscribed on the rough stone floor, "Celestia and I have been striving for better dimensional travel ever since the destruction of the few remaining Magic Mirror portals in the Discord Wars. To be able to return to these far-flung worlds once more - not to mention the potential retrieval of any pony lost to the whims of fate - is worth the small investment of bits."
"Beggin' yer pardon, Princess," Applejack roughly tipped her hat toward Princess Luna, "Ah still don't see th' use but if y'all think it's worth it, Ah suppose it is."
"No pardon necessary, Dame Applejack." Luna waved a hoof towards a raised dais surrounded by eye-twisting lines of entwined gold and silver. Even now, unicorn and earth pony technicians were adjusting the complex machinery beneath the structure. "It is not often ponies pierce the veil between world but when such an thing occurs, it is most devastating."
A pony in protective gear trotted up to the group before questions could be asked and whispered something into Twilight's ear - who burst into a huge grin and almost snapped her wing restraints in joy. She nodded and turned to her bewildered friends. "Sorry girls, but it's almost time to begin the first test. We have a planet that seems to be life supporting and it'll take me some time to get into my protective gear."
"Twilight?" Fluttershy's voice was surprisingly loud for the shy mare and the gasps from her other friends caused one of Luna's eyebrows to rise in curiosity.
"No time, girls! Be back in a few minutes!" Without waiting for an answer, Twilight turned and galloped away - towards a small group of ponies dressed in hazard suits standing around a small curtained-off section of the cavern.
Luna cleared her throat in the stunned silence. "I take it Princess Twilight never specified who would be going during the first test of this marvelous spell?"
The first thing Twilight noticed as the spell faded and her body fully rematerialized was the cold. Not just any cold, a biting cold that cut through her protective gear and pelt with an intensity that bordered on painful. Next, sound. The howling and mournful moan of never ending wind. And then -
"Gah!" Twilight's wing shot up, covering her eyes as the white glare stabbed into her skull. It was all she could do to bite back a sudden whimper. The cold, the glare, the howling wind - even the Crystal Empire had been less harsh.
"Twilight, your heart rate's shot up and we're reading a dangerous dip in your body temperature." Luna's voice held the distinct echo of long-range telepathy. Despite the distortion, her concern was evident. "We're activating the-"
"No!" Twilight shouted into the howling air and with a flick of her horn, a bubble of calm air appeared around her. It did nothing against the glare and only slightly better against the freezing cold but she squinted into it regardless. "It's fine - I'm fine. The change was surprisingly drastic, that's all."
"Twilight, this world need not be explored. You've proven your spell, let us bring you home."
"I'm fine Luna. Really, I'm - sweet Harmony." An icy wasteland lay around her as far as her eyes could see. Ice, packed by decades or centuries of weight into a surface as hard as stone. Ridges of looser snow were all that broke the monotony of white that stretched from horizon to horizon. The wind whipped ice crystals from these ridges into streams of soft white that raced along the ground. With tears in her squinting eyes, Twilight could only shiver and stare at the stark beauty.
"Twilight? Twilight, respond." Luna's voice held an edge of fear in it despite the calm tone.
"I'm here Luna. It's ... it's ice. Ice as far as the eye can see. Worse than the Crystal Empire's borders. Worse than anything I've seen." White ice, blue cloudless sky - cold, bright and the sun doing almost nothing against the cold. "There's nothing. Wait. There, miles away - a blocky shape."
"Twilight, the recall spell only works a few miles away from the point of entry."
"I know Luna." Hefting the heavy bag of survival gear save a bright, glowing crystal to mark her way home, Twilight trotted off into the wind. "I won't be long."
An hour of trotting later and the constant communication with Luna suddenly cut out. Twilight was only halfway to the structure - and structure it surely was. Even from this distance, Twilight could see the telltale signs of purpose in the angles and strange shadows in the strangely still light. She stepped back until she could hear the near-panicked voice of Luna.
"- respond Twilight, please for the love of Harmony respond."
"I'm here Luna, safe and sound."
"Oh thank the stars - you gave everypony a heart attack."
"I'm sorry everypony, I was a few steps out of the range of the spells."
"We must maintain constant-"
"Luna, I'm halfway there - I'm going to walk the rest of the way." Twilight dropped her survival bag to the ice, ignoring the yell of disbelief from Luna. She began pulling various items from the bag as she spoke - noting how weak her magic seemed to be getting as she first levitate and then resorted to pulling with teeth. "I've set a guide crystal at the point of entry, I'm going to place pitons to lead me back to this point and while I don't have enough rope, Ah've 'ot enough to stahrt my return trip e'en ih a hurricane whips up aroun' meh."
Pitons, rope, food and cooking, medical supplies, mana crystals -
"Twilight, this is Celestia."
"Prin-Celestia?" The calm voice of her mentor broke Twilight's concentration and she dropped the lantern she had been holding to the ice in surprise.
"Twilight, I won't stop you - I know that you'll take every precaution and when you become focused on a task it's very difficult to stop you from carrying it out. But I want to ask you - can you make it back even if the worst comes to pass? Not 'think' you can, can you make it back to me, to us?"
Twilight raised her head towards the shape on the horizon. The horizon, the sun hanging motionless in the sky, the wispy hint of clouds that hung so far away they were more mirage than real - all this fell away. A long run but not impossible. A hard crawl - but not impossible. Twilight turned and looked behind her. Towards home. The glint of the guide crystal still shown clear to her rear.
"Yes."
"Then may Harmony guide you. Please return to us, Twilight."
"I will Princess. I promise you."
A bust. A bust on a short wooden pillar. Twilight stared at the strange creature, trying to wrap her mind around ... everything. A few poles with guidelines sinking far beneath the ice, this pillar and bust and nothing else. Not even the constant communication from Luna to ease her mind. Nothing else.
Reaching one hoof out, Twilight tapped the bone-like material. It didn't feel like bone - more like Bakelite or Barkesine. The figure it depicted was strange to her as well. A flat face with a beak-like protrusion, small tufts of fur above the deep-set and tiny eyes and rounded ears set at the sides instead of on top of the head. The withers and chest of the figure depicted clothing very similar to Equestrian fashion - which almost made the plastic statue seem even more alien than it perhaps would have been.
And that was all. The pillar was hollow wood, edged in metal. The poles looked to be made of metal as well as the guidelines. And that was all. From horizon to horizon, ice and snow. And this small pillar of wood with a plastic bust of some unknown and probably long-dead creature. Nothing else.
"There's nothing." Twilight sat, her mind still struggling with the information it had been given, and placed her head against the cold surface of the pillar. The hollow pillar. Hollow ... "Hollow?"
Within seconds, a folding shovel was brought down against the wood and a chunk of snow was pulled away. The pillar extended deep under the ice and snow. Beneath the bust, masonry and ash - a chimney! Twilight took a hard chunk of snow and dropped it down the hole, counting. One - thunk. One second, maybe less. Estimating the gravity to be Equestrian standard gave a distance of, say, thirty to forty feet.
"Forty feet." Twilight looked down. Forty feet below her was a space where some creature once stood, perhaps the same creature that now gazed lifelessly out from a plastic monument - forever trapped in ice and snow. She smiled. "I can do forty feet."
With a flash, Twilight disappeared from the ever-present shine of the surface and reappeared in darkness. Her horn burst into light and she gasped. A red banner with a golden symbol was the first thing she set eyes on, hanging limply as it was against a wall. Nearby, a cold metal stove nearly covered in snow spilling in from two broken windows. Twilight stood on a table in the center of the small room, the pressure wave from her teleport having knocked a great deal of miscellany onto the floor. Other than the table, banner and stove, little else was notable.
Twilight carefully stepped off the table and onto the floor, avoiding the containers still spilling their contents. Everything was mundane from what she could tell. Old food, a tea kettle, the cold stove - a strangely shaped but still familiar phonograph player. It was a survival hut. A place of last refuge for a people long passed. Even the door was cracked and shifted from the weigh of snow and ice bearing down on the small wooden home.
So focused on the surroundings, Twilight didn't see the book until she had stepped on it. Gripping it in her teeth, she placed it gently on the table and nosed it open. The language was strange but the style was familiar to anypony that had ever been to one of Pinkie Pie's parties. A guest book. The list was woefully short for the size of it but there were still so many names listed in at least three different language styles. Twilight reached into her still-shut saddlebags, pulled out an ink well and quill and, with shaky mouth, carefully marked her name in Equestrian on the end of the list.
That task complete, Twilight dropped the quill to the table next to the still-full ink well. Everything was covered in snow or frost - even the papers of the book had been stiff with cold. She took a few steps and rubbed one hoof against the red banner hanging limply in the still air of the hut. Even it was cold.
With a flash, Twilight disappeared from the small, wooden hut.
"Twilight, this is Return Base Equestria - please respond."
Twilight heaved a sigh of relief as the mental connection between her and Luna was reasserted. The clouds that had been so wispy in the distance had brewed into a terrible windstorm and it had taken her several exhausting hours of slowly working her way along the pitons she had planted with her shield growing harder and harder to maintain before she had made the few small miles from the abandoned and buried hut back into range of the recall and communication spell.
"I'm here Luna," Twilight said. Her voice was ragged but she could feel her magic slowly begin to push back against the wind more effectively. "There's a windstorm here and my magic has been spotty at best. I think this planet lacks a developed magical field."
"Twilight, this is Celestia. Why didn't you report this earlier?"
"Sorry Celestia. I didn't really start to feel the effects until I was already on my way to the hut." Twilight pulled herself upright and took stock of the situation. The wind whipped ice had made visibility close to nothing and even the bright light of the guide crystal was lost in the grey-white mist that covered everything but as low on magic as she was, Twilight could feel the center that was her entry point.
"Hut?"
"I'll tell you about it when I get back. I want to get as close to the point of entry as I can before we recall." With a final look behind her, Twilight began to trot towards the vague near-warmth that surely was the point of entry.
"We will be waiting with quarantine and hot cocoa."
"I'll need to be kept cool - this planet is an ice ball and the temperature difference-"
"We are aware Twilight. We have everything under control on our end - just return to us safely."
"I'm already on my way."
Twilight flipped through one of the many books set near her bedside, wincing as raw flesh touched the dry paper. The effects of her trip were still apparent - pink and furless ears and nose, eyes still damaged by snow blindness. But despite the painful process of regrowing those parts of herself lost on her trip, a smile graced her face whenever she spoke of it.
A knock on her door caused her to lift her head and she set aside the large tome she had been reading - some treatise on extraplanar exploration written by a long dead magus.
"Come in."
"Twilight, here's your newspaper and lunch." Spike - decked out in a nurses outfit and pushing a trolley filled with dishes - carefully guided himself and his load around the stacks of books topped with empty tea cups and sundry.
"Thank you Spike." With a burst of light from her horn, Twilight levitated the various pieces of her meal and new reading material to her side. "Tomorrow, I should be cleared to get out of bed on my own and thank Harmony for that."
"Yeah, maybe then we can clean this mess without you having a conniption fit about getting it out of order." Spike crossed his arms and frowned at Twilight's sheepish grin. He had gotten used to the pink of her new skin and the patchiness of new fur around her eyes and no longer had the heebie jeebies whenever she smiled.
"I'm sorry Spike - the trip to Iceworld really made me want to study how such a thing could possibly happen. Imagine, a whole world locked in ice."
"Well, at least the part you saw."
"True," Twilight put hoof to chin in thought. "It very well could have been an outlier case - but any random point on a random world ought to showcase at least a mean average of that world."
"Like the Crystal Empire?"
"Spike, the Crystal Empire is an outlier but the weather conditions on Iceworld were so much more extreme than anything on Equus that the average world temperature has to be lower than-" Spike put his claws up with a grimace. Twilight had been in lecture mode ever since she had been released from quarantine and it had taken Princess Celestia pulling rank to force the excited alicorn to take some well deserved rest.
"Okay, okay! Geez." With a sigh, he hefted himself carefully up on the side of her bed. "I'm just saying that you can't draw concrete conclusions from a single sample size."
Whatever the reaction he expected to get, having the alicorn wrap him in her hooves and nuzzle him was not among them.
"Aww, you look so cute when you get scientific!"
"Twilight ..."
"Well, look at it this way, Spike. Why would there be a hut in the random middle of nowhere in the harshest conditions on that one planet?" That brought Spike's own claw to his chin in thought. Twilight pushed one of the many books laying about her bed into his hooves - opened as it was on a story well-known to all Equestrians. Six figures cowering under the vague horse-like shapes of clouds. "From what I can gather from historical similarities on Equus, it's probable that the creatures of that planet lost their magic field during some cataclysm that locked the sun in place. Without the sun's movement, there was hatred and fear enough to create windigos and ... well, end result."
"Huh. I guess it's a good thing we have Princess Celestia and Luna to look after the sun and moon."
"Exactly. We just have to make sure it never happens to us and remember those strange creatures that fell before." Twilight looked out one of the many windows of her bedroom. The sun was shining bright in the sky and in the distance, she could see the serene towers of Canterlot rising up against the blue sky. A shining beacon of warmth.
"Hey Twilight, are you alright?" Spike's question brought Twilight back to the here and now. Around the little dragon in his nurse outfit, plates of Twilight's favorite dishes still steamed. Books filled the rest of the bed surface save for one spot. There, a small patch of red cloth sat - remarkable only for the unknown history that it represented.
"Yes Spike. It's sad ... I wonder what those creatures were like. I wonder-" With a hoof, Twilight stroked the red patch. "I wonder if they even knew what was going on."
"McMurdo Station, this is overflight NOAA-3. We're over the estimated ground zero location. Visibility is limited but we see nothing when the storm allows. Our readings are picking up some anomalous readings but there's no physical change, over."
"NOAA-3, this is McMurdo. We'll get the science team to go over those reports. IceCube probably had some reading malfunction - why would anyone want to detonate a nuke over Antarctica anyway? Come on back, over."
"Roger. Out."
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Awesome story.
-Equinox_
Oh wait, that was Antarctica?
I thought she was in Siberia! 
Then again, what's the difference? 
... yeah yeah, I know, penguins and it being south and coldest place on Earth...
As soon as it mentioned the extreme weather I figured it either had to be Antarctica.
Didn't know about the Soviet Station there(I'm pretty sure there are/were scientists down there though, and a lot of penguins).
6376518
Antarctica has little multicellular life outside the ocean ways. If she ended up in Siberia, she would probably see trees, lichen and such and that would destroy most of the premise of this story. Moral: Don't be sure of anything when you have a limited sample size - but feel free to speculate anyway.
6376571
Were scientists. The station was in operation in 1958 for about a month during the Antarctic summer. In 1965, it was visited by an American team doing a continental traverse. And in 2007 and 2011 it was reached by other traverse teams. By now, it's mostly buried under compacted snow and ice. And it is FAR too distant from the ocean for penguins. Link.
6376752
Huh, interesting.
And 'down there' was in reference to Antarctica in general since there are multiple research stations down there, some of which are still used. There's just no, permanent human residents.
6376818
I know EDIT: there are other stations and all. I thought you meant that particular station - and yeah, last bit of crust with no real permanent human habitation. Everyone is 'just visiting' so to speak.
EDIT: Clarified myself.
Yes, all of the yes!
This would make a great story!
Either in the form of a continuation of this segment or moving on to more worlds!
I found a plot hole.
There is no way in hell those booties are going to contain Pinkie Pie.
Also, this story reminds me of a Stargate episode with a similar gag. They wound up in Antarctica because of some shenanigans and decided they were on an ice planet.
6376902
Actually, I vaguely remember that one. They kept dialing home but not getting anything because they thought they were off planet or something. Yeah, I vaguely remember that.
Eh, maybe that informed this. Though the setting is slightly different - the wide open spaces of the surface vs. a cavern. Still, yeah. But no but yeah. Yeah.
6376942 I don't remember the details either, but that sounds about right to me. There are definite similarities as well as differences, but it is ultimately not that important.
I love it. Very fun little spin on HiE-PiE world exploration.
This story gets me in the mood for a good, detailed story in this style. Too bad I've already read most of those sorts of fics on the site. Good Human/Pony first contact fics are a treasure, and there will never be enough to satisfy my hunger.
Woah, a remarkable reading that I haven't came across in a long time. Nicely done!
Author, you better get her to explore that world more. Otherwise the committeee of Interdimensional Beings for the General Improvement of Civilizations will be angry at the status that you left it in.
6376986 Can you recommend some? This is the first i have seen that isn't HiE which i am kinda burnt out on.
I've wondered about that too. Why do PoEs always land in urban or suburban USA or Europe?
If I were writing this, I probably would have put it in the Sahara.
Or to make a longer and more thrilling tale, perhaps somewhere near Erta Ale in Ethiopia? Let ponies deal with lava lakes, acid lakes, harsh desert and AK-toting tribesmen. (Per Wikipedia: "Not much is known about Erta Ale, as the surrounding terrain is some of the most inhospitable on Earth and the native Afar people have a legendary reputation for viciousness towards outsiders.")
So...just a standalone?
Or merely Part 1 of many? Even if Twilight believes that the world is just an 'Iceworld,' there's so much more than could be looked at in one visit. I didn't even see her take extensive samples!
Please say she's returning to Earth?
6376986
There's a few that I like but they all have their 'issues.' One of the reasons I don't do these is the language barrier - trying to imitate two different speakers of languages tends to become a group-effort charades game and just ugh. Since I know what everyone is saying, I can have 'waving arms furiously' mean something that in hindsight doesn't seem all that obvious.
6377074
Well thank you!
6377127
The original name of the chapter was 'The Only One Ever.' Sorry, I have no plans to extend this in any way. Someone else can grab and run with it though, if they want to.
6377600
Well, with how this was planned, the Sahara might've been okay - except that has some rather hearty life clinging to it. I wanted the suggestion to be a totally dead world. And that it tied into the cultural phenomenon the ponies have of windigos just lent itself to misunderstanding and wild speculation.
6377636
Standalone, one-shot. And Twilight was more concerned with surviving by the time she left the hut than to go back and grab some, say, meteorological documents or even the globe that was there. She was also feeling a bit down because of her already-present assumptions on the fate of this 'world' she was seeing.
6377744
From the cold, of course. She was frostbitten. The radiation is a by product of her exotic and unsustainable matter breaking down due to the new universe rules - and actually, if she hadn't been an alicorn with a huge natural reserve of magic and a tough body, she probably would have died before even getting to the hut.
By that logic, they've got a 1 in 4 shot of making landfall at all -- not just here, but on most habitable worlds! They'd probably figure that out eventually and try to send some kind of flying probe, but chances are it would crap out on every world with no magical field.
The good news is that now that they've confirmed traces of civilization here, they'd probably make more prepared return trips to study the abandoned Soviet post -- ones with appropriate gear to survive the cold, detect rough latitude, realize they took a very wrong turn at Albuquerque, and probably draw attention.
And then with our help they could send out gliders to other worlds.
I got one thing to say about this story. MOARMOARMOARMOARMOARMOAR
6377463
Sifting through my Favs looking for good First Contact fics which involve ponies going to Earth, here's the ones I would recommend (that aren't on permanent haitus/never got past the first couple chapters):
Voyage's End:
One-shot in which the Voyager space probe is found by Equestria, and its contents are studied.
Celestia Sleeps In:
In which Princess Celestia goes to a foreign planet to enjoy their sunrise, and is discovered by a human on the island she teleported onto. The unfinished (but still active) sequel directly continues the events that occur here, but there's quite a lot already written.
Twilight Makes First Contact:
Awesome fanfic about exactly what the title says. Filled with interesting cultural exchange, this one has actually given me several bits of headcanon. Unfortunately it's been a full year-and-a-half since the last update, but what is there is still worth reading.
Stardust:
A crossover with XCOM, but if you haven't played the game don't let that stop you. This fic does a great job keeping the reader informed, and I think it'd be just as enjoyable without knowledge of the game's events. Absolutely fantastic Pony-On-Earth fic.
Hopefully at least some of these are new to you and I've given you something good to read! Apologies to Minalkra for using his comment section for this discussion.
This story needs to continue.
I like the cultural/historical bias that comes into play, but there is one part of it that bugs me: Wendigos
As far as we know, Wendigos are a part of Pony history, and were defeated by a combination of sincere peace talks and unicorn magic. These two things probably weren't and aren't present in other species, however. If Wendigos were ever attracted to other species, like griffons, dragons, zebras etc. (and they should have been according to the Law of Averages) how did those other species deal with them? They couldn't have. I can only conclude that Wendigos only ever went after ponies, for whatever inexplicable reason.
I am a bit confused as to why Twilight assumes that humans were destroyed by Wendigos, when there are plenty of other species on her own planet who never had any interactions with them.
As it should be.
Moar?
6378359
Well, I'm not going to go forward with this myself. It was a one-shot to me. If anyone else wants to build off this, they can shoot me a PM and I'll probably okay another writer's sequel. Or they can make it 'unofficial' and just not list this as a sequel. Whichever man.
6378454
Funnily enough, every single one of those are on a list of mine in various ways. They all have 'issues' but I like them.
6378550
That's a great many assumptions you have there. Admittedly, we don't have a complete view of Equestria but just because we don't know about the zebras or the dragons or the gryphons dealing with windigos doesn't mean they never did. Perhaps that's why dragons are solitary now - their empire was shattered and the only way they could deal with the threat as a species was to live solitary lives. Perhaps the zebras dealt with the windigos similarly to the ponies - or never had to deal with it at all because they never had the intense level of hatred the ponies had for one another. Perhaps the gryphons pride kept them from hating one another. We don't know.
Personally, I think every species had dealings with windigos and dealt with them according to their species requirements - such as outlined above. Until (Unless) the show writers deal with that aspect of the show, it's all head canon and all head canon is as valid as any other unless it explicitly contradicts the show in one form or another. I don't see the outline above as contradicting the show myself so I'm going with it.
6378499
6378430
Unless someone else picks it up, this is all there will be of this. Sorry.
6378559
Honestly? Yes. EqG ruins
livesfanfics. I don't like it. Nope, not at all.Human ignorance can be adorable sometimes. Others, it's annoying.
6378454
ooh! more stories to read.
(Also: Awesome ending
)
Ah, that explains stuff.
But you made one unforgivable sin. A wrong so bad it will forever blight this story with its disgrace.
You called a gramophone a phonograph!
But otherwise pretty good, needed more Soviet National Anthem though.
A Bond Villain who wants to melt the ice causing sea levels to rise which would flood all the coastal cities in the world in order to raise his property values by giving himself beach front property?
6378754
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph
"In it's later form, known as a gramophone (trademarked 1887 ...)"
Which would Twilight know it as, the human trademarked name or the generic name? Admittedly, I have only ever really called it a phonograph or record player myself though I've heard of gramophone before - so really, either-or in this case. Given my head canon regarding the roughly equivalent time period Equestria is experiencing, I think phonograph fits better as an earlier word for the same essential device.
Edit: And now reading the entirety of the Wikipedia entry, I see its a stylistic choice based on where the reader is in the world. Yay me for reading my own links! Whoops.
Nice story. One small technical quibble: the sun may be constantly visible during the long south polar year, but it doesn't stay still: the planet is still rotating, so it moves in a circle above the horizon.
I want more! Or at least I would if you did decide to continue it. Great piece.
6378952
Yes, generally the very first bit in the US section, where we differentiate gramophones as the more modern disc type players and only use phonographs for the early wax cylinder players. (Which were a piece of junk because the wax couldn't handle repeated usage.)
But ehh, maybe Equestria's different. But personally I like the differential naming because they are quite different devices.
(The UK also uses this differential method.)
6379028
Strangely enough, I live in the US and it's entirely the opposite for me. I've never heard gramophone in conversation but I've spoken to many people about the phonograph in my den.
Different strokes ...
EDIT: And I just had a conversation with my old man and he calls it a gramophone ... I guess I'm just weird and those people were humoring me ...
A nice touch with that "motionless" sun, got me thinking that was some kind of AU Earth for a while.
So it's this station:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Southern_Pol_of_Inaccessibility_Henry_Cookson_team_n2i.JPG
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Southern_Pol_of_Inaccessibility_Henry_Cookson_team_n2i.JPG
looks comfy ;)
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to
6379055 Then young padawan, you must slap those people on their heads.
Interestingly when you look at the Soviet station it looks almost like it was intentionally designed as to show off Lenin's bust when it was buried.
sorpolen2011.npolar.no/opencms/export/sites/sorpolen2011/en/diary-images/Utilgjengelighetspolen_Orheim.jpg
uturncrossfit.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/keep-calm-and-give-me-more-13.png
MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Other than researchers and penguins and such, who lives in Antarctica?
I hate it when an author makes a fantastic open-ended ending to a story, because it makes me feel bad for wanting a sequel.
I shouldn't, but there it is.
Haha, Antarctica during the Winter, eh? Noice.
I'll be ready for moar to read.
6379157
Deez nut
6379157 Actually, even penguins don't live in Antarctica; common misconception though, don't worry.
6379240
Ah, don't feel bad. It's completely natural to want a continuation to a story as open as that.
I for one, want to see them try to explore a bit more of the same planet and wind up in the middle of the Sahara.
It's an intriguing story. What makes it unique is that unlike most random teleportation stories, Twilight ends up instead in one of the least hospitable areas. Secondly, Twilight ends up drawing conclusions based of the mechanics of her own world.
I really hope there is more.
6379451 Actually, penguins do live in Antarctica. You're thinking of Polar Bears. Penguins live almost exclusively in Antarctica, with some other cases finding them as far north as the Galapagos Islands by the equator.