Homeward Bound
“You are being held captive upon suspicion of having committed a crime. You will not be harmed. You have the right to see a judge within seventy-two hours. You will have the opportunity to contact friends or family...”
The guards, or whatever exactly they were, had very quickly subdued the griffon. For one, there were a great many of the guards. For another, he had put only token resistance, probably realizing he was caught.
One of the guard-things—the leader, Silver Compass guessed—had faced the captive griffon and removed his face-covering helmet with green lenses. Silver Compass had been relieved to see a normal griffon’s face beneath. The guard was currently taking the time to recite a speech. The way he intoned the words made it clear it was something he repeated often.
“You have the right to be represented by a champion of law. You have the right to medical treatment....”
Finally, when the speech was finished, the rest of the guards—still wearing their helms—escorted their captive out. He had said nothing in response, merely sneered at them.
“You will need to give a statement,” the unhelmeted guard said. Whether he meant Silver Compass, Bright Lance and Night Wing, or all of them was not entirely clear.
“A statement of what?” Bright Lance asked. He had relaxed from his aggressive stance, but he was still standing defensively in front of the academic.
“Just describe what happened, in as much detail as you can. I’ll write it down, you read it and sign that it is the truth. The assailant is a pretty important figure, but he doesn’t have actual diplomatic immunity. It’ll still become a tangled mess of politics, so we really need to keep the evidence straight.”
“Okay, that sounds simple.” Silver Compass squeezed between his protectors.
“Perhaps take a seat. This could take some time.”
“Oh.” Silver Compass had had a long day and was still feeling drained with the stress of the evening.
“We really need to get everything straight. I won’t have him slipping through the net because….”
There was a sudden squawking noise from somewhere in the griffon’s black armour. He paused and took a communication device of some sort from it. He glanced at it, grimaced, and held it up to his beak.
“Mister Campbell.”
Silver Compass could not follow the resulting conversation. He could identify the other party as Charles by his voice, but he was not speaking in Griffonian. The language he was speaking sounded like the snatches of the human language he had heard so far. However, he had never heard it spoken so harshly before. It was interesting in an abstract sense, how they turned the teeth-based constants into almost spitting noises and gave more dramatic swing to the vowels.
The conversation was fairly short. The griffon gave mostly one word replies in the same language.
“Correction,” the griffon said after putting the device away, “you do not need to give a statement. You will be given an escort to a new, more secure hotel, with a different security detail. I am told to extend you the personal apologies of our government and their assurance this will not happen again.”
Silver Compass packed up his suitcase while waiting. His notes had become a little scattered in the fight, but none were lost. After a while there was a knock at the door. Or, rather, against the doorframe which no longer held a door.
Not waiting for a response, a group of humans strode in. They were, he assumed, human guards. They were still wearing a ridiculous amount of clothes; he was not sure how they could be expected to do any actual guarding dressed like a group of nobles. They were almost completely covered by clothes dyed with an assortment of drab green and brown blobs. He would have thought it was camouflage—in a city no less—except they were wearing bright blue helmets.
“Silver Compass, Bright Lance and Night Wing?” the human with the most tiny medallions asked. “Lieutenant Osborne. We’re your new security. First we’ll escort you to the Space Needle Hotel.”
Silver Compass picked up his bag. Bright Lance looked at the group skeptically.
“How exactly will it be any better than the previous guards?”
“They were GDR police. We’re UN Peacekeepers,” Osborne tapped his blue helmet.
“And, are you more elite guards than the griffons, or what?”
“We have some new things that will be fairly surprising for them if the Empire outright attacks us. But griffons would be better at actually engaging any threats that approach. Magic, even their basic innate magic, seems mostly immune to physical force wielded by non-magicals.”
“And this is an improvement… how?”
“We are empowered representatives of the United Nations of Earth acting in an official capacity. If they attack you—and by extension us—it will not be another border scuffle with the GDR. It will be outright war, and this time round there’ll be a bit more than single damaged bomber pushed through a hostile portal, loaded with what we had laying around from the end of the Cold War. The latest generation of fast-launching ballistic missiles with MIRV warheads would seriously ruin their day.”
“According to the treaty you agreed that none of those things were to be placed in the GDR.” Bright Lance narrowed his eyes.
“As agreed there are none in the GDR. The International Strategic Reserves are all on the other side of the portal. The Immediate Response Reserve is on the Earth-side of the portal station. But they can be deployed cross-portal and launched very quickly. Don’t worry, they won’t try anything. You’re as safe as houses while we stand guard.”
The carriage he had ridden in stood outside a tall narrow building. The building was a very modern design: a tall spire of steel and glass among many lesser others. Row upon row of sleek carriages stood next to the one he had arrived in. It made for a sharp contrast, as the carriage he had come in was large and clunky. It was painted the same drab colours as the humans wore, with the same bright white logo painted on its doors.
He was no soldier, certainly. But even he could see that it clearly was not a dignified vehicle for diplomats to cruise through a city. He had had more than enough room on the inside, despite his guards and the half-dozen humans. It was completely unadorned and with no accommodation made for comfort. Clearly, its only goal was to transport as many soldiers as possible as quickly as possible over presumably rough terrain. At least, judging by the large wheels.
After he exited through the rear of the vehicle, the human guards were not flanking him as he had expected. Instead, they moved significantly in front and behind of him, and took fixed positions. When he moved a certain amount they would rearrange themselves into new positions.
Inside the hotel the decor was a continuation of the outside. Everything was sharp and angled, in heavy black against clean white walls. The only highlighting colour was silver. Lieutenant Osborne approached the front desk and talked with one of the humans behind the counter. If the sudden influx was unusual, the clerk gave no sign.
A brief conversation later, Lieutenant Osborne returned.
“We’re on the top floor.” He walked to what was clearly a bank of elevators, and Silver Compass followed. The elevator dinged just as he arrived. The inside of the elevator car was finished entirely in mirrors and polished steel, with a small rail surrounding the perimeter for the humans to hold. When they were inside the doors closed and the elevator started moving for no reason he could discern.
“Where’s the attendant?” he asked.
“There isn’t one. There aren’t even any buttons, it’s one of those creepy ultra-modern griffon designs.”
Silver Compass could think of a lot of words that would describe the griffon approach to architecture. Stuffy, traditional, solid were some. But creepy and modern were not. The elevator door dinged and opened. A glowing yellow line was reaching away from the door along the wall until it reached an intersection where it turned right.
They followed the line. Two intersections later they approached series of doors. They were identical to the many other black doors, except for the fact that the glowing line forked to touch them, and then stopped. He walked closer and the middle-door swung inwards.
“Your room. We take the two others. Sergeant Hernandez and Private Riley will stand guard inside your room as the first shift.”
The group broke up when he spoke. Two of the humans came to flank him now, the rest went into the other rooms. He went inside, where the theme was continued: black, silver and white. Briefly exploring, he found a study, two bedrooms and a bathroom. He was very tired and the bed was surprisingly comfortable in spite of not looking the least bit fluffy.
“Good morning Silver Compass,” a soft voice said. “You have a call from… Charles Campbell... would you like to accept it?”
“Bluh?” Silver Compass said, not entirely awake. “What is the time?”
“It is now… eight... minutes past… nine. Would you like to accept the call?”
“Yes!” he jerked awake—he had overslept badly. For a moment he wondered where he was, then he remembered. The entire bedroom was lit by a gentle white light that seemed to come directly out of the ceiling. In one of the walls he could see Charles, looking at him with a worried look on his face.
After briefly considering the notion of a hole in the wall, he realized an image was being projected somehow.
“I am sorry to have woken you. I just wanted to let you know we have postponed today’s conference. Please take the day and rest. And again, our apologies for the incident.”
“No harm was done. But what will happen to the Prince?”
“Oh, he will spend a day or two in jail and then he will see a judge. He’ll be given a chance to explain why he broke our laws, and having no explanation or defence he’ll be found guilty. He might spend a year or two in prison, probably more if he keeps his usual sneering attitude and doesn’t show remorse. But more likely his mother will attempt to make restitution of some sort. He certainly won’t bother you again.”
There was a faint beeping noise and Charles’ eyes flicked downwards.
“I have another call, but before I go are there any more questions you have?”
“No,” Silver Compass said and watched as Charles’ face dissolved into a white piece of wall. More awake now, he took stock of the room. Night Wing was standing still as statue in the corner closest to his bed, staring fixedly at a point to the left of the door.
Looking at the point, he saw a human guard. It was not one he recognized: the guard wore an identical uniform to the others but his skin was a dark brown. He was staring at Night Wing and was standing equally still. Silver Compass thought they might be competing to see who could move the least. He was tempted to stay and see who would win, but decided breakfast was more important.
Standing up and approaching the door he heard a human talking.
“...no, humans are actually omnivores, but that wasn’t why the dinner was a total disaster.”
“Oh, what went wrong then?” said a voice that sounded very much like Bright Lance. Silver Compass was glad they seemed to be getting along now, in spite of the somewhat frosty start.
“Well, it was Easter. That’s a… sort of festive time on Earth. And there’s a traditional candy, chocolate molded to look like an egg with a hard sugar coating. I brought some as a gift.”
Bright Lance laughed loudly.
“Yes, you get it. Their faces when I showed them how you break the eggs apart to eat them,” the human was also laughing. “I don’t think they could have been more horrified if I stripped naked at the dinner table.”
Silver Compass had edged a little too close to the door while listening, causing it to slide open. Bright Lance was sitting at a table talking with a human guard standing at the door. There were various parts of an extensive breakfast spread around the table and the human was holding a mug in one hand. Both jerked at the sound.
“Good morning,” said Bright Lance, sitting more upright and making his face more neutral.
“Morning Professor,” said the human. “I hope you slept well.”
“Morning,” he greeted them. “Where did you get the breakfast?”
“There is a thing on the table,” said Bright Lance, “you touch it and after a while your choice shows up in that dumbwaiter.” He pointed at a small door in the wall. “I ordered tea for you,” Bright Lance used magic to pour it and push the cup towards an open seat.
Silver Compass sat down. The tea tasted exactly the same as the tea at The Palace. It was probably from the same source. There was one of the display things embedded into the glass of the table. Currently it was showing a picture of what looked like hay bacon and eggs. Bright Lance motioned swiping a hoof across it. Silver Compass did that, and the picture changed to pancakes.
He did the action backwards and saw bacon and eggs again.
“This is fun!” he flipped through more dishes. Brief experimentation and he figured out that tapping sharply on one of the pictures would bring up a message asking if he would to order it. He purchased one bowl of cornflakes at a price of T20.95, whatever currency that was.
“Try pressing down upon the circle and asking it a question,” the guard suggested from the corner. He could not see how he could press something that was glass and unbendable, but he covered it with the front of his hoof. After a second the entire display changed.
“What…” he had not actually had a question prepared and grabbed the first thing that came to mind, “is the square root of sixteen.”
There was a brief pause.
“The square root of sixteen is four,“ was written on the screen and read out loud by the same type of distorted voice he had heard at the border control.
“How.... how did it do that?” he asked, looking at Bright Lance. Bright Lance shrugged. He looked at the guard.
“No idea. I’m not a IT guy.”
“What is the square root of one hundred and twenty eight?” Silver Compass asked the thing, curious to see exactly how smart it was.
The same brief pause.
“The square root of 128 is approximately 11.31371,” it read back dully in the same tone, as if it had not just done a fairly difficult set of approximations in less than a second.
“What is the square root of two thousand and forty-eight?”
“The square root of 2048 is approximately 42.24833.” Silver Compass had no way of checking; he had not memorized the square roots past 128. But he somehow doubted it would be wrong, especially after mental estimation backed up the integral part.
“What is the square root of… one million nine thousand and three.”
“The square root of 1 009 003 is approximately 1 004.49144.” It had paused exactly the same amount of time before answering.
There was a ding from the dumbwaiter. Presumably his cornflakes had arrived. He could not care less.
“What is the square root of 13 244 839 239?” he asked, mimicking the device’s way of reading numbers as individual digits.
“The square root of 13 244 839 239 is approximately 115 086.22524.”
“What are you?” he asked. The device did not answer; he had not pressed the circle that made it answer. It could not be operating on any normal principle of calculations: it would be spewing reams of paper not to mention calculating so fast would it literally cause the paper to catch fire. It could not be a calculating machine: there was no way gears could turn that quickly and even if they could, it would need a vast wall of them.
“Can… can I keep this?” he asked the human.
“Sure, if you can rip it out of the table. The hotel will just bill the government for it.”
Silver Compass tapped the table with a forehoof. As far as he could see the display was part and parcel of the table.
“Also, it won’t work that well outside the GDR. It probably needs an internet connection,” the guard said hurriedly when he saw Silver Compass was seriously contemplating how to physically remove it from the table. “You can just buy a similar tablet anyway. It’s around two hundred Talons.”
“That’s only ten times the price of a bowl of cornflakes!”
“No, it’s ten times the price of a bowl of cornflakes when you order first-class room service. Everything is marked up like ten times.”
Silver Compass did some brief mental maths and tried to ignore exactly how large his hotel bills were. “You have a device that can calculate pretty much any square root, and you sell it for that little?”
“Well, it can do more...”
“Show me!”
The guard came over, somewhat reluctantly.
There was a sudden beeping noise and the display changed again. Inside he could see Professor Yugoro standing and facing him. Next to him were two more humans in their blue helmets.
“Hello, Silver Compass?” he asked. “I came to see if you needed a new copy of Wiles’ proof.”
Silver Compass could hear his voice from the display and at the same time muffled from the other side of the door. Imposed on the image of the visitor were two pictures, one green showing a door opening and one red with an X. He tapped the green one and the door slid open.
Yugoro walked in, and paused when he saw Silver Compass sitting next to Bright Lance and the human guard. Night Wing and the other guard had come to stand behind Silver Compass, but he had not noticed when.
“Four more bodyguards after the ones outside?” Yugoro asked. “Well, certainly you’re secure now.”
“Never mind that! How does this thing work?”
“Oh, that’s just a touch screen built into the table with an android variant, some custom theming and apps linked into the hotel’s network for controlling the lights and so on.”
“How does it calculate square roots!?”
“Probably some iterative method? Depends on which app you’re in.”
“No, look, it found some really large ones,” he pointed at result which had stayed on the screen.
“Oh, that’s Google’s built-in calculator. I am not sure how it works, probably just javascript. It’s good if you need basic things but there are better ones for calculating. That one probably can’t even accurately handle numbers larger than two to the power of sixty-four.”
“Well, how can a piece of glass calculate anything?” Silver Compass decided to start with the easy questions that did not rely on too many assumed bits of knowledge and would not have him deluged with incomprehensible terms.
“It’s not just a glass display. There is a silicon chip behind it. Silicon is a semiconductor, meaning it can easily switch between states. Specifically, a crystal is formed with specific patterns that switch between two states, representing a binary numbering system. Probably in this case a mantissa and an exponent, both stored as binary numbers. These are then sent through a series of carefully manipulated flaws in the crystal that effectively performs calculations and change the state to a new number.”
This began a long, complex series of explanations. Finally, he could understand how it worked. It required him to accept some pretty radical thoughts on the nature of electricity and metals. And it required him to accept that humans could manipulate matter on the scale of a micrometers and sell the results for a ridiculously low price.
“All in all, they’re pretty useful things,” Yugoro concluded.
“Yes, I imagine a satchel-sized device that can calculate just about everything, record perfectly a library’s worth of information and provide access to the grand total of human knowledge would be pretty useful.”
“Exactly! There’s a lot of demand. They’re churned out by the million. And mass-production really helps to bring the price down.”
“The guard said they would not work outside the GDR.”
“Eh, no. They’ll work. That one thing you were using a bit back won’t work, along with all their best features. Setting up a GSM network to enable them to work fully isn’t exactly hard, we have covered most of the Earth with one by now.”
“And the only thing standing between Equestria and crates full of these tablets is the Empire?”
“A few minor organizational hurdles, but yes, easily solvable if the Empire grants passage.”
Silver Compass had never really cared for politics. In spite of—or because of—editing an international journal he had taken a very neutral and disinterested view. However, right now, he felt very much that a change in the policies of the Empire would be a good idea. He had met the Prince who was in line for the throne, and his impression had been less than favourable to say the least. Perhaps even an altogether change in the leading family then; he had heard of more reasonable factions in court.
“Please don’t tell me you ponies will be as obsessed as the griffons are with making every surface a touchscreen, “ said Yugoro, interrupting Silver Compass’ thoughts. “I think I speak for all humans when I say a bathroom mirror should remain a normal mirror.”
The meetings continued. Charles had not attended another one; it seemed there were too many demands on his time. Torgunna had departed as well, for some ceremony or another on Earth. Between Silver Compass and the other two other professors they slowly mapped out the various branches of their respective knowledge.
It seemed they did not, in fact, know everything; they counted far more open problems. After all, the larger an area their knowledge covered, the larger its edge must be and it was not an area that overlapped Equestrian knowledge perfectly. They vastly overstretched Equestria in number theory, calculus and most of all statistics.
But, he was glad, their knowledge of what they termed “non-euclidian” geometry was remarkably primitive. He was even able to give them, among other things, a new class of manifolds that they reported would be very useful in mathematical physics.
“This is why an exchange of ideas is so important,” said Yugoro, translating for Simpson. “We both know things of value to the other, and exchanging them will provide much gain at very little cost, especially compared to independent reinvention.”
“Yes, definitely. I will be making note of this in the editorial section.” Silver Compass had not yet figured out if the flowery speech was a quirk of the translation or how Simpson actually talked.
“All in all, it was a pleasure to have met you. From both Simpson and myself. We will try and keep in touch, as much as possible through the blockade. Our governments are already as favourable as they could be to more interaction, but we will certainly use our influence to keep them this way. Fare well.”
“Fare well,” he said in response. It was not idiomatically correct for Griffonian, but it seemed suitable enough as a parting phrase.
He did not travel alone to the train. The human guards—peacekeepers they called themselves—had not left his side since the attack. They had been constantly watching him in shifts.
“We aren’t going to go right up to their gates. That would probably not help matters which have been pretty tense since the last scare. The fighter planes turned away right at the border when the police broke down your door.”
“Nevermind that they started it, they’re still pretty angry about it,” Sergeant Hernadez added.
“Yes, we will escort you through most of the no-mans land. If they are willing to attack a diplomatic envoy in a hotel room they won’t be scared to arrange an unfortunate accident.”
The train compartment was not the same one he had ridden in before either. It was considerably bigger, with more chairs and tables. It was much the same otherwise, a part of the same impossibly fast and impossibly smooth ride.
At the train station they disembarked onto a large empty platform. For the first time he could see along the side of train properly. It was smooth and white, like the door he had briefly seen on his ride in. Its mechanism was covered, so he could not see what made it work.
There must be individual cars, because he could see doors all along the train, but the couplers between them were also covered by the same hull. Looking back and forth the majority of the train seemed dedicated to cargo, judging by the large square doors that were clearly meant for goods.
The train moved off again, leaving him with his Human and Equestrian guards. It was even eerier watching it from the platform: there were no hisses or thunking noises, it just departed with a slight hum.
Lieutenant Osborne led them down a ramp at the end of the stairway. They came to a hallway with a thick metal door in the front. It was grey concrete harshly illuminated by glowing tubes on the ceiling. The Lieutenant stood in front of the door and waved a key he had around his neck at it. A second door slammed shut behind them. After five seconds of Silver Compass reminding himself the previous time had gone fine, the door in front opened up, sliding sideways into the wall. The door behind them remained closed.
The room he could now see had row upon row of the troop carrying vehicles parked in neatly demarked lines. Armory, he realized after a short period of time. Each vehicle was completely identical to the one next to it, down to its blobby camouflage. There were several different types, including one with a closed top and a very long tube sticking out the front.
The human guards split up into three groups, meant for three vehicles. He, Bright Lance, Night Wing and Lieutenant Osborne were in one, with Hernandez sitting behind the wheel. With a rumbling noise it juddered and started moving. Its motion was not smooth and comfortable, but it was certainly functional.
They proceeded to drive through the storage area, with his vehicle in the middle of their caravan. They slowly made their way past the rows of machines lying in wait. The machines seemed to become larger the farther their party went along; the ones at the end would dwarf any carriage. They stood on tiny wheels and had huge metal wings. He thought they were small airships, but he could not see where they obtained their buoyancy from. Certainly nothing that big and made of heavy metal could hope to glide without consuming a massive amount of magic.
Finally they drove into another of the double-door corridors. When it opened to let them through he saw harsh sunlight. Celestia’s sun, even so far from Equestria. He looked around, trying to position himself. They were coming out of the mountain range that surrounded Talon’s End. Far off to his left he could see the building and the statue that had welcomed him.
As their caravan picked up speed, the ride became less comfortable, but not unbearably so. Soon they were far away from the exit. He wondered what Bright Lance made of these as military equipment.
“These would be very handy for our border posts,” Bright Lance was remarking to the Lieutenant, answering Silver Compass’ thoughts.
“Why? Your, erm, Pegasi can easily outfly them?”
“They would be torn apart without other guards to support them against, say, the Griffons. We could only really hold them back with a combined force of Earth Ponies reinforced with Unicorns with Pegasi covering them from above. This would enable much quicker deployment.”
“Well, they’re basically armoured four-by-fours painted green. Not really a classified military technology, you could buy as many as you want.”
A voice sharply said something from a box next to the driver, in a foreign language. The vehicles stopped suddenly.
“Stay seated,” Lieutenant Osborne ordered as he exited the vehicle. Silver Compass looked around for the cause, and saw Bright Lance looking upward. He looked upward as well, and saw a group of quickly descending shapes. Griffon Soldiers.
With a set of sharp thuds they landed next to the vehicles, surrounding Silver Compass and his party. Silver Compass could not help but notice that their claws tore rifts in the grass as they landed.
“Run out of flying abominations have you?” the lead one spat at Lieutenant Osborne. He was wearing full battle armour, down to the set of sharp metal blade on the wings. Stretching his memory Silver Compass recalled this Griffon: he was the administrator of the bordering province who had been so rude to him. Of course, as an administrator he would also be a regional military commander.
“We are returning a guest. Having been charged with his safekeeping we felt an escort would be wise,” said the Lieutenant. The other humans acted tense: they were all holding their metal clubs pretty tightly. But they were holding them in a pointing motion at the Griffons, clearly not as aggressive as holding them upright to strike.
“Haven’t you learned by now those things only sting us,” the lead Griffon gestured at the human weapon with a bladed wing.
“They sting when they shoot lead and copper. We learn from our mistakes. These, “ Lieutenant Osborne jerked his weapon, “will shoot bullets made of cold iron.”
“Well, we are glad. We always teach it is dishonourable to kill the unarmed and the helpless. A lesson you could do well to learn,” the leader flared his wings. The squad behind him copied his aggressive stance.
“And we are empowered peacekeepers acting on behalf of the Security Council. Attack us and per the Bern Treaty you will be at immediate war with the one hundred and ninety-seven member states of the United Nations.”
“Wrong. We will be at war with exactly one wayward province, and once we control it you can rage and shout declarations of war as much as you like at a closed portal.”
The humans remained in the same posture. But something in their small eyes changed to be much colder. Silver Compass thought that he was grateful that at least he had seen a solution for Starswirl’s Unsolved theorem in his life.
“How courteous,” said Bright Lance, standing up on the seat next to Silver Compass. “Queen Odilla cares so much for our safety that she sends her best soldiers to escort us home. Wise too, as the Princesses take a dim view when the safety of their subjects is endangered. Just when Night Wing has departed to Canterlot, carrying the message of a successful visit, you arrive to make up the shortfall in our security.”
The trip home had been uneventful. The Griffons at the airship dock had only given a token protest when Bright Lance refused them permission to search the party’s luggage. Three weeks of boredom had almost been welcome, after all the excitement. He had spent the time planning the first of a series of articles to take the center piece in his journal. And he wrote what he felt was a stirring editorial that utterly condemned the Griffon Empire.
At the airship dock in Canterlot he took a moment looking at all the ponies. Pegasi were flying and using ropes to dock the airship. Earth ponies were hauling away boxes of trade goods from the various port cities of the world. Here and there a Canterlot administrator was overseeing, invariably with a clipboard floating near their head. All against the backdrop of beautiful white and purple buildings. He knew a battle of wills was still being tenaciously waged over the ocean, but it seemed very far away right now.
A pegasus guard flapped closer to him.
“Professor Silver Compass?” he asked. “Your presence is requested at the palace.”
Not so far away after all. He was led into the palace again, this time the diplomacy rooms. The pegasus guard opened the door and he went in. Inside was Princess Celestia, who seemed to fill up the room. She nearly touched the ceiling, along with her flowing mane and general presence of magical power the room seemed very small.
“Your Majesty,” he bowed, taking care not to slip this time.
“So, my little pony,” Celestia started, “I received a message that your visit was successful.”
“Yes, your Majesty. I learned much and was able to offer them useful knowledge. Was that why you wanted me to go?”
“Ah, there are so many opinions on why I wanted you to go. Queen Odilla is convinced it is a foolish attempt at impartiality. Our nobles are convinced I am courting a new political ally in a tense region. The humans are convinced I did it to obtain this.”
Celestia levitated a book up so that he could see. It was a thick book, with a Griffonian title. It was in the human style he had seen often enough: no hard cover, just a differently coloured set of outer pages. The title was not very clear, and he assumed it was on some subject he was not familiar with: “Atomic Theory: An Introduction”
“The key to a subtler understanding of the nature of matter, or so they promise. Such wonderful things as permanent transmutation, how their sun shines, and energy enough to drive vast industries. Or power enough to lay waste to continents.”
“They gave you that for helping to arrange a conference?”
“Indeed. A deal too good to say no to, certainly. Use a little political influence in return for incredibly valuable knowledge. Of course, they did neglect to mention that such books are available in any bookshop in their Griffonian Democratic Republic, but such little deceptions are the heart of diplomacy. Likewise, we did not see fit to inform that we knew they were selling knowledge they could not hope to keep secret. Away from such difficult questions as why, how did they receive you?”
“Very well, your Majesty. They were hospitable and generous with their knowledge. It,” Silver Compass tensed at this point but he had promised the humans, “seems a shame that there can not be more interaction between our academic communities. It could only be to our mutual benefit.”
“Oh, indeed. I am certain you will make a note of this when you publish what you have learned. Queen Odilla fears terrible disaster if we were to so much as greet them politely. Perhaps rightly; her throne grows weaker every year. Many of her subjects are becoming enamoured with their ‘inalienable rights as sentient beings’ and civil war looms.”
Silver Compass said nothing, but wished he had stayed out of politics. Civil war was a shadow a thousand years in the distant past, but so had been Nightmare Moon, and she certainly had not stayed in the past.
“What if I asked you to trust me, and not publish anything you have learned?” Celestia fixed him with a keen stare. “Would you?”
“No, I would not publish, your Majesty,” Silver Compass was dismayed.
“If I were to place a moratorium on all contact with them, do you think my ponies would heed me?”
“Of course, your Majesty.”
“Then I think you should publish with no fear of civil war or other such horrible things coming to pass. Be sure to include a note thanking Princess Luna for the diplomatic arrangements.”
Twilight Sparkle was sorting through her mail as she trotted back to her study. For all that it was a wonderful castle granted to her by the very magic of Equestria, it meant her postbox was a long way away from her study.
She froze as she read the cover of one journal. ‘The Wiles Proof of Starswirl’s Unsolved Theorem.’ She levitated it out of the stack and quickly paged to the article.
“Sir Andrew Wiles, “ she muttered while reading, trying to pronounce the phonetically spelled name. A very strange name, it matched no linguistic pattern she knew. To which nation did this mathematician belong? Hopefully the biography section would tell her.
The End
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Well done! Sequels would be very much appreciated and I eagerly await them.
Given how well the setting and your writing style work together, this felt far too short. Sequels are definitely welcome.
nice job, needs a sequel
This reads almost like a prequel, with all the teasing and worldbuilding. I liked it very much, and hopefully you will follow up with a sequel
Iiiiiiii Neeeeeed Moooooooooooooor!!!!!!!!!!!
(Or atleast a continuation and epilogue.)
Your world-building is absolutely top-notch. I really dig this sort of thing. If you want to do more stories set in the same universe - especially delving into the conflict that's only foreshadowed here, or the social changes of human technology on society on FiM-world - I'm 100% on board.
The Griffon authorities largely have themselves to blame for the war and its disastrous outcome. Although I don't approve of nuking civilian cities, it would not have happened if the Griffons had not been the aggressors.
Anyway, good job! If you have a sequel coming, I'm all up for it
The geopolitical stuff here was great. I hope to see more.
Heh Now that Twilight caught wind of this no Empire will be able to keep her from her sweet delicious knowledge!
Cant wait for a sequel! keep up the good work!
I hope to see how the griffons find that their tactics will no longer work when the humans have adapted to counteract them. I also hope to see the griffon nobles being forced to watch as they lose everything because of their foolish queen
Brilliant worldbuidling. Just brilliant.
I hope to see more from this universe. Nice touch that the humans still don't have united government. The UN will have to do.
We are too fixated against each other to ever have a united government for the planet.
Maybe if we had more planets.
This thing was laying in my to-read folder for a long time. After seeing it completed today i had to read it. And i loved it. All that world-building and creation is great. I shall keep my eye on you then. Don't want to miss any other works that may come from under your pen. May your muse be a gentile one and words be everflowing.
Nice to see this piece finally done. Was quite the interesting ride. Given the nature of it, it flowed well and answered what it set up. I still think you probably could have gotten another chapter or two out of it if you wanted; would have been nice not see Silver stuck in conference rooms the whole time.
As to this:
all I have to say is GOOD!!
Oh, and when they were describing the tablet, I couldn't help think of the quote: "I have a device in my pocket capable of accessing the sum total of human knowledge. I use it to argue with strangers and look at pictures of cats."
So are there any plans to do anything else related to this, or is it the final end to this concept? At least from the wonderful author that brought it to us.
I feel like some things that could have been entire stories here were skipped over. But... even that's not really what makes this fic feel so off to me. No, it's got to be something else. But what is it?
Ah, it's this:
i.imgur.com/tfpj3ZJ.gif
Literally. Your griffins seem so biologically overpowered that I just can't think of it as anything other than a joke.
Okay, I really don't get what's happening here. There's a tense stand-off, the griffon side says something about closing the portal, some pony says something snarky about cleverly-timed maneuverings... and then nothing. Abrupt scene change, matter dropped. There's no resolution. Was there a fight? Did the griffons try to take the ponies and humans into custody? Did the griffons leave without a fight? If so, what was the point of that entire encounter, from the POV of the griffons?
This is such a sequel set up...
I can't understand Celestia's reasoning here at all.
5794531
I believe you meant “if the Griffons had not been the aggressors.”
5794724
There was no fight. Bright Lance all but told them the jig was up because Night Wing was already on his way to vouch for humanity… meaning that the gryphons couldn’t just kill everybody there and blame the missing Equestrians on the G.D.R.
5794737
Ditto.
Does that mean if I punch a Griffon in the face, it won't do anything?
How. I guess you could say that magic dampens kinetic energy (judging from how pegasi can crash/make sharp turns in the show) but I find this ridiculous.
5794760
I suppose that's one interpretation. The problem is, it's just as easy to interpret that final sentence as meaning, "we sent out a messenger saying everything was okay, then as soon as it was too late to change the message you guys show up, itching for a fight."
Also, I really don't see how your answer to my first objection in any way answers my second concern (Celestia's opaque reasoning).
WE NEED A FUKKEN SEEEEEEEEEEQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLL
So griffons are immune to conventional bullets?
Holy shit. That'd certainly gave humans trouble for a while.
It's complete! Huzzah!
...of course, as you described this as your first serious fic, I must now put on my constructive critic hat (it has lightning bolts on it), and tear it to pieces (the story, not the hat).
SETTING
I loved the world building. It’s nice to see some thought put into Human(s) in Equestria fiction, and you showed your work here. I also think you’re doing something right when you get tiny wars going on in your comment section.
PLOT
The plot is good, but very simple in structure. I was expecting more intrigue, and I didn't see much foreshadowing. Lots of characters are introduced but then disappear, leaving me wondering why they were introduced at all.
PACING
The first chapter had good build-up and rising tension, the second ended with a decent confrontation, but the third chapter’s denouement felt slow, moved in fits and starts, and the occasional scenes of tension (such as with the griffin military “escort”) didn't go anywhere.
While I’m loathe to get rid of scenes of humanity-through-pony-eyes, I felt you could have cut out a lot of the third chapter without losing much beyond flavor text (which could be set aside for a sequel
).
CHARACTERS
I liked the characterization of the griffin prince, but he was the only character that really left an impression on me. The humans tended to blur together, the guards were much the same, and our main protagonist, while serviceable, felt kind of blank. While I liked him, almost any pony could have taken his role in the story without changing it much.
Also, there didn't seem to be much overt character development. The characters at the end of the story are much the same as they were at the beginning. This isn't a huge problem, as the story only covers a short period of time anyway, but I was hoping to get to know some of these characters more, and see more meaningful interaction between them.
OVERALL
You did have some issues with pacing and characterization. You included lots of characters and details that helped flesh out the world, but detracted from the plot, and could have been left out to make the story leaner.
The world building is great and I’d love to see some sequels/prequels/midquels. There’s a ton of potential in the idea, plenty of characters to work with, and you clearly put effort into it.
So, I guess tl;dr: I liked it. Sequel?
I enjoyed this. Nice work.
5794720
This.
I liked it, but there are many things that are skimmed over and magic is made OP as fuck, which is never good. When you can explain everything win "magic, duh" there's a problem. There needs to be limiting factor.
I welcome any and all followups, and look forward to one involving one (or more) of the Mane Six.
Seriously, this was a great story, and I feel like it only scratches the surface of what you could do with the setting.
5794793
That’s part and parcel of Bright Lance’s point — the entire disincentive is based around the fact that even if the gryphons killed them all there is no credible reason that they can use to pin it on humanity or the G.D.R. exactly because they already sent Night Wing back.
It doesn’t because I was actually agreeing with you there — her reasoning is a blatant non sequitur.
So the Griffons (and Equestrians too, presumably) are actually fey? That certainly explains a few things.
The End?
What?
No.
Not the end.
NEED MORE.
I really hope you continue this world
Please tell me it's some sort of magical shielding technology in the armor or something that protects the griffon soldiers from regular bullets and not that their bodies are so overpowered that they can be naturally immune to super sonic metal slugs. If it's the latter just... no
That was fun, may I have another? Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
Haha, so the GDR Griffons are so fascinated by cutting-edge human technology that they've developed a bit of an obsession with it to the point where humanity is like "dude, chill out". That's really amusing to me for some reason, and it makes sense too: They're shown all this really, really cool technology that is far ahead of anything that they're used to instead of developing it gradually (so they don't take it for granted as much as we do), and not only is it relatively cheap but they're suddenly all fantastically wealthy, so of COURSE they're going to have as much of it as possible everywhere that they can.
The humans and griffons prepare to face off and possibly descend into another horrific war, and then the ponies pull out the win with clever politics. Nice.
Everyone's playing political games everywhere you look.
5794737
5794760
I like this Celestia. She started off sounding like she was going to be one of those manipulative Tyrant!Celestias who tightly controls all scientific and technological development of her ponies... but then she turns that on its head. I'm guessing her ponies trust in her gives her faith in her ponies and so she doesn't fear disaster from these developments of somesuch? Or at least that's what I'm getting from it. Either way, her subverting the cliche really makes me like her a lot in this.
5794655
A war would be costly for everyone involved in both lives and materials, there's always the chance that the Griffons might actually be able to cut us off from their world (and their wonderful magical items and non-euclidean mathematics and all kinds of other resources and knowledge), even if humanity won it would be really bad PR for us for many of the other races on their side of the portal, and most importantly: They don't need to. Humanity is clearly winning the culture war here (Culture Victory, if you are a Civ fan).
It seems that it is only a matter of time before the rest of the Griffon Empire falls or is forced to negotiate openly with humanity (which would enable them to spread their culture even FASTER and FARTHER). It is crazy-good for PR because it's all "living with/working for/joining up with the humans is so good that Griffons are willingly joining up with them" and the Griffon Empire gets a bunch of bad PR because their response to this is to resort to violence and attempted starvation of their former people and all kinds of shit that just doesn't look good from an outside perspective. The humans come off looking really, really good and the Griffons come off looking really, really bad. For virtually all outside observers humans have the total moral high ground here and you can bet they're going to milk it for all it is worth instead of throw it all away with an unnecessary war. And most importantly: This is the kind of victory that benefits EVERYONE the most, it doesn't just benefit humans. I suspect that this is one of the major reasons that humanity seems to have Celestia's support in this conflict: they're winning through the power of Friendship... and mass-produced goods and social politics and all that jazz, but... yeah. At it's heart they're winning peacefully by developing friendly connections and exchanging knowledge and goods and services for the benefit of everyone involved.
Also, apparently the beings from their world are the Fae? That's what the whole Cold-Iron discussion seems to be indicating to me. Any chance on that getting expanded on?
5794893
You forget that Celestia can read ponies like a book. Silver Compass was worried that disseminating information from the humans might have a similar negative impact on Equestria as it has on the majority of Griffonia - possibly up to and including civil war. Celestia was reassuring him that this was not the case, without him ever having to voice that concern.
Admittedly though, I didn't catch this at first either, so maybe it could stand to be a bit less subtle.
That said,
*soldier
RustPony, you have built a stunning setting here, and I look forward to seeing more stuff based on it.
I still find it odd that everything with magic on the other side of the portal is pretty much bulletproof. A bullet should be more then enough to wreck them, even with magic unless they created a magic barrier to deflect said bullets. It should have been magic in them would only make them more tougher, making them take more of a beating not make them freaking bullet sponges.
I'll admit I blinked when it came out that griffins are bulletproof. It reminded me of those cheesy old Dr Who episodes where every alien species was mysteriously immune to gunfire. Also, the implication that griffins can use magic somewhat adeptly (albeit, not as adeptly as unicorns) is something I don't see in many fics.
The back-story of the attempted griffin invasion of Africa sets my imagination spinning. It's very easy to envision that scenario ending in exactly the opposite way: with the Congo conquered and occupied by griffins and surrounded by a blockade of human nations.
In their initial assault, the griffins wouldn't face much in the way of modern armies or heavy weapons. Early victories would come easy. But then Victory Disease sets in. . . Their ever-expanding territory requires more and more resources to control and defend. They can't conquer Earth, or even all of sub-Saharan Africa. It's just too big, it's too much. And of course, more and more resistance would mobilize from the more industrialized nations of Earth, and they would begin to come up with effective weapons and tactics. If Africa, for whatever reason, didn't get nuked. . . It wouldn't be far-fetched to imagine a negotiated peace (or at least a persistent cease-fire) with the griffins ending up in control of a territory in the center of Africa.
Sequel Please!!!! then maybe a prequel of the first Human-Griffin contact war, everybody wants to see that too!!
Nice chapter, but I found a point where you repeated a word that you may want to edit.
Aww, over already?
Sequel
I wonder what backlash this will cause?
"He was no solder, certainly." Certainly not. He was also no soldier.
I find it a little more ridiculous that every time something magical in a story comes along and makes a human gun ineffectual, it's immediately lumped up as OP and ludicrous.
I mean, it could have been handled a little more elegantly, magical blessing before going to combat from Griffon mages, ect. But geeze, magic in a story is as the author sees it.
5795767
That's because it is.
Evolution has been going on in Earth for millions of years, and none of the countless species can survive a bullet if they're the size of a griffin. There's also very few, if any, materials that are both strong enough to stop a bullet and flexible enough to be used as skin. And if magic were as useful as it was in this story, and it was as available on Earth, as it was in this story, then any animal capable of using it would easily defeat any other animals, so it would be an astronomically small possibility for us not to have evolved to use magic.
And in addition to being unrealistic, it's a cheap answer to the interesting question of how such a war would actually go. Instead of describing any tactics at all, everything is attributed to large shields and being bulletproof. The griffins don't have to be smart or interesting at all if they can literally just walk through almost everything.
Edit: Magical blessings and magical armour would have helped. It would've shown the griffins actually had to put effort in.
5794720
I agree. It's really fucking stupid and it should be fixed.
Bullets should not sting unless they're rubber bullets. I refuse to accept this bullshit.
A sequel could have members of the Mane Six introduced to the humans.
Damn. I hope you'll make good on the sequels; this was just getting good. As it stands you've created a very interesting setting. I particularly liked the idea of the Griffon application of technology and how they made our own tech and materials seem strange to us.
I enjoyed this story immensely.
... Would I be considered distasteful if I actually did want to see the griffons attack the UN convoy?
Best of luck, stay healthy, and update soon!
-Sky66
I think I renember reading somewhere that the British devolped a force field of some sort that used electro magnetism to baptize copper in missiles to stop them from detonating. If magic worked in a field like that, it could possibly vaporize the copper in the bullets combined with their armor stopping the bullets. Pure iron though would be affected and would punch right through. can't say the same thing about copper for lead though.