Microphone check, one, two, three. I hear you, Sky, Joseph. Good. I’ll just assume you can hear everything. Is the dictation working?
Good. I’ve got another microphone with me, hopefully it will be sensitive to pick up anything he says.
I’m walking into the stadium now. Just a few cars in the parking lot, look like they’ve been here awhile. Yeah, they parked one of their VTOLs here. No tanks I can see; guess they want me to feel safe.
I guess that’s possible. Yeah, I know this is stupid. I’m doing it anyway. No Moriah, there wouldn’t have been any point. If they wanted to kill me one gun wouldn’t be enough to stop it. Yeah, I know it’s stupid.
Walking through the gate now. I can smell the Dodger Dogs again. Not really, but I wish I could. Did you guys ever eat those? We used to get tickets in the seats where you could have one every inning, man those things were fantastic.
I don’t care if they keep. You want to try eating meat again, Moriah? You try; I’ll watch. I could grab a few for you on my way back if you want.
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Okay, I can see them now. They’ve set something up on the field. Looks like… God, I’ve never seen anything like this.
Uh… looks like they’ve got a shipping crate in the outfield, on one of those wheeled trucks. It’s got nuclear logos all over it, and huge cables running out, thick as my leg. They’ve drawn a circle with paint on the dead grass.
Yeah, I see them now.
More than one.
Human.
They’re all wearing suits. Like… a hazmat suit had a baby with some riot armor. There’s this blue logo on the back, bunch of circles on it. HPI. Cables from the box go into each one, but I can see the air tanks on the back.
They’re they’re…
See me…
God!
Buck you, Moriah! You couldn’t… not gonna’ run… not gonna’ run…
Thanks. Keep… talking…
I can do it… I can do it… I can do it… I’m a strong pony… I’m a strong pony…
Keep talking? Sure… they can see me. They’re all looking at me now. I see two more… up in the seats. They’re… looks like snipers. Really long wires… Everything’s going into that box. I can see the symbols now. It’s got the blue and white thing, and… it says “SSTAR.” I don’t know what that means!
There’s… another thing in the middle… like a sphere? Right in the center of the circle they made. Huge cables going into that one.
No, it’s not very loud. A humming sound… but… God, there’s nothing in there! I can’t feel anything… Nothing should feel this way! Outer space… I’d take that. Up with Joe’s satellites…
They’re watching me. They can probably tell I’m talking to all of you. Or they think I’m insane. Haven’t shot me yet.
Alien creature; observe the outer circle. Do not approach past the yellow markings, or we will open fire.
That wasn’t him. It sounded different. Is the parabolic working okay? Deep voice. Joseph and Oliver don’t sound like that.
I guess I can talk to you all from right here! I won’t come any closer! I… might not be able to keep screaming like this for our whole conversation!
Uh, thanks I guess? They have this little drone, like the ones Amazon was going to use. Just dropped a speaker with a microphone. I… hold on while I get out my tools! I don’t have fingers to use the buttons!
Shut up Joseph, I’m not using my mouth. Unicorns shouldn’t be allowed to give the rest of us advice about how to do stuff without hands.
Okay, how’s this?
The one on the side has another communicator. He’s giving the microphone to the one without a gun. Yeah, three down here. Five total… yeah, I guess I do feel better. So long as I don’t think about it. It feels like there’s nothing, like it’s going to… going to… but I can see there isn’t nothing! There are people in there! Tall… way taller than me. Two arms, two legs. Fingers on their gloves. Can’t see the faces, though.
Are you the one who called yourself Lonely Day?
I am.
And I am Dr. Clark. I apologize for not getting any closer. We can’t.
Why not? My friend said there isn’t that much more radiation than there used to be. Maybe a little… but it’s safe. He said it wasn’t much worse than eating a few more bananas every day.
Thaumic radiation isn’t detectable with a Geiger counter or any other conventional tools. Specialized machinery is required. I’m putting it on the drone…
This thing got loud! How do I… oh, like that. Why did it do that?
Because talking to you is like talking to an unshielded reactor. Your body is producing levels about a hundred times greater than the environment. Even that would be lethal in minutes. If you got any closer… I’m not sure the shield would be enough.
You sound pretty sure… Wait a second. I’ve never heard of “thaumic” radiation. What’s that? Oh, thanks Oliver… Thaumaturgy? Like miracles? I can’t do anything like that.
If you were a unicorn, this circle would be as wide as the whole stadium. We couldn’t talk to you for more than a few minutes.
I’ll just assume you know what you’re talking about. What does this thaumic stuff do? And… if I’m that dangerous, why are you talking to me?
We brought a chair for you if you would like to sit while we talk.
Nah, ground’s good. Dead grass poking into my butt would be a pain, but that’s what the leather is for. Thanks though.
He’s just sent the soldiers away. They’re… coming back with a chair for him, and a table. He’s got a computer on it. They’re walking away again… looks like there’s a little door on the shipping crate. They just went inside.
I’m afraid I can’t take any chances, Lonely Day. My snipers will be forced to fire if you make any attempt to approach. Otherwise, you have my word we will not harm you.
Okay. I won’t.
I’ll be happy to answer your questions, but formalities first. I represent the Human Preservation Initiative. Have you ever heard of it? No, I’d think not. We hadn’t existed for too terribly long before the Collapse. Not quite three years, actually. That was all the warning we had.
Warning about… about the "Collapse?" You knew it was going to happen? YOU KNEW, AND YOU DIDN’T DO SOMETHING TO STOP IT?!
Please, calm down. The amount of radiation you’re producing has just increased by sixty percent. If you can’t calm down, we may have to cut this conversation short.
Oh… oh-kay. I will. Sorry. My question still stands.
We did all we could. Even with infinite resources, we were up against titanic odds. This machine here? This portable shielding device cost five hundred billion dollars to produce. Do you have any idea the resources that represents? Three percent of the entire product of the world’s largest economy. This is a single shielding unit, to protect a thirty foot sphere or so. Imagine what it might take to protect a larger area… somewhere large enough to live in.
It took the combined wealth of the entire world to retrofit our facility to protect a mere five hundred people. We’ve searched, but so far as we can tell, there aren’t any other humans alive on the entire planet.
I’m human. My friends are human too. Oliver, Joseph, Moriah…
No, you’re not. Humans don’t have fur and stand on four legs.
We were human, then. Is this… Is this what thaumic radiation does? Mutate humans into ponies?
It does not. Thaumic radiation does not affect the body or brain in any way our medical equipment can detect. Yet, when humans are exposed, they suffer rapid mental deterioration. I’ve seen… I’ve seen it turn a good man into a vegetable right in front of me. No way to treat it, no way to reverse the effects once exposed.
Okay. I’ll accept that, for the moment. Where did everybody go, then? If this… thaumic stuff… fries people's minds, and it’s everywhere now, why didn’t it just melt all our brains? Where are all the bodies?
We… We aren’t certain. We have suspicions. That isn’t what we came to discuss, however.
Okay. I’ll table that for now. You didn’t cause this, you were some sort of global conspiracy and you saved as many people as you could. But if just being near me is dangerous… if it takes all those machines, how can we possibly work together? It would probably make sense for you guys to aim that fancy ship as far away from every pony as you can, hunker down in your bunker in whatever God-forsaken corner of the world you built it in, and stay inside forever.
There are those within the Initiative who agree. I don’t. Having someone on the outside, even if they’re a… pony, you called yourself? Even an alliance with “ponies” might be useful, if there are others who haven’t gone feral, others with the intelligence and will to build all that you have.
Why? Sounds like you had plenty of time to prepare. You can’t need much.
Think, Lonely Day. How long could a completely self-contained facility last? My engineers have given me the numbers, and it’s a hell of a lot shorter than forever. Even after salvaging most of the spent fuel from the country’s plants, we can’t keep running forever. Even if we move on to collecting refined fuel and breaking down nukes, we’re on a clock. Once that reactor goes, so does the whole thing.
Long before that, we’re all going to be sick of eating algae and wheat-grass. We’re going to need salvaged supplies from all over the country, maybe all over the world. Traveling like this is exceptionally dangerous. If that little reactor goes, we all melt in our suits.
I still don’t get how you couldn’t know I was intelligent. I see how it’s a leap to believe that little horses used to be human… sometimes I wonder if being human was some kinda dream… but damnit, I never wonder if I might not be intelligent! I’m wearing clothes, using tools, talking in English. Are pony survivors so rare that you don’t know?
Not… precisely. We travel very rarely, and generally only to nuclear power stations and remote military locations. There seems to be an… instinct of sorts, as what few “ponies” we have seen avoided us. They ran like all the other animals did. We suspected it has something to do with the shielding generators we use, since all animal species have had adverse reactions to it even before the Collapse.
We hadn’t thought to monitor the radio, since any organization capable of surviving the Collapse would have used more sophisticated equipment. We discovered you by accident; your spotlight was visible as we came in for our salvage operation in Diablo Canyon.
You are the first “pony” to intentionally get this close. You don’t feel like running or attacking?
Running. Very, very much. I won’t run. I’m human. Only animals run, you said so. Wait… attack? Ponies attacked you?
A few. Not effectively. The problem is the radiation; portable shielding devices can’t handle so much at once. After I lost one team to an accident with animals like you, we’ve made an effort to avoid them. Even a single fatality is unacceptable.
Okay, let me try to understand. You want our help to… help you find things?
At first. There may be more.
Would anything we brought even be useful to you? If we’re radiation factories, contaminating everything just by being nearby…
We have ways of decontaminating objects, or else we wouldn’t be able to travel outside at all. Still, we don’t need you to find anything physical for now.
What is it you want from us? We… Don’t get me wrong, we want to help. It sounds like you Initiative folks are doing what you can to keep humanity alive. But out here, we’re just worried about starving. We’re worried about how we’ll deliver babies, and what we’re going to do to get water. We want to build a colony one day. We can’t be your private search team full time.
No, we wouldn’t expect you to. But we’re thinking long-term, just like you seem to be. If you’re a colony one day, you’re going to need trading partners; so are we. Do you think any of the other ponies in the world, feral or not, are going to be manufacturing new computers and automobiles? Keeping the most important satellites working as long as possible? Stopping waste fuel from catching fire and layering another level of radiation on the continent, maybe one you’re not immune to? No.
But forget all of that. Forget anything long term. Right now, we need your help with something simpler, something we couldn’t ever do.
What?
We’ve got a single satellite in orbit with the sensors to pick up thaumic radiation. It’s tracked an enormous source of radiation traveling gradually south. When we discovered you and started searching the civilian radio frequencies, we detected a transmission using a simple analog cipher. Its source seems to correspond roughly to the radiation hotspot.
I think I know the messages you’re talking about. We… thought it was you.
It is not. We estimate two days before it arrives, perhaps slightly less.
Okay. Tons of radiation. How can we help?
The most recent messages seem to suggest it’s heading for you. The fact it’s sending simply encoded radio transmissions suggests a physical being of some kind, but our satellite imaging never comes up with anything substantial. When it arrives, identify it, and learn everything you can from whomever it is. Share this information with us. We have… reason to believe whoever they are may know more about what really happened in the Collapse. They may be our only chance to ever learn the truth. Learning the cause might be the key to saving humanity. Even though you’re not human anymore, you must still care. You wouldn’t be talking to me otherwise.
I do. We do. I don’t… I want to help.
We’ll make it worth your while. We have technology that was not available to the public before the collapse, machines that might make your lives much easier. Learn everything you can, and share it with us. If you succeed, it might be the start of a working relationship. Even given the danger of working with your species, I think we both stand to benefit.
Give me a minute to talk to my friends. They’ve been listening, but I shouldn’t make any promises without them.
I understand.
Well? What do you ponies think?
Good. That’s what I thought.
Yeah.
Okay, I’ll tell him.
We’ll help. It sounds like the thing is coming towards us anyways, so we don’t have anything to lose.
Good. You have our communicator. We shouldn’t remain here any longer than we have to. If you would be kind enough to leave as quickly as possible, my people can start breaking this machinery down.
Does the shield have to keep running all the time? That must be a pain to set up.
There are portable units in the suits, but they can’t run without a direct line to the reactor here. Way too much power.
That’s the lightning-looking stuff?
Yes.
Okay, I’ll leave. Just… don’t shoot me on my way out. I think my friends would hear that. They probably wouldn’t want to help you if you kill me.
We won’t harm you, you have my word. I… would shake on it, but I don’t think I would survive getting that close. Besides, you don’t have hands.
Thanks for being so sensitive about it.
I’m walking away now. Put the communicator down. The snipers are watching me, but he isn’t. Nobody’s shooting. Looks like I’m safe. I’ll probably not grab the hot dogs this time, if that’s okay. Probably raccoons or something found them by now anyway. I’ll drive straight back.
Outside now, by my car. Getting in. I’ll hang up. Talk to you all when I get back.
End Transcript
Huh, that went pretty well.
I still want to know what warning they had.
Well that went better than I imagined. Yet it has just made me even more nervous for our motley crew.
Now to see what's coming towards them :o
Huh, an interesting end, and this is certainly an answer. There are those pretty split about the whole deal is something to use for writing as well.
the code sender/Radiation hotspot is an Alicorn. That's my guess.
But how did they get a warning?!
Hate to admit it, but just barely enough warning to save 500 people?
Tough call, but telling people that three years from now you're going to melt away? That would have destroyed society and stopped any chance of saving even as much as those 500.
Streams of numbers - massive magical power - the answer is clear.
It's an Abacuslicorn.
A lot to take in here. Somehow, the government knew this was coming years in advance, and well enough that they could create an antimagic shield. Furthermore, the observed effects of thaumic radiation don't mesh with what we've seen out in the world. The HPI can't account for the billions of traceless disappearances and handful of transmutations.
And now there's an enormous, seemingly immaterial magic source moving towards our heroes. Curious and worrisome. Worrious. Still, the HPI is too desperate to turn down any help they can get. This is going to get very interesting.
So, there are two big revelations here.
1) The Change has been coming for years, long enough that the governments and scientists were attempting to do something about it;
2) The mobile Numbers Station is something magical. Something seriously Magical. Could it be Discord?
I'm going to take a shot in the dark here. We've learn that Thaumic radiation reduces humans to the level of animals in terms of intelligence. There are also indications that it enhances the intelligence of animals. What is really interesting though is the anomalies - a tiny number of humans, one in tens of thousands, turn into Equestrian Ponies instead. Was this a mutation - a rare sub-type of humans able to adapt to Thaumic radiation and utilise it to adapt their bodies into bodies able to survive the new reality? If so, then something as simple as a bone marrow sample from the colonists may be vital for saving humanity. If it can be turned into a vaccine, then either the mutation can be artificially triggered or the surviving humans given a kind of immunity to the radiation.
First, however, comes the contact with the creature in the Numbers Station and finding out whta their story is and what they want.
Something tells me that this was a very clumsy kind of inter dimensional attack. Who and to what purpose remains to be seen. Maybe Numbers Guy will know.
SQUEEEEEE!!! I come back from a vacation and find this! OOOOH I'm practically jumping in my seat! SO. MANY. POSSIBILITIES! *drops dead drooling*
I keep trying to upvote this story every time I read a new chapter...
Good call on having a third party be the second antagonist. In most stories there's only one bad guy, or a second that works with the first.
While neither the HPI or mysterious radio signal have harmed the ponies, we know they're causing them stress.
Can't wait for what happens next, but that's just tomorrow.
Yes! I remember reading a bunch of comments a few chapters ago that predicted the HPI were going to be "bda guys" and I'm so glad that didn't happen.
Massive thaumic radation reading heading for our intrepid heroes eh? This should be interesting.
Sequel, why yes we would love that!
6139678
Such a good pic how could I not change it.
This is gonna be a rough alliance, given that one half of it can't safely interact with the other half at any reasonable distance. Tribalism might set in on both sides- "who cares about those guys; we have to take care of ourselves!". Still, good to see that we're not going down the ol' "humanz must destroy the new and different" route.
Now that we know that the HPI is simply interested in self-preservation and trying to rebuild, we must wait for the other (horse)shoe to drop.
...
...c'mon, drop already!
pretty good chapter
but i fell like the last 2 chapter was rushed in the story ¯\_('.')_/¯ ............or maybe its just me
p.s my englsih is not very good i know
Incoming alicorn!
...an alicorn sending encrypted messages with a WWII/Cold War era cyphering?
*waits impatiently for more*
Went far better than I thought it would...
Now I feel rather sorry for the HPI; the last bastion of humanity in a world that now can kill them
And this massive dose of radiation coming their way? What could It be? Why am I asking you?
Only starscribe and Zutcha know
AWESOME!
So, humans predicted this event and tried to save as many as possible, this radiation is so dire it makes the mental capacities of a human nil, while ponies are seemingly unaffected.
I like this fact that there are existing humans in the world, if ever they manage to expand into a bigger colony for some reason I could predict some segregation from the pony and human sides, especially with that radiation being given off by ponies.
Now... who is this entity slinking in the shadows... or, a giant spotlight in the world at large.
Glad they're friendly. Not just for the sake of the protagonists, but because evil government organizations are so cliche and I'm glad to see something new.
Well, my theory did not pan out I guess
I am not sure how I feel about this chapter. Humanity governments knowing this stuff and creating countermeasures to it 3 years in advance stretches believability a little bit, unless some of the things Clark said are lies. I mean, really? Everyone pooling their resources and working together, and they can only create a few units to protect measly 500 people? And seemingly only did so near USA? I can already see massive conflicts about such a simple thing as location of these things. And also, the moment these units were created some government would want to take them. I just... feel this is off.
Also not a fan of the whole HPI supposedly being some sort of "super advanced super secret super agency" that for some unknown reason found out about the event and managed to get all the governments in the world to fund it. And this whole cost of hundreds of billion of dollars per unit. Like, I could understand the prototype being ridicolously expensive. But other units? I do not know how a production of such a unit could possibly cost that much. There is nothing that rare on our planet that would suggest such a cost. I just do not know how to feel about it either. I suppose I just will have to accept this. I guess comes off as a shock, everything so far in your world has been perfectly logical and I am just kind of surprised one of the biggest mysteries (the remnants of humanity) is explained by something I just got to believe. But oh well, we will see more.
You got me very excited about the next few days definitely though!
So the HPI AREN'T evil? Wow, you sure averted that trope spectacularly. Good job.
Dammit Vault-Tec. Why did you use the vaults for social experiments?
My story birthday's just two days away!
Ok, let see. Enormous source of thaumic radiation; female voice; knows how to work a transmitter in less that a month time; able to use a encrypted messages with a WWII/Cold War era cyphering (don't know how she learned that); my bet is on Rainbow Dash. It can't be Twilight Sparkle she not good enough to do all that.
I'd have got samples (unless they already have them) of the ponies. Work out why the radiation doesn't affect them and such.
Iiiinteresting. I've been enjoying this story quite a bit, since the very beginning. It's nice to see a bunch of humans who aren't clichéd villainous government mooks and/or the cause of the disaster. this story seems well thought out.
Alas, it does seem like a happy ending is unlikely, unless this whole 'collapse' event is somehow reversible. 500 humans does NOT an effective colony make. (I seem to recall something like 5,000 members being needed to ensure genetic diversity?) I wonder if Dr. Oliver preserved some human sperm and egg samples along with all the meds her rescued? But even with if there IS enough genetic diversity... It took 3 years and tons of money to build ONE shielding unit. That tells me it takes a LOT of specialized knowledge and equipment. And now the entire civilization that produced that equipment is gone. Scavenge all you like... If there's nobody maintaining the factories, processing stations, power grids, and mines... You're going to run out of material eventually. And 500 people can't keep that infrastructure maintained.
As for the ponies, things are almost as grim. If the conversion is 1 per 250,000, which is what I seem to recall reading, that gives you, at most, 28,000 ponies on Earth. Enough to provide genetic diversity for sure!
Only they'll be spread across the entire planet! They'll only be a few thousand on each continent! The odds against getting enough ponies in one place... across vast distances and oceans... across language barriers... despite the collapse of worldwide communications... Things look pretty grim.
And that's discounting how many former humans have found themselves in unpleasant or terminal situations. Moira was very lucky in that regard. How many ponies found themselves in a moving vehicle they couldn't control? Or trapped in a city that caught fire? Eaten by wild animals? Or just locked in a room or trapped somewhere that ponies are ill suited to escape from?
All in all, it seems things are looking pretty grim for future generations of ponies and humans.
But hey, there's always hope, right?
The twist with the HPI not being those using the number codes is exceptionally well done. Of course it wouldn't make much sense for an organization like that to use such simple encryption but still. You can only be sure in hindsight.
The HPI really is trapped in a horror scenario.
Even adolescent earth pony Alex is a massive danger... Sky would hurt them with that extra layer of pegasus magic (probably kill them all on possible lift-off), Joseph could easily roast them just by levitating a stone over to them (probably also by just getting angry at them) and what happened to Moriah would disintegrate them... maybe leave a little whiff of ozone.
I feel sorry for them.
And... Alicorn incoming. Yeah, highly unlikely. But it had to be said!
Now I feel for the HPI, things seem hopeless for them, even more than for the LA herd.
A third, massively magical faction? Dun, dun dun!
Glad to see that the meeting went well.
Why did Alex say that??? Starscribe, you said yourself that MLP doesn't exist in this story so therefore, pony/Brony slang shouldn't have been thought up either.
Also, for anyone who's confused about what Thaumatic Radiation is, I did some research. It's fictional (thank God) and I found this web article about it. The idea comes from an RPG called Dead Cities (that I've never played).
Also, am I the only one who read Dr. Clark's lines in the voice of a James Bond villain????
6139963
I'm calling it now. It's Celestia
This story is by far one of the most well written stories that I have read to date. The plot line is fantastic, the characters are... Well I can't think of the word so I'll skip that for now, and it's a very good story so far and I hope to see more of it
6140798 Well, Why the hay not? Rainbow Dash wouldn't think to use cyphers, it wouldn't occur to her that the messages might be intercepted. Twilight would, not to mention that the huge thaumic source is more likely than not an alicorn. Rainbow is also faster, and would take less time to get there.
So, my theory is it's Twilight
Well, we've just eliminated one of my three possibilities.
Twilight is still in the running, and the other one... I'll keep under my H-A-T so to speak...
ALICORN ALICORN ALICORN ALICORN ALICORN ALICORN ALICORN ALICORN
Crap, I thought I had infinite backlog on this story, now I have to wait again.
Been really liking it so far.
6141849 That would actually be really cool. I wanna know more...
Starscribe, you are doing a magnificent job of keeping this story completely original. That is almost impossible, considering this site. You also have the enormous boost of this not being a Displaced story, and smaller boosts because this isn't a Your Human and You story, or any of the other bandwagons currently roaming about the site.
6140074 Upvote? We've found the Redditor! GET EM!
6141501 I'm preeetty sure it's a princess (any princess, really) as well, but you never know... can't wait to read more >3<
The slight feeling of having a squishy, wobbly brain after having dreamt of a fanfiction that wouldn't let go...
*slurps really black coffee, PhD strength*
Yeah, Alicorn. One who visited earth in the WW2 era and thinks Churchill lived in California. Because reasons.
Or it's a giant encoded muffin.
So uhh.
Hopefully his mother's one of those nice ponies.
Otherwise that'd probably be painful for Day.
But at least now we know there won't be some evil 'government' that a powerful group of survivors controls!
6139982
Good question! They haven't told us yet.
6140006
Maybe! Oh, the theories! The crazy, crazy theories! So crazy they just might work! Err... wait, it doesn't work that way, does it?
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3.bp.blogspot.com/-js5B5ls7u6Q/TyiGiHy3jRI/AAAAAAAAdSI/gtnl1vaejYs/s1600/1.png
6140100
Yep! Not long now, just a few more hours! ^^
6140200
Not sure if I'll do it or not. The epilogue is going to be novella length, probably 15-20k words released in 3-4 chapters. After that... I'm not sure.
6140254
cdn.bleedingcool.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/coming.jpg
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Rushed? I dunno. I did want to minimize the HPI's long-term impact. I did write these last two sections on a plane, though Maybe that's what made it feel that way?
6140456
radiation-scott.org/radsource/4341-2.gif
6140481
I think they just hope that this mysterious somepony knows what's really going on.
6140511
Me too! I tried to tell my own story with LPoE, but I also wanted to go against the established conventions. We'll see if I manage to do that by the end.
6140523
I think their facility, wherever it is, is clearly an international organization. Probably they just used whatever nation had a bunker best-equipped for it, with every nation contributing personnel as they were able to contribute resources.
We know they learned about it three years ago. We don't know how they learned, or how long it took them to develop countermeasures. They may've spent the last two years eleven months before they got something working for all we know. (granted, this long seems unlikely). And if three years seems unlikely, consider that the USA went from unmanned orbiters in 1966 to landing a man on the moon in 1969.
Do we know there are other units? We don't know how long the HPI has been making these machines. For all we know, they only have one prototype this size, several smaller units, and one base-sized one.
Given the magical-blocking technology interacts with something our ordinary technology can't detect, it's likely making these involves incredibly exotic materials. The cost of some of these might include...
1. Plutonium? (500 billion buys 125,000kg)
2. Tritium? (500 billion buys 10,000kg)
3. Californium? (500 billion buys 18.5kg)
4. Antimatter? (most likely the source of such an extreme cost, though how such small amounts might be used is anyone's guess, 500 billion buys less than a gram)
These are just for sake of example. There's no way that prototype needed 125000kg of plutonium (I don't think that much of that stuff even exists in all the stockpiles in the world). Military R&D budgets are well known to go into the tens of billions. (the Raptor had a budget of 40.5 billion). Now imagine instead of decades you had to rush to construct all this stuff in an extremely limited time-frame. Cost starts increasing exponentially. Probably had to build new factories to produce the exotic components for all this stuff. Really, the most amazing thing is that they managed to keep such an amazingly ambitious project quiet.
It's also possible the director pulled the 500 billion number completely out of his ass to impress Alex.
Unfortunately, learning more about the HPI is probably out of scope for this story. Hopefully you'll get to learn more about how they actually came into being during future stories, but this is much more the adventure of a few ponies trying to survive, not how humanity managed to scrape itself past extinction.
6140918
I bet that's something they already got. Bet, uh... maybe the wrong word. I'm sure they have that already. We'll learn more about that angle later, though.
6140931
And if you go out to maintain it, a pony wandering into your area simply by chance might kill you without even realizing it.
6141108
They aren't giving up, despite the odds! At least the ponies are really rare. Probably should find some uninhabited island and set up there, somewhere ponies will never show up accidentally. Guess that would raise the question of how they were going to survive there. Too bad they didn't know the ponies were going to be around, or else they probably would've picked a location like that to begin with. Given they seemed to expect everybody to just die when the magic started...
6141256
I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
6141480
I think Alex learned this word from Cloudy Skies. She's used it before in the story. How Cloudy Skies learned the expression is not clear, however. She did not spontaneously invent it.
6141642
Oh, you don't need to hope! >.> I appreciate the complement, though. I dunno if my writing is really that good, I'm still learning. I'm doing my best, though!
6141890
Not for very long at least! Daily updates, ba-by!
6142124
I've tried very hard to make it original. I know it's going to share some ideas in common (In TCB, magic is often hostile to humans as it is here). Not so much everything else, though. My universe, nobody else's.
6142651
I'd read it!
6143238
Well I cannot deny you raise some very good points, but I still remain unconvinced on a few thing. I will agree that my original conclusion of it being only in USA was stretched and untrue.
I also will definitely agree about the time period, that is indeed one of the most logical reasons why they could not create more of these things. It's just that Clark never mentioned anything like that and I do not think he had any reason to lie about these things. If time was indeed the primary factor he would have probably stated that first, and it is the easiest to accept. Yet he chose to state the cost of this the shielding by just dropping an extremely large amount of money. It is just my educated guess though, will have to wait for more information about this
Then we come to the cost itself... While your examples are good (even though I think antimatter costs much less than you stated. Wasn't it estimated a few years back as around 25 billion per gram?) I think you make a mistake by trying to present it as too expensive in money. If all the governments knew about this danger and pooled all their resources into this project, money would not have been a problem. When faced with a possible extinction of human race, they could simply pull money from any long term project (especially if its hard to establish where and how the money goes, like in the so called climate change fight) and hide that fact from public. And if worst comes to worst, they can simply contact the biggest banks in the world and fake the existence of that money. Sure, doing so on such a scale and for prolonged time will eventually tank the economy, but once again - you face extinction otherwise. I just really do not think trying to portrait money as the primary limiting factor is believable in this particular case.
This also ignores one of the primary reasons why I think technology is so amazing - its replicability and reproducability. Creating something new for the first time may be extremely hard and expensive but when you have the knowledge and facilities required to do so it becomes much easier and less expensive. A good example is the computer - if you include all the mathematical background required to create its framework, all the work needed to form the programming, all the development required to fine tune it and to create factories capable of creating sufficiently complicated stuff you would have an astronomical sum. But now, after all that is done, after we have readily available components to use, it is much easier.
And here I can extend your example - creating the prototype would be unbelievably expensive, especially in such a short time, doubly so if you have to create specialized facilities to manufacture its parts. But the moment you have all these things, you can almost instantly start to produce these generators on a much larger scale. The only things that could really limit the production are running out of resources to make them and too high maintenance cost (connected with the previous one - running out of resources to sustain them). And none of these things are what Clark mentioned. Sure, he was just talking with a random pony so he might have simply not wanted to go into any details, but it's just such an easy point to understand I do not see why he wouldn't share it when Alex questioned their knowledge of shielding. I guess he could also be afraid to reveal any weaknesses but then why say the rest?
I also think it's fairly safe to assume they have more of these units. Judging by the effect a single unicorn has on the field, a single unit would be hard pressed to protect a large area of 500 people and their equipment, all inside a bunker. It also apparently is only required as the power source, Clark said they had some shield generators in their suits. And of course, they must have at least one more unit - it would be pretty foolish to take away the only thing that protects the facility itself, wouldn't it? They have one and there must be at least another one where they come from.
All that is of course assuming Clark is not lying. Which he may be, but for now seems to have very little reason to do. After thinking it through I would say your reasoning is good but there are still a few possible holes. Now I am hungry for more about the HPI
6143392
It's hardly a lie. He's in a high-stress situation, with someone he's barely willing to acknowledge isn't an animal. He's the director of the entire program, and just now, bears the stress of the survival of the entire human race (in his mind). How many engineering project heads are likely to explain the logic of their actions to an intern in their company who asks (what intern in hell would even dare?). To him, this pony is so much less than an intern.
Beyond that, Alex didn't even ask about that. If Alex's question had been "why don't you have more of the shielding devices"?, I have no doubt Clark would've provided a more detailed answer (after all, he is trying to convince the pony to help). Alex wasn't really concerned with the cost, though. Alex knows he/she wouldn't be able to understand the figures anyway, since they're beyond his/her level of skill. What Clark /did/ do (citing an extremely high and probably accurate figure about the cost of the single device he's using), was convey that the shields were hard to make and that the HPI had done their best in a way even a layman could understand (Ie: a crapton of money).
Nope.
In 1999, the cost per gram was estimated at 62.5 trillion.
A quick google search for actual prices in 2014 yielded a result of 6.25 trillion per gram (significantly lower than earlier, but still a long way to what you suggested).
NASA speculated in 2006 that more advanced synthesis technology would lower the price to 250 million per 10 milligrams, but that technology has not yet materialized.
It probably wouldn't if there wasn't a free press. They can pull raw dollars in any amount and from any projects as you suggest (probably with lots of hefty bribes and huge accusations of corruption for gag orders on the press, and the constant risk of a snowden-style leak that blows the lid off everything.
The big problem isn't getting the money, though. It's spending it. The amount of money going into all these new fields of research, all these new factories and power plants to keep them running (if they're making antimatter as I think is very likely), is going to have a major distorting factor on the global economy that people are going to notice.
As such, their budget is limited by the fact hey can't ever spend enough in once place that they attract attention. The maximum size of the HPI was set not by any limit on funds, but by the fact that spending too much too fast or in too few places would've stolen away their precious stealth and stolen any chance they had of actually completing the damn thing. It's up to speculation and debate how much money this was, since Clark didn't and won't tell us. Probably it was quite a bit, spread out as widely as possible over the years and the globe.
Edit: I forgot to say that I thought your analysts was excellent overall, and you pointed out several aspects of what happened I'd never considered. I have the HPI written out in detail in my setting document. I guess I never thought how what was intended to represent a passing comment (do you have any idea how expensive this was?!) gives insight into so much more beneath the surface, stuff I may not've been fully ready to look into.
The figure (500 billion) obviously never represented a real project that ever actually existed, so we'll never know for sure if it's a realistic budget. In truth, I got it by taking the cost of the Manhattan project adjusted to 2015 dollars (about 70 billion), and multiplying it by 7 because it seemed like this was going to be way, way harder than making a nuclear bomb. About 7 times harder.
So pretty precise measurements, as you can see.
6143440
I suppose that's a fair point about Clark and his reactions/explanations. While I think it would be easier and more believable to hide behind insufficient amount of time, simply dropping a large amount of money may very well be believable enough.
Very well, I stand corrected.
I think you are greatly overvaluing (or I am undervaluing) the "free" part. Many times it has been seen that mass media, with the exception of impossible to supervise internet, is simply a tool for spreading government propaganda. They can also be very sneaky about even the most difficult to hide stuff. Let's take a look at nuclear experiments as an example - only recently have we learned about all the nuclear tests performed by countries worldwide, including detonations in higher atmosphere. For decades press was completely silent about this, seemingly extremely obvious stuff. Hell, they helped to cover up the damage to ozone layer by spreading the information that aerosols caused it. And from a newer stuff, every time I hear about climate change fight in the press I want to kill someone. I do not think governments would have any difficulty in hiding even the largest facilities in remote areas.
That is something we might have to agree to disagree on though. All in all I guess you got me, cannot really deny your other points.
Quoting monetary figures doesn't really work well at that scale of crisis. Money is effectively useless once you get past the millions. You have to start thinking in man hours, and resource requirements. If all of humanity is riding on this, you have to look at the physical limitations of humanity itself, not what someone wants to pay for it. Throw more money at it, doesn't get you more labor or materials.
Like how many efficient low scale nuclear plants that all of humanity can build to power these suits, or how difficult to make these shielding alloys are, or how long all of the brightest most brilliant minds of humanity take to find how to make this equipment in the first place. And then how much of it you can manufacture before the antihuman radiation suffuses the entire planet. Not to mention how many people you're going to have fighting off the panicking masses if they find out what's going on and want in on your little project even if it means physically burying it in bodies. Those are the figures the HPI could use to convince a savvy pony that saving 500 people, less than 0.000008% of the world population, is a generous amount, and not simply greedy elitism. Saying it cost a million billion kajillion ruples just doesn't have the same oomph to it. Though I can understand their need for expediency.
So Lonely Day is a survivor of a tremendously lethal radiation which... hopefully some godlike entity has spirited away the humans who didn't go pony from the planet, to protect them from it. Against impossible odds, Day survived to become a pony. And she's coincidentally an earth pony, the least magical of all pony types, and as such the most approachable by the HPI. Furthermore lacking a cutie mark, that probably makes her even less radioactive. And unique to any other pony so far, Loney is so determined to assert her humanity that she'll stare into the soul sucking void that is magic shielding, before giving into her fears and running away from a man on two legs. And that's the pony that the HPI just happened to run into while taking a convoy over to cross the Pacific, that they just happened to decide to risk approaching despite having lost their precious 500 to ponies attacking the evil bad things earlier. They could have been anywhere in the entire world with their portable reactors, and they just so happen to be passing right by a pony survivor with low magic and a human obsession, driving a mac truck. Oh and just the other day, a random magical accident caused her to regress to a young age, which probably also reduced the levels of radiation she emits. Plus she just happens to have a really stable, calm personality, which minimise surges in radioactivity that accompany even the slightest of mood elevations.
Least magical, my ass.
Freaking earth ponies.
I find it fascinating that Lonely Day is the center of so many inexplicable coincidences.
I also think her pony name is kind of unfair.