Beneath Distant Stars

by PeppyJoe

Archive Five

Mission Log:
Day 35 - 8:20

Twilight came to the ship alone today; I think this is the first time I've seen her without her companion in at least a week. Speaking of which, we really do need to get a working translation for her name like we got for Twilight, because I feel rude referring to her as 'Glasses' now that I know her.

Anyway, she showed up with a form covered in alien nonsense that I couldn't understand, but explained in broken Erisian that our blood sample was identical to theirs. That has all sorts of world-altering implications, of course, but the most important thing is that we're free to stop eating these miserable packaged meals and actually sample the local flavor. Twilight must have suspected we would be eager to do so, because the very next thing she said was that we could join her for breakfast.

I feel nervous about leaving the ship... Especially about all of us leaving the ship at once. However, I believe that doing so is the next step in interacting with these ponies. Being invited to eat with them is a big deal; so far, we've essentially been intruders on their world, and now they're offering to make us house-guests. Refusing outright, or leaving somepony behind as a guard, would be a pretty clear denial of their hospitality.

As wonderful as it sounds, and as much as I wish I could be entirely without concerns on the matter, I just can't take the risk. I'll talk to Stem about rigging the airlock to fry anypony who enters. Crystal's good at teleportation, so she can get inside and disarm it provided all goes well. We'll also be counting on her as an exit strategy if anything goes south while we're with the locals. Normally I wouldn't rely on her to move six ponies at once, but she says her magic's improved significantly since we arrived.

Mission Log:
Day 35 - 13:45

That was no breakfast... That was a feast. I don't know that I've ever eaten that well. Ever.

So, right now, I really just want to take a nap and sleep off some of that food. But I know you'll want a detailed analysis of the location and the foods and everything, so I'll make a few quick notes before I turn in.

First off, I don't believe we went to an actual city of theirs. Given the photographs they shared earlier, we know they have urban centers and considerable building capabilities. What we saw today was little more than a sprawling collection of tents in a forest clearing, with some fire-pits and benches spread throughout. There was one area near the edge of the clearing where a row of tables had been lined up, but it looked like they had been put there recently and just for this occasion. All that leads me to believe this is a camp assembled after we landed, presumably to keep guards on station nearby and allow their linguists a place to stay.

One other thing worth noting about the location; there was a set of railroad tracks running along one edge. Or, I'm assuming they were railroad tracks. No trains passed while we were there, but they looked very much like something you'd see on Eris. I didn't see an actual station where the train would ordinarily stop, so I suspect we're a considerable distance away from any of their settlements.

Anyway, now for the good part! I was completely shocked by amount of food they had available, both in volume and variety. Much of the food was native plants and fruits with seemingly no preparation involved, but they also had a wide assortment of breads and pastries with an unseemly amount of sugar in them. I imagine this was meant to be a demonstration of the best they have to offer, because there's no way they eat like this every day.

There were roughly thirty other ponies in the camp, that I saw. Most joined us at the table for the meal, but I could see others who did not. Very few of them were wearing armor, and those that were didn't seem to be paying any special attention to us. They were a mix of pegasi, unicorns, and mud ponies. I could discern no obvious hierarchy between them (apart from some very obvious deference to Twilight), which has me wondering if their culture valuates ponies differently than we do.

Mission Log:
Day 35 - 14:00

I nearly forgot, Twilight pulled me aside at one point and showed me a photograph. Between being in grey-scale, and the fact that the exposure was completely messed up leaving half the sky as a solid white line, it was next to impossible to discern any details at all. Twilight clearly didn't have the words to explain what she wanted, either. I think she was hoping I could identify it, but the most I can say is that it looked like an image of some mountains.

Personal Log:
White Noise
Day 38 - 18:20

With all this work trying to teach these ponies Erisian, I feel like we've almost forgotten why we came here. I know I had; I haven't given a second thought to that transmitter since we started communicating. It occurred to me today, however, that Twilight might be able to understand now if I asked her what happened on that first day we turned it on. It clearly provoked a reaction out of her ponies, but thus far there'd been no explanation.

Sure enough, I asked her, and she confirmed that she was able to hear it. Or, rather, I pulled out the calendar she brought a couple weeks back and counted back to the day it happened. I showed her that, and then pointed at the antenna, and did my best to explain that it sends messages using magic. That's when she seemed to understand, and said that it had hurt her head when we used it last time. She also mentioned others who felt it, which is surprising given how much innate magic is theoretically required for the technology to work.

Personal Log:
Crystal Clear
Day 40 - 12:45

Twilight brought over a case of what I can only guess are magical artifacts of some sort. They're circular metal plates with a hollow circle in the center. They're roughly a hoof in diameter, and maybe a tenth of a hoof thick. Some of them have gemstones inlaid in the metal, and some do not. I've cast a number of spells trying to figure out what they are, but so far I've had no luck. The only thing she said about them was 'use for study.'

Since I couldn't seem to activate any of them, assuming they're even meant to perform a specific function, I decided to start by disassembling one of the less complex disks. I ran a standard storage-capacity test on its gemstones, and I've found something interesting... Much like the samples of crystal that I found in their dirt, these gems are capable of holding far more energy than something of comparable size from Eris. However, what really surprised me is that they are entirely unrefined. It's possible that they just choose not to use refined gems in these disks, but given how simple a task it would be with all this excess magical energy saturating their planet, I suspect their society never discovered jewel processing.

That makes sense, in a way, that they wouldn't need it. It was born out of necessity back home, and since they evidently have no shortage of naturally high-capacity crystals here, it's entirely possible that nopony ever thought to experiment with it. Still, just imagine what we could do with a supply of these gems and the means to refine them. The drill has uncovered so many samples as its gone deeper, and this planet's magical field would allow the industry to operate practically without cost. We could outpace Unicornia's gemstone-manufacturing capability so quickly that they simply wouldn't be able to fight us anymore. The wars would be over.

Mission Log:
Day 42 - 14:30

Crystal said she still hadn't figured out what those disks are meant to do, so I asked Twilight earlier today. She tapped her horn to one and it started glowing, putting off a bit of heat. She did the same to another and the room began to noticeably cool. It took Crystal a minute after that to successfully imitate the process, but now she says they must be primitive spell matrices of some sort. Apparently these aren't anywhere near as complex as what we can manufacture, but she also pointed out that there's no reason to assume these are advanced by local standards.

Mission Log:
Day 48 - 10:00

I think I know what that photo was... Twilight brought me a new one, this time in full color. It quite clearly shows the Endeavor sitting in some snowy field.

Before we got here, the possibility of meeting up with them always seemed so distant that I'd mostly ignored it. But now that they're actually here on the planet, and now that we know there's a civilization taking an interest... Well, I think some of the more covert preparations that Command insisted on may have been wise.

I'm still hopeful it won't come to that, though. Once Twilight showed me, I listed off every synonym for 'danger' and 'hostile' that I could think of. It was clear from her expression that she understood and believed me. I feel confident that she'll take measures to keep the unicorns from wandering far outside their ship, and hopefully she'll be a whole lot slower to initiate contact with them.

One other thing that's been on my mind is that it seems we were mistaken about Discord. The original plan had been to arrive, send out a signal to tell him where we are, and then study the planet itself to look for alternative explanations. It's been over a month since we sent out that signal, and he's nowhere to be seen. So far, our research on the planet hasn't yielded anything to indicate why the star moves as it does, but that hardly proves anything. I think it's high time we asked Twilight. On the first day she made contact, she demonstrated that her people have telescopes and have been watching space, so she must understand that there's something special about their sun. It might be a long-shot that she knows what it is, but she'll at least be able to rule out the cosmic manipulations of an immortal being living among them.

Mission Log:
Day 48 - 14:00

So, it turns out that these ponies do have an immortal being controlling their sun for them, but it's not Discord. Who knew!

The conversation was as brief and disjointed as any we've had thus far, but when I asked if she understood why their star orbits the planet, she just nodded and said there's a 'sun princess' who can move it at will. That sounds outlandish, but I cannot imagine why she'd lie about it. Besides, we'd be fools to assume Discord is the only creature in the universe with magical powers strong enough to do what he did. I tried to tell her that she'd essentially just finished our mission objectives for us, but I don't think she understood.

Still, I'm pleased with this; we've got roughly fifty days left on the schedule, and we could prolong that indefinitely with food from the locals. As captain of this venture, I'm electing to continue our work with these ponies and our study of their planet; there is much to learn, even if we've solved the biggest mystery. Among other things, I'm hopeful that we'll get to meet this sun princess once we're better able to communicate.

---

"You're sure it's a catapult?"

Top Notch peered out the window once more, frowning. "Pretty sure, yeah."

"I guess that means it's not a welcoming party we've seen gathering for the last couple days." Focus, the captain of the unicorn vessel, braced himself against the wall and carefully slid down the corridor towards the center of the craft. Because their ship was merely a retrofitted space station designed for a largely uncontrolled landing, it did not have any mechanism to stabilize its resting position. A series of metal struts held the two branches of the station and kept them from snapping away from the central corridor and control room, but the lack of effective landing legs meant that the vessel was forced to rest at an oddly inclined angle. Similarly, because the original design was never intended for use in Eris-like gravity, many surfaces and storage panels now hung upside-down relative to the ponies trying to access them.

Once at the center of the ship, Focus had to carefully navigate around the vertical shaft connecting to the control room above and engines below. Then he continued his downhill slide, coming to a stop in the science lab. It had been almost entirely buried in snow after their landing, but for obvious reasons the ship was so well-insulated that there was no noticeable cooling effect.

In the lab, he found Amethyst Pear working away at her recently assigned project, with Florence Flask assisting. It wasn't that Florence was better suited for helping than working in her own right, but merely that Amethyst was more experienced in the energy manipulation theory involved in the project.

"Notch just confirmed that the things outside are hostile, and that they evidently have a catapult."

Amethyst snorted back a giggle. "We travel twelve light-years and survive planetary re-entry at relativistic speeds... It'll be one hell of a day when a clumsily thrown rock does us in."

"It'll be ironic, sure, but we'll be too dead to appreciate it when they break the hull open and storm inside. And for that matter, we'll be just as dead if they're content to starve us out. There's life here, which means we've got a shot at finding enough food to survive the trip home. I'm not about to give that up because these stone-age fur-balls have taken a dislike towards us. So, that said, how's it coming?"

"Far from finished, but I'm now confident that it'll work. I had to strip over five meters of spell-conduits, but I'm being careful to save every fragment of it; I should be able to use them for the laser-focus and still return them afterwards."

"Good. I'm going to go bring the asteroid deflector back online. It'll be enough to protect us from a few shots if they decide to get aggressive, but it's only angled to protect the very front profile of the ship... If they get at us from the right angle, there's nothing we can do."

Focus turned and left for the command center, while the two mares continued their work on improvising a weapon. Roughly a hundred meters outside their ship, a large company of armed and armored yaks stood guard in a rough circle. They had been there since the week before, shortly after the vessel landed, and had been strengthening in numbers and assembling siege equipment in the time since.

Few of them had any information beyond their orders to stand their ground, but their adjutant general had spoken with the Yakyakistani prince himself. The prince had been corresponding with the Equestrian leadership regarding a similar occurrence within their borders, and after this new craft arrived, he received a message expressing concern that the newly arrived ponies might intend to cause harm. The letter urged a guarded approach to first contact, and placed a great deal of emphasis on Equestria's desire to foster good relations with these visitors.

Despite their recommendations, the prince had concluded that a more militant approach was necessary in the face of such a large potential threat. He immediately ordered his military to make preparations for capturing the invaders.

Comments

[Semi-AutomagicCupcake]

Welp, Yakyakistan is screwed.

[Midknight Defender]

survive planetary re-entry at relativistic speeds...

That's why their mission plan wouldn't have actually worked... they'd have to find a way to decelerate, or be obliterated, or miss entirely and go flying off in the wrong direction. Forever!